by Kornbluh, Joyce L. , Rosemont, Franklin, Thompson, Fred, Gross, Daniel
Arrived at the job we all piled off and the crew scattered to their different places while the locey went back with the empty truck. I went over and sized up the loadin’ outfit and found it hay-wire, right. It was one of these single jack crotch-line rigs with hooks instead of tongs. Pearlie moped around and looked over the riggin’, also hummin’ a little tune to himself and takin’ a squint at everybody in sight. Neither of us found any signs of efficiency goin’ to waste in the arrangement of the riggin’.
The Deacon blew the whistle for startin’ time and Pearlie called the riggin’ crew out to where there was a stump that was in the road. First rattle would be to pull the stump. He climbed up in easy hailin’ distance and directed the setting of chokers and the shiftin’ of blocks necessary to jerk the big root out of the ground. When everything was set he turned to the donkey and roared: “Hoi, hoi! Hoi, hoi! Skinner, back there, the length of a hoe handle, old timer!”
The Deacon donkey-puncher started and looked hurt. “A hoe handle,” says he, under his breath. “How did he know I was a-hoein’ the garden last night?”
With his mind on the garden he opened up on the haul-back too far and made at least three times too much back-run. Pearlie’s “Hoi!” was wasted.
“Hoi, hoi, hoi!” yelled Pearlie again in an effort to land the bull-hook in the right place. The “Whoa-Back” and the line stopped and stood still,—exactly right.
“Slack off the length of a cow barn,” ordered Pearlie, who ran the slack back to the stump which was to be pulled, and hooked it in the block. The riggin’ all set at last, and all clear, Pearlie again mounted his stump.
“Twist her tail now, old mischief! Prod her with the pitchfork! Hoi!”
At the signal the Deacon opened wide the throttle, the lines tightened, the spar tree shivered, the guy lines strained, and then the mighty stump heaved, flew in the air, and was in the way no more.
“Unhalter the stump, boys, and we’ll plow out this corner this mornin’,” said Pearlie.
All mornin’ the crew was loggin’ around close to the landin’, and every sentence that Pearlie let loose had some reference to the farm in it. He even come over to me and wanted to know if we couldn’t fork the logs up on the load easier if we had some good drinkin’ water. I made a motion to hang the loadin’ hook in his head, but we scared up some spring water at that.
When the locey came to take us down to dinner it was a different crew than which had come up in the mornin’. There wasn’t much conversation at all, and what there was, was mostly on other things besides farmin’.
Dinner was the one meal that these stump ranchers got. They gobbled down their grub at the cook-house, and with each additional plate-full over and above what an ordinary human could eat I could see a calculatin’ look,—them a-figurin’ how much they was a-savin’. Why, there was one stumper opposite me that used both hands; and say! If he’d made a mistake with either hand he’d a lost an eye!
That afternoon the landin’ crew took it pretty easy as the yardin’ was all long haul. We was sittin’ around and as Pearlie was out by the tail-block I suppose the stumpers thought they was safe from ridicule.
Anyway, they started to talkin’ and of course bein’ as there was only two subjects outside of the women folks that they could talk about that had any sense at all they was soon harpin’ on them. Loggin’ and farmin’ was two subjects that was not to be rooted out till something else was substituted.
Milk and the price of milk lead to creameries and co-operatives. The foolish notions these rubes had of these outfits were comical. Yeah! They was sure that the reason that their co-op creameries had failed was because the workin’ plugs didn’t have brains enough to run such a business. It took brains and money to put something like that across, says they, and if a workin’ plug had brains he would be in business for himself, so the best way to get ahead was to try and get the most for what you raised and maybe pick up a good contract or somethin’, so as to pile up a few dollars.
Then I took a hand. I showed them just why their co-ops always went to the wall just as soon as they were a menace to Big Biz. I snowed them figures from the Pujo Money Report as to how the financiers had all the credit facilities tied up in their pocket. I pulled out a copy of the Industrial Relations Commission report and showed them the way wealth was distributed and why. Then I explained the buying and marketing of raw and finished products and the dependence on credit facilities.
