The Hired Man

by R. H. Bemis

(Originally published in the

Hysham Echo on Sept. 30, 1926)

Modern appliances tending to make life easier on the farm have so far failed to eliminate the “hired man” and probably never will, though a tendency in that direction was expressed by a farmer friend of mine recently in the assertion promulgated after a fruitless attempt to secure a couple of husky assistants for the press of harvest work:

“Dang these young shieks anyway! I offered them hoboes four dollars a day and a ride out to the ranch and what do you think they told me? ‘Bring in your wheat and if it looks good we’ll shock it for you.’ What do you think about that? All they think of is cigarettes, moving pictures and automobiles. I’ve a notion to sell off all my land except what I can run myself, and get shut of these IWW’s who seem to want everything except a job!”

I think my farmer friends stated the case rather extremely, although the modern “hired man” appears somewhat different in his moods and demands more than the old farm laborer of my experience and observation. I don’t believe the good farm worker is extinct altogether, but he has undoubtedly changed in some ways. He has become more or less of a mechanic in step with the modern methods of agriculture which is now successfully carried on largely by the aid of machinery, and naturally he balks at labor separate from the odor of gasoline and oil. He knows all about internal combustion engines and given a machine, makes it do the work, but with a shovel or pitchfork he disclaims any affinity, and for one, I don’t blame him greatly.

My own experience in agricultural labor began on a New England farm of small acreage, but the tasks it could produce for the operating force was out of all proportion to its size. It seemed that the work was never done, although apparently every minute of daylight, winter or summer, was employed in the attempt. Mechanical help as known at the present time, was then unthought of. Everything had to be done by man strength and skill in handicraft. The shovel, hoe and pitchfork, supplemented by calloused muscles, was the force behind all hands and well-developed shoulder accomplishment, and the very arduousness of this incessant toil seemingly quickened the intellect of many who found themselves enmeshed in its chains, and led eventually to the emancipation of the farmer. The way of escape led toward invention and the genius of New England had a large share in evolving the myriad of labor-saving devices now common upon every farm. One man today with the aid of machinery, accomplishes ten times more than his prototype of a half century ago, and with only a fraction of the expenditure of muscular effort.

The efficient modern farm hand is far from being null and void between the ears, but sometimes this equipment of gray matter carries him into fields the old time farm worker knew nothing of. The dreams of the IWW and similar uplift movements to enforce the potential power of a united front of toilers did not materialize to any great extent, but their methods for a time made it interesting for the employer, though the farm laborer who dabbled in these movements soon convinced himself they could not fulfill their promises. Like the employer himself, the hired man soon realized the very isolation of his life was against a successful union of ideas. The matter of bargain and sale of the commodity of farm labor is a problem between themselves and its value mainly governed by the law of supply and demand.

According to my recollection of the relation of the hired man to his employer of fifty years ago, it seems that farmer bewailed the shortcomings of his hired men with equal vehemence to that of the present day employer.  (Cont. next week) Print this post