The root of tenant poverty was no mystery to Dallas landlord J. Tom Padgitt. In Padgitt's opinion the tenant farmer's lack of motivation prevented him from buying his own land. He was something of an expert both on land owning and tenant farming. As an absentee-landlord, he owned 12,000 acres and rented on the shares to dozens of tenant families. Padgitt asserted that the typical tenant had "a very favorable chance" of buying land but only "if he would like to become a home owner."
Padgitt had developed a fine disdain for the general competence of his tenants. Whether at the credit merchant's store, the bank, or the landlord's house, it was with such people that the tenant farmer had to deal at settling-up time. These year-end financial responsibilities must be accorded nearly as much weight as the heavy work of the fields. The years of struggle and worry weighed heavily upon tenant farmers, although perhaps no more heavily than the contempt they sensed in the individuals to whom they were economically bound.
* * *
Some of the most dramatic cases of political suppression and eviction concerned the 12,000-acre holdings of Dallas businessman J. Tom Padgitt. Padgitt bought [sic] 2,000 acres of cotton farms and 10,000 acres of ranch land in Coleman and Runnels counties in Central Texas. He correctly informed the Walsh Commission, "We are considered substantial people."
An agent ran the local operations, and the Padgitts rarely visited the site. Unlike most tenant-landlord contracts in early-twentieth-century Texas, Padgitt's were in writing. He had twenty-two tenant families on the 2,000 acres. He estimated that the land yielded one-quarter bale of cotton per acre and that in 1915 his one-team, 75-acre tenants would earn a gross income of around $750. He asserted that "it is more desirable to have a large family. There is an effort made to get them." He expected tenant children to chop and pick cotton beginning at about age eight. Tenant families lived in two-room "box houses" with a "shed behind where they cook and eat." The houses were constructed specifically for tenant occupants and "had never been used by an owner." The windows in the sixteen-by-thirteen-foot rooms were not screened, because the tenants did not want screens, Padgitt testified. Further, if he did provide screens to keep out mosquitoes and flies, "they wouldn't stay in 24 hours. They would break them out." He felt certain about this, but, he admitted, he had never actually tested his theory. [In reply to a question about the quality of housing on such bottom-land plantations he replied: "Bad generally, there are some men that have good houses for their tenants, but not many."]
Padgitt's tenants were all happy until Socialist Party agitators showed up in 1910. "They were Socialists, and they would talk to the people down under the pecan trees and on the river banks." Padgitt, who lived 288 miles away, became aware that "there were a great many Socialists in the country." Soon thereafter an Anti-Socialist League appeared with Padgitt's agent as founder-secretary and keeper of the memberships lists; Padgitt testified that he had no personal knowledge of how the new organization got its start. But, serendipitously armed with good intelligence about tenant political leanings, he fired the one-third of his tenants who had failed to sign up for the local Anti-Socialist League. After that, there was "not a bit" of trouble. "They do not discuss politics anymore; that has all been cut out." If a tenant expressed incorrect views, he would be "let go." Padgitt made no distinctions between working hours and leisure hours on his place. He wanted no part of tenants who would "agitate and stir up trouble and talk at the store and keep everybody stirred up all the time." [The following day, after reflection and probably legal counsel, Padgitt adjusted his testimony and assured the commission that he only fired tenants whose politics led them to neglect their crops.]
Kyle G. Wilkison, Yeomen, Sharecroppers, and Socialists: Plain Folk Protest in Texas, 1870-1914
Padgitt had developed a fine disdain for the general competence of his tenants. Whether at the credit merchant's store, the bank, or the landlord's house, it was with such people that the tenant farmer had to deal at settling-up time. These year-end financial responsibilities must be accorded nearly as much weight as the heavy work of the fields. The years of struggle and worry weighed heavily upon tenant farmers, although perhaps no more heavily than the contempt they sensed in the individuals to whom they were economically bound.
* * *
Some of the most dramatic cases of political suppression and eviction concerned the 12,000-acre holdings of Dallas businessman J. Tom Padgitt. Padgitt bought [sic] 2,000 acres of cotton farms and 10,000 acres of ranch land in Coleman and Runnels counties in Central Texas. He correctly informed the Walsh Commission, "We are considered substantial people."
An agent ran the local operations, and the Padgitts rarely visited the site. Unlike most tenant-landlord contracts in early-twentieth-century Texas, Padgitt's were in writing. He had twenty-two tenant families on the 2,000 acres. He estimated that the land yielded one-quarter bale of cotton per acre and that in 1915 his one-team, 75-acre tenants would earn a gross income of around $750. He asserted that "it is more desirable to have a large family. There is an effort made to get them." He expected tenant children to chop and pick cotton beginning at about age eight. Tenant families lived in two-room "box houses" with a "shed behind where they cook and eat." The houses were constructed specifically for tenant occupants and "had never been used by an owner." The windows in the sixteen-by-thirteen-foot rooms were not screened, because the tenants did not want screens, Padgitt testified. Further, if he did provide screens to keep out mosquitoes and flies, "they wouldn't stay in 24 hours. They would break them out." He felt certain about this, but, he admitted, he had never actually tested his theory. [In reply to a question about the quality of housing on such bottom-land plantations he replied: "Bad generally, there are some men that have good houses for their tenants, but not many."]
Padgitt's tenants were all happy until Socialist Party agitators showed up in 1910. "They were Socialists, and they would talk to the people down under the pecan trees and on the river banks." Padgitt, who lived 288 miles away, became aware that "there were a great many Socialists in the country." Soon thereafter an Anti-Socialist League appeared with Padgitt's agent as founder-secretary and keeper of the memberships lists; Padgitt testified that he had no personal knowledge of how the new organization got its start. But, serendipitously armed with good intelligence about tenant political leanings, he fired the one-third of his tenants who had failed to sign up for the local Anti-Socialist League. After that, there was "not a bit" of trouble. "They do not discuss politics anymore; that has all been cut out." If a tenant expressed incorrect views, he would be "let go." Padgitt made no distinctions between working hours and leisure hours on his place. He wanted no part of tenants who would "agitate and stir up trouble and talk at the store and keep everybody stirred up all the time." [The following day, after reflection and probably legal counsel, Padgitt adjusted his testimony and assured the commission that he only fired tenants whose politics led them to neglect their crops.]
Kyle G. Wilkison, Yeomen, Sharecroppers, and Socialists: Plain Folk Protest in Texas, 1870-1914
Day Ranch
One white tenant wrote that the only way he could avoid "becoming a slave" was to join the Socialist Party and "build up an army of emancipation." Here it is instructive to note Roediger's proposition that white Southern workers were not just manipulated into racism; rather, "their consciousness was a double one that constantly pulled them toward urgent insistence on their whiteness and toward a questioning of whether their class grievances did not outweigh their racial privileges." Many poor whites on the farms found it increasingly difficult to discern any racial privileges deriving from their nominal status as whites, for their status as sharecroppers stigmatized them as white trash and segregated them from other whites in the community.
Tenants who joined the Socialist Party to reclaim their manhood and reassert their status as free white people often found themselves let go by landlords who refused to rent to any Socialists. [Socialist leader] Tom Hickey was particularly incensed by the actions of one landlord in Coleman County, J. Tom Padgitt, who rented land to about fifty tenant families on his 20,000-acre Day Ranch near the town of Leaday.* Padgitt made his home in Dallas, some 288 miles from the ranch, and hired an overseer, C. A. Rives, a former "wood hauler" from Oklahoma, to supervise the tenants. Padgitt and his brothers in Dallas formed Padgitt Brothers, Co., for the purpose of manufacturing saddlery and harness and other leather goods. As an absentee landowner he authorized Rives to represent him in all matters concerning the tenants and "when anything came up to use his own judgment and not write me . . . but to act for himself." In 1912, three years after Rives was hired, something came up: At least seven of the tenants on the Day Ranch became active members of the Socialist Party, which had been organized in the county in 1909.
Rives and a few companions rode around parts of two counties asking tenants to join an anti-Socialist league to "upbuild Christianity," and Rives took it upon himself to inform the Socialist tenants of the Day Ranch that "they must get off the part of the earth that he controlled." Rives had written to a prospective tenant from Oklahoma named Leach that "Leaday is having a war" between the Socialists and anti-Socialists and that the latter are "fighting socialists at every corner for the sake of peace in the community." He informed the Oklahoman that he intended "to let all Comrads [sic] take a walk after Jan. 1st" and "on account of peace in the community" he could not "rent to my brother if he was a socialist." If Leach were not a Socialist, Rives promised that he would do his best to "fit you and your people up with good places" on the Day Ranch. Rives then fired the ranch merchant and hotel keeper, Mr. Flynn, for his involvement in the Socialist Party and placed an advertisement in the Coleman County Herald offering the position to the "right party." Lest there be any doubt about who constituted the wrong party, he added: "Calamity howlers need not apply." The ranch blacksmith was also dismissed when Rives discovered that he was also the Secretary of the Socialist local. This "un-American puppy called Rives backed by Mr. Padgitt," Hickey wrote, "decided upon wholesale extermination."
Rives's attempt to control the politics of the tenants split the community of Leaday wide open. The dispute was carried into the schools, the churches, and the fraternal lodges. Like dragon's teeth, Hickey wrote, "the seeds of hatred were sown." Some owners suggested that they would "allow the Socialists no more privileges on the Colorado river, such as fishing and hunting, on their land." Others posted signs: "No Socialists allowed any privileges here." In response to these initiatives, fifty-eight Socialist renters, some of them from the Day Ranch, as well as a few Socialist landowners, signed a petition to Padgitt in Dallas requesting that Rives be removed from his position as manager of the Day Ranch for dismissing tenants who supported the Socialist Party or its policies and for attempting to "dominate their views and personal liberties." The petition asked that Padgitt return to Leaday to hear their complaints and to resolve the issue personally. Padgitt and his wife travelled from Dallas to a schoolhouse in Leaday to meet with a committee of tenants elected by the petitioners. After three hours of hearing from both sides, Padgitt issued his ultimatum: "These people who are quarreling with my superintendent . . . must leave. I have appointed him to attend to my business and I shall continue him to attend to my business."
The majority of the tenants who signed the petition did not rent from Padgitt, but they understood that their own personal and political liberty was at stake, since other owners might become emboldened to engage in similar restrictions and intimidations. Hickey gave examples of landlord prohibitionists in Caldwell County who compelled their renters to sign a cash bond for $100.00, "said sum to be forfeited if they take one drink of liquor in a year." In McLellan County some landlords forced renters to move because they refused to vote for Prohibition. And in Milam County tenants had been "ordered out of the jury box because of their political views." W. S. Noble, in a letter to E. O. Meitzen, secretary of the Renters' Union, warned that if landlords could force renters to abstain from alcohol, vote a particular ticket, or belong to a particular political party, then it would not be long before they would say: "You must allow me to sleep with your wife or daughter or move."
Padgitt admitted to the Commission on Industrial Relations that Rives dismissed the tenants not for any charge of inefficiency, negligence, or destruction of property but for their "political agitation" on behalf of the Socialist Party. Moreover, Padgitt steadfastly maintained that he was not opposed to renting to Socialists as long as they didn't give him any trouble. When the chairman of the commission asked him what he meant by "trouble," Padgitt explained that he objected to tenants who "agitate and stir up trouble and talk at the store and keep everybody stirred up all the time." Who would judge, the chairman wanted to know, whether a renter was expressing "certain principles that he held were beneficial to mankind" or if he was stirring up trouble? Padgitt's immediate response was that his agent, in this case Rives, would be the sole judge of whether "a man was attending to business or not." Asked what sort of political agitation constituted "trouble," Padgitt replied: "A man that would go around and would talk to the other men and cause them to become dissatisfied, and poison their minds as to their landlords." Padgitt went on to explain that, as a businessman, he believed that any renter who engaged in political activity of any sort—whether Socialist, Democrat or Republican—was "stirring up trouble" and had no place on his ranch. "We want men to attend to business," he told the chairman, "and make the farm pay."
Although Padgitt maintained that the basis for dismissing Socialist tenants was not one of politics but of business expediency, his wife recognized the trouble for what it was, namely, a clash of both economic interests and political ideologies—a class in which one had to choose sides. She said to the assembled tenants at Leaday: "Your community is split wide open but the same thing is going [on] everywhere. This is not only a Coleman county fight but a state-wide fight, a nation-wide fight, in fact it is going on in all parts of the civilized world. And I agree with my husband that the best thing to be done is to have all of you who do not agree with us leave the places, get off, and we will put others in your place." The trouble in Leaday was not an isolated incident [Noble, who had met with 112 delegates from twenty-eight counties at the second annual convention of the Renters' Union, reported that "the Leaday trouble is no uncommon affair, and the same thing is being done all over the state"]. The Commission on Industrial Relations came essentially to the same conclusion after its hearings in Dallas in 1915: "In some cases tenants are oppressed by landlords . . . by eviction without due notice, by discriminations because of 'personal and political convictions.'"
Hickey, incensed by the imperious manner of the "leather man of Dallas," called upon all tenants to boycott Padgitt's goods:
Neil Foley, The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture
*In 1912 The Rebel reported that Padgitt owned 20,000 acres and rented a portion of it to fifty tenants. Three years later Padgitt testified before the Commission on Industrial Relations that he owned 12,000 acres, 2,000 of which were rented to 22 tenants. It is possible that in the intervening three years Padgitt sold 8,000 acres and reduced the number of tenants from fifty to twenty-two.
Tenants who joined the Socialist Party to reclaim their manhood and reassert their status as free white people often found themselves let go by landlords who refused to rent to any Socialists. [Socialist leader] Tom Hickey was particularly incensed by the actions of one landlord in Coleman County, J. Tom Padgitt, who rented land to about fifty tenant families on his 20,000-acre Day Ranch near the town of Leaday.* Padgitt made his home in Dallas, some 288 miles from the ranch, and hired an overseer, C. A. Rives, a former "wood hauler" from Oklahoma, to supervise the tenants. Padgitt and his brothers in Dallas formed Padgitt Brothers, Co., for the purpose of manufacturing saddlery and harness and other leather goods. As an absentee landowner he authorized Rives to represent him in all matters concerning the tenants and "when anything came up to use his own judgment and not write me . . . but to act for himself." In 1912, three years after Rives was hired, something came up: At least seven of the tenants on the Day Ranch became active members of the Socialist Party, which had been organized in the county in 1909.
Rives and a few companions rode around parts of two counties asking tenants to join an anti-Socialist league to "upbuild Christianity," and Rives took it upon himself to inform the Socialist tenants of the Day Ranch that "they must get off the part of the earth that he controlled." Rives had written to a prospective tenant from Oklahoma named Leach that "Leaday is having a war" between the Socialists and anti-Socialists and that the latter are "fighting socialists at every corner for the sake of peace in the community." He informed the Oklahoman that he intended "to let all Comrads [sic] take a walk after Jan. 1st" and "on account of peace in the community" he could not "rent to my brother if he was a socialist." If Leach were not a Socialist, Rives promised that he would do his best to "fit you and your people up with good places" on the Day Ranch. Rives then fired the ranch merchant and hotel keeper, Mr. Flynn, for his involvement in the Socialist Party and placed an advertisement in the Coleman County Herald offering the position to the "right party." Lest there be any doubt about who constituted the wrong party, he added: "Calamity howlers need not apply." The ranch blacksmith was also dismissed when Rives discovered that he was also the Secretary of the Socialist local. This "un-American puppy called Rives backed by Mr. Padgitt," Hickey wrote, "decided upon wholesale extermination."
Rives's attempt to control the politics of the tenants split the community of Leaday wide open. The dispute was carried into the schools, the churches, and the fraternal lodges. Like dragon's teeth, Hickey wrote, "the seeds of hatred were sown." Some owners suggested that they would "allow the Socialists no more privileges on the Colorado river, such as fishing and hunting, on their land." Others posted signs: "No Socialists allowed any privileges here." In response to these initiatives, fifty-eight Socialist renters, some of them from the Day Ranch, as well as a few Socialist landowners, signed a petition to Padgitt in Dallas requesting that Rives be removed from his position as manager of the Day Ranch for dismissing tenants who supported the Socialist Party or its policies and for attempting to "dominate their views and personal liberties." The petition asked that Padgitt return to Leaday to hear their complaints and to resolve the issue personally. Padgitt and his wife travelled from Dallas to a schoolhouse in Leaday to meet with a committee of tenants elected by the petitioners. After three hours of hearing from both sides, Padgitt issued his ultimatum: "These people who are quarreling with my superintendent . . . must leave. I have appointed him to attend to my business and I shall continue him to attend to my business."
The majority of the tenants who signed the petition did not rent from Padgitt, but they understood that their own personal and political liberty was at stake, since other owners might become emboldened to engage in similar restrictions and intimidations. Hickey gave examples of landlord prohibitionists in Caldwell County who compelled their renters to sign a cash bond for $100.00, "said sum to be forfeited if they take one drink of liquor in a year." In McLellan County some landlords forced renters to move because they refused to vote for Prohibition. And in Milam County tenants had been "ordered out of the jury box because of their political views." W. S. Noble, in a letter to E. O. Meitzen, secretary of the Renters' Union, warned that if landlords could force renters to abstain from alcohol, vote a particular ticket, or belong to a particular political party, then it would not be long before they would say: "You must allow me to sleep with your wife or daughter or move."
Padgitt admitted to the Commission on Industrial Relations that Rives dismissed the tenants not for any charge of inefficiency, negligence, or destruction of property but for their "political agitation" on behalf of the Socialist Party. Moreover, Padgitt steadfastly maintained that he was not opposed to renting to Socialists as long as they didn't give him any trouble. When the chairman of the commission asked him what he meant by "trouble," Padgitt explained that he objected to tenants who "agitate and stir up trouble and talk at the store and keep everybody stirred up all the time." Who would judge, the chairman wanted to know, whether a renter was expressing "certain principles that he held were beneficial to mankind" or if he was stirring up trouble? Padgitt's immediate response was that his agent, in this case Rives, would be the sole judge of whether "a man was attending to business or not." Asked what sort of political agitation constituted "trouble," Padgitt replied: "A man that would go around and would talk to the other men and cause them to become dissatisfied, and poison their minds as to their landlords." Padgitt went on to explain that, as a businessman, he believed that any renter who engaged in political activity of any sort—whether Socialist, Democrat or Republican—was "stirring up trouble" and had no place on his ranch. "We want men to attend to business," he told the chairman, "and make the farm pay."
Although Padgitt maintained that the basis for dismissing Socialist tenants was not one of politics but of business expediency, his wife recognized the trouble for what it was, namely, a clash of both economic interests and political ideologies—a class in which one had to choose sides. She said to the assembled tenants at Leaday: "Your community is split wide open but the same thing is going [on] everywhere. This is not only a Coleman county fight but a state-wide fight, a nation-wide fight, in fact it is going on in all parts of the civilized world. And I agree with my husband that the best thing to be done is to have all of you who do not agree with us leave the places, get off, and we will put others in your place." The trouble in Leaday was not an isolated incident [Noble, who had met with 112 delegates from twenty-eight counties at the second annual convention of the Renters' Union, reported that "the Leaday trouble is no uncommon affair, and the same thing is being done all over the state"]. The Commission on Industrial Relations came essentially to the same conclusion after its hearings in Dallas in 1915: "In some cases tenants are oppressed by landlords . . . by eviction without due notice, by discriminations because of 'personal and political convictions.'"
Hickey, incensed by the imperious manner of the "leather man of Dallas," called upon all tenants to boycott Padgitt's goods:
We have purchased your stuff direct from Dallas and we have bought from retailers that handle your ware, but so help us God Mr. Padgitt if you don't call off your dog at Leaday, and allow these men and women to have freedom of the press, speech and assemblage that the American citizen believes in then we will never buy another piece of harness from you. Your leather goods will rot on the shelves before we will purchase them. . . . In other words, if you boycott white Americans because of their political beliefs, then we'll boycott you until the cows come home.Padgitt might forbid non-white tenants from joining the Socialist Party, Hickey implied, but white Americans demanded that landlords treat them as fellow white men. The chairman of the Commission on Industrial Relations asked J. Tom Padgitt whether landlords felt "any social responsibility for the housing of tenants." He wondered, for example, whether landowners provided screens to protect tenants from mosquitos, which medical science had recently found to carry diseases. Padgitt replied: "Tenants never want screens, and the landlords don't furnish them, and if he did they wouldn't stay in 24 hours. . . They wouldn't know how to take care of them."
Neil Foley, The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture
*In 1912 The Rebel reported that Padgitt owned 20,000 acres and rented a portion of it to fifty tenants. Three years later Padgitt testified before the Commission on Industrial Relations that he owned 12,000 acres, 2,000 of which were rented to 22 tenants. It is possible that in the intervening three years Padgitt sold 8,000 acres and reduced the number of tenants from fifty to twenty-two.
The Swelling Minority
The Texas platform declared that capitalism divided rural society as well as industrial society into "warring groups and classes based on material interest." A notable example of capitalist oppression was the landlord who demanded contracts that interfered with the "personal and political liberty of the tenant." Shortly before the [1912] election, the Rebel described an example of landlord oppression in Coleman County that illustrated the nature of class conflict on a local level. In 1909 renters and others in and around Leaday, Texas, had organized a Socialist local. Many of the farmers were tenants of Tom Padgitt, a landlord who lived in Dallas. The Reds among them complained that Padgitt's manager, C. A. Rives, had organized an anti-Socialist league, publicly threatening members of the party and firing some who were tenants. When the Socialists got up a petition denouncing the overseer for "stirring up strife in the community," Rives admitted that Leaday was experiencing "a war" between the radicals and the "antis." Landlord Padgitt came out from Dallas to talk to the petitioners but refused to fire Rives. "Your community is split wide open, but the same thing is going on everywhere," he told them. "This is not only a Coleman County fight, it is a state wide fight, a nation wide fight."
The Rebel gathered other evidence to demonstrate the widespread nature of the Coleman County "strife." A sociologist who toured cotton-tenancy regions in 1912 corroborated these findings, reporting that destructive "class distinctions in the country" caused by the injection of "alien human material" (tenants) had ended the "old warmth and intimacy of social intercourse" in these rural communities. "The growth of class consciousness" in these regions, he wrote, "is a factor of increasing consequence."
The Socialists averaged lower totals but higher percentages in the plains counties of north central Texas (9.4 percent overall). Debs ran especially well in the old Populist counties of the Western Cross Timbers region and in the newly settled area north of Abilene where land values and tenancy rates had increased dramatically after the turn of the century. The Socialists also polled close to 20 percent in Runnels, Coleman, and surrounding counties where the "nesters" had battled the "cattle barons" in the fence-cutting wars of the 1880s, initiating the southwestern class struggle. [Debs carried Leaday in Coleman County where some Socialist tenants had been dismissed from Tom Padgitt's 12,000-acre plantation by his overseer. But the local Socialists charged that their county candidates lost because many tenants had been intimidated by Padgitt's men and stayed away from the polls while Democratic election officials counted out many of their votes. Rebel (Halletsville, Tex.), November 9, 1912. On the violent conflict in this area pitting "nesters," rustlers, and unemployed cowboys against the large cattlemen, their mounted riders, and the Texas Rangers.]
