368 WESTERN HEMISPHERE IMMIGRATION

degree far out of proportion to their numbers, using about 40 per
cent. The Bureau of Catholic Charities there reports they require
55% per cent of their fund for Mexican relief, and in addition the
Mexicans themselves have mutual relief societios.
Austin, Tex., with a Mexican population of 6 per cent, reports
17 per cent of all charity cases from this group.
In Detroit over a 3-year period one Mexican of every eicht was
given relief through the public welfare bureau.
Weld County, Colo., commission reports $15,000 spent in one year
for relief of stranded Mexican beet workers. (That Mexican by
R. N. McLean.) So it continues wherever they are found.
In the Imperial Valley, where one kind of crop succeeds another—
where work is not plentiful on that account—Mexican labor is idle
much of the time being employed but 165 days per year.
I understand that because of insufficient jobs, on account of changing
 jobs and being discharged from time to time, these Mexicans lose
about 45 per cent of the working time in the Imperial Valley, where
crops rotate continuously.
It lowers working standards and wages. This committee has been
recently told that we must have Mexicans to do our work in the
southwest, as Americans will not do it. Of course, Americans can not
compete with the Mexican standard of living or his wage rate, and so
the American laborer is replaced by the Mexican just as the sheep
van the cattle from the grazing lands years ago.
There is no shortage of any kind of Tabor in this country if proper
wages are paid, and, m addition, if those who are now crying for more
Mexican immigrants would plan as carefully for their labor supply
as they do for their financing and other supplies, the labor supply
would be found ample.
At this point I want to read into the record correspondence from
the files of the Director of the United States Employment Service.
I will omit that pertaining to the Harlingen, Tex., affair as it has
previously been covered. First, let me say that I believe the United
States Employment Service is rendering a very good service to the
employers and workers of our country and I was very sorry to hear the
criticism directed at it by Representative Free the other day. As
you know, Mr. Cable has a bill before the House to raise this service
bo a bureau with increased appropriations. which should be done, for
it is doing an excellent work.
Correspondence from the files of the Director of the United States
Employment Service reads as follows

DeparTMENT OF LABOR,
UNiteEDp StaTES EMPLOYMENT SERVICE,
San Antonio, Tex.. December 7 1020

To Director General.
From J. H. Fallin, superintendent, San Antonio, Tex.
Subject: Weekly letter.
A shipment of 50 laborers to the Southern Pacific Lines for work west of El
Paso was made to-day. That completes their present labor needs. Forty-three
of the laborers were shipped by the Fort Worth office and the shipment completed
here. The grand total of all shipments made to the Southern Pacific Co. within
the past four or five weeks is 468. About 60 per cent of them were recruited in
San Antonio and the balance in Fort Worth. Although shipments have been
going forward regularly, unemployment still increases. It is public talk here
that unemployment has reached a greater degree than at anv time in recent vears.