It was not a typical union convention. A festive, rally, atmosphere marked the proceedings. Farm workers and their supporters assembled here were enthusiastic about the big fight shaping up in the fields this fall. California's new law providing for farm union elections goes into effect August 28.

The convention came at the peak of a new upsurge in UFW activity, which began with a demonstration of 10,000 in Modesto, home of Gallo, the scab wine company. The UFW organized a "1,000-mile march" this summer from the Mexican border north through California's agricultural centers. Led by UFW Director César Chávez, the marchers have talked with field hands along the route, explaining the terms of the new law. In several key farm worker centers, the marchers have stopped to hold rallies, some of them quite large.

The convention drew many campesino families. There were also hundreds of young boycott activists, whose presence reflected an increase in the activity in support of the boycott of non-UFW products in the cities.  
 
August 28, 1950
American imperialism is waging a barbaric war of utmost brutality against the whole Korean people. Wholesale atrocities are being committed upon civilians, without regard for age or sex. Little distinction is made between North and South Koreans--all are treated as actual or potential enemies. As for genuine combatants, most captured North Korean soldiers or guerrillas are murdered on the spot, many of them after frightful torture.

These facts about Truman's "police action" in Korea have emerged piecemeal up to now from bits and hints slipped into reports by American war correspondents. Now Life magazine in a report by John Osborne has pieced revealing bits together to give us a picture of how Korea is being "liberated." The U.S. is trying to win the war in Korea "by military means alone," Osborne explains. "This means not the usual, inevitable savagery of combat in the field but savagery in detail--the blotting out of villages where the enemy MAY be hiding; the shooting and shelling of refugees who MAY include North Koreans, or who MAY be screening an enemy march upon our positions, or who MAY be carrying broken-down rifles or ammunition clips."  
 
 
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