United States Department of Labor hearing on the Bracero Program

Later and through hard work, I have never been fired from a job. I have never been on welfare. I have never collected any unemployment insurance and the government has not paid me any subsidy for any crops. My only connection with welfare agencies was to donate to

them. So what I'm trying to say that this adverse condition than a Mexican nation is, is something that's dreamed up. We were able to accomplish what we have up to date through the free enterprise system that this country has. If my education is limited, I have

only a high school education and no more. My IQ is probably normal, possibly even a little bit below. But through hard work and applying myself and my wife's help, we were able to accomplish it in the so called adverse condition of the Bracero program. The next

witness is Ellen Anderson. My name is Ellen Anderson. I live in Berkeley, California. I'm representing the Students Committee for Agricultural Labor. A number of us from the University of California heard about the labor shortage in agriculture here in the state. We thought we'd go and try

to get some work in San Joaquin County. Young, vigorous so forth. Um, and we're certainly so she was able to do the work. Yeah. Some of our group went around to four or five Asparagus plantations in the Delta Islands. All of them have crews in the

fields. Apparently all Braceros, all of them turned us away. The next morning we decided to try again. So we went down to the skid row area in Stockton which is evidently the only way you can get a job in that area. You have to get there

quite early before day live. You got there about four o'clock, we tried to get some hystero cutting jobs. This was in April of 1960 which was the height of the season. There were no buses there that would take us out to pre asparagus. Then we went

over to the California Farm placement office, which is right there in that ski area. And uh today, I believe I supposed to supervise this to shape up and stock in the man at the desk told us that we might get tuberculosis from the pee test. He

said that no women were allowed to cut because there would be no toilets available. Finally, he sent us down to the local Brasero Users Association, the San Joaquin Farm Production Association. By that time, they told us it was too late in the day for us to

go out credit areas. So we went out and picked strawberries and made uh hello 25 cents an hour, I think was the average rate vehicle. What we were forced to the conclusion that near the growers nor the governmental agencies involved, we're very much interested in protecting

for domestic rights to jobs. As a matter of fact, it sort of proved to us quite that quite the reverses. This was also true in other props. Several of us worked in onions and myself worked in, we saw crews draw in of Braceros at the same

time that we saw many, many, many people, several 100 at the shape of in two or three buses. Thank you, Mr Ejr, that dog, the Mr Williams. Mr Miler. I do not have a type written copy of

the discussion here because my side is such that I cannot read the printed word. However, uh I will dictate my remarks uh upon my return to something and see if you get a copy of it. Uh I don't ask any consideration in other, any other regard

regarding my panic. The uh discussion that uh Mr Farley is it of the uh warehouse Junior, the longshoreman junior uh had here this morning regarding wages paid in the sugar industry in the Hawaiian Islands was of particular interest to me. I think the essence of Mr

uh Farley's discussion was this that through uh bargaining he had with the sugar companies raised wages in the Hawaiian Islands to a point where they were pricing themselves into a dangerous position in the world sugar market. I'd like to address myself to this point uh for

just a moment because California agriculture is a varied agriculture that every crop, practically every crop known to man can be grown in California. Most of them are grown on a commercial basis. I think for the bananas and pineapples and one or two other commodities are not

grown in California. Therefore, we are faced with competition uh from every state in the Union and from foreign countries regarding the agricultural products uh of the state of California. Now, when we talk about the price of labor, the dollar minimum that uh is being discussed here

today and the adverse effect that the national program has or may have on a domestic worker. We must keep in mind that other states in the nation are producing the same crops that we are at a much lower cost. I'm using the same argument. Uh Ladies

and gentlemen, that Mr Farley used uh in regard to the sugar industry. Now, we are not asking that uh that the wages in California be raised to a point where are, where we are priced out of competition and then go to the rest of the nation

and say you come up to our standard and protect the products that we produce. In California, we have to be competitive at all times. Now, in recruiting workers throughout the nation and in many states, we have gone to states where the wage level is 50 cents

an hour, 60 cents an hour, 40 cents an hour. And we have recruited these workers to come to California at double the wage on a minimum basis. In California, these workers come here, they work to work a short time and they disappear, they return home. There

