Thorstein Veblen "Farm Labor and the I. W. W." [An Unpublished Paper on the I.W.W. by Thorstein Veblen, written 1918 for the Food Administration.] The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. XL. (Dec., 1932). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This memorandum submits impressions gathered in the course of a recent excursion into the grain states of the Northwest, undertaken at the instance of the Food Administration's Statistical Division. The excursion extended to Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, and the Dakotas. It was undertaken with a view to the conditions surrounding the prospective grain crops of the prairie states; more particularly as to the prospects of the spring wheat crop. In general, it appears certain that the acreage of spring wheat (as well as of winter wheat) will be rather over than under the acreage of 1917. The acreage of corn in the northern prairie states is likely to fall short of the last previous year for want of seed. While the acreage of spring wheat may be expected slightly to exceed that of last year, the spring work of planting and cultivation is apparently not being as carefully and thoroughly done as it should be, for want of a sufficient supply of farm labor. There appears to be a present shortage of available farm labor in the prairie states, north of Oklahoma and Arkansas, variously estimated at 10-30 percent. The latter figure is almost certainly too high, even for any one of these states. A reasonable estimate would perhaps place this shortage at some 15-18 percent for these prairie states, west of the Mississippi, varying from nearly nothing in the south to a possible 20-25 percent in the north, the severest shortage being found in the Dakotas. This applies to the present available supply of labor suitable for use in grain farming. At the same time there is a steady and continued drain on this supply, owing to the draft and to the call for workmen in the industries necessary to the prosecution of the war; while the need of skilled workmen for farm use will increase continually through the coming months until the close of the spring- wheat harvest season-September or October. The present situation, therefore, promises a decrease in the available supply, coupled with an increasing demand, so that the effectual shortage may fairly be expected to grow more serious during the season. It is not safe to offer an estimate as to the amount of the resulting shortage at harvest time. The available farm labor here spoken of is made up of the settled farm-hands, permanently resident in these grain states, and a floating or migratory supply of workmen transiently employed on the farms in increasing numbers, as the season advances. A very large proportion, probably a large majority, of this transient farm labor is enrolled in a special chapter of the I.W.W. known as the Agricultural Workers Industrial Union. So is also an appreciable, and increasing, proportion of the settled farm-hands; although the percentage of the farm-hands affiliated with the I.W.W. is doubtless much lower among the settled workmen than among the transients. This agricultural chapter of the I.W.W. claims a present membership of some 50,000. These members of the I.W.W., together with many of the workmen who are not formally identified with that organisation, set up the following schedule of terms on which they will do full work through the coming harvest season: (a) freedom from illegal restraint; (b) proper board and lodgings; (c) a 10-hour day; (d) a standard wage of $4.00 for the harvest season; and (e), tentatively, free transportation in answering any call from a considerable distance. These are the terms insisted on as a standard requirement; and if these terms are met, the men propose a readiness to give the best work of which they are capable, without reservation. On the other hand, if these terms are not met, in any essential particular, these men will not refuse to work; but, quite unmistakably, they are resolved in that case to fall short of full and efficient work by at least as much as they fall short of getting these terms on which they have agreed among themselves as good and sufficient. It should be added that there is no proposed intention among these men to resort to violence of any kind in case these standard requirements are not complied with. Here, as elsewhere, the proposed and officially sanctioned tactics of the I.W.W. are exclusively the tactics of non-resistance, which does not prevent occasional or sporadic recourse to violence by members of the I.W.W., although the policy of nonresistance appears, on the whole, to be lived up to with a fair degree of consistency. The tactics habitually in use are what may be called a non- resistant sabotage, or, in their own phrasing, "deliberate withdrawal of efficiency" - in other words, slacking and malingering. In this connection it should be noted that the organisation of the I.W.W., whether among agricultural laborers or elsewhere, is of a very loose character. The officials have no coercive powers, so that their control over the members and local chapters is wholly of an advisory kind. Hence, no effectual contracts can be entered into with this body of workmen; the letter of any agreement ceases to bind them so soon as they come to believe that the spirit of the compact is not lived up to. In spite of this loose and irresponsible form of organisation, it is to be noted that these men do surprisingly efficient teamwork in the conduct of their affairs, and that they can consequently be extremely troublesome and disappointing when the occasion offers. All of which has an evident bearing on the ways and means by which it will be expedient to deal with them in the present juncture. Now, as regards the farmers under whose direction the grain crops of the prairie states are grown, they are to a very large extent enrolled in the National Nonpartisan League - indeed, to a greater extent than is commonly believed. The Nonpartisan League is a semisecret