James R. Green, Grass-Roots Socialism: Radical Movements in the Southwest, 1895-1943
TESTIMONY OF J. TOM PADGITT.
Commission on Industrial Relations
Dallas, Texas, March 18, 1915
TOM CRENSHAW.
Final Report and Testimony
Submitted to Congress by the
Commission on Industrial Relations
Created by the Act of August 23, 1912
The Rebel gathered other evidence to demonstrate the widespread nature of the Coleman County "strife." A sociologist who toured cotton-tenancy regions in 1912 corroborated these findings, reporting that destructive "class distinctions in the country" caused by the injection of "alien human material" (tenants) had ended the "old warmth and intimacy of social intercourse" in these rural communities. "The growth of class consciousness" in these regions, he wrote, "is a factor of increasing consequence."
The Socialists averaged lower totals but higher percentages in the plains counties of north central Texas (9.4 percent overall). Debs ran especially well in the old Populist counties of the Western Cross Timbers region and in the newly settled area north of Abilene where land values and tenancy rates had increased dramatically after the turn of the century. The Socialists also polled close to 20 percent in Runnels, Coleman, and surrounding counties where the "nesters" had battled the "cattle barons" in the fence-cutting wars of the 1880s, initiating the southwestern class struggle. [Debs carried Leaday in Coleman County where some Socialist tenants had been dismissed from Tom Padgitt's 12,000-acre plantation by his overseer. But the local Socialists charged that their county candidates lost because many tenants had been intimidated by Padgitt's men and stayed away from the polls while Democratic election officials counted out many of their votes. Rebel (Halletsville, Tex.), November 9, 1912. On the violent conflict in this area pitting "nesters," rustlers, and unemployed cowboys against the large cattlemen, their mounted riders, and the Texas Rangers.]
James R. Green, Grass-Roots Socialism: Radical Movements in the Southwest, 1895-1943
TESTIMONY OF J. TOM PADGITT.
Commission on Industrial Relations
Dallas, Texas, March 18, 1915
Chairman WALSH. What is your name?
Mr. PADGITT. J. Tom Padgitt.
Chairman WALSH. Where do you live?
Mr. PADGITT. Coleman, Tex.
Chairman WALSH. How long have you resided there?
Mr. PADGITT. About 10 years from time to time.
Chairman WALSH. Are you a native of this State, Mr. Padgitt?
Mr. PADGITT. I am.
Chairman WALSH. Of what county?
Mr. PADGITT. Brazos County.
Chairman WALSH. Are you a farmer?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes; a landowner and land ranchman.
Chairman WALSH. Where is your land located?
Mr. PADGITT. In Coleman County.
Chairman WALSH. Are your lands all in Coleman County?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, there is part in Runnels County.
Chairman WALSH. How much land do you own altogether?
Mr. PADGITT. About 12,000 acres.
Chairman WALSH. And how much of it do you operate?
Mr. PADGITT. I lease the grassland to some cattlemen; have about 2,000 acres in farms, and the grassland I lease to cattlemen.
Chairman WALSH. Is all the balance of it grassland?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes, sir; all the balance grassland.
Chairman WALSH. I am going to direct your attention, if I may, Mr. Padgitt, at first to the specific questions that I would like to have you answer, then if you want to make any additional statement, we will be glad to have you do so. I wish you would describe in a general way the farming conditions in your neighborhood; that is, is it done largely by tenants, and how the landlords are getting along with their tenants, and general farming conditions.
Mr. PADGITT. Well, I would think that the farming is about 50 per cent by tenants, and the balance of them own their places, just about 50 per cent.
Chairman WALSH. Under existing conditions, what do you think the chances are for the average tenant becoming a home owner in your section?
Mr. PADGITT. I think he has a very favorable chance if he would like to become a home owner.
Chairman WALSH. Is there a tendency among the tenant farmers to become home owners or otherwise in your section?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, some want to become home owners and others would not care for a home place.
Chairman WALSH. Could you strike an average? Do the majority of them, apparently, desire to own their own places or otherwise?
Mr. PADGITT. If they have prosperous years and make a good deal of money, then they want to go and buy a home.
Chairman WALSH. Is there a tendency on the part of landowners to keep them as tenants, or is the tendency the other way? Do they encourage them to buy land?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, they encourage them to buy land.
Chairman WALSH. What is the price of land in your county?
Mr. PADGITT. Unimproved land is worth anywhere from $10 to $25 an acre.
Chairman WALSH. And tillable land?
Mr. PADGITT. Tillable land—that is, in cultivation—worth from $20 to $50 an acre. I have known some to sell as high as $80 an acre, close to the town Coleman.
Chairman WALSH. Where is your land located in the county, with reference to the town?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, it is 30 miles from Coleman in the southwest corner of Coleman County.
Chairman WALSH. I wish you would state for our record here, Mr. Padgitt, the way the tenants operate in your section, so far as the credits are concerned. You have been here and heard it discussed.
Mr. PADGITT. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. That is, how they finance themselves for their provisions, the rate of interest, and the character of security given.
Mr. PADGITT. Well, they go to the bank and make their arrangements with the bank, and the bank takes a mortgage, of course, on their stock or crop to be grown, takes their note in the regular way, charges them 10 per cent interest. Some go to the merchant direct and make arrangements with him to carry him until fall in the same way, in the same manner.
Chairman WALSH. Is it customary to charge anything other than 10 per cent interest where the loan is made from the bank, in any way, any more than with other charges?
Mr. PADGITT. Not that I have ever heard of.
Chairman WALSH. When it comes to the mercantile house furnishing them or extending credit, how is that there? Is there anything in addition to the charge of 10 per cent?
Mr. PADGITT. I understand they charge them a little more; that is, for the goods purchased.
Chairman WALSH. Have you observed whether or not that is true, say, with regard to your own tenants on your own place?
Mr. PADGITT. I haven't noticed it myself. They tell me they have to pay a little more for goods when they buy on time.
Chairman WALSH. Have you made any inquiry to ascertain what the difference is in the charge where it is cash transaction or where it is credit?
Mr. PADGITT. No; I have asked that question but it seems to me they have never been able to answer it, to give me any satisfaction on it.
Chairman WALSH. What is the customary rental contract in your section, please?
Mr. PADGITT. It is a third and fourth; that is, a fourth cotton and a third grain.
Chairman WALSH. Is that the customary contract which you have with your tenant?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, the contract I have with my tenant is I accept one-fourth of the cotton and allow the farmer to take the cotton to town, sell it to the best advantage. I pay a dollar a bale for hauling it, and one-fourth of the ginning, and he takes one-fourth of the net proceeds and puts it in the bank to my credit, and brings back the deposit slip and the invoice from the cotton buyer. I was going to say that on the grain we charge them $3 an acre for it. However, that is not payable in advance. We wait until he makes his cotton crop and he pays it out of that cotton crop. If we have a drought and he fails and does not make much we trade with him, and we ask him what he thinks his crop is worth, and he may pay a dollar and a half an acre for it. If he says he will pay a dollar and a half, we say we think that is all right, and if they have a dry year we trade on that basis. We have never held them to the $3 where they made a failure of the crop.
Chairman WALSH. Do you deal directly with the tenant or through the instrumentality of agents?
Mr. PADGITT. I always keep an agent on the ground.
Chairman WALSH. Are you engaged in any other business except that of landowner?
Mr. PADGITT. Not at present.
Chairman WALSH. Have you been in any other business, either mercantile or banking?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Which business?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, I was in business here in Dallas. I have been in the banking business; that is, worked in a bank when I was a boy, and finally went into the Padgitt Bros. Co., in Dallas, here.
Chairman WALSH. What is their business?
Mr. PADGITT. Manufacturing saddlery and harness.
Chairman WALSH. What defects have you noticed in the existing land rental contracts that you think might be improved, either by general custom or by law?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, I do not know exactly how to answer that question. I do not know of any improvement. I do not know of any improvement that could be made. We have our own contract. I draw my own contract and have them printed. I have a form in my pocket.
Chairman WALSH. Would you be kind enough to submit it?
Mr. PADGITT. I have a blank contract, and I also have one signed up by one of the men—the farmers this year.
Chairman WALSH. All of your contracts in writing?
Mr. PADGITT. Printed.
Chairman WALSH. What is the custom generally in your country—is it to have them in writing or verbal?
Mr. PADGITT. Verbal.
Chairman WALSH. I wish you would just sketch in your own way, if you please, Mr. Padgitt, the tendency of the tenant—the experience you have had with your tenants with reference to the contracts they make—and the way they live, and the interest they take in the property, and anything of that kind that you think would throw light upon our inquiry. You have been here for the last couple of days, have you?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. And you have heard described by some of the witnesses certain general conditions in various parts of the State?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. And in other States?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Now I wish you to give your first-hand experience—how your tenants get along, how many of them graduate from tenants, and those that do not desire to do so, and still make a profit; how your property is represented, etc.
Mr. PADGITT. Well, our tenants seem to want to get along with the landlord.
Chairman WALSH. How many have you, first?
Mr. PADGITT. We have 22.
Chairman WALSH. I wish you would describe the amount of land that they have to operate.
Mr. PADGITT. Usually about 75 acres; that is, with one team.
Chairman WALSH. What would be the income, the average income, in an ordinary year of one of your tenants?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, an average, say for 10 years, I expect it would run about a quarter bale of cotton, averaging it all the way through.
Chairman WALSH. I do not exactly understand you myself. I would like you to make it a little more full.
Mr. PADGITT. I mean the average of 10 years would be a quarter of a bale of cotton to the acre for each year for the 10 years.
Chairman WALSH. I would like you to put that in a lump sum in dollars. What would a man get out of it—that is, a one team farmer on the amount of land which you have on your place, say 75 acres? What would be his profit?
Mr. PADGITT. Oh, he would make about $750.
Chairman WALSH. $750 a year?
Mr. PADGITT. That is, if he made a good crop as I have just stated.
Chairman WALSH. Could you give an average of the force that you have on each place—the number of persons working in the family?
Mr. PADGITT. The families vary. Sometimes we will have a man and his wife that will farm, and then we will have a man with a family of five or six children, and maybe eight.
Chairman WALSH. Do the women generally work in the field?
Mr. PADGITT. Not all the time; no, sir.
Chairman WALSH. What do they do?
Mr. PADGITT. They pick cotton.
Chairman WALSH. Do they do anything else? Do they chop?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes; they chop and hoe.
Chairman WALSH. And plant?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, they hoe the cotton.
Chairman WALSH. Is that generally the case?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes; they usually do.
Chairman WALSH. At what age do the children usually take part?
Mr. PADGITT. When they are probably eight years old.
Chairman WALSH. Is there any effort made to get renters who have large families of children?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, it is more desirable to have a large family. There is an effort made to get them.
Chairman WALSH. What does the desirability consist in? Does it make the people stay there, do they raise more crop, or what?
Mr. PADGITT. The country is thinly settled as compared to the black-land belt, and it is right hard to get labor in the fall when it comes to a cotton crop. And if they have a large family, he has his force there at home to pick out the crop, in addition to any other labor he may secure in any other place. In other words, the family can gather the crop.
Chairman WALSH. What sort of tenant houses do you have on your places for the families?
Mr. PADGITT. We have box houses; that is, some of them have three rooms in them and some four. Most of them have two bedrooms and a shed behind in which they cook and eat.
Chairman WALSH. What is done toward keeping these houses in repair?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, when it is necessary to make repairs on them, we order the lumber or shingles or anything that is necessary to repair them right away.
Chairman WALSH. What is the smallest house, the cheapest house on your place? How many rooms and what is the cost of it to build?
Mr. PADGITT. Cost about $225.
Chairman WALSH. And the best house on the place occupied by the 22 families is how large?
Mr. PADGITT. The best house is a four room house.
Chairman WALSH. Are these all tenant houses that these 22 families occupy, and have they always been used by tenants, or were they ever used by owners?
Mr. PADGITT. They have never been used by an owner.
Chairman WALSH. All tenant houses?
Mr. PADGITT. All tenant houses.
Chairman WALSH. Built by you or the family?
Mr. PADGITT. We build the houses.
Chairman WALSH. Built all of them?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. And those rooms would be how large? Just describe them.
Mr. PADGITT. You mean the dimensions of the rooms?
Chairman WALSH. Yes; the dimensions of the rooms and the number of them.
Mr. PADGITT. There would be two rooms front, and there would be about 16 by 18 feet, and on the rear there is a shed that runs all the way across this house.
Chairman WALSH. Is that counted as a room?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes; that is one.
Chairman WALSH. That is one of the four?
Mr. PADGITT. That is one of the rooms which they use as a dining room and to cook, use it as a dining room as well.
Chairman WALSH. Have they a porch?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes; it is roofed over and all inclosed.
Chairman WALSH. Is the other room that you speak of as a kitchen, is that used as a bedroom also?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, they do not use them as bedrooms. But there is a partition in between, separating the dining room and the kitchen from the front room. It is not all together.
Chairman WALSH. Are these houses screened to keep out mosquitoes and flies?
Mr. PADGITT. They are not.
Chairman WALSH. Are they erected with regard to sanitary drainage of any sort?
Mr. PADGITT. In building the house, usually we locate a site where we can build on a hill where the water will run away from the house, and as far as sewerage or anything of that kind is concerned we do not have it.
Chairman WALSH. Any artificial drainage of any kind?
Mr. PADGITT. No, sir.
Chairman WALSH. I have been asked to ask you if in your opinion a tenant can cultivate 75 acres of land as provided in your contract without at least the aid of other members of his family, his wife and children?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, he would have to use his wife and children to cultivate that.
Chairman WALSH. And at the present prices could he hire daily labor in any amount?
Mr. PADGITT. No; it is difficult to get the day labor.
Chairman WALSH. But, if he could, what would his income be in that respect? Would you say his income would be sufficient that he could hire daily labor without diminishing it to such an extent that he could not make a living?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes; he would have to have the family help him on that crop.
Chairman WALSH. He could not hire day labor?
Mr. PADGITT. No; he could not hire daily labor. It is a difficult matter to get it.
Chairman WALSH. Could he, as a matter of fact, pay for it if he could get the labor?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, no; he could not very well pay for it unless he could make some arrangement with the man to work for him and wait until fall for his money. Then he could get it out of the cotton crop. Sometimes they exchange labor around through the country.
Chairman WALSH. Have you noticed much sickness in these rural areas due to bad housing?
Mr. PADGITT. No, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Is there much illness in those communities?
Mr. PADGITT. Very little.
Chairman WALSH. Do the landlords in your section here feel any social responsibility for the housing of tenants? Have you ever suggested to them, for instance, that the medical authorities have discovered that the mosquitoes are disease-carrying insects, and flies—have they ever suggested that they ought to screen their houses, or that the landlords would do it themselves, or suggest it to the tenant, or do they feel any responsibility of that sort toward the tenant?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, no; it has never been suggested, and the tenants never want screens, and the landlords don't furnish them, and if he did they wouldn't stay in 24 hours. They would break them out. They wouldn't know how to take care of them.
Chairman WALSH. Have you tried it? Have any ever been broken out in that way?
Mr. PADGITT. We have not tried it; no.
Chairman WALSH. Do tenants appear to have proper consideration for the property of the landlords in your section?
Mr. PADGITT. Some do.
Chairman WALSH. Well, on the whole, how is that? Mr. PADGITT. I think they have regard for taking care of things—that is, in a way—but still they take no great interest in it.
Chairman WALSH. Does your agent keep up an inspection of your property to see that the tenants do take good care of it?
Mr. PADGITT. He does.
Chairman WALSH. I wish to ask you a question or two about the schools. What sort of schools do you have there—country schools?
Mr. PADGITT. We have very good country schools; that is, good average country schools.
Chairman WALSH. Just describe how they are in your section of the country; describe the school. Is it brick or frame?
Mr. PADGITT. They are frame.
Chairman WALSH. And the number of rooms in them?
Mr. PADGITT. Two rooms at the schoolhouse in this little town; and we have other schools around on the ranch.
Chairman WALSH. What kind of schools are they?
Mr. PADGITT. They are schools of one room.
Chairman WALSH. And by whom are the teachers employed?
Mr. PADGITT. By the county.
Chairman WALSH. That applies to those that you have on the ranches, also?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. What has been done toward the establishment of vocational training in agriculture and home economics, and the like, in your section?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, there is a lady up there that is teaching a school, and she teaches the children how to can certain vegetables so they can put up their vegetables and have a winter supply for the following winter. I might say this lady is going down on the ranch to teach them there in the summer how to can vegetables and keep them so that they will have something in the winter and will not have to go to the store to buy stuff.
Chairman WALSH. From what source does this lady come who is teaching in the school?
Mr. PADGITT. From one of the towns in the county. Half of salary paid by Government and half by Coleman County.
Chairman WALSH. Mr. Padgitt, I believe that in 1912 there was some discontent among your tenants out of which some trouble grew, Mr. Holman tells me; and Mr. Holman tells me you would like to make some explanation on that. I wish you would do so.
Mr. PADGITT. All right, sir.
Chairman WALSH. I would like, if you will, for you to tell it in your own way, as you are more familiar with it.
Mr. PADGITT. Several years ago there was a party from Cincinnati and Chicago, both ladies and gentlemen, who came down there on the ranch. They were Socialists, and they would talk to the people down under the pecan trees and on the river banks.
Chairman WALSH. Where did you live at that time, Mr. Padgitt?
Mr. PADGITT. I was here in Dallas at that time.
Chairman WALSH. How far is this place from Dallas?
Mr. PADGITT. It is 288 miles.
Chairman WALSH. Proceed.
Mr. PADGITT. So, later along, when they came down and talked to them, there were a great many Socialists in the country.
Chairman WALSH. How long was that prior to 1912?
Mr. PADGITT. That was along about 1909 or 1910, I believe, those summers. And the Socialists got so strong there before the last presidential election that the community organized an Anti-Socialist League. Now, I was in the country at the time, and I do not know anything about it. But they organized this Anti-Socialist League, and the Socialists and Anti-Socialists would fight each other, have meetings at the schoolhouses, but no violence.
Chairman WALSH. Did they meet at the schoolhouses on your ranch?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes, sir. The Socialists would have their meeting and then the Anti-Socialists would have theirs, and they had a general political fight there. That was a free-for-all fight.
Chairman WALSH. How many tenants were on your place at that time?
Mr. PADGITT. There were about the same number.
Chairman WALSH. Twenty-two families?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes. There are tenants all around the country that farm for other people and landowners. So this fight got so warm, they got worked up so about it, and they wanted me to discharge a man I had down there—Mr. Rives—and they petitioned—that is, the Socialists did—me to come there and let him go.
Chairman WALSH. For you to come in person?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes; for me to come in person to discharge him, that they did not want him in the country any longer. Mr. Rives was elected Secretary of the Anti-Socialist League. So I had laid my plans to go down there, and a few hours before I took my train I received this petition. So I proceeded on the journey, anyway, and went down, and when I got there there were a few men—the Socialist Party had written me and said that they would like to see me at the schoolhouse at 2.30.
Chairman WALSH. Were they your own tenants?
Mr. PADGITT. Some were and some were not. Some were landowners.
Chairman WALSH. These landowners were Socialists also?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Proceed.
Mr. PADGITT. So they said they would like to see me at the schoolhouse at 2.30. They noticed that Mrs. Padgitt was with me, and to bring her, too, and let her come to the schoolhouse. I replied that I would be glad to meet them at 2.30 at the schoolhouse. I went over to see what they had to say, and the sum and substance of the thing was that they wanted me to discharge Mr. Rives, my man there. He was looking after the business for me, had been with me almost five years of that time. So I told them I felt Mr. Rives was doing me good work there; he was looking after everything; in fact, I had a written contract with him—a signed contract—and I could not let him go for that reason. If I had not had to contract signed I would not have let him go anyway.
Chairman WALSH. What was their complaint, if any, against Mr. Rives?
Mr. PADGITT. He was president of the Anti-Socialist League, and any articles that were written, he would sign these articles. The people got it into their heads that I was backing him up. This is all a mistake.
Chairman WALSH. Had Mr. Rives dismissed any of the families from your place prior to this time?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes; he dismissed some.
Chairman WALSH. How many?
Mr. PADGITT. I believe there were about six or seven. So they wanted me to discharge Mr. Rives. I told them I could not do it on account of having this contract. I told them even though I did not have this contract I would not let him go; and that if the Republicans or Democrats or any other political party wanted me to let my man go I felt like they were interfering with my personal rights, and they should not dictate to me as to that question. I felt that I had the right to have the man there, and I felt like he was all right, because they were working out this political proposition, and they wanted me to get rid of him, and I told them I wouldn't do that; that I would keep him there.
Chairman WALSH. Was there any charge of inefficiency or negligence or destruction of your property on the part of these six or seven families that were dismissed? Did that all grow out of the political agitation, also?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, I think it grew out of the political agitation.
Chairman WALSH. Were the people that were dismissed active in this agitation, this Socialist agitation?
Mr. PADGITT. You mean the parties that my man dismissed?
Chairman WALSH. Yes; the ones that Mr. Rives dismissed, the six or seven families; were they active in this agitation?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes; they were active in it.
Chairman WALSH. I wish you would just give the surroundings of the dismissal of these people, please, as you got it from Mr. Rives.
Mr. PADGITT. Well, the way I got it from Rives, he wanted to make an arrangement for the tenants next year, and he felt like these men would stay on the land up to the 1st of January and then move away, leaving the land lay out for the for the following year. I think he got a tip on that pretty straight, that they were going to do that. And he let them go so he could have an opportunity of getting other men to put in their place and not let them leave the place January 1 when it was too late to get others to take their places.
Chairman WALSH. Was there any difficulty about the settlement of the accounts with these men?
Mr. PADGITT. No, sir.
Chairman WALSH. What time were they dismissed; what time of the year?
Mr. PADGITT. Along in the summer; but they did not have to give possession of their places, however, until the following January 1. We rent from January 1 to January 1. But they were told we did not want them any longer after January 1.
Chairman WALSH. Were they good or poor farmers?
Mr. PADGITT. Some were good farmers and some were poor.
Chairman WALSH. How long had the oldest of them been on the place?
Mr. PADGITT. About three years.
Chairman WALSH. And the shortest, or newest of them, how long?
Mr. PADGITT. One year.
Chairman WALSH. Proceed, please. You were saying that they asked you to come out at 2.30 and bring Mrs. Padgitt with you; said you would meet them.
