WESTERN -EEMISPHERE IMMIGRATION 351

earners walking the streets unable to find work, we find cheap,
illiterate Mexicans still swarming into this country, and, what is
still more amazing, we find the representatives of the railroads,
chambers of commerce, and other financial interests, unfriendly to
organized labor, making a strong fight to allow them to continue to
come into this country and drive the American workmen out of
their jobs.
There are millions of men idle in the United States to-day. On
top of this, cheap Mexican laborers are sneaking into the country
over our borders, defying our laws, taking our jobs, refusing to organize,
 beating down our wages, living in shacks, while the chambers
of commerce, the railroads, and other are either unfair to labor or
unmindful of the full purport of the maintenance of the importance
of high American standards of living, and are in Washington protesting
a restriction of this Mexican immigration. While our protest is
largely in the interest of the maintenance-of-way men, whom we are
obligated to protect, it is not altogether selfish in its nature. It is
also a patriotic protest made in the social, economic, and educational
interests of the American wage earner. If employers of labor are
active in their efforts to flood the country with cheap labor, as
appears to be the case, in order that they may be exploited in the
selfish interests of employers, then the people of America should be
doubly awake and especially loud in their protests.
As stated above, this problem of Mexicans taking the places of
American workmen is not confined to the maintenance-of-way department
 of the railroads. From the coal mines of Pennsylvania we hear
the same protests against the importation of Mexicans to undermine
American living conditions and wages. It seems that in recent
years, whenever there was any labor disturbances around the coal
mines of Pittsburgh, large numbers of Mexicans were used as
strike breakers. And wherever there is any road building we find
large humbers of Mexicans displacing our American workmen because
 of the fact that they are willing to work at such cheap wages.
An indication of the serious social problem developed through this
illegal influx of Mexicans is indicated in an excerpt from the Congressional
 Record of June 7, 1926, reading in part as follows:
To sum up the elements of danger from unrestricted immigration of Mexicans:
(1) They drain our charities; (2) they or their children become a large portion
of our jail population; (3) they affect the health of our communities; (4) they
create a problem in our labor camps; (5) they require special training in our
schools and are of low mentality; (6) they diminish the percentage of our white
population; (7) they remain foreign.
President Hoover has recently made the statement that approximately
 $7,000,000,000 will be expended this year by the Federal
and State Governments upon public works. Under this item of
public works will be included a great deal of highway building. A
special effort has been made to use the taxpayers’ money generally
for the specific purpose of offsetting a great deal of unemployment.
Is this unemployment step to bridge the gap in the present situation
for the benefit of American labor or through this loophole of immipd
 shall it go to the hordes who now pour into this country at
will?
The Crairman. What is the average wage per day east of Chicago
for maintenance-of-way men?