The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-06-06

oNA O4ASCAs . AOAAA 4V to 50 per cent were repatriated- no one knows for sure just what the figure is-and the rest went on re- lief, giving the entire southwest a rural slum population that has been nothing short of an international scandal. The aliens couldn't be hired by WPA, so the full relief burden fell on local and state governments. The Mexican government was angry and has stayed that way. Mexico today is therefore reluctant to per- init its citizens to cross the border to take war jobs in the U. S., po- sition strengthened by Mexico's declaration of war on Germany. The Mexicans may decide they need all their manpower at home and re- fuse to permit any labor migration, which would be good thing for all concerned.
 The importation of Mexican labor simply does not make sense. A re- cent WPA sampling survey indi- cated reserve labor supply of 13 million people willing to do farm labor. There are still four million unemployed in the country. The WPA rolls have 100000 and the law is that if anyone on WPA is offered job, he must take it or be drop- ped.
 STILL
 SCREAMING
 Early this year, WPA employment men went through every agricultur- al county in the country, explain ing to farmers that all they had to do was make known their require- mentS for farm labor. That stopped the usual summer complaints that farmers couldn't get help because everyone preferred to work for WPA but the big employers of migrant farm labor are still screaming.
 As far as the sugar beet states are concerned, WPA rolls as of May l9 were as follows: Illinois 52OOO, Colorado 62OOO, Colorado 62OO New Mexico 6400, Idaho 290O and southern California 13,0OO. Michigan alone seems to have solved its sugar beet problem, by bringing in sur- plus labor from Texas, which has 46, 900 on WPA.
 It therefore appears that the big farm companies employing most of the migrant labor don't just want an adequate labor SUD- ply. What they want is a labor surplus so that wages can be knocked down to the old depres- sion levels. And there is a hope that Mexican peon labor, which will work for 20 cents an hour can be imported to keep these wages down.
 The U. s. Employment Service was recently handed a hoe when it was federalized by Presidential order and told to do something about this threatened farm labor shortage, but 1t got on the job a little late. On May IS the USES therefore certified to the Immi- grafton Service that unless some of the Japanese farm labor fores could be released, 1t would be nec- essagy to bring into the country to handle the sugar beet crop 5000 workers for California, 1900 for Montana and 1900 for Idaho, The buck was then passed to the new War ManpoWer Commission, which asked the State Department if 4 would not approach the Meyieen government on the subject of fuF- nishing these 5000 workers,
 A BIG TEST
 The Tolan committee Of the House Of Representatives, Investigating pa. tional defense labor migration, hai held ore closed hearing on thll subject of Mexican labor, the Rt Rev, MsgF, John 0'6Fady, secretary 0f the National Conference of Cath ollie Charities, making the pTinelpal statement, MoEsigDop 00rady bai been interested tD the welfare Ol the three million MegleaDs aglf Rpanishs Americans ef the south west for q nnmbeF Of years, It ' his studied opinion that there ' ample farm labor in the seutbWe6l 10 take of all the crops 0f tbl western states and that fuFtheT il1l' migration Of Mexican lab0F Is total " unnecessary,
 The T0lan committee, in . pre-, liminaTy report, has put this Wh0ls farm labor rHUDlRDl right np ts the ManpeWeP Commission aHf lbe Employment service, TeeoHl' msDdlng . complete OYeTballllnf 0f the federal farm plAeenleDl DlaeliDerg, solving this farm lAl boV problem immediately E tbl