The Hop Harvest Wanted White Hands
As nearly 200 people left Seattle for the White and Green River hop fields, growers and the city labor bureau made clear that Native pickers were no longer wanted.
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.
The hop-picking season is almost at hand and by the middle of this week will have begun in earnest in the Sound country. Yesterday about 190 people — men, women and children — left on the Northern Pacific train for the hop yards on White and Green rivers. An unusually small number of Indians have reported for duty this season. Year after year the number of Indian pickers has been growing less, and this year it is expected to be smaller than in any previous year. As a prominent grower said yesterday: "We don't want Indians when we can get white pickers. Until the last few years I employed Indian pickers exclusively, but now my hops are picked by whites, and under no consideration would I employ Indian pickers if whites could be procured." Superintendent Lamb of the city employment bureau has received orders for 115 pickers from the White and Green River districts and has had no trouble in procuring the pickers, as there is a large number of applicants. Mr. Lamb said: "These orders only supply two ranches, which indicates that the orders for pickers this week will be heavy. I expect to receive orders from Yakima next Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and probably Saturday. A large number of families and parties numbering from five to fifty persons have applied to me for positions, to say nothing of the large number of men out of employment who are waiting for a chance to go to work in the hop fields. Capt. Gove, of the Snoqualmie hop ranch, will be in town tomorrow and will be at the office all day hiring pickers. The price paid per box for pickers is a little less than last season. At White and Green rivers 75 cents a box will be paid. I have received a circular from the Yakima Hop Growers' Association stating that the price paid there will be $1 for a box of 100 pounds."
“We don't want Indians when we can get white pickers... under no consideration would I employ Indian pickers if whites could be procured.”
The 1904 story records a labor market explicitly sorted by race: Native pickers were described as unwanted even as growers worried about the supply of white workers. Washington agriculture still relies on migrant and Indigenous labor, and the same questions about who gets hired, at what wage, and under what conditions remain live.
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