you can get under any more or less arbitrary quota provisions. We all realize, of course, that quota provisions must be arbitrary and that none of them can be perfect.

Mr. MACGREGOR. That included the national-origins proposition. The 1924 act included that.

Mr. BURTNESS. Not as this committee reported it, but as an afterthought, written into the bill by the Senate and later approved in the House, at a time when I would take it no one knew exactly how the national-origins provision act would work out, and I do not know whether anyone now knows exactly how they would work out. I have noticed the comments made with reference to it by the three Cabinet officers a year or so ago. I referred to the bill as now operating under the quota based on the 1890 census figures, which I feel it difficult to improve upon.

Theoretically the national-origins provision sounds all right.

Whether

they are practical or not in operation I am not in a position to state definitely, but I doubt it very much. But that is not the question before us now.

The CHAIRMAN. The Chair thinks that we will not go into that. That will undoubtedly be a matter to be brought up here a little later, a separate matter.

Mr. BURTNESS. Mr. SCHNEIDER asked something about the class of people that come in. Just to illustrate by reference to the Canadian immigration for 1927, I find that listed as unskilled there are 20.703; as farmers, 3,709; as farm laborers, 3,663; as common laborers, 7.655; as servants, 4,809; draymen, hackmen, teamsters, and fishermen, 867; commercial, such as agents, bankers, hotel keepers, manufacturers, merchants, and dealers, 1,905; miscellaneous, 1,896; no occupation, mainly women and children, 35,965; skilled, 17,399; professional, 3.638. That indicates the type of work that they are likely to do when they come in here.

Now, with reference to the racial origin of these Canadian immigrants, the race from which they spring; I asked for that information and I find that in 1927, 1,048 of them were from the Dutch and Flemish. 27.248 from the English, 15,710 from French stock, 3,397 from German stock, 1,268 from Hebrew stock, 13,800 from Irish stock, 2,189 from Scandinavian stock, 13,903 from Scotch stock, and all others amounted to 2,943.

Summarizing, more than four-fifths of the Canadian immigration comes from English, Irish, Scotch, and French ancestry, more than four-fifths of them. So when we consider the question of racial characteristics of the immigration that would be barred from the Dominion of Canada by this bill, I think it must be generally conceded that the people barred do not come from races which by any appreciable number in this country have been regarded as being dangerous to American institutions.

Mr. Box. You mean as applied to Canada?

Mr. BURTNESS. Certainly, as applied to Canada, of course. I have confined my remarks up to this time strictly to the Canadian immigration. I am trying to point out to you in my feeble way that I think it would be a mistake, from the standpoint of the United States, to bar the type of immigration that we have been getting from the Dominion of Canada. I am trying to point out that the type of immigration that we have been getting from Canada in the past, and are likely to get from Canada in the future, is the type that would be of assistance, generally speaking, in building up this country.

Mr. VINCENT. Let me ask you this question, Mr. BURTNESS, if you please. In addition to that, is it your opinion that such an act on the part of this Government would have a deleterious effect on the cordial relations that have so long existed between this country and the Dominion of Canada as a governmental entity?

Mr. BURTNESs. Very positively so, Mr. VINCENT. After referring to the type of immigration that this bill would bar, I was going to comment upon that feature, and I think that it is not necessary to spend any time with reference to it, for each of you can draw conclusions as to the effect that a bar of that kind would have upon the very fine, cordial relations existing between the United States and Canada just as well as I can. Merely mentioning the fact so as to call it to your attention is ample, or at least is all the time that I care to take in that presentation.

Mr. SCHNEIDER. Right on that point, is it not true that the Canadian Government generally is not so keen about the Canadian nationals coming to the United States, because of the fact that the Canadian Government is spending large sums of money each year in replacing the Canadian nationals who come to the United States; that as fast as they come over here the Canadian Government is replacing them with aliens from European countries, from which they can secure them at large expense?

Mr. BURTNESS. I concede frankly that in the minds of the men whose work is such as to deal specifically with the development of immigration in Canada, that thought is in their minds; that they would rather not see their people come over here, and that those particular individuals perhaps would not object to a bar being put up which would prevent some of their nationals from coming here. But in so far as the people generally are concerned, and in so far as the Government generally is concerned, the question involves something which is dearer to them

than simply this question of what might be a practical or feasible plan in keeping their people in their country. There is no prouder people on the face of the earth than the British people. I think it was the pride of the British people which was largely responsible for the fact that the first foreign government that settled its war debt with the United States was Great Britain. They are intensely proud, and their pride would be hurt, in my opinion, by our putting up an immigration bar of the sort proposed, for they could not help but feel that the bar was put up on some theory here in the United States that the people that we were likely to get from Canada are not wanted. And, of course, they would be justified in that belief, for why in the name of common sense would we want to put up the bar against them if we do not want to keep them out? It is the only conclusion that the Canadian people, that the British people, could reach if this country passes that kind of a bill. Now, we might soft-soap it and argue that it was not passed with the idea of reaching Canada or preventing the class of immigration we get from that country, but with the idea of reaching some other nations, or something of that sort, but that kind of an explanation would not be accepted by them, for naturally they would say: Well, if you wanted to exempt us, that could easily have been accomplished."

