You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Sunday April 25, 1915
From the Appeal to Reason: Testimony on the Poverty of Tenant Farmers in Texas
In this week's edition of the
Appeal, H. G. Creel continues his coverage of the testimony given before the
Commission on Industrial Relations during the investigation into the "Land Question in the Southwest." The testimony was given during the hearings of the Commission which were held in Dallas, Texas, last month.
From the Appeal to Reason of April 24, 1915:
Classes Clash at Dallas
BY H. G. CREEL.
Staff Correspondent Appeal to Reason.
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Herr Glessner Creel
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"You're a disgrace to the state of Texas, sir, a disgrace to the fraternal order of which both of us are members!"
The excited speaker was a Texas landlord at the Dallas hearing of the United States industrial relations commission. His remarks were addressed to Special Officer W. S. Noble of Rockdale, Texas. It was he who brought the Steward family into court. (The testimony of this tenant farmer family was published last week.) To refute the report that this was the "worst case in Texas" Noble and others declared it thoroughly typical. To show that he had been fair in his selection Noble told of many worse cases, one of them a family which at that moment was offering to give its children away. He offered to bring many, many such cases or worse if the commission wished to question them. It was when he stepped from the stand at noon adjournment that the landlord quoted rushed toward him. Noble was taken off his feet for a moment, but quickly recovered and replied:
"If you don't like the looks of your own work, stay away from here. Just as long as you and your system continue this sort of thing I'm going to stand the corpses before you and make you look at them."
$750 Year-Eight People.
The landlord retired without further demonstration.
Professor W. E. Leonard of the University of Texas told the commission of his investigation of tenant farming conditions. His records showed that 40 percent of tenants had less than $400 on the tax roll. His figures revealed the fact that an average share cropper family of father, mother and six children, four of them old enough to work, receives an annual gross income of $750. Out of this the family of eight must be fed, clothed, doctor bills must be paid, etc., etc.
Under such circumstances children have little opportunity for education and this is developing an illiterate race totally unfitted for management of even small properties. Professor Leonard told of one man who went $1,200 in debt to equip a one-team farm.
Why Children Must Work.
He declared that the landlord's first question to a prospective tenant was, "What's your force?" meaning, "How many children of workable age have you?" He showed that the owner of 1,000 acres a few years ago was worth but $25,000, while the same man today, due to the increase in the price of land, is worth $100,000. "The landlord must drive his tenants and their children," he explained, "to meet heavy interest charges and to show a return on this greater investment."
One Ellis county banker told him that 85 per cent of all tenants ultimately became owners; another admitted that nine-tenths could never rise from the tenant class. "The present generation of tenants say they are worse off than their fathers," said Leonard. His tables showed that the greatest discontent was among tenants from 35 to 40 years of age who are educated and progressive. He accounted for this by assuming that up to 35 the tenant hoped some day to become an owner and after 40, or thereabouts, began to gradually accept life servitude as inevitable. "These men have not become Socialists," he continued, "but they are excellent seed. Rapid growth may be expected unless some relief is given soon."
Business Interests Meet.
Of course, there had to be a reaction and a meeting of the business interests was hastily called. This was held in the city hall and was composed of bankers, cotton buyers, merchants and landlords. The object of the meeting was to denounce the commission for its "unfair" hearing and also to find some way of relieving the farmer without lightening his load. Imagine their consternation when one of their own number, Mike Thomas, probably the best known cotton buyer in northern Texas, addressed the meeting with:
What I am about to say is not for the press. I don't want this published. (The Dallas papers accordingly suppressed what follows). But I say to you men that the humblest jitney driver is just as important as you or I and we must look to his good to protect ourselves. This world must be put on a basis where the annual assets equal the annual expenses. They must balance.
Cat Out of the Bag.
If you oppress the farmer to where he drives a flea-bitten mule, you'll ride behind a pair of bobtailed ponies. But enable him to own a Ford and you can have your Cadillacs. The time has come when we must be something more than vampires and if you don't heed your children and mine will suffer.
After a speech like that it would seem that the final blow had been struck. But next morning Pat Nagle of Oklahoma took the stand and turned loose a line of testimony that made Thomas' talk seem mild in comparison.
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[Photograph added.]
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SOURCE
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-Apr 24, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
IMAGES
"Plucked by Parasites"
from The Tenant Farmer of Oct 1914
http://gateway.okhistory.org/...
Herr Glessner Creel
https://books.google.com/...
See also:
"Too Poor to Keep Children
Tenants in North Texas Offer to Give Little Ones Away."
Keowee Courier
(Pickens Court House, South Carolina)
-Mar 24, 1915
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/...
Industrial relations: final report and testimony
-United States. Commission on Industrial Relations,
-Francis Patrick Walsh, Basil Maxwell Manly
D.C. Gov. Print. Office, 1916
Vol 9:
https://books.google.com/...
8949-The Land Question in the Southwest
https://books.google.com/...
9004-Testimony of W. S. Noble
https://books.google.com/...
9044-Testimony of Prof. William E Leonard
https://books.google.com/...
Vol. 10
https://books.google.com/...
9057-9290-The Land Question in the Southwest-Continued
https://books.google.com/...
9059-Testimony of Mr. Patrick S. Nagle.
https://books.google.com/...
Tricks of the Press, A Lecture
-by H. G. Creel
National Rip-Saw Publishing Co, 1911
https://books.google.com/...
More Books by Herr Glessner Creel
https://www.google.com/...
A letter from Debs to Creel
https://books.google.com/...
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I Ain't Got No Home In This World Anymore - Woody Guthrie
My brothers and my sisters are stranded on this road,
A hot and dusty road that a million feet have trod;
Rich man took my home and drove me from my door
And I ain't got no home in this world anymore.
-Woody Guthrie
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