organisation, of a political character, working for industrial ends; and it is made up of farmers, and to a relatively slight extent of farm workmen. The bond of union among them is a felt antagonism between their own material interest, on the one hand, and the interests of the commercial and other business elements of the community, on the other hand. It is a class organisation, seeking a class advantage, and rests on a sentiment of class antagonism. The antagonism lies between those who are engaged in producing grain and meat in the prairie states, on the one side, and the classes that may be spoken of as the "vested interests," on the other side. The sense of antagonism in the case is just now visibly growing, on both sides of this line of cleavage; and it is growing both in the degree of asperity and in the sharpness with which the lines are drawn., The catchwords under which these farmers habitually speak of their antagonists are (a) "big business" and (b) "the commercial clubs," the latter being the trade organisations of business concerns in the country towns. These are credited at the same time with an irresponsible control of the local authorities, and, in a degree, of the state authorities as well. Hence the political character of the Nonpartisan League, which aims to take the control of state and local administrations out of the hands of these vested interests and turn it to account for the benefit of the farm population. On the whole, there appears to be no felt antagonism and no working at cross purposes between the Nonpartisan League and this agricultural chapter of the I.W.W. At the same time, there is no avowed agreement or official communication between the two organisations; but there is a good deal of unofficial collusion between them, such as to hold them somewhat consistently together on the same side of the line of political cleavage already spoken of, the members of both organisations being largely affected with the same sense of antagonism against the vested interests, and with the same distrust of state and local authorities. (Evidence of a degree of distrust between the farmers and the I.W.W. is by no means wanting. But it remains true that a considerable measure of sympathy and collusion prevails as between the members of the Nonpartisan League and the agricultural chapter of the I.W.W.; and this sense of solidarity is apparently growing.) These public authorities - police, judiciary and administrative, state and municipal - are believed to be strongly biased in favor of the commercial clubs and their aims. The same distrust extends with full vigor to those temporary organisations known as "State Councils of Defense," "Security Leagues," "Committees of Public Safety," etc., which have been instituted for the more effectual prosecution of the war. These Security Leagues are commonly believed to be made up of business men working for the advantage of the commercial interests, as contrasted with the interest of the farmers and workmen. And it is similarly believed or presumed that the charges of disloyalty and violence made by these Committees of Safety and their agents in the prosecution of their aims are in very great measures a cloak to cover other and more sinister purposes than the national defense. This partisan distrust is mutual, of course, so that the state and municipal authorities, the Security Leagues and Committees of Safety, and the commercial clubs which underly these administrative organisations all distrust the Nonpartisan League and its affiliated farmers and workmen as cordially as the latter distrust them. Each side endeavors to maintain its own rights and contentions; and, as will happen in a partisan contest, both sides will go to questionable lengths in the prosecution of their aims. Or at least they will go to lengths that appear questionable to any outsider who is not moved by the merits of the controversy. In this contest it happens, unfortunately, that the one party - the party of the commercial clubs - is in control of the legally constituted administrative apparatus, police and judiciary; and they are credited by the party of the second part with a partisan abuse of the power which they so are in a position to turn to account. Whatever may be the intrinsic merits of the controversy, and whatever may be the substantial truth as regards the alleged abuse of legal authority, this state of the case is unfortunate as regards the main point here in question - viz., the continued production of a sufficient supply of grain and meat in the prairie states. It is unfortunate in that the forces of production involved are thrown into state of disunion and the cultivation of the farms is by so much hindered from reaching its best efficiency. There is the further unfortunate circumstance to be noted, that inasmuch as the party of the commercial clubs is the party of the legally constituted authorities -in the apprehension of the farmers and workmen - this side of the controversy is in a position to appeal to the federal authorities, in case of doubt or need. Since this side speaks in the name of the established law and order, the federal administration will necessarily appear initially to come into the controversy on that side of any given dispute - so long as the legal formalities are complied with in any tolerable degree. To the biased sense of the workmen who find themselves victims of legalized chicanery, as they are inclined to call it, this is coming to mean that the federal administration is lending itself to the purposes of their enemies in the industrial conflict which is going on. And there is, indeed, some circumstantial evidence at hand which will bear that interpretation, particularly when it is viewed from the partisan standpoint of the losing side in the legal proceedings in question. The result is that the federal administration is coming in for a share in the distrust, not to say odium, with which the legal measures alluded to are viewed by the workmen of the prairie states. Exhibits A and B, appended to this