als and Troubles

Organization, Cooperation, and Administration in the Arvin

Migratory Labor Camp

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Thomas Dorrance

l e,hap, the • ,i,ible el m of Califomi•'• Depre,.inn Era experience, migrants from Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas came to represent a generalized experience of hardship victimization symbolized by their constructed moniker of "Okie." This epitaph contained within its layered meanings converging historical forces of race, time and location. The oppressive realities of California's agricultural labor system did not emerge in response to this influx of desperate workers. Instead these migrants simply became the most visible participants of an agricultural system, which had long been the hidden underbelly of California's remarkable prosperity. Walter Stein argues that these migrants "intruded upon an agricultural system that contravened every myth in the Jeffersonian pantheon, and they served as unwitting publicists for those who found California's agriculture and its social effects unsound."1 Products of the Great Depression, these migrants also became victims of an already established economic system.

Derided, glorified, and patronized, this heterogeneous group actively participated in a dynamic process of assimilation and identity formation. This process acted at a heightened level in the government's migrant labor camps, operating between 1935 and 1940. All of the conflicting currents of thought that formed the Okie epitaph converged within the physical space of the government camps.2 The camp at Arvin operated throughout the period of migrant fervor and its changing dynamics illustrate the complex reactions to the migrant problem exhibited by federal and state reformers and by the migrants themselves. Administrative officers and camp managers wrestled with questions concerning the nature of the camps and of migratory labor. These questions never found resolution, as camp programs varied from those designed to limit tenancy to those aimed at establishing some level of stability within the camp's confines. The migrants residing in the camps reacted to an evolving administrative structure and to different camp managers in a manner reflective of their diverse character. Some embraced the traditional values that James Gregory refers to as "Plain-Folk Americanism," whileothers flirted with the radical possibilities of an organized agricultural proletariat.3

The camp itself withstood these divergent forces and incorporated them into an

1 Walter Stein, California and the Dust Bowl Migration (Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1973), xi.2 I use the tenn "Okie" here to represent the stereotypical characteristics attached to the southwestern migrants by those reacting to their presence in California. For the remainder of the article I will use the tenn "migrant" to describe the peoples escaping the dust bowl conditions of the Southwest as a tenn that lacks the pejorative connotations associated with "Okies ."

3 James N. Gregory, American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California(New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 139.

evolving institutional structure sensitive to the changing personalities of its participants. The campers, camp managers, and federal and regional directors operated in dialogue with each other. Ideally, these three groups existed in symbiotic balance. Changes in personnel and administrative purpose upset this balance and the ensuing tensions shaped the camp's development over time. Although it did not progress toward any singular goal, the resulting narrative illustrates a nuanced process of compromise and conflict.

An investigation of California's experience during the Great Depression helps to move the focus of examination away from federal deliberations of relief in Washington, D.C. and toward the implementation of those programs in local settings. California remained relatively immune to the industrial strife of the Great Depression. However, the impact of the Depression on the agricultural sector of California's economy created an indelible image of suffering that challenged the very core of the American dream. Extremist responses to the influx of migrant farmers emerged from both sides of the political spectrum. This interplay of responses exemplifies the political volatility that characterized the general climate of the Depression Era United States.4 This regional context docs not further an exceptionalist depiction of California during the Great Depression, but instead demonstrates the plasticity of New Deal relief during its implementation within the specifics of various local climates. The migrant camp program emerged in response to the unique demands California faced during the Depression and evolved, in part, according to its increasing integration into the federal relief program.

One of two camps originally created as demonstrations for a more elaborate government camp system, Arvin became a model for all later camps. Constructed in the later half of 1935 on forty acres of land in Kern County, Arvin offered a healthy sanctuary to migrants who would otherwise have resided in private grower camps or roadside squatter camps. Originally the camp consisted of tent spaces built around common sanitary facilities that provided hot water for showers and sinks for laundry. The government later constructed tin houses that provided more protection from rain and wind but became uncomfortably warm during the hot summer months.5 The camp also provided such common facilities as a first aid center, a community building, and an outdoor dance floor. Arvin had its faults; camp life certainly compared unfavorably to living in one's own home, but it did mitigate some of the harsher features of the migrant labor system in California.

