Hobo harvester and wobbly agitator J.A. McDonald relates some delightful incidents ‘at the expense of the enemy’ during the inaugural drive of the Agricultural Workers Industrial Organization of 1915.

‘Humor in the Harvest Campaign’ by J.A. McDonald from Solidarity. Vol. 6 No. 295. September 4, 1915.

Some Funny Incidents Take Place at the Expense of the Enemy, While Harvest Workers are Rapidly Lining Up in I.W.W.

Carrington, N.D., Aug. 27. The writer was a hobo day before yesterday, a workingman yesterday, and a hobo again today. This is the migratory worker’s fate organization is the cure.

Organization this summer, or soup this winter. If you want the soup don’t organize.

The fool says in his heart, unorganized I will raise wages. Unorganized I will fight the part of the working class who are unorganized and satisfied, the farmers’ union, brakemen, and gunmen. Wake up. The keynote of our age is organization. Organization is power, and power is money, homes, freedom.

The harvest has its humor as well as its tragedy. Standing on top of a car before leaving Aberdeen, an officer said, “Be careful, boys, the holdups are out in the weeds ready to make the train as soon as she starts.”

“If the holdups are in the weeds, wouldn’t it be a good idea for you to go out there and look for them?” asked one of the fellow workers.

Just then the officer’s partner, to whom another I.W.W. was proving that the gunmen were not as bad as the police who arrested a man for vagrancy, took all his money in fines, gave him a jail sentence and finally turned him out a vagrant, scratched behind his ears as a signal it was time to go home. It was and they went.

Solidarity always wins. It is the workers’ one hope. Nearing Jamestown at a town where the sign carrying the name of the town was almost as large as the town, the conductor got on the car the I.W.W.’s were riding. He said he was going to show the I.W.W.’s who was boss. He did. He showed the I.W.W.’s were boss. He demanded in insulting language that we handle freight. He was told we did not believe in scabbing on B. of R.T. men out of work, by handling freight. A fellow worker told him the I.W.W. was not the kind of a union they had to make a law for to keep its members from working 16 hours. An organizer offered to sign him up in the real union of the working class. He was as shy on judgment as he was strong on authority. He pushed one of the fellow workers out of the car door. The conductor next pulled a summer-set out of the car door and down the right-of-way that would have entitled him to head an orpheum bill as an acrobat. An unorganized man on top of the car shouted, “Do it again; some of the boys didn’t see you.” The conductor was not physically injured. He had a compound fracture of the conceit and his authority was badly smashed.

The operator wired the Jamestown police force to arrest the desperadoes. The tin-can brigade were in the yards to meet the train. Within a few minutes the chief was in the same position as if he had undertaken to steal a red-hot stove. Next time the chief will pick the hot stove. Into the jail marched a bunch of I.W.W.’s, including the writer, insisting the chief must show no favoritism. All wanted to go to jail. The chief’s face was a study; it registered “surprise” in a way that would have made his fortune in the movies. He told us he did not want to make any trouble for the I.W.W. He was told the trouble would be all his.

The chief was up against it. To release the men was to back down–to hold them was impossible. A half hour later the writer met the chief on the street and he discovered a remedy. He knew just what to do. He was going to hold the I.W.W. in jail and refuse to jail any more. The writer at some length explained that there were 4,000 men within 100 miles of “Jimtown.” When these men heard their fellow workers were in jail they would all come in intending to go to jail. It was explained that some of these finding they could not get in would be deeply, offended. The writer deeply deplored the fact that some new members might resort to violence. Some being immune from going to jail might, in their rage, tear the town wide open just to see what it looked like on the inside. It was also explained that “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” would be followed if any members were injured. The chief saw a faulty spot in his remedy. While this conversation was going on, Fellow Worker Cunningham wrote up two new members for the A.W.O. through the bars.

