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NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
HEARINGS
BEFORE THE
SELECT COMMITTEE INVESTIGATING
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGEATION
HOUSE OF EEPBESENTATIVES
SEVENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION /
PURSUANT TO
H. Res. 113
A RESOLUTION TO INQUIRE FURTHER INTO THE INTERSTATE
MIGRATION OF CITIZENS, EMPHASIZING THE PRESENT
AND POTENTIAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE
MIGRATION CAUSED BY THE NATIONAL
DEFENSE PROGRAM
PART 32
HUNTSVILLE HEARINGS
MAY 7 AND 8, 1942
Printed for the use of the Select Committee Investigating
National Defense Migration
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
HEARINGS
BEFORE THE
SELECT COMMITTEE INVESTIGATING
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGEATION
HOUSE OF EEPKESENTATIVES
SEVENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
PURSUANT TO
H. Res. 113
A RESOLUTION TO INQUIRE FURTHER INTO THE INTERSTATE
MIGRATION OF CITIZENS, EMPHASIZING THE PRESENT
AND POTENTIAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE
MIGRATION CAUSED BY THE NATIONAL
DEFENSE PROGRAM
PART 32
HUNTSVILLE HEARINGS
MAY 7 AND 8, 1942
Printed for the use of the Select Committee Investigating
National Defense Migration
UNITED STATES
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 1942
SELECT COMMITTEE INVESTIGATING NATIONAL DEFENSE
MIGRATION
JOHN H. TOLAN, California, Chairman
JOHN J. SPARKMAN, Alabama CARL T. CURTIS, Nebraska
LAURENCE F. ARNOLD, Illinois GEORGE H. BENDER, Ohio
Robebt K. Lamb, Staff Director
CONTENTS
Page
List of witnesses vn
List of authors ix
Thursday, May 7, 1942, morning session 11947
Testimony of Brig. Gen. R. C. Ditto, and Lt. Col. D. Hudson. 11947, 11956
Statement by Brig. Gen. R, C. Ditto 11954
Testimony of Huntsville panel 1 1960, 1 1962
Statement by A. W. McAllister 11960
Testimony of Edward McGregor 11962, 11964
Statement by Edward McGregor 11963
Testimony of Norris N. Payne 11967
Testimony of Dr. W. C. Hatchett 11973, 11977
Statement by Dr. W. C. Hatchett 11974
Testimony of Mrs. Walter Humphrey 11981, 11987
Statement by Mrs. Walter Humphrey 11982
Testimony of John B. Finley 1 11993
Testimony of John L. Liles, Jr 11996, 11997
Statement by John L. Liles, Jr 1 1996
Thursday, May 7, 1942, afternoon session 12005
Testimony of Walter L. Randolph 12005
Testimony of John P. Ferris 12013, 12027
Statement by John P. Ferris 12014
Friday, May 8, 1942, morning session 12039
Testimony of E. S. Morgan 12039, 12089
Statement by E. S. Morgan 12039, 12085
Testimony of H. L. Mitchell 12099,12101
Statement by H. L. Mitchell 12099
Testimony of J. T. Flagg and C. S. Hammill 12106
Statement by Harry Hill 12113
Testimony of Harry Hill 12115
Testimony of Percy Bellman 12118
Friday, May 8, 1942, afternoon session 12123
Testimony of Lt. Comdr. Elmer Langworthy 12124
Statement by Lt. Comdr. Elmer Langworthy 12129
Testimony of newspaper panel . 12132, 12139
Statement by Barrett C. Shelton 12132
Statement by Charles G. Dobbins 12134
Statement by Gould Beech 12135
Statement by George M. Cox 12137
Testimony of Ozborn Zuber 12158
Introduction of exhibits 12167
Exhibit 1. Statement by Alexander Nunn, managing editor, the Progres-
sive Farmer, Birmingham, Ala i 12169
Exhibit 2. Some Factors Affecting Long-time Adjustments in Southern
Agriculture; report by H. N. Young, agricultural economist, Virginia
Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg, Va 12170
Exhibit 3. Development of the buy-at-home program in Alabama; state-
ment by Robert Gregg, president of the Tennessee Coal, Iron & Rail-
road Co., Birmingham, Alabama 12175
Exhibit 4. The Gum Naval Stores Industry; report by S. A. Robert, Jr.,
and A. Lee Coleman, Division of Land Economics, Bureau of Agricul-
tural Economics, United States Department of Agriculture, Atlanta,
Ga_. 12176
Exhibit 5. The Cotton Picker and Farm Labor; report by Mack D. Rust,
Rust Cotton Picker Co., Memphis, Tenn 12179
in
IV CONTENTS
Page
Exhibit 6. Occupational Deferment Policy; statement by Brig. Gen.
Ben M. Smith, State director, Selective Service System, Mont-
gomery, Ala 12180
Exhibit 7. Statement by E. M. Norment, district supervisor, United
States Employment Service, Social Security Board, Federal Secu-
rity Agency, Memphis, Tenn 12182
Exhibit 8. The Labor Market in Alabama Since June 1940; report
by C. F. Anderson, director for Alabama, United States Employ-
ment Service, Social Security Board, Federal Security Agency,
Montgomery, Ala 1 12184
Exhibit 9. Statement by A. H. Collins, State superintendent of educa-
tion. State of Alabama, Montgomery, Ala 12197
Exhibit 10. Health Facilities Available in Alabama; report by B. F. Austin,
M. D., acting State health officer, department "of public health, Mont-
gomery, Ala ■ 12201
Exhibit 11. Statement by Loula Dunn, commissioner of public welfare,
! State of Alabama, Montgomery, Ala 12202
Exhibit 12. Statement by D. O. Dugger, manager of properties, Muscle
I Shoals area, Tennessee Valley Authority, Wilson Dam, Ala 12210
Exhibit 13. Labor Turn-over; report by J. M. Griser, viee president,
I Alabama Dry Dock & Shipbuilding Co., Mobile, Ala 12211
Exhibit 14. Public Facilities in City of Mobile; report by Charles A.
Baumhauer, mavor-president, board of commissioners, city of Mobile,
Mobile, Ala____: 12212
Exhibit 15. The Shipbuilding Industry in Mobile, Ala.; report by C. F.
Anderson, director for Alabama, United States Employment Service,
Social Security Board, Federal Security Agency, Montgomery, Ala 12214
Exhibit 16. Status of Personnel Separations; report by Col. V. B. Dixon,
commanding officer, Brooklev Field, Mobile, Ala 12216
Exhibit 17. The Public School Situation in Mobile; report by W. C.
Griggs, superintendent, Mobile public schools, Mobile, Ma 12217
Exhibit 18. Hospital Facilities in Mobile; report by Emmett B. Frazer,
M. D., F. A. C. S., chairman, hospital committee, Mobile County
Medical Society, Mobile, Ala 12219
Exhibit 19. Report on the citv of Prichard, bv C V. Dismukes, mayor,
city of Prichard, Prichard, Ala 12223
Exhibit 20. Statement by George D. Brown, superintendent, Madison
Countv Board of Education, Hunts ville, Ala 12223
Exhibit 21. Statement by W. K. Wittausch, Assistant Director, Division
of Research and Statistics, Federal Housing Administration, Washington,
D. C 12225
Exhibit 22. Statement by J. H. Meighan, chairman, city commission,
Gadsden, Ala 12227
Exhibit 23. Statement by C. A. Donehoo, superintendent of city schools
Gadsden, Ala ' 12228
Exhibit 24. Statement by Dr. C. L. Murphree, county health officer,
Etowah Countv Health Department, Gadsden, Ala 12229
Exhibit 25. Statement by Edgar S. Enochs, city clerk-treasurer, city of
Sheffield, Ala 12230
Exhibit 26. Statement by E. A. McBride, superintendent, Talladega
Countv Board of Education, Talledega, Ala 12231
Exhibit 27. Statement by A. H. Watwood, principal, Childersburg High
School, Childersburg, Ala 12232
Exhibit 28. Statement bv J. H. Hill, M. D., county health officer, Tal-
ladega Countv Health Department, Talladega, Ala 12232
Exhibit 29. Statement by Henry N. Doyle, Talladega County Health De-
partment, Talladega, Ala 12233
Exhibit 30. Statement by R. E. Thompson, superintendent, Tuscumbia
schools, Tuscumbia, Ala 12234
Exhibit 31. Statement by R. E. Harper, M. D., county health officer,
Colbert County Health Department, Tuscumbia, Ala 12235
Exhibit 32. Statement by Rufus Porter, superintendent of education,
Colbert Countv, Tuscumbia, Ala 12237
Exhibit 33. Statement by Mrs. W. O. Reed, director, department of public
welfare, Colbert County, Tuscumbia, Ala 12239
CONTENTS V
Page
Exhibit 34. Statement by Charles F. Vara, secretary-manager, chamber
of commerce, Anniston, Ala 12242
Exhibit 35. School Enrollment; report by C. C. Moseley, superintendent,
Anniston public schools, Anniston, Ala 12243
Exhibit 36. Statement by Frank J. Nolan, manager, the Ingails Ship-
building Corporation, Decatur, Ala 12244
Exhibit 37. Statement by L. L. Lively, Alabama Hosiery Mills, Inc.,
Decatur, Ala 12246
Exhibit 38. Statement by H. M. Jones, Cooper, Wells & Co., Decatur"
Ala 12247
Exhibit 39. Statement by Dr. J. E. Dunn, county health officer, Lauder-
dale County Department of Public Health, Florence, Ala 12248
Exhibit 40. Statement by Mrs. Ruth R. Arnett, director, department of
public welfare, Lauderdale County, Florence, Ala 12249
Exhibit 41. The Rent Situation in Huntsville Resulting from National
Defense Migration; report by Virginia C. Gibbs, Work Projects Admin-
istration, Decatur, Ala 12251
Exhibit 42. Comparison of Work Projects Administration Load at Peak
Periods Prior to the Defense Period With the Load of the Defense
Period; report by W. G. Henderson, State Work Projects Administrator,
Work Projects Administration, Montgomery, Ala 12253
Exhibit 43. Subsistence Activities and Procurement Methods in United
States Army; statement by Maj. Gen. E. B. Gregory, Quartermaster
General, United States Army, Washington, D. C 12264
Exhibit 44. Agricultural Wage and Hour Legislation in Foreign Countries'-
report by Wage and Hour Division, Research and Statistics Branch,
Department of Labor, Washington, D. C 12266
Exhibit 45. Backgrounds of the War Farm Labor Problem; report by the
Bureau of Agricultural Economics and the Farm Security Administration,
United States Department of Agriculture, Washington," D. C _ 12315
Index (following p. 12412") i-x
LIST OF WITNESSES
Huntsville Hearings May 7, 8, 1942
Page
Amis, Reese, editor, Huntsville Times, Huntsville, Ala 12132, 12139
Beech, Gould, editorial writer, Montgomery Advertiser, Montgomery,
Ala 12132, 12139
Bellman, Percy, Route 4, Huntsville, Ala 12118
Cox, George, M., editor, Mobile Register, Mobile, Ala 12132, 12139
Ditto, Brig. Gen. R. C., commanding officer, Huntsville Arsenal, Hunts-
ville, Ala 1 1947
Dobbins, Charles, editor, Anniston Times, Anniston, Ala 12132, 12139
Ferris, John P., director commerce department, Tennessee Valley Author-
ity, Knoxville, Tenn 12013, 12027
Finley, John B., migrant worker, 207 West Clinton Street, Huntsville, Ala_ 11993
Flagg, J. T., president, Gardner- Warring Mill, Florence, Ala 12106
Hammill, C. S., personnel manager, Reynolds Metals Co., Listerhill, Ala_. 12106
Hatchett, Dr. W. C, county health officer, Madison County, Hunts-
ville, Ala 11973, 11977
Hill, Harry, vice president, Gulf Shipbuilding & Drydock Co., Mobile,
Ala 12113, 12115
Hudson, Lt. Col. Carroll D., commanding officer, Redstone ordnance plant,
Huntsville, Ala 11947
Humphrey, Mrs. Walter, director Madison County Department of Public
Welfare, Huntsville, Ala 11981, 11987
Langworthy, Lt. Comdr. Elmer, port director, Mobile, Ala 12124
Liles, John L., Jr., extension economist, Auburn, Ala 11996, 11997
McGregor, Edward, chairman, county board of commissioners, Madison
County, Huntsville, Ala 11962
Mitchell, H. L., general secretary, Southern Tenant Farmers Union,
Memphis, Tenn 12099, 12101
Morgan, E. S., director, Region 5, Farm Security Administration, Mont-
gomery, Ala 12039, 12089
Payne, Norris N., clerk-treasurer, city of Huntsville, Huntsville, Ala 11967
Randolph, Walter L., president, Alabama Farm Bureau Federation, Mont-
gomery, Ala 12012
Shelton, Barrett, editor, Decatur Daily, Decatur, Ala 12132, 12139
Zuber, Ozborn, associate editor, Birmingham Age-Herald, Birmingham,
Ala _ 12158
VII
LIST OF AUTHORS
Of Prepared Statements and Exhibits
Page
Abell, D. S., chief engineer and director, bureau of sanitation, Huntsville,
Ala 11973
Anderson, C. F., director for Alabama, United States Employment Service,
Federal Security Agency, 711 High Street, Montgomery, Ala___ 12184, 12214
Arnett, Mrs. Ruth R., director, department of public welfare, Lauderdale
County, Florence, Ala 12249
Austin, Dr. B. F., acting State health officer, department of public health,
State of Alabama, Montgomery, Ala 12201
Baumhauer, Charles A., mayor-president, board of commissioners, Mobile,
Ala 12212
Beech, Gould, editorial writer, Montgomery Advertiser, Montgomery,
Ala 12135
Brown, George D., superintendent, Madison County Board of Education,
Huntsville, Ala 12223
Bureau of Agricultural Economics, United States Department of Agri-
culture, Washington, D. C 12315
Coleman, A. Lee, Division of Land Economics, Bureau of Agricultural
Economics, United States Department of Agriculture, Atlanta, Ga 12176
Collins, A. H., State superintendent of education, State of Alabama,
Montgomery, Ala 12197
Cox, George M., executive editor, Mobile Register, Mobile, Ala 12137
Dismukes, C. V., mayor, city of Prichard, Prichard, Ala 12223
Ditto, Brig. Gen. R. C, commanding officer, Huntsville Arsenal, Hunts-
ville, Ala 11954
Dixon, Col. V. B., commanding officer, Brookley Field, Mobile, Ala 12216
Dobbins, Charles, editor, Anniston Times, Anniston, Ala 12134
Donehoo, C. A., superintendent of city schools, Gadsden, Ala 12228
Doyle, Henry N., Talladega County Health Department, Talledega, Ala__ 12233
Dugger, D. O., manager of properties, Muscle Shoals Area, Tennessee
Valley Authority, Wilson Dam, Ala 12210
Dunn, Dr. J. E., county health officer, Lauderdale County Department
of Public Health, Florence, Ala 12248
Dunn, Loula, commissioner of public welfare, State of Alabama, Mont-
gomery, Ala 12202, 12204
Enochs, Edgar S., city clerk, treasurer, city of Sheffield, Sheffield, Ala 12230
Ferris, John P., director, commerce department, Tennessee Valley Au-
thority, Knoxville, Tenn 12014
Frazer, Dr. Emmett B., chairman, hospital committee, Mobile County
Medical Society, Mobile, Ala 12219
Gibbs, Virginia *C, Work Projects Administration, Decatur, Ala 12251
Farm Security Administration, United States Department of Agriculture,
Washington, D. C 12315
Gregg, Robert, president, Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Co., Birming-
ham, Ala 2 12175
Gregory, Maj. Gen. E. B., Quartermaster General's office, United States
Army, War Department, Washington, D. C 12264
Griggs, W. C, superintendent, Mobile public schools, Mobile, Ala 12217
Griser, J. M., vice president, Alabama Dry Dock & Shipbuilding Co.,
Mobile, Ala 12211
Harper, Dr. R. E., county health officer, Colbert County Health Depart-
ment, Tuscumbia, Ala 12235
Hatchett, Dr. W. C, county health officer, Madison County, Huntsville,
Ala 11974
Henderson, W. G., State Work Projects administrator, Montgomery, Ala__ 12253
Hill, Dr. J. H., county health officer, Talledega Countv Health Depart-
ment, Talledega, Ala I 12232
IX
X CONTENTS
Page
Hill, Harry, vice president, Gulf Shipbuilding & Drydock Co., Mobile,
Ala 12113
Humphrey, Mrs. Walter, director, Madison County Department of Public
Welfare, Huntsville, Ala 11982
Jones, H. M., representing Cooper, Wells & Co., Decatur, Ala 12247
Langworthy, Lt. Comdr. Elmer, port director, Mobile, Ala 12124
Liles, John L., Jr., extension economist, Auburn, Ala 11996
Lively, L. L., Alabama Hosiery Mills, Inc., Decatur, Ala 12246
McAllister, A. W., mayor, Huntsville, Ala 11960
McBride, E. A., superintendent, Talladega County Board of Education,
Talledega, Ala 12231
McGregor, Edward, chairman, county board of commissioners, Madison
County, Huntsville, Ala 11963
Meighan, chairman, city commission, Gadsden, Ala 12227
Mitchell, H. L., general secretary, Southern Tenant Farmers Union, Mem-
phis, Tenn 12099
Morgan, E. S., director Region 5, Farm Security Administration, United
States Department of Agriculture, Montgomery, Ala 12039, 12085
Moseley, C C, superintendent, Anniston public schools, Anniston, Ala 12243
Murphree, Dr. C. L., county health officer, Etowah County Health Depart-
ment, Gadsden, Ala . 12229
Nolan, Frank J., manager, Ingalls Shipbuilding Corporation, Decatur,
Ala 12244
Norment, E. M., district supervisor, United States Employment Service,
Social Security Board, Federal Security Agency, Memphis, Tenn 12182
Nunn, Alexander, managing editor, the Progressive Farmer, Birmingham,
Ala 12169
Porter, Rufus, superintendent of education, Colbert County, Tuscumbia,
Ala 12237
Reed, Mrs. W. O., director, department of public welfare, Colbert County,
Tuscumbia, Ala 12239
Robert, S. A., Jr., Division of Land Economics, Bureau of Agricultural
Economics, United States Department of Agriculture, Atlanta, Ga 12176
Rust, Mack D., Rust Cotton Picker Co., Memphis, Tenn 12179
Shelton, Barrett, editor, Decatur Daily, Decatur, Ala 12132
Smith, Brig. Gen. Ben M., State director, Selective Service System, Mong-
gomery, Ala 12180
Thompson, R. E., superintendent, Tuscumbia city schools, Tuscumbia,
Ala 12234
Varn, Charles F., secretary-manager, chamber of commerce, Anniston,
Ala 12242
Wage and Hour Division, Research and Statistics Branch, Department
of Labor, Washington, D. C 12266
Watwood, A. H., principal, Childersburg High School, Childersburg, Ala._ 12232
Wittausch, W. K., Assistant Director, Division of Research and Statistics,
Federal Housing Administration, Washington, D. C 12225
Young, H. N., agricultural economist, Virginia Polytechnic Institute,
Blacksburg, Va 12170
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
THURSDAY, MAY 7, 1942
MORNING SESSION
House of Representatives,
Select Committee Investigating
National Defense Migration,
Washington, D. C.
The committee met at 10 a. m., May 7, 1942, in the Post Office
Building, Himtsville, Ala., Hon. John H. Tolan, chairman of the com-
mittee, presiding.
Present: Representatives John H. Tolan, of California; Laurence
F. Arnold, of Illinois; and John J. Sparkman, of Alabama.
Also present: John W. Abbott, chief field investigator ; Jack B. Burke,
field investigator; Francis X. Riley, field investigator; and Ruth B.
Abrams, field secretary.
TESTIMONY OF BRIG. GEN. R. C. DITTO, HUNTSVILLE ARSENAL,
HUNTSVILLE, ALA., AND IT. COI. CARROLL D. HUDSON,
REDSTONE ORDNANCE PLANT, HUNTSVILLE, ALA.
The Chairman. The committee will please come to order. The first
witnesses will be Brig. Gen. R. C. Ditto, commanding officer, Hunts-
ville Arsenal, and Lt. Col. Carroll D. Hudson, commanding officer,
Redstone Ordnance Plant, Himtsville. I want to say to you gentle-
men that we appreciate your coming here this morning. What the
committee would like to do is to get a bird's-eye view, for the
record, of these projects here. We are a fact-finding committee. I
want to introduce the members of the committee. I think you
already know Congressman Sparkman who is to my left. He is rank-
ing member of this committee, has been all over the United States
with us, and I want to say to you and to the people here that we are
very proud of Congressman Sparkman. He is one of the outstanding
men in Congress and has performed valuable work with this committee.
To my right is Congressman Arnold, of Illinois. He also has per-
formed wonderful work and hasn't missed a meeting or a hearing.
And, as chairman of the committee from California, all I can do is
bring some of the California sunshine to Alabama.
Now, gentlemen, tell us about this arsenal project here. General,
when did you come here yourself?
General Ditto. I came here the last of August, when the project
was just getting under way. In fact, no work had then been done on
the project.
11947
11948 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
The Chairman. Where was your assignment before coming here?
General Ditto. I was officer in charge of the Pittsburg Chemical
Warfare Procurement.
The Chairman. When did actual work start on this project?
General Ditto. About the 1st of September 1941.
The Chairman. Did the Government purchase the site?
General Ditto. It did.
The Chairman. What is the extent of the area?
General Ditto. Including Redstone, 32,000 acres at that time.
The Chairman. About how far is that from Huntsville?
General Ditto. It is about 2% miles, that is from the nearest point
of the arsenal to Huntsville.
The Chairman. These questions are for the purpose of the record,
General. Now you started in September. How has the progress
been up to date?
General Ditto. The progress has been very satisfactory. In fact,
we are ahead of schedule, well ahead of schedule.
The Chairman. Are there any buildings there?
General Ditto. Quite a number.
The Chairman. What is the percentage of completion there as it
is today?
General Ditto. About 80 percent complete on the original project.
The Chairman. Are there a number of similar projects like the
arsenal here in the United States?
General Ditto. No, sir; there are not. We have only two other
arsenals in addition to the Huntsville Arsenal.
The Chairman. Now as to this question I am about to ask you,
General, if there is anything that shouldn't be told, so far as giving
any comfort to the enemy, don't say anything about it. But in gen-
eral what is the Huntsville Arsenal?
General Ditto. It is a manufacturing arsenal for certain basic
materials for Chemical Warfare Service.
The Chairman. And just what they are, we had better leave blank?
General Ditto. I would suggest that.
The Chairman. What problems, if any, have confronted you in
regard to obtaining labor?
General Ditto. I can't say we were confronted with any particular
problems. We have always been able to get the required amount of
labor, so far as construction is concerned.
The Chairman. Did you have any difficulty in obtaining skilled
labor? .
General Ditto. I think not. I wasn't in close touch with that.
That was the problem of the area engineer. But from what he told
me, we have had little trouble. There was a short period when there
was a difficulty on pay rates. Our rates were lower than those of
surrounding projects, but those rates were raised and that solved the
difficulty.
The Chairman. What is the number of your personnel?
General Ditto. The personnel for construction is about 7,000.
Ours is about 800 at the present time.
The Chairman. You mean 7,000 construction workers?
General Ditto. Yes, sir; and employees for Chemical Warfare
Service, 800 at the present time.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 11949
The Chairman. That is a pretty good showing. You had to start
from scratch.
General Ditto. Yes, sir; when I came here there wasn't even a
mark on the ground.
FARM DISPLACEMENTS
The Chairman. Tell me about farm displacements in taking the
32,000 acres, whether or not you had any difficulties. First, were
any farmers displaced?
General Ditto. I don't recall the exact number of families, but I
think in the neighborhood of between 400 and 500. So far as the
arsenal authorities are concerned, we had no difficulty about it.
Of course, I admit we kept pushing. But the relocation service
handled it very well and kept getting these people out, and there
wasn't any incident of any kind that occurred in moving these people.
The Chairman. The relocation service is a separate department?
General Ditto. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. They take care of that?
General Ditto. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. They report to you?
General Ditto. No, sir; they just reported to me, so far as that is
concerned, on how many were left at a certain time, and how many
were to get off at another time, and when they were finally all removed.
The Chairman. Do they clear through Congress?
General Ditto. I don't know.
Mr. Sparkman. That is part of the Farm Security Administration.
HOUSING OF WORKERS
The Chairman. What about housing, General?
. General Ditto. We have had a housing problem here, it is true.
We managed to accommodate our workers at the top of our peak
employment, which was around 12,000 workers on the project, and
they were taken care of. How, I don't know. Probably nobody
could answer that. It is true we have had lots of complaints about
rentals, and on the other hand we had reports of very fair rentals.
The rental situation here was no different from any other at like
projects throughout the country, in my opinion.
The Chairman. This committee visited several of these projects in
the United States, probably one of the largest being at San Diego.
This project at San Diego is about 6 miles from town. They are put-
ting up 3,000 housing units. Of course, there are housing problems.
Do many of your employees live here in Huntsville?
General Ditto. Yes, sir; quite a number. And I will say this, the
housing facilities of Hunstville have been considerably expanded by
private individuals, and that is the only way, I think, these people
could have been accommodated.
The Chairman. I drove south with Congressman Sparkman and I
noticed what looked to me like hundreds of houses going up.
General Ditto. I think those houses are going up under Federal
Housing Authority, title 6. We have 703 set up for Huntsville.
11950 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
The Chairman. Are any of the employees housed near the arsenal
plant or on the reservation?
General Ditto. A very small number. We had a number of
houses left and picked out the best and allowed some of our employees
to move into them. We also have five married officers quartered out
there in houses we repaired and turned over to them. But I would
say we haven't more than 35 or 40 families on the reservation at the
present time.
The Chairman. The rest are housed in Huntsville?
General Ditto. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. Huntsville must have increased in population
considerably?
General Ditto. There is no question but that it has. Just what
number we get direct from Huntsville and what number we get from
surrounding towns, I couldn't say.
DEMOUNTABLE HOUSING
The Chairman. Is any new housing positively contemplated here?
A gentleman was telling me about some new demountable houses.
General Ditto. Of that so-called temporary housing, I am antici-
pating 250 to 300 units of that, but we won't have any definite infor-
mation as to that until the end of this week.
The Chairman. Have you any opinion as to the advisability of
demountable houses?
General Ditto. I think it would be all right. That is what we are
considering at the present time.
The Chairman. While we have got to win this war, we have got
to think about the post-war period, too. It is a question of a
city Huntsville's size absorbing 8,000 or 10,000 permanent homes.
And that is a problem throughout the country, as I understand it.
I was asking that question because so many people advocate the
demountable houses, while others say it is not a good use.
General Ditto. Of course it is true that demountable houses aren't
the best houses. We haven't made up our minds whether we are
going into it or not, but we are investigating it at the present time.
The Chairman. I think you will agree with me that the tendency
of people who have moved here from Nebraska, Oklahoma, and
California, and any other place is always to go back home, if conditions
are as good there as they are here?
General Ditto. There is no doubt about it.
The Chairman. This committee is giving considerable attention to
the post-war period for that reason.
Colonel, you have heard General Ditto. Is there anything you
want to add?
Colonel Hudson. I think the General has stated the case as I
see it.
Mr. Sparkman. You said you were expecting 250 to 300 of the
houses to be announced soon. Now, some of these houses have al-
ready been authorized at Redstone?
Colonel Hudson. That is my understanding.
Mr. Sparkman. That is the temporary type, too?
Colonel Hudson. Yes, sir; 300, I understand.
Mr. Sparkman. That is just outside the ordnance plant?
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 11951
Colonel Hudson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. How many operating employees do you have now?
Colonel Hudson. I believe it figures a little over 600 at the present
time.
Mr. Sparkman. General, when you said the project was 80 percent
complete, did that include the ordnance plant?
General Ditto. No, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. What about the ordnance plant?
Colonel Hudson. It is substantially completed; I would say in the
neighborhood of 95 percent.
TYPES OP LABOR
The Chairman. I wonder what percentage of the construction labor
was white labor and what percentage was colored?
General Ditto. I don't believe I can answer that question very
accurately, but I can get the information. We have employed quite
a lot of colored labor.
The Chairman. The colored labor has been mostly unskilled labor;
is that correct?
General Ditto. I would say they are. I have observed colored
bricklayers at work. That is the only colored skilled labor I have
observed.
The Chairman. Will colored employees be used in the completed
project?
General Ditto. Yes, sir; we will have a certain number, and because
the manpower situation has changed some of our plans and may
change more, we may have to switch to 80 or 90 percent colored.
The Chairman. Do you anticipate employing women?
General Ditto. Not over 20 percent.
The Chairman. Will those be white women?
General Ditto. Both white and colored.
Mr. Sparkman. I would like to put this question to both you and
Colonel Hudson. Have you had any trouble recruiting your supply
of operating labor?
General Ditto. I haven't, but we have reached out pretty far and
got complaints from industry.
Mr. Sparkman. Is it the same with you, Colonel?
Colonel Hudson. Yes, sir; that is the case with me, too.
Mr. Sparkman. All of your workers in both plants are Civil Service
workers?
General Ditto. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. And they do have to qualify through Civil Service
tests?
General Ditto. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. Has there been any restriction as to area — I know
your examinations are advertised in a restricted area — but anybody is
eligible from anywhere?
General Ditto. Yes, sir,
Mr. Sparkman. You do try to get them from as short a radius as
possible?
General Ditto. Yes, sir; and we prefer them from right here.
Mr. Sparkman. Have you trained most of these people? I believe
training courses were put on in the schools prior to employment?
11952 HUNTSVTLLE, ALAV HEARINGS
General Ditto. I know they were, but I don't know that we have
benefited materially from them, for the courses as they were con-
ducted last year didn't fit in.
Mr. Sparkman. The skills they taught were general, and yours
specialized?
General Ditto. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. Is that true with you, Colonel?
Colonel Hudson. Yes, sir; that is true, and you might say we
trained our men on the job, job training. We hold classes at the plant
to give them a little broader knowledge of the problems they have.
Mr. Sparkman. What has been the aptitude shown by these people?
Have they taken to the training readily?
adaptability of southern labor
Colonel Hudson. I would say on the average that is the case.
They have adapted themselves very readily.
Mr. Sparkman. Is that true in your plant, General?
General Ditto. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. It might be interesting to you gentlemen to know
that about 3% years ago I went to the White House and talked to the
President about the building of a chemical warfare arsenal. In that
discussion — it was when Baker was Chief of the Chemical Warfare
Service — the President told me that this area was a good area for
another arsenal except for one thing, that we could never supply the
labor, that we didn't have skilled labor in here that could operate the
plant. I have got a great kick out of some of the reactions we have
during these years and during this war program from different officials.
It has been recognized finally that, even though our labor may not
have been classified as skilled, it was adaptable and there has been no
difficulty in this area generally with reference to employment of
operating labor.
The Chairman. I want to say, General, in that regard that if the
people at home only realized what the pressure on Congressmen in
these days in reference to projects is like, it would be a fine thing.
It took Congressman Sparkman about 4 years to get his message
over, and he was always there on the job. And I think it has proven
a fine thing.
Does the appropriation for the arsenal and ordnance plant come
out of the general War Department appropriation?
General Ditto. Part of this money was for expediting procure-
ment; part of it was that, and the other part, as I recall it, was War
Department appropriations.
COST OF PLANTS
The Chairman. What will it cost; that is, both plants, approxi-
mately?
General Ditto. At the present time we have set up $65,000,000,
and we will be well within that amount of money. The original
arsenal was a $31,000,000 set-up. And there were, as I recall it,
about $7,000,000 or $8,000,000 held in reserve, and we haven't
touched the reserve to date. Now the additions of Redstone and the
main arsenal are going to run well within those figures, too.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 11953
The Chairman. The ordnance is separate?
General Ditto. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. What will that run, Colonel?
Colonel Hudson. About $8,000,000, and that is exclusive of the
land .
HIRING OF LABOR
The Chairman. Tell me, General, how you go about hiring labor.
Say, for instance, you want 100 construction men, how do you get
them ; what are the mechanics of it?
General Ditto. I don't know that I can answer that question
very well. As I say, I didn't enter into the construction picture so
far as labor is concerned. I don't know what methods the contractors
used.
The Chairman. That was done by the contractors?
General Ditto. Yes, sir; they have their own methods and labor
pool and handled skilled labor as well as common labor.
The Chairman. How do you get men for your plant?
General Ditto. We have civil service; say we have 100 to 150
names on the register, we would go to the register and ask these
people if they wanted to come in, and they say yes or no.
The Chairman. Do you clear through the United States Civil
Service Commission in Washington?
General Ditto. No, sir; only if we want someone in the profes-
sional class.
The Chairman. You have your own local board?
General Ditto. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. Of course, the salaries are fixed by law?
General Ditto. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. What about construction people, did they have any
wage disputes?
General Ditto. As I recall, there was no dispute with the exception
of one or two minor incidents.
The Chairman. Did it retard the work seriously?
General Ditto. No, sir; it didn't. I don't recall whether the trouble
was with the plumbers or electricians, but other projects in surround-
ing areas were paying a higher rate than we were paying, and that was
adjusted. Until we got it adjusted that skilled labor didn't want to
come in. That was the trouble.
PEAK EMPLOYMENT
Mr. Abbott. General Ditto and Colonel Hudson, if you can, please
indicate to the committee the approximate employment at peak pro-
duction at your plants?
General Ditto. At the present time I anticipate there will be 5,000
for the three shifts.
Mr. Abbott. What about yours, Colonel?
Colonel Hudson. I anticipate 3,000.
Mr. Abbott. That will make 8,000 all told?
General Ditto. Yes, sir.
Mr. Abbott. Do you have any tables or anything that would be
useful to the committee's record as to average income or a break-down
of income?
60396— 42— pt. 32 2
11954 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
General Ditto. I don't know if we have any, but we could prob-
ably furnish you a general break-down, as we see it now, within a
certain salary range.
Mr. Abbott. What I was trying to do was establish the income as
between available rentals. And in that connection I was thinking
of another city where we were holding a hearing. There were some
F. H. A. homes that had been offered for sale and there had been a
certain reluctance on the part of the production workers to take them,
in that they couldn't be certain that it would last beyond the war.
Have you had any experience like that?
General Ditto. I don't think we have got that far on housing. As
I understand it, the greater number of the houses will be rented.
AVERAGE RENTALS
Mr. Abbott. Do you have any figures on the average rentals?
General Ditto. We can furnish you with the figures. Some Fed-
eral Housing Administration houses rent for $40, some for $50. I
think it is $40, $42.50, and $50.
Mr. Abbott. That is for new property?
General Ditto. Yes, sir.
Mr. Abbott. Would that be the same with you, Colonel Hudson?
Colonel Hudson. Yes, sir; you spoke of some figures. We have
some figures that may be interesting to the committee indicating
the percentage of employees who we expect to be within Huntsville,
Ala., that is, residents, against those that are coming in from certain
areas from the outside, within a 25-mile radius and a 75-mile radius;
and also the percentage of men against women; also the wages avail-
able. That can be made available if you want it.
The Chairman. If I may make this suggestion — it is impossible
for you gentlemen to remember those figures specifically, and the
committee will have Mr. Abbott contact you if we think we need
them for the purpose of the record to compare them against wages
received by other workers in different parts of the country.
(The material referred to was received subsequent to the hearing
and accepted for the record.)
Headquarters Huntsville Arsenal,
Chemical Warfare Service,
Huntsville Arsenal, Ala., May 27, 1942.
Hon. John H. Tolan,
House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.
Dear Mr. Tolan: In compliance with request contained in your letter of
May 19, 1942, the following information, as far as could be determined, is sub-
mitted :
(a) Total production employment. — To date there are 180 women and 877 men
employed by the Chemical Warfaie Service at Huntsville Arsenal, consisting of
the following classifications:
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
11955
Position
Nnm-
ber
Average
salary
Position
Num-
ber
Average
salary
127
76
14
11
4
1
78
28
20
10
1
1
Per
annum
$1, 440. 00
2, 600. 00
1, 440. 00
600. 00
1, 080. 00
1, 260. 00
1, 500. 00
1, 500. 00
1, 200. 00
1, 200. 00
1, 860. 00
2, 000. 00
30
170
35
5
10
278
10
20
20
20
1
8
30
5
40
1
2
1
Per day
$3.60
Laborers
3.84
4.80
5.04
Chemical plant workmen
Chemical plant operators
5.28
6.24
6.48
6.72
6.72
6.72
Senior machinery operator
Senior radio mechanic techni-
5.28
6.72
7.20
7.44
Chemical plant foreman
Munitions handler foreman
8.00
8.00
8.00
4.80
(b) Anticipated employment at peak production. — It is estimated that approxi-
mately 5,000 employees will comprise the personnel at this station when in full
production.
(c) Percentage of personnel according to points of origin. — According to present
figures, 85 percent of the personnel employed at Huntsville Arsenal (Chemical
Warfare Service) live in the immediate vicinity of Huntsville and 15 percent
commute within a radius of from 25 to 75 miles. Employees originate from the
following States:
Alabama
Tennessee
Georgia
Mississippi
Florida
Oklahoma
New York
North Carolina.
Texas
Arkansas
Missouri
Percent
58.
0
18.
0
9.
5
1.
4
1.
4
1.
4
1.
4
9
9
9
7
South Carolina-
Illinois
Ohio
Colorado
Virginia
Maryland
Michigan
Wisconsin
Pennsylvania. .
Louisiana.
Minnesota
Percent
0.7
. 7
. 7
. 7
.7
.7
.3
.3
.3
.3
(d) Rental chart of homes and apartments in Huntsville area. — According to sta-
tistics furnished this office by the Huntsville Chamber of Commerce, the follow-
ing rents prevailed prior to the beginning of the construction of the arsenal:
Furnished apartments $35 to $45 per month.
Unfurnished apartments $25 to $30 per month.
Furnished houses $35 to $45 per month.
Unfurnished houses $22.50 to $30 per month.
The present average rentals of homes in the Huntsville area are as follows ■
Furnished apartments 1 $60 to $75 per month.
Unfurnished apartments $40 to $50 per month.
Furnished houses $60 to $75 per month.
Unfurnished houses $50 to $60 per month.
If I can furnish you or the committee any additional information, please let
me know.
Very sincerely,
R. C. Ditto,
Brigadier General, United States Army,
Commanding.
11956
HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Average income report as of May 1, 1942
Number
of workers
Average
income
35
105
60
425
58
$2, 510. 28
1,534.47
1,917.99
1,341.50
990. 00
683
USE OF TRAILERS
Mr. Sparkman. How many trailers are being used around here?
General Ditto. On the Farm Security area, I suppose there are
400 trailers. There are a number of private trailer parks.
Mr. Sparkman. Would you think there were about 700 or 800
trailers, all told?
General Ditto. I would say at least that, probably 800.
Mr. Sparkman. Has there been any trouble with reference to
transportation of workers because of rubber shortage?
General Ditto. No, sir; not yet.
Mr. Sparkman. Has there been any planning as to that problem?
transportation of workers
General Ditto. What I am anticipating is getting busses and if
we do, we will try to get the workers on the northeast corner of the
arsenal grounds and we will move them by bus from that place.
Mr. Sparkman. You have a similar arrangement in mind, Colonel?
Colonel Hudson. Yes, sir. Last month I was asked for a detailed
report from Chief of Ordnance, and we submitted that as of the last
day of last month. In that report I outlined our investigations on
transportation that has to go on rubber and transportation that could
be handled by rail. We have rail connections to the plant, of
course. And we have included that in our study.
Mr. Sparkman. You haven't started any rail transportation yet?
Colonel Hudson. No, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. To either plant?
General Ditto. No, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. Do busses operate to the arsenal and ordnance
plant?
Colonel Hudson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. Do most workers come by bus or drive their own
cars? _ .
Colonel Hudson. Most of them drive. There is a bus shortage.
Mr. Sparkman. Have they started the pooling of their cars?
Colonel Hudson. Yes, sir; they are all afraid of their tires.
VOLUNTARY SAVINGS PLAN
Mr. Sparkman. I have noticed with much interest in the Hunts-
ville Times a report of a voluntary savings plan throughout the city
by pav-roll deductions for the purpose of buying war bonds. I have
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 11957
noticed that is being worked throughout the two plants. It is on a
wholly voluntary basis, of course?
General Ditto. Absolutely.
Mr. Sparkman. If these workers sign an agreement that a certain
percentage of their pay be deducted, you automatically deduct it at
the end of each week or each pay period?
General Ditto. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. Are they coming in pretty well?
General Ditto. We have just got started recently. But, so far as
I can see, they are.
Colonel Hudson. It looks promising.
Mr. Sparkman. There has been a great agitation throughout the
country and it is something that the country as a whole, and Congress
feel that if it could not be worked out, something ought to be done,
and that is a kind of enforced savings plan. Of course there are
legal and constitutional difficulties connected with it, and it seems to
me that if this voluntary plan could be put into effect throughout the
country, we could do a lot to stave off inflation and cushion the drop
when it comes.
About what deductions do they authorize?
General Ditto. That I don't loiow. I know of a few cases where
people will buy two bonds, $18.75, that is, a $25 bond each pay day.
Mr. Sparkman. In other words, twice a month?
General Ditto. Yes, sir. I told my bond officers we didn't want
any pressure put on any of the people, because we didn't know what
other obligations they had to meet, and I felt they were all patriotic
and I didn't feel it right to put pressure on them. They are doing
very well so far.
The Chairman. Of course, the trouble with compulsory savings is
that no two families are alike. What one family can spare doesn't
necessarily mean it is what another family could spare.
General Ditto. That is true.
SAVINGS AND LIVING EXPENSES
The Chairman. This committee tried to explore that. I remem-
ber we had a witness on the stand with a wife and six children. I
have always had the idea that after all was said and done, that these
workers in the United States, who have left their own home State
and have gone into another to get a job, should put some of their
earnings into savings. I think that will be a real cushion, because
nobody knows what will be the situation at the end of this war.
And if these workers had $500 or $600 or $1,000 put away to protect
them, it would be a splendid thing. But getting back to the witness
I was speaking of who had a wife and six children. I was exploring
that line with him, and I said, "Are you saving any money?" And
he said, "How can I? I am charged $80 a month rent for a two-
room house and out of $135, how can I save?" The story went all
over the United States, and they formed a rent committee and got
after the landlord.
About how many rooms are in these houses, General?
General Ditto. That depends. They are not uniform. I can't
tell you the range of the rooms. But the $40 houses will bave the
11958 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
smaller rooms and the smaller number of rooms than the $50 houses.
In the temporary houses we are considering, there is one bedroom and
a combination of living and dining room, or two bedrooms. We will
have to get some with two bedrooms, of course, to accomodate some
of the families. But the two-bedroom houses will be the maximum
for these temporary houses.
The Chairman. I will never forget this man with the wife and six
children. We traced him from Oklahoma through the different States
until he arrived in California, to see how he got along, what were the
State barriers, and what difficulties he went through. So I said to
him finally, "In traveling from Oklahoma to California, I would like
to know where you slept, the eight of you?" And he said, "We
always had a 10 by 14 tent that we slept in." And I said, "I suppose
you had the latest sanitary conveniences in that tent." And he said,
"No, Mr. Congressman ; we had the earliest."
(The following letters were handed the reporter as illustrating the
problem and were accepted for the record.)
Huntsville, Ala.
Lieutenant Lane,
Huntsville Arsenal, Huntsville, Ala.
Dear Sir: I am writing you regarding the position as senior radio technician
at the arsenal.
After spending 2 days in Huntsville looking for a suitable place to live, we find
that we will be unable to meet the high prices asked. Because of this, I will have
to pass up this opportunity to work for you.
Yours,
Charles Peterson.
Headquarters Huntsville Arsenal,
Chemical Warfare Service,
Huntsville Arsenal, Ala., September 11, 1941.
Commanding Officer,
Huntsville Arsenal, Ala.
(Through Property Officer).
I hereby submit my resignation as clerk-typist CAF-2 to take effect on Sep-
tember 15, 1941, at close of business.
My reason for doing so is as follows: I have two children for whom I am the
sole support, and can find no place to live for myself and children within my
means.
Evelyn B. Grayton.
[First endorsement]
Property Officer.
Huntsville Arsenal, Ala., September 11, 19^2.
To Commanding Officer, Huntsville Arsenal, Ala.
Recommending approval without prejudice.
Replacement is — is not requested -.
Wm. L. Van Hay.
Approved.
For the Commanding Officer.
J. F. Lane.
Second Lieutenant, CWS, Adjutant.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
11959
Headquarters Huntsville Arsenal,
Chemical Warfare Service,
Huntsville Arsenal, Ala., January 22, 1941.
To Commanding Officer,
Huntsville Arsenal, Ala.:
I hereby submit my resignation as assistant chemical engineer to take effect on
January 22 (close of business 21).
My reason for doing so is as follows: It is impossible to obtain housing in
Huntsville.
Clyde A. Benn.
[First endorsement]
Huntsville Arsenal, Ala., January 21, 1942.
To Commanding Officer,
Huntsville Arsenal, Ala.:
1. Recommending approval.
Replacement is requested.
W. J. Ungetheum,
Lieutenant Colonel, Chemical Warfare, Chief of Operations.
Date: January 21, 1942. Approved.
For the Commanding Officer:
J. F. Lane,
First Lieutenant, Chemical Warfare Service, Adjutant.
Mr. Sparkman. I would like to ask you this question. You told
us the number of employees you would have for three shifts, when you
get into peak production. Does that mean continuous operation?
General Ditto. Yes, sir.
HOURS WORKED
Mr. Sparkman. How many hours a week do they work?
General Ditto. Seven days a week.
Mr. Sparkman. I mean the personnel?
General Ditto. At the present time we are on the 40-hour week,
and later we will be required to work 48. We will then work 48 and
have a swing shift.
Mr. Sparkman. These are all Civil Service employees?
General Ditto. Yes, sir.
Do they get time and a half for all time over 40
Mr. Sparkman.
hours per week?
General Ditto.
Mr. Sparkman.
Yes, sir.
In other words, the regular workweek is 40 hours
and they get regular pay for that, and then time and a half for the
other 8 hours.?
Yes, sir.
There is no extra time for holidays and Sundays?
No; that is regular work time.
That swing shift will give
vou con turn ous
General Ditto.
Mr. Sparkman.
General Ditto.
Mr. Sparkman.
operation?
General Ditto. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. And that is true at your plant?
Colonel Hudson. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. Are you having difficulty in getting necessary
material in here for these plants?
General Ditto. Yes, sir; some difficulty. Of course, some of our
difficulty has been brought about by the Navy. The Navy has taken
some of the equipment we wanted.
11960 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
The Chairman. Has that slowed you up to any extent?
General Ditto. No; not on the whole.
The Chairman. You have priority over everything but the Navy?
General Ditto. Not quite. We have some very high priorities
and some low priorities. But we have got along very well.
The Chairman. You are not taking the worst of it?
General Ditto. No, sir.
The Chairman. The Army never does.
We are very grateful to have both of you here this morning.
TESTIMONY OF HUNTSVILLE PANEL
The Chairman. We will now call the Huntsville civic panel,
Mr. A. W. McAllister, Mr. Edward McGregor, Mr. N. M. Payne,
Dr. W. C. Hatchett, and Mrs. Walter Humphrey.
Mr. Payne. Mayor McAllister is ill and couldn't come down this
morning.
Mr. Sparkman. That is right. He called and said he was ill and
Mr. Payne would represent him.
The Chairman. We have a statement from Mayor McAllister,
which we shall place in the record at this point.
(The statement is as follows:)
STATEMENT BY A. W. McALLISTER, MAYOR, CITY OF HUNTSVILLE,
ALA.
Report on the City of Huntsville
The City of Huntsville, Ala., is operated under mayor and council form of
government. It has a mayor, president of the council, and 2 aldermen from
each of 4 wards, making a total of 10 elected officials. These officials were
elected in September 1940 and their terms will expire on the first Monday in
October 1944.
Attached hereto and made a part of this report is a financial statement of the
city of Huntsville.1 Also attached is a statement of the city's revenue for the
last fiscal year and a statement of the anticipated revenue for the current year.
TAX REVENUES
This city has a constitutional tax limit of 15 mills. In addition there is a debt
limit of 7 percent of its assessed valuation. Bonds issued for sewers, schools, and
those that are payable in whole or in a part from public improvement assessments
are not chargeable against this debt limit. There is also excluded from this debt
limit temporary loans not exceeding 25 percent of the anticipated general revenue,
provided such loans are made in anticipation of the collection of taxes and are
payable within 1 year from date of issue.
The city is now levying 14% mills of its 15-mill limit. The taxes now levied are
for the following purposes: 5 mills for general purposes, 5 mills for general bonds
and bond interest, 4.25 mills for bonds issued for school buildings, 0.25 mill for
bonds issued for sanitary sewers.
There is only one-half mill that is not being levied, and this cannot be levied
except by a majority vote of the electors of the city, who must also determine the
length of time for which it shall be levied.
The city has increased certain privilege licenses which will bring in additional
revenue during the current year. However, in September 1941, the people voted
out liquor in Madison County and the city's revenue will be decreased about
$30,000 per year on account of the loss of revenue from this source.
Increased revenue should be received from the city during this year from its
waterworks on account of the additional customers now being served. However,
it has become necessary for the city to install additional pumping equipment,
1 Held in committee files.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
11961
purchase new meters and meter boxes, which probably will cost more than the
increased revenue during this fiscal year, but the city should feel the effect of this
increased revenue during its next fiscal year.
No taxes are collected in the police jurisdiction. The city does collect licenses
from businesses, from occupations and professions in the police jurisdiction in an
amount equivalent to 50 percent of the rates charged in the city limits. These
licenses are collected for the purpose of furnishing police and fire protection
in the police jurisdiction. Although no records are kept of expenses of this
police and fire protection, it is believed that the expense of this protection exceeds
the revenue derived from business licenses jn the police jurisdiction.
The officials of the city have not made any particular survey of the housing and
rent situation. Several branches of the Federal Government have made such
survey, we are informed, and the Huntsville Housing Authority has gone into the
matter of housing. (See analysis of building permits attached hereto.)
Many houses are being built within the police jurisdiction of the city but very
few are being built within the city limits. There is sufficient vacant property
within the city to allow the construction of many houses but only a few tracts of
land are suitable for mass building.
EXTENSION OF CITY LIMITS
There are no present plans to expand the city limits. The city limits can only
be extended upon vote of the people now residing without the city limits who
desire to attach themselves to and become a part of the city of Huntsville.
If the city limits were extended, the city would receive additional revenue
from ad valorem taxes and business licenses on that part brought within the city
and the extension would automatically extend the police jurisdiction. Then the
city would receive indirect taxes from automobile tags and insurance premiums
from that new addition to the city. Some of the licenses collected by the city
are graduated on a population basis but this would not increase the revenue very
much. If the city limits are extended the residents affected thereby would expect
and should receive the same services now rendered to the residents of Huntsville.
As to whether or not extension of the city limits would be an asset from a financial
standpoint can only be determined by a careful survey of the territory desiring
to be annexed.
HEALTH AND EDUCATIONAL FACILITIES
In regard to facilities of health, the city has no separate health department but
contributes to the State health department. Madison County also contributes
to the State health department so the local health department represents the
State, county, and city.
Regarding the schools of the city, they are operated by the city board of educa-
tion, composed of five members elected by the city council. Mr. C. S. Boswell
is chairman of this board and Mr. W. G. Hamm is superintendent of the schools.
City of Huntsville— General fund revenue, fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 1941
Source:
General taxes $29,599.00
A. B. C. store profits. . 31, 396. 49
Taxes electric system. 2-1, 000. 00
Automobile licenses 7. 936. 01
Water collections 89, 144. 37
Abattoir receipts 4, 437. 43
Electrical permits 301. 00
Cemetery receipts 5, 114. 10
Scale receipts 92. 50
Recorders' court fines. 21, 098. 76
Privilege licenses 54, 937. 63
Building permits 708. 03
Source — Continued.
Water penalties
Rents
Pool admissions
Pool concessions
Plumbers' fees
Sundry revenue 9, 583. 93
Repair shop charges.. 1, 758. 15
Sign permits
Cash discount and
interest
$71. 50
267. 37
2, 366. 50
1, 126. 20
684. 25
56.00
959. 92
Total revenue.
285, 639. 14
11962
HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
City of Huntsville — General Fund Budget for fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 194%
ANTICIPATED REVENUE
Source:
General taxes $27, 500
A. B. C. store profits 2, 500
Taxes electric system 24, 000
Automobile licenses 8, 500
Water collections 92, 500
Abattoir receipts 5, 000
Electrical permits 1, 200
Cemetery receipts 5, 000
Scale receipts.
Recorder's court fines.
Privilege licenses
Building permits
Water penalties
100
16, 000
65, 000
1,200
75
Source — Continued.
Rents
Pool admissions
Pool concessions
Plumbers fees
Sundry revenue
Repair shop charges. _
Sign permits
Cash discounts and
terest
$250
3,000
1,500
750
7,300
1,800
100
750
Total anticipated rev-
enue 264,025
Building permits issued Aug. 1, 1941, to Feb. 14, 1942
NEW RESIDENCES
Cost:
$100 to $500 33
$500 to $1,000. _
$1,000 to $2,000.
$2,000 to $3,000.
$3,000 to $4,000.
$5,000 to $6,000.
Cost — Continued.
$7,000 to $8,000.
$9i000
Permits for repairs on resi-
dences 135
The Chairman. Congressman Sparkman will interrogate this panel.
Mr. Sparkman. For the benefit of the record, the Huntsville civic
panel is composed of Mr. Edward McGregor, chairman, county-
board of commissioners; Mrs. Walter Humphrey, director, Madison
County Department of Public Welfare ; TVir. Norris M. Payne, clerk-
treasurer, city of Huntsville; and Dr. W. C. Hatchett, Madison
County health officer.
Mr. McGregor, I don't know why this habit ever developed, unless
somebody was a Presbyterian, but they call on somebody to act as a
moderator, and you have been designated moderator for this panel.
Although I will have some questions directed to a particular person,
I hope you will all feel free to make any suggestions or contributions
that you may care to in the course of this investigation. Personally,
I think we all get much more out of it, if we make it an informal,
round-table talk. So, if anyone of you feel an urge to say something,
please feel perfectly free to do so.
TESTIMONY OF EDWARD McGREGOR, CHAIRMAN, COUNTY BOARD
OF COMMISSIONERS, MADISON COUNTY, HUNTSVILLE, ALA.
Mr. Sparkman. Edward [Mr. McGregor], I would like to ask you
some questions. We shall introduce the statement you have furnished
at this point in the record.
(The statement is as follows:)
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 11963
STATEMENT OF EDWARD McGREGOR, CHAIRMAN, MADISON
COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS, HUNTSVILLE, ALA.
Report on Madison County, Ala.
The revenue of Madison County, Ala., is derived from several sources. These
revenues are allocated and paid into two funds, viz, the general fund and the
special building, bridges, and road fund.
The revenues of the general fund result chiefly from a 5-mill ad valorem tax on
real estate, personal property, and automobiles; also auto license, privilege license,
mortgage taxes, etc. A sales tax fund, derived from our portion of a State sales
tax, is earmarked for the extension service, health department, and welfare depart-
ment. This revenue can be used for no other purpose. Seventy percent of the
receipts of the general fund come from ad valorem tax, the remaining 30 percent
from other revenues.
The revenue of the special building, bridges, and road fund comes from a 2^-
mill ad valorem tax, a 3-cents-per-gallon county gasoline tax, and a part of the
State gasoline tax. Ad valorem tax accounts for about 15 percent of the total
revenue of this fund and the remaining 85 percent comes from the gas tax receipts.
The acquisition of some 32,000 acres of land by the Huntsville Arsenal reduced
the assessment roll by the sum of $409,080, resulting in a loss to the various county
funds as follows:
County general fund $2, 045. 40
Special building bridges and roads 1, 022. 70
County-wide school 1, 636. 32
District school 1, 227. 24
Total reduction 5, 931. 66
However, from a careful study of the tax assessor's records, I am convinced
that additional assessments by reason of new buildings being erected and placed
in the tax rolls, and increased assessments resulting from property exchanges,
will replace any loss resulting from loss of assessments in property acquired by
the Huntsville Arsenal.
There has been no general revision upward in the valuation of real estate in
Madison County for tax purposes. The tax assessor and the board of equaliza-
tion agreed that it was impossible to say that the general increase in value of
property in Madison County was of a permanent nature, so it was decided to
allow present valuations, generally, stand. Since this policy had been adopted,
I do not anticipate any appreciable reduction in the receipts from ad valorem tax
on real estate, in the near future.
We do anticipate a drastic reduction in ad valorem tax based on automobile
values.
We also expect the revenue of the special buildings, bridges, and roads fund
to be reduced to the danger point by reason of losses in the gasoline tax.
The general fund receives approximately $18,000 per year from auto licenses.
This will, in all probability, be greatly reduced.
If material and labor were available, a general increase in building and improve-
ments of property would result in some further increase in ad valorem taxes.
We have been called upon to spend large sums of money in the construction of
access roads to the Huntsville Arsenal, as well as to maintain other roads used
by the employees of the arsenal in going to and from their work. This extra
expense has put an additional strain on our resources. When our funds are
materially reduced, we will be unable to maintain our present road system properly.
Our health department was forced to ask for an increase in their budget of
$2,000 per year, brought about by increased demand resulting from the construc-
tion of the Huntsville Arsenal. We have received recently from them a request
for an additional appropriation of $1,300.
The board of commissioners has no control over educational funds, these being
derived from special taxes, and administered by county and city boards of
education.
Our health department works under the United States Public Health Service
and the State health department, and their revenue comes from these sources,
viz: Madison County, State of Alabama, and the United States Public Health
Service. We have no control over the health department.
11964 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
The welfare department is operated by the county welfare board, which is
appointed by our county board of commissioners, and operates with a budget
largely furnished by the county, a small amount from the city of Huntsville, and
matching funds from the State and Federal Governments. The director of the
welfare department is reporting in detail with reference to the operation of this
department.
Mr. Sparkman. Will you give us some idea of the amount of land
that Madison County has lost from its tax rolls within recent years, I
would say the last 5 years, which include the taking hy the Tennessee
Valley Authority and the two recent plants?
FIFTY THOUSAND ACRES WITHDRAWN FROM TAXATION
Mr. McGregor. The takings by the Tennessee Valley Authority
and Huntsville Arsenal approximate 50,000 acres.
Mr. Sparkman. How many acres in the county?
Mr. McGregor. I am not sure.
Mr. Sparkman. Four hundred thousand acres, something like that?
Mr. McGregor. Dr. Hatchett says there are 811 square miles.
Mr. Sparkman. About 500,000 acres then. Those 50,000 acres
taken by the arsenal were some of the very best lands in the county?
Mr. McGregor. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. Some of the highest priced land?
Mr. McGregor. I wouldn't say the very highest priced, but some
of the most productive.
Mr. Sparkman. Can you give me some idea of what that amounts
to in tax revenue?
Mr. McGregor. The assessments here are for 60 percent and that
doesn't indicate its real value. But on that part taken by the arsenal
it was $409,000. I haven't the exact figures on the Tennessee Valley
Authority land.
Mr. Sparkman. You mean $409,000 was the assessed valuation?
Mr. McGregor. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. What is the county rate?
Mr. McGregor. It is divided up, the county general tax is 5 mills,
that is 50 cents a hundred, and building of bridges 2% mills or 25 cents,
and county schools is 4 mills or 40 cents, and district school is 3 mills
or 30 cents.
Mr. Sparkman. Is that county-wide?
Mr. McGregor. Yes; these taxes are uniform over the county.
Mr. Sparkman. Each district of the county has that tax?
Mr. McGregor. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. Are those the only county taxes?
Mr. McGregor. They are the only ad valorem taxes.
Mr. Sparkman. $1.45?
Mr. McGregor. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. I would like to say our rate in California is $4.85.
What is it for the State?
Mr. McGregor. That is 65 cents. Do you want that divided?
The Chairman. No, sir. What is the city tax?
Mr. Payne. $1.45.
Mr. Sparkman. These lands taken by the projects were not in the
city?
Mr. Payne. No, sir; none in the city.
Mr. Sparkman. That is $3.55, isn't it?
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 11965
Mr. McGregor. Yes, sir; and we have a homestead exemption of
$2,000 on State taxes.
Mr. Sparkman. That is where a person lived in the State for a year
prior to October 1?
Mr. McGregor. Yes, sir; but that doesn't affect county or city
taxes.
COMPENSATION FOR LOSS IN REVENUES
Mr. Sparkman. How does the county compensate itself for that
loss in revenue?
Mr. McGregor. The only compensation we have is through taxes
on new buildings, taxes on improvements to old buildings, and also
on exchanges of property, of which we have had a great deal.
Mr. Sparkman. How does that affect the loss iD revenue?
Mr. McGregor. I think it will just about offset the loss of taxes
on the $409,000 valuation.
Mr. Sparkman. These new homes going up, that go on your tax
rolls, you think that will be an offset?
Mr. McGregor. I checked the rolls that have not been com-
pleted and talked to Mr. Darwin, who is our tax assessor, and we
both came to the conclusion that the increase would just about offset
the loss.
Mr. Sparkman. Of course your operating cost is cut some when
that area is taken?
decrease in operating costs
Mr. McGregor. We will have some cut in the operating cost on
the roads there, but the operating costs on the other roads have in-
creased, and all these housing projects are outside the city limits.
So we will have an increase for the maintenance of streets there which
will be all out of proportion to the tax revenue.
The Chairman. The arsenal is outside the city?
Mr. McGregor. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. What about your increase in public facilities?
You have mentioned maintaining streets and roads in the new housing
projects. Are there any other increases in the cost of operation,
public health, for instance? Has Dr. Hatchett asked you for an
increase in appropriations?
Mr. McGregor. Yes, sir; we were asked for an increased appro-
priation of $2,000 and in addition $1,300 that was in excess of the
budget.
Mr. Sparkman. And the load has increased on the Department of
Public Welfare, I presume?
Mrs. Humphrey. Not considerably, not in numbers. The relief
has been very inadequate and it still is very inadequate. But, so far
as numbers, we haven't had any great increase. We care mostly for
unemployable persons, besides children. We don't care for able-
bodied persons.
Mr. Sparkman. Do you handle delinquents?
Mrs. Humphrey. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. Does your general fund have anything to do with
the money for the schools?
11966 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Mr. McGregor. The school money is collected by the tax collector
and turned over directly to the school authorities. The county board
of commissioners has nothing to do with the school funds.
Mr. Sparkman. The only way you would be called upon for in-
creased facilities would be for appropriations for these various agencies,
such as public welfare — and what other agencies?
EXPENSE OF ACCESS ROADS
Mr. McGregor. Where we got hit harder than anywhere else is
the increased cost of road maintenance and building of access roads
to the arsenal.
Mr. Sparkman. They have been building them so far with the
access road fund?
Mr. McGregor. I talked to the county engineer about that and
asked him approximately what the expense of the access roads they
now have in mind would actually cost the county. And he said ap-
proximately $20,000, and then of course we would have the deprecia-
tion, the wear and tear, and the cost of maintenance of our road equip-
ment. And we came to the conclusion it would cost the county about
$30,000. That was unanticipated expense.
Mr. Sparkman. You do make appropriation to the hospital each
year?
Mr. McGregor. Yes, sh*.
Mr. Sparkman. Is the hospital city-owned?
Mr. McGregor. No; it is a nonprofit organization.
Mr. Sparkman. To which both the city and county contribute?
Mr. McGregor. Yes, sh.
OPERATION OF HOSPITAL
Mr. Sparkman. The Federal Government has recently authorized
an expansion of the Huntsville Hospital. I believe neither the
county nor the city will be called upon for any participation. As I
recall it, the only requirement is that you pay off your debts.
Mr. McGregor. I think that is the requirement. But when it
comes to that, if the hospital can't run on a 50-bed basis without
city and county help, how could it with 100 beds?
Mr. Sparkman. You think eventually you will be called on for
help for the hospital?
Mr. Payne. Yes, sir, I do.
Mr. Sparkman. Is that your view, too, Edward?
Mr. McGregor. Yes, sir; that is my idea. In fact, that has been
mentioned already and the hospital has asked us to give them addi-
tional money.
Mr. Sparkman. An application for a health center is also being
presented. That will be Dr. Hatchett's outfit. Are you anticipating
an increased cost in the operation of that?
Mr. McGregor. Dr. Hatchett said they wouldn't call on us for
any increased operating costs. We were just called on for an appro-
priation to his department of an additional $1,300, but that wouldn't
be in way of operating cost.
Mr. Payne. I am afraid from the city's standpoint they will call
on us for additional appropriation for this emergency. The county
and city raised $4,000— $2,000 each. I think Dr. Hatchett means if
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 11967
they leave thern that $4,000, he won't have to call on us any more.
But at the time the city raised this $2,000 they had trailer camps and
tents and there were consequently unusual sanitary requirements
that had to be taken care of. And that's what you mean, Dr.
Hatchett, "if we leave you that $4,000"?
FEDERAL ASSISTANCE
Dr. Hatchett. Yes, sir. We can use that money to meet these
needs.
Mr. Sparkman. Do you have any suggestions as to whether there
should be additional assistance from the Federal Government to
Madison County? Do you think these projects we have mentioned
have been treated pretty fairly?
Mr. McGregor. When it comes to roads, we shall need plenty of
assistance.
Mr. Sparkman. The Federal Government doesn't handle any
except access and strategic roads.
ADDITIONAL TAX LOSSES
Mr. McGregor. Our general fund, out of which our payments are
made, runs $129,000 a year, and of that amount $18,000 a year comes
from automobile tags, and I anticipate that our revenue from auto-
mobile tags is going to be vastly lessened ; also that our ad valorem on
automobiles will be less next year.
Mr. Sparkman. What about the gasoline taxes?
Mr. McGregor. The gasoline tax goes to building bridges and
road fund and accounts for 85 percent of our building bridges and
road funds.
Mr. Sparkman. Has this county pledged its future gasoline tax or
its automobile tag tax, for road building?
Mr. McGregor. It was pledged on one bond issue that has been
retired.
Mr. Sparkman. So you are clear on that now?
Mr. McGregor. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. Mr. McGregor, you have been chairman of the
board of county commissioners since when?
Mr. McGregor. I took office the 16th of April.
Mr. Sparkman. You have served a little less than a month?
Mr. McGregor. Yes, sir.
TESTIMONY OF NORMS N. PAYNE, CLERK-TREASURER OF
CITY OF HUNTSVILLE
Mr. Sparkman. Now, Norris [Mr. Payne], I have some questions
for you along the same line. The statement from Mayor McAllister
shows revenues and expenses that the city has had. That has been
made a part of the record and will be printed in full in the record.1
But I would like to ask you some questions based upon that, for the
purpose of the record. I know that while the statement submitted
was for Mayor McAllister, you are familiar with it.
"Seep. 11960.
11968 HTJNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
NO LOSS OF REVENUE
Give us some ideas with reference to the revenue, if any, the city
of Huntsville has lost by reason of these projects?
Mr. Payne. The city has lost nothing in the way of revenue on
account of the Arsenal.
Mr. Sparkman. Have you had any increase in way of revenue by
reason of these developments?
Mr. Payne. We will have an increase in water revenue on account
of additional houses being built in the city and in the police jurisdic-
tion.
Mr. Sparkman. Do you extend your water lines through the police
jurisdiction?
Mr. Payne. We don't supply Merrimack, Lincoln, or Dallas. We
are tied in with the Lincoln and Dallas water in case of an emergency.
Mr. Sparkman. Do you supply water for the arsenal or the
ordnance?
Mr. Payne. No, sir; we don't. In the last 8 months we have only
gained 275 new water customers, but new customers don't mean
anything to us for the first 14 or 15 months. I mean that our mini-
mum charge is $16.20 a year — $1.50 a month less 10 percent — and it
would cost about $18 to supply a new customer. We have to put in
water meters, boxes, and so forth, so on our average customer we
don't make any money for some time. There are going to be 190
houses built in the city. Incidentally, 85 percent of this building has
been outside the city limits and means nothing to the city in taxes.
But there will be 190 houses built in the city and the city will get
taxes on them". The city will feel the effect of tax revenue, but it
will cost $7,000 or $8,000 to give those people water; that is, inside
the city. Outside, they build their own lines. So it will take the
city 2 or 3 years to realize any profit from that development.
building permits
Mr. Sparkman. I notice in the statement of the mayor there were
building permits issued up through February 1942 for 135 residences;
that is, in the city and the police jurisdiction. In other words, you
have to issue permits if they are in the police jurisdiction?
Mr. Payne. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. The police jurisdiction, under the law of Alabama,
extends for 3 miles outside the corporate limits?
Mr. Payne. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. Does that take in the arsenal?
Mr. Payne. Just a little part, not any of the buildings. I have a
supplementary statement on building permits since February that I
would like to submit. I wonder if this might be put in the record.
Mr. Sparkman. Certainly.
City of Huntsville building permits issued Feb. 14 to Apr. 25, 1942
NEW RESIDENCES
Cost:
$100 to $500 63
$500 to $1,000 15
$1,000 to $2,000 57
$2,000 to $3,000 117
$3,000 to $4,000 15
$5,000 to $6,000 1
Cost — Continued.
$7,000 to $8,000 1
$9,000 and over 1
Total 270
Repairs 43
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 11969
Mr. Sparkman. That is 270 permits as against 135 last year?
Mr. Payne. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. Just about doubled?
Mr. Payne. Yes, sir; this is for 2 months, and that was about 6.
There are also 268 permits to be issued in a subdivision near the
arsenal. Only 25 have been issued out of that lot, which will about
double that figure in the next 60 days.
Mr. Sparkman. Have you had any increase in privilege licenses?
INCREASE IN LICENSE RATES
Mr. Payne. We have had a considerable increase in revenue from
privilege licenses, but not on account of new businesses. It is on
account of the rates. Last year this county was voted dry. The
city was getting $30,000 or $40,000 a year out of liquor revenue. And
when that was taken away the only way to offset that loss was to
increase license rates, and we have had about a 20-percent increase
over last year.
Mr. Sparkman. You mean in total revenue?
Mr. Payne. Yes, sir; but it is not from new business. It is from
the same old firms.
Mr. Sparkman. What unusual demands have been made upon the
city for facilities to take care of this new load that you have had on
schools, police department, fire department, health service, and so
forth?
Mr. Payne. We haven't had any unusual demands. We do have a
few more policemen, and they work longer hours. Probably we have
increased the fire department a little.
Mr. Sparkman. Of course, the arsenal has its own fire department;
also the ordnance plant?
MAINTENANCE OF SCHOOLS
Mr. Payne. Yes, sir. And we had a little trouble there by their
hiring our firemen. Now, the school situation is a little different with
the city than with the county. The county doesn't appropriate from
its general fund to the school system. In other words, the schools
collect their taxes and operate as long as they can on that money.
The city has always maintained its schools, both colored and white,
for 9 months. And this year it is going to take about $21,000 out of
the general fund to carry the schools through 9 months. I believe
the State minimum program for schools is 9 months for high schools
and 7 months for grammar schools. ' But we run them both 9 months
in the city.
Mr. Sparkman. Have you had any substantial increase in enroll-
ment here in the schools by reason of these projects?
Mr. Payne. Some. During good times, so the records show, you
have lots of boys quitting high school and going to work, and that is
true here. Our high school doesn't show the increase. And during
depression times, a boy can't get a job and will stay in school. But the
grammar schools are overcrowded.
60396— 42— pt. 32-
11970 HUNTSVILLE, ALA.; HEARINGS
EFFECT OF AUTOMOBILE RATIONING
Mr. Sparkman. I noticed in a statement from Mr. George Brown,
county superintendent of education, that he said there was only one
place that would need additional facilities, for which he must receive
financial assistance from the Federal Government, and he particularly
pointed out that as soon as cars and tires wear out and couldn't be
replaced, he predicted several hundred construction workers— and now
it is being shifted to operating workers — will be forced to live pretty
close in the vicinity of Huntsville. Do you anticipate any increased
demands by reason of those conditions?
Mr. Payne. Yes, sir; in the seventy-second district. Huntsville is
the forty-second district, and of course Lincoln and Dallas have a
number, and the seventy-second district is between Huntsville and
Merrimack and Lincoln and West Huntsville. There is no school in
the seventy-second district, and those children have been coming to
the city schools for years — always, I suppose, since they quit going to
Farley. And down in the Mayf air development — that is down on
Whitesburg Pike — that area] is also' in the seventy-second district.
With some 200 or 300 houses there and the 190 houses just inside the
city on Fifth Avenue, the road from the hospital to West Huntsville,
we have applied for funds for a building in that vicinity.
Mr. Sparkman. That is pending in the regional office in Atlanta?
Mr. Payne. Yes, sir; we think it will require another building to
take care of all those 600 or 800 children. It really isn't a city problem,
I guess, but the people are so close to us, our school system has been
taking care of them. When they first started to do it there were 75
or 80 children. Now the Whitesburg Pike area has developed, as you
know, to where there are about 400 children there.
Mr. Sparkman. Does the city get revenue from the seventy-second
district?
Mr. Payne. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. If you get the revenue, then the responsibility is
on you to take care of these children?
Mr. Payne. Yes, sir; the same as from the forty-second district,
but those people don't pay any part of this $20,000.
Mr. Sparkman. They pay no city taxes and don't contribute to the
part you pay out of the general fund?
Mr. Payne. That's right. The city has a 4^-mill school building
tax that those people do not pay any part of. Ihe people of the
city put up $40,000 a year to carry on its school program, and the
people outside don't pay any of that $40,000.
HUNTSVILLE HAS SMALL CORPORATE AREA
Mr. Sparkman. I think it might be well for the record to show
this fact: that the city of Huntsville has a very restricted corporate
area. As a matter of fact, there are more people living outside the
city and immediately contiguous to it than inside the city.
Mr. Payne. That's right. Right now I would say 5,000 more
people live in the police jurisdiction than in the city proper. And
there will be a good many more. The figure will increase in the next
few months.
Mr. Sparkman. I believe the 1940 census shows Huntsville s
population as 13,000?
Mr. Payne. 13,171, and about 15,716 in the police jurisdiction.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
11971
Mr. Sparkman. How much do you estimate will bo the increase in
addition to that, in- the police jurisdiction?
Mr. Payne. 5,000 or 6,000.
Mr. Sparkman. Which would give about 35,000.
The Chairman. Has there been any increase outside the police
jurisdiction?
Mr. Payne. Yes, sir; but most of it is in the police jurisdiction.
Mr. Sparkman. I will ask you the same question I asked Edward
[Mr. McGregor]. The city has, of course, put in some applications
for Federal grants. Did you put in any for waterworks and sewers?
Mr. Payne. Just schools and for the health center.
Mr. Sparkman. Do you feel the Federal Government has treated
you fairly with reference to that, or do you have any further suggestion
as to that?
Mr. Payne. Frankly, I don't know very much about the health
center.
Mr. Sparkman. I wasn't referring to a health center. I am
referring to the program as a whole. In other words, has there been
imposed on Huntsville by reason of these projects any undue burden
which the Government has not taken care of properly?
Mr. Payne. I don't think so.
Mr. Sparkman. I wish to introduce into the record at this point
two statements relating to the health situation in this coimty.
(The statements are as follows:)
Department op Public Health,
Montgomery, March 6, 1942.
The Honorable A. W. McAllister,
Mayor of Huntsville, Huntsville, Ala.
Dear Sir: The possible public health hazards created by the contamination of
the water from the Huntsville Spring, which is used as a public supply to serve
the population in the Huntsville metropolitan area, and the disposal of the waste
into the Huntsville Spring Branch has been brought to my attention.
The following is a tabulation of the bacteriological analyses of samples collected
from the spring water that is used for the public supply. As you know, the only
treatment that this water receives before it is pumped in the distribution system
is chlorination.
Date
Plate
count
Gas in lactose
broth
(B. coti present)
Most
probable
number
per 100
cubic
centimeter
Feb. 16,1940
9
6
4
50
25
,■3/5 0/1 0/1
5/5 0/1 1/1
5/5 1/1 0/1
5/5 1/1 0/1
4/5 1/1 0/1
8.8
Feb. 22, 1940
96.0
May 8, 1940 :
240.0
Aug. 16, 1940 .
240.0
Nov. 21, 1940
21.0
121.0
5/5 0/1 0/1
5/5 1/1 0/1
5/5 1/1 0/1
5/5 0/1 1/1
Feb. 8, 1941
4
6
8
38.0
May 10, 1941
Aug. 9, 1941
240.0
Nov. 7, 1941
Average for year, 1941
139.0
Feb. 10, 1939..
8
3
15
15
1/5 1/1 0/1
5/5 1/1 1/1
5/5 1/1 0/1
5/5 1/1 0/1
May 7, 1939
240.0
Aug. 1, 1939
240.0
Nov. 8, 1939
240.0
181.0
11972 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
The appearance of the spring water as it discharges from the rocks near the
center of town and as it flows through the canal to the drainage canal is very pleas-
ing to the eye and is a sight of which the citizens of Huntsville should be proud.
However, the foregoing bacteriological analyses indicate that the water has been
contaminated with domestic sewage. You will notice that the plate count or the
number of bacteria per cubic centimeter at 37° C. is relatively low. This is taken
to mean that very few soil bacteria are present and that very little surface con-
tamination is reaching the supply. The presence of Bacillus coli in all of the above
samples and the high most probable number (m. p. n.) per 100 cubic centimeters
indicate that the spring water is highly contaminated with sewage or discharges
from the human body. This contamination cannot be seen by the eye and, there-
fore, does not detract from the appearance of the water from the spring, but does
present a public health problem that the city officials should not lose sight of and
should take immediate steps to correct. It is possible that the 'sewage is leaking
from one or more broken sewer lines into cracks or crevices in the limestone rock
above the^spring. If this is the case (we imagine that it is) , they should be repaired
and properly sealed. However, there is no assurance that other sewer lines will
not be broken or caused to leak when the ground over the underground stream
that feeds the spring settles or sinks, as was the case of the cave-in several years
ago at the southeast corner of the courthouse square. There are two other
instances that you may recall where the city water tasted bad for days. They
were shortly after the fires at C. C. Anderson's and J. D. Humphrey's drug stores.
It is probable that some medicine or chemicals found their way through the lime-
stone rock into the spring water.
It is our firm belief and conviction that the public water supply should receive
purification and filtration prior to chlorination, the only safeguard that the water
now receives. The methods and the design of such a plant to assure a safe water's
being delivered to the distribution system at all times should be left to.qualified
consulting engineers familiar in water works design and practices.
The pollution of the Huntsville Spring Branch by the discharge of raw or un-
treated sewage is evident. Before the construction of the Huntsville Arsenal,
which is located on the stream below the sewer outfalls, the land was sparsely
settled and the water was not used for domestic purposes. Since this construc-
tion has started, the increased population that has connected to the present
sewerage system and the contemplated expansion in the Huntsville area will
greatly increase the sewage flow and thereby pollute the stream to a greater
extent. It has been reported that over 900 houses are now under construction
or will be started soon in the Huntsville area. It is well known that a stream
can receive a certain amount of sewage without becoming septic or putrefactive.
It is possible that this stream may become so polluted that this critical point
will be reached and that it will become very objectionable and cause considerable
damage to the riparian owner below. This is in addition to the public health
aspect which is much greater since the construction of the arsenal where a con-
siderable number of people will be employed. R. C. Ditto, brigadier general,
United States Army, commanding officer of the Huntsville Arsenal, has become
quite concerned, and rightly so, over the disposal of the raw sewage from Hunts-
ville into the Spring Branch which flows through the property upon which the
arsenal is located. He stated the conditions to the Chief, Chemical Warfare
Service, Washington, D. C, a copy of which letter was sent to you. We wish
to express our desire that the city officials follow his recommendation, which is as
follows :
"It is recommended that early action be taken to have the city of Huntsville
erect and operate a sewage-treatment plant inasmuch as this seems to be the
onlv solution to the present condition."
Mr. D. S. Abell, chief engineer and director of the Bureau of Sanitation, wrote
you on December 3, 1941, a copy of his letter is attached, setting forth the need
for expanding and improving the public water supply and the necessity of treating
the sewage before it is delivered to the spring branch. He also brought to your
attention the possibility of securing some aid for financing these improvements.
Since his letter was written, a number of Alabama towns and cities in defense
areas have made application to the Defense Public Works Administration for
funds and have secured financial aid for the construction of water works and
sewerage systems.
In view of the above facts and the need of these improvements for the public
health and welfare of your people, I wish to stress and urge you to employ a con-
sulting engineer experienced in design and construction of water and sewage
treatment works, and authorize him to make preliminary reports. An applica-
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 11973
tion embodying his recommendations for the needed improvements should be
filed with the Defense Public Works Administration as soon as possible.
We will be pleased to render any aid possible in securing a solution to your water
and sewage problems.
Yours very truly,
B. F. Austin, M. D.,
Acting State Health Officer.
Copy to Gen. R. C. Ditto, Dr. W. C. Hatchett, Mr. H. J. Thrasher, Mr. Frank
H. Ford, Mr. H. C. Pollard, Mr. L. C. Erwin, Mr. J. R. Maples, Mr. W. H.
Collier, Mr. H. B. Brvant, Mr. W. A. Stanley, Mr. W. J. Price, Mr. M. H. Lanier,
Mr. S. L. Terry, Mr. G. F. Geron.
Montgomery, Ala.,
December 3, 19J+2.
Hon. A. W. McAllister,
Mayor of Huntsville, Huntsville, Ala.
Dear Sir: You will recall interviews which I 'had with several officials of the
city of Huntsville in company with Mr. L. Cummins, sanitation officer of your
county health department, with reference to the advisability of making applica-
tion to the Defense Public Works Administration for funds with which to con-
struct adequate facilities for treatment of the Huntsville water supply as well
as sewage from the city system.
Your attention is called to the enclosed letter from Lt. I. E. Madsen, inquiring
as to what steps are being formulated to remedy the undesirable practice of
discharging untreated sewage from the city of Huntsville into the Huntsville
Spring branch. You are no doubt aware of the efforts being made by this depart-
ment as well as the Federal Government to improve the conditions of streams
by the treatment of sewage. In fact, the War Department at the Huntsville
Arsenal is making plans to install facilities for what is termed "the complete
treatment of sewage." However, these facilities may be used for only a com-
paratively short length of time. This bureau has, for a number of years, been
concerned over the fact that the only treatment given to the public water supply
for which you are responsible is chlorination. As you know, a spring supply
through limestone regions may become Seriously contaminated without any
warning whatsoever; in fact, recently, laboratory analysis indicate that the raw
water for your supply shows evidence of contamination. To depend upon chlori-
nation alone, or in fact, any treatment which does not include coagulation and
filtration as well as chlorination, would not be considered adequate to treat your
water supply.
In view of the above, it is urged that you take steps at once to install facilities
for the treatment of water and sewage. Although this has no bearing upon the
need for such facilities, it may be possible in the near future for you to obtain
funds with which to aid you in the financing of such projects. It is understood
that legislation has been introduced in Congress to extend the activities of the
Defense Public Works Administration on receiving applications under the original
allocation funds. If additional funds are made available, it is urged that you be
ready to submit projects, so that the above facilities can be provided in the very
near future. So that you will be ready for this possibility, it is recommended that
you employ a consulting engineer experienced in the design and construction of
water and sewage treatment works and authorize him to make a preliminary report
to you on the basis of which financing can be arranged for these needed improve-
ments.
We should be glad to hear from you as to what action has been taken in this
matter. If we can aid you in any way, please call upon us.
Yours very truly,
D. S. Abell,
Chief Engineer and Director, Bureau of Sanitation.
Copies to: Dr. W. C. Hatchett.
First Lt. I. E. Madsen.
TESTIMONY OF DR. W. C. HATCHETT, PUBLIC HEALTH OFFICER
MADISON COUNTY, ALA.
Mr. Sparkman. Dr. Hatchett, we shall place your very excellent
statement in the record at this point.
(The statement is as follows:)
11974
HUNTSVILLE, ALAV HEARINGS
STATEMENT BY W. C. HATCHETT, M. D., COUNTY HEALTH
OFFICER, MADISON COUNTY, HUNTSVILLE, ALA.
By an act of the State legislature, the organized medical profession is granted
the power to formulate its own constitution. The State medical association con-
stitutes the board of health. Every legal practicing physician of Alabama who is
a member of his local medical society is a member of the State board of health.
Likewise every member of the Madison County Medical Society is a member of
the county board of health.
The members of the county medical society elect five of its members which
constitutes the board of censors or the committee of public health, with the chair-
man of the county commissioners as a member of said board.
The State of Alabama grants the right of this board to promulgate rules and
regulations all pertaining to health which has the force and effect of law.
All State, county, and municipal public health laws, all rules and regulations
pertaining to health and health conditions are enforced through the county health
officer.
The county health officer is elected by the county board of censors acting for
the county medical society. This board is responsible for all public health work
in the county and no municipality is permitted by law to hire any health personnel
except through the board.
The county health officer and his subordinate personnel constitute the county
department of public health.
The relationship between the State department of public health and the
county department of public health is a supervisory one, participating financially,
advisory, and a consultant service.
The health department contemplates no increase in personnel.
The funds for the payment of personnel of the Madison County Health Depart-
ment are derived from four sources, United States Government, State of Alabama,
Madison County, and the city of Huntsville.
The Madison County Tuberculosis Association participates financially in the
control of tuberculosis.
The local society for crippled children participates in the transportation and
treatment of crippled children.
Budget for State or local health project
STATE: ALABAMA. PROJECT: MADISON COUNTY. BUDGET NO. 75. PERIOD
COVERED BY BUDGET: JULY 1, 1941, TO JUNE 30, 1942
Item
Annual
rate
Amounts
budgeted,
12 months
Source of funds
Item
No.
State
Local
U. S. Public
Health Service
Other
Title
VI
Venereal
disease
agencies
Salaries:
$4, 200
1,920
1,780
1,780
2,040
1,620
1,500
1,080
540
480
480
480
480
480
$4, 200. 00
1,920.00
1, 780. 00
1, 780. 00
2, 040. 00
1, 620. 00
1, 500. 00
1, 080. 00
540.00
480. 00
480. 00
480. 00
480.00
480. 00
2, 412. 20
840.00
260. 00
2,700
$1, 500. 00
$1,920CB
1,780
1, 780 CB
5
6
Sanitation officer No. 1..
Sanitation officer No. 2..
2, 040. 00
1,620.00
1, 500. 00
$1, 080
Travel:
540. 00
480. 00
480. 00
480. 00
480. 00
480. 00
2, 412. 20
13
14
Sanitation officer No. 1„
Sanitation officer No. 2..
16
Fees, P. T. physicians,
840 CB
17
Fees, P. T. dentists,
260 CB
22, 372. 30
4,480
12, 012. 20
1,080
4,800
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
11975
Revision of budget for State or local health project
State: Alabama. Project: Madison County. Revision No. 75-A. Period covered by revised budget
July 1, 1941 to June 30, 1942
[Jan. 12, 1942]
Item
No.
Item
New
annual
rate
Changes
in
amounts
budgeted
Changes in source of funds
State
Local
Title'.VI
Venereal
diseases
Other
agen
cies
Totals of previously
$22, 372. 20
$4, 480
$12, 012. 20
$1, 080
$4, 800
Salary, nurse No. 1 (increase
from $1,920, effective Oct.
1, 1941)
2
$1, 980
1,840
2,100
1,680
1,680
1,800
480
480
480
1,500
480
2,000
480
45.00
45.00
45.00
45.00
45.00
1, 600. 00
440.00
413. 33
383. 33
1, 125. 00
360. 00
1, 500. 00
360. 00
45
45
45
3
Salarv, nurse No. 2 (increase
from $1,780, effective Oct.
1, 1941)
4
Salary, nurse No. 3 (increase
from $1,780, effective Oct.
1, 1941)
5
Salary, sanitation officer No.
1 (increase from $2,040,
effective Oct. 1, 1941)
Salary, sanitation officer No. 2
(increase from $1,620 effec-
tive Oct. 1, 1941)..
45.00
45.00
6
18
Salary, sanitation officer No.
3 (effective Aug. 1, 1941, 2
months at $1,500; effective
Oct. 1, 1941, 9 months, at
$1,800)
1, 600. 00
19
Travel, sanitation officer
No. 3 (effective Aug. 1,
1941)...
440.00
20
Travel, nurse, U. S. Public
Health Service (effective
Aug. 2, 1941)
Travel, medical officer, U.
S. Public Health Service
(effective Oct. 1, 1941)
Salary, nurse No. 4 (effective
Oct. 1, 1941)
413. 33
383. 33
541.67
21
22
583. 33
360. 00
1, 500. 00
■ 360. 00
23
Travel, nurse No. 4 (effec-
tive Oct. 1, 1941)
Salary, M. and M. inspector
(effective Oct. 1, 1941)
Travel, M. and M. inspector.
Salary, nurse, (paid by U. S.
24*
257.
26/
27
Salary, medical officer (paid
by U. S. Public Health
6, 406. 66
135
3, 333. 33
2, 938. 33
Total of revised budget.
28, 778. 86
4,615
15, 345. 53
4, 018. 33
4,800
State: Alabama. Project: Madison County. Revision No. 75-B. Period covered by revi
Feb. 1, 1942 to June 30, 1942
budget,
Totals of previously ap-
proved budget
$28, 778. 86
$4,615
$15, 345. 53
$4,018.33
$4,800
18
Salary, sanitation officer,
116.67
200. 00
200.00
116.67
200. 00
200.00
21
Travel medical officer, sav-
ing, second and third quar-
ters (effective Feb. 1, 1942).
Travel U. S. Public Health
Service, engineer (effective
Feb. 1, 1942)
Salary, U. S. Public Health
Service, engineer (paid by
U. S. Public Health Ser-
$480
29
30
Total of net revisions . .
116.67
116.67
Total of revised budget.
US, 062. 19
4,615 15,345.53
3, 901. 66
4,800
Signed for State: B. F. Austin.
March 18, 1942.
11976 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
The following clinics are conducted under the supervision of the Madison
County Health Department.
Chest clinic. — Chest clinic for the purpose of diagnosis of indigent cases of
tuberculosis and classify each patient as to treatment. Histories and family
records are kept of these patients and follow-up visits are made. Madison
County has only four sanatorium beds for tubercular cases. Regular clinics are
held each week for patients who receive pneumothorax treatments.
Follow-up visits are made by the nursing staff of the health department, of all
positive cases of tuberculosis, for the purpose of instructing the patient and
family contacts.
Venereal disease clinic. — In the venereal disease clinic only indigent patients
referred to the clinic by family physicians are treated.
Patients are diagnosed and given standard treatments according to the disease.
Follow-up visits are made when patients fail to return for treatment. Patients
who refuse to return are incarcerated until such time as they are willing to return.
Treatment is administered during incarceration.
Maternal clinic. — Usually patients attending this clinic consist of those who
are to be delivered by midwives. Patients are examined for the purpose of deter-
mining whether patient will be a normal delivery. Records of these patients are
kept and their progress recorded at each clinic session. Follow-up visits of in-
struction are made by the nursing staff.
Child-health clinic- — Indigent patients visit the clinic, diagnosis is made and
treatment of minor illness is given.
All severe cases are referred to a physician and if necessary, are sent to the
hospital for service on charity.
Dental clinic. — Indigent children of the first grade in the public schools are
eligible for the service. These children are serviced through the eighth grade as
children from the first grades are taken on each year. In this kind of arrangement
all indigent children will eventually receive dental service. Follow-up visits are
made by the nursing staff for the purpose of encouraging these patients to return
for treatment.
Records are kept of all patients and treatments. There is no connection of the
health department with the hospital in the treatment of cases.
Hospitals. — There is one general hospital in Madison County consisting of 70
beds in emergency. Normally the population of Madison County is approxi-
mately 65,000. It is estimated that the population at this time is approximately
85,000 to 90,000.
There are no beds for tuberculosis, no isolation wards; only medical, surgery,
obstetrics, and other noncontagious cases. Although cases of contagious and
infectious diseases needing surgical treatment are admitted and isolated for this
service.
Four beds for the treatment of tuberculosis are maintained in the Morgan
County Tuberculosis Sanatorium by the Madison County Antituberculosis
Association, and two State beds are financed by this association, making a total
of six patients treated at same time. Patients needing pneumothorax are trans-
ported to the sanatorium for this treatment.
Financial statement. — All revenue for the operation of the Madison County
Health Department is kept in the First National Bank, Montgomery, Ala.
Vouchers for all salaries and expenses are made out and approved for payment
by the local health officer and mailed to the financial secretary, State board of
health, Montgomery, Ala. No cash is handled by the department.
