The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-07-25
sable Writers Still Working
Harvest Hand Theme.
Continue Unjust Criticisms of
Kansas Wheat Harvest.
EASTERNERS TOO PUNY
Can Not Stand Heat and Work
of Harvest.
Therefore They Heap Abuse
Upon Employment Agent.

Pm tired of answering these fakes
said T. B. Gerow. agent of the state free
employment bureau. when a clipping
from Brooklyn paper was shown him
this morning. The paper was the Brook
lyn Eagle, and it contained what pur-
ports to be a dispatch from Ness City.
1t seems to have been written by one of
the New York tenderfeet who came out
here to save the wheat crop"
I don't believe it is necessary for me
TO deny anything which the New York
papers print about this business" said
Mr.. Gerow. 1--WE told these young men
Sxactly what they were going up
against. Some of the smallest and
puniest of them 1 distinctly told were
too weak to tackle the harvest PROPOSE
ton, and they either got mad or gave
me sort of skeptical laugh. They
thought that because they had played a
little football they could stand any sort
of hardship.
Harvest work requires not only great
physical strength and endurance, but II
requires training. A young man just
out OF a dry goods store or fresh from
school teaching, who has never done any
harvest work in his life. is not a desir-
able man for farmer and farmers are
not inclined to pay any more for worth
less men than they can help"
Inc IOllOWlnE Ness lily QlSDdlEu lIOll
the Brooklyn Eagle shows on its face
that it is inaccurate, by stating that the
nearest railroad to Ness City is AZ miles,
at West Keenc. There is no such town
in Kansas as West Keene. Ness City is
on the Santa Fe. The Union Pacific
main line also passes through the cOun-
ty. There is no point in Ness county
more than 10 miles from railroad. The
following is the Ness City dispatch:
Mess City. Kas.-Thirty-two men
1.l~1x
tically stranded here. They sought
work in the wheat fields and paid their
own fares from New York. When they
reached Topeka, Mr.. Gerow OF the
told them that Ness City stood in need
of $50 hands to work 100 days at $3.50
a day. with board and lodging.
ITO this pleasing invitation the young
men succumbed. Although their wal
lets had been depleted the thirty-twO
from Brooklyn and New York went
down into their clothes and fished uP
$3.50 each to be transported stil farther
into the trackless wilds of the Kansas
wheat fields. Half OF them have not
done any work since their arrival in
Ness City, and the other half are dis
vusted at the wages, the hours and
Neir treatment generally.
! THE countr-' around here has been
but recently reclaimed from a natural
condition. The surface of the land is
undulating, and forests are scarce. 1t
Is naturally n productive country, out
its railroad facilities are poor, the near
est station, West Keene, being forty
two miles away. The population of the
town Is about 1900.
Under such conditions the men are
practically marooned. Those who have
not got work are almost destitute
while those who have are poorly FED
and housed and are worked almost to
death. Many Of them are so poor that
they cannot raise the funds with which
to telegraph their friends for railroad
transportation home. Those who got
employment work from sunrise to sun
set, and many have had to quit because
of the lack OF drinking water in the big
wheat fields, and for other reasons.
The stranded men are wandering
around, picking up an odd job now and
then, working for their meals ano
sleeping in hay stacks. They are won>
dering If they will ever see their homes
again.
THE people Of the town, however, ap-
preciated the situation and are doing
what they can to help the visitors. Nat
urally enough the eastern men here do
not take kindly to the notion of living
on charity. They came here to work
and all are in condition to labor if work
could be procured. Dispatches have
been sent from here to Mr.. Gerow. adj
vising him to turn back the onset of
college men from the east that the pa
pers here report on the way. In this
appeal the people of the town Joined.
IAN answer has been received from
Gerow, which shows that he is angry
at the outcome of the Kansas invasion.
He does not know whom to blame for
the conditions as they exist, but it is u
safe proposition that no more men from
the east viii be sent on to Ness City.
Forty experienced farm hands who
came on here from Kansas City are in
much the same condition as the unlucky
contingent from Brooklyn and New
4 York. The Kansas men. however. are