memorandum, submit some of the evidence which so plays into the hands of the malcontents. As being of the same general bearing, and reflecting-in the apprehension of the workmen-the same partisan bias on the part of the constituted authorities, state and federal, the allegation, apparently well founded, may also be cited, that the Post Office has, in connection with the trial now in progress in Chicago, intercepted a very considerable quantity of mail matter designed to procure funds for the conduct of the defense. So also it is alleged, again with the appearance of truth, that in the case of some 150 members of the I.W.W. who have latterly been arrested on formal charges of disloyalty, bail has been fixed at an unnecessarily high figure - some $500 - with a view to making it prohibitive. Quite obviously, the ordinary wayfaring man enrolled in the I.W.W. will ordinarily be unable to procure bail in that amount, the consequence being that the men so apprehended face the prospect of incarceration without bail while awaiting a hearing several months hence, on a charge which is commonly believed by their fellows to be quite groundless. Hence more irritation, together with the enforced idleness of such workmen as are immediately concerned in the case. So far this memorandum has the appearance of special pleadings; and, indeed, such is its purpose. It is intended as special pleadings for the grain crops of the northern prairie states. Owing to the peculiar circumstances of the case, this purpose gives the argument an appearance of partiality on the side of the workmen. The relevant circumstances of the case appear to be these: The effectual cultivation and harvesting of the crops demand that all available farm labor be turned to account forthwith and as economically as may be. A large proportion of this available farm labor is enrolled in or affiliated with a special chapter of the I.W.W. These men cannot be coerced into doing the necessary work in an efficient manner by any measures of conscription or other authoritative pressure. They will, it is believed, do good and efficient work on the terms which they have agreed on among themselves. They are, it is also believed, deliberately hindered from freely moving about and finding work on the terms on which they seek it. The obstruction to their movement and negotiations for work comes from the commercial clubs of the country town and the state and municipal authorities who are politically affiliated with these commercial clubs. On the whole, there appears to be virtually no antagonism between the employing farmers and these members of the I.W.W. And there is a well-founded belief that what antagonism comes in evidence is chiefly of a fictitious character, being in good part due to mischief-making agitation from outside. In view of this state of the case, it has been argued that, quite irrespective of the intrinsic equities involved, it is expedient just now to take measures looking to allay the irritation and distrust that prevails among these workmen; to discountenance and disallow any measures that will bear the appearance of persecution or partisan maneuver; to remove any obstruction that stands in the way of the most efficient use of this or any other available contingent of farm labor. Specifically it is suggested that as a matter of expediency the members of the I.W.W. now under indictment be dealt with as expeditiously and as leniently as the legal formalities will permit; that the mail matter in which their Defense Committee is interested be not detained on any plea of legal expediency; that virtually all charges of disloyalty or sedition in these premises be disallowed; that bail for the men of this class now under indictment be fixed at an amount not to exceed $500; that measures be taken to discontinue the use of force by local authorities seeking to hinder the free movement of workmen in those states; in short, as a matter of present expediency, it is desirable to take a conciliatory stand in relation to this contingent of farm workmen and to go as far as the formalities will allow in cultivating their trust and goodwill. They may not be in the right, but they are one of the factors that will have to be made use of for the production of a sorely needed supply of grain and meat, and they can be used to good effect only by way of generous treatment and fair dealing. It is a case where generosity is the best policy. It may be in place here to add a word of explanation as regards the present temper of the farm population of these northern prairie states in the matter of loyalty to the Administration and its prosecution of the war. By way of parenthesis, as bearing on this point, it should be noted that the greater proportion of the membership of these agricultural I.W.W. are apparently of American birth, contrary to what has occasionally been alleged. This generalisation is in part based on a personal inspection of their official files of registered members. The official estimate is that about 80 percent are of American birth. It appears likewise to be true that the greater proportion of members in the Nonpartisan League are of American birth. As to the present temper of this farm population, skilled and transient, there appears a massive and increasing drift in the direction of a more aggressive support of the Administration's war policy. Of the farm population proper, as represented in the Nonpartisan League, it is perhaps safe to say that they are minded to see the war through, at any cost, to the end for which the Administration has spoken. In the region here spoken of, this aggressively warlike temper is distinctly more perceptible now than it was six months ago. The like is fairly to be said for the migratory farm labor affiliated with the I.W.W., but with the reservation that, while this contingent is now prevailingly in a warlike and loyal frame of mind, the cordiality of its continued support of the Administration is in some degree conditioned on the measure of generosity with which the Administration will