The record-union., 1899-09-25

of any kind. Hundreds of residents
came to these dances whose worldly
possessions did not compel them to pick
hops for their health The dances
were an innovation in this State and
have for their object the popularizatiSn
of hop picking similar to the customs
in the hop fields in Kent, England, and
along the banks of the Hudson, as we'll
as in the New England and Middle
States
| was informed that Horst Bros. de-
sired to dispense with the services of
the Japs and Chinese, and hence aim
ed to make hop picking popular among
the whites. particularly SO with fami-
lies, and that was advanced as q rea-
son for tightening the burden of labor
by interspersing it with pleasure Here
tofore 1.-The little brown man" has been
dictator of the situation It was to
him the hopman had to "doff his hat"
and not infrequently defend himself
from physical assault by a howling
mob of Japs or Chinese
| asked one of the field bosses to
give me an unbiased opinion as to
which was the best and most reliable
help in the yard. He unheSitatingly
replied, white family labor There
are lots of faithful single white men,
but there are some, as you know, that
/! cannot be relied on at a time when
most needed. The Japs are thoroughly
unreliable and will quibble and bull
doze at the slightest opportunity. The
Chinese are not so bad. They are very
exacting as to the amount of and pay
ment of wages, even more so than our
own people. But they will shirk work
when they can, and turn in foul hops.
We hope to employ all white help next
year, mainly families and good single
male pickers, whom we know"
In closing, and by the way of criti-
cism, 1 may add there was but one
serious blunder made, and blunder it
was. Several scarlet women, open and
notoriously so, were permitted to work
CD at picking 1t was sham, of
| course. Another class of disreputables
which go from place to place were also
engaged to the exclusion of respectable
people. If families are to be encour-
aged in an honest desire to work gath
ering hops and grapes, dissolute fe-
males must be kept out. Fathers and
mothers place the morals of their chill
dICil, SSlISId ally SpSdhlIlSt dDON6 pSCQI-
iary demands, and would rather see
them idle than compelled to associate
with women of the half world.
There are others and quite as extern
sive yards on the banks of the Ameri-
can River as that of which I write, but
| it is impossible to refer to them all. 1
have selected Horst Bros place as an
| object lesson to show that when TIE
proper effort is made to employ the
! family class of white labor in the or
chard, vineyard, berry farm and hop
! field, the occupation of the little brown
man will be gone. San Francisco and
other cities of the State were repre-
! sented by families this year, and I was
told by a very intelligent member of
a San Francisco labor union, whose
| family worked with him in the field,
| that San Francisco alone could fur
nish 1000 families.
| l cannot refrain from saying that
| superintendent Rooney and Field
! Bosses John McDermott, Frank War
rem and ]. c. Allen did everything in
their power to make the experiment a
success, as well as profitable to the firm
which employed them. PONCE.