are many reasons for this. Many sections of California have climates which, uh, people enjoyed. Others have climates which are rather cool. And in our particular instance in the Salinas Watsonville district, we have a cool climate very similar to that in San Francisco, we find that people

who enjoy uh living in the warmer southern climates where the temperatures are in up to 90 degrees, 95 degrees, high humidity do not enjoy working in the fog and windy conditions of the Salinas Valley. The uh workers that are brought in from other states uh are

brought in with the understanding that the vegetable crops produced in our area are strictly row crops. There are no trees to pick from. There are very the only, the only uh bush that we pick from is the tomato bush and that is a fairly minor commodity

in our area. All of our commodities are on the ground. They are vegetable crops which must be thin by hand. They must be hold by hand, they must be harvested by hand and each on each crop on a selective uh basis at harvest time. These crops

are going over many times. Uh during the process of harvest and sometimes the harvest will run 3 to 4 weeks on one particular uh phase of our uh commodities. Now, in getting people to work in this type of work, we cannot compare the quality of workmanship,

uh nor the skills required with those that Mr Pitts referred to. As far as steel workers are concerned. We recognize that the steel worker has certain qualifications, certain skills, certain trainings that uh place him far above the demands made for the work in our particular type

of industry. And many statements have been made today here regarding uh the fact that wages have gone down uh in certain areas because of the influence of the uh Mexican Bracero. This definitely is not true in the area that I represent. And I am the president

of the Grower Shipper Association of the Center of Central California. And I'm very cognizant of all of the affairs of that association. The wages have gone up in our area in every category. And uh as far as the field workers themselves are concerned, we employ at

a peak harvest uh during the peak of the uh harvest trade, which is July, August, September, about 22,000 domestic workers. And the peak last year of uh Goros at any during any one week uh was 9600 and this rains down to the present day when we

have none uh in the uh in the area, no pres in the area at the present time. Although we are harvesting uh commodities and we harvest commodities all year round. We are preparing and cultivating the ground and thinning crops now, which will be harvested during the

uh following uh spring and summer. It is usually when the domestic workforce has decreased to a point where the crops will suffer that the Department of Employment in the State of California certifies that we then need uh bros to fill the gap. These uh the numbers

uh range from a few 100 in March, a few more 100 in April and then in May, uh the numbers of uh Braceros increase and the also the number of domestics increase. The question here is that in order to produce these crops, each activity regarding the

cultivation of the crop must be done on time. Otherwise the crop itself is damaged. Now, this may seem a little bit far fetched to those of you who are not in agriculture, but it is an absolute fact at harvest time, one day's difference uh in the

harvest of a vegetable crop can destroy that particular cutting or harvest of that particular crop. The uh the work is not one that lends itself to automation. Uh We are attempting to do this as much as possible. This question came up with Mr Galarza, uh Mr

Garza, I'm sure that we would be willing to uh develop machines. Are we are willing to develop machines that are tempting to develop machines for the automation. But the selectivity required in the harvest of vegetable crops, TRS precludes the use of machines at this time. And

until some uh very uh substantial improvement is made in mechanization. Uh the harvest of vegetables and the cultivation of vegetables will be undone on a on a hand labor basis for some time to come. I'd like to point out a few figures that so uh some

beneficial effect of the national program in the State of California, we've heard a great deal today about adverse effect. Uh The, the national in California comes in to supplement the, the domestic workforce. In spite of the statements made here by some of the people present today

regarding inability to get a job at the moment that they applied for a job, et cetera or being refused a job, uh turned away from the job after having been given a job for a day or two and being replaced by Mexican nationals is an extremely

unusual situation. I think everybody in the room who is a grower or connected with farming in any, in any manner in California knows that this is true that sure there could be selected cases where an injustice may have been done. The law has pro provides redress

uh in these uh instances. And in our area, any time this has happened in the past, we certainly have had uh the state people and the Federal Department of Labor People uh down to see us immediately and to correct the situation. Now, in California, this uh

