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Sunday April, 18, 1915
From the Appeal to Reason: The Walsh Commission Takes on the "Land Question"
Are There Classes in America?
U. S. Commission Offers Proof
BY H. G. CREEL.
Staff Correspondent Appeal to Reason.
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THOSE wise folks who say there are no classes in America should have attended the United States' industrial relations commission hearings at Dallas. They should have been in the audience that second day when a banker-landlord (born into that class) was followed on the stand by a tenant farmer family (born into that class).
The banker-landlord was R. W. Getzendaner, 39 years old, official of the Citizens' National Bank of Waxahachie, Texas, and owner of 3,500 acres in Ellis county. He finished his education at the University of Virginia, went into his father's bank immediately the university course was completed and inherited the 3,500 acres at his father's death. He was well educated, well dressed and self-possessed. He has never known want, cold, hunger or fear of poverty.
How Tenant Farmers Live.
Levi T. Steward [Stewart per Commission transcript], the tenant farmer, and his family have practically no education, own not one inch of ground and have never entered a bank except to assume or pay off a mortgage. After years and years of productive work they find themselves more heavily in debt than when they started. The best educated members of the family can barely read; most of them can neither read nor write. Their clothes were tatters and the children were barefoot in the middle of winter. From the moment each member of this family entered life he has been robbed, exploited and figured as a unit of profit or loss by some member of the owning class.
The banker-landlord claimed no credit for his position and the tenant farmer family did not complain. Each was born into the sphere in which he found himself; neither knew anything different and all accepted the arrangement as a matter of course. They were simply members of different classes, classes created by a system that robs one set of humans for the benefit of another set of humans.
Getzendaner declared there was no profit in renting land to tenants. He produced figures to show that his profit was but 4.3 per cent. He admitted that tenants must plant what and when the landlord decided, but denied that landlords had any superior bargaining power over rents. When asked his opinion of the relation between landlord and tenant he declared that landlords were "no more oppressive than other business men-not so much so."
Vagrancy Laws Fix Wages.
In this county the commercial clubs have a habit of enforcing vagrancy laws to compel negroes to pick cotton-at a rate of pay set by the commercial club. Last year the negroes wanted 60 cents a hundred pounds for picking; when they refused 50 cents a hundred the vagrancy laws were set upon them and they had to work at that figure or leave the county.
"Do you think the law should be used in that way?" asked Chairman Walsh. "As I understand it's either a case of the cotton picker accepting the terms or going to jail as a vagrant."
"They don't have to do either," replied Getzendarner. "They can get out. There's plenty of work."
"You mean plenty of work at that price, don't you?" asked Walsh.
"It's better money than they can make at anything else," defended the banker-landlord.
He declared that he knew no defects in the present arrangement between landlord and tenant that could be remedied by law. He admitted that the condition of tenant farmers was not what he thought it should be, but said much could be accomplished by school teachers and preachers instruction the people how to produce more.
A Typical Tenant Family.
A gasp went round the room when the Steward family entered. None of them wore wraps and several of the six children were barefoot. The day was bitterly cold. Mrs. Steward carried a three-year-old child.
The family history is one long fight with poverty. The couple married in Arkansas in 1887. Eleven babies have come into the home. On three such occasions there was no doctor in attendance. The family was too poor. Three of the children have died. Ora Vivian had congestion for four days before death claimed her in her third year. Mary Bula died at nine months. Cause unknown. Willie Joe was but five months old when his little body grew cold as he lay by his mother's side and he joined his [sisters]-three baby victims of poverty.
The Losing Fight.
The father related his fight year by year since marriage. The story of each season was exactly like the other with slight variation. He testified that he never drank liquor, never kept it in the house, even for medicinal purposes, and the family did not squander money for fine clothes. His wife never had a ready-made suit in all her life and but three "store" hats. She had but one "trip" in her life and that was when she took advantage of excursion rates to travel a distance of 100 miles.
