Evening star., 1940-05-06
Migrants Increasing,
Says Miss Perkins,
Urging Help for Them
'Okies' Now an Eastern
Problem; Woee-hour,
Security Benefits Asked
BY BLAIR BOLLES.

country to another by families in
search of jobs and ivings in greener
pastures than their own is on the
increase. Secretary of Labor Perkins
told the Senate Civil Liberties Com
mittee today, and is likely to be on
the increase for some time. Migra-
ton, she said. is now an Eastern
eeaboard as well as a Western
phenomenon, and involves a great
move from the country to the city.
From the point Of view of one
accepting this observation as a fact,
Secretary Perkins offered to the COM
mlttee a program for improving the
social and economic position of the
migrants as migrants-known best
to the public as "okies." She pro-
posed:
l. Our social services should be
made available to those in the
migrant state of life" The Secre-
tary suggested Federal and State
cooperation in this work. She pro-
posed that money be made available
to make the maternal and child well
fare aspects of the social security
laws available to migrants.
2. Wage and hour legislation of
Federal or State governments should
be extended to workers on indus
trialized farms-many of whom are
migrant laborers.
Extend Security Act.
8. "The time has come to think
OF extending all the benefits of the
Social Security Act to agriculture
workers, at least those on indus
trial farms.
4. Produce q definition of the
industrial farm, as differentiated
from the home farm, where the
hired man has a moral claim to
participate in his employers ups
and downs.
5. Extend the provisions of State
Workmen's compensation and gen.
eral accident laws to include agri-
cultural laborers."
While admitting that many of the
migrants apparently could be ex-
pected to stay on the move, in
response to sort of human tide
pull, at the same time Secretary
Perkins said:
Il, myself, see no reason why some
Of these people shouldn't settle. But
they need leadership and they need
good land. They should be assisted,
Nffsho I'd
method of life
She held out the Farm Security
Administration as the creator of
migrant-settlement projects which,
although mot perfect" have con-
tributed toward a solution of the
problem.
Accepts 1t as Inevitable.
The principal offering Secretary
Perkins made to the committee
members - Chairman La Toilette,
Progressive, Of Wisconsin. and SEN
ator Ebert Thomas, Democrat, of
Utah-was her acceptance of mi
grafton as natural, normal and in
evitable.
I'VE ought not to fool ourselves"
she said, into thinking we can
keep people from moving on when
they want to III search of living"
She opened her testimony by read
ing from q report made by her de-
partment on the question of migra-
tory labor in 1867, in response to
q congressional resolution. She
said that her findings were meager
because Congress had not provided
special funds for the study.
On the strength of that report,
however, and on later information
brought to her through her experts,
the Secretary made some general
observations on the incidence and
broad nature of migration:
From 1920 to 1880, about 5000 900
persons moved from the country to
the city to seek industrial oppor-
tunity. When the depression came,
the tide was reversed, and also many
European immigrants returned to
Europe. Now the movement is
changed again, and the migrants
are going from the country to the
city at about three-fifths the rate
they went in 1920-30.
Another aspect of migrant labor
which has attained prominence in
the last few years." the Secretary
said" is the acute problem on the
Eastern Seaboard. This was first
brought to our attention in 1897 by
the labor commissioners of the
States who met here.
Nov it appears there is a regu-
lar migrant group, picking potatoes
from Florida all the way up the
Atlantic coast, most dropping off in
New Jersey, but some going all the
way to Maine.
. There is the same story for straw
berries and for peaches.
! THE movement is intense, but not
30 large as in the West" Nine.
Perkins said.
. The Secretary was in favor of
some migration, because, she said,
In the past many city dwellers had
peen settled in the country on
ground SO unproductive that 1t
fould not possibly care for the needs
pf those tilling It.
She thought that much of the
publicity given to the social and
diving problems Of the 1940 migrants
arose from the fact that they speak
the same language as the rest Of
The people of the United States
and so find a reception for their
stories.
But she said that they are ex-
periencing the same distressing
conditions" suffered by the European
Immigrants Of the past, whose
misery did not become generally
known because they spoke Ian
Suages known only to a few in the
United States.
The Secretary said that while
s'our studies indicate that migrants
tend to receive less money In their
new areas than those already there,
they receive more money than they
received in the areas they left"