by Kornbluh, Joyce L. , Rosemont, Franklin, Thompson, Fred, Gross, Daniel
News has come in to the effect that the farmers are already organizing their “vigilance committees,” which are composed of farmers, businessmen, small town bums, college students and Y.M.C.A. scabs. The duty of the vigilance committee is to stop free speech, eliminate union agitation, and to drive out of the country all workers who demand more than “goin’ wages.”
Foreign language pamphlets issued by the I.W.W.
Arrayed against the organized farmers is the Agricultural Workers’ Organization, which is made up of members of the I.W.W. who work in the harvest fields. It is the object of this organization to systematically organize the workers into One Big Union, making it possible to secure the much needed shorter workday and more wages, as well as to mutually protect the men from the wiles of those who harvest the harvester.
The Agricultural Workers’ Organization expects to place a large number of delegates and organizers in the fields, all of whom will work directly under a field secretary. It is hoped this will accomplish what has never been done before, the systematization of organization and the strike during the harvest, as well as the work of general agitation.
Both of these organizations intend to function so that the workers in the fields will have to choose quickly between the two. If the farmers win the men to their cause, smaller wages will be paid and the general working conditions will become poorer; if the workers swing into the I.W.W. and stand together, then more wages will be paid for fewer hours of labor. Both sides can’t win. Moral: Join the I.W.W. and fight for better conditions.
Mr. Worker, don’t do this year what you did last, harvest the wheat in the summer and starve in breadlines in the winter.
Let us close with a few “Don’ts.”
Don’t scab.
Don’t accept piece work.
Don’t work by the month during harvest.
Don’t travel a long distance to take in the harvest; it is not worth it.
Don’t believe everything that you read in the papers, because it is usually only the Durham.
Don’t fail to join the I.W.W. and help win this battle.
11
This poem may have been written by T-Bone Slim. In some editions of the I.W.W. songbook it is signed “T-Bone and H,” in others, “T. D. and H.” It first appeared in the seventeenth edition of the I.W.W. songbook.
HARVEST LAND
By T-D AND H.
(Air: “Beulah Land”)
The harvest drive is on again,
John Farmer needs a lot of men;
To work beneath the Kansas heat
And shock and stack and thresh his wheat.
Chorus
Oh Farmer John—Poor Farmer John,
Our faith in you is over-drawn.
—Old Fossil of the Feudal Age,
Your only creed is Going Wage—
“Bull Durum” will not buy our Brawn—
You’re out of luck—poor Farmer John.
You advertise, in Omaha,
“Come leave the Valley of the Kaw.”
Nebraska Calls “Don’t be mis-led.
We’ll furnish you a feather bed!”
Then South Dakota lets a roar,
“We need ten thousand men—or more;
Our grain is turning—prices drop!
For God’s Sake save our bumper crop.”
In North Dakota- (I’ll be darn)
The “wise guy” sleeps in “hoosiers” barn
—Then hoosier breaks into his snore
And yells, “It’s quarter after four.”
Chorus
Oh Harvest Land—Sweet Burning Sand!
—As on the sun-kissed field I stand
I look away across the plain
And wonder if it’s going to rain—
I vow, by all the Brands of Cain,
That I will not be here again.
12
Signed “E. H. H.,” this short story appeared in the Industrial Pioneer (October 1921). The “Palouse,” a French-Canadian word, refers to the grassy hill lands north of the Snake River.
AN ILL WIND IN THE PALOUSE
By E. H. H.
The Palouse Harvest being in its full twelve hour swing, “Rhode Island Red” and I, “Plymouth Rock Whitey,” decided to give the struggling farmers a lift and help them “gather in the sheaves.”
Now, for some reason or other, Red was not as enthusiastic over the harvest work as he should be. He claimed that even if he harvested all the wheat in the country, chances were he would be in the soup line in the winter time.
Whatever becomes of the wheat, he says, is a deep mystery to him, except that he knows Wall Street stores a lot of it up where the stiffs can’t get at it.
Anyhow, we landed in the town of Colfax with Red growling over conditions, bum grub and high prices of the local restaurants. After eating some of their “coffee and at two bits a throw,” we sauntered out on the main street to look for a farmer who wanted a couple of enterprising harvesters.
We were approached by a long, thin individual with close set eyes of the codfish order. He was wearing a disguise of spinach on his chin and inquired in a high pitched voice, “Were ye boys looking fer work?” To which I says: “Yes, we certainly are that!” Red busts in then and asks him how much he pays and how many hours he works.
This seemed to be a leading question, altogether irrelevant and immaterial to the farmer’s point of view. He looks Red over and says, “Guess you boys ain’t looking for work, be you?” With that parting shot he walks away and leaves us standing there like a couple of lost dogs.
Now Red has no diplomacy whatever so I told him to keep his remarks to himself, and the next time I would do the talking.
Then we removed ourselves to another corner as our chin-whiskered friend was pointing at us from across the street and waving his hands in the air. He seemed to be delivering an oration to some of his fellow farmers.
Red says they ain’t really honest to God farmers in this section but are illegal descendants of horse thieves and train robbers and we would be better off if we got the hell out of the Palouse district and into the United States again.
