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Thursday January 13, 1916
From the International Socialist Review: The Life of the Tenant Farmer

In this month's edition of the Review, W. W. Pannell describes the life of the tenant farmer, how tenant farmers are manufactured, and the deep pit of debt in which they and their families struggle to survive:

Tenant Farming in the United States

By W. W. PANNELL
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Tenant Farmers Levi and Beulah Stewart with children,
CIR Hearings at Dallas, March 1915
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IN THE great southwest, where a comparatively few years ago the "sturdy pioneer" homesteaded his hundred and sixty acres of land and had it deeded to him "free of all incumbrances," has developed a "problem," based on land tenantry that has assumed such stupendous proportions as to attract the attention of the entire country.

In Oklahoma 54 per cent of the tillers of the soil live on rented farms, in Texas only 2 per cent more own them there than in Oklahoma, while the percentage of tenants in the other states of the south and west is so large as to be almost unbelievable.

The tenant farmers of the southwest may be divided into two classes— those who possess their own farming implements, work animals, etc., constituting the larger, but rapidly decreasing class, while those who own nothing and are virtual serfs to the landlords and who constitute the smaller, but rapidly increasing class, the beginnings of a future "possessionless proletariat" of the soil.

Many farmers who a few years ago owned their farms are now in the class of the possessionless tenants or renters, as they are more commonly called. Nearly every newspaper in the southwest is crowded with notices of "Sheriff sales under mortgage foreclosures." This means that the one-time owner will now become a renter of the first class; a few years more and a "public auction" notice in the local paper will denote his entrance into the class of possessionless tenants. This is the identical process used in the manufacture of the "shiftless renter" of the southwest.

The house in which the average renter lives is built after a style current some years, ago, which consists of two rooms or one room and a "lean-to" or side room, which is generally used for a kitchen. The houses are usually unfinished and un-painted, the walls and ceilings sometimes being covered with old newspaper or cheap muslin. Into this habitation crowds the farmer and his family, which ranges all the way from the "lord of the manor" and his wife to a "force," using the parlance of the landlord, of from six to a dozen children. The renter with the largest "force" can usually secure the best farms and as a result the family of the average tenant farmer is larger than that of the average industrial worker.

In the renter's home modern furniture is conspicuous by its absence. A few rickety cane bottom chairs, bedsteads, according to the size of the family, and perhaps a bureau or "dresser" constitute the furnishings of the "front" room, while a common board table, cook stove and cupboard situated in the kitchen bring up the sum total of the renter's household belongings. Books and magazines, with the possible exception of a farm paper or two and a few old school books, are rarely ever found in a renter's abode.

The food of the renter consists of only what a very meager income is capable of purchasing and is invariably of the brand contained in tin cans and paper sacks, with the possible exception of "garden truck" in the spring and early summer. The rest of the time the renter subsists on such food as can be bought in quantities and is alike preservable in hot and cold weather, wheat bread, dry salt pork and navy beans constituting the average year round diet of the renter.

This low standard of living, which has caused the tenant farmer to be considered "shiftless," is chiefly owing to the prevailing methods of renting land and the conditions produced thereby, which virtually prohibit the acquiring by the farmer of an adequate standard of living and permanent and sanitary housing facilities.

The prevailing method of renting land is to rent for "share rent." Under this method the renter agrees to deliver to the landlord a certain per cent of the crop after it is harvested. The farmer that owns his own farming implements, work animals, etc., is usually obliged to give "one-third," while the possessionless renter must relinquish one-half of the product of his toil for access to the land. House rent, pasture for live stock, etc., is generally supposed to be included in the rental charge, but of late landlords have been known to charge extra for these accommodations.

A recent trip through one of the greatest tenant sections of the country has shown the writer that such practices are not uncommon. Some landlords also require a cash bonus as a guarantee that the land will be cultivated and as an insurance for the upkeep of the fences, buildings and other improvements.

In the contracts entered into between the landlord and the tenant farmer the disposition of the premises is always stated in specific terms, stipulating in every minor detail the varied operations of farming the land that the renter must comply with or abrogate his contract. The contracts also specify the amount of land that can be planted to a certain crop. For instance, a contract which we have just examined stipulates that 60 per cent of the land must be planted in cotton, 20 per cent in corn and 20 per cent in other feed crops, with the exception of a quarter of an acre, which the renter may reserve as a garden plot. It might be said, in passing, that this is an unusually liberal contract.