Copy of budget and source of funds enclosed. No increase of budget expected
for next fiscal year.
Madison County is located about 60 miles from Camp Forrest and is susceptible
to invocation of the May Act.
Water supply. — Water supply for the city of Huntsville consists of a large spring
emerging from under the city. The water is limestone and considered adequate
for the city and surrounding territory for which it serves. The raw water from
the spring' is highly polluted with Bacillus coli and other bacteria. The water
supply is chlorinated before it is pumped out to the consumer. Frequent tests
are made daily at the health department for the presence of chlorine in the water.
Three of the four industrial centers obtain their water supply from deep wells
and purified by chlorination. One from a large spring and is also chlorinated.
The county water supply consists of shallow and deep wells, some with pumps
and others serviced by buckets drawn by hand. A number of homes are supplied
with springs and cisterns. All springs and many of the wells, especially shallow
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 11977
and those serviced by buckets, are polluted with Bacillus coli and other bacteria.
The water is hard and soft, depending on the locality.
Sewerage disposal. — The sewerage disposal of the city of Huntsville constitutes
a main sewer with laterals which serves the city proper. No sewer extension is
built by the city beyond the city limits. Some private citizens are granted the
privilege to build a private line and attach to city service.
The industrial centers maintain a sewer system for their village.
There is no regular sewer system maintained in the county ' proper. The
sewerage disposal in the county consists of individual septic tanks, pit privies, and
surface or open privies.
No provisions have been made to extend public sewer systems to any new
projects. Individual septic tanks only.
Venereal disease control program. — A free clinic is operated under the super-
vision of the county and State Departments of public health, for the treatment of
all indigent cases of venereal disease. Each new case is interviewed for the
purpose of ascertaining his or her source contact and their own contacts. Visits
are made to cases who fail to report for regular treatment. After one visit, if
they fail to return to the clinic in a reasonable time, he is detained in the county
jail for treatment. A citation prepared by the county health officer by authority
under section 1106 Alabama Code of 1923, as amended in 1939, is given the
sheriff of the county to be served on the person detained in jail under the
provisions of section 1103 Code 1923 as amended by General Acts of 1935. No
release may be given patient except from the health officer. This same action
may be taken on any private patient being treated by a physician with the
physicians' consent.
Organized prostitution has been eliminated since the defense area has been
established in Madison County. We do not mean to say that prostitution has
been eliminated in the city and county altogether, but it has been reduced to
private places.
No new laws have been passed by the State, county, city, or county health
department relative to venereal disease control since the defense area was estab-
lished, with exception of one law relative to fines on prostitutes. The fine on
these cases was raised from $10 to $100. I believe we have adequate law and
regulations for the control of this disease.
The venereal disease is rather prevalent, usually running from 1.25 to 4.5 in
the white, and high as 18 in the colored race.
Housing conditions. — There has been no epidemic of any nature in Huntsville
and Madison County for several years. We had 36 cases of smallpox in 1939
and over 20,000 vaccinations were given during that year. One hundred and ten
cases of typhoid fever, mostly rural 1926, and 1941 nine cases. There is no
indication of an epidemic of any kind at this time.
The housing condition in some sections of the city and county is in very bad
repair and more or less crowded at present, but I do not believe that there is any
great danger of disease contagion at present or any future time, if conditions are
kept under careful supervision of sanitary inspectors.
TESTIMONY OF DR. W. C. HATCHETT— Resumed
Mr. Sparkman. For the benefit of the record, I wish you would
state, Dr. Hatchett, the authority the local health departments have
under the Constitution and Statutes of the State of Alabama to
supervise health regulations in the, counties?
AUTHORITY OF LOCAL HEALTH DEPARTMENTS
Dr. Hatchett. The legislature delegates that authority to the
organized medical profession. They have their own constitution.
Every regular practicing physician in the State of Alabama is a mem-
ber of the State board of health. Out of that membership they elect
10 of their members, which constitute the public health committee or
State board of censors, with the Governor serving as ex-officio member.
And it comes on down to the county. The county set-up is the same
11978 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
as the State. Every regular doctor who affiliates himself with the
county system is a member of the county board of health, and they
in turn elect 5 members, which constitutes the local health committee,
with the chairman of the county board of commissioners serving as a
member, or the probate judge, whichever it may be. In this county
it is the chairman of the board of commissioners.
Mr. Sparkman. What authority is vested in the health department?
Dr. Hatchett. The legislature gives this board the right to pro-
mulgate rules and regulations which have the force and effect of law.
They are to be passed as the needs for them arise.
SOURCES OF FUNDS
Mr. Sparkman. What are the sources of your funds?
Dr. Hatchett. Our funds come from the city, the county, the
State, and the Federal Government.
Mr. Sparkman. Is there any matching system so far as the State
and the Federal funds are concerned?
Dr. Hatchett. No, sir; just plain appropriations.
Mr. Sparkman. Depending on the need?
Dr. Hatchett. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. Doctor, how long have you been in public health
work?
Dr. Hatchett. Twenty years.
Mr. Sparkman. As a matter of fact, the public health work in
Alabama is recognized as one of the best in the Union and has been
for a good many years?
Dr. Hatchett. That is true.
Mr. Sparkman. What is the size of your staff here?
Dr. Hatchett. I have at the present time one health officer, one
secretary, five nurses, four inspectors; two temporary inspectors-
making six inspectors — and two laboratory technicians.
Mr. Sparkman. How does that compare with the size of the staff
set up by public health standards for the country for a county of
this size?
cannot reach high standards set for country
Dr. Hatchett. It is far below the standards.
Mr. Sparkman. As a matter of fact, you never reach the standards
in any counties, or anywhere?
Dr. Hatchett. No, sir.
The Chairman. How are you able to do the work? Do you work
longer hours?
Dr. Hatchett. Yes, sir; we work longer hours and do the best we
can.
Mr. Sparkman. You never feel your job is perfectly done?
Dr. Hatchett. Never.
Mr. Sparkman. I remember, Dr. Hatchett, a public-health man,
Dr. Ruhland, testifying about the hospital facilities in the District of
Columbia, and he gave us some very interesting figures as to what the
standards were, and then he showed how far below that measurement
the District of Columbia came. And I presume that is true. You
naturally set your standards very high in the hope you might some day
reach them?
Dr. Hatchett. That is true.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 11979
The Chairman. You wouldn't have to set them very high to com-
pete with the District of Columbia. Dr. Ruhland testified that they
have over 6.000 outside toilets in Washington, not connected with
sewers.
Mr. Sparkman. Not only that, but they have some of the worst
slum conditions in the United States within a stone's throw of the
Capitol.
Dr. Hatchett. We have some outside toilets in the city of Hunts-
ville, but they have approved sanitary disposals.
Mr. Sparkman. How are the people in your employment paid?
Are some of them paid from local funds and some from others?.
Dr. Hatchett. All funds are turned over to the county health
department in the form of checks, and those checks are deposited to
the credit of the State health officer in Montgomery. For salaries
and other expenditures vouchers are mailed and the checks issued from
Montgomery.
Mr. Sparkman. These funds are not earmarked for any particular
person or work?
Dr. Hatchett. That's right. And no cash is handled by the
department.
Mr. Sparkman. How many clinics do you have?
operation of clinics
Dr. Hatchett. A venereal disease clinic, a chest clinic, a child
health and prenatal clinic, and a dental clinic.
Mr. Sparkman. Are all of them pretty well attended?
Dr. Hatchett. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. The people do avail themselves of the opportunities
offered?
Dr. Hatchett. Yes, sir; we abandoned about three prenatal clinics
on account of the lack of medical personnel.
Mr. Sparkman. You say there is a shortage in medical personnel?
Dr. Hatchett. Yes, sir; we are, in this county, eight doctors short
of what we were a year ago.
VENEREAL DISEASE
Mr. Sparkman. You mentioned a venereal disease clinic. Has
there been any appreciable increase in venereal diseases in this county?
Dr. Hatchett. Some.
Mr. Sparkman. I wonder if you might give us the percentage?
Dr. Hatchett. Of course we took blood tests on the first registrants.
I think the first group registered October 16, 1940. Out of 4,818
registrants, we had 220 positives. We were running the Kahn test,
and with that test there are sometimes errors on account of certain
conditions at the time the blood is taken. So we called those 220
back and retested them, and 180 of them proved positive.
Mr. Sparkman. Did you treat the 220?
Dr. Hatchett. Patients are admitted to the venereal disease clinic
by certificate of a practicing physician that the patient is unable to
pay the regular fee. They are referred to the clinic for treatment.
I think our clinic got about 80 of those cases.
Mr. Sparkman. As to those who were not treated at your clinic,
is there any compulsion for them to be treated, either by a private
physician or in a public clinic?
11980 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Dr. Hatchett. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. How do you enforce that treatment?
Dr. Hatchett. We have a nurse who is regularly on venereal
disease control work, and we try to get them to cooperate voluntarily,
and, if not, we force them to do it.
Mr. Sparkman. There are a good many soldiers coming in here?
Dr. Hatchett. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. Camp Forrest is how far away?
Dr. Hatchett. Sixty miles, I think.
Mr. Sparkman. And, of course, a great many persons migrated into
this county by reason of the construction work?
Dr. Hatchett. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. Was there during that time any appreciable
increase of venereal disease?
Dr. Hatchett. I don't think so.
Mr. Sparkman. Is there any way of checking on the prevalence of
venereal disease, except in a casual manner?
Dr. Hatchett. If we have a new case, the only way we can check
on others is through contacts. We try to get out of this patient his
probable contacts and his source of contacts, and we do get some that
way, and we get his family if he is married ; we get them in for a blood
test.
health center
Mr. Sparkman. Other than the health center you applied for, have
you planned expansion of any other health facilities?
Dr. Hatchett. No, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. Do you plan any expansion of your personnel
beyond its present number?
Dr. Hatchett. No, sir.
Mr, Sparkman. What does your proposed health center consist of?
Dr. Hatchett. The proposed building is for space for the health
personnel and clinic rooms.
Mr. Sparkman. You would simply transfer your present personnel
and present operations into that new building, is that correct?
Dr. Hatchett. Yes, sir.
may lose additional physicians
Mr. Sparkman. You mentioned a few minutes ago that there had
been a decrease of eight doctors in this county in the last year. Is
that becoming a problem already?
Dr. Hatchett. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. Will it become more serious if others are called into
active service?
Dr. Hatchett. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. Do you anticipate others will be called?
Dr. Hatchett. There are about three or four in this county who
are probably subject to call.
Mr. Sparkman. That is by reason of their age?
Dr. Hatchett. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. They are not Reserve officers?
Dr. Hatchett. No, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. The Government has made a survey of all doctors
subject to call in certain age brackets?
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 11981
Dr. Hatchett. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. You think there are three or four more in this
county that will be called?
Dr. Hatchett. Yes, sir; I had a letter a few days ago from the State
board of health that some representative would be here to go over the
situation with me. I would estimate there was 1 doctor for every
6,000 people in this county now.
Mr. Sparkman. Do you have a standard gage for that? If so,
what is it?
Dr. Hatchett. One doctor for every 2,000.
Mr. Sparkman. You are already down to 1 doctor for every 6,000?
Dr. Hatchett. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. You anticipate it will be down even more?
Dr. Hatchett. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. I doubt if there is anything comparable with that
in the United States.
Dr. Hatchett. And quite a few of our doctors are getting old.
The Chairman. You exclude yourself, of course?
Dr. Hatchett. No; including myself. We have now but six
doctors in this county below the age of 50.
The Chairman. I have heard Congressman Sparkman tell about
what a wonderfully healthy district he had. And I didn't quite
believe it all until I heard the figures now.
Mr. Sparkman. Of course, the invigorating climate eliminates a
lot of sickness.
Dr. Hatchett. We haven't had an epidemic in this county for
some years.
shortage of nurses
Mr. Sparkman. What about your nursing situation? Do you have
a sufficient number of nurses in the county?
Dr. Hatchett. No, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. Would it run the same as it does with the doctors?
Dr. Hatchett. There should be 1 for every 500 people and we have
1 for 2,500.
Mr. Sparkman. Are the present hospital facilities in need of
expansion?
Dr. Hatchett. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. The arsenal and the ordnance plant have their own
hospital facilities, or are planning to and will have them, and will
have regular medical and dental detachments?
Dr. Hatchett. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. That will relieve that some?
Dr. Hatchett. They will take care of their workers. It won't
take care of their families.
TESTIMONY OF MRS. WALTER HUMPHREY, DIRECTOR, MADISON
COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WELFARE
Mr. Sparkman. Mrs. Humphrey, the very complete statement you
submitted for the department of public welfare has been accepted
for our record.
(Statement follows:)
11982
HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
STATEMENT BY MRS. WALTER HUMPHREY, DIRECTOR, DEPART-
MENT OF PUBLIC WELFARE, MADISON COUNTY, HUNTSVILLE,
ALA.
I. Financial Statement
(a) Source of revenue. — The Madison County Department of Public Welfare
receives $150 a month from the city of Huntsville and $2,057.58 a month from
the county of Madison. The majority of these appropriations come from a
general fund.
The responsibility for providing funds to meet the cost of assistance payments
to needy individuals and of administration of the county department is shared
by the three levels of government on the following percentage basis:
Administration:
General
Special child-welfare services..
Old-age assistance
Aid 1o dependent children
Aid to blind
General assistance:
Aid to handicapped
Temporary aid
Boarding home care
Surplus commodities distribution
Sponsored projects
Other -
Federal
State
funds
funds
Percent
Percent
10
45
40
30
50
25
50
25
50
25
0
50
0
50
0
50
0
0
0
0
0
0
The distribution of administrative costs among the three units of government
is tentative and subject to change if it is found not to be equitable.
The only exception to the distribution in the above table occurs in the payments
made to the Confederate pensioners who are also eligible for old-age assistance.
These payments are made exclusively from State and Federal funds. Provision
for these payments is made through a special 1-mill ad valorem tax which provides
State funds for Confederate pensions.
(b) From October 1940 until September 1941 an average of 536 families per
month received cash grants from public assistance funds. There were approxi-
mately 1,386 persons in these 536 families.
During the year's period, a total of 42 families were approved as eligible for
assistance, but because of lack of funds, nothing but surplus commodities were
issued.
Because of lack of funds, an average of 1,155 families approved per month as
eligible for Work Projects Administration received nothing but surplus com-
modities until assigned to a Work Projects Administration project.
Listed on separate schedule according to months are the number of families
assisted according to type of assistance given.
Average monthly grants per family in various categories are as follows:
Aid to handicapped _. $8. 37
Old-age assistance $8. 91
Aid to dependent children 10. 32
Aid to blind 8. 80
Temporary aid 9. 25
We feel information regarding the number of families given assistance during
months of October, November, and December, 1941 and the month of January
1942 is interesting. Particularly the number of families approved as being in need
of assistance (aside from Work Projects Administration families), but not given
any assistance except surplus commodities because of lack of funds. Usually
these aforementioned families were given cash assistance at the withdrawal or
reduction of assistance (by reason of death, relatives became able to support, etc.)
given other families. However, with the rising costs of living, the acute housing
shortage with its subsequent influence on rents of existing housing facilities, we felt
it wiser to attempt to give more adequate cash grants to those already receiving
public assistance. This prevented giving checks to those already approved and
receiving surplus commodities only and excluded those new families which were
approved except those having dire emergencies.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 11983
There was a 25 percent housing shortage prior to the influx of workers for the
construction of the Government arsenal and ordnance plant. No exact figures
are known as to the residence of persons employed at the arsenal and ordnance
plant but it was learned through the personnel director of these plants that 70
percent came from Huntsville and surrounding radius of from 50 to 70 miles,
10 percent from other cities and towns in Alabama, and 20 percent from other
States.
Another factor influencing the housing situation was the removal of 535 families
living on property purchased as the site of the arsenal. Of these 535 families,
136 were of the white race and 399 of the Negro race. Most of the families were
engaged in some form of agriculture. Eight families were receiving assistance
from the department of public welfare and 10 were known to Work Projects
Administration either as actively working on projects or certified and waiting to
be assigned.
Eighty-five of the white families and 257 of the Negro families moved to other
farms. Eight white families and 8 Negro families moved to Farm Security
Administration project farms. Seventy-two Negro families were moved to
temporary living quarters not erected by Farm Security Administration. Forty
white families and 105 Negro families moved into Huntsville area or the sur-
rounding countryside. Most of the employable males of this latter group secured
employment as laborers with the arsenal.
This need on the part of the defense workers for living quarters with their
accompanying ability to pay whatever rent was demanded, forced many persons
known to the department of public welfare to move into small cramped quarters
or else to pay their entire public assistance grant for rent to avoid being evicted.
Nine families known to department of public welfare were forced to move because
arsenal workers either bought or rented the houses and rooms they were occupying
A family of 10 persons was forced to move into 1 room and to date have been
unable to find other quarters.
Juvenile delinquency has increased to a great extent. Most cases come from
one area where we feel there are a number of contributing factors. This district,
known as West Huntsville, is composed of families of low-income groups who
occupy poor and crowded housing facilities and generally are unable to provide
minimum needs for normal child life. Many children in this area are not attend-
ing school. There are few recreational facilities. We found that both parents
of many of these delinquents are employed and away from home most of the day
and night. At this writing, plans are being formulated for the building of new
schools and some additions to existing ones for both city and county systems.
The Young Men's Christian Association, as a member agency of the United
Service Organizations, has begun plans for a community service program which
we feel will be very helpful in meeting the needs of families and children.
A recent survey in regard to preschool children reveals the necessity for nursery
schools. A further need is anticipated along these lines when women employees
will be taken on at the ordnance plant. At the present time, 40 percent of the
employees of the local mills handling defense orders are women.
Few requests for public assistance have come from outsiders. Several religious
organizations, we are told, have been approached in instances of stranded defense
workers. However, these requests have been few in number.
The health department has increased its staff. Reasons for increase will no
doubt be fully reported by the county health officer.
The local hospital has been taxed to its fullest extent and there is grave danger
it cannot meet the additional demands x>f the permanent workers coming to be
employed at the arsenal. There has been little increase in requests from indigent
outsiders for hospital services. Present hospital facilicies serve only a limited
number of department of public welfare clients. Requests are made for only
most emergent cases as appropriations made by the city and the county only total
$600 per month.
We are anticipating a decrease in county appropriations for public assistance
and since State and Federal funds are only given after the first dollar has been
out out by the local group, the situation of the low-income groups become
alarmingly grave. The purchase of taxable lands by the Federal Government;
the change from privately owned and operated power lines to Tennessee Valley
Authority and the county making the sale of intoxicants illegal, will result in less
revenue and such being the case, less money will be appropriated for public welfare
uses.
11984
HUNTS VILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
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11986 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Department of Public Welfare,
Madison County, Huntsville, Ala., May 4, 1942.
Supplementary Report
Since making the report to your committee in February, we were able to revise
the budget of the last 6 months of the fiscal year which will end September 30.
Unexpended balances from the first 6 months' budget were placed in the four
categories which receive public assistance checks. The amount of assistance
given each client is figured on a percentage basis of the budgetary deficiency.
Our checks in the four categories now average:
Category
Amount
Number
of eases
$9.15
13.07
12.37
10.43
356
133
11
55
According to our budgetary deficiencies and the amount of each check issued?
we now given an all-around average of 34 percent of the actual minimum need
for all four categories. We have 57 cases approved and receiving no cash
assistance.
The number of cases receiving commodities from the Work Projects Adminis-
tration awaiting assignment file has been reduced considerably. For the month
of April, only 45 cases received these surplus commodities from this group. On
April 14, the chief district social worker from Decatur reported to us that there
were no men in the awaiting assignment file in Madison County and that there
were only 110 women. This group is comprised largely of women who are un-
trained and whose ability consists mainly along common-labor lines.
Juvenile-delinquency figures continue to rise above those of the same period
for last year. There has been only one case involving a child from a migrant
family, and we question the fact that he was involved in the real theft of a bicycle.
The housing shortage remains acute. Various estimates stating that about 900
houses were to be built here may be true but up to date only 316 permits have
been issued within the police jurisdiction. It is said that it will be late summer
and maybe November before the housing problem will be solved more adequately.
Rents have not been reduced to any extent. Some of our clients tell us that
their landlords now collect rent on a weekly basis which amounts to another
increase for them when there are 5 weeks in a month.
It is the observation of this department that construction workers on this de-
fense job have little or no interest in community life or desire to become a part
of it. Recreational facilities made available to them at the service center have
not been used. There has been an average of about six couples each week who
visited the center. No suggestions were made by others as to what use they
would like to make of the center.
The churches report that a small number of the workers have attended church
or shown any interest in programs offered. Ministers and social workers have
visited frequently in the trailer camps, which now are 12 in number.
We have heard that workers deplore the lack of commercialized amusements in
this community. This agency has had few applications for assistance from
stranded transient workers.
We understand that the requests for a health center and an addition to the
hospital from Lanham bill funds have been approved. These are greatly needed
to meet the needs of an increased population.
Bootlegging is widespread and we have had a few children who were involved
in such cases because of their working or in relationship to the parent.
Child labor regulations are ignored. Children under age are working in cafes,
until 2 and 3 o'clock in the morning. We have known of three under 15 who
worked all night. Wages vary from 10 cents an hour with food to $1 a night.
We do not feel that these violations occur simply as deliberate law violations but
because there is such a shortage of this kind of cheap adult labor. The Govern-
ment wage of 50 cents an hour for common labor has caused adults to refuse work
for the old prevalent wages.
A forward step has been made for coordinating community services in that the
heads of all local agencies working along lines of health, welfare, and character
development have organized a committee under Office of Civilian Defense and its
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 11987
prime functions will be to prevent overlapping and duplication of work, and|will
point up the needs of the community to the defense council through the healthand
welfare representative.
The establishment of a defense plant in a small community brings work oppor-
tunities to the able-bodied unemployed, but the lot of the unemployable Depart-
ment, of Public Welfare clients along with the children in these homes becomes
more alarming and deplorable because the assistance check usually goes for an
increased rent which is out of proportion for the inadequate and indecent living
quarters which he can afford, and little is left to be spent for food, clothing, medi-
cal care, or recreation.
In Alabama, the relief checks are so low that we are compelled to use a per-
centage basis to compute the amount of assistance from the minimum budgetary
deficiency. We are only prolonging starvation and rearing children from a group
who will develop malnourished bodies and twisted minds and grow into mal-
adjusted members of society under a democratic form of government which is
supposed to meet the needs of a helpless inarticulate group.
TESTIMONY OF MRS. WAITER HUMPHREY— Resumed
Mr. Sparkman. Mrs. Humphrey, I wonder if you would tell us
something about the source of revenue of your department and how
these funds are earmarked for different purposes?
SOURCES OF REVENUE
Mrs. Humphrey. The local funds aren't. We receive our money
on a matching basis on the three categories: The old age, aid for the
blind, and aid for dependent children. We get $2,057.58 a month
from the county and $150 from the city, and we take that money and
are able to secure matching funds from the State for the three cate-
gories; the county, 25 percent, the State, 25 percent, and the Federal
Government, 50 percent.
Mr. Sparkman. You might start this by stating what would be
your total operating revenue each month.
Mrs. Humphrey. Well — I can give you what our annual budget
runs. Our budget runs from October 1 to September 30. And last
October 1 we took the money that would be available each month
and it made $78,676 for the whole year.
Mr. Sparkman. Your State, county, and Federal funds?
Mrs. Humphrey. Yes, sir; on the three categories the State
matches us dollar for dollar, and the Federal Government matches
that total dollar for dollar.
Mr. Sparkman. How much direct relief do you engage in?
Mrs. Humphrey. We get no Federal funds for that; just State and
county. In aid to dependent children and neglected children the State
matches us dollar for dollar.
Mr. Sparkman. The Federal Government also matches that?
Mrs. Humphrey. Yes.
Mr. Sparkman. What about the part for which you get no match-
ing funds from the Federal Government? Have you got your budget
broken down as to the various categories?
Mrs. Humphrey. No ; that is in the statement made in February.
We also operate the commodities project, and the expense of operating
that is paid by the local funds from the county.
Mr. Sparkman. The commodities are furnished by the Federal
Government?
11988 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Mrs. Humphrey. Yes, sir. Then, on the question of administra-
tion, Mr. Sparkman, with the exception of child welfare, the Federal
Government furnishes 10 percent, the county 45 percent, and the
State 45 percent, but on child-welfare service the Children's Bureau
pays 40 percent, the State 30 percent, and the county 30 percent.
Mr. Sparkman. I believe you said a while ago that the develop-
ments around here had not greatly affected your program?
INCREASE IN CHILD DELINQUENCY
Mrs. Humphrey. I didn't mean that. I was referring to public
assistance. Our case load is 30 over last year's on the question of
public assistance, but it has affected child delinquency. You will
remember Miss Dunn's testimony that in one area child delinquency
had increased 500 percent. This was the area to which she referred.
Mr. Sparkman. Mrs. Humphrey, when you say it increased 500
percent, it isn't so bad; is it? You started from a low level?
Mrs. Humphrey. Madison County has had a high rate of juvenile
delinquency. It did several years ago, when a great many mothers
worked in the cotton mills at night, and returned in the morning and
slept until 2 or 3 o'clock in the afternoon. At that time women
worked mostly at nights.
Mr. Sparkman. Is this high rate still prevailing?
Mrs. Humphrey. That 500 percent covered a quarter period —
September, October, and November 1941, as against September,
October, and November 1940. With the exception of the month of
February, there has been about a 50- to 60-percent increase over the
same periods last year.
Mr. Sparkman. In other words, it is still abnormally high?
CROWDED SCHOOLS CONTRIBUTE TO CHILD DELINQUENCY
Mrs. Humphrey. Yes, sir. And one thing we could attribute it to
is that inadequate school housing out there. That school was built
to have about 350 children. Then they had 1,135 enrolled. And this
winter at one time there were between 300 and 400 children on the
streets. The school authorities didn't make an effort to get them in
school. They didn't have room to place them. It has been really a
very acute situation in that particular area.
Mr. Sparkman. I assume a great many of the children out on the
street were children of people who had come in town recently?
Mrs. Humphrey. Yes, sir; but some were local children who had
been school problems and they took advantage of that situation.
The plants were running morning and afternoon shifts. And if you
stopped a child on the street and asked why he wasn't in school, he was
always on the other shift.
Mr. Sparkman. How many people do you have on your active
relief rolls?
Mrs. Humphrey. In April, 556 public-assistance cases.
Mr. Sparkman. How many people do you have certified?
Mrs. Humphrey. Fifty-seven approved and not receiving any
assistance.
Mr. Sparkman. Has the recent migration of workers affected hous-
ing conditions of the people on relief?
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 11989
Mrs. Humphrey. Quite acutely. A house that had been renting
for $4 a month — a 2-room house — would jump up to $8. _ The check
was ^probably $10. So you can see that practically nothing was left
after paying rent. I know at one time we had a family of 10 living in
1 room and a family of 5 or 6 living in 2 rooms.
Mr. Sparkman. Does that still prevail?
Mrs. Humphrey. The family of 10 living in 1 room now, I think,
have 2 rooms, and the father has secured work at the arsenal. He has
been doing common labor there, carrying water, I think. We have
removed 9 from the rolls because they have secured jobs at the
arsenal at common labor.
Mr. Sparkman. Back to this child delinquency, you referred in
your written statement to help from the Federal Government to meet
that problem?
Mrs. Humphrey. Yes, sir; we have a special worker who has been
assigned to us by the State department. She is a member of the State
staff. Social Security provides a public-welfare worker for counties
with a certain percentage of rural population and there are three of
those workers in the State of Alabama, and one has been assigned to
this county. She also does public child service work and aids in
community organization to carry out the work. She has been here
since February.
Mr. Sparkman. Has it been necessary for any of the people that
come here by reason of these projects to come in your department
for help?
Mrs. Humphrey. We have only had six applications, and we helped
two of those. One was a lady who was looking for her husband.
The other was a sick man.
Mr. Sparkman. You helped them out of your own funds?
Mrs. Humphrey. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. Without any matching from anyone?
Mrs. Humphrey. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. Has it been necessary to increase the cash relief
that you have been giving to your clients?
USE OF FUNDS
Mrs. Humphrey. We have increased it, but not because of an
increase in appropriations. At the end of 6 months some of the
counties in Alabama did not receive their local funds. The State
money had been budgeted and for the various counties that didn't
receive their local funds that money was withdrawn, and the other
counties were asked to submit a new' budget. For this last 6 months,
ours was $44,335. All our money had not been spent, for instance
on commodities project, because in the month of April we only had
45 Work Projects Administration cases waiting and drawing com-
modities, whereas at one time we had 3,000. Because the money
appropriated to operate that had not been spent, we took that money
and also the money from a reserve fund which we kept, and the
State and Federal Government matched it, bringing this budget up.
Mr. Sparkman. How much increase did that serve to give the
individual?
11990 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
AMOUNT OF PAYMENTS
Mrs. Humphrey. Well, the average check for an old age assistance
client in February was $9.15, and this past month, $13.07; aid to the
blind was $9.11, in April $12.33; aid to the handicapped was $8.58
in February, in April $10.44.
Mr. Sparkman. That would give some relief, about enough to catch
up with the increased cost of living?
Mrs. Humphrey. No, sir; not enough. We estimate that the dollar
is now worth about 70 percent of what it was, that the relief dollar will
only buy 70 percent of what it formerly bought.
Mr. Sparkman. You were not giving them an increased standard
of living; you were simply trying to help them maintain that same
standard of living?
Mrs. Humphrey. Yes, sir; which is a most inadequate level.
Mr. Sparkman. What are the requirements for obtaining those sur-
plus commodities? I believe you say they are available to relief
clients?
Mrs. Humphrey. Yes, sir; all the department of public welfare
clients are eligible and all the men and their families on the waiting
Work Projects Administration files are eligible. After a man has
worked for the Work Projects Administration for a month he is re-
moved from the commodities list.
MEETING THE CHILD-WELFARE PROBLEM
Mr. Sparkman. The increase of workers in this area, and particu-
larly the increase in the women workers at the arsenal and Redstone
Ordnance, would probably create new and additional problems of child
welfare; what steps have you taken to prepare for this development?
You mentioned the 300 or 400 children on the streets; that was par-
ticularly true in the West Huntsville area?
Mrs. Humphrey. Yes, sir. The State department of education,
you know, has made application for three day-nursery schools, and
the United Service Organization has taken over the West Huntsville
Y. M. C. A., and they Will offer a community service program to
defense workers and people in West Huntsville. The Work Projects
Administration is operating a recreation program in the county. We
opened a colored playground on April 15 and we had 1,500 attend the
first day. And I might add that we expect to use this special child
welfare worker.
Mr. Sparkman. Do you feel that the Federal Government has done
about all it could to cooperate with you?
VARIABLE GRANTS
Mrs. Humphrey. We would like for the Federal Government not
to require the Southern States, at least the poor States, to put up
dollar for dollar. You know, Alabama is one of the poorest States in
the Union. &!
The Chairman. You are absolutely correct about that. There is a
difference in capacity to pay in States just as with individual persons.
This committee has been fighting for that.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 11991
Mr. Sparkman. You might he interested to know that in one of our
hearings in New England I was asking a witness about variable grants,
but we were talking about variable school grants then, and 1 asked
him about it. Dr. Vance of North Carolina had described the South
as the "seed bed of the Nation, where reproduction runs as high as
130 percent," whereas in the industrialized Northeast it runs about
80 percent. And to keep a balanced population, people are being
siphoned off. And I asked this witness what he thought about
variable grants, but with particular reference to schools, and he an-
swered this way:
"Mr. Congressman, if you raised mules and sent them to us, we
would pay you for raising them. But if you raise boys and girls and
send them to us, we don't pay you anything for bringing them up
and educating them."
And I thought it was a very apt illustration.
OLD AGE ASSISTANCE
Mr. Arnold. I was just wondering how your aged get along on $9
a month. I know in my State the average is $19 or $20. Still I get
complaints whenever I make a tour of my district. How do they get
along on $9 a month?
Mrs. Humphrey. We feel that we are just prolonging starvation.
Some of these people may have a child who can furnish them with a
place to stay, but can't help any more. They don't have balanced
diets, adequate clothing, or medical assistance. We see where a large
part of the checks are spent for medical assistance and medical sup-
plies. They have the food commodities. But it is a very low
standard of living.
Mr. Arnold. In other words, they just exist and that sort of
existence is not good for this country.
Mrs. Humphrey. Yes, sir; and it is the same way with all our other
cases. The aid-to-dependent-children cases — we are rearing chil-
dren on those same inadequate diets and they can't have the normal
home life that they should have.
The Chairman. Just one more question. I understood from Gen-
eral Ditto that they have 7,000 or 8,000 employed now at the arsenal
and about 800 at the other plant, but that construction was about
80-percent complete. And the thought occurred to me when the con-
struction is complete the load will increase?
Mrs. Humphrey. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. How many permanent employees will there be at
the ordnance plant and the arsenal? -
Mr. Sparkman. General Ditto testified there would be some 5,000
operating employees and Colonel Hudson testified there would be
about 3,000 operating employees at the ordnance. .
UNEMPLOYMENT IN COUNTY
Mrs. Humphrey. This might give you a picture of the unemploy-
ment in this county. In January 1940 the Work Projects Adminis-
tration had over 2,720 men working and awaiting assignment in this
county. That has been reduced by these people getting jobs at com-
mon labor. But he said this morning that the arsenal is nearly 80-
percent complete. And we will have these people coming back.
11992 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Mr. Payne. We had about 400 Work Projects Administration
workers on the streets 18 months ago. Now we have an average of
12 or 14, and our program is practically stopped. In my opinion,
when the common labor is through in the construction work, those
rolls will go right back up. I may be wrong. They may find employ-
ment somewhere else.
Mr. McGregor. Work Projects Administration work in the county
has practically disappeared. We have a little Work Projects Adminis-
tration work in the Fifth District,' in Madison, and a little project
down towards Whitesburg.
Mr. Sparkman. Are they using Work Projects Administration
labor on paving the airport?
Mr. McGregor. Yes, sir.
Mrs. Humphrey. May I make a correction? When I said the coun-
ty funds were not earmarked — when the appropriation was made 65
percent of the funds were earmarked for old-age assistance.
Mr. Sparkman. If there is any correction or any additional state-
ments this panel would like to present, you may do so. Our record
will be open for about 10 days.
WELFARE PAYMENT BY CITY
Mr. Payne. About this welfare, it seems there is quite a difference
between what the city gives, $150 a month, and what the county
gives, $2,000 a month. I would like to state — and I am sure you
know it, John — that it has been the county's burden to take care of
the poor, not the city's. But the county does receive from the
State a certain portion of the sales tax that has to be used for health,
farm extension, and public welfare.
Mr. McGregor. Most of this money comes out of the general fund.
Only a small part of our contribution is from the sales tax funds.
Mr. Payne. Our $150 a month might seem a very small appropri-
ation. However, the county has always carried that burden. The
reason that the city came in, I think, was they had to have a child
welfare worker.
Dr. Hatchett. I think you failed to ask me if I thought the Fed-
eral Government had done all it could. I want to make this state-
ment that if they grant the health center, I will say they have.
Mr. Sparkman. I might say that they were so anxious to make the
grant that they had me go right to work on it.
We have been in a great many places throughout the United
States, and it would be a revelation to you people to see how fortu-
nate you are in the various conditions that have prevailed here.
Part of that is due to the fact that you came rather late in the pro-
gram and things were well under way.
The Chairman. I think part of it is due to the vigilance of your
Congressman.
Mr. Sparkman. Thank you for appearing before us this morning.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 11993
TESTIMONY OF JOHN B. FINLEY, MIGRANT WORKER, HUNTS-
VILLE, ALA.
Mr. Arnold. For the record, please state your name, address, and
occupation.
Mr. Finley. John B. Finley, 207 West Clinton Street, Hunts-
ville, Ala., chemical plant operator.
Mr. Arnold. Are you married?
Mr. Finley. Yes, sir.
Mr. Arnold. You have any children?
Mr. Finley. Four.
Mr. Arnold. State their ages and sex.
Mr. Finley. I have two boys, one 15 and one 13, one girl 11, and
one boy almost 4.
Mr. Arnold. Where do they live?
Mr. Finley. Anniston, Ala.
Mr. Arnold. How long have you lived in this area?
Mr. Finley. Two months.
LIVING ACCOMMODATIONS
Mr. Arnold. Will you state for the record the kind of living
accommodations you have?
Mr. Finley. I am boarding down here with a lady. There are 24
of us, I think, staying at that house. We have a bath tub and a
toilet.
Mr. Arnold. Just one?
Mr. Finley. Yes, sir; and we have two colored girls down there
doing the cooking and we all use the same facilities.
Mr. Arnold. You room and board there?
Mr. Finley. Yes, sir.
Mr. Arnold. How many rooms in that house?
Mr. Finley. Six rooms, not counting the kitchen and dmmg
room — and they cook and eat in the same room— 7 rooms and a
hall.
Mr. Arnold. Are there any beds in the kitchen?
Mr. Finley. No, sir.
Mr. Arnold. How many of you are occupying the same room?
Mr. Finley. There is only one in the little room I stay in. It is a
small room. I think at one time it was a kitchen or something because
there is a sink in it. It is about 10 by 10.
Mr. Arnold. Do you have two single beds in it?
Mr. Finley. No, sir; one double bed.
Mr. Arnold. Do you sleep in shifts?
Mr. Finley. No, sir. The fellow that rooms with me sleeps in the
double bed with me. He is a friend of mine from Anniston. We
room together and sleep together. The other people there, I don't
know how they make out, but I know there are five people in one
room, five men.
Mr. Arnold. What rent do you pay?
Mr. Finley. $10 per week.
Mr. Arnold. That is for your room and board?
Mr. Finley. Yes, sir.
11994 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Mr. Arnold. Is there any trouble about the bathroom facilities;
can you get in there?
Mr. Finley. There are certain times when you can get in the bath-
room— maybe 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning. I don't use the bath.
I bathe at the plant.
The Chairman. Do you work the bathroom facilities on a schedule?
Mr. Finley. You just have to take your chances.
Mr. Arnold. You don't make much use of the bath there — you
bathe at the plant?
Mr. Finley. Yes, sir.
Mr. Arnold. Are you a construction worker?
Mr. Finley. No; an operator.
Mr. Arnold. What kind of work do you do?
Mr. Finley. I am a chemical-plant operator. Of course what I do
is, I guess, a military secret.
Mr. Arnold. Did you have to have some schooling for that job?
Mr. Finley. Yes, sir; some training and practical experience. I
had some experience.
Mr. Arnold. How much do you make?
Mr. Finley. $6.24 per day.
Mr. Arnold. How many days a week do you work?
Mr. Finley. Five days. I got 6 days last week.
Mr. Arnold. You work some weeks 5 days and some weeks 6 days?
Mr. Finley. I have worked 5 days all weeks except last week.
Mr. Arnold. And you make $6.24 a day?
Mr. Finley. That is less 3K percent.
Mr. Arnold. You make a little over $30 a week. Are you able
to save any money out of that?
Mr. Finley. No, sir.
Mr. Arnold. Have you bought any War Bonds?
Mr. Finley. I bought one a few days ago.
Mr. Arnold. Did you buy it out of your salary?
Mr. Finley. Yes, sir.
Mr. Arnold. Your family isn't here?
Mr. Finley. No, sir; I couldn't find a house. I went to Captain
LaMarsh and put in an application for a house.
Mr. Arnold. Is that his duty, to try to find houses for the workers?
Mr. Finley. Yes, sir.
Mr. Arnold. How much rent do you feel you could pay if you could
find one?
Mr. Finley. I don't know. They told me it would be 20 percent
of what I make, and I think that is pretty reasonable.
Mr. Arnold. That would be about $25 per month?
Mr. Finley. Yes, sir.
Mr. Arnold. If you get the house where will it be located?
Mr. Finley. The ones they are going to build will be in West
Huntsville near the arsenal.
Mr. Arnold. Where will your children go to school?
Mr. Finley. West Huntsville.
Mr. Arnold. That is the school the preceding panel was talking
about being overcrowded?
Mr. Finley. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. There is an application, I believe, for an addition
to that school.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 11995
Mr. Arnold. Do you like your work?
Mr. Finley. I like it fine.
The Chairman. You expect to stay, but you don't want to stay on
indefinitely, I suppose, without your family?
Mr. Finley. No, sir; I would like to get them here as quickly as
I could.
Mr. Sparkman. Of course, none of this Government housing has
even been started. But you do anticipate, when the housing program
is put into effect, that you will be able to get a house?
Mr. Finley. That is what Captain LaMarsh told me ; that it would
probably be July or August, but I could get a house, and not to worry.
Mr. Arnold. What transportation do you have?
Mr. Finley. I ride in with a fellow that works on the shift I do.
Mr. Arnold. What does that cost you? You pay some on that?
Mr. Finley. Yes, sir; about $1.50 a week.
Mr. Arnold. Do you take your lunch with you?
Mr. Finley. Yes, sir.
Mr. Arnold. Is that included in your $10 a week board bill?
Mr. Finley. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. Thank you for coming here. We appreciate it.
Mr. Sparkman. I would like at this point to offer for the record
some correspondence we have had. It includes a letter I wrote to
Governor Dixon and his reply; also a letter you wrote to Mr. P. O.
Davis. The Governor was very anxious to be here, and told me in
Washington he wanted to be here. But he told me the President
had summoned him and some of the members of his staff to Wash-
ington to discuss war problems and it would be impossible for him to
attend these hearings; that is also true of Mr. P. O. Davis. And Mr.
Liles is appearing in the place of Mr. P. O. Davis.
(The correspondence referred to is inserted here.)
v ^ Apbil 20, 1942.
Hon. Frank M. Dixon,
Governor of Alabama, Montgomery, Ala.
Dear Frank: The committee has completed its work of investigating problems
connected with the evacuation of enemy aliens from the west coast. Plans have
been arranged to hold the postponed Hunts ville hearing on the 7th and 8th of
Mav. . .
We are taking this opportunity of again extending to you an invitation to
appear at the committee's hearings. As mentioned in our previous letter of
invitation, we believe that the problems existing now and which the Southeast
faces in the post-war economy are of primary interest. Your appearance before
the committee would serve to emphasize the need of examining these situations.
Our investigators have told me how courteously they have been treated in
Alabama. We want to take this opportunity of thanking you for the many
courtesies so far extended them.
If any questions arise with regard to your appearance, you may expect one of
the committee's investigators to call on you within the next week.
With all good wishes, I am,
Sincerely, John J. Sparkman.
State op Alabama, Executive Office,
Montgomery, April 27, 191+2.
Hon. John J. Sparkman,
House Office Building, Washington, D. C.
My Dear John: Under present plans, I am expecting to be in Washington
on May 7 and 8.
As you know, the President has called for a conference of State officials there at
that time.
Yours very truly,
Frank M. Dixon. Governor.
11996 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
April 20, 1942.
Mr. P. O. Davis,
Director, Farm Extension Service,
Alabama Polytechnic Institute, Auburn, Ala.
Dear Mr. Davis: As promised in its wire of February 21, the committee wishes
to inform you that the Huntsville hearing originally set for February 24 and ^5
has been definitely scheduled for Thursday and Friday, May 7 and 8.
Within the next few days Mr. Francis X. Riley, investigator for the committee,
will call on you to arrange for your appearance. At that time he will discuss with
you the material you have presented and arrange for the presentation of any addi-
tional material which may be necessary to bring your statement up to date.
If there are any questions that arise, you may contact Mr. Riley at the Post
Office, Huntsville, Ala.
With all good wishes, I am
Sincerely,
John H. Tolan, Chairman.
[Telegram]
Athens, Ala., May 6, 1942.
Francis X. Riley,
203 Post Office.
Will appear before committee behalf P. 0. Davis Friday morning. Staying
Ross Hotel here.
John L. Liles.
TESTIMONY OF JOHN L. LILES, JR., EXTENSION ECONOMIST,
AUBURN, ALA.
The Chairman. For the purpose of the record, Mr. Liles, please
state your name, occupation, and address.
Mr. Liles. John L. Liles, Jr., extension economist, Auburn, Ala.
The Chairman. We are glad to have you with us, although we miss
Mr. Davis, who appeared before us in Montgomery nearly 2 years
ago. Your statement will be inserted in the record.
STATEMENT BY JOHN L. LILES, JR., EXTENSION ECONOMIST,
COOPERATIVE EXTENSION WORK IN AGRICULTURE AND HOME
ECONOMICS, AUBURN, ALA.
Insofar as the immediate migration in Alabama is concerned, it is caused by the
fact that farmers can make a great deal more money working in defense industries
than they can on the farms. No one can blame them for leaving when they can
multiply their incomes severalfold. It is not possible with present prices of
agricultural products to earn an income from farms comparable to that which can
be gained in industrial employment. This migration from farms to cities and
towns represents a considerable flow of labor, one which is gaining in volume.
Migration of the type pointed out above has occurred throughout the State, but,
of course, not to the same extent in all areas. The movement is greatest in the
vicinity of such defense industries as Childersburg, Tri-Cities, Birmingham,
Mobile, and now Ozark. There has been a general exodus of farm laborers from
the Black Belt of Alabama. Most of those persons leaving the Black Belt have
been Negroes, most of whom have gone to industrial centers outside of the State.
The pattern of Alabama agriculture in recent years has been changing to a more
diversified farm organization. Indicative of this change are the facts that: (1)
The acreage in pasture has increased more than one million acres, 81 percent in
the past decade, without any decrease in cropland, thus adding nearly a million
acres to our productive set-up; (2) the acreage devoted to hay has increased from
444,000 acres in 1930 to 1,038,000 acres in 1940; (3) the acreage planted to corn
has increased from 2,600.000 in 1930 to more than 3,500,000 acres in 1940. Dur-
ing the same period, cattle numbers increased 43 percent and hogs 50 percent.
The above changes in Alabama agriculture are not evenly distributed through-
out the State, of course. The increase in corn and hay acreage is pretty well
diffused throughout the State. The acreage in pasture is fairly well scattered,
but the Black Belt has contributed a great deal in this acreage.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
11997
Farmers in Alabama have more and better farm equipment than they have ever
had before. The number of tractors has approximately doubled in the last*5
years. The number of small combines and other power equipment has increased
greatly, particularly in North Alabama. These gains in equipment should mean
that farm labor is much more efficient now than formerly, as measured by man
hours or man days per acre, or as measured by the number of acres which one man
can efficiently handle.
There has been a general trend from croppers to wage hands. This change was
brought about largely by a changing type of agriculture. As the farms here
shifted from cash-crop production, largely cotton, to a more diversified organiza-
tion, it became difficult to pay a laborer with diversified crops and livestock.
Many of the laborers asked for this change in classification because they wanted
to be paid in terms of cash rather than in eggs, milk, meat and a host of other
products raised on diversified farms. Cash payments seemed the only way out.
This change in classification, although it shows a decrease in the number of farm
operators according to the census, does not necessarily represent a decrease in
the number of farm people. In fact, the census shows that the number of people
on farms increased slightly from 1935 to 1940, even though the number of farms
decreased from 273,009 to 231,000.
The changes in Alabama agriculture which have been pointed out in the pre-
ceding paragraphs represent changes in the direction that long time progress is
desirable. They place the State in a much more favorable position to meet 1942
production goals than would have been possible without this diversification. In
order to meet 1942 and 1943 production goals, however, we have a long, hard road
ahead of us. We know that there will be shortages of materials, equipment, and
labor. At present the labor shortage is the most acute single farm problem.
The farm labor problem is acute not only because there is a general or relative
shortage throughout the State, but because laborers are not available at the time
when crops must be seeded. The time limit within which crops must be planted
is rather narrow. If labor is not available for this purpose/an entire year is wasted
— land, equipment, and products which could have been produced on that acreage.
This problem will be very acute in regard to our production of peanuts which must
be planted in the very near future.
The 1942 production goals for Alabama are as follows:
Commodity
1942 goal
1941
Increase 1942
over 1941
399, 000
810. 462
399, 715
172, 667, 401
234, 171, 000
171, 883, 000
445, 558
59, 332, 865
229, 000
38, 900
1,203,970
105,000
176, 000
315,000
374,000
152, 400, 000
183, 155, 000
i 134, 600, 000
322, 000
44, 083, 000
206, 382
23, 444
999,000
94, 000
Percent
127
157
Cows milked (number)
7
13
28
38
35
11
66
21
12
i 1940.
If we are to reach the above goals, and we will reach them, it will require more
labor than has been required in recent years because the crops and livestock for
which increases have been asked are higher in labor requirements than the crops
and livestock formerly grown in the amounts grown by the farm people of Alabama.
Inasmuch as the production of these crops and livestock has been termed "essen-
tial" to our war effort, it would seem that some provision should be made to assure
an adequate labor supply for the production of these crops and livestock.
TESTIMONY OF JOHN L. IILES, JR.— Resumed
The Chairman. Will you please tell the committee what the Exten-
sion Service has done to assist in the furtherance of the food for victory
program?
11998 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
THE FOOD FOR VICTORY PROGRAM
Mr. Liles. Briefly, the part the Extension Service has in the food
for victory program is working with the farmers in an educational way
to assist them in producing increased quantities of the things we need
for this war. That very briefly is our part, working with the farmers
individually and in groups in order that they may have the advantages
of the latest technical information.
The Chairman. Have you adopted a diversified crop program?
Mr. Liles. We have. Of course, the food for victory program itself
calls for diversification. This year we have been asked to plant our
full allotment of cotton. But the production of meat and milk and
eggs are in themselves calls for diversified farming as far as this State
is concerned. Particularly is that true in regard to peanuts. We
have been asked for an increase from 300,000 acres of peanuts to better
than 800,000 acres. So we have taken it on ourselves to become ac-
quainted with the production and harvesting of peanuts. That has
been our number one job this year.
The Chairman. Do you have land in Alabama suitable for that
increase?
Mr. Liles. Yes, sir; but in order to get that much increase we are
having to grow peanuts in places we haven't grown them before, al-
though the land is suitable for the production of peanuts. There were
no peanuts grown commercially north of Birmingham until this year.
Now as to the suitability of the land, that might be shown by the fact
that the highest yield of peanuts was on the experimental station at
Belle Mina. We can grow peanuts in north Alabama and we will do
it this year.
The Chairman. I drove south to the Tennessee River with Con-
gressman Sparkman, yesterday, and that land appeared to me to be
very fertile, fine-looking land. Have you got a lot more of that kind
of land in Alabama?
Mr. Liles. I might put it this way. About 25 percent of the farm
people live in what we call north Alabama, the 17 north Alabama coun-
ties, and they produce about 40 percent of all the agricultural products
of the State. About half, almost half, of the cotton is produced in
north Alabama. And by far the best land and the best farmers in the
State are in north Alabama. The highest priced land and the highest
yields, you will find right here in the Tennessee Valley.
little waste land in state
The Chairman. Have you much waste land in Alabama?
Mr. Liles. There is some. However, when it comes to the word
"waste," I think it depends on how it is defined. Much land that
would be waste for field crops is excellent for the production of timber.
And that is being planted back to pine.
The Chairman. I meant a total waste.
Mr. Liles. I shouldn't think we had a great deal; no.
The Chairman. The reason I asked that question — I have made
several round-trips from California to Washington by automobile and
go through Nevada and Arizona and New Mexico and see millions of
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 11999
acres with not a thing growing on them — nothing can — so I still think
that good, fertile land is something very worth having in this country.
Mr. Liles. To illustrate that point I might say that we have been
quite pressed here in Alabama by people on the land. This is an old
State. We have about 231,000 farm families operating about 20,000,-
000 acres. The average is 30 acres of crop land per farm family or 7%
acres per farm person. And with that condition there wouldn't be
much waste land.
The Chairman. Originally this committee was created for the pur-
ipose of investigating the migration of destitute citizens between the
States, and a year ago last April the life of the committee was extended
to study defense migration, and that is what we are primarily con-
cerned with now. Of course the history of this Nation has been one
of migration. However, this defense migration has been the greatest
migration in the history of the United States. In his testimony last
year before the committee Mr. P. O. Davis testified that part of the
work of the Extension Service was to conduct a program aimed to
check migration at its source.
Mr. Liles. I think what Mr. Davis had reference to was that the
basic cause of migration is inequality of opportunity, where one person
leaves his environment for a different one because he can better him-
self, and that, primarily, would mean he could get a better income.
We have striven to increase the income of the farmer by greater
efficiency in production. However, even with the increased prices for
farm production, and even with the increased efficiency in farming in
the last year, the wages of defense industries have gone up more, pro-
portionately, than the price of farm products. So the basic problem
is still before us.
The Chairman. Has the Extension Service made a study or formed
an opinion as to the farm labor situation in Alabama?
FARM LABOR SITUATION
Mr. Liles. We have. In February of this year we conducted an
informal survey among the county agents. We are now working with
the State employment service, or the Federal Employment Service as
it is now. And there is coordination between the Federal Employ-
ment Service in the county and our local county agent in regard to
farm labor supply-and-demand situation and in regard to such work-
ers. Together they have made surveys in practically every county
in the State. A third survey has been made by the Agricultural
Marketing Service, which comes through the county office. We have
assisted them. So there are three specific farm labor surveys that
have been made thus far this year.
At the present time the Extension Service is cooperating with
another agency of the Department of Agriculture in determining how
near we will come to reaching our 1942 goals and obtaining information
relative to setting our 1943 production goals. I happen to have charge
of that in north Alabama at the present time, and part of that work
is studying the farm labor question and how much effect it may have
on our food-for-victory program, and what can be clone about it. So
there are four instances in which we have gone into the problem.
12000 HTJNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
CAPITAL AVAILABLE IN POST-WAR PERIOD
The Chairman. In his testimony last year Mr. Davis stated that
the three requirements of successful agriculture were land, labor, and
capital, and what the South lacked was capital. Do you believe, as
a result of this agricultural revolution, that the South will have suffi-
cient capital to carry on in the post-war period?
Mr. Liles. I should think that you might answer that according
to the way you interpret capital. I think capital might be denned
not only in terms of monetary capital, but in terms of plant capacity
and other physical equipment we might also call capital. So far as
ready cash is concerned, I think there will be sufficient cash and credit
to carry on after the war. I think we will need a considerable expan-
sion in plant capacity, and so forth. In answer to that question, if I
may separate money from physical goods, I would say we would more
nearly have the money than the capital equipment.
The Chairman. With all the food we are shipping to war-torn
Europe and the starving nations of Asia, I can't conceive how we can
produce too much food ; can you?
Mr. Liles. I think in rare instances we might produce too much of
one thing for a short while. However, I am not worried about the
South producing too much food at any time in the near future, or in
the post-war period. I don't think the South will produce as much
food and feedstuff as it will consume.
The Chairman. Will you indicate to the committee what steps
you believe the Federal Government can take to assist agriculture in
the southeast in the war period?
Mr. Liles. Do you mean in reaching our food-for-victory goals, or
in the whole agricultural program?
The Chairman. In the whole, over-all picture.
MATERIALS AND LABOR NEEDED
Mr. Liles. I think that question could be divided into about two
parts, if I may do that. The first is what must be done immediately
in order to assist in reaching our food-for-victory goals, and the other
is what can be done as to a long-time program. So far as reaching
our food-for-victory goals, there are two things which are our greatest
handicaps. One is the materials with which to get production. The
other is labor. By materials, I mean mainly fertilizer. Most of the
commercial fertilizer used in the United States is used in the South.
Our production depends on getting adequate fertilizer.
The Chairman. Are you getting it?
Mr. Liles. We have only a part of what we got last year. To
date we have about one-third of the nitrogen, less than that in terms
of nitrate of soda, which we use as side dressing. The main shortage
has been nitrogen. We will find reduced yields this year; and next
year, unless the situation is changed, it will be even worse. So far as
farm labor is concerned, that is the second limiting factor at the present
time. A great deal of help has left the farm and gone to the cities,
to industry, and to the armed forces. We have taken it upon ourselves
as a State organization to work through the rural schools in order to
use that labor. Most of the schools are at present adopting a 6-d ay-
week program, by which children will go to school and will be let out
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12001
in time to help plant the crops. They will hold school in the summer
and close in the middle of September for about 8 weeks so the students
can help in harvesting the crops. That seems the best thing we can
do in regard to farm labor; use family labor. We can't compete with
the wages offered by industry, and it seems that a better use of
family labor is one thing we can do. There is also a shortage to
some extent not only in farm machinery, but also in wire — hog wire,
chicken wire — and we are running into shortages in a number of steel
products.
Those are the things that are facing us insofar as our victory goals
are concerned. Just what the Federal Government can do with regard
to that, I don't know. I would offer one suggestion that I think would
help the farmers tremendously, and that is, if advance notice could
be given to farmers as to whether these materials would be available,
and, if so, in what amounts. Obviously a farmer has to plan his
operations 6 to 12 months in advance. And it would help him if he
could know how much of these materials will be available next year.
DEMAND FOR FERTILIZER
The Chairman. The demand for fertilizer is far greater in the South
than in the North and Middle West and West. Is it because some of
these farmers have been row cropp ig for generation after generation?
Mr. Liles. That is one reason. Then there is a geographical reason,
several geographical reasons. One is that this section didn't have the
fertility to begin with that the other sections had, with regard to natural
fertility. In the second place, our country is rough and rolling, and we
lost a great deal by erosion. A third thing is you will find the further
south you go in any country — unless you run into unusual circum-
stances, such as an old lake bed or something of the sort — you have a
smaller proportion of nitrogen in the soil. Nitrogen is most important
in the production of corn and o^e of the most important elements in
the production of cotton. Thus, we have a number of reasons why we
have to use more commercial fertilizer here. Then too, the crops we
grow is another reason.
The Chairman. There really isn't a State in the Union that is
comparable to any other State in the Union, and that is a picture I
try to keep in mind. They compare us with England. England is
smaller in area than the State of Oregon. So, in one sense, we have
48 Nations instead of States. Tuat over-all picture is quite a gigantic
one in this country, isn't it?
Mr. Liles. Yes, sir; I have worked in this same work 3 years in
Wisconsin and a year and a half in Illinois, so I can appreciate your
statement.
diversification in the state
Mr. Sparkman. I was interested in what you said about diversifi-
cation of agriculture in the State of Alabama. In your annual report,
I believe it was the Extension Service's annual report, there was a
table that showed the cotton revenue at $76,000,000; is that about
right for last year?
Mr. Liles. Last year cotton was about that.
Mr. Sparkman. And, as I recall, livestock and dairy products ran
at about $38,000,000?
60396—42 — pt. 32 5
12002 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Mr. Liles. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. That was the second highest crop. That is quite
an advancement for this State, isn't it?
Mr. Liles. It is.
Mr. Sparkman. I was particularly interested to notice a few months
ago that cotton had fallen to third place in Montgomery County,
being preceded, as I recall it, first by dairy products, second by live-
stock. Do you think that is a pretty general movement throughout
the State?
Mr. Liles. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. You are satisfied with the progress of diversifica-
tion?
PROGRESS IN PAST 2 YEARS
Mr. Liles. Not satisfied, but we are encouraged. And I might
give you just a little more along that line. As I mentioned a few
minutes ago, at the present time we are checking up to see just what
we are doing. We have increased production of poultry and eggs and
milk, beef cattle and hogs, a great deal in the last 10 years. Our
income from livestock and livestock products was the greatest in the
history of our State last year. We have made more progress in the
last 2 years, I think, than in the history of our State. We have five
new cheese plants built within the last 2 years and a number of other
things. We are running into some limitations at the present time
that are handicapping us somewhat. We had a condensery ready to
be built and can't build it; also three cheese plants, and we can't
build them. But we are willing to accept whatever the war effort
may mean. We are increasing diversification and at the same time
we are doing a better job in the production of cotton. We are handling
the cotton land better, growing longer staple, doing a better job of
ginning. We are trying to carry forward a balanced program.
Mr. Sparkman. The whole program has been intensified?
Mr. Liles. Yes, sir.
PEANUT GROWING
Mr. Sparkman. With reference to peanut growing, have you had
very fine cooperation?
Mr. Liles. We have had the finest in the world. I might give an
illustration of it. There is a section in Marshall County, an adjoining
county, known as Gunters Mountain. I was surprised to learn
that nearly two-thirds of the peanut acreage there was on new land.
They went out and cleared new land in order to plant the peanuts.
They didn't do that for money, either, for you can't make money
clearing new ground to plant peanuts. That is indicative of the
spirit of cooperation we have had.
Mr. Sparkman. I was interested in looking at the table you have
presented showing increased production of 1942 over 1941. It calls
for quite a stepping up in production. Are these increases coming
from every individual farm?
Mr. Liles. No, sir; not from each individual farm. Let's check on
some. So far as peanuts are concerned, the major increase will come
in southeast Alabama, in the regular peanut region. The other
counties were assigned quotas, and those counties in turn broke it
down. The counties north of Birmingham are called on for 8 percent
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12003
of their cropland for peanuts this year. As far as eggs are concerned,
that is more generally applicable to all farms than any of the other
commodities. The first 3 months of this year there was a 22-percent
increase. This year we are called on for a 35-percent increase, but
a 22-percent increase for the first 3 months, we think, is encouraging.
We are called on for a 13-percent increase in milk production.
Mr. Sparkman. Will that be with the big herds? For instance, do
you expect a man with 50 cows to increase his production that much,
or do you try to do that with the little farmers with one or two cows?
MILK PRODUCTION
Mr. Llles. The first part is grade A milk. We are short on grade A
milk in the State at the present time because of Army camps and
defense projects. We have asked the big people who produce grade A
milk to increase production. When it comes to increased milk to go
to cheese plants and condenseries, it comes from smaller farmers,
say from 7- to 4-cow farmers. The third part of that is this. We
have asked all farmers to increase production of milk for family
consumption. We don't drink nearly enough milk in this State, even
the farmers themselves.
Mr. Sparkman. I notice you ask for a 7 percent increase in number
of cows milked and a 13-percent increase in milk production?
Mr. Liles. To increase the production of cattle is biologically
sound. We feel it isn't advisable to go out of the State and buy the
cows. That would only increase the problem of the other States.
Mr. Sparkman. How do you obtain a 13 percent increase in milk
than?
Mr. Liles. By heavier feeding and improved management; mainly
by heavier feeding.
Mr. Sparkman. You are getting cooperation from the farmers
generally with the whole program?
Mr. Liles. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. I want to thank you very much. I think you
have given the committee some very valuable information. I wish
I knew as much about farming as I think you do.
The committee will recess until 2 o'clock this afternoon.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGKATION
THURSDAY, MAY 7, 1942
afternoon session
House of Representatives,
Select Committee Investigating
National Defense Migration,
Washington, D. C.
The Chairman." The committee will please gome to order. Our
first witness this afternoon is Mr. Randolph.
TESTIMONY OF WALTER L. RANDOLPH, PRESIDENT, ALABAMA
FARM BUREAU FEDERATION, MONTGOMERY, ALA.
Mr. Sparkman. For the record will you please state your namej
address, and in what capacity you appear as a witness?
Mr. Randolph. I am Walter L. Randolph, president of Alabama
Farm Bureau Federation. My address is Shepherd Building, Mont-
gomery, Ala., where we have our headquarters.
Mr. Sparkman. As you know, this committee is concerned pri-
marily with the problems developing from the migration caused by
the war program. The committee is therefore interested, in this
hearing, to learn what opportunities and what problems the war is
bringing to the South. You might start by telling us what part
your organization is taking in our food-for-victory program.
Mr. Randolph. The Alabama Farm Bureau is striving in every
way possible, through county and community organization and edu-
cational programs, to encourage farmers to produce food for victory.
I think that it is safe to say in this State we will meet those goals set
by the Secretary of Agriculture.
INCREASE IN PEANUT PRODUCTION
Of course, the largest increase we are called on here to make is in
the acreage of peanuts for oil, and, as I recall the figures, I
believe last year we planted in round numbers 300,000 acres of pea-
nuts in this State, both for edible uses and oil purposes. This year
we are called on to increase that — I don't recall the exact figures- — to
in excess of 800,000 acres. That is a considerable increase. Of
course that is not easy to do, because it calls on us to have to grow pea-
nuts in areas where peanuts have never been grown on a commercial
scale, but only in small patches for home use. But the last I heard
of the progress of that program, the goal will come close to being met
in this State this year. I have found farmers everywhere enthusiastic
about increased production that they are called on for.
12005
12006 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Mr. Sparkman. Certain portions of the State are more adaptable
to the growing: of peanuts that others?
Mr. Randolph. Apparently so. But in the past nearly all of the
peanuts in the State have been grown in southeast Alabama, and in
nine counties principally. But this year there will be some peanuts
grown in all the counties of the State.
Mr. Sparkman. Have you experienced any difficulty in getting
farmers to shift over from cotton to other types of needed crops?
Mr. Randolph. That is a very important question, but it is some-
what difficult to answer yes or no. I would say this about the general
subject you have in mind. For many, many years various people,
leading farmers, agricultural colleges, and farm publications have
advocated that agriculture in this part of the country be more diversi-
fied, and I assume that is what you have in mind. As the members
of the committee know, for several years now we have been trying to
adjust that program. Our cotton acreage is less now than it normally
is and the additional acreage is being used for production of food,
soil-building crops, and so on. So I would say we are making con-
siderable progress along the line you mentioned.
Mr. Sparkman. Let me ask you this question with reference to
peanuts. Now, assuming when this food-for-victory program is
over with, and we go back into the controlled program, what is going
to happen to these counties that have diverted cotton acreage to
peanut acreage? Will they be allowed to grow peanuts?
COTTON ACREAGE NOT DIVERTED TO PEANUTS
Mr. Randolph. My opinion is, Mr. Congressman, there's not a
great deal of cotton acreage being diverted to peanuts.
Mr. Sparkman. You think they are using extra acreage for that?
Mr. Randolph. I think there might be some diverted on some farms
to peanuts, but I think we are getting our peanut acreage from other
acreage besides cotton. I think that perhaps we will plant about as
much as our allotment in our State this year, maybe a little more than
in past years. Now, farmers have consistently planted under their
allotments for cotton in this State — about 12 percent under their allot-
ment. And I think that that 12 percent, or whatever it is, might be
in peanuts this year.
Mr. Sparkman. Aside from land being diverted from cotton, suppose
you get these people in the habit of planting peanuts — because after
all the planting of crops is more or less a habit — and they develop
that habit of growing peanuts and marketing peanuts; when it is all
over with, how are they to be taken care of? I realize, of course,
that is more or less speculative.
Mr. Randolph. I have tried to answer that question a good many
times. I don't think you can consider the growing of peanuts in that
light. The Government said we need them to win the war, and we
are going to grow them and do the best we can.
Mr. Sparkman. I heartily agree, but I am thinking of after this is
over.
POST-WAR MARKET
Mr. Randolph. Unless there is a market for these peanuts after this
war is over, farmers will not continue to grow them, because they can't
make any money out of it. The price would get so low they would
discontinue them.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12007
Mr. Sparkman. You think economic conditions would probably
control it?
Mr. Randolph. Yes, sir; to some extent. But, as you know, in
our law we have a very fine peanut section, and, insofar as legislation
is concerned, that law, I think, would take care of the situation, and,
if it didn't, it could certainly be amended in the light of experience.
As to whether there will be a market for these peanuts as oil is a tre-
mendous subject. I am not prepared to discuss it. You are aware,
of course, of the fact that the reason we are short on vegetable oil is
that we are not getting the customary imports from the Asiatic coun-
tries and the Pacific islands. I think someone said that the attack
on Pearl Harbor resulted in a decrease of about 2,000,000,000 pounds
of oil annually. Now as to whether we continue to cut down on the
import of vegetable oil after the war is over, depends on a number of
things. First, it depends on who wins the war. We, of course, are
determined that we will, and I assume we will. But, if we didn't,
that situation wouldn't change so far as imports of oil is concerned.
The Chairman. As a matter of fact, we have plenty of crude oil in
this country. The Navy has millions of acres of untapped reserves.
The trouble is in transportation.
Mr. Randolph. I am speaking of vegetable oil, not petroleum.
I am speaking of animal and vegetable oil, and fats, used to a great
extent for food. Of course they are used for a lot of other purposes,
too.
FARM LABOR SHORTAGE
The Chairman. You are correct. We imported a great deal of
that. Mr. Randolph, is there presently any farm labor shortage?
Mr. Randolph. It is generally reported to me that there is a
shortage of farm labor in this State.
The Chairman. That is more acute in some places than in other
places?
Mr. Randolph. Yes, sir. It is more acute where you have defense
industries. In fact, I think that is one of the chief phases of this
migration problem which you are studying now insofar as this State
is concerned — the migration of farmers off the farm to better paying
jobs in industry. And there has been a considerable amount of that
which has taken place in this State. Of course, it affects the situation
right around plants more than anywhere else.
The Chairman. Suppose there is — and there probably will be —
a farm labor shortage; where will they get the help, from what sources?
Mr. Randolph. I wish I knew the answer to that question. Some
indications of what the labor situation on farms is is given in a publica-
tion I have here called Farm Labor Report, issued "by the Bureau of
Agricultural Economics. It says: "The supply of farm labor as a
percentage of normal is 59 percent in Alabama."
meaning of "normal" labor supply
The Chairman. What do they mean by "normal"?
Mr. Randolph. You ask what is meant by normal. They
say they gained these figures from farmers through questionnaires sent
out. And their farm reporters were asked to report the present farm
labor supply and demand at current wage rates as a percentage of the
12008 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
normal supply and demand at this season. The reports thus obtained
reflect the individual reporter's appraisal of the current supply and
demand situation in his locality in relation to what he believes to be
the usual or normal condition. In other words, I believe this part of
the Federal establishment that carries on this work has been known
as the Division of Crop and Livestock Estimates and comes under the
Agricultural Marketing Service now. _ They send out questionnaires
to farmers over the country and this is the result of the replies they
got back. When they asked that man what the supply of farm labor
is compared to what he considers normal, he gives his own definition
of normal. According to the figures for this State, the supply of farm
labor is less than normal, whatever normal is.
The Chairman. What about transportation? Is that going to
enter into the farm labor supply?
Mr. Randolph. What type of supply, or, rather, transportation?
The Chairman. The shortage of transportation on account of cur-
tailment of rubber.
Mr. Randolph. Some, but not as much in this State as in other
States. . n
The Chairman. Has the Farm Bureau got any ideas about that?
FARM LABOR COMMITTEE
Mr. Randolph. We have thought about that a great deal. We
have a farm labor committee in the State, not a Farm Bureau labor
committee, but a farm labor committee, made up of representatives
of various Federal and State agencies interested in that subject. It
seems in this State that there may be a partial solution to the problem
that does not involve transportation of workers long distances,
with possibly the. exception of some areas, fruit and vegetable areas
like Baldwin. Baldwin County is something like California.
The 'Chairman. Take this district, Madison County, has a survey
been made as to the demands for farm labor here through the Farm
Bureau?
Mr. Randolph. No; the Farm Bureau is just a voluntary organiza-
tion. It has no connection with the Government.
The Chairman. I don't know that you understood my question.
Here's the question: Are any surveys being made in this State of
the counties as to the necessity for farm labor for the crops?
Mr. Randolph. This committee on farm labor requested that a
survey of that nature be made. Just what has been done in that
connection I am not in a position to report.
The Chairman. The trouble is that the farmer makes his applica-
tion at the last minute?
Mr. Randolph. That is probably true in a great many cases.
However there is — and I am sure you know this— the United States
Employment Service; they have what they call farm placement men.
I am not sure they have one in every county, but they have one in a
great many places in the State, and as a result of the work of this
particular committee I have been speaking of, we have tried to get
that group, together with various people working in agricultural
service agencies, in pretty close contact. That principally is the work
done along that line.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12009
The Chairman. Don't you think that this war will cause a shifting
to new crops in the South?
Mr. Randolph. I should think so. We have been called upon to
produce great quantities of milk and eggs and beef cattle and hogs and
other food products. Whether that will cause a permanent increase
in the production of those products, I don't know. It might. I don't
know^ whether it will or not.
EFFECT OF THE DRAFT ON FARM LABOR
Mr. Sparkman. What about the effect of the draft on farm labor?
Mr. Randolph. Well — naturally, Mr. Sparkman, there have been
a good many farm boys drafted and in many cases that has resulted
in less men to work on farms than otherwise would be the case.
Mr. Sparkman. Do you think you are going to feel it very keenly,
or do you think it will just tighten up conditions among those that
remain?
Mr. Randolph. It appears, from what farmers tell me as I go about,
that probably people leaving the farm for better paying jobs in in-
dustry will have and has had probably more effect than the draft.
The Selective Service System has been very fine in its attitude about
deferring farm boys.
Mr. Sparkman. Have you ever had any cause to complain against
the working of the Selective Service as such with reference to farm
labor?
FARM BOYS DON'T WANT DEFERMENT
Mr. Randolph. I could hardly say that there is no cause to com-
plain, but I say their attitude from a national and State standpoint
has been very fine. A good many of our county organizations have
complained to me about the deferment locally. I find that in many of
the cases I have looked into, the farm boys didn't want to be deferred.
They wanted to fight.
Mr. Sparkman. You might be interested to know that about a
week or 10 days ago I was at a dinner with quite a group of people
from Congress and different departments, and the speaker of the
evening was one of the officers of the National Selective Service
System down in Washington. After he discussed it somewhat, there
was a question period. All of us were asking questions. I asked
him about farm deferment, deferment of farm labor, and he made
the remark that the difficulty in the Southern States had not been in
passing on the question of deferment, but in getting those boys to be
willing to accept deferment.
Mr. Randolph. Yes; I find that the case. I am sure there have
been cases where farm boys would have probably rendered a greater
service to their country if they had stayed on the farm and produced
food. It is a tremendous problem to handle all that. And it is very
hard to be critical about the manner in which it is handled by the
local boards.
Mr. Sparkman. It is rather hard, as a matter of fact, to detect
■ahead of time whether or not there is to be a shortage of farm labor?
Mr. Randolph. It is.
12010 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Mr. Sparkman. I remember someone said at one of our hearings
that in a time of depression maybe six people will do the work on a
farm, when in tight times two persons could do it. And I presume
that is true.
Mr. Randolph. We have to do our best with those left.
Mr. Sparkman. Mr. Tolan asked you about diversification in this
State, and I know you have followed agriculture in that respect in
this State with much interest and for many j^ears you were connected
with the Southern Division of the Department of Agriculture. Is it
not true that the change in agriculture toward a more diversified
program that has occurred in the last few years has been a matter of
encouragement?
Mr. Randolph. That is true.
EXPECTS STATE TO MEET FOOD QUOTA
Mr. Sparkman. Do you feel confident that the quota assigned to
this State will be met in the food-for-victory program this year?
Mr. Randolph. Yes; I do. In the case of peanuts the Department
of Agriculture issued an "intentions to plant" report which indicates
for the country as a whole we might not meet the peanut goal. I
didn't see any figures particularly for this State. My impression is
that this State will be able to meet its goal. I am not certain of that,
because it is a tremendous increase. It is quite possible that farmers
who have not had experience growing them will not get as good
yields — not only possible, quite probable. I have been planting
peanuts on my place 3 years, and we are getting better yields now than
when we started.
Mr. Arnold. I don't know, Mr. Randolph, whether you have
answered all these questions or not. Did you answer a question as
to the probable effect of a shortage of transportation on farm labor?
Mr. Randolph. I am not sure I answered it. I talked about it.
I would like, before I leave, to say to the committee that I feel that
the primary cause of the migration of the farmer from the farm is
due to the disparity of income between the farm people and other
groups in the population. I also feel that any elimination of that
disparity would tend to eliminate a part at least of the migration of
the farmer away from the farms to other places.
EXPLANATION OF TABLES
I would like to place in the record these tables, which you probably
have already seen. One of them relates to farm prices, prices farmers
pay and factory pay rolls per worker for the years 1910 to 1942, using
the period of 1910 to 1914 as base of 100. The farm prices in February
of this year were 145 percent of what they were in that 5-year pre-war
period, and the prices the farmers paid for what they were buying
was 147 percent. It doesn't have the figures for February, but for
January of this year the factory pay rolls per employed worker were
299 percent of what they were in 1910 to 1914. The other table shows
food costs in relation to family income. I am not sure that directly
connects with the problems of this committee, but certainly it
does indirectly, because it gives some indication of the way in which
farmers are furnishing food for the Nation and food for the armed
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12011
forces. It gives here nonfarm family income and cost of family food
purchases from 1913 to 1941. Now in 1913, '14, '15, and '16 I
notice 32 percent of the income of nonfarm families was paid out for
food; whereas, in 1941 only 23 percent was, and in February of this
year only 22 percent was. I want to call your attention to that fact,
because many people seem to think that food is too high and that the
farmers are not producing food cheap enough for the public. But
the figures seem to bear out the contrary contention.
(Following are the tables referred to:)
(The following tables, compiled by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, were
introduced by the witness at this point)
Food costs in relation to family income — nonfarm family income and cost of family
food purchases, 1913-41
1913
1914
1915
1916
1917
1918.
1919
1920
1921.
1922.
1923.
1924.
1925.
1926.
1927.
1928.
Family
income
1,035
1,006
1,022
1,168
1,331
1,513
1,617
1,847
1,593
1,620
1,802
1,822
1,895
1, 935
1,921
1,935
Retail
cost of
all foods
Food cost
as per-
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939 .
1940
1941
December 1941
January 1942...
February 1942.
Family
Retail
all foods
1,968
540
1,795
514
1,549
424
1,210
353
1,116
343
1,260
382
1,343
409
1,540
413
1,609
429
1,478
399
1,557
388
1,645
394
1,888
430
1,993
461
2,094
474
2,133
476
Food cost
as per-
centage
of income
Farm prices, prices farmers pay and factory pay rolls per worker — 1910-4.2
[Index numbers]
Year
Farm prices
(August
1909 to July
1914 = 100)
Prices
farmers
Pay
(1910-14
=100)
1910-14=100
factory
payrolls
per em-
ployed
worker >
Year
Farm prices
(August
1909 to July
1914 = 100)
Prices
farmers
pay
(1910-14
= 100)
1910-14=100
factory
payrolls
per em-
ployed
worker '
1910
102
95
100
101
101
98
118
175
202
213
211
125
132
142
143
156
145
98
101
100
101
100
105
124
149
176
202
201
152
149
152
152
157
155
100
96
98
103
103
107
121
143
183
208
247
208
202
224
225
229
232
139
149
146
126
87
65
70
90
108
114
121
95
93
98
122
149
145
153
155
153
145
124
107
109
123
125
124
130
122
121
123
133
146
147
1911
235
236
219
196
158
145
170
183
192
213
185
208
1912
1913
1914..
1915
1916_
1917
1934
1918
1919...
1920
1921_
1922.
1923 ..
1940
1924
280
1925...
1942— January.
February.
1926.
1 Approximations— transformed from a 1935-39=100 1
12012 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
TESTIMONY OF WALTER L. RANDOLPH— Resumed
Mr. Arnold. Don't you think — and I am a farmer myself— don't
you think the farmers are in the most fortunate position at this time
of any group in this country? Take, for instance, a worker in a
defense plant who makes $2,000 a year, has a wife and 3 or 4 children,
spends $600 a year for rent and $600 for food and pays an income tax
on a salary of $2,000, while the farmer has most of his food without
buying it, and probably owns the land and doesn't pay income tax on
what he spends on food and rent, if he rents the farm?
RELATIVE POSITION OF FARMER AND INDUSTRIAL WORKER
Mr. Randolph. I would say I could not agree with your statement.
Mr. Arnold. You think a man in a defense plant is better off than
a farmer today?
Mr. Randolph. I think a man working in industry or a defense
plant is certainly better off than the farmer as a group. That was
the main point of these figures.
Mr. Arnold. But those figures don't take into consideration that
the farmer is getting his foodstuff, or most of it, furnished him without
having to figure it in his income tax, whereas a worker has to pay in-
come tax on his salary, regardless of what it costs him for food and
rent?
Mr. Randolph. That is probably true with the better-off farmer.
I am talking about the average. In Alabama in 1940 the average farm
income from row crops and livestock was $390 and in addition to that
they received the average Government benefit checks that amounted
to $112 per farm family. I think we have about five people to the
farm in this State. That makes the farm income per month per capita
$8. I think that is why farmers migrate. That situation was better
in 1941 to some extent/because it was something over $600 instead of
$500, which would mean $10 per month per capita. That is a piti-
fully low income.
TThe Chairman. I agree with you that the farmer is entitled to good
prices at this time.
FARMER WANTS PARITY PRICE
Mr. Randolph. I would like to say for the information of this
committee that the farm group as a whole have not asked for farm
prices any higher than parity prices. We are perfectly willing to take
a fair price for the products we grow, and that is what we define as a
fair price. We resent the attempt to change the present price control
act, for it would prevent the farmer from getting parity prices.
Mr. Sparkman. What you want is an average of parity?
Mr. Randolph. Yes, sir. The President in his message to Congress
asked that Congress amend the Price Control Act so a ceiling would
be placed on farm products at 100-percent parity. It is obvious it
would be impossible for a farmer to get an average parity price for
his products if the ceiling were set at 100 percent of parity, because
farm prices fluctuate, and, if that was done, it would fluctuate always
below that ceiling, never above it. We asked that Congress be good
enough to insert in the present price control bill the provision that the
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12013
price ceiling on farm products be fixed at not less than 110 percent
parity. We have a floor under a great many farm products at 85 percent
of parity price, and it was felt that a fluctuation between 85 percent of
parity price as a floor and 110 percent of parity price as a ceiling
would give us an opportunity, if marketing conditions justify it, of
getting during a marketing season an average of the parity price.
We have tried to be fair about it and keep the public interest in mind.
And we are considerably disturbed over recent efforts to change that
bill which was agreed to by the Secretary of Agriculture, by the Price
Administrator, voted by Congress and signed by the President. I
am very proud that Congress did treat the farmer fairly on that bill.
Mr. Sparkman. You stand for 110 percent parity price in order
that farmers might get 100 percent parity price the season through?
Mr. Randolph. Yes, sir; we presented that to Congress. I cer-
tainly thank you for the opportunity of appearing.
The Chairman. We thank you for appearing here. I am glad to
be here, especially with the distinguished Congressman from Alabama.
I might say that the folks in his district and the people of Alabama
as a whole are very proud of him.
Mr. Ferris is our next witness.
TESTIMONY OF JOHN P. FERRIS, DIRECTOR, COMMERCE DE-
PARTMENT, TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY
Mr. Sparkman. You appeared before us sometime ago in Wash-
ington, I believe? 1
Mr. Ferris. Yes, sir. I am sorry the chairman of the Tennessee
Valley Authority, Mr. David Lilienthal, was unable to appear at this
hearing.
Mr. Sparkman. Mr. Lilienthal called me in Washington and said
he wouldn't be able to be here. I might say when the previous
hearings were set for Huntsville, Mr. Lilienthal was due to appear,
and we were unable to hold the hearings, because we were sent to
the west coast to study the Japanese evacuation problem. And I
told Mr. Lilienthal that we were the ones running out on him.
MAJOR ACTIVITIES OF TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY
At the time of your previous appearance before us, you outlined
the five major activities of the Tennessee Valley Authority. First,
the activities directed to rebuilding the soil and stimulating agricul-
ture. Second, activities directed toward the encouragement of
forestry. Third, activities directed toward aiding enterprise by
providing new industrial processes and facts concerning resources of
the region and their possible uses. Fourth, activities directed toward
establishing mass consumption of electric power. Fifth, activities
relating to water control in the interest of flood conditions, naviga-
tion, and recreation. Now, I wonder if you might state to us briefly
just how the war program has affected those five different parts of
your program?
Mr. Ferris. I think probably the best thing is to start with the
first on the list, the soil-building program. As a matter of fact, it
was one theme I had prepared for. May I follow my notes on that?
i See pp. 3797-3853, part 9, hearings of this committee.
12014 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Mr. Sparkman. Certainly, and I might say you have supplied us
with a very fine and full written statement, and this statement will
be printed in full at this point in the record of these hearings.
(The matter referred to is as follows:)
STATEMENT PREPARED BY THE TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY,
SUBMITTED BY JOHN P. FERRIS, DIRECTOR, COMMERCE DE-
PARTMENT, KNOXVILLE, TENN.
I. General Statement Concerning the Position of the Tennessee Valley
Area and the Southeast as a Whole in Relation to the Migration
Problem
During the decade between the close of the first World War and the beginning
of the economic depression in 1929, the Southeast, as the committee knows, was
one of the principal regions of migrant origin. As the industrial boom gathered
momentum in the manufacturing centers of the East and the Middle East, as the
agricultural economy of the South grappled with problems of depleted soil fertility
and low farm income, a steady stream of workers flowed northward in search of
increased economic opportunities for themselves and their families. This migra-
tion, to a large extent, was one not of destitute persons but of productive workers
who constituted an economic asset. With the beginning of the depression, the
trend was temporarily reversed. As industry shut down and jobs disappeared,
people who had left southern farms began to return, adding further to the strain
on the farm economy of the region.
Today, with industry again booming as a result of the war production program,
the industrial centers are again exerting a pull upon the available labor supply.
In the Southeast this has resulted in a movement from the farms to urban com-
munities and to the large construction projects which are now in progress within
the region. It has resulted, also, to some extent, in a movement of workers from
the region to industrial centers in other areas. The opportunities for employ-
ment within the region are such, however, that there has not been any wholesale
migration of workers from the region comparable to that which took place in the
1920's. These employment opportunities, however, as will hereafter be pointed
out in greater detail, arise largely as a result of expansion in the heavy goods
industries, new construction projects, and location within the region of arsenals,
ordnance works, and other plants producing for strictly wartime needs. The war
production program has not resulted within the southeastern region in any whole-
sale conversion of peacetime fabricating and processing industry to wartime uses,
for the region has never possessed such industry on any large scale. Neither has
the war program resulted, to any great extent, in the establishment of that type
of industry in the region. And it was largely the lack of such industry which
resulted in the Southeast's becoming a region of migrant origin during the 1920's,
and which may result in its becoming so again, under similar circumstances, if its
economy is not brought into better balance.
Great migrations into already congested industrial areas during periods of
great business activity, whether caused by war production or by peacetime
booms, are merely symptomatic of an underlying economic condition which has
existed in the United States. That condition is one which is characterized by the
concentration of large-scale industry and of manufacturing activity in the north-
eastern section of the country. To the Southeast, the Southwest, and other "out-
lying" regions is left the task of growing the agricultural products, of digging the
minerals, of cutting the lumber, and of furnishing the other raw materials which
are required. The job of manufacturing the raw materials into finished goods of
high value has been performed almost exclusively in the region north of the Ohio
and east of the Mississippi, and to an ever-increasing degree by large-scale enter-
prises rather than by small, diversified industrial units.
It is almost axiomatic that the community or region which depends predomi-
nantly on the production of raw materials is a community or region of a lower
standard of economic prosperity than is the community or region which is more
extensively engaged in the processing and manufacture of raw materials into fin-
ished goods. And as long as the best paying function of our economic machin-
ery— the manufacture of finished goods — is concentrated in one region, there will
be migrations into that region during periods of peak industrial activity and
migrations out of it during periods when the industrial machinery is slowing down.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12015
The concentration of the fabricating industry in the Northeast has been
defended on a number of grounds. The argument has been advanced that the
region has certain natural advantages which make such concentration a logical
development, that the Northeast and it alone has the necessary supply of skilled
labor requisite to the manufacturing process, and that in any event economic
specialization by particular regions represents a sound type of economic organ-
ization.
Unquestionably, particular regions of the country are naturally fitted by reason
of differences in climate and other natural conditions to make particular contri-
butions to the flow of national goods and services. California and Florida
possess obvious inherent advantages in connection with the raising of citrus
fruits. The Tennessee Valley area possesses inherent advantages with respect
to the production of cheap electricity. Numerous other examples of the fitness
of particular regions for particular types of economic activity might readily
be cited.
There is no valid reason, however, why the Southeast or any other region
should be disqualified to carry on an important share of the country's processing
and manufacturing activities. When great projects have been undertaken in
the southeastern region, requiring large numbers of skilled laborers, as in the
case of the program of the Tennessee Valley Authority, no difficulty has been
experienced in recruiting the necessary labor largely within the region itself.
Workers in the region have evidenced a high ability to learn quickly the task of
handling powerful machinery, and training programs undertaken by the Authority
and other employers in the region have been uniformly successful in imparting
necessary aptitudes and skills. Indeed, the existence of a labor supply in the
southeastern region requisite to the carrying out of the manufacturing process is
established by the extent to which workers from the region have in the past been
utilized by industry in the Northeast.
The real impediment to the establishment of fabricating and processing indus-
tries in the Southeast is largely one of inertia, that is, the fact that such industry
at the present time is concentrated in the Northeast leads to the establishment of
new industries in the same region where such industries already exist. The war
production program has provided a demonstration of this fact. When the neces-
sity for accelerating and expanding the manufacturing process to produce finished
goods needed for war purposes arose, it seemed inevitable to industrialists located
in the Northeast that such acceleration and expansion of industry for war should
necessarily take place almost exclusively in that region where industry for peace
was located. Moreover, the tendency has been to place the task of manufacturing
war goods primarily in the hands of large-scale enterprises as primary contractors.
Smaller enterprises have had the greatest difficulty in obtaining war orders either
as primary contractors or as subcontractors. This condition has tended still
further to concentrate the manufacturing process in the Northeast, since it is there
that large-scale enterprises are chiefly located. Conversely, in a region such as
the Southeast where such manufacturing enterprises as do exist are largely of a
small-scale character, the effect is more and more to force the closing down of small
manufacturing industries producing peacetime goods instead of to bring about
their conversion and expansion for war production. There is great danger, there-
fore, that the war-production program may lead to an even greater concentration
of fabricating and processing industry in the northeastern region than already
exists and, correspondingly, to an even greater unbalancing of the economies of
primarily raw materials regions than has existed in the past.
Such a result would be highly undesirable from the standpoint both of success-
ful prosecution of the war and of the solution of the multitude of economic prob-
lems which necessarily will exist in the post-war world. From a strictly military
point of view, concentration of important manufacturing industry within limited
areas, especially in areas which are most vulnerable to attack, represents a situa-
tion which is dangerous for obvious reasons. From the standpoint of economic
problems which are likely to exist after the war is over, a southeastern region
which is economically more unbalanced than has heretofore been the case would
be apt to present an economic problem even more difficult of solution. The same
would be true in the case of other primarily raw materials regions.
The program of the Tennessee Valley Authority during the past 8 years has
been one of coordinated regional development designed to widen the economic
opportunities of the people of the region. It has sought to accomplish this pur-
pose by developing the natural resources of the region through application to
them of the methods of modern technology and science on a democratic basis
providing for decentralized administration and cooperation to the fullest possible
12016 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
extent with existing State, local, and other institutions. The plan has been
basically to provide for better utilization of the region's resources and thus to-
permit development of a better balanced economy. The impact of the war has
created new economic conditions and problems for the southeastern region. It
has also led to adaptation of the program and activities of the Authority to war-
time conditions. The remaining portion of this statement will be devoted to a
summary of the effects of the war on the economy of the southeastern region and
on the program of the Authority.
II. Effects of the War and Defense Production Upon the Southeastern
Region
The possible effects of the war and of defense production upon the southeastern
region can be the subject, to a large extent, only of generalized conjecture. For
one thing, the economy of the Southeast is bound up with the economy of the
country as a whole, and what will be the effects of the war upon the national
economy no one can now predict with any assurance of accuracy. It is possible,
however, to summarize in a general way, and without any attempt at profound
or detailed economic analysis, some of the major problems of the Southeast which
have resulted from defense production and are discernible at the present time.
A. AGRICULTURE
Whatever measure of success the Southeast may have in securing a fuller and
more balanced development of its resources, and particularly in securing the es-
tablishment of fabricating and processing industries within its borders, its economy
will almost certainly continue to rest principally upon an agricultural base.
The Tennessee Valley area, like the South as a whole, was settled because of
the many potentialities — particularly agricultural — inherent in its natural en-
vironment and resources. The first settlers who formed the Watauga Association
in what is now eastern Tennessee saw in the valley a variety of climatic topographic
and soil conditions which created great opportunity for productive use of its lands.
The region also possessed such important advantages as great forest resources,
substantial mineral deposits, and many other assets sufficient to permit the es-
tablishment of a diversified, balanced, and stable economic system.
Nevertheless, social and economic forces led to the wasting and depletion of
many of the region's most valuable resources instead of to their proper develop-
ment and use. The prevalence through the years of row-crop farming, accom-
panied as it was by neglect of cover crops and other soil-conserving measures, had
particularly disastrous effects. Not only was the fertility of the soil steadily
depleted, but in addition the soil lost its ability to retain moisture essential to
crop growth. Excessive losses of water, in turn, produced erosion of the soil
and added to the extent and destructive character of occasional heavy floods.