Historians have found it difficult to resist judging the migratory labor camp program as either a success or a failure. Most have pointed to displays of apathy by the campers, attitudes of condescension among reformers, or the inability of its administrators to radically mobilize the migrants as signs of failure. Each of these elements surfaced periodically during the camp's operation, but none sufficiently encapsulate the nature of camp culture. Whether researching from the top down or

• Kevin Starr, Endangered Dreams: The Great Depression in California (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), vii-viii.'For a good overview of daily life in the camps see Brian Q. Cannon, '"Keep on a-going' : Life and Social Interaction in a New Deal Farm Labor Camp (Arvin Migratory Labor Camp, Kern County, California)" Agricultural History 70, I ( 1996).

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constructing the migrant experience from the bottom up, historians have frequently depicted Arvin's diverse population as monolithic. This tendency masks the conflict that lies at the heart of Arvin.

Walter Stein's California and the Dust Bowl Migration exemplifies the top down approach. His work remains fundamental to any understanding of the interaction between the federal and state administrators of migrant relief. Stein shows that the decentralized structure of the Resettlement Administration (which later evolved into the Farm Security Administration) allowed the local administrators of Region IX to construct a relief program that more closely fit the unique conditions of California's agricultural structure. Stein remarks, "By extending RA's specific goals to the program's larger implied meaning, the directors of Region IX turned from the problems of tenantry and rural poverty to that of migratory labor in California.',6 Stein, however, does not extend this nuanced analysis to the actual migrants who benefited from the camp. These migrants were instead "pawns," acted upon by the liberal and conservative forces in California.7 Within this context, Stein portrays a general decline in camp activity emerging from an apathetic camper po,rulation as proof of the camp's "unsuccessful experiment in 'planned democracy." The camp's greatest contribution was as an important vehicle of assimilation that allowed those in the neighboring towns to sec themigrants as more human than the miserable forms that had earlier camped on their roadsides.9

Striving to explore the middle ground between elite impressions of migrant culture and the actual culture, Charles Shindo's Dust Bowl Migrants in the American Imagination offers another rerspective on those administering relief and chronicling the lives of the migrants.1 However, instead of exploring the dialogue between these groups, Shindo attempts to amplify the manner in which the migrants were acted upon to create an image of generalized Depression victims. Shindo relies almost exclusively on James Gregory's depiction of migrant culture in American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California, as evidence of the gulf between reformers and migrants. However, Gregory is after something more elusive than a simple demonstration that all migrants subscribed to a belief in"Plain-Folk Americanism." He argues instead that this was a dominant cultural trait that evolved through the interplay of Southwestern values and the external pressures of a hostile California environment.11 Gregory adds depth to the more superficial descriptions of Dust Bowl migrants, showing that migrant culture emerged througha range of responses to the unique circumstances this diverse group faced in the agricultural regions of Depression Era California. Gregory aspires to more than a simple investigation of the relationships in one government camp, and he succeeds in presenting a balance to Stein's comprehensive study. However, a more focused

6 Stein, California and the Dust Bowl Migration, 149.7 Stein, California and the Dust Bowl Migration, xi.1 Stein, California and the Dust Bowl Migration, 162.

• Stein, California and the Dust Bowl Migration, 186.10 Charles J. Shindo, Dust Bowl Migrants in the American Imagination (Kansas: University Press ofKansas, 1997).11 Gregory, American Exodus, 142.

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examination of the camp at Arvin can provide a bridge between these two works by illustrating the connections between reformers' intentions and migrant culture.

These larger works must make practical decisions that sacrifice complexity at times in order to construct a more general narrative. Because these authors do not

focus on the camps themselves, they tend to evaluate the camps according to more overarching goals. Gregory points to paternalist and condescending attitudes

among camp workers as contributing to the sense of "otherness and inferiority" that characterized California's reaction to the migrants.12 All these clements can be

found in the camps to various degrees at various times, but as part of a larger whole.

