HARVEST LABOR PROBLEMS IK WHEAT BELT. 17 



Illinois, Indiana, New York, and Pennsylvania either pass through 

 Chicago or go by way of St. Louis or Omaha to Kansas City, Sioux 

 City, Sioux Falls, or other cities in the eastern section of the small- 

 grain area. The Wabash ; Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul ; Chicago 

 & North Western; Rock Island; Great Western, and other roads 

 constitute direct feeders from the East into the harvest fields. Thus 

 a great many of the harvest hands encountered in the cities which are 

 the eastern gateways of the harvest come from the territory to the 

 east. On the other hand, many Oklahomans and Texans go into 

 Kansas City to find work in Kansas and Nebraska after they have 

 finished their labors in the southern territory. It is not strange, there- 

 fore, that only 26 of the 2,407 men in 1920. and 67 of the 14,613 men 

 in 1919 came from California, and that of the 2,407 men only 9 came 

 from Wyoming, 5 from Washington, and 3 from Oregon. 



MOTIVES. 



The motives which bring the harvest hand to the wheat fields are 

 as varied as human life. This investigation showed the presence in 

 the fields of farmers whose crops had been ruined or impaired by 

 hail, drought, storm, or fire; some who had not enough land under 

 cultivation to afford them a livelihood, and others who were seeking 

 new locations; students and young men who were looking for ex- 

 perience, a vacation, a chance to see the world ; prodigal sons trying 

 to earn enough money to return to the homes they had forsaken; 

 soldiers and sailors who had developed a thirst for roaming while 

 in the Army and Navy; and men attracted by the lure of the great 

 out-of-doors or the pleasure of harvesting. 



The desire for adventure and experience brings thousands. The 

 grain harvest of the Central West is one of the few big adventures left 

 in American life. The frontier and the Indians have been con- 

 quered; the lands of the West have been put under the plow; the 

 secret resting -places of the gold and silver have been explored and 

 exploited; and the harvest mobilization now remains the most dra- 

 matic, adventurous experience in the industrial life of the Nation. 

 From every State in the Union men of a hundred different occupa- 

 tions come to rub elbows for a few days or weeks in the garnering 

 of millions of bushels of grain over a territory adequate for an 

 empire, and then vanish one by one back into the everyday walks 

 of life. The quiet pursuits of agriculture become dramatic; imagi- 

 nations are fired ; the glamour and lure of adventure prevail over the 

 humdrum of life. 



The fascination which harvesting itself has always had for the 

 human race is another attractive force. Men enjoy garnering na- 

 70001 c — 22— Bull. 1020 3 



