Imperial (110 page)

Maybe I could have been a reporter for the newspaper in Indio. In my student days I dabbled at unskilled ranch labor; I never could have supported a family doing it. But my Imperial dream is luxurious precisely because it will never see the sun of truth.

Would I plant grapefruits in my back yard? Why not?
How fortunate we are in planting our grove at this late date, as formerly we would have been required to have drilled a deep well, . . . but with the coming of the canal from the Colorado River, we are definitely assured of adequate water at a cost considerably less than were we to depend on pump irrigation.
By the middle of the decade, many farmers already need tile drains due to salinity caused by over-irrigation.

Chapter 110

RIVERSIDE (1950)

Confidence in the continued growth of Riverside’s wealth, industry and population, and in the advancement of its municipal and social activities will be created as this directory is consulted; for the directory is a mirror reflecting Riverside to the world.

—Riverside City Directory (1951)

I
t took exactly the entire twenty-five miles
²⁰⁷
to get out of the smog of Los Angeles; the sun was clear in Riverside.
Jack Kerouac wrote the words of that novel in about 1956. It is nice to think that Riverside was still pretty then. Her smog visitations had begun during World War II.

Riverside City’s slogan was:
Birthplace of the Navel Orange.
One of the two original navel orange trees planted by Mrs. Tibbetts in 1873 was still alive in 1951; I never did find out when it died.

Riverside is an ideal residential community . . . From Mt. Rubidoux, towering over the city, it resembles an immense wooded estate. It is known for its beautiful boulevards, lined with palms, eucalypti and roses, and lighted with distinctive “Indian Rain Cross” electroliers.

The Ramona Freeway, known in my epoch as Interstate 10, will commence operation in 1954. I’ve seen it from the air just before it opened: a canal-like artery of white that forever bisects the dark yarn-puffs of orange-rows. One history of the Inland Empire perceives this new artery of Progress as
opening the door of suburbia and ending the era of agriculture.
In fact, the city of Riverside had been subdividing and building crazily ever since 1950.

Therefore, why don’t you move into the subdivision of your choice? Why not dwell amidst the palms, eucalypti and roses before our smog makes them obsolete? The J. H. Jeter Co. (REALTORS: CITRUS GROVES—HOMES) will gladly bestow on you a homey house surrounded by sunny and shady trees. As for me, I could take you for the prettiest little home-viewing drive down a street called LEMON, which runs
South from PE Ry tracks bet Orange and Lime
until
Hewitt ends,
then continues across non-citrus roads.

No, don’t look at me that way; let’s get down to business. How can I sell you a homestead in Riverside? Twenty-two thousand telephones, fifty-five churches, thirty-nine point two square miles of city, orange trees galore (under
Citrus Groves
, the county directory gives two entries, both for realtors), more than forty-six thousand citizens, and—most important to those who chant invocations to the Ministry of Capital—assessed valuation: $59,761,360! I have never been cheated out of a dollar in my life. (Will you be needing a mortgage? By golly, I’ll bet that if I motored you down to the Citrus Belt Building and Loan Association, Mr. Alger J. Fast, our Secretary-Manager, could fix you up!) While we are on the subject of Capital’s ministers, I hasten to inform you that there were a hundred and thirteen Holts in Riverside, not counting spouses, and of this clan the most powerful-sounding was the
dist mgr State Controller.

EVERYTHING IS HERE

Predominating nationalities in the city are American and Mexican.
Shall we browse through the county directory and see which of these tend to be employed at what? As people say, there’s a lot in a name.

Meet the Angel family:

Angel Antonia fruit pkr r 9343 Canal av

“ Enedina Mrs. orange pkr h9343 Canal av . . .

“ Jas R (Josephine R) tab opr CEPCo h 4581 Arlington av California Electric Power Co. tab? operator

“ Mercedes fruit pkr r 9343 Canal av

“ Pentelion (Josefa) lab h7458 Emerald laborer

Randomly, and still in the
A
’s, we meet

Acosta Lupe fruitwkr r7642 Fern av

and

Aguilar Isabel fruit pkr L V W Brown Est r Colton

Now for some Anglos:

Hoover Alva (Nellie) aircrftgwkr

Hopkins Pansy M Mrs with U S Salinity Lbty

Hopper Frank J (Ernestina) aircrftwrkr

SMITH F NORMAN (Lolita K) “All Lines of Insurance” on Seventh

And here are a couple of foreign names, just to show you that we Americans assimilate all kinds:

Ahlswede Karl P (Harriet R) fertilizer 9758 Magnolia av . . .

Zymkie Alex A (Gertrude M) rancher h1245 Ruby Highgrove

From the occupations of the Angel family alone I can nearly believe the directory’s assertion that . . .
today Riverside is the center of the Citrus Empire. Riverside County has 26,958 acres devoted to citrus fruit . . .

Of course, the Ontario city directory, whose front cover sports an advertisement for Ford Citrus Motors, 115 South Palm Ave., Ontario, counter-assures us that
Ontario is ideally situated in the heart of the citrus belt, thirty-eight miles east of Los Angeles . . .

Reader, would you rather live in Riverside or Ontario?
One of Ontario’s most prized assets is the incomparable Euclid Avenue, a majestic tree-shaded thoroughfare, 200 feet wide, with roadways on each side of a central parkway of velvety lawn and pepper trees . . . Euclid Avenue is considered one of the seven most beautiful avenues in North America . . .
Something tells me that none of the other six run through the entity that I call Imperial.

Do you remember
The Largest Irrigated District in the World?
Well, who cares about those rubes down there? Here in the Inland Empire,
citrus fruits provide the largest parts of the agricultural revenue but directly east of Ontario stretch vineyards including the largest vineyard in the world.