Brian Cannon, recognizing the important role of Arvin in California's response to the Great Depression, focuses primarily on the living conditions at Arvin in an attempt to reconstruct the migrant experience. Cannon argues that the close proximity in which migrants lived with each other magnified individual differences and prevented the emergence of any kind of communal sentiment. Though investigating migrant life, Cannon still uses the reformers' goal of a cooperative community to measure success at Arvin. Cannon states, "Occupying small lots with only walls of canvas or tin to separate them from their neighbors and sharing the same sanitary and laundry facilities, neighbors readily discovered how different they were from each other and how greatly those differences mattered in such an intimatesetting."13 Cannon views the decrease of communal activity as a linear decline away from its ideal as the novelty of the camp's facilities and organization diminished inthe eyes of the campers.

To be fair, Cannon is not investigating change over time but instead seeking to identify those elements within the camper population which produced internal divisions and became sources of tension. The manner in which the camp's government mediated conflict and created community standards changed over time as a function of evolving dynamics between campers and managers. A regional administrator, Eric Thomsen, used the term "Functional Democracy" to describe the ideal operational structure of the camp. This organizational structure promoted involvement among the migrants through a wide spectrum of camp activities as its fundamental purpose. Stein recognized that the majority of the activities in which the migrants participated in were of a "trivial" nature, including organizing ice cream feeds and deciding which band would play at the weekly danccs. 14 However "trivial" this participation may have been, the involvement ofa large segment of the population in camp activities channeled the internal tensions identified by Cannon into an institutional structure that alleviated the divisive potential of natural differences. Although this relationship served more as an ideal than the norm for most of the camp's history, an analysis of the changing dynamics of this institutional structure illustrates the complex relationship between administrators and recipients of relief at Arvin. Assuming that measurements of the camp's successes and failures are relative to the different perspectives of those interacting

12 Gregory, American Exodus, 111.13 Brian Q. Cannon, '"Keep on a-goin:" Life and Social Interaction in a New Deal Fann Labor Camp,"7.14 Stein, California and the Dust Bowl Migration, 178.

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within Arvin's larger institutional structure, it becomes apparent that the camp did not emerge from or progress towards any consensus ideal but instead vacillated according to changes within its administrative structure, between camp managers, and according to the shifting population of the migrant campers.

The idea of a migratory camp system originated in 1935 with Harry Drobisch, state director of Rural Rehabilitation, a division of the State Emergency Relief Administration.15 Shortly thereafter, Drobisch and his program fell under the jurisdiction of the Federal Resettlement Division under Rexford Tugwell. Originallyconstructed to demonstrate the potential of a larger network of migratory camps, Arvin began operation in December of 1935 with Thomas Collins serving as its first Camp Manager. From its inception, no consensus existed regarding the camp's primary purpose. The question revolved around the issue of tenancy: should the camps be reserved exclusively for the use of workers following the seasonal patterns of harvest or as a more semi-permanent home for workers remaining in the area after the harvest? Drobisch conceived of the camp program as an "immediate palliative rather than long-range curative action," 16 while Collins felt the camps could do both. He advocated a platform of unlimited tenancy for semi-permanent workers arguing that by "refusing the 'semi-permanent workers' unlimited tenancywe are merely aiding and abetting the continuance, and probably, the growth of the terrible squatter camp menace."17 The question of tenancy remained unsettled throughout the first year of Arvin's operation.

Collins combined paternalist sympathies with an absolute commitment to self government in the camps. In one report, he relayed a compliment paid to the camp by one of its residents, "Now I kin go any place I wants ter wuk, and if he don't pay rite I kin tell him 'nufin doin' and go sum place else. At the govmnt camp I is a free citizcn."18 Identifying himself as a great emancipator, Collins mused, "We wonder if the blacks of those days did not use the VERY SAME LANGUAGE contained in this quotation from our very own camper?"19 He did not approach his task with the humility of a minor public servant, but went about his work with a mixture of egotism, dedication, condescension, and compassion. His ideal arrangement was to reduce the need for any kind of management; "They feel the camps a civil unit of its own. This pride has made it possible to operate the camp at a high degree of efficiency and with a minimum of 'donts and shall nots.[sic] 20 "'However, his ideal simultaneously reaffirmed the important role of the manager in freeing the migrants from the chains of ignorance and oppression.

