sharecroppers

A Texas sharecropper named Levi T. Steward was involved in hearings by the Federal Commission on Industrial Relations, held in Dallas, March 1915. From William James Ghent, ed., Appeal Socialist Classics(Vol 8), essay titled "Socialism and the Farmer":

"A gasp went round the room when the Steward family entered. None of them wore wraps, and several of the six children were barefoot. The day was bitterly cold. Mrs. Steward carried a three-year-old child. The family history is one long fight with poverty. The couple married in Arkansas in 1887. Eleven babies have come into the home. On three such occasions there was no doctor in attendance. The family was too poor. Three of the children have died. Ora Vivian had congestion for four days before death claimed her in her third year. Mary Bula died at nine months. Cause unknown. Willie Joe was but five months old when his little body grew cold as he lay by his mother's side and he joined his brother and sister — three baby victims of poverty. THE LOSING FIGHT. The father related his fight year by year since mar- riage. The story of each season was exactly like the other with slight variation. He testified that he never drank liquor, never kept it in the house, even for medicinal pur- poses, and the family did not squander money for fine clothes. His wife never had a ready-made suit in all her life and but three "store" hats. She had but one "trip" in her life, and that was when she took advantage of excursion rates to travel a distance of 100 miles. They lived within a few miles of Conway, Texas, for two years and his wife was to town but once in all that time ; that was when he carried her there to be attended by a doctor. The general history was summed up in the statement that the family has "made" approximately 700 bales of cotton and hundreds of bushels of corn in the last twenty-eight years and now finds itself illiterate, hopeless and about $750 in debt. "

Another excerpt:

"Levi T. Steward, the tenant farmer, and his family have practically no education, own not one inch of ground and have never entered a bank except to assume or pay off a mortgage. After years and years of productive work they find themselves more heavily in debt than when they started. The best educated members of the family can barely read; most of them can neither read nor write. Their clothes were tatters and the children were barefoot in the middle of winter. From the moment each member of this family en- tered life he has been robbed, exploited and figured as a unit of profit or loss by some member of the owning class. "

www23.us.archive.org/stream/appealsocialistc08ghen/appeal...

The report of the Walsh Commission (Commission on Industrial Relations) identifies a Levi Thomas Stewart (Bain and Mr. Ghent both seem to have the wrong spelling) who testified at hearings in Dallas on March 17, 1915. This part of the Commission's inquiry was its only investigation into agricultural issues, in this case tenant farming. His testimony, which is available online, opens a window into a world of poverty and hard work and farm families living in impossible conditions. books.google.com/books?id=o-oeAQAAMAAJ&lpg=PA8951&amp... His wife, Beulah Stewart, testified after him. She was questioned by Commissioner Florence Jaffray "Daisy" Harriman, who appears elsewhere in the Bain Collection, sometimes identified as Mrs. J.B. Harriman. www.flickr.com/search/?ss=2&w=commons&q=jaffray&a... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Jaffray_Harriman

pennylrichardsca and artolog: thanks for the information and correct spelling of his name. We will update the record.

i can almost hear them..

looks like a good day, family all out working together.....

vivid

Love the color.

Amazing.

WOW! Thankyou, LOC!!!

Una excelente composición ... PERFECTA TOMA Saludos cordiales