366 WESTERN HEMISPHERE IMMIGRATION

immigration law, alleging that this avenue to cheap labor must remain open or
business interests will suffer; and .
‘‘ Whereas wage earners not alone of the States bordering on Mexico, but some
far removed find the introduction of these workers contributing to increased
unemployment and diminished standards of wages and hours of labor, tending
to peonize unskilled workers; and
‘‘ Whereas the American Federation of Labor in its convention held in the city
of New Orleans, November, 1928, went on record as favoring the enactment of
legislation placing Mexico under the provisions of the quota law: Therefore, be it
‘Resolved by the Forty-ninth Annual Convention of the American Federation of
Labor, That we reaffirm our position as expressed in our 1928 convention, instruct
 our incoming executive council to exert every reasonable effort to secure
the enactment of this legislation, and, further, that every national and international
 union, local, and State central body be urged to correspond with their
Senators and Congressmen asking their support of same, to the end that American
 standards of life may not be threatened for American labor.”
Your committee recommends adoption of Resolution No. 2.
The committee’s recommendation was adopted.

Mr. HusHing. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, many Americans not
familiar with the type of Mexicans immigrating into this country
believe them to be of Spanish stock, when as a matter of fact they
are Indians and not the same type as the Spanish-Americans who
have testified here recently. Despite that which Mr. Chandler said
here a few days ago, to the effect that Americans with Indian blood
were proud of it, I do not believe Mr. Chandler or any other American
would care to have any member of his family intermarry with the
general run of these immigrants—peons, Mr. Chandler termed them.
While it is true that these Mexican Indians have Spanish names
and speak Spanish, yet they received their names 400 years ago from
the Spanish conquerors of Mexico, either at baptism by the priests,
or because their Indian names were unpronounceable so that the Spanish
blood injected into their veins has affected their blood stream just
about as much as a brook affects the waters of the Mississippi.
Their names and language are those of their conquerors, but their
racial characteristics are unchanged.
There are still some 30 tribes in Mexico, many not speaking
Spanish—about 100 tongues being spoken.
Since the Spanish conquest, their lives have been a frenzied quest
for frijoles and tortillas,
The land system in vogue in Mexico for 400 years dwarfed them,
mentally and physically, as the land was all held by about 10 per
cent—the aristocrats—and for years they have worked for 25 centavos
a day (12% United States) and a handful of beans and corn at night.
I listened very attentively, and with great interest to much of the
testimony recently given before this committee by representatives of
business interests and others from the southwest who advocated
continuance of Mexican immigration into this country.
I sympathize with those advocates who plead so earnestly and
eloquently before you, but I am not in sympathy with their pleas—
the only sympathy I feel for them is that felt for those who are blind—
for they are blind—blinded by a circular bit of silver known as the
United States dollar, beyond which they fail to see. They are either
blinded to the problems this immigration is causing or else disinterested.

They want an oversupply of this cheap labor at hand in order to be
assured that it will be cheap and it will be if plentiful and hunery.