Steinbeck relied heavily upon Collins for information while working on a series of articles for the San Francisco News about California's migrant situation in

"Stein, California and the Dust Bowl Migration, 150.16 Stein, California and the Dust Bowl Migration, 150.17 Thomas Collins, "Weekly Report for February 8, 1936," Box 22, Series 2, Fann Security Administration Collection, National Archives San Bruno, Record Group 96.18 Collins, "Weekly Report, 2/8/36," Box 22, FSA. Camp managers frequently attempted to recreate migrant speech in their weekly reports. Whenever it seems apparent that the writer is attempting to mimic the phonetic patterns of speech I have transcribed the passage complete with spelling errors. "Collins, "Weekly Report, 2/8/36," Box 22, FSA.20 Collins, "Weekly Report, 2/29/36," Box 22, FSA.

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1936. Later published in a collection called The Harvest Gypsies, these reports formed the factual basis for his major work, The Grapes of Wrath. Indeed, John Steinbeck dedicatatcd Grapes of Wrath to Collins: "To Tom who lived it." In his discussion of the camps, Steinbeck asserted that the restoration of dignity remained the manager's primary intention. Steinbeck defines his use of dignity stating, "It has been used not as some attitude of self-importance, but simply as a register of a man's responsibility to the communi ty.',21 This connection between dignity and community had many purposes in Collin's camp structure. First, on a practical level it served the manager best to stay above the day-to-day conflicts and enforcement of rules that remained a regular feature of camp life. Second, it helped to create and stabilize a self-contained community within the camp boundaries. Finally, participation in a functioning democracy helped to prepare migrants, whom reformers believed to be socially underdeveloped, for participation in society. This structure worked both to promote stability within the camp and to help the camp become a more effective steppingstone for integration into the larger society. Collins stated in a report, "The self-governing community of which they are a partcompensates, to a degree, for the lack of the essentials required for proper living and which their meager earnings prohibit them from procuring."22 Collins approached the migrant situation as an idealist and through a deep reservoir of energy and charisma swept both campers and administrators into a swirl of activity. Collins's term as camp manager represents the high water mark of functional democracy in the camps. In addition to personal abilities, Collins also enjoyed an unobtrusive administrative structure and strong relationships with campers who believed in and became models for this type of structure.

In particular, the camper Sherman Easton leaps out from the records, a figure almost as dynamic as Collins himself. Easton left a powerful impression on Arthur Lundin, another camp administrator who personified the paternalist attitude of camp workers depicted by Gregory in his description of the majority of the campers, "[t]hese characteristics make the people seem almost child-like at times, as indeed they arc."23 However, Lundin described his encounter with Easton after being introduced as a potential camp manager to the Camp Council in an entirely different manner:

I had been told of his frankness and directness. He asks the questions the only way he knows-directly and to the point. The man has the bearing of a Middle Western Pioneer, of medium height, slender build, with a lean, bronzed face that speaks of a simple and a hard life close to the soil. As one person said, "Easton doesn't need to carry a gun. He packs two of them in his face.'' All the time Easton was speaking and I was answering his questions, his eyes kept boring into my face, never wavering. His

21 John Steinbeck, The Harvest Gypsies (Berkeley: Heyday Books, 1988), originally published in 1936 by San Francisco News, 39.22 Collins, "Weekly report, 2/29/36," box 22, FSA.z, Arthur Lundin, "Observations made during stay at the Arvin Migratory Labor Camp, July 10 to July 17 , 1936," Box 22, FSA and Gregory,American Exodus ,108.

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voice was low and hard. He was the master, and I had come to be judged.24

Collins could create a community standard based on cooperation at Arvin because campers like Easton took responsibility for policing those standards. Easton's name appears prominently on camp flyers calling for increased attention tocleaning duties and adherence to camp rules.25 Camp administrators could display a condescending attitude to migrants in general but they also fully appreciated the democratic abilities of individuals, like Easton. The patronizing attitude among of camp administrators described by Stein and Gregory did exist, and Collins certainlysaw himself as giving the gift of democracy to the migrants. However, the presence of strong individuals such as Easton among the camp population demonstrates that the migrants were not a passive body acted upon by government reformers.