A mock trial was held the same afternoon with the fighting thousands in the harvest fields as a background. The mayor and judge told the fellow workers how they made their money by hard work, mostly the other fellows, although this they did not mention. They told them the law, and the farmers would give them a straight deal. They finished by telling them when freight trains were leaving town and for where. One fellow worker, his voice horror-filled, said they were not going to take a freight out, as it was against the law and he could not see how the judge could advocate stealing from the railway company after swearing to defend the law. The law being defended from the judge by the I.W.W. got every one but the judge laughing. The unorganized, some six hundred of whom were in town, got another lesson in the power of solidarity. One of these, who subsequently joined, expressed the general feeling. He said. “The chief will break even. The next bunch of unorganized men he catches will get hell. The unorganized are always getting that or worse. It is part of their education.”

Many brakemen are naturally good fellows; others are inhuman, thieving, contemptible brutes. The other night one of the latter was changed into a good fellow in less than sixty seconds. He got making the regular collection and things were going rather poorly. He was hostile when he got to the I.W.W. car. He put his lantern in the door and bellowed, “Unload, you sons of b “His chin was on a level with a well shod foot. He hit the fellow worker’s foot a heavy blow with his chin. He next rolled down the right-of-way and lay still for a few seconds. Waking up his first words were, “Hell, I’m not a bad fellow, boys; you can ride.” This method is not copy- righted and it is effective. A boot is a great educator-one of its chief advantages being its swiftness where argument is impossible, as there is sometimes no brain to which to appeal.

Monday at Aberdeen the writer was trying to line up a bunch of workingmen. One said: “The I.W.W. is all right. If I was going to join any union it would be the I.W.W., but I made up my mind never to join any union.” He was a harvest worker with coffee–and of the intellect.

The I.W.W.’s mascot–the cat–is having his tongue amputated and his claws sharpened, as in the past he has done too much meowing and too little scratching. This year he is on the job and landing on his feet every time; and, “by gravey, you can’t kill him.”.

Those not on the Dakota firing line cannot believe the progress in agitation and organization being made this year. Practically everywhere our organization is the topic and men are joining as soon as they get the money. If the progress being made continues the A.W.O. can have a closed shop and an open union in the harvest next year, as one-half of the harvest workers will be organized. In the groups of fellow workers I have met over fifty per cent were men brought in during the last six months and a finer bunch of men never belonged to any organization. The A.W.O. is organizing the cream of the harvest workers, and this year’s organization is but begun. A greater average per centage of our members are on the job than of the unorganized and, they are getting results. In some towns, such as Carrington, N.D., more than half of the men on the job are organized. Everyone is doing his share. All are displaying a teamwork that is a lesson in solidarity. The petty bickerings that arise when large numbers of men are idle are not in evidence in Dakota. Industrial freedom is not a dream here; but a possibility of the near future, as the working class are awakening as never before. Clear-eyed and unafraid they are beginning to face the future, and in it they see not slavery but industrial democracy. An awakened working class will not remain in slavery. The solidarity of the working class is near.

Prospects are strong that if the farmers don’t pay the I.W.W. scale the bread-basket of the world will have a terrible stomach-ache this year. Some of the threshing machines are union this year. They come to the boss wearing an I.W.W. label and to work over ten hours makes them sick. Generally they get colic about six o’clock. Belts should also get a 14-hour rest every day or they accidentally slip. The working class are voting for $3.50 for ten hours on the job, and some of the votes are registering with a bang. A brakeman asked the writer what sabotage meant after spending five hours trying to get out of town. The farmer is being educated and paying for his education. He is paying the organizers for the I.W.W.

The most widely read of I.W.W. newspapers, Solidarity was published by the Industrial Workers of the World from 1909 until 1917. First produced in New Castle, Pennsylvania, and born during the McKees Rocks strike, Solidarity later moved to Cleveland, Ohio until 1917 then spent its last months in Chicago. With a circulation of around 12,000 and a readership many times that, Solidarity was instrumental in defining the Wobbly world-view at the height of their influence in the working class. It was edited over its life by A.M. Stirton, H.A. Goff, Ben H. Williams, Ralph Chaplin who also provided much of the paper’s color, and others. Like nearly all the left press it fell victim to federal repression in 1917.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/solidarity-iww/1915/v06-w295-sep-04-1915-solidarity.pdf