350. WESTERN HEMISPHERE IMMIGRATION

definite is not done by way of congressional action. Especially this is
true in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, and it is rapidly
spreading further north. Hordes of Mexicans have crossed our
borders and are now migrating all over the country, paying no taxes,
rendering no public service, supplying no sinews for Government or
civilization. They are a burden on the chairity of every community
within these four States named above. They crowd the halls of our
country hospitals and deplete the funds of our country charities.
They contaminate the communities into. which they rove and, are
constantly active in all sorts of crimes, filling our jails and public
institutions.
The Mexican problem is not confined solely to the border States,
for they are to be found as far North as Detroit and as far East as the
coal mines in Pennsylvania. Wherever they go they tend to lower
the living conditions of the community, due to the fact that they work
for such low wages, and the American workers can not compete with
them. The southern farmer is driven from the soil by Mexican
competition and forced into the neighborhood mills and factories.
The southern workmen have got to live and will furnish southern
mills and factories with labor that may be cheap and abundant,
although neither satisfied nor well paid. This will affect the mills and
factories. We must either approach or maintain the American
standard by relying upon American labor. Sooner or later we must
all have the same standard of pay and employment or go out of business,
 and most assuredly we do not want the Mexican standard.
The Mexicans are beginning to be felt in the Southwest by moving
on large tenant farms, crowding out the white tenants. Landlords
who live in near-by towns prefer them, for they can be driven almost
like slaves, will live in barns, sheds, or tents, are exceedingly insanitary,
literate and undesirable citizens. It is true that there is quite as
much danger from an influx of these people as there is from an
influx of Japanese or Chinese or any other people whose education,
social standards, and ideals are wholly foreign to this land. If there
is good reason for limiting the immigration from Europe, Japan,
Asia, and Africa, there is equally good reason for saying that we
must limit the number of Mexicans who come into this country.
We have so far considered the Mexican situation as it affects the
country in general, now let us consider what it means to the labor
movement and especially to the organized labor movement of this
country. Mexicans are entering maintenance-of-way work by the
thousands. They are not confined to the Southwestern States, as
was the case several years ago, but to-day they may be found at
work on the tracks in Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and
other northern and eastern cities. They will not organize and they
work for any miserable wage that the railroads see fit to pay. At a
recent hearing before the Committee on Immigration in Washington
B representative of the Santa Fe Railroad stated that they were
paying Mexicans 27 cents an hour and urged that the committee
allow Mexicans to continue to pour into this country in order that
this wage may be continued. Mexicans are driving American
citizens out of their jobs, and this is true not only in maintenanceof-way
 work but also in the beet fields, in coal mines, in factories,
and in other lines of employment. With a serious condition of
unemployment in the United States and with millions of wage