At the end of 1936, Collins left Arvin to implement his system in other camps. Robert Hardie took over as the new camp manager, Easton still served on the camp committee, and Thomsen remained at his post in the administration. Hardie benefited from these continuities and his administration showed many similarities to Collins's term. However, during this period the camp began to emerge from its embryonic state. As its organizational structure became more defined, divisions emerged between the different levels of participants, restricting the open channels of interaction that had characterized Collins's tenure.

An emotional recall election involving a member of the women's Garden Club, shortly after Wallace's visit illustrates the importance of the committees in settling internal disputes. One member of the camp, Mrs. Stout, organized a campaign to remove a committee member, Mrs. McBride, from the Garden Club. McBride, who according to Collins weighed nearly 200 pounds and had an explosive personality, responded violently to the campaign against her and in response to her violent behavior, the committee voted to evict her from the camp. In a letter to Thomsen, Collins hinted that religious differences may also have played a role in this dispute. He felt that McBride should have been recalled much earlier and connected her disruptive presence to other "revitalizing meetings" at his new camp. Cannon, in his description of the event, also claims that Stout used family and religious connections to initiate the campaign against McBride.26

Gregory shows that relocation to California both disrupted and intensified religious sentimentamong the migrants.27 In the camps, different denominations and varying conceptions of morality had the potential to become sources of tension within thepopulation. Because these tensions existed internally, the camp committees played an important role in their resolution.

24 Lundin, "Observations," Box 20, FSA. Parts of this report appear in two separate boxes in the FSA collection.25 See "To all Camp Residents," 6/25/36, and "From Camp Committeeman S.E. Easton," no date, Box 18,FSA.26 Letter, Hardie to Collins, 12/15/36; Letter, Collins to Thomsen, 12/17/36 Box 19, FSA; and Cannon, '"Keep on A-Goin,"" 9.27 Gregory, American Exodus. 193.

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By dealing with the problem themselves rather than forcing the manager to arbitrate the dispute, the committee channeled the conflict into the institutional structure of the camp government and allowed Hardie to remain above the internal squabble. Hardie, in a letter to Collins, celebrated the event as an indication of the camp's democratic strength:

Tom, I really feel damn bad about this recall coming up just as soon as you stepped out-my one consolation is that there is a real expression of the "people"-real democracy-people fighting for their civic rights. Fights of this nature I believe are like growing pains- their worth it (sic)-and only through them may we grow. We seem like pregnant women-at times we must grow worse in order to grow better. That's my consolation.28

This seems to have been an especially difficult trial; any interference by Hardie would have upset the governmental framework established by Collins. As proof that the camp continued along the same path, Easton and another camper, D.K., sent along a greeting to Collins in Hardic's letter, "Sherman and D.K. arc here as I write this-say to tell you that cverythin' is a runnin' smooth ccpt for the recall and thctdont amount to anything." 29 When the campers and manager operated on somewhatequal terms, the camp government could function smoothly. However, as the camper population turned increasingly transitory due to later administrative directives, this balance became upset.

In 1937, the RA evolved into the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Placed under the control of the Department of Agriculture, the FSA operated with a tight budget and under closer congressional supcrvision.30 Some congressmen questioned whether a permanent camp program operated more as a long-term subsidy to the big corporate farms in California than as relief for the migrant workers.31 In April 1937, an administrative decision limiting tenancy positioned the camps as intermediary stops along a path to more general assimilation. Administrators hoped that tenancy limits would allow the camps to accommodate newer families and encourage its long-term residents to move to houses within the community.32 Hardie told Thomsen that while there was talk that some of the older families threatened not to move, none stated it directly to him. Hardie also claimed some of the families had already found homes within the outlying communi ty.33

Word did come to Hardie that the issue came under discussion at a local labor meeting of the Agricultural Workers Union in Bakersfield. He stated that the "Union as a whole backed an action that the situation should be discussed with those 'higher up' in the Resettlement Administration." 34 Hardie felt this situation emerged largely through

28 Hardie to Collins, 12/15/36, Box19, FSA.29 Hardie to Collins, 12/15/36 Box 19, FSA.30 Stein, California and the Dusi Bowl Migration. 155. 31 Stein, California and the Dusi Bowl Migration. 157. 32 Letter, Hardie to Thomsen, 4/19/37 Box 18, FSA.33 Hardie to Thomsen, 4/19/37, Box 18, FSA.34 Hardie to Thomsen, 4/19/37, Box 18, FSA.

