Violence in the Wheatland Hop Fields
By Editor
On August 3 four persons were killed and several others severely wounded in a clash between officers of the law and about five hundred strikers in the hop fields in the neighborhood of Wheatland, California. The strikers were demanding more pay and protesting against the introduction of labor-saving machinery and Japanese laborers. The despatches say that the I. W. W. were the prime agitators in the rioting, and that they had sent out a general call for other members from various parts of the state to come to their help. But troops were sent in to supplement the forces of civil officers, and quiet was promptly restored. The continued and sudden outbreaks of violence in these times are causing thousands of people to ask earnestly, "What are we coming to?" It is well to sense and to face properly the gravity and significance of this situation.