Harvest Hand Brutally Whipped by Crew Near Hadley
A threshing crew allegedly used a fabricated charge of sexual assault to justify the violent beating of a fellow laborer.
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.
Charged with having attempted to rape an old woman, a harvest hand named Ray was unmercifully horse-whipped by a threshing crew near Hadley station last night. After the whipping, Ray was ordered off the ranch. As he sped away, a shot was fired after him. Ray came to Walla Walla this morning and showed a number of cuts and welts on his legs where the lashes fell. He was highly indignant at the brutal treatment he received and threatened to have the whole crew arrested, but later changed his mind and left for another part of the county. The whipping, he claimed, was the result of spite work on the part of several members of the harvest crew who have had 'it in for him' for some time. As an excuse for the whipping, the story of an attempted assault on an old woman employed in the cook wagon was hatched up. Ray said this morning that he was asleep when the conspirators seized him and trussed him up to a header wagon. Horse whips were produced and members of the gang took turns laying the lash on. When released, Ray said he was weak from the beating and could hardly run when commanded to. As he was disappearing from view, a rifle cracked and a bullet sped over his head.
“The whipping, he claimed, was the result of spite work... As an excuse for the whipping, the story of an attempted assault on an old woman employed in the cook wagon was hatched up.”
The precarious and often violent nature of itinerant agricultural labor remains a dark thread in regional history. Today, the power imbalance between transient workers and entrenched rural crews continues to spark debates over labor protections and migrant rights in the Columbia Basin.
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