12 MAIL TRIBUNE, MtdforJ, Oregon, Monday, July 28, 1958
Migrant Farm Families Follow
Might Earn Up To $1,000 With
Editor's ote: ("The most under
prlvfeard people in America.'
That's it the government calls
tbj I.OtO.fOf migrant farm work
er 9 I KM me it ii u ii in av
9 ter ol4 srutks, cars and buses,
harvtti Irrliu and vegetables.
For jytt-aaad look at migrant
ttfrklag aad living conditions,
Lnited Frss International sent re
teortr Loais Cassels on a tour of
laaor n-pi In the truck farming
X'girsjs of Delaware, Maryland and
nkfiaia. This is the first of four
O ljjatchesoin which Cassels reports
a iouna.i
y LOUI CASSELS
$Jied Press International
Loflni Lindsay is 40 years
j old. He has a pregnant wife,
sijf, small children, a 1948 car
and an aching back.
f he aching back come from
picking beans and tomatoes,
a job at -which Lonnie earns
"about 97 day on good
days."
When I visited tpem. Lon
nie anA his family lived in a
one-roonr wooden -shack in a
mftrant labor camp on the
easterg shore of Maryland. In
a few weeks, they planned to
O load up "their bedding and
cookpots and move on to an
other camp in upstate New
York.
Lonnie Lindsay Jr. is six
Qyears old. He has never fired
. a cap pistol nor ridden a
tricycle. He spends his days
in the fields, picking beans
into his father's basket. If
yog ask him, "Where is your
home, little boy?" he looks
at you with a puzzled stare
O and sfirus his shoulders.
O '$olloy the Seasons'
T"U .knnl ama rvtil-
0 gCIC 1 UVJU. "in
lion migrant farm workers in
the United States who live
&ke th Lindsays. Year after
ye-tr, thty "follow the sea-
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Fits 12 ft. and
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Central 3mM
Main and Central
sons" from state to state,
harvesting fruits and vege
tables. Their home is where
the crops are ripe.
Winter finds them in Flor
ida, Texas or Arizona. In
spring, they move north in
three great streams. One goes
up the west coast through
California's rich central val
ley and into Oregon and
Washington. Another fans
out through the midwest.
The third comes up the east
coast through the Carolinas,
and into the middle Atlantic
states.
Some of the migrants, like
the Lindsays, are Negroes.
Some are Puerto Ricans. A
few are white share-croppers
from the deep south, driven
off the land by mechanization.
Many are Spanish-speaking
"Texas-Mexicans" whose hot
tempers flare if you call them
wetbacks.
Despite their racial diver
sity, the migrants have one
common denominator: the
lowest living standard in
America.
Visited Labor Camp
To see how they live, I vis
ited migrant labor camps in
one of the nation's greatest
truck farming regions, -.the
Delmarvo Peninsula. This is
the long spit of land between
Chesapeake and Delaware
Bays where Delaware adjoins
the eastern shore of Mary
land and Virginia. More than
20,000 migrant workers come
to this area each summer to
harvest beans, tomatoes, mel
ons, cucumbers, potatoes, corn
and berries.
Most of the migrants to
whom I talked had spent the
past winter in Florida. They
had grim memories of the
January freeze that destroyed
many of Florida's winter
crops and left the migrants
stranded for weeks with no
work and no income. Emer
gency food shipments, organ
ized by state agencies and
church groups, saved thou
sands of families from star
vation. . Fortunately the eastern
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shore produced bumper crops
this summer. The migrants
had plenty of work. They
got 50 cents a hamper for
picking string beans (a rate
that has been unchanged for
the past 10 years) and 10
cents a bushel for tomatoes.
An adult worker of average
skill can pick from 12 to 15
hampers of beans a day. Some
unusually fast pickers can fill
20 hampers.
Picking Hard Work
As every home gardener
knows, picking beans is hard
work. The migrants have- a
system. "You go on your
knees until they get sore,"
explained 60-year-old Katie
Abranis. "Then you stand up
and bend over to pick. When
your back starts aching,, you
go to your knees again."
