WESTERN HEMISPHERE IMMIGRATION 445

immediate action is necessary if we are going to save the Southwest as an integral
part of the United States. For this section of our country is being rapidly
sacrificed to the greed of an insignificant minority of the population immediately
concerned, to say nothing of the national problems resulting therefrom. The
arrogant arguments and activities of the half dozen or so leaders of this small
minority are a challenge to the fundamental principles of American democracy.
Indeed, this little group has found it necessary, in order to protect their jobs as
lobbyists and propagandists, to resort to autocratic and unscrupulous attacks
upon everyone who dares give voice to the general consensus of opinion, whieh is
contrary to that which they hold. It would seem that American democracy has
failed, if it is possible for a small group of biased and paid propagandists to be
able to defeat legislation essential to the general welfare of our country.
The Locomotive Engineers Journal for April, 1929, comments at some length
upon an advertisement which it says was sent out by the Houston (Tex.) Chamber
of Commerce to all textile mill owners of New England. As quoted by the rail
workers’ publication, the advertisement declares: “Unorganized Mexican labor
in inexhaustible amounts can be secured in Texas for new textile mills, * * *
Houston also has available for textile mills over 7,000 native female workers,
ranging in age from 18 to 44, who retain enough of the democracy of the great
open country to give a day’s work for a day’s pay.”
It is to the credit of a prominent Houston newspaper that it condemned such
an advertisement in these words: ‘‘This is a poor brand of publicity to emanate
from a city where the relations between employers and trade unions have been
for years so amiable, and where the trade-union movement has contributed so
greatly to community development. Factories exploiting alien workers at
starvation wages are a doubtful asset to any community.” . .
On October 25, 1929, the commissioner of labor statistics in Texas issued a
report of the employees and wages of textile mills in Texas. The report of a
cotton mill in San Antonio shows a total of 163 employees, 91 per cent of which are
Mexicans and 9 per cent Americans. The wages of the men are stated as $14.25
per 55-hour week and the women $10.36 for the same work. An El Paso cotton
mill employs 394 persons, 119 men and 275 women, of which 95 per cent are
Mexicans and 5 per cent Americans. The wages of the men are stated as $12.50
per 55-hour week and those of the women $10 for the same week. A Housten
textile mill reports 180 employees, 54 per cent of whom are Mexicans. Wages
per week of 69 hours for men are stated to be $24.63 and for women $14.58. The
report indicates that there seems to be a very general and thorough effort to
hide the employment of Mexicans in textile mills in Texas.
The greatest demand in Texas for Mexicans seems to be in the cotton fields
where they are used to grub and plow the land and to chop and pick the cotton.
Put enough of them into the field, curse them, bully them, cajole and ‘“handle’”
them or better still, put a brutal Mexican straw boss over them, and the land will
be grubbed, plowed, and planted. In picking cotton, let them be as fast or as
slow or as incompetent as they please, for they are paid by the pound. Get
enough of them into the field and the cotton will eventually all be in the sack.
The usual pay seems to be $1 per day for the days they work. Women and
younger Mexicans get less. The average may be $4 a week to the laborer, exeept
in the chopping and picking periods.
In justification of such a starvation wage scale the American employer eommonly
 says, “If I were to pay the Mexican $4 a day, he would work only one day in
the week.” Granting this to be true, is it an argument for the importation of
more of this class of “labor”? It seems to be generally agreed among farmers
of the Southwest that in order to have a steady, continuous day to day one-man
Mexican labor power, it is necessary to have three or four Mexicans available and
on the job, for the peon may get sick, or tired, or have a pain, and lay off at any
hour of the day, hence there must be others to fill in. Although such employers
seem willing to grant that the average value of Mexican labor is only one-third or
one-fourth of white labor, yet it seems to feed one’s vanity and make one feel
lordly to be able to hire a grown man for $1 a day, although he may not be worth
a dime. It seems to be a sort of soporific which blinds one to the actual value
of what one is getting for the money. Furthermore, such employers feel they
ought to have an abundant supply of such labor that is willing to work to select
from. A labor “shortage’ exists if such a surplus to select from is not available.
It seems to be no concern of theirs that the surplus may and in all probability will
become a charge on the public. From this it is evident that there are persons in
Texas and the Southwest who are making money in cotton with this pauper labor,
who claim that they will be ruined if this cheap labor is cut off by restriction.
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