in many cases public charges and are even driven to criminal acts in order to gain a livelihood for themselves and their families. Dr. Thomas Nixon Carver, professor of economics at Harvard University, recently studied this question. In an address a few weeks ago before the members of the agricultural extension service of California at their annual conference held at the University of California, in Berkeley, Doctor Carver stated that his investigations had led him to the conclusion that the continued importation of cheap labor actually makes conditions worse for the average farmer in the Southwest, who has to depend on his own labor for profit. The small American farmer, he said, was unable to compete with this peon labor employed by a few of the larger agricultural interests. The bringing in of cheap Mexican labor brings the same situation in agriculture in California as slavery did in the South before the Civil War," said the doctor. "Slavery in the South," he said, "drove a wedge that raised those who were able to buy slaves to do their work, but lowered those who had to sell their labor to compete with that of the slaves. It made aristocrats above the wedge and poor white trash below. The same thing is likely to happen in California." continued Doctor Carver, "and the introduction of Mexican peon labor will bring a problem far worse than that caused by the introduction of Chinese and Japanese. It is time California is waking up to this fact." "If there were not enough farmers," he said, "the trend would be from the city to the country. However, it is well known that it is in the other direction. In the city the farmer boy has to compete with the immigrant labor and the problem is aggravated again by a competition with cheap labor." So, if we say that the European immigrant who does not understand the ways and who is not willing to maintain the standards created by the American workingmen is a menace to our institutions, surely we should be consistent enought to say that even to the Republic of Mexico. Just as in the Eastern States, where the claims were for years that the great menace of the European immigrant must be stopped, and finally was curtailed, so it is in the territory along our southern border that an identical problem has been created and has existed for years, and we, the wage earners of California, are asking that Mexico be placed on the quota basis in exactly the same manner as the other nations of the earth. In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I want to read a few extracts from the annual report of the Commissioner General of Immigration for 1927. The CHAIRMAN. Suppose, Mr. Dowell, you do not read that but insert it in the record. You may put in any part you desire as part of your remarks. Will that be satisfactory to you? Mr. DOWELL. Yes; that will be satisfactory. Thank you very much. (The excerpts from the annual report of the Commissioner General referred to are as follows:) With few exceptions, all the aliens coming from south of the Rio Grande are of the Mexican race, and all the Mexicans admitted are natives of Mexico. During the fiscal year 1927 a total of 81,722 aliens, born in Mexico, were admitted to the United States, and of this number 77,155 entered the country under section 4 (c) of the immigration act of 1924. Of the 80,639 Mexican aliens admitted during the past year, 80,499 were natives of Mexico and 76,657 entered the United States under section 4 (c) of the act. If the quota limitations applied to Mexico her annual allotment, based on 2 per cent of the 77,853 natives of Mexico in this country in 1890, would be 1,557. * * * In last year's annual report reference was made to the fact that 486,418 persons born in Mexico were resident of the United States as shown by the census of 1920; that since then the net increase of Mexicans through immigration was 369,480, making a grand total of 855,898 Mexicans then in the United States, to say nothing of the number of such aliens who presumably have entered since 1920 through other than the regular channels. The estimate then made of a resident population of over 1,000,000 Mexican aliens is believed to understate the situation rather than overstate it. * * * ALIEN INMATES OF PENAL INSTITUTIONS, INSANE ASYLUMS, HOSPITALS, AND POORHOUSES During the month of January, 1927, a survey was made of institutions of the character indicated in the caption hereof situated within continental United States, Alaska, Honolulu, and Porto Rico, to determine the number of alien inmates in such institutions. Prisons, penitentiaries, and jails were found to contain 45,193; insane asylums and other institutions for the care of such cases were found to contain 37,470; hospitals and sanitaria were found to contain 14,383; and poorhouses 16,059; a total of 113,105. The economic loss represented by these figures is appalling. Each alien considered economically is less than zero; he is a distinct liability. The amount of money expended annually to support these aliens would equip and maintain a fair-sized standing army. The memorandum handed me by the statistician for the Bureau of Immigration, Department of Labor, shows that 889,000 Mexicans crossed the border in the Los Angeles district last year, and of these only 4,229 were legally admitted. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Dowell, the committee thanks you very much for your valuable statement. Are there any other witnesses here? (After a pause.) I think you had in mind, Senator Stephens, a witness, but I understand he did not wish to appear to-day? Senator STEPHENS. I think some gentlemen left word at my office. The CHAIRMAN. I take it he may be expected to appear later? Senator STEPHENS. I have never seen him. The CHAIRMAN. There are a great many people who want to appear at these hearings and wish to be heard. All I have done in respect to that is to say that everybody will have the opportunity to be heard, if there is anything in reality to say to the committee; that there was no disposition on our part to rush the thing, and that there should be full and complete hearings. In this connection, I am advised that the House is to have hearings beginning the middle of this month and that various people are coming to attend those hearings. What would be the pleasure of the committee as to our future proceedings? Senator KEYES. I should think it would be very desirable to have our hearings at the same time; I think it would be a convenience to a great many of the witnesses. I assume there are a considerable number to appear from a distance. The CHAIRMAN. If I ascertain when they are going to be here, and then call a meeting for the time when they will all be here; will that be satisfactory to you? Senator STEPHENS. It is agreeable to me. The CHAIRMAN. Personally, I would like to have the department representatives down here. Senator HARRIS. The department is represented here to-day. Senator BLEASE. Whatever arrangements the chairman makes will be satisfactory to me. The CHAIRMAN. We are dealing with a subject of some importance, and you can see from the list of protestants there are some rather interesting features. Here is a list of protestants from the State of California, who cover civic