Mr. Box. Of course, you recognize that we do have a quota restric tion against the English homeland?

Mr. BURTNESS. Oh, yes; but when we did that we did so with reference to all of Europe. We have placed England on exactly the same basis as we have other countries over there in Europe. Furthermore, Canada is a near neighbor and her situation seems considerably different.

Now, there is some general information contained in the letter which transmitted this table to me, and I would be glad to have both the letter and the table appear in the record.

The papers referred to follow:

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF Labor,
BUREAU OF IMMIGRATION,
Washington, February 24, 1928.

Hon. OLGER B. BURTNESS, M. C.,

House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.

MY DEAR CONGRESSMAN BURTNESS: In response to your request for statistics covering immigration from Canada under the present quota law, I am sending you herewith a statement which gives the number of immigrant aliens admitted from that country to the United States during each of the last three fiscal years 1925, 1926, and 1927, by occupational groups, with comparative per cents of the total. statement also shows for these immigrants the number of male and female, as well as the principal races.

The

It will be noted that while immigration from Canada decreased from 100,895 in the year 1925 to 81,506 in 1927 there was no great change in the proportional distribution by occupations. The largest single group were those listed as no occupation, comprising 42.3 per cent of the total in 1925, 43.2 per cent in 1926, and 44.1 per cent in 1927. The percentage of unskilled workers jumped from 22 per cent in 1926 to 25.4 per cent in 1927, laborers and servants making up the increase. The professional and commercial classes, as well as the skilled wage earners, show about the same proportion for the three years, the professional comprising an average per cent for the period of 4.4, the commercial 2.6, and the skilled 21.9. The bulk of these newcomers are English, French, Irish, and Scotch, over four-fifths of the immigrants from Canada being of these four races.

During the three fiscal years 1922, 1923, and 1924 (under the per cent limit act of 1921) immigrant aliens admitted from Canada and Newfoundland numbered 46,810, 117,011, and 200,690, respectively, about 97 per cent coming from Canada and 3 per cent from Newfoundland. Prior to 1925 these countries were not shown separately in immigration statistics. Very truly yours,

HARRY E. HULL, Commissioner General. Immigrant aliens admitted to the United States from Canada (last permanent residence), fiscal years ended June 30, 1925, 1926, and 1927, by occupational groups, with comparative per cent, as specified

So we turn to sugar, the raising of sugar beets. You know what the facts are, that have been brought out here time and again. There is no possibility of any exportable surplus in sugar. We raise only about 20 per cent of our needs in this country. And so our interest in the Mexicans, I admit, is somewhat of a selfish interest, in so far as a desire to develop our country so as to place our agriculture on a sound economic basis can be called a selfish interest.

The CHAIRMAN. No; I do not think that should be called a selfish interest.

Mr. BURTNESS. I think a certain amount of selfishness of that kind is entirely justified.

Mr. Box. Well, it certainly is a legitimate interest, so far as that

100, 895

91,019

81,506

1,253 35, 373 19,861

1,095

31, 424

1,048 27, 248

18, 612

15,710

4, 235

3, 782

2, 196

931

goes.

13, 832

15, 310

13, 800

3, 074

2,420

16, 222 4,849

14, 765 2,680

2, 189 13, 903 2,943

3,397 1,268

If there are no further questions on the Canadian aspect of the bill, I want to turn to the second aspect that I stated I wanted to discuss; and I want to be very brief on that, for I take it that it has been considered more in detail before the committee by other witnesses. That is the question with reference to the need or lack of need of Mexican labor up in our part of the country and why so many of our people in comparatively recent years have become interested in Mexican labor and therefore in Mexican immigration.

All of you who are familiar with the proposals of farm relief that have been pending in Congress now for a number of years know something about the situation in the agricultural game. You know that one of the most serious difficulties in so far as the prosperity of agriculture is concerned is the fact that this country has been continuing to raise an exportable surplus of certain crops, resulting in depressing the price of such crops down to the standard of world markets. Now, that surplus is not something new, it is true. It has existed for decades past, but the effect that that exportable surplus has had upon prices seems to have become a more important factor in recent years than heretofore. At least American conditions generally, our general price level, high wages, our standard of living, costs of production, and all such factors have become such that it is much harder for the American farmer to compete with a foreign farmer in the case of these crops or products of which we have an exportable surplus. That situation applies in an aggravated form in all territories which have been regarded as more or less of a one-crop territory raising an export surplus crop. So naturally it applies with added force to what we know, generally speaking, as the great spring-wheat area. And so for the last 20 or 30 years there has been a strong incentive for a program up there of diversified farming. The war came along and set us back in that program tremendously, because of the demand to raise more wheat. we have again started to advance that program, and are showing wonderful results in so far as diversification is concerned; but, of course, in order to proceed intelligently in diversification when we are trying to get away from the evils of one crop of which we have an exportable surplus we naturally want to exercise some sense and some judgment so that we will not simply go from the frying pan into the fire or just change our system from one crop to another just as bad. Of course, we believe in keeping more dairy cows and having more hogs and raising more beef, including feed and forage for these animals, and things of that sort. And we are doing it. We are making increases by leaps and bounds. My State shows a wonderful advance in that respect. But what do we find? What is the situation right to-day, for instance, with reference to hogs, with reference to pork? This country has a substantial exportable surplus, especially in the lard end. We have a situation where pork to-day is selling at a much lower price than it has for years, and selling at a price-and I take it Mr. White will agree with me-that it is very doubtful whether the most efficient farmers can raise a hog for the amount that one can get for him now at the packing plants. Surely hog production should not be further increased in the United States as a whole.

