Evolution of American Agriculture/Development
Development of A.W.I.U. 400
INCE THE beginning of the twentieth century there has always been a great rush of the migratory workers to the wheat fields of the Middle Western states. Many have gone in response to advertisements especially in the Eastern papers to the effect that big wages are being paid for the very commonest kind of work. Upon their arrival they usually found conditions to be of the very worst kind, long hours and small pay, instead of good wages, hours and conditions, as had been pictured to them.
The men were unorganized and therefore helpless until the Industrial Workers of the World came along and took the lead and organized the agricultural industry the same as many others.
Since the formation of the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905, much agitation had been carried on amongst the agricultural laborers, but it was not until the Agricultural Workers' Organization was chartered, April 21, 1915, that a real effort was made to organize the men following this line of work. The new organization proved a winner right from its inception, in spite of the fact that there were some who predicted dire failure and who were constantly raising the cry, "You cannot organize the harvest stiff."
While it is true that these few crepe-hangers were proven bum prophets, there is no denying the facts that our task did appear to be almost a hopeless one, for the conditions in the harvest fields were indeed pitiful.
The long hours of hard work, the uncertainty of the job lasting any length of time, the poor food, and the poorer pay, together with the brutality of the small town marshal, hostile railroad shacks, the dangers from unscrupulous and merciless hi-jacks (hold-up men), all tended to weaken the stamina of the habitual harvest worker.
Nevertheless the job of organizing him was undertaken and none knew better the hard and difficult task it was to be than those that met at the first convention in Kansas City and those who first took out credentials in the new union of Agriculture Workers No. 400 at a time when the I. W. W. was almost financially and numerically bankrupt. It was under these most adverse conditions that the A. W. O. was launched.
No money in the treasury, the members almost penniless; but while there was a lack of finances, there was an abundant supply of courage and a will to do or die possessed by those who tackled the job and said it could be done.
With pockets lined with supplies and literature we left Kansas City on every available freight train, some going into the fruit belts of Missouri and Arkansas, others spread themselves over the states of Kansas and Oklahoma, and everywhere they went, with every slave they met on the job, in the jungles or on freight trains, they talked I. W. W., distributed their literature, and pointed out the advantage of being organized into a real labor union. Day in and day out the topic of conversation was the I. W. W., and the new Agricutural Union No. 400.
On every hand stickers and leaflets calling on the harvest slaves to organize were prominently displayed; the delegates were everywhere; men who had never before heard of the I. W. W. and those who had heard of it were beginning to discuss the advisability of joining, and a great many of them did so.
After spending their last few dollars for iniatiation fee and dues and after a most successful drive through Oklahoma and Kansas, the delegates came right up into Nebraska and North and South Dakota and even into Canada, while others went into Montana and Washington and also Idaho.
Everywhere they went the good work went on; the organization gathered tremendous momentum all the way. Along with the large increase of the membership the status of the harvest stiff was perceptibly improved.
Small town marshals became a little more respectful in their bearing toward any group of workers who carried the little red card, and the bullying and bo-ditching shack had a wonderful change of heart after coming in contact with the No. 400 boys once or twice. As for the hi-jacks and bootleggers, one or two examples of "direct action" from an organized bunch of harvest workers served to show them that the good old days, at least for them, was now over, and that there was a vast difference between a helpless and unorganized harvest stiff and an organized harvest worker. But best of all, the farmer, after one or two salutory examples of solidarity, invariably gave in to the modest request of the organized workers, with the result that wages were raised, grub was improved, and hours shortened. Those farmers who have had full I. W. W. crews have been highly satisfied, and many stated that from that time on they would hire none but I. W. W.
And, so it has been with the agricultural laborers since 1915. Nearly every man who is eligible throws his whole spirit into the work of organizing and agitating his fellow man and many thousands of new members are taken in every year.
The I. W. W. came as a mighty boon to the harvest workers. What they have done for themselves in the past few years is but a marker in comparison to what will be accomplished in the future. With a considerable minority of farm laborers and harvest workers, organized and educated, with the knowledge of the principles of the Industrial Unionism, the rest of the world will be asking the Industrial Workers of the World, "What are we going to have for breakfast in the morning?"