Mr. PADGITT. We did meet them; and as I explained they wanted me to let Rives go, and I would not let him go, even if everyone had petitioned me, Republicans, Socialists, or Democrats, or anyone else, because I thought that interfered with my right to decide who should be on the property.
Chairman WALSH. Did they present any grievances except their desire to have Rives removed?
Mr. PADGITT. No, sir. They said that was the only grievance they had and that the only grievance they had against him was letting these men out. I will get through with the Rives part of it. After we would not let Rives go it seemed to terrify these Socialists or make them awful mad they wrote us up in the Socialist paper down here.
Chairman WALSH. At Dallas?
Mr. PADGITT. No; at Halletsville; but the article was exaggerated very much. And there was this young fellow there who used to answer the articles in the Socialist paper. This young fellow was using a Coleman paper and the others were using the Socialist paper. The thing went along from bad to worse until after the election was over and Mr. Wilson was elected President, and then the whole thing quieted down and you did not hear anything more of it at all. I can go down there and stay a month and not hear any political talk in the country.
Chairman WALSH. Of your tenants that were dismissed, were any present at the meeting at the schoolhouse?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes; they were there.
Chairman WALSH. Did they present their case to you and talk to you about this?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Did they claim they were being turned away on account of their political convictions?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes; that is what they claimed.
Chairman WALSH. What did you say to them about it?
Mr. PADGITT. I told them I had authorized Rives to represent me and to manage the property to the best advantage, and when anything came up to use his own judgment and not write me at all times and telephone me, but to act for himself, and that if he let a man go or did anything down there, I approved of it, because I did not want to take the position of taking back what he did.
Chairman WALSH. How long did you remain there at that visit?
Mr. PADGITT. I stayed there about three days.
Chairman WALSH. Have you ever lived down there since?
Mr. PADGITT. Not since.
Chairman WALSH. Is Rives still on the place?
Mr. PADGITT. No; he is not there now.
Chairman WALSH. Who is your agent there now?
Mr. PADGITT. A man by the name of R. L. Sarver.
Chairman WALSH. Have you had any further trouble with your tenants?
Mr. PADGITT. Not a bit.
Chairman WALSH. How long has the longest of the 22 been on your place?
Mr. PADGITT. About five years.
Chairman WALSH. And the shortest one, of course, this year?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. How long do the tenants down there stay on a place, as a rule?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, they stay probably four or five years; some do not stay longer than a year. It is owing to how thrifty a man is and if he wants to make something for himself; you find a man who does stay with you a long time to be thrifty.
Chairman WALSH. Do the tenants and the people in the neighborhood use the schoolhouse in order to discuss political affairs?
Mr. PADGITT. They do not discuss politics any more; that has all been cut out.
Chairman WALSH. Done away with altogether?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Was any suggestion made to them to cut it out?
Mr. PADGITT. I wrote a letter to Rives one time and I have a copy of the letter in my files and I told him I thought it would be a good idea to say to young Shakespeare Smith, which is his nom de plum, and tell him to discontinue writing articles, that it did the country no good; that it did himself no good and kept up an agitation all the time; and I asked him to talk to him and see if he could get him to discontinue writing articles for the Coleman paper.
Chairman WALSH. He was a good writer, was he?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Did Rives suggest that to him?
Mr. PADGITT. I don't know whether he did or not.
Chairman WALSH. Was Shakespeare Smith a tenant of yours?
Mr. PADGITT. No; he was a son of a lady out there that we sold a piece of land to, and this young man farmed her land for her; she is a widow.
Chairman WALSH. Was it paid for in full?
Mr. PADGITT. No, sir.
Chairman WALSH. How much of a piece of land was it?
Mr. PADGITT. About 160 acres.
Chairman WALSH. How much of an encumbrance was on it? How much had been paid up?
Mr. PADGITT. I am not sure about that without referring to my books.
Chairman WALSH. What was it worth?
Mr. PADGITT. About $25 an acre.
Chairman WALSH. When Rives spoke to him did he discontinue writing the articles?
Mr. PADGITT. I did not see any more; I think he quit shortly after that. The political fight was over anyway and when it was over they stopped writing the articles.
Chairman WALSH. Is there anything you would like to state to the commission, Mr. Padgitt, that I have not asked you? I have not gone into this as liberally with you as with some of the others and unless there is some point you might be a—point of dispute or that you might wish to correct—
Mr. PADGITT. I just want to state that I haven't got it in for any man, no matter what his politics may be, whether Democrat or Socialist or a Republican, and I would not refuse to rent to a man if he were a Socialist, providing I knew the man and knew he was a good farmer and was well equipped, and that he would not give any trouble in the country.
Chairman WALSH. What do you mean by being a good farmer? Do you mean being skilled in the science of agriculture?
Mr. PADGITT. Having good teams and implements and being prepared to farm in a skillful manner.
Chairman WALSH. What do you mean by his not giving trouble in the country?
Mr. PADGITT. That is, to agitate and stir up trouble and talk at the store and keep everybody stirred up all the time.
Chairman WALSH. Suppose that he had certain principles that he held were beneficial to mankind and that he believed in, do you think it would be good or bad for him to say it?
Mr. PADGITT. If he had anything good to say, it might be good for him to say it.
Chairman WALSH. Who would be the judge of whether what another man might say was good?
Mr. PADGITT. The community would have to be the judge as to what kind of man he was.
Chairman WALSH. I mean as to what he said. I mean now particularly as to his utterances, who would judge whether they were for the benefit of mankind or otherwise?
Mr. PADGITT. That we would be the judges of, or the man on the ranch now.
Chairman WALSH. The man that succeeded Rives?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes; he would be the judge of whether a man was attending to his business or not and staying on the farm and working it, and we could mighty soon tell whether he was a good farmer or not. But if he was a man who would stay away from his farm and talk at the store and stir up trouble, we would not want that man in the country, whether he was a Democrat, a Socialist, or anything else. We want men to attend to business and make the farm pay.
Chairman WALSH. That is, you would be the judge of him. With respect to your last answer, with regard to whether he made the utterances during working hours—what time of day do they work—what time do they go to work usually?
Mr. PADGITT. It depends on the time of the year; sometimes at 4 and sometimes at 6.
Chairman WALSH. And how late do they work in the evening?
Mr. PADGITT. Until dark; until sundown, anyway.
Chairman WALSH. You would not have any objection then, as I understand your last answer, to a man, after those hours were over, to agitate any principles he thought were right at the store or schoolhouse, or any place else?
Mr. PADGITT. I would object to it if he were doing me an injury and trying to make the balance of our men dissatisfied that were working all right, and if he was doing or saying anything that was in any way injuring them or causing them to become dissatisfied, I would object to it.
Chairman WALSH. For instance, if he said at the schoolhouse that the conditions under which the tenants were compelled to live were rotten and no one ought to abide by them, you would deem him a trouble raiser, would you?
Mr. PADGITT. I would not deem him a trouble raiser just for that.
Chairman WALSH. What sort of agitation would you feel was sufficient to say that a man was a man that made trouble and that you did not want on your place?
Mr. PADGITT. A man that would go around and would talk to the other men and cause them to become dissatisfied, and poison their minds as to their landlords and cause the men to dislike their landlords. In other words, if a man would talk to them and get them stirred up to such a point—say something about the landlord and get them worked up to such a pitch that they would want to go and break all the window lights at the gin, which has been done, and to break the pump to pieces.
Chairman WALSH. Describe in the record, Mr. Padgitt, any destruction of property.
Mr. PADGITT. Of course, I do not know who did it and no one else knows; but it was done.
Chairman WALSH. Was it at the time you were having the trouble with your tenants?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Was it done in the night time?
Mr. PADGITT. I do not know when it was done.
Chairman WALSH. How many windows were broken at the gin house?
Mr. PADGITT. All of the windows.
Chairman WALSH. How many windows were there in the gin house?
Mr. PADGITT. About 28.
Chairman WALSH. What other destruction of property was there at any time that might be attributed to the people that you were having trouble with?
Mr. PADGITT. The destruction of the pump at the gin. They threw rocks on top of the steam pump.
Chairman WALSH. Was it a valuable pump?
Mr. PADGITT. It cost $80 and we had to put a new one in.
Chairman WALSH. Was there any other destruction of property?
Mr. PADGITT. That is all I can recall now.
Chairman WALSH. When was that with reference to the time you came and had this meeting in the schoolhouse?
Mr. PADGITT. In the summer of 1913, I think in July.
Chairman WALSH. When was it you had the meeting?
Mr. PADGITT. At the schoolhouse?
Chairman WALSH. Yes.
Mr. PADGITT. That was when we had the meeting in July, 1913.
Chairman WALSH. In 1913?
Mr. PADGITT. I think that was the year. Just before the presidential election.
Chairman WALSH. 1912, wasn't it?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes; that was the year; that is right, 1912.
Chairman WALSH. And this property was destroyed and injured that same summer?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Did this destruction of property take place before or after the meeting you had in the schoolhouse when yourself and wife attended?
Mr. PADGITT. It took place afterwards.
Chairman WALSH. Is it true that upon one occasion the foreman of your ranch, or representative, barricaded himself in one of the schoolhouses to protect himself against violence on the part of some of the tenants?
Mr. PADGITT. I never heard of it.
Chairman WALSH. That is all, Mr. Padgitt, unless you have something you desire to volunteer further. We will adjourn until to-morrow morning at 10 o'clock, and if there is something further you have to say we will hear you at that time.
Mr. PADGITT. This trouble would not have come up unless they wanted me to let that man go and that is the whole thing in a nutshell.
Chairman WALSH. Will you be kind enough to be back at 10 o'clock?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes; and I want to say that Mr. Rives resigned and left me voluntarily; I did not discharge him.
Chairman WALSH. At this point we will stand adjourned until to-morrow, Friday, March 19, 1915, at 10 o'clock a. m., then to reconvene at the same place.
* * *
Chairman WALSH. The commission will please come to order. [Present: Commissioners Lennon and Harriman]
Mr. PADGITT. What time will suit the commission for me to appear? I would like to make myself clear on one particular point.
Chairman WALSH. Probably I will let you do it right now.
Mr. PADGITT. It was a point that was probably misconstrued, and I want to make myself plain on that point.
Chairman WALSH. Very good.
Mr. PADGITT. When may I proceed? May I proceed now, Mr. Chairman?
Chairman WALSH. Yes; you may proceed now.
Mr. PADGITT. The point was in regard to talking around the country; that different ones in talking would lose time around their farms; that is the point I want to make clear, that—I do not mean to say that I do not allow a man freedom of speech, but I think every man has the right to talk or say anything he wishes; but the idea I intended to convey was that if his talking made him lose time from his farm and made him neglect his farm, that I then had a right to say something; but as long as he talked and then could attend to the farm, of course I would not consider that I should interfere with him in the least.
Chairman WALSH. Was that all, Mr. Padgitt?
Mr. PADGITT. I understand you are going to have Mr. Rives next.
Chairman WALSH. Yes.
Mr. PADGITT. He will tell you all about the recent trouble.
Chairman WALSH. Yes; I have a little outline that I am going to ask him about these specific things.
Mr. PADGITT. Yes; that is all right. I have a lot of memoranda here that probably might be apropos just at the present time, but it is a little history of the ranch; early history.
Chairman WALSH. What does it cover?
Mr. PADGITT. It goes back to 50 years ago.
Chairman WALSH. Have you got it in such shape that you could offer it into the record?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, I just have a little memorandum.
Chairman WALSH. May I ask you, then, that in regard to the historical part of it you kindly write it and submit it, and I will make it a part of your testimony and it will go into the permanent record of the commission.
Mr. PADGITT. That will be all right.
Chairman WALSH. I would much prefer to do it in that way. Write the historical part, and any suggestions you desire to make about the development of the whole situation, and I will be very glad to take it and make it a part of the permanent records, and it will go to the whole commission.
Mr. PADGITT. The only reason I thought it necessary to go back and bring it up to the present day was to show that on the ranch in regard to the colonization of it that generally we are considered substantial people, and that we are not inclined to do a tenant wrong.
Chairman WALSH. I would be very glad to have it.
Mr. PADGITT. On the other hand, we would rather do him good than do him any harm.
Chairman WALSH. Thank you, Mr. Padgitt.
Mr. Rives.
TESTIMONY OF MR. C. A. RIVES.
Commission on Industrial Relations
Dallas, Texas, March 19, 1915
Chairman WALSH. What is your name?
Mr. RIVES. C. A. Rives.
Chairman WALSH. What is your business?
Mr. RIVES. Real estate business.
Chairman WALSH. You live at Ryan?
Mr. RIVES. No; Hastings.
Chairman WALSH. In business for yourself?
Mr. RIVES. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. I believe you were formerly the superintendent of the Padgitt estate?
Mr. RIVES. For five years, less one month.
Chairman WALSH. And you are the Mr. Rives that was spoken of here?
Mr. RIVES. I am the man; yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Please briefly sketch what your business life has been, Mr. Rives, since you grew up—what your development has been.
Mr. RIVES. Well, I was raised on a farm in Missouri and in Ellis County, Tex.
Chairman WALSH. What part of Missouri?
Mr. RIVES. Central part; and I taught school seven or eight years and have been in the grocery business and been in the collection business and hotel business and real estate business.
Chairman WALSH. Where had you been immediately prior to coming to the Padgitt Ranch?
Mr. RIVES. Hastings, Okla.
Chairman WALSH. What was your business there?
Mr. RIVES. Real estate business.
Chairman WALSH. Had you known Mr. Padgitt before?
Mr. RIVES. Well, only a month or two prior to my going there.
Chairman WALSH. Briefly, how did you happen to get the position?
Mr. RIVES. I was taking home seekers to the Padgitt ranch in Texas—or rather, to another part of the ranch that did not belong to Mr. Padgitt; but they had sold that off, and they were colonizing that and I was taking home seekers down there and I got acquainted through Mr. Miller's agent.
Chairman WALSH. As a real estate man?
Mr. RIVES. As a real estate man.
Chairman WALSH. Did you go to the Padgitt estate from there?
Mr. RIVES. Yes; and became manager of that ranch. Mr. Padgitt was wanting a man, and he got my name——
Chairman WALSH (interrupting). I wish you would direct yourself to this trouble you have heard spoken of, and I want you to understand that we do not go into it simply because it is a little local piece of trouble, but because we are trying to gather the spirit that exists publicly and privately between landlord and tenant. You get the point, I suppose, Mr. Rives? I wish you would go ahead and in your own way tell us how that trouble came up and how you undertook to handle it and all about it.
Mr. RIVES. Well, when I went on the ranch I didn't know anything particularly about socialism, and they had me to subscribe for the paper, and I took their Appeal to Reason, and they tried to make a socialist out of me.
Chairman WALSH. Did you live with your family on this place?
Mr. RIVES. Yes, sir; on the ranch.
Chairman WALSH. What were your general duties?
Mr. RIVES. My general duties were just general supervision of the farm and the renting of those farms out and collecting the rent and seeing about the repairs.
Chairman WALSH. Did you farm any part of it yourself?
Mr. RIVES. I did not.
Chairman WALSH. And you lived in the house furnished by the estate?
Mr. RIVES. Well, it was partly furnished, and part of it we had our own furniture.
Chairman WALSH. Yes; but I mean the house was given you by the estate—the house was on the estate?
Mr. RIVES. Yes; it was on the land.
Chairman WALSH. And how large a house was it?
Mr. RIVES. About a seven-room modern house.
Chairman WALSH. It was a modern house?
Mr. RIVES. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. That had been used by the owner of the place at a prior time?
Mr. RIVES. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. And you lived in that with how many of your family?
Mr. RIVES. I had wife and three children at the time and one was born while we were there.
Chairman WALSH. Very well, you may go ahead from that point, at which you were when I interrupted you. You took the Appeal to Reason?
Mr. RIVES. The Appeal to Reason; yes, sir; and when they found out I opposed socialism, just in a friendly way, I understand some of them—a great many of them—didn't like me. I was outspoken and told them very plainly what I thought about it; that I did not believe in it; but we got along all right for a few years. The first notice of trouble was in 1911. I can give the names of the individuals, if you want them.
Chairman WALSH. Please give the names of the individuals, and give the whole story.
Mr. RIVES. A man by the name of F. M. Johnson took part of the roof off of a shed barn and made beehives out of it. I tried to get him to put it back from time to time, but he would not do it. Mr. and Mrs. Padgitt were out there on a trip and noticed that the roof was off of the barn and asked me if a storm had blown off the roof, and I told him how it happened. He said, "It is not a good idea to keep people on the farm who destroy property that way." I don't think he named Johnson. And when the time came around to make a new arrangement he asked me if he could stay on the place, and I told him no, and I told him why he could not.
In the same year a man by the name of Alford had a lease for 100 acres, and he wanted to lease an additional 50 acres that year. He came to me and attempted to dictate to me who should live here and who should live there, and talked to me in a very insulting manner, and when he came to me to rent the additional 50 acres I told him he could not have it, and I told him why.
We had another man by the name of Jim Futro that did not work as he should, and I let him go in 1911.
They were all three Socialists, but I let them go for cause.
Chairman WALSH. What notice did you give them?
Mr. RIVES. I called on the farmers every few weeks, and when I saw that they would not make good I would say, "Mr. Brown, you can get another place next year."
Chairman WALSH. They were not put off right at the time?
Mr. RIVES. No, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Go ahead.
Mr. RIVES. Well, I have told about those three.
Chairman WALSH. Those were discharged for charge?
Mr. RIVES. Yes. That summer, shortly after that, there was a committee of three Socialists called at my residence and asked me to come away from the house, that they wanted to talk to me, and I went out to where they were, and they said they had had a meeting at the schoolhouse and they had found out I was renting out Socialists, and I told them I was not renting out Socialists, but treating them all alike, treating one man like another, and if they didn't made good I let them go. They gave me to understand that if I were going to rent out to Socialists they were going to boycott our gin. I talked to them in a nice way.
Chairman WALSH. How many of them were there?
Mr. RIVES. Three.
Chairman WALSH. Who were they?
Mr. RIVES. T. D. Blackwell, a man by the name of Tomlinson, and W. H. Faircloth. I said, "If you boycott this gin I will make every Socialist on the ranch leave."
Well, it went on that way and I thought everybody was satisfied, and they did not boycott the gin.
Chairman WALSH. How could they have boycotted the gin?
Mr. RIVES. Just meet and have an understanding that they would take their cotton to some other gin.
Chairman WALSH. Go ahead, Mr. Rives.
Mr. RIVES. About the 3d of January I went over on a certain part of the ranch on a business matter, and a Socialist by the name of Frank Wilhelm said to me, "Mr. Rives, do you know some of the boys are going to leave you?" I said, "No, Frank; what is the matter?" He said, "They have a line-up here to leave, and they tried to get me to leave, but I said no; that I was going to work the farm I have rented." This man Alford was abandoning this 100 acres, and another man, by the name of Dalton, went away, and another man, Hayes, aimed to go, but failed to get a place. And they moved off without any notice to me, and left the farms on my hands. I didn't think they treated me right.
The next summer, 1912—up to that time the people in the community had taken sides—there was a great deal of confusion in the neighborhood, in the churches, and in the Sunday schools. The Socialist people kicked out of the union Sunday school and organized a Socialist Sunday school and called it the "Socialist Sunday school." It did not last very long—just a short time, as I understand it—and there was a good deal of confusion in the churches. I got most of my information on the church business from the church members and the preachers.
Chairman WALSH. Did the preachers take any side, one way or the other?
Mr. RIVES. Yes; well, in a way they did. They talked to the members and tried to get peace. I have a copy of a letter here from the pastor of the M. E. Church South. He lived at Talpa, Tex., a town about 18 miles from there.
Chairman WALSH. What is the general text of it, Mr. Rives? I am going to let you offer that in the record, because we are hurried.
Mr. RIVES. It is just a short letter.
Chairman WALSH. Well, read the whole letter.
Mr. RIVES. It is a little bit of it, from here down to here, that is all. [reading]
"Talpa, Tex., June 1, 1912. Mr. B. P. Allen, Leaday, Tex."
Mr. Allen was living at Leaday.
Chairman WALSH. What was Mr. Allen? Was he a landowner?
Mr. RIVES. No, sir; he was a mail carrier. [continues reading]
"Dear Sir and Brother:"
You understand there was an Anti-Socialist League there to combat socialism.
Chairman WALSH. Who got that up?
Mr. RIVES. The people of the community.
Chairman WALSH. Did you have anything to do with it yourself?
Mr. RIVES. I did as a citizen of the community.
Chairman WALSH. Did you have anything to do as an organizer or a promoter; did you pay any of the expenses, or anything of that kind?
Mr. RIVES. I was the secretary. They had me—the first night we met there were 33 members, and they appointed me secretary to go around and visit other members and get members for the organization; yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Did you contribute any money?
Mr. RIVES. Yes; I contributed some money. We sent off for some Anti-Socialist literature.
Chairman WALSH. Was it your money that you contributed?
Mr. RIVES. Yes; we all put in our pro rata, about 10 cents apiece, I think.
Chairman WALSH. All the contributions were by the neighbors, or was there any from Mr. Padgitt or anyone else?
Mr. RIVES. No; from Mr. Padgitt none; no; nor no one else.
Chairman WALSH. Just yourselves?
Mr. RIVES. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Go ahead.
Mr. RIVES. [continues reading]
Dear Sir and Brother:
Replying to your invitation to speak on socialism at the Anti-Socialistic meeting on the third Thursday night in June, will say that it will give me pleasure to accept the invitation; but I can not say positively that it will be possible for me to be there, owing to the fact that I will attend lectures at Georgetown from the 10th to 19th. I might possibly get home by noon that day, and in that event could drive down. Could be with you the next night or some night the next week.
I want to congratulate you on the stand you people have taken against this menace to the happiness and prosperity of liberty-loving, God-fearing people.
With the light turned on and the fruits as well as tendencies of socialism exposed, it will be on the toboggon everywhere.
I have been driven and compelled to take a firm and definite stand, and will be found ready at all times to aid in the publicity of facts that show really what practiced socialism is.
Go ahead with your meeting; get another speaker, if you can, and if I get home in time I will run down to your meeting that night. With regards,
Yours, very truly,
George S. Kornegay
Pastor Methodist Church South, Talpa, Tex.
Chairman WALSH. What position did the other ministers take? Was there any division among them as to the issues?
Mr. RIVES. Well, I don't know about that.
Chairman WALSH. Well, do you recall any that favored the socialists?
Mr. RIVES. Well, there was a Christian preacher by the name of Carroll, or McCarroll, that favored socialism, and I was reliably——
Chairman WALSH. Will you let that go into the record?
Mr. RIVES. Yes. There was some influence brought to bear on him that he had either to quit socialism or quit the church, and he quit socialism. He told me with his own mouth, he said, "I have found out that socialism is all wrong, and I am going to put my time on the work of the Lord from now on."
