WESTERN HEMISPHERE IMMIGRATION 81

Mr. ScanempeR. Is it not a fact that the main objection that the
social workers or these restrictionists have against the Mexican is
that he is a sort of nomad in his habits: he is not a fixture and rides
the roads, so to speak?
Mr. Bent. There is no question about that.
Mr. ScaNEIDER. Is it not a fact that the tendency of the agricultural
 people just to employ whoever they can get for the cheapest
figure they can get—is not that the most contributing or the greatest
contributing factor that causes them to be nomads?
Mr. Bent. I have tried, to my certain knowledge—and I have some
small farming interests—I have tried for many years to use local
labor, and use young people during vacation time to come and pick
cotton. Those efforts have failed 100 per cent. You can not get
white men to do that work.
I am a construction man, and if we have a job in the Imperial Valley,
 for instance, to construct water works in those hot regions, I
am compelled to use Mexicans. We can not get our own men to go
there to perform that work.
Mr. Scanner. I have made a trip or two in that country, and it
strikes me there were enough Mexicans loafing around in the flivvers
by the roadside to do all the work, if you could keep them at work.
Mr. BEnT. We have an organization attempting to see that they
do not become a burden on the community, but are transferred continuously
 to places where they can be used.
Mr. ScaNEIDER. But after the season is over, don’t they crowd
back into the cities and overwhelm the civic charitable organizations?
Mr. Bent. No, sir.
Mr. Scanemer. I have had a great many representations from
Los Angeles and San Francisco that the charitable organizations are
swamped with them in the winter time.
Mr. Bent. We blame that to some extent on the social workers
themselves. We do not think they are always judicious in handling
them. The Mexican is a peculiar being.. If you give them a basket
of food, they pass the good news along to their neighbors.
The CuairMaN. Have you not had considerable trouble in Los
Angeles with agitators, socialists, and communists, a number of whom
domicile themselves in Los Angeles and coming from Mexico?
Mr. Bent. Very few, Mr. Chairman.
The Cramrman. Did you not have a socialistic, communistic paper
published in Los Angeles?
Mr. Bent. Yes, sir; but with surprisingly small effect on the
Mexicans. It was largely effective with the Russians.
The Cuarrman. Did you not have a man there whose brother was
a prominent revolutionist in Mexico, and the paper aided a revolution
in Mexico, from the American side?
Mr. Bent. It is quite likely. We are a refuge for all the expatriots
 of Mexico.
The CuarMan. Well, we will not go into that, because the library
of this committee is filled with data of that kind, and we should be
delighted if the members of the chamber of commerce would avail
themselves of our library.
Mr. Jenkins. You employ Mexican labor in your contract work?
Mr. Bent. In the last 20 years—TI recently had occasion to look it
up—it has averaced 20 per cent of our force. At the present time