They lived within a few miles of Conway, Texas, for two years and his wife was to town but once in all that time; that was when he carried her there to be attended by a doctor. The general history was summed up in the statement that the family has "made" approximately 700 bales of cotton and hundreds of bushels of corn in the last 28 years and now finds itself illiterate, hopeless and about $750 in debt.
A Generous Mortgage Holder.
Steward told of the latest blow, one that had fallen but a few weeks before. For purchases made early in the season he gave chattel mortgages on all his household furniture, one farm implement and six live hogs. The war knocked the bottom from cotton and, finding himself unable to meet the mortgage, he wrote the mortgagee that he would be obliged to turn over the above collateral. Imagine his surprise when he received a warm personal letter in reply telling him he need not worry about the mortgage, that the war had made it impossible for farmers to get good prices and the collateral could remain in his hands until prosperity returned and he could pay off the notes.
The most important piece of household furniture was a sewing machine upon which Mrs. Steward made clothes for the family. They had expected to go through the winter without this, but when the welcome news came the mother broke down and cried for joy. The six hogs were probably the most important item of all, for they represented the difference between starvation for the family and meat enough for the winter.
Enthused by the generosity of the mortgagee Steward set to work to fatten his hogs for killing. The corn he had raised and expected to sell was fed to the swine instead. Killing time came. They were butchered, home cured and put away. The family was at least secure against actual starvation.
Business Is Business.
And then the unexpected happened. The mortgagee descended in due legal form and took from the family its household goods, sewing machine included, and appropriated the cured meat of the six hogs. Not until then did the Stewards understand the game. Had the mortgagee claimed his collateral when first offered him he would have had to fatten and kill the hogs himself. But by pretending to aid the stricken family he not only got all that his notes called for, but the season's production of corn fed to the hogs and the family's labor in killing and preparing them.
That was his game when he deliberately crawled into their confidence by promising not to foreclose. The human hyena calculated the whole thing-and worked it to a successful conclusion. And yet some people deny that existence of the class struggle and of hell. The Steward family's experience demonstrates both.
Store Bill Equals Income.
The annual grocery and "supply" bill generally totaled around $300. But in the one "good" year when crops were plenteous and prices high-the once in a lifetime that their family had a chance to escape from debt-the "store bill" mounted to $1,700. Steward explained this by saying the storekeeper was the son-in-law of his landlord. The son-in-law knew about what the tenant would have coming to him-and the bill was of such amount as to exactly wipe out the family's earnings. When the father protested he was told that his children had traded out the increased amount in soda water, tobacco, etc.
"Did the children do that? asked Mr. Walsh.
"They say they didn't," answered Steward, "and anyway I'd done tol' th' store man not to sell 'em on credit. He said he wouldn't.
When the father asked for an itemized bill he found hundreds of dollars charged up to "merchandise."
He is Good Democrat.
Steward declared he had voted the democratic ticket every time he cast a ballot. He admitted having read the APPEAL several times, but it made no impression on him. He was never in court in all his life, never accused of violating the law and has never sued or been sued. He is sober, industrious and upright. But he has never been able to overcome the class handicap with which he was born into the world.
Steward's testimony called forth bitter controversy and savage comment from defenders of the system. They declared that the commission was unfair in bringing such a case to public notice and repeatedly announced that it was the "worst case in Texas." But witness after witness testified that the case was typical, not exceptional and one witness offered to reproduce the Steward family by the hundred if the commission would pay their fares to Dallas.
Landlord Helps Tenant.
Two days after the Stewards testified the commission received a letter from Getzendaner offering to give the family a new start on his place. The offer was accepted for father, mother and children were destitute to the last degree.
One of these men was born into the propertied class. He could not help it. The other man was born into the propertyless class. He could not help it. Just as the system decreed that one should go to the university and the counting house so it decreed that the other should be denied an education and remain a tenant under the system.
But there are no classes in America. Wait till you read what happened on another day of the hearing.
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