deal with them during the season. What has just been said is intended to apply to the present situation, as it bears on the production of this season's crop. But it seems desirable also to look farther ahead and take measures looking to the most efficient use of this farm labor through the coming seasons, for the period of the war. In this connection it is to be kept in mind that the migratory farm labor of the Northwest is at work on the farms only through the crop season - some 5-7 months - and that the same workmen are in greaat part employed in some form of lumbering or sawmill industry through the winter months. In the seasonal migration which this state of things involves, there is a good deal of scattering and redistribution of the personnel, so that the same workmen will not be found associated together in the same place from one season to the next, nor will a given band or gang be made up of the same workmen year after year. Yet there is a degree of permanency about any one of these gangs, so that the gang will have something of a permanent core or nucleus made up of the same men year by year. There results a certain measure of permanent regimentation of these migrants, with a degree of continued solidarity and also a degree of continued teamwork. The gang, or chapter, has something of a life-history of its own and some degree of individuality, which takes concrete form in its enrolment under its own official spokesmen in the organisation of the I.W.W. These spokesmen are officials only in the sense of standing in an advisory relation to the members of their particular chapter; and all that can be depended on to insure concerted action at any juncture is the teamwork and habitual solidarity of the gang under the advice of their trusted leaders. Consequently, any agreement entered into is subject to constant revision, with the result that all employers who deal with these organised workmen are, in effect, placed on their good behavior. All of which is extremely irksome to the employers, particularly to employers on a large scale, as, e.g., in the lumber trades, where the contact between employer and employee is slight and impersonal; but much less so on the farms, where the employer is habitually engaged in the day's work, along with his employees, and where consequently a much closer approach to a personal understanding is commonly had. It may be remarked that suspicion and disagreement between employers and workmen has been much less on the farm than in the lumber camps, although the employees in the two cases are in very great part the same workmen, and in some part organised in the same groups. As a means of best using this contingent of migratory labor, therefore, both through the open season on the farms and through the winter months in the lumber camps and elsewhere, it is here proposed that the Administration enter into direct and official relations with these workmen through their formal organisations; that a scheme of regimentation be put into effect by which the workmen will be enrolled, under officers of their own choice, as members of a collective labor force to be distributed and employed at- the discretion of agents of the Administration with suitable powers - always with the proviso that these agents be vested with advisory rather than coercive powers and be enabled to offer inducements sufficient to give effect to such advice as they may offer; that facilities be constantly afforded for men to enrol in these regiments of workmen, without other necessary qualifications than a willingness to work and to submit to majority rule within their own regiment; and that board, lodging, and needed transportation be provided for the men so enrolled, on the sole condition that they do the work in hand and submit to majority rule. It is believed that under such a scheme of regimentation a permanent body of efficient workmen may be organised and held together in a mobile body which can be shifted readily to any point where they are needed, at the same time that the maintenance of direct and cordial relations between these workmen and the Administration may be expected to call out the highest degree of efficiency of which they are capable. The realisation that they are, in a special and intimate sense, working for their country and its purposes, may fairly be expected to have a happy effect on the temper of these men, as it should have on the temper of any similar body of citizens. Tentatively, it is further proposed that whatever arrangements may be entered into between the Administration and these workmen should be left in the hands of the Department of War and the Food Administration, preferably in the hands of a joint bureau representing both and consulting with both, but in the last resort answerable to the Secretary of War. There are several considerations leading to this proposal: The work in which this labor force is to be used, summer and winter, is in a paramount sense of the nature of a necessary war industry, in that the production of grain as well as the output of lumber are of prime importance for the prosecution of the war, and no unnecessary apparatus should be allowed to interfere between the War Department's jurisdiction and the factors that enter into these industries. It is, at the same time, a matter which unavoidably falls within the discretion of the Food Administration, which is in this connection to be regarded as an auxiliary branch of the War Administration. In an appreciable degree the Department of Labor is incapacitated for this undertaking by the circumstance that the Department is, in the popular apprehension, somewhat closely identified with the special interests of organised labor, so-called, and more particularly with the interests and special policies which guide the management of the A. F. of L.; and these migratory workmen harbor a lively antagonism and distrust toward the A. F. of L. and its official representatives, and consequently also toward the Department of Labor in so far as that Department is believed to