workforce in 1960 was 455,000 domestic workers employed in agriculture during that year. And during that year, 89,000, I believe the figure is I'm reciting this from memory. Uh Braceros were contracted in the state but never at any time were more than 45,000 employed uh in agriculture

uh in the state. This compares with the 455,000 domestic workers. So if this is an adverse effect, uh it certainly would be a very minor one because the only time that these uh the servers are brought into the state is when they are needed. And when

they are certified by the state of California, I was interested in the remarks made by the young man here who uh is a asparagus crew foreman. Uh I understand in the Stockton area or has been, he said that his earnings were reduced uh during the uh

the asparagus harvest in I believe he said 1961. Uh My firm is also an asparagus grower. I am not directly involved in this particular crop, but I am familiar with the uh harvest of it and the working conditions there in we did not use any Mexican

as in 1961 for the harvest of our asparagus. Uh We paid the wages that were quoted here by many people regarding the increase in wages on the asparagus. Uh, the people in the area who could not find enough domestic workers to properly do the job of

cutting asparagus. And it is a painstaking and, uh, uh, exacting, uh, job. They did, uh, use some, uh, Mexican courses. This was certified to by the state of California. But I disagree with him. The wages did not go down, the wages went up, uh, his earnings,

he said went down. This is possibly true because those of you who have been involved in asparagus know that asparagus is harvested over a period of from uh up to 12 years. And I the the peak uh portion of the crop occurs somewhere between the third

year and the eighth or ninth year. Uh The crop is going downhill beyond that point. The cutting probably would not be as uh as heavy at this time. And therefore, on the particular ranch in which this gentleman worked, he may have had earnings less one year

than he did another year. But on the other hand, this year, he might be on a ranch that has new grants or comparatively new grants and his earnings for the year would increase. But his rate of pay did increase. In spite of his statement, the young

lady from the University of California, my arch rival uh is uh I think very sincere in her comments regarding the adverse effect and her one or two days attempt to find a job. Now, let's analyze that for just a moment. Uh I think that I recognize

this young lady as a, the program of what we've been doing in February of 1959 council decided to set up this program. They largely did it because of the pressure of the various church groups when they National Agriculture Advisory Committee composed and Senator Layman and Frank

Gray Norman Thomas and a number of other people, but, you know, were cynically referred to as the do gooders. And uh they conducted a, a meeting in Washington in January of that year, you would say brought in a lot of witnesses from all over the country.

And uh then Ruther and Randolph and Jack Knight, several of the other people of the federation put quite a lot of heat on to get him to try to start this campaign. So they allocated $200,000 to be used in a pilot or an experimental program. And

they estimated that it would be two years before we would make any impact, probably two years before we got any results on. And uh around the first of April and here they called me and asked me if I wanted to come in and help them. I've

seen some little, no, I've been in touch with to lay the old as actively participating in a chart ever since before I went to when I did go into the service. Last for, of course, Livingston, the organization director and I come from the same local, I

don't said egotistically and they were kind but I, if it hadn't been for me or somebody else like me, he would have never been in the label. We had an abortive strike in 1934 and we all took a licking and he got the worst one of

any of us. It was a period for about 18 months or two years. And I used to go to his house two or three times a month and I stay there at two o'clock in the morning until his wife had run me off trying to get

him to come back into the act of leadership. He has a tremendous lot of ability. He used to tell me, well, I'll always pay my dues and be a good union member, but I'll be damned if I'll be in a position of leadership. And we had

no business of having this strike on 34. But like all young inpatient groups, we struck right on the eve of a big layoff in the, in the automobile industry and we had no business of having the strike. And we had pulled out of the federation and

created an independent union was one of these ultra, ultra democratic affairs in which none of the local officers could be international officers. And we had attempted to create an international. So we took most of our officers and elevated them to the, to the international position and

left the vacancies for some of the other people that came in and that we hoped would come in with us. And shortly after we did this, about 100 and 28 people left and they kept clamoring to, to do something about it. They wanted action. By the

time we got down to finally striking, we only had 56 people left the plant, but we struck right on the eve of a big layoff. And ST Louis was right in the center of triangle. Here's ST Louis and here's Kansas City, Norwood, Ohio and Janesville, Wisconsin.