Chairman WALSH. Where did the pressure come from to have him make his choice?
Mr. RIVES. I think it was from his church, or some of the members.
Chairman WALSH. From the people of his church?
Mr. RIVES. I imagine so. I can't say for sure.
Chairman WALSH. Were there any threats made against you as superintendent of that place?
Mr. RIVES. Well, I heard there were such. I heard there were threats that I would get fired.
Chairman WALSH. Any threats of personal violence?
Mr. RIVES. There was a man, a former manager whose horse had been shot while he was on the horse one dark night down in a ravine, and I had had my attention called to the fact, the way it was done, and I would be treated the same way.
Chairman WALSH. In that way, just state it.
Mr. RIVES. Well, I had been told that I would get done like Johnson.
Chairman WALSH. Was it by some person that you deemed to be of the opposition?
Mr. RIVES. No; it was persons, you see, that would not talk to me. They would talk to other parties, and the other parties would tell me.
Chairman WALSH. I see. Well, now, you could take that up and lead up to the closing of the schoolhouse, and the ending of the trouble, please?
Mr. RIVES. Well, the closing of the schoolhouse? I don't know what you mean by that.
Chairman WALSH. I think Mr. Padgitt said that finally they were asked not to hold any meetings in the schoolhouse on the ranch?
Mr. RIVES. No; I think that is a mistake.
Chairman WALSH. That is a mistake? Maybe I made a mistake.
Mr. PADGITT. I did not make that statement.
Chairman WALSH. Maybe I made a mistake about it then.
Mr. PADGITT. If you will allow me to reply, I wrote Mr. Rives to ask him to request the young fellow who was answering the socialist articles in the paper to discontinue if he could prevail upon him to do so.
Chairman WALSH. You might go ahead and sketch it, in your own way, the trouble from that point.
Mr. RIVES. Well, now, the people were beginning to line up against each other. And they talked from time to time, and had been talking for several months that they were going to have to do something to redeem the country from socialism and to check the growth of socialism. And so it was talked around, and they decided to meet, have meetings; the socialist people were meeting every week, and they said, "We ought to"—the people said—"We ought to meet and have an organization, just as the Socialists have, to fight against socialism, as they fight for it."
Chairman WALSH. How many did you finally get in your organization?
Mr. RIVES. We got 78, and a few that did not have their names enrolled. They were silent members, so to speak.
Chairman WALSH. Did you have a debate over the matter? Did you have a meeting?
Mr. RIVES. Yes; we had a meeting.
Chairman WALSH. How many meetings did you have?
Mr. RIVES. I don't remember, sir. We met occasionally for a while; we met regularly for three or four meetings, and then there was something happened and we skipped a few meetings, and then we met again along until about the first of the year.
Chairman WALSH. How many people would you say left; how many renters left on account of the difficulty, altogether?
Mr. RIVES. At the Padgitt ranch?
Chairman WALSH. Yes.
Mr. RIVES. I think there were six of them—six or seven.
Chairman WALSH. Did you ask some of them to bring their tenancy to a close?
Mr. RIVES. Did I ask them to go?
Chairman WALSH. Did you dismiss some of them, other than these three you have mentioned?
Mr. RIVES. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. How many?
Mr. RIVES. There were five or six or seven.
Chairman WALSH. What reason did you give them, Mr. Rives?
Mr. RIVES. I just told them I was afraid they were going to go back on me like this other bunch did on the 1st of January; and then the pressure got so great and the confusion was so great that the anti-Socialist people said they wouldn't stay on our land if we kept the Socialist people, and I preferred to keep the anti-Socialist people.
Chairman WALSH. Were all that you retained anti-Socialist people, or were some of the Socialists permitted to remain?
Mr. RIVES. There was not any Socialists permitted to remain.
Chairman WALSH. After you got through there were no Socialists on your place?
Mr. RIVES. Not that I know of.
Chairman WALSH. Was there action taken by any other landowners or agents in the neighborhood of about the same nature?
Mr. RIVES. No, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Yours was the only one, so far as you know, that met the matter openly?
Mr. RIVES. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Were the tenants allowed to finish out their terms, or were they notified——
Mr. RIVES. Certainly.
Chairman WALSH. There were none left except, you say, those who left voluntarily?
Mr. RIVES. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Did you have any talk with those who left voluntarily before they left, as to why they did leave?
Mr. RIVES. You mean those——
Chairman WALSH. The three you say that you had given notice to; had you any talk with those three at all about giving up their place?
Mr. RIVES. That was a year before.
Chairman WALSH. 1911?
Mr. RIVES. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Did you have any talk with them about their leaving, the reason they were leaving, or anything of that sort?
Mr. RIVES. The only talk I had with the men—Mr. Alford talked to me about the addition of 50 acres.
Chairman WALSH. And you did not have any talk with the others?
Mr. RIVES. No, sir; not that I remember of.
Chairman WALSH. Do you remember Mr. Padgitt's testimony as to the length of time in which they had been on his place? I think that the longest of them had been there three years. Just what was that?
Mr. RIVES. I think Mr. Padgitt is mistaken about that.
Chairman WALSH. Make any correction that you think may be necessary.
Mr. RIVES. One family had been on that place——
Chairman WALSH. Commissioner Lennon says the longest one had been there five years. Is that correct, Mr. Padgitt?
Mr. PADGITT. That was the oldest tenant we have on the ranch?
Chairman WALSH. Yes; the tenant living there the longest.
Mr. PADGITT. The oldest tenant, I said, was on that ranch over five years.
Chairman WALSH. Well, go ahead. Make your own statement, Mr. Rives.
Mr. RIVES. The McBride people were on the land when I went there, and I went there in 1908.
Chairman WALSH. And these people, as a rule—these people that went off—were they all American people?
Mr. RIVES. I think so.
Chairman WALSH. Mr. Wilhelm evidently was not.
Mr. RIVES. Seems that was a foreign name, but he was an American man.
Chairman WALSH. An American—native American?
Mr. RIVES. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. His—what is the ancestry, generally, of those tenant farmers?
Mr. RIVES. Southern people, mostly.
Chairman WALSH. And these were southern people?
Mr. RIVES. Yes, sir; so far as I know.
Chairman WALSH. And how long had they been Socialists?
Mr. RIVES. I don't know, sir.
Chairman WALSH. As a rule, were they good farmers?
Mr. RIVES. Well, they were just an average; some good, some bad, and some medium.
Chairman WALSH. Now, I am hurrying through a little this morning, Mr. Rives. Is there anything else connected with that particular outbreak there, that particular trouble, that you would like to mention that I have not called your attention to?
Mr. RIVES. Well, you wanted to know about the schoolhouse business.
Chairman WALSH. Yes; I overlooked that.
Mr. RIVES. Well, we informed them around that we were going to have a meeting at the schoolhouse; and the Socialists got word that we were going to meet at the schoolhouse, and they sent out runners and phoned all over the country and gathered together, and began to gather in the schoolhouse; and some of the boys says that if we meet with the Socialists we will have trouble, and we don't want any trouble, and let's go to the Woodman Hall; and we saw the manager of the hall and got permission to meet in the Woodman Hall to avoid trouble; and we met there. And when they found we were in the Woodman Hall they left their meeting and came down there and some of them talked rather bad about it.
Chairman WALSH. What was the distinct purpose of your meeting at the Woodman Hall?
Mr. RIVES. Just to have an anti-Socialist meeting to perfect an organization.
Chairman WALSH. Just to perfect the organization?
Mr. RIVES. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Not supposed to be a public hearing or discussion, or speeches made to the public?
Mr. RIVES. Nothing to the public; no, sir. We were just going to discuss ways and means to handle the thing.
Chairman WALSH. Proceed.
Mr. RIVES. And we told the Socialists the object of our meeting, and we says, "Boys, we might say something that would offend you, and we would rather you would not be present this time. You can meet us any time after this." So they got mad about it and went away and made threats that they were going to meet with us any time, and had a great wrangle about it, and were going to send some of the boys to the penitentiary for meeting behind closed doors; and they got up a long petition—Socialist petition to the sheriff—to have a deputy sheriff appointed, and they wanted a deputy sheriff down there immediately; but that all blew over, and we had our meetings there and they had theirs, and the thing just went on in a general way.
Chairman WALSH. Was there any compulsion on either side to keep the others from speaking at the schoolhouses?
Mr. RIVES. No, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Did you deny the use of the schoolhouse to the other side?
Mr. RIVES. No, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Did you ever request that meetings should not be held in the schoolhouse?
Mr. RIVES. No, sir.
Chairman WALSH. After you go under way, were meetings held in the ordinary way in the schoolhouses by both sides?
Mr. RIVES. No, sir; we continued to meet in the Woodman Hall.
Chairman WALSH. Did you have debates between both sides?
Mr. RIVES. No, sir; not in our meetings.
Chairman WALSH. In the Socialist meetings, were the conditions as to farm tenants discussed, and the condition of the farms and houses and the crops raised, and such as that?
Mr. RIVES. The Socialist meetings, I didn't attend them, and I don't know what they did—what they discussed, only as I heard of it.
Chairman WALSH. What did you hear they discussed? Were they discussing their conditions?
Mr. RIVES. I don't know, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Did you hear they were discussing their conditions?
Mr. RIVES. Well, it was understood they were discussing socialism.
Chairman WALSH. Well, as you understood it, did that include the personal condition of the man on the ranch, as it was, and how they lived, what they earned, and the way the product of the soil was divided, and such things as that?
Mr. RIVES. I don't know about that.
Chairman WALSH. You don't know.
Mr. RIVES. No.
Chairman WALSH. You never did ascertain what they were saying or what they were talking about?
Mr. RIVES. No, sir; we didn't bother anything about that affair—their meetings.
Chairman WALSH. The schoolhouses that were located on the Padgitt Ranch, were they owned by the Padgitt estate or by the county?
Mr. RIVES. They were owned by the county at that time. I think, formerly, the Padgitt people built the house and donated it to the county.
Chairman WALSH. And the teachers were furnished by the county?
Mr. RIVES. Yes; under the public system of the State.
Chairman WALSH. Did the teachers take any part in the controversy?
Mr. RIVES. No, sir.
Chairman WALSH. And did the—well, you have detailed what the ministers did. That is all; thank you, Mr. Rives.
Mr. Davis—W. T. Davis.
TESTIMONY OF MR. WILLIAM T. DAVIS.
Commission on Industrial Relations
Dallas, Texas, March 19, 1915
Chairman WALSH. What is your name?
Mr. DAVIS. W. T. Davis.
Chairman WALSH. What does the "W" stand for?
Mr. DAVIS. William Travis.
Chairman WALSH. Where do you live?
Mr. DAVIS. I live in Coleman County.
Chairman WALSH. What is your business, please?
Mr. DAVIS. I am a farmer.
Chairman WALSH. You are a native of what State?
Mr. DAVIS. Texas.
Chairman WALSH. And what is your ancestry? Where did you come from to Texas with your family?
Mr. DAVIS. I was born and raised in the State and never out of it.
Chairman WALSH. Your father came from where?
Mr. DAVIS. Kentucky.
Chairman WALSH. And your mother came from where?
Mr. DAVIS. Mississippi.
Chairman WALSH. Your ancestry is southern all the way back?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. How many children have you?
Mr. DAVIS. Ten living.
Chairman WALSH. Are you a farmer now?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Are you a tenant or an owner?
Mr. DAVIS. I bought land, but I am under lease contract.
Chairman WALSH. How much land have you that you bought?
Mr. DAVIS. One hundred and eighty-five acres. I bought 195 acres, but I lost 10 acres of it.
Chairman WALSH. How much have you paid down on it?
Mr. DAVIS. I paid $500 when I bought it.
Chairman WALSH. Is it tillable land?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. How long have you owned it?
Mr. DAVIS. Ten years.
Chairman WALSH. Is it being worked?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. By whom?
Mr. DAVIS. By me and my family.
Chairman WALSH. Did you buy that from the savings—from your earnings as a tenant farmer?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. That was the source of the money with which you bought it? You earned it when you were working as a tenant?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes; I earned it working as a tenant.
Chairman WALSH. I wish you would briefly state, if you can, Mr. Davis, what your history has been since you grew up and went into business for yourself. Did you begin as a tenant? Just describe your history down to the present time.
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir; I began as a tenant. I went on a farm as manager when I was 14 years old.
Chairman WALSH. Manager for whom?
Mr. DAVIS. For my mother and one sister and myself.
Chairman WALSH. Was that in Texas?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes; in Brazos County. That is where I was reared. I was born west on the Guadalupe River, in Gillespie County. My father moved from there back west on account of the Indians being bad, after I was born. I went on the farm as farm manager when I was 14, after my father died, with my mother and one sister, and I have been on a farm ever since.
Chairman WALSH. How long did you remain as manager?
Mr. DAVIS. Sixteen years that my mother lived a widow.
Chairman WALSH. Were you paid a salary, or did you have a part of the proceeds?
Mr. DAVIS. I had a part of the proceeds.
Chairman WALSH. At the end of the 16 years, when you left there, did you buy a place, or did you rent a place?
Mr. DAVIS. I rented.
Chairman WALSH. Who did you rent from next?
Mr. DAVIS. From different parties, a number of them; I could not go back and give them all.
Chairman WALSH. What was the largest and what was the smallest amount of land you farmed since you left your mother's place?
Mr. DAVIS. When we lived in Brazos County, we could not attend to much more land than 15 acres, that was as much as you could manage, because it rains a lot, and the condition of the land.
Chairman WALSH. Did your family work on the land as they grew up?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. How were they divided as to boys and girls?
Mr. DAVIS. They all worked in the field.
Chairman WALSH. How many boys have you, and how many girls?
Mr. DAVIS. Five boys and five girls.
Chairman WALSH. Did your wife work on the place all the time?
Mr. DAVIS. No; my wife has not worked much in the field.
Chairman WALSH. But she did work some on the place?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. She keeps house for the family?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. And raised the children?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. And made their clothes?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. And did the cooking for the family?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Did she do any work in the field at all?
Mr. DAVIS. Once in a while.
Chairman WALSH. What kind of work did she do in the field?
Mr. DAVIS. Well, she worked in the garden, and sometimes hoed a little and picked a little cotton.
Chairman WALSH. Did you keep chickens, and a cow, and so forth?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. What is your land worth now?
Mr. DAVIS. I reckon it is worth about $40 an acre.
Chairman WALSH. Is it clear?
Mr. DAVIS. No.
Chairman WALSH. There is an incumbrance on it?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Now, the land you have under lease, what sort of a contract have you?
Mr. DAVIS. I have a written contract, I have the contract with me.
Chairman WALSH. Would you have any objection to letting us see it?
Mr. DAVIS. No; here it is.
(The contract so offered by the witness appears at the end of this subject as "Davis Exhibit.")
Chairman WALSH. How long have you been on this place?
Mr. DAVIS. For the past 10 years.
Chairman WALSH. On this same place?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. How much land have you here now under lease?
Mr. DAVIS. I have 185 acres.
Chairman WALSH. One hundred and eighty-five acres?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Have you been renting from Mr. Miller all of that 10 years?
Mr. DAVIS. No; I bought this land from Mr. Padgitt and gave him $20 an acre for it as raw land.
Chairman WALSH. Is that the land you own?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. How about the amount of land you had leased; I thought you said you were renting some land also.
Mr. DAVIS. Yes; I am renting the place adjoining it.
Chairman WALSH. Do you work that yourself?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. How much land do you rent?
Mr. DAVIS. Forty-five acres in cultivation on the tract I got leased.
Chairman WALSH. What do you raise on that land you have leased?
Mr. DAVIS. I raise cotton. There was nothing on it this last year but cotton.
Chairman WALSH. How much cotton did you raise on it?
Mr. DAVIS. I made 20 bales. My object in securing this land was only to get the grass; I paid 25 cents an acre for the grass.
Chairman WALSH. Please tell us what stock you raise.
Mr. DAVIS. I keep cattle and sheep.
Chairman WALSH. How many cattle and how many sheep have you?
Mr. DAVIS. Sixteen head of cattle and 25 head of sheep, and some hogs and chickens and a few ducks.
Chairman WALSH. Were you on the Padgitt estate at the time this trouble came up you heard testified to here?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Just go ahead, Mr. Davis, if you will, please, and tell us in your own way, as you recollect, how it developed, and the circumstances of it generally.
Mr. DAVIS. Well there was a Socialist local organized at the schoolhouse at Leaday. I was one of the parties that went into the organization.
Chairman WALSH. You had studied the subject, had you?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Proceed, Mr. Davis.
Mr. DAVIS. There was opposition against it from Mr. Rives and Mr. Padgitt.
Chairman WALSH. Did you ever talk to Mr. Rives about it personally?
Mr. DAVIS. No.
Chairman WALSH. Go ahead.
Mr. DAVIS. And some parties that was in the organization became a little unruly in regard to things that had been said, and, of course, it made things worse; and Mr. Rives organized an Anti-Socialist local, and they proceeded to do business behind closed doors and refused a man entrance to the hall, the hall belonging to the Woodmen.
Chairman WALSH. Did they refuse that on more than one occasion, at more than the first meeting, or just at the first meeting?
Mr. DAVIS. Just at the first meeting.
Chairman WALSH. Go ahead.
Mr. DAVIS. There was quite a number in that local. There was one pastor in the local, W. W. Lancaster.
Chairman WALSH. What church did he belong to?
Mr. DAVIS. A Congregational Methodist. There were a few church members in the local; I was one myself; I belong to the Baptist Church. I went into the organization when it was organized. Now, they had a union Sunday school.
Chairman WALSH. That means a union of the churches, a religious union?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes; and I was superintendent of the Sunday school 18 months, and if there has been a Socialist Sunday school organized there I have never heard anything about it.
Chairman WALSH. Did you know anything about the dismissal of these tenants that has been spoken of?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Please tell us all you know about that.
Mr. DAVIS. Why, they was told when they gathered the crops they could walk; they would not rent to Socialists any more.
Chairman WALSH. Were all those that were turned away Socialists?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes; well, I don't know that they are all Socialists; some went away that did not belong to that local. I don't know whether they were Socialists or not.
Chairman WALSH. Was there satisfaction or dissatisfaction among the tenants prior to 1911, when this organization was had there? Was there unrest among the tenants or were they satisfied?
Mr. DAVIS. They were confused.
Chairman WALSH. What was the cause of the confusion?
Mr. DAVIS. The conditions.
Chairman WALSH. Describe the conditions briefly, if you can. I see. Mr. Davis, that you have a paper in your hand; was there something you wished to offer?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. What is it?
Mr. DAVIS. I have here the names of the men that were excused.
Chairman WALSH. Give their names.
Mr. DAVIS. E. D. Alford, G. D. McBride, W. W. Lancaster, Pat Dunning, E. C. McBride, a Mr. Creel, and Marion Johnson.
Chairman WALSH. Did you know all those people?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. And did you know their families?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Can give the members of their families?
Mr. DAVIS. No, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Did you talk to these people about the circumstances under which they were compelled to leave?
Mr. DAVIS. No; I didn't question them.
Chairman WALSH. Was there any general movement on the part of the tenants with reference to the dismissal of the tenants? Was there any action taken collectively by the tenants in the neighborhood?
Mr. DAVIS. Not that I know of.
Chairman WALSH. Where did these people go?
Mr. DAVIS. Some rented from Mr. Miller; some went to Oklahoma.
Chairman WALSH. How much land has Mr. Miller?
Mr. DAVIS. I don't know how much land he has.
Chairman WALSH. I am going to ask you to describe some of the conditions; first, would you say that you were a typical farmer of that neighborhood?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. That is, you have a large family and you do your work about like the other farmers do their work, Mr. Davis?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. But you started out 10 years ago with this land?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. And when you bought that land, were all of your earnings those that you made as a tenant on your mother's land, or had you farmed other land that you had leased?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes; I had farmed other land I had leased.
Chairman WALSH. So that all the money you had to buy land with you had earned on your mother's land or on the land of other landlords?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Are the houses on these farms large enough houses for the average family on the tenant farms?
Mr. DAVIS. No.
Chairman WALSH. Why not?
Mr. DAVIS. Well, they are reasonably comfortable and large enough for a man and his wife and two children.
Chairman WALSH. Do they have more than two children, as a rule?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir; I think so.
Chairman WALSH. So that your criticism would be that the houses are not large enough for the families that occupy them?
Mr. DAVIS. Not for some of the families.
Chairman WALSH. Are they kept in good repair?
Mr. DAVIS. Tolerably good.
Chairman WALSH. Have you observed any sickness in the community caused by improper housing?
Mr. DAVIS. No, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Is there much overcrowding of the sleeping rooms—in these houses?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir; largely there is.
Chairman WALSH. Is that usual or unusual, that overcrowding that way?
Mr. DAVIS. It is a little unusual.
Chairman WALSH. Do the landlords improve the tenant houses readily and willingly?
Mr. DAVIS. No, sir; I don't think they do, according to that contract; according to that contract you are required to keep them up yourself and improve them yourself.
Chairman WALSH. Do the landlords appear to feel any responsibility for the social conditions of their tenants, and their housing?
Mr. DAVIS. No, sir; the main object is to get a man that will work the land with a big force and plenty of teams and push the mules down the road.
Chairman WALSH. What do you mean by "plenty of force"?
Mr. DAVIS. A large number of children.
Chairman WALSH. At what age do those children go to work on the farms?
Mr. DAVIS. Just as soon as they can pull a cotton sack or hoe.
Chairman WALSH. What age would that be?
Mr. DAVIS. It runs from about seven, on up.
Chairman WALSH. Do the tenants appear to have proper consideration for the property of their landlords?
Mr. DAVIS. Some are a little negligent, a little careless in that particular.
Chairman WALSH. That is, you mean the tenants are?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir; in taking care of the place.
Chairman WALSH. I notice your contract is in writing.
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. What percentage of the contracts in your neighborhood are oral? You have verbal contracts, as well as these written contracts, do you?
Mr. DAVIS. No, sir.
Chairman WALSH. In your neighborhood, are all of them written contracts, so far as you know?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. They are all in writing, are they?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes; so far as I know. Hold on; I am a little too fast. Mr. Tucker, who leases out a lot of land, had some of those men who were excused; he has them on his place; he has two of those men who were excused on his place. He don't require no contract at all.
Chairman WALSH. Is there any indication given by the landlord to the tenant usually as to what he wants the tenant to raise on the land?
Mr. DAVIS. No; there has not been up until just recently.
Chairman WALSH. If a man rented that land, could he raise all the corn he wanted, and all the cotton he wanted?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes; provided he pay cash rent, he could.
Chairman WALSH. When he takes it on shares, how about that?
Mr. DAVIS. On halves?
Chairman WALSH. Yes.
Mr. DAVIS. I don't know a thing about that.
