STATEMENT OF E. F. HECKMAN, LABOR SUPERINTENDENT, AMERICAN BEET SUGAR CO., DENVER, COLO.

There has been a great deal said as to why Mexican laborers have penetrated the manufacturing section in the North and East. A study of Mexican immigration statistics, I believe, will throw some light on this subject.

Prior to 1920 the labor which performed work in the beet territories from Ohio to Colorado and Montana, was composed almost entirely of European and American labor. This labor was practically all moved from industrial centers in the North.

Due to the emigration from this country to Europe after the war, this so-called European and American labor supply was very greatly diminished. For instance, emigrant aliens departing for Europe in 1919 amounted to 84,531. This number was increased in 1920 to 256,433, and in 1921 215,245 left this country for Europe. During the period from 1920 to 1924, before the present immigration law placing European countries on the quota basis was adopted, the immigrant aliens admitted from Europe ranged between 215,000 and 650,000 annually. During the year 1925, when the quota law had taken full effect, the immigrant aliens admitted from Europe had fallen to 143,366, which was not sufficient to take care of the increased demands of industry and agriculture.

The great numbers who left the farms to go into industrial centers to take advantage of the high wages which prevailed during the war period and the number of young men who were drafted into the Army and upon their return failed to return to the farm, further accentuated the situation.

On account of this shortage, it was found necessary in 1920 for not only the beet-sugar companies but manufacturing plants in the North and East to find a supply of labor to replace the Europeans and Americans who had formerly engaged in this work, and the many Americans who had left the farms for industrial centers.

Texas being the closest place where labor suitable to do this work was available, it was but natural that these industries should seek that market for their requirements.

The figures of the Bureau of Immigration show that the number of Mexicans who had entered this country from 1910 to 1920 averaged approximately 17,000 persons per annum.

In the year 1920 labor was in great demand in all sections of the country, and the Mexicans being cognizant of this fact, sought employment here in much larger numbers. For instance, Mexican immigration increased from 28,844 in 1919 to 51,042 in 1920. The following year, 1921, being a year of industrial depression, we find that only 29,603 Mexicans entered the United States, which shows that the economic condition of this country and the demand for labor, whether it be great or small, governs very largely the number of Mexicans entering this country to seek employment. This statement is borne out by the fact that in 1922, the year following the depression, only 18,246 entered as compared to 29,000 and 51,000, respectively, the two preceding years.

In 1923, after we had again returned to normal conditions and employment was on the upgrade, we found that on account of the great demand for labor, 62,709 Mexicans entered the country that year.

Due to the fact that labor of European birth was returning to Europe in large numbers, diminishing the labor supply, the steel mills, railroads, and manufacturing plants found it necessary to ship trainloads of labor out of Texas, shipping this labor into the steel and other industries in and around Chicago, Davenport, Milwaukee, Gary, points in Michigan, and as far east as Pittsburgh.

During the year 1924, when industrial prosperity reached its peak, and labor was in greater demand, 87,648 Mexicans entered this country as shown by the figures of the Bureau of Immigration.

The thought that I am trying to convey to the committee is that in 1923, when the steel companies, railroads, tanneries, and manufacturing plants in the North and East found it necessary to go to Texas for their labor, and the Mexicans knowing this condition existed, it was but natural that the influx of this class of labor from across the border should greatly increase, and inasmuch as industries continued in a prosperous state in 1924, when all labor that possibly could be secured was absorbed, this labor was received very cordially by all industries who were then greatly in need of this class of common workers.

The year 1924 shows the greatest number of Mexicans entering the United States. There are two reasons for this: The great demand for common labor

and the lack of supply from Europe caused by the passage of the present immigration law which placed Europe and other countries on the quota basis.

It must also be remembered that the condition stated above existed prior to the placing of the head tax and visa fee upon immigrants from the Western Hemisphere. We find that in 1925, after this law became effective, the immigration from Mexico decreased to a very considerable extent, dropping to 32,378, as compared to 87,648 during the previous year, notwithstanding the fact that favorable economic conditions continued.

During the year 1926, 42,638 Mexicans entered this country and in 1927 there were 66,776. While there was a considerable increase in the latter year, it is attributable to a very large degree to the fact that a great many religious refugees came over the border and have continued to do so up to this date.

The fact that during the years 1925, 1926, and 1927 Mexican immigration decreased very materially from the years 1923 and 1924, shows that the demand for this labor due to the economic conditions of the country, governed the flow of immigrants from Mexico, and that when industrial conditions warrant, the Mexicans leave their own country to seek employment here, and when periods of depression or lack of demand for labor exists, the Mexicans remain south of the border, and those in the north return in great numbers. This is shown by the figures previous to 1920, when the average of only 17,000 entered annually. This, I think, will answer the questions that are raised relative to the great increase in Mexican population in the North and East.