And this was the biggest assembly plant in the automobile industry at that time. And we had about 5000 people there. So they said, well, they can't get along without this plan. And I was one of the few fellows that was opposed to it because I told

them we've never double shift to these plans and they will double shift all these others and leave us out in the cold. So instead of striking, we'd better take a group of organizers out of this group that's out, assess ourselves a quarter a week and get

them to at least organize these three plants. We did send people to Kansas City and of course, there had been some organization in Janesville and Norwood before that same as it had been in all the other parts. But uh we went ahead and had the strike

and Jack would made me president just about three or four days before the strike and he really took the brunt of it. And that was the reason, largely the reason for asking me to come in. And frankly, I think they looked around and couldn't find anybody

that wanted to head the driver. And if I had known they were going to name me the director, I sh too because I thought I was coming in to work under somebody. And quite frankly, I can play a secondary role, a good deal better than I

can to be the top man. But the whole situation is so complicated and it goes back over such a long time and there are so many hatreds have been developed in us that I lived in a cold sweat from the very time that I came in.

The first question I asked him when I came in was they're going to get into a factional fight with the teamsters and that would be a jurisdictional dispute. Now, the packing house workers has a local which packs the mas and they pack a majority of the

packers and the apricots and a good many of the tomatoes. And uh that's an old local that has a long record and originally started out as a federal labor union. Way back in the late twenties, it was originally known as the Rat Packers Union and then

it's been in and out of and had various names and various connections. That essentially remained the same group of people and it's rather a closed corporation. It's a group of Anglos and they passed this wrapping ability along from in their families. Unless you were a member

of the family, you just didn't get any place in it. Now, in the Mellons in the Mellons, they make six and $800 a week during the Mellon season. Probably one of the highest paid groups. There is anywhere in the country. They make good money in the

pears and good money in the apricots. As long as they wrapped pack the tomatoes, they made the Packers themselves made pretty good money in there, but they were never interested in any of the other people. People worked on the floor for a long time. They didn't

want to take in the voters and it, that local has been a, it's been the real bone of contention between all the jurisdictional fights that's gone on in the past. And when the teamsters took over the c why they weren't able to take over that group.

But they, they did get a good many of the places. And then when the vacuum cooling units and the lettuce came along well, they divided those units between the United packing house workers, the team. So they just about 5050 and the teamsters for a long time

in the lettuce, they've had the drivers. Now in the lettuce harvest, they have a wide gauge trunk of straddles two rolls and they use this truck, both for distributing the cartons and for picking up the lettuce. And of course, they use them on the highway. They

use them on the highway going from the, from the fields to these vacuum cooling plants. And, uh, for a long time, they've had the driver and the Stitcher stitches of the box, they had them. There's normally about 70 people working in a lettuce harvesting crew. So

I, I have always suspected that there was a tact understanding with the growers that for letting them organize the drivers and the Stitcher that they left the rest of them alone. I'm almost sure that there was an understanding between the local officials and the teams. Now,

the Yan packing house workers had uh when they packed in the sheds and used ice. Nearly all of these people belong to this local 78. Uh Nobody, nobody else had any of them. And they were the, they were the real key to the whole lettuce harvest

those they can have control of. And they had the women trimmers and the packers and uh in, in that particular field, they took in pretty well, everybody in the, in the plan. But when they went to the field and start packing in the field and then

picking the stuff up and taking them to the vacuum, why they pretty well wrecked that. So when this program was set up, there was an understanding that all the people that were working in the field were to go into the National Agricultural Workers Union. And uh

those that worked in the packing shed or in the job that had formerly been done in the packing shed and had been transferred to the field where it went into a cradle designed for the wholesale and the retail trade was to go into the United Packing

