Leading wobbly Mortimer Downing reports on one of the first major modern U.S. agricultural workers strikes, the hop pickers organized against the Durst Brothers in Wheatland, California led by the I.W.W.

‘The Case of the Hop Pickers’ by Mortimer Downing from The International Socialist Review. Vol. 14 No. 4. October, 1913.

ACTING on an invitation by Durst Brothers twenty-three hundred men, women and children assembled to pick the Durst Brothers’ hops on their 600-acre ranch near the town of Wheatland, California. The posters and newspaper advertisements described the conditions on the Durst ranch as something ideal. All the workers had to do was to pick a few hops, enjoy a picnic and make plenty of money.

Just prior to August 3 these people assembled at the Durst ranch and found the first thing they had to do was to rent a shack or a tent from agents of the owners at the rate of from 75 cents per week up. The first money they earned was deducted to pay this rent. The rentals charged the pickers were in excess of $480 per week for four acres of ground which the state health inspector has described as a “sun-baked flat.” This in itself was a rather tidy profit for the boss./

It was soon found that Durst Brothers had provided only six single toilets for the twenty-three hundred workers. These apologies for modesty were turned over to the women, who used to stand twenty and thirty deep waiting a turn to use these places, while the whole camp looked on. Later it was found, when the men and women swarmed into the fields to pick the hops, that a cousin of the Durst Brothers had the “lemonade privilege.” In order that this thrifty scion of canny stock should have every opportunity to make an honest penny, Durst Brothers would not permit any water to be hauled into the field, nor would they allow the workers to fill bottles from the water wagons which were used in cultivating the crop. Lemonade was sold to the workers at five cents per glass.

Pay at this hop yard was at the rate of 90 cents per hundred pounds of hops picked with a sliding bonus up to 15 cents, according to the length of time the worker staid on the job. Durst Brothers were particularly urgent that the hops should be absolutely clean of leaves or stems and that only the blooms should be taken. This rigid inspection made the work far slower than in other hop yards.

Conditions were so bad that after one or two days’ work the pickers assembled in meeting and voiced their discontent. They drew up demands for better sanitary conditions, more toilets, that lemons and not acetic acid should be put in the lemonade; that they should have water in the field twice a day, that high pole men be provided to pull down the hops from the poles, and that owing to the strict inspection of the pick that the pay be a flat rate of $1.25 per hundred pounds. This would enable an average worker to earn about $2 per day, out of which he had to pay for his shack and board himself.

These demands were presented to Durst Brothers by a committee. Ralph Durst, testifying before the coroner’s jury, stated that when Dick Ford, the chairman, approached him he “had both his gloves on and that he jocosely slapped Ford across the face.” He then took the demands under consideration. After a time he returned and made evasive promises of remedy of the sanitary conditions, talked a lot about having water in the field and flatly refused to advance the wages. This was on Sunday afternoon, August 3. The workers remained in meeting and were considering the reply of Durst. While they were so assembled Durst telephoned to the nearby town of Marysville for the sheriff and a posse.

While the workers were still in meeting and while they were singing “Conditions They Are Bad,” eleven armed men, headed by Sheriff Voss, whirled into the hop yard in two automobiles. They leaped to the ground. Among them was Edward Tecumseh Manwell, the district attorney. All these armed men charged the crowd. Voss, the sheriff, rushed to the stand, seized Dick Ford, and said he was under arrest. Ford asked for a warrant. Voss struck him. At the same time he lifted his gun, fired and ordered the crowd to disperse. Just then a woman seized Voss. He clubbed her with his gun. She tripped him and he fell. By this time all the eleven men were shooting and the shots sounded like a battle. Voss went down. The crowd closed in around him. The woman was on top. A Porto Rican, name unknown, rushed from his tent through the crowd and got the sheriff’s gun. He saw the district attorney, Edward Tecumseh Manwell, ready to shoot into the crowd of workers. The Porto Rican killed Manwell. Already one of the workers, an unidentified English boy, had been killed. The Porto Rican then shot Eugene Reardon, one of the deputy sheriffs, and at almost the same time he dropped dead himself with a load of buckshot in his breast, which tore away the ribs and exposed his lungs. Harry Daken fired the shot. All these incidents took place while William Beck, one of the prisoners held in Marysville jail, was running less than two hundred yards.