The activities of the Tennessee Valley Authority directed to rebuilding the soil
and stimulating agriculture have already been described in a statement prepared
by it for the committee during its inquiry into the interstate migration of destitute
citizens. (See Hearings Before the Select Committee to Investigate the Interstate
Migration of Destitute Citizens, House of Representatives, 76th Cong., 3d sess.,
pt. 9, pp. 3798-3827.) These activities have centered around the development
and production of new types of highly concentrated phosphatic fertilizers, fol-
lowed by their distribution, with the cooperation of agricultural experiment
stations, land-grant colleges, and other agencies, on a basis permitting testing
and demonstration of their effects when used in conjunction with and as a part of
a system of soil conservation and scientifically planned land use.
To date, agricultural experiment stations have undertaken more than 38,000
experiments with newly developed fertilizers produced by the Authority, through
a sequence of stages ranging through laboratory, field, and farm. And at the
present time over 27,000 farmers, in the valley States and in other States as well,
are engaged in demonstrating the effects of these fertilizers on their own farms.
As a result of such test-demonstrations with Authority-produced phosphates,
farmers in the Southeast have been making substantial progress in overcoming
some of the principal difficulties which have beset them. There has been an ex-
tensive shift from a predominantly row-crop type of farming to one in which greater
reliance is placed on pastures, meadows, and livestock which form the basis of a
diversified farm economy. This has led to the delivery of additional meat and
milk products from the farms, thus raising the nutritional standards of the valley
population.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12017
Further, the increasing extent to which farmers are growing legumes and other
cover crops is providing a vegetative cover which protects against erosion and
excessive loss of water. This is illustrated by the results of recent studies of
Authority hydraulic engineers who have investigated the effectiveness of vegeta-
tive cover in holding soil and water. Two watershed areas in the valley were
studied. One was the Potato Creek watershed, lying in a generally denuded area
of badly eroded land; and the other was the Turtletown Creek watershed, lying
in a generally well covered area. It was found that the surface run-off from the
poorly'protected Potato Creek area was twice that from the fairly well protected
Turtletown Creek area. The peak rate of flow from the Potato Creek area was
5 times as great per square mile as that from the Turtletown Creek area when all
storms were considered, and 10 times as great when the 10 largest storms in a 3-year
period were considered.
In all of these ways, the past 8 years have been marked by substantial progress
in placing the agricultural economy of the Southeast on a sounder and more
stable basis. The effect of the war and of the defense program may well be —
and there is no blinking the fact — to place in serious jeopardy the gains which
have been accomplished.
Existing and anticipated national requirements have forced the Secretary of
Agriculture to call upon farmers to produce substantially larger quantities of
food, particularly livestock products. In seeking to comply with this request
the farmers of the Southeast are seeking to surmount two great difficulties:
(1) an increasingly intense shortage of farm labor, and (2) the prospect of a
shortage of concentrated phosphatic fertilizers.
1. The farm labor shortage. — Almost overnight, the farm labor problem in the
Tennessee Valley has changed from one of oversupply to one of overdemand.
Enormous construction programs are being undertaken in the Tennessee Valley
area, calling for huge concentrations of labor forces with attendant housing and
service facilities. In many cases, the construction programs will be followed
by operating programs which will require even more labor and even more facilities;
in other cases, the completion of construction programs will be the signal for
labor to move on or to settle back into their former occupations. Whatever the
outcome, there are acute problems of adjustment in the communities near the
projects, and more general but even more difficult problems of adjustment facing
the region.
The great increase in the demands of the Authority's own construction program,
stepped up as it has been due to wartime demands for electric power, exemplifies
the general situation. The number of hourly employees employed on Authority
projects in December 1941 was 21,326, representing an increase of approximately
100 percent over the number employed in December 1940. A large proportion
of these workers have been recruited from an area within a radius of 50 to 75 miles
of the various projects, and nearly all of them from within the Tennessee Valley
area. A special questionnaire returned by 2,962 workers on the Cherokee project
in the spring of 1941 resulted in the following tabulation:
Former residence in Tennessee 2, 492
Former residence in other Tennessee Valley States 297
Former residence elsewhere 155
Former residence not specified 18
While no comparable figures are available for other projects, the figures are
believed to be typical of all of them.
The extent of the demand for construction and industrial labor is further
indicated by the following data with respect to a partial list of emergency projects
under construction or in operation within the valley area.1
Wolf Creek ordnance plant, near Milan, Tenn., employed 9,000 at peak of
construction and will employ 10,000 in operation.
Rodstone Ordnance Works (arsenal, ordnance, and storage), near Huntsville,
Alabama, employing 10,000 to 15,000 at peak of construction, and 6,000
in operation. About 65 percent of workers were recruited from within
commuting distance.
Aluminum Co. of America, Alcoa, Tenn., expected to employ 13,000 by June
1942, as compared with 5,200 in February 1940. Workers mostly local.
Camp Forrest, near Tullahoma, Tenn., employed 23,000 in construction at
peak in June 1941.
1 Data are based on labor market reports of the Tennessee Unemployment Compensation Division and
on material contained in the Authority's files.
60396— 42— pt. 32 6
12018
HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Muscle Shoals, Ala., new Tennessee Valley Authority and other projects
employ between 4,500 and 5, COO workers.
Volunteer Ordnance Works, near Chattanooga, Tenn., will employ 12,000
at peak of construction. Majority of workers in operations will be local.
Vultee Aircraft Corporation, Nashville, Tenn., is expected to employ 7,000
in full operation. Most of workers will be locally trained, supplemented
by some influx from other aircraft plants.
Tennessee Powder Co., near Memphis, Tenn., employing 3,500 in operations.
Fisher Body Works (Tennessee Division of General Motors), anticipate
employment of 5,000 workers in operations by January 1943, as compared
with 1,500 workers in February 1942.
Camp Tyson, near Paris, Tenn., employing approximately 8,000 on con-
struction.
Smyrna Air Base, near Nashville, Tenn., will employ an estimated 15,000 at
construction peak.
For most of these projects, little statistical information is available on sources
of labor supply. From information on certain areas, however, it seems probable
that at least one-half of the labor required is being recruited from areas within
commuting distance of the various projects, and most of the remainder from within
the valley region.
In all probability, agricultural workers have constituted the largest single
source of labor supply for these projects. The drain of agricultural workers to
construction and industrial jobs is explained in large measure by the intermittent
character of farm employment, and the fact that until recently the average
daily wage of farm laborers in the area has been only about $1. "Recently, the
growing labor shortage has resulted in an increase in farm-labor wages, but the
limits fixed by farm prices and farm capital — and, indeed, by the capacity of the
valley's soils themselves — necessarily confine adjustments within a narrow range
and far below the point where farmers can compete successfully with emergency
construction and other projects in the labor market. The trend in average farm
wages and the ratio of farm-labor supply to demand is shown below for a 12-year
period. The data are for Tennessee only, but are representative of the region
as a whole : 2
Day wage
rates (with-
out board)
Ratio of
labor sup-
ply to de-
mand
Day wage
rates (with-
out board)
Ratio of
labor sup-
ply to de-
mand
$1.45
1.20
.90
.70
.85
.90
.95
108
165
192
184
147
134
122
$1.00
1.00
1.00
1.01
1.07
1.37
1931
1938 .
1932 ...
1939
1933
1940
114
1934 _ .
1941...
1935
1942
69
1936 . .
The drain on farm labor supply is not wholly caused by employment of farm
workers in construction and industrial jobs. A further cause is, of course, the
induction of large numbers of farm laborers into the armed services.
The problems resulting from this drain are extremely serious, and appear to be
growing increasingly acute. The shortage was present in some degree last year,
but relief was afforded by the relatively low rainfall during the crop season, which
permitted a greater than usual spread of days available for planting, working, and
harvesting crops. This situation is not expected to recur in 1942, and the farm
labor shortage will be felt to a much greater extent.
A few months ago, a questionnaire in the form of a "farm work inquiry" was
mailed to 7,000 Tennessee farmers by the State office of the Agricultural Market-
ing Service of the United States Department of Agriculture, as part of a Nation-
wide fact-finding survey. Nearly all of the returns received contained some
comment on labor scarcity due to competing industrial, construction, and Govern-
ment projects. Farmers making returns sometimes expressed doubt as to
ability to make their crops for the coming season, and some went so far as to pre-
dict that their farms will lie idle unless the farm labor situation improves. While
s Material supplied by S. T. Marsh, Tennessee Agricultural Marketing Service, University of Tennessee
Department of Agriculture.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12019
the strongest complaints were received from areas in which defense projects are
located, returns indicated that the problem is present throughout the State.
2. Shortage of phosphatic fertilizers.- — Equally alarming for southeastern agri-
culture as the shortage of farm labor is the shortage of phosphatic fertilizers. As
has already been pointed out, the past impoverishment of agriculture in the region
was due principally to the prevalence of row crop farming, the effect of which was
gradually to destroy the fertility of the soil. The planting of row crops was
accompanied by the application of low-grade mixed fertilizers, the effect of which
was temporarily to stimulate crop growth but which, since such fertilizers do not
replace in the soil the essential plant nutrients which cash crops remove from it,
over a period of years merely added to the depletion of soil fertility, erosion, and
general wastage of the agricultural resources of the region.
The program of agricultural reclamation sponsored by the Tennessee Valley
Authority over the past 8 years has encouraged the widespread planting of cover
crops, the application to the land of highly concentrated phosphatic fertilizers,
the effect of which is to restore the nutrients essential to soil fertility, and the
use of crop rotation and other soil-conserving practices essential to the restora-
tion and preservation of the land resources of the region. The production and
distribution of phosphatic fertilizers are essential, of course, to the carrying on of
this program. In the past, these fertilizers have been made available in several
ways. Triple superphosphate (containing approximately 48 percent phosphoric
acid, or P205) and calcium metaphosphate (containing approximately 63 percent
P205) produced by the Authority at its Muscle Shoals plant by the electric
furnace method have been distributed under the test demonstration program in
the manner described in detail in the statement prepared by the Authority in
connection with its previous appearance before the committee. Large quantities
of such fertilizers have also been transferred by the Authority at cost to the
Agricultural Adjustment Administration, and distributed to farmers by that
agency, in lieu of cash benefits, in connection with its soil-conservation program.
In addition, there has been some private commercial production of triple super-
phosphate, as well as of ordinary superphosphate (15 to 18 percent P2O5), prin-
cipally by a sulfuric acid process.
The war production program has resulted in a serious curtailment of the
production and sale of fertilizer materials. The shortage of electric power
resulting from the extraordinary requirements of the defense program forced the
Authority, in 1941, to curtail its phosphate production for a period of several
months. While its Muscle Shoals plant is again operating at capacity, a sub-
stantial portion of it is being used to produce elemental phosphorus for war pur-
poses rather than phosphatic fertilizers. Moreover, the war has made it im-
possible for Great Britain to obtain phosphatic fertilizers from sources on which
she formerly depended, and accordingly a substantial portion of such fertilizers
now produced by the Authority is being shipped to Britain at the present time.
The Authority's plant capacity is being increased by expansion of existing facilities,
and a proposal for construction of a new plant at Mobile, Ala., is now pending in
Congress. But the increasing need for elemental phosphorus in wartime pro-
duction of chemicals, together with the increasing need for phosphates on the
part of Great Britain, makes it doubtful whether or to what extent this increased
plant capacity can be utilized for production of phosphatic fertilizers for distri-
bution within the valley.
The war has exerted a similar effect upon commercial phosphate production.
Such production has been almost exclusively by a sulfuric acid process, and the
fact that this element is needed in production of war materials has greatly cur-
tailed the amount available for use in the manufacture of fertilizers. Moreover,
such phosphate materials as are being commercially produced are going largely
into the production of low-grade mixed fertilizers, since the sale of such fertilizers
is more profitable than the sale of concentrated phosphatic fertilizers. The
shortage of elements necessary in the manufacture of phosphates has been accom-
panied, however, by a shortage of elements essential to the manufacture of
nitrates, since these elements, too, are needed in the production of munitions and
other war materials. Hence the manufacture even of mixed fertilizers, which
contain varying proportions of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potash, in addition to
"filler" materials, has been curtailed.
The dangerous portent of this situation is apparent. Permanently increased
agricultural productivity in the Southeast requires growth of cover crops and
application of phosphatic fertilizers containing large quantities of essential plant
nutrients. Even a temporary production increase, by greater planting of row
crops, will require application of large quantities of fertilizers, and of course can be
12020 HUNTSVILLE, ALAV HEARINGS
achieved only at the expense of the fertility of the soil. It seems likely that an
effort to increase production by a return to the row crop system will be made by
large numbers of southeastern farmers. The farmers' assigned task of increasing
their production in the face of shortages both of fertilizers and of labor will, how-
ever, be an exceedingly difficult one. And the danger that the soils of the south-
east will be seriously damaged in the process is exceedingly grave.
B. FORESTS
Past and present problems with respect to the Tennessee Valley's forest re-
sources parallel, to a large extent, those existing in connection with its agricultural
resources. Once the valley possessed 26,000,000 acres of forests. Only one-half
of that acreage remains in timber, and that has been seriously depleted over the
years as a result of exhaustive cutting and repeated burning. Two-thirds of the
present forest area in the valley is in trees smaller than saw-timber size, and even
before the national defense emergency the remaining saw timber was being cut
at a rate substantially in excess of the annual growth increment.
The was production program is resulting in greatly increased consumption of
the forest resources of the Tennessee Valley area, as well as of other regions. The
importance of wood in defense production can hardly be exaggerated. Lumber
is needed for barracks, boats, bridges, cantonments, gun stocks, hangers, housing,
pontoon planking, shipping containers, and wharves. In plywood form, wood
goes into the construction of airplanes, air-raid shelters, cantonment interiors,
prefabricated houses, ship interiors, and truck bodies. When reduced to pulp,
its primary use is in the form of paper, paper boards, or wood wool, which are
needed for cartridge wrappers, cartons, insulation materials, and surgical dressings.
Through distillation, wood furnishes charcoal for gas masks and steel production,
rosin for shrapnel, turpentine for flame throwers, methanol, acetic acid, acetone,
mannitol, scribitor, and other chemicals used in modern national defense industries.
Tannic acid is an important extract product. Wood contains a high proportion
of alpha-cellulose, which under new methods may be economically extracted for
direct mitration into explosives, and for the manufacture of synthetic wood fibers,
such as rayon, artificial wool and cotton for clothing, parachutes, and other tex-
tiles. New processes of hydrogenation are revealing additional products, par-
ticularly types of plastics which may be used for various implements, instrument
panels, and parts of modern mechanized equipment. Through methods of
hydrolysis, good yields of sugar, glucose, and alcohol are obtained. Cellulose
acetate manufactured from alpha-cellulose and acetone, is used for photographic
film, shatter-proof glass, and for the manufacture of some of the moulded articles
mentioned above. Wood flour is essential in the manufacture of dynamite.
Plants manufacturing such materials now exist in the Tennessee Valley in con-
siderable number. A survey completed by the Authority's Forestry Relations
Department during the past year indicated that there were 2,870 sawmills and
145 other forest products plants in the valley, which during the calendar year 1940
processed the equivalent of 1,032,000,000 board feet of timber.
Sawmills in the Tennessee Vallev produced 734,000,000 board feet of lumber
in 1938, 789,000,000 in 1939 and 828,000,000 in 1940, thus increasing their pro-
duction by nearly 12 percent in 2 years. In certain sections of the valley this
rate of increase has been much greater, and the resulting drain on the remaining
saw timber supply correspondingly more serious. Recent field observations indi-
cate that most mills are now operating to capacity. Preliminary figures indicate
a further increase in production during 1941 of 14.2 percent for the country as a
whole, and of 17.7 percent for the Tennessee Valley area.
The extent to which the forests are being used to meet increased defense and
industrial needs indicates the importance of this resource. At the same time, it
creates a problem, the seriousness of which becomes evident when present timber
growth and drain are compared. Preliminary analysis of the Authority's forest
inventory data indicates that the reserve of timber of saw timber size in the valley
is in the neighborhood of 10,000,000,000 board feet, or about one-half the amount
predicted a few vears ago before the survey was made. Roughly, one-fourth
of this reserve is pine, and pine saw timber is now being cut approximately two
and one-half times faster than new saw timber is growing. Drain does not exceed
growth to so great an extent as in the case of hardwoods, but for all saw timber
it is expected to approach an overcut of at least 70 percent.
In the case of smaller than saw timber size trees, the problem is less acute.
When all species and sizes of trees are combined, present drain exceeds growth
only very slightly, although this situation may be changed by increased consump-
tion of material of pulpwood and cordwood sizes. A dozen or more new wood
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12021
manufacturing plants have recently begun operations in the valley. The present
trend toward increased exploitation is well exemplified by a letter to the Authority
from the Extension Service of Mississippi, one sentence of which reads:
"Due to market stimulus caused by defense orders for lumber, the farmers are
stripping their woodlands of all growing stock, and in many cases even of seed
trees, selling logs as small as 6 inches in diameter and 8 feet long."
Unlike the situation which exists with respect to agriculture, there is no indica-
tion that any difficulty will be experienced in increasing the production of wood
products within the Tennessee Valley area in accordance with wartime demands.
There is every indication, however, that such production will result in extremely
serious further depletion of a valuable resource which has already been greatly
depleted over a period of many years.
c. MINING
The general effect of the defense production program on the mining industry
and mineral development in the Southeast has been to bring about an acceleration
and expansion of existing mining operations, together with increased exploration
of new and marginal properties.
The need for minerals in the defense production program has natually resulted
in an increase in production of most minerals which the region has produced in the
past. This is true in the case of such major mining industries of the Southeast as
coal, iron ore, and phosphate, as well as in the case of minor production by small
mines of such minerals as mica and barite. An exception, of course, is marble,
the quarrying of which has been greatly curtailed as a result of the defense program.
As was the case during the first World War, many marginal deposits are being
opened up for production during a period of widespread demand and higher prices.
However, the situation in this respect is somewhat more favorable than that which
existed in 1918, in that better benefication and technical methods are being em-
ployed, which may result in maintenance of production from some of these deposits
during the post-war period.
Investigations are now under way which may lead to important new mineral
developments within the region. The possibilities include new processes for
making possible the utilization of common clays in lieu of bauxite in the produc-
tion of aluminum, use of low-grade ores in the production of manganese, the extrac-
tion of magnesium from olivine, and increased production of chromite. Research
is being conducted by the Authority in connection with all these possibilities and
will be described at a later point in this paper.
D. MANUFACTURING
The effect of the national defense program and the war has been to increase
tremendously the extent of manufacturing activities already being conducted in
the southeast. This expansion has been particularly great in the case of alu-
minum. It has also been noteworthy in the case of the chemical, iron and steel,
paper and pulp, rayon, woodworking, and airplane industries.
New manufacturing activities begun within the area as a result of the war
emergency have consisted largely of munitions plants, arsenals, ordnance plants,
and other similar undertakings. Examples are the arsenal at Huntsville, Ala.,
the Volunteer Ordnance Works at Chattanooga, Tenn., the shell-loading plant at
Milan, Tenn.; and the smokeless powder plants at Childersburg, Ala., Radford,
Va., and Millington, Tenn.
Plants of this character are likely, of course, to shut down as soon as the war is
over. While the effect of their construction may therefore be to stimulate a
temporary wartime boom within the area, such plants are unlikely to contribute
on any permanent basis to the region's economic well-being.
As has already been pointed out, the area's great economic need is the location
within its borders of fabricating and processing industries which can continue in
operation during the post-war era. With a few exceptions, notably the vast ex-
pansion of the Vultee Airplane Plant at Nashville, Tenn., there has been no move
to establish within the region wartime fabricating and processing plants which after
the war can be converted to peacetime uses. Aluminum sheets and plates produced
by the Aluminum Co. at Alcoa, Tenn., and by the Reynolds Metals Co. at Lister-
hill, Ala., continue to be transported north for further processing. Manganese
continues to leave the region as ore for alloying in the manufacture in other locali-
ties of high-grade steel. The same is true of the region's production of many other
products. Unless the expansion in the production of raw materials and in the
manufacturing of products useful solely for war purposes can be accompanied by
12022 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
the location within the area of processing and fabricating plants which can be con-
verted to peacetime use, there will exist possibilities for very serious post-war
economic dislocations.
E. SUMMARY
In summary, therefore, there is danger that the impact of the war upon the
economy of the Southeast may produce very serious results. It seems certain
that the demands of wartime production will lead to further depletion of the
region's basic agricultural and forestry resources upon which, particularly if
there is an economic depression immediately following the war, the region will be
forced principally to rely during the post-war period. The permanency of the
present expanded activity in the extractive industries and in the capital-goods
industries will, of course, depend upon the existence of a heavy demand for the
products of such industries following the war. There is little possibility of
permanency in the operations of new plants producing strictly for wartime
purposes, and there is little present prospect of location within the area on any
large scale of new fabrication industries which could be converted to peacetime
production after the war is over.
III. Impact of the War Emergency on the Program of the Tennessee
Valley Authority
a. in general
The Tennessee Valley Authority was established in 1933 as a regional agency
for the purpose of dealing with the economic problems of the southeastern region
as a whole. Its basic program has been directed toward the widening of economic
opportunities for the people of the region. This program has included activities
directed to rebuilding soil and stimulating agriculture; activities directed to the
encouragement of forestry development; activities designed to aid enterprises
by providing new industrial processes and facts concerning the resources of the
region and their possible uses; activities in establishing mass consumption pricing
policies on the sale of electricity; and activities relating to water control in the
interests of flood control, navigation, and recreation. The nature of these various
activities and of their respective contributions to the program as a whole was
described in the paper filed by the Authority with the committee during its study
of the interstate migration of destitute citizens.
Today the Authority's activities are directed primarily to the serving of a
different purpose. That purpose is to assist in every possible way in the winning
of the war.
Since this war is a total war, its outcome will necessarily depend in large measure
upon the application of technical skills in meeting the country's production re-
quirements. The Authority had already gathered together a large force of
technicians in carrying out its peacetime program. These assembled technical
skills it is now utilizing in carrying on its part in the war effort. The Authority's
chemical engineers who developed new processes for the manufacture of phos-
phatic fertilizers are now applving their skills in the construction and operations
of facilities for production of ammonium nitrate, elementary phosphorus, and
other chemicals needed in the manufacture of munitions. Its engineers who con-
structed great dams and hydroelectric projects for the purpose of making the
Tennessee River a navigable waterway, controlling floods and producing cheap
electricity, are now constructing similar projects designed to produce a vast
quantity of electricity essential to the production of aluminum, munitions, and
other products necessary to the war program. Research experts who devoted
their attention to the development of low-cost furrow seeders, threshers, electric
heating equipment for sweetpotato curing and storage, rural community refriger-
ators, and other types of new farm machinery are now redoubling their efforts,
since development and production of such farm machinery are proving to be
extremely valuable in obtaining the increased agricultural output which is now
required. The Authority's specialists in mineralogy, who formerly devoted much
of their attention to developing new processes and uses for such mineral resources
of the region as kaolin, sandstone, and marble, are now concentrating their atten-
tions on problems relating to aluminum, manganese, magnesium, and other min-
erals vital to the war effort.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12023
B. POWER
The national defense program and the war have resulted in enormously increased
demands for electric power. Power is required in the Southeast for new Army
camps, new powder plants, new shell-loading plants, new arsenals, and other
similar activities. In addition, greatly increased amounts of power are needed
by a number of existing industries. The need is particularly urgent in the case
of the aluminum industry, and the largest aluminum plant in the world is located
at Alcoa, Tenn., about 20 miles from Knoxville.
Because power is one of the largest elements entering into the cost of producing
aluminum, the industry must rely during normal times largely upon secondary
hydroelectric power, the cheapest type. Secondary power is power which is avail-
able more than 50 percent of the time, but the supply of which may be interrupted
from time to time because of drought or for other reasons. During normal periods
when secondary power was available, the Alcoa plant produced at near capacity,
and built up large stock piles. During periods when power was cut off by low
stream flow, production was cut down and orders were filled from the accumulated
reserve which had been built up.
The beginning of the national emergency in 1939 found the aluminum industry
with large accumulated stocks which, under pressure of normal demand, would
have been ample to carry it over any period of interruption in the supply of
secondary power. Unprecedented demands resulting from the defense program
completely changed this picture. Stock piles dwindled rapidly, and it became
imperative that aluminum plants be kept going at full speed whether secondary
power was available or not.
This was the crux of the power problem which faced the Southeast in 1939 and
1940, since these were years of extremely low water when comparatively little
secondary power was available. This problem became the problem of Tennessee
Valley Authority because the Authority's system represented, and still represents,
the only source of power other than the Aluminum Co. of America's own hydro-
electric plants which is connected with the Alcoa plant.
In spite of the abnormally low stream flow during 1939 and 1940, the Authority
had available at all times more than enough power to meet its contractual obliga-
tions. Difficulties arose by reason of the fact that it was called upon not only to
meet its contractual requirements, but also to provide increasingly large amounts
of power over and above contractual requirements to the Aluminum Co., and in
lesser degree to other defense industries. During the month of September 1939,
which was the month when Germany invaded Poland, the Authority made the
first of these excess power deliveries, amounting to approximately 20,000,000
kilowatt-hours. In April 1940, when Denmark and Norway were invaded, excess
deliveries were about 25,000,000 kilowatt-hours. In August 1940, which marked
the beginning of Germany's air offensive against Britain, thev amounted to about
50,000,000 kilowatt-hours. Between August 1939 and Januarv 1, 1942, Tennessee
Valley Authority delivered in all a total of about 2,000,000,000 kilowatt-hours of
power to defense industries, in addition to all power supplied under regular
contracts.
The Authority was able to meet these emergency demands in spite of 2 years of
unprecedented drought, partly by bringing into operation a number of small
inefficient generating plants located at various points in the Southeast which
had not been operated during normal periods, partly by withdrawing water from
storage which under ordinary circumstances would have been retained for use at
later periods in the year, and partly by bringing into the area surplus power from
other systems. Its ability to bring in surplus power from other areas was greatly
enhanced by the fact that it is primarily a "hydro system possessing great storage
capacity. Most of the surplus power available from other systems was steam-
generated energy which, of course, could not be stored and which would have been
wasted had not the Authority in effect been able to store it. Ordinary demand for
power falls off at night and over week ends, with the result that in many systems
some steam capacity is idle and the energy which it might have generated is there-
fore lost. The Authority was able to take such energy into its system over the
established interconnections and use it to supply the demand in its area, at the
same time proportionately reducing generation at its hydro plants. Thus the
equivalent amount of energy was stored in the form of water in the Tennessee
Valley Authority reservoirs for use during peak-load hours of the week to help
meet the power demands of defense industries.
The increase in the demand for electricity in the Southeast is continuing.
12024 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Location of new defense plants within the distribution areas of municipalities
and other Tennessee Valley Authority wholesale power distributors has necessi-
tated an increase in the amount of power furnished to such distributors.
To meet these mounting national defense and war requirements, Congress has
authorized and the Authority has rushed to completion a number of new hydro
projects and substantial additions to existing plants. On July 1, 1940, the total
installed capacity of the Tennessee Valley Authority system, including both
hydro and steam plants, was 970,000 kilowatts. By July 1, 1941, this had been
increased to 1,064,000 kilowatts. Plants now under construction will bring the
total to approximately 2,824,500 kilowatts by April 1945. A substantial portion
of the increase will be available by July 1 of this year, when installed capacity
will total 1,474,000 kilowatts; and a further large increase will be available early
in 1943.
In addition to new construction and installation of additional generating
equipment, the Authority has strengthened the ability of its system to provide
for national defense needs by additional transmission line construction.
Provision for these additional power facilities is being made on a rush basis for
the immediate purpose of permitting full-scale operation of national defense plants
whose production is essential to the winning of the war. An indirect result will
be the fact that after the war is over there will be available a great supply of
power for use by peacetime industries.
C. INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH
In the course of its operations over the past 8K years, the Authority has as-
sembled a great amount of detailed information on the geographic, economic, and
industrial characteristics of the Tennessee Valley area. Its research in these
fields has enabled it to supply needed information to other defense agencies, to
manufacturers, and to other interested parties. Data on possible plant locations
within the valley for the manufacture of explosives, aircraft, and magnesium have
been furnished to Government authorities and to private industry. Government
defense agencies have been furnished with information on idle existing plant facili-
ties. As an example, the Authority, at the request of Office of Production
Management, made a special study for that agency of idle plant capacity within
the valley area in the metalworking industries.
In addition, the Authority's own technicians have been engaged in surveying
the mineral resources of the area with a view to their use during wartime. One of
the results of such work has been the development of the process for production of
aluminum from ordinary high-grade white clays. Large quantities of these clays
are found in the Southeast and in other sections of the country as well. The
present source of aluminum is found in bauxite, a mineral which is found in this
country only in limited quantities and which we obtain largely by imports from
South America. The importance of a development which can enable us to pro-
duce aluminum without having to rely upon the importation of bauxite from
abroad is obvious. The new process has been tested on a semicommercial scale
at the Authority's chemical engineering laboratory at Muscle Shoals. Informa-
tion on the new process and on available clay deposits has been furnished to the
War Production Board.
Tennessee Valley Authority industrial research has also been carried on in
connection with manganese. This mineral is essential in the manufacture of steel
and the demand for it has greatly increased, particularly in view of the fact that
virtually all of the manganese used in the past has been imported. Scattered
deposits of low-grade managnese ore occur in Georgia and other Southeastern
States. Research on improved methods of beneficiation of the Georgia ores has
recently been completed by the Authority's Commerce Department, in coopera-
tion with the Georgia Division of Mines, Mining, and Geology. A new process
has been developed as a result of such research which improves the grade of such
ores to meet commercial standards, and is expected to make many of the deposits
available for use.
The Authority has also carried on investigations in connection with magnesium.
This metal is used in aircraft construction and in the manufacture of incendiary
bombs and other defense products, and the demand for it accordingly has been
and is soaring. A high percentage of magnesium is contained in olivine, a mineral
found in North Carolina and Georgia. A process to extract magnesium from
olivine has been developed in the laboratory and tested on a larger scale in a joint
research project conducted by the Authority and the Georgia State Engineering
Station. These experiments are being pushed at all possible speed in the Au-
thority's chemical laboratory at Muscle Shoals. Should the process prove
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12025
practicable, large supplies of magnesium can readily be made available from known
olivine deposits.
Chromite is another vital defense mineral in connection with which Tennessee
Valley Authority has carried on research. Chromite is the mineral from which
chromium is extracted, and is used in hardening steel for production of armor plate,
cannon, and other heavy armament. Virtually all of the chromite consumed in
the United States has been imported, although during World War days some
chromite was mined in North Carolina and on the Pacific coast. Chromite
deposits in North Carolina were surveyed by Tennessee Valley Authority geologists
in 1935 and again in 1940, in cooperation with the North Carolina Division of
Mineral Resources. The purpose of the surveys was to examine known deposits
and to locate others in order to facilitate their possible utilization. In the summer
of 1941 a chromite mine was opened up at a location north of Asheville, N. C., in
an area examined during the surveys and described in a report which was published
after their completion.
D. AGRICULTURAL AND CHEMICAL PROGRAM
Coincident with the need for greatly increased production of electric power
there is also an immediate, though less well-recognized need, for increased pro-
duction of phosphates. The need for expansion of manufacturing capacity for
phosphates springs from three different sources.
First,, there are expanding normal requirements for phosphatic fertilizers.
Transportation costs make up a large portion of the total cost of phosphatic
fertilizers to the farmer. It is for this reason that highly concentrated fertilizers,
shipment of which involves the cost of transporting a minimum amount of filler
and other unnecessary ingredients, cost least and can be used most effectively.
In the Middle West and the Northeast, in such States as Iowa, Wisconsin,
Illinois, Maine, New Jersey, and others, there is a serious shortage of so-called
high analysis or concentrated forms of phosphatic fertilizer, and the country
does not now have sufficient plant capacity to produce such needed concentrates
along with phosphorus which is needed in the manufacture of implements of war.
As a result, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, when distributing
fertilizers in lieu of cash benefits, has had to substitute low-analysis materials.
Within the past 6 months the Agricultural Adjustment Administration has not
been able to secure even enough ordinary superphosphate. The result from the
standpoint of the farmers and of the Nation's interest in the fertility of its soils
may be exceedingly grave.
Second, there are the requirements of war food production. American farmers
have undertaken the job of producing enough food during 1942 to feed 10,000,000
persons in England. The result is still further to increase the need of farmers for
concentrated phosphatic fertilizers.
Third, there are the requirements of Britain's soils. During peacetime England
secured phosphates for use on its- soils chiefly from Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco.
These sources have, of course, been virtually cut off. Commercial sources in the
United States have already furnished England a considerable quantity of con-
centrates, but the amount furnished last year was less than half of what was
wanted. Even the amount actually furnished could not have been supplied if the
Agricultural Adjustment Administration had not released materials purchased
from private industry which were originally intended for distribution within the
United States as a part of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration's domestic
soil conservation program. England has asked the United States for scores of
thousands of tons of concentrated phosphate during 1942 and will need more in
years to come. Shipments of phosphate, to the extent that they can be made, will
enable Great Britain to increase her own agricultural production, and in this way,
serve as a substitute for shipment of a relatively much larger quantity of food-
stuff's. The Tennessee Valley Authority has supplied and will continue to supply
every ton of concentrated phosphatic material possible, but shipments from all
sources are certain to fall far short of England's needs.
The speedy expansion of phosphate and nitrate production facilities is essential
to the Nation's war effort. Such facilities will serve a dual purpose, however, in
that they will be equally necessary during the post-war period. When peace
comes the continuing problem of the Nation's soils will still be with us. Hun-
dreds of thousands of acres of land have, in the past, been rendered unfit for cul-
tivation because of the draining of their phosphorus content. Wartime needs
will place a stih greater strain upon our soils. The need for application of increased
12026 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
quantities of phosphate to sustain the soil will be a major problem after the war is
over for generations to come, and one the solution of which is basic to the welfare
of the Nation. It is certain, therefore, that phosphate producing facilities pro-
vided during the war will be needed for peace-time use.
E. OTHER PROGRAMS
r~ 1. Navigation. — Under the terms of the Tennessee Valley Authority Act, the
Tennessee Valley Authority is directed to construct such dams as will provide
a 9-foot navigable channel from the mouth of the Tennessee River to Knoxville.
This channel has been only partially completed. Nevertheless, as a result even
of partial completion of the channel traffic increased from approximately 18,000,-
000 ton miles in 1932 to about 138,400,000 ton miles in 1941. This traffic con-
sisted principally of petroleum products, forest products, grain, sand and gravel,
and miscellaneous commodities.
The effect of the war has been greatly to curtail shipments of such items as
automobiles, trucks, and tires. For a time there was also a temporary slowing
up in shipments of gasoline and oil because of diversion of boats to the Ohio River.
Much new traffic, however, has been added. Coal is beginning to move for the
Tennessee Valley Authority's own use at the Sheffield steam generating plant,
and docks are being provided for river movements of coal, salt, and other mate-
rials to the chemical warfare arsenal at Huntsville, Ala. The use of the Tennessee
and other inland waterways for transportation of defense materials is, of course,
beneficial to the war effort to the extent that it relieves the strain on the country's
railroads and on coastwise shipping. Increased use of the inland waterways for
these purposes has been urged recently by President Roosevelt in a letter dated
March 25, 1942, addressed to the chairman of the House Committee on Rivers
and Harbors, and by Mr. Joseph B. Eastman, of the Office of Defense Trans-
portation.
2. Defense housing. — The Authority was requested by the Defense Housing
Coordinator to undertake studies of defense housing needs, locations, and sites
at points throughout the Tennessee Valley area. Investigations, studies, and
reports have been made accordingly. The Authority is continuing to exercise
similar functions on request of the National Housing Agency. In addition to
the rendition of such studies and reports, the Authority, as agent of the Federal
Works Administrator under the Lanham Act, has selected sites, purchased and
surveyed land, afforded architectural service, and constructed or let contracts
for the construction of defense housing. In the case of approximately 150 houses
constructed in the Muscle Shoals area, the Authority proceeded with actual con-
struction on force account. In other cases, it has let contracts for construction
by private builders.
8. Forestry. — At the request of the War Production Board and the Office of
Price Administration, the Authority's Forestry Relations Department has been
and is furnishing these agencies with data concerning the types and locations of
plants and industries in the valley area engaged in the manufacture of forest
products. It has also participated in the making of surveys undertaken by or
on request of these agencies in connection with the ship timber, container, and
tannic acid industries. The Authority has also furnished technical data necessary
to the location within the area of wood using and manufacturing plants which
have war orders.
4. Training Programs. — As one of the largest single employers of labor in the
Southeast, the Authority has a definite interest in the development of a labor
supply possessing skills requisite to its needs. By agreement with representa-
tives of organized labor, the Authority carries on an apprentice training program.
It also carries on a number of other training programs which are designed to
provide an opportunity for its employees to develop to an optimal degree their
individual skills and potentialities. During recent months the loss of a large
number of personnel to the armed service and the need for training new personnel
to take their places has given these training programs an added significance.
The apprenticeship programs were inaugurated jointly by the Tennessee Valley
Trades and Labor Council, an organization composed of representatives of the
various crafts participating in Tennessee Valley Authority work, and the Tennessee
Valley Authority management in 1937. The system of apprenticeship training
provides for approximately 4 years of job rotation and related class work. To
date 229 apprentices have completed their training in 10 different crafts. Many
of them are employed by the Authority as foremen and skilled journeymen, while
others are employed in private industry in the southeastern area. Approximately
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12027
300 apprentices are now in process of training. In addition, a program has been
developed whereby the versatility of journeymen craftsmen is increased through
their assignment to specific phases of Authority work which are intended to
increase their skills.
Through cooperation between labor and management, a formal training pro-
gram for operating positions in the Authority's hydro and steam generating plants,
including job rotation and related study, has been instituted. This program is
intended to develop from the reservoir of untrained employees the highly skilled
operators who are essential to operation of these plants. The training program is
from 4 to 6 years in length. To date about 75 employees have completed it
and 252 more are in various stages of training.
An operating training program has also been initiated to provide necessary
trained personnel for operation of the chemical plants at Muscle Shoals. A
progressive course of training has been developed under which unskilled laborers
are recruited and placed in training to produce the necessary skilled men required
to operate the plants. At the present time, some 500 persons are now receiving
training under this program.
A number of other miscellaneous training programs of a less formal character
have also been developed. These include training programs for rodmen, inspectors
of construction, medical aides, public safety officers, clerks, and typists, and occu-
pants of supervisory and skilled positions in reservoir clearance work. There are
also a number of apprentices in training for positions in the professional and
managerial field. About 1,500 employees are now engaged in training on the job
through related study for more responsible work. A majority of these persons
have been recruited from applicants and employees having little specialized
training, but who have been revealed by examinations and other personnel methods
to possess potentialities for the assumption of more responsible work. Almost
without exception such persons have been recruited from the area in which the
Authority's operations are conducted.
Conclusion
Today the farms, the factories, and the industries of the Southeast, in common
with those of other regions of the country, are putting forth even' effort to achieve
a single goal — the winning of the war. The Tennessee Valley Authority is
participating in this effort to the limits of its abilities, by rushing to completion
great hydroelectric projects designed to produce the vastly increased amounts of
power necessary to run the region's aluminum plants and other war industries; by
enlarging its existing chemical plants and constructing new ones to help provide
phosphates, nitrates, and other needed chemicals; and by utilizing in other ways
designed to promote the war effort the technical skills which it had assembled for
peacetime purposes. What will be the specific economic problems which will exist
after the war is over in the southeastern region and in other areas of the country, no
man can now foretell. There is virtually no question, however, but that very
grave economic problems will exist. It seems likely that they will, to a large
degree, center, in the case of the Southeast, upon the necessity of rebuilding
depleted agricultural and forest resources, and upon securing a better balanced
economic development by building up fabricating and processing industries within
the region. The Authority's power facilities, chemical plants, and technically
trained personnel will be available to participate in such a program.
TESTIMONY OF JOHN P. FERRIS— Resumed
Mr. Ferris. That represented the thinking and data supplied by a
number of departments in the Tennessee Valley Authority, and I am
glad some of the subjects you questioned me about fall so closely within
the fields of my own interest. So if the committee will permit me, I
shall not cover all the subject matter in that statement, but rather
the parts I am more familiar with.
SOIL REBUILDING PROGRAM
As to the program on rebuilding the soil, if you will permit me, I
will use some notes I have on that subject. I would like to say that
from the beginning the Authority has devoted a major portion of its
12028 HTJNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
efforts to the solution of agricultural soil fertility, with greatest empha-
sis on production of new, highly concentrated forms of phosphatic
fertilizers, and from the beginning we have been turning out these
phosphatic fertilizers. They have been used to energize a farm
management program of improved farm land use that has been carried
out by a large number of farms. The effect of the war program, in
my opinion, has been to increase the seriousness of the soil fertility
problem, and even to threaten temporarily the effects of some of the
Tennessee Valley Authority's work during the last 8 years. The
reasons for that are plain. Mr. Randolph, the previous witness,
described several of the reasons better than I could. The first thing
is that the farmer has been called upon to increase food production.
The goals for food production will make it hard for the farmer to keep
from depleting his soils faster than he can build them up. In order
to win the war, as we see it, we are going to have to feed our own
population and send thousands of tons of food overseas, because we
will have to help feed hundreds of millions of people in England,
Russia, and many other countries. Secretary Wickard has called on
the 7 States in this area, in 1942, to produce 126,000,000 gallons of
milk
Mr. Sparkman. Is that the increase only?
Mr. Ferris. Yes, sir; for 1942 for the 7 States in the Tennessee
Valley. I am just giving typical figures; 860,000 acres of grains.
And, as Mr. Randolph has indicated, these increases are being de-
manded of the farmers when there is a growing labor problem, caused
first by the migration of the farm boys and farm labor to the armed
services, and, second, to the construction of war projects and war
industrial plants, where higher wages prevail. The average day wage
for farm labor in Tennessee is $1.37, without board. A shortage of
labor on the farm, as I understand it, means that a farmer omits some
laborious tasks, such as terracing, but which are necessary in restoring
fertility on depleted soil and in caring for soil generally. The farmers
are called on for new crops and more livestock. In this area new
crops and livestock are needed to get away from continuous cultiva-
tion of row crops. And getting new crops planned, planted, and
harvested requires additional labor. Livestock takes more labor than
row crops and requires labor the year 'round. If a farmer is short of
labor his progress in planting, raising, and harvesting new crops will
be slow. The farmers don't have as much time to attend demon-
stration meetings. County agents don't have as many tires as they
did, and don't have as much time to get around on educational work
FERTILIZER SHORTAGE
This call for increased food production comes when there is also a
growing fertilizer shortage in nitrates and particularly phosphates.
Even with the Tennessee Valley Authority's increased manufacturing
plant capacity, there is less available. The production of elemental
phosphorus and nitrates for war purposes is taking up a good portion.
Furthermore, a portion of the phosphatic fertilizer we are turning out
is being shipped to Great Britain. Private industry, using almost
exclusively the sulfuric-acid process, will produce less fertilizer as the
shortage of acid becomes more acute. The net result of this situation
is that the soil that is called upon to produce more will get less fer-
tilizer, with the prospect of reduced fertility of the land at a time
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12029
when we think the agriculture of the Southeast is going to have to
support more people than it does now. After the war, we believe that
many people will come back to the farms from the industrial cities.
The activities of the Tennessee Valley Authority, as I described
them to this committee some months ago, we believe will have some
very important effects on that situation during the war period and
besides will keep up with the pressure that is being put on the soils
which I have described.
This program can be intensified so as to constitute a very important
contribution to the solution of the post-war agricultural difficulties.
Now, what changes in this program have come about? First, let me
say that there are several things which have affected the soil program
of the Tennessee Valley Authority. Of course, the increased use of
electricity on the farm is one of the very important ones. You gentle-
men undoubtedly realize in these 7 States there were in 1941 about 8
times as many farms that have electricity as in 1930, 405,000 farms as
against 54,000 in 1930. The dairy farms among them — and they are
highly specialized farms — find a very important relief from labor
shortage in electricity, and it isn't just a luxury. A farmer with 60
cows lost 2 men to a construction camp awhile ago. He got a milking
machine and was able to carry on without that labor. On a livestock
farm electric pumps pumping water for livestock release 2 man-hours
a day. Those illustrations serve to show that electricity is getting the
job done. After the war the Tennessee Valley Authority will have
increased facilities for production of fertilizer to help catch up some
of the loss to the soil that will inevitably be the case. It should be
remembered that the availability of this fertilizer to the farmers can
be a powerful means of bringing about improvements in agriculture
and soil conservation. During the past 8 years this program, in
which the fertilizers have been so used, has gone on until it now has
an important influence on at least 100,000 farmers, with some 20,000
demonstration farms that are making important progress toward
improved farming practices and soil conservation, using these highly
concentrated fertilizers. That involves 3,000,000 acres of land, prob-
ably one-fifth of our farm land in the Tennessee Valley. That pro-
gram, which seems so important in helping win the war and after the
war, is not confined to the Tennessee Valley. There are demonstra-
tion farms using this fertilizer in 30 States, making the grand total
some 37,000. The Tennessee Valley Authority is proud that this
contribution toward soil conservation is a national one, and not
entirely regional.
As to the forestry program, if the committee will bear with me, I
would suggest it be taken care of by reference to the written record.
I am not prepared to discuss the forestry program. I had the feeling
that the committee might be interested in the immediate effects of
migration of workers in industry and in the whole industrial picture of
the valley, and if it will be permitted, I will refer to that subject.
Mr. Sparkman. Go right ahead.
INDUSTRIAL SITUATION IN THE VALLEY
Mr. Ferris. The industrial situation in the Southeast and in the
Tennessee Valley in particular is of course the one that most immedi-
ately reflects the migration problem, and is, 1 presume, the one of
12030 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
greatest interest to the committee. As background for it, I want to
read about 12 lines from Fortune magazine, November 1938, about
the nature of the industrial economy of our region, which I shall read
into the record.
The industrial picture of the South presents a pattern that seems surprisingly-
similar to the South's agricultural pattern of cotton and tobacco. It is relatively
undiversified and largely dependent on special resources and special advantages.
Even when prosperous * * * the situation is still dangerously vulnerable.
It is a cash crop industrial system and it tends to keep the South colonial. * * *
If it maintained its present pattern, it would always be a tributary, rather than a
principal industrial area.
However, prior to this war, there has been a substantial increase in
industrial activities. Between 1933 and the end of 1940 a rough check
will indicate 190 new concerns employing 120,000 people were estab-
lished in the Tennessee Valley. About half of those workers were
employed in 112 of those establishments, making more than 60 differ-
ent kinds of products. Since 1935 we have a new electrolysis plant
that employs 2,500 people. Existing chemical industries have ex-
panded notably. Twelve new paper mills have been established in the
South since 1935. At this point, I would like to emphasize the over-all
nature of this industrial expansion program, rather than merely re-
count figures. A few large enterprises are employing a great number
of workers and these workers are drawn almost entirely from the South-
east. The Cherokee Dam project of the Tennessee Valley Authority
will illustrate it. Eighty-five percent of the 2,962 workers stated that
their former residences were in Tennessee. About 94 percent had pre-
viously lived in one of the seven Tennessee Valley States. Less than 6
percent had come from other parts of the country. And in that 6
percent were people that had come from Arkansas, Louisiana, Flor-
ida, Texas, and South Carolina. This is very significant, because of
the large and increasing number of people employed by the Tennessee
Valley Authority, less than 14,000 in 1940, have increased to over
35,000 under our war program at present. Now, general information
on other large projects employing large amounts of labor, including
private industry, indicates that the most of the workers come from
within the valley region. The Huntsville arsenal and the ordnance
plant, which is near Huntsville, have, I understand, employed some
13,000 to 14,000 men and will employ some 8,000 in operation, accord-
ing to published statements. The Aluminum Co. of America, at
Alcoa, Term., and the Reynolds Metal Co., near Florence, Ala., indi-
cate the same story.
Mr. Sparkman. I was through one of those aluminum plants at
Listerhill, Ala. It was a rolling mill. They are working now some
2,500 people. They told me that they had imported about 15 people
to get started and the rest had been recruited from that area. I was
over at the electro-metallurgical plant, which has expanded capacity
500 percent in the last year and a half. The manager told me of
the 350 people that worked there, they brought 6 people down
here to start that, and the others had been recruited and trained
there.
LOCAL LABOR PROVES SATISFACTORY
Mr. Ferris. It is another very interesting example of the fact that
labor available in this area can be trained easily to the most exacting
performance. A plant making an extremely difficult product came
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12031
here and was hesitating to locate here to make that product— which
I shouldn't mention in the record, as it is a war product — and it was
afraid that it couldn't be made with local labor. But the head of
the company told us that he had no difficulty in getting labor that
was perfectly competent to do the work.
EFFECT OF WAR ON INDUSTRIES
Now the result of these big employment projects is, of course, an
atmosphere of prosperity. A lot of jobs are available and so we find
a very general feeling of economic prosperity. And although they
might not be immediately apparent, there are some features that are
far from favorable. I have already referred to the difficulties in
agriculture and soil fertility. Turning again to the industrial picture
and the effect of the T. V. A.'s program upon it, the question immedi-
ately arises, how is the war affecting the industries here and how are
these industries likely to be affected by the war program.
First, as to the war. During the war, contracts for the construction
of new war production plants in the Southeastern States — I am count-
ing the 10 States, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana,
Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Vir-
ginia— were running about 11 percent of the national total. Those
same States produced about 11 percent of the Nation's industrial
goods in 1939. As far as construction is concerned in the Southeast,
it is participating fully in the national program. However, much of
this construction on war projects, like air training schools and fields
and Army camps, and so on, will have little long-time effect on the
underlying economy of the region. Much of the work was in building
arsenals and other plants that are unlikely to be converted to peace-
time use. They do have an effect on building up a body of industrial
manpower. On the other hand, there has been comparatively little
participation of southeastern industry in war production. I shall
later give my impression of the reasons for this situation. Reliable
figures are not available, but there are some signposts that indicate
this is true. In connection with airplane manufacture, the figures
through February 1942 show one-half of 1 percent of the contracts
for making airplanes and airplane parts were in the Southeastern
States, although those States furnish 11 percent of the total industrial
production. Airplanes involve highly specialized and extremely
difficult manufacturing problems, and are perhaps not a fair test.
But other figures seem to support it. Only 5 percent of the so-called
supply contracts through February of 1942 have been placed in the
Southeast.
AIRPLANE PLANTS
Mr. Sparkman. As a matter of fact, isn't Vultee, at Nashville, Tenn.,
about the only airplane plant in this area?
Mr. Ferris. It is.
Mr. Sparkman. The Government is building the Martin bomber
plant at Marietta, Ga. And I believe there will be a plant at Mem-
phis. Isn't it just a matter of breaking the ice?
Mr. Ferris. Unfortunately, Mr. Congressman, I think it is more
than that. I think, as you say, there is going to be a considerable in-
crease in this airplane manufacture, but for reasons I want to expound
12032 HTJNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
a little later on, I don't think it will go to anything approach ;' the
section's general participation in industry, which is 11 percent. Of
course, airplane production has been more or less localized in certain
parts of the United States. I presume there are particular reasons
for that. Dr. Galbraith was rather discouraged about any future in
aviation development in the Southeast — that is, for the manufacture
of airplanes — but his principal reason was that it was too far removed
from the machine-tool industry and that until that developed down
here, we couldn't hope to do much airplane manufacturing.
The Chairman. Where is the machine-tool industry principally?
Mr. Ferris. Detroit, Cincinnati, New York, and New England.
The Chairman. The expansion of existing plants was the real rea-
son, I think.
Mr. Ferris. The interesting thing is the effect on the Southeast.
The expansion of airplane manufacture; tank manufacture, and the
manufacture of other articles of that nature and character is going
on where that type of industry is already located, which means that
the plants that are susceptible of conversion to peacetime uses are
going to be largely somewhere else. The Army camps and arsenals
in the South, which could be quickly built here, are for the present
doing a fine job of employing labor, but they are almost certain to
be unconvertible to peacetime uses later.
The Chairman. Has labor migrated much from the South to
Detroit?
Mr. Ferris. So far, our figures don't indicate it has been very
serious, but it is bound to become serious, we think, because labor
has to have jobs. If the plants in this section in which skilled laborers
have been working can't get raw materials, the labor is bound to be
unemployed very soon. They can't get raw materials unless they get
war contracts. Therefore, my argument is that the present percentage
of the South's participation in the national war industry will not keep
its skilled labor from migrating out of the South. It has done so to a
considerable degree, but so far it has not been a hegira. As to the
reasons for this situation I have some ideas. I don't know whether
the committee would like to have me give them.
Mr. Sparkman. We would be glad to have them.
INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION IN THE VALLEY
Mr. Ferris. I think we must start from the fact that most, though
by no means all, of the goods needed by the Army and Navy and
Maritime Commission are comparatively difficult to manufacture.
The South makes some goods of this class that are difficult to manu-
facture, it is true. But it constitutes a very small part of the total.
However, on the optimistic side, many people do not realize some of
the things made in the Tennessee Valley — dive bombers, shells, shell
castings, ships, barges, oils, plasties. At one extreme you will find
the glassware and the fine metal parts of the hypodermic needle
made by the Eisele Co. of Nashville; at the other extreme you will
find in the plant of a Tennessee Valley company a 6,000-ton bending
press for high-pressure boiler drums. You will find tough alloy steels
being machined into armament products on highly complicated ma-
chinery. It is not necessary to tell you that thousands of skilled
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12033
woi "B in one plant of the valley are turning out more aluminum
than1arny other plant in the United State?.
The Chairman. Are you speaking of the region as a whole?
Mr. Ferris. I had reference to the Tennessee Valley States. I
have alternated between speaking of the Tennessee Valley and the
Southeast.
Mr. Sparkman. The Southeast includes 10 States and the Tennessee
Valley includes 7?
Mr. Ferris. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. Will you name them?
Mr. Ferr <s. Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Ala-
bama Mississippi, Tennessee; they are the Tennessee Valley States.
The Chairman. Name the other three that are not?
Mr, Ferris. Florida, South Carolina, Louisiana.
WHY SOUTHERN PLANTS HAVE FEW WAR ORDERS
Now to illustrate the lack in this area of the type of manufacturing
that is easily capable of participating in the war production. The
1939 census for the Southeast shows no production of ammunition,
firearms, gasoline engines, laundry machines, sewing machines, trac-
tors. Only 4 percent of the Nation's agricultural machinery was made
in the Southeast, and less than 1 percent of the machine tools. These
things and things of the same character are just the kind of things that
are made in plants most easily converted to war orders. To convert
plants to war work is no easy matter. This is one of the reasons I
think that employment on actual war production in the Tennessee
Valley and Southeast has been so meager. Afany small plants do not
have staff's large enough to permit sending men to Washington and
to large manufacturing companies in order to get war orders. In
many of the Southeastern plants extensive modification of machinery
and new machines would be needed. In other cases labor would have
to be retrained to higher accuracy on new work, sufficient to meet the
standards of inspection for the final product. In making parts of
tanks or airplanes, inspectors from the large plant making the entire
airplane or tank must travel a thousand miles and visit the small shop
that is making a small part of the whole to see if it meets the require-
ments, and if not to reject it.
availability of plants
Another reason for the small participation in the manufacture of war
production may be some lack of aggressiveness on the part of industrial
management in the South, hi face of the staggering problem of plant
conversion for war production. The United States will spend
$36,000,000,000 hi armament. There is no time to build new factories
for all of this, but most of it must come from factories already built.
Very few in the past have been making war products. To illustrate
this, the T. V. A. at the request of the old Office of Production Manage-
ment visited 115 metal-working factories in the Tennessee Valley
and 47 foundries. The managements of these plants were inter-
viewed. About half of them were working one shift. One-third
60396— 42— pt. 32-
12034 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
of them could at that time obtain sufficient labor to work at least
another shift. In these 162 plants there were more than 3,000 ma-
chine tools. As you know, machine tools constitute one of the most
critical bottlenecks of the war effort, and it is impossible to get enough
new ones built. These tools were working, therefore, one-third or one-
half of the time they might have worked. So, in spite of the difficulties,
the conversion of manufacturing plants of the Southeast to war pro-
duction is an absolute necessity if the region is to make the shift into
high-grade manufacturing during the war. And only if tbis shift is
made now, when these orders are available and before the skilled labor
has been lost to other areas, will the industry of the Southeast have
learned to participate in the type of manufacturing which, after the
war, will be convertible most easily to peacetime production. In
other words, now is the time for management to acquire the know-
how and now is the time to build up a large body of skilled labor,
experienced in high-grade manufacturing.
Mr. Sparkman. Don't you think the war effort is doing that very
thing?
Mr. Ferris. Yes, sir; up to the extent I have indicated. But the
Southeast is not making its pro rata share of the $36,000,000,000 of
war production in its manufacturing plants. This, it seems to me, is
a challenge to industrial management of the Southeast. If a manu-
facturer can assure the War Production Board or the Navy that he
can deliver a forged turbine shaft, even though he happens to be in an
already overcrowded, industrialized area, the order must of course go
to that area — the W. P. B. can do nothing about it — unless some
manufacturer in one of the underindustrialized areas like the South-
east can and will undertake to produce the forged turbine shaft and
will proceed to prove he can do so within the time limits.
As I indicated earlier the new industries that are coming within the
area as a result of the war program have consisted primarily of arsenal,
shell-loading, smokeless powder plants, and others whose operation
will almost certainly come to complete cessation after the war. Very
conspicuous among the T. V. A.'s new power customers are electro-
metallurgical plants which use enormous amounts of electric power,
but a small amount of labor, extracting ferro-silicon and aluminum.
In general, such manufacturing seems likely to reduce its operations
very substantially after the war. Most of the fabrication of the raw
materials of this area will be done elsewhere, and fabrication, of course,
employs a larger amount of labor. This entire situation merely re-
flects an intensification of the tendency of industry to grow where it
already is. That is what happened in the First World War, and it
wasn't until 1927 that the percentage of the Nation's manufacturing
which took place in the Southeastern States again reached its prewar
levels. Industry in the Northeast and other industrialized sections
tends to expand, particularly in wartime, even though such areas maybe
overindustrialized. This expansion in already industrialized areas
takes place, we find, even though the labor isn't there and even when
materials cannot be obtained to take care of housing.
Mr. Arnold. Do you think the question of housing might even
be affected by the transportation of workers?
Mr. Ferris. This question of housing is becoming very critical due
to shortage of materials — of plumbing and hardware. It should be
noted that workers who live in the Southeast who go to the Middle
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12035
West or Northeast had houses when they lived in this area, but they
may need new houses built for them when they crowd in already
overcrowded areas. The present situation is full of danger, it seems
to me, to the economy of the Southeast for reasons which are obvious
from the facts I have given.
The manufacturing industries in this area will not be in as good
position to convert to peace-time production as in other areas.
Hence a large proportion of workers will be forced by necessity to
either return to the overburdened farm lands of the Southeast or
remain in the over-crowded industrial areas of the Northeast and
Middle West. Already a considerable number of skilled workers,
which the Southeast will sorely need as a basis for industrial develop-
ment after the war, are contributing to the building of permanent
industries in other sections. However, this proportion is far less than
it was in the twenties, as I have indicated earlier.
TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY STIMULATES INDUSTRIAL PROGRAMS
Now as to the effect of the T. V. A. activities on these underlying
problems which I have taken the liberty of outlining. We think right
now during the war our organization is assisting to an immeasurable
degree in solving them. It has given a general stimulus to industry
all along the line. That is true not only in the industries of the
Southeast but hi industries elsewhere.
Electrical appliances which have been sold in huge quantities in the
Southeast are made 97 percent in other areas, so that the employment
that went into the making of these electrical appliances was stimu-"
lated. One of the aspects of the Tennessee Valley Authority program
which is perhaps helping and will increasingly help after the war is
the training of workers. We have trained, as a result of this huge
construction program, very large numbers of Southern workers who
are now disciplined and have acquired many skills in different degrees,
and the training of that body of labor after the war will be a mitigating
factor, at least, in the situation.
As to power supply — we, have a large and assured power supply to
furnish the basis for industrial development generally, and it is a
practical certainty it will furnish the basis for continuing electro-
metallurgical manufacturing. And, while a large proportion of the
products of these large power-using industries are and will continue
to be shipped elsewhere for fabrication, there is no question but that
the existence of industries making raw materials does encourage the
development of fabricating. For instance, the aluminum company at
Listerhill now also rolls aluminum sheets, which does require the
employment of a large amount of labor, and we also see it at the steel
plants in Birmingham, which no longer make only pig iron. Fabri-
cating is undoubtedly stimulated by the presence of raw material in
Birmingham.
As to the extent of the power program — you might want in the
record the fact that the Authority's power svstem consisted at tic
middle of 1940 of 938,000 installed kilowatts of capacity. This figure
has since increased to 1,291,500 kilowatts, some 38 percent higher
than at the time of the fall of France. Now we are engaged in an even
more accelerated construction program, and when the new hydro and
steam plants we are now constructing are completed, we will more than
double the capacity we had at the middle of 1940.
12036 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH
Now a second line of activity to which Congressman Sparkman re-
ferred was the encouraging of new business enterprises by uncovering
industrial opportunities based on the unused raw materials of the
region. This is accomplished in our program by industrial research,
which we feel to be one of the essentials for the industrial develop-
ments of the future. Industrial research is helping to win the war
and also to lay the basis for new industries. Industry these days comes
out of the laboratories. And the industrial development of the North-
east has supported a vast program of industrial research, which in
turn has furnished the basis for many industries in that area — radios,
automobiles, stainless steel— almost every kind of manufactured
product you can name. We in the South need much more of it along
with other things, such as industrial "know how" and more skilled
labor. If more industrial research had been undertaken years ago, the
Tennessee Valley States would be in better position now to shift to the
manufacture of some of the things which are in demand during the
war. The Tennessee Valley Authority's industrial research program
should help to do here what has been accomplished already elsewhere.
Examples of some of the work done along these lines which may help
win the war include the development of a process for improving the
quality of low-grade manganese ores in Georgia so it can qualify under
the purchasing requirements of the Metals Reserve Company and the
steel corporations that use it. Private companies are getting ready
to put it into actual production. The Authority has been working
for 8 years to make kaolin-type clay available for the production of
aluminum.
EFFECT OF DEVELOPMENT OF RIVER CHANNEL
A final contribution of the Authority is the enlargement of economic
opportunity which lies in the development of the river channel, which
is perhaps the most modern in the world, and I think it is going to
have a tremendous effect in the development of the Southeast, both
during and after the war. Even now, 3 years before the river channel
is complete, important shipments are assisting in our war efforts,
shipments of pig iron, soda ash, coal, wheat, and gasoline. The great
importance of this is indicated by the Office of Defense Transporta-
tion's order forbidding use of tank cars for gasoline shipments of
under 100 miles without special permission, thus encouraging use of
navigable waterways and local truck connections. There can be no
doubt that river transportation is now needed to the utmost. It
seems highly probable that increased use will be made during the war
of the system of inland waterways, both because of the economy of
water shipment and particularly because it will relieve pressure on
railroads and trucks.
Incidentally, this isn't a matter of hope for the future, but an
actuality of the present. In 1941, traffic on the Tennessee River had
reached the extent of 107,000,000 ton-miles. After the war the com-
mercial development of the Tennessee Valley region is certain to be
most favorably affected by navigation on the Tennessee River and its
connection with 5,700 miles of inland waterways. Low-cost water
transportation, wherever it has existed, has been a great stimulus to
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12037
business development. Most of America's largest cities are served
by low-cost water transportation.
I think an illustration of that is the fact that the fringe counties
around the outside of the United States and along the Great Lakes — I
believe there are 324 of them — have only 9 percent of the area of the
country but in 1930 had more than 36 percent of the population, and
over half the income from manufacturing is located there. I don't
think anyone can say low-cost transportation has not been an im-
portant stimulus to commercial development.
The Tennessee Valley Authority's activities, while they are now
primarily directed toward winning the war, should be of definite
value in helping the Southeastern region solve its post-war problems.
Though for the first 7 years of its history its organization and activities
were shaped mostly for peacetime purposes, it has turned out, I
think that the methods used, which were devised for peacetime pur-
poses, have been easily redirected to helping win the war. Certainly
it will be found, I think, that the Tennessee Valley Authority will
have no difficulty in adapting its plans to a third situation and
problems, those of the post-war period.
I do not wish to minimize the seriousness of the economic problems
which will undoubtedly be produced by the events which have been
described. These events have been intensified by the war, and they
deeply affect both the present and future of industry. Neither do I
wish to imply that the efforts of the Tennessee Valley Authority will
automatically provide a solution to the problems created. They are
serious, and unless some of the present trends are reversed, heroic
measures will be necessary to solve them after the war.
I regret I have not felt myself competent to comment on all five
subjects which Congressman Sparkman noted at the beginning of my
testimony. I think I explained the reason. The written statement
which was filed covers the material of interest to a number of the
departments of the Authority, and I have restricted myself to the
matters that are closest to my own field of interest.
Mr. Arnold. I think Mr. Ferris covered all the inquiry very
thoroughly.
The Chairman. I would like to say that it was a very valuable
contribution. If you have anything further, we will have the record
open for 10 days. We appreciate your appearing before us. Our
hearings will be resumed tomorrow morning.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGEATION
FRIDAY, MAY 8, 1942
morning session
House of Representatives,
Select Committee Investigating
National Defense Migration,
Washington, D. C.
The committee met at 10 a. m., May 8, 1942, in the Post Office
Building, Huntsville, Ala., Hon. John H. Tolan, chairman of the
committee, presiding.
Present: Representatives John H. Tolan, of California; Laurence F.
Arnold, of Illinois; John J. Sparkman, of Alabama.
Also present: John W. Abbott, chief field investigator; Jack B.
Burke, field investigator; Francis X. Riley, field investigator; and
Ruth B. Abrams, field secretary. 1
The Chairman. The committee will please come to order. Mr. E.
S. Morgan will be our first witness.
TESTIMONY OF E. S. MORGAN, DIRECTOR, REGION 5, FARM
SECURITY ADMINISTRATION, MONTGOMERY, ALA.
Mr. Arnold. You are regional director of Farm Security Adminis-
tration?
Mr. Morgan. Yes. sir; for region 5, comprising the States of South
Carolina, Florida, Georgia, and Alabama.
Mr. Arnold. How long have you held that position?
Mr. Morgan. Three and a half years.
Mr. Arnold. At this point, I will introduce into the record the
very excellent statement that you have furnished us.
(The statement follows:)
STATEMENT BY E. S. MORGAN, DIRECTOR, REGION V, FARM SE-
CURITY ADMINISTRATION, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICUL-
TURE, MONTGOMERY, ALA.
Displacement of Farm Families Caused by National Defense Activities
in Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida
contents
Part I
Introduction.
I. The Impact of National Defense on the Rural Rehabilitation Program of the Farm Security Adminis-
tration and on Farm Labor Supply.
(a) A Program for Living (Food for Freedom).
II. The Impact of National Defense on the Rural Planning and Resettlement Program of the Farm
Security Administration.
III. Migration Problems of Farm Families Caused by Government Acquisition of Farm Land for Defense.
12039
12040 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
APPENDIXES
A. Questionnaires employed by the Farm Security Administration in conducting the survey.
B. Map of Defense Areas and Relocation Tracts.
C. Review of Land Areas Acquired by the Government for Defense. Character and Problems of the
Farm Families Displaced and Relocation and Other Assistance Rendered by Farm Security Ad-
ministration.
D. County Summary of Land Purchases by Relocation Corporation.
Part II
Preface.
I. The Plantation Disintegrates (Talladega).
II. They Move to Town (Huntsville).
III. The Two Horse Farmer (Anniston).
IV. Folks of the Piney Woods (Hinesville).
V. A Town is Plowed Under (Hazlehurst).
Introduction
Any consideration of the problem of "defense" displacement of farm families
in the four southeastern States of Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and South Caro-
lina (comprises region 5 of the Farm Security Administration) must take into
account that the situation as it affects this region is not emergent, not just the
result of unusual circumstances, but part and parcel of chronic conditions. The
dislocations and their impacts herein described are the results of historic forces
merely sped or accentuated by the defense program. Efforts at amelioration,
therefore, should not be regarded as of special nature, but as part of a long-range
development and strengthening of human, social, and economic values.
While approximately 4,700 families, representing some 20,000 persons, have
been forced from their farms and homes in Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina,
and Florida directly because of national defense and war activities, many times
more than this number have been compelled to leave farms in despair and in
thousands of cases without definite prospects, without anything more than the
pressure of a desperate need; or, in more recent cases, they have hastened from
farms voluntarily to work at jobs created by the day's national necessity. In
short, displacement is caused by agricultural competitive factors or so-called
natural economic forces, not alone by war.
These thousands were moved to seize opportunity which they could not find
in scanty acres, or impoverished land, under dispiriting conditions of existence in
flimsy houses and primitive surroundings.
The "defense evacuees" are but a copy of the others. They are no less inse-
cure. Their insecurity is reflected by their bewilderment, their helplessness,
their hardships when payment for their humble homes is delayed even for the
briefest of periods. They — and their uncertainties- — are the product of low
standards and depressed conditions long endured, which brought them to the
point where, when emergency befell, they were without resources to do anything
about it. Their plight is not the result of a cataclysm but of an accumulation of
iUs.
For decades before 1941, when the defense effort began, a process of displace-
ment by. natural and economic forces was in operation. There was a marked
decline of population in many rural counties in the 1920-30 period of the great
migration. The most recent report of the Census Bureau shows that this process
continues. In the State of Alabama, for example, there were 273,455 farms in
1935, only 231,746 in 1940. While the number of full owners declined in this
period onlv from 81,624 to 80,303, the number of tenants and croppers declined
from 244,221 to 177,594.
Obviously, from the record of decline in the total number of farms, it follows
that the decline -in number of tenants and croppers does not mean that more of
the latter groups rose to land ownership; it indicates, rather, that they descended
in the scale from farm operators to day laborers or were forced from the land
entirely, driven to seek employment on Work Projects Administration or to
subsist precariously amid the unskilled or semiskilled hordes on the fringes of our
cities. Analyzing population changes in the last decade, one student of the
subject stated: 1
"The urban increase in the South (14.8 percent) was nearly three times as
rapid as the national urban increase. The rural and town increase in the South
was somewhat slower than the national average. This meant a net gain of over
1,000,000 people in southern cities by migration from rural areas."
i T. J. Woofter, Jr., in Social Forces (March 1941).
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12041
This author added: "The agricultural system of certain sections could not
adequately support the 1930 population and an adjustment would have required
an actual decrease in farm residents or a radical change in the system."
The reasons for this migration are now generally known. They include:
changes in types of farming, dwindling world markets, dwindling land resources,
increase in the use of machinery, displacement of tenants, croppres, and laborers
through restriction of cropland under control programs, growing inability of the
small individual farmer to compete with larger operators in marketing or other-
wise traditional ruinous private credit systems. Then there was a multitude of
other factors related to temperament, health, disintegration of families as younger
members foreswore farm life, weaned from their feeling for the land.
It is significant that in one county in Georgia the number of full farm owners
declined in the last 5 years from 493 to 467 and the number of tenants from 884
to 629. The implications of this record should be plain when it is noted that while
the number of farms declined in this county, the average size of farms increased
from 75.1 to 81.6 acres (the average increase for Georgia as a whole was from 101
to 109.6 acres). This shows the trend toward larger individual ownership and there-
fore away from the family-type, small-operator farm. The larger the holdings,
the more disturbed and less stable will become the rank and file of rural workers,
the greater the incentive to mechanized farming ; and the less need of human labor.
Such changes impair the idea of a numerous, sturdy, and productive rural popu-
lation, the dream of independence on the land as man's natural estate. Thus, by
not too great an effort we may discern a menace to democracy.
The Impact of National Defense on the Rural Rehabilitation Program
of the Farm Security Administration and on Farm Labor Supply
Despite the fortuitous element in defense dislocation, it seems necessary there-
fore, when one approaches a program of treatment, to consider the general and
historic problem of farm displacement along with the special problem of the
moment. Below is recited the broad findings of a study of new impacts on the
program of the Farm Security Administration which was made for purposes of
this investigation:
1. There is a direct relationship between effective farm rehabilitation pro-
grams and stability.
2. While some dislocation of the rehabilitation program has occurred, a survey
on the comparative movement of Farm Security Administration and non-Farm
Security Administration farm families to village, town, or city for off-farm em-
ployment revealed that national defense stimulated industrial activities are
pulling off the farm proportionately larger numbers of non-Farm Security Ad-
ministration farm families than those under the supervision and guidance of the
Farm Security Administration. How many will return, and to what prospects
or opportunity is an open and serious question.
3. Good land areas, most stable people.
4. The stress of war upon populations, upon goals of planning and of action,
upon all our thinking and being, has increased obligations, both of service and
administration, of the rural planning and resettlement program of Farm Security.
Essentially dedicated to rehabilitation of rural people depressed by circumstances
both social and economic, Farm Security Administration finds that new condi-
tions affecting people make automatic claims.
5. It is necessary to continue in this field of service an agency of flexible
program and authorization — which, while wide in scope, is directed to the single
end of serving need of people beset by remediable conditions.
6. There is a shortage of surplus farm labor, but programs leading to better
utilization of farm labor may avert any great disaster to the public welfare on
this point. Many people are too prone to regard the farm labor problem in
simple mathematical terms rather than as a problem to be attacked by a radical
program if there are to be any substantial and enduring adjustments.
7. Farm wages are competing violently with urban standards, and the necessity
of narrowing the gap between them is becoming more evident.
8. Evolution has caught up with plantation paternalism, marked as it was by
absolute dependence of "my hands" on their landlord, and with $10 to $15 a
month labor.
9. As small tenants move off, landlords (discouranged or displeased by the
trend) turn to machinery, to new types of farming or land usage. New produc-
tion quotas seem to accelerate this development in spots.
10. Increase of land sale and rental values are likely to be matters of great
importance.
12042
HUNTSVILLE, ALAV HEARINGS
11. Restoration of wasted, abandoned, and submarginal land must become a
matter of broad programs and national concern.
The Farm Security Administration study referred to above was made on the
basis of questionnaires (see Appendix for copies of questionnaire employed)
directed to the supervisors in charge of county or unit offices in the Rural Rehabili-
tation program to managers of rural planning projects and to managers of reloca-
tion areas. Questionnaires were sent to 248 county or unit (combination of
counties) supervisors in region 5. Responses were obtained from 141 of these,
fortunately so well distributed as to form an accurate guide to conclusions.
Specific Findings
1. Farm abandonment and the land problem reports received from the region's
field offices showed that approximately 7,500 members of borrower families had
found work on defense projects or in private industry which has been stimulated
by defense activities. The number must be approximated, because the move-
ment is fluid and because the questionnaire asked information about all members
of the family, not only the borrower.
Of those who found work, about 4,500 were heads of families, 3,000 were other
members of the farmsteads. The majority went to work on defense projects —
camp construction, munition plants, etc., which could not be expected to endure
or to establish the basis of solid future connections. It was significant that 70
percent of the work involved called for unskilled labor; otherwise it is likely that
most of the small farmers would have been unable to qualify for the employment.
Rural rehabilitation supervisors of the Farm Security Administration reported
that 690 borrowers had abandoned farm and home plans entirely. This is less
than one in 100 borrowers, a proportion which is not sufficient to cause concern in
itself. The reports showed 169 of these in 37 South Carolina counties, 253 in 35
Alabama counties, 253 in 62 Georgia counties, and 15 in 7 Florida counties.1
However, more than half the family heads who went away to work were reported
as having left their farm plans to be maintained by younger members of the
families, a fact which was considered in the majority of cases as likely to have the
effect of decreasing efficiency of operation, or reducing the possibility of winter
cover crops and of preparation for the 1942 crop year. However, it was reported
that most of those who went away to work were sincere in their professions of
desire to return to farming when the windfall of defense employment disappears.
As an illustration of this condition may be cited the South Carolina report, which
showed that of 1,217 family heads going away, 565 left the farm work to others in
their households in the 37 counties reporting.
MIGRATION AND OFF-FARM EMPLOYMENT
The impact of the national defense program on farm security activities is of
paramount interest. The National Rehabilitation Activities Report for Septem-
ber shows that in this region (region 5) the highest percentage of non-Farm
Security Administration families in the Nation moved from farms to villages,
towns or cities during the months of June, July, and August. On the other hand,
in region 5, the lowest percentage of standard Farm Security Administration
borrowers moved to urban areas during the same period.
Let us examine the migration and off -farm employment situation for this region
by States, the data summarized for months of April through October 1941. Less
than five-tenths of 1 percent of our standard borrowers in the region moved from
their farm to urban areas during this period. Alabama with fifty-three hundredths
of 1 percent was highest, with [thirty-four hundredths of 1 percent for South
Carolina as the lowest. (See table A.)
Table A. — Farm Security Administration borrowers that moved to villages, towns, or
cities, April through October 1941
Region and States
Average
case load
Number
moved
Percent
moved
Number
paid-up
Percent
paid-up
Region
98, 244
465
0.473
46
9.89
37, 607
13,435
31,512
15, 630
201
68
143
53
.534
.506
.454
.339
20
6
13
7
9.95
Florida
8.82
9.09
13.20
i The response from Florida was smaller than elsewhere, which is not important in view of the fact that
defense construction has been less in this State than elsewhere in the region.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12043
Over one and five-tenths families per hundred reported of non-Farm Security
Administration borrowers living on farms adjoining farms of Farm Security
Administration borrowers moved to urban areas. This was also highest in
Alabama with over two and four-tenths per hundred reporting. (See table B:)
Table B. — Number of occupants of farms adjoining Farm Security Administration
borrowers that moved to villages, towns, or cities, April through October 1941
Region and States
Number
of farms
reported
Number
moving
Percent
moved
18, 590
282
1.51
3,770
3,040
8,990
2,770
91
28
140
23
2.41
Florida..
.92
1.56
.83
Table C. — Borrower families with 1 or more members moving to villages, towns, or
cities, and borrower families with 1 or more members obtaining off-farm employment,
period, April through October 1941
Region and States
Number
reporting
Moving to towns
Obtaining off-farm
employment
Number
moved
Percent
Number
Percent
170,613
2,014
1.2
20,672
12.1
65, 163
15, 405
51, 608
38, 437
854
170
635
355
1.3
1.1
1.2
.9
6,238
1,604
6,341
6,489
9.5
10.4
12.2
16.8
Borrower families with one or more members migrating to town is shown in
table C. One and two-tenths per hundred families for the region with one and
three-tenths in Alabama and only nine-tenths of 1 percent in South Carolina.
Twelve and one-tenth families per hundred visited by county supervisors
reported one or more members of the family obtaining employment off the farm
keeping their residence with the farm family.
Sixteen and eight-tenths of each hundred families in South Carolina reported
one or more family members employed off the farm but residing with the farm
family (see table C) .
FARM AND HOME PLANS COMPLETED AND LOAN DOCKETS SUBMITTED TO REGIONAL
OFFICE
Table 4 of this report gives the number of plans completed with new and old
borrowers and also dockets submitted on new and old borrowers, by States and
districts. Is the progress of this planning work moving ahead of last season?
Cumulative figures will be attached to the- monthly report for November.
RECLASSIFICATION OF CASE LOAD
Table 2 of this report gives the status of the classification of the case loads by
districts. You will note an increase in nonstandard cases due to transfer of
Corporation only cases from standard to nonstandard classification. Regional
report No. 5 to be released about November 25 will also show the number classified
into the collection only group.
Another section of the questionnaire opened up a wide range of problems.
Seeking information on sale and rental prices of land under the new impacts, it
ran head-on into the entire land problem, which is a thing of many elements. The
findings revealed the need of programs far broader than anything yet undertaken.
Generally noted was a tendency toward increase of market price of land and rentals.
While not universally so, the burden of observation and experience was that
12044 HUNTS VILLE, ALAV HEARINGS
farm rents already had increased materially and were going up. Several reported
increases of 25 to 50 percent. This seems to be a natural result of a situation into
which has entered the factors of parity, guaranteed prices for many products,
general increase of prices and costs, new production goals which encourage crops
for which hitherto there have been limits (for example, peanuts), the pressure of
public land-acquisition programs, and increasing demand for land.
Nobody is particularly to blame for this inflationary land movement. The
position of the landowner himself in the Southeast has been for years generally
none too secure. For years he had seen, what with one circumstance or another,
the value of his land dwindling; and now that forces are in play which open a
prospect of better returns, either natural or artificial, his inclination is obvious.
IMPACTS ON SYSTEM
Rise in prices of land, rentals, and farm commodity prices has resulted in changes
in farm tenure arrangements. For one, the cash- rent system may be reduced as
to the small farmer (although this observation is to be qualified, as explained in
footnote1). As one county supervisor put it, "Why should the landlord take
$100 in cash when he may sharecrop and get $150?" 1 For another, there was a
burden of opinion that the accumulating success of such efforts as those of the
Farm Security Administration to improve the terms of leases (a 10-year lease
was set as the goal last spring) may be halted, more or less temporarily. Being
aware of present and impending changes in the agricultural economy, landowners
have become increasingly loath to rent land on long-term leases; on the other hand,
tenants are reluctant to be bound until they see which way the tide will turn.
However, a strong minority of landowners feels that with labor becoming scarcer
and with farm machinery probably becoming more difficult to obtain, it is advis-
able to seek security through dependable leases, particularly since Farm Security
Administration (in effect) is in the deal.
Some expressed fear that, if the trend continued, the tenant-purchase program
may be effected, because of statutory limits on land purchases of the Farm Se-
curity Administration. This brings up the question of feasibility and of the
wisdom of rigid limits of this sort.
However, these considerations seem less significant as to long-range programs
than another which was revealed in answers to the questionnaire. With rare
exceptions the county supervisors reported a difficulty in getting good land for
Farm Security Administration borrowers — a difficulty which is not the result of
immediate circumstances, but of old conditions. Estimates indicate that as many
as 200 applications for Farm Security Administration assistance had to be rejected
in the last few years because suitable land was not available.
This may have been due to any one of a number of circumstances. The appli-
cant may have come along too late in the year, at a time when all good land was
spoken for. Or, as is certainly the case here and there, landowners may resist
the program, particularly when borrowers are wage hands who want to improve
their status and become independent operators. Such landowners maintain that
this reduces the necessary labor supply. Another possible factor in the apparent
scarcity of suitable land is the client's own personal or economic limitation in
trading for a location, a result probably of his long adverse experiences.
But by and large, it appears that there is actually a deficiency of good land,
and that this is a matter of paramount concern in connection with any program
which seeks to establish security on the land, to end the steady decimation of a
secure and independent rural population, and to maintain a national balance free
of haphazard and hopeless migrations and conflicts.
When to this prevailing condition is added to new trends toward larger owner-
ship, toward greater use of machines as accustomed labor supply dwindles and
as more and more landowners forswear accustomed methods of operation, it is
plain that the inevitable problem of adjusting man to land after this extraordinary
period becomes more impelling. Whither may the thousands turn for opportunity
on the land?
It appears that there exists a national, social obligation to undertake a program
of rehabilitation and reclamation of the land— a program to be pressed on a large
regional or national basis, rather than through wasteful and inapt efforts of single
individuals. Such a plan undoubtedly calls for public subsidies and, indeed, it
1 One change which is to be feared is increase in rent, in cases where the landlord prefers to retain the cash
rent svstcm. Rising farm prices and the prospect of larger returns from the land are conducive to demand
for higher rent. In case of the low-income farmer, who is benefited less than his substantial neighbor by such
devices as parity and higher prices, this may hold a menace, as making it less possible for him to get desirable
land at a price he can afford to pay out of his small operations.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12045
seems logical. The small farmer, certainly in the Southeast, requiring the utmost
of his few acres to make a living, is unable to afford rotation, rest, or unproductive
resuscitation of his land. If he borrows money, even from the Farm Security
Administration he is supposed to live on his land and to repay his obligation.
What is the alternative to his plight? What are the alternatives if we deny him
participation in a program because available land is unsuitable now, although it
might serve him fruitfully in the future?
For answers we quote the responses of county supervisors to inquiries on this
point. Said one:
"I feel that worn-out, steep, submarginal land may be reclaimed if some satis-
factory arrangements could be worked out to cover the first 3 years of unpro-
ductive return. * * * I would like to take two families, amortize loans over
sufficient period with no payment for the first 5 years' and give it a try."
Another: "About half the county is at the present time of low earning power;
too low to pay off a debt and permit the family to live. Most of this land could
be made productive by soil building. In my opinion the soil-conservation
program is building back some of this land, but should it become necessary in the
future for many additional families to go back on the land, I think this could be
accomplished only by greatly increased governmental subsidies for soil building
and for buildings and repairs."
Here is something to note. Here stands out in bright light the prospect of a
great task of national scope that may well be the core of a program of recon-
struction and social implementation after the war, if not to be affected imme-
diately.
Secondary Displacement
The questionnaire also included this query: "Have you any examples of poorer
families being displaced as others, moving from defense areas, obtain land for a
new start?"
This question was posed in accord with the announced interest of this con-
gressional committee in the matter of "secondary displacement." On this point,
answers from the field, unfortunately were disappointing. It must be pointed out,
however, although a related condition is seen in the report, previously described,
that many applicants for assistance through the regular Farm Security Adminis-
tration program could not be accepted because good land was not available.
Generally speaking the information at this stage cannot be altogether statistical.
In large part, it is qualitative, circumstantial, and personal. The most adequate
data concerning the problem of secondary farm displacement are in the section of
this report devoted to the case histories of men and women whose lives have been
touched not only by the new but also by the historic forces converging upon the
land and its dwellers.
This mass of testimony shows clearly the impact of conditions and events upon
human lives. These stories are of bewildered tenants and wage hands torn loose
from their moorings of dependence on landlords and employers, of workers now
perforce on industrial pay rolls who yet tell of a yearning to go back to the land
from which they were forced, of women and men restive in trailer camps and fur-
nished rooms, thinking of space that once they knew. Many are without hope
of realizing their dreams, others feel they would not return to land thin and
cramped, now that dollars jingle, however briefly, in their pockets.
We submit that the evidence of "secondary displacement" is there, and that in
the appendix of this report are illuminating revelations, dependable and accurate.
Farm Labor Supply
Long before the defense program bore down upon the rural Southeast, there
were complaints of labor shortage. The outcry was raised in the 1920's of the
great migration from the deep South. The villain of the story has taken various
shapes: the boll weevil, the Work Projects Administration and other public wel-
fare programs which have been progressively developed to help the groups in
America so long condemned to low standards. Now it is "defense."
There is much to be said about farm labor in the Southeast, and much to be
suggested as to programs of development.
The farm labor problem in this region should be regarded in the light of two
general needed developments:
1. Proper utilization.
2. Improvement of conditions of work and living, which includes status, secur-
ity, and reward beyond and inadequate day-by-day wage.
12046
HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
As to the first, many evils of the so-called labor problem are inherent in the
historic system of farming in this region. A vast potential supply of labor is
unused because under the old "10-and-20" system — 10 acres of cotton, 20 of
corn — there is no call upon two-thirds of the working capacity of the farmer. A
tradition of idleness has grown up that is devastating as to human, social and
economic values.
The Farm Security Administration has undertaken to vary and to enrich the
farming programs of its borrowers. Indeed, this has been the aim of every in-
telligent agency, public and private, at work in the field of southern agriculture.
The question should not be dismissed without a glance at results of a study
conducted in region 5, showing the comparative utilization of labor under (a) the
historic system, which utilizes only 198 man-days of labor out of 565.3 per year
available in the average small farm family, (b) a modified system (cotton slightly
reduced, a partial subsistence program added), which utilizes 276 man-days of
the 565.3, (c) a well-developed system of complete subsistence combined with
cash crops, which makes possible utilization of 435 man-days.
Incidental values of the rounded subsistence and cash-crop program are shown
in the fact that, besides providing a better living, it brings income in every month
of the year, while the old system brings income in only a single month of the
cotton harvest, making necessary borrowings and credit, with resultant further
dimunition of the meager returns.
Summary of the study and illustrative charts are given below, showing that
not only exploitation and neglect but also poor utilization are problems to be
solved:
HOW MUCH OF THE LABOR AVAILABLE IN THE FARM SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
FAMILIES IS USED EACH MONTH OF THE YEAR?
As additional crops and livestock are added to farm plans, the available family
labor is used more efficiently. According to recent studies by the Bureau of
Agricultural Economics, the average farm family, not using hired labor, has an
average of 4.3 workers, or 3.6 man-equivalent workers per family. This figure is
arrived at by simple average of the number of persons per family by sex in each
class, considering the time that youngsters of school age are ordinarily not in
school. Considering weather conditions and various seasons of the year, this
family could work a maximum of about 565 man-workdays of 10 hours each day
on all commercial and subsistence crops and the care of subsistence livestock, as
follows:
Month
Days
suitable
for field
work
Man-days
available for
working crops
and care of
livestock by
average family
Man-days labor required for
three selected farm plans
Plan
No. 1
Plan
No. 2
Plan
No. 3
5.2
6.9
10.9
15.0
17.7
19.2
20.5
20.7
20.2
19.0
14.3
7.8
17.3
21.3
30.7
40.3
59.6
73.4
78.0
72.1
57.6
52.9
38.7
23.4
6
10
22
28
32
30
8
4
17
24
13
4
4
6
24
46
46
34
4
28
40
30
10
4
20
32
46
April
48
48
45
July .
18
40
48
48
28
14
Total
177.4
565.3
198
276
435
Can families provide themselves with productive work on the farm during what
are ordinarily, under a one-crop farming system, considered "slack" labor seasons?
This appears to be an even more important factor to consider in farm and home
planning now that the defense program is drawing members of many Farm Security
Administration families for off -farm industrial employment and military training.
Improvement in methods of utilizing labor might well be recommended to large
producers as well as to the individual small farmer. It is urged that seasonal peaks
and emergencies might be diminishea, certainly in the Florida truck areas, by more
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12047
extended schedules of planting so that maturity of crops will not come all at once
to create a mad bidding for labor to be used in a brief concentrated period and then
dismissed.
However, there remains the great problem of farm labor seen in light of employ-
ment standards and customs, as well as of utilization.
Our questionnaire asked: Is it a real shortage? Is it a shortage merely of surplus
labor (which obviously works to the benefit of the employer in any field of
activity)? Is it a shortage which might be overcome if better wages and more
security on the job were offered?
Significant was the number of responses (the majority) to the effect that the
shortage was one of surplus labor. Significant, too, was the affirmative answer
to the last question: Could the trouble be mended with better pay and more
security? (Note.— Most of the responses to questionnaires were made before
America's active participation in the war.)
However, the deponents usually hastened to point out that rural employers
in this region could not afford to pay more, that returns from farming under the
historic economy did not justify or, indeed, allow more than the conventional
$10 to $15 monthly contract wage, the 40-cent to $1 daily wage under temporary
arrangements.
Perhaps this is true. Perhaps the resentment of employers at having to pay
occasionally $1.25 to $1.50 per day because of crop emergency is understandable.
At any rate, it but points to the fact that improvement in the condition of "farm
labor" implies, as one great necessity, improvement in the total structure of agri-
culture in this region, in its stability, completeness, self-containment. In the
Southeast, at least, the labor problem is part of the general agricultural problem —
including, as we have shown, the type of farming.
What is "farm labor"? Is it an integral part of the agricultural economy and
organization for the farm and the region? Or is it an undefined and impersonal
factor, hardly to be regarded in human image, to be utilized a few months of the
year for planting, cultivating, and harvesting, then callously abandoned to subsist
as best it may through the more numerous months of inactivity?
Will there ever be a solution of the "farm labor" problem until the rural wage
worker is (1) invested with a status, respectable and responsible, (2) given a secu-
rity for 12 months' living, whether a wage hand or a land owner, (3) assured of
occupation whether upon a plot for his own subsistence or on "public works"
(housing construction, a reclamation program, rural industry, projects allied with
forestry and utilization of forest projects, etc.), (4) included in a social-welfare
program, (5) embraced in a broader and more definitive employment service,
(6) given a place to live and conditions under which living is tolerable, (7) in
case of the migratory worker, given safe and adequate means of shelter, trans-
portation, freedom from physical and moral contaminations?
In short, they must acquire all the rights and the responsibilities now largely
possessed by other wage workers before they may be relied upon as an adequate
labor force in agriculture.
It seems that this problem reveals the necessity of legislation, of planning, of
continued service through agencies designed to improve the condition of the inse-
cure humblest in the scale. Farm labor in the Southeast has always been insecure.