But

We turn to dairy products, and what do we find? We find that we are just about at the danger line. We find that if we are going to increase our dairy products to speak of, if we are going to increase them as much as it would be possible to increase them in just two or three States in the Northwest within the next five years, we would be on an exportable surplus basis with reference also to dairy products. And when that time comes, the tariff of 12 cents on butter, raised from 8 cents to 12 cents a year or so ago; would not be worth a tinker's darn to the producer of dairy products. We are approaching the saturation point for domestic consumption. We are right at the danger line. So we can not turn to dairying alone without running the chance of hurting dairy interests of other States and possibly not get much benefit ourselves.

If we consider the raising of beef cattle, there is some leeway there, perhaps, and a little bit here and there along other general lines, but with reference to almost all of them, a substantial increase in half a dozen States for a period of five years would put them in the class where an exportable surplus would exist bringing prices down to the level of world markets regardless of the tariff.

We have constructed a beet-sugar mill at East Grand Forks, Minn., directly across the river from my home town, which is taking care of the production of beets in that portion of the Red River Valley. Other sugar factories are contemplated elsewhere in the famous valley of the Red River of the North. If we are going to take some acreage away from wheat, if we are going to take some acreage away from corn, if we are going to take some acreage away from providing the feeds that are used in the production of more hogs than this country needs, then we have to rely upon some such crop as sugar beets; and with reference to the hand labor required in the production of sugar beets, we are absolutely dependent upon Mexican labor. Others doubtless have emphasized this feature of the case, so I will spend no time thereon.

I have two farms in the Red River Valley. On one of those I have raised sugar beets for four years. I have been in fairly close touch, because of that fact, with these Mexicans that have come up to our country. I am not going to stand here and tell you that they are the best people on the face of the earth or that they have made wonderful citizens or that in a few years their sons and daughters will be graduating from our high schools and soon acting as our preachers and lawyers and doctors and as our professors in colleges, or anything of that sort. If they were going to do that, I do not know that we would want them. Surely we wouldn't need them. I sometimes think we have enough law students and doctors and Congressmen and such forms of animal life as it is. [Laughter.] I think it was Mr. Hogan who said that the lowest form of animal life is a Congressman. [Laughter.]

Mr. Box. I think that ought to be stricken from the record. [Laughter.]

Mr. BURTNESS. I comprehend that the interests of sound public policy might not permit it to stay in. But, seriously, all of you who are familiar with farming conditions in an agricultural country, such as the winter-wheat country, spring-wheat country, or any other section where the farming is not arranged so that there is just as much work to do every month of the year as there is in certain months of the year, know that all of these territories are dependent upon transient labor in rush seasons. We provide in Congress for the United States Employment Service, a wonderful service that starts out in the early summer down in the Southern States, Texas and Oklahoma, and directs that general transient farm labor, tries to direct them as the harvest progress from the Southern States up to the Canadian border. We have always been dependent upon that type of transient labor in the spring-wheat country, and I presume that you have been dependent upon it in the winter-wheat country to a considerable extent, have you not, Mr. WHITE?

Mr. WHITE. To some extent; yes.

Mr. BURTNESS. That labor has not always been the very finest type of American manhood. Their ideals are not always the very highest as they come to us, and they are generally called "hoboes." Of course, we all know that when fall comes, when that transient white labor arrives, much of which is even American born, I regret to say, it seems necessary for every little town to put on some special guards, and that citizens of such towns will often take their turns guarding the streets at night in order to prevent holdups, burglaries, and robberies and crimes of that sort. I regret to note that every year every prosecuting officer, every sheriff, every constable, spends a couple of pretty busy months in trying to protect part of this transient white labor against holdups, robberies, and other crimes by the other part of that labor, as well as to protect the property and the people generally.

Mr. SCHNEIDER. That group has done all of your work heretofore, have they not?

Mr. BURTNESS. They have done this special wheat work; yes. They come up for one sole purpose: They try to get there in time to start harvesting the wheat. If they are there a few days earlier and are absolutely busted, you are able to hire a few of them to go out for a few days' haying.

