60 WESTERN HEMISPHERE IMMIGRATION

ern border. We wanted to have you talk to us a little while about
conditions in California, particularly with relation to cotton growing,
fruit growing, and the general labor conditions as you observe them.
Are you prepared to make a statement along those lines?
Mr. Coaxprer. I have no prepared statement.
The Crammman. Can you give us a running statement as to your
view of the situation?
Mr. CuanpreEr. Yes; I can.
The Crarrman. We will be glad to hear you.
Mr. CraxpLER. I do not feel I know as much about it as perhaps
I would be presumed to know. But when I came to Los Angeles,
as I did nearly 50 years ago, our population was at that time estimated
to be about 60 per cent Mexican, our whole area of California, Arizona,
 and along the southwestern border originally having been
Mexican territory, and the population that was there when it was
taken over by the United States increasing faster at first than the
American population did. As I remember, in 1880 the Mexican
population was considerably larger in southern California than the
American population. It has naturally changed since, but we still
have, I presume, a larger percentage of Mexican population than
any other part of the United States. ]
Our traditions and background are mostly Mexican, and all of the
old timers who came to the vicinity of Los Angeles and lived with the
Mexicans and knew them, had a little different attitude toward
them than the rest of the Americans would have naturally. A good
many of my friends were Mexicans, and I worked with Mexicans.
We have employed Mexicans and have an appreciation of them,
their merits and their faults that we would not have had if we had
not had that contact. So I believe that a certain number of Mexican
laborers are helpful to all of our industries, and I do not believe they
produce real social problems. In other words, I do not believe they
create problems such as a great many other foreign people do who
come into the country in large numbers. At least Mexicans never
have created probléins in Los Angeles.
In the first place, the peon who comes there is an innocent, friendly,
kindly individual. He has to be industrious, for he has to work in
order to live. He has in him 85 per cent Indian blood on the average
and every American who knows anything about Indian characteristics
can measure from that the Mexican peon who comes to work in the
United States. They are not enterprising, of course, like other
races, but they are more desirable from our standpoint than any
other class of labor that comes, and they create fewer problems.
Our grape growers, our orange and lemon growers, and our cotton
growers, the most of them require seasonal labor; none of them need
extra labor continually. The average orange grower does not need
extra labor all the year around when he has a small grove, but when
it comes to picking his oranges he wants some labor that will come
in and pick oranges, and then without causing a condition of unemployment
 to go back home. Mexicans come in during our season of
need and help us harvest our fruit, our cotton, and our melons; and
when the time of need is over, the border is not far away. A large
number of them come in automobiles and then they drive home; and
they do not leave a lot of unemployment as would be the case if we
brought in people from somewhere else, the Philippines, for ex-