field.

"Those attending the protest mass-meeting of the Wheatland hop-pickers
were singing the I.W.W. song 'Mr. Block,' when the sheriff's posse came
up in its automobiles. The crowd had been harangued by an experienced
I.W.W. orator--'Blackie' Ford. They had been told, according to
evidence, to 'knock the blocks off the scissor-bills.' Ford had taken a
sick baby from its mother's arms and, holding it before the eyes of the
1500 people, had cried out: 'It's for the life of the kids we're doing
this.' Not a quarter of the crowd was of a type normally venturesome
enough to strike, and yet, when the sheriff went after Ford, he was
knocked down and kicked senseless by infuriated men. In the bloody riot
which then ensued, District Attorney Manwell, Deputy Sheriff Riordan, a
negro Porto Rican and the English boy were shot and killed. Many were
wounded. The posse literally fled, and the camp remained practically
unpoliced until the State Militia arrived at dawn the next day.

"The question of social responsibility is one of the deepest
significance. The posse was, I am convinced, over-nervous and,
unfortunately, over-rigorous. This can be explained in part by the
state-wide apprehension over the I.W.W.; in part by the normal
California country posse's attitude toward a labor trouble. A deputy
sheriff, at the most critical moment, fired a shot in the air, as he
stated, 'to sober the crowd.' There were armed men in the crowd, for
every crowd of 2000 casual laborers includes a score of gunmen. Evidence
goes to show that even the gentler mountainfolk in the crowd had been
aroused to a sense of personal injury. ----'s automobile had brought
part of the posse. Numberless pickers cling to the belief that the posse
was '----'s police.' When Deputy Sheriff Dakin shot into the air, a
fusillade took place; and when he had fired his last shell, an