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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 5, 1914
Folsom, California – Fellow Workers Ford and Suhr Arrive at State Penitentiary
In this month’s edition of the International Socialist Review, Grace Ford, wife of Richard Ford, reflects on the loss of her husband. No, her husband is not dead, but he is now buried alive in Folsom prison along with Herman Suhr, both prisoners of the class-war in the hop fields of California.
Before we get to the article written by Mrs. Ford, we present two accounts of that sad day that Fellow Workers Ford and Suhr were taken away to begin serving life sentences at Folsom State Prison. Neither man is guilty of murder, but they stand convicted nevertheless. Their crime was attempting to organize desperate, impoverished hop pickers. The death of the District Attorney resulted from an attack made upon those hop pickers as they were peaceably assembled on their own rented property.
From the Oakland Tribune of November 15, 1914:
BEGINS LIFE TERM WHISTLING GAILY
———-
“Blackie” Ford Departs for State Penitentiary
in a Happy Mood.
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AUBURN, Nov. 14.-“Blackie” Ford hummed and whistled to himself in a happy mood, apparently assumed, when Sheriff O. L. Meek of Yuba county arrived here and handcuffed him to Herman D. Suhr and then departed with them for the State penitentiary at Folsom.
Ford and Suhr, I. W. W., were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of district attorney Edmund T. Manwell of Yuba county. The murder occurred during the Wheatland riot of August 1913.
Ford’s father-in-law and mother-in-law bade him goodby. Ford kissed them both and said he would not be in Folsom long.
GIVES AWAY SUIT.
He gave to I. E. Lamber, one of the I. W. W. leaders of Sacramento, who was present, a new suit of clothes. He said he would not have much use for them in Folsom.
Lambert said to Sheriff Meek as Meek was leading Ford from Sheriff McAulay’s office to the auto outside, “I hope the whole bunch of you break your necks on the way to Folsom.”
Lambert continued: “Blackie, you know I am your friend, but I hope you get killed before you reach Folsom. It is going to cost the State more to keep you and Suhr in Folsom the rest of your lives than the capitalists who run the State realize. Somebody besides you and Suhr is going to suffer for this.”
Ford kept up his nonchalant demeanor to the last. To a newspaper man Ford asked for a ready made cigarette, saying it might be the last he would ever get a chance to smoke.
Suhr and Ford sat in the back seat of the auto. Both had handcuffs on. Suhr was quiet and inclined to be surly. The only time he smiled was when he and Ford met again after their four months’ separation.
Ford and Suhr made no comment upon arriving at prison. They were given the regulation bath and haircut today and their finger prints and photographs were taken.
[Photographs and emphasis added.]
From The Voice of the People of November 19, 1914
-I. W. W. newspaper of New Orleans, Louisiana:
FORD AND SUHR
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Report of the Last Meeting
Between Ford, Suhr and Lambert
———-I went up to Marysville to see Fellow Worker Suhr the day after his appeal had been turned down by the Supreme Court.
We sat and talked in the cell house for about two hours on matters concerning his and Ford’s case. He seemed to be in very good spirits for a man in the position in which he was placed. Next day [November 15th] I went up to Auburn to see Fellow Worker Ford, I was with him about one hour when the sheriff of Yuba county came in to take him away to begin serving his sentence in prison.
I followed them out of the sheriff’s office, and was surprised to see Fellow Worker Suhr in the same auto that was to take Ford away. I went alongside of the auto and talked to both boys, Ford standing up all the time making and lighting a cigarette. The only fear that either of the boys expressed was that, in the event that we were unable to get them a new trial, that in a few years the workers wold forget all about Ford and Suhr, and would cease their attempts to collect from the master class, THE PRICE OF THEIR LIBERTY. And both said they would be satisfied if they knew that that price was being collected.
Now it is going to take quite a lot of money yet to give these two boys a chance for their freedom, and we on the firing line can’t furnish both the money and all the other things that will be needed to give them that chance. So don’t give up in despair because the boys are now behind prison walls. But get your shoulder against the prison doors and burst them open.
Send us the sinews of war, and we here on the firing line will give them the battle of their lives.
Both boys told me to tell you through this paper, “Don’t Forget Ford and Suhr in the hall or on the job.”
Send all donations to C. L. Lambert, Box 1087, Sacramento, Calif.
[Emphasis added.]
From the International Socialist Review of December 1914:
FOR LIFE
BY GRACE FORD
WHEN this is printed legal proceedings in the cases of my husband, Richard Ford, and Herman D. Suhr will be ended. In all likelihood two families will be widowed by the condemnation of these two men to life imprisonment. Ford and Suhr will each leave a wife and two helpless children to battle with the world. Their crime is that they strove to organize ranch workers.
Look at the picture, first published in October, 1913, in the INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW of the hop-pickers’ camp and the camp shown now. Note the clean tents, the military precision, the cleanliness, the bath houses and other sanitary conveniences of 1914 and the higgle-piggle on the Durst ranch in 1913. For bringing about this improvement my husband and Fellow Worker Suhr must spend their lives in the penitentiary. Look at these pictures and contrast them. Consider with yourselves if the working class can afford to abandon these two men?
Neither my husband nor Herman D. Suhr was convicted of having a gun in his possession or of any act of violence in connection with the charge of drunken, armed deputies to break up a strike against the vile conditions which prevailed on all ranches of California in 1913. These two men, mainly, brought about the wonderful improvements on these ranches shown in these two pictures.