“When the financiers control the credit system,” I asked, “how do you expect them to give credit to some one who is goin’ to cut out some of their henchmen’s profits?”
“That’s so,” says the fireman. “There was old man Nelson that couldn’t raise ten thousand dollars on his thirty thousand dollar ranch in order to pay the few notes that was outstandin’ against the Polt Co-op Condenser, so she went under.”
“Well,” says one optimist, “there must be some way to get at these here guys,—these here trusts and things.”
“Sure there is,” I tells ’em. “It’s as easy as fallin’ off a log. You and me and anybody else that does any work is producers. We don’t get robbed when we go to the store to buy anything. We get robbed because we don’t get what we produce. The farmer don’t sell his milk for what it is worth, and the middleman gets the profits. It is as a producer that he is robbed, and not because he has to pay fifteen dollars for a pair of shoes. The man who is bein’ robbed in that shoe transaction is the man that works at the machine and makes those shoes, and the man that robs him is the owner of the machine and the middlemen, too. All we got to do is to get all the producers together and get them organized, each according to what he produces, and put the financiers out of business.”
Wrinkles was a-commencin’ to break out in places, so I let somebody else take the lead. The loadin’ donkey puncher took a whirl at the problem.
“We’re producin’ logs right here now. You mean to say that we are not gettin’ robbed because we have to pay twenty cents a pound for beans down at the company store, but because we only get paid around seven dollars a thousand for the logs we send down the track, which the mill sells for forty to twenty dollars a thousand? Then, who is the robber in this bean proposition? I buy these beans at the store, so don’t he rob me when he sells them at such a price?”
“Naw,” says the bright fireman, who had sure got an earful. “The guy that gets robbed in this here bean proposition is the guy that grows the beans. He’s just like the guy that made the shoes. If we got what we produced in logs we could easy enough pay for the beans and the farmer could sure buy more lumber if he got all that his beans was worth. Couldn’t he?”
“Yeah!—that sounds fine,” says the second loader, “but how are you goin’ to do all this gettin’?”
For half a minute I listened to the silence and then I told them about the One Big Union, the Industrial Workers of the World. I explained it to ’em as I had learned it. All about how industry was to be managed, not for profits but for efficient production and use.
I showed them what advantages the organization had brought to each of ’em in immediate gains right now. The eight-hour day, the better grub, and everything which had been put up by the boss because in the other camps the Wobs had fought and made the bosses come thru with a lot more than that. This boss was just taggin’ along after the rest, and all the workers on this job was gettin’ some of the benefits of what had been fought for by the Wobblies in other places. I talked about the One Big Union idea for fightin’ the capitalists. I talked about the One Big Union idea for production for use.
When at last we got up from the chinnin’ bee to load the last car there was a lot of stump ranchers that had heard things to make ’em think. They chewed the rag amongst themselves and popped a lot of questions at one time an’ another, and generally showed some more life than they had before.
From then on Pearlie cut out his barn-yard vocabulary. He took a hand in the game, and, anyway, he is a lot better at explainin’ things
than I am. He tells it so it sounds real and not like it was bein’ read from a book.
The fireman was the first to line up. I got to sellin’ literature to the rest of ’em and they read it, too. Conversation commenced to perk up and I listened in to a lot of hot discussions between some of these stumpers on subjects that took in economics, psychology, and a lot of other things that never would have been dreamed of by these home guards a short time before this literature had got to ’em.
It’s funny that way. Here Pearlie and me could have said all the things in the books in our own way and nobody would have listened to us. But if you get down on print paper with the facts where a fellow can see them, lookin’ at the words is a lot like lookin’ at the things themselves. If you only hear somebody say it, why, that don’t carry no weight. Most anybody can make a noise.