Lately it has become unstable to a progressively larger degree because only lately
has it caught a glimpse of alternatives to its condition. Whether this glimpse
strikes upon reality or upon a mirage, we should not say here; the fact remains
that it includes vistas which in the past generations were not discernible, and
which when they appeared brought allurements not to be withstood. And so at
last insecurity has borne the inevitable fruit of undependability and irresponsi-
bility.
Conclusions
Interesting were other observations described in responses to our questionnaire,
among them the following:
1. The families or family heads who moved from farms or who found work and
left the "young 'uns" behind to carry on with the farm and home plans are rarely
the best clients. They range in rough classification from "average" to "worst,"
with more of the latter.
2. Rare was the supervisor who expected the increased earning of Farm
Security Administration borrowers from defense projects or private industry to
be saved for farm operations, for debt payment or for a rainy day. More than
90 percent of the supervisors reporting said the windfall money is being spent as
fast as it is received — for second-hand automobiles, radios, luxury foods, or just
12048 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
plain living. There is a clear explanation for this — they have had so little, have
developed so many desires. For another thing, the increased cost of living when
they move to town, or when they have to travel a long distance back and forth,
or when they neglect home food production and must turn to store-bought food,
takes a large part of their new income. However, some hope was expressed that
after the first flush of new prosperity there would be better practices.
3. Whether it was wishful thinking or not, most supervisors said they believed
the borrowers who went away to find work were sincere in saying they wanted to
go back to farming. At any rate, it was suggested that loans based on agreements
to provide own living should be made, if there was a chance of holding the families
on the farms. It is interesting that many supervisors said they encouraged the
family heads to take the outside work, hoping that at least some of the extra
money would go into debt payment and improvement of standards.
4. Reports varied as to more or fewer loan applications. This seems to depend
on location, proximity of works projects, quality of land, and permanence of the
employment enterprises. Generally the hope was expressed that the families back
home would carry on subsistence programs, and thus hold the land pending the
return of the wage earner to farming.
A Program for Living
It must be obvious from all which has been stated that the stronger is built a
condition of independence and self-sufficiency, the greater will be security of
existence in the Southeast — for farmers small and large, for farm laborers, for the
general social and economic structure which must be protected from the impact of
dispossessed, restless, impoverished, and unskilled masses creating a core of
instability for all standards.
Results of the Department of Agriculture's recent effort to this end give evidence
that the desired condition can be created. The part of the Farm Security Ad-
ministration particularly has brought results encouraging for the future.
It has grown to be a habit in the South to dismiss from any calculations of civic,
social, and economic responsibility that broad segment of people, white and black,
comprising the "ragged-edge" patch farmers and laborers. These have been
regarded, too long and by too many of us, as irresponsible and beyond
rehabilitation.
However, these people, the borrowers and clients of Farm Security, have come
forward in the last 6 or 8 months of the Nation's emergency to show a potentiality
of redemption and independence, a sense of loyalty and a latent energy that
renews faith in the American stock — and demonstrates the value of guidance and
assistance; in other words, the value of a definite program instead of laissez faire
and letting nature take its course.
The failure of the average small southern farmer to provide an adequate home
living for himself and his family is an old story. It is the outcome of the tradi-
tional type of farming. It has involved the necessity of buying food — many a
time on'credit, with its additional high cost, because there is no cash — or of doing
without. It resulted in a reduction of living standards, of outlook, and of health.
About 9 months ago the word went out that more food must be produced.
The Department of Agriculture pointed out that we must feed our allies overseas,
overcoming the enemy blockade; that we must produce more food for use of sol-
diers and the enlarged industrial army; that we must produce more food for build-
ing a stronger Nation generally, overcoming the handicaps of poor nutrition
against which low-income families have labored and which were reflected in the
alarmingly high percentage of men rejected for military service.
The Farm Security Administration in region 5, along with other agencies of
the Department, accepted this commission. It launched last May a food for
defense campaign, designed to reach thousands of low-income farmers who
previously had little or no tradition of food production on an adequate scale.
A total of $4,610,710.23 was lent to 52,649 families, embracing approximately
300,000 persons— an average of $87.57 per family — to start operations by acquiring
chickens, cows, and hogs, livestock, equipment for their care and feed to carry
them along. Now, home production of food has been preached for generations,
but we all know how far short the South has fallen from satisfactory response —
how money equivalent of the cotton crop has been spent outside its borders for
food. The region has been inhibited, in this respect, by many things, including
tradition, habit and necessity.
Could these inhibitions be overcome, we feel that the food for defense pro-
gram, and its larger development, the food for freedom program, have proved
that they can and are being overcome.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12049
Two new incentives were provided — two incentives never before available to
the low-income farmer. One was the spur of appeal to help the Nation in an
emergency. The other was the offer of practical assistance.
Each family was asked to add 50 baby chicks to its flock and to take in addition
one of three alternatives: Two more milk cows, one brood sow, or 50 more chicks.
As to the chickens, the 52,649 families asked for and got 5,000,000 baby chicks
in May. Because of indifference, custom, difficulty of marketing, etc., many
thousands of these families had no experience with chickens as source of income.
Most of them — and, we confess, some of us also — were dubious about the hardi-
ness and chance of existence of "May chicks."
However, more than 85 percent of the chicks were raised, because the borrowers
got good stock, were given the means to get good equipment and feed, were
taught how to use brooders and were carefully directed otherwise. In course of
several weeks, time came to cull the flocks, to save pullets for egg production.
Cockerels to the number of nearly 1,800,000 were sold as fryers, the little farmer
learning about advantages of group selling in reaching large markets and keening
prices stable. No longer was it necessary for the little fellow to go through the
discouraging experience of carrying a handful of chickens to town and there
trying vainly to compete with organized markets. The sale of fryers brought an
aggregate of $750,000 — cash income they never had before. The pullets remained
as a permanent investment for eggs and larger flocks. And, the most important
thing, most of the families asked to turn the new income back into more chickens.
The same sort of experience followed investment of food for defense loans in
20,000 milk cows and 20,000 brood sows.
Today, with food production goals increased beyond anything contemplated
last summer, the borrowers of Farm Security already are launched substantially
in the greater national effort, sustained by profitable experience and new incen-
tives.
They are taking in stride the new goals; and today, with the pullets laying, with
milk production and pork production increased, there are to be seen in this region
commercial egg routes and milk routes going to the small farms to collect the
products of the new venture. It is estimated that a daily income of $20,000 to
$25,000 has been added to the cash available to Farm Security borrowers — and it
has been proved that rehabilitation can be accomplished when it is sought in the
spirit as well as the physical substance — that a program will work, and that food
can be produced on the small farm to profit and benefit.
The end result of this program is better living, aside from cash profit. How
the increased food production and the proper instruction in its use will work to
improve the health of the small producer — for his first aim is to feed himself,
before going to market with his surplus — may be seen in the results of a study
which showed that the proportion of men rejected for the draft in Farm Security
families was 33 percent lower than the total percentage in the area. This is
evidence of the value of organized programs of better subsistence.
As Seen From the Field
For illustration of all these points, there follows a number of incidental and
illustrative quotations from the supervisors' reports. Conflicting opinions are
given on some points, but this fact adds to the vitality of the debate and at the
same time shows the variety of conditions and complexity of the problem.
ALABAMA
Cleburne County. — Personal contact (where possible) may have more effect in
getting the men working away from home to return to their homes and farming.
Following a good subsistence farming program will be a hard problem to get
defense workers to follow. If working on defense projects, a loan for farming
operations might be made with the family taking care of their cash living. Very
few families will save money to help them with their farm operations after the war.
The majority live from day to day and do not seem to think of what will happen
tomorrow. Interest in selling land at this time is overpowering that of "tying
the land down." This is the main thing being evidenced in our efforts to obtain
10-year leases in Cleburne County.
Sumter County. — We are not making any loan unless the family has labor enough
to continue, then the amount loaned for farm operating expense is reduced and is
taken care of by members working away. If the man is working away from home
there is very little work he will do at home other than that which seems necessary,
60396— 42— pt. 32 8
12050 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
such as planting and cultivation. He does not have time for other things. In
most cases they will pay enough to hold on to land. The better more industrious
young families are leaving and I am afraid if they get a taste of big money they
will stay away from the dilapidated conditions they have known until they have
to come back. Tenure improvements, land improvements, and building improve-
ments are badly needed to make farming for these families more attractive.
Montgomery County. — We should attempt to get long-term leases for county at
large; improve homes and outbuildings; better water supply and sanitary sur-
roundings; screen homes; follow Agricultural Adjustment Administration pro-
gram in all places.
Dale County .—Make smaller loans due to increased income from outside sources,
increased farm prices, better crops and more subsistence food made. There is a
shortage of good farming land in Dale County and if the proposed Army camp is
located, there will be approximately 275 to 300 families who will have to be re-
located and a large percentage of these will have to be transferred to other counties.
The farmers who have found outside employment on defense projects and private
enterprises have not abandoned their farms and farm work. It is only tempo-
rary employment and they will return to their farms in the next 2 months to re-
sume farming operations for another year.
Tallapoosa County. — If families are willing and want to do subsistence farming
we plan to leave chattels. We would make no loans. We are expecting this to
seriously jeopardize our tenure program both from the tenant and from the
landlord's standpoint. Conditions at present are so uncertain that both tenant
and landlord are not willing to enter into long-time agreement.
Mobile County. — Families will not save money to finance farming operations
after the war, except with few exceptions. Some will buy a few bonds. Most of
their earnings will be absorbed for better living and more or less extravagant
spending. Close and careful supervision may result in wiser use of money and
more savings. New conditions will almost nullify our new 10-year improvement
lease program in this county. I suggest small loans, supporting necessary food
production as well as ample feed production for increased production of poultry
and livestock products.
Etowah County. — * * * Not so much the loss of labor, but the increased
amount of tenants and landowners doing a part-time farming is the reason for
family type farms being broken up into small tracts * * * living on land
that would be considered submarginal if it was put to proper use. Such things
as this can be corrected only when we are able to get the folks better tied to the
land they are going to work and make them see where they can profit by building
up this land * * * Where a man is working out we do not expect to make him
any loan for cash living expenses, but in some cases will have to make loans for
farm operating expenses, especially fertilizer * * * I believe that subsistence
crops will suffer most * * * In most cases the family will not save money to
finance their farming operations after the war. They are spending their income
about as fast as they receive it at the present time. It is much harder to get a
part-time farmer to improve the land and pasture than it is a fellow that is not
doing anything except farming * * * I believe new conditions will have
considerable effect on our tenure program, as I have already found that landlords
are rather unsettled and undecided about future conditions and, therefore, do
not wish to tie their land up in a long-time lease. Tenants are also more un-
settled and are not overanxious to borrow money to put on another place and
expect to be tied to this place for at least 10 years.
Butler County. — I feel that the new. conditions will tend to bring about shorter-
term leases and fewer improvements to houses and outbuildings by landlords.
In my opinion, generally there will be less desire for land improvement and develop-
ment on the part of landowners.
St. Clair County. — * * * When emergency defense work stops we expect
workers to flood back to the farm and make land hard to get. Many landlords
resent tenants doing much work off the farm and if rent is not very good, will
cancel lease. We have been approached a good many times by farmers who
wanted to borrow only a small amount of money for the purchase of cows and
chickens. Production credit is unable to furnish very small loans and Farm
Security Administration cannot finance them and take a second lien on the crop.
If we could in some way be enabled to make these loans from $20 to $100 without
writing the entire farm plan for these farmers we could boost farm production.
Chilton County. — Defense workers are purchasing automobiles, paying old debts,
and spending for recreation.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12051
The share rent will become more popular as the price of farm commodities rise.
Good land will be easier to secure due to the fact that lots of farmers will be gone
to public works.
Conecuh County.— A client leaves his farm and goes to Mobile to accept employ-
ment, leaving his wife and children in charge of the farm. The wife and children
cannot manage the farm as it should be and thus low yield and unprofitable
operation results.
Clay County. — Owners are changing over to crops that do not require so much
labor. An example of these crops is more oats, wheat, corn, etc., to replace the
cotton crop. They are also raising more livestock.
Coffee County.- — We doubt if these families generally will save enough money to
pay their Farm Secutity Administration obligations to finance them after the
emergency. Most of those leaving, however, are in good position so far as the
Farm Security Administration debt is concerned, the majority having paid up.
We would suggest no loans to any family whose head may be away working at
defense or private industries, with possible exception of fertilizers * * * our
idea to demand them to live on funds from employment in defense or private
industries.
Calhoun County. — The effect of this employment on the financial conditions of
a family is that it is increasing their standard of living at the present time. They
are "living up" their incomes and there will be need of Farm Security Administra-
tion assistance as soon as work is over. The effect new conditions are tending
to have on tenure program is to reduce the number of tenants and increase the
number of farm laborers. For example, large landowners are having to turn to
use of more farm machinery and to livestock in order to replace the present short-
age of labor. They will have too much invested in this machinery and livestock
to quit it when increase work is over and labor returns to farms. Therefore, he
will only hire these laborers during rush seasons.
Talladega County. — Landlords attitude toward tenants is not very good as lots
of tenants have left the farm and secured defense jobs and landlords received very
little in return.
Fayette County. — Having to operate farm, will necessitate older children having
to lose a lot of needed time at school * * * real shortage of labor in county,
resulting in more labor-saving farm machinery being used next year * * *
evidenced by buying some now. We feel there will be little necessity for following
up families as majority of them have already planned to return to farms and make
a crop next year. Land development and improvement is at a higher stage now
than ever before. * * *
Covington County. — Younger members of family do not take very much interest
in farm operations. School attendance will decrease due to fact that mother will
keep children home to help carry on farm operations.. There is a real shotage of
labor * * * Landlord will be willing to give more long-time leases than ever
before * * * great opportunity to improve tenure * * * a great deal
of expense and loss of time will exist when client returns to farm as well as a small
chance of locating a farm.
Tuscaloosa County. — The number of applications is not more than half the num-
ber to this date each of the 2 past years. Causes are defense industries and more
liberal local finance resulting from better prices. Amount of loans will decrease
because of better prices. Food for defense program is expected to reduce cost of
cash expense for living needed formerly in loans and/or grants.
Loivndes County.— In 1940 the Farm Security was assisting 18 tenant farmers
on one large tract of land. A greater portion of this farm had been changed to
livestock farming the latter part of 1939. In December and January of 1940 and
1941 a number of these tenants were told by the landlord to move as he was going
to need the land they were farming for livestock. The most of them moved with
the exception of 3 families. Five of those that moved from this farm voluntarily
liquidated all chattels as they had no desire to farm elsewhere, because they had
lived on this farm all their lives. Four moved to an adjoining county and we have
been informed that they are most unhappy and dissatisfied in their new surround-
ings. Two abandoned their farm and chattels to get jobs on defense projects.
The remaining 4 moved to other farms in the vicinity. We do not believe many of
these tenants would have continued with this landlord anyway as he showed no
consideration or interest in them other than collecting rents. In November 1941
we had another tenant to leave as this landlord had taken his choice corn and hay
lands for pasture. At present we have only 2 of the original 18 clients on this
farm and these 2 have advised us they are planning to obtain farms elsewhere.
12052 HTJNTSVILLE, ALAV HEARINGS
Hillsborough County. — One reason for the shortage of migrant labor in this
section is the lack of adequate housing. In the past many families lived in tents,
but we understand this practice has been stopped * * *. We believe effort
should be made to establish migrant camps here. * * *. Many of the farmers
who have gone to outside employment did so solely because they felt they could
make more money. They are really farmers, and if farming could be made
profitable, then those- in outside employment would quickly return to farming
* * *. We have always had trouble getting long time leases * * * more
trouble now than in the past.
Madison County. — New conditions will make it difficult to obtain long-term
leases and landlords will not make improvements, and rent will be advanced.
Suggest that clients working away from farm be asked to execute a renewal note,
and that amount due for the coming year be collected when crops are sold, or
some disposition made of the account, either by repossession or by some other
means that will force client to make his full payment and thus keep his account
current as long as he continues to work away.
Orange County. — Clients in this area have gone to defense projects * * *
believe 90 percent will return * * * I do not anticipate any change nor do I
anticipate any need for change in Federal Security Administration program
* * *. In practically all cases we are planning to increase production by slightly
more acreage^where possible.
GEORGIA
Barley County. — It is a definite fact that if these projects continue up into the
coming farming year that it will affect farming conditions in this county in that
there will be less farming going on although I think the majority of the people
that are working there that are on farms will make some arrangements for the
farm work to be carried on, although it probably will be less efficient in some
cases. There probably will be several who quit farming * * * will come
back when this work is over.
Brantley County.— On the average these families will not save much for future
farming operations, but are buying clothes and household goods. It seems that
most of the people realize that present conditions are temporary and as soon as
war is over tenure will be normal. At present, rent is higher and many landlords
complain that they hesitate to rent on shares because they have no assurance
that renter will not leave home for a public works job.
Harris and Talbot Counties. — Due to short crops for several years and lack of
income, houses are going down and land going up. After the defense work and
high salary jobs are cut out, it is going to be a lot of trouble for this shiftless labor
group to find suitable housing, etc., on farms as they have in the past.
Hart County. — With reference to farm families on Farm Security Administration
program with the head of family working away from home, I suggest that we work
out a plan with the family with all farm and home operations being financed from
money he will get from defense project or private industry. I think we should do
everything possible to try to carry on these farm and home operations and should
not be too hasty in recommending repossession. If this is done we will be that
far ahead of the game when he will finally be our responsibility again. These
families will follow a good subsistence program with close supervision. Majority
will not save money. Some will improve land and pasture, but majority will
neglect this. Due to shortage in housing facilities and increased prices in rents
it is my belief that most of these will pay enough rent to cause land owners to
let them hold on the land if and when they return to farming.
Apvling County.— I don't think the defense work has been of but very little
benefit to farm families in this section. The cost of living while they are at work,
union dues, transportation, etc., take up most of their profit. Several have made
statement * * * they would have been as well off at home and looked after
their crops better * * * * land is, and will be, hard to get on long-term lease.
I think this is due to increased prices in farm products and not to defense.
Bleckley and Pulaski Counties. — The head of family leaving home to work on
defense projects or some other industry has necessitated children of school age to
remain at home to help farm operations. Families off farm now — and will be off
in 1942 — will not pay enough rent to the landlord for him to hold the land for them
until they return to farming. These new conditions will make it more difficult to
obtain long term leases and the rental rates will be higher.
Banks County. — As a result of our observations, new conditions from an eco-
nomic standpoint will cause an increase in rent and especially next year it is felt
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12053
that a large percentage of standing rent contracts will be canceled and will call
for higher rents than before.
Carroll County. — Unsettled conditions and the tendency toward inflation make
it exceedingly difficult to rent land for a long period of years.
Chattachoochee County. — It is almost impossible to hold on to families who find
employment at defense work, or at other public employment. With the purchase
of 50,000 acres of farm land for military reservation decreasing the cultivable land
in this section, because of so many new jobs opening up in the vicinity of Colum-
bus, it is next to impossible to find suitable land and houses for farmers. Never-
theless, we are making farm plans with about 50 families in Muscogee County,
and we are including in these farm plans, poultry production, truck farming, and
in several instances, livestock growing. I do not think many, if any, will save
enough money to help them finance farm operations after the war, and I think
that there will be several hundred stranded farm families who know no other
trade who will be left in Columbus and in near vicinity after defense work. These
families will have to be taken care of by some Government agency.
Cherokee County. — In our opinion it will be more difficult to get long-term
leases because landlords will be constantly on the lookout for full-time farmers in
order to get more rent.
Colquitt County. — Considerable land is being purchased by landlords to add to
their holdings and also many tenants who are in better financial condition.
This is taking many of these farms out of range of our program.
Fannin and Gilmer Counties.- — Since men now working on defense programs are
planning to farm next year, we expect to make plans for farming operations as
usual. We do not believe that defense work will materially affect Farm Security
Administration program here.
Fulton County. — I do not think new conditions are helping our tenure program,
as many absent landlords feel they may now have a chance to sell their land. I
had one instance in which the landlord was practically ready to sign a 10-year
lease and admitted it was a good thing but finally refused on grounds that he
might have an opportunity to sell the farm to one of the many city people who
are buying up farms. If greater agricultural production is needed this can be
accomplished only by greater agricultural earnings either by Government sub-
sidies or increased prices.
Heard County. — The new conditions will have a tendency to make our land-
tenure program more difficult.
Lincoln County. — We do not think new conditions will materially change our
tenure program. We think conditions are temporary, farmers on defense jobs
will return to farms in short time, unless conditions change materially.
Paulding County. — We plan, in every case where possible, to work up farm and
home plans and place all cash living expenses under the "We can pay column."
These new conditions may cause some families to hesitate in making long-term
leases. They think they may be able to take advantage of increased employment
opportunities.
Polk County. — The greater majority of clients who have gone to public works
are not true farmers, but have been farming through necessity rather than through
preference. Those who return to farms will return because they will be unable to
find future employment at public works. This type of client is not only making
the poorest repayment record, but are also making the poorest subsistence record.
Rabun County. — The new conditions will naturally improve tenancy, due to fact
that good tenants will be able to secure long-time rental agreements, and bad
tenants will become day laborers on farms, which should be incentive to all
tenants to display an interest in keeping farms in good condition and at sometime
be eligible for leases.
Walton County. — Increased prices have caused landlords to want to work their
own land. This will make it almost impossible to get long leases. Our families
are being influenced also by increased prices. They are wanting to expand their
farming operations far above their ability to work the land or finance the oper-
ations.
Worth County. — New conditions practically demolish tenure program. _ How
can you expect to get farms at $100 rent when the landlord can sharecrop it and
make $150?
Crisp and Dooly Counties. — Money being earned is spent from pay day to pay
day. Under prevailing conditions will be difficult job to obtain long-time leases
* * * Through educational program, try to get families to realize that high
wages at defense projects are only temporary, that they will be better off in long
run if they remain on farm and raise plenty. Also prospects are bright right
12054 HUNTSVILLE, ALAV HEARINGS
now for high income from "money crops" which will be opportunity for many
to pay off what they owe Farm Security Administration and get in position to
carry on operations with their own resources.
Chandler and Evans Counties. — Definite increase in wage scale and shortage of
farm labor * * * Very few of them will save much, if any, money from
outside work * * * New conditions will cause more tractors to be bought
and reduce chance of renting good farms.
Mitchell County. — There are few farms in this county that will not produce
enough cash crops for a living — but could make good living if they were equipped
for livestock raising. These families will not save enough for farming operations
after defense work is over, but most of them are catching up on old debts * * *
present trend of conditions is making shortage of farms for rent and is increasing
price of farms for sale.
Bullock County. — It is the opinion of Farm Security Administration personnel
that these families being employed off from home will have a tendency to decrease
attendance of school children. Due to fact that borrower is not at home the
work he ordinarily does will have to be done by some member of family. * * *
In many cases, this will result in taking older boy out of school. * * * Fam-
ilies being employed on defense projects will have very little bearing on decreasing
the needs for future Farm Security Administration assistance * * * this
increased fluctuating income has a tendency to create a spending standard that
cannot be maintained when these families are forced to return to work on farm.
In many cases they purchase second-hand automobiles (which are liabilities in
most cases), radios and equipment they could do without. Tractors in this
county are going to bring about very acute problem for low-income farm families
as land they have been renting is being taken over by mechanized farming.
* * * We have observed and firmly believe that more down-to-earth, sound
and practical supervision is the future to Farm Security Administration, through
understanding between Farm Security Administration and borrower as to aims
of program. We are sold on long-term lease with improvements to be made
between landlords and tenants. We feel more emphasis should be placed in
livestock. * * * Under present change that is now in force it appears that
tenant farmers will have a harder time in renting land than in past due to mecha-
nized farming.
Barrow County. — New conditions have made it impossible to secure long-term
leases with a flexible clause. This is due mainly because the older landlords still
remember the effect of the last World War on farm products and want to be in a
position to take advantage of every increase in farm products. Then, too, they
expect grain prices to soar within the next year or so. In this event several more
families would be displaced by additional tractors and harvesters. I do not
believe the average family would save money to help finance farm after the war.
Land values have definitely increased * * *. Landlords are definitely try-
ing to raise rent * * *.
Pickens, Peach, and Houston Counties. — We have a shortage of farm labor in
Pickens County, but I think it is a shortage of surplus labor which might be over-
come to a great extent if better wages and more security on the job were offered.
A few employers are willing to pay more if necessary to get workers. I have
observed that farmers generally are realizing the seriousness of the persent crisis
and the need for more food, etc., and therefore are pledging themselves to put
forth a greater effort. Most of these defense jobs are temporary and defense
workers will in time come back to the farm. A fairly large number of these
families will dipose of their farm belongings when leaving the farm. I think
that we as agricultural workers and farmers should pledge ourselves to do the
best and most thorough job we have ever done * * *. Interviews disclosed
that 500 persons are eligible to receive loans but who are not associated with this
program. They agreed that the difficulty of finding farms was the major ob-
stacle * * *. In Peach County in 1930 there were 785 farms, but now only
433, although there is now more land in farms than in 1930 * * * This had
resulted in the dispossession of a great number of tenant farmers and share-
croppers.
SOUTH CAROLINA
Lancaster County. — This county, being situated as it is, has not been affected
with farm to farm movement. It has been affected mostlv by heads of families
commuting day by day to jobs that are available in nearby towns. Therefore,
they have been in touch with farming operations, inasmuch as thev have been at
home at night and on week ends. There will be more difficulty in future in work-
ing out a good tenure program with tenant and landlord.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12055
Charleston County. — We believe our Farm Security Administration clients in
Charleston as a whole are sincere in their intentions to try to increase production
of those items for home consumption and if possible some of those items that
are needed to be increased on food-for-defense program, to be sold. Owing to
the very unfavorable season in 1941 and poor prices of truck some of the heads
or members of client families have secured temporary work to supplement small
farm income. Their intention is to return to farms in time to begin operations
for 1942.
Lexington County. — On account of a number of clients working away from their
farms and leaving farming operations to other members of their families the
general attitude of landlords is to refuse to sign long-time leases.
Saludi County. — (The following comment is interesting and significant, because
the county has a remarkably developed plan of group activities. Does it show
that a proper farm and rehabilitation program is the solution?)
The tenure program in this county will remain about the same as the trend is
for the farmers to stick to their farms. I feel that it is the duty of Farm
Security Administration to impress upon these farmers the importance of sticking
to their farms, of spending their money wisely, also our food-for-defense program.
* * * These topics come up at group meetings. * * * these farmers
feel that the farm furnishes more security to their families.
Greenwood County. — I would suggest that the Government purchase land as a
tenant-security program, improve housing and lease farms to tenants with
options to buy.
Georgetown County. — New conditions make landlords more interested in giving
longer leases to good families. Most of the borrowers in Georgetown County
who are working are employed in pulpwood cutting or as laborers on the con-
struction of a highway. Most are on a temporary basis and have been obtained
with the idea of earning money for subsistence during winter months since crops
were so short during 1941 — no surplus left for winter. Farmers, as a whole, are
deeply conscious of the greater need of food production and security offered by
life on farm. Those who own land or can secure suitable arrangements have no
desire to leave.
McCormick County. — Suggest that if farm prices could be adjusted where young
people would be attracted to the farm instead of away from the farm we would
not have any trouble getting an abundance of farm produce. Also that a good
farmer is a highly specialized producer and should receive for his produce an
income comparing with other specialists.
Chester County. — Believe we are going to have a much better tenure program
in the future, changing from standard rent basis to a share basis. In our group
meetings, and at every opportunity, we are telling these people of the present
conditions and what the future is going to bring to the farmer. When cuts are
made in mill workers the first to feel it are older men and less experienced ones,
therefore the farmer will be out if he does not have a well producing farm to go
back to.
Aiken County. — Increased employment will tend to draw these people away
from the farm at present and after the crisis, there will be a "back to the farm"
movement and no land available. We are exerting every possible effort to show
these families now employed off the farm that it will be to their advantage in
the long run to remain tied to the farm and carry on farming operations more
efficiently than ever before in order that they will be prepared for the readjust-
ments that will have to be made after the war.
Orangeburg County.— Through interrogation and otherwise, we have arrived at
the conclusion that majority of landowners -will be disinclined to enter into long
time lease agreements pending termination of the war, unless certain exceptions
are written in, which exceptions would largely interrupt or prevent full material-
ization of objectives sought after.
Beaufort County. — I have talked to a great number of low-income farmers who
are working on Parris Island, and I have also seen their farms, and I find they
are not planting gardens or subsistence crops as in the past. I have also noticed
increase of second-hand automobiles purchased by many of the defense workers,
and I know many were sold under high-pressure salesmanship. I would like to
suggest that some way be found to make these low-income farmers realize what
will happen after the defense projects are over.
Hampton County. — To build up land, have a payment set up in soil-building
practices for ditching and draining land.
Clarendon County.— It is our opinion that majority of farmers leaving farm to
accept public works jobs will be more in need of Farm Security Administration
12056 HUNTSVILLE, ALAV HEARINGS
assistance when jobs are finished * * * Opinion of prominent landowners
in this county that there will be some increase in farm lands due to advanced
prices in cotton and tobacco. There is an inclination on part of lowest income
families to accept job at public works rather than earn living farming. Judging
from past experience with clients some of lowest of group merely want to use our
program as a stop-gap until they can get some job other than farming. The
client, who is carrying out his farming policies and obligations as he agreed to do,
prefers farming as means of livelihood rather than a public works job. It is our
belief that these families who have quit farming to accept defense jobs will cer-
tainly have to farm when defense work is over. In some communities in this
countty, especially in areas where poor crops here have resulted due to crop dis-
aster, lots of farm laborers are flocking to defense centers. Especially is this true
among colored tenants. In lots of cases landowners cannot compete or offer the
tenant what he can earn at present on defense projects or Work Projects Admin-
istration. We believe if landowner or small farmer has a larger earning capacity
that he would be able and willing to pay better wages and be more secure and
better satisfied than having a job doing public works. Prevailing wage rates vary
in different communities. Price paid to contract hands ranges from $2 to $3 per
week with meal and meat furnished; also certain amount of land is furnished
tenant for 7 months. After the contract is out day laborers are paid anywhere
from 50 cents to $1 a day depending on ability of landowner to pay. In good
many instances the loss .of labor * * * is doing away with lots of family
farm homes. There just isn't enough land to go around for all tenants and when
a farm family leaves the farm there is nothing left to do but for landowner to con-
solidate this farm with his own and farm it with power machinery. Prices re-
ceived by families for agricultural commodities will govern largely the effect of
our present tenure system. When prices are high, there is tendency on part of
large landowners to farm land for themselves and to eliminate small farmers.
Oconee County. — Landlord will demand standing rent * * * land prices
are rising because of speculation. Food and chattels are higher thereby making
loans of a greater amount. Landlords are demanding higher rents because of
higher prices.
Union County. — The effect of client heads leaving the farm for other employ-
ment and letting wives and young members operate same has resulted in farm
failures * * * spend all'funds which they made in the mill and are not in
much better condition than a year ago * * * new conditions will increase
rentals.
Lee County. — The loss of labor is breaking down family-type farm concept to
a certain extent * * * but after defense work is over we expect to see a
back-to-the-farm movement, expecially among younger people, providing prices
are in line with operating expenses.
Neioberry County.— The policy of Farm Security Administration to pay rent out
of first income is having a good effect on landlords since we had a crop failure and
where landlords had to waive rent to people borrowing money from other lend-
ing agencies, the landlords have received no rent this year. Most landlords who
have been working the land with sharecroppers are now making every effort to
hold those croppers in same status for another year, hoping to work out some of
the cropper's debt.
Richland County —Land values have increased 20 percent as evidenced by high-
er rents and higher option prices for farms to be purchased. * * * They wish
to hold on to farm because they feel insecure in their defense jobs, but if their
employment continues at currently prevailing rate, they will stay on the jobs
* * * the tendency * * * of longer leases, is becoming popular as the
difficulty of securing labor increases and the landlords and tenants both see
advantage to them of a long-time lease.
Jasper County. — We have a better chance now, due to world conditions, to get
these low-income farmers to cooperate, "live-at-home," produce more livestock,
etc., than we have ever had as they are anxious to do something for their country
and they have a more receptive attitude toward new farming practices and are
making every effort for the Nation. Therefore, I think it necessary that we
make every effort possible to put our program over with these people now so
that when war is over they will have learned to produce things at home which,
in this county, they have never done before such as poultry, eggs, hogs, milk
wheat for flour, etc., and it is going to be vitally necessary for their health and
maybe existence.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12057
The Impact of National Defense on the Rural Planning and Resettle-
ment Program of the Farm Security Administration
The foregoing discussion has embraced the rural rehabilitation program of the
Farm Security Administration in region 5 — this is, the program of assistance to
individual farmers. Another division of Farm Security Administration activities
is its rural planning or resettlement program, under which rural communities have
been organized with planned, coordinated production and operation at 19 locali-
ties in the four States. These planned communities are providing a means of
studying how best to establish good farmers on good land. Because of their
unified nature, they are building practical research into the fields of cooperative
farming, adult education, rural life improvement, development of new and more
effectual methods of production and marketing, etc. A questionnaire somewhat
similar to that directed to county supervisors went out to the rural-project
managers. Following is a summary of the findings:
1. Generally, dwellers in rural-planning communities seem affected in less de-
gree than individual farmers by the lure of defense employment. This is attrib-
uted to the security created by sound planning and community organization.
2. The departure of family heads to seek outside employment varied in propor-
tion to the proximity of large defense projects. When these projects are close at
hand, more persons leave to seize the windfall of cash wages. For example, 110
family heads were reported as having left A.^hwood Plantation, which is close to
the defense work atSumter and Columbia, S. C, Wilmington, N. C, and Augusta,
Ga. But only 26 family heads went from Piedmont Homesteads and Briar Patch
Farms in north central Georgia, only one from Wolf Creek Farms near Cair, in
south Georgia. In almost every case, other members of the family remained
behind to carry on. The Ashwood report bore this comment:
"Some families have boys large enough to carry on the farm work, but those
who do not have this help, we are trying to get the heads of the families to stay
on the farm at least part of the time. We are contacting them at night and on
Sundays to make farm plans and discuss other business."
3. Like the county supervisors, most of the managers reporting were pessimistic
as to the likelihood that the extra money earned will be saved to pay Farm Security
Administration obligations or to finance operations after the emergency. Dis-
tances to be traveled to the scene of employment require acquisition of automo-
biles; and there is, besides, a tendency to spend money for food, clothing, and
other things for which unsatisfied appetites had been acquired.
Tenant Purchase Program
One of the most hopeful enterprises in agricultural stabilization is the tenant
purchase program under the Bankhead-Jones Act, which is administered by the
Farm Security Administration. In the 4 States, 5,416 landless farmers have been
helped to land ownership and about 2,300 more will be added to this number in
the coming year.
It is noteworthy that the program seems temporarily affected in spots (as to the
number of applications for loans), not affected at all in other locations. The
factor seems to be proximity to cities and large defense sites. The following
observations from region 5's tenant purchase section throws some light on
developments:
"At the Tenant Purchase Appraisal School held in Athens, Ga., in September
last, the question was asked and a canvass was made of all assistant tenant
purchase specialists representing the entire region as to the effect of the war and
economic conditions on land prices. The reports were by no means uniform. It
seems that in the areas where the largest activity has taken place, it is generally
conceded that land prices are higher. On the other hand, we are buying a large
subdivision tract in Georgia not far from Moultrie. We are getting a number
of tracts for subdivision in the Albany area. We are also getting subdivisions
satisfactorily in the other areas of the State. We have been offered tracts in and
near the Spartanburg development. The prices in some instances seem rather
high and in other instances they were about as usual. I believe individual farm
prices have advanced, generally speaking, but I doubt if the larger plantations
have advanced accordingly. Certainly there has been no uniformity. The
12058 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
feeling of vendors generally as to the kind of crop they have on the farms appar-
ently has more to do with it than does the economic situation, and the war industry
and national defense.
"To illustrate, South Carolina where crops are hardest hit appears to be least
affected by increased prices than in Alabama where the prices are poor.
"The tenant purchase program is more seriously affected by increased cost of
construction than any other single factor. Our average is about $200 to $400
more than it was 2 years ago, and our average loans, in our judgment, will run
about $300 to $400 higher than they did for the fiscal year 1940-41. We have
had reports from appraisers that on this account they were having to throw out
good farms that could be purchased economically but they would not support the
building program and the prices therefor, that even now reach $2,500 or more,
for a set of buildings on a tenant purchase farm.
"The defense program in connection with tenant purchase is affecting old
borrowers in the following ways:
"(a) Favorably, in that prices for farm products are higher and they are paying
off their loans and making satisfactory payments under the variable payment
plan in getting ahead of schedule in many instances. This, however, is not by any
means uniformly true on account of the spot crop situation this year, and even
with higher prices, the man who has little or nothing to sell does not profit very
materially from the higher prices. With anything like normal crops, payments
are being made very very favorably, according to reports received from the field.
"(b) A few borrowers are being affected unfavorably in the following ways: A
few borrowers are leaving tenant purchase farms and going to other industries, even
though they had been selected on the basis of desiring most completely to remain
on the farm and pay for it over a long period of time. This is more marked in
the new encumbrances than in the old borrowers.
"The national defense program is affecting old borrowers in this way: In
certain instances farms purchased the first year, and some since the first year, the
oldest son in the family has gone into the Army and maybe more than one son
has gone into the Army, and they find it necessary to have someone to help handle
the farm under these circumstances. There is quite a demand on the part of
certain borrowers affected in this manner, to purchase tractors and specific
requests have been made in some places where this situation seems to be acute.
"This appears to be caused by the farm labor situation apparently brought on
by the national defense program.
* "It is needless to say the land development on these old farms is likewise
affected in that wire fencing and other needed farm tools are not easily obtained.
Bailing wire for hay for tenant purchase farms, of course, has been a problem,
but seems to have been solved lately. On the whole the increased prices that the
tenant purchase borrowers are receiving have certainly increased the old borrowers'
opportunities and made such borrower cognizant of his chance to pay for his
farm or at least get ahead of schedule."
Migration Problems of Farm Families Caused by Government Acquisition
op Farm Land for Defense
The preceding discussion was concerned with the indirect effects of national
defense primarily on Farm Security Administration borrower farm families. The
discuss ion in this section of the report relates to the direct impact of one phase of
the national defense program on certain farm communities and farm families.
The direct displacement of farm families and the resulting relocation problems
created by Government acquisition of farm land are reviewed.
The Department of Agriculture commissioned the Farm Security Administration
to undertake a relocation program for farm families when expanding necessities
of national defense brought about acquisition by the Government of approximately
71u,000 acres of land in the 3 States of Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina.
This land was necessary to expand existing Army posts, to establish new Army
training centers, and to locate defense industry.
The areas in wnich land was acquired by the Army or for defense industries,
with the number of families living in them, and the acreage involved are as follows:
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12059
Number of
families
Alabama:
Fort McClellan, near Anniston
Munitions loading plant— Childersburg
Seibert Arsenal— Huntsville
Basic Flying School— Tuskegee
Georgia:
Camp Stewart— Hinesville
Fort Benning— Columbus.
Camp Gordon— Augusta
Basic Flying Field— Macon
South Carolina:
Santee-Cooper— Moncks Corner
Camp Jackson— Columbia
Camp Croft— Spartanburg
Basic Flying School— Sumter
403
210
492
23
1,500
352
270
(')
36,640
28,000
40.000
3,000
360, 000
40,000
55, 000
3,000
100.000
26, 000
17, 000
3,000
i No survey.
On this land lived, in more or less insecurity, between 4, COO and 4,700 families
comprising some 25,000 persons. An organized plan of relocation was devised —
first, to assist the families to move; second, to help sustain them in the period
between moving and restoration to normal life; third, to help them plan for an even
better existence with higher standards. It was obvious that without this assist-
ance to people ignorant, fearful, and penniless, there would have been havoc in
thousands of cases. It was equally obvious that with this assistance it was possi-
ble to stay a new migration, to tie the displaced thousands to the land with which
alone they are familiar, to save them chaos, to direct them to stability, and to
crystallize methods of doing the job which might serve in other situations easily to
be foreseen in the post-war period. In short, to help these defense migrants
start a new kind of farming in a new way, an end which is of enormous importance
to the small farmer of the Southeast. The program, however, assumes an impor-
tance far beyond the number of people directly affected.
In the process of relocating displaced families who desired to stay on land and
who were unable to make arrangements of their own, the Farm Security Adminis-
tration set up in each of the 3 States a Relocation Corporation.1 The 3 corpora-
tions have acquired or have under option at this writing a total of 128,975 acres of
land as follows:
THE ALABAMA RELOCATION CORPORATION
A total of 1,128 families were displaced by military requirements in Alabama
as of December 1, 1941. The Alabama Relocation Corporation has acquired
34,134 acres of land at the total option consideration of $668,472. The average
per acre cost is $19.20. This land is acquired for relocation purposes of the
families originally displaced and such families residing on the land when acquired,
who desire to remain. This corporation has expended $190,947.72 for construc-
tion (houses, barns, etc.) and $24,442 for land development.
HINESVILLE (GEORGIA) RELOCATION CORPORATION
The new Georgia Army training centers and expansion of existing camps
displaced 2,122 families from the immediate vicinities of the tracts requisitioned.
The Hinesville Relocation Corporation, as of December 1, 1941, has acquired
or optioned 68,994 acres at an option consideration of $819,156, or at an average
cost of $11.87 per acre. These lands are requhed for the 2,122 families originally
displaced from defense areas and some secondary displacements as well as families
residing on the land when acquired who desire to remain. The Georgia Corpora-
tion has spent $556,877 for construction and $47,217 for land development.
PALMETTO FARMS (SOUTH CAROLINA) RELOCATION CORPORATION
This corporation handling the work in South Carolina, assists families from
the Santee-Cooper Power Development, as well as from vacated lands required
for military camps and training purposes. Palmetto Farms Relocation Corpora-
tion, as of December 1, 1941, has acquired or has optioned 25,847 acres at an
option consideration of $439,071. The average land cost per acre is $16.99.
1 In Florida, which also is part of this region, this necessity has not yet arisen.
12060 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
These lands were required to provide 1,401 families from the above listed areas
as well as secondary displacements of families residing on lands purchased.
The corporation has expended $354,820 for construction and $30,780 for land
development.
Land Acquisition
It was obvious that the relocation of displaced families on a sound basis could
be achieved only through acquisition and development of tracts of land suffi-
ciently large and well-disposed to make possible planning and development of
profitable and varied forms of operation. As noted the three relocation corpora-
tions have purchased 128,975 acres of land scattered through the area (see map —
exhibits) .
This land was assembled by purchase of numerous parcels. In the case of
original army land acquisition, many hundreds of small owners, mostly absentee
owners, represented the sellers; on the other hand, old plantation holders and
financial institutions were the sellers when it came to acquiring land for relocation
of the displaced families. For example, in the acquisition of a typical area of
relocation land in Terrell County, Ga., where 17 tracts were bought to make up
11,680 acres, a cotton oil company, a large bank in Atlanta, the Federal land bank,
and life insurance companies were among sellers.
Land purchases by the relocation corporation are made on the old-time basis
of "willing buyer-willing seller." Prices are determined by the use value and the
capacity of the tracts to support not only the families brought in from defense
areas but also those living on the lands who want to remain. While much of the
land acquired came from owners in distress or nearly so, no advantage was taken
of their situation. A fair price was given, based on local conditions, standards,
and use values.
Where crops were standing or involved, owners and tenants were allowed to
complete their operations. Outstanding rental agreements were adjusted and
allowances were made for improvements. The values were established by ap-
praisers who averaged 10 years or more of experience with the Federal land bank or
comparable institutions, plus general experience in this field in connection with
the Farm Security Administration program. This made possible sound purchases
and minimized the paying of inflated prices. Speed in making investigation of
title and payment was a large consideration. Exhibits appended to the report
show a list of land purchases made by the three relocation corporations. Also,
appended are case histories of families displaced by Government acquisition of
the farm land on which they resided.
In selection of land for option the relocation corporations rest on the fertility
of the soils, the capacity of the land to support the necessary number of families,
and the interests of families living on the land at time of purchase or lease. The
relocation corporations were developed with a view of retaining as far as possible
all the features of private operation and ownership. The corporations are of an
emergency character and, as far as the Farm Security Administration is con-
cerned, to a large extent temporary in nature. They are intended to be self-
liquidating, looking to ultimate private ownership of individual farm units.
Corporation surveys the need and estimates the costs in its territory. It obtains
money for relocation work from the Farm Security Administration, which in turn
obtains Reconstruction Finance Corporation funds. This money is held available
for loans. As a tract is obtained and improved, a mortgage is placed on it as
security; the unexpended amount of the loan remains on deposit until it is re-
quired. Every safeguard is provided for the Government's interest.
Until the investment is liquidated, the relocation corporation dissolved, and'a
state of private ownership resumed, the corporation assumes all duties of landlord,
forms cooperative associations, and engages in various enterprises required to
afford a means of proper existence for the families involved. It seeks to reduce or
to avoid secondary displacement of families in the area over which it has control
by considering carefully the needs and desires of families on the land which it
buys. After interview, those families found capable of fitting into the new
economy devised for the lands are retained where they are. Others who may
have qualifications to fit other forms of operation planned or already in effect
elsewhere, are aided to find other locations. It was found, for example, that
on a tract of 11,680 acres acquired for relocation in Terrell County, Ga., 43 of the
88 families living on this land probably will be kept there.
Problems developed at the start. Process of acquiring land for the Army was
smooth and well-ordered in some areas, less well-organized in others, with con-
sequent disturbance and inconvenience or lack of them suffered by tenants and
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12061
owners. In the Childersburg area,1 for example, there have been more than
occasional resort to litigation. There was not settled policy as to payment for
crops which were destroyed or left unharvested when farmers were forced to move
in midsummer. There were numerous cases of slowness in payment, forcing
those who desired to buy land elsewhere to resort to time payments and the
necessity of paying interest when, with their purchase checks in hand, they might
have avoided this charge.
A steady improvement was noted as the program proceeded. A recent memo-
randum of the War Department sets out a careful procedure to be followed to take
care of all claims— those of renters, tenants, and sharecroppers, as well as owners,
as to crops unharvested at the same time. All the delays in payment, however,
are not attributable to the faulty machinery of purchase. Often they were due
to congestion of record rooms in court houses where suddenly it was necessary to
examine an extraordinary number of titles; often, to an inadequate number of
title examiners. Ignorance, suspicion, or resentment of the sellers occasionally
heightened the trouble. It was found now and then that owners, having paid off
mortgages years ago, had not been aware of the necessity of having the record of
debt canceled. Many humble owners are naturally adverse to signing papers,
and sale agreements occasionally were hard to get. Anybody aware of the habits,
temperaments, fears, and congenital suspicions of the uneducated small farmer
will understand how all these factors contributed to difficulties. Naturally, the
task of workers commissioned to do the relocation job was made heavier by all
these considerations, and the immediate necessities of the displaced families were
increased.
Early in the emergency — the latter part of 1940 — it was recognized that there
would be many families requiring help, and preliminary studies were made from
offices set up in the first of the affected areas to learn the extent of the need and
the nature of practical relocation enterprises. Later, when the distress of these
families became evident, the relocation organizations were set up by Farm Se-
curity Administration and set to work. An extensive organization was un-
necessary. The flexible nature of the farm security program made possible the
assignment of employees already in the ranks and experienced in the general
plan and philosophy of rehabilitation. The relocation staff, thus recruited, set
to work classifying the families to be moved, as a guide to action. Broadly,
these groups were classified as follows:
1. Families which could make their own plans and which required no assist-
ance other than advisory services.
2. Families which located farm lands outside of the area and which required
only financial assistance in transporting possessions.
3. Families which required relocation assistance, transportation grants and
limited subsistence aid to make the new start.
4. Families which required complete assistance, and which appeared accept-
able for rehabilitation services.
5. Families which did not qualify as agricultural workers and which required
some economy affording wages in addition to subsistence farming.
6. Families which desired to follow public works, employed or seeking employ-
ment at construction of the project.
7. A few individuals and families handicapped or certified as relief cases only.
Most families were found to be on the lowest existence levels with hand to
mouth expectancies and experiences. To enable the most impoverished of these
to move, it was necessary to make 3,071 grants for a total of $152,321, or an aver-
age of $50.60.
It was found necessary to make plans -under which these relocated families
could make an adequate living — a living, indeed, more satisfactory than that
which had brought them to the condition of helplessness.
The family which worked at odd jobs, tilling a few acres in a haphazard manner,
and augmenting earnings through scouring the woods for sassafras roots, picking
dallas grass seed, trapping coons and skunks, snaring fish in baskets, and poaching
on game reservations, etc., could not be dumped into another community with the
expectation that the resourcefulness of the family would enable it to get by.
Families displaced were of varying qualifications, and could not be aided in a
standardized manner.
The "born farmers" of the relocated thousands stuck stubbornly to the land,
and were aided in doing so by the offices of the Farm Security Administration.
The programs are built to conform to their needs and experiences, and vary from
individual grants and Rural Rehabilitation loans to establishment of cooperative
1 See Appendix, case histories.
12062 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
farms. The idea is to place them as much as possible in climes and on terrain
with which they are familiar, preferably not too distant from their old homes,
from centers of trade and custom, from political and social institutions, with
which they are familiar.
Examples of land acquired and relocation prospects in region V are appended
to this report, describing operations in special areas. How a cooperative general
farm was set up on an old plantation in South Carolina for displaced families of
Santee-Cooper; how an interesting and significant experiment in group rehabilita-
tion was undertaken in the Hinesville-Hazelhurst area; how efforts are made to
fit displaced individuals of the Fort Benning area into nearby farms.
In all cases the standard services of Farm Security Administration are applied
to the task — group medical care, sanitation, community and cooperative services,
including membership in purchasing and marketing associations, development of
farm and home plans designed to give a better balance between subsistence and
cash crops than the families generally knew before, direction in home living and
food preservation, development of new cash crops and financial help, as well as
instruction in utilizing new materials and new methods. A device which Farm
Security Administration has found of great promise in relocating displaced fam-
ilies, and which may be used in solving defense migration, is the leasing cooperative.
The development of the tracts in itself offers means of giving employment to
the new sectlers outside of their farming operations.
Generally speaking the farm plans involved change from the old usually worn-
out economies with emphasis on livestock, soil conservation, forestry practices,
and development of new cash crops. Examples of plans worked out for resettling
displaced families follow:
TERRELL-LEE PLAN, GEORGIA
A total of 12,485 acres of land comprising 13 tracts of land in Terrell County
and 6 tracts of land in Lee County, have been acquired to provide the develop-
ment of 145 to 150 economic farm units for families principally displaced by the
expansion of Fort Benning.
The farms will average 65 to 100 acres in size and will have all improvements
such as dwellings, barns, poultry, and smoke houses, sanitary units, and good
water supply. Garden and chicken runs will be fenced.
Each unit will have a permanent pasture and combination woods pasture where
supplemental incomes may be secured from forestry operations. Forty acres of
developed and terraced croplands will provide cotton, corn, peanuts, as well as
subsistence crops and feed crops for a supplemental livestock program for each
family.
Forty-three of the families originally residing on the lands will remain, and
approximately 100 families from the lands vacated near Fort Benning will be
established on the other units.
Forty-five families, originally residing on the land will move to other areas, 27
of these will continue public works, and reside in the neighboring villages; 11 have
arrangements with other farm operators in the area; and 3 families receiving public
welfare support will move to other dwellings. Four families will move with the
former operators of the farms.
WATEREE PLANTATIONS, SOUTH CAROLINA
Another illustration is found in relocation plans for a tract in Richland County,
comprised of 5 contiguous farms and set up as a cooperative enterprise (Wateree
Plantations, Inc.) for approximately 50 Negro families.
Development will provide buildings costing approximately $122,000 and
equipment, supplies, etc., bringing the total investment to $250,000.
Fifteen of the thirty-three families on the land when purchased will remain and
participate in the new economy; approximately 35 families displaced from the
Santee-Cooper power development will complete the family relocations.
Of the 33 families originally on the land, 15 were renters, 7 sharecroppers, 9
day laborers, and 2 public welfare cases. Four of the laborers, 2 sharecroppers
will go with the former operators of these lands. Ten families will be established
on 2-horse farms in other tracts owned by the corporation nearby. Two families
will be accepted by the welfare facility and will be established elsewhere.
The Wateree Plantation, Inc., will purchase and own the livestock, machinery,
and equipment and will meet all operating expenses. The resident-members will
receive wages totaling about $300 per annum per family in addition to proceeds
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12063
they may obtain from their subsistence units, with necessary dwellings, out-
buildings, poultry houses, gardens, etc. With seasonable work in the commu-
nity undertakings and leased forests the families should have employment for 300
days each year.
With a diversified farm program under supervision, the members of this group
will learn better farming methods and how to live as citizens and participating
members of an enterprise which is planned to lead to private farm and home
ownership.
Appendix C. Review of Land Areas Acquired by the Government for
Defense, Etc.
From all appearances the 40,000 acres of land taken for the Seibert arsenal
project (a chemical munitions plant) was above the average farming land in this
rich, high-cotton-producing Tennessee Valley section. In the middle of it were
two small communities of Negro landowners — family groups owning up to 1,000
acres. "Pond Beat" and "Sand Flat" have been known throughout Alabama as
rather lonely examples of successful Negro community life and of prospering,
continuous farming, with property passed from father to son. Children from
these Negro families (see case histories, appendix) have helped to build up Alabama
State Normal (Negro college just outside Huntsville), and have formed the bulk
of a small but very stable Negro middle-class group in Huntsville, supporting
themselves as school teachers, small businessmen, waiters in the Russell Erskine
Hotel, etc.
Save for these communities, the 40,000 acres was one of very large farms,
many of them operated by people living in town, or by their managers. Tractors
and day laborers were fast displacing the old renter or sharecropper system.
In a county where 32.6 percent of the farmers are Negro (1940 census) this
could hardly be a typical section, for nearly three-fourths of the families found
in this area were Negro. In other respects it highlights the agricultural trends,
that have been taking place in Madison County in the past 10 years.
Briefly, these trends are:
1. Displacement of mules and tenants by tractors and day laborers.
Total farmers in county
1930 7>m
1935 7)034
1940 5,187
or a net decrease of 1,991 farmers, approximately 28 percent.1
No figures on the increased number of tractors are immediately available but
county agent, Farm Security supervisor, and merchants in Huntsville tell of a
great increase.
(Of the 477 families included in the tabular report from the area, 344 were
making their living from agriculture. Of this number the heads of 131 families,
or 30 percent, were classed as farm laborers. This does not give the complete
story, for many older children of tenants or small owners were day hands.
2. The decrease in number of farmers in Madison County is much greater
among the Negroes than among the whites.
White
farmers in
county
Colored
farmers in
county
1940
3,524
4,639
4,406
1,663
2,395
2, 772-
1934 .
1930
Net
882
1,10»
In 1930 Negroes operated 38.6 percent of the farms. In 1940 they operated
32.6 percent of the farms. How many of these went to town, and how many
simply became day laborers it is difficult to determine.
1 The Tennessee Valley Authority development took several thousand. acres out of production hi 1935,
12064
HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
3. Farms in Madison County are getting larger, and more land is being put
nto pastures.
Size of
farms
81.8
1940
1935
1930
60. 1
54.0
■id in
dowable
1939 37,579
1934 30,615
1929 21. 9°°
4. As to percentage of land operated by tenants, the following figures aro,
perhaps, a clearer statement of the shift to day labor than to ownership.
Full
owners
Percent of
tenancy
N nber
oi .arms
1,363
1,543
1,301
63.3
71.9
75.6
5,187
7,034
7,178
Increase, full owners, 62.
Decrease, number of farms, 2.991.
Note, now, the following table of figures on families on this 40,000-ac-e tract.
This project obviously has displaced a large body of people who have little or
nothing to live on, who are almost totally unsuited to urban life, who have nothing
to offer in the labor market there except muscles used to tedious work and stomachs
used to doing without.
Survey classification, Hinlsville, Aug. 15, 1941
White
Negro
Classification as to status:
1. Owner
2. Farm manager -
19
7
17
8
28
23
4
11
4
61
0
33
103
110
6
8. Other
5
5
Classification as to occupation:
78
0
11
4
241
103
2
4. Other
5
5
Classification as to financial means:
121
356
• 3
107
6
305
i Total, 9.
2 Total, 17.
Note.— Twenty-nine families surveyed after this classification was made are not included in these figures.
For most of these families making a living has been particularly difficult. The
four-bits-an-hour paid common laborers in the construction job seem like great
riches to them. Even the $1.50 to $2 a day many of them are getting as extra
help around the coal yards, factories, and stores of booming Huntsville seems too
good to be true. Of the approximately 120 families moved to date, more than
a third of them have moved to town, and the supervisors expect that an even
larger percentage will follow them. Still others have rented houses in the county
but not farm land, because the heavy migration of construction workers to
Huntsville has made it difficult to find houses.
When the big construction job got under way this summer Mr. Lynn, Farm
Security Administration supervisor for Madison Countv, held meetings with all
the 508 rehabilitation borrowers and 77 tenant-purchase borrowers to talk the
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12065
situation over. He pointed out the temporary nature of the work and told them
the- must complete their crops for the next year if they hoped ever to get help
; rfroi:. -m Security again. Farm Security did want them to get as much benefit
from v . ^xtra work as possible, so long as their regular farming operations were
not disturbed, and would do everything it could to help them get employment.
Less than a dozen of those actively working with the Farm Security program
"turned in their mules" before crop season was over, though many crops were
storked with "short hands", women, younger children, etc. Several crops were
destroyed by construction work before they could be harvested.
As for people living in the area taken, Farm Security's labor relation specialist,
Ton Elder, made arrangements with the contractors and the unions, having
agre nents with them to employ one person out of each family, on recommenda-
tion "i'om the Farm Security office, leaving the others to finish up the crop and
make arrangements for moving. By mid November more than 350 of the
approximately r>00 families forced to move had one member working on the job.
Higher farm prices, Lynn said, are threatening to displace as many tenant
£arn is has the defense plant. Community cooperative organization has been
discoi i ring be.cause so many of the borrowers report that they are having
to m A good many have not been able to find land for next year.
Largt le farmers who have been renting out most of their land to croppers on a
"cotton rent" basis are now planning to work the land themselves, using tractors
and day laborers. With the construction job offering an immediate solution to
the problem of getting something to eat, a good many of these farmers are showing
no eagerness to try fighting it out again on the poorer, back-hill acres they must
move to.
Workers who have come into Madison County for work on the construction job
are competing with farmers for houses. Often, Lynn said, a man is able to rent
just the house for more than he f orraerly , got for the house and farm. Some
larger tracts of land are available for rent but are of little help to the average
tenant because there are no houses on the land.
Farm Security has tried to help this situation in two ways:
1. By securing, through the Alabama Relocation Corporation, a nunber of
large farms in Madison and adjoining counties and subdividing them and building
houses so displaced families may find a permanent home.
2. On the edge of the condemned area ID. prefabricated houses have been set up.
These were filled almost immediately after- they were completed, early in the fall,
with Negro families from the area. As these families find places to move, others
move in. The difficulty is that many more houses are needed, Lynn said.
. New applications for regular rehabilits-ion assistance are coming from some
people who are moving out of the area. Lynn expects many more of these to
come in after the work is over.
"Most of them have had some white man — a landlord or a merchant — in that
section whom they had known all their lives to look after them. Now they are
going to have to find someone else to look to, and I expect it will be the Govern-
ment."
There has been a great deal of interest among tenants in Madison County in
the tenant-purchase program. Tenani s see how many of their group are being
displaced by tractors, or are being for.-^d to pay higher cash rents, Lynn said.
Most of the white tenant population have land-owning relatives in the hills of
southeast Tennessee or the northern part of the county and the desire is still
strong in them. Among the Negroes the examples set by Negro farmers in "Palm
Beat" have stimulated interest. The program has been slowed down, and in the
next year or so it may have to be halted because of the rising price of good land.
Many eligible applicants (there were more than 500 during the first few months
of 1941) have become discouraged because land prices have gone up so much they
can find land within the Tarver amendment limits only in odd corners of the
county far from their home communities.
Some of the larger farm operators in the arsenal area are buying or leasing land
elsewhere and taking their tenants with them. For example, T. R Ivey, who
owned between three and four hundred acres in the area (a place he bought when
Tennessee Valley Authority took his land 6 years ago) thinks he can take care
of his two tenant families. He is renting about 700 acres and plans to use tractors
almost exclusively. What will happen to the people now farming this rented
place it was not possible to discover. Here we get a glimpse of the problem, yet
incalculable, of "secondary displacement."
Sam Harris, a tenant-purchase committeeman who owned considerable land in
the area, has bought a 772-acre farm from Fleming S. Thornton, a larger-scale
60396 — 42— pt. 32 9
12066
HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
farming corporation in Huntsville. Harris paid $50 an acre for the place, almost
twice as much, according to report, as what it could have been bought for 4 years
ago. Harris plans to keep all five wage hands' families on this land and to work it
with his three tractors. One of the tenants on the place is moving to a farm he is
buying through the tenant-purchase program very shortly. Another family is
moving to town.
In this case, then, only one family is being displaced, but the landlord is not
able to take care of any of his former hands.
Nine tenant-purchase borrowers lived in the area taken over, one white and
eight colored. Five of the negro families are being reheated on a 315-acre tract
bought for this purpose early in the fall. The land has been operated for the past
several years by a renter, who worked it with a tractor and four families of wage
hands, making enough cotton to establish a base of over 300 pounds to the acre
and an allotment of 82 acres. Over 300 of the 315 acres are in cultivation. This
operator has rented a large place in Jackson County and says he is going to take
the four families with him. One (of the displaced tenant-purchase families) has
already moved onto the farm, and is living in the house formerly occupied by the
white operator.
TALLADEGA COUNTY, ALA. (CHILDERSBTJRG BAG-LOADING PLANT)
Late in November of 1940 information was given out that some 27,CC0 acres of
land in Talladega County bordering the Coosa River north and west of the small
town of Childersburg (515 population in the 1940 census) were to be taken as site
for a powder plant. The location was tentatively outlined in January and agri-
cultural agencies, both Farm Security and Extension workers, were set to work
warning people to vacate this property.
Because no certain information as to the location of boundaries could be
obtained, the actual work of relocations did not get under way until the last of
January and February. By the time Farm Security had made its original survey
(see report below) a good number of families had moved, both from the area
finally taken and from land around it. After this survey had been made, and
after 80-odd families had been moved from land finally not included in the area,
an accurate boundary line was established. While no official confirmation was
made of the original territory marked out on maps used in the area, all indications
pointed so clearly to its being taken that farmers in this territory decided to
move while there was still time to find a new place, and to make another crop.
The section of land finally taken was one containing much river land. Some of
this 14,000 acres was good farm land, ideal for large farm operations. Most of
it was poor, carelessly operated by Negro tenants, or lying out. Of the farm
operators, almost 30 percent were receiving Farm Security aid.
The following table gives population analysis in the 27,000 acres originally
staked out. When the fnal area was chesen, 210 rather than 321 families were
displaced. However, this table shows in a general way the situation in the whole
White
Colored
Farm
Security
Adminis-
tration
(white)
Farm
Security
Adminis-
tration
(colored)
32
7
6
10
17
5
3
0
2
5
60
36
31
26
35
39
3
0
2
1
0
5
4
6
0
0
0
0
9
1
23
13
13
5
Squatters ... .
0
0
Merchants
Unclassified-
0
0
Total
87
234
12
64
Total, 321 families; Farm Security Administration, 76 families; 73 percent negroes; 27 percent white.
The survey revealed that the area contains very few owners who will be finan-
cially able to relocate without some assistance. The number of cash renters,
sharecroppers, and cotton renters, constitute the largest group in this area.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12067
The 1940 census report furnishes a broader idea of the situation. From it
conies basis for the following analysis:
1. Number of farms has decreased, due in part, to the switch to tractors and
day labor.
All
White
operators
Negro
operators
1940
3,232
4,255
4,003
1,955
2,480
2,091
1935
1,912
771 or reduction of 13 percent.
This decrease has been greater among Negroes than whites. In 1930 Negroes
made up 48 percent of all farm operators; in 1940, 39.2 percent.
2. Following figures on tenancy reflect the above-mentioned trend:
Number
of owners
Percent of
tenancy
Total
number
of farms
1940 -
903
1,125
856
65.2
72! 8
3,232
4,255
1935
1930
Farms are getting larger and more land is being put into pastures
Size of
farms
Acres in
pasture
1940. ..
90.0
72.7
22, 403
14, 201
9,395
1935
1930
Note these things: While 39.2 percent of Talladega County's total number of
farm operators are colored, 72.3 percent of the farm operators in this section were
colored. Note also the comparatively large number of Negro landowners. In
the county 22.3 percent of the Negro operators are landowners. In this section
almost 32 percent were landowners.
In other words, about one-fifth of all Negro farm owners in Talladega County
were in this section. Their holdings were small. The bulk of the land was
owned in large tracts either by white resident operators or absentees.
_ The comparatively small number of nonfarm workers is significant, especially
since so many of these displaced families have gotten their first taste of "public
works money" at the powder plant. Will they want to go back to this kind of
marginal living again?
This was a section of old plantation holdings that had gradually (with some
notable exceptions) been abandoned or partially abandoned by the old families
who held on to them. In it, along the river and in the low places, were a few
very small communities of Negro landowners who supplemented their farming
income with fishing, hunting, and working for white men who came to enjoy these
sports.
The average of all grants for moving totaled $37.50, which again reveals how
little these people had to move.
Here, then, is a group of dislocated people who know almost nothing except
farming, and of that the cruder kind. About 30 percent were receiving aid from
Farm Security already. Some few of these were making a new beginning and,
where they could get some of the better land, were succeeding on a very moderate
scale. Some few were making a fair living from the game and sportsmen, whom
the very desolation of the place had brought to the area. Only a few are going
to make alone the readjustments life in a new place will call for.
Of general conditions touching on the Farm Security Administration program
there, E. E. Wilson, county supervisor for Talladega Countv, reported orally on
November 19:
Farm Security Administration case load for the county is 220, of which 131
(68 percent) are Negroes — an unusually high percentage, considering the fact that
12068
HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
well over half the farming population is white. Few applications for next year
have come in. The county supervisor expects many to come in during the next
few weeks, because the powder plant job is "turning off" men at the rate of 300
to 600 a week. The full tide of applications will not come, he said, until late
February, when many farmers (especially Negroes) who have had their first
taste of public works wealth will suddenly realize there is little hope of getting
more such work and will want to farm again. Farm Security will, he said, get
more than its share of these people because they have broken their relations
with their old landlords, sometimes without ceremony, and in the middle of
crop season, and will not be able — or will not want to — go back again.
About 90 percent of the Farm Security Administration borrowers have gotten
at least a few weeks of work on the project. He knew of only two who had paid
back loans with defense-earned money (one paid $150, another $250). The rest
have wasted some of the money. But not as much as people think. We've had
practically a crop failure in here for the past 3 years. These people have gone
without, all that time. They've had other debts and they've had to buy clothes
and something to eat and some of the other people they've owed (furnish mer-
chants) have put the kind of pressure on them we can't.
Co-op organization has been very slow. Out of 20 proposed neighborhood
organizations, only 9 have been formed. At some places as many as three meet-
ings have been held, with but two or three couples present.
FORT M'CLELLAN, ALA. (ANNISTON AREA)
The first part of the relocation job here, in which 403 families are involved,
has been carried out.
The 36,640 acres in Calhoun County taken for the enlargement of Fort Mc-
Clellan and for the building of an ammunition dump have been cleared. These
families have found somewhere to go, even though temporary in many cases.
Calhoun is an industrial county. Iron pipe shops, ca ting works, chemical
plants, textile mills, and a great number of smaller manufacturing establishments
are found in Anniston, its county seat and principal town. Even before the
defense program started it was a growing town. Most of the new workers in
its industries came from nearby farming sections. Many of them remained
there, commuting to town while the old folks kept the farm going. Others simply
rented their land or let it lie out. A number of the landless families moved in
close to town and rented small house;- on the city's outskirts.
When the defense boom started in Anniston — increased production in the fac-
tories; a big construction job on the Fort McClellan extension; an ammunition
dump to be built; many thousands of soldiers to entertain and hundreds of
officers and their families to provide houses for — this trend was accelerated.
Part of this migration was voluntary, for crops have been poor in this valley
for the past few years. Part of it was encouraged by a sharp trend to large-scale
farming, with tractors and day laborers substituting for mules and croppers.
This has been especially true in certain sections. Most of the land taken in the
area formed a section of small semi-independent farmers, many of whom has lost
their land.
Our study of 342 families living in the area originally surveyed showed only
102 had title to any land. Most of these farms were heavily mortgaged. In
addition there were the usual group of relief, squatter, "marginal" families found
around cities. Probably not more than half the group depended entirely on
farming for a living. On the other hand, well over three-fourths of them
depended on farming or gardening for at least a part of their living.
In general, then, this area reflects the conditions found in most Piedmont
farming sections in the southeast near industrial centers and where small farms
have been the predominant pattern.
A preliminary survey on 342 families shows the following:
Landowners
Renters:
Cash
Share rent
Sharecroppers, halves
Farm laborers
Industrial workers- ..
Total
White
Negro
102
87
15
42
32
10
46
38
8
32
16
16
14
7
7
37
-7
10
S(|iiat ters
Relief:
Work Projects Admin
istration
Other relief
Unclassified
Total -.
Total
White
Negro
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12069
Something of the problems involved in enforced migration of a group so varied
in make-up, standards, and resources was stated by H. K. Payne, who was in
charge of the relocation activity at this point, in a report of January 25, 1941
(at the beginning of the undertaking). He said:
"Less than one-third of this group are landowners and most of these have
farms that are heavily mortgaged, which leaves them with very little equity in
the place. The Soil Conservation is doing the appraising work and is negotiating
for the land; however, it is my understanding that they are not paying these
people anything except for the actual market value of the farm. No provision
is made for losses caused by the forced move; however, some of these better
farmers are finding farms which they can purchase or lease somewhere within a
radius of 40 or 50 miles. Strange as it may seem, this sometimes complicates
the problem, as these better farmers displace other tenants who are now occupying
the farms they are leasing and purchasing. The displaced farmers fall in the
same group as those sharecroppers and renters who are occupying the land
comprising the defense area."
Reconsider these figures, now, in the light of general agricultural trends in
Calhoun County during the 1930-40 decade.
Number
of farms
White
Colored
Size of
farms
1940
2,707
3,289
3,070
2,466
2^609
281
400
461
Acres
85.3
1935
1930
74.5
69.9
Decrease 303, or 12 percent less.
15.1 (size of farms).
Decrease 183, or 7 percent less (white); 180, or 39 percent less (colored).
Farms are becoming fewer and larger. The decrease is coming most rapidly in
the Negro group. In 1930 they made up 15 percent of all farm operators. In
1940 they made up 10.4 percent A good many of these may have gone into the
farm-labor group.
Full own-
ers
Tenancy
percentage
Full white
owners
Full colored
owners
1940
1,035
1,071
1927
56.5
62.5
63.1
977
985
58
1935
86
1930___
1 Increase 109.
Note.— 55 percent of the whites and 75 percent of the colored farmers were tenants in 1940.
There has been an increase in the number of farm owners, despite the decrease in farms over the 10-year
period.
It has been difficult to determine just what has happened to all these families,
but the following tabulation, made on September 6, 1941, gives an idea of trends:
Families who have moved to rented houses with no land attached 205
Families who have moved to purchased houses with no land attached 23
Total : 228
Number who have purchased farms ' 58
Number who have leased farms 109
Total 167
Eight families have moved to corporation farms.
In other words, more than 56 percent of the total group did not move where
they could make a crop or a garden during the 1941 season.
Since that time 29 additional families have found places on farms operated by
the Alabama Relocation Corporation, and 63 more family units are being set up
for still others (a total of 100). These latter units will take care of some farmers
from the group who have temporary homes and work in or around Anniston.
How they have fared, and will fare during the transition, can be judged only hap-
hazardly from case histories (see appendix) . It is certain that :
12070 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
1. They have had to compete with defense workers migrating from other places
for houses, both in Anniston and in the county around.
2. They are having to spend most of their new income — if they are fortunate
enough to get jobs on defense projects — to meet the higher living costs.
3. Land prices have risen so that few of the owners have been able to buy houses
or farms equal to those they had before.
4. Less than half those who made their living from agriculture are engaged in
that work this year. With little or no training for any other kind of work, they
will almost certainly be looking for aid in getting back to the farm when their
temporary jobs on defense construction work are over.
5. No doubt a good many of the younger people will be able to make successful
adjustment to city life and will find opportunities to gain skill in industrial work.
Most of the farms set up so far by the relocation corporation call for small-scale
dairying, the growing of truck crops, poultry, and other things besides cotton.
Already it has been found that many of the farmers who have come to it for aid
are not able, or are most reluctant to change over from their old style cotton, corn,
and victuals style of farming. For example, all except 2 of a group of 20 farmers
who made crops on the "Brick Store Farm," a large unit being developed as a
dairy farm, are going to move this fall because they aren't able to fit into the
program of farming this will call for. Some of these families were on the land
when the relocation corporation bought it. Others had been tenants in the
condemned area. All had been cotton and corn farmers.
Some of them don't have the amount of labor in their families the full farm
program of this set-up calls for. Some aren't physically able to carry it- on.
Some are just unwilling to try. Yet a return to the old style of farming is not
only economically unsound and wasteful of resources, but also would not serve
the good purpose of stimulating more intelligent farming methods that it is hoped
these corporation farms will. Some of the 20 families have gone out and found
themselves "crops." The majority will move to other farms set up by the cor-
poration where the growing of feed, truck, and chickens will supplement cotton
production, and a more general change in cropping practices will be attempted.
HINESVILLE, GA. (CAMP STEWART AREA)
Relocation work in the Hinesville area has been going on for well over a year
now. Though rumor had been current for several months, no map of the area
to be taken was published until January. This outlined 215,000 acres in a "first
priority" to be taken immediately, and additional land, to form a total area of
360,000 acres, for ultimate occupancy. Since that time a good many changes have
been made in lines, but the area has remained about the same size. All families
living in the first priority have been moved, and a good many of the others — a total
of about 1,000 families. Approximately 500 more families have been given notice
to move by January 1942.
The 360,000 acres spread over five counties — one-half of Liberty, a large slice
of Long, and parts of Bryan, Tattnall, and Chatham. Though there were good
farming sections running through the area, and on its edges, the bulk of the land
was in swamps, piney woods, wilderness or turpentine groves, all of it serving as
open range for scrub cattle and razorback hogs. Much of it was owned in large
tracts by turpentine operators or lumber companies.
The inhabitants were of several groups, evenly divided between the races.
About half of the white group were small owners. While their total acreage
often was higher than would be classed as "small" for Georgia, as a whole, the
small amount of cleared land and the low productivity put them in this class.
They made a reasonably good living on cotton, tobacco and cattle kept on open
range. The other half of the whites were renters, sharecroppers or squatters,
most of them doing a little farming but getting the bulk of their living from work
in turpentining, sawmilling, hunting, running cattle on open range, and illicit
distilling.
There were as many resident landowners among the Negroes as among tne
whites. Like so many Negroes along the South Carolina low country and in the
Georgia coastal counties, some of these worked land that had been in their families
since Reconstruction. Often no will had been made out, and the 15 or 20 acres
would belong to two dozen heirs, scattered from Savannah to Detroit. A few
Negro family leaders hold as much as 100 acres, and had several families of rela-
tives working around them. This group, as well as the landless half of the
Negroes, made most of their living by combining subsistence farming with saw-
milling, turpentining, keeping cattle on open range, and doing day work foi
larger operators.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12071
It had not been hard to make some kind of a living in this country — with 240
acres per family there could be game and fish for all. The open range made
raising hogs for home use and scrawny beef cattle enough to sell for shoes and
clothes a relatively simple matter. It was a marginal, almost wild kind of life
for some. They lived in shacks back so far in the forest that several hundred
families were missed in the original survey, though local folk did most of the work.
But things were closing in on the people of this area even before the bombing
base was announced. Lumber work was getting scarce, and turpentining work
was less plentiful, (both have since been spurred by defense prices). More of the
land was being bought up by pulp paper companies. Fire, lands posted for
hunting preserves by groups from Savannah, and the cutting over of large sec-
tions reduced the chances of making extra money by hunting or raising cattle
on open range. The small owners, both white and Negroes, clung to their land.
For the latter group the alternative was to join gangs of turpentine workers,
travel with them, and live in their villages. Practically the only escape was to
be "sold" (for the amount of the debt) to some other turpentine operator. Thus,
landownership — just a place to live and make a garden — was often synonymous
with freedom.
In the Federal Emergency Relief Administration relief days a great deal of
money was distributed in these counties, most of it in the form of grants. Attempts
to start farming programs failed, and when the first priority area was surveyed in
1941, only 4 of the 713 families interviewed were Farm Security borrowers. In
the whole area the total will not be more than 20.
"The reason for this," explained L. R. Payne, assistant relocation supervisor
who has been in Hinesville since the beginning of the work, "is that our program
has not until recently been studied with a view of serving the unique needs of this
area, which lacks the familiar elements of agriculture as it is known elsewhere."
Thinking along this line has been worked into three projects being developed by
the Hinesville Relocation Corporation. At Hazlehurst (see interview in appendix)
an 18,000 acre tract of timber and turpentine is being developed into a project for
120 families. Here they will have, besides small acreages of cotton and tobacco,
extra income from turpentine, and tended forests, along with poultry and hog
raising. At Vidalia, Farm Security has helped a number of small farmers to set
up a cooperative turpentine still, so they can make gum farming a regular source
of income. In other parts of this coastal region attempts are being made to help
turpentine workers develop subsistence patches, and to help small operators make
gum farming a part of their regular plans of work.
Following are the results of an original survey of the 215,000 first priority area,
listing 173 families. Note the large number of farm laborers and miscellaneous
workers.
White
Colored
Owner operator .
158
22
41
68
78
140
Sharecropper
34
51
Total
367
Number of families to be relocated, 713.
Unclassified, 28.
To date, 1,116 of the estimated 1,500 families in the entire area have been
interviewed. Of these 925 have actually moved, 887 of them paying moving
expenses with small grants furnished through Federal Security Administration's
relocation office.
Of this group 51 moved to corporation farms immediately (others moved there
after going somewhere else); 126 purchased farms; 256 leased farms; 491 made
other arrangements, that is, they moved to town or rented houses without land
out in the country.
A more accurate indication of the movements of these people can be gained
from the following table of figures derived from individual family records in the
relocation office. No moving grant checks are given until the parties have actually
moved. The final addresses here were given as the places to which the people
wanted their checks mailed.
12072 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
A total of 860 of the 925 families who had actually moved through December 5.
1941, were included in this tabulation:
Of the 442 white families —
150 found some place to move to in the same county;
110 moved to one of five adjoining counties;
68 moved to Savannah, or its outskirts;
1 moved to Brunswick;
59 moved to other counties in Georgia;
45 moved to relocation projects;
9 moved out of State — 5 to Florida, 3 to North Carolina, 1 to South Caro-
lina.
Of the 418 Negro families —
123 found some place to move to in the same county;
161 moved to one of five adjoining counties;
57 moved to Savannah, or its outskirts;
11 moved to Brunswick;
52 moved to other counties in Georgia;
10 moved to relocation projects;
4 moved out of State — 3 to Florida, 1 to Washington, D. C.
Many of these moves were temporary. Mr. Payne explained that a great
number of these people had been scarcely 50 miles away from home in their lives.
They were frightened at the thought of going outside their home county, or sec-
tion. Later, when they found living or working conditions in the new places
unsatisfactory, they moved farther on. This will happen more frequently, he
said, when defense work around Hinesville has been completed. A good number
of the families coming to the relocation farms first moved somewhere else.
The following figures, taken from the same records as the above, show what
these families arranged for their first move. The records tabulate 1,077 of the
1,116 families interviewed through December 5. Of this group of 1,077, 584
were white and 493 Negro.
Of the 584 white families, 248 were landowners and this is what happened to
them: 94 became owners again; 29 became tenants; 2 became sharecroppers; 60
became laborers; 6 moved to corporation farms; 57 have not moved.
Of the 86 tenants, 2 became owners; 26 tenants; 4 sharecroppers; 29 laborers;
9 moved to corporation farms; 16 have not moved.
Of 106 sharecroppers, 3 became owners: 3 became tenants; 19 became share-
croppers; 27 laborers; 12 moved to corporation farms; 42 have not moved.
Of 144 laborers, one became owner; 6 tenants; 5 sharecroppers; 101 laborers;
17 moved to corporation farms; 14 have not moved.
Of the 493 Negro families, 149 were landowners, and of these 30 became owners
again; 42 tenants; 12 sharecroppers; 45 laborers; none moved to corporation
farms; 20 have not moved.
Of 51 Negro tenants, none became owners; 14 tenants; 6 sharecroppers; 16
laborers; one moved to corporation farms; 14 have not moved.
Of 110 Negro sharecroppers, 2 became owners; 11 tenants; 25 sharecroppers;
29 laborers; none moved to corporation farms; 33 have not moved.
Of 183 Negro laborers, one became an owner; 12 tenants; 6 sharecroppers; 144
laborers; 10 moved to corporation farms and 10 have not moved.
Farm Security Administration Relocation Projects for Defense Displaced
Farm Families in Georgia
To help relocate tenants, laborers and farm owners with little equity, who were
moved from the Hinesville area, Farm Security Administration, through the
Hinesville Relocation Corporation, has bought an 18,000-acre tract of land in
Jeff Davis County, near Hazlehurst, three tracts in Wheeler (the adjoining)
County totaling 8,000 acres and about the same acreage in Screven County. (The
Screven County tract will also take care of some farmers displaced by defense
projects around Augusta.) These three projects, to be operated through a single
office will care, according to present plans for subdivision and development, for a
total of about 120 families. Additional land has been optioned.
The project at Hazlehurst was begun in February 1941. Sixty-nine pre-
fabricated houses were erected within 2 weeks to care for displaced families with
no shelter whatever, and these houses have served as residences for the families
who have developed the project. Sixteen additional prefabricated houses were
put up on the Wheeler project.
Originally the land acquired near Hazlehurst was a huge turpentine tract,
cropped on a lease basis by a single operator who had a small camp for the dozen
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12073
or so families who worked regularly for him. These families have been moved
by the operator to other tracts he is working. The three Wheeler County tracts
were also largely devoted to turpentine production, on each of which were a
number of small "patch" farmers (tenants). They were given a chance to enter
the developing venture, and most of them have done so.
Of the 141 families living on property owned by the Relocation Corporation in
Jeff Davis and Wheeler Counties, 59 moved directly from the condemned area
near Hinesville and a number of others moved somewhere else and then came to
the project. Twenty-two were regular Farm Security clients.
For almost a year the entire group has been engaged in clearing land, building
fences, cutting fire lanes, clearing out turpentine forests, building roads and,
within the last 6 months, building the bars and houses that will be a part of per-
manent family units. This work is being done on an hourly basis.
About 2 dozen of the families arrived early enough in the spring to make some
kind of a crop, and others planted spring gardens. For the bulk of the families
a community garden was set out and has been tended by the old people on the
project who are not able to join crews doing such heavy work as clearing land
and fence building.
According to C. B. Earnest, the project manager, 9 families have left for jobs
in other places. Forty-four families, most of them former turpentine workers
and wage laborers, are planning to leave the project for jobs in private industry
as soon as the wage work on the project is over. Ninety-seven of the 141 now
living on the land have stated that they want to operate farms, and applications
for farms have been received from 30 additional families. Mr. Earnest expects
that many more applications will come in from farmers, both from those who
have been displaced by the area and from others, as soon as the construction jobs
around Hinesville are finished.
For the Hazlehurst project the cropping plan is as follows: 1,008 acres were
cleared when the property was bought and 1,600 acres have been cleared since
that time. Ninety miles of fence have been erected. More land will be cleared.
More than two-thirds of the land, however, will be left in pines, and will be oper-
ated for both turpentine and timber. It has been estimated that there are V/%
million feet of marketable black-pine timber on the project land.
The cleared land is being divided into 2-horse units. Each will have enough
land to allow for a large garden, a 9-acre hog pasture, fenced so as to make pos-
sible three-way rotation of grazing; a chicken run, a small permanent pasture
and land enough to grow small acreages of cotton and tobacco, some truck and
enough feed to supply all home needs. Each farmer will have a minimum of
2 brood sows. Starting with 2 good milk cows each, they will use high quality
sires and save calves to build eventually small herds averaging 10 milk cows per
farm. This will give them, finally, income from both milk and calves. Starting
with flocks averaging 35 layers, it is hoped each farmer will have 100 producing
hens by the end of the third year.
Allotments of both cotton and tobacco are very low here. Reasons: (1)
Most of the land has just been cleared so there is not crop history on which to
establish a base; (2) both Jeff Davis and Wheeler Counties were late comers in
Georgia's move to produce tobacco and thus had small acreages when the quota
system was voted into effect. (Tobacco has been the chief money crop for many
of the farmers who moved from the Hinesville area.)
Most of these people formerly were tenants. Allotments they worked at
Hinesville went with the land, and could not be transferred to the new locations.
But the project farmers will be able to plant as many acres of peanuts as they
choose, and about as much truck as they .will want to until farms are more com-
pletely developed.
A typical unit will have a house with three bed rooms (a closet in each) , a
kitchen with a dining bay, a living room, a small entrance porch on the front
and a screened work porch at the back. In the kitchen will be a sink and drain,
with connections for running water. In addition there is being put up on each
farm an outdoor sanitary unit, a smokehouse, a 20- by 20-foot poultry house (100-
layer capacity), and a 40- by 29- by 8-foot barn.
For 18 of the units turpentining will take the place of cash crop farming. A
farmer on one of these units will have a garden and will get some money from
hogs, cattle, and chickens. But his main source of income will be from 2^000 to
3,000 turpentine "faces", which will provide him with work and a living about 8
months in the year. So far, all turpentine work has been done on an hourly basis
of 25 cents, and most of it by Negroes who had been turpentine workers in the
Hinesville area. It is expected that most of the turpentine units will be occupied
by Negroes.
12074 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
At present there are 23 Negro families on the Hazlehurst project. They live
in 2 groups of houses quite separated from the rest. All families on the Wheeler
County tracts are white.
The project has almost accidentally produced a sizable flock of young laying
hens that may serve to give the new farmers a start. Last spring Cherry Lake
Farms (Farm Security Administration community in Florida) had 1,300 sexed
baby chicks it could not take care of, so sent them to Hazlehurst. An epidemic
killed about 200 but the rest have developed well and now are in 30-percent pro-
duction. The eggs are being sold through a local dealer to the Jacksonville, Fla.,
market at a net wholesale price of 40 cents for No. l's and 35 cents for pullet eggs.
The Altamaha eighth-grade grammer school is located in the middle of the
project. It has a new building with a good auditorium and should serve as a
useful and easily accessible community center. A trick of fortune has given it
experienced teachers. When a law was passed in Hazlehurst 2 years ago for-
bidding married women to teach in the city's schools, these women were hired by
the county system.
Though children from the project make up only a small part of the total enroll-
ment, their parents have been the main supporters of a money-raising campaign
to buy dishes and other utensils for lack of which the school had never been able
to have a hot-lunch program. This has helped to create a favorable attitude
among the neighbors.
There are two churches on land surrounded by the project, Baptist and Meth-
odist, both with part-time preachers. Many families from the project have joined
these, and a few have joined congregations in Hazlehurst. One prefabricated
building has been turned into a community clubhouse, and the project now has
a Home Demonstration Club and a Young People's Club, both of which have
regular weekly meetings.
Special attention has been given the newcomers to the project by some promi-
nent Jeff Davis County folks who recognize this as a relatively large group of new
voters. Other "substantial" citizens of the county who were regarding the project
negatively at first have become its supporters through the efforts of the local bank
president. He has made it his special chore to explain to all that the Relocation
Corporation is a private organization and pays its full share of taxes.
Frequent small meetings have been held with groups of the farmers during the
past 2 months to explain to them details of how the new units will be assigned,
and what those who occupy them will be expected to do. This is being done
before any plans for occupancy are made by either party. Judging from casual
interviews, these farmers seem to be unusually well informed on the general
principles and requirements of the Farm Security program.
It is planned to tie the project work as closely as possible with that of the local
Farm Security program in Jeff Davis County. Though a small county, Jeff Davis
has an active rehabilitation case load of 162 families and has 13 tenant purchase
borrowers.
Groups of farmers on the project are making plans to apply for community and
cooperative service loans for the purchase of mowers and rakes, peanut pickers,
and other heavy equipment. -No community association has yet been formed.
FORT JACKSON (COLUMBIA, S. C.)
In South Carolina 26,000 acres were acquired for extension of the Army reserva-
tion at Fort Jackson, near Columbia, necessitating the moving of 205 families. _
The composition of these families varies considerably from that of dwellers in
the tracts in Alabama and Georgia previously described. Only about one-fourth
of the number lived entirely on farm income. In most of the others, small farming
or "patch" operations were carried on by members of households, while one or
more members had jobs in town. The families supported partly by Work Projects
Administration or Civilian Conservation Corps help were numerous.
There was little dislocation here. While investigators found that a large per-
centage of the families disliked the idea of moving, the process of land acquisition
had been smooth, ample notice had been given, and the inhabitants were ac-
customed to the experience of a neighboring Army camp, Fort Jackson having
been a settled establishment since the last war, though dwindling in the period of
peace.
However, in view of the depressed economic condition of the families, it was
necessary to make grants for moving expenses — 221 grants have been made
totaling *$6, 387.
The expanding camp has provided occupation for as many as wanted to find
work at day labor. It was necessary to move comparatively few to farms else-
where. Less than 10 percent have purchased farms elsewhere, but all 205 families
have been relocated, in town or nearby, by their own effort or with [help.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12075
CAMP CROFT (SPARTANBURG, S. C.)
To build an Infantry replacement center near Spartanburg, S. C, Camp Croft
was established, and 17,000 acres of land acquired. On this tract lived 295
families.
The Farm Security Administration undertook early in the process to move its
15 borrower families to other farm lands, and this was completed last February.
The movement of other families proceeded less expeditiously.
The tract acquired was made up of old farm land, which supported generally
no more than a passable farm economy. It was necessary to make through
Farm Security Administration 282 grants to help the moving, totaling $9,714.
At this writing, the entire former population has been relocated. Good farming
land in the vicinity is scarce.
Sixteen families moved into prefabricated houses erected on Palmetto Farms
(an enterprise of the Relocation Corporation, near Pacolet, S. C). Most of those
moved to farm land, preferring this to remaining near the camp and city and
finding construction work, are farming on small patches which offer little more than
the opportunity of subsistence farming.
SANTEE-COOPER (S. C.) (FLOOD AREA, DAM PROJECT)
Relocation problems in the Santee-Cooper area are unique among the group
herein described, both because of the nature of the project and the composition
of the families involved. Next to the Hinesville area, the Santee-Cooper flood
area embraced the largest number of familes to be moved — 841- — for the most
part Negroes living on small tracts, as owners or squatters, which they had
occupied in a remote section for generations. So remote, indeed, was the habi-
tations of many, that a kind of tribal custom had developed among them. Their
enforced moving was accompanied by a large degree of bewilderment and help-
lessness on the part of the little farmers.
Comprising few off-the-farm laborers, the group had grown up in a generally
agrarian tradition, and amid standards extremely low.
The Farm Security Administration was obliged to make 432 grants for moving
in this area, totaling $40,277 — an average considerably higher than the grant
necessary in other areas.
Out of the enforced movement of this group came the greatest demand for farm
land, the greatest tax upon the resources of the Palmetto Relocation Corporation,
which handles the South Carolina program. One of the noteworthy ventures to
which it gave rise was establishment of a community general farm in Richland
County, near Columbia, on land which was bought from one of the landed estates
of the locality, the property of the Hamer family.
While accommodating only 40 families, the program followed in this under-
taking is watched as a likely model. Each will have a subsistence unit for home
living and will work on the main farm, receiving compensation from the farm's
profits on the basis of labor applied. There will be central pastures. Each
family will be housed, with a general sanitation system, water supply, poultry
unit, fencing, etc. Loans will be made for improvement and operation to be
liquidated over 40 years, with the result of private ownership.
FORT BENNIKG (ALABAMA AND GEORGIA, NEAR COLUMBUS)
A tract of 40,000 acres was acquired for extension of the great military center
at Fort Benning, Ga. Bought in Russell County, Ala., across the Chattahoochee
River, and in Muscogee County, Ga., it was- obtained for maneuver purposes and
to give room for parachute training. In this tract lived 352 families, most of
whom were laborers on farms and in urban centers. The largest proportion was
colored.