I might relate here that when I decided to write this article for the INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW application was made to the California Commission on Immigration and Housing for the use of the official pictures taken by that body. After long dallying this request was refused. Refused, I must assume, because this commission feared this contrast of the pictures, while Ford and Suhr remain in prison and the commission, through their friends and a friendly press, are taking the credit for work done by Richard Ford and Herman Suhr. Anyway, the application for the official pictures was refused. In like manner this same commission withheld their report upon, what they term, “the unspeakable conditions,” on the California ranches until after my husband and Herman Suhr were condemned.
At the trial of Ford and Suhr refusal was also made of the privilege of having their case heard before an unprejudiced jury. They were tried and convicted by the very ranchers against whom they and three thousand other unfortunates were compelled to strike. I sat in the court at Marysville and heard a sleek, fat, old judge compliment this jury on their evident fairness.
Fairness! It was proved my husband never had a gun. It was proved my husband stopped excited workers from rushing through the fields and slashing down the hop vines. Although this was proved, the fair court permitted this very evidence to be put to the jury as proof that my husband was bringing about a conspiracy to murder. He saved their property from the wrath of the workers. They made it a proof that he was conspiring to murder men he never heard of; to murder a drunken band who charged into what their own sheriff pronounced a peaceful meeting, clubbed right and left and two of these drunkards began shooting. I should be ashamed of Dick Ford if he did anything else than voice the protest of his class. Condemned as he is, I can teach his children to love him. Had he been a coward I could not.
My husband is convicted of the crime of organizing workers. Why did not the same ranchers, the same deputy sheriffs club and shoot and beat the pickets who came up to Wheatland in 1914, last August and September? By their sufferings and imprisonment Dick Ford and Herman Suhr established the right to organize.
In 1913, at the first unorganized strike, there was no damage done to the property of Durst Brothers or the hop barons.
On September 10, 1914, the Sacramento Bee published the fact that although 1914 had been the most fertile and abundant year for hop growing, the crop was 24,000 bales short. Hop bales weigh 190 pounds. One pound of hops sells for from 15 to 20 cents. There was over three-quarters of a million dollars damage. Why did not the authorities club and kill some of the men who opened a headquarters in the “Civic Club of Wheatland,” and picketed those ranches so that the owners, what with the cost of gun men, searchlights, detectives and other strike expenses, came out of the contest $1,000,000 short? Why? Because they feared that these men were prepared. Dick helped to make this organization possible. Dick is now condemned to the penitentiary for life. Will the workers let him stay there? They can only help him now by remembering him on the job.
To all mothers of the working class I appeal to keep their cause alive. You can write to the Governor of California if you wish, but my hope is that you will tell your husbands, sons and brothers, to remember Dick Ford and Herman Suhr on the job.
[Emphasis added.]
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SOURCES
Quote JP Thompson re Wheatland, June 25-26, 1918,
Chicago IWW Trial of H George, p71-2
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.31951d01368761a&view=1up&seq=75
Oakland Tribune
(Oakland, California)
-Nov 15, 1914
https://www.newspapers.com/image/82091725/
The Voice of the People (IWW)
(New Orleans, Louisiana)
-Nov 19, 1914, p3
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/lumberjack/141119-voiceofthepeople-v3n44w096.pdf
The International Socialist Review
(Chicago, Illinois)
-Dec 1914, p342-3, includes photos
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v15n06-dec-1914-ISR-riaz-ocr.pdf
IMAGES
Hop Pickers, Mothers w Children, Durst Ranch, Wheatland CA, 1913
https://reuther.wayne.edu/node/4068
Ford and Suhr Arrive at Folsom Pen CA, Nov 15, 1914
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheatland_hop_riot
For date see Oakland Tribune p29, Nov 15, 1914
https://www.newspapers.com/image/82091725/?match=1&terms=ford%20suhr
See also:
From the International Socialist Review of October 1913:
“The Case of the Hop Pickers” by Mortimer Downing, with photos
Part I
Part II
Voice of the People (IWW) of Nov 12, 1914, p1
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/lumberjack/141112-voiceofthepeople-v3n43w095.pdf
Voice of the People (IWW) of Nov 26, 1914, p1
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/lumberjack/141126-voiceofthepeople-v3n45w097.pdf
“The Marysville Case”
-by Inez Haynes Gillmore Irwin, reprinted from Harper’s of April 4, 1914
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=osu.32435064333784&seq=7
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=chi.60765955&seq=439
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=chi.60765955&seq=458
The Annual Report of the Commission of Immigration and Housing
of California, Jan 2, 1915, p15-51: Labor Camp Inspections, with photos
(search: durst)
https://books.google.com/books?id=fzAMAQAAIAAJ
Map: Marysville CA to Wheatland to Auburn to Folsom State Prison
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Wheatland,+California/Marysville,+CA/Auburn,+CA/Folsom+State+Prison,+300+Prison+Rd,+Represa,+CA+95671/@38.8549215,-121.416784,10z/data=!4m26!4m25!1m5!1m1!1s0x809b47c771d7f5b1:0xa1b9ae2c5cc0cc83!2m2!1d-121.4238891!2d39.008843!1m5!1m1!1s0x809b53402f76adf5:0x226dde8569ab3985!2m2!1d-121.5913547!2d39.1457253!1m5!1m1!1s0x809b05285575a59f:0x3902b10b332c7870!2m2!1d-121.0768901!2d38.8965654!1m5!1m1!1s0x809ae3f1c66f74bd:0xc143ea2a051701ba!2m2!1d-121.1572644!2d38.6914315!3e0?authuser=0&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTIwMy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
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We Will Sing One Song – Six Feet In the Pine
Lyrics by Joe Hill