The producers news. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1918-1937, 1934-03-30
BIZ JOHN L. sPIVAK

along without it but you see they
discovered it's awfully hard to
tend the sick baby in the dark
ness. And it's always dark when
the baby seems to crv the most.
And in addition, this little girl is
worried about herself. She is go
ing to have a baby and suppose it
comes at night and there is no
light? She is going to have a baby
in this little clubhouse wher her
mother and father and brothers
live, this little clubhouse with the
sign SCARLET FEVER over it's
door.
What she wanted to ask you is
if you could possibly get in touch
with somebody and have them not
charge them twenty-five cents for
the use of the electric light-es-
pecially when somebody's sick or
expecting a baby. It's not SO bad |
when you're we'll, but it's awfully
hard when you have a little sick
sister tossing and crying and you
yourself are expecting a baby.
explained to this little girl that |
you would understand about her
not being SO moral. She is such
frail little thing working so hard
in the fields all day and you know
after you get through working and
you just don't know what to do
with yourself and your youth just
cries out to forget the days that
have gone and the long years that
stretch ahead of you, well-you
sort of forget that maybe it isn't
just quite moral to have a baby
when you're not quite fifteen.
told the little girl that you had
a daughter, too, grown up now of
course and she thought that if your
girl had gotten into trouble when
she was fifteen that you wouldn't
have liked her to have a baby in a
little wooden clubhouse with an
other baby tossing in fever ano no
light to see anything By. / told
her l didn't think you would either,
and so sitting there in the cotton
field in this "Land of Milk and
Honey" she cried.
But l started to tell you what
we talked about and here I've gone
telling you what she wanted to
write. You see, when walked out
in the field there was this little
girl dragging a huge sack along
the furrow. and stuffing the brown
bolls into it. She looked so tired,
SO weary and then l noticed that
she was with child.
Glow old are your" asked.
Fifteen"
working in the fields long?"
"Uh-uh."
"How old were you when you
started?"
She srugged shoulders. Dunno.
Maybe eight. Maybe nine.
dunno"
What do you make a day."
Sometimes in first picking dol
lar and half. We get seventy
five cents a hundred. Used to get
sixty cents bat red agitators got
us fifteen cents raise. But for
third picking get only forty cents
a hundred and there amt So much
to pick"
You may be interested in her
phrase red agitators." That's
what the Communists were called
here by the newspapers, so now
everybody calls a Communist a
'ped agitator." This little girl
didn't know what "red agitator"
was; she knew only that "red agi-
tators" got them a raise of fifteen
cents on the hundred pounds by Oh
ganizing them and calling a strike.
Forty thousand out of the 250,-
600 agricultural workers in Cali
fornia have taken out cards in the
Communist union. They call it
the Cannery and Agricultural
Workers Union. And most of the
10000 are from the 100, 900 migua-
torv workers-those who live in
the camps like this little girl. They
don't pay dues often but they carry
their cards and they are strong on
organization and very militant, es-
pecially the Mexicans.
You probably read in the papers
about the fruit and vegetable pick
ers' strike in the Imperial Valley
and around Sacramento and Ala
media and in the San Joaquin VAL
lev right here in Tulare and Kern
counties. There have been violence
and killings but the strikes were
almost always won. That's because
the workers felt a lot like this
little girl; no matter what hap
pened It couldn't be worse than Il
was. If the Communists would help
them then they would be Comnu-
nists. Nobody else seemed to care
tor them, nobody ever tried to or
ganize them until the "red arifa-
tors" came. Business men and
bankers and farmers are terrified
bv red agitators"; vou understand
Of course, why wher you read this
letter that the little girl wanted
me to write you.
"Last year when red agitators'
make strike in Tulare and oct
seventy-five cents a hundred 90
we get seventy-five cents here
too" she added laughing.
| Her father, tall. dark-skinned
man with a weeks growth Of black
beard saw me talking to her and
came over.
"Somet'ing wrong, eh?" he asked
GfAY-