Chairman WALSH. How about the third and fourth, when it is on three and four?
Mr. DAVIS. He takes a third of the grain and a fourth of the cotton.
Chairman WALSH. Who determines what shall be raised, the tenant or the landlord, or do they do it by agreement?
Mr. DAVIS. It is sort of by agreement; it is up to the tenant, if he wants to plant a lot of grain he can do it.
Chairman WALSH. But if he gets it on three and four, what is the requirement, if any, from the landlord?
Mr. DAVIS. He plants all the way from 8 to 10 acres of corn, and about that amount of maize, some cane, and some corn.
Chairman WALSH. What defects do you observe, if any, in the existing, rental contracts that might be improved by law; if you have any view on that?
Mr. DAVIS. Well, I don't know. About the best thing is to exclude these contracts.
Chairman WALSH. Exclude them all?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. How would you get to work the land?
Mr. DAVIS. I look at the contract as not being anything really bad, but it has a tendency to make a man believe that he is actually dishonest; that he would not be allowed on the land if he was not under contract; that is the way I look at a contract. I don't object to a contract at all, under any other circumstances, whatever. Then it goes further than that; it goes this further; it teaches your boy on the farm under this contract that a fellow certainly must be dishonest.
Chairman WALSH. Under the existing system, Mr. Davis, what do you think the chance is of the average tenant becoming a home owner in your section?
Mr. DAVIS. If he ever becomes a home owner in my section, he would evidently have to follow diversified farming.
Chairman WALSH. Under the present system of raising corn and cotton could he become a home owner?
Mr. DAVIS. No.
Chairman WALSH. What is the average price of land to-day in your section?
Mr. DAVIS. It runs from $15 to $45 an acre.
Chairman WALSH. What are the interest rates?
Mr. DAVIS. It runs from well, it is on an average of about 8 per cent.
Chairman WALSH. Is there much chattel mortgage business in your section?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Are the loans extended by banks or mercantile business houses, mercantile companies, or others?
Mr. DAVIS. By the banks.
Chairman WALSH. What is the actual interest paid by the tenants on chattel mortgages in your section?
Mr. DAVIS. About 10 per cent.
Chairman WALSH. Is there any difference made in the charge for the stuff bought if it is bought on long time?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir; there is a credit price and a cash price.
Chairman WALSH. What is the difference between the credit price and the cash price?
Mr. DAVIS. It runs from about 50 to 60 per cent.
Chairman WALSH. Do you mean it is—do you mean the credit price is 50 or 60 per cent higher than the cash price?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. How much land can a one-team tenant farmer farm?
Mr. DAVIS. Seventy-five acres.
Chairman WALSH. What would his least income be ordinarily if he has a good, fair crop, fair crop conditions, and fair price?
Mr. DAVIS. I never have been able to figure that out, simply because I never have been able to find anything on a farm whereon you could base the figures.
Chairman WALSH. You have been unable to find it out?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. You have tried to do it?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir; there is nothing on a farm you can base any figures on at all—nothing whatever.
Chairman WALSH. Is there any unrest among the tenants at the present time?
Mr. DAVIS. Why, yes; right smart.
Chairman WALSH. First, is the unrest growing or diminishing?
Mr. DAVIS. Why, they can not see nothing in the future. They look back over their past life and it is spent and nothing accumulated for old age, and they can not see nothing in the future.
Chairman WALSH. Would you say, from your experience, that that is inherent in the character of the man or comes from the system?
Mr. DAVIS. Comes from the system evidently.
Chairman WALSH. Are these tenants you have met, these tenant farmers, average men so far as their morals are concerned, and industry and integrity?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir. Now, of those men I mentioned there are all of them hard-working men, honest, truthful men, and wealth producers, except one of them. There is one of them that I could not vouch for.
Chairman WALSH. Well, is there any feeling on the part of the tenants? What is the feeling on the part of the tenants that they are treated fairly or discriminated against?
Mr. DAVIS. Well, discriminated against.
Chairman WALSH. I wish you would, so far as you can, voice into the record here what they claim about the discriminations and causes of unrest, and what their complaints are?
Mr. DAVIS. Well, different things. One thing is the nature of this rent contract, you know, and another thing, it is the lack of capital to carry on their expenses on the farm. That is a big trouble, you see, on the farm.
Chairman WALSH. What do they blame it on—their lack of capital?
Mr. DAVIS. Why, they blame it on hoarded wealth.
Chairman WALSH. Hoarded wealth?
Mr. DAVIS. Hoarded wealth, yes.
Chairman WALSH. How about school facilities for the children, Mr. Davis?
Mr. DAVIS. Why, in sections they are poor.
Chairman WALSH. How old is your oldest child?
Mr. DAVIS. My oldest child is dead.
Chairman WALSH. How old is the oldest living?
Mr. DAVIS. He is thirty-odd years old.
Chairman WALSH. What business is he in?
Mr. DAVIS. Farmer.
Chairman WALSH. Does he own or rent?
Mr. DAVIS. He rents. He lives in Brazos County.
Chairman WALSH. Has he a family?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. How long did he stay on your place? What age was he when he left here?
Mr. DAVIS. He was 21 when he left me.
Chairman WALSH. Twenty-one?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Now, up to the time he came of age he worked with you on the place?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Took a hand's part?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Up until that time?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. How much schooling did he get?
Mr. DAVIS. He didn't get much schooling.
Chairman WALSH. What was the reason?
Mr. DAVIS. Well, one reason, he would not go to school.
Chairman WALSH. Now, did you have any other boy that stayed with you until he was 21?
Mr. DAVIS. No; my oldest son left me before he was 21.
Chairman WALSH. Where did he go?
Mr. DAVIS. When he died he was turning his twenty-first year.
Chairman WALSH. Did he work as a hand on the place?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Go to school?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. How much schooling did the girls get?
Mr. DAVIS. Well, they got a right smart schooling. They got to read and write.
Chairman WALSH. So they could read and write? How many years did they go to school?
Mr. DAVIS. Well, some of them went to school as much as two years.
Chairman WALSH. As much as two years?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes; and some three.
Chairman WALSH. Any longer than that?
Mr. DAVIS. No, sir.
Chairman WALSH. They went to the country school in the neighborhood?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Did the operations of your farm have anything to do with cutting down the time that the children went to school?
Mr. DAVIS. A whole lot.
Chairman WALSH. A lot of time?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Did you have any desire, Mr. Davis, in connection with your children going to school and going to high school, and perhaps getting into some other line of business or some of the professions?
Mr. DAVIS. No; it was not my desire that they should go into any other business. But my desire was for them to stay on the farm.
Chairman WALSH. As renters?
Mr. DAVIS. No.
Chairman WALSH. What was your desire with respect to them?
Mr. DAVIS. I would rather that they become tillers of the soil.
Chairman WALSH. Your idea was that that was a useful life?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. A contented life to lead?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes; a legitimate life, a happy life, a useful life, useful to humanity, useful to all developments of every nature.
Chairman WALSH. And it was your desire that your children should follow in your footsteps and that of your ancestors?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. And remain on the soil?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. And are they doing it?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Your girls are married, are they?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Married farmers?
Mr. DAVIS. All but one.
Chairman WALSH. And are the farmers renters or owners?
Mr. DAVIS. Some of them are landowners.
Chairman WALSH. Are some landowners and some renters and became landowners after they married into your family?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Some of them were formerly renters?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. And they were thrifty enough to acquire homes of their own?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Do they all live in the State of Texas?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Now, is there any statement that you would like to make, Mr. Davis? I notice you have been sitting here during a large part of the time.
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. If there is any suggestion that you would care to make that you think would help us in our work, we will be very glad to have you do it.
Commissioner LENNON. I would like to ask you whether, when you say that some of your children went to school two years, whether you mean to spread that over a number of years or is just during two years' terms?
Mr. DAVIS. Just two years' terms.
Chairman WALSH. Was there anything else you wished to say?
Mr. DAVIS. I do not know there is anything that I could say to advantage, unless along the line of farming business.
Chairman WALSH. Then we are very much obliged to you. You will be finally excused.
DAVIS EXHIBIT.
STATE of TEXAS, County of Coleman:
Know all men by these presents: I, W. T. Davis, of Coleman County, Texas, have this day leased from J. Z. Miller, jr., hereinafter called lessor, for the purpose of making a crop for the year 1913, one hundred eighty-five acres of land, hereinafter called premises; said premises being a part of all of what is known as W. T. Davis place in Coleman County, Texas; ninety acres of which are in cultivation and the balance in pasture. The terms and conditions of this lease are as follows:
I agree to flat break all land in preparing same for cultivation; to cultivate same in a good and farmerlike manner; to prevent the growing and or spreading of Johnson grass, ragweed, and cockleburs thereon; to break all stubble land immediately after small grain has been removed; to occupy said premises as tenant of said lessor; to protect said premises against all kinds of trespass; to keep in good repair at my own expense all building, fencing, and other improvements on said premises; and to deliver peaceable possession of said premises to lessor, in same good condition as when received, ordinary wear and tear only excepted, not later than the 15th day of December, 1913.
In consideration for this lease I agree to pay the following rental to the lessor:
One-fourth of all the cotton and cotton seed raised on said premises, as same is gathered. Cotton to be ginned at Leaday or Voss and lessor's one-fourth of the cotton seed to be left at gin for account of lessor.
Two and 50/100 dollars per acre, money rent, for all other land in cultivation used for purposes other than cotton or permitted by me to lie out.
And it is a further condition hereof that:
1. I will not permit live stock to run at large or pasture on the lands in cultivation.
2. The lessor reserves for the common use of other tenants all wells and natural water supplies.
3. I will not transfer, assign, or dispose of this lease, or sublet the premises without consent of the lessor.
4. I will deliver to the lessor at Voss free of cost all products taken as rentals.
5. I will furnish to the lessor not later than June 1st a memorandum of the cultivated land, showing acreage in cotton and other crops.
6. Pecan trees on said premises are not included in this lease, and the lessor retains the right to enter said premises at all times to inspect and cultivate the same, and to gather the products thereof.
It is understood and agreed that failure on my part to comply with the agreements and conditions above mentioned, or any of them, will, at the option of the lessor, constitute cause for immediate forfeiture of this lease, and the lessor shall have the right to reenter said premises, take charge of same, and, at the option of the lessor, lease again or otherwise dispose of same.
This contract is given for the purpose of securing W. T. Davis's past due interest, also amount to become due on January 1st, 1914, to the said J. Z. Miller, jr.
I hereby acknowledge that the lessor has a landlord's lien on all the crops grown on the premises to secure the rentals above named, and all advances made or caused to be made to me by the lessor in the way of animals, tools, supplies, etc., or otherwise to enable me to make, gather, and market a crop.
To further secure the lessor in the payment of all rentals and advances as above mentioned, I hereby mortgage and pledge to said lessor all the products grown on said premises during my occupancy thereof; also all animals, tools, and supplies furnished or caused to be furnished to me by said lessor. And the lien on said products, animals, tools, and supplies created by this mortgage shall not be in any way affected or impaired by the removal of said products, animals, tools, and supplies from said premises.
Should I fail or refuse to pay the indebtedness created by this lease at the maturity hereinafter named, the lessor, or the lessor's agent or representative, is hereby authorized and empowered to take possession of said products and personal property whether on said premises or elsewhere, and to control and sell the same at such time and place and in such manner as the lessor, or the lessor's agent or representative may deem best, and to exercise all other legal rights and powers in such cases, and to apply the proceeds, less the expenses and costs, to the payment of my indebtedness to the lessor, and the balance, if any, to me or my order.
In case I should fail, or be unable, properly to plant, cultivate, etc., or gather any crops on said premises, then the lessor, or the lessor's agent or representative, is hereby authorized to enter upon said premises and work the same and the charges for so doing shall be and are hereby secured by the landlord's lien and the mortgage lien above provided for. The lessor, or the lessor's agent or representative, is also authorized to enter at any time upon said premises to inspect the same, to make improvements thereon, and to cultivate the same in such manner as not to interfere with my rights therein as lessee.
I hereby promise to pay the indebtedness due the lessor under this lease as the crops are gathered, but in any event not later than November 15th, 1913, at Voss, Coleman County, Texas. If said indebtedness is not paid on that date, it shall then become payable at the Belton National Bank, Belton, Texas, with interest at the rate of ten per cent per annum from said date, together with ten per cent additional on the amount due, for collection fees if suit is brought thereon, or if placed in the hands of an attorney for collection, or if collected through the probate court. Interest payable annually and defaulting interest to bear the same rate of interest as the principal.
Witness my hand this 8th day of March, 1913.
Mr. PADGITT. J. Tom Padgitt.
Chairman WALSH. Where do you live?
Mr. PADGITT. Coleman, Tex.
Chairman WALSH. How long have you resided there?
Mr. PADGITT. About 10 years from time to time.
Chairman WALSH. Are you a native of this State, Mr. Padgitt?
Mr. PADGITT. I am.
Chairman WALSH. Of what county?
Mr. PADGITT. Brazos County.
Chairman WALSH. Are you a farmer?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes; a landowner and land ranchman.
Chairman WALSH. Where is your land located?
Mr. PADGITT. In Coleman County.
Chairman WALSH. Are your lands all in Coleman County?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, there is part in Runnels County.
Chairman WALSH. How much land do you own altogether?
Mr. PADGITT. About 12,000 acres.
Chairman WALSH. And how much of it do you operate?
Mr. PADGITT. I lease the grassland to some cattlemen; have about 2,000 acres in farms, and the grassland I lease to cattlemen.
Chairman WALSH. Is all the balance of it grassland?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes, sir; all the balance grassland.
Chairman WALSH. I am going to direct your attention, if I may, Mr. Padgitt, at first to the specific questions that I would like to have you answer, then if you want to make any additional statement, we will be glad to have you do so. I wish you would describe in a general way the farming conditions in your neighborhood; that is, is it done largely by tenants, and how the landlords are getting along with their tenants, and general farming conditions.
Mr. PADGITT. Well, I would think that the farming is about 50 per cent by tenants, and the balance of them own their places, just about 50 per cent.
Chairman WALSH. Under existing conditions, what do you think the chances are for the average tenant becoming a home owner in your section?
Mr. PADGITT. I think he has a very favorable chance if he would like to become a home owner.
Chairman WALSH. Is there a tendency among the tenant farmers to become home owners or otherwise in your section?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, some want to become home owners and others would not care for a home place.
Chairman WALSH. Could you strike an average? Do the majority of them, apparently, desire to own their own places or otherwise?
Mr. PADGITT. If they have prosperous years and make a good deal of money, then they want to go and buy a home.
Chairman WALSH. Is there a tendency on the part of landowners to keep them as tenants, or is the tendency the other way? Do they encourage them to buy land?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, they encourage them to buy land.
Chairman WALSH. What is the price of land in your county?
Mr. PADGITT. Unimproved land is worth anywhere from $10 to $25 an acre.
Chairman WALSH. And tillable land?
Mr. PADGITT. Tillable land—that is, in cultivation—worth from $20 to $50 an acre. I have known some to sell as high as $80 an acre, close to the town Coleman.
Chairman WALSH. Where is your land located in the county, with reference to the town?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, it is 30 miles from Coleman in the southwest corner of Coleman County.
Chairman WALSH. I wish you would state for our record here, Mr. Padgitt, the way the tenants operate in your section, so far as the credits are concerned. You have been here and heard it discussed.
Mr. PADGITT. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. That is, how they finance themselves for their provisions, the rate of interest, and the character of security given.
Mr. PADGITT. Well, they go to the bank and make their arrangements with the bank, and the bank takes a mortgage, of course, on their stock or crop to be grown, takes their note in the regular way, charges them 10 per cent interest. Some go to the merchant direct and make arrangements with him to carry him until fall in the same way, in the same manner.
Chairman WALSH. Is it customary to charge anything other than 10 per cent interest where the loan is made from the bank, in any way, any more than with other charges?
Mr. PADGITT. Not that I have ever heard of.
Chairman WALSH. When it comes to the mercantile house furnishing them or extending credit, how is that there? Is there anything in addition to the charge of 10 per cent?
Mr. PADGITT. I understand they charge them a little more; that is, for the goods purchased.
Chairman WALSH. Have you observed whether or not that is true, say, with regard to your own tenants on your own place?
Mr. PADGITT. I haven't noticed it myself. They tell me they have to pay a little more for goods when they buy on time.
Chairman WALSH. Have you made any inquiry to ascertain what the difference is in the charge where it is cash transaction or where it is credit?
Mr. PADGITT. No; I have asked that question but it seems to me they have never been able to answer it, to give me any satisfaction on it.
Chairman WALSH. What is the customary rental contract in your section, please?
Mr. PADGITT. It is a third and fourth; that is, a fourth cotton and a third grain.
Chairman WALSH. Is that the customary contract which you have with your tenant?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, the contract I have with my tenant is I accept one-fourth of the cotton and allow the farmer to take the cotton to town, sell it to the best advantage. I pay a dollar a bale for hauling it, and one-fourth of the ginning, and he takes one-fourth of the net proceeds and puts it in the bank to my credit, and brings back the deposit slip and the invoice from the cotton buyer. I was going to say that on the grain we charge them $3 an acre for it. However, that is not payable in advance. We wait until he makes his cotton crop and he pays it out of that cotton crop. If we have a drought and he fails and does not make much we trade with him, and we ask him what he thinks his crop is worth, and he may pay a dollar and a half an acre for it. If he says he will pay a dollar and a half, we say we think that is all right, and if they have a dry year we trade on that basis. We have never held them to the $3 where they made a failure of the crop.
Chairman WALSH. Do you deal directly with the tenant or through the instrumentality of agents?
Mr. PADGITT. I always keep an agent on the ground.
Chairman WALSH. Are you engaged in any other business except that of landowner?
Mr. PADGITT. Not at present.
Chairman WALSH. Have you been in any other business, either mercantile or banking?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Which business?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, I was in business here in Dallas. I have been in the banking business; that is, worked in a bank when I was a boy, and finally went into the Padgitt Bros. Co., in Dallas, here.
Chairman WALSH. What is their business?
Mr. PADGITT. Manufacturing saddlery and harness.
Chairman WALSH. What defects have you noticed in the existing land rental contracts that you think might be improved, either by general custom or by law?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, I do not know exactly how to answer that question. I do not know of any improvement. I do not know of any improvement that could be made. We have our own contract. I draw my own contract and have them printed. I have a form in my pocket.
Chairman WALSH. Would you be kind enough to submit it?
Mr. PADGITT. I have a blank contract, and I also have one signed up by one of the men—the farmers this year.
Chairman WALSH. All of your contracts in writing?
Mr. PADGITT. Printed.
Chairman WALSH. What is the custom generally in your country—is it to have them in writing or verbal?
Mr. PADGITT. Verbal.
Chairman WALSH. I wish you would just sketch in your own way, if you please, Mr. Padgitt, the tendency of the tenant—the experience you have had with your tenants with reference to the contracts they make—and the way they live, and the interest they take in the property, and anything of that kind that you think would throw light upon our inquiry. You have been here for the last couple of days, have you?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. And you have heard described by some of the witnesses certain general conditions in various parts of the State?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. And in other States?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Now I wish you to give your first-hand experience—how your tenants get along, how many of them graduate from tenants, and those that do not desire to do so, and still make a profit; how your property is represented, etc.
Mr. PADGITT. Well, our tenants seem to want to get along with the landlord.
Chairman WALSH. How many have you, first?
Mr. PADGITT. We have 22.
Chairman WALSH. I wish you would describe the amount of land that they have to operate.
Mr. PADGITT. Usually about 75 acres; that is, with one team.
Chairman WALSH. What would be the income, the average income, in an ordinary year of one of your tenants?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, an average, say for 10 years, I expect it would run about a quarter bale of cotton, averaging it all the way through.
Chairman WALSH. I do not exactly understand you myself. I would like you to make it a little more full.
Mr. PADGITT. I mean the average of 10 years would be a quarter of a bale of cotton to the acre for each year for the 10 years.
Chairman WALSH. I would like you to put that in a lump sum in dollars. What would a man get out of it—that is, a one team farmer on the amount of land which you have on your place, say 75 acres? What would be his profit?
Mr. PADGITT. Oh, he would make about $750.
Chairman WALSH. $750 a year?
Mr. PADGITT. That is, if he made a good crop as I have just stated.
Chairman WALSH. Could you give an average of the force that you have on each place—the number of persons working in the family?
Mr. PADGITT. The families vary. Sometimes we will have a man and his wife that will farm, and then we will have a man with a family of five or six children, and maybe eight.
Chairman WALSH. Do the women generally work in the field?
Mr. PADGITT. Not all the time; no, sir.
Chairman WALSH. What do they do?
Mr. PADGITT. They pick cotton.
Chairman WALSH. Do they do anything else? Do they chop?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes; they chop and hoe.
Chairman WALSH. And plant?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, they hoe the cotton.
Chairman WALSH. Is that generally the case?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes; they usually do.
Chairman WALSH. At what age do the children usually take part?
Mr. PADGITT. When they are probably eight years old.
Chairman WALSH. Is there any effort made to get renters who have large families of children?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, it is more desirable to have a large family. There is an effort made to get them.
Chairman WALSH. What does the desirability consist in? Does it make the people stay there, do they raise more crop, or what?
Mr. PADGITT. The country is thinly settled as compared to the black-land belt, and it is right hard to get labor in the fall when it comes to a cotton crop. And if they have a large family, he has his force there at home to pick out the crop, in addition to any other labor he may secure in any other place. In other words, the family can gather the crop.
Chairman WALSH. What sort of tenant houses do you have on your places for the families?
Mr. PADGITT. We have box houses; that is, some of them have three rooms in them and some four. Most of them have two bedrooms and a shed behind in which they cook and eat.
Chairman WALSH. What is done toward keeping these houses in repair?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, when it is necessary to make repairs on them, we order the lumber or shingles or anything that is necessary to repair them right away.
Chairman WALSH. What is the smallest house, the cheapest house on your place? How many rooms and what is the cost of it to build?
Mr. PADGITT. Cost about $225.
Chairman WALSH. And the best house on the place occupied by the 22 families is how large?
Mr. PADGITT. The best house is a four room house.
Chairman WALSH. Are these all tenant houses that these 22 families occupy, and have they always been used by tenants, or were they ever used by owners?
Mr. PADGITT. They have never been used by an owner.
Chairman WALSH. All tenant houses?
Mr. PADGITT. All tenant houses.
Chairman WALSH. Built by you or the family?
Mr. PADGITT. We build the houses.
Chairman WALSH. Built all of them?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. And those rooms would be how large? Just describe them.
Mr. PADGITT. You mean the dimensions of the rooms?
Chairman WALSH. Yes; the dimensions of the rooms and the number of them.
Mr. PADGITT. There would be two rooms front, and there would be about 16 by 18 feet, and on the rear there is a shed that runs all the way across this house.