Indicative of the family composition is the analysis of one segment of the
tract on which 92 families lived:
White
Negro
Farm owner...
0
4
2
Farm laborer .
29
Total
7
12076 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Relocation work is not yet complete in this area. The Farm Security made
grants totaling $4,604 to aid in moving 207 cases. Many of the inhabitants
moved to nearby urban centers — Columbus, Phenix City, and Girard — to subsist
by labor (mostly unskilled) on construction projects. Those who stuck to farming
were enabled to find locations on farms on the fringe of the area, as renters, wage
hands, and Farm Security Administration clients.
SMALLER AREAS
Relocation work is in progress on tracts acquired for a flying field near Sumter,
S. C. (3,000 acres), a flying field near Tuskegee, Ala. (3,000 acres), and a triangular
training camp near Augusta, Ga., the largest of the new acquisitions, embracing
55,000 acres.
This latter tract, in the heart of the widely publicized "Tobacco Road" section,
was sparsely settled. Of 270 families included, relocation plans have been made
to date (December 15) for only 118. Grants for moving, totaling $4,604, were
made by Farm Security Administration in 138 cases.
TRIANGULAR DIVISION CAMP (OZARK, ALA.)
Early in January 1942 the Army began construction of a triangular division
cantonment near Ozark, Ala., using as a site 35,000 acres in the Pea River project
already cleared of inhabitants by Federal submarginal land programs in 1934-35,
and acquiring 30,000 additional acres of adjoining farmland in Dale County and
3,000 acres in Coffee County. All except 28 of the 296 families being displaced
are full-time farmers.
Many factors have joined to make the immediate job of relocation here less
difficult than in other areas of Alabama. Expanding shipbuilding and allied in-
dustries in Gulf coast towns offering "permanent" employment have drained the
area, leaving many openings for tenants and day hands. Ozark being in the center
of Alabama's leading peanut-producing section, the almost doubled acreage called
by the "Food for Victory" campaign has greatly increased demand for farm labor,
according to Dale County's Agricultural Agent, W. D. Thomason.1
In addition, techniques worked out in other sections by Farm Security relocation
staffmen have been applied directly here. Called on the job January 5, they were
able to report that by January 27, 111 of the 296 families had actually been
evacuated and, of the 185 families still in the area, 70 definitely had places to move.
The fact that January is "moving month" in this section sped this work, too.
As to the availability of land for evacuees, Daniel Hollis, Jr., assistant in charge
of relocation here wrote:
"It is not likely that land need be acquired in this section for the resettlement
project for this year. However, in order to effect a permanent rehabilitation and
resettlement of these displaced families it is highly likely that such a project should
be put into operation for next year, in order to restore and retain the present status
of displaced families."
Chief agricultural worries in the area are centered now on the possibility that
"union pay" work on the cantonment will draw so many farm laborers from all
over this peanut section that it will be impossible for farmers to meet Victory
production goals. Construction began the middle of January and must be com-
pleted in 120 days, or by May 20. The anticipated peak pay roll will number
18,000, of whom' half will be unskilled workers and the rough construction will
make it possible for partially skilled mechanics to fill another fourth of the jobs.
The problem of finding living accommodations for workers on the construction
job has already become acute, and local agents of the Employment Service report
that it is seriously interfering with their recruiting as well as with actual perform-
ance of workers. Salaried officials are commuting 18 miles to Enterprise. Un-
skilled laborers from the surrounding farms bunch together and ride in on old
tires. By March 1 United States Employment Service officials expect these to
be crowding up with several thousand unskilled workers who have already set up
bunks in every empty dwelling, barn or shanty within walking distance of the job.
Bunkhouse, cabin, and trailer-camp accommodations usually built by private
individuals near such jobs are — and will be — scarce here because of the short
work season guaranteed and the relatively low wages paid. (Unskilled labor gets
40 cents an hour, or $16 when they make a full week.)
i Thomason reports that the use of small tractors for peanut cultivation has almost doubled in the past
year. Since these machines are still available, he, expects this trend to continue.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12077
On February 2, representatives of the Army, Extension Service, Farm Security
and United States Employment Service met in Ozark. They decided to — ■
1. Carry on an educational campaign among the farmers, pointing out the brief
period work will be available and urge them to put in their crops and then make
as much time on the cantonment as this will allow.
2. Appeal to the farm women to fill the breach; ask authorities to make high
school children available during planting season; help farmers schedule their
operations to better utilize what labor they have.
3. The Employment Service agreed to "refuse to certify" applicants living out-
side commuting distances if they have been regularly employed in farm work dur-
ing the previous year.
4. On request from the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, they mapped a route for
shuttle trains to collect workers from a 50-mile radius, thus spreading labor drain.
(Outlying points on the proposed routes: Dothan, Abbeville, Troy, and Elba.)
5. While the trains will give some relief, they determined to get some public
agency to set up temporary housing. They suggested that the relatively mild
climate and the temporary nature of the work would make most practicable the use
of such temporary shelters as are provided by tent platform camps developed by
Farm Security engineers to house migratory farm laborers.
HENDERSON AIR FIELD (SEBR1NG, FLA.)
New relocation projects are continuously developing. Late in January the
Army began acquisition of 118,000 acres in central Florida for a bombing'field.
It is located in swampy grazing area near Sebring, 15 miles east of Avon Park.
A total of 18 families, all white, live in this area, most of them small cattlemen
running stock on open range. One family operates a fishing resort on Arbuckle
Creek and 2 own houses and lots on the lakes. All of these families have been
contacted and a survey made of each family.
By February 3, four families had already moved, and the 14 remaining were
working out plans with local Farm Security supervisors to find new homes and
ranges. It is possible that several families will become clients of the Dixie
Cattlemen's Association, at Okeechobee, which is being developed with Farm
Security assistance by a number of small cattlemen.
Appendix D. Land Purchases
PALMETTO FARMS, INC.
(South Carolina)
County
Acreage
Purchase
price
County
Acreage
Purchase
price
Berkley
700
464.5
2,819
147. 84
1, 936. 50
$7, 200. 00
11,500.00
29, 000. 00
5, 913. 00
27, 260. 00
Richland
4, 547. 70
3, 326. 86
2, 359. 50
2, 339. 80
$123, 855. 00
74, 000. 00
Spartanburg
Barnwell
46, 381. 00
HINESVILLE RELOCATION CORPORATION
(Georgia)
5, 719. 14
7, 572. 06
1,035
1, 298. 50
7,294
$69, 500. 00
96, 356. 00
8, 100. 00
13, 000. 00
84, 400. 00
18, 076. 62
1,215
4, 282. 40
4, 505. 19
$178, 850. 00
16,600.00
Terrell
Wheeler and Laurens
Johnson
ALABAMA RELOCATION CORPORATION
Madison _
Calhoun.
5,141.01 $159,725.00 Talladega.
7, 267. 12 173, 570. 00
13. 663. 50 $237, 227. 50
12078 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Preface
Here is the story of what happens to people — to individuals and to groups —
under the impact of forces beyond themselves, harried by the new forces abroad
in the land, shaken from old customs, occupations, communities. It is the
testimony of men and women driven into a new migration from the land by
necessities of national defense.
Farm migration and displacement of farm people in the South, it is to be noted,
is not a new thing, born of the national emergency. It is merely an accentuation
of historic trends. Many of the displaced farmers who either went to town or
rented houres and small patches in the country from which they are going to day
work, eventually would have drifted into this anyhow. From the accumulation
of the case histories may be drawn evidence to support the impersonal presentation
of the facts found in the text of the report.
Thete slories, all added up, should show that the situation under study is,
peculiarly in the Southeast, deeply involved in human and social relations, in
traditions, customs, unique husbandry, and historic conflicts.
Case Histories
the plantation disintegrates talladega county (childersburg area)
(Alpine and Plantersville are two of the oldest agricultural settlements in this
section of Alabama, and a few of the original slave-holding families remain on the
land, woiking it with tenants who are the children of slaves on these same planta-
tions. The following group of interviews is concerned with dislocations of the
peculiarly Old South landlord-tenant relations on the paternal side. There is a
special helplesFness and bewilderment to be seen among tenants of this sort cut
loose from historic moorings.)
Case I
Mr. Arnett owns 142J4 acres. He and his wife have a good many children.
When the area was announced they had bought a place — the Winn place
between here and Talladega.
They paid $500 down, with the understanding that this amount was to go as
rent for the first year if, for any reason, they did not take it. They moved their
two Negro tenants, all their feed, stock, and tools, and three outbuildings. Then
they had to move these back. But they operated both farms this summer.
This was hard, since labor was scarce. The new farm was 230 acres, 85 of it in
cultivation. They tried only corn, oats, and hay there.
Counting money for repairs and all, they put $100 on the new place. It had a
"big house" and two tenant houses on it. They have rented the big place for
$25 a month to powder-plant people for 7 months (through December when it
will go back to the owners) — making $175. One tenant house they have rented
for $5 a month to Negro plant workers — $35 total. The other tenant house they
have been getting $10 a month from for 2 months. Count this $30 in all, they
said. So a total of $240 from rents. Counting in value of crops and all, they
figured they lost $200 on the deal, not counting labor.
The Negro tenants got $20 each from Farm Security Administration for moving.
"And they used our mules and wagons and did it on our time," Mrs. Arnett said,
a little put out. "Of course, we could have got something if we had gone in there
and told a story but I'm not one to do a thing like that * * * I didn't think
it was right of them getting it, either, and we could have busted it up, I guess.
But we know better than to do thataway, with labor as hard to get as it is."
She laughed at herself, good naturedly.
"I never thought I'd come to pet niggers as I have this last year. We've taken
a lot of foolishness off them and not said anything. * * *."
Both she and Mr. Arnett began to laugh and he told about a neighbor who had
been "very strict with his hands." When the powder plant come they all went
off and left him, and even those who weren't working would not go pick his cotton.
"It's there in the field now, and he can't hire anybody to touch it, not from
round here."
One Negro family is still with the Arnetts, but working at the powder plant
part of the time. A second — one they kept praising as "the best farmer you
ever saw — he's not just a good worker, he knows how to farm * * * he's
been on this place all his life * * * born right around here * * *" — had
decided to work in the powder plant full time. So they wouldn't lose him for
good, they rented a house for him just across the road (rather poor looking shack)
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12079
from Mrs. Arnett's brother. The Negro pays them rent but says he does not
plan to farm so long as he can get other work. He thinks he can get work inside
the plant when it opens, she said.
To replace this family the Arnetts got another Negro couple * * * "They
look like they're crazy anyway," she said, "I guess that's why nobody would
hire them. But they're good workers, as good as you'll find anywhere." What
will happen when all three families want to come back with them — they did not
know.
Mr. Arnett said he didn't blame any Negro for not wanting to farm here.
They had a crop failure for 3 years. Last year they made four bales on 16 acres
and this year they made five. His tenants work on halves.
Case II
On Mr. H. H. Cook's "small place" just below the crossroads at Plantersville
are two houses. One is very near the road, a one-storied, six-room house built
in a U, with a porch across the front. At one time, probably only a few years
ago, it was a respectable residence, plastered inside, and well appointed, if a bit
shabby. Now three Negro families from Mr. Cook's old farm live here.
The front door, most of its side panes covered with cardboard, was barred.
The well in the narrow yard formed by the two wings of the house was "dry."
It was the only thing around in that condition. Rain leaked down inside the
two rooms where Eddie Garrett, his wife, and two little girls live. Eddie was
"out hunting." The rest of the family sat around the open fire in the larger
room. Eddie has been working at the powder plant since July and signs of hi3
new wealth were about; a battery radio, a sewing machine, some bright knitted
caps for the children, and some oranges. Garrett's wife, a small, neat, quiet-
spoken girl was reading a copy of Good Housekeeping (bright advertisement pages
from Vogue and The Saturday Evening Post helped hide spots on the wall where
the plaster had failed from the laths).
She and Eddie moved from Mr. H. H. Cook's place the last day of February.
Until July her husband worked as a day hand for H. H. Cook and his brother,
C. C, since July he has been working on the powder plant job. She did not know
what they are going to do when the area job is over. For 8 years they have
been working for Mr. H. H. Cook and both were "born and raised" on the place.
The house, she said, is better than the one they lived in before, and seemed
surprised at my questions about how many lived there (3 families, 11 people, in
6 rooms). Each of the couples pays $1.50 a week for the house. (It was sur-
mised from general conversation that they had been paying this only since they
started working at the plant.) She has a few chickens — 12 laying hens, all that
is left of her farming. There is no garden.
The men make $4 a day on the powder-plant job, she said. This is "mighty
good to what they been getting a-farming." They didn't get "enough to live
on, hardly" when her husband was farming.
Later Eddie came in. He is working for 50 cents an hour digging ditches for
the pipe line laying. He doesn't expect to get work much longer, "the way
they keep turning them off up there." He hasn't planned anything beyond that,
but he was very definite in stating that he did not expect to go back to farming so
long as there was any chance to get more "public work." He has worked for
H. H. Cook as a day or month wage hand for the past 7 or 8 years, leaving him
only for a week or two at a time to pick up a few days work on nearby farms.
The pay: $10 a month, and a house, during planting, chopping, and gathering
time; 75 cents a day for any work done during lay by time, or during the winter
months. He was better off than most on the Cook place, he saii — with special
pride in the fact that he was a favorite, plainly exhibited. He "milked by the
month" for Mr. Cook and, on special occasions, acted as "butler boy around the
house."
When probed about next year, and what he might be doing he finally said,
"I can't hardly say. I ain't gonna farm if I can reach out and get something
else." What this might be he seemed to have not the faintest idea.
He hasn't been able to save anything, he said, because "I had a big debt in
front of me." (Remember the new radio, the new clothes, and the sewing ma-
chine.) This money was, and is, owed to Mr. Cook. Mr. Cook took him down
to the union last July and got him the job. (He confirmed story that they didn't
get money for moving. Told that they moved "too quick.")
"If I hadn't got on I'd sho' be back in the woods 'til yet," Garrett said. He
"draws" $25, or about that, every pay day. He gives "the biggest part of that
12080 HUNTSVILLE, ALAV HEARINGS
to Mr. Cook, excusing what I keeps out for groceries * * *." He thinks he
is about out of debt now.
Garrett said, finally, "If it looks like it's gonna wrap me up in debt again,
I ain't gonna farm * * * I knows that."
THEY MOVE TO TOWN HTJNTSVILLE AREA (SEIBERT ARSENAL)
Case III
Henry and Lola Joiner have lived around "Palm Beat" in the arsenal area, all
their lives. Both came from landowning families and they had always wanted
to buy a place of their own. Last January they moved from their old rented
place near Palm Beat to an old house on a farm they were buying through the
tenant-purchase program. When their new house was finished in May they moved
into it. In September they were forced to move back to the old house on their
farm because, Lola explained, "the building men told us they wanted to use our
new house for an office." However, no use was made of the house. In November
they moved a fourth time, to this house on the new tract they are buying with
four other tenant-purchase borrowers.
They were able to gather about 75 percent of their crop on the old place —
the first and only crop they got a chance to make there. The remainder was
destroyed when a right-of-way was cut. So far, the wife said, they have heard
nothing about getting paid for this.
The husband has been working at the arsenal job since September. The wife
and her two sons, 13 and 16 years of age, did all the harvesting.
Lola is a Barney, one of the leading Negro landowner families in the Palm
Beat community destroyed by the arsenal development. Her mother owned
about 400 acres, and the whole family group (some 9 households in all) owned
around 1,000 acres. Some of this was mortgaged. They have received no money
for it, so far. Already they have bargained for about half this number of acres in
another part of the county and have taken over a house in town. This dwelling
is being used by several of the children who attend Alabama State Normal
College and others who are working at the Russell Erskine Hotel in Huntsville.
She is sure they plan to keep on farming. Certainly she does.
"All my family likes to work. We likes to plow and we likes to hoe and we
likes to spread our arms out and grab hold of something * * *."
Other farmers taking over this tract will be moving into shacks left by the
former operator's day hands. Since all the latter are still in the houses working
on the arsenal job, some suffering is bound to take place here, for the area was
cleared in January.
Case IV
All except two of the nine tenant-purchase farmers moved from the area will be
farming in the spring of 1942, either on rented places or ones optioned to buy
through the Bankhead-Jones program. The two have not been able to locate
places for crops and, unless one can be found, will have to do what day work they
can find until land can be found.
Williams, one of the nine, does not want to try buying a farm again. The
buildings on his new place were all completed. He had worked on them himself.
Then he and his family were forced to move. He moved to another part of the
same community, hoping to be able to gather his crops, but was moved twice
again and most of his crop was destroyed in the early clearing. He was not able
to harvest one ear of corn or pick one boll of cotton. Now is he living in a rented
house outside of town.
Robert has received no money for his destroyed crops and had difficulty getting
work on the arsenal job. His three head of work stock, several cows and hogs
have cost him a great deal to feed. He plans to farm again, he told Mr. Lynn,
but does not want to try buying.
"He put a great deal of work on that farm last winter and spring and he feels
mighty discouraged about it now," Mr. Lynn said. "Getting moved so many
times like that he seems to feel somebody's got something against him. He told
me he guessed they never meant for him to own a place."
COMMON LABOR (HUNTSVILLE)
Fully 200 white men, most of them in overalls with big numbered union buttons
pinned on conspicuously, were scrouged up on a couple of narrow porches around
the rough pine common laborers' union headquarters, "waiting for a call." An
equal number of Negroes were squeezed under the narrow eaves and along an
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12081
alley in the back. It was drizzling rain, mid-afternoon and spirits were low. One
man, a farmer in his late thirties, started telling about it.
Case V
"It's a joke," he said. He had signed up with the union in August and every
few days since then had come down from his farm in Morgan County, 30 miles
away, to see if there was anything doing. He had not found a single day of work,
so far. "They're giving the jobs to men who come from away off. They can come
from these other jobs and get right on and us living around here can't get on at all."
Sure, he was going to make a crop next year. He was down here hoping to
make enough money so he wouldn't have go go in debt for it next spring. But
now he'll be glad if he makes enough days to pay back all the money he's spent on
transportation — 30 miles each way.
Case VI
Carney Glover lives in the northern part of Madison County, almost on the
Tennessee line. He has been farming for the past 5 years on a third and fourth
basis as a Farm Security Administration rehabilitation borrower. Since October
4, when he joined up with the union, he has been coming the 20 miles to town and
20 miles back again looking for work. He wanted to know why it was they didn't
hire the farmers the way they promised to, now that crop season was over?
"Yes; I'm making another crop next year. I want to get so I won't have to
keep going in debt on my crops what I'm after," he said.
Some person who had gotten work on the powder plant offered his landlord as
much for the use of the house as he was paying in rent (averaged on cotton third)
for the house and land, so he, Glover, has had to move. He found another place
in the same section which he is renting on the third and fourth basis.
Case VI I
Virgil Turner came 18 miles down from Hurricane Creek almost every morning
from August 15 when he signed up with the union, until November 24 without
getting work. Now he is making, as he put it, "more money in less time" than
he has ever made in his life. For the last year or so, until the first of August, he
was working on Work Projects Administration. After being cut off, on days he
did not come to Huntsville he found work around the neighborhood at $1 a day
for straight farm work, hay baling, etc., and $1.50 a day (average) for picking
cotton.
Turner used to farm and wants to go back to it, if he can get his hands on some
stock and some good land. Since the tractors have come along, he said, a man
working on shares can't get land.
"The big fellows, they get all this Government rent money and pay for their
tractors and the little work they hire with that," he said. "All they make on
crops, hit's plum clear."
Six dollars a month is what Turner pays for his house opt in the country. It
is better than the average tenant house, he said. He didn't know whether or not
the rent would be increased, but suspected it would. Several people had been
around looking at it.
Case VIII
W. A. Bishop has rented a 120-acre farm-near New Market in Madison County,
70 acres of it in cultivation, from his brother-in-law for the past several years.
He has been working on the job for the past 3 weeks and this is his first experience
doing "public work". He is a common laborer.
He does not plan to operate the farm next year, because he has no "plow
hands" in his family and doesn't think he can hire any at reasonable prices.
This fall, for example, he had to pay $1 a day for harvest hands and $1 a hundred
forcotton pickers. "And you can't get a nigger to cut wood."
Something else is bothering Bishop. People around in his community are
raising rents from a third and fourth arrangement to straight thirds. He is afraid
this will happen to his place. He does hope to stay on in the same house and
commute to work, but doesn't know whether his brother-in-law will be able to
rent the land without the house.
-42— pt. 32 10
12082 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Cantrell's Bunk House
Beds 50 cents night
Hot water showers
L. J. Cantrell, Mgr.
This sign hung over a small frame building, a converted neighborhood store on
the outskirts of Huntsville. Inside were a dozen men sitting on homemade stools
and benches around a pot-bellied stove. Twenty-eight iron cots covered with
Army blankets lined down the building and in adjoining long room were 24 other
beds, spaced about 18 inches part. In the rear was a tin-floored shower cubicle
with two jets and two metal sinks. Toilet facilities were outside pits.
Mr. Cantrell, it seemed, is from McMinville, Tenn. He had a similar bunk-
house at Tullahoma and at Milan, Tenn., when the defense jobs were going there.
A good many of the patrons are from around McMinville and have lived with him
while working on the other jobs. The place was bare, reasonably clean. Weekly
rates are $3. They have averaged 10 or 12 customers a night for the past month-
Case IX
This is the sixth week H. L. Brown had squatted in that dark hall and he was
getting a little out of patience. For 4 weeks he commuted the 38 miles each way
from where his wife and family live with the in-laws in Launeck Cove.
Until recently Brown was a farmer. Now he works as an ironmaker * * *.
"If I can get on * * *." ■
He worked on the Milan, Tenn. job from the 29th of July to the last part of
October. There he and his wife and two children lived in a converted smoke
house, for which they paid $5.50 a week. It was furnished with one double bed
and a' half bed, a small stove and some utensils.
"It wasn't bad, once we got used to it."
Here in Huntsville, Brown and his brother have found a boarding place about
which they are very pleased. They pay $8 a week and get meals and a room to
themselves. The only trouble is that neither of them likes to be away from their
families.
Case X
W M. Jennings, now rooming with another worker came to the Huntsville
job from Childersburg the last of October. His family lives near Gadsden, 78
miles away. For 4 weeks he traveled this distance back and forth every day —
156 miles. It took too much out of him, he said, so he moved in with Annis and
now goes to see his family on week-ends. _
"I couldn't find a place any closer we could live," he explained. He has a wife
and two children. . . n,„.
Immediately before coming to Huntsville, Jennings worked on the Childers-
burg job and "lived in Birmingham, 38 miles away. Commuting was easy here,
after they put on the special train, he said. For $40 a month they got a two-room
apartment with bath and kitchenette. "It was just all right. Now, if I could
get a place like that here I wouldn't kick." •
Before going to Childersburg, Jennings worked at Camp Blanding and lived
in Jacksonville, 48 miles away. This meant 96 miles traveled every day, but
he could find no "fittin' place" any closer to the job. There they found a couple
of furnished rooms for $10 a week.
"If I don't find some place where I can bring my family over here, my wife s
gonna quit me and my kids are going to get so they don't known me * * *.
Jennings wanted to get one of those Government trailers, too.
Case XI
The first year of married life for the Harley F. Leonards has been one of shuttl-
ing around from boarding house to furnished apartment to auto court and back to
boarding house again. October of 1940 Harley left Columbus, Ga., his home, to
work as a plumber on a defense job at Tallahassee, Fla. He found a furnished
apartment there for $37.50 and there they spent their honeymoon. He had been
living in a single room, paying $5 a week for it.
His next job was on Camp Gordon in Atlanta after being without work for
several weeks. Here they found a boarding house where they got excellent food
and a clean room for $14 a week.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12083
When the Camp Gordon job was over they traveled for 2 weeks without work
again. He got work for 1 week in Charleston, S. C, and then was without it for
3 months.
"That's what happens to the big wages we make." Leonard said. "Most folks
don't know how much it costs to travel around like this * * *."
"If you don't save at least half what you make," his wife put in, "you'll be
having to beg as soon as the job gives out."
In July he got work near Anniston on the Fort McClellan job and they lived in
a furnished apartment, paying $45 a month.
When they came to Huntsville, the 1st of November, they stayed at a hotel for
4 days, then found a boarding place, where they paid $20 a week for the two of
them.
"The only place I've seen that I'd really enjoy living in here is priced at $85
a month — and it's nothing in the world but a furnished upstairs of a house,"
Mrs. Leonard said. She wasn't complaining, though. She was too much excited
at the prospect of moving into one of the trailers.
Case XII. Lester England Sells Out
Lester England owns between 1,500 and 2,000 acres of farm land in the north-
ern neck of Talladega County, near the Fort McClellan extension, and operates
a country store and furnishing establishment in the old bank building at Lincoln.
His trade has been, for the most part, "with my own folks." The defense work
has played havoc with his farming operations, he said.
"The trouble is, one nigger'll get a job and the whole crowd of them will live
off that one and won't raise a hand to do anything * * *. All the men that's
fit to work have gone to these defense jobs and all you've got left is the old folks
and the children * * *. The Government's paying them four times what
they're worth. We never paid them more than $1 a day around here and now
they're making $4. It's running them plum crazy. They'll buy automobiles
and radios and won't work for hell. I've got over 100 shacks on my places and
this summer I've had to go somewhere else to get hands. They'll sit back in them
little shacks, five of six of them up together like pigs, and that radio'll be bustin'
out 'til you can't hear nothing, and they wouldn't work for hell * * *. You
know, most niggers won't work 'til they're hungry * * *. If the Govern-
ments pay them about half what they're getting they'd get more work done
# * * "
This defense money disease is infecting the "good ones," too.
"I had one fellow on my place, been here 10 years. He got a job on this defense
and he up and quit — moved out. He'll be sorry he did that when all this shuts
down. There's going to be a many a hungry nigger in this county about that
time * * *."
For the past several years England has been working most of his land himself.
He has three tractors. The rest he rented out on "the fourth." Things have
changed around here a great deal in the past 2 decades. Up until 1921, he said,
farming was simple. You would give a hand a mule in the spring, tell him to
plant cotton, and he planted it. When the boll weevil came a tenant had to
start making his own feed. This complicated farming and he shifted from share-
cropping to working his land on a fourth-rent basis, helping his men buy their
stock through his store. When the cotton program was started "it shut some of
the families off."
This summer England operated about 500 acres himself, with tractors and
wage hands "* * * and 100 acres I always made a crop on didn't get a plow
stuck in it because I couldn't get the labor." Another 300 acres he operated with
half tenants, to whom he furnishes stock, equipment, and supervision. The
rest, in scattered tracts, was rented for cropping to people paying fourth rent. A
good many of these did not work their crops, though, or worked with very little.
They got jobs on the construction work, instead.
"I almost always make 100 bales of cotton. This time I didn't make more than
40. Couldn't get the hands. I still got a bale in the fields I can't get picked
*t * *. Had to pay up to $1.50 a hundred for that I did get in * * *."
Until late in November he was having to pay 10 cents a bale to have his hay
pressed and stored.
All the twenty-odd houses on England's land are filled. Several are occupied
by defense workers, both Negro and white, who are paying $5 a month rent.
"The rest are living at my expense * * *" (meaning they are not paving any
cash rent) .
12084 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
"It's going to be a bad time around here when this stuff's over, and they ain't
going to have nothing to run on. Here they're turning off a bunch of them up
there at Fort McClellan, and do they look for another job? Hell, no. They're
after that social security. I thought that was supposed to be for the next de-
pression. * * *"
England is getting out of it all. The defense project wages have given him a
chance to collect some of the money owed him at the% store. He has optioned
1,100 acres of his land to the relocation corporation, and plans to sell most of his
tractors, mules, and equipment. He will still keep about 500 acres to operate
himself, but does not expect to move any of his tenants there who aren't on the
place already. This he will work with day hands. He assumed the relocation
corporation would take care of the 20 houses full of tenants.
England thought the relocation corporation work a good thing. "I figure
the Government's going to cut this land up into 40-acre farms and tell them
they can root or starve."
Case XIII
Robert Moody, a colored farmer 47 years of age, had lived for the past 5 years
with his wife, three daughters and a son on a 212-acre place (most of it open range)
he was trying to buy, located in Bryan County, near Pembroke.
"I had it almost paid for," he reported, "when the man that had the note
started pushing me. I went to see a fellow and see would he let me have the money.
He say he'd take it up and pay me the difference, but he wouldn't let me have it
to pay out. I knowed this here area was coming and I begged him, but he wouldn't,
so I leave him have it."
Moody thought he owed about $600 on his place, including taxes. He received
from the man who took the farm $70 in cash. He did not know how much he
had paid on the place ("most a thousand dollars if I ain't mistaken") nor how
much the Government is paying its present owner.
Robert and his family have moved to Bullock County, where they are renting
a one-horse farm — 26 acres of land, a house, and some open range for his cattle.
He worked on the area for 2 months this fall ("it caught me up a little on my
debts"). He has not moved to strange territory.
"The man I stay with married the daughter of the man I used to stay with,"
he grinned.
Moody had been running a 2-horse farm before and, according to several
white men around the courthouse, was accounted a substantial farmer. He listed
for moving: 1 mule, 3 beef cows, 11 hogs, 18 goats, 20 chickens, 900 bundles of
fodder, 40 bushels of corn, and furniture enough for a 4-room house. He moved
25 miles and received a grant of $50.
Case XIV
Sam Howard is a man in his early forties, powerfully built, a broad-jawed,
intelligent appearing Negro. He is a farmer, a trucker and, with his brother,
contracts for and builds small residences. This Sunday morning he was driving
up the road in his pick-up truck.
Sam operated a 100-acre farm that originally belonged to his father. After his
father's death he bought out five brothers and sisters, who were scattered from
Brunswick to Baltimore, and farmed the place with one brother who remained
on the old place. He grew cotton, some tobacco and, of late, had gone into the
truck-farming business, peddling his own stuff to local markets.
When he first heard about the area and the fact that it might possibly get his
place he scrambled out and found himself more land — 85 acres with a house on it,
10 miles from his old home. For this he promised to pay $2,000, and had enough
cash on hand to meet all except $300 of the bill. Some of this money has come
from the few weeks' work he got on the area and from extra carpenter work he and
his brother have done during the last year or so, since carpenters have been hard
to find.
The old place has not been appraised. "They give us until January 1st to get
out," he said, "but I'm not going to leave until they come look at what I've got.
A man'd be a fool to go off and leave it. If it'd burn down I wouldn't have any
way in the world to prove what I had * * *."
A great many peop'e are looking for land, he said, both Negroes and whites.
The trouble is that land has gone "way out of sight." Many of his Negro friends
have bargained for pieces, and are paying a great deal too much for them. "If
the Government (defense) work shuts down in about a year they'll lose it."
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12085
Case XV
D. L. Purcell worked a small tract next to M. W. Glissen that belongs to his
wife. When the condemnation was rumored he started looking around. He
found land had doubled in price. The reasons:
1. "Folks knowed there'd be a big demand for farms when we had to clear
out * * *."
2. "Prices for farm stuff are about double what they was last year this time.
It looks like farming's coming back. It's natural a man would think more of his
land * * *."
Purcell, too, wondered if he wouldn't be able to make another crop here. His
cousin, E. L. Purcell, had a turpentine tract near the town of Willie (center of the
area). When the order came to pull up stakes a year ago, E. L. closed up business.
Then they didn't take the place until late in July. This means he missed almost
a whole season.
"We don't know anything," Purcell kept insisting. "All we hear's what some
other fellow says he thinks * * *." He thought the least the Government
could do was to tell them something for certain.
"A man farming in this country ought to know right now if he's going to farm
next year * * *."
SUPPLEMENTAL STATEMENT BY E. S. MORGAN, DIRECTOR,
REGION 5, FARM SECURITY ADMINISTRATION, UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Montgomery, Ala., May 191^2.
A number of factors have changed since preparation of our original statement for
this committee describing displacement of farm families in the Southeastern
States and programs for their service undertaken by the Farm Security Ad-
ministration.
Preparation of our exhibits was begun before Pearl Harbor. The word, the
national thinking, has changed from defense to war. New appraisals and pro-
grams have been projected. The national effort has been accelerated and many
plans have been transformed from their original design. This supplementary
statement is made necessary to explain the changes wrought in several details of
the original report.
However, these changes are indeed but changes in details and in method.
The fundamental story remains unaltered, the fundamental thesis is the same;
namely, that the conditions for which we seek means of alleviation are not new,
not the result of upheavals due to the war or to pre-war concerns. And because
they involve forces which are the same in kind, if not in degree, as those with
which our sociologists, economists, and other observers of the southern scene
have long been aware, the truth is no less evident that we must look to programs of
long and enduring effect. The goals are: 1, stabilization; 2, rehabilitation. In
short, none of the conclusions described in the original statement have been
altered.
Your committee is aware of the uncertainties which at this moment beset the
relocation program. This program has been placed in the hands of the Farm
Security Administration, as the action agency principally endowed with function
and authorization to bring about human adjustments in the farm field. A
question as to method was posed by the Comptroller General early in March,
and pending its settlement, the program has not been developed greatly beyond
the stage described in the original report ^to this committee.
Other incidental changes have occurred because of factors which include:
(1) Reorganization and centralization of housing programs; (2) limitation of ex-
penditures for construction; (3) revision of plans for land acquisition by the Army.
Adjustment to these changes may be made without substantial revision of the
program as originally conceived.
In spite of the changing picture and changing regulations, the experience of
the Farm Security Administration in the field under discussion continues to be
invoked for service in connection with war migrations. An illustration may be
recited as follows:
BROOKLET FIELD (MOBILE, ALA.)
A 300-unit trailer camp and a dormitory accommodating 490 single men are
being built by the Farm Security Administration at Mobile, Ala., to house skilled
mechanics employed at Brookley Field, southeastern Air Corps maintenance
and repair depot for Army planes.
12086 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
The housing shortage in Mobile is already acute, and the population of the
town has nearly doubled. Single rooms rent for $25 or $30 a month, and apart-
ments average $60 or $70, but there are none available.
Acting as agents for the Federal Public Housing Authority, part of the stop-
gap defense housing program, the Farm Security Administration received funds
for the Mobile project from the urgent defense appropriations account, authorized
to erect temporary shelters for workers in national defense activities.
Construction on the camp was begun May 4 and it is expected to be ready for
use by July 1.
Rental rates for the 100 Government-owned and 200 private-owned trailers
will be $7 a week for the standard type, including lights, water, and janitor service,
and $8 a week for the expandable family type. Dormitory rates will be from $3.50
to $5 a week for a double room, and from $5 to $7 a week for a private room,
including linen, blankets, and other similar hotel services. All applications must
be certified by the personnel officer of Brookley Field, as well as the camp manager.
TRIANGULAR DIVISION CAMP (OZARK, ALA.)
Another illustration of the adaptation of the Farm Secutity program to meet
changing conditions is to be found at Ozark, Ala., where a triangular division
camp was projected. As described in the original volume presented to this com-
mittee, approximately 70,000 acres had been surveyed, on which lived 296 families
to be moved. The plans were revised, and only 40,000 acres were utilized. The
number of families to be moved was reduced to 216.
Of these 216 families, 155 have already moved, and plans have been made for
31 more, leaving 30 vet to be relocated. In the group of 155 families who have
actually moved, 63 made their own arrangements for funds and 92 received rural
rehabilitation grants.
Fourteen families who moved out of this defense area bought farms, 99 leased
farms, 39 leased houses, and 3 bought houses.
Ninety families had to move by February 24 from the 10,000-acre construction
area in Dale County.
These families, classified by type of farming or occupation, before and after
relocation are as follows:
After relocation :
Rent on halves 31
Owners 10
Squatters 2
Laborers 4
Cash renters 24
Share renters 0
Work at sawmill 0
Work for Work Projects Ad-
ministration 2
Live with children 1
Purchased houses 3
Have public work 13
Sixty-five other families were relocated by March 28. These were divided
into —
Before relocation:
Rented on halves 30
Owners 28
Squatters 6
Laborers 6
Cash renters 13
Share renter 1
Worked at sawmill 1
Worked for Work Projects Ad-
ministration or other public
agencies
Live with children 1
Before relocation:
Owners 11-
Halves 22
Public work 7
Work Projects Administration. 1
Day laborer 5
Cash renter 19
After relocation:
Owner 2
Halves 32
Public- work 8
Work Projects Administration. 1
Day laborer 4
Cash renter 18
Thirty families are yet to be relocated.
PROGRESS OF FOOD PRODUCTION PROGRAM
In renewing the original discussion, the progress of Farm Security's food pro-
duction program should be related. This program involves a material, measur-
able contribution of Farm Security to the Nation's war effort, outsideof its value
in social and economic improvement of borrower-participants and its value in
creating new sources of cash income, new means of emancipation from the stifling
one-crop system of southern tradition, new outlook and standards of living.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12087
In the original report there is an extended description (p. 16 — A Program for
Living) of the accelerated activity in food production by low-income farmers
of the southeast through the Farm Security Administration food for defense
program. This program has been enlarged, its goals twice revised, since it
started less than a year ago. A measure of its present expectations may be seen
from this recent report of results from the original food for defense program
(from the Montgomery Advertiser and press service dispatches of April 30) :
"Small farmers in the Southeast have increased their egg production in the past
year from a negligible amount, sold or traded by the dozen to 'rolling stores/
to a major farm enterprise producing 500,000 dozen weekly.
"In reports completed yesterday, farm management specialists of the Farm
Security Administration estimated that 56,000 small farmers cooperating with
the program in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina, were now getting
an average of more than 800,000 eggs a day from chickens raised in the food for
defense program initiated last spring. At an average of only 23 cents a dozen,
they pointed out that this meant $15,000 value in food for home use and in cash
sales for these low-income farmers daily.
" 'Results of last year's program definitely point to poultry as a permanent
enterprise in this region,' said Hubert R. Bailey, regional chief of the cooperative
division. 'The prospect is bright for the South's becoming a major national source
of supply.' "
This accomplishment in only one of several phases of the war food production
program shows plainly the possibilities of a new day in southern farming which
have been pointed through the Farm Security plan of credit, expert direction and
supervision of small farmers who otherwise have no access to these things.
ENLARGEMENT OF GOALS
Since the cow-hog-hen program of the food for defense program of 1941 was
set into motion, the Farm Security Administration has enlarged the food produc-
tion goals of its participating families by 300 percent in the case of cane and
sorghum, 100 percent in year-round gardens, 100 percent in rice and wheat pro-
duction for home use, 200 percent in peanut production, and increases no less
impressive as to other commodities.
It has been demonstrated that the widest field for increase in food production
lies in the small farms. The Atlanta Journal of April 1 points out:
"Consider the work of the Federal Security Administration in fortifying the
productive capacity of farmers who, without such assistance and guidance, could
not hold their own, much less contribute to the Nation's emergency needs.
"Their problem merges into that of a much larger group of low-income farmers
who heretofore have not grown enough foodstuffs to supply their own wants. It
is from this group, in the opinion of able observers, that most of the increase in
food production so urgently needed for our armed forces and for our Allies must
come. The large producer already has been working to capacity, and now the
labor shortage and the difficulty of acquiring more machinery bar him from any
great increase in his output. But if the rank and file of low-income farmers,
numbering around 1,700,000, could turn their food-producing possibilities to
maximum account, the result would be exceedingly important. Indeed, the De-
partment of Agriculture estimates that they could provide 35 percent of the
needed pork and lard, 40 percent of the eggs and 16 percent of the milk. These
proportions might well mark the difference between success and failure in one of
the most vital aspects of our war effort. Surely, there could be no better ex-
penditure of time and means than in aiding such farmers to realize their oppor-
tunity and their patriotic hope of serving the country through increased food
production.
"The same principle applies to the lowest income group, with whom the Farm
Security Administration is concerned. These farmers, with the help of the
Farm Security Administration, are becoming self-reliant and creative factors
in the common weal. Once impoverished and distressed, they are now on the
way to permanent security. They are steadily repaving the Government loans
through which they got a new start in life; $200,000,000 of the total $574,000,000
thus lent during the last 5 years has been returned to the Federal Treasury, while
122,000 borrowers have repaid their loans in full. Evidently, the Farm Security
Administration is doing a work of great consequence to the national welfare and to
the war effort."
12088 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
MARKETING SYSTEM
One of the most effective implements with which the Farm Security Adminis-
tration has undertaken to attack this problem of greater food production, greater
self-sufficiency — and in the end, greater independence and democratic participa-
tion— by the small farmer, is a workable marketing system.
We may report advances toward this goal since the main report was written.
These have been made principally through the organization of some 3,600 com-
munity groups in the 4 States of Farm Security Administration's region 5 — ■
which include some 60,000 families, 300,000 persons, who have been drawn
together for common planning, for discernment of common goals, and for con-
venience in assembly and distribution of products to market. The problem of
finding this market thus has been simplified and it was made easier to adopt the
admirable machinery set up by the Agricultural Marketing Administration. In
group action as fostered by the Farm Security Administration, the position of the
small farmer has been strengthened a hundredfold.
10-YEAR LEASE PROGRAM
Several incidental observations in the original report are to be qualified. One
of these touches upon the 10-year lease program of the Farm Security Adminis-
tration.
At first it was feared that increase in land and commodity values might have
the effect of deterring landowners from entering into long-term leases (see pp. 7
and 8, main statement). However, the picture is changing within itself. There
is the prospect now of stabilization of prices. The sky is no longer the limit.
Agriculture is in the national service, and the necessities of the hour have as of
April 28 put an end to the speculative element.
For another thing, it has been proved that much land and many habitations
have fallen into a state of decline so great that few can overlook the need of
restoring them as soon as possible, if the values are not to be lost entirely.
Consequently, the effort to obtain 10-year leases is winning recognition and a
degree of support that is gratifying. To make the longer tenure serve a construc-
tive purpose, it was undertaken to write into each lease certain agreements of
mutual obligation to make improvements — tenants to be compensated for im-
provements which they apply, landlords to make other improvements (being
secured in benefits from this outlay by the assurance of occupany and productive
labor).
Approximately 700 10-year leases will be signed in the region this year. An
example of their operation may be seen in 148 that were consummated in Alabama.
The figures show that 69 provided for planting kudzu; 59 provided for poultry
houses; 113 made provisions for fencing; 123 for sanitary improvement; 114
planned to improve dwellings; 116 planned to improve barns; 118 for water
improvement; 89 for terracing (under agreements usually where the landlord
furnishes the seed and the fertilizer, and the tenant furnishes the work); 111
provided for pasture improvement — seeding permanent pastures.
Worthy of note in the above analysis is the fact that so many clients plan to
plant or improve pastures and to put up fencing, which means that they are going
into the livestock business.
We have said a good bit about 10-year leases, because that is the period of time
we have been working on — but what we mean is a period of tenure long enough
so that the people will be interested in doing things and the landlord in having
them done. The program was begun last summer. We have made a fine begin-
ning, and supervision will see that the enterprises are carried through right.
Pertinent to a discussion of the complete aims of the Farm Security Adminis-
tration in the field of stabilization and rehabilitation, to which both this agency
and your committee are dedicated, seems to be the following bit of documentary
evidence. It comes from a report by an Farm Security Administration home
management supervisor in Coffee County, Ala.:
"Out of a house that leaked, had no screens, no outbuildings, and that was
very open, the Norris family moved into a ceiled house, screened, with more
rooms and plenty of outbuildings. Mrs. Norris did not keep a very clean house,
but since she moved, her house is very clean. She said the other day, 'Since I
have moved, I have better heart to keep my house clean. When you have
nothing to work for, vou just don't care.' "
I ask your indulgence to repeat : When you have nothing to work for, you just
don't care.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12089
When you have nothing to fight for, when you are without hope, you might
find it hard to distinguish between Roosevelt and Hitler, between God and
Mammon, between the dominion of the spirit and the fleshpots of the Pharaohs.
TESTIMONY OF E. S. MORGAN— Resumed
Air. Arnold. When you appeared before the committee in Mont-
gomery in 1940 we were studying migration of the destitute. We
had undertaken to learn what factors were at work causing people to
leave their farms. We were subsequently called on to investigate
defense migration in the Southeast. Do you think there are the same
factors at work causing such migration that were in force in 1940?
MIGRATION A CONTINUING PROBLEM IN THE SOUTH
Mr. Morgan. Yes, sir; definitely. Migration after all is nothing
new with us in the South. For instance, from, 1920 to 1930 more than
3,000,000 people moved from the South to other areas. There has
been a constant migration from the South, and conditions like these
through which we are passing at the present time just simply acceler-
ate the movement. We have found, as a result of a survey of these
four States, that it has a direct relation to the security of the people
on the farms. The ones who are insecure are the ones who migrate.
The Chairman. Of course, migration of destitute citizens is caused
by many factors, but the chief one is, as you say, a lack of economic
security. But there are a good many other factors.
Mr. Morgan. Yes, sir; and this present situation is just one more
factor.
Mr. Arnold. Of course this committee, from its investigations all
over the country, strongly believes in the work that has been done and
should now be done by the Farm Security Administration. We feel
that that Administration can do more to keep these people on the
farm than any other agency of the Government.
What has the low income farm group been able to contribute to the
food-for-victory program?
FOOD-FOR-VICTORY PROGRAM
Mr. Morgan. Of course Farm Security, especially in this particular
region, is especially proud of the contribution that has already been
made by that low-income group. Last spring when the Secretary of
Agriculture attempted to strengthen the prices of certain basic com-
modities that were needed for our Allies, we put on a drive immediately
with the borrowers in this region to increase their production of those
items. For instance, we urged some 78,000 borrowers that we have
in these four States to enlarge their production — we made loans to
them to put in more chickens, more hogs, and more cows. Some
fifty-odd-thousand of those families bought 5,000,000 baby chicks,
20,000 brood sows, and 20,000 cows. And as a result of that drive,
projected last year with this particular group, there has been a tre-
mendous increase in the production of eggs and of chickens and of
milk and of pigs. And it shows to us very clearly that that is the
group that has really got to make the largest contribution to the
increased production of food, because it, after all, is the available
farm labor supply — in that group is your largest reserve of farm labor.
12090 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
UTILIZATION OF LOW-INCOME GROUP
A study of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics shows that the
average farm family has about 565 man-days of labor. The average
farmer in the South with 10 acres of cotton and 20 acres of corn, as
we used to say, requires 198 man days of that labor. So, there is your
reserve of surplus labor, and it is the only reservoir of surplus labor
we have. And the only way we are going to get near the food pro-
duction called for is to so design our program to utilize those additional
man-days. I think definitely that the greater percentage of the pro-
duction of food for the winning of this war has got to be done by the
low-income group. The large operator is already operating his farm
pretty close to its maximum efficiency. There is no surplus of day
labor that he can draw on if he did have additional acres to plant.
There is no additional machinery he could get, as they did in the last
World War, where they could buy more tractors and turn over more
land. Therefore, I think this is the group that must produce the food.
Mr. Arnold. The large raiser of livestock hasn't many surplus
days or man-hours to greatly increase his herd?
Mr. Morgan. That is right.
Mr. Arnold. It is very interesting to have those figures on man-
days available on that group of farms.
Mr. Morgan. In the statement I have filed is a chart showing
those man-days available by months. We show that for a farm plan
requiring 10 acres of cotton, 20 acres of corn, 5 acres of oats, and 5
acres of hay, only 198 man-days of the 565 available are used. If you
change the plan just a little whereby there would be 6 acres of cotton,
3 acres of tobacco, 20 acres of corn, 5 acres of hay, and 5 acres of oats
and subsistence for the workstock, you would be able to utilize
276 clays of the 565. Then, with a still more broadened plan, for 7
acres of cotton, 2 acres of tobacco, 5 acres of peanuts, 15 acres of corn
and beans, 5 acres of oats, 5 acres of soybeans, 100 hens, and 4 cows,
you can utilize 435 of that 565 man-days of labor available.
Mr. Arnold. Those 78,000 clients necessarily had to have addi-
tional loans, the ones who increased production?
BABY-CHICK PROGRAM
Mr. Morgan. Yes, sir; we made fifty-odd-thousand of these loans
at an average of something over $80 per family, We said to these
families: "First, we insist you buy 50 additional baby chicks. Then
in addition to' that, we insist that you either buy a brood sow or 2
dairy cows, or, if conditions are such that you couldn't handle a
brood sow or 2 dairy cows, get another 50 chickens," which would
make 100 chickens. The trouble in that program was we started in
April. They bought those baby chicks, 5,000,000 of them, in May.
May is late for chickens in the South. There is an old saying that
May chickens are about half dead when they are hatched; There
were people who said, "You are putting these chickens out with a
group of people that won't take care of them." And yet actually
less than 15 percent of those chickens were lost, more than 85 percent
of them were raised.
Then of course the thing that we immediately faced, and which
we must face in any movement of this kind, was that 90 days after
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12091
those baby chicks were bought, there were some 2,000,000 cocks that
had to be sold. They started moving off at 17, 18, and 19 cents a
poimd, and then after a few weeks the price began to drop down,
down to about 13 or 14 cents. We learned a lot of lessons. We
found out, for instance, the big buyers of chickens and eggs knew
more about what we had out there to sell than we knew ourselves.
Anyway, the price started down, and we said: "We won't let these
people sacrifice this stuff, because they have gone out into this thing
so whole-heartedly, with such patriotism, eager to help do something
for their country. We will simply take these chickens and put them
in cold storage and hold them until they bring a satisfactory price."
And we moved 40,000 of those chickens into storage, and the price
was soon back up to 19 cents a pound. So that is not only teaching
people to do something they never did before, but it is also teaching
a lot of us a lot about marketing, which must necessarily go with a
change in products.
Mr. Arnold. That is very interesting. What do you believe the
demands of the war program will do toward assisting low-income
farmers to rehabilitate themselves and become self-sufficient? Of
course, what you have just outlined is a great thing toward that end.
Mr. Morgan. That's right. Of course, we have a long way to go.
The 1940 census showed that 49}£ percent of all the farmers in America
produced less than $600 worth of farm products, not cash, but cash
trade, and consumption, 65 percent of all the farmers in this region,
or 73 percent, Mr. Sparkman, in Alabama, produced less than $600
worth per year for sale, for trade, and for home consumption. The
war production program is going to help point the way to a more
diversified program and to more income. But then it has still a long
way to go.
The Chairman. It does indicate that the Government can depend
on the little fellow?
Mr. Morgan. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. It might be interesting for you to know, if you
don't know it, that there are about 165,000 manufacturing plants in
the United States, large and small. 97 percent of those factories
employ less than 250 men. One-third of them employ 20 or less.
That is a little outside of what we are talking about, but it does show,
as your testimony indicates, we still depend on the little fellow.
Mr. Arnold. The demands of the war production will aid your
borrowers in getting their loans in better shape?
Mr. Morgan. Yes, sir.
Mr. Arnold. The committee will appreciate your opinion and any
figures you may have that would reflect the farm labor situation in
the Southeastern States.
Mr. Morgan. That is what we have been talking about, in a way.
But this whole thing is tied into that question of farm labor supply.
Mr. Arnold. Do you have need in your area for an enlarged num-
ber of seasonal workers?
shortage of surplus labor
Mr. Morgan. There is, of course, quite a bit of seasonal employ-
ment in Florida. But other than in Florida, most of our employment
here is the labor that is on the farm doing the farming work through-
12092 HTJNTSVILLE, ALAV HEARINGS
out the year. That isn't true, however, in Baldwin County in Ala-
bama. This survey we have recently made points out this: That so
many people talk about a shortage of labor when they are not always
talking about a shortage of labor; they are talking about a shortage
of surplus labor. There are people operating seasonal crops that feel
there is a tremendous labor shortage unless there is a reserve that
they can reach out and get and use when they want it and then lay
it down and it will stay there somehow until they want it again.
Mr. Sparkman. What you mean is failure to utilize available labor
to the fullest capacity?
Mr. MorCxAN. Yes, sir.
Mr. Arnold. Did you read this item in this morning's paper from
Bridgeton, N. J.?
Mr. Morgan. No, sir.
Mr. Arnold. I will read it to you:
The Federal Government pledged all possible help Thursday in an effort to
halt the spoilage of millions of dollars' worth of war crops as a result of a harvest-
time farm-labor shortage in South Jersey.
Terming the situation "a Bataan on the farm front," Regional Director J. H.
Wood, of the Farm Security Administration said "Someone, presumably the
Farm Placement Bureau, may have to transport migratory workers from the
South * * * and we may be able to finance that movement."
Hundreds of acres of asparagus, needed by the Army and Navy, already have
gone to waste. Some growers are canceling contracts to grow tomatoes, a lend-
lease commodity.
A dirt road scraper was sent out Wednesday over the beds of Kenneth Roberts,
president of the Cumberland County Asparagus Growers Association, to cut down
overgrown and valueless stalks. Roberts estimated his loss at $185 a day and
expressed belief his experience was typical.
Some families — including women, aged folks, and high-school pupils — are
working until 2 and 3 a. m. sorting and bundling stalks they pick by day.
The labor shortage was attributed by Wood to the draft, high wages in defense
industries, tire rationing, and impending gasoline restrictions.
Wood said it may be a hint of what may develop in other northeastern agri-
cultural districts dependent upon migratory labor.
"There will be many other battles on the farm front throughout the Nation this
year," he added. "With proper supervision we may win most of them."
Wood said the Farm Security Administration would "expedite" the construction
of three migratory labor camps already being built in the south Jersey area.
Mr. Morgan. I presume Mr. Wood had in mind the migrant labor
that is at present employed in vegetable fields in south Florida. Mr.
Wood is thoroughly familiar with the South and the possibilities of
getting labor. For 4 years he was assistant regional director in this
region.
But I would say that there is no surplus farm labor in the South at
the present time, other than those that are working in the vegetable
areas in Florida, that could be so moved.
Mr. Arnold. It would look serious?
Mr. Morgan. It is serious, and in that connection I want to say
there are several of those migratory camps. They are operating them
in Jersey, and this winter when the vegetable season comes in south
Florida, we will use those same mobile camps in south Florida.
Mr. Sparkman. When you say there is no surplus farm labor
available down here, you don't mean, of course, that there isn't any
labor available which ordinarily migrates through the East and North-
east and all over. That is still available?
Mr. Morgan. Yes, sir; but not as much as there has been. They
are in Florida now, and the growing season in Florida is about over and
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12093
they are moving away from there. The growers in Florida say they
are short of labor, but a rather close study by the Farm Labor Place-
ment showed there was sufficient migrant labor to take care of the
seasonal work, but not that reservoir of surplus labor. It is like
wanting to have a nice surplus in the bank as an extra reservoir.
And, of course, that is a great deal harder on the laborers than it is on
the dollars in the banks. But there wasn't as much migrant labor in
south Florida this winter as there has been in years previous.
Mr. Arnold. Getting back to the farmers leaving the farms — what
type farmer is migrating? Is it the head of the family who is taking
his family with him? Or is it the young male members of the family?
Do you think it will be only temporary or will it be permanent?
THE MIGRANTS ARE THE INSECURE
Mr. Morgan. It goes back to the thing I mentioned in the begin-
ning, about the question of security. It is the very insecure families
who are moving, attracted by defense jobs, and who move around
places like the arsenal here. There are a great many more where
some member of the family is going off to work and the others of the
family are staying, trying to carry on and hold the farm together.
That is especially true if they have some interest in the farm. We
have found that not as many of the people on our loan program are
leaving the farm and going to defense work as of their neighbors who
are not on our program. There are several reasons for that. One
reason is we have concentrated on trying to improve the tenure of
the tenant farmer in the South. Several years ago we made it a
policy that we would not make a rehabilitation loan unless a man
had a written lease — something almost unheard of in the South.
From there, we began working on to 3- to 5-year leases. Today a lot
of our borrowers are making 10-year leases with the landlord. Those
longer-term leases carry with them certain responsibilities of the land-
lord to the farm and the tenant to the farm. Those people with
longer-term leases are not picking up and leaving the farm and moving
to these congested areas. There may be some member of the family
moving, going off and getting work and coming back. I have sub-
mitted in my report some figures which show very definitely that the
movement has a direct relation to the type of tenure or security that
the tenants have back home.
Mr. Arnold. Do those figures show whether the average size farm
in Alabama will be materially changed during the war period?
Mr. Morgan. It has been materially changed in the last 10 years
before the war, and those tendencies are still at work.
Mr. Arnold. Has the Farm Security relocation program been able
to return to the land the people affected by the Government purchas-
ing program?
Mr. Morgan. Yes and no. We have undertaken to help each one
of those families find some solution for their problem when they were
displaced. I was talking to a gentleman here in the room this morn-
ing, and he was telling me in this particular area here he had three
families living in one house, He had to get them off the area and
couldn't find farms for them for the moment; so he actually has three
families living in one house.
12094 HTJNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
DISPLACED FARM FAMILIES
We have felt in this problem of relocation that we had a responsi-
bility, given to us by the Congress, to aid destitute farm families — ■
and certainly that type folks are destitute who have been displaced
and have left their home and everything as a result of the taking of
these areas. So we have moved in, and while we have to make tem-
porary arrangements in many places, we don't think we have done
all the job, and we are going to continue to work with them until we
get them adjusted.
Some of those families, of course, have gone into defense work, and
in other cases it has been necessary for us to purchase quite a bit of
land in order to relocate those people. That is not just as simple as
it sounds. When you have in an area less than 30 acres of land per
farm family, and 500 families there must be moved, the chances are
if you went out and bought a tract of land that would take care of
500 families you would move 500 families off that land to make room
for the other 500. What you have to do in cases of that kind is find
tracts not completely saturated with farmers, bearing in mind the
problem of those people already on the land. I think we have done all
it was possible to do in that particular tiling, and it is still a tremen-
dously big job. There are some 5,000 families that have been dis-
placed in the fifth region, 25,000 people completely uprooted and taken
away from their homes and, in some cases, as in this county, from some
of the best land in the whole county; and with a real scarcity of good
land you can see the problem it presents.
Mr. Arnold. Do you have figures reporting farm income for this
past year as against farm income for 1940?
INCREASED INCOME FOR LOAN CLIENTS
Mr. Morgan. I don't have that. I have before me something
showing the increase in income for those people that are on our
program. But that doesn't reflect the farmers as a whole.
We naturally think a great deal of this increase is a result of super-
vision and guidance in farm practices and changing these farm plans,
as shown in those three examples I gave you awhile ago, rather than
an over-all increase. Of course the gross increase this past year has
been just what the increase in the commodity prices was, because
there was practically no difference in the amount of production last
year. I think there will be a considerable increase in 1942 in the low-
income group, certainly with our borrowers, because of, for instance,
in this region, the increase in peanuts. Our borrowers have increased
more than 100 percent their acreage in peanuts, and then there is
this chicken production and things of that kind. But, while there has
been an increase in gross income as a result of the increase in prices,
there has been some increase in net income. I think that is borne
out by the fact that last year in this region our collections were about
$4,000,000. This year they were $9,000,000. That shows that they
are getting more in cash.
The Chairman. You have about 70,000 loans?
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12095
Mr. Morgan. No, sir; about 100,000 loans.
The Chairman. 100,000 loans at $80
REHABILITATION LOANS
Mr. Morgan. They are not all the same amount. We have about
$100,000,000 in loans of all types. We have loaned $65,000,000 to
rehabilitate the borrowers since the inception of the program. Of
that $32,000,000, or approximately half, has matured.
Mr. Arnold. How long has that program been in force?
Mr. Morgan. In 1935.
Mr. Arnold. The appropriation was $125,000,000 last year?
Mr. Morgan. Yes, sir; of which wTe used about twelve to fourteen,
almost fourteen, million dollars in this region. But a great many of
our loans are based on a 5-year repayment schedule and a great many
have not matured. $32,000,000 of the $65,000,000 have matured,
and these people have paid $29,000,000 of that to the United States
Treasury.
The Chairman. That means that about 82 percent of these loans
were repaid.
Mr. Arnold. That showing will get better?
Mr. Morgan. Yes, sir; some better. We have one thing in our
records which you can, of course, appreciate, and that is that our
unpaid maturities are carried on our records. We have no way of
forgiving a debt to the Government; that can only be done by the Con-
gress. So we have to carry our unpaid maturities, and that over a
period of years amounts to quite a bit of money. I don't know as
that makes a great deal of difference, but there ought to be some way
of retiring the losses, such as a commercial establishment has.
Mr. Arnold. What way do you have of recovering if he has some
livestock?
Mr. Morgan. We, of course, repossess the chattels if nobody in
the family can carry it. But any time you do that — well, you know
what happens when you try to liquidate a bank. You know a going
concern is a different tiling. And, after all, the basis of this whole
thing is character loan, too, because we are lending this money to
people who can't get help anywhere else. I think it is a very encour-
aging showing.
Mr. Arnold. Will you give the committee a brief outline of Farm
Security work in providing defense housing? What is the story in
the Huntsville area?
defense housing program
Mr. Morgan. As the' defense program developed, due to our
experience in housing as a result of our tenant purchase program and
other building programs in connection with projects, and also in the
operation of these community projects after they had been built, the
Housing Coordinator requested us in certain areas to provide housing
for the defense workers. There has not been as much of that in
region 5 as in some other sections of the country. We were requested
to put in a trailer camp in Huntsville to help meet the situation here.
12096 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
And we are operating a trailer camp here on the outskirts of the city
with about 400 trailers. That work was done with defense money
that was allocated to us by the Housing Coordinator. And we have
been recently requested to build some trailers and dormitories in
Mobile, and the contract is being let for that. That is the extent of
our defense work in housing in this area.
REQUISITIONING OF MIGRATORY-LABOR CAMPS
One thing that we are very much concerned about is that in south
Florida, at Homestead, 40 miles south of Miami, an area where con-
ditions are frightful, we have just completed two migratory camps,
and the Army has moved about 1,000 soldiers into one, and the Pan
American Airways has taken over the other. Of course, we want to
help in any way we can in our war effort, but with all the funds
available and all the priorities the War Department has, I just hate
to see those people living like they have to, instead of in those houses.
I don't know how much further that will go on in our migratory
program, whether they will see fit to requisition other camps or not.
If they do, it will certainly have a bad effect on our mobile labor force.
The Chairman. Mr. Arnold is very interested in that problem.
But- it might interest you to know that while this committee has
traveled 70,000 miles, from north to south, from east to west, there
is one agency in the Federal Government concerning which we never
heard a single word of criticism, and that is the Farm Security
Administration. Our record constitutes 7 or 8 million words, and you
can search it in vain for any criticism of the Farm Security Adminis-
tration.
I am of the opinion that one of the finest things in this country
today is the rehabilitation loan program. Now, as you say, those loans
are given to people who can't go to the bank and get them. Last
year we were going to recommend $150,000,000 for those loans, and
we got back and found it had been cut to $100,000,000— $25,000,000
less than in 1940. We never let up. We went to the President and
to the Senate and, as you know, we got it restored. Now that is one
of the solutions, a partial solution of migration of citizens — that keeps
them home.
I noticed the President the other clay in a message wanted to raise
it $25,000,000 more. We say the point is simply this: That in this
all-out war we cannot forget the morale of our own people. That is,
you cannot divorce civilian morale from Army and Navy morale.
FOOD FOR VICTORY LOANS AVERAGE $80
What I would like to know from you — you say the average loan is
$80 .'
Mr. Morgan. That is just for this food for victory.
The Chairman. Where did you get that formula — did you get it
from Washington, that you should loan $80 for chickens and so on?
Mr. Morgan. No, sir; we had made our farm plans, our normal,
loans for the operation of the farm. This was something over and
above our normal operation. Ycu see in December, January, Febru-
ary, and March we had made our normal loans, and it was after that
that these food for victory loans were made and they averaged about
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12097
■$80 apiece. Our rehabilitation loans probably average about $400.
I had occasion recently to tabulate our loans in this region, and 94
percent of them were less than $1,000.
The Chairman. What interest do they pay?
Mr. Morgan. Five percent. Speaking of morale — I know this is
a rather voluminous statement that is filed with the committee, but
I would like especially to call your attention to some 40 or 50 case
statements at the end reporting what the people say about this, about
everything, about their dislocation problems, about their reactions to
the whole thing. Some of it is critical. Some of it is good.
Mr. Sparkman. I haven't been able to find it.
Mr. Morgan. Here it is. That copy isn't set up right. On page
12080, Mr. Sparkman, you will find the Huntsville area, and you will
find names that you know, no doubt, people telling their story about
what has happened in this district here.
Mr. Sparkman. I notice you talk about Palm Beat. I thought it
was Pond Beat.
Mr. Morgan. My guess is you're right, but that is the human story,
right in those records there.
The Chairman. We are glad to have it.
RELOCATION PROGRAM
Mr. Sparkman. With reference to this relocation, now to what
extent are you still carrying on that work, following the ruling of the
General Accounting Office?
Mr. Morgan. Actually we stopped everything except to the extent
of money that had already been advanced to relocation corporations.
We didn't have enough money in the banks to finish the construction
that had already been started. But with that, plus the money we
had in the old Rural Rehabilitation Corporations that were set up
under the Relief Act back in relief days before there was even a
Resettlement Administration, we could actually liquidate without
calling on the Treasury for more money; so we have gone ahead and
parked time on that. I am very hopeful, however, Mr. Congress-
man, that there is a bright day ahead.
Mi\ 5PARKMAN- It is absolutely necessary that some governmental
agency function m that field?
FARM SECURI^ ADMINISTRATION TOOK RESPONSIBILITY FOR DISPLACED
FAMILIES
Mr. Morgan- Absolutely. I guess that for the sake of having
■everybody see tne need of that, if the Farm Security Administration
had just sat d(,wn and said it was no responsibility of ours, and all
these people hild been dumped off these areas and with all the dis-
turbance that would have been created as a result of it, then somebody
would have said, "Somebody just must do something about it."
But instead of that, we moved in there. We felt "here are displaced
farm families— here's what Congress has given us a mandate to do."
And we move-l m and did it, and as a result not much notice was
taken of it.
Mr. Sparkman- Just recently, following a study made by this
•committee of the enemy alien situation on the west coast, there was
60396—42 ~Pt- 32 H
12098 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
set up a relocation authority for the purpose of settling these Japanese.
You think, if there is a duty on our country to resettle the Japanese,,
that certainly we should resettle our own people who are moved out
from war plant areas?
Mr. Morgan. Absolutely. I think it is tragic for so many of these
families, because of the spirit with which they have met the thing.
They said, "If this is what I must do to contribute to the war effort,,
all right." But certainly the Government should do everything it
could to make the shock as little as possible.
Mr. Sparkman. Let me ask you something about the increased food
production for the war. It is your opinion that most of it must be
done by the small farmer. And we believe that. As a matter of
fact, this committee, as a committee, went before the Appropriations
Committee when appropriations were being considered for the Farm
Security Administration, and we urged that that not be cut, and our
argument was that the increase in food production must be made by
the small farmer, that the farmer with 100 cows can't double his herd,,
but that the farmer with 1 cow can add another cow. Of course that
bears out the statement you made of full utilization of available labor.
I was impressed recently with a letter that came into your office
and was reproduced in the Huntsville Times, and I placed it in the
Congressional Record. It was written by a woman client of the
Farm Security Administration, and, as I recall, the editorial heading
was, "I have Pearl Harbor Rote in my Heart," and it showed the-
increase in food production made on that little farm.
Mr. Morgan. I want to add that this woman has a bedridden
husband. She has operated that farm herself. She has supported
her family largely through the production of vegetables, canning them,
and selling them on the curb maiket at Tuscaloosa. And the post-
script to that letter said: "I will even cook one meal a day for my
family and give the other two to Uncle Sam."
Mr. Sparkman. You say the average land available per farm
family is 30 acres of tillable land in Alabama?
Mr. Morgan. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. I have noticed around in this country, in connec[;on.
with land with which I am more familiar, that a good bit of the jan(j
that hasn't been farmed for many years is being put into estivation.
Is there much of that?
POST-WAR LAND PROGRAMS
Mr. Morgan. Yes, sir; but it doesn't make a very large increase in
the total number of acres. And I want to say, too, th^,t the thing we
are talking about here is just a forerunner of what we have got to be-
thinking about as a post-war proposition. We are certainly going to
have a movement back to the land after the war anq a tremendous
problem there. The land you are talking about may be a little corner
there or a little further up on the mountain side thert^ and all those
acres have to be brought in. There must be some kind 0f program for
reclamation of worn-out lands, of partially worn-out lards and eroded
lands. And I am glad to say that people are thinking iiore seriously
of that today than they did in the last World War. I he pe when that
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12099
time comes we will be able to face those facts, but it is going to be a
tremendous problem after the war.
Mr. Sparkman. I wonder if you could give us the number of farm-
tenant purchasers in this county in the program to date?
Mr. Morgan. I think Mr. Lynn could answer that question for
you.
Mr. Lynn, (in audience). One hundred and sixteen.
Mr. Sparkman. This has been one of the biggest programs in the
whole set-up?
Mr. Morgan. That is right.
The Chairman. Of course, the post-war shock of this present war
will be so much greater than the last war, won't it?
Mr. Morgan. I think so.
The Chairman. Thank you very much for the very valuable state-
ment you have given us.
TESTIMONY OF H. I. MITCHELL, GENERAL SECRETARY, SOUTH-
ERN TENANT FARMERS UNION, MEMPHIS, TENN.
Mr. Sparkman. Mr. Mitchell, I have read with interest the state-
ment which you have submitted, and we will incorporate it into the
record at this point.
STATEMENT BY H. L. MITCHELL, GENERAL SECRETARY, SOUTH-
ERN TENANT FARMERS UNION, MEMPHIS, TENN.
Manpower on the Land
On August 15, 1940, I appeared at a hearing held by the Committee on Inter-
state Migration at Montgomery, Ala. In my statement I referred to the Ten-
nessee River Valley as a place where the displacement of farm labor was acute.
I mentioned a conversation I had with a young farm boy here in Huntsville who
told me he wanted to farm but could not get land because some 20 men owned all
the land in the county and were farming it with tractors.
Since that time, the Southern Tenant Farmers Union of which I am general
secretary has built a strong organization in this State. We now have upward
of 3,000 members organized in 6 counties in northern Alabama. The Alabama
district council of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union is working closely with
the American Federation of Labor on the problems created by the coming of war
industries.
In early 1940, when I was in this section of Alabama, there were thousands of
farm people who had lost their place on the land and for whom there was no place
in the few industries then operating in the Tennessee Valley. Work Projects
Administration work was about all that was available. Today there is a need for
labor in the new industrial plants now in operation or in the process of construc-
tion. Several thousand farmers have found work either permanently in the new
industries and service trades or temporarily on construction jobs. Many small
farmers, tenants, and sharecroppers who have a crop are also working on these jobs
part time in town. Many of these farmers live on small hill farms near the river
valley. Farm operation on the richer lands along the river is practically the same
as reported to me by the young would-be farmer in Huntsville nearly 2 years ago.
The large plantations are being worked by tractors and hired day labor though
there are a few sharecroppers still employed.
That there now exists a shortage of labor for the peak seasons of employment
on the farms of this area as well as other sections of the South where war industries
are in operation or in the process of construction is evident. However, all over
the South the cry is being raised that we face a serious shortage of farm labor and
that production goals under the Food for Freedom program are endagered.
What has happened is that surplus labor normally available for farm work at-
low rates of pay is disappearing. The Army has taken many of the younger men
and others have found places in the war industries. The owners of the large
12100 HTJNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
cotton plantations who operate their farms with tractors and other improved
machinery are accustomed to sending trucks into the towns and cities for cotton
choppers and cotton pickers when extra labor is needed. These industrialized
farm operators know that in order to get their crops cultivated and harvested
they will have to pay a higher wage in wartime.
I would not recommend that we draft women and children from the towns and
•cities for farm work until we have mobilized the resources of the farmers we
■already have on the land. Here in Alabama the Black Belt section has largely
gone in for livestock raising and there are thousands of exsharecropper families
left without crops. Most of these farm families are Negroes and there would be
much to overcome in the migration of this excess farm population to areas where
there is employment. One of the chief factors would be the desire of the Black
Belt landlords to keep these people available as a source of cheap labor when
needed. However it would be a healthy thing if some of these aristocrats on the
worn out plantations down there had to go to work and earn their own living for
a change. There are other sections of the South where the excess farm population
ought to be encouraged to leave permanently.
It must be understood that I do not recommend forcible removal of people
but I know that if fair and reasonable wages and other conditions of employment
are good these farm people would go where work is available if they were given
proper direction.
MINIMUM WAGE
Of first importance in maintaining production of any type is the guaranty of
a fair wage to labor. About a year ago the Southern Tenant Farmers Union
caused to be introduced in Congress a bill to provide minimum wages for farm
labor and to regulate other conditions of employment as a condition for securing
agricultural benefit payments. This measure is based on provisions of the Agri-
cultural Adjustment Act of 1938, sugar section. Hearings have been held by
the Senate Education and Labor Committee and the measure is still pending.
The bill provides a means of setting wage rates for farm labor after the holding
of public hearings in the various regions of the United States. The bill is similar
to a law enacted by the British Parliament during the last war to meet the need
for increasing farm production. In each English county a wage board sets the
minimum rates for employment on the land. It has worked exceedingly well
during the present war especially since England has established a landworkers
army composed partly of young people from the industrial areas. The imme-
diate enactment of a federal law to put a bottom under farm labor wages in
America is of paramount importance in meeting the present emergency for we
too may have to set up our own American army of farm laborers.
Also there is in the South a huge reserve of manpower whose services as pro-
ducers can be better utilized. There are over 2,000,000 farm families who if
they had the opportunity to do so could raise a large part of the food crops that
are needed to feed the men in the armed services and those employed in the war
industries. These families most of whom do not own the land upon which they
live constitute America's greatest potential resources for agricultural production.
These families, small farm owners as well as tenants and sharecroppers need
both equipment and supervision to bring their productive capacity up to the
extent that is needed today. The agency of Government charged with the re-
sponsibility for mobilizing the resources of this large group of people is the Farm
Security Administration. Depsite an outstanding record of achievement in the
past few years, this agency's program may be drastically curtailed by Congress
at a time when it should be extended.
INVESTIGATION ASKED
Chiefly responsible for the attempt to destroy the effectiveness of this agency
is an organization, that maintains a powerful lobby in Washington, purporting
to represent the interests of over 168,000 organized farmers in the 11 Southern
States.
We have just completed a survey of this organization and its methods of main-
taining membership in the States of Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi. Our
findings recently made public are contained in a report and a brief of affidavits and
statements made by 100 farmers in these States which have been submitted to
the Secretary of Agriculture with a request for an official investigation of the
-activities of the American Farm Bureau in the South.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12101
ATTITUDE OF PLANTATION OWNERS
Further it is my belief that if a report were made by the Department of Agri-
culture on the participation by farmers in the Food for Freedom program it would
be found that the low-income farm groups are the ones most willing to produce the
needed food crops. Most of the larger plantations are geared to the production of
cotton and have discouraged even the raising of gardens in the past.
Over in eastern Arkansas I know that many of the plantation owners are not
participating in the program for increasing food production. A sharecropper on
one of these plantations made the following statement to one of our field organizers.
That about the first of the year he was called on by a lady from the county
Agricultural Adjustment Administration office and urged tosign up to raise 5 acres
of peanuts under the program being sponsored by the Department of Agriculture.
That he agreed to raise the peanuts provided his landlord would allow him any-
thing out of the proceeds but that his landlord came to his house a few days later
and told him that he would not permit anything but cotton and corn to be raised
on his land and that he must notify the county official that no peanuts would be
raised. Further the landlord said to the tenant that he didn't intend to have a
damn thing to do with the Government program unless he was forced to do so and
that if the sharecropper wanted to cooperate to get off the place and work for the
Government and that the land would be worked by day labor in cotton and corn.
The cropper also said that he did not have a garden and that the landlord refused
to allow him to raise even sorghum for his own use. I am sure that there are
thousands of other sharecroppers and tenants on cotton plantations all over the
South who have had the same experience as the man in eastern Arkansas.
FARM LABOR NEEDS
In conclusion, I would like to recommend to the committee that Congress enact
a law immediately to provide minimum wages and to regulate other conditions of
employment on the land. That a survey be made of the farm labor needs both
for regular employment on the farm and the peak seasonal needs in each locality,
that in making such a survey that a distinction be made between industrialized
farms and those owned by small farmers. That we set about supplying these
needs by registering all farm people in each community distinguishing between
those who are willing to move and those who are only available for employment
locally. That these farm people be the basis of a volunteer American army of
farm laborers and then where there is a demonstrated need for people from the
towns and cities to go into the fields to cultivate and harvest crops that young
workers out of schools and colleges as well as older persons be registered to supple-
ment the work of farm laborers at wages set under a Federal minimum wage law.
Further, the Department of Agriculture be required to make public the names
of landowners in each county who are refusing to cooperate in the program of
increasing production of needed food crops.
TESTIMONY OF H. I. MITCHELL— Resumed
Mr. Sparkman. You appeared before us in our Montgomery hear-
ings in 1940, when we were studying primarily the migration of
destitute citizens from State to State, and at that time the study was
primarily concerned with agricultural workers who were migrating.
Since then we have been given the mandate to study the same prob-
lem, but with greater emphasis on the impact of the war program on
shifting population. You testified at the healings at Montgomery
that there were several economic factors at work causing increased
migration of people, and that you were primarily concerned with
migration of farm people. Do you believe the war effort in any way
has affected the type and volume of that migration?
Mr. Mitchell. I think it has increased it considerably. However,
there are certain areas in some sections of the South which are possibly
sources of more migration.
12102 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
CHANGE IN TYPE OF MIGRATION
Mr. Sparkman. Has there been any change in the type of this
migration, which you say has been stepped up by the war program?
Are those who are moving from State to State doing work on war
plants, or are they still doing agricultural work?
Mr. Mitchell. A large number of farm people are going into the
areas where there are war industries.
Mr. Sparkman. There is a shift now from farming to war industries?
Mr. Mitchell. Yes, sir; and seeking of employment on farms in
other areas.
Mr. Sparkman. Do you think the war program will have a perma-
nent effect on the size of farms and the type of tenure in the Southeast?
CHANGES IN SIZE OF FARMS
Mr. Mitchell. I think that it will increase the tendency toward
larger holdings of land.
Mr. Sparkman. Just why do you believe that? Are the small land
owners selling their farms?
Mr. Mitchell. No; I don't think that is true, any more than the
ordinary trend. But I think that these larger holdings will perhaps
continue as they are, and the ordinary trend will go along as it is.
Mr. Sparkman. Is there a definite trend toward larger holdings?
I was of the opinion it was the other way around.
Mr. Mitchell. In some areas perhaps it is. But it has been my
observation that in areas, particularly where the richer land is located,
it is towards increase of the size of these units.
Mr. Sparkman. In those more fertile areas the holdings, histori-
cally, have always been large?
Mr. Mitchell. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. They were settled that way and there have been
no sales for generations?
Mr. Mitchell. I think there have been quite a lot of sales. I am
thinking of the Mississippi Valley region, where large tracts are coming
under the ownership of individuals or of companies and corporations
that farm them.
The Chairman. I think there is no question about that in Iowa
and Illinois and California — absentee owners holding thousands of
acres.
Mr. Sparkman. I know it is true throughout those States, and I
am simply questioning as to whether it is true here in this particular
area. I suppose the census gives a good insight into that.
Mr. Mitchell. I don't recall the census figures on farm ownership
of any particular county in Alabama. I think they are quite revealing,
however.
Mr. Sparkman. We have asked all witnesses who have appeared
before us to testify with reference to a certain problem about which
we hear a great deal. I think a great part is in anticipation yet, but
it is something with which we are concerned, and that is the anticipated
or threatened labor shortage on the farms.
Mr. Mitchell. I think, of course, in some areas, such as this
defense area here, there is a present shortage of labor, especially for the
peak season.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12103
Mr. Sparkman. Did you hear Mr. Morgan's testimony?
Mr. Mitchell. Yes, sir.
SHORTAGE OF SURPLUS LABOR
Mr. Sparkman. Did you hear his explanation about the common
understanding of labor shortage, that it wasn't really an actual short-
age they were talking about, but it was a lack of a surplus?
Mr. Mitchell. I think that this is exactly the way it is all over
the South, that there is a shortage of surplus labor, labor that is nor-
mally available for peak and seasonal work that the larger owners are
accustomed to employing. For instance, at cotton-picking time, the
larger owners go] into towns and cities to load their trucks with
workers and bring them out into the fields. And I think they are
going to have more difficulty in finding that surplus labor, since the
younger people have either gotten jobs in industry or have been
drafted. That surplus labor is going to be more difficult to find.
Mr. Sparkman. It becomes very largely a matter of utilizing to
the fullest capacity the present available labor?
Mr. Mitchell. Yes, sir; and I think it could be much better
utilized, particularly small farmers, tenants, and farm workers. I
think if their full capacity for production were used, or better utilized,
we could reach many of the national agricultural production goals.
Mr. Sparkman. That is a very strong argument for every induce-
ment being given to the small farmer?
Mr. Mitchell. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. We must look to the small operating unit for the
major portion of the increase in food production?
Mr. Mitchell. That is true. I think if they were given the
means and supervision, such as the Farm Security Administra-
tion supplies, that they would be put in a position where they
could really produce the crops that are needed during the war emer-
gency. Most of those people are accustomed only to raising cotton
and corn, and there are needs for other food crops, peanuts and things
of that sort. These people can produce the crops.
mobilization of farm labor force
Mr. Sparkman. There are a great many people who are beginning
to talk about the need eventually of drafting labor, drafting every-
body, a universal mobilization of manpower for all purposes. Do
you believe that we may come to the point where it may become neces-
sary that we have a mobilized farm labor force, or where it may become
necessary for us to draft people to do farm work?
Mr. Mitchell. I think, of course, that will depend upon how long
the war lasts. But it may well be possible that we will have to at
least set up some sort of a volunteer farm labor force to meet the
needs, such as in south Jersey, according to the statement that was
read from the newspaper this morning, transferring people where there
is no employment to areas where they are needed. I think we ought
first to know what are the needs in each locality and the manpower that
is available there. I think we ought to distinguish between the needs
•of the industrialized farm and the small farm. My reason for saying
12104 HUNTS VILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
that is that the industrialized farm needs more workers at peak seasons.
And if the labor on small farms were registered — and there has
always been land of swapping about of labor with them — these fellows
might actually swap out their labor and continue their production
without employing extra hired workers.
Mr. Sparkman. In your statement you make the point that in
some areas sharecroppers are not allowed to participate fully in the
food-f or- victory program. I wonder just how general your observa-
tions have been and whether or not you have any authentic proof that
you might submit for the records.
LANDOWNERS OPPOSING FOOD-PRODUCTION PROGRAM
Mr. Mitchell. I have heard of that, particularly in the large
plantation area in eastern Arkansas. There have been reports that
certain landowners were not cooperating in any way in the increased
food-production program. And recently over in eastern Arkansas a
man told one of our people he signed up to raise 5 acres of peanuts
and his landlord refused to allow him to do so, and told him if he
wanted to take part in the food-f or-victory program to get off his land,
that he was going to raise cotton and corn and do as he always did. I
have that statement in the form of an affidavit, and I would like to-
present it to the committee for its records.
(Said statement is as follows.)
Affidavit
State of Arkansas,
County of St. Francis:
Personally appeared before the undersigned notary public of and for the State-
and county 'Gus Robinson and who, being duly sworn and under oath, makes the
following statement.
My name is Gus Robinson. I am making a sharecrop on the farm owned
by Mr. Avery Bryant, of Forrest City, Ark. About the first of the year I was
called on by a lady of the county Agricultural Adjustment Administration office-
and urged to sign up to raise 5 acres of peanuts under the food-for-victory pro-
gram being sponsored by the United States Department of Agriculture. I
agreed to raise the peanuts and told the officials I would do so if Mr. Avery would
allow me anything out of the proceeds. A few days later Mr. Avery came to
my home and told me that he would not permit me to raise anything but cotton
and corn on his land and that I must notify the county officials that no peanuts
would be raised. He said at the time that he didn't have a damn thing to do
with the Government program and did not intend to have anything to do with
it unless he was forced to do so. And that if I wanted to cooperate to go on and
work for the Government and he would take day labor and raise his cotton and
corn. We do not have a garden and. he refuses to allow us to raise sorghum or
anything else for our own use.
Gus Robinson.
Subscribed and sworn to before me this 25 day of April 1942.
[seal] J. F. Hynds, Notary Public.
My commission expires May 19, 1945.
Mr. Sparkman. We are glad to have it. That is quite a striking
case, but during all of our farm program we have found noncoopera-
tors. I wonder if you would be willing to say that such a condition
.as that prevails generally to such an extent that it might be called
typical? Or is it exceptional?
Mr. Mitchell. I think it is more typical. However, I have no
way of knowing the whole area. I know in certain areas it is typical.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12105
And I think the way it could be found out would be for the committee
to check with the Department of Agriculture. They know who, in
•each locality, is participating and who is not.
PARTICIPATION IN ALABAMA
Mr. Sparkman. I have on my own accord been talking around since
I have been home to find out how the program is progressing, and I
find through here they are having no particular difficulty in getting
full participation. In fact, I believe they have made it part probably
of the Alabama 5-year plan; I am not sure of that. I asked a couple
of Negro tenants if they were planting peanuts, and one said he had to
plant 100 pounds of seed; the other said he had to plant 2% acres.
Another one with whom I talked said he wanted to cooperate with the
program. So apparently it depends largely on the way it has been
put on?
Mr. Mitchell. I think it depends, too, on the sections. Perhaps
in this area — I am not very familiar with it — but perhaps you have
had more experience in raising food crops than they have had on the
Mississippi Delta.
Mr. Sparkman. I am sure there is a great difference as between
areas.
Mr. Mitchell. The ordinary plantation there raises cotton. They
don't raise food products even, as this man said, for their own use.
He doesn't even have his garden. I know that has been true in the
past.
Mr. Sparkman. Have you had occasion to observe the Farm Secu-
rity Administration program with reference to its rehabilitation work
and farm tenure work?
THREATENED CURTAILMENT OF TENANT PURCHASE PROGRAM
Mr. Mitchell. Yes, sir. We have always been highly in favor of
the Farm Security Administration's program, both parts of it, the
farm tenant purchase and rehabilitation. The rehabilitation program
is larger and reaches many more people, and we regret that the tenant
purchase angle of it couldn't be larger. We are concerned, too, with
the fact this program is being curtailed
Mr. Sparkman (interposing). Threatened to be.
Mr. Mitchell (continuing). In Congress, because we think this is
the time when it ought to be extended. Kecently, I might say, we
made a survey of an organization, which is, I believe, chiefly responsible
for the present action toward curtailing this agency. Our findings
nave recently been made public and it is quite interesting to see an
organization which represents 168,000 farmers, most of whom are low-
income people, attack and seek to stop the work of this agency, which
has benefited even the people who are the majority members.
Mr. Sparkman. Have you any suggestions as to how the low-income
farmer can participate more actively in the Government's war pro-
gram?
Mr. Mitchell. Well, if they had better supervision and that in-
cludes the small land-owning farmer, as well as the tenant, and
arranged to furnish the equipment necessary, for instance, loans to
12106 HUNTSVILLB, ALA., HEARINGS
buy chickens, hogs, and cows — and there are thousands of families
that have neither — that would greatly increase production now.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Mr. Mitchell. We have
your statement, and it will appear in the record.
TESTIMONY OF J. T. FLAGG, PRESIDENT, GARDNER-WARRING
MILL, FLORENCE, ALA., AND C. S. HAMMILL, PERSONNEL
MANAGER, REYNOLDS METALS CO., LISTERHILL, ALA.
Mr. Arnold. You gentlemen are both from Florence, Ala.?
Mr. Hammill. I am from Sheffield.
Mr. Arnold. Mr. Hammill, your company is engaged in obtaining
aluminum from the primary ores?
Mr. Hammill. The Reynolds plant is, and the Reynolds Alloys
rolls aluminum sheets. We have the virgin element production units,
as well as the rolling processes.
Mr. Arnold. The Reynolds Metals Co. operates the Reynolds
Alloys Co.?
Mr. Hammill. No; that is a defense operation, gentlemen. It is an
affiliate of Reynolds Metals. They have a different board of directors.
Mr. Arnold. Were your plants financed by public or private
funds?
Mr. Hammill. The Reynolds Metals has a mortgage guaranteed
by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, and the Reynolds Alloys
as plant 465, defense plant appropriation 465.
Mr. Arnold. From what source do you obtain power?
Mr. Hammill. The Tennessee Valley Authority.
Mr. Arnold. Is there plenty of power in that area?
Mr. Hammill. So far as I know. That is out of my particular field.
LABOR FORCE
Mr. Arnold. What percentage of your working force is skilled and
what percentage unskilled?
Mr. Hammill. The working force at Reynolds Metals Co. is
approximately 20 percent skilled, 40 percent semiskilled, and 40
percent unskilled. With Reynolds Alloys it is approximately 20
percent skilled, 70 percent semiskilled, and 10 percent unskilled.
When I say semiskilled I mean the crews operating the rolling process
in the mills, and some of these, the top men of that crew, are highly
skilled.
Mr. Arnold. Is it permissible for you to tell us how many em-
ployees you have, or should that remain out of the record?
Mr. Hammill. I have figures for the two plants. I haven't broken
them down. It is 3,242 hourly workers, and 427 salaried people for
the two plants.
Mr. Arnold. From what source are you obtaining your labor?
Mr. Hammill. Our skilled men for maintenance work come to us
through our closed-shop agreement with the American Federation of
Labor. For our production job we hired them at the gate or by
applications.
Mr. Arnold. What percentage of your labor force is local?
Mr. Hammill. You mean within the Muscle Shoals area?
Mr. Arnold. Yes, sir ; or from the general area?
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12107
Mr. Hammill. Of the total 3,242 of hourly people, 2,562 are from
Alabama, 226 from Mississippi, adjoining counties to Alabama, and
317 from Tennessee, which has adjoining counties right above Lauder-
dale County. The balance of these others come from 29 other States
with Kentucky having 19. By far the largest percentage — 80 to
85 percent— of our people are local.
Mr. Arnold. Are you experiencing difficulty in obtaining trained
workers, or do your own training programs take care of that?
Mr. Hammill. Our training program has to take care of our needs,
because there is no other source to get trained aluminum workers.
Mr. Arnold. Do you have difficulty in obtaining stenographic or
clerical personnel?
Mr. Hammill. Yes; for really qualified stenographers we have had
difficulty. However, we have taken a number of girls who have re-
cently graduated from business school and have developed them so
that our situation isn't nearh7 so acute as it was 2 or 3 months ago.
HOUSING SHORTAGE
Mr. Arnold. What is the situation there in regard to housing for
your employees?
Mr. Hammill. Very acute. We expect some relief from the present
housing program under way in Sheffield and in Florence, which when
completed will mean approximately 600 new units to be distributed
in that area. We can use at least 450 houses right now.
The Chairman. Where are they living now?
Mr. Hammill. A good many are living quite a distance from the
plant, in Mississippi and Tennessee and in neighboring counties
around Colbert County. Their transportation problem is becoming
very acute, and it is a question with some of those people as to whether
or not they will be able to continue working for us. If we had homes
near Sheffield we could take care of them, I think, with local transpor-
tation facilities. We have found where there are crowded conditions
— families living together — it is very unhealthy, unsanitary and un-
satisfactory, particularly where there are small children.
Mr. Sparkman. There has been quite a bit of housing built already?
Mr. Hammill. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. How many units have been built, can you tell me
offhand, just approximately?
Mr. Hammill. When I went to Listerhill in 1941, an estimate had
already been made by the Tennessee Valley Authority, and they ar-
rived at the figure of 500, 250 to be built for private use and 250 by
Federal Housing Authority through the Tennessee Valley Authority.
That survey was made based on Tennessee Valley Authority needs of
their new nitrate plant, expansion of the Electro-Metallurgical Co., and
our original plant which called for 400 employees. Of those 250
houses the Tennessee Valley Authority was to build, we were to get
90 or 100 and the rest was to go to the Tennessee Valley Authority
and the Electro-Metallurgical Co. But at a little later date, in Feb-
ruary of 1941, this rolling mill came into being and was being builtr
and we increased our production of forged aluminum by building three
more production rooms where there had been but one, an increase
from 20,000,000 to 40,000,000 pounds a year, and an increase in pay
rolls from probably originally 400 to over 3,000, and it will increase
12108 HUNTSVILLE., ALA., HEARINGS
over that so we will have probably 3,800 people where we first thought
of 400.
Mr. Sparkman. Wasn't it 600 houses that were built, T. V. A. 250,
and private industry 350?
Mr. Hammill. I think it was.
