The Washington times., 1905-06-05

To the Editor of The Washington Times:
Some time ago / noticed in the teie-
graphic columns of The Times dis
patch purporting to come from Kansas
making e call for college men to work
IN the harvest fields and quoting d Kan
sas paper as saying that these Eastern
college athletes made the best help in
the harvest
Knowing the true situation the dis
patch at first appealed to my sense Of
huTnor alcne- But when l saw an edi-
| torial IN the paper commenting on the
matter IN a serious vein it seemed to
me that those OF the Eastern men
who have not learned the real facts
from other sources are taking the story
literally.
L am Kansas man. For five seasons,
up 10 two years ago, when I came to
Washington to attend college, / worked
in different places up and down the
wheat belt of my native State and know
whereof I speak in dwelling on the
chances of the college man in the wheat
fields have seen him IN the wheat
fields and have met him on his grid
iron and track here IN the East. 1t is
the due of that class Of students who
are dependent on their own efforts for
their maintenance to be told the truth
which VIII save those of them who con-
template trying the wheat fields great
ha hardships and humiliation and perhaps
the loss OF d year or two in college, To
enlighten them IS my chief motive in
writing,
Would Like to See Il.
For that class of students who ''hang
about the watering places all day, snok-
ing and flirting away the better part of
night, and who are dependent on the
governor" for all their funds I have
no concern. Nothing would please me
more than to see some of those ath-
letes from homes of luxury enduring the
agony of the heat and exertion of the
harvest for a few hours [ would say
for weeks, but this class Of men would
Tot stand It for more than a day or
two. even if they could.
In the first place the wages paid in
the Kansas wheat fields are greatly ex-
aggerated even in the eastern Kansas
papers. MY home is In eastern Kansas
but / never learned the true conditions
in the wheat belt until I went there
The reports generally place a days
wages at between $3.50 and 81 In all my
nye years experience between 1888 and
l9V2. which included the record d-breaking
year Tor the Kansas wheat field, 1 never
met q man who claimed TO have received
more than s2 day for a job that
lasted more than one week, with the
exception of experienced stackers, who
had won POPULATIONS for reliable stack
Ing en- which the farmers fortune large
~ depends And no man can hope to
become a stacker unless he settles down
on the farm for good.
AS an instance Of the exaggera ton
or Eastern papers in matters pertain
ing to conditions in the Kansas wheat
neIds: f.s let me mention a dispatch from
Burlingame, Kan, printed IN a Chicago
paper, to the effect that farmers had
held up train near Burlingame and
compelled all the able bodied passen-
gers to climb out and help them with
their harvest at the points of shotguns |
and revolvers, paving their victims fab |
uIGuS wages It was printed broadca st |
in the East, furnishing a choice morsel |
alike for the space writer. the artist |
and the cartoonist, who embellished and
exaggerated 1t to the limit. If any one
of them failed to take the affair seri-
ously, it was the exception. Among
the many clippings I saw there was no
such exception
A "YelIow" Dispatch.
Now, this dispatch was sent in by
my brother. He was the Chicago
papers regular correspondent and had
sent in lot Of straight stuff, but 1t
was nearly all turned down. He was
ready to give up, but he needed the
CaSn Dddly. NOtlc1ng the wonderful
credence given to every exaggeration
pertaining to the demand for harvest
hands in Kansas, he brought his i'm
aginatfon into play and sent in his
first yellow stuff. It brought him
his first check
One can appreciate the amusement
afforded kansans by this ado in the
East when he learns that there is not
an acre of wheat grown in the county
where the strange hold-up was reported
to have taken place. There is no de-
mand for outside help east of Abilene
which Is 175 miles west of BuTlingame.
There is really a great demand for
honest hands in Kansas, but they do
not want college boys; the average
mum length of the duration of harvest
is three weeks The college man will
find more profit in going into the coun-
try in the East, and do work that he
can stand.
For even if the college boys care to
only one out of ten can stand t he !
strain. These will be either boys who !
have been brought up on the farm and |
know the tricks of the business or men /
of phenomenal stamina and iron de- |!
termination, and very few of these Will |
city or secure a comparatively easy job |
at general farm work They can get |
the latter as easily in the East at the |
same wages, as I have learned by eXpe- |
rience-
The last summer / was in Kansas the /
papers were telling of college boys and |
city laborers from the East who had |
sickened from the heat and long hours |