But his brain storm was cut short by another “son of the soil” planting himself in front of us and asking in an oily tone of voice, “Gentlemen, are your services open to negotiations? I need a couple of scientific side hill shockers and thought that you probably would consider a proposition of taking on a little labor.”
I was about to accept his offer of work but Red “horns in” again about the hours and wages and our friend left us with the remark that he thought we were gentlemen when he first sized us up but now he knew different.
He even went as far as to remark that he thought we might be connected up with that infamous organization known as the I.W.W. and ought to be in the county jail and that we better be a lookin’ out or he would get a bunch together with a rope and a bucket of tar and a few flags and show us if we could fool around with a real 102 per cent American and his wheat crop. By Heck! Consarn ye!
I then took Red up an alley and had a short talk with him about keeping out of these arguments and letting me get a word in now and then.
Red agreed to keep quiet next time, but I had very little confidence in Red’s being able to hang onto himself so I steered him into a pool hall and went out on the street by myself.
While walking down the street a bright idea permeated into my “ivory dome” as Red calls it.
You are all aware that when a farmer buys a horse he sizes its muscles up and inquires about the price of it. He don’t ask the horse how many hours he will work a day. That, I surmised, was probably the reason the farmer gets hostile when you ask him how many hours you are supposed to work per day. It is contrary to his purchasing habits.
Putting myself on the same basis as the farm horse I accordingly went into an alley and took off my shirt, rolled back my undersleeves and wrapped a couple of old gunny sacks around each arm.
When I put the shirt on over that r
ig I had a regular set of arms on that would make the world’s champion strong man turn green with envy. “Now watch me captivate the old farmer,” thought I as I burst into view again on the main stem.
A half dozen farmers were lolling and milling around on the opposite corner admiring each other’s twelve cylinder cars and spitting tobacco juice on the sidewalk.
But they forgot all about the late war and the price Wall Street was going to give them for their wheat when they laid eyes on my muscular arms.
A wild scramble ensued in my direction. One farmer tripped his fellow farmer up and “blood flew freely.” They surrounded me like a bunch of wild Indians with loud howls for me, Plymouth Rock Whitey, 100% to go to work! It kind of reminded me of the old times of work or fight in 1919.
But who was it said that “the best laid plans of mice and men will sometimes land you in the pen”? The sons of Colfax got hold of my shirt in their wild excitement, and tore it off, exposing my gunny sack camouflage.
The Rebel Worker, September 1, 1919.
Now just to show you the inconsistency of mankind, these Palousers got angry. In fact they got violent and if I had not been a good sprinter I fear I would have never lived to tell about this. I left, going strong and decided then and there that a pleasant position circulating among the best people would be preferable to a life of unconventional freedom amongst toilers of the soil.
As for Red, he stuck to his cruder and more common methods of selling himself and eventually found a master. That the results of the bargain were mutually satisfactory cannot be stated unreservedly. However, Red gained some accomplishments that in due season will probably come in handy.
For instance he is now quite as able to see in the dark as in the day. He claims that he owes the accomplishment to his labor in the Palouse country, as they seemed to have no clear conception down there as to just when day stopped and night commenced. At any rate Red has a distinct taste for poultry which, so he says, was highly exacerbated by the sight of fat pullets and the absence of any such from the festive board. Being able to see at night he informs me is one of the first requirements for a poultry dinner.
‘Tis an ill wind that never stirs a chicken feather.
13
Folklorist Archie Green collected the song, “The Big Combine” from Glenn Ohrlin, a working cowboy and traditional musician now living in Mountain View, Arkansas. Ohrlin told Green that he had learned the song in an Oregon bar and that it was written about 1919 by Jock Coleman, a Scotch cowboy and harvest hand around Pendleton, Oregon, who was known as the “Poet Lariat” of that region.
The I.W.W. was frequently mislabeled the Independent Workers of the World, and “The Big Combine” might have been an I.W.W. song. “The Big Combine,” sung by Glenn Ohrlin, is included on a recent LP record, “The Hell-Bound Train,” issued by The University of Illinois Campus Folksong Club. In the notes to that recording, Professor Green states, “To my knowledge, ‘The Big Combine’ has never been collected or published as a folksong. Hence, Glenn’s version is significant as: (1) a traditional document of a by-gone agricultural practice; (2) an addition to the corpus of Wobbly songs collected from a nontrade union oriented singer; (3) a new branch in the already abundant ‘Casey Jones’ family tree.”
“The Big Combine” is set to the tune “Casey Jones.” In this song, as in Joe Hill’s parody, the train engineer is portrayed as anti-union.
THE BIG COMBINE
Well, come all you rounders that want to hear
The story of a bunch of stiffs a-harvesting here,
The greatest bunch of boys ever come down the line,
Is the harvesting crew on the big combine.
There’s traveling men from Sweden in this grand old crew,
Canada and Oregon and Scotland, too.
I’ve listened to their twaddle for a month or more,
I never saw a bunch of stiffs like this before.
Oh, you ought to see this bunch of harvest pippins,
You ought to see, they’re really something fine,
You ought to see this bunch of harvest pippins,
The bunch of harvest pippins on the big combine.