Mr. Sparkman. Was there another housing unit that came in?
Mr. Hammill. Yes, sir; there is a building program being completed
now that will put in that area an additional 450 to 600 houses.
Mr. Sparkman. I believe there is one of 560 units and another of
340. _ There are really two projects being built there. Now, is private
housing proceeding fairly well?
Mr. Hammill. In Florence it is proceeding very well.
Mr. Sparkman. You will need 500 or 1,000 additional houses for
the whole area, not just your housing?
Mr. Hammill. I don't think so after these present houses are built.
I think they will be adequate to take care of the present strain.
transportation of workers
Mr. Arnold. You believe, in view of the rubber shortage, housing
is the solution, or would you be in favor of the bill Congressman
Downey is advocating to requisition the cars of pleasure drivers to
meet the situation?
Mr. Hammill. That is a tough question. I feel this way about it.
The armed forces, agriculture, and the defense industries are the three
points we now have to concentrate on. Everything else has to go
by the board. If it means that, it is all right with us. We will do it.
Frankly, I think it would be more satisfactory if we could put the
workers nearer to the plants.
Mr. Sparkman. In connection with that, I believe you told me
the other day you had been conducting some surveys as to the tire
and transportation situation?
Mr. Hammill. We have a committee in the Muscle Shoals area
that consists of a representative from each of the three chambers of
commerce and Mr. Flagg and myself and representatives of the other
defense industries. Each plant has made a survey of its employees
as to where they live, whether or not they live on bus routes, and if
they use those busses, or if they use their own cars, and, if so, do they
carry people with them or ride by themselves or ride with somebody
else. The returns of that survey are inconclusive. The statistical
data has not been correlated yet. We will post that on a master
map as quickly as possible. However, I had an advanced release
from the Office of War Transportation to the effect that the Governor
in each State is now charged with responsibility of the program,
and it is turned over in Alabama to the Automotive Advisory Com-
mittee— or something like that — it is put into their hands and they
act with each community of 10,000 or more people which is to have a
representative or administrator appointed by the mayor. That seems
to be the gist of the master plan. I have written to the Governor
and asked him to either tell us what we are to do or to guide us. As
yet, I haven't heard from him. We are working as hard as we can
on the transportation problem.
Mr. Sparkman. This is on a different subject. It was partially
touched on a while ago with reference to the utilization of local labor.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12109
I was impressed with the statement you made to me when I was with
you in your plant, and I have taken occasion to brag on it a good many
times. I believe you told me when you came in you only brought 15
workmen with you, 15 people to serve as a nucleus, and the rest of the
people were recruited locally?
Mr. Hammill. Yes, sir.
LOCAL WORKERS HAVE PROVED SATISFACTORY
Mr. Sparkman. Have you found them satisfactory workmen?
Mr. Hammill. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. Has there been any difficulty in training them, or
were they readily adaptable?
Mr. Hammill. Apparently they were readily adaptable. Of course,
we haven't yet hit our maximum because we haven't the aluminum
coming in. I don't know whether they will adapt themselves to that
as well. We have some jobs that take very efficient men to fill. We
have a boy about 19 who has been on the tender machine about 9
months. That is a difficult operation and he has done all right so far.
I don't know if he can hold it when we hit maximum. I don't know
if he can maintain that pace.
Mr. Sparkman. Could you say with the training and practice he
has had he had measured up to your expectation?
Mr. Hammill. Yes, sir. And so far as their ability to grasp the
details and processes, we have been very satisfied with them. As a
matter of fact, it is amazing what some of those boys have done.
Mr. Sparkman. I have asked the question many times about the
availability of surplus farm labor in the South. I remember a per-
sonnel manager for Lockheed Air Corporation testified before us in
Los Angeles and told us about their efforts to recruit labor. He said
the finest labor that they could find came from the agricultural
sections of the Middle West. I asked him why he didn't come down
into the South. Well — always there seemed to be a feeling that
southern labor was unskilled and apparently it couldn't become
skilled. We find that opposition on many sides. I was delighted
with the testimony of General Ditto and Colonel Hudson that they
had no difficulty obtaining skilled labor here. I went down to the
White House in the winter of 1938, and I had a conversation with the
President in the effort to locate a chemical warfare arsenal in this area.
Frankly, at that time I was studying the possible utilization of plant
No. 1 at Muscle Shoals for it. The Chemical Warfare Service wanted
one, and the objection that the President raised and the Secretary
of War raised and the Chief of Staff raised was the lack of skilled labor
in this area. I remember at a subsequent hearing a similar question
was put before them, and I remember that the answer was for a long
time they had considered the labor in the South unskilled. And I
remember I said, "That is a fallacy. We have learned that the boy
who has come up on the farm tinkering with tractors, mowing ma-
chines, or cultivators is the finest potential skilled labor in all the
country; that, while he may not have learned to operate a precision
machine, he has learned to use his hands."
I was over in the Gadsden shell forging and machining plant last
fall right after it had opened. They had made their first run of shells,
and the man showing us through showed us all these shells, and he
12110 HUNTSVILLE-, ALA., HEARINGS
said, "You know, the remarkable thing about this is that of the first
run every single shell was good. There wasn't a faulty one in the
bunch." And he said, "Congressman Sparkman, you will get a kick
out of knowing when that run was made there wasn't a damn Yankee
under the roof." And I asked him where he got his labor. And he
said, "Out of the cotton fields of Alabama." I am glad to hear what
you say about local labor.
Mr. Arnold. Mr. Flagg, is your company entirely on war work?
Mr. Flagg. Ninety-five percent.
Mr. Arnold. Approximately how many persons are employed in
your plant?
Mr. Flagg. Approximately 950.
Mr. Arnold. What percentage are women?
Mr. Flagg. Ninety percent.
Mr. Arnold. White or colored, or both?
Mr. Flagg. All white.
Mr. Arnold. From what sources do you draw your labor?
DISTANCES TRAVELED BY WORKERS
Mr. Flagg. In a survey we made on the 10th of February, 725
lived in Florence, 14 in Sheffield, 3 in Tuscumbia, 113 on farms, and
60 in other localities, such as little subdivisions that are outlying from
Florence, and we have some that come from as far as St. Joe, Tenn.,
and 7 or 8 from Rogers ville, Ala., and 1 that comes from as far as
Pulaski, Tenn.
Mr. Arnold. Those who live in the Tri-Cities, do they have to
travel by automobile to your plant or use some other form of trans-
portation?
Mr. Flagg. We had at that time 223 that owned their own cars;
293 walked to work; 43 were taking the bus; the balance were riding
with those that owned their own cars. I was about to forget — 56
come in taxicabs.
Mr. Arnold. Individually, or do they double up?
Mr. Flagg. They double up. It looks like a can of sardines open-
ing up when the taxi comes up.
Mr. Arnold. How about the private cars?
Mr. Flagg. Two hundred and ninety-two rode with somebody else.
Mr. Arnold. Do they fill both seats, or come by themselves?
Mr. Flagg. They fill them up. They have arrangements whereby
they share gasoline expenses and so on. Maybe one person drives
his car for a week, and picks up a bunch of people and they all pay a
nickel a day to the person owning that car, and they swap around.
We have been advocating this sort of driving.
Mr. Arnold. I think both of you gentlemen are perhaps ahead of
Washington in the thought you have given to this impending tire
shortage.
THE ALABAMA PLAN
Mr. Flagg. I think the State of Alabama is ahead of the rest of
the country on this problem. It has become known as the Alabama
plan. The Associated Industries of Alabama has a very active
committee headed by Mr. Rushton in Birmingham. We have al-
ready held one meeting in Florence. Mr. Hammill attended that
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12111
meeting. I happen to be on the committee. Mr. Rushton, by the
way, appeared before some committee in Washington, explaining the
Alabama plan.
Mr. Arnold. Of course this committee realizes — I am sure you do,
too — that the transportation problem is not only going to develop
with respect to industry, but with respect to farm labor as well.
CONVERSION OF SCHOOL BUSSES
Mr. Flagg. I might touch on one angle of this transportation prob-
lem that so far I have seen very little mention made of, and that is
the conversion of school busses. Our situation is that we have a
shortage of busses. Yet we have, I think, in the county of Lauder-
dale— and I don't know about Colbert County — I think we have 36
school busses that just carry the school children to and from school
and are idle the rest of that day. They are not utilized in any other
manner at all, and I believe the school busses could be very readily
used in the transportation of industrial workers.
Mr. Arnold. Would the hours have to be shifted around in order
for them to be utilized?
Mr. Flagg. No; the workers go to work much earlier than the
children go to school. One problem is the driver of those busses.
The Chairman. What do they do during vacation with those busses;
lay them up?
Mr. Flagg. The objection was that over the vacations they over-
hauled them, but I don't think it would take more than a week to do
that thoroughly.
The Chairman. Are these school busses allowed to buy rationed
tires?
Mr. Flagg. That I couldn't answer.
Mr. Arnold. I had a complaint from my district last year; 6 months
ago, they couldn't use these busses to transport their football and
baseball teams to another city where they were going to have a game.
Mr. Flagg. That is the way we do — transport our football teams to
the various fields.
Mr. Arnold. I lodged that complaint with the proper governmental
agency.
Mr. Sparkman. If in order to win this war it is necessary to convey
people to the various war industries by the use of school busses, if
there are any regulations against it, they could certainly be changed
to meet the occasion.
Mr. Flagg. I would think so.
Mr. Arnold. You were just suggesting the question that was
raised was with reference to the maintenance of those busses. If you
put them in anything like continuous operation, as you should have
to do if you used them to transport workers, you could very easily
work out some plan whereby they could be checked and inspected and
worked on overnight?
Mr. Flagg. Yes, sir; and at the present time no matter how an
employee reaches his work and gets back home, there is a transpor-
tation shortage. If he is driving his own automobile, he's using his
own gas, and there is the rubber consumption, too. Therefore, a
charge could be made each worker for his trip on the bus, whether it
■was a school bus or a public utility.
12112 HUNTSVILLEi, ALA., HEARINGS
MAXIMUM UTILIZATION OF SCHOOL BUSSES
Mr. Sparkman. Your argument is: Get the maximum utilization of
whatever transportation facilities can be used.
Mr. Flagg. That is absolutely correct. In other words, when
we have school busses available, it seems to me it is very foolish to
take them and put them up in school yards and let them stay there
all day, when they could be serving a war industry winch needs them.
Mr. Arnold. Those school busses are owned by individual
operators.
Mr. Flagg. No, by the county. In our particular instance by the
county school boards.
Mr. Arnold. In Illinois they are owned by individuals.
Mr. Flagg. They are owned by the county school boards here.
They haven't really felt the tire need, and whether they have thought
about it at all I don't know. When we approached this subject one
of the school board members was present at the meeting, and imme-
diately he put forth this argument. First, was the driver situation.
The driver probably drives to school and then has another job some-
where else. But you could work that out. You would have to meet
the situation that existed in that locality.
Mr. Sparkman. Of course the school people don't want to run
the risk of burning up their rubber?
Mr. Flagg. That's right.
Mr. Arnold. You think there is no reason in the world why that
should not be worked out?
Mr. Flagg. No, sir; and I think it opens a very large field of trans-
portation. I know it does in our particular county.
OPERATION OF PLANT
Mr. Sparkman. You run full time?
Mr. Flagg. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. Tweniy-four hours a day?
Mr. Flagg. In some departments.
Mr. Sparkman. In fact you have been running that way a couple
of years?
Mr. Flagg. A year and a half.
Mr. Sparkman. Your product is underclothes?
Mr. Flagg. Knit underwear for the Army and for the Navy, for
the Marines, Coast Guard, and Air Corps, and we are now doing a
great deal of work for the Chemical Warfare.
Mr. Arnold. Is your plant being enlarged?
Mr. Flagg. Yes, sir; we are negotiating at the present time to take
60,000 square feet of floor space that an old cotton mill owns.
Mr. Arnold. Are you going to be able to get the machines?
Mr. Flagg. What we need is floor space.
Mr. Arnold. Will that increase your production?
Mr. Flagg. Yes, sir; but not our employment. In other words,
we are now so crowded that we have reached the point where the
law of diminishing returns is working.
Mr. Arnold. You haven't had any problem with conversion; you
were already making that particular product?
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12113'
Mr. Flagg. We had a big job of conversion, but it was prior to
priorities. In other words, we started to convert our plant a year
and a half ago and completed the conversion within 6 or 7 months.
Mr. Arnold. You didn't have a major conversion because you
were making that same line of goods before; you were really stepping
up your efficiency?
Mr. Flagg. Yes, sir; and installing the type of machines necessary
to meet the Government's specifications.
Mr. Arnold. Have you come in contact with any of these small
plants that are about to be shut out by reason of priorities, yet unable
to get machines with which to convert their plants?
Mr. Flagg. I have had no actual personal experience. What I
know is mostly hearsay, brought to me by machinery men and also
in conversations with men who have that type of plant. For instance,
the little hosiery mill in Decatur has actually gone out of that busi-
ness. But the situation there was the silk problem. When the silk
was frozen, the mill was left. They wanted to handle nylon, but it
is now impossible to get the necessary equipment, because of priorities.
Now, I understand, they have converted the plant and are going to
make some kind of fuses and things of that sort. All I know is by
hearsay. And I don't feel competent to discuss it.
The Chairman. We thank you gentlemen very much for being here.
TESTIMONY OF HARRY HILL, VICE PRESIDENT, GULF SHIP-
BUILDING & DRYDOCK CO., MOBILE, ALA.
The Chairman. At this point, I wish to introduce two letters from
the witness, setting forth some data that we should have in the record.
(The letters mentioned are as follows:)
House Committee Investigating National Defense Migration,
Washington, D. C.
Gentlemen: Pursuant to the arrangement agreed upon at the February
conference and to a letter from your field investigator, the following is Gulf
Shipbuilding Corporation's statement in connection with the suggested points:
Our employment figures are:
End of 1939 0
End of 1940 203
End of 1941 5,039
End of March 1942 5,383
Our force will go up to around 12,000 under our present contracts. Recruit-
ment is at the gate and through the medium of the United States Employment
Service.
Since January 1, 1942, there have been. 203 terminations of skilled and semi-
skilled workers due to the Selective Service Act. The policy of this company
is to request deferments only for those employees whose records reveal good
attendance, proper application of effort, and sufficient experience to make them
valuable workers. There is a tendency for the draft boards of Florida and
Mississippi to be severe in the cases involving skilled men.
This company is engaged in an intensive in-plant training effort consisting of
echools for electricians, pipe fitters, sheet metal workers, silver brasers, welders
and burners.
These schools are maintained to supplement the program of the vocational
education department of Mobile, which cannot take care of our requirements in
sufficient volume and in sufficient time. Our employees are encouraged to attend
defense training classes to improve and broaden their knowledge of their vocations.
Finally, this company makes maximum use of the special apprentice system of
in-plant training of semiskilled workers. Upgradings of these various groups
depend on records in plant, by the service, and training-school reports.
60396 — 42— pt. 32 12
12114 HTJNTSVILLB, ALA., HEARINGS
Our labor turn-over has increased to 3.7 percent and, from our investigations,
the increase is the result of inadequate housing as we have employees living in
tents and in automobiles. This is, at present, the most critical phase of the labor
situation.
Our current experience shows that, with about 9,000 men on our hourly pay roll,
we cannot hope to increase this force until something radical is done in the way
of providing facilities adequately to house the present force and to care for the
increase. The importance of immediate construction of houses cannot be too
strongly emphasized.
Very truly yours,
Gulf Shipbuilding Corporation,
H. Hill,
Vice President and General Manager.
Gulf Shipbuilding Corporation,
Mobile, Ala., May 18, 1943.
The Honorable John H. Tolan,
Chairman, House Committee Investigating National Defense Migration,
Washington, D. C.
Dear Sir: Pursuant to the hearings held in Huntsville, Ala., on May 8, 1942,
we are taking the liberty of submitting a copy of a resolution adopted May 13,
1942, in a meeting of the (Alabama) State council of administrators.
In the face of the existing deplorable shortage of housing facilities as set forth
in the enclosure, it is impossible for us to increase our working force to meet our
needs; therefore, we earnestly urge that your committee use its influence to get
adequate housing built in this area as quickly as possible.
Very truly yours,
Gulf Shipbuilding Corporation,
H. Hill,
Vice-President and General Manager.
Resolution Adopted bt the Alabama State Council of Administrators,
May 13, 1942
Mr. Plowden reported that, in his opinion, the recruitment of trainees in up-
State centers for the shipyard industry was being greatly hampered by the return
to these up-State centers of former trainees who had been unable to secure housing
accommodations in Mobile, even though they had passed their tests creditably
and had received employment in the shipyards. After considering this problem
from all angles, the following resolution was proposed by Mr. C. F. Anderson, of
the United States Employment Service, and was unanimously adopted by the
Council:
"Definite information from all sources clearly indicates that there are no hous-
ing, or even rooming accommodations in the entire Mobile area. In fact, in the
area are many cases existing to the extent that 7 workers are occupying the
same room, using beds in relays. A recent report indicates that 51 skilled mechan-
ics, all members of the Congress of Industrial Organizations union, and all of whom
are badly needed in the shipbuilding industry, came to Mobile, some slept in cars
with their families for several nights while attempting to find some place in which
to live, and then left.
"Training is at present being conducted in a number of other points in Alabama,
specifically directed toward Mobile. As these badly needed trainees finish their
courses and are routed to Mobile, their usual experience is the same as indicated
by the above-mentioned workers. Such trainees frequently return to the points
where training was given them and discourage other members of the classes from
continuing their training, or certainly, from going to Mobile upon completion of
the courses.
"It is the unanimous opinion of this council that the labor situation in Mobile
will never be solved until adequate housing or rooming accommodations are
provided for the necessary number of workers.
"It is also the opinion of the State council that the situation in Mobile cannot
be materially bettered by the training of Negroes for the skilled occupations where
the dearth is so great, since, while training is in the process of being conducted for
Negroes, there are at present no qualified skilled Negroes in Mobile. Careful
surveys conducted recently have indicated that there are, in fact, few Negroes
. available for referral for training in the skilled classifications. As of December
1941, an analysis made by the then Alabama State Employment Service indicated
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12115
that the active total number of Negroes available for training referrals was only
265. There is no reason to believe that the situation has changed since that sur-
vey was made. At the present time, the National Youth Administration reports
that they have only 4 male Negro youth awaiting assignment in Mobile.
Plans have been made there and are now in process for the training for such
Negroes as may be available for skilled jobs in the ship yards, both in Mobile
and throughout the State.
"It is, therefore, unanimously the opinion of this council that the housing
shortage in the Mobile area is not accentuated by the lack of utilization of Negroes
in the shipbuilding industry; and, furthermore, that the housing situation would
apply to the Negro as well as to the white from the standpoint of labor being
brought in from other areas."
TESTIMONY OF HARRY HILL— Resumed
The Chairman. Without revealing any military information,
Mr. Hill, tell us what your company is building and for whom?
Mr. Hill. Ships for the Navy Department and Maritime Com-
mission.
The Chairman. What is your total working force?
Mr. Hill. Right now about 9,500 persons, plus 500; about 10,000.
The Chairman. Approximately what percentage is skilled and semi-
skilled and unskilled?
Mr. Hill. Roughly 20 percent skilled, 40 percent trainees, prob-
ably about 20 percent semiskilled, and the remaining 20 percent
unskilled. That is just approximately, of course.
utilization of local labor
The Chairman. What is your company's policy with regard to
utilization of local labor; do you try to get local labor whenever you
•can?
Mr. Hill. Yes, sir; as far as possible.
The Chairman. Do you get much of your labor from localities
other than Mobile?
Mr. Hill. Yes, sir; I would say the farming section to the north
of Mobile furnishes quite a good deal.
The Chairman. Do you have any training departments?
Mr. Hill. Yes, sir; we have established a training department that
runs right now close to 4,000 men in process of training and production.
The Chairman. Do they get paid while in training?
Mr. Hill. Yes, sir; they are also on production work, and of course
in addition to their actual work we have training schools, which are
for electricians, pipe fitters, sheet metal workers, silver brazers, weld-
ers, and burners. And of course those courses which are principally
on matters of technical training — blue print reading, and things of
that sort.
The Chairman. Do you have any transportation problem there?
" Mr. Hill. We definitely do. What we are doing in that connec-
tion is this: We have quite a force coming out of Mobile and we
have bought 15 interurban cars that will be in operation I guess by
the 1st of June and will be operated by the local railway to the plant.
They ought to take care of 2,500 men.
The Chairman. What is the population of Mobile?
Mr. Hill. Originally I would say the population was about 70,000,
•and the estimates vary all the way up to 130,000 right now.
The Chairman. It undoubtedly created a housing problem?
12116 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
WORKERS QUITTING ON ACCOUNT OF HOUSING SHORTAGE
Mr. Hill. Yes, sir; very definitely. That is one of our greatest
problems right now. It is to get houses built in sufficient time to be
of use, because, as we see it, we are probably going up to about 12,500'
men. Right now our hirings are just about the same as the people
who quit. And from our inquiries, most of the people who are quitting
are quitting on account of the housing conditions. Some are in tents
and trailers, and some sleep in the backs of automobiles.
The Chairman. Sometimes people want to know why we investi-
gate housing and ask what connection that has with migration of
people. Well- — if people come in and can't get a place to live, they
move.
Mr. Hill. That is exactly what we are up against.
The Chairman. Is anything being done about it?
Mr. Hill. Yes; they have formed a Mobile War Emergency Com-
mittee to see if they can get some pretty quick action on housing.
We have an allocation of 200 houses, and there is another proposal to
build 600 more, and I understand bids are to be opened on the 18th of
May with the understanding that construction must start by the 25th
of May and, of course, from that point, it will be this: After we get
600 built and occupied or near occupied, how many more shall we
need?
EFFECT OF HOUSING ON WORKER'S EFFICIENCY
The Chairman. Good housing has a direct connection with a
man's working capacity?
Mr. Hill. Undoubtedly. I think it has everything to do with a
man's efficiency. If a man is living in a trailer or tent, he doesn't
get the kind of conditions he is accustomed to, and that reflects in his
work. I can't see why, in the shipbuilding industry, we can't get
more housing, because if there is anything permanent on this program,
it is shipbuilding. You can readily see how it is different from some
of these defense projects; in the course of construction, the construc-
tion labor comes in, does the construction, and then goes out. But our
housing problem is more permanent than that. It looks like we are
definitely engaged in shipbuilding for a number of years.
The Chairman. In view of the fact that so much tonnage is being
destroyed so quickly?
Mr. Hill. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. Have you any ideas you could give us about the
percentage of labor turn-over in ihe past 12 months?
labor turn-over
Mr. Hill. Yes, sir. When it started it was negligible. But now,
the last I saw on it was 3.7 percent per week, which amounts to 350
men per week. Now, that has a direct bearing on the productive
efficiency of the plant as a whole for this reason: That most of those
people who come in have never seen a shipyard. They spend the first
few weeks finding out what it is all about. And if they leave inside
of 2 or 3 months, they may as well never have come in. That is the
condition we are confronted with.
The Chairman. What is the cause of that turn-over?
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12117
SHIPYARDS REQUIRE NUCLEUS OF TRAINED MEN
Mr. Hill. When shipyards start, while of course they are supposed
to do all their training, it is almost impossible for these shipyards to
build ships with green men all the way. They must have a nucleus
from other shipyards. That is one of the causes. Of course, we
•don't complain about that, as long as it is kept within reasonable
bounds, because that has to be. The Government knows better than
we do where they require shipyards, and when it does build a new ship-
yard, they have got to get some men in there to train men about ship-
building. That is one of the causes. Another cause is housing.
And, of course, the first condition I mentioned, we have got to live
with. But the second condition can be cured. And the second
•cause is more ot a major cause than the first.
Mr. Arnold. Who makes request for these men? Does the Gov-
ernment ask you?
Mr. Hill. No; they naturally go.
Mr. Arnold. They hear of an opening?
Mr. Hill. Yes, sir.
Mr. Arnold. How do they know that one of their skills is needed?
How is it provided or arranged that the new yard gets just the kind
of skills needed? It is a hit-and-miss proposition the way it is now,
isn't it?
Mr. Hill. I wouldn't say so, because under present conditions
anybody who knows anything about ships is required in a shipyard.
Mr. Arnold. Then if the skilled labor coming voluntarily to that
new shipyard doesn't take care of their needs, the owners go out and
get the other men?
Mr. Hill. Not exactly. The way we operate and have to operate
is that we get our nucleus of people who know something about ships.
From that point on it is a question of intensive training within our
own plant. They train men who know nothing about that particular
skill. That is to say, if you have a lofter, he may be doing loft work
or supervising about a dozen people who have never seen a shipyard,
much less a loft, before.
Mr. Arnold. Do higher wages attract these men to the new
shipyards?
Mr. Hill. In some cases; yes.
Mr. Arnold. There is no standard scale of wages?
Mr. Hill. Very definitely. There is a ceiling. But the intermediate
a-ates — sometimes a man may be getting so much at one shipyard
and can get more at another.
The Chairman. Do you have any piracy?
Mr. Hill. I would say in the last 12 months the piracy has di-
minished very considerably, because the shipyards themselves find it
•doesn't pay.
Mr. Arnold. Has your labor turn-over decreased or increased in the
past 12 months?
Mr. Hill. It has steadily increased.
Mr. Arnold. That will have a direct effect on production?
Mr. Hill. Yes, sir.
Mr. Arnold. Have you any suggestion to remedy that?
12118 mJNTSVILLR, ALA., HEARINGS
CAUSES OF LABOR TURN-OVER
Mr. Hill. The only practical suggestion is in more housing, because-
our labor turn-over is definitely connected with the housing condition.
In other words, if a man came there and had a comfortable home to
live in, that would have a tendency to keep him there. The first
question asked by the men being hired at our shipyard is: "Can I get
a house?" And we have had lots of cases of men wanting to work
for us, but not doing so because they couldn't get a house.
Mr. Arnold. Do you lose many men to the draft?
Mr. Hill. Quite a few.
Mr. Arnold. You don't have any deferments?
Mr. Hill. Yes, sir; we have deferment, and yet, between January 1
and April 28, we have had 203 men lost to us by the draft. In that
connection I might say this — you, of course, are probably much more
familiar with the selective-service regulations than I am — but, except
in cases of people whose skill is such that they couldn't be replaced
within a reasonable time, we don't ask for deferment. That is only
in the cases of skilled mechanics, draftsmen, and engineers.
Mr. Arnold. You get permanent deferment sometimes?
Mr. Hill. No; 6 months.
The Chairman. Is there anything else, Mr. Hill, you care to say —
something you haven't covered?
Mr. Hill. I think you gentlemen have covered the ground pretty
well, so far as I can see.
The Chairman. Are you giving any thought to the rubber shortage
and the effect it will have on workers?
Mr. Hill. Yes, sir; we are making a study about that. I was talk-
ing to some Maritime Commission people and they are very much
excited about the rubber situation. And our proposition is that if
you get this housing, the rubber situation, so far as those people in
nouses is concerned, will be practically nonexistent, because these
houses will all be within a mile or a mile and a half of the yard. And,
as far as that is concerned, it will relieve the situation of 2,500 men at
least.
The Chairman. We thank you very much, Mr. Hill. We appre-
ciate your coming. We are glad we . could put you on this morning
so you can go back to build more ships.
PERCY BELLMAN, COLORED, WHO MOVED FROM THE ARSENAL.
AREA, ROUTE 4, HUNTSVILLE, ALA.
Mr. Sparkman. You used to live at Gurley, didn't you, Percy?
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. Were you born in this county?
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir; I was born at Gurley, and that is in this-
county.
Mr. Sparkman. Were you raised there?
Mr. Bellman. No, sir; I was raised down here on Route 4.
Mr. Sparkman. Down in Pond Beat?
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. Did you live on the arsenal grounds?
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. What do you call it — the "arsenal"?
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12119
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. I hear some of these fellows calling it the "arsenic
plant," and others the "bullet plant."
Mr. Bellman. Some of them does; yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. Are you working down there?
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. How long have you been working down there?
Mr. Bellman: Ever since the last week in October.
Mr. Sparkman. You were one of the first?
Mr. Bellman. Very near it.
Mr. Sparkman. You were living down there before it came in,
you were farming down there?
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir; I have been down there ever since I was 10.
Mr. Sparkman. With whom did you live?
Mr. Bellman. Well — there was Dr. Bellman, and the last man
was Mr. Sam Harris.
Mr. Sparkman. How old are you, Percy?
Mr. Bellman. Forty-six.
Mr. Sparkman. How long did you live with Mr. Harris?
Mr. Bellman. About 15 years, I reckon.
Mr. Sparkman. Were you a cash tenant or a sharecropper?
Mr. Bellman. I was a sharecropper.
Mr. Sparkman. All of Mr. Harris' lands were taken over by the
arsenal and ordnance plant?
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. In fact, he lived right down in the ordnance-plant
area?
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir; but I wasn't on his place when it was
taken.
Mr. Sparkman. What place were you on?
Mr. Bellman. Yancy Horton's, in Mullins Flat, that is whore I
was living, next to that mountain.
Mr. Sparkman. You don't recognize those places very well now?
Mr. Bellman. No, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. I went through yesterday, and I was lost all the
time with all those railroad tracks and new roads.
Mr.BELLMAN. Yes, sir; they have got it tore up awful now.
Mr. Sparkman. You can travel through there in the wintertime
now, and you couldn't before.
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir; you can go just any way you want to go
now.
Mr. Sparkman. How much land did you farm, Percy?
Mr. Bellman. About 35 acres. "
Mr. Sparkman. Mostly cotton?
Mr. Bellman. I have always handled about 25 in cotton.
Mr. Sparkman. You didn't have your own livestock?
Mr.BELLMAN. Yes, sir; I did.
Mr. Sparkman. You worked on a "third and a fourth"?
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. I thought you worked on half and half?
Mr. Bellman. No, sir; I was on a third and a fourth all the time
I was with Mr. Harris.
Mr. Sparkman. Have you still got your livestock?
Mr. Bellman. Two head.
12120 HUNTSVILLEi, ALA., HEARINGS
Mr. Sparkman. Two mules?
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. What about your plow tools?
Mr. Bellman. I got all except my cultivator.
Mr. Sparkman. What about your cows?
Mr. Bellman. I got four head of cows.
Mr. Sparkman. You don't use all that milk?
Mr. Bellman. No, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. What do you do with the rest of it?
Mr. Bellman. When it comes in right — they are all about dry
now — but we generally sell some of it.
Mr. Sparkman. Do you raise any hogs?
Mr. Bellman. No, sir; I haven't got none now. I sold my hogs.
I didn't have no good place for them.
Mr. Sparkman. Have you got chickens?
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir; I got them.
Mr. Sparkman. Do you have your own garden?
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. Are you doing any farming at all?
Mr. Bellman. No, sir; not anything but just little truck patches.
Mr. Sparkman. Wliere are you living?
Mr. Bellman. In one of the new houses.
Mr. Sparkman. In one of the Farm Security Administration's
new houses?
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir; below Merrimack.
Mr. Sparkman. How much ground do you have; just room enough
for a garden?
Mr. Bellman. I have got about 2 acres there, I guess.
Mr. Sparkman. You raise potatoes in your garden and things like
that?
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. What kind of a crop did you make last year?
Mr. Bellman. I made a nice crop last year, 14 bales of cotton.
Mr. Sparkman. Did you have to quit working at the arsenal to
gather it, or did your wife and children gather it?
Mr. Bellman. My wife and child did. I have one child.
Mr. Sparkman. A girl or a boy?
Mr. Bellman. A girl.
Mr. Sparkman. They are pretty good workers?
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir; I reckon they are. My wife is given thai
name, and you might as well say she done the work.
Mr. Sparkman. What do you make at the arsenal?
Mr. Bellman. I makes $4.75 a day now.
Mr. Sparkman. How many days a week do you work?
Mr. Bellman. I works all 5 of them.
Mr. Sparkman. That gives you almost $25 a week. Do you get
any overtime?
Mr. Bellman. On Saturdays we gets overtime.
Mr. Sparkman. You make pretty close to $30 a week?
Mr. Bellman. I sure does.
Mr. Sparkman. Percy, what are you doing with that money? It
doesn't take all that to live on?
Mr. Bellman. I owed some debts that I am paying up.
Mr. Sparkman. Are you buying any defense bonds?
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12121
Mr. Bellman. I have put my name in for them, but they haven't
taken out none.
Mr. Sparkman. You have asked them to deduct some from your
pay, and that is just getting started, Percy. The "deducts" will hit
you later.
Mr. Bellman. I thought they was just letting me by.
Mr. Sparkman. No, no, Percy. You will get your "deducts"
later. How much rent are you paying for that house?
Mr. Bellman. $10 a month.
Mr. Sparkman. How big a house is it?
Mr. Bellman. It is plenty large enough. It is four rooms and a-
bathroom.
Mr. Sparkman. The house has running water?
Mr. Bellman. No, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. You have a well?
Mr. Bellman. There is two pumps on the row of houses.
Mr. Sparkman. How many houses are there?
Mr. Bellman. Twenty.
Mr. Sparkman. And they have two wells with pumps?
Mr. Bellman: Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. And all of you use water from the two wells?
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. Do you have an indoors toilet?
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. You lived there during the wintertime?
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir.
Hr. Sparkman. You found the house good and warm?
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir; pretty warm.
Mr. Sparkman. You are engaged in construction work, or are you
doing production work? You helped build the plant?
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir; I work on the railroad.
Mr. Sparkman. I saw a lot of men riding handcars on the railroad;
were you in that bunch?
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. I used to work on the railroad, and you had to
pump the handcars then, and that was work. Things have improved.
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir; we don't have to pump ours.
Mr. Sparkman. Did you help build those railroads? Is that what
you are doing?
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. You helped lay the ties?
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. They are still building them?
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. Are you going to stay with the arsenal or go back
to farming?
Mr. Bellman. I would go back this evening to the farm if I could
find one.
Mr. Sparkman. Did you try to get a farm?
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir; I sure did. And they told me there was so
many people buying land and selling land they wouldn't talk to a
man about renting none. You just can't rent a farm.
12122 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Mr. Sparkman. I have a little farm with two tenants on it. And
if they ever move, I am going to be looking out for you, a man that
can grow 14 bales of cotton.
Mr. Bellman. I wish I could have struck you sooner.
Mr. Arnold. You said you were paying off some debts, Percy, with
your surplus money. If you got in debt farming, why do you want to
go back to it?
Mr. Bellman. Just because I likes it so well. I have been in it all
my life.
Mr. Arnold. Your debts don't worry you very much?
Mr. Bellman. No, sir; my debts don't worry me. Maybe I will
pay them off some day. I will if I can.
Mr. Sparkman. They are things you drag over from year to year?
Mr. Bellman. Yes sir. I owed about $1,004 inside of 4 years.
When I moved over from Mr. Harris' I had to buy a lot of mules and
tools, and I paid all that out, about.
Mr. Sparkman. You had your mules and tools to back up that
indebtedness, and what you are doing is paying off those debts?
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir; when I moved from Mr. Harris' I had two
mules, and I bought four more.
Mr. Sparkman. You sold four and you have two of them left?
Mr. Bellman. No, sir; I sold two of them, and two of them died.
Mr. Sparkman. Percy, were there many fellows in the shape you
are in, fellows who wanted to continue farming but couldn't find a
place to go to?
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. Of course, the Farm Security Administration made
an effort to locate all of you. In fact, that is how you happen to be
in one of their houses?
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. They furnish those houses for you to live in
temporarily until you can get located on another farm?
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir, I was to get on one of those farms and farm
this year. But somehow they didn't get it fixed up.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Mr. Bellman. You look
pretty contented.
Mr. Bellman. Yes, sir.
Mr. Arnold. You don't feel right without being on a farm?
Mr. Bellman. No, sir.
Mr. Arnold. I am that way, too. I am a farmer myself.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGKATION
FRIDAY, MAY 8, 1942
afternoon session
House of Representatives,
Select Committee Investigating
National Defense Migration,
Washington, D. C.
The Chairman. The committee will please come to order.
Mr. Arnold. Before we start examining any witnesses — since we
are working with the Mobile situation, I want to say that the testimony
of Mr. Hill this morning as to losing workers in Mobile because of the
housing situation is borne out by letters I have received from a former
Illinois citizen, whose name he doesn't want me to disclose, in which
he calls attention to the situation in the Mobile area in very bitter
words. A second letter received from him contains this paragraph:
"Our own Al Capone in his heyday was an angel compared with this
gang down here, as Al didn't take the money away from the working-
man, but in a number of instances established a soup kitchen to feed
the hungry. Whereas, this mob is out after the defense workers."
Of course, I realize this man is perhaps a little exercised in mind about
the situation, but it might be he isn't either, he's just so fed up with
the situation that he is getting off his chest what he really feels, and
I insert that because it throws light on the situation, and confirms
what Mr. Hill says is the feeling of these workers.
The Chairman. That is admitted. Do you want to tear the
signature from that letter?
Mr. Arnold. This one isn't signed.
(The letter is as follows:)
"Somewhere," Ala., February 16, 1942.
Mr. Laurence Arnold,
Illinois Representative,
House of Representatives Office Building, Washington, D. C.
My Dear Laurence: I note according to press reports that you are on the
"housing committee considering the housing situation in Mobile for defense
workers.
In that I have been in this locality for the past 2 years and am somewhat
■acquainted with the situation, I suggest that you first make a thorough investi-
gation as to the conditions of the defense workers who come here to assist the war
effort of the United States.
To start out, you might go to the Federal Bureau of Investigation office and see
how and why nearly the entire police force of Mobile were dismissed and replaced
at the instigation of the Federal authorities. Why the inspector of police after
the house cleaning was replaced by being forced out of office and the Federal
Bureau of Investigation was powerless to stop this. Since the coming of the
defense workers why has the piice of oysters, which are taken from the surrounding
waters, increased from 25 to 80 cents a quart? Why are the greedy and grasping
fee-collecting nazi-japs from the license inspector's office allowed to force defense
12123
12124 HUNTSVTLLE., ALA., HEARINGS
workers coming from other States to collect their $3.90 fees without lawfully
taking the legal course. These are only a few of the many complaints against
the local authorities and citizens who apparently are taking every advantage of
the situation created by the necessity of bringing in workers to man the many
defense industries.
I suggest that Federal Government will not spend another cent in this locality
until conditions are made decent for the citizens who are patriotically trying to do-
their duty in the defense industries, or unless the southern half of Mobile County
is placed under Federal martial law and local officers replaced by a military
commander.
I do believe that after this emergency is over Mobile city will become one of
the largest "ghost cities" of the country. Therefore, before the Government
spends any further money here, it should see to it that its investment is protected
for the future.
You can send your investigators here and they can talk with the many defense
workers, check over the court records, etc., and you find conditions worse than I
can tell you in a letter.
Very sincerely yours,
A Defense Worker.
P. S. — I am giving you my name and address on an attached slip, because if
this were known to local civil authorities, undoubtedly I would be persecuted.
Mr. Abbott. I would like to read into the record at this time this
supplement to the testimony offered by Mr. Hill, vice president of
Gulf Shipbuilding Corporation, Mobile, Ala.: !
QUITS ALMOST EQUAL HIRES
As all our construction is predicated on our ability to secure necessary man-
power to complete contracts at least by contract-schedule dates, or as soon as
possible, the labor turn-over at present (which is largely due to lack of adequate
housing facilities) is such that there is grave doubt of our ability to fulfill our
shipbuilding obligations, the employment situation being such that the number
of employees quitting almost equals" the number of new. employees being hired.
TESTIMONY OF IT. COMDR. ELMER LANGWORTHY, PORT
DIRECTOR, PORT OF MOBILE, ALA.
Mr. Arnold. Commander, we appreciate very much your coming
this long distance to give the committee testimony that we are seeking
with reference to the situation in the southern part of Alabama,
the Mobile area. As port director, I understand you are responsible
for ships which dock at the Mobile port at any time, day or night,
unannounced?
Commander Langworthy. Yes, sir.
Mr. Arnold. Are you responsible for the housing of crews while
the ships are serviced?
Commander Langworthy. I am responsible for the finding of
housing facilities for the crews of ships that are undergoing or about
to undergo alterations or repairs in port.
Mr. Arnold. Many times when these ships are undergoing repairs
the men can't live on board?
Commander Langworthy. A United States Navy ship arrived 3
months ago and had a crew of about 200 men, and the ship was to
undergo a major alteration. They immediately called me to find
places to live for the portion of the crew that would have to live
ashore. When you undertake a major alteration or repair, it is
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12125
usually necessary to cut off all steam, water, and lights, and the men
have to live ashore. That is quite possible at Navy yards and
naval stations where they have sufficient facilities, but in Mobile
we have no naval station of any kind, and the men must be quartered
in Mobile.
Mr. Arnold. Are you always able to quarter them?
UNABLE TO FIND QUARTERS FOR CREW
Commander Lang worthy. No, sir; it was so bad in the case of
the ship I just mentioned, and I had so few places to house them that
the editor of the neswpaper inserted an advertisement in his paper in
my behalf and I received 100 replies. And I have correspondence
where 1 told the commanding officer of a ship to make a survey of
these quarters offered. He told me in a conversation that not more
than 20 percent of them were livable. He said some of them he
"wouldn't even put a dog in."
His official statement stated that his officers had made a preliminary
survey. He stated, "However, several of the officers who have made
preliminary inquiries have found the more suitable rentals already
taken up. It is suggested that another advertisement be inserted, as
the crew subsistence on board will terminate within the next few days,
and it is desired that the crew be able to avail themselves of the avail-
able rentals before they are taken up." The outcome was the Navy
sent a large number of the crew to New Orleans.
Mr. Arnold. How far is that?
Commander Langworthy. 150 miles. But the unsatisfactory
feature of that is we lose the employment of those men on a ship when
they have to be sent to other cities. That is just one example.
Mr. Arnold. Have you had to send the crew to New Orleans in
other instances?
Commander Langworthy. This is the only large ship. But we
now have ships coming in quite frequently, and there will be more of
them coming in for major alterations.
The Chairman. What is a major alteration?
Commander Langworthy. They take a merchant ship constructed
for carrying cargo and convert it to a ship for submarine defense action,
or to take its position in the fleet as an auxiliary. We have just made
one such conversion of an ex-German ship. And there is another one
in Mobile being converted to serve as a Navy auxiliary.
The Chairman. What was it you said? That there was no naval
station at Mobile?
Commander Langworthy. There is none at all. We have no
naval housing facilities at Mobile.
The Chairman. Do they build ships there, fighting ships?
Commander Langworthy. Yes, sir; they are at present building
a considerable number at Gulf Shipbuilding Corporation; destroyers
and mine sweepers.
The Chairman. Does the shipbuilding going on in Mobile warrant
a naval station?
12126 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
CONSTRUCTION OF DORMITORIES FOR CREWS
Commander Langworthy. No; but what it will and does warrant
is dormitories sufficient to house the crews of these ships that are
being sent to Mobile to man them. That is now being undertaken
by the Government. We have already projected a barracks at Chicka-
saw to house the officers and crews of the ships that are now being
built in that yard. We have also projected and are about to com-
mence the construction of barracks at Alabama Drydocks. They
have not been started yet, but when these barracks are complete, the
Navy's needs for enlisted men and for a certain number of bachelor
officers will be taken care of.
The Chairman. How large a ship can you berth at Mobile?
Commander Langworthy. It doesn't depend on the size so much
as on the draft. We are limited to a channel depth which is 30 feet,
but we have very large dock space at Mobile. At Alabama Drydocks
they can berth approximately 22 to 24 medium size or large transports
at one time.
Mr. Arnold. You are responsible for the repair of these ships, are
you not?
Commander Langworthy. No, sir; that comes under another
department — the assistant materials officer attached to the Eighth
Naval District. His responsibility is material. I have the personnel
and military end of the Navy's activities in Mobile.
EFFECT OF HOUSING SHORTAGE ON PRODUCTION
Mr. Arnold. Labor turn-over to any large extent would tend to
delay the effective operation of repairs, would it not?
Commander Langworthy. Yes, sir.
Mr. Arnold. So there is a direct connection between proper ac-
commodation of workers and sailors to actual production, so far as
the worker is concerned?
Commander Langworthy. Yes, sir. We have in Mobile, practi-
cally all the time, 8 to 10 ships that are being armed. We take the
merchant ships of our Government and of friendly foreign govern-
ments and mount guns on them.
Mr. Arnold. They go out as merchant ships?
Commander Langworthy. Yes, sir; with Navy gun crews. I
often have gun crews arrive in Mobile from our training centers,
such as Cripple Creek and Brooklyn. They arrive in Mobile and
there is no place to house them. They come in at odd hours, and the
ships are not ready to receive them. The port director has the job
of finding a place to berth those men. At present I only have space
where I can berth 12 men. For a while the Army berthed them in
their ballroom at their recreation center on cots. I have had gun
crews come in when I did not have space for them and they would
have to find what quarters they could in the city of Mobile until the
next morning. When we get our barracks constructed, that will be
taken care of, but that will be about 3 months from now.
Mr. Arnold. Has construction started?
Commander Langworthy. No, sir; but the plans have been ap-
proved, and we have no trouble, I understand, with priorities. I
imagine, with a little pressure from Washington, the Navy will ex-
pedite construction.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12127
Mr. Arnold. Do you have any other recommendations as to what
is needed besides these projects you spoke of?
QUARTERS FOR CIVILIAN EMPLOYEES
Commander Langworthy. That doesn't cover all of our problems.
We have about 200 civilian employees of the Navy at Mobile, and at
least 180 Coast Guardmen, who are under the control of the Navy,
also living in Mobile in very unsatisfactory conditions. Now, while
the civilian employees who are attached to the shipyards can terminate
their work if they are not satisfied with their living conditions and
move elsewhere, the civilian employees for the Navy can't do so, be-
cause they are practically all civil-service employees, and it is the same
way with the Coast Guard. I had a conference with the commander
of the Coast Guard before I left Mobile, and he said, "I have 180 men
without quarters. There are 210 Coast Guardmen in Mobile, and
there are quarters for 30. The other 180 are living in boarding houses
and rooming houses of Mobile." And during the course of our con-
versation he pointed to a small, dingy-looking hotel a block from his
quarters. He said, "In that building six men are occupying one room
on cots, for which they are paying 75 cents each per day."
The Chairman. You retired prior to the war?
Commander Langworthy. I have been retired since 1931.
The Chairman. I am very glad you were available to be called back
for this work, for I am sure from your testimony you are splendidly
equipped to handle it. You indicated that your housing problem could
be hurried up a little in Washington?
Commander Langworthy. I imagine it could if this committee-
would so express a wish.
HOUSING OF NAVAL OFFICERS
One of the most important problems is the housing of officers. We
have in Mobile approximately 50 naval officers, of whom most are-
junior officers, ensigns and junior lieutenants. The pay of these young
officers at the most is $180 a month, and they are quite desperate.
They say they cannot afford to pay the rentals they have to pay in
Mobile for the inadequate quarters they are obliged to live in — they
are paying from $40 to $50 to $60 or $70 a month— and have enough to •
live on.
The Chairman. Are many of them married?
Commander Langworthy. Quite a few, because they are college
men who have been in business 5 or 6 years, and they have given up
good positions to come in the service and they also take a tremendous
reduction in salary. I have had two or three of them tell me if condi-
tions were not improved in some way, they were going to ask to be
detached and sent to some other city.
The Chairman. What about their wives and children; do they
bring them with them?
Commander Langworthy. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. And housing becomes more acute?
Commander Langworthy. Yes, sir; and, while we have 50'
officers there now the number is increasing and will increase much
faster.
12128 HUNTS VILLE>, ALA., HEARINGS
The Chairman. It reaches into the morale of your men, too, if
they don't have adequate housing?
MOBILE MAKES NO CONCESSIONS TO ARMY AND NAVY
Commander Langworthy. Yes, sir; and for one other reason. It
is surprising that Mobile has made no concessions to the Army and the
Navy. In northern cities, such as New York City or Boston, when-
ever we come into port, there doesn't seem to be enough that people
can do for us. They give us reduced rates at hotels and on theater
tickets and those things. But there hasn't been one single concession
given to the Navy in Mobile, not even by the large hotels and theaters.
They refuse to give officers reduced rates. I have told them what they
are doing in other cities, but it has had no effect. And I think that
has had a good deal to do toward creating dissatisfaction, to feel that
Mobile isn't interested enough in them to give them some sort of con-
cessions, as is done in other cities in the country.
PORT OF MOBILE
The Chairman. It is a very valuable port?
Commander Langworthy. Yes, sir; I think Mobile has one of the
finest harbors and ports in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Chairman: With fine protection?
Commander Langworthy. Yes, sir; it is one of the easiest places to
protect, and we have space for a large number of ships and large
railroad facilities. And Mobile should be a much larger port than it is.
But it is increasing at quite a rapid rate.
Mr. Arnold. Do you have any difficulty getting labor, construction
men and repair men?
Commander Langworthy. The Navy does not hire these. They
are hired by the shipyards. All work on Navy ships is accomplished
by civilian employees. The rate of construction progress on our
ships depends on the rate of employment of labor at the shipyards.
Mr. Arnold. Has your repair work been held up at all on account
of labor shortage at the shipbuilding yards?
Commander Langworthy. Not to any appreciable extent as yet.
But when the building program at the Alabama Dry dock and Ship-
building Corporation gets underway there might be delays depending
on whether or not they are successful in employing sufficient labor to
undertake the additional construction.
Mr. Arnold. I take it from this the housing condition is being
taken care of?
Commander Langworthy. The housing for Navy personnel is be-
ing taken care of by the Navy.
Mr. Arnold. Is private building proceeding rapidly in Mobile?
Commander Langworthy. I do not believe that it is at present.
There was considerable but I do not know of any at present. I think
that there are many who would like to start construction but it
depends on whether or not they can get priorities on necessary
materials.
Mr. Arnold. Has it been declared a defense area?
Commander Langworthy. Yes, sir. I happen to be a member of
the Mobile Emergency War Committee, and I am quite familiar with
IN AND AROUND MOBILE
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NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12129
the work that has been projected in Mobile from that angle, and what
is being planned in the way of houses.
Mr. Arnold. What is the total number of units?
Commander Langworthy. 5,610; that is, exclusive of the Navy.
But construction has not been started as yet.
The Chairman. Of course the load on the Navy has increased tre-
mendously. Are you having any trouble with enlistments?
NAVY NEEDS OFFICERS
Commander Langworthy. No, sir; more in getting officers. We
are getting them, but it takes some time to train them. We are
facing a problem of obtaining a sufficient number of trained officers to
man our ships. We are training them as fast as we can. But there
is no point in trying to gloss over the fact that we are in need of trained
officers.
The Chairman. What about the Naval Academy; how many,
approximately, do you draw from them a year?
Commander Langworthy. I do not know at present. I imagine
500 or 600, but that takes care of a very small part of our war needs.
We feel very fortunate whenever we can get a graduate from Annapolis
for any duty, for he is very thoroughly indoctrinated and ready to
take his position for any duty assigned. But the boys from college,
we cannot expect that of them. We have to give them a certain
amount of preliminary training. They are very intelligent and
willing, but they lack the background.
Mr. Arnold.' You mean after they have their $900 training they
are still untrained?
Commander Langworthy. You know hi the old days, before this
present war, in the Navy our rule was that no officer was considered
trained to take independent command until he has had 8 years'
experience — 8 years in the service after graduation.
Mr. Arnold. I suggest, Commander — I don't think you have here-
tofore submitted a statement — if you have a statement or papers
you wish to leave, we will make it pait of the record.
Commander Langworthy. I submitted them to Mr. Burke.
(The paper referred to is as follows:)
STATEMENT BY LT. COMDR. ELMER LANGWORTHY, PORT
DIRECTOR, NAVAL TRANSPORTATION SERVICE
Mobile, Ala., May 2, 1942.
I am very pleased to give a brief outline of the problems which have confronted
the various naval activities in the port of Mobile since the beginning of the present
war emergency and which are continuing to date.
INADEQUATE HOUSING
The Navy has in the port of Mobile a considerable number of civilian employees
who are employed in the office of the supervisor of shipbuilding at the Gulf Ship-
building Co. at Chickasaw, and in the offices of the assistant district material
officer and the cost inspector located at the Alabama Dry Docks & Shipbuilding
Co., lower yard. There are also other civilian employees, in a lesser number,
located in the various other naval activities in this port, such as in the offices of
the port director, Naval Intelligence and Public Relations. A rough estimate of
the total number of civilian employees is at present approximately 200. Most
of them are civil-service employees. These emplo.yees are faced with the same
conditions as regards acute shortage of housing, the high cost of rentals and the
60396— 42— pt. 32 13
12130 HUNTSVILLE., ALA., HEARINGS
cost of living in general. Many of them have families and they face the same
conditions as regards health, lack of proper educational and hospital facilities.
While the number of these employees is now approximately 200, this number
will increase considerably as time progresses.
There are, at present, in the port of Mobile a permanent staff of Navy personnel
numbering approximately 150, of which approximately 100 are enlisted men and
50 officers. The Navy Department has erected permanent barracks for housing
most of the enlisted men. This is located at Choctaw Point, and is known as
the United States Navy section base. There are no Government quarters in this
area for the housing of officers, so they are obliged to find housing in the cities
of Mobile and Chickasaw. The great majority of them are married officers with
families, all of them, without exception, are paying excessive rentals for their
places of domicile. Many of them are living in houses which are hardly suitable
for officers. In addition they are obliged to pay exceedingly high rentals for these
unsatisfactory living places. I have personal knowledge of several officers who
have stated that they have requested duty elsewhere or were considering doing so,
because they cannot obtain suitable places in which to live in Mobile in keeping
with their salaries.
The psychological effect upon these officers by the inadequate housing and
education and hospital facilities to care for them and their families, not only
causes discontent, but tends to lessen their efficiency. And if you will add to the
foregoing the high prices which they are obliged to pay for their houses, and the
high cost of living in general, you can well understand the reasons for their dis-
content and the impairment of their efficiency.
A situation which has confronted the office of the port director during the past
4 or 5 months has been the temporary quartering of armed guard crews ordered
to Mobile for service on board merchant vessels which are sent to the port of
Mobile for the installation of guns and gun crews to man them. In the large
majority of these ships the gun crews have arrived from one to several days before
the ships were ready to take care ot tnem. In such cases this office has been
faced with the problem of finding quarters for them. In the months of December
and January there were no naval quarters of any kind in this city and this office
was obliged to call upon the assistance of the Army in providing them with
temporary quarters in the ballroom of the recreation center at Brookley Field.
In January the Navy completed at Choctaw Point a barracks for the quartering
of enlisted men and officers attached to the inshore patrol at this port. No
provision, though, was made in these barracks for the quartering of armed guard
crews, but by the use of cots we are now able to temporarily lodge about a dozen
men at this place. This taxes their facilities to the limit. There have been
many occasions though, when 20 to 30 men have had to be assigned temporary
quarters, and it has presented this office with a very difficult problem when there
are no quarters to be had, and it stands to reason that these men cannot afford
to pay for their own lodging and subsistence in the hotels in Mobile, none of
which make concessions in the matter of price for naval personnel officers, or
enlisted men.
QUARTERS FOR SHIP CREWS
During the month of January a Navy ship arrived in Mobile for conversion.
On the ship were approximately 200 officers and men. During certain periods
of this conversion it was planned to remove the men from the ship so that the
necessary work could be proceeded with without there being any personnel on
board which would interfere with the work. The port director was requested to
provide living accommodations in Mobile for these officers and men. The editor
of the Mobile Press Register kindly volunteered to publish an advertisement in
his paper requesting the citizens of Mobile to inform the Navy what quarters
they had available for the temporary housing of this personnel. About 100
replies were received and the officers of this ship made a survey of the facilities
offered. Thev reported that they were not only extremely unsuitable but in
sone cases were not fit for any individual, much less Navy personnel whom the
Government desires quartered in clean quarters, which are provided with proper
washing and toilet facilities. In addition the prices asked were way out of pro-
portion to the facilities offered.
The Coast Guard, which is now under the jurisdiction of the Navy Depart-
ment, has approximately 210 officers and men in Mobile. They have Govern-
ment quarters for 30 of these men, thus 180 of their personnel are living in room-
ing houses, boarding houses, etc., in the city of Mobile and are confronted with
the same conditions as regards unsuitability of quarters, high prices for the same
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12131
and general high cost of living. The same remarks apply to this activity as
stated in paragraph 4 above in regard to Naval personnel.
CONSTRUCTION OF BARRACKS
A number of Navy ships are being constructed in the yard of the Gulf Ship-
building Co. at Chickasaw. As their completion date approaches the Navy will
order officers and crews here to man them. At present there are no quarters in
the cities of Mobile or Chickasaw for the quartering of these men. To meet
this deficiency the Navy is planning the erection of barracks in Chicakasaw for
the housing of this personnel. These barracks must be completed prior to the
ordering here of officers and men to man the ships. It is my understanding that
this work will get under way as soon as possible and all efforts will be made to
complete these barracks expeditiously so as to avoid delay in the manning of these
ships.
In the very near future work will be started on ships for the Navy at the Ala-
bama Dry Docks & Shipbuilding Co. The same conditions confront the Navy
in this yard as at Chickasaw, as ships are being built Navy personnel, officers
and men, will be ordered here to man them. At present there are no quarters to
house this personnel. The Navy is undertaking the immediate construction of
barracks near the Alabama Dry Docks & Shipbuilding Co. for the housing of
officers and men. This work must be undertaken as soon as possible in order to
have the barracks completed in time to receive this personnel. It is hoped that
these quarters will be sufficient for the temporary housing of armed guard crews
who are awaiting assignment to ships being armed in this port.
A recapitulation of the foregoing will show that at present the need of housing
for Navy and Coast Guard personnel in this port is extremely acute. It will be
several months before the barracks now contemplated for the housing of Navy
enlisted men will be completed. When this has been taken care of, some time in
the future at an indefinite date, there still will exist the problem of obtaining
suitable housing for naval officers and Coast Guard personnel on duty in this port,
also civilian employees in the various naval activities. The latter employees will
have to be housed in the various housing projects now being planned for the
housing of civilian employees in the city of Mobile. As civil-service employees
their employment is on a more or less permanent basis and thus they are not able
to terminate their employment because of unsatisfactory living conditions and
move to another locality where living conditions might be more satisfactory, as
are the civilian employees working in the shipyards. Thus housing for them
should be considered as of a permanent basis. While there are approximately
200 such employees at this time, this number will undoubtedly be greatly increased
as the war effort continues.
RECOMMENDATIONS
To alleviate the conditions discussed in this letter I desire to make the follow-
ing recommendations:
(a) That the erection of adequate housing facilities in Mobile be proceeded
with as soon as possible and that space be allocated in these various projects
for the housing of civilian personnel employed in the various naval activities
in this city and in the city of Chickasaw.
The housing of the Navy enlisted personnel is a problem for the Navy to solve
and steps are being taken to solve it by the erection of suitable barracks. The
problem, though, of providing suitable homes for the Naval officers in the port
of Mobile and at Chickasaw will still remain unsolved as no provision is being
made by the Navy for the erection of quarters for officers. They will continue
to be obliged to find houses in Mobile in which to live, which, at the present
writing, seems next to impossible.
(6) That rental agents and property owners in Mobile be required to conform
to the Government's orders in regard to freezing of rental prices as of April
1, 1941. There apparently has been no effort made in this city to conform with
the Government's orders in this respect.
Prices have been raised since the Government's order was issued and are
continuing to be raised in direct violation of the Price Administration's orders.
The Chairman. If anything further comes to your mind within the
next 10 days or 2 weeks, just write the Tolan committee at Washing-
ton, D. C, and it will be included. And thank you very much,
commander.
12132 HUNTS VILLB, ALA., HEARINGS
We will now call the newspaper panel. You gentlemen whose
names are called, please come up.
Newspaper panel composed of —
REESE AMIS, EDITOR, HUNTSVILLE TIMES, HUNTSVILLE, ALA.
BARRETT C. SHELTON, EDITOR, DECATUR DAILY, DECATUR, ALA.
CHARLES G. DOBBINS, EDITOR, ANNISTON TIMES, ANNISTON,
ALA.
GOULD BEECH, EDITORIAL WRITER, MONTGOMERY ADVERTISER,
MONTGOMERY, ALA.
OZBORN ZUBER, ASSOCIATE EDITOR, BIRMINGHAM AGE-HERALD,
BIRMINGHAM, ALA.
GEORGE M. COX, EDITOR, MOBILE REGISTER, MOBILE, ALA.
Only Mr. Zuber is not present, and we hope he will come in a little
later.
Mr. Sparkman. We have received statements from most of you
gentlemen, which I shall ask be inserted in the record at this point.
Your discussions may be based upon the material in your statements
or you may bring up any other subjects you feel will be of interest to
the committee in its investigation.
(The following statements were introduced:)
STATEMENT BY BARRETT C. SHELTON, PUBLISHER OF THE
DECATUR DAILY
Report on the City of Decatur
In the year 1820 President James Monroe instructed the surveyor-general to
choose a site for a town to be named "Decatur" in honor of the great naval
commodore, Stephen Decatur.
Governmental interest seemingly ended then for nearly a century; and with a
financial background made up almost entirely of an agricultural cotton economy,
there was little or no industry in the area with the exception of sawmills and
cotton gins. The case for perhaps 90 percent of the people was hopeless. They
borrowed money in the spring and depended entirely upon a gamble in the price
of cotton to pay out in the harvest.
Seeing the utter futility of the situation, the people of Decatur started the
long and laborious task of trying to balance agricultural shortcomings in income
with industry. About 1880 railway shops located at Decatur and for many
years the town was content with this dominating pay roll. The general railroad
strike in 1922, Nation-wide in extent, was the signal for this industry starting
downgrade, exhilarated by the growing competition for the railroads of highway
commerce. The railroads started the centralization of operations with the result
that many shops at intermediate points were discontinued.
Decatur did not feel any immediate heavy economic blows after the first World
War. The railroad shops provided the only industrial pay roll of consequence
and at that time there was no large-scale movement to curtail. Times were good
and the gradual decline of farm prices were not noticed materially until the early
1920's.
Meanwhile, with the determination growing that the city must not be dependent
upon a single industry, the people of the Decatur area put up substantial sums of
money to attract industry of a diversified nature and succeeded in several instances
in adding to the growing pay roll.
The depression which began in 1929 saw the complete removal of the railway
shops and the failure of two other major industrial plants. Three of four banking
institutions were in financial difficulties.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION . 12133
Decatur, with every natural advantage, was in a bad way.
Her people decided to take the fight into their own hands and to study other
communities, their successes and shortcomings and in the dark days of 1932 a
chamber of commerce was formed with just enough money with which to operate.
The march was begun.
Diversification in industry and on the farm was the goal and is still the goal,
with the result that today Decatur has 64 firms manufacturing a product, employ-
ing 3,500 men and women and with a fourth of that number living on the farms
surrounding Decatur. These 64 manufacturing concerns employ all the way
from as small a number as 6 people up to 900 people.
Notable growth has been witnessed since the Tennessee Valley Authority was
created by the Congress, growth reflected in agriculture as well as in industry.
To my mind the Authority is operated on a sound basis. The very act prevents
Tennessee Valley Authority from seeking industry, but the development of the
Tennessee River is in itself the real factor in attracting industry. A flour mill,
two shipyards and a concrete-pipe company have been added to the Decatur
industrial picture since the advent of Tennessee Valley Authority, deep water
navigation is largely responsible for three of these and the construction of the
arsenal near Huntsville is responsible for the fourth. Meanwhile, the people of
Decatur have kept everlastingly at it in developing industry to use the raw
materials of the Decatur area, benefiting the farm regions in the use of such
products. Decatur today has a cash market for cotton, corn, timber, livestock,
farm produce. The farmer can come to Decatur any day in the year and get
cash, at the prevailing market price for any farm product. Much attention has
been given the dairying industry with the result that milk production in the valley
in the past 4 years is considered phenominal. Morgan County's population
at present is approximately 50,000, with 3,500 employed in industry and 1,000
employed in other business and professional capacities, leaving the remainder
dependent upon farming operations.
INCREASED HOUSING DEMANDS
In 1940 the population of Decatur was 16,604 by the Federal census and it is
our estimate that the population is now about 19,000 to 20,000. The industrial
growth in war production has increased housing demands considerably and it is
my opinion that today, if there were no additional war activity in this immediate
area that at least 200 additional houses are desirable. At the present time there
are approximately 1,000 Morgan countians working in the arsenal near Hunts-
ville, this number was not included in my previous estimate of persons gainfully
employed in the industry in the Decatur area. It is also my opinion that as
shipyard activity goes more toward capacity and as the primary aviation school at
Decatur reaches capacity, it is essential that greater hospital facilities be provided,
as well as additional educational facilities. Both are now at capacity.
I have not compiled a private construction estimate since the beginning of the
war program in 1940, but I should say perhaps better than 150 homes have been
built for ownership in Decatur proper in that period. There is no vacancy at
Decatur at this time and people are living in garages, servant quarters and old
houses remodeled into apartments and glad to get them. With additional
expansion of war facilities in the Decatur area there must be immediate attention
given to housing, hospitalization, and educational facilities. May I say here that
there are some four firms ready now to build better than 200 houses for rental or
sale purposes if priorities are granted.
From a rental standpoint the people of Decatur have been most reasonable.
Only in a few instances have we learned of attempts to gouge people and in each
such instance we have attempted to discourage any such practice. Recently a
rent-freezing order included the Decatur area and we should not experience the
difficulties of some other war area communities in Alabama.
Houses must be built in Decatur to meet the needs now existing and the needs
certain to grow in the future. I have not been in favor of public housing in
Decatur and I do not believe it to be necessary if the Government agencies
involved will allow the private concerns to go ahead. However, unless this is
done, public housing will be necessary.
We are not a wandering people, our population is steady, we have continually
encouraged home ownership with the result that approximately 65 percent of
our people own their own homes or are in the process of ownership. We believe
this tends toward a substantial type of citizenship, interested in the general welfare
of the communitv, State, and Nation.
12134 . HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
CONCLUSION
As to activities which must follow after the war is at an end, I trust we shall not
make the mistake of letting everybody look out for himself in the manner of
Mr. Hoover. We have learned much in the years from 1933 to 1942. We have
learned that an additional tax burden is to be desired intead of unemployment.
We have learned that every man has a right to make a living, the opportunity to
work. We have learned that public construction is a decided asset to any com-
munity and tends to reach far beyond the immediate employment of people who
would not otherwise be employed. It is a builder of morale, of community pride
and in turn an asset to the State and to the Nation. It is my judgment that every
community should now be planning a public works program of lasting benefit,
useful construction, to follow when the let-down in industrial production follows
the close of the war. It is also my judgment that communities must stick as
closely to the principle of paying as they go as possible, retiring indebtedness. A
community free of bonded debt is a community in which the tax dollar can be
spent in public service.
I am glad to have had this invitation to present this statement and I appreciate
the thought of you Members of the Congress on this committee.
We, in the Tennessee Valley area, have our eyes on winning this war. We who
are fortunate can serve our nation in the armed forces, we who are less fortunate
can serve gloriously at home in the various capacities to which we are called. We
want all treated alike in the war effort, we are willing to make every effort neces-
sary to the effort, we want no further successful attacks upon the Tennessee Valley
Authority, and we want a well planned program of public works to follow this war
to cushion the let-down that must come.
STATEMENT BY CHARLES G. DOBBINS, PUBLISHER, THE ANNISTON
(ALA.) TIMES
The Coosa Valley Area
In the Coosa Valley industrial area of Alabama where, in a nontechnical way,
I am acquainted with conditions, the pattern of life has been changed more in
the last 3 years by the war program than by the previous 30 years of slow develop-
ment.
HOUSING SHORTAGES
Thousands have moved from out of State and from nearby farms into such
cities as Anniston, Jacksonville, Talladega, and Sylacauga, placing a premium
on houses and forcing the occupancy of a good many substandard units that had
been abandoned. At the same time a better return from rents has brought
improvements to houses and apartments, with the result that the maintenance of
existing units probably has reached a slightly higher standard. The crowding
of living units, however, is a serious problem everywhere. Federal housing
projects have served to provide a challenging standard, but have hardly touched
the needs.
In Calhoun County during the last 10 years there has been a noticeable move-
ment of industrial workers toward suburban areas. With their cars they were
able to live 5 or 10 miles out in the country as economically, and in some ways
under more favorable conditions, than in Anniston. Now with the tire shortage
these people are in trouble, for many homes are on little-traveled roads which
offer slight opportunity for cooperative travel arrangements. Anniston indus-
trial managers as well as the workers are worried, for with already crowded
conditions in the city there seems to be no satisfactory solution.
FARM-LABOR SHORTAGE
Farm operators in our section are desperately short of labor. Childersburg,
Fort McClellan, the Anniston Ordnance Depot, and other wartime establishments
have skimmed not only the surplus of our farm labor, but have cut down into the
basic and essential labor supply.
Older men, smaller children, and the women are in the fields now in greater
numbers than I have ever seen them. Much submarginal land and some good
land, which in recent years has been cultivated, will not be touched in 1942. In
order to reach farm production goals needed for the war it will be necessary in
our part of the State for the small farmer to produce more per acre than in previous
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12135
years. To this end we feel that the program of the Farm Security Administration
and of other Government agencies supporting the small farmer is altogether
essential.
With reference to submarginal lands being dropped from cultivation in Alabama
because of the labor shortage, let me say that I hope it will never be returned to
cultivation. It never should have been plowed the first time. The labor shortage
may force much of this land back into woodland or possibly into grazing land;
if so, this will be a valuable byproduct of the labor shortage.
SCHOOL FACILITIES
Youth in the Coosa Valley area has been affected adversely in several ways by
the swift current of in-migration. Children of new workers have packed and
jammed the schools and in some instances have brought with them very different
moral and social concepts. Government aid in providing school facilities has
helped some to relieve the crowded conditions, but in many places these benefits
have been late in arriving and will be of little value until the school year 1942-43.
A good many youths have abandoned their education to accept jobs that pay them
as much as their fathers were making 3 years ago. The loss of able teachers to
war industry, too, has been severe. Some faculties have been cut in two as poorly
paid teachers accepted decently paying jobs in war industry. In general the diffi-
culties in the schools have pointed up the growing need for Federal aid to education.
Alabama schools and colleges have rallied splendidly to meet the war need for
trained workers, but it appears that further coordination of these efforts would
get better results. A survey might reveal, also, that the war has made available
certain training facilities that could be made good use of by Federal agencies.
I believe the Coosa Valley area has made a remarkably good temporary adjust-
ment to the military and industrial wave brought over us by the war. If these
new wartime factors are to bring permanent benefits to our life in Alabama, how-
ever, careful guidance must be provided by alert social agencies of city, county,
State, and Federal Governments.
STATEMENT BY GOULD BEECH, ASSOCIATE EDITOR, THE MONT-
GOMERY ADVERTISER, MONTGOMERY, ALA.
There can be no debate with the thesis that American resources, human and
material, must be focused on winning the war. This means that those of us who
have had special interests, of whatever sort, those of us who have been attempting
to build a more democratic America, economic, social, political, must redirect our
energies. It is not easy to toss off habits of mind of years' standing or the goals
toward which we have worked. But no one conscious of the imperatives of this
struggle can fail to do so.
While this be true, we can in planning the war choose those alternatives — where
no sacrifice of speed or military power is involved — which will make the task of a
post-war world simpler.
While winning the war is essential, America is properly conscious of the fact
that winning a peace is equally essential if the sacrifices of war are to be justified.
To be complacent in preparation for peace, to merely accept peace in a defensive
frame of mind, is as dangerous as the psychology of the military defensive. Win-
ning the peace will require an alert, aggressive "follow through" in a difficult
period when spiritual, mental, and physical fatigue are apt to be heavy upon us.
Winning the peace, then, will require that America be strong and wholesome
internally. If, when the last shot has been fired, America is in a chaotic condition,
if it has within itself the cancers of widespread economic, political, and social
maladjustments, these maladies may endanger the winning of the peace.
Thus, despite the fact that each day we must do our utmost to win a military
victory, it is sound to look beyond the urgency of today's battle and give some
consideration to the need for an America strong enough "to win the peace.
In many cases choosing the path to military victory is identical with that of
choosing an America that will be in sufficiently good health internally to face and
solve the problems of the post-war.
It is on this basis that I speak of Alabama. This is not a time to speak of the
inequities between groups — economic, geographical, racial — except as these
inequities bear upon the winning of the war and the peace. I for one am willing
to forget the chains of economic colonialism in which the South has languished
for, lo, these many generations — tariffs, freight-rate differentials, control of
patents, a rigged economic system manipulated for the benefit of the Northeast.
12136 HUNTSVILLEy ALA., HEARINGS
It must be recognized, however, that several factors are now in operation in the
South which are preventing it from making its full contribution to winning the
war. These same shortcomings, likewise, will put the South at a disadvantage
for its role in the America of the future, the America which must be strong to win
the peace.
The base of the South's economic system, the structure of which is characterized
by relative poverty, is agriculture.
The one basic problem of Southern agriculture, and a primary explanation for
the relative poverty of all Southerners, is pressure on the land.
1. Alabama has slightly more than six tillable acres for each farm person.
2. Iowa has about 25 tillable acres for each farm person.
3. This 4 to 1 ratio is only one part of the explanation for disparity of income.
Iowa farmland produce, annually about 50 bushels of corn to the acre; Alabama's
average is in the neighborhood of 12 to 13 bushels.
The war being a period of dynamic changes in economic development could
provide an opportunity for siphoning off much of this excess rural population to
be absorbed in urban or industrial work. At the same time, in a Nation faced
by shortages of manpower here is a pool of labor that could be utilized if properly
trained. .
In Alabama most of the new opportunities for work have been in Government-
sponsored developments— airfields, shell factories, military establishments. The
shipyards have provided the largest single employment opportunity. It would
be foolish to think that this development is permanent.
The permanent developments most needed in Alabama have been an expansion
of the skilled labor force, an expansion of raw-materials production, and an expan-
sion of processing plants, which could be converted to peacetime production once
the war is over. Alabama has not converted its existing plants; Alabama has
been slow to develop subcontracting.
Newspaper offices receive papers from many cities. I have been interested to
see how effectively scores of cities and States, have converted established plants
and built new ones for war production. Generally speaking, it seems that
"them that has, gits." ,,.„■, n
The expansion in fabricating industries has been one that has followed, generally,
in geometric proportions to those already in existence. In the Detroit area, for
instance, the number of skilled workers and the amount of floor space is being
doubled. In other cities, varying in size from St. Louis, Mo., to DeLand, Fla.,
exceptional use has been made of available resources through conversion of
individual plants or pooling. Where this program has succeeded it has been due
to local and State leadership, not Washington. _ _
In Alabama little has been done. For the 4 months before Pearl Harbor, it is
my impression from information available that the Office of Contracts Distribu-
tion of the Office of Production Management in Birmingham did little or nothing.
Since Pearl Harbor the name of the over-all production agency has been changed,
but the same attitude is operating in Birmingham. _
Technically many barriers have been removed. Contracts are now negotiated.
It is said to be relatively simple for small plants to get loans, but generally speak-
ing, the idea of pooling and conversion of facilities has not been sold in Alabama.
The responsibility, of course, cannot be left to any one individual, but the
economic prospects of this State would have been improved— and more important
for the Nation, this State's contribution to the war would have been increased—
had a man with the requisite qualifications been in charge of contracts distribution
in this State. It is unfortunate that the South does not have more entrepreneurs,
more industrial engineers, more executives with the vision and ability to organize
our resources for war and for the future. , , . r -x
I have been interested in the educational training program, both because oi its
relation to the war and the post-war adjustments the South must face. My
impression is that, until recently at least, job training was handled by men who
were impressed by the size of the job they were undertaking— but the size was
impressive only in relation to the past. I do not believe that those in charge of
the job training programs have grasped the enormity of the task — they have been
impressed by hundreds, when thousands was the proper standard. They have
been inclined to wait to make certain a job would be ready for the individual,
and by the time the job they were waiting for was availbale, four more trained
men were desperately needed.
It is my impression that the United States Office of Education had an estab-
lished policy of refusing to support a training program until employers placed an
"order" for persons, specifying male and female and race. I do not know whether
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12137
this policy is still followed by the United States Office of Education. If it is, it
is in contradiction to that of other Government agencies which are desperately
attempting to build up the necessary work force without regard to sex or race.
As far as Alabama is concerned, the inclination of thinking people is to view the
relation of race to the war production program as a production problem and not
one related to emotional attitudes. Most Alabamians understand that there is
no chemical expert who can look at a potato and tell whether it was raised by a
Negro farmer or a white farmer. Most Alabamians understand also that there
is no coroner who can examine a Jap and tell whether the bullet that killed him
was fired by a Negro, a Caucasian, a Russian mujik, a Chinese, or the son of a
member of the British House of Lords. What we need is more potatoes and
fewer Japs. The question of who raises potatoes and who kills the Japs is one
which is in the realm of mathematics, not sociology.
I would like to mention the problem of general education and Federal responsi-
bility. Is there any person in the United States who, looking back, would not
now agree that it would have been a sound investment for the Federal Govern-
ment to have made sizeable grants to the States for education 3 years ago, 2 years
ago, 1 year ago?
We cannot undo the failure of the past. Foresight on this question, however,
is as clear as hindsight. If it is sound to help the South increase its productivity
for the Nation's benefit in time of war, it is equally sound to help the South
increase the productivity of its people for the benefit of the Nation at all times.
No one worthy of consideration profits from the poverty or the ignorance of
any group within this Nation. Indeed, outside the lightning-rod salesman and
the venders of some patent nostrums, it is doubtful that anyone has profited from
poverty or ignorance in the South.
Finally, the stability of this Nation at the end of the war may be incidental to
today's job of winning the war. At the same time the task of winning the peace
is at least a big and important incidental, even if it be classed as such.
STATEMENT BY GEORGE M. COX, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, THE
MOBILE PRESS REGISTER, MOBILE, ALA.
Migration Problems of Mobile
In submitting this brief to you today on Mobile's migration problems, I do so
with a feeling of thankfulness and hope. I am thankful for the opportunity.. I
hope, as a citizen of Mobile, for relief so that the war job assigned us by the
Government can be accomplished in the quickest possible time. That job is to
build ships and more ships until our Nation can conquer the threat to throw us
into totalitarian darkness.
I am attaching hereto similar briefs from some of our local officials and from the
executives of some of our larger industries. Their briefs deal with their own
particular problems. Mine is designed as an over-all picture of the general
situation as seen from the press box of a newspaperman.
Mobile is Alabama's only seaport, situated on Mobile Bay, 30 miles from the
open Gulf of Mexico. We have, among other things, a fine system of docks,
paper mills, a giant ore reduction plant, two large shipyards, and Brookley Field,
one of the Government's enormous and important aviation supply and repair
depots.
The city of Mobile itself, according to the 1940 Federal census, had a population
of 78,720, which represented an increase of 15.4 percent over the 1930 population of
68,202.
We have numerous suburbs, including Prichard, Chickasaw, Toulminville,
Crichton, Plateau, and others which are immediately outside the city limits but
which are included in metropolitan Mobile. The population of this metropolitan
area, according to the 1940 census, was 114,906, representing an increase of 18,733
or 19.5 percent over 1930.
Mobile County itself, which includes the city, the metropolitan area, and small
towns outside the metropolitan area, had a 1940 population of 141,974. It might
be noted that 55.4 percent of the county population is situated within the cor-
porate limits of the city.
There can be no doubt that a tremendous and rapid in-migration has created
many acute problems for Mobile, not only local in their effect but Nation-wide
inasmuch as the success of the Government's war effort depends on how quickly
and thoroughly we can build ships and other implements of war. When the
situation arises where our shipyards cannot obtain labor because of a shortage in
12138 HUNTSVILLB, ALA., HEARINGS
housing facilities and other necessities of life, and when we cannot find rooms to
accommodate the thousands of civilian and military personnel moving into
Brookley Field, then it is time for the Federal Government to lend us all possible
assistance. That situation exists in Mobile now.
Conservatively, it can be estimated that the population of metropolitan Mobile
today is close to 175,000 as compared to the 114,906 as shown in the 1940 census.
The bulk of this new population has settled within the corporate limits of the
city or in the suburbs directly adjacent to the city.
The sharp influx of shipbuilders, plus the Brookley Field personnel, has been
responsible for the major portion of this new population.
These figures show the rapid rate of increase in the number of shipyard workers
in Mobile in recent years:
March 1939 791
December 1940 3, 359
September 1941 7, 792
February 1942 15,552
March 1942 17,500
You will note from the attached briefs 1 that Mr. J. M. Griser, vice president
of the Alabama Dry Dock & Shipbuilding Co., says that on May 1, 1942, his
plant was employing 10,500 employees, and that during the next 12 months this
figure will be increased to 20,500, half of the 10,000 new men scheduled to begin
work within the next 5 months.
Mr. Harry Hill, vice president and general manager of another shipyard, the
Gulf Shipbuilding Corporation at suburban Chickasaw, says in his brief2 that at
the end of March 1942 his plant was employing 8,383 persons and that under
present contracts the total number of workers will be increased to 12,000.
Naturally, it can be seen that Mobile's problems due to this great and sudden
in-migration have only started. It can readily be assumed that if the present
number of shipbuilding employees is to be doubled to take care of existing contracts,
then additional thousands of workers will have to be employed to carry on the job
of building more ships under new contracts which can lie expected momentarily.
There have been all types of estimates as to what Mobile's population will be
by the end of 1942, and it seems conservative and reasonable to state that our
metropolitan area will have at least 200,000 persons by that time, as against
114,906 shown by the 1940 census.
Mr. Hill's brief says:
"Our labor turnover has increased to 3.7 percent and, from our investigations,
the increase is the result of inadequate housing as we have employees living in
tents and in automobiles. This is at present the most critical phase of the labor
situation."
Mr. Griser says:
"Over a period of 4 pay weeks beginning March 31, 1942, and ending April
21, 1942, the average number of employes was 11,161 and terminations 531,
indicating a labor turnover of 4.75 percent. A large portion of terminations are
due to inadequate housing. Our industrial relations department records a daily
average of over 75 employe complaints of inability to obtain living quarters."
Mobile is doing everything possible in an effort to cope not only with this
housing situation but with kindred problems such as water, sewage, public health,
transportation, and recreation facilities.
As to housing, there were 2,300 new housing units constructed between January
1, 1940, and February 1, 1942, in the metropolitan area. This rate of construction
seems reasonably fast but at the same time is still not fast enough to balance the
sharp climb in the in-migration index.
There is no doubt that the chief reason for this in-migration is the war program
and, should this committee have the authority to recommend, I might suggest
that the various Federal works agencies be apprised of the situation here and of
the vital part Mobile is playing in the defense set-up so that we can collaborate
on obtaining definite and quick relief to prevent the work schedule from being
impaired.
There are numerous attendant problems which have arisen in connection with
the in-migration, such as transportation, public health, and recreation.
The city's water supply is being taxed heavily, but a new filtration plant with a
20,000, 000-gallon daily capacity already has received Federal approval.
Our hospitals are jammed and space is at a premium. We have filed applica-
tion with the Defense Public Works for relief in this respect.
1 P. 12211.
» P. 12113.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12139
Our schools are suffering under this impact of new population. Whereas our
public high school was constructed for 2,460 students, there are now 2,9S3 pupils
attending, and educational authorities estimate that by fall the yet-to-arrive
defense families will bring 2,500 more children of school age with them.
I hope and might suggest that whatever is done in Mobile to alleviate these
conditions is done on a permanent basis because I can see, although I do not
attempt to be a far-range economic planner, great possibilities for Alabama's
port city. It cannot logically be assumed that the war will end overnight and
that all of the war industries will automatically cease production. The climax
of the war probably will create as many intricate problems as the declaration of
war, in that the replacement of our lost merchant marine and naval fleet will, or
at least should be, one of the Nation's major objectives.
We have learned since September of 1939 the importance of assuming and main-
taining control of the seas, both in peacetime and in wartime, and if that is one of
America's outstanding post-war goals, then the so-called boom in Mobile at
present will have been proven as no boom at all but a turn in economic events that
has blessed our city, because we will continue to be called upon to build those
ships.
It might reasonably be assumed, too, that the period of reconstruction in Europe
will call for more ships and more of our American-made goods which must be
transported in freight ships built in our American ports. That job of assisting
in Europe's reconstruction program will not, of course, be as important as winning
the war, but it will be a far-reaching program because of .its objective of restoring
order from chaos and restoring it as quickly as humanly and mechanically possible.
Mobile has proven that it can build the ships. We are rolling them off the ways
with marvelous regularity.
We hope to continue that program, even after the conclusion of hostilities, with
the Federal Government's assistance now in converting our seaport into a perma-
nent and ideal workshop for Uncle Sam.
TESTIMONY OF NEWSPAPER PANEL— Resumed
Mr. Sparkman. I want you gentlemen to feel that this discussion
is just as flexible as you want to make it, and I hope you will all enter
into it. And even though I may direct a question to any particular
person, I want any of you to feel free to butt right in.
I might say this in the beginning: Most of us know, I am sure, that
these hearings were scheduled for last fall, and most of the preparatory
work was done prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. They were sus-
pended at the time, and later the hearings were scheduled for the latter
part of February. We were within 2 or 3 days of coming here when
the hearings were again postponed at the request of the Government,
in order that this committee coidd go to the west coast and study a
problem which at that time was very critical and pressing, the evacua-
tion of enemy aliens from that strategic military section of our country.
Therefore, we had to postpone the hearings again.
I am sure we all realize that the primary purpose of all of us now is
to win the war, and, furthermore, we appreciate the fact that some
people say that while we are engaged in winning the war, we ought to
give thought to what is going to happen after the war. I saw one of
Gould Beech's editorials reproduced in which that was dealt with.
I think we are going to have to do some thinking about these post-war
problems.
We have had periods in this country when there have been tremen-
dous shiftings of population. That is why this committee was set
up, because of the great shifting of population from our Plains States
to Arizona, New Mexico, California, and the far Western States,
seeking a means of making a living. It had become such a problem
that Congress set up this committee, and directed us to study that
problem of migration. We did study it, and made our report and
12140 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
finished our work. Then came our war program, which caused the
greatest shifting of population this country has ever seen, and Congress
directed us to go see what this war program was doing to the shifting
of population. Since that time we have been studying the defense
migration.
We know when the catastrophe came in the early thirties we
started with a lot of makeshifts for taking care of our problems. We
had men raking leaves and cleaning off ditch banks and doing things
that amounted to little or nothing simply because we hadn't had time
to organize our efforts. We don't want this to happen again, and we
think there are at this time a great many things we do need to be
thinking about. That is why we make no apology for studying these
post-war problems, although we do concede that our primary purpose
is winning the war.
POPULATION IN THE SOUTHEAST
I particularly asked that this panel be put on because I am interested
in the effect of this war program on our section of the country from the
standpoint of shifting of population. We sometimes do not think of
it as such, but our section has been an out-migration section almost
from the beginning. When the committee was set up, Speaker Wil]
Bankhead called me and told me he was appointing this committee.
He said, "Very few people ever realize the importance of the migration
problem to the Southeast. It is something we are greatly concerned
with. I am trying to set up a committee that will represent all parts
of our country, and I want you to serve on that committee as a repre-
sentative of the South, if you will." Dr. Rupert B. Vance, of the
University of North Carolina, made a statement that has been much
quoted. He said that the Southeast was the "seedbed of the Nation."
I believe we found in our very first hearing in New York to what
extent the Southeast was furnishing the population for the northeast-
ern part of the United States. 1 believe in those statistical studies
we found the Southeast had a reproduction rate of 130 percent,
whereas there were sections of our country with a reproduction rate
of only 80 percent. Naturally, to maintain a balance it meant we had
to send our people into those areas. It meant our section was destined
to continue to be an out-migration area.
STABILIZATION OF MIGRATION
We are not working to cut out all migration. We think that a
certain amount of migration is a healthful thing, but it ought to be
stabilized and controlled. We have made our recommendations as to
certain things that might serve to stabilize it. The one thing that
has been hopeful for our section is that there might be an increased
industrial development which would serve to give us a somewhat
better balance between industry and agriculture. We have been
very much encouraged by the development of these war plants, in
the hope that something permanent might come out of them — at
least that we might demonstrate to the industrialists of the Nation
that southern labor was available, that it was adaptable, that it was
productive, and that industry could thrive in our section.
I didn't intend to make such a long preliminary statement. But
I wanted to point out why we have asked you gentlemen to discuss
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12141
what we may expect to be the permanent effects of the impact of the
war program on this particular area.
Charlie (Mr. Dobbins), since you are the president of the Alabama
Press Association, you would make a fine moderator. So, if you will
just take hold from there on, and make any statement you care to
make and carry it along as you see fit, we shall be very happy.
CROWDED CONDITIONS
Mr. Dobbins. Mr. Congressman, that is a subject in which every
editor in Alabama is certainly interested. We have had thousands
of people come in from out of the State; also thousands of people have
come off their farms. Our cities have done a fair job of assimilating
these new people, but we have had some terrific problems. Thus far,
the Federal Government has given us mighty good assistance. Our
schools in Anniston, for example, have been crowded to overflowing,
and there have been some new facilities provided by the Government.
They are coining rather slowly, and we probably won't get the maxi-
mum benefits until this coming year, 1942-43.
We have had some tough problems. There in Anniston we have
something better than 30,000 soldiers, and we didn't have any recre-
ation facilities that were at all adequate. The United Service Organi-
zations have come in and given us, I suppose, some of the best facil-
ities anywhere in the country, and also in other towns in that area.
We have been helped tremendously.
LOSS OF SURPLUS LABOR
Our farmers right now are suffering pretty seriously from a lack of
the previous labor surplus. Childersburg, Fort McClellan, and the
ordnance depot have all helped skim off the labor supply we have had.
I don't know exactly how our farmers are going to come out. Many
are in the fields with their women, old folks, and children, as they
have not been in the memory of most of us.
Mr. Sparkman. Did you hear Mr. Morgan's testimony with refer-
ence to labor supply?
Mr. Dobbins. I did.
Mr. Sparkman. I think he gave us a new insight into it. I noticed
you used the term "surplus labor" as he did, that perhaps it wasn't
a labor shortage; we wouldn't know until we tightened our belts and
found out how much more labor was available?
Mr. Dobbins. Yes, sir; I agree with him that the war industries
have skimmed off our surplus. I agree they did that at first. But
they are going beyond that. They are going into our basic supply now.
Mr. Sparkman. What about the effect of the Selective Service on
farm labor?
Mr. Dobbins. That has accentuated it. That has accentuated the
difficulty.
> Mr. Sparkman. The draft officials tell me they have difficulty get-
ting boys in the South to ask for deferment; that it is not a matter of
not granting it to them, but of getting these farm boys to take it-
Go ahead with your statement.
Mr. Dobbins. That is about all I care to make as an opening
statement. One of our editorial writers has done a good bit of think-
ing about the permanent effects of the war program. I would like to
hear from Gould Beech on that-
12142 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Mr. Beech. I am not an expert on it. But it seems to me that in
view of the things we have been getting, most of the Government-
sponsored or Government-initiated developments — with the excep-
tion of the production of raw steel and raw aluminum — haven't built
fabricating plants that would easily be convertible to peacetime
goods, and that most of those other things, our airfields, for instance,
will naturally melt. In other words, as far as industrial development
of the country goes, it seems that the old saying "them that has, gits"
applies to this situation. The sections that had fabricating experts
and fabricating plants are expanding. We are losing much that we
had.
LITTLE PROGRESS IN CONVERSION OF SMALL PLANTS
In Alabama we have made very little progress in converting our
small plants. I don't know what our trouble is. It appears that
under the Office of Production Management there was a policy of
discouragement of small plants, and for a long time prior to Pearl
Harbor that appeared to be the War Department's policy also. In
this State the branch office of defense contracts distribution in Bir-
mingham was headed by a man whose chief function appeared to be to
shoo small plant operators away when they came in, and discourage
them as much as possible. The War Production Board changed the
Office of Production Management policy on that, in theory at least,
but there has not been any accompanying change in personnel in
Alabama. This one man in Alabama who discouraged converting
and pooling of small plants — we haven't had any pooling in Alabama,
as far as I know — is still there. And some of the operators from our
city have been there, and about all they get is discouragement. Those
small plants don't appear to have any part in this war-production
program. Unless something is done, they will have to shut down.
Our labor will go to other centers.