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misunderstanding, but did not want to proceed without clearance from the regional office.

The emergence of the Agricultural Workers Union, as a third party in the relationship between the manager and campers further illustrates the divisions beginning to emerge at Arvin. The increasingly rigid institutional structure forced managers to assume a more conspicuous position in the camp's administration. While it is unclear whether this new regulation forced all long-term families off of the camp, the records do indicate that a relatively equal number of families entered and exited the camp each month. The transitory nature of the camp's population eroded the stability of the camp's committees and caused a decrease in the camp activities so vital to the functioning of its government. These two developments tipped the balance between managers and campers resulting in an increase in managerial involvement in the enforcement of community standards.

Perhaps a manager with a delicate touch and an intuitive understanding of human interaction could have maintained the level of community involvement during this period of transition. Unfortunately, a string of ineffectual managers rotated through the position between 1937 and 1939. The camp did not collapse during this period, nor was it tom apart by the inability of the different levels of organization to interact as before. Instead, the camp simply persevere without any shining examples of enlightened democratic citizenry to celebrate. Norman Corse, the manager in April 1937, described the level of community participation at camp:

We are aware ofan indifference to elections etc. and translate the attitude as a result of the fact that many of our families arc too new to be acquainted and the old families, realizing that they are soon to move, arenot particularly interested in the outcome. WE look for a healthier attitude when the new become acclimated and the old are gone.35

The absence of an energetic Camp Council voted in by an involved population signaled a rupture in the maintenance of community norms. Easton is absent from the records at this point. In 1940, a camper who remembered Easton as the inspiration for Tom Joad in the Grapes of Wrath, said he had moved to Winters, California.36 No other individual camper stands out in the records as prominently as Easton did. This absence of camper leadership further testifies to the erosion of theCamp Council's power to enforce community standards during this period. The lack of a strong institutional committee structure to absorb internal conflict, such as the one that handled the Garden Club recall conflict during Hardie's tenure, required Corse to step into the void. Instead of strengthening the community's government, Corsc's enforcement of community standards contributed to a more adversarial relationship between manager and campers than had existed before.

"Norman Corse, "Weekly Report,'" 4/24/37, Box 19, FSA.36 Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin, "Fieldnotes," U.S. Library of Congress, American Memory: Voices from the Dust Bowl,< http://memory.loc.gov/amrnem/afctshtml/tshome.html> [May 25, 2005], 4.

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During one week in June 1937, Corse expelled two groups. The first was a family whose children, he claimed, seemed to "be at the bottom of every bit of devilment which occurred not only in their own unit but anywhere in camp."37 After the parents refused to discipline their children, Corse felt compelled to move the family from the camp. The second dismissal involved a man found guilty of buying liquor for underage children. (Some of these children belonged to the other family dismissed.) Because the man accused was the sole wage earner for a family of two children, the fathers of the children who had purchased the alcohol decided to dropthe charges. However, Corse felt that "because the man had lied and tried to defend himself at the expense of a group of small though misguided boys we felt that dismissal was indicated and followed through."38 Corsc's actions present a stark contrast to Hardie's claim that the Camp representatives seemed to "treat offenders in the camp much more harshly than he could ever think of doing."39 The differences between the two managers' disciplinary styles reflect more than just the personal abilities of each individual. The lack of participation by the campers in community government also helped to reduce Arvin's democracy to one of form rather than function.