Mr. SCHNEIDER. Is it not true that they do not come up before that time because there is no work there?

Mr. BURTNESS. Oh, no; with conditions as they are now we have use for some of them during haying time.

Mr. SCHNEIDER. I am really referring to them before harvest time.

Mr. BURTNESS. We have always needed some of them for haying, not as many for haying, of course, as for the harvesting season. They will ordinarily not do any other work than a harvesting job, and as soon as the first threshing machine starts, it is only the exceptions among them who will finish up the shocking jobs on the different farms. They want to thresh, they seem to like the sociability and the glamor of the larger threshing outfits. And when the threshing is done, or whenever they are delayed in threshing because of wet weather or other reason you can not even think of getting the average one of them to spend a few days plowing or hauling sugar beets or anything of that sort, or harvesting sugar beets. It is out of the question. They will not do it. They are there for the wheat harvest. Of course, there are exceptions among them.

Mr. RUTHERFORD. I noticed in the statement you presented that a very large number of Canadians, unskilled Canadians, came over to this country. Can you tell us where they went?

Mr. BURTNESS. I think they scatter all over the country.

Mr. RUTHERFORD. They do not stop in the Dakota beet fields? They are not interested in that work?

Mr. BURTNESS. Some of them stop in Dakota, but not for beet work. We get our share of them. But I do not mean to try to say that most of them stop in the Dakotas. They come in more or less all along the line. and I think you will find them scattered generally along the northern border of the United States. I have never heard of them working in beet fields.

Mr. RUTHERFORD. Do you know anything about the cultivation and growing of cotton?

Mr. BURTNESS. No.

Mr. RUTHERFORD. Well, I never saw sugar beets growing. I have seen the old-fashioned beets grown in my section, not the sugar beet, but there is no crop that we can plant that takes longer hours and a longer season to make than cotton takes. It is hard work for, some say, 13 months in the year. It takes that much to make a crop. We find that white people down our way-working in the harvesting of cotton requires a constant stooping position, they have to pick it stooping over-we have a class of white people in my country who would not work in cotton for a long time because the negro was there. They thought it was a negro job to do this work, and they drifted north. I find that hundreds and hundreds of our white boys and white men and even white women, I am sorry to say, have been forced into the fields and are actually cultivating, working, and gathering these crops. Mr. BURTNESS. Well, that is very interesting, I am sure.

Mr. RUTHERFORD. And I am just presenting that to show that the work in your beets is not as hard as the growing of cotton in the South, and there are white people doing that.

Mr. BURTNESS. Of course, there is quite a difference, it would seem to me, in the application of the theory that might be in your mind, that eventually the white people would do this work in the beets if we did not get Mexicans. I think there is this big difference: You are talking about the cotton country, where your crop is cotton. That is your main crop. You are not trying to get people switched off into a new crop that involves harder work than the crop they have been raising all the time.

Mr. RUTHERFORD. But I do not think they could be carried into any field of activity that would be any harder work than the production of cotton. Mr. BURTNESS. But our people are engaged, generally speaking, in ordinary farming, livestock, dairying, the raising of wheat, flax, oats, barley, corn, and crops of that sort. Our farmers and the whitefarm labor can find plenty of opportunity to spend up to 12 or 14 hours per day in that work. They have to do it in order to keep their farms going in the ordinary way. They can not on the ordinary farm switch and intensively cultivate 10 acres or 15 acres or any other acreages of beets because if they did that they would have to let much of the rest of their farm stand idle. The acreage of beets, of course, as compared with the total acreage of the farms, is small.

Mr. RUTHERFORD. The reason I presented the little argument I did is I am not convinced that you can not get labor to make your sugar beets, cultivate your sugar beets, if you would give the white Anrerican steady employment at good wages. That is the argument.

Mr. BURTNESS. I am satisfied they can not be obtained. You mention the question of good wages. Let us see whether the Mexican is getting good wages in our section. I find, for instance, what the Mexican has received on the farm that I have, each year. One or two years we had just a husband and wife without any children; the last two years we had quite a good-sized family, so that the wife did not do any work in the field whatsoever, but a couple of the older children were able to help the father. They handled 16 acres of sugar beets. For that work they received $400. I presume their work altogether-these beet men could tell you perhaps more definitely than I can-I presume in the doing of that work, thinning, blocking, hoeing, and topping, they worked altogether about three months. The rest of the time they were either idle or were working by the day, doing other work, on our farm and adjoining farms, and the doing of this other work is an asset to the country there, because farm labor is scarce. It is intensely scarce throughout that section and we are dependent upon farm labor. When you have farms which average about 450 acres each, as we have

in our State, the husband and the wife and the children, even if they all work, can not perform all the labor upon the farm during the farming season. Hired help is necessary. So these men, these Mexi

cans, are employed in their spare time. They put up alfalfa, they do considerable shocking of grain, and until they have to top the beets they go out on the threshing outfits and they help thresh. Each Mexican desirous of putting in his time-and most of them do, for most of them are thrifty and willing to work-can earn a couple hundred dollars in addition to what they are paid for the beets. So that means that that Mexican, for instance, on our farm has earned each of these seasons about $600, which is $200 more than the average farm laborer that hires out for the season of eight months with us would have earned in the meantime.

