More about Santa Rosa in the summer of 1925. See INTRO for overview and index.
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The most shocking thing to read in the July 1925 Press Democrat was that the Barlow ranch in Sebastopol was still using children to harvest crops. I had presumed it would have ended after WWI, when the soldiers came back from the war and the state lifted a wartime emergency act that shortened the school year so high school kids could help out on farms, but here was the superintendent of the Boys and Girls Aid Society of San Francisco boasting to the Santa Rosa Rotary Club that the summer program was going as strong as ever. Foolish me.
He told the Rotarians it was a ‘great value to the community’ and helped kids become ‘useful members of society.’ The boys supposedly earned $3,000 – $12,000 a season picking berries, but from earlier research it was learned they actually came away with little or nothing. Their earnings were docked for lodging in the Barlow tents, food, transportation to and from Sonoma County plus salaries for supervisors and other adult staff. They were also expected to pay for their own clothes, shoes and even dentistry. For more on all that, see “SEBASTOPOL’S CHILD LABOR CAMPS.” While the PD clapped for children performing field labor and working in canneries, the very next day the paper warned “aliens ineligible to citizenship are buying fruit on trees in several sections of the county.” Those aliens were mostly Japanese immigrants who couldn’t buy property or even legally rent land for more than three years under the California Alien Land Law. As odd as it seems, the District Attorney claimed unharvested fruit was legally real estate. Therefore a farmer who allowed immigrants to pick apples in exchange for some of the profits was no different than sharecropping. BELOW: Boys picking berries at the Barlow ranch in the 1920s. Excerpt of photo courtesy Western Sonoma County Historical Society |
S. F. BOYS EARN GOOD SUMS IN BERRY FIELDS – George C. Turner, superintendent of the Boys and Girls Aid Society of San Francisco, was the principal speaker at today’s Rotary luncheon, and he gave a very interesting outline of the work that has been carried on by this great organization for more forty years. Many hundreds of boys, Mr. Turner said, who had been started out in life under a handicap, have developed into successful citizens and useful members of society through the right kind of care and direction. The speaker referred in appreciative terms to the splendid financial assistance that is annually given the institution by the Community Chest. About one hundred boys from the Aid Society have been coming to Sebastopol every year since 1903 to work in the berry fields and their season’s earnings have ranged from $3,000 to $12,000. Two-thirds of this money goes towards the support of the institution, and one-third is banked to the credit of each boy in proportion to his earnings. A fine camp is maintained on the Barlow ranch and the work performed by the boys during the berry harvest has been of great value to the community. (July 11)
SALE OF FRUIT IN ORCHARDS TO ALIENS BANNED – Reports that aliens ineligible to citizenship are buying fruit on trees in several sections of the county. Intending to pick and market the products, yesterday led District Attorney George W. Hoyle to issue a warning that land owners who enter into sale agreements with ineligibles are guilty of violating the California alien land law. Unharvested fruit is real estate under the law, according to Hoyle, and to sell it to aliens barred from land owning in the state is as illegal as to enter into share cropping agreements with such persons….While sale of fruit on trees is illegal, according to the district attorney, windfalls or harvested fruit can be sold to ineligible aliens. (July 12)