One by one the stumpers commenced to line up, and from all the pamphlets that was bought I bet that a lot of ranchers growed weeds that spring. Then came a little test of job action which showed that our efforts had not been wasted. The mill store sent up a case of rotten butter that they had got stung with. Now, anybody knows that fightin’ for good butter ain’t the social revolution, but anybody also knows that hittin’ a punchin’ bag ain’t knockin’ Dempsey out, neither. Both of these stunts is good practice for the event aimed at, and if enough pep is showed up in the practice, why, this practice is sure goin’ to help in the big event.
Anyway, this butter was shoved under our noses right noticeable, and Pearlie gets real hostile. Grub has always been more or less grub to me since the little jolt I had in the can, where a fancy taste is not exactly encouraged, so I didn’t pay much attention, but I noticed that at dinner there was a considerable murmur about the comparative strength of this butter and skunks and like things. After the meal was over some of the boys come to me and asked what was customary in a case of this here kind and I sort of suggested callin’ a meetin’.
The meetin’ was called, too, and it was unanimous opinion that this butter was out of place on a weak, wobbly table. It had ought to be standin’ on its own.
A committee was nominated and elected to inform the boss of our sentiments in this matter and, of course, Pearlie and me makes the committee along with one more. The Super was kinda cool, but he couldn’t deny that the butter was too powerful, and yet he was thinkin’ about the same thing as we was: If these loggers get what they want in the butter question, maybe they will be demandin’ something else before long that is liable to hurt when it comes to fork over.
”Well,” he says, “I will see that the butter is taken back, but I want to state this: I ain’t goin’ to have nobody dictatin’ to me how this camp is goin’ to be run. I would have sent the butter back anyway without you tellin’ me about it. It seems to me that there is a lot of agitation against the government goin’ on here that ought to be stopped, and if it goes any further something will be liable to happen.”
This government bunk has been throwed up by every grafter I ever run across, and it seems to me that the parasites must have mighty little confidence in the staying power of Uncle Sam, the way they are always fearful of these U. S. bein’ over-throwed and destroyed. Anyway, I told the Super I didn’t get the connection between bad butter and the U. S. government, although after readin’ about all the war industries’ scandals and the shippin’ board frauds I seemed to smell somethin’ similar in nature.
At this he gets sore and walks away and we goes back and reports to the men that better butter is for those that demand it.
I could see that my time was in for this camp, so I got out the old defense collection book and made the rounds that night. I got a donation from everybody in the camp, includin’ the cook, whose factional squabble had, by the way, sort of died down. Three days later the Super told me that one of my loads had landed in the ditch an’ that he wanted some one who could load cars to ride and not to roll, and for me to get my time. I told him that he was gettin’ his pay for makin’ out and handin’ people their time, and that I would be on the job any time that he had a slip for me.
So he came back with the slip all right and I kissed this outfit good-bye. Pearlie, he stuck around a while to get a couple of other prospects that we was workin’ for.
I blowed into Seattle and went out to a real camp. No more of these hay-wire, chin-whiskered outfits for mine. I’m thru.
14
JOHNSON THE GYPO
By RALPH WINSTEAD
This here Gypo proposition reminds me of the old woman who had a peppy daughter. She used to moan and plead with the girl to change her state of mind and be a good girl. This old woman was faced with a condition of things, not a state of mind and the only way for to deal with conditions is by the use of tactics, not by using a line of appeals to be good.
Now there is one time honored tactic that has been used by old dames on their daughters since and before the human race had thumbs. This line of action was to turn the refractory young female over a bony knee and administer to the well being of her ideas by hand.
That ain’t the only tactics to fit this particular problem by a whole lot but at least it has some advantages over appealing to ’em to be good. They got inside urges as to what they want and need and all the appeals in the world don’t cut much ice in the face of a human urge. Tactics is what counts.
Now it’s the same way with the Gypo proposition. These here bushel maniacs just naturally got the same sort of nature as John D. Rockefeller and a lot of other humans includin’ all of us. They wants to get rich quick and are goin’ to listen to that interior urge to gather in the mazuma when the gatherin’ is good in spite of any appeals to be good saintly wobs and travel the narrow path.