When the beet-sugar companies in the North first started to use Mexican labor these laborers were an unknown quantity, and the companies had no knowledge of their adaptability to the work or their qualities as laborers and residents, and inasmuch as this was an entirely new undertaking, the companies had a great deal to learn about this class of labor. At first they were looked upon by people in the North with doubt as to their ability to do the work which they were called upon to perform, and while it is true that it took the farmers several years to become accustomed to Mexican traits and character, they have now learned to appreciate the Mexicans as efficient and desirable laborers.

In order to assist the Mexican laborer and to protect him in the new setting in which he finds himself, to acquaint him with the working conditions, laws, etc., we have been printing annually a book of instructions and advice, dealing with the various subjects that are necessary to his and the community's good.

Senator KEYES. I have the names here of Colonel Gallagher, C. B. Mattox, and J. C. Bailey.

Mr. AUSTIN. I would like to have Mr. Bailey go on next.

Senator KEYES. Mr. Bailey, give your name, address, and whom you represent to the reporter.

STATEMENT OF J. C. BAILEY, VICE PRESIDENT, HOLLY SUGAR CO., COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO.

Mr. BAILEY. My name is J. C. Bailey, vice president, Holly Sugar Co., Colorado Springs, Colo. I appear for the Holly Sugar Co., which with its affiliated companies embraces an area of substantially 125,000 acres of farm lands devoted to the culture of sugar beets, in eight States, Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, New Mexico, California, and Kansas.

Senator KEYES. May I ask, have you made a statement before the House committee?

Mr. BAILEY. No, sir; I have not.

Three of our factories are operated under United States Government reclamation projects, one factory at Delta, Colo., on the Uncompaghre, another at Sidney, Mont., on the Upper Yellowstone, and the other at Worland, Wyo., on the Big Horn. All of these farm operations are by artificial irrigation. We require 10,000 laborers in addition to the owner of the farm or the tenant, which

approximates one farm laborer to every 10 acres under beet cultivation.

Under existing conditions this extraneous or seasonal labor must be recruited from the Mexican population for the reason that it is not available from other sources. Strictly from an economic point of view, the Mexican laborer is better adapted for this work than any other class. I say this is particularly true of the localities in which our factories operate because he is in the first essential an agrarian who is hardly excelled in farming by irrigation. Thinning and chopping beets is not the easiest work in the world-it is certainly a work that the white laborer will not perform-and here I think it may be said that it is to our credit that our own people have by their own progress and ingenuity passed these menial tasks on to others as long as a good living condition is maintained.

I have mentioned that some of our operations are under the reclamation projects. You will understand that the western farmer is up against the proposition of cultivating large areas if he is to succeed, and consequently requires more labor than the small farmer of the East who operates on a more intensive scale. Any restriction of our labor supply looking to stop the Mexican from entering the United States will seriously cripple these reclamation projects, along with all other beet-sugar operations. We are glad to state that not a single Government project relying upon the growth of beets has failed.

Last year our company sent one of its officers to Europe to study the beet situation. We were surprised to learn that Germany, although in an impoverished state relatively, continues to bring a half million Poles into the beet work annually, returning them to their own country under a treaty arrangement. Before the war that was 800,000 Poles, I understand. This information was furnished through Oscar Revethke at Klein Wanzleden, Germany. This reference is given in case it should be of value to the committee.

We feel like saying that as far as the sugar industry is concerned that we face a condition that may not be solved by any theoretical formula. This hand labor must be done if the farmers are to continue in the business. If conditions arise where the farmer must quit the job, then our investment in these plants of something like thirty millions becomes just so much junk. We are entirely dependent on the farmer. We own very little of the land ourselves. We build the factories in the community and the farmers contribute the beets. Senator KING. How many factories do you operate?

Mr. BAILEY. In 8 States I think it is 12 plants, 1 at Preston, Idaho, you are familiar with, and 1 at Worland, Wyo.

Senator KING. Are those eight plants worth $30,000,000?

Mr. BAILEY. The eight plants and the equipment that goes with them, the entire capitalization is something like $30,000,000 for the various plants.

As it is now we are paying these farmers $6,000,000 annually.

A good deal of concern is shown as to the desirability of the Mexican as a citizen or resident. Having lived among them for 20 years, I feel qualified to make a statement in this regard.

Right there may I say that I was on a ranch when a youngster and worked with Mexicans and rode with them and know their characteristics pretty well. I have lived with those fellows for a long time.

My observation has been that the Mexican people are a patient, docile and law-abiding people who are content to conduct their own community life apart from other races.

