The Struggle for an Honest Hour: A Farmer’s Grumble in 1888
An account from a local farm near Puyallup reveals the era's persistent struggle to balance agricultural labor with a zero-tolerance policy for drinking, echoing the intense pressure of the frontier economy.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
When two old friends meet after long separation, the talk is intensely interesting. Absence from the farm for four months brings many changes. Cherries that had just been planted are now in bearing and giving off fruit. This reminds me of how we used to extend the berry season at Puyallup by cutting off all of the last year's growth of raspberry stalks in early spring. Now is the very nick of time to cut back all berry stalks to make them stalky, and in a measure self-supporting. Spare not and fear not should be the motto in cutting back berry stalks, for what you lose in length is more than made up in strength to bear and hold the burden of fruit. I recently visited Alvord's farm and found him sitting on the grindstone frame, enjoying some pleasant raillery at his men working so hard. The lesson intended to be taught was all right, but like many other things in life, was more difficult to practice than to preach. So now the tables are turned, for while Alvord was sitting on the grindstone frame, I have taken his place in the early morning, actively milking a string of cows. One of the men has got to drinking and goes to the bad; like the housewife's work, the dairy work is never done and must be attended to now or not at all. Had I my say no liquor would be sold at Kent, or for that matter anywhere else in this broad land. In looking for a new man I say, no man that ever drank liquor need apply. This is harsh, yet just, for what matter if a man be ever so good, if he gets drunk he is worse than useless on the farm.
“Like the housewife's work, the dairy work is never done and must be attended to now or not at all.”
This 1888 account highlights the grueling, unrelenting pace of agrarian life, where the threat of labor shortages caused by vice—or just the difficulty of the work—kept employers in a state of constant anxiety. The tension between the 'laborer' and the 'employer' regarding personal habits and the necessity of constant production is a precursor to the modern debates over labor rights, substance use in high-pressure sectors, and the dream of 'homesteading' a life away from the city's corrupting influence.
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