Chairman WALSH. Is that counted as a room?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes; that is one.
Chairman WALSH. That is one of the four?
Mr. PADGITT. That is one of the rooms which they use as a dining room and to cook, use it as a dining room as well.
Chairman WALSH. Have they a porch?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes; it is roofed over and all inclosed.
Chairman WALSH. Is the other room that you speak of as a kitchen, is that used as a bedroom also?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, they do not use them as bedrooms. But there is a partition in between, separating the dining room and the kitchen from the front room. It is not all together.
Chairman WALSH. Are these houses screened to keep out mosquitoes and flies?
Mr. PADGITT. They are not.
Chairman WALSH. Are they erected with regard to sanitary drainage of any sort?
Mr. PADGITT. In building the house, usually we locate a site where we can build on a hill where the water will run away from the house, and as far as sewerage or anything of that kind is concerned we do not have it.
Chairman WALSH. Any artificial drainage of any kind?
Mr. PADGITT. No, sir.
Chairman WALSH. I have been asked to ask you if in your opinion a tenant can cultivate 75 acres of land as provided in your contract without at least the aid of other members of his family, his wife and children?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, he would have to use his wife and children to cultivate that.
Chairman WALSH. And at the present prices could he hire daily labor in any amount?
Mr. PADGITT. No; it is difficult to get the day labor.
Chairman WALSH. But, if he could, what would his income be in that respect? Would you say his income would be sufficient that he could hire daily labor without diminishing it to such an extent that he could not make a living?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes; he would have to have the family help him on that crop.
Chairman WALSH. He could not hire day labor?
Mr. PADGITT. No; he could not hire daily labor. It is a difficult matter to get it.
Chairman WALSH. Could he, as a matter of fact, pay for it if he could get the labor?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, no; he could not very well pay for it unless he could make some arrangement with the man to work for him and wait until fall for his money. Then he could get it out of the cotton crop. Sometimes they exchange labor around through the country.
Chairman WALSH. Have you noticed much sickness in these rural areas due to bad housing?
Mr. PADGITT. No, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Is there much illness in those communities?
Mr. PADGITT. Very little.
Chairman WALSH. Do the landlords in your section here feel any social responsibility for the housing of tenants? Have you ever suggested to them, for instance, that the medical authorities have discovered that the mosquitoes are disease-carrying insects, and flies—have they ever suggested that they ought to screen their houses, or that the landlords would do it themselves, or suggest it to the tenant, or do they feel any responsibility of that sort toward the tenant?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, no; it has never been suggested, and the tenants never want screens, and the landlords don't furnish them, and if he did they wouldn't stay in 24 hours. They would break them out. They wouldn't know how to take care of them.
Chairman WALSH. Have you tried it? Have any ever been broken out in that way?
Mr. PADGITT. We have not tried it; no.
Chairman WALSH. Do tenants appear to have proper consideration for the property of the landlords in your section?
Mr. PADGITT. Some do.
Chairman WALSH. Well, on the whole, how is that? Mr. PADGITT. I think they have regard for taking care of things—that is, in a way—but still they take no great interest in it.
Chairman WALSH. Does your agent keep up an inspection of your property to see that the tenants do take good care of it?
Mr. PADGITT. He does.
Chairman WALSH. I wish to ask you a question or two about the schools. What sort of schools do you have there—country schools?
Mr. PADGITT. We have very good country schools; that is, good average country schools.
Chairman WALSH. Just describe how they are in your section of the country; describe the school. Is it brick or frame?
Mr. PADGITT. They are frame.
Chairman WALSH. And the number of rooms in them?
Mr. PADGITT. Two rooms at the schoolhouse in this little town; and we have other schools around on the ranch.
Chairman WALSH. What kind of schools are they?
Mr. PADGITT. They are schools of one room.
Chairman WALSH. And by whom are the teachers employed?
Mr. PADGITT. By the county.
Chairman WALSH. That applies to those that you have on the ranches, also?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. What has been done toward the establishment of vocational training in agriculture and home economics, and the like, in your section?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, there is a lady up there that is teaching a school, and she teaches the children how to can certain vegetables so they can put up their vegetables and have a winter supply for the following winter. I might say this lady is going down on the ranch to teach them there in the summer how to can vegetables and keep them so that they will have something in the winter and will not have to go to the store to buy stuff.
Chairman WALSH. From what source does this lady come who is teaching in the school?
Mr. PADGITT. From one of the towns in the county. Half of salary paid by Government and half by Coleman County.
Chairman WALSH. Mr. Padgitt, I believe that in 1912 there was some discontent among your tenants out of which some trouble grew, Mr. Holman tells me; and Mr. Holman tells me you would like to make some explanation on that. I wish you would do so.
Mr. PADGITT. All right, sir.
Chairman WALSH. I would like, if you will, for you to tell it in your own way, as you are more familiar with it.
Mr. PADGITT. Several years ago there was a party from Cincinnati and Chicago, both ladies and gentlemen, who came down there on the ranch. They were Socialists, and they would talk to the people down under the pecan trees and on the river banks.
Chairman WALSH. Where did you live at that time, Mr. Padgitt?
Mr. PADGITT. I was here in Dallas at that time.
Chairman WALSH. How far is this place from Dallas?
Mr. PADGITT. It is 288 miles.
Chairman WALSH. Proceed.
Mr. PADGITT. So, later along, when they came down and talked to them, there were a great many Socialists in the country.
Chairman WALSH. How long was that prior to 1912?
Mr. PADGITT. That was along about 1909 or 1910, I believe, those summers. And the Socialists got so strong there before the last presidential election that the community organized an Anti-Socialist League. Now, I was in the country at the time, and I do not know anything about it. But they organized this Anti-Socialist League, and the Socialists and Anti-Socialists would fight each other, have meetings at the schoolhouses, but no violence.
Chairman WALSH. Did they meet at the schoolhouses on your ranch?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes, sir. The Socialists would have their meeting and then the Anti-Socialists would have theirs, and they had a general political fight there. That was a free-for-all fight.
Chairman WALSH. How many tenants were on your place at that time?
Mr. PADGITT. There were about the same number.
Chairman WALSH. Twenty-two families?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes. There are tenants all around the country that farm for other people and landowners. So this fight got so warm, they got worked up so about it, and they wanted me to discharge a man I had down there—Mr. Rives—and they petitioned—that is, the Socialists did—me to come there and let him go.
Chairman WALSH. For you to come in person?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes; for me to come in person to discharge him, that they did not want him in the country any longer. Mr. Rives was elected Secretary of the Anti-Socialist League. So I had laid my plans to go down there, and a few hours before I took my train I received this petition. So I proceeded on the journey, anyway, and went down, and when I got there there were a few men—the Socialist Party had written me and said that they would like to see me at the schoolhouse at 2.30.
Chairman WALSH. Were they your own tenants?
Mr. PADGITT. Some were and some were not. Some were landowners.
Chairman WALSH. These landowners were Socialists also?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Proceed.
Mr. PADGITT. So they said they would like to see me at the schoolhouse at 2.30. They noticed that Mrs. Padgitt was with me, and to bring her, too, and let her come to the schoolhouse. I replied that I would be glad to meet them at 2.30 at the schoolhouse. I went over to see what they had to say, and the sum and substance of the thing was that they wanted me to discharge Mr. Rives, my man there. He was looking after the business for me, had been with me almost five years of that time. So I told them I felt Mr. Rives was doing me good work there; he was looking after everything; in fact, I had a written contract with him—a signed contract—and I could not let him go for that reason. If I had not had to contract signed I would not have let him go anyway.
Chairman WALSH. What was their complaint, if any, against Mr. Rives?
Mr. PADGITT. He was president of the Anti-Socialist League, and any articles that were written, he would sign these articles. The people got it into their heads that I was backing him up. This is all a mistake.
Chairman WALSH. Had Mr. Rives dismissed any of the families from your place prior to this time?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes; he dismissed some.
Chairman WALSH. How many?
Mr. PADGITT. I believe there were about six or seven. So they wanted me to discharge Mr. Rives. I told them I could not do it on account of having this contract. I told them even though I did not have this contract I would not let him go; and that if the Republicans or Democrats or any other political party wanted me to let my man go I felt like they were interfering with my personal rights, and they should not dictate to me as to that question. I felt that I had the right to have the man there, and I felt like he was all right, because they were working out this political proposition, and they wanted me to get rid of him, and I told them I wouldn't do that; that I would keep him there.
Chairman WALSH. Was there any charge of inefficiency or negligence or destruction of your property on the part of these six or seven families that were dismissed? Did that all grow out of the political agitation, also?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, I think it grew out of the political agitation.
Chairman WALSH. Were the people that were dismissed active in this agitation, this Socialist agitation?
Mr. PADGITT. You mean the parties that my man dismissed?
Chairman WALSH. Yes; the ones that Mr. Rives dismissed, the six or seven families; were they active in this agitation?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes; they were active in it.
Chairman WALSH. I wish you would just give the surroundings of the dismissal of these people, please, as you got it from Mr. Rives.
Mr. PADGITT. Well, the way I got it from Rives, he wanted to make an arrangement for the tenants next year, and he felt like these men would stay on the land up to the 1st of January and then move away, leaving the land lay out for the for the following year. I think he got a tip on that pretty straight, that they were going to do that. And he let them go so he could have an opportunity of getting other men to put in their place and not let them leave the place January 1 when it was too late to get others to take their places.
Chairman WALSH. Was there any difficulty about the settlement of the accounts with these men?
Mr. PADGITT. No, sir.
Chairman WALSH. What time were they dismissed; what time of the year?
Mr. PADGITT. Along in the summer; but they did not have to give possession of their places, however, until the following January 1. We rent from January 1 to January 1. But they were told we did not want them any longer after January 1.
Chairman WALSH. Were they good or poor farmers?
Mr. PADGITT. Some were good farmers and some were poor.
Chairman WALSH. How long had the oldest of them been on the place?
Mr. PADGITT. About three years.
Chairman WALSH. And the shortest, or newest of them, how long?
Mr. PADGITT. One year.
Chairman WALSH. Proceed, please. You were saying that they asked you to come out at 2.30 and bring Mrs. Padgitt with you; said you would meet them.
Mr. PADGITT. We did meet them; and as I explained they wanted me to let Rives go, and I would not let him go, even if everyone had petitioned me, Republicans, Socialists, or Democrats, or anyone else, because I thought that interfered with my right to decide who should be on the property.
Chairman WALSH. Did they present any grievances except their desire to have Rives removed?
Mr. PADGITT. No, sir. They said that was the only grievance they had and that the only grievance they had against him was letting these men out. I will get through with the Rives part of it. After we would not let Rives go it seemed to terrify these Socialists or make them awful mad they wrote us up in the Socialist paper down here.
Chairman WALSH. At Dallas?
Mr. PADGITT. No; at Halletsville; but the article was exaggerated very much. And there was this young fellow there who used to answer the articles in the Socialist paper. This young fellow was using a Coleman paper and the others were using the Socialist paper. The thing went along from bad to worse until after the election was over and Mr. Wilson was elected President, and then the whole thing quieted down and you did not hear anything more of it at all. I can go down there and stay a month and not hear any political talk in the country.
Chairman WALSH. Of your tenants that were dismissed, were any present at the meeting at the schoolhouse?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes; they were there.
Chairman WALSH. Did they present their case to you and talk to you about this?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Did they claim they were being turned away on account of their political convictions?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes; that is what they claimed.
Chairman WALSH. What did you say to them about it?
Mr. PADGITT. I told them I had authorized Rives to represent me and to manage the property to the best advantage, and when anything came up to use his own judgment and not write me at all times and telephone me, but to act for himself, and that if he let a man go or did anything down there, I approved of it, because I did not want to take the position of taking back what he did.
Chairman WALSH. How long did you remain there at that visit?
Mr. PADGITT. I stayed there about three days.
Chairman WALSH. Have you ever lived down there since?
Mr. PADGITT. Not since.
Chairman WALSH. Is Rives still on the place?
Mr. PADGITT. No; he is not there now.
Chairman WALSH. Who is your agent there now?
Mr. PADGITT. A man by the name of R. L. Sarver.
Chairman WALSH. Have you had any further trouble with your tenants?
Mr. PADGITT. Not a bit.
Chairman WALSH. How long has the longest of the 22 been on your place?
Mr. PADGITT. About five years.
Chairman WALSH. And the shortest one, of course, this year?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. How long do the tenants down there stay on a place, as a rule?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, they stay probably four or five years; some do not stay longer than a year. It is owing to how thrifty a man is and if he wants to make something for himself; you find a man who does stay with you a long time to be thrifty.
Chairman WALSH. Do the tenants and the people in the neighborhood use the schoolhouse in order to discuss political affairs?
Mr. PADGITT. They do not discuss politics any more; that has all been cut out.
Chairman WALSH. Done away with altogether?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Was any suggestion made to them to cut it out?
Mr. PADGITT. I wrote a letter to Rives one time and I have a copy of the letter in my files and I told him I thought it would be a good idea to say to young Shakespeare Smith, which is his nom de plum, and tell him to discontinue writing articles, that it did the country no good; that it did himself no good and kept up an agitation all the time; and I asked him to talk to him and see if he could get him to discontinue writing articles for the Coleman paper.
Chairman WALSH. He was a good writer, was he?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Did Rives suggest that to him?
Mr. PADGITT. I don't know whether he did or not.
Chairman WALSH. Was Shakespeare Smith a tenant of yours?
Mr. PADGITT. No; he was a son of a lady out there that we sold a piece of land to, and this young man farmed her land for her; she is a widow.
Chairman WALSH. Was it paid for in full?
Mr. PADGITT. No, sir.
Chairman WALSH. How much of a piece of land was it?
Mr. PADGITT. About 160 acres.
Chairman WALSH. How much of an encumbrance was on it? How much had been paid up?
Mr. PADGITT. I am not sure about that without referring to my books.
Chairman WALSH. What was it worth?
Mr. PADGITT. About $25 an acre.
Chairman WALSH. When Rives spoke to him did he discontinue writing the articles?
Mr. PADGITT. I did not see any more; I think he quit shortly after that. The political fight was over anyway and when it was over they stopped writing the articles.
Chairman WALSH. Is there anything you would like to state to the commission, Mr. Padgitt, that I have not asked you? I have not gone into this as liberally with you as with some of the others and unless there is some point you might be a—point of dispute or that you might wish to correct—
Mr. PADGITT. I just want to state that I haven't got it in for any man, no matter what his politics may be, whether Democrat or Socialist or a Republican, and I would not refuse to rent to a man if he were a Socialist, providing I knew the man and knew he was a good farmer and was well equipped, and that he would not give any trouble in the country.
Chairman WALSH. What do you mean by being a good farmer? Do you mean being skilled in the science of agriculture?
Mr. PADGITT. Having good teams and implements and being prepared to farm in a skillful manner.
Chairman WALSH. What do you mean by his not giving trouble in the country?
Mr. PADGITT. That is, to agitate and stir up trouble and talk at the store and keep everybody stirred up all the time.
Chairman WALSH. Suppose that he had certain principles that he held were beneficial to mankind and that he believed in, do you think it would be good or bad for him to say it?
Mr. PADGITT. If he had anything good to say, it might be good for him to say it.
Chairman WALSH. Who would be the judge of whether what another man might say was good?
Mr. PADGITT. The community would have to be the judge as to what kind of man he was.
Chairman WALSH. I mean as to what he said. I mean now particularly as to his utterances, who would judge whether they were for the benefit of mankind or otherwise?
Mr. PADGITT. That we would be the judges of, or the man on the ranch now.
Chairman WALSH. The man that succeeded Rives?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes; he would be the judge of whether a man was attending to his business or not and staying on the farm and working it, and we could mighty soon tell whether he was a good farmer or not. But if he was a man who would stay away from his farm and talk at the store and stir up trouble, we would not want that man in the country, whether he was a Democrat, a Socialist, or anything else. We want men to attend to business and make the farm pay.
Chairman WALSH. That is, you would be the judge of him. With respect to your last answer, with regard to whether he made the utterances during working hours—what time of day do they work—what time do they go to work usually?
Mr. PADGITT. It depends on the time of the year; sometimes at 4 and sometimes at 6.
Chairman WALSH. And how late do they work in the evening?
Mr. PADGITT. Until dark; until sundown, anyway.
Chairman WALSH. You would not have any objection then, as I understand your last answer, to a man, after those hours were over, to agitate any principles he thought were right at the store or schoolhouse, or any place else?
Mr. PADGITT. I would object to it if he were doing me an injury and trying to make the balance of our men dissatisfied that were working all right, and if he was doing or saying anything that was in any way injuring them or causing them to become dissatisfied, I would object to it.
Chairman WALSH. For instance, if he said at the schoolhouse that the conditions under which the tenants were compelled to live were rotten and no one ought to abide by them, you would deem him a trouble raiser, would you?
Mr. PADGITT. I would not deem him a trouble raiser just for that.
Chairman WALSH. What sort of agitation would you feel was sufficient to say that a man was a man that made trouble and that you did not want on your place?
Mr. PADGITT. A man that would go around and would talk to the other men and cause them to become dissatisfied, and poison their minds as to their landlords and cause the men to dislike their landlords. In other words, if a man would talk to them and get them stirred up to such a point—say something about the landlord and get them worked up to such a pitch that they would want to go and break all the window lights at the gin, which has been done, and to break the pump to pieces.
Chairman WALSH. Describe in the record, Mr. Padgitt, any destruction of property.
Mr. PADGITT. Of course, I do not know who did it and no one else knows; but it was done.
Chairman WALSH. Was it at the time you were having the trouble with your tenants?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Was it done in the night time?
Mr. PADGITT. I do not know when it was done.
Chairman WALSH. How many windows were broken at the gin house?
Mr. PADGITT. All of the windows.
Chairman WALSH. How many windows were there in the gin house?
Mr. PADGITT. About 28.
Chairman WALSH. What other destruction of property was there at any time that might be attributed to the people that you were having trouble with?
Mr. PADGITT. The destruction of the pump at the gin. They threw rocks on top of the steam pump.
Chairman WALSH. Was it a valuable pump?
Mr. PADGITT. It cost $80 and we had to put a new one in.
Chairman WALSH. Was there any other destruction of property?
Mr. PADGITT. That is all I can recall now.
Chairman WALSH. When was that with reference to the time you came and had this meeting in the schoolhouse?
Mr. PADGITT. In the summer of 1913, I think in July.
Chairman WALSH. When was it you had the meeting?
Mr. PADGITT. At the schoolhouse?
Chairman WALSH. Yes.
Mr. PADGITT. That was when we had the meeting in July, 1913.
Chairman WALSH. In 1913?
Mr. PADGITT. I think that was the year. Just before the presidential election.
Chairman WALSH. 1912, wasn't it?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes; that was the year; that is right, 1912.
Chairman WALSH. And this property was destroyed and injured that same summer?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Did this destruction of property take place before or after the meeting you had in the schoolhouse when yourself and wife attended?
Mr. PADGITT. It took place afterwards.
Chairman WALSH. Is it true that upon one occasion the foreman of your ranch, or representative, barricaded himself in one of the schoolhouses to protect himself against violence on the part of some of the tenants?
Mr. PADGITT. I never heard of it.
Chairman WALSH. That is all, Mr. Padgitt, unless you have something you desire to volunteer further. We will adjourn until to-morrow morning at 10 o'clock, and if there is something further you have to say we will hear you at that time.
Mr. PADGITT. This trouble would not have come up unless they wanted me to let that man go and that is the whole thing in a nutshell.
Chairman WALSH. Will you be kind enough to be back at 10 o'clock?
Mr. PADGITT. Yes; and I want to say that Mr. Rives resigned and left me voluntarily; I did not discharge him.
Chairman WALSH. At this point we will stand adjourned until to-morrow, Friday, March 19, 1915, at 10 o'clock a. m., then to reconvene at the same place.
* * *
Chairman WALSH. The commission will please come to order. [Present: Commissioners Lennon and Harriman]
Mr. PADGITT. What time will suit the commission for me to appear? I would like to make myself clear on one particular point.
Chairman WALSH. Probably I will let you do it right now.
Mr. PADGITT. It was a point that was probably misconstrued, and I want to make myself plain on that point.
Chairman WALSH. Very good.
Mr. PADGITT. When may I proceed? May I proceed now, Mr. Chairman?
Chairman WALSH. Yes; you may proceed now.
Mr. PADGITT. The point was in regard to talking around the country; that different ones in talking would lose time around their farms; that is the point I want to make clear, that—I do not mean to say that I do not allow a man freedom of speech, but I think every man has the right to talk or say anything he wishes; but the idea I intended to convey was that if his talking made him lose time from his farm and made him neglect his farm, that I then had a right to say something; but as long as he talked and then could attend to the farm, of course I would not consider that I should interfere with him in the least.
Chairman WALSH. Was that all, Mr. Padgitt?
Mr. PADGITT. I understand you are going to have Mr. Rives next.
Chairman WALSH. Yes.
Mr. PADGITT. He will tell you all about the recent trouble.
Chairman WALSH. Yes; I have a little outline that I am going to ask him about these specific things.
Mr. PADGITT. Yes; that is all right. I have a lot of memoranda here that probably might be apropos just at the present time, but it is a little history of the ranch; early history.
Chairman WALSH. What does it cover?
Mr. PADGITT. It goes back to 50 years ago.
Chairman WALSH. Have you got it in such shape that you could offer it into the record?
Mr. PADGITT. Well, I just have a little memorandum.
Chairman WALSH. May I ask you, then, that in regard to the historical part of it you kindly write it and submit it, and I will make it a part of your testimony and it will go into the permanent record of the commission.
Mr. PADGITT. That will be all right.
Chairman WALSH. I would much prefer to do it in that way. Write the historical part, and any suggestions you desire to make about the development of the whole situation, and I will be very glad to take it and make it a part of the permanent records, and it will go to the whole commission.
Mr. PADGITT. The only reason I thought it necessary to go back and bring it up to the present day was to show that on the ranch in regard to the colonization of it that generally we are considered substantial people, and that we are not inclined to do a tenant wrong.
Chairman WALSH. I would be very glad to have it.
Mr. PADGITT. On the other hand, we would rather do him good than do him any harm.
Chairman WALSH. Thank you, Mr. Padgitt.
Mr. Rives.
TESTIMONY OF MR. C. A. RIVES.
Commission on Industrial Relations
Dallas, Texas, March 19, 1915
Chairman WALSH. What is your name?
Mr. RIVES. C. A. Rives.
Chairman WALSH. What is your business?
Mr. RIVES. Real estate business.
Chairman WALSH. You live at Ryan?
Mr. RIVES. No; Hastings.
Chairman WALSH. In business for yourself?
Mr. RIVES. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. I believe you were formerly the superintendent of the Padgitt estate?
Mr. RIVES. For five years, less one month.
