130 WESTERN HEMISPHERE IMMIGRATION

Mr. WiLey. I disagree with you. I think we are paying our
agricultural labor more, possibly, than any other farming district in
the country.
The CuairmaN. Better than Iowa?
Mr. WiLey. I do not know exactly what they are paying.
The CrairMaN. I know; but you have made a very broad statement,
 there. Let us see you back it up.
Mr. WiLey. I am familiar with some of the conditions in Iowa.
We have northern visitors in Phoenix from Iowa, like we do from other
places, and I talk with retired farmers, there, and I find the wages
they pay for farm laborers in Iowa, while they figure it on a little differ
ent basis, are about the same as we pay ours but when you take every
thing into consideration they pay less than we do.
The Cuatrman. I will be very frank with you. The problem, here,
is how cheap you can get the commonest labor, and how you can assure
the advance in the population in the next generation. These Mexicans
who are with you now will be your citizens before very long—the
children will. The farmers, who have their problems, would be greatly
helped in Michigan and Iowa and Kansas, or anywhere else, if they
could have labor as they used to have, for $25 a month; but the
dollar has shrunken in purchasing value, and you are not going back
to those wages again.
Mr. WiLey. I quite agree with you. The point I have tried to
make to you, Mr. Chairman, is this, that we have been unable to
find any labor that would take the place of Mexicans on our farms in
Arizona. I have white men come in from Iowa, once in a while,
looking for a job, and invariably, when they ask the price they get
for picking cotton and I tell them, I have them say, “I will take the
first train out of town before I would pick cotton for a cent and a half
a pound.” You can not get anybody at all to pick cotton except
once in a while they have a severe drought in some parts of Texas or
Oklahoma, and we get some relief. Then all the white people come
down to pick cotton, and when they are through they go back home.
Mr. Dickstein. If you could bring in able-bodied men from
Poland, Rumania, and Italy, could you pay them a living wage to do
your work there? Or would you prefer them to Mexicans?
Mr. Wirey. I do not know just how extravagant these people are
that you speak of, but we pay the Mexican. a living wage, and if they
would come there and do the work which the Mexicans are doing, and
as efficiently as they are doing it, they would be as satisfactory in our
community, and we certainly would have no objection.
Mr. Dickstein. Would you think the Italian and the Pole could
do that work as satisfactorily as a Mexican?
Mr. Wirey. I doubt it very seriously, in that climate.
The Cuairman, That ends vour statement. and we are very much
pbliced to vou.

STATEMENT OF CAL. E. MANGUM, EAGLE PASS. TEX.

The CHatRMAN. What is your business?
Mr. Mangum. Cattle.
The CralRMAN. Just a moment. We had a witness here the other
day who testified, from Harlingen. Now, see what happens. Here
is a letter from the United States Department of Labor. United