WESTERN HEMISPHERE IMMIGRATION 417

California. Gradually they pushed the frontier back until it lost itself in the
Pacific. With no more frontiers, with our large cities crowded to the limit,
with production surpassing consumption, the day came when it was plain to
the statesmen and economists of the country that we could not assimilate a
million and a quarter of new immigrants annually, together with thousands that
came in as visitors and that came in surreptitiously. We were compelled to
put up the bars. This was done by diplomatic negotiations and by the passage
of legislation restricting immigration from all the countries of the world, except
from the countries of the Western Hemisphere. Restriction of immigration
is now the fixed policy of our Nation. Nobody who has the best interests of our
country at heart now denies that this is a safe and proper poliey. There are still
some people who resolve every international proposition in the light of what may
be best for the country from whence they came, but they are getting fewer and
fewer.
RESTRICTION ON WESTERN HEMISPHERE

This brings us to the consideration of the question so frequently asked as to
why restrict immigration from Germany, England, Ireland, and the other countries
 of Europe and permit unrestricted immigration to flow in from Mexico
and other countries of the Western Hemisphere? .
President Hoover in his message to the present Congress upon its convention
in December, 1929, said:
“Restriction of immigration has from every aspect proved a sound national
policy. Our pressing problem is to formulate a method by which the limited
number of immigrants who we do welcome shall be adapted to our national
setting and our national needs.”
Hon. James J. Davis, the Secretary of Labor and chief of the Tinmigration
Service of the Nation says, ‘‘The unlimited flow of immigrants from countries
of the Western Hemisphere can not be reconciled with the sharp curtailment
of immigration from Europe.”
There are some plausible reasons advanced in opposition to laying a quota
restriction upon the countries of the Western Hemisphere. I shall discuss two
of them.
First. It is feared that we may strain the present cordial diplomatic relationship
 that now obtains between our country and the countries of the Western
Hemisphere.
Second. It is feared that agriculture along the southern and northern borders
of the United States will suffer if deprived of Mexican labor which, it is claimed,
it needs to plant and harvest the seasonal crops of that section.
The first argument falls when we consider that all nations concede that it is
the right of any nation to restrict immigration within its borders. Practically
every nation employes some system of restrictions. When we were about to
apply the quota law to Europe in 1921 we heard the same argument, and when
we were about to apply the national-origins system of quotas in 1928 and 1929
we heard the same argument, but in neither case did any complications develop.
None will develop if restriction is applied to the countries of the Western Hemisphere.
 Canada has restriction laws and no doubt will enact others as her
economic and political needs manifest themselves.

THERE IS SUFFICIENT LABOR FOR AGRICULTURAL INTERESTS OF SOUTHWEST

The second question presents two aspects. It is very doubtful whether there
is any shortage of agricultural labor in that section, and if there is it presents no
different question than was presented to many branches of industry when previous
 immigration laws were enacted. A shortage in one branch of industry is
not to be supplied from other countries if there is a great surplus in a hundred
other branches of industry in our own country. Adjustment is the remedy in
that situation. When the restrictive measures were being considered in 1921
and prior thereto many employers in the industrial sections of the country were
opposed to giving up their right and chance to procure cheap labor from foreign
countries and prophesied dire disaster. But the high standard of living which
is the greatest difference between our country and any of the other countries of
the world must be maintained and this can not be done by the employment of
cheap foreign labor. It is encouraging to know that most of those who complained
 have realized their errors and are now ardent restrictionists.
The great bulk of labor on the farm or in the truck gardens is not skilled, as
can be testified to bv anv of us who were brought up op the farm. T maintain