Floyd Knowles Quotes

"So you’re lookin’ for work. What ya think ever’body else is lookin’ for? Di’monds? What you think I wore my ass down to a nub lookin’ for?…We heard they was work up north. We’re shovin’ north, up aroun’ Salinas."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 20. Floyd Knowles, one of the first people Tom Joad meets after the Joads arrive in California, says this to Tom at the Hooverville camp for migrants. Tom has told him that he is looking for work and is hopeful of getting it. But Floyd says that he is heading north because there is no work nearby.

"S’pose you got a job a work, an’ there’s jus’ one fella wants the job. You got to pay ‘im what he asts. But s’pose they’s a hunderd men…S’pose they’s a hunderd men wants that job. S’pose them men got kids, an’ them kids is hungry. S’pose a lousy dime’ll buy a box a mush for them kids. S’pose a nickel’ll buy at – leas’ somepin for them kids. An’ you got a hunderd men. Jus’ offer ’em a nickel – why, they’ll kill each other fightin’ for that nickel."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 20. Floyd Knowles explains the corrupt and inhuman system employed by exploitative California landowners to recruit workers and pay them low wages. He tells Tom why they print so many handbills advertising for labor. The promise of so many jobs is a deception to attract a surplus of laborers and pay them as little as possible. If a hundred turn up for a job, you can offer them a nickel and they’ll kill each other for the chance to earn it to feed hungry children.

"They’ll pick you right off. You got no name, no property. They’ll find you in a ditch, with the blood dried on your mouth an’ your nose. Be one little line in the paper – know what it’ll say? ‘Vagrant foun’ dead.’ An’ that’s all. You’ll see a lot of them little lines, ‘Vagrant foun’ dead.’"

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 20. When Tom Joad suggests that the Joads are "no sheep" and would fight the injustice of the law, Floyd Knowles warns that that would simply get you killed. Corrupt police would pick you off because migrants have no rights and you would be found in a ditch.

"Well, when the cops come in, an’ they come in all a time, that’s how you want ta be. Dumb – don’t know nothin’. Don’ understan’ nothin’. That’s how the cops like us. Don’t hit no cops. That’s jus’ suicide. Be bull-simple."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 20. Tom learns more about the prejudices migrant workers face in a system weighed against them. Floyd Knowles offers advice to him on how to deal with cops who come into the Hooverville camp. You have to sacrifice your dignity and act stupid and less than human because that’s how cops see migrants. Also don’t fight the cops, Floyd advises.

Floyd said angrily, "You didn’ say how many men, an’ you didn’ say what you’d pay."
"Goddamn it, I don’t know yet."
"If you don’ know, you got no right to hire men."
"I got a right to run my own business my own way."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 20. Floyd Knowles angrily confronts a contractor who comes to the Hooverville camp to hire fruit pickers for low wages. Floyd has been caught before by contractors promising a certain pay on some distant farm, then arriving to find they get paid half that. So Floyd demands that the contractor show him his license and a signed work order saying where, when and how much the work will pay.

"He’ll get five thousan’ there, an’ he’ll pay fifteen cents an hour. An’ you poor bastards’ll have to take it ’cause you’ll be hungry."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 20. Floyd Knowles has a go at an exploitative fruit farm contractor who wants to hire workers from the migrant camp. The contractor won’t say exactly what the pay is, except "’Bout thirty cents, I guess." But Floyd warns the other migrants that when they arrive at the farm they’ll find the pay is 15 cents, and will accept it because they are hungry.
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