In short, don’t you just love the Inland Empire? For manufacturing we can offer you General Electric, Barbara Jane’s Sportswear, Fluffee Novelty Co. and Hollywood Junior. Meanwhile, George Chaffey’s proto-Imperial lives on as Etiwanda the Beautiful:
Nestling among its orange and lemon groves and its expanse of vineyards, abounding in every kind of grapes, its people are among the most comfortable, enterprising and happy in all the state.

Orange groves and freeways, Euclid Avenue and General Electric, ranches and subdivisions, why can’t we keep the whole lot? As Border Patrolwoman Gloria Chavez said: I think we all feel sorry for ’em.

Chapter 111

MARKET PRICES (1950)

But it is presumably all for the best or at least it is expedient for business-as-usual, that the farmer should continue to nurse his illusions and go about his work, that he should go on his way to complete that destiny to which it has pleased an all-seeing and merciful Providence to call him.

—Thorstein Veblen, 1923

C
oachella green Valentine beans were going for twenty-eight to thirty cents a pound in Los Angeles, while Kentucky wonder beans, replaced by another variety, for the wonder eventually drains out of everything, were going from sixty to sixty-five cents. Where were the local Imperial cucumbers of 1925? By year’s end, Imperial County would send a hundred and seven carloads of those down the hot black ribbon of track, chattering past palo verdes and smoke trees, swinging along on the sides of the white crumbly berm all the way to Indio, then to the markets of this wider world!

In 1925 the only cabbage listed on the Los Angeles exchange had been local ($1.25 to $1.35 for good quality). We now find:
Cabbage: White, local, $2.00-2.50; lidded Yuma $3.00-3.25; Imp. Vly $2.00-2.50; Red, local, $4.00-4.50.
In other words, Imperial cabbage, like Imperial’s status in American agriculture, was high ticket, not top ticket.

Nor had the Valley supplied carrots to the City of Angels in 1925 (back then they were listed under “bunched vegetables” at thirty-five to forty cents per dozen bunches; imagine that!). But Imperial had achieved a success through her own efforts. She was selling orange jewels at a fancy price:
Carrots: Iced 6-doz. Imp. Vly, $3.25-3.50; small $2.85-3.00; local unlidded 3-doz $1.00-1.15.
This year, Imperial County would ship nineteen thousand and twenty-nine carloads of those, making more than three million dollars.

Now for our signature commodity:
Lettuce: Dry pckd. Imp. Vly 4s $2.00-2.25; Yuma $3.00-3.25; Imp. Vly $2.00-2.50; Red, local unlidded 3-doz. 50-75c.
More than fifteen thousand carloads will go to market this year, which works out to more than fifteen million dollars—don’t tell me we don’t know how to play lettuce roulette here in Imperial!

In 1925, neither Imperial nor Coachella squashes had been listed on the market; but in this department also, the entity which I call Imperial had accomplished cash magic:
Squash: Italian, Imp. Vly Crts., flts., $3.50-4.00, ord. $1.25-1.50; Coach Vly flts $3.75-4.00.
We’ll forget about the white summers, yellow crooknecks, and locals of both the banana and Hubbard variety, since they’re not prefaced by “Imp. Vly.” In the fullness of the year, Imperial Valley ordinary and banana squash will rack up a respectable two hundred and sixty-two carloads.

Why does Imperial continue to thrive in this cutthroat market? Because we’ve held the line against unions, thank God. As Richard Johnson, Jr., explains it for all time:
A minimum wage to marginal workers would force the farmer’s costs above the break-even point.
Meanwhile, Jack T. Pickett is outraged that the unions want growers to pay a minimum wage of no less than a dollar per hour.

Chapter 112

CROP REPORTS (1946-1957)

If a year’s crop were good, Juan’s happiness was assured for the next six months.

—Helen Hunt Jackson, 1884

A
nd how well
were
the owners of Imperial’s fields thriving?

1946:
I wish to emphasize that these values are Gross Values ... The net income to farmers was not increased in proportion to the gross sales due to lower efficiency from inexperienced agricultural labor, worn out equipment, and increased costs of all materials used in harvesting and handling the crops.

Inexperienced agricultural labor! If the brown hands of field workers and tenant farmers failed to reach the efficiency that, say, Wilber Clark might have demanded of himself, why did the growers invite them into the carrot fields of Holtville; the date plantations of Indio, Coachella and Bard; the lettuce empires of El Centro; not to mention Coachella’s citrus orchards, beyond which the Salton Sea appeared so wide and cool and gentle, too far away from the future to stink? I can think of only one answer, the answer of Border Patrolman Dan Murray:
They do work most Americans wouldn’t do.

1947:
I wish to emphasize that these values are Gross Values . . . The net income to farmers was not increased in proportion to the gross sales . . .

The farmer remains caught in the same economic coils that the Department of Agriculture detected in 1920. The family farm grows ever more expensive and “needs” to produce more. Failure causes bankruptcy; success imperils all producers of a given crop. Overproduction and overindebtedness, these are Imperial’s Scylla and Charybdis. The Department of Agriculture concluded:
The tendency toward larger farms is likely to throw an almost insurmountable barrier in the way of a man who wishes to progress up the so-called agricultural ladder . . .
But we need have no fear that our lands will not become better and better as the years go by.

1949:
I wish to emphasize that these values are Gross Values . . . The net income to farmers was not increased in proportion to the gross sales due to lower farm prices and increased costs of labor and all materials used in harvesting and handling the crops.

Evidently some field workers have negotiated a higher wage.

1954:
I wish to emphasize that these values are Gross Values . . . The net income to farmers was not increased in proportion to the gross sales . . .