WESTERN HEMISPHERE IMMIGRATION 425

probably makes for uneconomic utilization of our land resources. If the more
desirable types of farmers are to be excluded, it would appear to be advisable at
least to restrict the entrance of those types which do not make for the long-run
interests of our agriculture as a whole.”
Now there is more truth than poetry in this honest and accurate statement of
the facts of the case. The commission is on record, therefore, in favor of the
restriction of immigration from the nonguota American countries, especially
from Mexico, so long as we continue to restrict ‘‘the more desirable types”
from Europe——a policy we have no intention of weakening, since it is contributing
go greatly to our national welfare. The Business Men’s Commission has thus
get up a test which it would seem wise for the American people and their Congress
to give serious consideration to, for why should we restrict the more desirable
types while admitting the less desirable ones? If it is necessary to restrict the
former, is it not even more necessary to restrict the latter?
The migration of Mexicans to this country first had its effect in the border
States so that in 1900 statistics show that Texas had a population of 71,062
Mexicans; while Arizona had 14,172; California, 8,096, and New Mexico, 6,647.
No other State in the Union had nore than 500. Thus there were only about
100,000 Mexicans in the United States in 1900. This number has been steadily
increasing until it is now variously estimated at from two to two and one-half
millions. Congressman Albert Johnson stated in an address in New York City
on November 9, 1929, that he believed the next census would show that there
were fully 3,000,000 Mexicans in the United States. They are not confined to
the Southwest. Chicago has its own “Little Mexico” and is known as a distribution
 point for Mexican labor. The Mexicans are displacing the negroes in
the stock-yards. In Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Gary the steel mills are full of
them. St. Louis, Toledo, and other cities have great numbers of them: They
are found in the railroad construction gangs of New York, Pennsylvania, and
other northern and eastern States. According to Mr. Alfred P. Thom, on 73,918
miles of main railway tracks in the Southwestern and Western States in normat
times an average of 41,376 Mexicans in a total of 65,389 section and extra gang
laborers, or 63 per cent, are employed by the railroads.
Recently an investigation was made to determine the distribution of Mexicans
in the United States by tabulating the postal money orders sent by them to relatives
 in Mexico. It appears that in 1926 Mexican immigrants sent money home
from every State, with the exception of Maine, Vermont, and the Carolinas,
These money orders went from 94 American cities with a population of more than
25,000 and from 1,417 communities of less than 25,000. In 1926 the Mexican
embassy set the figure of Mexicans in the United States at 890,418 and in the same
year the Department of Labor estimated the figure at 1,000,000. Since that time
fully 200,000 Mexicans have entered the country through legal channels. How
many have waded the Rio Grande is a matter of conjecture, for many Mexicans
prefer to enter without the formality of passing through the immigration office
for the simple reason that the head tax and several other charges are high, to say
nothing of their ability—or rather inability—to pass the literacy test. The
Mexican immigrant usually has a considerable family and the tax is an item which
can not always be easily paid. Many Mexicans, who state to our immigration
officials that they wish to cross the border merely to shop in American stores,
simply fail to return to Mexico. It seems to he thus that many of them enter
this country illegally. .
One may be surprised to read that the following towns and cities are in Texas
rather than in Mexico. The facts indicate that Ysleta, San Elizario, Socorro,
Cuadrilla, Tornillo, Alamo Alto, Polvo and La Piedra are all Mexican. El Paso
is 70. per cent and Brownsville 65 per cent Mexican. Clint and Fort Hancock are
two-thirds, and Fabens is three-fourths Mexican. These towns are not in Mexico!
The same conditions exist in southern California. One-third of the population of
Imperial Valley is Mexican and aceording to Dr. Paul 8. Taylor, ‘“ Mexicans are
now inextricably a part of the social and economic life of the community.” Ina
recent brief survey of Mexicans in the United States’’ conducted by Miss Linna
E. Bresette of the staff of the Social Action Department of the National Catholic
Welfare Conference, it is stated that the number of Mexican immigrants in this
country ‘is now variously estimated at from two to two and one-half millions.”
According to this survey “the five Southwestern States visited have a Mexican
population estimated as follows: Texas, 555,000; California, 350,000; New Mexico,
180,000; Colorado, 70,000; Arizona, 60,000. No longer, however, can it be said
that the Mexicans are confined to the Southwest. There is hardly a State
where they have not penetrated. Even a considerable number are in Alaska.
The Secretary of Labor says, ‘ We estimate that more than 1,000,000 Mexicans
are Meoallv in this country.’ Some of those working with Mexicans say that for