tend its countenance to the particular aims for which the management of the A. F. of L. is believed to be working. In a less degree there appears to be prevalent among these workmen a similar distrust of the Department of Agriculture and its agents in the field, perhaps especially as regards the "county agents," who commonly represent jointly the Department of Agriculture and the state agricultural commissions of the several states. For all that need appear in this argument, this distrust of these two departments and their agents may be quite groundless in fact. The point at issue is the animus of these workmen on this head. If they are effectually to be made use of, the agency by which they are to be made use of should be one to which no antecedent objection of this kind attaches. In substantiation of the belief expressed above, that generous treatment and a cordial co-operation on the part of the Administration will bring a response in the way of willing and efficient service from these workmen, Exhibits B, C, and D are appended. These exhibits go to show what has been accomplished in detail in other parts of the country and under other circumstances, where the same class of men - indeed, in good part the same men - have been met in a spirit of forbearance, mutual confidence, and partnership, and without recourse to coercive measures. [EXHIBIT A - E. Exhibit B-E are not reproduced here.] EXHIBIT A April 8, 1918 Mr. Thorstein Veblen Washington, D.C. Dear Sir: In compliance with your request of the 6th instant, I am setting forth herein facts pertaining to the Agricultural Workers Organisation No. 400 of the I.W.W. I am going to try and point out to you the reasons why the wheat raised on the farms of the United States last year was not harvested as successfully as it could have been, and also the best possible way for the administration of the United States to guarantee that the wheat crop of 1918 is saved to the last kernel. Now to begin with, the Agricultural Workers Organisation of the I.W.W. has a membership of some fifty thousand workers. These workers work in the woods during the winter months, and in the harvest fields during the summer months. I c ' an safely say that 8o percent of these workers are American born, and that the one object they have in life is to obtain for themselves and their fellow- workers more wages, shorter hours, and better working conditions, by organising along industrial lines, agreeing to the last man that an injury to one is an injury to all. We find that the opposition shown toward our members does not come from the farmers who employ these men to sow, cultivate, and harvest their grain, but it comes from the daily press and the commercial clubs, which are composed of bankers, real estate agents, business men, and the local police, the latter arresting the workers and throwing them into jail whenever they attempt at organising workers into the union. The records of the Agricultural Workers Industrial Union show that there was over ten thousand dollars spent in 1917 for sending attorneys to the different towns throughout the Grain Belt to investigate the cases of our members who had been thrown into jails. All of these investigations show that there were no charges against these men; and when the authorities found that there was some one working in the interests of the workers who were being held by them, they were immediately released. When the commercial clubs found that they could no longer jail our members and get away with it, they adopted new and more brutal tactics. Whenever a body of organised workers came into towns where these commercial clubs were situated and operating, they were surrounded, taken to jail, where they were held until after dark, loaded into automobiles belonging to the members of the commercial clubs, taken out into the country, their clothes taken off, and with two of these human brutes holding the workers face down to the earth, they were beaten until black and blue, or until they would say that they would have nothing more to do with the organisation or the I.W.W. To explain to you these outrages in detail would bc more than I am capable of doing, but in order that you and the people you represent may understand our side of the question more thoroughly, I am inclosing herewith copies of affidavits made in person by members of the Agricultural Workers Industrial Union No- 400, who were the victims of the commercial clubs of the Grain Belt, because they dared to organise the workers into a union so that they, the workers, may get shorter hours, more wages, and better working conditions. In conclusion, we wish to plainly state that it has always been and always will be the intention of the members of the Agricultural Workers Industrial Union of the I.W.W. to harvest the grain crops of the world, so that the world may eat. No one understands better the way to harvest the wheat crops than the men who follow up this line of work from year to year, and no one knows better how to save as much grain as possible as the workers who are now members of the Agricultural Workers Industrial Union No. 400 of the I.W.W. The members of the Agricultural Workers Industrial Union of the I.W.W. will be in the harvest fields this year stronger than ever. They will be there with only one intention, and that intention is that the wheat that feeds the world is harvested successfully under good working conditions, together with reasonable hours and good wages, and that the outrages that are being committed against them shall immediately cease. Once more assuring you that the Agricultural Workers Organisation of the I.W.W. will do all in its power to harvest the wheat crop of 1918 without wasting a kernel, and doubly insuring you that the members of the Agricultural Workers Industrial Union will under any and all circumstances stand by its motto, "An injury to one is an injury to all," we remain, Very truly yours, MAURICE G. BRESNAN Sec'y-Treas. AGRICULTURAL WORKERS INDUSTRIAL UNION No. 400 I.W.W. CHICAGO, ILLINOIS --- End ---