Chairman WALSH. And you are the Mr. Rives that was spoken of here?
Mr. RIVES. I am the man; yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Please briefly sketch what your business life has been, Mr. Rives, since you grew up—what your development has been.
Mr. RIVES. Well, I was raised on a farm in Missouri and in Ellis County, Tex.
Chairman WALSH. What part of Missouri?
Mr. RIVES. Central part; and I taught school seven or eight years and have been in the grocery business and been in the collection business and hotel business and real estate business.
Chairman WALSH. Where had you been immediately prior to coming to the Padgitt Ranch?
Mr. RIVES. Hastings, Okla.
Chairman WALSH. What was your business there?
Mr. RIVES. Real estate business.
Chairman WALSH. Had you known Mr. Padgitt before?
Mr. RIVES. Well, only a month or two prior to my going there.
Chairman WALSH. Briefly, how did you happen to get the position?
Mr. RIVES. I was taking home seekers to the Padgitt ranch in Texas—or rather, to another part of the ranch that did not belong to Mr. Padgitt; but they had sold that off, and they were colonizing that and I was taking home seekers down there and I got acquainted through Mr. Miller's agent.
Chairman WALSH. As a real estate man?
Mr. RIVES. As a real estate man.
Chairman WALSH. Did you go to the Padgitt estate from there?
Mr. RIVES. Yes; and became manager of that ranch. Mr. Padgitt was wanting a man, and he got my name——
Chairman WALSH (interrupting). I wish you would direct yourself to this trouble you have heard spoken of, and I want you to understand that we do not go into it simply because it is a little local piece of trouble, but because we are trying to gather the spirit that exists publicly and privately between landlord and tenant. You get the point, I suppose, Mr. Rives? I wish you would go ahead and in your own way tell us how that trouble came up and how you undertook to handle it and all about it.
Mr. RIVES. Well, when I went on the ranch I didn't know anything particularly about socialism, and they had me to subscribe for the paper, and I took their Appeal to Reason, and they tried to make a socialist out of me.
Chairman WALSH. Did you live with your family on this place?
Mr. RIVES. Yes, sir; on the ranch.
Chairman WALSH. What were your general duties?
Mr. RIVES. My general duties were just general supervision of the farm and the renting of those farms out and collecting the rent and seeing about the repairs.
Chairman WALSH. Did you farm any part of it yourself?
Mr. RIVES. I did not.
Chairman WALSH. And you lived in the house furnished by the estate?
Mr. RIVES. Well, it was partly furnished, and part of it we had our own furniture.
Chairman WALSH. Yes; but I mean the house was given you by the estate—the house was on the estate?
Mr. RIVES. Yes; it was on the land.
Chairman WALSH. And how large a house was it?
Mr. RIVES. About a seven-room modern house.
Chairman WALSH. It was a modern house?
Mr. RIVES. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. That had been used by the owner of the place at a prior time?
Mr. RIVES. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. And you lived in that with how many of your family?
Mr. RIVES. I had wife and three children at the time and one was born while we were there.
Chairman WALSH. Very well, you may go ahead from that point, at which you were when I interrupted you. You took the Appeal to Reason?
Mr. RIVES. The Appeal to Reason; yes, sir; and when they found out I opposed socialism, just in a friendly way, I understand some of them—a great many of them—didn't like me. I was outspoken and told them very plainly what I thought about it; that I did not believe in it; but we got along all right for a few years. The first notice of trouble was in 1911. I can give the names of the individuals, if you want them.
Chairman WALSH. Please give the names of the individuals, and give the whole story.
Mr. RIVES. A man by the name of F. M. Johnson took part of the roof off of a shed barn and made beehives out of it. I tried to get him to put it back from time to time, but he would not do it. Mr. and Mrs. Padgitt were out there on a trip and noticed that the roof was off of the barn and asked me if a storm had blown off the roof, and I told him how it happened. He said, "It is not a good idea to keep people on the farm who destroy property that way." I don't think he named Johnson. And when the time came around to make a new arrangement he asked me if he could stay on the place, and I told him no, and I told him why he could not.
In the same year a man by the name of Alford had a lease for 100 acres, and he wanted to lease an additional 50 acres that year. He came to me and attempted to dictate to me who should live here and who should live there, and talked to me in a very insulting manner, and when he came to me to rent the additional 50 acres I told him he could not have it, and I told him why.
We had another man by the name of Jim Futro that did not work as he should, and I let him go in 1911.
They were all three Socialists, but I let them go for cause.
Chairman WALSH. What notice did you give them?
Mr. RIVES. I called on the farmers every few weeks, and when I saw that they would not make good I would say, "Mr. Brown, you can get another place next year."
Chairman WALSH. They were not put off right at the time?
Mr. RIVES. No, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Go ahead.
Mr. RIVES. Well, I have told about those three.
Chairman WALSH. Those were discharged for charge?
Mr. RIVES. Yes. That summer, shortly after that, there was a committee of three Socialists called at my residence and asked me to come away from the house, that they wanted to talk to me, and I went out to where they were, and they said they had had a meeting at the schoolhouse and they had found out I was renting out Socialists, and I told them I was not renting out Socialists, but treating them all alike, treating one man like another, and if they didn't made good I let them go. They gave me to understand that if I were going to rent out to Socialists they were going to boycott our gin. I talked to them in a nice way.
Chairman WALSH. How many of them were there?
Mr. RIVES. Three.
Chairman WALSH. Who were they?
Mr. RIVES. T. D. Blackwell, a man by the name of Tomlinson, and W. H. Faircloth. I said, "If you boycott this gin I will make every Socialist on the ranch leave."
Well, it went on that way and I thought everybody was satisfied, and they did not boycott the gin.
Chairman WALSH. How could they have boycotted the gin?
Mr. RIVES. Just meet and have an understanding that they would take their cotton to some other gin.
Chairman WALSH. Go ahead, Mr. Rives.
Mr. RIVES. About the 3d of January I went over on a certain part of the ranch on a business matter, and a Socialist by the name of Frank Wilhelm said to me, "Mr. Rives, do you know some of the boys are going to leave you?" I said, "No, Frank; what is the matter?" He said, "They have a line-up here to leave, and they tried to get me to leave, but I said no; that I was going to work the farm I have rented." This man Alford was abandoning this 100 acres, and another man, by the name of Dalton, went away, and another man, Hayes, aimed to go, but failed to get a place. And they moved off without any notice to me, and left the farms on my hands. I didn't think they treated me right.
The next summer, 1912—up to that time the people in the community had taken sides—there was a great deal of confusion in the neighborhood, in the churches, and in the Sunday schools. The Socialist people kicked out of the union Sunday school and organized a Socialist Sunday school and called it the "Socialist Sunday school." It did not last very long—just a short time, as I understand it—and there was a good deal of confusion in the churches. I got most of my information on the church business from the church members and the preachers.
Chairman WALSH. Did the preachers take any side, one way or the other?
Mr. RIVES. Yes; well, in a way they did. They talked to the members and tried to get peace. I have a copy of a letter here from the pastor of the M. E. Church South. He lived at Talpa, Tex., a town about 18 miles from there.
Chairman WALSH. What is the general text of it, Mr. Rives? I am going to let you offer that in the record, because we are hurried.
Mr. RIVES. It is just a short letter.
Chairman WALSH. Well, read the whole letter.
Mr. RIVES. It is a little bit of it, from here down to here, that is all. [reading]
"Talpa, Tex., June 1, 1912. Mr. B. P. Allen, Leaday, Tex."
Mr. Allen was living at Leaday.
Chairman WALSH. What was Mr. Allen? Was he a landowner?
Mr. RIVES. No, sir; he was a mail carrier. [continues reading]
"Dear Sir and Brother:"
You understand there was an Anti-Socialist League there to combat socialism.
Chairman WALSH. Who got that up?
Mr. RIVES. The people of the community.
Chairman WALSH. Did you have anything to do with it yourself?
Mr. RIVES. I did as a citizen of the community.
Chairman WALSH. Did you have anything to do as an organizer or a promoter; did you pay any of the expenses, or anything of that kind?
Mr. RIVES. I was the secretary. They had me—the first night we met there were 33 members, and they appointed me secretary to go around and visit other members and get members for the organization; yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Did you contribute any money?
Mr. RIVES. Yes; I contributed some money. We sent off for some Anti-Socialist literature.
Chairman WALSH. Was it your money that you contributed?
Mr. RIVES. Yes; we all put in our pro rata, about 10 cents apiece, I think.
Chairman WALSH. All the contributions were by the neighbors, or was there any from Mr. Padgitt or anyone else?
Mr. RIVES. No; from Mr. Padgitt none; no; nor no one else.
Chairman WALSH. Just yourselves?
Mr. RIVES. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Go ahead.
Mr. RIVES. [continues reading]
Dear Sir and Brother:
Replying to your invitation to speak on socialism at the Anti-Socialistic meeting on the third Thursday night in June, will say that it will give me pleasure to accept the invitation; but I can not say positively that it will be possible for me to be there, owing to the fact that I will attend lectures at Georgetown from the 10th to 19th. I might possibly get home by noon that day, and in that event could drive down. Could be with you the next night or some night the next week.
I want to congratulate you on the stand you people have taken against this menace to the happiness and prosperity of liberty-loving, God-fearing people.
With the light turned on and the fruits as well as tendencies of socialism exposed, it will be on the toboggon everywhere.
I have been driven and compelled to take a firm and definite stand, and will be found ready at all times to aid in the publicity of facts that show really what practiced socialism is.
Go ahead with your meeting; get another speaker, if you can, and if I get home in time I will run down to your meeting that night. With regards,
Yours, very truly,
George S. Kornegay
Pastor Methodist Church South, Talpa, Tex.
Chairman WALSH. What position did the other ministers take? Was there any division among them as to the issues?
Mr. RIVES. Well, I don't know about that.
Chairman WALSH. Well, do you recall any that favored the socialists?
Mr. RIVES. Well, there was a Christian preacher by the name of Carroll, or McCarroll, that favored socialism, and I was reliably——
Chairman WALSH. Will you let that go into the record?
Mr. RIVES. Yes. There was some influence brought to bear on him that he had either to quit socialism or quit the church, and he quit socialism. He told me with his own mouth, he said, "I have found out that socialism is all wrong, and I am going to put my time on the work of the Lord from now on."
Chairman WALSH. Where did the pressure come from to have him make his choice?
Mr. RIVES. I think it was from his church, or some of the members.
Chairman WALSH. From the people of his church?
Mr. RIVES. I imagine so. I can't say for sure.
Chairman WALSH. Were there any threats made against you as superintendent of that place?
Mr. RIVES. Well, I heard there were such. I heard there were threats that I would get fired.
Chairman WALSH. Any threats of personal violence?
Mr. RIVES. There was a man, a former manager whose horse had been shot while he was on the horse one dark night down in a ravine, and I had had my attention called to the fact, the way it was done, and I would be treated the same way.
Chairman WALSH. In that way, just state it.
Mr. RIVES. Well, I had been told that I would get done like Johnson.
Chairman WALSH. Was it by some person that you deemed to be of the opposition?
Mr. RIVES. No; it was persons, you see, that would not talk to me. They would talk to other parties, and the other parties would tell me.
Chairman WALSH. I see. Well, now, you could take that up and lead up to the closing of the schoolhouse, and the ending of the trouble, please?
Mr. RIVES. Well, the closing of the schoolhouse? I don't know what you mean by that.
Chairman WALSH. I think Mr. Padgitt said that finally they were asked not to hold any meetings in the schoolhouse on the ranch?
Mr. RIVES. No; I think that is a mistake.
Chairman WALSH. That is a mistake? Maybe I made a mistake.
Mr. PADGITT. I did not make that statement.
Chairman WALSH. Maybe I made a mistake about it then.
Mr. PADGITT. If you will allow me to reply, I wrote Mr. Rives to ask him to request the young fellow who was answering the socialist articles in the paper to discontinue if he could prevail upon him to do so.
Chairman WALSH. You might go ahead and sketch it, in your own way, the trouble from that point.
Mr. RIVES. Well, now, the people were beginning to line up against each other. And they talked from time to time, and had been talking for several months that they were going to have to do something to redeem the country from socialism and to check the growth of socialism. And so it was talked around, and they decided to meet, have meetings; the socialist people were meeting every week, and they said, "We ought to"—the people said—"We ought to meet and have an organization, just as the Socialists have, to fight against socialism, as they fight for it."
Chairman WALSH. How many did you finally get in your organization?
Mr. RIVES. We got 78, and a few that did not have their names enrolled. They were silent members, so to speak.
Chairman WALSH. Did you have a debate over the matter? Did you have a meeting?
Mr. RIVES. Yes; we had a meeting.
Chairman WALSH. How many meetings did you have?
Mr. RIVES. I don't remember, sir. We met occasionally for a while; we met regularly for three or four meetings, and then there was something happened and we skipped a few meetings, and then we met again along until about the first of the year.
Chairman WALSH. How many people would you say left; how many renters left on account of the difficulty, altogether?
Mr. RIVES. At the Padgitt ranch?
Chairman WALSH. Yes.
Mr. RIVES. I think there were six of them—six or seven.
Chairman WALSH. Did you ask some of them to bring their tenancy to a close?
Mr. RIVES. Did I ask them to go?
Chairman WALSH. Did you dismiss some of them, other than these three you have mentioned?
Mr. RIVES. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. How many?
Mr. RIVES. There were five or six or seven.
Chairman WALSH. What reason did you give them, Mr. Rives?
Mr. RIVES. I just told them I was afraid they were going to go back on me like this other bunch did on the 1st of January; and then the pressure got so great and the confusion was so great that the anti-Socialist people said they wouldn't stay on our land if we kept the Socialist people, and I preferred to keep the anti-Socialist people.
Chairman WALSH. Were all that you retained anti-Socialist people, or were some of the Socialists permitted to remain?
Mr. RIVES. There was not any Socialists permitted to remain.
Chairman WALSH. After you got through there were no Socialists on your place?
Mr. RIVES. Not that I know of.
Chairman WALSH. Was there action taken by any other landowners or agents in the neighborhood of about the same nature?
Mr. RIVES. No, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Yours was the only one, so far as you know, that met the matter openly?
Mr. RIVES. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Were the tenants allowed to finish out their terms, or were they notified——
Mr. RIVES. Certainly.
Chairman WALSH. There were none left except, you say, those who left voluntarily?
Mr. RIVES. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Did you have any talk with those who left voluntarily before they left, as to why they did leave?
Mr. RIVES. You mean those——
Chairman WALSH. The three you say that you had given notice to; had you any talk with those three at all about giving up their place?
Mr. RIVES. That was a year before.
Chairman WALSH. 1911?
Mr. RIVES. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Did you have any talk with them about their leaving, the reason they were leaving, or anything of that sort?
Mr. RIVES. The only talk I had with the men—Mr. Alford talked to me about the addition of 50 acres.
Chairman WALSH. And you did not have any talk with the others?
Mr. RIVES. No, sir; not that I remember of.
Chairman WALSH. Do you remember Mr. Padgitt's testimony as to the length of time in which they had been on his place? I think that the longest of them had been there three years. Just what was that?
Mr. RIVES. I think Mr. Padgitt is mistaken about that.
Chairman WALSH. Make any correction that you think may be necessary.
Mr. RIVES. One family had been on that place——
Chairman WALSH. Commissioner Lennon says the longest one had been there five years. Is that correct, Mr. Padgitt?
Mr. PADGITT. That was the oldest tenant we have on the ranch?
Chairman WALSH. Yes; the tenant living there the longest.
Mr. PADGITT. The oldest tenant, I said, was on that ranch over five years.
Chairman WALSH. Well, go ahead. Make your own statement, Mr. Rives.
Mr. RIVES. The McBride people were on the land when I went there, and I went there in 1908.
Chairman WALSH. And these people, as a rule—these people that went off—were they all American people?
Mr. RIVES. I think so.
Chairman WALSH. Mr. Wilhelm evidently was not.
Mr. RIVES. Seems that was a foreign name, but he was an American man.
Chairman WALSH. An American—native American?
Mr. RIVES. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. His—what is the ancestry, generally, of those tenant farmers?
Mr. RIVES. Southern people, mostly.
Chairman WALSH. And these were southern people?
Mr. RIVES. Yes, sir; so far as I know.
Chairman WALSH. And how long had they been Socialists?
Mr. RIVES. I don't know, sir.
Chairman WALSH. As a rule, were they good farmers?
Mr. RIVES. Well, they were just an average; some good, some bad, and some medium.
Chairman WALSH. Now, I am hurrying through a little this morning, Mr. Rives. Is there anything else connected with that particular outbreak there, that particular trouble, that you would like to mention that I have not called your attention to?
Mr. RIVES. Well, you wanted to know about the schoolhouse business.
Chairman WALSH. Yes; I overlooked that.
Mr. RIVES. Well, we informed them around that we were going to have a meeting at the schoolhouse; and the Socialists got word that we were going to meet at the schoolhouse, and they sent out runners and phoned all over the country and gathered together, and began to gather in the schoolhouse; and some of the boys says that if we meet with the Socialists we will have trouble, and we don't want any trouble, and let's go to the Woodman Hall; and we saw the manager of the hall and got permission to meet in the Woodman Hall to avoid trouble; and we met there. And when they found we were in the Woodman Hall they left their meeting and came down there and some of them talked rather bad about it.
Chairman WALSH. What was the distinct purpose of your meeting at the Woodman Hall?
Mr. RIVES. Just to have an anti-Socialist meeting to perfect an organization.
Chairman WALSH. Just to perfect the organization?
Mr. RIVES. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Not supposed to be a public hearing or discussion, or speeches made to the public?
Mr. RIVES. Nothing to the public; no, sir. We were just going to discuss ways and means to handle the thing.
Chairman WALSH. Proceed.
Mr. RIVES. And we told the Socialists the object of our meeting, and we says, "Boys, we might say something that would offend you, and we would rather you would not be present this time. You can meet us any time after this." So they got mad about it and went away and made threats that they were going to meet with us any time, and had a great wrangle about it, and were going to send some of the boys to the penitentiary for meeting behind closed doors; and they got up a long petition—Socialist petition to the sheriff—to have a deputy sheriff appointed, and they wanted a deputy sheriff down there immediately; but that all blew over, and we had our meetings there and they had theirs, and the thing just went on in a general way.
Chairman WALSH. Was there any compulsion on either side to keep the others from speaking at the schoolhouses?
Mr. RIVES. No, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Did you deny the use of the schoolhouse to the other side?
Mr. RIVES. No, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Did you ever request that meetings should not be held in the schoolhouse?
Mr. RIVES. No, sir.
Chairman WALSH. After you go under way, were meetings held in the ordinary way in the schoolhouses by both sides?
Mr. RIVES. No, sir; we continued to meet in the Woodman Hall.
Chairman WALSH. Did you have debates between both sides?
Mr. RIVES. No, sir; not in our meetings.
Chairman WALSH. In the Socialist meetings, were the conditions as to farm tenants discussed, and the condition of the farms and houses and the crops raised, and such as that?
Mr. RIVES. The Socialist meetings, I didn't attend them, and I don't know what they did—what they discussed, only as I heard of it.
Chairman WALSH. What did you hear they discussed? Were they discussing their conditions?
Mr. RIVES. I don't know, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Did you hear they were discussing their conditions?
Mr. RIVES. Well, it was understood they were discussing socialism.
Chairman WALSH. Well, as you understood it, did that include the personal condition of the man on the ranch, as it was, and how they lived, what they earned, and the way the product of the soil was divided, and such things as that?
Mr. RIVES. I don't know about that.
Chairman WALSH. You don't know.
Mr. RIVES. No.
Chairman WALSH. You never did ascertain what they were saying or what they were talking about?
Mr. RIVES. No, sir; we didn't bother anything about that affair—their meetings.
Chairman WALSH. The schoolhouses that were located on the Padgitt Ranch, were they owned by the Padgitt estate or by the county?
Mr. RIVES. They were owned by the county at that time. I think, formerly, the Padgitt people built the house and donated it to the county.
Chairman WALSH. And the teachers were furnished by the county?
Mr. RIVES. Yes; under the public system of the State.
Chairman WALSH. Did the teachers take any part in the controversy?
Mr. RIVES. No, sir.
Chairman WALSH. And did the—well, you have detailed what the ministers did. That is all; thank you, Mr. Rives.
Mr. Davis—W. T. Davis.
TESTIMONY OF MR. WILLIAM T. DAVIS.
Commission on Industrial Relations
Dallas, Texas, March 19, 1915
Chairman WALSH. What is your name?
Mr. DAVIS. W. T. Davis.
Chairman WALSH. What does the "W" stand for?
Mr. DAVIS. William Travis.
Chairman WALSH. Where do you live?
Mr. DAVIS. I live in Coleman County.
Chairman WALSH. What is your business, please?
Mr. DAVIS. I am a farmer.
Chairman WALSH. You are a native of what State?
Mr. DAVIS. Texas.
Chairman WALSH. And what is your ancestry? Where did you come from to Texas with your family?
Mr. DAVIS. I was born and raised in the State and never out of it.
Chairman WALSH. Your father came from where?
Mr. DAVIS. Kentucky.
Chairman WALSH. And your mother came from where?
Mr. DAVIS. Mississippi.
Chairman WALSH. Your ancestry is southern all the way back?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. How many children have you?
Mr. DAVIS. Ten living.
Chairman WALSH. Are you a farmer now?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Are you a tenant or an owner?
Mr. DAVIS. I bought land, but I am under lease contract.
Chairman WALSH. How much land have you that you bought?
Mr. DAVIS. One hundred and eighty-five acres. I bought 195 acres, but I lost 10 acres of it.
Chairman WALSH. How much have you paid down on it?
Mr. DAVIS. I paid $500 when I bought it.
Chairman WALSH. Is it tillable land?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. How long have you owned it?
Mr. DAVIS. Ten years.
Chairman WALSH. Is it being worked?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. By whom?
Mr. DAVIS. By me and my family.
Chairman WALSH. Did you buy that from the savings—from your earnings as a tenant farmer?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. That was the source of the money with which you bought it? You earned it when you were working as a tenant?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes; I earned it working as a tenant.
Chairman WALSH. I wish you would briefly state, if you can, Mr. Davis, what your history has been since you grew up and went into business for yourself. Did you begin as a tenant? Just describe your history down to the present time.
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir; I began as a tenant. I went on a farm as manager when I was 14 years old.
Chairman WALSH. Manager for whom?
Mr. DAVIS. For my mother and one sister and myself.
Chairman WALSH. Was that in Texas?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes; in Brazos County. That is where I was reared. I was born west on the Guadalupe River, in Gillespie County. My father moved from there back west on account of the Indians being bad, after I was born. I went on the farm as farm manager when I was 14, after my father died, with my mother and one sister, and I have been on a farm ever since.