We may take Colorado as an instance within easy accessibility to the Mexican frontier, in fact at one time was a part of Mexican territory and populated by Mexican Indians. The census I have which is taken from our yearbook of 1927 shows a population of a million, 800,000 of which are native whites, 110,000 foreign-born whites, 12,000 negroes, the remainder being classified as Indians, Chinese, and Japs. The statistical department compiling the yearbook have not considered it necessary to attempt to segregate the Mexican population. They are included in the whites in that set of figures. The Mexican population is apparently included in the figure used as whites, a more careful segregation would in fact show the Mexican population at something like 10,000. This is called to the attention of the committee as an example of the remote possibility of our own population ever becoming mongrelized through this agency.

I do not believe that the Mexican will interfere in the more skilled trades he lacks the inclination if not the ingenuity to do this kind of work.

I can safely say that we will never consent to any plan that will lower the standard of American living conditions. We are suffering tremendously right now from cheap sugar produced by Jamacian negroes in Cuba and by the Filipinos. There is only one sugar company in the United States to-day on a dividend basis and according to newspaper reports it is paying dividends out of an accumulated surplus rather than from earnings.

A higher tariff is the only thing that will cure this, meanwhile our burden should not be increased by cutting off our labor supply. Thank you, sir.

Mr. AUSTIN. I would now like to introduce Col. T. G. Gallagher, general manager of the Continental Sugar Co., of Toledo, Ohio. Senator KEYES. We will be glad to hear him.

STATEMENT OF COL. T. G. GALLAGHER, VICE PRESIDENT AND GENERAL MANAGER CONTINENTAL SUGAR CO., AND THE HOLLAND-ST. LOUIS SUGAR CO., TOLEDO, OHIO

Senator KEYES. Proceed in your own way, Colonel.

Mr. GALLAGHER. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, our problem in the district of Michigan and northern Ohio, in which our company operates, is somewhat different from the West, because of the fact that we are in a highly developed industrial center, and we have to spend considerable money and considerable time in attempting to get men from the automotive industry, which is the largest industry in our section, out in the beet fields. In doing this we have developed a bonus system or prize system for the beet workers, and endeavor to let them make more money than was possible under the old flat rate contract per acre. That was also done in an endeavor to increase the number of tons of beets grown per acre. Our district is a district of small farms rather than large ones as exist in the West. It occurred to us the solution was to get more beets grown per acre, and this required a better grade of handwork, which was the secret of a large beet yield. We offered every possible inducement to the automotive

workers and also the mine workers in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio who happened to be out of work. Our records show that we succeeded in getting five mine workers when they were working two days a week in the mines. Those we were able to secure only because they had relatives working in the beets, and it was through their relatives we were able to get them. The others frankly told us they would rather work in the mines, and that they would get enough money in two or three days' work to keep them alive where they were living.

That is also true in the automotive industry. When that industry goes slow in that district they lay off their men in groups, so that they get two or three days work per week. The automotive industry does that for no other purpose than holding them over for the automotive industry.

We have gone through the experience in 28 years of getting GermanAmerican beet workers, who are now farmers, either owning or renting farms, through Belgians, Hungarians, Czechoslovakians, Bohemians and finally are forced to get Mexicans.

Senator KEYES. Are you unable to get Canadians, or have you made any effort?

Mr. GALLAGHER. We have not been able to get Canadians, because the Canadian Government at the present time is taking every possible step it can to promote beet agriculture in Essex County, in order to supply a substitute for corn, as a means of fighting the corn borer. That is a pressing question, too, in Ohio, because our beet industry is in that district in which so much money is being spent on the eradication of the corn borer work. And all other problems so far have been approached from the standpoint of the entomologists only, that is, the killing off of the corn borer, it is only a question of time until rotation of crops is necessary to fight the corn borers, because beets like corn is a cultivated crop and beets is the only thing that will supplant corn in that district, we naturally feel there will be a larger acreage of beets raised in Ohio as a result of the corn-borer activities.

Senator KING. May I return to one statement which you made a moment ago in relation to the miners who were out of employment? Are the activities of your companies in the same section in which there are bituminous coal mines?

Mr. GALLAGHER. No, sir. We are in the northwest corner of Ohio, where we have two plants; one plant on the Indian side, just over the Indiana line; and the other plants are up in Michiganthree plants in Michigan. But we go to those bituminous districts in western Pennsylvania and West Virginia and Southern Ohio for labor.

Senator KING. And you have attempted to obtain labor from those sections where the miners were out of employment?

Mr. GALLAGHER. Yes, sir.

Senator KING. And you have managed to get five?

Mr. GALLAGHER. Five in the history of our attempts.

Senator KEYES. How many men do you employ, Colonel Gal

lagher, in the beet industry in your company, approximately? Mr. GALLAGHER. We employ 1,800 men in our plant. Senator KEYES. What proportion of Mexicans?"