WESTERN HEMISPHERE IMMIGRATION © 421

approached this problem, made these inquiries, visited these regions, and made
these observations as the hired servant of men or corporations whose object is
present money getting.
The information I have gathered from all sources mentioned, and from all
others, convinces me that the conclusions which Congressman Jenkins and I
have reached from our joint survey are correct in fact and should control the
policy of this committee in reporting legislation to restrict the incoming tide of
Mexican peon immigration and urging its passage.

IMPORTED PAUPER MEXICAN LABOR AND THE FARM PROBLEM

I solicit the patience of members of this committee, and others studying this
problem, while I undertake a brief development of the effect of the importation
of these pauper peons upon the farmers and farm life of the southern and southwestern
 portions of the Nation.
The displacement of American farm workers, tenants, and small home-owning
farmers, the impoverishment and consequent injury to the rural life of the South
and Southwest inevitably results from the lack of agricultural and rural prosperity
among American farmers. These are to a large extent caused by unfavorable
marketing conditions under which farm products are sold. This last is substantially
 aggravated by the importation of myriads of low-grade peons being poured
into farms and rural communities. I shall dwell but briefly upon the overproduction
 of farm products in an undertaking to make plain that the importation
of this labor tends strongly toward the further injury to the classes of people who
have heretofore constituted the largest and best portion of the agricultural communities
 of the Southwest. The same classes have, throughout the history of the
country, constituted the body of the wholesome farm population of the country.
One of the several major factors working toward the impoverishment of farmers
and people who live by farm labor and from the products of small and moderate
sized farms is the overproduction of their marketable crops, as measured by the
consuming and buying power of those to whom they must be sold. The following
 quotations from The Agricultural Outlook for 1930, issued by the United
Qiates Department of Agriculture January 7, 1930, show this situation:

CATTLE

“The prospective increases of beef cattle and dairy production during the next
five years, with little prospect of compensating increases in demand, will tend to
depress rather than raise the gross income of farmers.”
it Grazing is likely to suffer seriously within the next few years from expansion
in the number of cattle, particularly in the Corn Belt.”
“Range growers should guard against losses likely to result from making additional
 capital investments in the cattle enterprise with a period of falling cattle
prices not far away ”

WHEAT

‘Wheat acreage expansion is going forward in the face of competition from
many countries of the world. and with a possibility of a downward long-time trend
of wheat prices.”

LETTUCE

“With the continued tendency toward the expansion of lettuce acreage, particularly
 in California and Arizona, the industry is facing a real problem in the
orderly distribution of the erop * * *7
“(rowers should not, however, assume that markets can be expanded suffisientlv
 to ahsorh a large immediate increase at the present level of prices.”

TOMATOES

#1n spite of heavy losses to the fall crop in Florida and Texas, there is danger
that the spring planting in these two States, and in the Imperial Vallev of California,
 is being overdone * * sd
If growers in the early States have carried out the full acreage in the dimensions:
 reported. they face much lower returns than were received in 1929
«Acreage in the second early States (South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana,
Mississippi, and Texas) shows a pronounced upward trend, having trebled from
1018 to 1928 * * *7
“ Anv further increase in 1930 appears extremely inadvisable.”