I understand the Government has removed some of the obstacles
that were there before Pearl Harbor in the matter of negotiating con-
tracts and in the matter of loans for small businesses. But we need
a salesman, a man with imagination and ability to put that program
over. In centers where it has succeeded, it seems that the personality
of the man responsible is the factor in successful conversion to war
production. It may be that the horse has already left the barn in
Alabama.1
The Chairman. There is no question but what you are correct
about the importance of converting and pooling. They will have to
take the small plants and get them into this war program. As I
stated this morning — and I have made some little study of it — you
have probably 160,000 manufacturing plants, large and small, in the
United States; 97 percent of them employ 250 persons or less. One-
third of those plants in the United States employ 20 or less. Those
figures alone are indicative of what you say. Now there are about
42 pools already that have been formed in the United States. I think
California has 19 of them.
Mr. Beech. What about the personality of the man in Los Angeles
or San Francisco that has done such a good job? Isn't it the person-
ality of that man that has succeeded in selling conversion and pooling
in California?
1 Further personnel changes are under way as this hearing goes to press.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12143
IMPORTANCE OF SMALL BUSINESS POOLS
The Chairman, That is rather personal with me, because my son,
Jack, is the man you are speaking of who is doing that work. Of
course, the old man had to tell him how to do it. Of course, you can
go out and get 10 or 15 small plants and get them organized, incorpo-
rated, ready to do business; but I want to tell you something further:
So far not one of those pools in California has got a contract yet.
So that requires salesmanship also. I talked to Mr. Donald Nelson
2 weeks ago, and he said he thought these pools were the most impor-
tant single factor in our defense program. I think the first one was in
Kansas City. There were 17 small plants, and the interesting thing
is they were making shells, receiving orders from Canada, but couldn't
get an order from their own country. Of course this is never going to
be an all-out effort until all our small plants are brought into the
program. This is an all-out war, and it will take all our strength and
manpower to win it. But to get it under way and get it started takes
time. But Mr. Nelson is absolutely sold on the idea.
On the other hand, if these little businessmen throughout the
United States are going to be swept away in this war program, that
is a pretty heavy price to pay. I am glad to hear your testimony
about that, because to my notion there isn't anything more important.
Mr. Beech. One thing more on that — in emphasizing one man
heading that program in this State, I don't mean to plead for our
businessmen that they don't need to have initiative and imagination
about the thing. We have got men with initiative to overcome any
obstruction. A man in Birmingham who made burglar bars for
windows produced a half million stove pokers for use in the Army. He
employed four for making bars, and now he employs 20 to turn out
one single item for the Army, which is a dramatic example of what
can be done.
PRACTICAL DIFFICULTIES IN EFFECTING CONVERSION
Mr. Spaekman. You may be interested about this little experience
I had. It happened to a little hosiery mill in Mr. Shelton's town
(Decatur, Ala. ) . The manager was trying to convert. He went first to
Birmingham and was referred to Atlanta. Atlanta said, "Yes; you
can get contracts if you get machines." He went to get the machines
necessary to convert and was told he could get the machines if he got
priorities. So he came to Washington. I ran him from one office to
another in the War Production Board in an effort to get the machines.
And the final outcome was that he could not get the machines. Every-
where it was the same: "We can let you do this, if you can get the
machines necessary." He couldn't get them. I don't know what
progress he has made since then. But I do know what a hopeless
chase it was, and it is very, very discouraging. We have met with
that all over the country. In some sections they are breaking the ice
to some extent.
Mr. Sh elton. The progress he has made is that he has let one-
third of his people go, and he is making hosiery with the other two
shifts. But unless he can get some relief of the type you speak of,
he is going to have to close.
Mr. Sparkman. And for many years, while small, it was one of the
most helpful industries a community could have.
12144 HUNTSVILLE,, ALA., HEARINGS
Mr. Shelton. Yes. It employed 600.
Mr. Sparkman. Does the Government give any assistance at all
in effecting the conversion?
Mr. Beech. In this State it has been discouraged— it is not only
that we haven't had any assistance. If you can get around to the
engineers in the office, people say you can get help. But most people
are timid about it.
Mr. Sparkman. It is the old story of taking the line of least re-
sistance with the Government; they go to the big producers and place
their orders, because that seems to be the easiest way out, but that
doesn't get the goods manufactured.
Mr. Beech. If you have a tremendous back log of contracts, you can
get the new machines. But here's a little fellow that has to get the
machinery first. You have paper corporations all over, with big
name officials — maybe the son-in-law of some Senator — and they can
get contracts with nothing except a blueprint factory. In some in-
stances that has been done.
Mr. Amis. Huntsville seems to be the exception, from what these
gentlemen say, as well as from what you say. I think every plant
here is on war stuff.
Mr. Cox. That is the same as my town, Mobile.
Mr. Sparkman. I think this is true in Huntsville — not a single
plant had to convert. They are using the same machinery.
Mr. Amis. Yes, sir; we didn't have to convert.
Mr. Cox. That's the way it is with us.
Mr. Sparkman. Your biggest industry is building ships?
Mr. Cox. Yes, sir.
Mr. Beech. He is talking about big industries. We have two chem-
ical companies in Montgomery that manufacture hair-straighteners.
It looks like they could be used to make some simple chemical.
Mr. Dobbins. The Anniston soil pipe plants constitute the biggest
soil pipe center in the world, I suppose, yet I understand that soil pipe
is going to be a thing of the past except for Government orders. Those
plants have no very definite future. No plans have been made for
their conversion.
Mr. Sparkman. What about the small plants in Mobile? Gould
seemed to sort of challenge your statement that Mobile didn't have
to do any conversion.
Mr. Cox. It seems we haven't a tremendous number of small
plants, and of these, there were some that the owners voluntarily
closed and went to work in the shipyards, so they can draw a weekly
pay check of $100 or $120.
Mr. Sparkman. Let me make this suggestion — I want to hear you
discuss your thoughts as to the present war plants that are operating
in your respective communities throughout the State.
Reese (Mr. Amis), I am more or less familiar with what is here,
but will you give us some idea about the war plants here, and the
war production that is going around in this section?
OPERATION OF WAR PLANTS
Mr. Amis. We have three large textile plants here. The Lincoln
Mills was working on war orders even before Pearl Harbor — 100 per-
cent of production. The Dallas Mill is a sheeting mill. I don't
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12145
know exactly the stuff they are making. George Elliot just told me
they were doing war production. I do know Merrimack is doing
war production altogether. That is my understanding from Henry
McKelvie. Their problem is not orders, but the people with which to
operate those plants. Of course, that is a local situation. Right next
to us is this Government arsenal, drawing people from those plants to
work at the arsenal at better wages than the other plants can afford to
pay. Also a good many of their employees have been affected by
the draft, and they are having a very difficult time to get enough
people to operate those three large textile plants right now. As a
matter of fact, it will probably be more severe, because the minute
the construction out here is completed and this arsenal and Redstone
go into operation, they will take a lot of young people at $4 or $4.50
a day, which is more than the textile plants can pay. Their problem
is going to be to get enough people to continue operating.
The other plant here, the Martin Stove Plant, of course that is a
war industry, and I think they are clicking along just the same as
ever and paying good wages, and have therefore not been so much
affected by the arsenal here.
As you know, John, we have practically no other industry here.
Oh, there might be some very small ones, but they couldn't take any
kind of subcontracting orders.
VOCATIONAL TRAINING REQUIRED
Our big problem here — and I have felt it all the time and talked
to you about it — our problem, and I believe it applies elsewhere in
Alabama, is a question of education to do something. When a boy
gets out of school — -perhaps he doesn't go through the grades, or if
he goes through high school (some 12 or 15 percent go to college)—
he doesn't know how to do anything. We have some jack-leg car-
penters, but they just picked it up. But there is no manual training
or technical training to do any particular thing. For instance, that
aluminum plant you mentioned— if an industry were to come in here
that wanted to process that aluminum, I don't know of anybody here
that would be qualified to do it.
Mr. Sparkman. I might say that when I went through the rolling
mill part of that aluminum plant, Mr. Hammill, who was on the
stand this morning, told me that out of 2,500 workers, only 15 of
them were brought in. Every one of the others was trained right there.
He gave us the figures this morning, and, as I recall them, he was work-
ing about 3,600 people in the 2 plants, and about 3,000 of them came
from right around there and in the adjoining counties in Tennessee,
Mississippi, and Alabama.
Mr. Amis. I think the same thing is taking place in the arsenal and
Redstone.
Mr. Sparkman. Yes, sir; General Ditto and Colonel Hudson
testified to that. And I went through the electro-metallurgical plant,
which makes ferro-silicon . It has increased its production 500 percent
in the last year or so. They work 350, and as we went through, he
would point out different people, such as the son of the mayor of
the town, working a furnace. And he pointed out different ones,
the sons of people I knew. And he said, "We brought 4 fore-
men, the superintendent and myself, 6 men. The otlier 350 are
60396 — 12— pt. 32 14
12146 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
from right around here." I asked Mr. Hammill on the stand if
his labor had proved adaptable and productive, and he said it had
measured up to every expectation.
NEED FOR VARIABLE GRANTS FOR EDUCATIONAL AID
Mr. Beech. May I say something about that education angle?
I believe if Congress could look back 5 years that it would do some
things it hasn't done, and undo some things it has done. It would
be unanimously in favor of aiding education through State grants,
because we see now how vital the relation is between this section and
the rest of the country. Grammar school teachers in Mr. Tolan's
State make as much as deans of colleges in this State. We just don't
have enough funds to provide the proper educational facilities.
Mr. Sparkman. Gould (Mr. Beech), I think you are familiar with
this statement. A man from one of the New England cities was on
the stand at one of our hearings. I was asking what he thought about
the advisability of variable grants to States to aid in education. He
answered this way: "Mr. Congressman, if you raise mules and sell
them to us, we pay you for bringing them up, but, as it is, you raise
children, educate them and send them to us, and we don't pay you
anything for giving us that productivity."
Mr. Beech. In that connection, in one generation we have sent out
3,000,000 people. And if they want good folks, they had better help us
train and educate our people.
WAR PRODUCTION IN DECATUR
Mr. Sparkman. Barrett (Mr. Shelton), what do you say about the
war production in your town?
Mr. Shelton. Our textile mills continue on 100 percent war pro-
duction. Our small industries continue to operate, and will as far as
I can tell. We have also gone into ship building with two companies
building just small types of vessels.
Mr. Sparkman. They are fuel-carrying barges primarily?
Mr. Shelton. Yes, sir; and from that angle I am not nearly so
bothered about the present as I am about what is to come after the
war. I don't see the great drop in financial conditions that a good
many folks foresee, but I, nevertheless, do regard the problem with
seriousness. I believe, too, the Federal Government has learned a
great deal in the past 10 years. I think the Public Works program
has been of a vast benefit and we have gone through an experience
and learned so much that we will not make many of the mistakes we
have made in the past.
SHIPBUILDING BOOMS
Mr. Cox. I am not so worried as to post-war effects. I don't think
the construction of ships will automatically stop the moment the
armistice is signed. I think we will continue to build them.
Mr. Beech. There was a shipbuilding boom in the Spanish-
American War, the World War, and now, and each time Mobile has
come up. This may be an exceptional war, and I wouldn't want to
say this before the chamber of commerce in Mobile, but shipbuilding
is a world-wide competitive operation, and in peacetime we have
always stopped building them.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12147
Mr. Sparkman. Following the last world war we let our ships lie
in various places and rot away.
Mr. Beech. Mobile had many of them.
Mr. Cox. I think that is one of the great troubles today. If we
had sufficient ships, the chances are the job might be easy. And I
think we are learning a tremendous lesson on ships.
Mr. Beech. He may be right about it. I may be more pessimistic
about Mobile than Montgomery.
Mr. Cox. Then we have this tremendous air supply depot at Mobile.
I don't think that will automatically close up at the war's end.
Mr. Sparkman. That is a permanent fixture. As a matter of fact,
that was designed before we got into the war.
Mr. Cox. And I think that if the present influx of labor could be
satisfied, they would have more tendency to stay in Mobile after
the armistice.
Mr. Amis. Are vou building enough houses to keep them under a
roof?
HOUSING NEEDS IN MOBILE
Mr. Cox. According to what Commander Langworthy said, Mobile
is showing an uncooperative attitude toward the Navy officers. We
have cooperated. We have cooperated to the extent that there is
nothing left. We can't house them. The great majority of private
residences are renting out rooms to Navy officers and to defense
workers, as far as that goes. But we have reached a point that the
surplus room is gone, and there is no more left. We will have to
construct new houses and quickly.
Mr. Sparkman. There have been various Government housing
projects?
Mr. Cox. Yes, sir; but the rate of construction has not been as
rapid as the rate of migration.
CHEAPER HOUSES REQUIRED
Mr. Beech. May I say something about the Mobile housing
problem? Mr. W. O. Dobbins, director of the Alabama State Planning
Commission, couldn't be here. I think he has submitted you some
plans. He spoke on tent housing, which is a tent only to the extent
that the upper parts of the walls are made of canvas. Mr. Dobbins
and others have convinced me that the problem of housing is still in
the hands of the 1930 experts. Those are the men who saw housing
as a great social development. They set standards, such and such
size for the bathroom, such and such^ized windows, and so on. They
are still thinking in terms of $5,000 and $6,000 houses, and a perma-
nent, ideal neighborhood. Mobile doesn't need 200 or 300 of those
houses. What Mobile needs is 3,000 houses or 2,000 houses that can
be put up in a hurry. Anything else would be a peacetime housing
program, requiring a lot of material and men. And Mobile can't
house enough workmen to build the houses it needs. Mr. Dobbins
is for a $500 or a $1,000 house that could be built on large tracts like
an* Army camp. What he is talking about is a whole area of houses
that can be built in 60 days and would provide a sound roof and
sanitary facilities for the families.1
1 See p. 12165.
12148 HUNTSVILLE, ALAV HEARINGS
(The following material was later submitted by Mr. Dobbins and
accepted for the record.)
Hon. John H. Tolan,
House Office Building, Washington, D. C.
Dear Congressman: This will acknowledge receipt of your letter of May 29
relative to material submitted by the Alabama State Planning Commission at the
committee hearing in Huntsville, Ala. In addition to the material submitted by
Mr. A. J. Gray, I think that it would be appropriate to include a copy of a resolu-
tion submitted by the Alabama State Defense Council to the National Housing
Agency in Washington. I am attaching a copy of this resolution hereto.
I am also enclosing a copy of a speech presented to a meeting of civil engineers
in Montgomery on May 16 on the subject of war housing. I will appreciate any
comment you have to make on this. The steadfast refusal of the Government to
provide temporary shelter for areas where the in-migration of workers has been
in numbers which required the provision of from 3,000 or more homes has been
very difficult for us to understand. It seems so obvious that where units in the
thousands are required that the most temporary sort of housing offers the only
solution. The antipathy of workers to the barracks type has been pronounced
in Alabama. They evidently prefer to be overcrowded in rooms in private homes
rather than to patronize facilities of the barracks type. The situation in such areas
as Mobile is still acute and relief could be speedily provided by a development
similar to that submitted in our material.
Yours very truly,
W. O. Dobbins, Jr. Director.
A Resolution
Whereas of all the elements that affect the prosecution of this war by the
United States none are more important than shipbuilding, the production of war
materials, and the training of the armed forces;
Whereas the overcrowding of workers engaged in the operation of shipbuilding
and war production plants adversely affects the efficiency and morale of workers;
and
Whereas an insufficiency of housing in the vicinity of certain war production
areas in Alabama is resulting in workers leaving such areas where important
shipbuilding and war material production is underway; and
Whereas a simple, practical, and workable plan, which will be self-liquidating,
has been submitted to the National Housing Agency for the construction of
temporary housing in Alabama areas where the housing shortage is acute; and
Whereas the Alabama State Defense Council pledges its full cooperation to
the National Housing Agency in any such projects which may be undertaken:
Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Alabama State Defense Council, That the National Housing
Agency be urged to take action on the plan which has been submitted, or on another
plan of similar nature which will provide temporary housing facilities in Alabama
areas where the housing shortage is acute and where the national war effort is
adversely affected thereby; and be it further
Resolved, That a copy of this resolution be sent to the National Housing Agency
in Washington.
HOUSING, WORKS, AND FACILITIES IN WAR ACTIVITIES
By W. O. Dobbins, Jr., Director, Alabama State Planning Commission
(Presented to spring meeting of Alabama section of the American Society of Civil
Engineers, Whitley Hotel, Montgomery, Ala., May 16, 1942)
I have been asked to talk here on the subject, Housing, Works, and Facilities
in War Activities. I wish to approach this subject thusly:
Chiang Kai-shek has aptly said, "If we perspire more freely in times of peace
we bleed less during times of war." I wish to begin and end this discussion with
that valuable thought.
Before discussing wartime housing I think that it would be appropriate to deal
briefly with some peacetime concepts of planning as a general background for this
subject. The fact that I desire to approach the subject thusly is entirely natural
in view of the fact that my work for the past several years has been concerned
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12149
with highway planning studies and more recently with State planning studies.
It is generally accepted that the prime objective of our democratic government is
to promote the general welfare. It follows logically then that this should be the
objective also of all units or agencies of any level of our Government. It then
becomes apparent that the purpose and duty of the Alabama State Planning
Commission is to study all matters which affect the present and future develop-
ment of Alabama. The above cannot be quarreled with by anyone, but, like so
much of our talk, it is all on a rather abstract level. I will attempt to reduce
these ideas to a lower level on a plane which is not so abstract. In connection
with ideas this definition of an idea, which I recently read, is of sufficient interest,
I think, to pass on to you — namely, that "an idea is the verbalization of a cerebral
itch."
The purpose of planning in the business world is to secure a profit, or, in other
words, to secure the highest net return upon the investment. There is nothing
abstract about this process. The penalty paid by a business which does not plan
wisely is generally the failure of the business itself. So all businessmen recognize,
perforce, the necessity for planning.
The purpose of planning in the field of government should be to accomplish
the objective of obtaining the greatest good for the greatest number of people
who will be affected by the policies or actions of the Government or of the Govern-
ment agencies involved. It is also a fundamental concept of this country that
Government action should be only in fields where private capital cannot be in-
duced or in fields for which private capital admittedly would not be appropriate.
PLANNING IN THE FIELD OF GOVERNMENT
Planning then becomes nothing more than common sense, foresight, and good
business judgment. Common sense demands that all problems with which
Government is concerned be approached and studied on the basis of all the facts
involved. Any solution which ignores facts is much more apt to be an improper
one than if all of the facts were collected and studied. No proof for such a state-
ment is required. Foresight demands that due cognizance be given to the future
aspects of the problems. This, of course, involves a study of trends and shifts in
population, land use, city growth, etc. Good business judgment demands that
each undertaking, particularly those undertakings of a public works character,
be subjected to an economic analysis for the purpose of determining whether the
cost is commensurate with the benefits expected. This requires a technique of
analysis which is now commonly known as engineering economic studies.
The penalty paid by business for improper planning is generally a failure of
the business. The penalty paid by the Government for improper planning is
generally shown in such ways as —
(a) Cities with haphazard development without a proper relationship be-
tween industrial areas, shopping areas, living areas, and recreational
areas, with sewer systems unable to meet normal expansion, with con-
gested traffic, with pollution of streams and other water resources.
(b) With highways which are inadequate for modern high speed traffiic and
with highways which have been overbuilt for all reasonable require-
ments of the traffic load, both present and future.
This is a challenge to all engineers because it is sad, indeed, if the engineering
profession fails to recognize the economic and social effects of all engineering
works on the people of this State.
A logical approach for a State Planning Commission to take in order to accom-
plish its objective would be to examine conditions and facilities within the State
in order to determine their adequacy or inadequacy. For example:
(a) How many people in Alabama have hookworm and what effect would a
rural housing program have in correcting this condition?
(b) How many miles of highway require relocation and rebuilding?
(c) How many cities have snarled and congested traffic on their street
systems?
(d) How many cities have a sewage disposal problem?
(e) What areas are of a submarginal character from an agricultural stand-
point and what is the possibility of inducing an industry to such an
area in order that the people may be removed from the land and given
a means of livelihood in the industry?
Any one with imagination can list many more of such problems for work and
study.
12150 HTJNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
PLANNING FOR PUBLIC HOUSING
It is thus self-evident that housing has an effect on and, in turn, is affected by
many other activities of government. The peacetime concept of housing would
divide the problem into two parts, namely:
(a) Housing financed by private capital.
(b) Public housing.
All of such housing, of course, should be related to proper urban and rural
planning. This will require zoning in order that the best combination of beauty
and utility may result in each community in order that people may have a place
for working, for living, and for playing, served by adequate transportation
facilities and other community utilities.
A logical approach to such a housing problem during peacetime would be to
determine first the relevant facts for the community. This would be mainly a
determination of the number of units adjudged to be inadequate, plus the number
of overcrowded units. This would also require a study of population growth and
an estimate of the additional number of units thus required for normal population
growth. On the basis of these facts the number of units which should be built by
private capital could be readily ascertained, taking into account future growth.
For that necessary housing which should be provided as public housing for income
groups not able to afford the conventional type of home provided by private
capital the same approach should be made. Such a number of units allowing
for normal growth for the income classes concerned would be for peacetime
conditions a most desirable public works improvement. The fact that such
public housing is partially self-liquidating adds .to the attractiveness of this
sort of development.
Any expansion of housing beyond the needs thus determined on the basis of a
factual study would be dangerous for the community real-estate values. It is
readily understood that a large overexpansion for temporary needs would be
likely to cause a real-estate collapse when. the market was glutted with unoccu-
pied units at a later date when normal conditions were again operative.
Now, for the housing of war workers. This, in our opinion, is plainly a field
for public housing, beginning where peacetime housing stopped. War workers,
migrating to war production or military camp areas, are either house appropri-
ately by public housing or they are affected by one or more of the following:
(a) Overcrowded into existing units.
(b) Charged excessive rents.
(c) They move on to other areas hoping to find decent living conditions.
The adverse effects of each of the above are too apparent to require ampli-
fication.
TEMPORARY HOUSING
I wish to remind you, also, of the thought about overdevelopment. The danger
of the overdevelopment above indicated must be borne in mind by all levels of
government in providing wartime housing. It is with this thought in mind and
the urgency of housing the workers that the Alabama State Planning Commis-
sion has suggested temporary housing of the most temporary sort for such areas
as Mobile. "Under the impact and stress of the war effort and a wartime economy
detached planning with long-range aspects included is generally inappropriate and
out of place. If a community had prepared plans for the development and zoning
of its area and had facts on which to base a financially sound housing program, it
would still be impossible or out of order due to —
(a) The shortage of time.
(b) Shortage of materials.
(c) The critical overloading of our transportation system.
(d) The shortage of labor.
Since December 7, 1941, we have found that every resource we have must be
utilized in the best possible way in order to win this war. Therefore, considering
all of the above points, it is the opinion of the Alabama State Planning Commis-
sion that temporary housing of the most temporary sort is the only answer for
such areas as Mobile where the in-migration of workers has been in the neighbor-
hood of 75,000. It is necessary that these workers flock to Mobile in order that
ships may be built and launched. I will not insult your intelligence by pointing
out to you the importance of shipbuilding in this war offensive on which we are
beginning. It then becomes apparent that unless these men can be housed that
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12151
shipbuilding will suffer. For the want of a ship carrying necessary supplies and
war equipment thousands of American boys may be needlessly killed. Nothing
abstract about that.
Such houses as have been proposed and which are illustrated with a housing
layout by a sheet attached to this paper,1 copies of which will be available to
you, can be provided at very rapid rates by "any experienced building contractor.
The necessity for locating the area adjacent to the industry, if possible, is obvi-
ous in view of the tire situation. The workers should be able to walk to work.
In order to salvage as much as possible, and considering the possibility that
some communities which have been tremendously expanded may lose only a part
of the workers and war industries in the post-war period, we have suggested a
housing area which is an entity in itself. If such a condition should prevail,
then the temporary units proposed could easily be removed and a more permanent
type supplied. This will be possible because in the layout of the area thought
has been given to the proper relationship of the land area occupied by houses and
open space for air, parks, streets, and individual ground plots.
We are aware of the difficulties, particularly those difficulties which may be
encountered in the provision of community facilities. If such an area could be
located where the adjacent city is able to supply water, the problem will be greatly
simplified. The water distribution system for such an area can be rapidly pro-
vided. Of course, if a water supply has to be devloped from scratch and storage
reservoirs constructed, the problem will be greatly complicated. We are also
aware of the difficulty in many cases of the sewage disposal problem. However,
we are confident that these problems are not insurmountable.
LOW COST OF UNITS
Assuming that a unit of the type illustrated could be built and furnished for
$400, which it is believed is a liberal estimate, and allowing $350 per unit for the
provision of utilities, such as streets, water distrubtion system, sewerage facilities,
and a power distribution system; and further assuming that 2,000 such units would
be required, we then have 2,000 times $350, or $700,000 for the provision of the
above-mentioned utilities.
Of course, full-fledged engineering studies and investigations would be required
in order to properly estimate the cost of such facilities. However, proceeding
with these assumptions, we would have 2,000 of such units built and furnished
and provided with the necessary community facilities at a cost of $750 each.
Assuming that these units have a 3-year life and that a one-third salvage value
of the total cost will be possible and that the capital expended for the development
should be recovered in 3 years at a 2-percent interest rate, the rent which will be
required to thus make the project entirely self -liquidating will be only $14.44 per
month. This will not include, of course, the cost of water and lights, but a rea-
sonable estimate of the total rental cost, including these items, should not exceed
$20 for a married man without children. Such rents are economic rents, even
for the lower-income classes, which will be and are being attracted into the Mobile
area.
In considering the advantages of such a plan all of the factors and dangers
inherent in a housing program above pointed out should be balanced against this
plan and against any other suggested method of solving the acute housing short-
age in war production areas.
BUILDING CODES HAMPER CONSTRUCTION
To what extent should private housing be modified by war conditions? I wish
to bring to your attention one point in connection with this. Many building
codes are unnecessarily rigid in their requirements or require far more of critical
materials than is actually necessary. Many building codes still specify, for ex-
ample, that the permissible outside fiber stress for steel shall not exceed 18,000
pounds. It is my understanding that Canada is now permitting 25,000 pounds.
In connection with this I have in our office a recommended building code which
makes many changes necessary and desirable in the light of the present shortage
of many materials. We do not have copies available for distribution, but we
will be glad to lend this copy to any one interested in the matter. As each of
you returns to his home community it may be deisable and patriotic to discuss
the Building Code being used with the proper authorities with the idea of making
appropriate wartime modification.
12152
HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
So much for wartime housing, and, as I threatened in my opening paragraph,
I now make good on this threat by leaving this thought with you. "If we per-
spire more freely in times of peace, we bleed less in times of war."
I think if the Mobile workmen were given the choice, they would
rather have the $500 house than wait for the $5,000 house. Mr.
Dobbins' house would amortize over a period of 3 years, renting for
$10 to $30 a month.
The Chairman: The committee has received a plan for Mr. Dob-
bins' tent house, together with a suggested layout for a defense hous-
ing project. This was prepared by the Alabama State Planning
Commission at Montgomery, Ala., and is submitted by W. O. Dobbins,
director. It will be entered in the record at this point.
(The following material was submitted by Mr. Dobbins subsequent
to the hearing.)
£l 'Q^™
§ '*
v.
^r.
A
t
SUGGESTED TEMPORARY TENT HOUSE
The Chairman. At San Diego they have such a housing project
as Mr. Dobbins describes. They put up 3,000 units, and they put
on a demonstration for the committee there. They put up the sides
of the building, the windows and roof and everything except the floor
in 12 minutes.
Mr. Amis. What do they cost?
The Chairman. I don't know that. I do know they were to be
rented for $20 a month.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12153
Mr. Amis. Let me interrupt a minute. This arsenal was nn-
nouncod the 2d of July. Today is the 8th day of May. We haven't
got a house yet. And if this war ends this summer, I think that
they might complete a house by the time it ends. What good is
that going to be? We went through the winter here with 12,000 or
15,000 people employed at the arsenal, with people "stacked up" in
places. We had a Civilian Conservation Corps camp on the moun-
tain that would house 250 people or 275 people, but it was under
another Government department. There was a world of people who
would have been delighted to occupy those quarters dining the
winter. As far as that goes, that's true right now.
There is the young lady who works for me. Her husband is an
engineer. He has been working at the arsenal. He is being sent to
Louisiana and he needs the car. She has two children. She is be-
yond the bus line out here. What is Mrs. McCullough going to do
with the two kids in this town? She can't rent rooms or an apart-
ment to save her neck. She is threatened with having to go away
from here on that very account. Yet we advertise thai we have the
most delightful summer resort in the South on the mountain.
The Chairman. The trouble with the housing is there were so
many different agencies that had jurisdiction over different projects.
We should decentralize our housing agencies. Then it would be the
people in Mobile who determine what their need is. I would say 25
percent of my time every day is taken up with constituents coming
all the way from California for help on their local problems; and, as
Congressman Sparkman says, we have to go down to the agencies
and try to get this information for them and certainly we don't always
come back successful. We have got to have some kind of clearing
house.
Mr. Beech. I don't know why all these things should clear through
Washington. I think the man on the ground should know more
about it.
The Chairman. That is just what I was saying. You take the
Work Projects Administration — and we are just thinking about what
can be done — all those projects came to Washington from the different
places for clearance. But who knows better as to what is the most
necessary and best thing for a Work Projects Administration project
than the local people? You have got your 3,000 counties in the
United States, and say your county is entitled to $15,000,000. 1 don't
know why they can't put that in a Federal Reserve bank and say to
your supervisor of the county commission, "Now spend that for the
greatest relief of manpower on the most useful and necessary projects.
We put that responsibility on you." Now when these Federal housing
projects come in, I think it should be done in the regional office.
Mr. Sparkman. When you say there hasn't been a house built, you
mean by the Government? There are a number of Federal Housing
Administration houses?
Mr. Amis. Yes, sir; and we have people anxious to build but unable
to because they can't get priorities.
Mr. Shelton. That is the way it is in Decatur; we need 300 houses,
but we haven't been able to get priorities as yet to go ahead.
Mr. Dobbins. Barrett [Mr. Sheltan], aside from the housing prob-
blem of these people who have come in recently, we are getting tough
problems from the old residents. For instance, in Anniston there has
12154 HUNTS VILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
been quite a tendency in the last 10 years for our industrial workers
to build houses out about 5 or 10 miles. Now, with a rubber shortage
and an automobile shortage, these people are worried and so is in-
dustrial management as to how to get them in to work. Quite a few
live on little-traveled roads and are widely separated.
POST-WAR INDUSTRIES
Mr. Sparkman. I wonder if I might ask you to discuss this angle.
There has been some discussion already. What do you think about
the effect on our section as a result of this program permanently? Of
course, you said, Gould, you are afraid unless we get fabrication
plants, it will not be permanent. Mr. Ferris painted a rather gloomy
picture, I think, somewhat along the same line. He thinks we are
letting ourselves in for a terrific headache when it is all over, because
the expansion we have had has been more or less of a temporary nature,
and that we must get fabricating plants in here. My idea has been
this — I may be overoptimistic — but in the past, many times in
trying to influence industrialists to come down in this part of the
country, we have met with this opposition, that they couldn't come
because of the fact that our labor wasn't trained, wasn't skilled. But
during this program that situation has been, I believed, belittled,
because they have found out that our people were readily adaptable.
I wonder what your present thinking is as to that?
Mr. Beech. I would like to think that.
Mr. Amis. I think Detroit is going to have a headache, because they
have doubled their space up there. I think Mr. Ford will have a
headache.
Mr. Beech. I think they are going to make automobiles.
Mr. Amis. I do, too, but not twice as many. He has the Rouge
River Plant and Willow Run, too, which is twice as big. What is he
going to do?
Mr. Arnold. He will build airplanes, perhaps, in part of his plants.
Mr. Amis. The plants are especially adapted to a certain type,
which is bombers. I think the United, American, and other big
concerns will take care of the commercial planes.
Mr. Beech. I certainly don't think it likely that they will move
down here.
Mr. Sparkman. You are talking about the Ford plant. Let's
think of another kind of plant. Let's take the cooking utensils type of
plant. There has been no expansion in that for a long time. Where
are they going to expand after the war is over?
Mr. Beech. The people that own the patents are going to build
them where they have always built them. I don't think we ought to
depend on their coming to us. And I don't think our universities
should be proud that representatives of big companies come and
gather the cream of their graduating classes each year. We need the
young man with the determination to be president of his company.
But those boys up there are not going to look after us. They never
have. Even the South Americans think now that the United States
is going to look after them. I hope they treat the South Americans
better than they have treated the Southeast.
Mr. Sparkman. Suppose you had local capital that is willing to
invest; could that bottleneck be broken?
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12155
Mr. Beech. Yes, with enough imagination. But we are colonial
minded. We believe that these boys that have always had bigness
are the smartest and that we had better invest our dollars with them,
rather than with ourselves.
Mr. Dobbins. I hope you heard what Barrett said about plants in
his home.
Mr. Shelton. You must remember Gould comes from Mont-
gomery, where they don't know what industry is. They have politics
and Goat Hill.1 That is what is bothering Gould.
development or the decatur area
I think that every county in Alabama has a job it can do on its
own, using its own capital. I think we can build on our own resources
the type of industry that is going to stay here whether we have war
or peace. In our particular area of Alabama we are greatly blessed
through the coming of the Tennessee Valley Authority. That agency
of the Government has come in, not to attract industry to this valley,
but to develop those things which we already had, which in turn has
attracted industry to this valley and to Alabama and to Tennessee.
And navigation on the Tennessee River was entirely responsible for
the shipbuilding industry in Decatur. And we have gone along in
our section trying to develop the dairy industry in small units. We
think that the future of this valley is bright, for we are becoming
known for the raw materials and natural advantages that we have.
That may sound like chamber of commerce talk, but those are the
facts.
Mr. Sparkman. You are president of the chamber of commerce?
Mr. Shelton. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sparkman. I want to say, Barrett, I agree with what you say.
I have often pointed to Decatur as having such a healthful develop-
ment.
I have also pointed to Scottsboro, Stevenson, and Bridgeport.
Jackson County has a great many small, locally owned industries, and
I have felt it has been in a very healthful condition. By the way,
you mentioned the development of the dairy industry. You have a
cheese plant and packing house that have been developed locally?
Mr. Shelton. Yes, sir.
soil-pipe plants
Mr. Dobbins. That is a very attractive picture you have painted
for Decatur. Unfortunately, down in the middle eastern part of the
State we don't have quite such a good one. We do have many locally
owned industries in Anniston, but when we look at Childersburg and
some of the war industries around us, the people get to wondering
what is going to happen. Take our soil-pipe plants that just run
good every 10 years. They have had a very prosperous year recently
in providing pipe for these Army camps. Now they are perhaps going
into a period of depression. And after the war is over we don't
know what will become of them, unless they are converted to some-
thing. I don't know whether they can be converted to anything else.
After the war is over, maybe we will need a lot of soil pipe, I don't
1 The site of the State capitol.
12156 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
know. But the people of my area are much concerned about the
future of those pipe plants.
AGRICULTURAL SITUATION
Mr. Sparkman. What do you think of the trend of agriculture in
this State? Are you pleased or encouraged by the progress that has
been made in the development of agriculture?
Mr. Shelton. Yes, sir.
Mr. Amis. Yes, sir; and that is so without anybody's chamber of
commerce talk. There has been a tremendous revolution in agricul-
ture in this country in the last 10 years. But I have noticed this —
and it is being accentuated by this war — the shortage of labor for
farm work. I look out of my office window and every day or so I
see a new tractor going out or some other machine to take the place
of somebody on the farm. Of course, the farming done in this sec-
tion— and I extend that to take in Morgan and Limestone and Jackson
counties — is tremendously improved, and itis being done with machin-
ery. These people have drifte4 away from the farms to go into these
high-price war plants. What is going to become of them after the
war is over? I don't know.
Mr. Shelton. They can't be much worse off than they have
always been.
Mr. Beech. We have quite a bit of pressure on land in Alabama.
We have 6 tillable acres for every farm person. Iowa has 25. We
have too many people depending on farming for a living for the
amount of land we have. If they can go into industry, permanently,
it will help agriculture. Meanwhile, as I see it, the Farm Security
Administration is one of the biggest hopes. And, after all, food
production isn't a reform program, and if these small farmers get
help in organizing for new crops, they will produce stuff for the war.
Mr. Cox. In that case, I guess the machine age is the best thing
for agriculture.
Mr. Dobbins. Another effect of the labor shortage on the farm is the
retirement of some of this land that should have been retired a long
time ago. And some of the land will be turned into woodland which
I hope never comes back into cultivation.
HOUSING IN HUNTSVILLE AREA
Mr. Cox. Has the arsenal created serious housing problems in
Huntsville?
Mr. Amis. Certainly it has.
Mr. Cox. What are you doing about it?
Mr. Amis. They are building one unit of 300 close to the arsenal,
and I should say 200 houses have been built south of town, not as
strictly a Government housing project, but with Federal Housing
Authority loans, title 6.
Mr. Cox. Is that sufficient?
Mr. Amis. No.
Mr. Sparkman. There is under way now — in fact bids will be
opened within the next few days — for 300 units near Redstone, at a
little place called Farley. There will probably be one other project
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12157
set up. Those are all Government housing projects under the Lanham
Act.
Do any of you have any questions to ask one another, or any
suggestions to make?
Mr. Beech. One little matter about education in Alabama — our
colleges and universities have entered into the war training program
in a wonderful way. All of them have adapted themselves to it just
as far as possible. I do think we need some coordination in training
activities for war needs in Alabama. And it seems to me, too, that
the proper agency might find some facilities in this State that could
be adapted to war-training needs in our colleges that are not now
being used. You know that the war has knocked some of our educa-
tional institutions very heavily. I think a survey of facilities in Ala-
bama might show that there are some facilities here that could be
very readily adapted to technical training that are not being used.
WAR BOND SAVINGS PROGRAMS
Mr. Sparkman. By the way, I think of another subject on which
I would like to hear you express yourself. You are helping to promote
the sale of war bonds. We had some testimony yesterday about vol-
untary deductions in pay rolls here. And I think a very fine record
is being made by Reese's assistant, Jack Langhorne. Of course, that
is voluntary. But there is a lot of discussion about an enforced sav-
ings plan to help these people cushion the shock when this war is over.
Such a savings plan would have the immediate effect of helping pre-
vent inflation. But I think its more permanent effect would be cush-
ioning the shock when it is over.
Mr. Cox. I think it would be the best thing that ever happened to
Mobile.
Mr. Sparkman. Enforced pay-roll deductions?
Mr. Cox. Yes, sir; any compulsory plan that would make the
defense workers save. I think the majority of them are spending as
much as they make.
Mr. Arnold. I think those workmen in Mobile claim they have to
pay it all out for living expenses. In fact, one of the citizens from my
district in Illinois is down there, and said that Al Capone was a piker
compared to some of the people the defense workers have to deal with.
VOLUNTARY SAVINGS
Mr. Beech. Every county and city in Alabama is being organized
to promote voluntary purchase of these bonds, and we believe when
our organization is finished the people will voluntarily save 10 percent.
That is the goal of the Treasury Department, to get every pay roll to
set aside 10 percent for war bonds. We believe the people in Alabama
will respond.
Mr. Cox. The majority will. But take, for instance, a man who
was bumming cigarettes a year ago and is now making $100 to $200
a week. Now he is spending under the theory, "if I spend it all to-
night, I will get my $150 next Friday, so what." So he goes out and
spends.
Mr. Amis. For what?
12158 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Mr. Cox. Down there they have got almost everything you can
spend money on.
Mr. Amis. But you can't buy automobiles. You can't buy silk
shirts. We are running out of stuff to spend it for.
Mr. Cox. Mr. Chairman, when Mr. Burke was in Mobile we had a
meeting of a lot of civic leaders, including the mayor. And they wrote
briefs, the superintendent of education and the mayor, and I would
like to introduce those into the record. I also have some pictures we
took in Mobile while Mr. Burke was there.
The Chairman. We will have them marked as exhibits.
Mr. Arnold. I think Mr. Amis has the right idea about the farming
situation after the war. When the depression struck I was a member
of the Illinois House of Representatives. In the city of Chicago much
of our manpower came from the agricultural section of Illinois into the
industrial area, and they stayed there. Then the State of Illinois
mortgaged its gasoline tax for $30,000,000 to keep these people alive.
In the early days they didn't do much for them. I then came to the
conclusion that small farms with the land improved, such as is being
done in this farm program, small farms where people could make a
living and not produce a great amount of surplus crops, but could
exist and live, was the solution of the problem. And I believe that
that will be necessary after this war, and that is one reason I am so
strong for the Farm Security Administration or any other organization
that can set up a man on a small farm and supervise his efforts, and
at least prevent the necessity for such a large W. P. A., or other public
effort, as we have had during this past 10 or 12 years.
TESTIMONY OF OZBORN ZUBER, ASSOCIATE EDITOR, BIRMING-
HAM AGE-HERALD, BIRMINGHAM, ALA.
Mr. Sparkman. Here is Mr. Zuber. We are glad to have you. I
wish you had been here for our discussion. But if you have a statement
to make, go ahead.
Mr. Zuber. I came up here to give whatever information or opinions
that I might have that would be of interest to you. When Mr.
Burke asked me to come today, I told him I couldn't make it because
I had an engagement at Howard College this morning. They had
me down for a speech. Previously Mr. Abbott had invited me for
February, and I accepted. Then the hearings were postponed.
And meanwhile this Howard College engagement came up, ami when
Mr. Burke came through Birmingham to talk to me one day, I told
him I was sorry, but that I had accepted another engagement. And
he asked what time this engagement was, and I said, "It will be
over by noon." And he said, "Why can't you come up here? You
can get here before the testimony is finished. If you get there by
4 or 4:15 you ought to be able to get on the record." I wish I could
have been here sooner.
Mr. Sparkman. We certainly are glad to have you here.
Mr. Zuber. I intended to file a statement in advance. I have
had a great many things on my hands, and I couldn't get to it. But
I had incorporated some ideas I had on this subject in an editorial
that appears in the Birmingham News, and if the committee would
be interested in part of that as a part of my statement, I will be
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12159
delighted to read it into the record. I won't read the entire editorial.
It is about the hearings here.
EDITORIAL ON THE MIGRATION PROBLEM
One of the principal purposes of the Tolan committee is to consider ways of
dealing with the problem of migration and of stranded workers which the war will
leave in its wake, in many places throughout the United States, when the fighting
is over and the necessity for production of war materials no longer exists. For
this reason, the work of the Tolan committee is strongly linked with the problem
of post-war planning. This committee can be of great assistance in meeting
the post-war unemployment situation, and in solving such problems as what to
do with war industrial plants which will no longer be needed when peace comes.
The immediate problem of defense migration is largely one of congestion in
centers of war production. The situation presents for the immediate future
problems of health, social welfare, housing, and transportation. Various agencies,
Federal, State, and local, are attempting to cope with these immediate problems.
The Tolan committee can be very helpful, of course, in studying these immedi-
ate problems. Its greatest usefulness, however, lies in its study of the long-range
problem of the effects of migration in the post-war situation.
MIGRATION AN ECONOMIC PROBLEM
The first thing to be said about migration, and the thing to bear most firmly in
mind, is that at bottom it grows out of the problem of making a living. That
has always been the case throughout history. In ancient times the nomadic
tribes which moved from place to place — and which in some parts of the world still
do so — moved not so much because they enjoyed traveling as because they needed
to find new pastures for their cattle and sheep and the opportunity to wrest a liveli-
hood from the soil. Today, in war or in peace, here in civilized America, workers
will migrate in vast numbers when the problem of making a living presses down
upon them with more than usual severity. It was this problem which accounted
for the "Okies." It is this problem, only in different form, which accounts for
migratory war workers today.
This means that at bottom the problem is economic. The study of it, there-
fore, must be concerned principally with the economic factors. These studies
must be directed toward determining, among other things, how much economic
activity can be carried on in a certain area, how much population that area can
comfortably support, what kinds of products it is best suited to produce and what
products the people of the area require most.
There are many factors in the situation, and many keys to the problems arising
from it, but one of the principal keys surely lies in the relationship between agri-
culture and industry. That is where much thought and planning must go if we
are to maintain anything like a stable economic balance and prevent increasing
migration.
RELATION OF AGRICULTURE TO MIGRATION
I am glad that the gentleman from Illinois spoke of the farming
angle. I enjoyed hearing his views on it a while ago.
I think that the basis of the migratory workers' problem is agricul-
tural. I believe that migration in this country in recent years, before
the war production program started, was due almost altogether to the
agricultural depression. I may be wrong about that. It may not
have been due so much to that problem as I imagine, but I believe it is
safe to say that the great majority of the migratory workers were set
into the migratory movement because of the pressure of the forces
which upset our American agricultural system. The increase in
mechanization of agriculture had a great deal to do with it. The
increased productivity of the land because of mechanization and be-
cause of improvement in agricultural science added greatly to that.
The growing problems of farm tenancy, the increased rate of farm
tenancy up until the last year or so also contributed to it. Here in
12160 HUNTSVILLE, ALAV HEARINGS
the South we have a vast migratory movement from farm to farm.
Every year or so farm tenants pick up arid leave.
I am sure that most of you are thoroughly familiar with the facts
about that situation, and the committee, of course, knows a great
deal more than I could begin to say about the agricultural migration
in the West, the famous "Okies," and the Florida migrants and things
that the committee has been looking into a long time. I don't believe
there would be any information I could give the committee concerning
things of that kind, because its investigators have been working on
facts of that kind a good while. I am sure the committee has heard
a great deal of testimony on those points.
OVEREXPANSION OF AGRICULTURAL PLANT
The point I want to make is this, that after this war is over we
are going to have an agricultural plant, not so much overexpanded
as after the First World War, but still overexpanded to some extent.
I think we have done very well in controlling and planning agricul-
tural production, but the necessity for helping to feed and clothe our
allies has brought us a large farm market for the time being, and
probably for a year or two after the war we will continue to have a
great market abroad for farm products. That means some expansion
in our agricultural plant. But the point I want to make about that
expansion is this— and I don't think in Washington and elsewhere it
has received sufficient attention — that our expansion is in food pro-
duction, as distinguished from fiber production.
SUBSIDY ON FIBER OPPOSED
Farmers produce two things — food and fiber. Except for sea food,
farming is our only source of food of any importance. I think it is a
mistake in our agricultural policy to regard fiber as we have been doing,
and this applies particularly to the South, to regard fiber as something
that has to be subsidized more or less indefinitely. It seems to me,
from what I can gather, that the tendency is to regard fiber as a sort
of necessary evil that has got to have its subsidy. My thought about
it is that there is a much larger potential market for fiber, if you will
only bring about this economic balance I mentioned between agricul-
ture and industry, than there is potential market for increased food
production. After all, there is a limit on your market for food; there
is only so much food-consuming capacity — a man can eat only so much.
Too many millions haven't had enough food, but, assuming everyone
in this country had all he needed, we wouldn't be able to use a great
deal more food than we are now producing.
FOREIGN GRAIN SUBSIDIES
When the war is over and foreign countries get back into the pro-
duction of food, our market for food production is going to drop. > We
are called on to help feed England and other countries, and w;ll as
long as the war lasts and for awhile after it is over. But the time will
come when they will turn to their own resources for food. In the
First World War they learned you couldn't be too dependent on out-
side sources for food supplies. And, as a consequence, in some coun-
tries, notably France and Switzerland, they subsidized the production
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12161
of wheat, because they had been caught in the First World War with
very little capacity for the production of wheat and grain. They organ-
ized systems whereby they could subsidize greater production of grains,
and similar plans were tried with varying success in other countries.
The point is that they came up to the Second World War with much
greater capacity for maintaining their own grain supply than when
they entered the First World War. Of course, that system has been
pretty well shot by the war in Europe. But after this war is over, they
will return, I think, to their former plan and become more nearly self-
sufficient.
Even in the twenties and thirties our exports of wheat were in most
years negligible. We did export some in the early twenties, but I
believe from the middle twenties on until 1939 our exports of wheat
were practically negligible. If I am wrong on this, I believe one of
you can correct me.
AGRICULTURAL CONVERSION
After this war we are going to have our land adapted to food produc-
tion on a greater scale, I think, than will be necessary. I am in favor
of that, you understand, as a war measure, but I believe we had better
plan carefully and thoughtfully ahead for turning that capacity and
that adaptation to food production to readaptation and to the pro-
duction of other things, particularly here in the South.
I believe in the South your migratory worker problem is perhaps a
more serious problem than in some other sections. And, I believe, if
we plan far enough in advance to turn back our excess food-producing
capacity into fiber-producing capacity, we will be taking a sort of
stitch in time.
There is, or has been, in this country an underconsumption of food.
They say one-third of our country is underfed.
FOOD IMPORTATION IN ALABAMA
Air. Sparkman. I wonder if I might interrupt. You are talking
about food production by the country as a whole. I would be glad
if you would localize it a little bit. In 1935, I believe it was, statistics
showed that Alabama bought approximately $60,000,000 worth of
food products that it could have raised, that is, hogs, dairy products,
eggs, poultry, pork products, lard — I don't think it even included
wheat. As a matter of fact, Alabama isn't a wheat-growing State.
There are two counties in the State that get wheat-growing quotas,
Limestone and Lauderdale. But the statistics showed we bought,
from other States, $60,000,000 worth of things we could raise. Our
cotton crop that same year, as I recall, was about $56,000,000. You
add the cotton seed to it, I think that was about $16,000,000, which
gives you a total of $72,000,000. Our fertilizer for that same year
was approximately $12,000,000, and if you add that to the cost of
producing that $72,000,000, one will offset the other.
As to the State of Alabama, do you not think it would be profitable
to convert cotton acreage, or fiber acreage, as you express it, into
acreage for the production of those food articles which we consume
within the State?
60396 — 42— pt. 32 15
12162 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Mr. Zuber. I certainly do. I was speaking in national and world
terms. On the basis of the figures you mention, we would be just
about breaking even. I don't think we have been breaking even.
PRODUCTION TRENDS
Mr. Sparkman. Probably not. I would like your comment on this,
A month or so ago I noted a report from Extension Service showed
our cotton crop was $76,000,000 last year. Our next biggest crop
was livestock and dairy crop, and it was $38,000,000, which I thought
was a very fine showing for the State of Alabama. I noticed a short
time ago that in Montgomery County, your county, Gould, cotton
had taken a third place, the first being dairy, then livestock, and then
cotton. I think that is a hopeful sign in agriculture in Alabama.
Mr. Zuber. I call that splendid. We have to make many changes,
of course.
UNDERCONSUMPTION OF FIBER
But, as I was explaining to you, I was thinking in national terms,,
and I wasn't thinking of it so much from the production as from the
consumption end of it. Our potential capacity to consume cotton
and other fibers is very great. I have seen figures occasionally in
different publications on the underconsumption of fiber and they are
really more startling than those on the underconsumption of food.
Of course, after all, you can't go beyond a certain point in the
underconsumption of food, because if you do you will starve. But
you can go almost to the vanishing point in the underconsumption
of fiber. There are many people who have almost reached that
point.
Mr. Beech. What he is saying is that there is a greater possibility
of expansion in a man's closet for suits and clothes than there is in his
stomach for food.
Mr. Sparkman. I was looking at it from the other way — that our
climate was so kind it would permit it.
Mr. Zuber. I am still speaking in national terms. What we need
to do is make it possible for the farmer, among others, to buy some
of his own fiber, as well as to raise and buy his own food. We need
to make it possible for farmers to buy cotton mattresses, for example,
and many other things they need — clothing, curtains, rugs — a thou-
sand and one articles made of fiber.
There is only one thing you can do with food, and that is eat it.
But there are hundreds and hundreds of things you can do with fiber.
There is a very great untouched capacity for consumption of fiber.
And the reason it is under-consumed is the lack of sufficient income on
the part of so large a proportion of our people that they neglect buying,
not merely clothing, but other fiber needs in order to buy the shelter
and food they require to sustain life.
THE UNTAPPED FARM MARKET
Now the reason I think that ties in with the migratory worker
problem is that the worst part of our inadequacy of income is among
the farming population. On the whole, they receive a smaller share
of the national income than other comparable groups. I believe the
farm population is roughly 25 percent of the total national population.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12163
The last figures I remember seeing on it were for 1938 or 1939, and
their portion of the national income was 6.9 percent. Twenty-five
percent of the population got less than 7 percent of the national
income. If we will plan our agriculture so that we can produce what
we need and dispose of what we don't need at prices reasonably-
profitable to the farmer, I think that the farmer can help a great deal
to make up for the deficiency of consumption, both of food and fiber
products. It has been said a great many times by students of rural
sociology, and by economists, and by ordinary farmers, and by
ordinary businessmen, that the greatest untapped market in the world
was our own farm market. I guess I have read that statement 100
times, and it happens to be true. I have seen perfectly astronomical
figures concerning how much paint and lumber could be used to fill
the existing needs on the farms of the country if only the farmers had
the money to buy it, and how much machinery, and how much
clothing.
They always counter statements of that kind with such statements
as this: the farmers live on the land and enjoy certain things that are
not counted as income, and that farming after all is a way of life. It
is much more than a way of life. As it stands now, it is a pretty poor
way of life for most farmers.
KEEPING FARM YOUTH OUT OF CURRENT OF MIGRATION
I think if you will make farming reasonably profitable you will
provide this great expansion in the market for goods, and, in addition
to that, you will make it possible for the farm family to stay together
and not feed farm youths into this stream of migration. That is
where it ties in very importantly with the problem that this committee
is concerned with, not the immediate problem of defense migration as
much as the long-range problem of the migration of workers which
comes principally from the agricultural population.
Now I wish that I had the figures on the proportion of migratory
workers that are from our farming population. But certainly in the
South and West — and I believe they are your main sources of migra-
tory workers — certainly they are mostly from the rural population,
and certainly if you could improve the lot of the farm dwellers mate-
rially you could keep thousands of these country boys and girls out
of the current of migration.
I believe you can do something else. I believe you can solve or
help to solve in that way a problem that has been recently put by
Dr. John D. Black, of Harvard University, in this phrase, "piling
up at the foot of the agricultural ladder." Dr. Black says that our
economic problem on the farm is largely there, that up the rungs of
the agricultural ladder the situation is not so bad. But there has
been some tremendous piling up at the foot of the agricultural ladder,
and I believe it is from that that most of your migratory workers
come. If you can make farm life more attractive, if you can give
the farm family a standard of living high enough to keep their young-
sters at home, and to keep this piling up at the foot of the agricultural
ladder from continuing as it has, you won't have workers migrating
from place to place.
12164 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
FARM FAMILY INCOME SHOULD BE INCREASED
I think you have to give farm workers enough income — I don't
mean the day laborers, I mean the farm families — to enable them to
have a reasonable standard of living, to send their children to school,
and, if they want to go and are qualified, to send them to college, with-
out requiring all of the youngsters in the family to go to work in the
fields as soon as they can. That is the rule around here, and through-
out most of the country. They seem to expect the farm family, every
member of it, to work from sun-up to sun-down. There is no such
thing as a 5-day week on the farm, or a 40-hour week. And I think
we can use a great deal of this surplus farm labor if only we adopt a
kind of "spread the work" movement in agriculture. I don't think
we should expect the farmer to work his little sons and daughters in the
fields when they are really too young to work. I think we need a
little more of certain kinds of leisure on the farm, although we cer-
tainly should cut down on some kinds of farm leisure — the shiftlessness
and the failure on the part of the farmers to spend the noncrop
months in building and repairing their farm plant.
I believe if you can devise a system — and I think we are on the road
to doing it now — whereby the farmers can receive incomes which will
put them on something like parity with the rest of the population that
we will be going in the direction of which I am speaking. But we are
going to have to do that by continuing and probably intensifying our
national control over agricultural production.
CROP CONTROL
I think that the greatest single agricultural gain made in this country
in many years was the discovery of the device of controlling or limiting
production. Controlling production can work two ways — to expand
or limit. And, of course, right now we are not thinking so much of
limiting production. But I believe that crop control is here to stay
and here to do a good job. There is no serious problem of overproduc-
tion in industry or business. You don't find manufacturers of shoes
making 6,000,000 shoes when the market only calls for 3,000,000. But
somehow people have always expected cotton farmers to grow 17,000,-
000 or 18,000,000 bales of cotton whether they could market it or not.
If you keep farm production, at least of the basic crops, from going into
ruinous surpluses, you will be able to improve the prices of those com-
modities in the end without subsidizing crop reductions with Govern-
ment funds. I believe by crop control, plus the parity principle, which
Senator Bankhead and others have gotten recognized, you can produce
a better income for the farm population. Producing for needs and
giving farmers a parity income for what they produce will in the long
run tend to keep the farm family together, to keep them from drifting
off, and to make them a more stable element in our population. You
will find, also, it will enable farm families to consume more of the
Nation's goods, to provide this market that has not been tapped, and
to provide an increasing utilization of our industrial plants.
I believe that intelligent agricultural planning needs to be fitted into
your general planning for all production in such a way as to contrive
a balance between agriculture and industry.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12165
SPECIAL TREATMENT FOR LOCAL PROBLEMS
As for the local problem you mentioned awhile ago — when you
come to States like Alabama, it is obvious we need to do a great deal
of planning in directions contrary to the direction you have to take
in other places. We need to go in for more food, more livestock, more
dairy production, more production of vegetables. In States where
local needs call for special treatment, I think your Farm Security
Administration, your Agricultural Adjustment Administration, your
Farm Extension Service, and other Federal agencies, as well as State
agencies, can do a great deal toward promoting and directing the kind
of development that is needed.
I believe that about covers my point of view on that particular
phase of the relationship between agriculture and industry. My
point is that a great deal depends, in the solution of this problem of
migration, on arriving at a balance between agriculture and industry.
Mr. Sparkman. I think you have given a very helpful discussion
of it, and kept very close to the topic. I only wish you had been here
for the panel.
HOUSING IN BIRMINGHAM
Mr. Arnold. You don't have any housing problems in Birmingham,
do you?
Mr. Zuber. We have at Birmingham an excellent housing author-
ity. I believe it is one of the best in the country from what I have
heard of others elsewhere. We have at present four rather large
housing projects completed, two white and two Negro. We have a
defense housing project that is completed and in use. And I noticed
the other day they had authorized a new Negro housing project that
is needed. Our housing projects in Birmingham have done a great
deal of good. Outside of slum-clearance projects, I believe we have,
right now, a fair amount of houses. I don't believe there is a very
serious housing shortage in Birmingham. I may be mistaken, but
that is my opinion.
Mr. Arnold. You have a pretty healthy situation; people are not
packed in.
Mr. Zuber. In that respect I think it is a fairly good situation,
except, of course, there is always the bad situation you will find among
the Negro population that exists in most southern cities. That has
been improved, but it is something you can't take care of overnight,
and I hope we can make a great deal more progress.
WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION LABOR AVAILABLE FOR FARMING
Mr. Shelton. What is the possibility of labor from the Work
Projects Administration going on the farms? What's the law?
Mr. Beech. They have less than 13,000 Work Projects Administra-
tion certified people in this State who have any farming background at
all, and whenever any farmer asks for one of those men and pays the
prevailing wage he can get him.
Mr. Amis. How many are on Work Projects Administration in
Morgan?
Mr. Shelton. Seven hundred, I think it is now.
Mr. Beech. Are those farm workers?
Mr. Shelton. It is the total. I don't know how it is broken
down.
12166 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Mr. Sparkman. Gould, what is the prevailing wage, what do you
mean by that?
Mr. Beech. It is the prevailing farm wage, and it is a dollar a day.
Mr. Sparkman. This has been a very profitable discussion we have
had this afternoon from all of you. Mr. Tolan had to leave to make a
long distance call, and he asked me to express his regret at not being
here for all of it.
Mr. Beech. Might I express our appreciation that Congressmen
would leave Washington, when they don't have to, on a job like this?
We newspaper men read the Congressional Record and hear our Con-
gressman talk, but it is not often we have a chance to talk back to you.
We appreciate the opportunity. I wish some of the radio commenta-
tors had a similar experience, and, I think if they did, they would be
a little less impatient with Congressmen, and those problems would
not seem so simple to them.
Mr. Sparkman. I appreciate those remarks, and I might say this
committee has been all over the United States. I suppose we have
had 30 or 35 hearings. We have talked about every phase of the
activities of this country pertaining to the migration of people.
Mr. Arnold. I want to say, too, that many of the recommendations
of this committee have been accepted by the officials of the Govern-
ment, especially with respect to the removal of enemy aliens on the
west coast. And we would have been in a far better position today if
our recommendations about the conversion of the automobile industry
and the spread of contracts had been accepted before Pearl Harbor.
We were hammering on that last spring a year ago, 6 or 8 months
before Pearl Harbor. But, of course, we realize it is difficult in peace-
time to convert plants to wartime production, in a democracy.
REGIONAL PLANNING COMMISSION
Mr. Zuber. May I make a statement about something else Mr.
Burke told me he would like for me to talk on in connection with the
migration problem? We have recently had establish ed in Birmingham,
and Jefferson County a regional planning commission, the Jefferson
County Regional Planning Commission. It was established under a
State law enacted in 1935. It is really a metropolitan area planning
commission. We have a State planning commission in Alabama, but
the Jefferson County Regional Planning Commission is the first local
or regional planning commission that has been set up in the State.
It is just now getting under way. We are trying to obtain one of the
Federal short-cut planning projects, which means that the National
Resources Planning Board will send down consultants for 6 or 8
months to help us do in a few months what might ordinarily take 2 or
3 or 4 years to do, in the way of obtaining data and making use of
them. We have had 3 or 4 officials look over the situation and they
are going to establish 7 or 8 of these demonstration planning projects
out over the country. I am sure this committee has already found
out about what the National Resources Planning Board is doing in
that direction, and I believe they would find it very interesting and
profitable to work with them or follow their efforts in that direction,
because it will have a lot to do with the utilization of plant capacity
and available workers in the post-war period. We hope in Jefferson
County to establish a permanent planning commission which will
have two functions: helping in our post-war planning and informing
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12167
and advising local officers, city and county and other municipal officers,
in various municipalities in Jefferson County; and helping them plan
for continuing growth and development of their communities. That
problem is basically one of finding out where your people should work
and where they should live and play and seek their recreation. We
have in Birmingham, which is a rather sprawling city up and down
Jones Valley, a great deal of unused land. This is an advantage in a
way and a disadvantage in others. It tends to depress property
values.
We hope to help out in the solution of the migratory worker problem
in our own area by what we do with our Regional Planning Commis-
sion, because part of our studies will be economic and sociological.
They will be aimed at finding out how much population Birmingham
and Jefferson County can reasonably expect to have and support and
provide work for and at taking means of utilizing our resources in
such a way as to provide reasonable employment for our population,
and at the same time do all we can to discourage uneconomic activities.
I happen to have been made a member of this Regional Planning
Commission. It has nine members. Incidentally they are appointed
by the Governor. I bring this out because I would like to see this
committee, Congress as a whole and the Federal Government as a
whole, encourage the establishment, wherever it can be done, of local
and regional planning commissions.
We have in this State of Alabama something that does in some ways
the same things, but it is quite differently conceived, and that is the
Tennessee Valley Authority. That is in a large degree a planning
■commission.
In Birmingham and Jefferson County we hope to accomplish some-
thing really worth while with our planning commission, but it seems
to me that all over Alabama there should be regional planning
commissions.
I believe that national agencies, such as the National Resources
Planning Board, the Farm Security Administration and Farm Exten-
sion Service and similar planning and action agencies of the Federal
Government, together with appropriate agencies of the State and
local government, can accomplish a great deal in a relatively short
time if they will get together or try to make use of available informa-
tion and material that is already stacked up in Washington and in
the State capitals and elsewhere in each locality. I am told by my
friends in the National Resources Planning Board that in Washington
it is perfectly amazing the amount of information they have about
Birmingham. And that is one of the, purposes of our commission, to
bring it together and bring it to bear on the problems of Birmingham
and Jefferson County in such a way as to help find the answer. I think
it can be done almost anywhere.
Mr. Sparkman. I fully agree with you, and I think that is true of
all these general areas. We appreciate that further comment.
Again I want to say we are thankful to all of you gentlemen for
giving us this able discussion.
Mr. Abbott. Mr. Chairman, I should like at this time to offer for
the record a group of exhibits which will serve to supplement the
b parings here.
The Chairman. The exhibits will be made a part of the record. If
there, is nothing further, the committee will stand adjourned.
EXHIBITS
Exhibit 1. — Statement by Alexander Nunn, Managing Editor,
The Progressive Farmer, Birmingham, Ala.
The committee will probably be told a number of times of the agricultural
background in the State, how for so many years we largely depended on corn and
cotton except for a relatively short period during World War I when livestock
development jumped and of the year-by-year mining and washing away of our
soils that this sort of farming brought. You will undoubtedly have pointed out
also the general sharecropper system as it existed from the close of the Civil War
until rather recent years. I think a study of the figures will show further that a
rather decided trend away from cotion began after the bumper cotton year of
1926. The year 1932, for example, was a rather outstanding year in food and feed
production and a rather ordinary year for cotton production, though of course
part of the reduction that year must be credited to smaller fertilizer applications.
It seems to me the most decided changes in the State in the last 8 years have
been toward soil improvement, much larger numbers of beef cattle, a much larger
acreage to winter legumes, and other soil-improving crops, including the perennial
legumes, kudzu, and Sericea lespedeza, and a gradual increase in practically all
forms of livestock. I feel also that our folks do know considerably more about
marketing than they knew 10 years ago, but we are still far behind. In the field
of human relations, it seems to me the Farm Security Administration has done a
remarkable job in giving thousands of low-income families a new feeling that they
have a stake in the South and in Alabama, and in pioneering such developments
as long-time leases, cooperative health associations, and particularly in the last
18 months, giving a tremendous boost to food and feed production. I believe the
Agricultural Extension forces and Soil Conservation workers should get the major
credit for the great improvements we have made in our soils and in our soil-
building program. In the social field also, the teaching of vocational agriculture
and vocational home economics has tremendously expanded since 1928, and these
two groups represent the largest single agency for definite instruction in better
farming and better homemaking that we have.
Looking at the soil problem, it seems to me we are bound to admit that at
least an important part of the credit for the bumper crops made in recent years
must be credited to the soil-conservation activities begun in 1933 through the
Agricultural Adjustment Administration, the Soil Conservation Service, and
other cooperating agencies. I believe that our soils are better prepared today
to stand temporary fertilizer shortages than at any time since 1917. We have
hardly begun to build back the reservoir of fertility that we should have, but at
least we have made tremendous progress as compared with our situation a few
years ago. In general, I believe that in connection with the soils program, the
change in crops has been very definitely toward the type of program that the
Government is now asking for in its food-for-victory campaign. For your further
information, I'm attaching a proof of a special feature about Tallapoosa County,
Ala., that will appear in our March issue as an example of what a coordinated
program for soil rehabilitation can do. In general, however, the fact should
not be lost sight of that our major problem still remains that of having enough
to sell. In other words, except for cotton, the State of Alabama is not yet pro-
ducing enough per man, per family, or per farm to insure a reasonable income
regardless of prices, and that is tied in directly with our soil fertility problem
along with other factors.
There has been, to my way of thinking, and still remains, a serious problem
from the marketing end in encouraging the development of many diversified
crops. Today the beef cattleman and the hog raiser are pretty well protected
from the standpoint of satisfactory market outlets. The family that attempts
to expand in poultry raising, however, or the truck grower, or the fruit grower,
may or may not be able to develop the enterprises satisfactorily for simple lack
of marketing facilities. Right now, for instance, there is in some sections of
Alabama a decidedly unsatisfactory price situation for fresh eggs, simply be-
cause there is no system whatever for grading and pooling the eggs and getting
them out of surplus areas. In my home section near Auburn, eggs have been
selling as low as 20 to 21 cents in the last few days, and yet in Birmingham eggs
have continued to sell for 35 to 45 cents. And yet for the State as a whole, we
import thousands and thousands of cases every year.
12169
12170 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
I'm sure you will hear among other things of the progress that has been made
in the development of cold-storage locker units led by the State department of
agriculture in most counties of the State. You should hear also of the real prog-
ress that has been made in this State in recent years in developing a better quality
of chickens so that the livestock report for January 1 this year showed a larger
increase in Alabama over 1941 than was shown by any other State in the Nation,
though Georgia and Oklahoma were right behind us. I believe that a consider-
able part of this credit must go to Extension Poultryman John E. Ivey and the
poultrymen all over the State for the starting of an R.O.P. breeding project at
Auburn about 4 years ago, and more particularly in recent months to the great
emphasis that was given last year by the regional Farm Security Adminis-
tration organization in Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, and Florida to increase
poultry flocks for families under their supervision.
There has been, of course, a tremendous growth in the Irish potato industry in
Baldwin County, with much attention given to marketing, but if I understand
conditions at all there, the problem is not by any means solved or yet on a satis-
factory basis.
Hardly more than a year ago, it was my opinion that defense industries would
not too seriously handicap farmers in the State from the labor standpoint. As
month after month has passed, however, I have been obliged to radically revise
my thinking. Today there is a serious labor problem in the State. In my own
home section, there are numbers of farmers who have no help whatever and large
numbers of farms are operating with a shortage of help. Most of the farms, I
believe, can hold on fairly well by better use of the labor they have, better organ-
ization of their farm plans, and better use of equipment so far as they are able to
secure better equipment. I think it is true also that defense industries in this
State have grown much more rapidly in importance than they have in most ad-
joining areas, so that there has perhaps been a greater trend away from farms in
this State than in Georgia or in Tennessee or in Mississippi, for example. The
labor shortage has many angles to it other than the actual competition of defense
industries. Farm prices, until recent months, have not been high enough to enable
the average farmer to pay competitive wages with urban industries. Because of
two decades of low prices and the urgent necessity for operating on as low a basis
as possible, I think there has also grown up in many farmers' minds a feeling that
they cannot pay prices above a certain scale when, as a matter of fact, by adding
better equipment (sometimes very simple equipment), and reorganizing their farm
plans, they could perhaps greatly increase their wage scale. Six months from
now, I may have cause to regret ever having said as much in print, but for a long
time I have personally handled my own farm operations on the theory that if any
family was willing to consider its income from all sources and not purely as a
matter of cash, I could compete with any ordinary urban wage rates. For many
farms now, I believe the problem is not even a matter of doing that. There are
many wage and tenant families who are not willing to consider the matter of food,
housing, or future security. All they can see is the immediate cash money in
their pockets.
I'd like to close with the observation that while the number of farms in this
State has shown a decrease of around 40,000 since 1930, that apparently we have
as many people on the farms as at that time, and that the change has simply
been a change in status from cropper or renter to wage hand, and I never have
been able to believe that the cropper status is as bad as pictured. Anything
that gives a man a stake in the land or a feeling that he has a part in what he is
doing is a step forward, and worth while, if other factors involved are handled at
all satisfactorily.
Exhibit 2. — Statement by H. N. Young, Agricultural Economist,
Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg, Va.
Some Factors Affecting Long-Time Adjustments in Southern Agricul-
ture '
(An address delivered before a meeting of the Southern Agricultural Workers,
Memphis, Tenn.)
That standards of living are, on the average, appreciably lower in the South-
eastern States than in any other large section of our country is, we believe, un-
questioned by all careful students of the subject. According to Prof. H. W.
i This includes Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, Missis-
sippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas. Kentucky was omitted because we believe that it has more of the charac-
terist ics of a Northern than of a Southern State. Texas and Oklahoma were also omitted from this discussion
because the agricultural problems in these States are markedly different from those we have just enumerated.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12171
Odum, the per capita income in the 11 Southeastern States in 1929 was $360.
This was much lower than in any other region of the United States. The per
capita income of the farm population was reported to be $183, which was also
much lower than the comparable figure for any other part of the country.
There are undoubtedly many reasons for the comparatively lower per capita
income of southern farmers. It is our belief that low per capita production is the
principal factor limiting incomes and, therefore, lowering standards of living on our
southern farms. That consumption is dependent upon production is axiomatic.
The people of India, for example, consume little because little is produced there.
Standards of ,'living in the United States are high, primarily because the per capita
production is high. Efficiency is the keynote of American agriculture and business.
For more than a decade a great deal has been written about what the authors
call "the evils of efficiency." It has been claimed that because we are so efficient
we have produced too much; that we have brought about a disastrous depression,-
and that the remedy for all this is to decrease our efficiency and to return at least
part way to the agriculture of our forefathers. We have examined a great deal
of data and have read many books and bulletins, but we have failed to find any
evidence that the agricultural depression was caused primarily because we have
produced too much. It is true that during the depression, and, we believe, be-
cause of it, that tremendous surpluses accumulated on our markets; surpluses
which could not be sold, in many cases, at anything near what it cost to produce
them, and at times not at all. The accumulation of these surpluses is what has
generally been referred to as overproduction. The word "overproduction" has
come to mean many things to many persons. In many cases it apparently
means "too much efficiency." When our civilization reaches such a stage that
there is enough food so that none may hunger; that there are sufficient clothes to
protect us all, not only from the scorching rays of the summer sun and the cold
blasts of the winter wind, but also from the scorching glances of our neighbors;
when our housewives shall have all those home conveniences which remove the
drudgery from labor; when our homes are lighted by electricity, are fitted with
modern plumbing, and contain bathrooms with running hot and cold water; when
all houses are made healthful and livable; when we have purchased all the books
and reading material which we need for the improvement of our minds and souls;
when all of us have all of these things and many others; then, and not until then,
shall we be willing to admit that we have overproduction. We are apparently
living in an age in which there is much confusion of terms. But this is probably
to be expected. There is always much confusion in our thinking during periods
of great emergencies. Let us' hope that as this emergency passes our thinking
will become clear and that we shall be able to recognize that there is usually
more than one cause for most things.
As far as we have been able to determine, the output per farm is considerably
less in the 10 Southeastern States than in any other large section in the United
States. According to the census of 1930, the estimated value per farm of all farm
production in the 10 Southeastern States was $1,046, as compared with $1,664,
the average for the country as a whole. The value of crops produced was $886,
and of livestock products, $160 per farm. The average value per farm of all
livestock, as reported by the census of 1930, was $325 for the 10 Southeastern
States and $964 for the whole country. The average number of cattle of all
kinds and ages per farm was three, and the average number of swine was 4.
The census reports that an average of 158 dozens of eggs were produced per farm
in 1929 in the 10 Southeastern States. If each member of the farm family in this
region were to consume one egg per day practically no eggs would be left to sell.
The census reports that an average of 504 gallons of milk were produced per
farm in the 10 Southeastern States in 1929. If all this milk had been made into
butter there would have been enough to furnish each farm family with from
3 to 4 pounds per week. When we consider that nearly all the milk supply of the
southern cities comes from this total, its inadequacy becomes at once apparent.
The output per farm is much less in the 10 Southeastern States than in any
other part of the country. The average farmer in this region produces little
because he has little with which to produce. According to the census of 1930,
the average size of farm in the 10 Southeastern States was 70 acres, as compared
with 157 acres for the United States as a whole. The average value of farm
real estate was $2,733 per farm in the Southeastern States, and $7,614 per farm
in the whole country. Implements and machinery were valued at $157 in the
Southern States, and at $527 per farm in the country as a whole.
From 1880 to 1930 the output per farm in the United States more than doubled,
but in the 10 Southeastern States it increased less than one-third. From 1880 to
12172 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
1910, agricultural output per farm increased about 16 percent in the South and
about 72 percent in the country as a whole. From 1910 to 1930, agricultural
efficiency increased about 25 percent in the whole country, but less than 10 per-
cent in the 10 Southeastern States.
The failure of the South to increase its agricultural efficiency as rapidly as the
rest of the country is the factor which, in our opinion, is most responsible for its
present low per capita incomes, low standards of living, and the general back-
wardness of some of its most worthwhile social 'institutions. There are perhaps
many reasons -why agricultural efficiency in the South has not kept pace with
that of the rest of the country. The rapid decline which has occurred in the
average size of farm is, in our opinion, one of the most important factors. From
1880 to 1930. the average size of farm in the 10 Southeastern States declined
more than 50 percent, but increased 2 percent in the country as a whole. Prin-
cipally through intensification of the cropping system, southern farmers, by 1930,
had increased the amount of business per farm by nearly one-third, in spite of
the fact that they had less than 50 percent as many acres to work with, on the
average, as in 1880.
From 1880 to 1930, the cotton crop more than doubled; the Flue-Cured Tobacco
Belt has extended eastward onto the coastal plain and southward well into
Georgia. The production of intensive vegetable crops for local and early north-
ern markets has increased many fold, but up to 1930 the livestock industry had
made little or no progress in spite of the fact that numerous attempts had been
made to revive it. It is noteworthy that the production of livestock and its
products per farm was less in 1920 than it was in 1900. The production of live-
stock products increased, however, from 1920 to 1930, and has made relatively
large increases since that time. Many persons consider that the recent increase
in livestock production has been caused mainly by the recent Federal programs,
and apparently think that perhaps this may be the starting point in the estab-
lishment of a permanent livestock industry of considerable importance. Our
opinion is that most of the recent increase which has taken place in livestock
production has been because of the low prices recently obtained for crops, par-
ticularly cotton and tobacco. It is usually true when prices fall that farmers
whose main source of income is the sale of cash crops are driven, at least tempo-
rarily, into self-sufficing agriculture as a matter of self-defense.
In view of the fact that lack of efficiency is one of the most important factors
limiting the incomes of southern farmers, it would seem that production restric-
tion programs should be practiced only as temporary measures, if at all. The
practice of restricting production as a long-time program must, out of necessity,
reduce the output per farm, unless, of course, the number of farms decline accord-
ingly. We have studied a great deal of history and we fail to remember ever
having learned that any large class of the human race were ever able to benefit
themselves permanently by producing less.
It seems to us that there are two general ways of increasing the efficiency of
southern agriculture. The first would involve a reduction in the number of
farms. If the industrialization program of the twenties should continue, it will
undoubtedly furnish employment to many persons who are now farmers. Any
considerable decentralization of industry would probably furnish employment to
many others on a part-time basis. It seems to us that the continued industrial-
ization of the south may well be looked upon with favor by both industry and
agriculture. It should permit industry to obtain the use of comparatively cheap
labor and it should assist agriculture in disposing of some of its excess workers,
thus permitting the enlargement of farms. Such a program would also furnish an
increased demand for agricultural products. Its final working out, it seems to
us, should rest primarily with industry.
The second method which we have in mind for increasing the efficiency of our
southern farmers would be that of producing more on our present small number
of acres. This program of intensification is exactly what farmers themselves
have been doing for the last 50 or 60 years. It has been made possible by practic-
ing increasingly more intensive cropping. How rapidly and how much further the
cropping system may be intensified depends, it seems to us, upon how rapidly the
markets are able to absorb the increased products at favorable prices. Further
industrialization of the South would be a distinct aid leading toward the exten-
sion of the market, which fact is so necessary if southern farmers are to continue
to intensify their farming operations.
One of the proposals most commonly advanced for increasing the welfare of
southern agriculture is the establishment of what some persons call a "better bal-
anced agriculture." This expression, "balanced agriculture," means many things
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12173
to many persons. To those who most commonly recommend a better balanced
system of farming in the South, it apparently means the establishment of a system
of general farming in which the sale of livestock and its products will furnish an
important source of farm receipts. It is claimed by many of the advocates of this
plan that such a system of farming will provide a more even distribution of labor
throughout the year and throughout the working day; that it will provide a cheap
method of maintaining the fertility of the land; that the livestock can be maintained
cheaply because it will be possible to pasture them nearly the whole year; that
livestock can be made a means through which unsalable roughages and waste crops
can be marketed; and, finally, that such a system of farming will remove a great
deal of the risk which attends the present system. This proposal has many advo-
cates. Perhaps we should pause here to examine it.
The success of this plan, as advocated, depends primarily upon how cheaply
livestock and its products can be produced. It is not far' from a truism that
livestock and livestock products are produced the world over on cheap feed and
pasture, except, of course, in those cases in which special prices are obtained.
Cattle of all kinds, and sheep, are raised mostly in regions where grass grows
abundantly and where there is plenty of natural pasture. Principally because of
its hot climate, the Cotton Belt of the United States has long been" known as a
region in which it is difficult to maintain a good grass sod. Unless and until grasses
can be found which are adapted to the hot climate of our South, it would seem
a very difficult problem to produce dairy products, for example, in competition
with such sections as New England, New York, Wisconsin, and Minnesota where
the principal cost of maintaining a good pasture is that of keeping the fences in
repair. Of course, it is possible to produce milk in almost any section of the
United States. It costs more to produce it, however, where there is a lack of
natural pasture. A recent Virginia study indicates that it costs, on the average,
more than $3 per 100 pounds to produce milk in the area which supplies this
product to the city of Norfolk. The fact that the people in the city of Norfolk
are willing and able to pay good prices for this product makes it possible for the
nearby dairymen to produce at a small profit. If it were necessarv for these men
to sell their milk at butter-and-cheese prices, it would not be possible for them to
long continue in business. It is possible that the introduction of lespedeza and
other grasses may solve the pasture problem in the South. This is a question
which needs much careful investigating.
It is our judgment that until the South finds some method of establishing and
maintaining cheap pasture that it cannot hope to compete with the North in the
production of dairy products, and that it will be forced to limit its production
of milk to the needs of the local fluid markets and to that of the farm home.
The raising of more hogs has frequently been recommended as a method of
balancing the farm business in the Southern States. If hogs are to be produced
successfully in this section, in competition with hogs grown in the Corn Belt, it
is necessary, of course, to produce them by cheap methods. There has been a
significant decline in hog numbers in Virginia, except in those parts of the State
where hogs are raised without feeding them much corn. When we consider that
about 20 bushels of shelled corn, or its equivalent in other things, are required to
make a 200-pound hog, we probably have the chief reason why many farmers in
a large part of the South are producing so few hogs. Since 1867 there have been
only 16 years when the Virginia farm price of a 200-pound hog was as much as
the Virginia farm price of 20 bushels of corn. Farmers in Virginia have learned
that if they are to raise hogs economically on a commercial scale they cannot
afford to feed them too much corn. The only section in Virginia in which there
has been a significant increase in hog numbers is the peanut and Cotton Belt of
the southeastern part of the State. Cheap methods of raising and fattening hogs
are practiced, and a minimum amount of corn is fed. It seems likely that a
considerable section of the South along the Atlantic Coastal Plain mav be able
to produce a special kind of soft pork by using cheap methods. There may be
other parts of the South where similar methods may be practiced. It seems
highly improbable, however, that hog production can be made to pay throughout
the South by the feeding of corn, although there may be certain areas which are
exceptions to this.
It is thought by many persons that the South should go into the commercial
poultry business on a large scale. There are two reasons, it seems to us, why
this part of the country has not already done so. First, the South is a deficit
area in the production of feed grains. If a large amount of eggs were produced
it would be necessary to ship most of the feed in from the Corn Belt. Secondly,
12174 HUNTSVILLE, ALAV HEARINGS
most of the eggs would need to be shipped long distances by express if they were
to be sold on the large eastern markets. It would be necessary, therefore, to
pay the freight on the feed and the express on the eggs, which for many years
past would have left no margin of profit. That part of the United States which
is along the Atlantic seaboard and adjacent to the large northeastern cities, is
probably the most important commercial poultry-producing area in this country.
Most of the feed used in producing the poultry and eggs in this section is shipped
in from the West by freight. The eggs are shipped to the nearby markets by
express. Because of the fact that the distances are short, the eggs arrive on the
market as fresh eggs and the express charges are small. The Corn Belt of the
Central West produces a majority of the cold-storage eggs which are consumed
in this country. Most of these eggs are produced by farm flocks which are given
little care and which pick up most of their feed around the buildings and on the
ground. This section markets its eggs in large quantities and by freight. It has
no freight to pay on feed. It would be necessary for the Cotton Belt to pay both
the freight on the feed and the express on the eggs.
It seems to us that the commercial production of livestock and its products
in the South is limited primarily by lack of cheap and abundant raw materials;
namely, cheap pasture and feed; that livestock and its products may be profitably
produced to supply the special needs of local markets at special prices; and that
sufficient livestock may be produced on farms to supply the family needs. Until
the problems of cheap pasture and feed are solved, we see little possibility of a
much further increase in the commercial production of livestock and its products
unless the industrial population expands. Furthermore, as long as the average
size of farm remains as small as it is the need for intensification will be so great
that the keeping of livestock for commercial purposes will be nearly an impossi-
bility, except in the case of a comparatively small percentage of the farms.
It is undoubtedly true that there are a considerable number of farmers in the
Cotton Belt who are now producing livestock and its products at a profit. It is our
guess that in the majority of these cases a special price is obtained for the product.
We do not think that it would be a sound recommendation to advise all farmers
in the Cotton Belt to adopt the practices which are followed by a few individuals
who are specializing to meet the particular needs of local markets at special prices.
This does not mean that we abandon the idea that the South should maintain
a well-balanced agriculture. We think that there is just as great need for a well-
balanced system of farming in the South as in any other part of the country.
We think, however, that a different interpretation should be placed upon the mean-
ing of the word "balance." If our understanding of the situation is correct, the
idea held by most persons as to what a well-balanced agriculture is has been ob-
tained from studying the results of research work on general farms, most of which
were located in the general farming sections of the North. It is our belief that in
the average general farming section of the North that a well-balanced business
probably means one in which a considerable proportion of the farm receipts origi-
nate from the sale of livestock and a considerable proportion from the sale of cash
crops. While this may be the correct interpretation to place upon the term
"balance" in certain parts of the United States, it does not follow that it is also the
correct interpretation to place upon the meaning of the word when thinking about
the agriculture of other parts of the country. It is our opinion that the best
balanced farm is the one which makes the most effective utilization of the resources
which it possesses. In sections of the country where there is plenty of natural
pasture, along with an abundance of good cropland, it would seem that the best-
balanced farming system is one which uses most effectively both of these kinds of
land. In sections where there is little cropland a great deal of pasture, it would
seem that the livestock industry should be emphasized rather than the cropping
system in order that the natural resources at hand may be most effectively utilized.
In those sections of the country, however, in which most of the land is so valuable
that it can be used only for cropping, it would seem that the thing to emphasize is
the economical production of crops, and that livestock should occupy a minor
place in the farm business. There probably is such a thing as a well-balanced crop
farm. What has apparently been happening on the Eastern Shore of Virginia
during the past few years illustrates what we have in mind. There was a time
when the production of sweet and Irish potatoes was carried on almost to the
exclusion of other things. During the recent depression there have been a number
of very disastrous crop years, and many farmers on the Eastern Shore have found
themselves in a very unfavorable financial condition. During this time a number
of well-meaning persons have recommended the commercial production of dairy
products, others of sheep and wool, and still others of hogs and poultry. The
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12175
poultry industry on the Eastern Shore seems to be expanding, but there is little
indication that other livestock enterprises are likely to become of much importance.
During the last few years farmers, themselves, have balanced their farming opera-
tions by adding more intensive vegetable enterprises to the few which they already
had. This has probably had the tendency to distribute the labor more evenly
throughout the year and throughout the working day, and has removed a great
deal of the risk from the farming operations.
Generally speaking, a well-balanced farm business is one which combines the
various enterprises of the farm in such proportions that the greatest profit is
obtained from the farm business as a whole. It is our opinion that there are a
number of ways of bringing about the most-desired balance, and that what may
be the best-balanced farming system in one part of the country may possibly be
the poorest in some other section. What the best balanced fanning system of
the Cotton Belt may be, we are in no position to even suggest. This is a matter
which needs a great deal of research before it can be settled intelligently. Sitting
in our offices and thinking about the problem will not settle it. It would seem
to us that the most desirable thing to do would be to obtain more of the facts of
the situation. After we have obtained these facts, and analyzed them statis-
tically, we shall be in much better position to think the thing through, in our
offices, than we are now.
We wish to emphasize the fact that if southern agriculture is to become more
efficient it must decrease the number of its farms, or it must cultivate the land
which it now farms more intensively. As we have previously suggested, a more
intensive cultivation of the land can be brought about with profit only as an
expansion of the market takes place. When and if this occurs it would seem that
it will probably pay to give more attention to erosion control and fertility main-
tenance. In a general system of farming it is necessary to maintain the fertility
of the land by cheap methods. As the land becomes more intensively cultivated
it becomes increasingly possible to maintain fertility by progressively more ex-
pensive methods. One of the principal objections to establishing a commercial
livestock business in the Cotton Belt, aside from the absence of cheap feed, is the
fact that a livestock business, with the possible exception of poultry, would require
more acres per dollar of income than the system which is being followed at present.
It would extensify, rather than itensify, the farm business, and therefore lower,
rather than increase, efficiency.
.Exhibit 3. — Statement by Robert Gregg, President of the
Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Co., Birmingham, Ala.
Development of the Bust-at-Home Program in Alabama
Some 16 years or more ago, the then president of the Tennessee Coal, Iron,
and Railroad Co. was asked by the secretary of the Chamber of Commerce of
Montgomery why it was that industry in Alabama did not buy Alabama-raised
products. The reply was that Alabama-raised products were not properly
graded and were not available in dependable quantities for use. The further
assertion was made that it certainly was the desire of industry to be cooperative
with agriculture in every possible way to the end that both might prosper together.
At that time the Tennessee Co. owned a very large number of mules which were
used in its mines and in the manufacturing plants. Hay for feeding these mules
in quantities reaching 1,000 tons per annum was being shipped into the Birming-
ham district at a terrifically heavy cost over that of Alabama-raised hay, but it
was hay that was in good marketable condition and thoroughly reliable as high-
grade stock feed. Our people undertook an intelligent survey of the possibilty
an Alabama for the proper grading, curing, and marketing of Johnson grass hay,
and through the cooperation of the established farm agencies in the State it was
soon possible to secure all of the hay required by this company within the State
or immediate surrounding States of just as good grade for our purposes, and at
enormous annual savings.
This experience of the company made it very forcibly to understand the inter-
dependence between agriculture and industry and encouraged it to launch a pro-
gram of assisting the farmers in Alabama in the marketing of their surplus agricul-
ture crops. They undertook a survey of the various counties of the State of Ala-
bama to ascertain just what was being raised and not marketed; what markets
were available and not supplied by locally raised products and what channels of
marketing could be developed through coordination of efforts of the various farm
agencies, together with the farmers, bankers, and representatives of industry.
12176 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
This company normally sells its products in the southeastern States, namely,
North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee.
In addition, Louisiana and Texas are served as well as the west coast of the
United States. These States, as is well known, are primarily agricultural States.
The Tennessee Co., when it started a diversification program soon after the
World War, realized that as its natural trade territory prospered, so would it
grow and prosper and, therefore, followed a natural tendency in endeavoring to>
build up the buying power of the farmer.
The farm products division of this company was formed to aid and assist farmers
and all agencies which might contribute thereto in improving their farming and
marketing methods, looking toward the development finally of the whole agricul-
tural South.
The survey which this company undertook showed that certain sections of
Alabama were particularly adapted to grasses for stock raising: to vegetable
raising; dairying, hogs, and peanuts, but that in most cases there were decided
prejudices against the home-grown products. There was a woeful lack of proper
curing, packing, and grading of products, and practically no facilities for market-
ing or financing, but after a very short period of time statistics indicated that
there were consumed in Birmingham alone more than $3,000,000 worth of
Alabama-raised and marketed farm products annually.
As indicated above, the first efforts of this company were exercised toward
the proper raising and marketing of hay, but these efforts were later spread
toward eggs, butter, cheese, and other dairy products; to sweet potato raising
and grading; to cattle, hogs, and other livestock; and to the establishment of
markets, packing nouses, etc., for the proper distribution of the products raised.
Further, the activities of this company were directed toward interesting luncheon
clubs in the 4-H club boys and girls programs; in cattle sales resulting from efforts
of these children, and finally interesting packers and various financial institutions
in lending financial and other aid, where it was indicated, toward the upbuilding
of the State.
A few years ago the efforts of this company were spread from Alabama into the
States of North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi,
Tennessee, and Louisiana, in each of which States we have a farm products agent
working with the various agencies of the respective States on whatever problem
might be discovered and solved for the benefit of the farmer. Market surveys-
are made and the benefits are passed on wherever it seems possible to do the most
good, and to create buying power and economic security.
When the various Army camps were established throughout the Southern
States our respective farm "products agents interested themselves in advising not
only the purchasing officials of the camps as to the availability of products nearby,
but also in advising the farmers and merchants of the names, addresses, and ap-
proach to the proper officials in the Army whom they could contact. As this has
been an important feature of our work, and has lent a great deal of aid to the farm-
ers, we are attaching as an agenda to this statement, as an illustration, a some-
what detailed statement of what has happened in this regard in South Carolina.
This is the only complete record immediately available as to our activities in con-
nection with the armed forces' procurement of locally raised products, and ia
indicative of what is being done in all of the above-named States.
