Speech #710182584

The Senate listened yesterday afternoon to the junior Senator from Wisconsin . who made a very convincing presentation of the conditions which prevail in the beet fields. The information which I have from many hundreds of citizens of my State coincides in every respect with what the Senator from Wisconsin said on yesterday. In other words. people who have been American citizens for more than 80 years have got to live under conditions which the Mexican immigrant is willing to accept because he can find nothing else to do. The people of New Mexico have always resented the fact that outsiders confuse them with the people of old Mexico. They are Mexicans only in the sense that they formerly formed part of the Mexican Republic. That is. they are Mexicans in the same sense in which the inhabitants of Massachusetts or Virginia are English. and in no other sense. There are many. many thousands of these people who wish for agricultural employment under decent condition and with an American wage scale. They are prevented from obtaining such employment on account of the unfair competition immigration from across the border. Mr. President. how is that situation going to be affected by the pending amendment. suggested by the senior Senator from Wyoming ? I do not wish to take much of the time of the Senate in detailed discussion of this amendment. because I think it has been well handled by the junior Senator from Alabama and the junior Senator from Wisconsin . I can not see how the provisions of thisamendment can possibly be enforced. The Mexican immigration which now comes into the country has become not merely a southwestern problem. The immigrants go up to Montana. they go east to Michigan. and as far as Pennsylvania. There are large settlements of Mexican laborers In the State of Pennsylvania today who are employed semiprofessionally as strike breakers whenever a strike needs to be broken. Under the pending amendment. the Commissioner General of Immigration. together with the Secretary of Labor. may prescribe regulations under which Mexicans can come into the country to take some particular employment. but after they are once here what regulations can guarantee that the Mexicans in this country shall remain in the occupation for which they were imported? I can not conceive how any regulations can affect the right of these men. once in this country. to go where they please. and if any regulations stringent enough to accomAPiL 25. plish that end could be devised by the Secretary of Labor or anyone else. it seems to me it would be simply legalizing a system of peonage which is utterly repugnant to the views of the people of this country. I know the difficulty under which the employers of labor in the Southwest and In the Western States are acting.