Speech #710182584

I would remind those who use that argument. first. that the beetsugar industry of Europe is far greater than our own. and. furthermore. that sugar beets are produced in Australia and in New Zealand and in Canada by people exactly similar. from a physical and racial point of view. to our own people in this country. I call attention further to the fact that before 1908 the beetsugar industry was able to exist without any Mexican labor to speak of. and. as I said a few moments ago. Mexican immigration will cease in any event as soon as stable -conditions exist in the Mexican Republic. The immigration which is coming into this country from Mexico is not coming chiefly from the arid or the depressed or the infertile parts of Mexico. It is not coming from the northern States. as many people imagine. It is coming principally from the three States of Guanajuato. Jalisco. and Michoacanthree States of the central Mexican plateau. the mesa countrywith one of the most delightful and fertile climates in the world. with marvelously productive soil. without a large population to cultivate it. That is where the Mexican immigration is coining from. .and the reason why it Is coming from those States is because political conditions have been unsettled. because the religious dissensions have been more intense in those States than they have in other parts of Mexico. As soon as a general settiement of conditions in that country comes about. we shall in any case see a cessation of Mexican immigration. and the business interests of the West and the Southwest and the great railroad systems in that part of the country which today depend almost entirely for unskilled labor on Mexican immigration will have to make some other arrangement. and the sooner they make it the better for all concerned. The Republic of Mexico has only 15.000.000 people to carry on its tremendous resources. to develop its great country. As soon as stable economic and political conditions are restored down there. that population is going to be needed at home. Mr. President. for these reasons I have always been a proponent of restricting Mexican immigration. At the present time. with the unemployment in this country reaching figures which we do not know accurately. but which may reach up to something like 5.000.000. it seems as if the time has come immediately to lay down the bars. I say this with every sympathy for the Mexican people and for the Mexican Government. I say. and I think every Senator on this floor will agree with me. that we have to look out for the interests of our own people first. In the long run. I believe the restriction of immigration will be to the advantage of the Mexican people as well as our own. But. Mr.