Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground, The emptiness of ages in his face, And on his back the burden of the world.
The four lines above are excerpts from Edwin Markham’s famed poem, “The Man With the Hoe.” As a young man, Markham resided in Lagoon Valley, south of Vacaville, and attended the local area schools.
Today, mechanization has made it possible to discard the hoe, but back in Markham’s day a hoe was one of the most useful tools to be found around any ranch.
Recently, a group of economists meeting to discuss problems facing the nation were in agreement that unemployment in the United States is due primarily to the number of people being out of work. That seems to make some sense, but perhaps it was not necessary for a group of economists to come forward with such wisdom.
Today there is some discussion on eliminating sections of the minimum wage law so that young boys and girls could more readily find employment. But the unanswerable question is: “Employment, doing what?”
Nowhere on earth has mechanization advanced as rapidly as it has right here in the good old USA. Those of us who were on our hands and knees for weeks picking prunes on various Vacaville ranches had not predicted the day would come when this type of work would be taken over by machines.
While it may be true that these new fangled contraptions have replaced millions of human hands, it is equally true that it takes many hands to build these machines.
When we talk about unemployment, we must also consider the known fact that never in normal times have we had full employment of those men and women who have wanted to work. This has been going on for decades, and it will continue irregardless of what a few politicians attempt to tell us.
Here’s some interesting observations about the working man and women, and children, too, contained in Edward Wickson’s California Illustrated, published back in 1888:
In speaking about the labor supply, and the quality of the worker, Wickson observed: “Since the vast area of orchard and vineyard has become productive, the requirements of the district reach into the thousands. A few years ago any number of Chinamen could be had on a day’s notice; but since the enforcement of the restriction laws Chinamen have become scarce, and it is now a problem whence an adequate supply of labor is to be obtained. Vacaville fruit growers, like all other fruit producers of California, have found the Chinaman most efficient laborers in the orchard and vineyard, skillful, obedient and trustworthy.”
Wickson continues: “Fruit growers appreciate the superiority and greater desirability of white laborers who will make homes in the district, and conduct themselves as good citizens. The trouble has been that this preference has had to rest largely on theoretical grounds, because such a proportion of the white labor available has been untrustworthy and inefficient.”
Speaking of children as laborers on ranches, Wickson observed: “This is emphatically the country where large families of children are wanted, if their parents will train them to obedience and steady work when there is work to do. But families of undisciplined hoodlums are avoided by all fruit growers, as they spoil more fruit and hinder the honest workers more than they are worth. School children from the cities are totally worthless unless in charge of some parent or teacher whom they are accustomed to obey.”
The demise of the small family ranch and the continuing advancement in mechanization, have combined to almost totally eliminate the need for the nimble fingers and hands of young boys and girls. The thousands of teenagers at one time employed in the tomato harvest in Vacaville and throughout the state, now can see monstrous harvesters moving through fields and millions of tomatoes rolling into nearby trucks, all being done with a minimum of labor.
Who would ever had predicted that machines were in the offing as grape pickers?
As imports from many nations around the world create havoc with sales of US-made products, manufacturers are constantly being told that the Gross National Product (GNP) is declining, and that the quality of workmanship is also cause for concern.
Today, with continued emphasis being stressed over the number of unemployed persons across the nation, there is the bright side of the same picture in revealing that more people are now at work than at any other time in the history of this nation.
Yesterday’s housewife now sports an 8 to 5 job, and women are making substantial inroads into thousands of jobs where once were posted signs:
“Men only.”
We are being confronted with vicious cycles.
The nation’s farmers, continually increasing their per-acre production, want foreign markets for their surplus. American manufacturers; faced with increasing imports, seek a halt to some of these practices.
As they say in Tokyo: “US growers want us to buy their surplus rice, but they don’t want our surplus TV sets.”
Link: http://articles.solanohistory.net/7098/ | Solano History Database Record
Printed From: http://articles.solanohistory.net/7098/ | http://www.solanohistory.org/record/7098
Vacaville Heritage Council