WESTERN HEMISPHERE IMMIGRATION 443

“The competition of Mexican labor in every walk in life is so intense that
no room or opportunity exists for the American who wants to work for sufficient
wages to support himself and family. This is resulting in this country being
almost taken over by the Mexican citizens, because the American can not compete
 with the low wages of the Mexican.
“Mexican labor has enabled large landholdings to be held intact and prevents
the coming into this part of the State of individual farmers. The development
of every community along the border is in direct proportion to the number of
Americans residing therein. The lower Rio Grande Valley has developed more
rapidly than any other section of Texas for the reason that the land was cut up
there and sold in small parcels to people from the North and East. In this
particular section (Laredo) the land is still held in large tracts, and there is
practically no agricultural development worthy of consideration.
“It is my opinion that cheap labor is doing more to withhold prosperity from
the farmers than any other one thing. To illustrate: The farmer who is raising
corn, cotton, or cattle paying a dollar a day for labor can only expect that amount
for the labor he puts into his own operations.
“The permitting of a great amount of labor to come into this country from
Mexico is not only a hardship to this country but it is retarding the growth of
Mexico, which ought to be developed into one of our best markets. As long as
the labor of Mexico can come freely into this country, then Mexico will not make
further efforts to develop her own resources to take care of that labor.”
Probably the biggest deception and concealment of real motives ever attempted
 on the American people is the argument that it is necessary to go to
Mexico for laborers. Is the Mexican peon industrious except when driven to it?
Is Mexico an industrious country? With all of its natural resources, is it not
rather one of the most destitute lands on the face of the earth? The fact seems
to be that only three or four out of a hundred Mexicans will work steadily for
any given length of time, the rest will work just enough to keep from starving
to death, if they can not drive their women and children to support them. The
usual proposition is that they are easily robbed and exploited when they first
come into this country. Being scared, submissive, and ignorant, they tend to
work in a dumb, incompetent way for awhile until they learn better. The
evidence seems to préve that those who are really worth their salt soon get wise
and journey to the interior where wages are better in the industries employing
unskilled labor. The others tend to settle in the cities and towns of the Southwest
 where they soon become an economic and social burden on the community.
It is then necessary for the employers and exploiters of these Mexicans to get
another lot of green ones to come into the Southwest. Here seems to be the real
reason for the insatiable demand for more and more peon jimmigrants—the
exploiters and employers of cheap labor must have more victims. If this be true,
and there seems to be no other fundamentally sound basis to explain the existing
condition, then we can expect the movement to continue so long as victims are
available, cost the American people what it will For these exploiters are shouting
 it from the roof tops that they will fight all the efforts which are being made to
prevent them from lowering the American standard of living and lessening the
prosperity of our country. It is the struggle of a little willful group seeking to
prosper at the expense of the American people.
On September 23, 1929, a group of men opposed to the restriction of Mexican
immigration met in El Paso to devise means of combating such restriction. The
manager of a Texas chamber of commerce frankly confessed, * We have spent a
lot of money fighting the Box bill, which I do not think is going to do us any
good.” Others suggested fighting for exceptions and the working out of a plan
to be incorporated into the law whereby they can continue to import seasonal
agricultural labor, thereby indirectly nullifying the benefits of the restrictive
legislation when it is enacted. Thus they hope to accomplish indirectly what they
are forced to acknowledge even now they can not do directly, for by their words
and deeds they confess to a knowledge of the fact that their fight is a hopeless
one against the determined efforts of the American people to close the back door.
Those persons issuing propaganda to the effect that there is a real shortage of
unskilled labor for agricultural and other purposes in the Southwest seem to be
quite innocent of any understanding of the economic principles involved,’ as
is illustrated by their statements of the facts. They make claims and evolve
theories that the Americans are unwilling to do unskilled, manual labor; that
farming is “dirty” work which has suddenly become repulsive to Americans;
that Americans for some reason or other no longer are able to stand the climate
of the Southwest. despite the fact that they have been doing so for years: that