108 WESTERN HEMISPHERE IMMIGRATION

“Our welfare departments spend majority of efforts and money on Mesxibs
 7—Stafford C. Edwards, secretary-treasurer county farm bureau, Coiton,
a lif.
“Mexicans tend to collect in villages living in erowded and insanitary dwellings.
 They have lice, skin diseases, venereal diseases, ete.”’-—John W. Young,
supervisor of attendance, Carpenteria, Calif.
“Public health nurses have tried for years to clean up itch and lice in Mexican
 school children without much effect. All of our leprosy and much of our
tuberculosis is among Mexicans, poverty, tuberculosis, syphilis, gonorrhea,
scabies, pediculosis.”—R. C. Main, county health officer, Santa Barbara, Calif.
“Brought in pneumonia and bubonic plague, amoeba dysentery.”’—=Sacramento
 Church Federation, Sacramento, Calif. .
“1 am personally afraid as regards California because they are bootlegged in
along with liquor and opium, and they have any of the diseases you want to see:
Diphtheria, glaucoma, undulant fever (syphilis and gonorrhea), typhoid fever,
smallpox. I personally see only the hazard of the public health side and it is a
rotten mess.”-—William C. Colton, city health officer, president of chamber of
commerce, president Fruit Exchange, Atwater, Calif.
“All childhood diseases, particularly high rate of syphilis and gonorrhea.
Pneumonia is very common among the children as are most respiratory infections.
Principal source of body lice and coefus.”—John A. Ozevedo, health officer,
Alameda County, Hayward, Calif.
“Have tuberculosis, multiplicity childrens’ diseases. measles, smallpox,
syphilis.”—Chas. F. Richardson, city judge and health officer, El Cajon, Calif.
“County hospital reports more cases of tuberculosis and social diseases in
Mexicans than all other races together.”~—Ada York, superintendent of schools,
San Diego, Calif.
“In 90 per cent of cases this immigration is detrimental to health, American
ideals, morality, and American laobr. The only group that does profit by
Mexican immigration is the manufacturing group.”—A. C. Kaeeneyer, district
school superintendent, South San Francisco, Calif.
“A menace to remainder of community.”—Robert King, grocer and meats,
Camarillo, Calif.
“Menace to health, no attention paid to sanitation in homes.”—Rowena M.
Norton, county superintendent of schools, Woodland, Calif.
“Mexicans have no regard for sanitary conditions or quarantines. We have
In the last months had to employ officers to watch day and night on gpinal
meningitis quarantines.”—Harry V. Benson, garage owner, Miami, Ariz.
“Most all Mexicans have had traces of syphilis, usually hereditary.”—Virginia
Walthall, county nurse, Prescott, Ariz.
“Nurses find more contagious and infectuous diseases among Mexicans than
miseries Laura A. Hopper, county school superintendent, Prescott.
riz.
The unemployment, irregular employment, lower wages, bad living conditions,
and personal habits and characteristics of many of these unfortunate peon
people are shown by reports of their gathering food for themselves from garbage
cans in several centers, as illustrated by the following quotations:

GATHERING FOOD FROM GARBAGE CANS

“Two observations particularly impress me; one is Mexican men, women,
PR) - x - ”
and children prowling in the alley garbage cans and searching them for food.
—Fred De Armond, sales manager laundry company, El Paso, Tex.

MEXICAN TAMALE PEDDLER FACES GARBAGE CHARGE

“A 50-year-old Mexican was arrested Tuesday by Officer H. N. Howard, who
said he found the Mexican on commission row, at Main and Commerce, with
two dead chickens and several rotten onions, which he had been picking out of
garbage boxes.
“The Mexican was brought to the police station, where he was charged with
a violation of the garbage act. Officers identified him as a hot-tamale peddler.
He could not speak English, and will be turned over to the immigration authorities,
 according to Captain of Police J. H. Tatum, and an effort will be made to
send him back to Mexico. He has only been in the United States a few months,
officers said.”’—From the Houston Chronicle, Tuesday, November 26, 1929.
“They rummage my garbage cans every day almost for anything edible by
man or beast.”—L. OQ. Vermillion, El Paso, Tex.