The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1900-06-23
CALLED HIM A LIAR
Red-Hot Dispute About Wages
of HarveSters.
REAL FACTS ARE GIVEN
By a Man Who Knows All
About the Subject.

Had 1t not been for the timely inter
ference OF friends yesterday, Lee Ross. q
farmer. and James X Smith, drayman.
would have caused rough house on East
Douglas avenue and. perhaps. found
themselves in the police court. The per
diem of harvest hands seemed to have
caused the trouble. Smith insisted that
the farmers had bodied the newspapers
TO ''holler'' for harvest hands so that they
would flood the state and enable the
farmers to hire them for their board
Mr.. Ross denied this vigorously and
plainly told Mr. Smith that he could
whip any man that would inpue such dis
honesty to the farmers of Kansas. Sew
eral members of the Hot-Air club Joined
in, taking both sides of the controversy
and made things lively.
There seems to be as much mystery
about the per diem of harvest hands as
there was about the amount of money
William ]. Bryan received from the Fair
association when he spoke here in 1897
Some allege that harvest hands are get
ting as high as 50, while others insist
IS cents a day and their board. In some
instances the question assumed a political
nature and Mark Hanna was drawn into
it
To ascertain as nearly as possible the
facts a reporter for the Eagle started out
yesterday to run down and interview
real harvest hand If possible Monroe
Johnson, bright and respectable looking
young fellow was found He said:
MY home is in Plat county, Missouri.
Three weeks ago I read IN the Kansas
City papers that harvest hands could get
from So to $3.50 per day in Kansas l
came here to Wichita two weeks ago last
Wednesday and from here I went down
to Anthony and from there to Bluff City.
1 started to work at once at $50 per day
and my board and lodging. 1 worked
every day, moving from the state line up
to Conway Springs with the harvest
never got more than $50, and 1 know of
no other man that did. You can hear
when you are at one place working for
$50 that hands at another place are get
ting $3.50 and 50, but you can put it down
that it isn't so. Men came down from
Norwich TO Conway Springs. hearing that
we were getting So and men went from
Conway Springs to Norwich under ike
I have learned from
these men that the wages are pretty gen
orally $50 per day and board in the har-
vest fields Of Kansas. and that isn't bad |
everything considered. One dollar and a
half day and your board in the country |
is as good as $3.50 in town. I worked !
exactly twelve days and received SIS My |
expenses didn't amount to so cents during |
the twelve days. I am going to follow I
the harvest as far north as Dakota if /
can keep up with it, and by the time it is |
finished 1 will have a good round sum. A /
great many of the boys are turning back /
down towards the line to catch threshing |
work. They say that threshers will get |
from 81 to $3.50 per day and their board, |
but doubt it. Threshing isn't like har- |
vesting. The farmers must cut the wheat /
when 1t IS ripe. and they can thresh it at !
their convenience Don't believe for u |
moment that they need money bad enough |
to so rush threshing that they viii be |,
to pay men double the amount |
Of common sense wages