The Colorado statesman., 1912-08-03
The AGRICULTURAL LABORER
IN ITALY AND HUNGARY
EXTRACTS FROM DR.. BOOKER T.
WASHlNGTON'S BOOK, 1.-THE
MAN FARTHEST DOWN."

aborer in Italy and Hungary.
While the situation of the farm
hands In Hungary differs from that of
the farm hands in Italy in many ways,
there are two important respects in
which the situation of each is the
same. First large part of the land
of both countries is held in large es-
tates; second, farm laborers, as a
rule, particularly in Hungary, do not
live. as is the case in America. on
the land. On the contrary, they dwell
apart In villages, so that they are
hardly any more attached to the soil
they cultivate than the factory hand
Is attached to the factory in which he
Is employed. In Hungary, for exam
pie, 1t is the custom for a group of
laborers to enter into a contract with
the land owner during the summer to
harvest his crop in the fall. A con-
tractor. who either represents or en-
ploys farm hand, will look over the
field and bargain with the owner to
do the harvest work for certain per
cent. of the crop. At the harvest
time, the contractor arrives with his
laborers, just as he would come with
gang of men to build house or dig
ditch. While the work is going on,
the laborers, men and women togeth-
er, practically camp in the fields,
sleeping sometimes in the open fields,
or in such scant shelter as they are
able to find.
1t happened that I was in Hungary
at the harvest time and, in the course
of my journey through the country,
had several times seen these gangs of
men and women going to their work
at daybreak. In this part of the coun-
try, the strangest costumes are worn
by these peasant people, and the wom-
en-, especially. with their bright ker-
chiefs over their heads. their short
skirts and high boots. when they are
not barefooted. were quite as pictur-
esque as anything I had read had led
be to expect The field hands 60 to
work at early dawn during the har-
vest season. They work sometimes
as much as 16 to IS hours day,
have been told, and then throw them
selves down to rest for the night on
truss of straw or under a single
blanket After the harvest is over
they return again to their villages.
Working in this way, in troops of
wandering laborers, there was no
room for any permanent relationships
| between themselves and their en-
ployers; such relationships, for ex-
ample. as exist in spite of the differ
ence of race and color, between every
white planter in the south and his
negro tenants. On the other hand,
the hand, the laborers, working and
living together in the way | have de-
scribed, come to have a strong sense
of their common interest, all the
more, perhaps, because they are look
ed down upon by the rest of the pop
ulation, and particularly by the small
land owners, with whom they had
been associated up to the time of
their emancipation in 1S4S.
About 1890, a series of bad harvests,
coming on the heels of other changes
which, for a number of years, had
made their lives steadily harder hep
ed to increase the discomfort of the
agricultural laborers. Thus 1t was
that when, about this time, the So
cialists turned their attention to the
agricultural population of Hungary
they found the people prepared to lis
ten to their doctrine.
What made socialism the more
popular among the lowest farming
classes was the fact that 1t not only
promised to teach the farm laborers
how they might increase their wages,
but declared that the state was going
to take up the land out of the hands
of the large land owners and divide
1t among the people who cultivated it.
What made the situation the more
difficult was the fact that, as soon as
they were thoroughly organized, the
agricultural laborers had the land
owners. during the harvest time, at
peculiar disadvantage because when
work in the fields stopped. the stand
ing grain ripened and spoiled and the
landowner was ruined.
In the emergency created by these
strikes, the government came to the
rescue of the landowner by establish
ing recruiting stations for farm la
borers in different parts of the coun-
try Collecting laborers In those parts
of the country where labor was abun-
dant, they shipped them to other
parts of the country where, because of
the strikes. laborers were scarce and
crops were In danger. Thus the gov
ernment had at one time a reserve
force of not less than 10000 strike
breakers with which it was at any mo-
ment able to come to the rescue of
landowner who was threatened
One effect of these disturbances was
to greatly increase the amount of en-
igration to America. In 1904 when
the struggle was at it's height. no less
than 100000 persons, mostly from the
country districts, emigrated from Hun
gary. Thousands of others left the
country and moved into the cities.