his cousin to operate a commercial lemonade wagon. Furthermore, the lemonade was an inferior synthetic brew, sold for five cents a glass. Wages were to be paid based on the weight of hops picked, with pickers promised a pay rate of $1 per 100 pounds harvested. This rate was deceptive in that the picked hops were heavily cleaned before final weighing, with no pickers allowed to be present to verify the work of the cleaning crew. Workers generally received less than $1.50 per day for twelve hours of toil under a summer sun that could reach . Workers on other farms in the area typically netted twice as much. Further stoking worker unrest, Durst maintained a policy of retaining 10% of the daily wage owed each worker until the end of harvest, to be received only by those who remained at the Durst Ranch to the end. Workers would in this way be obligated to stay at the farm to the end of harvest or face forfeiture of a substantial portion of their earnings. Strike Harvest of hops began on the Durst Ranch on July 29, 1913. Discontent over pay and conditions immediately erupted among the migrant workers as the actual terms of their employment and living conditions became clear. On Friday, August 1, 1913, a group of about thirty field workers loosely affiliated with the radical Industrial Workers of the World (members of which were known as "Wobblies") established themselves as a temporary local of that organization and began to agitate among their peers to take action about the dire conditions which they faced. A former Wobbly, Richard "Blackie" Ford, was chosen to be the spokesman for the field workers' demands, which included a pay rate of $1.25 per 100 picked pounds, a new system in which workers cleaned their own picked hops, drinking water to be provided in the fields, improvement of toilet facilities and separate bathrooms for women, and the hiring of assistants to help women and children with the loading of heavy hop sacks into wagons. Durst partially complied, indicating that he would henceforth improve toilet facilities, provide water in the fields, and allow one worker to witness the cleaning process. Ford responded by threatening a strike if the other demands were not met. Durst immediately terminated Ford and the others on the strike committee who accompanied him. However, Ford and the strike committee refused to