House workers. And I hadn't been in here very long until I saw that, that jurisdiction was so fine that you just couldn't operate because the minute you did anything in the field, you affected the other fellow. And then in a good many instances, like when you

got into the salary, he would go in the field and cut in the morning and then they go in the packing sheds in the afternoon and pack. So I advised him to try to get a merger. And uh, so we did, we did have some meetings

in Washington and it was agreed that they would have a merger. And uh Mitchell who has had the charter in the United in the National Agriculture Workers Union for about 25 years, he always acted to me like he was afraid of the thieves and he just

didn't get out where the people were in contact, but he had a field of men that said the laws are being alas before that the old Becker. And then before that Hank Hazard War, and they'd had a number of other people had been out working in

the field and got close to it. But of course, they never had money enough to anything like doing a job. But because I rather insisted on, on an amalgamation or some kind of a understanding of putting these two units together where Mitchell got pretty much teed

off at. And after he agreed that he would merge with the United Packing House work, why, Then he told me he'd have to have his executive board come in when the executive board came in while they turned the situation down. And he then turned to Mr

Garman and they amalgamated and, and merged the National Agricultural Workers Union with the amount of magnet. And uh of course, I didn't have anything to do with the dealings in Washington at the Washington level except they called me in there and asked me my opinion of

it and Mr Mead, he never did have any use or any confidence from Mitchell and he, he was terribly teed off at all of this finagling that went on. So he finally finally said, well, I'm going to just wipe the whole thing up there is no

use fooling around with it if we can't get together and have an understanding, but he was just on the verge of it. So then he said to me, what will happen if we wash this up at this time? And I said, well, in my opinion, we

will never arouse the interest of agricultural workers again within our lifetime. He said, well, you go on back to California and carry on just like you've been and we'll work out some kind of. So a few weeks after that, this was around wilder months, it was

around January when I was in there and talked to him. And in June, I issued a special charter to the agricultural workers organizing committee with the understanding that when we did have a sufficient number, we let people choose who they wanted to go with. And apparently

there was a feeling on the part of the people in Washington that this would have bridge the, this understanding that this was to be a joint campaign and the packing house workers was as if they were to be more or less out of it. And uh

I came back and we did pretty well in the cherries and the apricots and in the peaches. And then when we got into the pears in Lake County, the resistance of the farmers had began to be a little bit more pronounced and we made some mistakes

there. And one big mistake was a meeting that I called the Pickers in the Lake County area that's around Lakeport in Lake County, which is the biggest power center in the state. They had one drunk man in the audience. Well, he, I was pretty well able

to beat his ears down all the halloos that he carried on there had a, it had a sort of a psychological effect on my, on my group and a setting definite rate which couldn't be deviated from rather than getting a committee which would deal with the

people in New York. And, uh, they, they were able to scatter most of the orchards and get away with it. We didn't get any recognition at all. Then when we went into the olives around Lindsay, which is the biggest olive area. Why largely the same thing

happened there. People in Washington, we were very much determined about having to pay pickets, but a seal is a little bit different than the factory you pick at a field or the crops are done. Well, there's nothing left there and there's no chance for those people

to make money. So you have to furnish them some way to make a living. That's the only way that they can live is to pick. So I did have some unusual heavy expenses in this, in this picketing. So by the end of the, by the end

of the year of 1960 I had spent some over the $200,000 in 1959. I only spent $52,000. But when we came to the convention, I heard it was no time to ask for an expansion. And uh because the steel strike was on copper strike, there was

a threatened railroad strike. The Glen Canyon Dam was on strike. And it looked like the whole labor movement was being challenged. So I didn't make any plea for any expansion there. But after the steel strike was over, I told him we were sitting in too big

a poker game with too few chips. And by the end of 60 I had spent about $280,000 and they had expended all the money that had been allocated to us. So, on the fall of 60 my, they get the idea two pack there that once the

summer season is over, that you get snow about 4 ft deep and there's nothing doing here. But actually there's a harvest going on in the state all the year round. And uh so they did allocate me some extra monies and then, and uh just about the

time they gave me that money when I went into the Imperial Valley because that's a sort of a paralysis hits a everybody that works in the fruit industry thinks that the Imperial Valley as a sort of a sample. Because for years, all of these people that

have worked in the fruit at all, they'd go there and make it a sort of a winter resort. They could always find enough to do there to keep alive. So, between Arizona and the Imperial and the Coachella Valley is why that would furnish them someplace to

stay in the winter. But for the last 10 years, they brought these bases in and run everybody out of there. And for 10 years, their rate had been 70 cents an hour there. And so as soon as I came in, they, local people in the Imperial