But, of course, the usual farm laborer working during the season for a monthly wage, would in addition to that have his board and his lodging; whereas the Mexicans get their home, provided with stoves and dishes and beds and a little furniture and things of that scrt that they need. But they do not get their food. They buy their own food. So the wages are good. Most of them leave in the fall with an automobile.

But I have gotten away from the statement that I wanted to make. I want to say this, and I say it advisedly, and I say it as one who has had 10 years' experience in a prosecuting office: That since the Mexicans came there there has been relatively less trouble with the Mexican labor that comes to us in proportion to the numbers that have come than there has been with the customary white transient labor that has come to us. I am willing at any time to compare the Mexican labor, in so far as creating trouble in the community, in so far as petty thievery or other crimes is concerned-I am willing to compare them any time with the other transient labor that comes up into our section; and I think the comparison will be favorable enough to the Mexicans.

So we are not alarmed of them on that score at all. We are dependent upon transient labor anyway, and we know from the experience that we have had now over a period of several years that there is not any appreciable danger to look for on that score. The other proposi tions that are involved as to the habits of the Mexicans, what they do, etc., have doubtless been rehashed before you several times, and I do not want to take up any more time on that feature. I do, however, want to emphasize that I feel we would be making a tremendous international mistake if we put up the proposed immigration bars against contiguous, friendly neighboring countries, and especially so if we put up that sort of a bar against our neighbor on the north. Even with the splendid assistance of Colonel Lindbergh our international relations are sufficiently strained now.

Mr. RUTHERFORD. Have you an ample supply of labor in the dairy industry?

Mr. BURTNESS. One of the difficulties in developing the dairy industry on a large scale is that of getting the necessary labor. So our development of the dairy industry, which has been tremendous, has come about by the work that is contributed by the farmer himself and his family. Mr. RUTHERFORD. And you have about reached the saturation point so far as production is concerned?

Mr. BURTNESS. Yes, sir; that is for domestic needs.

Mr. RUTHERFORD. If these Mexicans are allowed to come in in great numbers, increased numbers, and you begin to employ them in your dairy industry, will not your dairy industry be affected just like wheat and corn are now?

Mr. BURTNESS. I do not think there is any prospect of these Mexicans ever being employed in the dairy industry. Mr. RUTHERFORD. Why not?

Mr. BURTNESS. Under our system of farming, of course, the development of our dairy industry is going to be largely a family development. It is not going to be a proposition which employs all the year round labor.

Mr. RUTHERFORD. If they are so satisfactory to grow your beets and harvest your beets as unskilled labor, why would they not be good as unskilled labor in the dairy business?

Mr. BURTNESS. I do not take it that labor in the dairy business is unskilled labor, unless you have a tremendously large dairy business so that you can divide your labor up into certain classes. But if you are going to have a man such as would be used on a good-sized farm to take care of a herd of 20 or 30 milk cows and other incidental stock, you do not want an unskilled man for that sort of a job. For that work you need a man that can learn the value of various feeds, know what kind of feeds are to be fed to your dairy animals, the proper amount of protein and other items which must necessarily be fed to cattle in order to get them to produce milk. They have to use their heads a whole lot more than their backs, and one of the difficulties in the evelopment of the dairy industry even among our farmers is the fact that it is difficult to get them to learn the underlying principles that are involved in really first producing a good dairy cow and then in getting the best results from such cow.

Mr. RUTHERFORD, I Would draw the conclusion that it does not take any brains to make beets?

Mr. BURTNESS. I think that is pretty nearly true; that when it comes down to the actual work, the hand labor in the field, a great deal of brains is not needed. I think I will agree with you that it needs a strong back rather than a strong head for the purpose. We might as well be perfectly frank about it, for this labor is unskilled and the work seems like drudgery. But that certainly does not apply to the dairy business or to most forms of farming now. And, of course, in the beet industry the brain work, the development of the right kind of fertilizer, the determination of what kind of soil will produce the greatest amount of beets and things of that sort is done by somebody else and not by the individual Mexican who gets down on his knees and thins the beets and blocks them and tops them in the fall. This is supervised by experts and the farmer's equipment and regular help prepares the ground for the beets and does the machine cultivation, lifting the beets when they are harvested, and such work.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, Mr. BURTNESS, you are on one of the big committees of the House engaged in national problems, and your colleague has appeared, Mr. ANDRESEN, and Mr. SELVIG also. They are on very large, important committees handling problems of agriculture. You get national problems, and we have got one here, and it is expressed in a resolution that has just come in by telegraph from Tucson, Ariz.: "Whereas American laborers leaving Southwest in increasing numbers account of inability to compete with cheap Mexican labor, which is annually flooding this section in increasing numbers; and

"Whereas this migration of labor from our section materially adds to unemployment problem in Eastern and other States; and

"Whereas present immigration laws notoriously inadequate to stem influx of Mexican labor:

"Resolved, That local union of carpenters unanimously favor Box bill.

