Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1943-02-05
WNU Service, 1343 H Street, NV,
Washington, d. C..

What has happened to the scheme
for bringing Mexican labor into the
United States to help fill the gap
left by the drain which industry and
the draft have made on the farm?
In trying to get an answer to that
question l turned up some rather
interesting data which l wish to SUBJ
NIT as an answer to that slur on our
fair city that you hear frequently
these days: washington is a mad
house." 1t may at least explain what
makes the wild cat wild.
l first went to an official in one
of the war agencies with my query
about Mexican labor. He is very
energetic, sincere worker, an anti
New Dealer, who is here trying to
do his share to win the war. l am
not permitted to use his name. He
said:
Somebody in our government with
lot of high ideals went to the
Mexican government and made an
agreement to send Mexican laborerS
to the United States. They arranged
to have contract which would deal
with each laborer as a free agent
and put in all sorts of conditions
which the farmer who had to hire
him had to agree to, including hous-
ing, transportation, and minimum
per diem rate.
But instead of sending over ex-
perienced farm laborers the Mexican
government gathered together a lot
of ne'er-do-wells and hoboes. 1t
didn't work. In fact, the farmers got
less help than usual. The trouble
was that before the social-conscious
officials took a hand the American
farmers had been making contracts
with padrones (bosses) who got the
money and the workers, established
the working conditions and paid the
workers as they saw fit. They
brought in trained workers and they
made them work. But the starry
eyed members of the Mexican and
American governments wouldn't
hear of making use of the padrone
system"
That sounded very bad to me, so
I called up the offices of Senator
Downey of California and Senator
Mcfarland of Arizona, who are
members of a special committee
holding hearings in California and
New Mexico on this question of i'm
ported farm labor.
Success Reported
Senator Downey was still in Cali
forrio hut bic oHS orfI,,,cio cfic
I was told about how successful the
use of this imported Mexican labor
had been under the governments
plan, in the beet industry, how it
worked in the great guayle rubber
fields of which 100000 acres have
been planted as part of our home
grown rubber program. How the
senator was arranging with the state
department for the admission of
more foreign labor.
Then I talked with Senator Nc
Farland. He said he would go along
with Senator Downey in some of
the things but not all. He said the
farmers complaint in Arizona was
that they got neither the quantity
nor the quality of workers they want
ed. Cotton and dairy workers are
their chief needs. He said that some
of the farmers wouldn't sign a con-
tract which the American govern
ment required. All protested against
it. The objection was to the clause
which established a minimum daily
wage. The farmers said that the
worker came out to the field in the
morning, picked until he wanted to
quit and then weighed in. But in
order to be sure he had worked
his minimum hours it was necessary
to have a timekeeper and a book
keeper to check on his time and the
whole process was too expensive.
Long-Staple Cotton
He said, on the whole, that the
Arizona farmer didn't get as many
workers as needed and didn't get as
good ones as he had expected.
On the department of agriculture
program for the next year there is
a quota of 100000 acres of long
staple cotton. One hundred thousand
acres are allotted to Arizona. Nor
mally, we import most of our long
staple cotton from abroad.
Senator McF said that unless
some solution of the farm labor
problem was reached, unless the
present contract was modified and
the Arizona farmers were assured
more and better hands at lower
cost, they wouldn't be able to invest