Valley had got together what they called the coordinating committee and they were working with the teamsters on it and they were trying to devise some way and to find some violation of this public law 78 until they could wreck the bum program. So as soon as

I came in, when they started to clamor for me to come in and work with them, and I went down there to the meeting and that was the first indication that I found that there might be some conflict between us and the teamsters because the teamsters

were there and they were participating in this coordinating committee and they have what they call a produce council and they wrecked the truck drivers union in the Imperial Valley with us, with this produce council. They had a dandy union there and one of the finest fellas

that I've ever seen a fellow named Gibbons is uh they call him Gabby. He talks an awful lot, but he really is on the and really understands what he's doing. But when they set up this produce council, they took all of these people that worked in

the produce and all the people who drove these wide gauge trucks, they took them out of the and they left him only the general haulers and the, and the material people that's just barely enough to keep him alive. In fact, it isn't hardly enough. He has

been more or less dying ever since. And then, uh, the long line truck companies, some of them have transferred their headquarters out or sold out to other people so that he's been losing some jurisdiction there at this meeting in El Centro that I attended there, win

champs and Tiny Shaw, more or less challenged me. And I told him that any truck that went on the highway, I would consider that that belonged to the teamsters. But that all the work which worked on the farm that I felt that they ought to all

belong to the agricultural workers union. Because the permanent truck driver during the harvest time, a permanent truck driver that works just on the land and drives a farm truck around there. He usually becomes a foreman or a supervisor during the harvest period. And the same thing

is true of the permanent tractor drivers and people of that kind, they distribute the boxes in the field and things of that kind. They become a super value. So from that time on the Produce Council began to more or less tee off on us. I met

with Bud Kenyon down in Salinas and he was the secretary of the produce of this local, which had jurisdiction of the Produce Council. They had another local in San Diego, but Kenyon was the big fellow, you know. So he asked me if I worked for the

National Agricultural Workers Union. And I told him no, I worked for the National Organization. I worked directly out of Mr Meany's office. So he said, well, it's very plain what you come here for. Then you came here to wreck the teamsters. And uh so I tried

to shy away from him and I never, never tried to get into any fight with them, but the people in the Imperial Valley kept clamoring that we come in there and try to do something for them. And so in this last spring, we decided to go

in there. A good man. The packing house workers have maintained these locals in there all these years and they've always had contact and the field workers are always coming in and crying to them. So Knowles told me, he said, I think if we can go in

on a joint campaign with it, he said, I'm going to try to go in alone and I'm sure that if we'd have let them alone and haven't tried to do anything with them, that they would have had some kind of an action on their own part

because they were completely fed up with it. And particularly the Mexican American that had lived in the Imperial Valley and a lot of them that had grown up there. And I think if we hadn't have gone in to have helped them, that all of the Mexican

Americans so called green cards that we have as they come north, would have been impossible to have done anything with them. And if I had let the packing house workers go in there alone and do that as these people came north and they said, well, when

we were in a real fight in the Imperial Valley, you didn't come in and help us as a reasoning on why I went in there. And of course, we, we really stuck our nose into a hornet's nest. We ended up with about 800 between 800,000 and

a million dollars worth of bonds there. And the 43 people that were arrested and our legal fees are around around $25,000. And of course, all of the charges which were raised, there were phonies. We are now rid of the one case and one fellow was fine

and no, and we had one man who was given a suspended hairs and the kidnapping cases of charges were raised in the Corona case. The Supreme Court ordered the superior court to dismiss them, but they still hold the assault cases against us. And we still have

these fellows under this high bond. And of course, a good many of these fellows are irresponsible people that just got caught in a net that morning were on the strike there. I don't know, a lot of them have criminal records and a lot of them spend

most of their time in jail, several of them are in jail. Now, vacancy for being drunk, being caught around, pray to your heart so that they are, are rather than the irresponsible group. But in my opinion, we couldn't, we couldn't let them down. Certainly we couldn't