"F. L. RAMSEY, President. "I. A. MCBEE, Secretary."

Now, you see the situation may not be extremely acute yet, but it is coming, marching along, and the studies of this committee over several years show that tendency. Now, that Mexican labor has extended clear north to the Canadian line, to the district represented by you. That labor drifts into the cities in ever-increasing numbers, makes congestion, creates bread lines.

Mr. BURTNESS. I appreciate the very important question, the national question, the American question that is before this committee, and I personally appreciate the very large amount of study and consideration that this committee has given to these questions in all of these years since the war. I want to assure you that I do not take the position that this is a one-sided proposition, the Box bill or any other question before the Immigration Committee. I entertain fairly definite views, which I have tried to present fairly and frankly.

I do want to say with reference to that telegram, I do not know on what facts it is based, but we all know a little something about how easy it is to get wires sent in, whether it be on one side or on another side of any question. There is a corn sugar bill, so called, pending before our committee or it was pending before our committee two years ago; it is now before the Agricultural Committee. I believe that every person who has ever raised a bee during the last few years, and every person who hopes to raise a bee in the next few years, has written or wired me as to the terrible things that will happen if that bill is passed. Propaganda of every kind on every conceivable question inspired by some one comes to all of us. I do not know whether this particular wire falls within that category or not, but I for one do not attribute a great deal of importance to them, except when they actually present facts or persuasive arguments, and you get the facts otherwise, ordinarily. I do not pay much more attention to them than I do to petitions asking me to appoint a certain man postmaster in a certain town, when I find that the same individual name is affixed to three different petitions for three different candidates for the same job. rather doubt whether the carpenters in the Southwest are seriously threatened by the influx of Mexican labor. However, you have means of getting at the facts in that respect, and I know you will.

I

Mr. Chairman, I have some petitions that were sent me that I would like to file. They are signed by beet growers in the district I represent protesting against the passage of the Box bill.

Before closing let me bring out an interesting sidelight as to the Canadians. There are in Congress only 18 Members who are foreign born-3 Senators and 15 Representatives. Of these, six were born in Canada, speaking well for our immigrants from that country as well as for the fact that Canadian ideals and principles of government are similar to our own. Those of Canadian birth are Senator COUZENS, of Michigan; and Representatives EATON, of New Jersey; SINCLAIR, of North Dakota; CHALMERS, of Ohio; MONAST, of Rhode Island; and HUGHES, of West Virginia. There are doubtless many of the second generation. I feel justified in claiming that these, our colleagues, are exhibits amply justifying the position I have taken before you to-day. I greatly appreciate the marked attention you have given to my remarks. The CHAIRMAN. We are very much obliged to you, Mr. BURTNESS. MUSCLE SHOALS

Mr. MCSWAIN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to extend my remarks in the RECORD upon three bills pending relating to Muscle Shoals.

The SPEAKER. Is there objection? There was no objection.

Mr. O'CONNOR of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I make a similar request.

The SPEAKER. Is there objection?
There was no objection.

Mr. MCSWAIN. Mr. Speaker it may be interesting and valuable information for the Members of the House and the country at large to have a brief summary of some of the views that have been entertained heretofore by distinguished and prominent and responsible public officials and Members of Congress. It must be constantly borne in mind that we are not now put to the choice between the private operation and public operation of the properties at Muscle Shoals. There is no bill before the Congress that Members have the opportunity to choose and that calls for the private operation of this huge Government project.

It is true that there is one bill before both the House and Senate-known in the House as the Madden bill and known in the Senate as the Willis bill-contemplating the leasing of the Muscle Shoals property to the Air Nitrates Corporation, a thousand-dollar subsidiary of the American Cyanamid Co., which undertakes to guarantee the performance of the proposed contract by its subsidiary. But both the Hon. Frank B. Willis, late Senator from Ohio, and the Hon. Martin B. Madden, late a Representative from the State of Illinois, are now dead. Furthermore, it appears that the Willis bill in the Senate, contemplating the leasing of the Muscle Shoals property to the said Air Nitrates Corporation, was not seriously considered by either the Senate Committee on Agriculture or the Senate itself. It does not appear that the offer of the Air Nitrates Corporation was pressed seriously and energetically before the Senate. The sole question before the Senate seems to have been whether or not to accept the Norris bill or do nothing at all.