Everybody picks beans ex
cept the smallest children and
women who are eight months
or more pregnant. I found
What Is
' This column is prepared as a public service by the
College of Law, Willamette University, Salem, to
explain basic legal principles, not to provide legal
advice. The reader is cautioned not to apply these cases
lo his own problems without an attorney's advice, for
differing facts may change the outcome.
When the Injured Person
Cannot Sue for Damages
In West Virginia an elderly
woman sought damages from
a hotel for injuries sustained
when she. fell down a set of
hotel steps. She had lived in
the hotel for many years and
was quite familiar with the
several exits available.
New rubber matting was
being glued down on the steps
on which she fell, and a loose
board had been placed on
each step to hold the matting
in place until the glue dried.
She had noticed this a few
hours before her fall. There
for the' court refused to award
her damages, because it felt
she was fully aware that cer
tain risks were involved in
using the stairs. With this
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PRESCRIPTIONS
Seasons;
Good Year
many boys and girls in the
i fields who claimed they were
j six but looked younger. I saw
grizzled old women who must
have been well beyond 70.
Sometimes migrant babies
are left in camp with a preg
nant woman ox an older child
to "mind" them. Often, how
ever, you find them lying on
burlap bags between the bean
rows, or on the edge of the
field with large cardboard
boxes for playpens.
How much does a migrant
family earn in a year?
"There's my wife and me and
three girls," said Alfred
Fields. "With everybody
working, we 'cumulated about
$800 last year."
But last year was a bad
year for winter crops. In a
good year, government figures
show, the average migrant
family may earn as much as
$1,000.
(Next: What they live in.)
The
knowledge ' she voluntarily
chose to use them though she
knew that other exits were
avalable where such risks
were not involved.
Not Always Entitled
Thus, a person is not always
entitled to compensation for
injury or damage causefi by
another's sub-standard or neg
ligent conduct. Under certain
circumstances the courts may
well decide that the injured
person "assumed the risk" of
receiving the injury or dam
age to property of which he
complains.
The element of free choice
takes a different slant in a
case involving several passen
gers in a car. The driver drove
wildly along icy. country
roads. He stopped once to
scrape ice from the wind
shield and the passengers told
him, as they had earlier, that
they were frightened of his
driving. They wanted to leave
the car and walk to a light
they saw in the distance.
The driver told them it was
too cold for such a walk. He
also assured inem he would
get them to their destination
safely if they would "just stop
the back seat driving." But
the driver was even wilder
and wrecked the car and in
jured the passengers.
Risk Claimed
When they sued for dam
ages the driver claimed they
had assumed the risk because
when they got back in the
car they did so with full
knowledge of the way he
drove. The court, however, de
cided that the passengers had
not assumed the risk. They
were strangers in the area,
the weather was so bad that
they could not get out and
walk, and the driver reassur
ed them that he would get
them to their destination safe
ly after they had pointed out
to him their fear of his driv
ing. The law is pretty uniform
throughout the country inso
far as the doctrine of assump
tion of risk is concerned. If
the person had full knowl
edge of the risks involved and
still voluntarily entered upon
the' course of conduct, he can
not later complain if injured
because of one of the risks
known and assumed by him.
Students Building
Atom Smasher
Benton Harbor, Mich.
(UPI Fledgling physicists
at Benton Harbor High School
are building an atom-smashing
cyclotron.
Physics students at the
school have been busy on the
cyclotron since 1955 and have
completed about three-fourths
of the work.
Hugh Kahler, physics in
structor, estimates the value
of the atom-smasher at be
tween $10,000 and $15,000
but said students have spent
only about $100 on the proj
ect. Three students who have
graduated designed the cyclo
tron. Since then other stu
dents now about 15 have
carried on their, work.
Each . phase of the cyclo
tron's construction has been
submitted to University of
Chicago scientists for scrutiny
and approval.
Benton Harbor industries
have contributed their share
to construction of the cyclor
tron. One firm supplied 400
pound castings for the ma
chine, and another manufac
turer machined the castings
to the students' specifications.
The country's first agricul
tural experiment station was
founded in Savanah, Ga., in
1735.
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