let them down with the kind of charges it was hanging over them because this word would walk all over the whole country. And one of the things that has made the biggest impression on the migrant worker or the fruit tramp or the fellow that comes out

of the skid section was when I got a lawyer and went into court to defend some vets higher in the asparagus year in the spring. They always do everything that they can to discourage the domestic Southern migrants from working in it. They get the Bracero and

bring them in and they just sit there like a bunch of blackbirds waiting for this asparagus to come through the ground. And if you can get a, if you can get a crew of locals that will go out and work in it, or a crew of

migrants is made up and go out to work in them, why they'll fool around till 10 o'clock in the morning before they'll give them knives or they'll bring him into town one night and then the next morning they send a different bus in or they will

tell them to meet them on one corner and then they never show up, but they will bring a bus in and go around somewhere else sometime, any kind of an excuse that they can get to get the Bracero to cut the asparagus. And we even tried

to get him to set up a class in school in the public school and in Stockton to teach something about the economics of the crop and to impress on fellows that asparagus is something that had to be harvested every day and they had to be there

and something about the value of the crop and, and even get some motion pictures showing them the proper method of cutting it. But the school officials there at that time, the president of the school board was John Zuckerman, one of the biggest asparagus growers. School officials

with one or two exceptions were very cold to the idea and we never were able to get anything done on that. But in this hassle over the asparagus, there was four young fellows, all real clean cut fellas, two of them from Birmingham and uh the other

two I think were out of Texas somewhere and they were more or less bodies. And we had a crew in Asparagus that had been recruited by one of the drivers or one of the local contractors in three days time, he built up a crew of 28

people and uh those 28 people, 27 of them had perfect attendance and uh one had to have a tooth pull. So we lost one day. But he went out to work one morning. And so they had a great group of the shes there. I told him

tomorrow, you only bring, you only bring 20 people. He had 28. So you just bring in 20 tomorrow. So the next morning when he went in, why they asked him and said, how many did you bring? And he said, well, I brought 20. That's what she

told me to bring. It was on Sunday. I said, well, I wish you hadn't have brought me 15 because we haven't got, but 15 knives. And he said, well, the bros over there got plenty of knives. They had got a crew of bros and they all

had new knives. They were standing wetting them. So he said, you can take five away from those fellas because the domestics are supposed to work before they do. They got him the five knives. And then on the way to the field, they feel foreman said to

him, did anybody tell you to knock off at noon? And he said, hell, no, my men are going to work all day. I'm not going to bring a crew out here for a half a day. They knocked him off at noon anyway. And that night they

come to him and told him not to come back anymore. On Monday morning, I had been hauling to the employment service and I had Mr t who headed up the farm placement service there. And I was able to get this for him to show him the

time books and everything. So it took him from Monday till Thursday to make a ruling and then they ruled that this company would have to take that crew back. But by that time, the crew had more or less evaporated because they thought they got another rook.

And so they all moved out to go somewhere else, only got six of them. And so they hired a contractor to transport them back out to the ranch and they were going to put him in a camp, not the one that had been hauling him up,

but another contractor, the association got him to. So he got up there and he got to talking to these six fellow and he got one of them to get so disgusted that he went away. So now they're going to change from it. They hourly rate to

a piece work rate, you better find out what they're gonna do. And so he was just going on with a perfect tirade to these fellows. And finally I said, look, you were only hired to all these fellows out there. You don't have anything to do with

working in a job. Now, will you shut up? And before you discourage these fellows, so they won't go. So he and I got into an argument and he ended up by calling me a son. Of a bitch and I took him by the front of the

shirt and almost shook his teeth out. Then I ask him if he's ready to apologize. So he said he'd call me anything. He liked it anytime he got ready when he did, I turned in motion and slapped him. So he started running home to the police

and said, you saw him, you saw him hit me and he ran inside and pretended to call the police. I don't know whether he did or not. Then he came back out and started screaming at me again. So a young fellow stepped out of the crowd,

one of these four boys and they'd been cutting spars. So he said, let me have him perry, took off his coat and threw it down the street and said, I'll take one of you, both of you. All of you. Well, there were about 1000 tramps around

on the street there and he, and this young fellow had quite a little on the young fellow.