Speech #700093065

It was named by Alabama men who fought in the Mexican War to help establish the boundary between Mexico and Texas and thereby preserve and maintain the rights of Texas. Soldiers throughout this land. and especially from the South. volunteered for service it. the Mexican War. and I think it comes with poor grace. when with conditions as they are in this country now. for a few selfish interests in southern and western Texas to attempt to work a hardship upon the descendants of those who formerly helped Texas. by now giving preference to Mexican laborers rather than to American laborers. It is estimated that 75.000 immigrants a year are conming from Mexico and the West Indies. Strict laws have been made to bar the inmigrants of the Old World. The same yardstick should be applied to the immigrants of the New World entering the United States. I visited Mexico last September. but words fail to picture to you the poverty. the disease. the deplorable conditions that I saw. As a rule. when the Mexican immigrants come to this country they are willing to work for low wages. They are ignorant and are restricted in their freedom. thereby they practi ally become semislaves. They create distress wherever they go by undermining and taking the place of native American workers. They cause Americans to move away and help destroy schools. churches. and community life. In the hearing before the Committee on Immigration a Congressman from New England made th statement that inasmuch as thousands of negroes had left the cotton farms did we not need the Mexicans to take their places to grow cotton. He also asked if the white people of the South worked in the cotton fields. My answer is this.