The 8-hour workday, Panama Canal and non-local eggs

The year was 1914. The Mexican Revolution was boiling over, the Panama Canal had just opened and the Ford Motor Company—during a period of countrywide unemployment and major labor unrest — announced that it would henceforth pay its workers $5 a day for an 8-hour workday. That was up from $2.34 for a 9-hour day and it was an unprecedented move that shocked American industry. Meanwhile, Petaluma’s Main Garage, at 343 Main St., was selling Ford’s Model-T Touring Car for just $625.

In Mexico, there was a violent revolution afoot with Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata joining forces with Carranza’s rebel army to overthrow the government. The turmoil eventually forced U.S. President Wilson to mobilize our army and National Guard in an attempted show of strength at the border. Ours was an army of 560,000 men placed there as an open threat, and our Petaluma Morning Courier commented, “Wilson’s watchful waiting has proven to be correct.”

Still, Mexico’s civil war went on for another four years.

The immense project of building the Panama Canal had begun in 1903, and during that time it became the most expensive construction project in American history. It would save 8,000 miles of travel between New York and San Francisco and cost $350 million (over $9 billion today). Aug. 15, 1914, was the official opening and our Petaluma Courier enthusiastically observed, “Wheat, wool, lumber, minerals, eggs, wines and hides will now get lower freight rates thru the Canal from the Pacific.”

World War I, of course, was almost ready to pop open then, too. The conflict officially began July 28, when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and very shortly after that Germany, Russia, France and Great Britain were drawn in. However, President Wilson, playing to many Americans’ isolationist tendencies, wanted no part of it, and was able to restrain our forces, and our commitments until 1917.

Meanwhile, in Petaluma in 1914, another major issue was brewing. It was the threat of the importation of Chinese eggs to the United States. It was to be an ugly fight. The Sonoma County Poultry Producers headline in our Courier blared, ”Forty thousand cases of eggs to arrive in San Francisco from Shanghai!” And those eggs, they contended, employing graphically detailed exaggerations and no shortage of racial slurs, were unfit for human consumption.

“It will kill the poultry business here,” claimed the statement. “The industry that made Petaluma famous will be destroyed!”

Then, in February, one local headline stated, “State Board of Health Working on Chinese Egg Issue.” The Board, it said, “is in possession of certain data regarding the tendency of dangerous bacteria to penetrate the egg shells.” That Board, no surprise, was in contention against our federal officials who claimed those eggs were just fine. The State of California, in a telegram to the U.S. Surgeon General, demanded that all future importations be barred, “on the grounds that the eggs are not pure food.”

That argument went on, pretty much unresolved for years.

Another contentious bit of California history involved a brutal approach to the problem of homelessness.

“Sacramento rid itself of the bulk of the army of the unemployed today, by driving them with clubs and fire hose, across the river to Yolo County,” was the way it was reported in Petaluma papers. “Hundreds of them were beaten, some rendered unconscious.”

Sadly, that event hearkened the early beginnings of the Great Depression, and it was all to become much worse.

But there was pleasant Petaluma news from 1914. That May marked the opening of the spacious new clubhouse of our Petaluma Woman’s Club. Everyone was agog at the beautiful structure. Music was played, speeches were made and punch was served. Famed Petaluma Architect Brainerd Jones had designed the building and it still proudly stands at 518 B St., having served Petaluma women for 107 years.

Skip Sommer is an honorary lifetime member of the Petaluma Historical Library and Museum, and Heritage Homes. You can reach him at SkipSommer31@gmail.com.