organizations, of two pages; and from outside the State they run all around-California, Arizona, etc. So that we will let this thing ride along then until we ascertain about these others who wish to appear. STATEMENT OF H. A. AUSTIN, SECRETARY BEET SUGAR ASSOCIATIONS, WASHINGTON, D. C. Mr. AUSTIN. If you will pardon me, I am secretary of the beet sugar associations. The hearings by the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization are to begin on February 16 for those in favor of the Box bill, and on the 23d, I think it is, for this opposed I was going to say, with your permission, that the suggestion comes right along the line that a good many of our people are coming down to attend those hearings and are coming from points scattered all over the country. So if you can hold hearings contemporaneously it will kill two birds with one stone. The CHAIRMAN. I think that is very wise, so that they can appear here at the same time. Mr. AUSTIN. Thank you. The CHAIRMAN. Is there anything else? Senator HARRIS. Would the department representatives like to be heard this afternoon? Commissioner HULL. Not this afternoon. The CHAIRMAN. Is there anything further? (After a pause.) If not, we will stand adjourned to meet at the call of the chair. (Whereupon, at 2.55 o'clock p. m., the committee adjourned to meet at the call of the chairman.) RESTRICTION OF WESTERN HEMISPHERE IMMIGRATION MONDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1928 UNITED STATES SENATE, COMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION, Washington, D. C. The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10 o'clock a. m., in the committee room of the Committee on Military Affairs of the Senate, Capitol Building, Hon. Hiram W. Johnson presiding. Present: Senators Johnson (chairman), Keyes, Willis, Reed, Gould, Harris, and Blease. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will kindly come to order. We have met this morning for the purpose of hearing certain witnesses in reference to the bill of Senator Harris, entitled "To subject certain immigrants born in countries of the Western Hemisphere to the quota under the immigration laws." These witnesses have come from a distance, gentlemen, and therefore I have been very glad to accommodate them as best we can and to consult their convenience. Representative Garner, however, is anxious to open this morning's proceedings with a statement and we will be very glad indeed to hear him. STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN N. GARNER, REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS Representative GARNER. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I am obliged to you for the courtesy, which I understand met with the approval of some of the gentlemen here from a distance; and I will only occupy the floor for a few moments. I appear only because of the intense interest that the people I represent have in this legislation. I happen to represent a territory bordering on Mexico about 400 miles with the meanderings of the river, embracing two rather large counties in area and some of them large in population. The people there are intensely interested, as I say, in this problem because the passage of this bill would, in my judgment, very materially retard the development of that particular region. In fact, I think, economically speaking, that it would be disastrous for probably a decade, or a good portion of it, before we could adjust ourselves to the conditions that would prevail if you excluded what we call seasonal Mexican labor. I think I will just mention two or three reasons why I stand against this legislation as advocated by Senator Harris of Georgia and my colleague from Texas, Representative Box. I had the opportunity of appearing before the House Committee a few days on this bill, 17 and if any gentleman desires to get a more extended view of the situation, of course, those hearings are available. If I understand the proponents of this measure, their principal reason for asking its passage is economic and social. Now I would like to address myself to those two propositions just for a moment. I have lived in Texas along the border-about 50 miles from the border-some 35 years. I have represented those people in Congress for about 25 years. I have had occasion to come in contact with the situation in that entire period, and I say to you frankly that so far as the social conditions are concerned that the present situation has not been detrimental to our territory. I made the statement the other day and I make it now, and challenge any one who is advocating this bill to assert the contrary, that the social conditions of the Mexicans in our territory at the present time are better than they have been in the history of the State. They have better food and more of it; they have better clothing; they have a better place to inhabit, better houses, than they have had in the history of the State. I do not know what you call social conditions, unless those three things contribute to make a better people, and better social conditions. As to the economic effect of this law so far as our territory is concerned, it has not in the least depreciated labor, that is to say, lowered the standard of labor existing in that territory. The proportion of population in the district I have the honor to represent and I am speaking now of my particular district because I do not want to speak of Chicago, or other places where the proponents of the measure claim it is a social question as well as an economic question, because I am not acquainted there. But the proportion of Mexicans in the territory that I represent is much. smaller now than it was when I was elected to Congress. The increase in population, from 200,000 to something like 400,000, since the last apportionment by Congress, which I recall now was 1910, has been 90 per cent of it what we call American citizenship— non-Mexican citizenship. It consists very largely of people who have come from the Middle West, the West, and quite recently, a number of them from the South. Our principal population, which increased in the beginning of this decade 10 years ago, came largely from the Middle West and Northwest. We sometimes affectionately and facetiously called them "snow diggers" down our way. landowners down there, desiring to develop the country, bought their land cheap and wanted to sell it at the highest price possible. They would go up north into Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, and that territory to persuade people to come down there in the wintertime, when snow was up North and when the vegetables, corn and things of that kind were growing in the valley; and that constituted a large proportion of our increase in population during the last 20 years. I can mention two counties down there on the border that have increased in taxing values in the past two decades from $3,000,000 to $88,000,000. That increase would not have been brought about if we had had the immigration quota to apply to Mexico. Our The seasonal Mexicans in my territory do a kind of labor that no others are going to do, at least, no white man will do we have very few negroes in our territory; and I want some one who is in favor of |