It was the trading of the misery in one country with the misery on our side. It led to my introducing the first minimum wage bill in the history of the Texas Legislature. I set a minimum of 40 cents because I had gone out to the fields and had seen these foreign workers. these aliens. braceros. protected by two powerful governments. to earn no less than 50 cents an hour while Texans. native Texans who happened to be of the same ethnic descent as the alien laborers working side by side with him in the cottonfields. in the other areas. in the plucking of those white bolls and the construction of highways. in the erection of the skyscrapers. much of their sweat and much of their blood went into that construction. but here was a native Texas worker earning as little as 26 cents an hour. unprotected by any of our political entities. while the alien bracero was guaranteed 50 cents. So I thought. well. 40 cents certainly nobody would object. I was immediately assailed.
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alien laborers