The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-09-05
STARVING CAMP
OF men, WOMEN
FOLLOW HARVEST
Brutal Capitalism of
West Crushes Them
lBn a Worker Correspondentl

SAN JOSE, Calf. (By MaiD.-
Californians Inc. has raised mil
lion dollars to advertise the state
of California. This organization is
composed of real estate sharks,
bankers and big corporations who
want the state flooded with a sur
plus of labor so that the industries
can be run more cheaply.
A true picture of the exploited
fruit slaves of the Santa Clara Val
ley in which the city of San Jose
is located, is furnished by this ac-
count 1 am sending you. This and
similar incidents happen all during
the fruit season.
In the canneries this year there
is less work. Workers are speeded
up as never before and compensa-
ton less also for the slave mart is
glutted, thanks to Californians Inc.
The warehouses are full Of unsold
fruit yet workers who produced that
fruit cannot afford to purchase it
for the price is prohibitive. The
canneries charge us 80 cents for a
commercial quart of fruit which
costs them exactly 8 cents to pro-
duce. How is that for frenzied fin
ance?
Squatted on her launches, dark
faced woman With a baby in the
crook of one aim, sits stirring
something cooking in battered
iron kettle over an open outdoor
fire. She might be Is and might
be 45-there is no telling from her
unwashed, stolid face, and fat, form
less shape.
Nearby play four children, all I'M
der 10 years old. A man sits smok-
ing on the runner of an old Ford
truck parked nearby. In the bed of
the truck and scattered on the
ground are several bundles of ragged
bedding, wash tub and board, and
denied tin kettles and plates.
Multiply this scene by 20O-and
you have-no, not Mexico-but the
bank of Coyote Greek along Brokaw
Road, near the Oakland Highway,
at $50 o'clock of an evening.
Coyote Camp.
eve come to pick prunes," ex-
plains a friendly man with flashing
teeth and long mustache.
"Our home? Our home is where
we stop. Yes, we have all our be-
lodgings with US. Where do we come
from? Well, from Imperial Valley,
l do. The rest? Oh, Imperial, Pasa-
dena, Mexico, all over South"
The squalor and lack of santa
ton of the camp, and the meager-
ness of the possessions of the people
who have brought their all with
them are unbelievable to one who
has not been out to see this camp
on the bank of the Coyote.
The majority of the people in the
camp are right on the borderline of
starvation. They all live in hope
hope of a job on a prune ranch
tomorrow.
No one knows exactly how many
families there are camped there
300 last week, it was estimated by
the State Free Employment Bureau
perhaps 200 tonight, perhaps
more or less tomorrow night, for
they are coming and going every
day.
The camp is made up of $50 to
' 800 Mexican families who have come
up from Southern California anc
Mexico for the prune picking har-
vest in the Santa Clara Valley.
In Ford trucks, so shaky that il
is a wonder they do not fall tc
pieces, in old Packards and Cadil.
lacks, once bosses of the road, but
years discarded by their origina
owners and now decrepit and wheel.
ing, in cars and trucks of various
makes, alike only in the particular
that they are all old, the Mexicans
+ have been arriving in San Jose fol
the last two weeks.
Some of the men apply at the
State Free Employment Bureau
where many of them have beer
placed during the last two weeks
by Tom Graham of that bureau
Others drive from ranch to ranch
hunting work. If they are success
full, they stay where they are t.
work. If not, they come back to The
camp to spend another night.
Along towards the late Afternoon
the unsuccessful ones begin to strag
gle in for the night. There are few
er at night this week than last be
cause many of the families havt
procured jobs on the prune ranches
But it was estimated last night tina
there were in the reighborhood O
200 families camped along the creek
And family means family
among these Mechanism averag
of about five children to the famil.
besides the parents, and an oc
casional grandmother or grand
father.
Two hundred families--figure on
for yourself the number of indivi
duals camped between the creek an
road without any sort of centra
organization or any sanitary con
veniences.
The harest nacoseitiae IF l;fe