So dumfounded were the deputies when this Porto Rican boy returned their fire that they ran like scared jack-rabbits. In less than a minute after they charged into the yard they were tearing away again in their automobiles. They made the trip back to Marysville from Wheatland, more than ten miles, in eleven minutes.

Left in the hands of the strikers was the sheriff, whose leg had been broken in the scuffle. Four dead bodies and about a dozen wounded testified to the savagery of the fight. The strikers nursed the wounds of the sheriff and the others injured, regardless of whether they were friend or enemy. After the battle, working-class humanity asserted itself. The sheriff told the men and women that they were better to him than his own men, who had fled. He was taken in a wagon to the town of Wheatland and turned over to his friends.

Meantime the frightened deputies were frantically calling upon the governor for troops, which were promptly ordered to the scene. They arrived about daylight next morning. Then came back the brave deputies and began a man hunt for victims. They arrested eight men at that time, some of whom had never been in the town of Wheatland or in the Durst hop yards. Among these are Otto Enderwitz and Charles Bohn, two Germans who were traveling through the country in their own wagon. Somebody identified Enderwitz as the man who translated the speeches into Spanish. Enderwitz cannot speak Spanish but he has been held now for more than forty days in a vermin-ridden tank exposed to contagion of syphilis from an unfortunate prisoner who is suffering from that disease. This syphilitic had no part in the hop-yard affair, but he is herded with the other prisoners, to their great danger.

Since then Dick Ford has been arrested and up to date it is known that the authorities have gathered in twelve men because the workers refused to disperse from their own ground, held by them under outrageously high rentals. To give an idea of the testimony and evidence on which these men are held without legal right, it may be stated that Harry Bagan, one of the first arrested, is suspected of being the secretary of the strikers’ meetings. Bagan cannot read or write. At the coroner’s inquest the deputies and others were asked whether they heard Ford or any of the men addressing the crowd and if anything was said about violence. Universally the answer was: “Ford and all of them advised against violence and told the strikers if they committed the slightest illegal act their cause was lost.”

None of the men arrested is an I.W.W. card man; but just before the shooting some of the strikers had telegraphed to various I.W.W. locals for organizers and assistance. As they thus evinced a desire for organization, the I.W.W. has determined to give them legal defense. To that end Austin Lewis and R.M. Rouce of Oakland have been retained. Both these lawyers understand the revolutionary movement and will give the men a defense of which they can later be proud. Local 71, I.W.W., has taken charge. These men and women were fighting for the common rights of workers and as such an appeal is made to all revolutionists and radicals for help. Send all funds to Andy Barber, Secretary Local 71, I.W.W., at 11 W Third St. Sacramento. Cal.

The International Socialist Review (ISR) was published monthly in Chicago from 1900 until 1918 by Charles H. Kerr and critically loyal to the Socialist Party of America. It is one of the essential publications in U.S. left history. During the editorship of A.M. Simons it was largely theoretical and moderate. In 1908, Charles H. Kerr took over as editor with strong influence from Mary E Marcy. The magazine became the foremost proponent of the SP’s left wing growing to tens of thousands of subscribers. It remained revolutionary in outlook and anti-militarist during World War One. It liberally used photographs and images, with news, theory, arts and organizing in its pages. It articles, reports and essays are an invaluable record of the U.S. class struggle and the development of Marxism in the decades before the Soviet experience. It was closed down in government repression in 1918.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v14n04-oct-1913-ISR-gog-ocr.pdf