The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 79, July 1975 - April, 1976 Page: 402
528 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
sharp drop in European immigration brought about by the war and the
Immigration Act of 1917. This law imposed an eight-dollar head tax and,
for the first time in the history of the United States, a literacy test which
excluded many unskilled workers who would otherwise have been admitted
prior to 1917. Also excluded were those "who have come in consequence
of advertisements for laborers printed, published, or distributed in a foreign
country. ...." This latter provision was designed to halt the inducement
of immigration by the indirect assurances made by labor recruiters.4
The new law cut deeply into the large numbers of unskilled laborers
needed for many western farms, mines, and railroads. Sugar beet growers
and refiners in Colorado, for example, were no longer able to hire German
and Russian workers. Farming interests in California were deprived of
Italian, Slav, Greek, and Portuguese immigrants. The new law immediately
cut immigration from southern and eastern Europe by almost 50 percent.
This sharp decrease was in addition to the decline caused by the war.
In 1914 persons entering the United States totalled I,218,480; for the
remainder of the war the annual number of immigrants hovered around
the 300,000 mark. By 1918, after the implementation of the 1917 legislation,
the annual number of newcomers was less than I o percent of that in 1914.5
Wages for unskilled and semi-skilled work available in the United States
were comparatively higher than those in Mexico and provided another
attraction for displaced Mexican workers. In his native land a hacienda
peon or migrant farm laborer received a wage of about 15 cents a day;
miners earned from 50 cents to $1 daily. In the United States the illiterate,
unskilled newcomer could earn $I to $3 a day in agriculture. Mine work
paid even higher wages. Mexican miners in Globe, Arizona, for example,
earned $4.50 to $5.50 a day in local copper mines, and such jobs were read-
ily available.6
The federal government quickly took steps to remedy the situation faced
can Laborers (Washington, D.C., 1920), 19, 30, 37, 169-170; U.S., Department of
Labor, Bureau of Immigration, Annual Report of the Commissioner General of Immi-
gration to the Secretary of Labor, 9Ig8 (Washington, D.C., 1919), 317. References to
Record Group 59 in the National Archives will hereafter be cited as RG 59, NA.
4Roy L. Garis, Immigration Restriction: A Study of the Opposition to and Regulation
of Immigration into the United States (New York, 1927), 118, 125 (quotation), 130.
lIbid., 159, 164; Enrique Santibafiez, Ensayo acerca de la inmigracion mexicana en los
Estados Unidos (San Antonio, 1930), 39-40; Paul S. Taylor, Mexican Labor in the
United States: Valley of the South Platte, Colorado (Berkeley, 1929), 10o2-1o5.
Jesu's GonzAlez, Nuestros problemas (Mexico City, I92I), 28; El Universal (Mexico
City), March 3, 192o; House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, Temporary
Admission of Illiterate Mexican Laborers, 21, 34, 56, 73; Charles C. Cumberland, Mexi-
can Revolution: The Constitutionalist Years (Austin, I972), 384, 390, 399; Gustavo402
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 79, July 1975 - April, 1976, periodical, 1975/1976; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101203/m1/459/: accessed May 1, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.