At this same time, union activity emerged as a more prominent feature of camp life. Unionshad maintained some presence on the camps for much of its operation, but in the fall of 1938, a cotton strike made union solidarity an important issue in camp discussions. The strike caused a great deal of division among the campers as many continued to work while others held out. Some statements published in the newly established newspaper expressed a certain degree of ambivalence about the situation. In an article entitled "To whom this may concern," one camper remarked:

In regards to the strike, the people all know well by this time that we struck from 75 cents to $1.00 per hundred for cotton picking, and some came out and stayed out for a few days, and then went back. Some would step out and some would go back but I don't know whether to call them scabs or not. I and my family aim to stay out until the strike is over. I have got as large a family as there is in camp, and need to work very bad, but I don't think it is fair for the scabs to go and get relief and then go back to picking cotton.40

These expressions of ambivalence concealed a great amount of tension caused by the strike. One week after "To Whom This May Concern" appeared, Brisby published a piece reminding campers to respect differences of opinion and demanding order in the camp. "We must insist that no camper molest or threatenanother. If this request is not lived up to, we will be forced to take action."41

Enforcing order through threat, Brisby's statement illustrates the inability of the campers to channel conflict internally through a democratic structure. The strike

37 Corse, "Weekly Report," 6/19/37 Box 19, FSA.38 Corse, "Weekly Report," 6/19/37 Box 19, FSA. "Inspection of Arvin Migratory Camp, 2/24/37 Box 18, FSA.40 W.A.J., "To Whom This May Concern," Weedpatch Cultivator, I0/21/38, I.•• Brisby, "Clean-up," Weedpatch Cultivator, 10/28/38, I.

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concluded with no increase in cotton wages. The union remained a source of discord and presented a challenge to the authority of the manager and council. In April 1939, the council, with the approval of manager Harold Teft, banned all union material from the camp bulletin boards and prohibited any meetings on camp property.42

This ban lasted about as long as Tcft's term as manager. When Fred Ross took over in August 1939, he attempted to orchestrate a return to the level of camper participation characteristic of the first years of Arvin's operations. Ross, who later worked very closely with Cesar Chavez organizing farm workers, tried to close the gap between migrants and managers by consciously adapting a more colloquial style. When Charles Todd and Robert Sonkin visited the camp in 1940 to record migrant folk songs, Ross performed a song that he had written in a migrant vernacular entitled, "Cotton Fever." He also admitted to writing other poems andstories in the camp newspapcr.43 In his first weekly report, Ross anticipated an overhaul of the existing Camp Council in favor of a more active administrative body. He also used camp funds to restore recreation equipment that had fallen into disrepair. He hoped an increase in activity would serve as a release for tensions among campers. Reflecting on this program he stated, "On the whole, however,from the looks of things at present, we seem to have achieved a modicum of success in diverting camp energy from argumentation to recreation.'.« The records ofRoss's term as manager contain a higher overall degree of energy compared to previous managers. The desire for increased camper involvement, no matter what the activity, guided the majority of Ross's actions as manager.

After less than six months with Ross as manager, Arvin had activities for campers every night of the week. These activities ranged from boxing and wrestlin§ on Monday night to religious services and Sunday school on Sunday afternoons.4

Ross hoped these activities would increase the sense of community in the camp. He felt that the failure to generate interest in camp government resulted from the campers' inability "to sec themselves as inter-related parts of a whole." Through increased activity, Ross tried to instill a sense of involvement among the campers reminiscent of the camp's earlier years. Though most of his programs concerned recreational activities, Ross also supported social activism among the campers, thus channeling it into another avenue promoting solidarity.

Union activity became a more accepted part of camp life. Two consecutive editors of the newspaper, Charlie Spurlock and Sam Birkhimer, both continuously expressed pro-union opinions in regular articles. Spurlock, in an announcement for aC.1.0. informational meeting, illustrated a level of cooperation between management and union activity that perhaps had not always existed. As an addendum to the announcement he stated, "Incidentally, this meeting is not being called to discuss or cuss management of the camp, or anything in or about camp.

42 "Committee Minutes," WeedPatch Cultivator, 4/21/39, 2."Todd and Sonkin, "Field notes," U.S. Library ofCongress,American Memory: Voices from the Dust Bow/, 6, 12.44 Fred Ross, "Weekly Report," 7/19/39, Box 22, FSA."Ross, "Weekly Report," 7/19/39, Box 22, FSA: Ross, "Weekly Report," 1/17/40, FSA.