Besides having his liberty abridged by pernicious clauses in the contract, which he is obliged to subscribe to or be denied the opportunity to wrest a livelihood from Mother Earth, the renter is humiliated by being compelled to get the permission of the landlord in order to sell any of the crops raised on the farm and must submit to the dictates of the landlord as to the manner and time of selling. In some states "landlords' lien bills" have been passed, which prohibit the farmer selling anything off the land without the permission of the landlord until all charges against it have been paid.

While the landlord is the greatest exploiter of the tenant farmer, he has a close competitor in the local store at which the renter buys his supply of food and clothing. This store, which is also often owned by the landlord, is the regular "pluck me" store of the rural districts. When the farmer has anything to sell he takes it to the local store and is given, in payment, a little book containing coupons equal in value to the amount of his sale. These coupons are "legal tender" nowhere except at the store issuing them, virtually compelling the farmer to buy his supplies where he sells his produce. As a result of this arrangement the average tenant farmer is in debt at the end of the year.

The connection of the rural store with the landlord from whom he rents land, with the banker from whom he borrows money—in fact, the close co-operation of all agencies that work to enslave him and his "heirs and assigns forever," forms one of the longest chapters in the biography of the tenant farmer and is fraught with too much importance to be lightly treated in this article.

In Texas and Oklahoma, where land tenantry has increased with amazing rapidity during the last few years, the tenant farmer has developed into a migratory worker, who seldom works on the same farm two successive years. March the first is generally the time when the renter's contract terminates, although they may be made to terminate at any time, and at this time thousands of tenant farmers change their landlords for the coming year. This unsettled condition of the tenant farmer—so different from the conditions obtaining in the same localities a few years ago—is solely owing to the concentration of the land into a few hands and its corollary, the increasing impoverishment of the workers.

The tenant farmer or renter being of comparatively recent origin in the south west, the facts of land tenantry have not been widely disseminated, and as a result practically no organization of national importance, with the single exception of the Socialist Party, has seriously considered its problems. In all tenant farming states the Socialist Party has formulated extensive "farm programs," which if put into practice, would do much to better the conditions of the tenant farmer, even under capitalism. However, it is understood that nothing of lasting benefit can be secured for the tenant farmer as long as the system of capitalism exists, and in all sections of the country the revolutionary message of Socialism is proclaimed with special emphasis laid on the society that is to be, wherein all useful workers will receive the full social product of their toil.

SOURCE
The International Socialist Review, Volume 16
-ed by Algie Martin Simons, Charles H. Kerr
Charles H. Kerr & Company,
July 1915-June 1916
https://books.google.com/books?id=9VJIAAAAYAAJ
ISR Jan 1916
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=9VJIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcove...
"Tenant farming in the United States" by W. W. Pannell
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=9VJIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcove...

IMAGE
Levy T Steward [Levi Thomas Stewart] and family, March 1915
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/ggb2005019079/

Photograph shows tenant farmer Levi Thomas Stewart, his wife Beulah Stewart and children, who testified at a hearing about agricultural issues before the Walsh Commission (Commission on Industrial Relations) in Dallas, Texas on March 17, 1915.

See also:

CIR, 9006: Testimony of Mr. Levi Thomas Stewart
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=o-oeAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcove...

CIR, 9038: Testimony of Mrs. Beulah Stewart
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=o-oeAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcove...

Hellraisers Journal by JayRaye:

Appeal to Reason on the Losing Fight Against Debt Bondage of Tenant Farmers
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/18/1378451/-Hellraisers-Journal-Ap...

Family of Tenant Farmers So Poor That They Are Offering to Give Children Away
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/25/1380071/-Hellraisers-Journal-Fa...

Landlords want tenant farmers with plenty of "force," meaning little children.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/03/1382113/-Hellraisers-Journal-La...

Texas Landlord Evicts Socialists Tenants as a "menace to God and humanity."
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/09/1383475/-Hellraisers-Journal-Te...

Socialist Preachers Forced to Stifle Themselves For Fear of Landlord's Ire.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/21/1386100/-Hellraisers-Journal-So...

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