But mostly we have been playin’ the part of the noble mother and been pleadin’ with these here almost human Gypo birds to be good, and spurn the pitfalls of their evil ways. What we got to do is use a few tactics on ’em. Maybe spankin’ would be justifiable but maybe it wouldn’t get the goods as quick as a way that me and a bunch of other wobs tried up at Grinnon one time.
Of course, as I say, tactics is the thing to use and when tactics is decided on in a whole industry it takes a lot of organized action and workin’ together that is a lot harder than just goin’ around spoutin’ about the humpbacked species that has ruined the organization and is now keepin’ us on the bum. In order to put any real tactics across we got to have a real plan worked out and have got to put the thing over by co-ordinated action and not by sanctimonious prayers to stay away from the sinful contract and keep pure and un-defiled.
One time I blowed into Seattle with a short stake and was prepared to stick around town for a week or two. There was a good bunch in town and we lit out to take a little relaxation. Snowball Smith and me was roomin’ together and was takin’ on the said relaxation mostly in company. About the first stunt we done was to go out to Alki point and gather an eyeful along the beach. Of course this was before the short skirts made the beaches un necessary for purposes of sight seein’ but even aside from this sight satisfaction we was both longin’ for a salt water swim, and got it.
It was the next afternoon after this excursion amongst the darin’ dressers that I was walkin’ down the slave market when I noticed on old man Moore’s board a sign that caught the eye: “Wanted eight men to take contract bucking and falling. Details inside.”
There it was, straight Gypo stuff. Chance to make a co-operative fortune right in my hand. Me—well, I looked around real quick to see if there was a humpbacked Swede in sight and not seein’ any I high balled right up to the room and got hold of Snowball.
Now Snowball is one of these here plugs that is never restin’ with his trigger on safety. They ain’t no neutral gear in his make-up. Snowball is always ready to go and further more after the goin’ is a long ways from the start and gets rough, why, he ain’t the bird to crawfish neither. Maybe he ain’t exactly what you call an executive genius that can lay out and get others to carry through a big campaign bu
t he don’t need to ponder over no proposition for three weeks to see if it’ll hold water. Snowball makes up his mind quick and stays with it.
So when I suggests to him that we become the original humpies and go scabbin’ on ourselves just for a little fun and tactical experience, why, Snowball don’t bat an eye but hustles his lid and we streaks for Moore’s. Nobody had beat us to it so we got all the details.
Eight men was wanted to sign a contract to fall and buck a full section of timber up at Grinnon which as you know is a sort of steeple jack outfit up in the Olympics off of Hoods Canal. The ground was level we was told and the timber was good. The rate was 60c per thousand and we had a bunk house all to ourselves.
The company furnished the tools but we had to do the saw filing. We was to eat in the company boarding house and they would deduct the board bill at the pay off. We could draw only fifty percent of what our log scalein’ called for till the job was finished. Everything in regular Gypo style.
Snowball did most of the talkin’. He made rapid estimates with greedy eyes at how much we could clean up in the summer. I almost got in earnest on the finance end of it myself. It sure sounded good the way he mentioned the thousands of dollars.
Moore agreed to hold the job till we got six more fellows to go in with us and so we set out to round up six good wobs that was willin’ to mar their perfectly good reputations in order to put the Gypo game in bad at Grinnon. We had a hard time. Some of our best known wobs sneered at the idea and told us we was just lookin’ for an excuse. But we kept travellin’ in spite of little set backs and raised a crew.
The eight of us signed on and got our John Hancocks on a big contract that was goin’ to make or break somebody. Then we separated and rustled our clothes and spent the night listenin’ to advice not to go and tryin’ to explain why we was goin’ to the bunch, but they wouldn’t pretend to believe us. Fainthearted wobs never went Gypoin’ yet is my claim. The pressure was awful, but we stuck it out. A fellow’s friends and fellow workers can always be depended on to state the right and wrong of things. Right and wrong I always claims is matters of gettin’ results.