62 PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-THIRD FRUIT-GROWERS 9 CONVENTION. 



Can we have commerce and expand our trade when Ave treat their peo- 

 ple as unequal and degraded and refuse to permit them to come to us ? 

 No, you can not have it. 



Now, in another respect, The magazine writers are dealing with 

 the question of rural life, wondering why it is that the people are aban- 

 doning the land and going to the cities. There are several reasons for 

 that, and California has one reason, and that reason is the practical 

 impossibility of getting domestic help upon the ranches of California 

 to lift the burdens off the wife and daughters of the household. 



We were entertained by a club organization last night. I have 

 visited those clubs all over this State. I have addressed the meeting 

 of their State federation. I have talked with keen-eyed and lovely 

 natured women in every district in California on this subject, and 

 there goes up from them all the one complaint of the impossibility of 

 getting domestic help to go into the country and lift from them- 

 selves and their daughters the burdens. Now, you know that if we are 

 permitted to receive the kind of labor that is needful to our wants, 

 that question of domestic help is solved, because the Chinese when 

 trained make the very best of house servants. I have had experience 

 in that, I, twenty-five years ago, could get a woman. I paid her good 

 wages and she left my family and went away and married; and it 

 went on until my daily task, almost, when I went home was to go 

 into the room occupied by the help and drag out some woman who had 

 been sent there by an employment agency and who was lying in her 

 room drunk, and I would dispose of her only to get another one. 

 And then I got a Chinaman and peace settled over my house, a peace 

 that passeth understanding (Laughter), and no money could take Jim 

 away from my family. 



Now, I want to see the ranchers' wives and daughters in this State 

 permitted to take and train that reliable and efficient household help. 

 I want to see the burden lifted off of the women of California. They 

 are doing more than their share. When that is done one reason for the 

 flowing of population from the country to the city will have ceased. 

 Every rancher's wife knows the truth of . what I say. It exists all 

 over this State. Why, ranch owners in the San Joaquin Valley tell 

 me that they actually feel ashamed almost to go into their houses and 

 sit down to. the table and enjoy the food and the shelter, because they 

 know the burden that it places upon their wives and their daughters, 

 a burden that they feel to be unjust, but which, under present circum- 

 stances, they are absolutely powerless to lift because they can not get 

 help. Why should not the women of this State, living in rural life, 

 be permitted emancipation from this drudgery? Mr. Tveitmoe does 

 not send you any household help ; Mr. Furuseth does not ; Mr. Casey 

 does not. It is just like when the Panama canal had to be dug and Mr. 



