The daily morning oasis., 1919-10-04
MOTIVES WERE THE SAME


onlabor one day recently, Samuel Gompers, pres
ident of the American Federation OF Labor calle(
attention to the fact that the really radical elemen
in the ranks of organized labor were imported iron
Europe by capital; and by inference the pont wa
drawn in the minds Of all that in facing the lmpera
tive demands of workingmen today capital IS racing
a monster of it's own levitation.
The same point has been made time and again
in the past twenty years; and there is great oea
of force in it. Yet the same practice is taking place
right at the door here in Nogaes in the hundreds OF
Mexican laborers imported from Sonora and Smalola
to work in the cotton fields Of the Salt River Valley
in Arizona, and Imperial Valley in California; and IN
the sugar beet fields Of both states.
And what else can be done? There are the
great areas in the two states fitted by the bounty OF
Nature to yield great and valuable crops, which can
not be planted cultivated and harvested without
large and unfailing supply Of labor, which is not
available right at hand To realize and conserve the
potential wealth latent in those lands their owners
turn naturally in the direction where there is to be
secured the labor needed-the West Coast OF Mexico;
and they have perfected an organization with agents
and managers which engages laborers by scores and
hundreds to come to the United States and supply
the physical exertion that is needed to produce the
results desired.
That was the same argument that brought the
Chinese to California. It has been said frequently
and with truth, no doubt-that had there not been
available across the Pacific vast reservoir OF hui
man labor from which to draw, the first transcontn-
entail railway could not have been built soon as 1t
was done by twenty years. ct after it was built
and white labor rode to California upon the rails laid
by Chinese the latter found to be decidedly OBJ
jectionable; and there tremendous agitation
against them, which resulted in Chinese exclusion
enactmentS.
And, going way back to the early history Of the
country it the imperative need Of unskilled labor
to till the rice and cotton fields of the South and to
help conquer the wilderness that spread all over the
Atlantic seaboard four centuries ago. the motive
tive and excuse for the African slave trade, which
thrived and flourished through three centuries,
brounght great war, leaving endless legacy
of evil some of the malefic results which torment
the people of the United States yet today.
Those who imported cheap and unskiIled labor
from southern Europe to develop and operate coal
and iron mines blast furnaces, etc., in Pennsylvania
Michigan, Ohio, Colorado and other states, ac
tuated by the same motives the cotton growers
of the Salt River Valley today as were the builders
of the Central Pacific Railroad by the sponsors and
operators of the African slave trade. There was
work that had to be done and there had to be large
forces needed and were not to be had without going
to Europe for them.
There is difference, however, between the un-
skilled labor coming into Arizona and California
and those vast mportations of unskied labor in for
mer years and other generations: The unskled la
bOrer coming from Mexico now comes under supervis
ion and regulation by the federal government, for
limited PERIOD only ,and his importer gives bond for
his deportation when the PERIOD shall have passed.
What deal of trouble would have been saved had
that been the system always.
Us S E g5 Is 81
The cats out of the bag, and it's the same old
story of gouge The general public slipped up on
buying most of the army food supplies because
wholesalers had scopped them up and resOld them to
the retail trade at enormous profits And our iailS