Chairman WALSH. How long did you remain as manager?
Mr. DAVIS. Sixteen years that my mother lived a widow.
Chairman WALSH. Were you paid a salary, or did you have a part of the proceeds?
Mr. DAVIS. I had a part of the proceeds.
Chairman WALSH. At the end of the 16 years, when you left there, did you buy a place, or did you rent a place?
Mr. DAVIS. I rented.
Chairman WALSH. Who did you rent from next?
Mr. DAVIS. From different parties, a number of them; I could not go back and give them all.
Chairman WALSH. What was the largest and what was the smallest amount of land you farmed since you left your mother's place?
Mr. DAVIS. When we lived in Brazos County, we could not attend to much more land than 15 acres, that was as much as you could manage, because it rains a lot, and the condition of the land.
Chairman WALSH. Did your family work on the land as they grew up?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. How were they divided as to boys and girls?
Mr. DAVIS. They all worked in the field.
Chairman WALSH. How many boys have you, and how many girls?
Mr. DAVIS. Five boys and five girls.
Chairman WALSH. Did your wife work on the place all the time?
Mr. DAVIS. No; my wife has not worked much in the field.
Chairman WALSH. But she did work some on the place?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. She keeps house for the family?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. And raised the children?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. And made their clothes?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. And did the cooking for the family?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Did she do any work in the field at all?
Mr. DAVIS. Once in a while.
Chairman WALSH. What kind of work did she do in the field?
Mr. DAVIS. Well, she worked in the garden, and sometimes hoed a little and picked a little cotton.
Chairman WALSH. Did you keep chickens, and a cow, and so forth?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. What is your land worth now?
Mr. DAVIS. I reckon it is worth about $40 an acre.
Chairman WALSH. Is it clear?
Mr. DAVIS. No.
Chairman WALSH. There is an incumbrance on it?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Now, the land you have under lease, what sort of a contract have you?
Mr. DAVIS. I have a written contract, I have the contract with me.
Chairman WALSH. Would you have any objection to letting us see it?
Mr. DAVIS. No; here it is.
(The contract so offered by the witness appears at the end of this subject as "Davis Exhibit.")
Chairman WALSH. How long have you been on this place?
Mr. DAVIS. For the past 10 years.
Chairman WALSH. On this same place?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. How much land have you here now under lease?
Mr. DAVIS. I have 185 acres.
Chairman WALSH. One hundred and eighty-five acres?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Have you been renting from Mr. Miller all of that 10 years?
Mr. DAVIS. No; I bought this land from Mr. Padgitt and gave him $20 an acre for it as raw land.
Chairman WALSH. Is that the land you own?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. How about the amount of land you had leased; I thought you said you were renting some land also.
Mr. DAVIS. Yes; I am renting the place adjoining it.
Chairman WALSH. Do you work that yourself?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. How much land do you rent?
Mr. DAVIS. Forty-five acres in cultivation on the tract I got leased.
Chairman WALSH. What do you raise on that land you have leased?
Mr. DAVIS. I raise cotton. There was nothing on it this last year but cotton.
Chairman WALSH. How much cotton did you raise on it?
Mr. DAVIS. I made 20 bales. My object in securing this land was only to get the grass; I paid 25 cents an acre for the grass.
Chairman WALSH. Please tell us what stock you raise.
Mr. DAVIS. I keep cattle and sheep.
Chairman WALSH. How many cattle and how many sheep have you?
Mr. DAVIS. Sixteen head of cattle and 25 head of sheep, and some hogs and chickens and a few ducks.
Chairman WALSH. Were you on the Padgitt estate at the time this trouble came up you heard testified to here?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Just go ahead, Mr. Davis, if you will, please, and tell us in your own way, as you recollect, how it developed, and the circumstances of it generally.
Mr. DAVIS. Well there was a Socialist local organized at the schoolhouse at Leaday. I was one of the parties that went into the organization.
Chairman WALSH. You had studied the subject, had you?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Proceed, Mr. Davis.
Mr. DAVIS. There was opposition against it from Mr. Rives and Mr. Padgitt.
Chairman WALSH. Did you ever talk to Mr. Rives about it personally?
Mr. DAVIS. No.
Chairman WALSH. Go ahead.
Mr. DAVIS. And some parties that was in the organization became a little unruly in regard to things that had been said, and, of course, it made things worse; and Mr. Rives organized an Anti-Socialist local, and they proceeded to do business behind closed doors and refused a man entrance to the hall, the hall belonging to the Woodmen.
Chairman WALSH. Did they refuse that on more than one occasion, at more than the first meeting, or just at the first meeting?
Mr. DAVIS. Just at the first meeting.
Chairman WALSH. Go ahead.
Mr. DAVIS. There was quite a number in that local. There was one pastor in the local, W. W. Lancaster.
Chairman WALSH. What church did he belong to?
Mr. DAVIS. A Congregational Methodist. There were a few church members in the local; I was one myself; I belong to the Baptist Church. I went into the organization when it was organized. Now, they had a union Sunday school.
Chairman WALSH. That means a union of the churches, a religious union?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes; and I was superintendent of the Sunday school 18 months, and if there has been a Socialist Sunday school organized there I have never heard anything about it.
Chairman WALSH. Did you know anything about the dismissal of these tenants that has been spoken of?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Please tell us all you know about that.
Mr. DAVIS. Why, they was told when they gathered the crops they could walk; they would not rent to Socialists any more.
Chairman WALSH. Were all those that were turned away Socialists?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes; well, I don't know that they are all Socialists; some went away that did not belong to that local. I don't know whether they were Socialists or not.
Chairman WALSH. Was there satisfaction or dissatisfaction among the tenants prior to 1911, when this organization was had there? Was there unrest among the tenants or were they satisfied?
Mr. DAVIS. They were confused.
Chairman WALSH. What was the cause of the confusion?
Mr. DAVIS. The conditions.
Chairman WALSH. Describe the conditions briefly, if you can. I see. Mr. Davis, that you have a paper in your hand; was there something you wished to offer?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. What is it?
Mr. DAVIS. I have here the names of the men that were excused.
Chairman WALSH. Give their names.
Mr. DAVIS. E. D. Alford, G. D. McBride, W. W. Lancaster, Pat Dunning, E. C. McBride, a Mr. Creel, and Marion Johnson.
Chairman WALSH. Did you know all those people?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. And did you know their families?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Can give the members of their families?
Mr. DAVIS. No, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Did you talk to these people about the circumstances under which they were compelled to leave?
Mr. DAVIS. No; I didn't question them.
Chairman WALSH. Was there any general movement on the part of the tenants with reference to the dismissal of the tenants? Was there any action taken collectively by the tenants in the neighborhood?
Mr. DAVIS. Not that I know of.
Chairman WALSH. Where did these people go?
Mr. DAVIS. Some rented from Mr. Miller; some went to Oklahoma.
Chairman WALSH. How much land has Mr. Miller?
Mr. DAVIS. I don't know how much land he has.
Chairman WALSH. I am going to ask you to describe some of the conditions; first, would you say that you were a typical farmer of that neighborhood?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. That is, you have a large family and you do your work about like the other farmers do their work, Mr. Davis?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. But you started out 10 years ago with this land?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. And when you bought that land, were all of your earnings those that you made as a tenant on your mother's land, or had you farmed other land that you had leased?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes; I had farmed other land I had leased.
Chairman WALSH. So that all the money you had to buy land with you had earned on your mother's land or on the land of other landlords?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Are the houses on these farms large enough houses for the average family on the tenant farms?
Mr. DAVIS. No.
Chairman WALSH. Why not?
Mr. DAVIS. Well, they are reasonably comfortable and large enough for a man and his wife and two children.
Chairman WALSH. Do they have more than two children, as a rule?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir; I think so.
Chairman WALSH. So that your criticism would be that the houses are not large enough for the families that occupy them?
Mr. DAVIS. Not for some of the families.
Chairman WALSH. Are they kept in good repair?
Mr. DAVIS. Tolerably good.
Chairman WALSH. Have you observed any sickness in the community caused by improper housing?
Mr. DAVIS. No, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Is there much overcrowding of the sleeping rooms—in these houses?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir; largely there is.
Chairman WALSH. Is that usual or unusual, that overcrowding that way?
Mr. DAVIS. It is a little unusual.
Chairman WALSH. Do the landlords improve the tenant houses readily and willingly?
Mr. DAVIS. No, sir; I don't think they do, according to that contract; according to that contract you are required to keep them up yourself and improve them yourself.
Chairman WALSH. Do the landlords appear to feel any responsibility for the social conditions of their tenants, and their housing?
Mr. DAVIS. No, sir; the main object is to get a man that will work the land with a big force and plenty of teams and push the mules down the road.
Chairman WALSH. What do you mean by "plenty of force"?
Mr. DAVIS. A large number of children.
Chairman WALSH. At what age do those children go to work on the farms?
Mr. DAVIS. Just as soon as they can pull a cotton sack or hoe.
Chairman WALSH. What age would that be?
Mr. DAVIS. It runs from about seven, on up.
Chairman WALSH. Do the tenants appear to have proper consideration for the property of their landlords?
Mr. DAVIS. Some are a little negligent, a little careless in that particular.
Chairman WALSH. That is, you mean the tenants are?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir; in taking care of the place.
Chairman WALSH. I notice your contract is in writing.
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. What percentage of the contracts in your neighborhood are oral? You have verbal contracts, as well as these written contracts, do you?
Mr. DAVIS. No, sir.
Chairman WALSH. In your neighborhood, are all of them written contracts, so far as you know?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. They are all in writing, are they?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes; so far as I know. Hold on; I am a little too fast. Mr. Tucker, who leases out a lot of land, had some of those men who were excused; he has them on his place; he has two of those men who were excused on his place. He don't require no contract at all.
Chairman WALSH. Is there any indication given by the landlord to the tenant usually as to what he wants the tenant to raise on the land?
Mr. DAVIS. No; there has not been up until just recently.
Chairman WALSH. If a man rented that land, could he raise all the corn he wanted, and all the cotton he wanted?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes; provided he pay cash rent, he could.
Chairman WALSH. When he takes it on shares, how about that?
Mr. DAVIS. On halves?
Chairman WALSH. Yes.
Mr. DAVIS. I don't know a thing about that.
Chairman WALSH. How about the third and fourth, when it is on three and four?
Mr. DAVIS. He takes a third of the grain and a fourth of the cotton.
Chairman WALSH. Who determines what shall be raised, the tenant or the landlord, or do they do it by agreement?
Mr. DAVIS. It is sort of by agreement; it is up to the tenant, if he wants to plant a lot of grain he can do it.
Chairman WALSH. But if he gets it on three and four, what is the requirement, if any, from the landlord?
Mr. DAVIS. He plants all the way from 8 to 10 acres of corn, and about that amount of maize, some cane, and some corn.
Chairman WALSH. What defects do you observe, if any, in the existing, rental contracts that might be improved by law; if you have any view on that?
Mr. DAVIS. Well, I don't know. About the best thing is to exclude these contracts.
Chairman WALSH. Exclude them all?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. How would you get to work the land?
Mr. DAVIS. I look at the contract as not being anything really bad, but it has a tendency to make a man believe that he is actually dishonest; that he would not be allowed on the land if he was not under contract; that is the way I look at a contract. I don't object to a contract at all, under any other circumstances, whatever. Then it goes further than that; it goes this further; it teaches your boy on the farm under this contract that a fellow certainly must be dishonest.
Chairman WALSH. Under the existing system, Mr. Davis, what do you think the chance is of the average tenant becoming a home owner in your section?
Mr. DAVIS. If he ever becomes a home owner in my section, he would evidently have to follow diversified farming.
Chairman WALSH. Under the present system of raising corn and cotton could he become a home owner?
Mr. DAVIS. No.
Chairman WALSH. What is the average price of land to-day in your section?
Mr. DAVIS. It runs from $15 to $45 an acre.
Chairman WALSH. What are the interest rates?
Mr. DAVIS. It runs from well, it is on an average of about 8 per cent.
Chairman WALSH. Is there much chattel mortgage business in your section?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Are the loans extended by banks or mercantile business houses, mercantile companies, or others?
Mr. DAVIS. By the banks.
Chairman WALSH. What is the actual interest paid by the tenants on chattel mortgages in your section?
Mr. DAVIS. About 10 per cent.
Chairman WALSH. Is there any difference made in the charge for the stuff bought if it is bought on long time?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir; there is a credit price and a cash price.
Chairman WALSH. What is the difference between the credit price and the cash price?
Mr. DAVIS. It runs from about 50 to 60 per cent.
Chairman WALSH. Do you mean it is—do you mean the credit price is 50 or 60 per cent higher than the cash price?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. How much land can a one-team tenant farmer farm?
Mr. DAVIS. Seventy-five acres.
Chairman WALSH. What would his least income be ordinarily if he has a good, fair crop, fair crop conditions, and fair price?
Mr. DAVIS. I never have been able to figure that out, simply because I never have been able to find anything on a farm whereon you could base the figures.
Chairman WALSH. You have been unable to find it out?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. You have tried to do it?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir; there is nothing on a farm you can base any figures on at all—nothing whatever.
Chairman WALSH. Is there any unrest among the tenants at the present time?
Mr. DAVIS. Why, yes; right smart.
Chairman WALSH. First, is the unrest growing or diminishing?
Mr. DAVIS. Why, they can not see nothing in the future. They look back over their past life and it is spent and nothing accumulated for old age, and they can not see nothing in the future.
Chairman WALSH. Would you say, from your experience, that that is inherent in the character of the man or comes from the system?
Mr. DAVIS. Comes from the system evidently.
Chairman WALSH. Are these tenants you have met, these tenant farmers, average men so far as their morals are concerned, and industry and integrity?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir. Now, of those men I mentioned there are all of them hard-working men, honest, truthful men, and wealth producers, except one of them. There is one of them that I could not vouch for.
Chairman WALSH. Well, is there any feeling on the part of the tenants? What is the feeling on the part of the tenants that they are treated fairly or discriminated against?
Mr. DAVIS. Well, discriminated against.
Chairman WALSH. I wish you would, so far as you can, voice into the record here what they claim about the discriminations and causes of unrest, and what their complaints are?
Mr. DAVIS. Well, different things. One thing is the nature of this rent contract, you know, and another thing, it is the lack of capital to carry on their expenses on the farm. That is a big trouble, you see, on the farm.
Chairman WALSH. What do they blame it on—their lack of capital?
Mr. DAVIS. Why, they blame it on hoarded wealth.
Chairman WALSH. Hoarded wealth?
Mr. DAVIS. Hoarded wealth, yes.
Chairman WALSH. How about school facilities for the children, Mr. Davis?
Mr. DAVIS. Why, in sections they are poor.
Chairman WALSH. How old is your oldest child?
Mr. DAVIS. My oldest child is dead.
Chairman WALSH. How old is the oldest living?
Mr. DAVIS. He is thirty-odd years old.
Chairman WALSH. What business is he in?
Mr. DAVIS. Farmer.
Chairman WALSH. Does he own or rent?
Mr. DAVIS. He rents. He lives in Brazos County.
Chairman WALSH. Has he a family?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. How long did he stay on your place? What age was he when he left here?
Mr. DAVIS. He was 21 when he left me.
Chairman WALSH. Twenty-one?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Now, up to the time he came of age he worked with you on the place?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Took a hand's part?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Up until that time?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. How much schooling did he get?
Mr. DAVIS. He didn't get much schooling.
Chairman WALSH. What was the reason?
Mr. DAVIS. Well, one reason, he would not go to school.
Chairman WALSH. Now, did you have any other boy that stayed with you until he was 21?
Mr. DAVIS. No; my oldest son left me before he was 21.
Chairman WALSH. Where did he go?
Mr. DAVIS. When he died he was turning his twenty-first year.
Chairman WALSH. Did he work as a hand on the place?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Go to school?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. How much schooling did the girls get?
Mr. DAVIS. Well, they got a right smart schooling. They got to read and write.
Chairman WALSH. So they could read and write? How many years did they go to school?
Mr. DAVIS. Well, some of them went to school as much as two years.
Chairman WALSH. As much as two years?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes; and some three.
Chairman WALSH. Any longer than that?
Mr. DAVIS. No, sir.
Chairman WALSH. They went to the country school in the neighborhood?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Did the operations of your farm have anything to do with cutting down the time that the children went to school?
Mr. DAVIS. A whole lot.
Chairman WALSH. A lot of time?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Did you have any desire, Mr. Davis, in connection with your children going to school and going to high school, and perhaps getting into some other line of business or some of the professions?
Mr. DAVIS. No; it was not my desire that they should go into any other business. But my desire was for them to stay on the farm.
Chairman WALSH. As renters?
Mr. DAVIS. No.
Chairman WALSH. What was your desire with respect to them?
Mr. DAVIS. I would rather that they become tillers of the soil.
Chairman WALSH. Your idea was that that was a useful life?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. A contented life to lead?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes; a legitimate life, a happy life, a useful life, useful to humanity, useful to all developments of every nature.
Chairman WALSH. And it was your desire that your children should follow in your footsteps and that of your ancestors?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. And remain on the soil?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. And are they doing it?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Your girls are married, are they?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Married farmers?
Mr. DAVIS. All but one.
Chairman WALSH. And are the farmers renters or owners?
Mr. DAVIS. Some of them are landowners.
Chairman WALSH. Are some landowners and some renters and became landowners after they married into your family?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. Some of them were formerly renters?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. And they were thrifty enough to acquire homes of their own?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Do they all live in the State of Texas?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir.
Chairman WALSH. Now, is there any statement that you would like to make, Mr. Davis? I notice you have been sitting here during a large part of the time.
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Chairman WALSH. If there is any suggestion that you would care to make that you think would help us in our work, we will be very glad to have you do it.
Commissioner LENNON. I would like to ask you whether, when you say that some of your children went to school two years, whether you mean to spread that over a number of years or is just during two years' terms?
Mr. DAVIS. Just two years' terms.
Chairman WALSH. Was there anything else you wished to say?
Mr. DAVIS. I do not know there is anything that I could say to advantage, unless along the line of farming business.
Chairman WALSH. Then we are very much obliged to you. You will be finally excused.
DAVIS EXHIBIT.
STATE of TEXAS, County of Coleman:
Know all men by these presents: I, W. T. Davis, of Coleman County, Texas, have this day leased from J. Z. Miller, jr., hereinafter called lessor, for the purpose of making a crop for the year 1913, one hundred eighty-five acres of land, hereinafter called premises; said premises being a part of all of what is known as W. T. Davis place in Coleman County, Texas; ninety acres of which are in cultivation and the balance in pasture. The terms and conditions of this lease are as follows:
I agree to flat break all land in preparing same for cultivation; to cultivate same in a good and farmerlike manner; to prevent the growing and or spreading of Johnson grass, ragweed, and cockleburs thereon; to break all stubble land immediately after small grain has been removed; to occupy said premises as tenant of said lessor; to protect said premises against all kinds of trespass; to keep in good repair at my own expense all building, fencing, and other improvements on said premises; and to deliver peaceable possession of said premises to lessor, in same good condition as when received, ordinary wear and tear only excepted, not later than the 15th day of December, 1913.
In consideration for this lease I agree to pay the following rental to the lessor:
One-fourth of all the cotton and cotton seed raised on said premises, as same is gathered. Cotton to be ginned at Leaday or Voss and lessor's one-fourth of the cotton seed to be left at gin for account of lessor.
Two and 50/100 dollars per acre, money rent, for all other land in cultivation used for purposes other than cotton or permitted by me to lie out.
And it is a further condition hereof that:
1. I will not permit live stock to run at large or pasture on the lands in cultivation.
2. The lessor reserves for the common use of other tenants all wells and natural water supplies.
3. I will not transfer, assign, or dispose of this lease, or sublet the premises without consent of the lessor.
4. I will deliver to the lessor at Voss free of cost all products taken as rentals.
5. I will furnish to the lessor not later than June 1st a memorandum of the cultivated land, showing acreage in cotton and other crops.
6. Pecan trees on said premises are not included in this lease, and the lessor retains the right to enter said premises at all times to inspect and cultivate the same, and to gather the products thereof.
It is understood and agreed that failure on my part to comply with the agreements and conditions above mentioned, or any of them, will, at the option of the lessor, constitute cause for immediate forfeiture of this lease, and the lessor shall have the right to reenter said premises, take charge of same, and, at the option of the lessor, lease again or otherwise dispose of same.
This contract is given for the purpose of securing W. T. Davis's past due interest, also amount to become due on January 1st, 1914, to the said J. Z. Miller, jr.
I hereby acknowledge that the lessor has a landlord's lien on all the crops grown on the premises to secure the rentals above named, and all advances made or caused to be made to me by the lessor in the way of animals, tools, supplies, etc., or otherwise to enable me to make, gather, and market a crop.
To further secure the lessor in the payment of all rentals and advances as above mentioned, I hereby mortgage and pledge to said lessor all the products grown on said premises during my occupancy thereof; also all animals, tools, and supplies furnished or caused to be furnished to me by said lessor. And the lien on said products, animals, tools, and supplies created by this mortgage shall not be in any way affected or impaired by the removal of said products, animals, tools, and supplies from said premises.
Should I fail or refuse to pay the indebtedness created by this lease at the maturity hereinafter named, the lessor, or the lessor's agent or representative, is hereby authorized and empowered to take possession of said products and personal property whether on said premises or elsewhere, and to control and sell the same at such time and place and in such manner as the lessor, or the lessor's agent or representative may deem best, and to exercise all other legal rights and powers in such cases, and to apply the proceeds, less the expenses and costs, to the payment of my indebtedness to the lessor, and the balance, if any, to me or my order.
In case I should fail, or be unable, properly to plant, cultivate, etc., or gather any crops on said premises, then the lessor, or the lessor's agent or representative, is hereby authorized to enter upon said premises and work the same and the charges for so doing shall be and are hereby secured by the landlord's lien and the mortgage lien above provided for. The lessor, or the lessor's agent or representative, is also authorized to enter at any time upon said premises to inspect the same, to make improvements thereon, and to cultivate the same in such manner as not to interfere with my rights therein as lessee.
I hereby promise to pay the indebtedness due the lessor under this lease as the crops are gathered, but in any event not later than November 15th, 1913, at Voss, Coleman County, Texas. If said indebtedness is not paid on that date, it shall then become payable at the Belton National Bank, Belton, Texas, with interest at the rate of ten per cent per annum from said date, together with ten per cent additional on the amount due, for collection fees if suit is brought thereon, or if placed in the hands of an attorney for collection, or if collected through the probate court. Interest payable annually and defaulting interest to bear the same rate of interest as the principal.
W. T. DAVIS.
Witness:
TOM CRENSHAW.
Final Report and Testimony
Submitted to Congress by the
Commission on Industrial Relations
Created by the Act of August 23, 1912
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