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That's all gone and forgotten.'"'6 By cooperating with pro-union campers, Ross diminished the threat union activity presented to earlier managers. Birkhimer took time in each issue of the newspaper to explain a different dimension of union activity and to set out the pro-union argument for collective action. Ross also published pieces in the newspaper promoting cooperation. Through his colloquial alter-ego, "The Feller," he used a caricatured reproduction of the migrant's speech patterns to promote pro-union cooperation:

As the feller sez, it ain't so much how much you're a'hankerin' to cooperate, as it is who you're hankerin' to cooperate with... What I seen was hundreds a'hungry, cold, people settin' right next to miles an' miles a'pure white cotton a' spoilin for pickin', 'an them not pickin' a boll. They'd jus' come to the decision all by themselves 'an they wroon't budgin' for no .80cents cotton... When a group a workin' people get organized together and stick together for the main purpose a better'n their own condition and livin' decent, that's COOPERATION. 47

Ross donned his "Feller" alter-ego for more than just promoting the union cause. He used his regular column in the newspaper as a forum to help create a community standard in tune with his expectations for the campers in regards to rent payments and cleanliness. Elements of frustration leak through in some of his public statements as he attempted to stimulate a greater sense of communal responsibility among the campers. He began one article stating, "I sort of hoped that you could reason with people and show them that certain things just had to be done around Camp for the benefit of every one living in Camp,-and then everybody would go ahead and do those things, sort of natural-like.'' Unsuccessful in cajoling the campers to cooperate, Ross proceeded to remind them that they indeed lived on a government camp and must accept its authority or else they should simply leave theproperty.48 The frequency of these articles suggests that Ross's efforts met with a limited amount of success.

There still existed a certain amount of friction between Ross and some of the campers. Ross had a specific idea of how he thought the camp should function and at times took an authoritative stance while enforcing his vision. Todd and Sonkin discovered that one family moved just outside of camp partly because they believed Ross had worked to deny another camper's promotion within the community.49

Some inhabitants of the camp when interviewed in 198 I about their experiences during the Depression remembered the conflict that arose between managers and independently minded campers as managers attempted to enforce community regulations. Bobby Russell recalled that his father was blackballed from the camps mainly because "he wouldn't take any crap from the camp managers." Russell stated that other campers also felt that the manager should just "manage the camp

46 "C.1.0. Tonight," Towsack Tallier, 8/24/39.47 "As The Feller Sez," Towsack Tattler, 11/4/39.41 Ross, Towsack Tallier, I0/6/39.49 Todd and Sonkin, "Field notes," 66.

THOMAS DORRANCE

Ex Post Facto 101

and not the people.',50 Hattye Shields remarked that this friction emerged naturally from the necessity of having to impose community regulations upon a group of individuals used to living independently in their own homes.51 The Camp Council's ability to allow campers to enforce their own community standards had ceased to function properly. Though it usually contributed to an adversarial relationship between managers and campers, when conflicts emerged it remained the manager's responsibility to find a solution.

The importance of cooperation between campers, managers, and administrators is best illustrated in times of dysfunction. Lacking a stable camper population committed to self-government, camp managers had to assume a more active role in enforcing community standards. This produced an adversarial relationship between campers and managers and created an even greater distance between the ideal of self-government and the reality operating within the camps. The functional democracy created by Collins rested on a precarious balance between camper, manager, and administrator. This system emerged through the cooperative efforts of Easton, Collins, and Thomsen. Without a balance of strength, this system fell into dysfunction and hindered the ability of each level to operate at its ideal. Though government officials identified Arvin as a reform project, within the camp boundaries administrators and migrants formed a community. Conflict and compromise drove the formation process operating at the heart of Arvin as individuals, connected through their position in the camp's institutional structure, pursued specific interests in relation to their place within the wider climate of Depression Era California.

"' Bobby Russell, interview by Judith Gannon, February 3 and I0, 1981, interview 107, transcript, California Odyssey Project, California S!Jlte University, Bakersfield,<http://www.lib.csub.ed u/special/interviews.html>, 28.51 Hattye Shields, interview by Judith Gannon, May 24, 1981, interview 209, transcript, Odyssey Project, 10.

Trials & Troubles