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Show C:'d A erican Character O -::2d by Machinery Dcvn on the Farm. BERKELEY, CALIF. -The hired man down on the farm hasn't any future uowadnys; he's becoming an-uthcr an-uthcr vanishing American. The purely American character, who worked for S15 to S50 a month and board and lived with the farm family as a social equal, has about vanished, says Dr. Paul S. Taylor, an expert on socio-economic trends in farming. His place has been taken largely by machinery and the transient or temporary worker. Dr. Taylor, a University of California Cali-fornia agricultural economist, suggests sug-gests in a survey published by the department of agriculture that something be done to dignify again the status of the farm employee. Probably never before in history, Dr. Taylor reports, was there anything any-thing like the old-line American hired man who flourished in the 1800s. Story of the Hired Man. Here is the story of his rise and decline, as gleaned by Dr. Taylor from the writings of many authorities: authori-ties: Until about the beginning of the 19th century Negro slaves or white men who had bound themselves as servants for a specified time in exchange ex-change for passage from the Old World to the New, comprised the bulk of the farm laborers. But the cost of transatlantic transportation trans-portation decreased and soon immigrants, immi-grants, with the help of relatives, were able to pay their own fares. Many immigrants went directly to the frontier and settled on cheap land. The rest were claimed by the cities. The established farmer who needed outside help began to experience labor shortage. However, there always were some young men, native-born or immigrant, immi-grant, who wanted to be farmers, but either did not have the small amount of necessary cash or lacked experience to plunge at once into independent operations. By working work-ing a while for a farmer they could get both. As an example of the golden age of this unique character, a survey of 2,000 mid western farm owners in 1919 showed that one-third of them once had been hired men. Frontier Disappears. As the agricultural land frontier moved westward it eventually disappeared dis-appeared entirely good soil became scarcer or harder to get. Also the machine age began making itself felt. Machines cost money and did the work of many men. The wage of the hired man became insignificant insignifi-cant beside the amount necessary to start farming. The decline of the hired man began. Then came the period of retired farmers the successful among the hired men of a preceding generation. genera-tion. Some of them moved to town to take it easy and give their children chil-dren an urban education. The hired man got a shoft reprieve; he could operate the retired farmer's place as a tenant, and, if successful, buy the place later. The agricultural depression of the 1920s and the industrial depression of the 1930s pushed the hired man even farther into the background. Then came the era which administered adminis-tered the final stroke. Farmers began looking for workers work-ers who would live in separate houses or supply their own homes. Farm wives began to rebel against outsiders in their homes. The hired man retained his job and even his title, but his status had changed. But his influence lingers. Today, says Dr. Taylor, the need for extraordinary ex-traordinary measures to provide agricultural help arises mainly in areas where the old-line hired man never was much of a factor, such as the Pacific coast and the old South. |
