Mr. HAKE. My experience of administering this program for 9 years, perhaps, has not been very appropriate but I do know this that in order to make farm placements, we have to have a written contract with the Extension Service and we have it in the Memphis area, for Arkansas and Mississippi and we are making cotton job placements, as I have indicated previously over 6,000 in one day. That is the only agreement in the United States. You cannot anticipate that you may have to have strawberry pickers for tomorrow and it takes about 2 months to get these agreements through.

Senator THYE. I would have thought that you, who are charged with that employment in that State, would have worked the Extension Department as it operated the emergency farm labor plan, rather than to stand by and say that the law prevented you from going in there.

Mr. HAKE. Senator, I did not tell the Extension Service that the law prevented me. If they had given me one call they would have had the help of all our offices.

Senator THYE. You are in charge of employment offices and it is not your job to sit back. It is your job to be aggressive in solving these problems.

Senator AIKEN. Senator Thye, I think it would be well to read in section 2, (a), of Public Law 40 which was signed on April 28, 1947, which reads as follows:

The provisions of the Farm Labor Supply Appropriation Act, 1944 (Public Law 229, 78th Cong., 2d sess., title I), as amended and supplemented, and as extended by this act, shall not be construed to limit or interfere with any of the functions of the United States Employment Service or State public employment services with respect to maintaining a farm placement service as authorized under the act of June 6, 1944.

They have all the authority in the world to place those strawberry pickers on farms under the law.

Mr. HAKE. We were ready to do it and they tried to do it and did not do it. No reflection on individuals but they were not an organization set up to do it.

Senator AIKEN. As Senator Thye said, I have raised strawberries by the acre and I have never dumped one, until it has been picked.

I do not see anything in this law limiting you in placing farm workers. Some of them, however would go on unemployment rather than to take farm work.

Senator STEWART. If the State employment service has the authority already, why is it necessary for this bill today?

Senator AIKEN. Some will say there is no necessity for it.

Senator STEWART. It looks to me as though that is the end of it. There is no need for consideration of this bill.

Senator THYE. I am not debating this bill with the gentleman. My only reason for questioning him was to clarify his statement. Senator AIKEN. I do not question, but what the Employment Service could recruit strawberry pickers in the cities.

Senator STEWART. There is no need for this committee to make itself look ridiculous..

Senator THYE. Senator Stewart, I was talking about not following the witness. I was not talking for this legislation, I was getting at the strawberry picking problem he cited.

Senator STEWART. I appreciate that but why should we go further on this legislation if they have the authority?

If this employment agency has the authority, to do what he did not do, and in the future he can do that, why proceed with this bill; that is the way I look at it.

Senator Thye, I think you developed a thought there.

Mr. HAKE. You developed a thought and I would like to go further. Wherever we do that, we have to go into a bookkeeping arrangement keeping tract of the time spent on this activity. So, if we had done this, we still would have to push a lot of paper in order to get a refund from the Extension Service.

Senator STEWART. Did you have any requests from the Extension Service or the growers?

Mr. HAKE. They just cried and I do not like to move in on someone else's field except in Memphis where we had this agreement which I described.

Senator AIKEN. That is why we adopted this amendment to the law, so that you could give them strawberry pickers.

I think there are arguments on both sides. I think the evidence will show that when you are recruiting foreign workers or workers from some other part of the country, that perhaps the Department of Agriculture is able to do that but when it comes to recruiting local labor from a nearby city to pick or harvest a bean crop, then I think by all means the Employment Service should have the right and duty of answering the call.

Senator KEM. I do not think we ought to make an employment agency out of the county agent because it would interfere with the work he has.

Senator AIKEN. Your county agent probably knows what the allsummer needs of the county are and if they are going to need so many workers from another part of the country, or outside of the country, he probably does know about how many will be needed through his contact with the farmers.

Senator KEM. The employment service is set up for that purpose.
Senator STEWART. Let us clarify this law then.

Mr. HAKE. We sent over 2,000 Negroes to the citrus growers in Florida in 1 week, as interstate clearance and we have a good clearance between States that we use.

Senator STEWART. Why did you not have authority to move in?

Mr. HAKE. I still do not think I have, Senator, and somebody has to show me. I appreciate the paragraph there but you have to enter into an agreement and contracts.

Senator AIKEN. When was your strawberry crop picked?

Mr. HAKE. Four weeks ago.

Senator AIKEN. The law was signed April 28.

Senator STEWART. Would it cost any more for your agency to enforce the idea of this bill?

Mr. HAKE. We are set up to do it; we have 72 offices in the State.
Senator STEWART. How many employees?

Mr. HAKE. Eleven hundred in the Department and 600 are doing this placement in employment service work.

Senator STEWART. They service three-fourths of the counties?

Mr. HAKE. In all of them.

Senator STEWART. How many offices do you have throughout the Nation?

Mr. HAKE. Eighteen hundred offices throughout the Nation; we have a complete set-up all over the Nation.

Senator STEWART. Your unemployment service is the only department of Government that has a complete list of the unemployed people?

Mr. HAKE. Yes.

Senator KEM. Congress has already decided that employment can best be handled locally; that it is State function. It seems to me that what we have just heard illustrates well the confusion that exists when we undertake to do that service by a Federal agency. As far as I am concerned I am satisfied to have this decentralized and let it be handled by the States.

Senator AIKEN. I think the fact that this was signed in April of this year, and this incident occurred 10 days before, is significant.

Mr. HAKE. Does it not go into effect in July of this year? I am not derelict in assuming responsibility when it comes to me but I did not know.

Senator AIKEN. This was a continuance of an existing law.
Mr. HAKE. I think it takes effect July 1, next month.

