The adventures of two wobblies looking for work in California’s olive groves.

‘Olive Picking in California’ from the Industrial Union Bulletin. Vol. 1 No. 46. January 11, 1908.

Having been enticed by the truthful papers as to what a beautiful city Los Angeles was, and that there was plenty of work at munificent wages, I arrived in L.A. expecting anyway to get a job at average wages, but I was mistaken; in fact. I was buncoed, as the saying goes, by the lying capitalistic newspaper; because when I got there I found hard times had struck L.A.—banks closed, scrip in circulation (although I did not get any of it).

Along First and Second streets the workingmen were lined up by the thousands, hungry, looking for a job and scanning the vacant boards, waiting in vain for the promised job to turn up. Seeing that the competition for jobs was so fierce in L.A., and being nearly broke, I and two more fellow workers left the I.W.W. headquarters in the midst of an argument. We left the beautiful and prosperous city of L.A. behind us and struck southeast towards the land of sunshine, fruit and flowers. We arrived in Redlands after two days’ long walk through a country composed of cactus and sand storms.

After looking around we hunted up two fellow workers, where they initiated us in all the intricacies of orange and olive picking. First you have to furnish your own sack to pick in, buy your own clippers to clip the other fellows oranges with, your own blankets, of course, to sleep under a tree, where the sky is the roof and the ground is your bed. The nights are freezing cold and the days are boiling hot here. Filled with these beautiful prospects as a starter, we seized our first job with avidity born of despair. We had found a master at last. So into the wagon we tumbled, supplied with a few provisions we had bought. We started for the Moreno Valley, to the far-famed olive orchards of that locality. With us rode a German who had been in South Africa in the war with the British. While our condition was none of the best, his was certainly fierce. He had no blankets, no grub, no picking sack, without which he could not get work. He did not seem to care whether he was going or coming, so at our journey’s end he got something to eat and struck across the country. We went to work olive picking. The foreman spoke of a great sulphur spring that laid about eight miles away in the hills. After working about two weeks and making enough for our poor board, we got laid off. So we thought we had a good chance to go to the famous springs.

We packed our blankets, a few provisions and off we started. We arrived the city of Moreno. There was one church, a store and several buildings had been erected, but the windows were all broken and furnished nothing but the homes of bats. We were afterwards told that there was a boom in 1891-92. Everything bore a desolate appearance. Water seems to be in great demand. So we left the town and pursued our way to the springs. After we had covered a good many miles with heavy blankets on our shoulder we met a teamster on a wagon, who told us that a big capitalist owns the whole country and copped the springs for his own benefit. After taking a little rest we got up and saw two automobiles packed with hunters. One of them fired at a bird just as we passed and missed him; shortly afterwards a hail of buckshot poured all around us. We knew that the hunters shot point blank at us, as there were no birds in sight in our direction. We were certainly lucky not being hit. We stifled our rage and pursued our homeward journey, or to be more accurate, our roost under a tree. We got so disgusted with the lonesomeness of the place that we packed up and got on a wagon going back into Redlands. After we got in town we learned that our Christian Socialist slave driver had stolen half of our crop.

Fellow Worker Lee had a good street meeting in San Bernardino and was pulled off the box by the policeman.

Now we are looking at each other like two crows, eating up the tittle grub we had left, waiting for something to turn up.

Reiss & Allen.

Redlands, Ca.

The Industrial Union Bulletin, and the Industrial Worker were newspapers published by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) from 1907 until 1913. First printed in Joliet, Illinois, IUB incorporated The Voice of Labor, the newspaper of the American Labor Union which had joined the IWW, and another IWW affiliate, International Metal Worker.The Trautmann-DeLeon faction issued its weekly from March 1907. Soon after, De Leon would be expelled and Trautmann would continue IUB until March 1909. It was edited by A. S. Edwards. 1909, production moved to Spokane, Washington and became The Industrial Worker, “the voice of revolutionary industrial unionism.”

PDF of original issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/industrialworker/iub/v1n46-jan-11-1908-iub.pdf