The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1881-11-04
Farmers Hired Helm,


While the farmer has as yet had but
little trouble from strikes and con-
flicts in general with bird labor, it
would seem with the annual increasing
scarcity of obtaining good help that
something might be devised in the man
ner of hiring help that would increase
and promote the relations between en-
ployer and employee, and tend to check
the emigration of our farm hands both
to the West and cityward. 1t is only
now and then that man can be found
who has worked several years for one
farmer. and the rule is for hired men to
be constantly changing location. Large
numbers of the farmers hire men con-
tinuously, and no farmer is SO utterly
mean but that he can obtain hired
man, fact that indicates that there
might be far less changing if a little
different system was introduced regu-
lating labor itself.
Usually the farm help is hired for a
year, or SO much per month, and be-
tween milking. chores and the like, a
days work is commenced at daylight
and the end is found with lantern;
contrasting this with the city laborer's
or shopman's work of ten hours, the
farm hand, who works by the month
for sixty cents per day is straightway
convinced that he has been, or is being,
imposed upon, gives notice sooner or
later, and is next heard from in the city
or following reaper in Dakota at three
dollars per day.
As rule, hiring men by the year with
binding bargain is contrary to the
best interest of both parties: and that if
q standard could be fixed for the length
of days work, much of the complaint
against farm labor would be avoided,
and as result, it is possible that more
work would be done in q day of ten
hours than is now secured by day of
unknown time. In haying and harvest
it would be, of course, necessary to
have long day. but give the year
or months hands an extra compensa-
ton and my experience is, that
months hand, if he earns his wages at
all, earns them at any season. and to
put him in haying beside fresh two
dollar and fifty cent hand, is to invite
q spirit of discomfort.
Contracts for labor should never be
binding for any length of time. Each
party should be free to discharge or
withdraw at pleasure, and to guard
against any disrupture. the plan of e
premium, say of ten cents day, if the
agreement for certain length of time
was fulfilled, should be added to the
wages, but forfeited if the stipulated
time was not worked out, would have
stimulating effect, and would tend to
promote an interest in the work, aside
from the mere matter of earning so
many dollars.
Among many farmers the system of
docking for lost time is carried to an
extreme point. and they fairly earn the
title of .'old skin fiints." Cases may
arise where man stakes day" which
he should justly lose, but upon the other
hand, the promise of ''day off," if
certain job of work is finished by
definite time. would promote exertions
that would result in no loss to the
farmer. and in return he might receive
q few hours extra work at some unex-
pected demand; that the hired man
upon the plan Of zone good thing de-
serves another" would disdain to take
more than thanks
Farm hands, like city operatives,
should be paid at regular intervals, and
promptly. A farmer who pays his help
now and then in ''driblets," and then
only by persistent urging, can never
have the financial confidence of his
help. and when the chance offers, they
work for the man ''who will pay them"
The question of hired help is COM
pick problem. but the tendency of the
times is toward definite system, exact
time, prompt payment, and spirit of
right that recognizes the imam"
whether in wool cloth or overalls and
blouse.-CeUeldnd Herald.