Speech #880049905

I would like to read this editorial into the RECORD. The editorial is entitled "Hired Hands." and I quote: A most Impressive list of clergymen. labor leaders and farm spokesmen have joined in petitioning Congress to put an end to Public Law 78 which. for more than a decade. has authorized and regulated the importation of Mexican farm laborers. known as braceros. for seasonal employment on American farms. We think that they are right in asserting that this foreign contract labor program. based on substandard wages. has operated to depress the earnings and the working conditions of American farm labor. There was sound justification for the enactment of Public Law 78 in 1951 when there was an acute farm labor shortage resulting from the Korean war. The legislation served usefully to limit outrageous exploitation of workers who came into this country iilegally from Mexico.