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1250 An American Dilemma
edly accompany widespread use of the mechanical picker thereby decreasing the labor
required prior to harvest.”®
Oren Stephens, “Revolt on the Delta,” Harfet^s Magazine (November, 1941)9
p. 664.
Arthur Raper, “Race and Class Pressures,” unpublished manuscript prepared for
this study (1940), p. 206.
Idem,
Quoted by Raper, “Race and Class Pressures,” p. 213. Often even the attempts to
organize the tenants in the Southwest met with violence. One woman sympathizer was
whipped while studying the activities of the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union in
Arkansas. (See Oren Stephens, of, cit,y p. 661.) A Negro member, who had received a
leaflet from the Union containing an admonition that members take part in the election
of the county conservation committee, showed this leaflet in the office of the county
agent, while inquiring about the date of the election. He failed to receive the informa-
tion, but later he was handcuffed, beaten and “run out of the county.”**
A white attorney in Arkansas, although not particularly progressive,® was aroused by
the illegal practices in the dealings with tenants and, therefore, used to assist them at
court. Because he had helped some members of the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union,
his house was once attacked by a group of vigilantes, who, however, left when they
found him armed.^ The police generally take orders from the planters. Lower courts
tend to decide against the tenants, but when cases are brought to higher courts, as by this
attorney, they arc frequently reversed.®
Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union, “History of S.T.F.U., S.T.F.U. Study Course,”
mimeographed, pp. 102. See also Raper, “Race and Class Pressures,” p, 208.
One of the most spectacular incidents occurred in January, 1939, when a group of
displaced sharecroppers and other discontented rural workers of both races, led by
persons connected with both the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union (S.T.F.U.) and the
United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America (U. C. A. P. A.
W. A.), camped near a Missouri highway, thereby demonstrating their plight. After
the state health authorities had delivered the somewhat peculiar declaration that their
presence at this place constituted “a menace to the public health,” they were moved
to a less conspicuous location, where they were left stranded for some time, until the
Farm Security Administration managed to take care of some of them. The organizers
referred to this demonstration as an “organized peaceable protest against unfairness of
cotton control to cotton workers” and against the “defeat of labor policy in cotton
control.”^
* Roman L. Horne and Eugene G. McKibben, ‘‘Changes in Farm Power and Equipment,
Mechanical Cotton Picker” (1937), Works Progress Administration, National Research
Project, Report A-a, p. 18.
**
Information received by Sterner from the directors of the Southern Tenant Farmers’
Union at conference in Memphis, December 31, 1939. A number of similar cases are reported
in issues of The Tenant Farmer monthly magazine of the S.T.F.U.
* Stephens, of, cit,, p. 659.
® Interview by Sterner, October, 1938. Story confirmed by Raper, “Race and Class Pres-
sures,” pp, 216-21 7,
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