In like manner the Madden bill, which was before the Military Affairs Committee of the House, is not now before the House of Representatives. This bill was very earnestly considered by the Committee on Military Affairs. As a member of that committee, I worked hard and long to try to perfect that bill in such a way as to be able to defend it before the House of Representatives. I offered a large number of amendments to that bill, which were finally accepted by the Air Nitrates Corporation and included in its proposal. Some idea of the scope and purport of the amendments offered by me may be obtained by considering the difference between the original bill which was introduced in the Sixty-ninth Congress and the last committee print of the bill introduced in the Seventieth Congress as the two appear side by side, in parallel columns, commencing on page 43 of the committee print of an appendix to Report No. 1095. But on three very vital and important questions the Air Nitrates Corporation did not agree to the views of the committee, and for that reason we were never able to report its bill contemplating private operation. The three points of difference between the Air Nitrates Corporation, commonly called the American Cyanamid Co., and the overwhelming majority of the committee were these:

First. A "recapture clause" whereby the property would be returned to the United States upon the complete and undisputed failure of the Air Nitrates Corporation to carry out the main purpose and intention of the lease, which was and would be the use of the property in question for the manufacture of chemical fertilizers.

Second. Failure to agree upon a clause contemplating adequate auditing and accounting of the books of the lessee corporation relating to the manufacture of fertilizers in order to insure the truth as to the costs of such fertilizers.

Third. Failure to agree with the Air Nitrates Corporation upon a provision in the bill to confer sufficient and ample powers upon a board set up in the bill called the Farmer Board whereby said board could specify the kinds and qualities of fertilizers to be manufactured by the lessee corporation, it being the belief of the committee that such "farmer board" would better know what kinds and qualities of fertilizers the farmers would buy than the corporation itself, and thus prevent the corporation from manufacturing fertilizers and putting the same in storage and holding them in storage, and finally, shutting down the fertilizer plants upon the ground that the farmers would not buy the product, and thus the lessee corporation be excused from continuing to operate the fertilizer plant.

Mr. Speaker, the House is now squarely against the proposition of Government operation by some agency or instrumentality at Muscle Shoals. The Government is in operation of the plant now, producing electric power and selling the same, and thus is in business as truly, though in a different kind of

business, as it would be in manufacturing and selling fertilizers. There would be more excuse and reason for the manufacture of nitrates and the sale of same than there is for the production and sale of electric power. The Government needs nitrates for explosives for its war-making departments, both in peace and in war. But the Government does not need electric power for its own sake and solely as electric power, either in peace or in war. It is justified in producing electric power solely to employ the same in the manufacture of nitrates for war and for the sale of such surplus nitrates as may not be necessary for war purposes. Furthermore, the only three bills before the House now all contemplate Government operation of the properties at Muscle Shoals. The Norris bill is a Government-operation plan, pure and simple, directing the Secretary of Agriculture to manufacture fertilizers, not only at Muscle Shoals but elsewhere in the United States," in the "largest amounts practicable and at the lowest prices practicable."

The substitute for the Norris bill which is offered by the Committee on Military Affairs of the House, and known as the Morin bill, contemplates operation by a Government-owned corporation, whose directors shall be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.

The three choices of the Members of the House is the Snell bill, recently introduced by the Hon. BERTRAND H. SNELL, of New York, and he has announced his intention to offer his bill as a substitute for the committee amendment which in turn is pending as a substitute for the Norris bill. The Snell bill is Government operation, pure and simple.

Consequently there is no choice as between Government operation and private operation. Private interests have always looked contemptuously and sneeringly at the Muscle Shoals project. Shortly after the war, private interests declared that the properties there should be scrapped. Private interests have not only neglected to cooperate with the Government in settling and disposing of the Muscle Shoals question, but they seem to have consciously and deliberately thrown every obstacle and difficulty in the way of a reasonable and businesslike settlement of the problem.

Consequently the question before the House is this: Which of the three bills-the Norris bill, the Morin bill, or the Snell bill-offers the most practicable, reasonable, and safe business set-up for the economical and efficient management of the Government properties at Muscle Shoals?

VIEWS OF HON. MARTIN B. MADDEN (DECEASED)

I respectfully call your attention to the language employed by the late lamented and highly honored Martin B. Madden, spoken before the Committee on Military Affairs, January 31, 1927, relating to the production of fertilizers at Muscle Shoals for the relief of American agriculture and for the upbuilding of American soils:

There is a fine place in the industrial life of the United States for the power companies. They serve a useful purpose. They are doing a wonderful thing in the development of power and its distribution. They are making for better conditions in many neighborhoods. I have no complaint to make of them. I am not here to denounce them or to say anything against them. But at best, you could not use the power that is created at Muscle Shoals through the power companies except as a local enterprise.

Why do I say that? You can not distribute successfully or profitably power for power purposes that may be created here or anywhere else for more than 300 miles. So that when you limit the scope of an activity to 300 miles you are bound to make it a local institution; whereas the manufacture of fertilizer and the purposes for which it is to be used are just as wide as the Nation.

