Soil and Health Library This document is a reproduction of the book or other copyrighted material you requested. It was prepared on Thursday, 26 February 2009 for the exclusive use of Erika Garcia, whose email address is [email protected] This reproduction was made by the Soil and Health Library only for the purpose of research and study. Any further distribution or reproduction of this copy in any form whatsoever constitutes a violation of copyrights. ILL FARES THE LAND Migrants and Migratory Labour in the United States by CAREY McWILLIAMS with a preface by THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH edited by JORIAN JENKS FABER AND FABER LIMITED 24 Russell Square London First published in Mcmxlv by Faber and Faber Limited 24 Russell Square London W.C. 1 Printed in Great Britain by Western Printing Services Limited Bristol All rights reserved This book is produced in complete conformity with the authorized economy standards CONTENTS PREFACE BY THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH page 9 AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION 19 BOOK I MIGRANTS MAKE HISTORY I. SENATOR LA FOLLETTE IN CALIFORNIA 25 II. THE MESSENGERS ARRIVE 37 III. ‘GREEN PASTURES’ 52 IV. ARIZONA: MIGRANT WAY STATION 64 BOOK II THE UPROOTING V. BLACKBIRDS AND SCISSORBILLS 75 VI. THE JOADS AT HOME 87 VII. REVOLUTION IN TEXAS 100 VIII. A KICK FROM THE BOOT HEEL 110 BOOK III MOBILE RURAL PROLETARIAT IX. COLORADO MERRY-GO-ROUND 122 X. THE BIG SWING 132 XI. THE CROWS FLY NORTH 145 XII. IN OHIO AND INDIANA 154 XIII. THE BERRY MIGRANTS 161 X.IV MIGRATORY LABOUR ON THE EAST COAST 170 BOOK IV REVIEW OF A REVOLUTION XV. ‘OUR AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION’ 176 XVI. NO PLACE IS HOME 193 XVII. FROM TALK TO ACTION 207 GLOSSARY 232 AUTHORITIES REFERRED TO IN TEXT 233 Ill fares the land, to hast'ning ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay: Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade; A breath can make them, as a breath has made; But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, When once destroyed, can never be supplied. THE DESERTED VILLAGE EDITORIAL NOTE When, in 1943, Ill Fares the Land was first published in the United States, it was a volume of approximately 175,000 words. If therefore it was to achieve in this country, at any rate in wartime, a circulation commensurate with its importance, its abbreviation was unavoidable. In undertaking this task, I was at the very outset confronted with a choice of two alternatives. Either a selection from the book's many sections could be made, and the material in them presented more or less in its existing form; or the whole work could be pruned down, item by item, to what Kipling would have called 'its essential guts'. From a stylistic point of view, the former course would have been preferable; it would also have been very much simpler. But it would have had the serious disadvantage of confining the author's descriptive surveys to a few regions only, whereas it is clearly one of his objects to demonstrate that the social revolution which forms his thesis is in fact nation-wide. Just as the 'dust-bowl' of the Great Plains is but one of the end-products of a process of soil deterior- ation that is now well-nigh universal, so the dramatic events in Oklahoma and California which were so vividly depicted in John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath and have been so fully confirmed by Carey McWilliams's researches are simply end-phases of a widespread process of social disintegration. The second alternative thus seemed the better. But so direct is Mr. McWilliams's language, and so little addicted is he to the use of padding, that pruning has of necessity entailed the removal of much picturesque detail and corroborative evidence that, in other circumstances, might well have been retained. On one point, however, he may rest assured: his message is so clear and unmistakable that it cannot fail to emerge triumphant even from such rough usage. Throughout I have endeavoured, within the limits set me, to preserve both the original style of the book and the most important of the documentary materials which it assembles in support of its main theme. Nothing has been added, and as little as possible taken away. I have, however, taken the liberty of re-grouping certain of the chapters in such a way that each of the four 'books' now has a definite role, as indicated by the sub-titles which I have ventured to give them. This step will, I believe, render the English reader better able to grasp the immense significance of the story which the author has to tell and for which we are indeed most truly grateful. JORIAN JENKS PREFACE by THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH America is so vast, her economy so glittering, her machinery and her technological progress so prodigious, that a book on U.S. farm labour problems, even when it shows the reverse of the medal, must seem to have little meaning for us in this small island; yet this book should be of great value to our own sense of perspective. To read most ministerial pronouncements and some of The Times correspondents about the future of British agriculture, is to read a series of lectures on efficiency. We (the farmers) are told we must be 'efficient' to compete with the world market—only so may we survive. Although British agriculture has been very much more in the public eye through the necessities of war, there is still a tendency to consider the farmer as a man who leans over a gate with a straw in his teeth and a perpetual grumble, because the Government does not do something for him which he should do for himself. Likewise there is a tendency to regard the farm labourer as somebody who has stayed on the land because he has not got the initiative to go out and ‘better' himself. And because of this, the townsman is apt to think of technical progress, or business efficiency, as belonging only to industry here and to agriculture overseas. The obvious implication is that we can survive by urban industry and exports and that home farming is a bar rather than a stimulus to our best efforts. Few people with a long view of the land can really define what they mean by efficiency. Those with a short view decide that it is reflected entirely in a farm's cash returns and they suspect that the cash returns are somehow bound up with the largest use of mechanical equipment. But, whatever our views on this subject, we are apt to overlook the salient facts. First of all we are a nation of small farmers, yet for those who think in terms of machinery we are the most highly mechanized agricultural community in the world today. For those who think in terms of production per man, we were, even in 1937, reckoned by distinguished economists to have the highest production per head of active workers in the whole of Europe. 1.In size and in great fertile plains, the U.S.S.R. is the country in Europe most comparable with the U.S.A. In displacement of the small farmer and in machine-mindedness the U.S.S.R. is also comparable; yet the small farmers and the farm workers of the United Kingdom are reckoned to have a productivity per head five times as great as the farm workers of Russia. We were, as well, roughly equal in cash output per acre with Italy, Germany, France, and Bohemia, being only surpassed by the small highly intensive countries, such as the Netherlands and Denmark. Our yield per acre from cereal crops was very much higher than anywhere in the New World and compared favourably with our closest competitors in Europe. For instance, our average yield of wheat was more than double that of Canada or the U.S.A., which the economists continually hold up as an example of countries with whom we cannot hope to compete in cereal production. More important to the 1 See Sir John Russell, English Farming, Britain in Pictures Series. The figures therein can only be regarded as indications and at best approximate. There are so many imponderables that no comparisons can be accurate. economists is that the British farm worker, reckoned in terms of relative labour efficiency in 1937, was supposed to be above the U.S.A., Canada, and all the European countries and to feed more persons per head than any of those countries.1 Since 1940 the position, though it may not be gauged by statistics, is even more remarkable as regards British output, skill, and initiative on the land. For our net output in Great Britain was very nearly double for 1943 and 1944 the output of 1937. We have done this with less effective labour owing to the wartime call-up, we have done it in the face of transport difficulties, enemy action, and service manoeuvres, shortage of essential supplies and the virtual cessation of imported stock feed. Now, the interesting point about this is that before the war for reasons of autarchy and other politico- economic causes, European agriculture generally was stretched to the limit. It is probable that both Germany and Italy were producing more from their soil than was good for it, and that other countries had for the most part reached the limit of intensive production under their existing systems. Thus, the British increase in agricultural output both per man and per acre, would point to our being now the leading occidental country as far as farming and horticulture are concerned.