The Farmer's Complaint
During 1972, an antipoverty program intended to help migrant farmworkers called Project REACH (Rural Education and Cultural Horizons) arrived at a turning point in the Steuben County community. Following organizational efforts by Rev. Timothy Weider, a center in Perskinsville was opening to provide childcare and assist with other forms of support. Funding had come from a variety of sources: federal war-on-poverty initiatives; the local furniture maker Gunlocke; the Catholic and Episcopal dioceses; even a 15-mile fundraising walk with more than 500 participants. It seemed like everyone was behind the initiative. By November of that same year Rev. Stuart Mitchell, the center’s director, confessed that he was “duly shell-shocked” after a rapid turn of events that had seen the Steuben County Board of Advisors investigate Project REACH, and Rep. James F. Hastings request a probe by the Federal General Accounting Office (“Project”).
The flash point came after farmer grievances that bordered on the apocalyptic. Dale Werth, a Wayland potato farmer and vice president of the county Farm Bureau, claimed that Project REACH workers had been “harassing” migrant workers and was concerned about the economic consequences to “growers already suffering because of a poor growing season” (Esposito). Robert McGunnigle of Avoca posted signs on his farm warning, “Project REACH Stay Off” and lamented that due to state regulations “good help won’t come up (from southern states) anymore. All you get is a bunch of bums.” James and Raymond Jablonski of Cohocton “blame[d] REACH for the loss in desire to work among migrants,” who they claimed were selling food vouchers to purchase alcohol and “laughing about it” (Wade). These and other examples employ a rhetorical strategy we call The Farmer’s Complaint, where anger at structural economic forces and hired labor are impossible to untangle, where emotions and strategy intermingle. The Farmer's Complaint justifies very tangible actions like attempts to shut down legally mandated services for migrant farmworkers. In Steuben County, even the local migrant camp inspector, Kenneth Luce, lamented that Project REACH was “trying to enslave the Negro by doing everything for him”; migrants were traveling from the south to have “a sort of vacation to escape the heat of summer and take advantage of liberal New York benefits” (Wade).
Since at least the early 1800s, American farmers have expressed dissatisfaction with their lot. They endure strenuous work, unpredictable weather, precarious finances, and competition from other regions. In 1840 a writer using the pen name “Obserfator” lamented the toll of growing seasons devoted “almost the whole time, except what is necessarily consumed in sleep, to the labors of the field.” He wondered who, “after eight months of unremitting toil, can sit down and spend an evening in vigorous thought, or even in such reading as requires attention?” (122). The famous illustration “I Feed You All!” channeled the outrage of farmers whose toil was enriching everyone besides themselves. Where had America gone wrong since its founding a hundred years earlier?
But Obserfator’s article reveals additional dimensions. He claims that statistics show “the average life among farmers is but little, if any greater than among professional men.” The ill health caused by “neglect of exercise” among city men was occurring due to “over exertion” among farmers—in part due to “their desires of gain.” His desire for a more balanced life doesn’t seem to include a farmer’s hired laborers, although it would be interesting to envision solidarity across lines of class, or rural and urban workers. As it was, though, farmers weaponized their own overwork and exploitation against groups with even less power. Using language that anticipates the outrage over Project REACH, an 1855 editorial in The Genesee Farmer avowed: “We do not favor the idea of giving food without work. We see daily in our streets those who are too lazy to work at fair prices, but not too proud to accept relief at the hands of our public officers. For such we have no sympathy; and we question whether the liberal provision now made in nearly all our large cities for the relief of destitute poor, does not in a measure increase the evil it aims to avoid” (“Hard Times”).
Works Consulted
-- Esposito, Pete. “Farmer Raps REACH Work.” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle 17 Oct. 1972: B1.
-- “Hard Times.” 16.2 (Feb. 1855): 65. Courtesy of Internet Archive
-- Obserfator. “A Proposition: Farmer Devote Too Much Time to Manual Labor.” The Genesee Farmer 1.8 (Aug. 1840): 122. Courtesy of Internet Archive
-- “Project REACH Probed.” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle 1 Nov. 1972: B2.
-- Stewart, James. “The Economics of American Farm Unrest, 1865-1900.” EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. February 10, 2008. Link to article.
-- Wade, Garth. “REACH Angers Steuben Potato Growers.” Elmira Star-Gazette 26 Nov. 1972: B1.