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If we are going to invest Government money in anything less than a national proposition, we ought to know about it. If there were no other use for this power I would hail the entry of the power companies into this proposition.

But, as the servants of the American people, as the public servants of the Nation, we ought to do everything within our power, as far as we can see the right way to do it, for the advancement of the best interests of as many of all the people as possible and not for just a few. So I stand unalterably committed to the policy of utilization of Muscle Shoals for the national problem of defense in time of war and the national problem of prosperity in time of peace, by the creation of fertilizer and its utilization by the people who are engaged in agriculture, without whose prosperity we all suffer.

The farmers ask fertilizer relief at Muscle Shoals. They are not asking for much. They have a right to ask it; in fact, we have promised it to them, and now let us fulfill our promise by accepting the Cyanamid Co.'s offer.

The farmers are only asking the dedication of this plant to the purposes for which it was originally constructed. They want the faith of the Government kept by the utilization of the agency that has been

created by the money of the people, for the purpose for which it was created; that is all.

To tell the farmers that water power at Muscle Shoals should not be used to make fertilizers is to mock, in my judgment, at their needs when more than 3,000,000 horsepower can be developed on the Tennessee River.

Again let me call your attention to the language of Hon. Newton D. Baker, then Secretary of War, spoken before the Committee on Military Affairs on April 19, 1920:

The Germans, prior to the war, had developed the fixation of atmos pheric nitrogen by two or three processes, notably the Haber process and the cyanamide process. They were our main sources of reliance. There is a third process which is successful in the production of nitrogen, known as the arc process, where electric power can be obtained at an exceedingly low rate. It is available in countries like Norway and Sweden, where the natural water powers are very easily used, but it is conceded, I think, to be a very expensive process where the item of power is a matter at all of cost. In fact, the importations of Chilean saltpeter into this country prior to the war amounted to about 500,000 tons. Its use was primarily for fertilizer. After we entered the war the question of production of explosives came up, and it was deemed advisable to multiply the powder plants in this country and to increase the sources of fixed nitrogen as far as possible, because it was cheaper to make the powder in this country and send it to France or England than it was to send the ingredients to those countries, all of them relying upon the same source of supply for raw materials. As I recall the figures, it was necessary to ship to France or England 7 pounds of ingredients for each pound of powder manufactured, and as the tonnage situation was critical and always had to be considered, it was deemed wiser to make the powder in this country and ship it as powder instead of shipping the ingredients.

Our program for powder production was a very large program. The powder plants with which this committee is familiar, at Old Hickory and near Charleston, W. Va., were both designed in response to the proposed demands for the importation of Chilean nitrates, and, of course, are completed up to the highest possible point. Ships were Pertaken from many other trades and put into the nitrate trade. haps one of the most acute distresses of the war on our side was the New England coal situation, which was largely caused by the essential necessity of taking ships which otherwise might have carried coal to New England to bring nitrates from Chile. It demonstrated to us that we were entirely dependent or almost dependent upon the importation of nitrates from Chile for supply in an emergency. In the meantime, during the war the agricultural interests of the country were deprived of a very large part of the nitrogen which they had previously been able to get. Congress was called upon to appropriate a very large sum of money and place it at the disposal of the Secretary of Agriculture to secure the importation of nitrogen to relieve the agricultural distress. As the members of the committee will remember, that created a revolving fund, and I think there was some money made by the Secretary of Agriculture in the ad the plant a fotu a fos

Mr. ANTHONY. Would the plant as you propose to operate it furnish all the nitrates required by our Government during times of peace? Secretary BAKER. More than to supply the amount that we need currently, as I understand it; I was coming to that in another aspect of the problem, but I will state it now in this way:

The War Department has studied very carefully the need of a nitrate reserve. We have learned that wars break out very suddenly and that the emergency is very great as soon as they do break out. For this reason, and because we have this plant and that we depend so much upon importations from a foreign country, some distance away, which might be very seriously impaired by a very simple thing-everybody knows, it is no secret, that an injury to the Panama Canal would be a very serious obstacle to our access to the nitrates, and with all the safeguards that we throw around the Panama Canal injuries to it are not inconceivable, nor would they be particularly difficult even with all the safeguards that we can throw around itand realizing the isolation of America from this raw material, on that theory the War Department has determined that it is not safe for it to have a reserve stock of less than 300,000 tons of nitrates. We have now 300,000 tons of nitrates. A study of that problem, however, led the Ordnance Department to believe this, that if Congress would authorize this plant to operate in the manner which we advise, that we could then cut our nitrate reserve safely to 150,000 tons and rely on this plant to make up the residue in the event of an emergency by turning it instantly from an agricultural production into this war-time production.

Mr. MILLER. I do not see why it could not be operated as a governmental enterprise.

Secretary BAKER. Here are some of the reasons. In the first place, there is no difficulty about it being available for the War Department in the event of need. The Panama Railroad, as you may recall, is an independent corporation. The Government, when it bought the Panama Canal rights from the French, deemed it wiser not to con