Well, there’s Oscar just from Sweden, he’s as stout as a mule,
He can jig and dance and peddle the bull,
He’s an Independent Worker of the World as well,
Says he loves the independence but the work is hell.
Well, he hates millionaires and he wants to see
Them blow up all the grafters in the land of liberty,
Says he’s going to leave this world of politics and strife
And stay down in the jungle with his stew can all his life.
Oh, Casey Jones, he knew Oscar Nelson,
Casey Jones, he knew Oscar fine,
Oh, Casey Jones, he knew Oscar Nelson,
He kicked him off the boxcars on the SP line.
Well, the next one I’m to mention, well, the next in line
Is the lad a-punching horses on the big combine,
He’s the lad that tells the horses what to do,
But the things he tells the horses I can’t tell you.
It’s Limp and Dude and Dolly, you get out of the grain,
And get over there, Buster, you’re over the chain,
Oh, Pete and Pat and Polly, you get in and pull,
And get over there, Barney, you durned old fool.
You ought to see, you ought to see our skinner,
You ought to see, he’s really something fine,
You ought to see, you ought to see our skinner,
You ought to see the skinner on the big combine.
Well, I’m the head puncher, you can bet that’s me,
I do more work than all the other three,
A-working my hands and my legs and my feet,
Picking up the barley and the golden wheat.
I got to pull the lever and turn on the wheel,
I got to watch the sickle and the draper and the reel,.
And if I hit a badger hill and pull up a rock,
Well, they say he’s done it, the durn fool Jock.
I’m that lad, I’m the head puncher,
I’m that lad, though it isn’t in my line,
I’m that lad, I’m the head puncher,
I’m the head puncher on the big combine.
*“Goin’ wages” is an expression used by the farmer in answer to the question, “What do you pay?” It really means the smallest wages paid in the country.
Chapter 9
Lumberjacks: North and South
… one who has seen the glow of the great Wobbly dream light the faces of the lumberjacks has seen the unforgettable, the imperishable … they plan a new order they will never know … they can dream and dreaming, be happy.
REXFORD G. TUGWELL “The Casual of the Woods,” Survey (July 3, 1920), p. 472.
“Before the strike of two years ago,” an I.W.W. lumberjack told writer Floyd Dell in 1919, “a lumberjack wasn’t a man. He was a lousy animal. Everywhere he went he carried his lousy blanket on his back and everywhere he went he wore his ‘tin pants’ and his ‘corks’—shoes with spikes in the soles to give him a footing on a slippery log. And when he went in town, he saw signs in store windows ‘no corks allowed in here.’ And the only thing he could do in town was get drunk and be robbed of six-months’ wages and go back with his filthy blanket on his back to slave ten hours a day for six months more.”1
Faced with the intractable attitudes of the lumber operators toward unionism, living a remote group life when working, and “on the rods” between jobs, the concept of the One Big Union made sense to the lumberjack. Often the I.W.W. hall in the lumber region trading town or city was his only home. “He has one tie to bind him to his fellow man,” wrote Rexford Tugwell, “the red card of the Wobbly.”2
The I.W.W. started organizing in the lumber industry in February 1907 in a strike of 2000 sawmill workers in Portland. It was the organization’s first major West c
oast activity, and it launched the reputation of the I.W.W. throughout the Northwest when a small wage increase was won in the industry.
The South was the second largest lumber producing area, and when some Wobblies who had worked in the Northwest made their way to the Gulf states, they helped catalyze the resentments and rebellion of the southern sawmill and lumber-camp workers. Unlike the lumberjack of the Northwest, the southern lumberworker was usually a “homeguard” or “sodbuster”—a local farmer who worked seasonally in a sawmill or lumber camp to eke out a living. About half the labor force were Negroes who, like the white farmers, lived in company-owned housing in lumber camps or mill villages. In many places where the semimonthly payday was ignored, workers in need of money borrowed it from their employers at usurious rates of interest. When they were paid, it was frequently in scrip, redeemable only at high-priced company stores.
In 1910 the Brotherhood of Timber Workers was organized as an independent union in Louisiana. The Southern Lumber Operators’ Association, which was started in 1907 to combat lumber unionism, met to “declare war” on the organization. It opposed the Brotherhood with a seven-month lockout, blacklisting 7000 of the most active union members. For its part, the Brotherhood demanded $2.00 a day wages, a ten-hour work day, bimonthly payment in lawful United States currency, freedom to trade in independent stores, reduced rents and commissary prices, and the right to meet together on union business.
The Brotherhood was one of the first southern unions to admit Negro members. In May 1912 Bill Haywood was invited to address the union’s convention in Alexandria, Louisiana. Haywood was surprised to find no Negroes at the meeting, and when he was told that it was illegal to hold interracial meetings in Louisiana, he replied:
You work in the same mills together. Sometimes a black man and a white man chop down the same tree together. You are meeting in convention now to discuss the conditions under which you labor. This can’t be done intelligently by passing resolutions here and then sending them to another room for the black men to act upon. Why not be sensible about this and call the Negroes into the Convention? If it is against the law, this is one time when the law should be broken.3