"The Wheatland Boys"
Unsigned article in International Socialist Review, vol. 14, no. 7 (Jan. 1914), pp. 442-443.

Summary of the events behind the Wheatland Hop Riot, a strike meeting at the Durst Ranch in Wheatland, California raided by local authorities. Sheriff Voss of Yuba County fired his gun into the air in an attempt to break up the gathering, called by a strike committee consisting of members of the Industrial Workers of the World. A gun was dropped and in the melee which followed the district attorney and a sheriff's deputy had been killed by a Puerto Rican picker, who was also killed, along with a English-born bystander. In the aftermath the National Guard had been called out by Gov. Hiram Johnson and agents of the Burns Detective Agency brought in to track down and capture "witnesses." Arrestees had been held incommunicado for as long as 60 days without charges filed, access to legal counsel had been systematically denied, contact with members of the press prohibited, and physical used during the interrogation process, this article indicates. On prisoner, Nels Nelson, who had lost an arm during the gunfire, had committed suicide and strike leader Herman Suhr had been driven to attempt the same in the Alameda County Jail. A plea is made for funds for the defense committee to the aid of defense witnesses, who "ill paid and irregularly employed at best, must be housed and fed."

Edited by Tim Davenport for 1000 Flowers Publishing, January 2012.
Uploaded by Tim Davenport to Archive.org January 13, 2012.
Non-commercial reproduction permitted.

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