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exposed the capitalist dynamics of corporate farming, it took no side for or against labor, preferring instead to see the fruit strike as a symbol of “man’s eternal, bitter warfare with himself”; Steinbeck’s “unequivocal” partisanship occurred later, in the winter and spring of 1938.)
    Thus, at the invitation of George West, Steinbeck produced “The Harvest Gypsies,” which, punctuated with Dorothea Lange’s graphic photographs of migrants, appeared in the liberal, pro-labor San Francisco News, from October 5 to 12, 1936. These hard-hitting, unflinching investigative reports detailed the plan of California’s feudal agricultural labor industry. The pieces introduced the antagonists, underscored the anachronistic rift between the Okie agrarian past and the mechanized California present, explained the economic background and insidious effects of the labor issue, examined the deplorable migrant living conditions, and exposed the unconscionable practices of the interlocking conglomerate of corporation farms. Primarily, though, his eye was on the migrants, who were “gypsies by force of circumstance,” as Steinbeck announced in his opening piece: “And so they move, frantically, with starvation close behind them. And in this series of articles we shall try to see how they live and what kind of people they are, what their living standard is, what is done for them, and what their problems and needs are. For while California has been successful in its use of migrant labor, it is gradually building a human structure which will certainly change the state, and may, if handled with the inhumanity and stupidity that have characterized the past, destroy the present system of agricultural economics.” 10
    Written mostly in a measured, restrained style (the voice is reasonable, the tone is empirical, the ends to be achieved are understanding and intelligent solutions), Steinbeck’s News articles are full of case studies, chilling factual statistics, and an unsettling catalogue of human woes (illness, incapacitation, persecution, death) observed from close contact with migratory field workers he had met. But in the best tradition of advocacy journalism, Steinbeck concluded his series with a number of prophetic recommendations for alleviating the conflict with federal aid and local support; this in turn would create subsistence farms, establish a migratory labor board, encourage unionization, and punish terrorism. When they were published in 1936 (and again when they were printed in 1938 as Their Blood Is Strong ), Steinbeck’s articles solidified his credibility—both in and out of the migrant camps—as a serious commentator. “The Harvest Gypsies” (and Tom Collins’ continuing reports) provided Steinbeck with a basic repository of precise information and folk values. It would still be more than a year before the subjective intensity of his engagement deepened; however, events were already transpiring in his hometown and elsewhere that would eventually change his attitude from methodical reporter to literary activist.
    The last of Steinbeck’s San Francisco News articles ended with a comment that became the basis for the second stage of his writing: “The new migrants to California from the dust bowl are here to stay. They are of the best American stock, intelligent, resourceful, and, if given a chance, socially responsible.” Steinbeck understood that the migrants wouldn’t vanish from sight, and couldn’t be ignored, though official California tried to do just that. Steinbeck built on his News experiences and on at least one more month-long field trip, in October and November 1937, with Tom Collins to plan the writing of a “big” book. They started from Gridley, where Collins was managing a new camp, but then roamed California from Stockton to Needles, wherever migrants were gathered to work. By late in the year, after hitting several “snags,” he was working on a “rather long novel” called “The