Senator KEM. Every time we try to liquidate one of these Federal agenices and cut down the pay roll, there is some reason or excuse for continuing the service and I think we ought just denominate this as a bill for the relief of the people on the pay roll and dispose of it. promptly.

Senator AIKEN. I think it was April 1.

Mr. HAKE. It says July 1 in there somewhere.

Senator STEWART. Possibly you have in mind the Steagall Amendment. Did not the Steagall Act expire December 31?

Senator KEM. 1948.

Senator STEWART. I got confused about that once before and it was when you and I were talking about that. It was extended 6 months.

I am talking about this act we passed recently.

Senator KEM. That expires in January of next year.

Senator STEWART. January 30, 1948.

Senator THYE. It gave them an additional 30 days.

Senator STEWART. January 31, 1948.

Senator THYE. It was to permit those in the Southwest harvest fields to be completely liquidated before the act became effective. Senator STEWART. Is this proposed as a permanent bill? Senator AIKEN. The one now before us is a permanent bill. The CHAIRMAN. Does that conclude your statement, sir?

Mr. HAKE. All I can say is that we are set up to do this job and we hope to do it if we are not stymied by other "super-duper" agencies that are set up. I think it would be a duplication of expense and effort and would cause inefficiency and confusion.

Again, the strawberries, I think they would rot and someone would have to pick them. They do not walk out of the field.

Seantor KEM. It is inconsistent with the stand taken by the Congress in regard to the employment.

Senator AIKEN. It is unfortunate that while you may have pickers, if you have 2 days of rain, you have to have several times as many pickers the next day, to clear the field.

Mr. HAKE. That is right.

Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Congressman Jack Anderson of California is here and I believe we will hear from him at this time.

STATEMENT OF HON. JACK Z. ANDERSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Representative ANDERSON. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am Representative Anderson of the Eighth District of California and I appear here this morning as the chairman of the unofficial agricultural subcommittee of the California delegation and also as a California farmer.

I have a brief statement which I should like to read to the committee and then if there are any questions I should be glad to answer them.

Because of the importance of continuing a sound labor program for agriculture in my State, I am supporting the principles contained in S. 1334.

Some years ago Congress designated the Department of Agriculture as the agency to supply farmers with needed labor. This action was taken when it was realized that the existing system was not adequate and that the production of essential foods and fibres would be seriously handicapped.

Senator KEM. That was a war measure, was it not?
Representative ANDERSON. Yes.

This bill simply continues a workable system within an agency which is a going concern and which to my knowledge has done an excellent job. The Agricultural Extension Service serves farmers in many capacities, and the work of supplying information with respect to shortages and surpluses of farm labor by experienced people fits their operation.

There can be no question about the necessity of supplying farmers with the service outlined in S. 1334. If it is not done as therein proposed, then the employment service must act.

Under the employment service the cost to the Government will be as great or, in my opinion, even greater than if the existing system is retained. I am sure that under the employment service of USES the job will not be as well done.

Farm people who are supporting this bill, and that includes all of California, are not requesting continuation of wartime emergency farm-labor programs. Farm people are, under this proposal, taking over the costs of transporting both foreign and domestic labor, the cost of housing, and the cost of medical care.

All or a substantial part of these costs were paid for by the Government during the war period.. Farmers now are merely asking the Government to do for them in the field of labor what it does for commercial interests and to do it through a competent and sympathetic agency.

I am particularly interested in two features of the bill. One, the permission under emergency conditions to import foreign workers, and two, the opportunity of farmers to take over the housing facilities now belonging to the Government.

Foreign labor has always been explosive. Even where Government has paid many of the larger costs which now will be taken over by farmers, the net cost of such labor to employers has been greater than for domestic labor.

Certainly with farmers assuming all the costs of recruitment, transportation and medical care, foreign labor will be used only when crops or livestock products would be wasted because there was not sufficient domestic labor to handle the production, harvesting and handling of such farm products. No one need have any fear of an oversupply of labor because of this provision.

At present there are in this country about 30,000 Mexicans, Jamaicans, and Bahamians under contracts made by the farmers working pursuant to the provisions of the present emergency public law.

The Commissioner of Internal Revenue informs me that he estimates there are about 120,000 Mexican workers who have entered the country illegally, and that number plus the 30,000 contract laborers will and must be returned to their country when the present law expires December 31, 1947.

The tremendous dislocation that would occur by removing these 150,000 agricultural workers without giving the growers of food and fibre a chance to recruit and move a sufficient supply of domestic farm workers to take their place, would indeed seriously jeopardize our present agricultural needs.

I am sure we can place enough faith in the judgment of the Secretary of Agriculture to know that he will certify the importation of foreign workers only when there is an absolute shortage of domestic workers.

Concerning housing, I am requesting that farmers have the prior right to purchase housing facilities now occupied by farm labor. Some concern has been expressed that you will be urged to further extend the housing facilities beyond the date specified. I can assure you that I will not so request. All I want is a reasonable period in which farm groups will have the prior right to purchase, at reasonable prices, the houses now being used for farm labor.

I should like to urge prompt action on the part of the committee reporting favorably on the principles of the proposal now before you. Senator STEWART. That 30,000 that you speak of is Mexicans? Representative ANDERSON. 120,000 Mexicans.

Senator STEWART. 120,000 that are here illegally?
Representative ANDERSON. So-called wet backs.

Senator STEWART. Where did you get that?

Representative ANDERSON. Have you not heard that word used

before?

Senator STEWART. What does it mean?

Representative ANDERSON. They come across the Rio Grande and work before their backs are dry.

Senator STEWART. Did you not say that the Commissioner is mak ing an effort to remove them?

Representative ANDERSON. There is an agreement between the Secretary of Agriculture and the Immigration and Naturalization Service whereby these workers can be taken back to the border and given a permit to work legally and returned to work. I would like