CHAPTER 6. LIFE AT HARD LABOR—THE HOPI 93
Time and piece work
In all of the farm work that I have done this problem comes up. In one lettuce field that I know of the men were paid so much a row to thin the lettuce. The work had to be done over four times as it was not done thoroughly at any time. Most workers if paid by the hour would loaf and soldier on the job. Yet I worked for one farmer who gave me such weedy rows to hoe that I was really paid but 25 cents per hour, although he had promised to pay extra for these bad rows and did not do so. Another time we were paid $1.50 a row, but when more men came the next day for this good wage the boss laughingly said "supply and demand" and cut the rate to a dollar, although the rows were much more difficult. It is necessary to hoe large fields in a short time in order that they can be irrigated again. Thus large crews are necessary to do the work and a foreman cannot watch all of the men all of the time. One employer who paid low wages said it was difficult to get a worker whose mind was concerned with the work all of the time. Did he want both mind and body for $5 a day? Aside from the natural greed of the bourgeois one reason for the importing of Mexican Nationals was the difficulty of getting sober white men by calling for them at daylight at the slave market in Phoenix. With employers passing a "Right to Work" law in Arizona and church authorities refusing to back up labor it would seem that the worker should not worry about the work problems of the boss. I see no solution of this problem under capitalism. At Tempe the other Sunday a very old priest who was visiting asked me to explain this "Right to Work" Bill. I did not know very much about it in detail and as I hesitated the priest said: "Are the bankers for it? If it is good for them then it is no good for me. That's the way to tell about it." We both laughed then for we knew the bankers were for it.
The small farmer seems to have the same vice of greed that the big corporation has as a reason for existence, but without the efficiency of the latter. In September in the midst of date picking I was called to interview my third revenue officer at the Post Office. This man, unlike the other two, who had been courteous, was a go-getter. He wanted to know if I really meant that I would not pay my income tax; that this was a very serious matter. I agreed with him that it was a serious matter to help pay for the war and the Bomb. He felt that I did not do my share in helping the government; that I got all the gravy. I told him that as a Christian Anarchist I had no share in the government, for I did not vote, accept subsidies, pensions, social security or ration benefits from the government, nor call upon the police, believing rather in turning the other cheek. He asked for the names of my employers saying that as long as I lived in his district he would get the tax money. I suggested that he follow me around in my daily hunt for a job and see just how much "gravy" I was getting. He jumped up and said it made him angry to talk to a fellow like me. Unlike the tax man contacted by my friend Caleb Foote, who felt no personal responsibility of right and wrong and compared himself to his desk, this man gave quite a bit of energy to a defense of the war system. (Caleb was head of the FOR in Berkeley California; went to prison as a conscientious objector.) The head tax man here