Exhibit 4. — Statement by S. A. Robert, Jr., and A. Lee Coleman,
Division of Land Economics, Bureau of Agricultural Eco-
nomics, Atlanta, Ga.
The Gum Naval Stores Industry '
The gum naval stores industry is concentrated in the longleaf and slash pine
areas of the Southeast. Operations extend over approximately 65,000,000 acres
from North Carolina to Texas. Almost 75 percent of this 65,000,000 acres is in
productive forests.2
i Data obtained in a stud> of the industry under the direction of a Department of Agriculture Interbureau
1 Statistics on Gum Naval Stores Production, by Southern Forest Survey Staff, I. F. Eldredge, Regional1
Survey Director, Forest Survey Release No. 17. December 31, 1935.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12177
The products of the industry are derived from the oleoresin produced from the
scarified or chipped slash or longleaf pine trees. In the first stage of processing —
distillation — two products are derived, turpentine and rosin. These two products
have important direct war uses, and they serve also as substitutes for products
that cannot be obtained when foreign trade is hazardous. Paint is needed in
increasing quantities during the war, and turpentine is one of the major paint
thinners. It is the cheapest source of synthetic camphor, and since natural cam-
phor comes exclusively from the Japanese island of Formosa, increased quantities
of turpentine are going into this use. Rosin is used principally in the manufacture
of soap, adhesives, plastics, paper sizing, varnish, and polish. Until recently it
has been used only in the laundry soaps, but it is now being used in other soaps.
To meet the anticipated increased demand for naval stores products the Secre-
tary of Agriculture set as the 1942 gum naval stores production goal 450,000
units 3 as compared with a production of 285,000 units in 1941. The purpose of
this testimony is to mention some of the obstacles that appear to be retarding
production and to suggest some means of removing them.
With a decrease in production of gum naval stores from an annual average of
about 525,000 units (from 1930 to 1935) to the low of 285,000 units in 1941,
obviously a large number of the 43,000 laborers engaged in the industry in 1934
(when 5i0,000 units were produced) were not needed to produce the 285,000 units
in 1941. A movement of labor from the industry occurred even prior to the defense
migration that began 2 years ago. As a result the 1942 season began with insuffi-
cient labor to work the increased croppage. Labor from the industry has not as
a rule gone directly into defense industries or into the armed forces, because of the
lack of necessary qualifications. Rather, naval stores labor has replaced other
labor that has gone into defense industries.
The isolation of turpentine camps has influenced the relationship between
operators and workers. The workers are predominately Negroes. Labor is often
considered as much a resource to be exploited as the forests in which the work is
carried on. Because the turpentine camps are isolated, the operators usually
furnish the only police protection, and because needed labor can be obtained only
with difficulty in many cases, operators sometimes use their police power to re-
strict freedom of movement of labor in the belt. These conditions are hardly
conducive to retaining workers or encouraging workers to return to the industry.
Nor do they offer the incentive to increase production for war needs.
Many of the large operators have a commissary through which they sell
groceries, clothing, and tobacco to their workers. Several instances have been
noted where operators have restricted the movements of laborers indebted to
them through commissary accounts.
Wage workers in the naval stores industry receive very low cash family
incomes.4 The average cash income available from all sources in 1941 was
$418, or a little more than $100 per capita for the 165 families. Cash income
for work in the naval stores industry alone averaged only $372 per year, and
less than half of the families (46 percent) had income from other sources.
While garden space is often provided by the operator, little food is produced by
naval stores workers, primarily because of (1) lack of gardening supervision and
(2) the movement of workers from one operation to another which reduces the
practicability of home food production. Livestock generally is limited to a few
chickens and a pig. Since such a small amount of subsistence is produced, cash
income is virtually the total income.
Wage workers are paid on a piece basis. The chippers receive their pay on the
basis of the number of faces chipped while the dippers receive their pay according
to the number of barrels of gum collected. _The average daily wage in 1941 was
about $1.25 for chippers, and $1.10 for dippers. These wage rates represent
a 35-percent increase over 1939, but during this period the cost of living increased
approximately 25 percent.
Poor housing is characteristic of the naval stores industry. Many wage workers
live in one-room shacks, built in camps or "quarters," with no glass windows,
no screens, and usually without individual water supply and sanitary facilities.
Pew naval stores workers receive the benefit of regular medical and health services.
3 A gum naval stores unit is defined as 50 gallons of turpentine and 1,348 pounds of rosin. The commod-
ties are joint products of the oleoresin secured from living southern yellow pines.
4 As indicated by data obtained in 165 interviews in 6 naval stores counties: Washington County, Ala •
Alachua County, Fla.; and Colquitt, Clinch, Telfair, and Wayne Counties, Ga.
60396—42 — pt. 32 16
12178 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Schools furnished naval stores children are very poor. Out of a six-county
study, only two had anv type of transportation for school children and this was
available to a small number of children, usually not naval stores children. No
transportation is supplied Negro children. In Clinch County, Ga., there was
no 4-year high school available for Negroes, and although schools are available
for most workers' families they are of a poor quality and generally extend only to
the seventh or eighth grade. The educational facilities are only slightly better in
the other counties studied.
Naval stores financing, marketing, and distribution is concentrated in the hands
of comparatively few people. There are seven major factorage houses furnishing
credit to the industry and two large central processing firms. These establish-
ments offer the major facilities of financing, marketing, and distributing of the
products. Seventv-two percent of the products marketed in 1941 were handled
by factorage houses. The factor furnishes on credit the groceries, supplies, and
equipment needed for naval stores operations. The relative absence of other
credit and marketing facilities and the ease of doing business with one organiza-
tion, necessarily give the factorage houses supervisory control over many opera-
tions. To the extent that some factors operate also as dealers they participate
on both sides of the exchange and may thus influence prices. The factorage house
receives for its services interest on the money loaned; profits on any equipment and
supplies sold; a commission for selling the products; fees for storage and insurance
when the factor operates storage facilities, and the profits or losses on any dealer
operations carried on.
The membership of the American Turpentine Farmers Association cooperative
produces approximately 80 percent of the production of the industry. The asso-
ciation does not operate on a one-member one-vote basis but upon the basis of one
vote for each unit of production. This means that the organization is controlled
by the larger members. The place of the American Turpentine Farmers Asso-
ciation in securing Federal assistance for the industry and the cooperative medium
that it affords producers, are of primary importance to the industry.
The shortage of labor will probably be the greatest limitation on increasing
production, but there are other hindrances that should be mentioned:
(1) Markets that would permit small producers to market their gum are not
available in some parts of the belt. In outlying sections, gum buyers purchasing
crude gum are the only outlet. Many small producers in isolated areas will not
be able to come into production in 1942 because they do not have ready access to
an outlet for their products. .
(2) A high proportion of the naval stores products is normally transported by
truck to the nearest storage or marketing facilities. In the present emergency,
the shortage of transportation facilities and in particular the shortage of tires will
retard the production in more distant areas.
(3) The lack of desirable living conditions and public services may accelerate
the migration of labor. .
Several things might be done to achieve increased production. Adjustments
in credit and marketing facilities and improvements in labor relations should con-
tribute toward the achievement of needed production. The following measures
should encourage increased production for war needs:
(1) The extension of existing factorage house credit to small producers and the
provision of supplemental credit through production credit associations, national
farm loan associations, Farm Security Administration, and local lending mstitu-
(2) The provision of markets for gum produced by small operators through the
utilization of stills not now in operation. Idle stills could be moved to localities
where existing facilities are inadequate or lacking. _
(3) Cooperative use of available tires should be encouraged in areas where
transportation of crude gum is necessary. The fullest use of available trans-
portation facilities is essential throughout the belt.
(4) Workers should be encouraged to produce at least a part of the needed
(5) Some improvement should be made in housing furnished naval stores
workers. Improved water supply and sanitary facilities should not await the
termination of the war. # .
(6) Wage rates will have to be increased if the industry is to retain its present
workers. With saw mills and railroads paying $2.50 to $2.80 per day for a
40-hour week, naval stores operators face considerable competition for labor.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12179
Exhibit 5. — Statement by Mack D. Rust, Rust Cotton Picker
Co., Memphis, Tenn.
The Cotton Picker and Farm Labor
Up until very recently a majority of the people with whom my brother and I
have discussed the question of agricultural labor in the South, seemed to feel it
was hardly conceivable that a serious labor shortage in the Cotton Belt could
actually occur. Some still feel that way. After the experience of the past 10
or 12 years, they can't be blamed much for holding that opinion. But these are
certainly times of quick and radical changes in many phases of our national
thinking; and not the least of these will be the realization that agriculture is due
for some far-reaching changes if it is fully to perform its part in the national
defense program. If we might be allowed to think in terms of a good standard of
living for the workers in this great sector of our economy, some of these changes
certainly are already long past due.
Last fall (1941) due to a combination of favorable circumstances not many
sections of the cotton area felt any serious lack of labor for the harvest. But
next season may be different. Within the coming year thousands of men wll be
inducted into the armed forces. It is hardly possible that this will not affect the
cotton field workers. Some will be drawn directly into the Army. Others will
almost surely shift into other industries to take the place of men drafted from
those industries.
Among those planters operating entirely on the sharecrop basis, it may be that
no serious shortage of labor will be felt within the present year, or possibly not
within the following year. But the planters operating on the day-labor basis
may find themselves not only far short of the required amount of harvest labor,
but even short of sufficient labor to plant and cultivate the crop.
Since the picking in most areas requires a much greater concentration of
labor than any other operation in producing the crop, it seems obvious that
the need for harvesting machinery will be most acute. The need for a chopping
machine, and for better and more effective methods in cotton farming generally,
will likewise be felt increasingly as more and more men are called to the colors.
Introduction of the cotton-picking machine into this situation may be expected
to produce results of far-reaching consequence both to national defense and to
the future conditions of farm workers. The tremendous labor-saving capacity
of the machine if used in mass quantities would release a multitude of workers
for other duties. One such machine operated by two men can do the work of
from 50 to 150 hand pickers under conditions of moderate to heavy yields.
In areas where masses of hand pickers are transported long distances by truck
and car to the fields each day, it may easily prove to be the case that the cost of
fuel, oil, tires, and equipment used or worn out in the process of hauling the
pickers to and from the fields would exceed that of machines picking an equivalent
amount of cotton. Highway hazards and traffic accidents should be substantially
reduced by eliminating the crowded flow of cars and trucks hauling pickers night
and morning.
From the viewpoint of the workers, their conditions of work could be measur-
ably improved by employment in work closer home on more reasonable hours.
From the viewpoint of conserving the nation's manpower, it should not be over-
looked that the mass use of these machines could eventually release hundreds
of thousands of workers for more effective employment in other types of work.
Add to this the possibility that when the next harvest season rolls around, there
may not be nearly enough labor available to pick all the cotton produced. Even
last year some few fields were never completely harvested. Surely it does not
make sense to spend time and materials growing a crop which will not be harvested.
It is only too obvious that the process of mechanizing such a large operation
cannot be accomplished overnight. It will require a considerable length of time
to get such a program substantially under way. If, therefore, the cotton growers
are going to be faced with a serious labor shortage, as appears so imminent, action
should be taken to solve this problem as soon as possible. Unless some new and
abundant source of labor can be found, the machine offers the best and possibly
the only solution to this problem. Therefore, we believe that "When the full
significance of the farm labor problem is realized, the cotton-picking machine
will be in the greatest demand in history."
12180 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Like most other machines, this machine cannot be claimed to be perfect. But
experience with it to date proves it to be a practical device suitable for the purpose,
and one which is good enough to begin producing and using on a wide scale, par-
ticularly under the growing pressure of wartime needs.
While no radical changes have been made in our machine during the last year,
a number of minor refinements have been made which improve performance and
make for steadier and more dependable operation in the field.
The prospects for quantity production of the machine depend now upon the
War Production authorities. Manufacturing facilities, priorities on required
materials, and the necessary finances will have to be procured in order to begin
mass production. Efforts are now being made to obtain early approval for such
a program. What the result will be we do not yet know.
As to what extent the picker eventually may be expected to perform all the
operations now done by manual labor, this machine can, of course, perform only
the one basic operation of picking the open cotton from the plants and delivering
it into a suitable container. The wide use of the machine for picking operations,
however, would tend to promote and accelerate the use of machines and improved
mechanical methods for other farming operations, of which next to picking,
chopping is the greatest problem now confronting the cotton grower.
At the present time it is not clearly seen just how it will be possible to replace
manual labor entirely by machinery in the hoeing. But machinery has already
been developed which can eliminate a substantial portion of the manual chopping;
and it seems reasonable to expect that with proper attention to these problems
means will eventually be found for putting the industry almost, if not completely,
on a mechanical basis.
In that event a principal cause for migrations of the cotton workers will have
been removed and the basis laid for them to become citizen residents capable of
producing efficiently, earning a decent standard of living for their families, and
taking an active, intelligent part in community life.
Exhibit 6. — Statement by Brig. Gen. Ben M. Smith, State
Director, Selective Service System, Montgomery, Ala.
Occupational Deferment Policy
This headquarters maintains and enforces the national policy of Selective
Service in regard to occupational deferment in general. Local boards and district
appeal boards in Alabama are urged to grant occupational deferment on an
individual basis to those registrants who are "necessary" in the sense that they
cannot be replaced without loss of effectiveness in their business, occupation, or
enterprise. This headquarters maintains a liberal policy in this regard and in-
sists that sufficient deferments be made to insure that the production of food and
war materials continue on an uninterrupted basis. Also due consideration is
given to deferment of those registrants in their civilian occupations, when it
can be shown that such registrants cannot be replaced and that they are neces-
sary for the health, safety or well-being of their community.
Regardless of the recent war industries and activities which have come to
Alabama, this is essentially an agricultural State and it has been necessary for
this headquarters to pay particular attention to deferment of people engaged in
the pursuit of agriculture. Occupational deferment on an individual basis is
recommended for those registrants who are either farm owners, managers or
laborers, when it can be shown that the production of the farm would be curtailed
or interrupted by the induction of the registrant. This headquarters compiles
and publishes each month a detail report on occupational deferments and it has
been found that the report as of January 1, 1942, shows that more farmers have
been deferred than any other occupation in this State. It is not possible for this
office to inform you of the total number of persons deferred as essential to agri-
culture since 1940, broken down by counties, since such records are not available
by counties.
A large number of farmers in this State have been granted dependency defer-
ment rather than occupational deferments (farming), since the greater part of
such farmers are married or have other dependents. As a matter of fact, occu-
pational deferments in Alabama run very low as compared to other deferments,
due to the fact that people in this State marry or acquire dependency status
early in life.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12181
Your committee will be interested in the attached letter to Mr. Haygood
Paterson, commissioner, Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries,
which sets forth briefly the policy of this headquarters in regard to deferment of
farm labor.
This headquarters of Selective Service maintains close liaison with the Alabama
Department of Agriculture and Industries, the Agricultural Adjustment Admin-
istration, the State Agricultural Extension Service, the Farm Security Agency,
the Alabama Farm Bureau and the Agricultural Planning Committee of the State
of Alabama. This Headquarters also operates in cooperation with the Seventh
Regional Office of Production Management Labor Supply Committee which is
studying the farm-labor situation at the present time and through this committee
maintains liaison with the agricultural program not only in Alabama, but in the
entire Southeastern States.
Montgomery, Ala., February 17, 1942.
Hon. Haygood Paterson,
Commissioner, Department of Agriculture and Industries, Montgomery, Ala.
Dear Mr. Paterson: The increased war effort "Since Pearl Harbor" has made
it extremely important that the production of certain farm products be expanded to
the limit of the industry. The expansion of production of certain farm products
is of vital importance to the National Defense production program. Among the
most important commodities, and those in which tremendous expansion must
be made, are
milk and dairy products,
eggs and egg products,
poultry meat products,
hogs and lard products.
Selective Service Regulations state that a registrant shall be considered a
"necessary man" in an agricultural enterprise if he cannot be replaced because of
a shortage of persons with his qualifications or skill in such activity, and provided
his removal would cause a serious loss of effectiveness in such activity. Upon the
local boards in Alabama fall the responsibility of determining whether or not a
person is a "necessary man" in his activity.
In general it has been found that a shortage exists in persons qualified as farm
managers. A determination must be made, however, in each particular case to
determine whether or not the registrant can be successfully replaced. The
availability of men in the community or county who could replace the registrant
must be considered by the local board. State headquarters of Selective Service
will urge occupational deferment for farm managers found to be "necessary men."
In consideration of deferment of farm labor, the same determination must be
made; that is, does the farm laborer qualify as a necessary man. To do this,
it must be shown that he cannot be replaced in his activity. As long as farm
labor can be replaced, no deferment may be allowed. Again consideration must
be given in each individual case to the availability of persons in the community
or county who are qualified to replace the registrant.
It is going to be a necessary contribution to the war effort that employers and
farmers secure replacements for their employees who are subject to military
service from one of the following groups:
1. Persons outside draft age.
2. Persons deferred because of dependents.
3. Persons deferred because of physical condition.
4. Women.
_ Alabama farmers are expected to cooperate fully in fulfilling their dual respon-
sibility of furnishing men to the armed forces and increasing food production.
Sincerely yours,
Ben M. Smith,
Brigadier General,
Adjutant General's Department,
State Director.
12182 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Exhibit 7. — Statement by E. M. Norment, District Supervisor,.
United States Employment Service, Social Security Board,
Memphis, Tenn.
With reference to the present labor situation, especially farm labor in this
area, as I testified at a previous hearing before your committee in Montgomery,
Ala., in 1940, 1 I would say:
First. Our service is still being maintained under approximately the same
conditions as existed in 1940, with the exception that the Tennessee State Em-
ployment Service, of which we were a branch, was taken over by the United
States Employment Service on the first of the year.
Second. Whereas in 1940 we were concerned chiefly with attempting to place
a large number of workers registered with us — there generally being more workers
than there were jobs — now, we are engaged in an intensive search for workers
qualified to fill the numerous orders for skilled mechanics that we receive through
our national clearance system; also, working in connection with the vocational
educational schools and selecting trainees to be trained for jobs in defense in-
dustries; also, in assisting employers in determining what jobs can be filled by
the older worker, the handicapped, and lately, to an increasing extent, determining
the jobs that can be filled by women workers and in recruiting such women
workers.
From the farm angle, we found that during the cotton-picking season in 1941
our daily referrals of day workers almost doubled that of the previous year, and
that the plantation owners in an increasing number depended upon our service in
furnishing cotton pickers. During the year over 440,000 day workers were sent
out to the plantations of Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee. This might be
the same worker sent out on numerous orders, but would be a fair indication of
the man-days labor sent through our office. I am enclosing copy of a report
from the farm office showing the number of pickers and vehicles that were trans-
ported, leaving the office during the month of September 1941, which was the
beginning of the cotton-picking season. These represented mostly cotton
pickers sent into Arkansas and constituted quite a problem in traffic, as it is
necessary for them to cross the Harrahan Bridge which crosses the Mississippi,
and vehicles must be spaced 50 feet apart which required the cooperation of the
Memphis traffic and police force and Arkansas Highway Patrol, as well as a
number of our employees. These workers were hauled in every type of vehicle
from old passenger automobiles to large modern trucks carrying as many as
90 workers.
There is also quite a problem in recruiting this labor and it is done through the
cooperation of the different owners and drivers of the vehicles used in transporting
workers. In the early hours of the morning, when it is necessary for them to
leave, there is no streetcar service and various truck drivers have picked up the
workers in the vicinity of their homes. Of course, many live near our farm office
and these walk there, catching trucks at that point. All trucks come by the
office so that the driver may pick up the referral cards directing them to the
various plantations.
Our most serious problem this year will be transportation of these day workers
to the various plantations. During cultivating season this will not be such a
problem, as most truck drivers will still have tires good enough to carry them,
but, by harvest season, these tires will be worn out. As most of these trucks
and all passenger cars — of which there are several hundred — are privately owned,
it will be very difficult for them to secure tires. We find that the business people,
and others with sufficient money, have bought practically all good used tires and
recapped tires regardless of the prices that they have been forced to pay, and, in
many instances, people who can afford to do so have stored extra sets of tires in
their homes and elsewhere, and have run the prices up to prohibitive levels which
the average worker cannot afford to pay.
I have no doubt there has been widespread bootlegging of recapped tires for
higher prices than are allowed by the ceiling placed on such tires. Numerous
subterfuges have been used, such as service charges for changing tires to increase
the amount the dealer secures. Personally, I visited a number of tire shops
yesterday and found that the prices for second-hand tires in a fair condition for
the average small car were approximately $25 each, and that from statements
made by tire shops, they have no trouble whatsoever in disposing of them at
i Pt. 2. p. 783
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12183
those prices. This is going to result in large numbers of defense workers in
defense plants, which are mostly situated some miles from the city, being unable
to use their cars to transport themselves and fellow workers to these jobs, and
will especially deprive our plantation owners of large numbers of workers who
travel in their own personal vehicles carrying numerous other workers with them
to the plantations.
In regard to the supply of labor, we are going to find that there will probably
be a shortage, as the Selective Service will take many of the young and physically
fit, while defense industries will attract many others, and the large flow of labor
that is generally available in Memphis will be unable to reach the plantations
unless some method is found to solve the transportation problem. The demand
for labor will be larger we believe this year than last, as many plantations are
increasing their acreage to raise food crops and, although many of them are
attempting to secure families for sharecropping or day work, they will still have
to rely on available day labor transported daily from this city.
Housing in rural areas, of course, is another problem. As many of the planta-
tions have used day labor in cultivating crops, they have not built sufficient houses
to take care of families if same could be secured. With the increase in acreage
and the use of modern machinery by plantations, the demand for permanent
workers has greatly decreased in the past few years, while the demand for tem-
porary day labor has greatly increased. It looks as though now there will be a
housing problem on the farm as well as in the vicinity of defense plants which are
located some miles from the city and the transportation problem will grow more
acute as automobile tires grow more scarce.
Summary. — We anticipate a demand in industrial plants — mostly engaged in
defense work — of approximately 15,000 workers for 1942. This is to take care of
expansion and replacements. Approximately 4,000 of these will be employed in
defense plants situated some 20 miles from Memphis. Approximately half of
these will be women and transportation and housing will be serious considerations.
In agricultural labor, we could place at present from 700 to 1,000 families in the
area served by our farm office. We will, in addition, probably be required to
furnish 3,000 workers per day during the cultivation season, from April to June.
During harvest season, from August to the latter part of December, some twelve
to fifteen thousand workers will have to be transported to plantations per day. A
large portion of these will also be women. The migration of workers who travel
following the harvest season in vehicles owned by themselves will be seriously
curtailed on account of tire shortages. This will affect some of the larger planta-
tions in Arkansas who have seasonal workers following crop harvest from the
south to the north.
We believe that in Memphis proper, with the exception of skilled workers, there
will be no particular shortage of labor. We anticipate seasonal shortages of agri-
cultural workers, and that, on account of transportation problems, surplus labor
in Memphis will be handicapped in reaching plantations where they will be needed.
Daily referrals of cotton 'pickers
September—
Number
of trucks
Number
of cotton
pickers
September—
Number
of trucks
Number
of cotton
pickers
1
44
115
57
57
40
38
234
304
163
324
329
231
425
474
1,325
3,280
1,806
1,488
1,018
2,963
5,635
6,379
3,669
6,499
6,066
3,636
8,089
9,251
17
478
523
514
288
686
723
619
326
608
374
691
686
8,896
2
18
3
19 .
4
20
5
21, Sunday.
6
7, Sunday.
23
12, 751
8
24 .
9
10
26
11
5,285
12
28, Sunday.
29
13 .
14, Sunday.
30 .
11, 514
15
Total for month
16
9,351
12184
HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Exhibit 8. — Statement by C. F. Anderson, Director for Alabama,
United States Employment Service, Montgomery, Ala.
The Labor Market in Alabama Since June 1940
i. general characteristics and recent expansion
Excepting for the iron- and steel-producing Birmingham district, Alabama has
always been predominately agricultural. Recently imposed upon this agricultural
pattern, however, has been a war economy whose keynotes are new war facilities,
new industries, and expansion of old industries. These have had far-reaching
effects upon the State's life, and will exert an even greater future influence.
Skyrocketing employment can best be illustrated currently by the following
figures:
Employment
Type of industry
June
1940
September
1941
February
1942
(estimated)
increase
over June
1940
Total
281, 375
395, 480
427, 500
Percent
+51.8
Mining and quarrying
Construction
31,357
16, 053
143, 681
17, 785
51, 122
6,522
14/855
36, 154
53, 028
197, 288
21,046
63, 055
6,975
17, 934
38, 000
55, 000
220, 000
22, 500
66, 000
7,000
19,000
+20.5
+242. 6
+53.1
Trade
Even these figures of spectacular increase are essentially an understatement of
the volume of employment since they do not include workers employed by govern-
ment, interstate railways, and a number of small employers.
Indicated nevertheless is an over-all increase in nonagricultural employment of
40.5 percent between June of 1940 and September of 1941 and an estimated
51.8 percent between June of 1940 and February of 1942.
Virtually every phase of the State's industry has expanded since 1940, but
expansion has been particularly pronounced in the field of construction, wherein
employment has tripled. New factories, Army cantonments, air fields, and air-
training schools, and similar building have been primarily responsible for this.
(For the detail of these contracts, see table I.)
The expansion in manufacturing of 53.1 percent entails an increase of approxi-
mately 80,000 workers. The more important industries entering into this increase
are the manufacture of chemicals and allied auxiliary activities, saw-milling,
manufacture of textile products, manufacture of iron and steel and their products,
shipbuilding, and the manufacture of aluminum. (For the detail of production
contracts, see table II.)
The increase of 20.5 percent in mining and quarrying is almost entirely attrib-
utable to expansion and/or greater production in the iron and steel industry.
The majority of the large mines are of the captive type, feeding their coal and ore
directly into the steel mills. The large independent units either sell most of their
products direct to the same industry or produce coke which is used by the industry.
II. THE DEMAND FOR LABOR
An analysis of a few specific industries in the field of manufacturing indicated
to this department an increased labor demand exceeding 12,000 workers during
the first 6 months of 1942. Recent events would tend to indicate that this fore-
cast is definitely upon the conservative side. This figure for the first 6 months
of 1942 can furthermore be doubled or tripled by including demand from Govern-
ment plants and repair bases and from industries not included in the forecast.
Nor will the peak of expansion have been reached by midsummer. The greater
portion of the demand necessitates some degree of skill, and that can only be
developed by training.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12185
Demands of selective service are exerting a heavy drain upon the labor market,
but its impact is not subject to quantitative measurement (as something of a
military secret). Industry will be faced with a replacement problem of significant
degree. The present reaction on the part of employers is to hire older workers,
workers with some claim to deferment, and women — thus keeping clear of "draft
vulnerables" excepting in unskilled occupations. Attitudes range variously be-
tween expressed optimism and unmitigated pessimism upon the question of defer-
ments for workers now employed.
Thus far agriculture has been adversely affected by the lure of opportunity in
construction and industry and by selective service, which, however, has recently
adopted "a policy of deferring essential managers and laborers where their services
are required to produce food for the Nation." This shortage is further aggra-
vated by increased crop acreages.
III. AREAS OF MAJOR LABOR DEMAND
The defense program has created areas of heavy labor demand into which
workers have fed from other parts of the State and from neighboring States.
Those areas can be briefly described as follows :
A. The Muscle Shoals area.
Located upon the outskirts of Sheffield, companies for the manufacture of
ferrosilicon (for toughening steel) and alumina and aluminum products have
built their plants within the past 18 months and are currently using an approxi-
mate 3,000 workers in operations. The area will also produce synthetic am-
monium and ammonium nitrates, using about 800 workers in those productive
operations. Thus essential defense production has or will shortly have created
about 3,800 jobs in the Muscle Shoals area.
Rumors of further expansion are current. If rumor materializes into fact, a
probable minimum of 1,000 additional jobs will be opened in production.
B. The Huntsville area.
This has been essentially an agricultural and secondarily a textile manufac-
turing area. The building of a chemical warfare plant, and auxiliary facilities will
probably necessitate a work force of between 9,000 and 10,000 people, which might
again be increased by further expansion if such should materialize.
C. The Gadsden area.
In expansion of steel-manufacturing and shell-machining facilities, the defense
program will result in approximately 2,000 new jobs.
D. The Birmingham area.
Expansion of output of iron and steel (including basic raw materials) and of
the processing of steel products have added some thousands of production work-
ers in this area.
E. The Childersburg area.
The building of munitions plants, bag-loading plants, and storage facilities will
afford employment to approximately 13,500 production and auxiliary workers by
the time construction is completed later in 1942.
F. The Mobile area.
The city of Mobile has been essentially interested in paper manufacturing,
shipping, and ship repairing. The defense program has brought a new ship-
building industry, a huge Army airplane repair base, and minor expansion in
other industries. Jobs added by the two industries mentioned will add a con-
servative 28,000 workers between June of 1940 and the end of 1942. About
one-half of these hirings are probably still to be made.
IV. THE CURRENT STATE OP THE LABOR MARKET
A. The available supply of labor.
Alabama's crying need is for skilled workers, and to a lesser degree for unskilled
workers, in defense production. It may appear somewhat paradoxical that this
condition should exist with 87,946 men and women registered for jobs with the
Employment Service (115,237 in June 1940), but the explanation is not difficult.
12186 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
During the long depression of the 1930's skilled operators were no longer employed
where their skills could be utilized. During that period their skills became lost,
and many of the workers themselves became superannuated from the industrial
standpoint. At the same time the supply of skilled workers actually or potentially
exceeded the demand for them, so new workers were not trained in those occupa-
tions which are now so essential and also nonexistent upon the supply side of the
labor market.
Hitting a labor market which had become semistagnant, the defense program
calls for skills in production never existing in the State or never existing in suffi-
cient numbers to meet today's demand. It is significant, however, that there has
been no real or apparent shortage in construction skills.
Efforts of industry and of government in this situation of relatively abundant
unskilled labor and scarce skilled labor have been in the direction of upgrading,
job dilution, and training (both vocational or outside training and on-the-job
training). Job dilution and upgrading have been widely utilized in most indus-
tries, so it appears that training must necessarily be the future avenue of approach
to a major degree.
In 1941 the vocational defense training program made rapid strides forward
in the field of preemployment training, during which time 1,293 trainees found
employment. By the end of the year between 250 and 300 graduate trainees
were monthly being fed into industry. The volume of supplementary training
(aimed at development of greater skill on the existing job) was also great. Plans
are under way to effect a tripling of preemployment training.
In an effort to secure maximum utilization of the potential work force, directive
orders have been issued to the effect that neither race, sex, color, nor creed shall
result in a denial to admission to training classes where the applicant shows any
aptitude.
B. Migration of labor.
People have shifted around during the period since June of 1940 in considerable
numbers, but it is not possible to derive any quantitative estimate of migration.
In all cases the meccas of the wanderers have been the cities or areas of defense
activity. Their origins have been the small towns and the farms. The chief
focal points of in-migration have been Birmingham, Childersburg, Mobile, Shef-
field, and Huntsville.
Construction workers, due to the very nature of their work, have moved from
place to place as construction at one point has been completed and construction
begun at another. Workers for permanent operation of war| industries have been
recruited from the local and commuting areas to the maximum possible degree,
but growing shortage of local labor has resulted in substantial migration into
Mobile.
C. Housing and related problems.
The housing problem has been extremely serious in most of the defense areas
during construction. Barracks and trailer camps have flourished, sometimes with
such meager sanitary facilities that the absence of disease has been remarkable.
In the Clu'ldersburg area school busses were used as classrooms.
This has necessairly resulted since' the large defense projects (excepting Mobile)
have been built in or near small towns in agricultural areas entirely unable to
absorb a transient population. Now beginning is a new army cantonment at
Daleville in southern Alabama. About 18,000 workers will be employed on the
job, with only the local farm residents being assured of living quarters. The
schedule calls for completion in 120 working days. The provision of living
quarters is immediately necessary.
Staffing of plants for production has had to concern itself with the same lack
or inadequacy of housing and allied facilities. The building of dwelling units
by both private interests and the Government has taken the edge off the shortage
in most localities. In Mobile, however, it is doubtful that the shipyards will be
able to secure their needed workers unless some provision is made for shelter.
The saturation point of three shifts to a single bed has already been attained.
Major building of housing units or barrack-type dwelling places is imperative
now. Thousands are needed.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12187
D. Wage differentiations.
To the best knowledge of this department no significant wage differentials exist
in the State between occupations excepting minor ones between geographical
areas due to the normal bidding for labor in a competitive market. Axiomatically
also, hazardous occupations pay more than the less hazardous.
Between industries significant differentials do exist. Between textiles and
shipbuilding, as an example, the differential for skilled workers for a standard
40-hour week varies between $17 and $22, in favor of the latter. Between
powder manufacture and shipbuilding the same differential would be about $15
weekly in favor of the former. Such variations are inherent within the nature
of industry, and can only raise the presumption that labor will tend to move to
the best-paying job available if such differentials exist in a community. If
differentials exist between communities, such a tendency is partially curtailed
by the lack of mobility of labor.
v. CONCLUSION
To summarize, expanding industry has absorbed all skilled workers in many
occupations since June 1940 and has absorbed the labor supply in most of the
remaining skills to the point that most of the unemplojred may be considered as
marginal or submarginal under normal conditions. From this group and from new
or secondary workers must come replacements for the normal industrial work
forces as well as the new workers for the rapid expansion of war industries. Some
displacement resulting from priorities and curtailment orders will add to this
force of available workers, but will not be sufficient to meet the demand that will
come with contemplated war production. Selective Service will also make heavy
inroads into the State's labor supply and this will call for a heavy increase in produc-
tion workers from other sources.
It is true that many workers have come into the State in search of work in war
industries, but the migration problem cannot be regarded as a serious one in Ala-
bama. The clearance procedure of the United States Employment Service has
been utilized to prevent uncontrolled migration and it may be stated that these
efforts, generally speaking, have been successful. Our investigations and reports
indicate that a far greater number of workers have come into Alabama to take
defense jobs than have gone from the State in search of jobs in other States.
There has been a heavy exodus of workers from the farms to construction jobs
and factories. This is expected to present a serious problem on the farms of
Alabama this year. With expanding acreage of many farm crops, it is doubtful
that farm labor will be adequate in 1942. Mechanical equipment cannot be pro-
vided fast enough to solve the shortage which is recognized as serious by all agen-
cies dealing with the problem. The United States Employment Servicers putting
into operation a definite program which is intended to utilize to the fullest extent
all sources of labor which are available for farm work, including over-age persons,
women and children. In its planning, the Employment Service is in close collabo-
ration with farm agencies, such as the United States Agricultural Extension Service,
State department of agriculture, Farm Security Administration and Alabama
Farm Bureau Federation.
The ever-expanding program of vocational training will aid greatly in supplying
workers needed in industry in Alabama.
Inadequate housing presents the big problem in many of the centers of war
production in Alabama. It is the cause of much discontent among workers who
are being recruited for the war effort. It has resulted in the loss of many workers
who have come into the State's war production centers, have been unable to find
houses in which to live, and have moved to other sections in search of jobs which
will be within reasonable distance from adequate housing. The importance of
adequate housing is further emphasized at this time by the serious rubber situa-
tion. Many persons who have been able to commute many miles from their
homes to their jobs will be unable to do so in the future because of lack of tires.
Adequate housing, in our opinion, would be of great importance in solving the
problem of migration as well as the problem of obtaining an adequate supply of
skilled workers to man the war production machines.
12188 HUNTS VILLE, ALAV HEARINGS
Appendix I. Major Construction Contracts
To the best of our knowledge, table I contains the construction contracts
awarded in Alabama. Excluded is the detail of construction under treasury
certificates of necessity, although there is definite knowledge that these have been
issued to an amount exceeding $27,000,000.
Table I. — Major construction contracts in Alabama
TYPE OF ACTIVITY
Month
Ordnance
Airfields and
facilities '
Army can-
tonments i
Housing *
Shipbuild-
ing
Other
industries
Miscella-
neous»
1940
$9, 029
$152, 832. 00
55, 269-
33, 360
391, 784. 00
881, 065. 00
960,114.00
158, 313. 00
66, 980. 00
1, 928, 008. 00
458, 455. 50
2, 144, 612. 70
6, 310, 346. 50
362,213.00
1, 338, 405. 52
169, 187. 61
558, 983. 42
(«)
49, 737
$15, 761. 00
$499, 995
$6, 500, 000
162, 808
72, 853
1941
February
$56, 488, 592
22, 830, 817
1,717,511
410, 857
903, 177
2, 515, 042
$1, 322, 500
70, 740. 00
25, 601, 211
15, 226
195, 518. 00
405, 760. 00
184, 462. 00
345, 275. 00
95, 346. 80
145, 688. 00
189, 682. 00
(6)
(6)
65, 584
July
36, 397, 399
29, 000, 000
4, 606, 000
290, 000
155, 969
898, 831
263, 423
5, 010, 000
< 2, 645, 000
2,796,079
0)
(6)
547, 500
0)
(«)
1942
Total
149, 322, 80S
15, 881, 300. 25
1, 648, 232. 80
8, 202, 305
8, 977, 500
34, 897, 290
463, 866
Grand total, $219,393,302.25.
i Includes some housing facilities.
2 Substantially all earmarked for military or defense plant usage.
3 Primarily expended on post offices, flood control, dredging, and highways.
4 Estimated from cost of previous ways.
5 Not available.
6 Camp at Ozark (Daleville), Ala., for 30,000 men; no cost estimates available.
Note.— Included under ordnance is a grant of $14,091,000 for cost of equipment and $13,303,001 for opera-
tions.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12189
Appendix II. Major Production Contracts
To the best of our knowledge, table II contains production contracts thus far
awarded to Alabama firms.
Table II. — Defense production contracts in Alabama
Type of activity
Month
Textiles
Lumber
and prod-
ucts of
wood
Ammunition
components
Shipbuild-
ing
Machinery,
equipment,
and other
products of
iron and steel
Miscellane-
ous
1940
$715, 004. 90
214, 763. 25
87, 125. 00
738, 281. 98
1. 566. 884. 63
172, 933, 55
251, 558. 74
1. 573, 765. 00
1, 113, 706. 50
1, 121, 260. 77
902, 636. 60
1, 065, 597. 50
982, 555. 07
52, 582. 00
327, 160. 02
311,400.00
$36, 170. 00
132, 957. 00
127, 299. 80
21, 637. 50
78, 339. 86
3, 277. 00
$1, 013, 775. 00
$37,684.92
239, 348. 00
525, 880. 00
$27, 510. 00
1941
11, 060. 42
March...
803,000.00
"$i9,"56o,"666"
215, 364. 66
251, 736. 15
12, 532. 60
235, 550. 50
561, 370. 00
24, 599. 17
366^994.00
21, 319. 14
72, 323. 04
11, 204. CO
1,500.00
Time
3, 610. 00
30,000
31, 360. 00
July
155, 098. 80
7, 047, 200. 00
694, 572. 00
271, 260. 00
1,116,837.50
83, 993. 25
August.
19,880
35, 280, 000
18, 960, 000
176, 757. 44
32, 959. 25
339, 801. 00
21, 493. 50
49, 500. 00
162, 019. 70
64, 846. 56
1942
i 70, 560, 000
118,783.46
2, 702, 784. 00
68, 838. 00
Total
Grand total.
$173, 521, 625. 73
11,197,215.51
474, 284. 66
11, 185, 736. 55
144, 349, 880
5, 267, 486. 18
1, 047, 022. 83
Estimated on basis of previous contracts.
Appendix III
The following series of charts shows the employment levels of various types of
industry since June of 1940. These figures are secured from social security
reports, and exclude noncovered employment. The period beginning October
1941, and extending through February 1942, is estimated upon the basis of as
yet incomplete reports.
12190
HUNTSVTLLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Chart I. — Employment in all Industries, Alabama, June 1940-
February 1942
1940
1941
b ii d j p
1942
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12191
Chart II. — Employment in Mining and Quarrying Industries,
Alabama, June 1940-February 1942
45
40
1940
1941
1942
12192
HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Chart III. — Employment in Construction Industries, Alabama,
June 1940-February 1942
90
1940
1941
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12193
-Employment In Manufacturing Industries, Alabama,
June 1940-February 1942
J J A
1940
J F If
1941
60396—42 — pt. 32-
12194
HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Chart V. — Employment in Transportation, Communication, and
Utilities Industries, Alabama, June 1940-February 1942
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12195
Chart VI. — Employment in Trade Industries, Alabama, June
1940-February 1942
90
80
70
-£ 50
■a
<fl
i uo
30
20
10
i 1 1 1 1 1-
J J A S 0 N D
1940
J F II A
1941
0 N D J F
1942
12196
HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Chart VIIb. — Employment in Finance, Insurance, and Real
Estate Industries, Alabama, June 1940-February 1942
15
-2 io
"> — ' — r
N 0 J
1942
J J A S
1940
0 N
J F U
1941
•Chart VIIa. — Employment nrt Service Industries, Alabama,
June 1940-February 1942
25
10
J J A S 6 N
1940
1 1 1-
J F M
1941
U J
yTTTW
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12197
Exhibit 9. — Statement by A. H. Collins, State Superintendent
of Education, State of Alabama
In December 1940, the Alabama State Education Department received a
communication dated November 30, 1940, in which it was pointed out that in
accordance with the Seventy-sixth Congress, third seassion, Senate Resolution 324,
the Secretary of the Navy and the Secretary of War had filed requests with the
Federal Security Agency for the United States Office of Education to make a
study of additional school facilities needed in the national defense areas because
of the influx of school population. At that time, the United States Office of
Education sent forms and instructions for making such a survey in Alabama.
On December 14, 1940, the Alabama State Education Department forwarded
to the United States Office of Education surveys of the additional educational
facilities needed at that time in Alabama because of the influx of school population
in national defense areas. This survey included the following defense areas:
Anniston (Fort McClellan), Mobile (shipbuilding and air depot), Gadsden (Shell
plant), Birmingham area (steel and related companies), Selma (Craig Field),
Sheffield (aluminum plant), Montgomery (Maxwell and Gunter Fields). At that
time, an increase of 5,992 additional pupils was estimated in the school systems
in those areas. The survey showed that the school systems affected were not
financially able to provide the additional facilities. It was pointed out in this-
study that any expansion of national defense activities would cause an increase in
school population and a greater need for additional school facilities. Since the
December 1940 survey, the Childersburg-Talladega area, the Ozark-Dothan area,
the Tuskegee area, Phenix City area, and the Huntsville area have developed as
centers of national defense programs. Moreover, in the Birmingham area and in
the Mobile area defense activities have expanded. As additional needs de-
veloped, due to expansion of defense programs, estimates of additional needs were
forwarded to the United States Office of Education.
After the passage of the Lanham Act, Public Act 137, members of the Alabama
State Education Department, as consultants, assisted local school administrative
units in making applications for Federal aid to provide additional school facilities
which neither the State nor the local unit could provide, where needed due to
influx of school population in national defense areas in the State. At first, it
was difficult to secure application forms and instructions for making applications
for maintenance and operation. In the beginning, the personnel of the regional
office of the Public Works Administration discouraged applications for main-
tenance and operation funds and provided no forms or procedures for making such
applications but provided applications for Federal aid for school building con-
struction for the same school systems. To date, this office has received notice of
approval of statements of purpose for expenditure of grants received for main-
tenance and operation for only 2 school systems out of 21 local school systems
having additional pupils because of the defense program and applying for main-
tenance and operation grants. School officials, in the absence of approval of cer-
tificates of purpose, are in a quandary as to how to proceed to relieve overcrowded
conditions. Schools opened in this State in September 1941, but no school official
had any approved plan or procedure for relieving overcrowded classrooms in
national defense areas before February 1942. It is realized that school building
construction requires some time, but overcrowding could have been relieved
partially on a temporary basis through the use of churches, rented rooms, or
double sessions in cities, if funds could have been received and procedures approved
for payment of additional teachers and other current operating expenses.
Regional public works officials have insisted that local school systems match-
Federal grants through the issuance and sale of school warrants of indebtedness
even though the annual payments of such debt service would result in shortening
the school term. Most of the Alabama boards of education incurred almost
maximum debt service in the school building program in which Public Works
Administration grants were given in the period 1935-39, inclusive. A recent
State-wide survey shows that Alabama school systems need 7,883 classrooms and
that the cost of the construction of such classrooms on the basis of 1936-37 costs
would be $21,000,000. The insistence that local school boards match Federal
grants has worked a hardship in this State.
SCHOOL POPULATION
Surveys to date indicate that in 11 national defense areas affecting 27 local
school administrative units there has been an increase of over 11,500 pupils whose
parents have moved to the areas since June 30, 1940, and are engaged in national
12198 HUNTSVILLE, ALAV HEARINGS
defense activities. Over 60 percent of the increase in pupil enrollment due to
national defense activities is in the elementary grades 1 to 6, inclusive. Part
of the increase is due to migration within the State and part of the migration is
from pupils moving from other States to Alabama. The migration within the
State to the national defense areas has been widely dispersed over the State.
Local school systems outside of the national defense areas have lost school popula-
tion due to migration of families to defense areas, but the loss has been scattered
throughout the schools and the grades within the schools in such a manner as to
make it impossible for the local school systems to reduce their public school
expenditures.
RELATIONSHIP OF STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION TO LOCAL SCHOOL
ADMINISTRATIVE UNITS
The relationship of the State department of education to the various county
and municipal education departments is that of general administration and
supervision of the State public school system and of providing consultative and
advisory services to school officials throughout the State. The State department
of education, in cooperation with state institutions of higher learning, directs
comprehensive educational surveys of county and city school systems. In these
surveys, long-time plans for school building construction, for location of school
centers, and for the financing of public schools are made. State and local school
funds can be expended for school building construction only at school centers
recommended as future school centers by the surveys. State minimum standards
are prescribed and followed in the purchase of school busses by local school units.
Through office and field directors and supervisors, consultative and advisory
services are rendered to local school officials on general and specific instructional
programs, on vocational education, on civilian rehabilitation, on remedial work
with handicapped children, and on national defense training programs.
The State department of education administers the apportionment of State
school funds and Federal school funds allocated to the State, to local school sys-
tems. Local school administrative units are required by law to have the approval
of the State superintendent of education for the issuance of the sale of school
warrants of indebtedness, i. e., school bonds, and the law specifies that the State
superintendent of education cannot approve the incurrence of long-term indebted-
ness which will jeopardize the minimum school program. The department assists
local school officials in the sale of school warrants. Local school boards submit
annual financial budgets of estimated receipts and expenditures for the approval
of the State superintendent. The Alabama Public School Corporation, of which
the State superintendent is a member, negotiates short-term loans pledging current
State minimum program funds and apportions such loans to local school systems
in a manner so as to provide funds for the payment of current operating expenses
promptly, insofar as possible, and in addition local school administrative units are
authorized to secure short-term loans pledging current revenues only. The State
department of education provides uniform accounting and reporting forms, receives
copies of monthly payrolls and financial statements of local school systems, receives
annual statistical reports from local school systems, and from the local reports
prepares statistical annual reports for the State public school system.
SOURCE OF PUBLIC SCHOOL FUNDS
Under the Constitution of Alabama, local school administrative units may levy
and collect the following ad valorem taxes:
(a) A county 1-mill tax, or 10 cents on each $100 of assessed valuation of
property. This tax cannot be pledged for long-term indebtedness but must be
epent for equalizing school terms within the county, insofar as possible;
(b) Each county may levy a 3-mill tax, or 30 cents on each $100 of assessed
valuation of property. This tax is levied for public school purposes and may be
used for current operation and may be pledged for long-term indebtedness where
the schedule of payment of such indebtedness does not jeopardize the State
minimum program school term and is approved by the State superintendent of
education. Moreover, this tax is county-wide and this presupposes its use over
the entire county. Under existing laws, not more than 80 percent of the antici-
pated proceeds from this tax can be pledged for the payment of long-term indebted-
ness;
(c) Where the county levies the 3-mill county tax referred to in (b) above,
each tax district within the county is authorized to levy a 3-mill district tax, or
30 cents on each $100 of assessed valuation of property. This tax must be
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12199
spent for school facilities for the district and may be pledged for the payment
of long-term indebtedness in the manner stipulated in (b) above.
The State minimum program law ' covers the proceeds from 5 of the 7 mills of
taxes referred to above in the minimum program fund as part of the funds avail-
able to meet the cost of the State minimum program school term, except that the
amount of the required local contribution to the State minimum school program
is now calculated by equating the sum of certain economic indices of local wealth
with the proceeds of 5 mills of the local taxes. The economic index of the financial
ability of each county, including cities therein, includes the following items:
Sales tax paid, passenger automobile licenses paid, state personal income tax paid,
assessed valuation of public utilities, farm income, and value added by manu-
facture.
Three counties in the State have constitutional authority to levy specified
ad valorem taxes for school purposes as follows: Baldwin County, 2 mills; Mobile
County, 2 mills; Jefferson County, Y% mill. Three cities are authorized to levy
special 3-mill taxes for schools: namely, Selma, Decatur, and Cullman. Nine
other cities receive school revenue from special or general ad valorem taxes,
according to the purpose for which the tax was voted or according to the disposi-
tion of the regular city governing body.
Local school boards may charge matriculation fees for pupils enrolled in
accredited high schools but no fees can be charged to pupils enrolled in the public
elementary school grades one to six, inclusive, during the school term supported
by public taxes.
Montgomery County levies and collects a 1-cent tax on each gallon of gasoline
sold within the county.
County boards of education may receive appropriations from county govern-
ing bodies and city boards of education may receive appropriations from city
governing bodies. School boards may receive donations and gifts. However,
only very limited revenues have been received in recent years from any of the
sources listed in this paragraph.
State funds consist of the following:
(a) Public school fund, totaling approximately $3,600,000, consists of the pro-
ceeds from a State-wide 3-mill tax on property, a $500,000 appropriation from the
general fund of the State, interest on sixteenth section land from the State general
fund amounting to approximately $194,000 annually, fees and rentals in small
amounts, and funds from the property tax relief fund, in an amount equal to the
amount lost by homestead exemption. The 3-mill tax in the public school fund
is specified by the Constitution of Alabama. The public school fund is appor-
tioned on the basis of the number of children of ages 7 to 20, inclusive, within
each county.
(b) State educational trust fund: This fund is made up of the proceeds from
sales taxes, tax on hydroelectric companies, on railroad companies, on iron ore,
on coal tonnage, use tax, and other items which bring in small amounts. The
educational trust fund is a consolidated fund consisting of the following funds
apportionable to local school administrative units: 1. State minimum program
fund of $8,005,016; 2 2. State revolving fund of $100,000; 3. free textbook fund
of $200,000; 4. vocational education fund of $353,000.
(c) In addition to the above funds, public schools receive the amounts paid in
poll taxes each year, each county receiving the amount collected in said county.
The State minimum program fund is apportioned as an equalization fund to
each county. Whatever the county lacks, as measured by the equation of the
economic index of wealth with the proceeds from 5 mills of ad valorem taxes, of
having sufficient funds to meet the cost of "the State minimum program school
term, calculated on a uniform basis, that amount is supplied by the State through
State funds. In addition, the county has the proceeds from the poll tax and
apportions the proceeds from 2 mills of county taxes to extend school terms
beyond the State minimum program term. In general, only the high school is
extended beyond the State minimum program term in county school systems and
in a few counties funds have not been sufficient to operate accredited high schools
for 9 months. In city school systems, the proceeds from the 3-mill school district
tax are used as a measure of the ability of the city to support the State minimum
program school term. Additional amounts over and above the 3-mill school dis-
trict tax necessary to provide the State minimum program school term calculated
' Title 52, art. Ill, sees. 208-215, Code of Alabama. 1940.
' To this appropriation is added any unappropriated surplus in the State general fund over and above
$1,150,000 and this surplus amounted to $957,000 for 1941-42.
12200 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
on a uniform basis, are provided by the county board of education through State
and county funds.
SCHOOL TRANSPORTATION NEEDS
Alabama transports 59.1 percent of the pupils attending rural high schools,
68.2 percent of rural white high school pupils, and 48.3 percent of all white pupils.
For the year 1940-41, Alabama transported 224,239 pupils to and from public school
daily in 3,313 school busses. School busses are needed in all counties including
or adjacent to national defense plants, camps, forts, airfields, or projects. Sixteen
school busses were purchased by Talladega County to transport the pupils who
moved with their parents to that county since June 30, 1940, in order for the
parents to work at the munition plants and at the bag loading plant. The Shelby
County board of education purchased five school busses to transport children
who along with their parents moved into Shelby County since June 30, 1940, in
order for the parents to work in the munition plants adjacent to the county.
If the school systems in this State fail to secure school busses and tires and
parts of school busses, the rural school system will be wrecked. Failure to secure
school busses will severely handicap educational opportunity of children in defense
areas, along with other children throughout rural Alabama. This State is pre-
dominantly rural, 75 percent of the children in the State of ages 6 to 20, inclusive,
live in rural areas and in towns with total population of less than 2,500.
LENGTH OF SCHOOL TERM
The State minimum program school term for the year 1941-42 is set at 139
actual teaching days, or lacking 1 da}' of being 28 weeks at 5 days per week. For
the year 1940-41, the length of school term was as follows:
Elementary,
days
High school,
days
141
174
148
162
City.
176
State
167
Attention is directed to the fact that the white pupils in Alabama have the
shortest school term of any State in the Nation. The local school administrative
units levy and collect all the taxes allowed under the State constitution, except
for a combined total of less than $100,000, and cannot provide facilities for the
influx of school population in national defense areas from local sources without
further shortening the school term. The State has not made any provisions for
the additional pupils in national defense areas and the regular session of the State
legislature is not scheduled to meet until 1943. The State department of educa-
tion has not closed the schools in any school system in the State and no specific
authority is granted to the State board of education to close the schools at any
time. However, the public schools of the State operate under the State budget
law which requires local school boards to confine their financial obligations to
anticipated and actual revenue receipts for current operation. Naturally, this
means that schools can operate only so long as funds are available for current
operation. Lack of school funds has- caused a few counties to operate high schools
only 8 months. For example, in 1940-41, Clay County white elementary schools
operated 135 days and the high schools operated only 138 days and Talladega
County high schools were operated only 153 days.
Local school boards employ attendance workers designated by law as attendance
officers to secure regularity of school attendance during the school terms operated.
The local school attendance workers in this State must be graduates of an approved
standard college, must have had courses in social work and school attendance,
and 3 years of experience in teaching or social work, or a combination.
TEACHERS
No individual can teach in the public schools of Alabama without a certificate
issued by the State department of education under rules and regulations of the
State board of education. Formerly, a minimum of 3 years of training above
high school in an approved institution of higher learning was required for the
issuance of a certificate to teach. In 1941-42, a shortage of teachers has occurred
due to selective service and to resignations for higher salaries, and certification
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12201
standards are lowered to a minimum of 1 year of approved college training.
A recent study showed that since September 1, 1940, 23 percent of the white
men teachers of Alabama had left the teaching profession. Over 1,200 white
teachers quit teaching to enter military service or some other occupation from
September 1, 1940, to October 1, 1941. Since July 1, 1940, 397 emergency and
conditional certificates have been issued and a much larger number will have to
be issued in the near future.
Alabama has a single-salary schedule for allocating funds to school systems
for salaries of teachers. The salary allocated to local school systems per teacher
per month ranges from a minimum of $40 for the lowest trained teacher to $135
for the highest trained teacher. Local school boards have authority to pay
higher salaries than the State allocation salaries, insofar as available local funds
will permit. The average annual salaries for 1939-40, the most recent State-
wide tabulation, were: Elementary teachers $588; high school teachers $984.
In general, high school teachers have higher training and teach longer school
terms.
Exhibit 10. — Statement by B. F. Austin, M. D., Acting State
Health Officer, Department of Public Health, Mongtomery,
Ala.
Health Facilities Available in Alabama
1. By statute, the State Department of Health of Alabama is vested with broad
police powers. There are no references in the Constitution of the State to public
health. The governing body of the department has statutory authority to adopt
rules and regulations, which rules and regulations have the force and effect of law.
2. Each county health department is under the immediate supervision of a
county board of health, which serves under the direction of the State Department
of Health. In the event a county board of health fails or refuses to discharge its
responsibilities as set forth in the statutes, the State Department of Health may
exercise the functions of the county board of health in the jurisdiction concerned.
3. Each of the county health departments likely to be involved in defense
migration operates under a cooperative budget contributed to by the Federal Gov-
ernment, the State, and local governmental agencies. Since the initiation of the
defense program, supplementary United States Public Health Service personnel
has been furnished certain of the counties involved, as follows:
Calhoun, 1 nurse.
Dale, 2 engineers.
Dallas, 1 nurse.
Jefferson, 1 white physician, 1 Negro physician, 1 engineer, and I veterinarian.
Madison, 1 nurse.
Mobile, 2 engineers.
Montgomery, 1 Negro physician, 1 engineer.
Talladega, 1 nurse, 1 engineer.
Request has been made of the United States Public Health Service for a nurse
and an engineer for Colbert County.
4. In all the counties embraced in thi& report clinical services are furnished with-
out cost by the State department of health in the fields of maternal and child
health, the venereal diseases and tuberculosis.
5. In personnel the picture by counties is as follows:
Medical
Veteri-
nary
Nursing
Sanita-
tion
Clerical
1
1
1
1
5
1
2
3
1
1
2
l
0
0
1
4
3
2
4
2
48
4
11
9
6
3
3
2
3
2
2
26
4
9
7
5
2
Colbert
Dale
30
1
5
3
3
1
12202 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
With the exception of Jefferson, there has been no appreciable loss of personnel
in this group of counties. What the future will bring is a matter of conjecture
and concerning which no opinion can be expressed at this time. As occasion
demands the State department of health asks for deferment for key people but its
efforts in this connection have been partially successful only.
In per capita expenditures for public health and in personnel, the 1 1 counties
under discussion compare favorably with the country as a whole. With only
slight increases in numbers available for nursing and sanitation duties, it is
believed any problem presenting can be handled satisfactory and with expendition.
Exhibit 11. — Statement by Loula Dunn, Commissioner of Public
Welfare, State of Alabama, Montgomery, Ala.
The public-welfare problems created in Alabama by migration of people to
industrial centers, as well as the readjustments necessitated by the shift to a war
economy, were recounted briefly in the statement filed with the committee in
January of this year.1 Since that time, however, the tempo of war has altered still
further the complexion of the State, with projects scattered from Muscle Shoals in
the extreme North to Mobile on the Gulf coast. While some progress has been
made in attacking the problems created, it has not been possible to provide facili-
ties to keep pace with the expansion of plants and the raising of production goals
in the critical areas. The following information, therefore, is intended to bring
up to date that included in the January testimony, and to point to trends which
are now more clearlv indicated.
Likewise, this material is in supplement to that submitted by Mrs. Walter
Humphrey, Madison County Director of Public Welfare, who testified in Hunts-
ville as to the welfare problems of that area. While the Huntsville picture reflects
conditions throughout the State, difficulties vary considerably in the different local-
ities. (One illustration of this may be found in the attached article, The Powder
Mill Town, which describes what has happened in Childersburg as a result of the
construction of the Alabama Ordnance Works.)2 It is apparent, too, that the
ability of an area to meet change, to absorb new population, and to provide needed
facilities is dependent upon such factors as its size, its wealth, and the degree to
which it was already industrialized. The following summary does not delineate
in detail the many public welfare problems of defense areas, but gives emphasis to
certain needs which have become of paramount concern since the January brief
was filed with the committee.
While progress has been made since that date in the development of community
facilities for housing, education, health, and recreation, the gains have been largely
offset by further population increases resulting from orders to "double output"
and "triple capacity" in almost every individual factory, ordnance plant, and
shipvard. In one area 6 months ago 600 new houses seemed to be the maximum
that' would be needed; today 1,200 more would not fill the need. Executives in
war industries have frequently pointed out that they are unable to step up pro-
duction of materiel because there is no place for additional workers to live nor
any means of reducing congestion among those already employed. Thus, serious
social problems are created and productive efficiency is reduced.
In Mobile, for example, shipyards, though ready to increase their capacity,
cannot do so until satisfactory houses can be erected in the vicinity for the workers.
In other sections of the State, where commuting from nearby towns has lessened
the housing problem, further crowding is likely because of the rationing of tires,
cars, and gasoline. Labor turnover due to congested and inadequate housing is
likewise causing a lowering of efficiency among the workmen important to the
Nation's productivity. These workers will not stay on the job when they are
forced to sleep on "hot beds," eat in unsanitary restaurants where they wait in
line for a table, pay exhorbitant prices, and at the same time support a family
in another town. It is imperative, therefore, if war production goals are to be
reached, that decent living conditions be made available for workers in these
industrial areas — and that such facilities be provided without further delay.
In addition to the problems of crowded living, new difficulties and new emer-
gencies have arisen during the past 6 months which are of direct concern to public-
welfare agencies. The expansion of the armed forces is drawing larger and larger
numbers of men from civilian life and will reach further into the group with
dependents. Alabama, with its vast number of voluntary enlistments, is already
i See pt. 25, p. 9802.
« P. 12204.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12203
aware of what happens when the head of a family goes to war. Even though it
is hoped that pending legislation will soon be enacted to provide dependents'
allowances for soldiers, financial assistance is never the whole answer to family
separations.
With the rapid mobilization of the armed forces, with the acceleration of war
production, and with the necessity of maintaining essential civilian services, it
becomes obvious that the decision as to where any individual should serve will be
based more and more on his place of maximum usefulness and less and less on his
usual, peacetime family obligations. This is illustrated by the growing demands
for employment of women in the various industries of Alabama where before
1940 only the textile mills had many women employees. At that time there
were 25,000 women in the cotton and silk industries of the State. Now, according
to these employers, the trend is to replace men with women, even to the extent
that many jobs formerly held exclusively by men are now being performed
satisfactorily by women. Some recently established war plants have consistently
given preference to women applicants for work, while other new privately owned
factories have followed the same practice. These new employment opportunities
for women will obviously increase during the next few months, since 50 percent
of the State's male population is within the age group included under selective
service regulations.
The question, then, is not whether more women should be employed but rather
how the needs of their children will be met when they are employed. Few of
the areas highly affected by war industries have adequate public or private facili-
ties for day care of children. The need for such facilities, therefore, is apparent.
Today these new work opportunities can be utilized only by those mothers who
have relatives or older members of their immediate households in a position to
assume responsibility for their children. Those who seek domestic help are
finding considerable difficulty, for, even the families able to pay high wages can
seldom secure satisfactory servants. Some of the mothers are forced to reject
employment or to quit work after a brief time because of unsatisfactory arrange-
ments for their children. Girls as young as 10 or 12 must now take full charge
of their younger brothers and sisters if their mothers are to go into industry.
School-age children are also being left completely without supervision in the
afternoons. These problems faced by the mothers of school-age children are
more acute with the beginning of the vacation months. The recreational needs
of these older children in the congested centers are evident even when the mothers
are not employed— for congested living leaves no place for play. As more women
must be drawn from the potential labor market, both to replace men in the
armed forces and to perform jobs for which they are particularly well adapted,
more public resources must be developed for the care of children.
No single community can meet these problems alone. Though some Federal
aid is available to localities under provisions of the Lanham Act, the amount is
insufficient for even the most pressing needs. It is hoped that additional Federal
assistance can be provided to develop adequate day care facilities and to strenghen
existing child-welfare services. In Alabama the State department of public
welfare, in accordance with already existing legislation, has responsibility for
establishing standards for day-care centers and for issuing licenses to such centers
established as independent units apart from the schools. The standards which
have been developed are flexible enough to be adapted to each local situation,
and are in line with the report on standards for day care for children of working
mothers authorized by the United States Children's Bureau. Likewise, the
department of public welfare, in cooperation with the Department of Education,
has appointed a State-wide advisory committee to work in conjunction with both
the departments toward the development and standardization of day-care centers.
Surveys begun in strategic areas of the State have proved the urgent need for
prompt action, but in proceeding thus far with plans it has become evident that
there must be clarification of areas of responsibility and more definite lines of
procedure from the Federal agencies.
Second in importance to the development of day care facilities — if war produc-
tion is to utilize all available manpower and womanpower— is that of organizing
recreational programs for older boys and girls. It has been found that juvenile
delinquency varies in inverse ratio to the recreation facilities available, and that
the greatest number of offenders are in the crowded industrial centers where
supervision is lacking and play space nonexistent.
Child labor, too, is rampant wherever adult labor is in demand. Children are
often employed both on the farms and in the cities to do work formerly handled
by unskilled people. Their hours are long, their earnings poor, and, though
12204 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
infractions are frequent, authorities are finding it difficult to enforce the provisions
of the child-labor law.
Just as the needs of children are underlined by crowded living, so the needs of all
people who cannot provide for themselves are thrown into sharp relief. Mothers
with young children who might be physically able to work cannot yet do so because
of the lack of day -care facilities for their children. Job opportunities are becoming
more widespread, but the families receiving public assistance in Alabama, with the
exception of some parents with dependent children, are unemployable by reason
of age, blindness, or some other handicap. Instead of benefiting as a whole from
the upturn in business, therefore, these disadvantaged groups with low and
unstable incomes are finding that their small public-assistance grants or other
sources of livelihood buy less and less. Even though within limited available
funds there has been an attempt to make grants compatible with living costs, they
have not absorbed the difference between the value of the dollar a year ago and
what it will buy today. Likewise, surplus commodities — the only supplement
available to these low grants — have decreased in quantity and variety.
The proposed amendments to the Social Security Act to provide Federal
matching of general relief and variable grants to states according to ability to pay
would in some measure alleviate this suffering among the needy people in Alabama.
Likewise, such legislation would aid in providing for that segment of the population
which has come into the State to secure work and will be stranded when con-
struction levels off and the unskilled laborers who now have work again find
themselves with "nothing to do."
Because war demands the maximum capabilities of every citizen, those indi-
viduals who through no fault of their own are not productive must be aided by
their government in order that they may make a useful contribution to the war
program. In such proportion as they receive the help they need will they become
assets instead of liabilities to the democracy which we are attempting to preserve.
Community facilities, strengthened by assistance to individuals in need, must be
developed and expanded through the utilization of every local, State, and Federal
THE POWDER-MILL TOWN1
Lottla Friend Dunn
childersburg, a complacent community
Until December 1940 Childersburg's 500 inhabitants were indifferent to the
outsiders who drove on the Birmingham-Florida Highway within a quarter mile
of the village or who rode the streamlined trains which passed through the town
daily between northern cities and southern resorts. Its citizens had no interest
in these travelers and, likewise, the passers-by were scarcely aware of the little
community's existence.
In its self-sufficiency, however, Childersburg was neither outstanding nor
peculiar, but was typical of thousands of small towns scattered over the length
and breadth of the Nation. Its chief claim to fame was the monument stating
that "Two miles north of this spot the Indian town of Cosa was visited by DeSoto,
July 10, 1540."
The residents of the locality were content with their way of living and felt no
decided hardships because their village lacked a bank, a hotel, and a motion-
picture theater. Neither did they have any objection to the mayor's operating a
drug store, as well as doing official town business. After all, the responsibilities
attached to this position could be handled satisfactorily from headquarters at
the drug store, supplemented by occasional visits to the town hall.
It was, in fact, around the stove in the town hall that most of the local trans-
actions were weighed, discussed, and finally brought to completion. This small
one-room brick building, erected about 60 years ago as a saloon and converted for
public use when prohibition became local law in the early 1900's, also housed
the chamber of commerce and the presiding justice of the peace, served as police
Tieadquarters, and had space in the rear for the two cells which comprised the
town's jail. Thus the town hall was realistically the center of government in
the village.
i From The Journal of Educational Sociology, April 1942.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12205
The residents expected to remain there. They were, for the most part farmers
or tradesmen whose fathers and grandfathers had made their homes in the com-
1^-}1}y- u Vacant houses were unheard of, because new people seldom came to
Childersburg, and no new residences were likely to be needed. At least no
demand for them was anticipated prior to the time the Government annouAced
that it would spend approximately $80,000,000 on a powder plant just outside
the town limits.
It was then that war came to Childersburg. If there had been no program of
national defense to prepare for the present conflict, the village might still be
aware only from its youth who entered the armed forces and from newspaper
headlines and radio programs that the United States was an active participant in
the war. Instead, the whole complexion of the town became colored bv the
world emergency as early as December 1940.
CHILDERSBURG THE CHOSEN
The citizens were electrified by the news. They were somewhat surprised, too
to learn that adequate rail facilities, water supply, and available labor were among
the more important factors responsible for selection of the plant site Cries of
boom town, ghost town," and "beware of speculators" were heard on all
sides, while predictions of prosperity were equaled by those of dire distress
The entire aspect of the village was completely altered by the time the news
became public knowledge. The unpaved streets were jammed with cars ob-
viously those of nonresidents. Real-estate signs appeared on every hand 'with
remodeling and building going on in all quarters. The citizens were scarcely
aware, however, that an era had passed. Childersburg was no longer Childers-
Although residents could not immediately change their attitudes and their waw
?le'- QZ gradu.aUy began to realize they could not retain their former customs
or their old serenity. Accommodations were being put into shape for boarding'
and lodging the newcomers who were already flooding the town, even though the
boundaries for the project had not yet been surveyed. The old-timers con-
sequently could not ignore what was happening around them, because it had'made
them residents of a nationally important industrial area instead of citizens of a<
quiet village, important only unto itself. The community was no more unwillin-
than any similar community would have been to accept the inevitable but such*
drastic transformation is not without its difficulties.
Since these difficulties were due to the National Government's reaching into
the village and naming it a defense center, that Government, in making the
choice, obligated itself to help provide much needed community facilities ''Our
resources are inadequate and the emergency is serious," the mayor wired the
Governor soon after the plant location was chosen. And, although a willingness
to help was indicated, the assistance furnished was all part of a gieantic learning
process and so was not instantly useful. Perhaps the most glaring need at the
outset, therefore was that of planning at local, State, and Federal levels The
newness of the defense boom towns, as well as the problems they present quicklv
feXshi importance of joint, premeditated endeavor under 'national
MAKING ROOM FOR CONSTRUCTION
The initial delays on the powder-plant project (Alabama Ordnance Works) oc-
curred in surveying its exact location. Original reports indicated that 27 000
acres would be occupied instead of the 13,500 in the site which was finally selected
4 miles north of Childersburg. As a result of this confusion, a number of families
moved unnecessarily. ^ue*
Living on the reservation actually designated were 210 families, a majoritv of
whom were tenant farmers and sharecroppers. The few landowners, in general
hn?tv°ntnyS f «! °dlT- TFar-m S<T-rity Administration was assigned respond
bility to assist these families in making new living arrangements/ The agency
fntU^granlS' WhT 2e!dedvi° help pe°Ple move and established several projects.
£™ I 7 ° T1Sh6d t0 f ttle °n them- A g°od many took advantage of this
opportunity, a few moved to nearby counties, and a small number made inde-
pendent arrangements. Usually one person from these familv groups secured'
Sd^ri^X P While °therS aband°ned farminS temporarily to obTain
Thus, Farm Security, in relocating persons forced to find new homes, furnished:
to the area its first I ederal aid.
12206 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
CHILDERSBURG, THE POWDER-MILL TOWN
In the change from the hamlet of yesterday to the powder-mill town of today
there was a brief transition period which lasted from the time the plant site was
selected until the first workers began to pour onto the reservation. Dazed resi-
dents and avid speculators made frantic attempts to capitalize on this interval by
building bunkhouses and erecting new buildings, airing spare rooms and renovat-
ing servants' quarters, but the brevity of time and the general confusion prevented
any constructive planning. The influx of workmen far outstripped the provision
of living space for them. There were no blueprints for local officials to follow in
getting ready for the problems to come, and the "boom" was actually upon the
town within less than a month. Though construction was not started that soon,
skilled and unskilled laborers, singly and with their wives and children, joined
the trek to Childersburg so as to be on hand when jobs were assigned. They
tame on foot, by train, bus, and car, some with money and some without, and
they brought with them their problems.
Ihus. individual and collective difficulties have combined to make it hard for
Childersburg to cope with the problems which have arisen within its borders.
The time shortage has magnified the complexities facing the village and the lack
of coordinated effort by National, State, and local authorities has been another
factor.
Overpopulation. — All of Childersburg's problems stem from its major complaint
— overpopulation. No single facility, regardless of how entirely satisfactory it
was for 500 people, could, without decided expansion, accommodate several thou-
sand persons. This powder-mill town, therefore, found itself deluged with workers
and job seekers, promoters and "followers," none of whom had been taken into
consideration when the various local businesses and public services were set up.
The people who have come there represent every State and four foreign countries.
Many are veterans of construction jobs, having followed them all over the United
States. They usually bring their families, make the best of whatever conditions
they find, and expect to move on to the next job when their special skill is no longer
needed. Their wages are high and they usually are able to shift for themselves.
In contrast to this group are the unskilled laborers who rent bunkhouse rooms
and get whatever jobs they can hold. They are likely to roam the streets at night,
for as a rule they have no immediate relatives or have left them "back home."
Other unskilled and semiskilled workmen commute from nearby areas and con-
sider their work at the plant as being of the stopgap variety.
Still another group of newcomers includes the du Pont, Army, and Government
officials who, because they are able to pay higher rentals, frequently secure living
quarters in the larger cities near by.
At present — February 1942 — the peak of construction, with 21,000 employed,
has passed. Now approximately 19,000 persons are working at the ordnance
works, where authorized expenditure to date totals more than $109,000,000.
Though the date on which operation will begin cannot be announced, it is
expected to be sometime this spring. Then a new type of migrant will come to
Childersburg — the plant operator. He will be young, have at least a high-school
diploma and preferably 2 years in college, and must be at least semiskilled.
Persons trained at other ordnance plants run by the du Pont Co. will teach the
new operators, of whom at least 7,000 will be required to man the powder plant.
Construction on the TNT plant will not be finished for many months, necessitating
an overlapping of both types of workers in the area.
The crowding affects residents and nonresidents alike. Family dislocations
occur in as great a degree where the father, mother, and four children have moved
into the kitchen and rented the whole house to newcomers as they do when an
entire family group is forced to eat and sleep in a tent, a trailer, or a former
chicken house. Similarly, the mud and dust, the clogged streets, and the sky-
rocketing prices do not discriminate between old settlers and strangers.
Housing. — Thus, it is the lack of adequate housing facilities which is Childers-
burg's most conspicuously urgent need. Living space is at a premium not only
within the town itself biit also for miles on all sides of it. Trailer camps line
the highways in every direction and occupy most of the empty lots within the
village. These trailer camps, however, are not the picturesque tourist courts
frequently provided for the overnight traveler or vacationist. Instead, they
are bare tracts of ground on which are jammed as many trailers as can park in
the space occupied. Frequently a single building in the better equipped camps
provides sanitary facilities and from it occupants of the trailers must carry
water in any container they happen to have.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12207
Other makeshift living arrangements in the vicinity include bunkhouses, tent
camps, and groups of cabins in clearings under the trees. Town regulations
require an individual to pay a trailer-camp license if he allows as many as two
trailers to park on his premises. For one, however, there is no fee. As a conse-
quence, many homes in Childersburg with a few square feet of yard have trailers
parked there. Woodsheds, barns, and garages have been converted into livable
shelters and rented for fabulous prices. "Rooms," "Rooms and board,"
"Meals," and like signs appear on numerous front porches, because nobody
wants to be left out of the windfall.
Although the absence of housing facilities for the incoming thousands was
the most quickly recognized need in the community, no immediate aid was
secured. Application was made early for a defense housing project, but work
on the first 100 units was not started until the fall of 1941. Close to completion
in January of this year, the houses remain unoccupied because they are reserved
for families of plant operators expected in the next few months. Announcement
was made late in January that 200 more houses will be built to provide homes
for the relatively "permanent" personnel, but these, too, will be barred to con-
struction workers. Thus, while this greatly needed Federal aid will partially
alleviate the housing shortage, many transients and their families will be forced
to continue their makeshift arrangements as long as they remain in the vicinity.
It is consequently apparent that the difficulties faced by Childersburg in the
matter of housing have been complicated by the slowness of Federal aid and by
the absence of any provision for the construction workers. More than a year
has elapsed since certain needs became known and no assurance is yet given
that 12 months from now conditions will be greatly improved. A community
incapable of acting unassisted is thus placed in an even more precarious position
by delayed and limited action by Federal agencies.
Health and sanitation. — Like congested housing, health hazards are a corollary
to overpopulation. In and near Childersburg, the mosquitoes and the dust in
summer, the mud and the chill of drafty shacks and lean-to shelters in winter,
combine to produce manifold health dangers. These are multiplied because of
the inadequate water and sewerage system designed to serve a maximum of 900
people instead of the 6,000 now living within the town limits.
Application for a water and sewage project under the community facilities bill
was filed January 23, 1941, but numerous delays prevented work from starting
until January 26, 1942. The insufficient supply of water also produces a serious
threat in case of fire among the town's flimsy, frame structures, especially since a
single hose and a volunteer organization comprise the total equipment.
The lack of water, likewise, has hampered adherence to sanitary regulations.
Recognizing the need for control of health conditions in trailer camps, the State
health department, early in 1941, issued rules governing their construction and
maintenance. Strict enforcement of these provisions has proved difficult, how-
ever, because of the shifting population, insufficient personnel, and the many
adjustments necessary when a rural area becomes a defense center.
All of these potential dangers to health and safety are magnified in the light of
the inadequate facilities for care of the sick. One physician whose time was well
filled in looking after the town's original residents is now swamped with work, but
only one new doctor has moved to the locality. The nearest hospital, 11 miles
away, is hardly large enough for the increased population of Sylacauga and has
little space for patients from Childersburg. A greatly needed clinic for this
village was recently approved under the provisions of the Lanham Act but it will
have no bed space.
The Alabama Ordnance Works maintains an excellent clinic and a small hospital
for plant employees. They are cared for while at work and if injured on the job,
but no provision is made for follow-up on those sent home because of illness, nor is
anything done for their families. Since absenteeism cannot be effectively con-
trolled unless health and sanitary facilities are provided for workers and their
wives and children as well, the absence of sufficient doctors, clinics, and hospital
beds may prove a serious bottleneck in the rapid production of munitions.
Traffic and law enforcement. — Almost as serious a peril to individual health and
safety as the lack of hospitals and water supply is the traffic through which plant
employees must travel to get to work. Commuters from Birmingham go via the
39-mile "suicide strip" where the accident rate is mounting daily. The inaugura-
tion of a shuttle train between the city and the plant, as well as operation of
numerous busses, has reduced the number of cars at the ordnance parking lots to
about 9,000 a day. Cars pass the intersection of the access road and the highway
at the rate of 1 every 7 seconds throughout the 24 hours, however, and there
12208 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
is bumper-to-bumper traffic whenever shifts change. Four State highway patrol-
men in cars have been assigned full time to Childersburg while 6 more on motor-
cycles handle the flow of traffic out of Birmingham. Two additional patrolmen
work out of nearby Sylacauga. Numerous arrests have been made, but the rush
hours continue to be perilous. Another cause of congestion is the large amount of
through traffic on the main highway, which has not been widened to care for the
increased pressure. No relief is foreseen for the present traffic dangers until
construction work is completed at the plant and more houses are provided in the
immediate vicinity for employees.
Though assigned full police powers, the highway patrolmen are primarily con-
cerned with the maintenance of safety on the public roads. Since the patrol does
not work regularly within city or town limits, law enforcement and traffic regulation
inside Childersburg are the responsibility of local authorities. The one-man force
has been increased to four, but, since it lacks an automobile, its work is largely
confined to a small area within walking distance of the town hall. Despite a
growing awareness of the change in community life, there is still only a limited
follow-up on calls which come from a distance, and first allegiance is paid to
old residents.
Child welfare and education. — The upheavals in Childersburg are coloring the
lives of the children who have always lived there, as well as those of the transient
workers. These children may be unable to grasp the full meaning of what is
going on around them but they are adversety affected by the general restlessness
and anxiety among the adults. Likewise, they suffer from improper food, wretched
housing, little medical care, and the absence of community facilities for health,
education, and recreation.
The local school in 1940-41 had 13 teachers for its enrollment of 470, most of
whom were brought in from the country in busses. The 1941-42 session opened
with more than 900 children, each teacher having from 78 to 96 in a room. Appli-
cations for Federal aid brought allocation of funds for maintenance and approval
of a new 10-room building and a 4-room addition to the present structure. To date,
however, the new building and annex have not materialized and the only extra
space secured is the 6 rooms acquired by partitioning the auditorium. Twenty-
four teachers are now employed, many of them wives of defense workers. Only
4 of last year's faculty are now on the staff, and new teachers are forced to commute
from Birmingham. The married teachers accompany their husbands when the
latter go elsewhere to work, and, for this reason, some of the children have already
had as many as 4 different teachers during the present school term.
A similar turn-over is reflected among the pupils. Eighty percent of the new
students brought no school records with them for they have continuously lived
from place to place, while already this session approximately 100 children have
withdrawn because their families are again on the move, following the trail of
defense employment.
Obviously, schooling under such conditions fosters truancy. One attendance
officer must serve the entire county — an area in which every school is overpop-
ulated by the influx of defense workers. (Another large defense project is being
built in the northern part of the county.) Children, especially if both parents
are working, frequently obtain undesirable jobs or become delinquent, because
the necessary supervision is impossible.
Among the teen-age girls who are coming into Childersburg, lured by the excite-
ment of a boom town or by the hope of employment, many have secured work as
waitresses at wages unprecedented in relation to their former economic status.
These girls, with average earnings of $8 a week, pay disproportionately large
amounts to live in cluttered rooming houses with no provision for their leisure
hours. All too frequently they begin to prefer the adventures offered by ques-
tionable commercial forms of entertainment, and sometimes drift into prostitu-
tion. Decent, low-cost housing for these girls, wholesome, satisfying recreation,
and some essential supervision would go far toward making it possible for them
to earn an honest wage and toward redirecting their free time. A special com-
munity worker on a protective child-welfare assignment is examining this problem
closely and has recommended that aid be given to the town for building up the
resources that are lacking. To date, however, no steps have been taken to pro-
vide a recreational or housing center.
Recreation.- — That the need for recreational opportunities is not confined to
teen-age girls, however, is apparent even to the most casual visitor. Men aim-
lessly roam the streets in the summer dust and now plod listlessly through them
in the winter mud. They visit the post office and return to their rooms unless
they patronize some of the commercial recreational spots which thrive with little
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12209
regulation in the midst of town and along the highways. There are shooting
galleries, one motion-picture theater, "juke joints," and taxi dance halls. On
Fridays — pay day at the plant — business booms in every quarter while blind
guitar players, itinerant beggars, and promoters of various patent remedies join
the throngs on the narrow streets.
Work Projects Administration last year organized a recreational program which
included a playground and small library. It has been difficult, however, to secure
strong leaders from certified personnel and to obtain the necessary equipment.
With no auditorium except that of an adjoining church, the program has met with
only limited success.
Recognition of the need for recreational outlets led to erection (under the Lanham
Act provisions) of a community center to be operated by United Service Organi-
zations. This well-equipped building, manned by a trained staff, is expected
to be a definite asset to the entire area. The delays in opening, caused by nu-
merous unexpected difficulties, consequently produced keen disappointment
among both local people and newcomers.
CHILDERSBURG TODAY AND TOMORROW
From this account of its rapid and lopsided growth, it is evident that an accurate
picture of Childersburg today is dark and uninviting. Overpopulation, improper
and substandard housing, inadequate health, educational, and recreational facili-
ties, coupled with attendant social and economic problems, combine to present
a dreary outlook. A once scenically beautiful highway has been transformed into
a conglomeration of "juke joints," unsightly trailer camps, paintless bunkhouses,
and clusters of tents and shanties. "Gus's Place" completely overshadows the
monument to De Soto's visit.
As Childersburg moves into 1942 with many construction workers moving on
to other projects, with a gradual unraveling of the machinery by which Federal
aid comes to a defense boom town, and with a growing acceptance that it will
never again be a contented village, the town is completing its transition to a
new kind of life.
Does this mean that Childersburg is to become a casualty of the war, or can it
be made into a happy American community? As a powder-mill town helping to
win this war, it must fight a battle to save its own soul in order that it may again
be a place where people — though busier than they were before- — can live in peace.
Childersburg cannot, however, find its peace alone. So far, what has been done
is only a beginning. Other much needed assistance would incorporate in planning
a four-lane highway, additional housing developments, public park facilities, and
further provision for health, welfare, education, and sanitation. The community
is accepting its new conditions of life despite the mayor's statement that "We
prayed for this thing and now we are praying for forgiveness."
The town cannot, however, provide a healthy and orderly kind of community
life which can produce the powder that is our Nation's necessity except as the
community can feel the friendly hand of its Government reaching in through the
network of wartime services and duly constituted national agencies to underpin
these facilities.
The victory to be gained depends both on the need to construct and man powder-
mill towns and on the recognition that there must be decent community life in
these defense areas. Workers and their families must be assured that what they
do is as important to the winning of this war as planning for the armed forces.
They must know, too, that their Government is equally as interested in the
community life afforded them as it is in the" morale of the military services.
In this defense community, gaps, inadequacies, and confusion still exist, but,
as the town has changed its initial tempo, so the Federal and State agencies of
Government have indicated certain ways they can and will help. These interests
and resources must now be brought closer together in order that the town's basic
needs can be met. As the Nation's war production is speeded up and the demands
upon the civilian population are increased, every safeguard must be extended to
these defense workers, in order that victory may be assured in the powder-mill
villages, as well as on the battle front.
These villages must be safe and good places in which to live both today and
tomorrow when the critical emergency has passed. Childersburg is now a powder-
mill town and not a sleepy agricultural center. It must adjust to a new era of
living and the newcomers must become a part of the community, and not apart
from the community. All this will take time and the cooperation of local, State,
and Federal authorities. Coordinated planning must follow, but courage, resource-
fulness, and unity of purpose give promise that present conditions will give way to
60396— 42— flt. 32 18
12210 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
well-rounded community life and preserve individual freedom
our democratic American traditions.
keeping with
Exhibit 12. — Statement by D. O. Dugger, Manager of Proper-
ties, Muscle Shoals Area, Tennessee Valley Authority,
Wilson Dam, Ala.
Early in February the chief field investigator attached to your committee visited
this office and discussed with me briefly some of the problems confronting us in
the field of employee transportation. At that time we were about to initiate a
survey for the purpose of determining the possible need of our employees for trans-
portation facilities as of the time the use of private automobiles would be drastically
curtailed or entirely eliminated because of inability of employees to obtain tires.
Our first step in the survey was to determine the origin of our employees and the
manner of their transportation to their place of work. This information we have
obtained. I am pleased to attach a copy of these data.
Early in the survey it became apparent that the problem of employee transpor-
tation is coming to all of. the defense industries in this area. It seemed appropriate,
therefore, that the problem be explored on a broader basis than was originally con-
templated. Accordingly, a committee composed of representatives of the several
defense industries in the area and of civic groups in the communities has been
organized and is now engaged in developing basic data to permit of the most in-
telligent approach to the problem of providing adequate, carefully coordinated
employee transportation service for the defense workers in the district. The
committee is not yet in a position to supply data relating to the problem.
Tennessee Valley Authority data on employee transportation— Muscle Shoals district,
Mar. 15, 19^2
Origin
Number
of
workers
Travel
distance,
miles
Origin
Number
of
workers
Travel
distance,
miles
Metropolitan area of Tri-
Cities served by bus line:
1,034
622
255
225
Alabama— Continued.
23
2
8
3
1
32
3
36
70
3
31
1
2
1
1
1
1
4
10
7
4
12
1
5
13
1
1
23
26
41
27
Phil Campbell-. —
35
27
2,136
25
30
Rural areas adjacent to Tri-
Cities served by Rural
Free Delivery. Probable
average travel distance 8
miles:
207
61
106
20
39
30
23
Mississippi:
40
56
8
34
50
374
49
95
Alabama:
13
6
2
42
14
9
1
31
2
2
2
39
31
42
18
33
17
23
13
25
53
45
50
47
32
66
10
13
49
75
48
Tennessee:
30
Ethridge
46
26
40
37
riwifnr ""
29
Pittsburg Landing
68
53
21
West Point
28
44
Leighton
Total workers originating in other than the metropolitan area of the Tri-Cities, 930.
Average worker-miles of travel distance for workers originating in other than the metropolitan area oi
Survey of 817 employees in departments other than chemical engineering shows 645 being transported in
private automobiles.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12211
Exhibit 13. — Statement by J. M. Griser, Vice President, Ala-
bama Dry Dock & Shipbuilding Co., Mobile, Ala.
Labor Turn-Over
We respectfully submit the following statistics concerning our labor turn-over
as related to the Mobile housing situation and future effect upon production
schedules of this company.
Yearly production employment for the highest week was as follows:
Employees
1939 1,350
1940 3,257
1941 (to date) 10,500
Estimated additional worker demand during the next 12-month period will
approximate 10,000 men. Our present schedule calls for employing one-half
this number during the next 5 months.
Our personnel department constantly furnishes estimates of company require-
ments, together with type of employees needed, to the United States Employment
Service. We are working, in a limited degree, on reciprocal arrangements with
companies whose production has been curtailed by the national defense program.
At the present time, considerable recruitment is being done through applications
filed with the personnel office ; however, we feel this source will soon be depleted.
The Selective Service Act has drawn about 40 of our employees into the armed
forces during the past 30 days. An additional 20 terminated to volunteer.
It is the policy of this company not to ask for deferments except in the case
men difficult to replace and very necessary to our production schedule.
We have incorporated a production-worker plan which is divided into these
four phases: (1) preemployment training, (2) training on the job, (3) supple-
mentary training, and (4)' supervised training. Production workers are given
instruction on the job, during working hours, by qualified supervisors and me-
chanics. Supplementary training is given, after work hours, in the plant. These
classes, having a restricted maximum of 15 men, meet two or three times weekly
for about 3 hours. The training is of a specialized nature, being blueprint reading,
safety methods, use of tools, materials, and trade mathematics. Instruction is
given by supervisors and skilled mechanics who have qualiffied through completion
of training courses set up by the War Production Board.
Over a period of 4 pay weeks beginning March 31, 1942, and ending April 21,
1942, the average number of employees was 11,161 and terminations 531, indicating
a labor turn-over of 4.75 percent." A large portion of terminations are due to in-
adequate housing. Our industrial relations department records a daily average
of over 75 employee complaints of inability to obtain living quarters.
In order that we may execute the ship-building and ship-repair program sche-
duled for us by the United States Maritime Commission and the United States
Navy, it is absolutely necessary that we increase the number of employees in
our plant as outlined above. We understand that the Gulf Shipbuilding Corpo-
ration and the United States air depot at Brookley Field will also have an ad-
ditional worker demand during the same period as ours. We are very much
alarmed on account of the inadequate housing facilities in and about Mobile,
and unless something is done immediately to remedy this situation, we fear
that none of us will be able to build our employment up to the peak necessary
to carry out the program that has been outlined for us.
We have been approached by Mr. C. F. Bates, of Mobile, in connection with
male barracks and cafeteria which he and his associates are interested in con-
structing and operating on Blakely Island, which is adjacent to Pinto Island,
where our main plant is located. They propose to build 32 barrack buildings,
which will house 2,500 men, with the necessary other buildings for cafeteria,
laundry, office, arcade, and stores. They estimate that the cost of this venture
will be approximately $1,000,000. They advise that they are able to finance this
project to the extent of $100,000 and are requesting our advice as to where they
may be able to obtain a loan in order that they may execute this program.
We feel that there is a dire need of such an establishment. Not only will
it house 2,500 of our workmen, but it will place them within walking distance
of their work and thereby relieve the transportation problems that we will be
facing when automobile tires are no longer available. We are not in position
12212 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
to advise these gentlemen as to where assistance can be obtained for this project.
We hope something of this kind can be constructed on this site as it is by far the
most appropriate location for a large male barracks.
Exhibit 14. — Statement dy Charles A. Baumhauer, Mayor-
President, Board of Commissioners, City op Mobile
Public Facilities in City of Mobile
This statement sets out some of the conditions existing here in Mobile at this
time and what we may expect in the future.
Let me point out in the beginning that the debts of the city of Mobile far exceed
constitutional limits; therefore the city cannot issue bonds or incur debts chargeable
to the general debt of the city. The city of Mobile has what is recognized as the
lowest tax rate of any city with a population of over 50,000. When this is ex-
plained it is easy to understand the limitations and extent of the city's ability.
The proposed additions to the water and sewerage systems which have been ap-
proved bv the department of public works were carefully considered so that the
debt service would be reasonably certain from present and future income of the
water department. These projects are not chargeable to the general debt structure
arid are contingent upon an election to be held in this city on May 14.
In furnishing figures on population, it is necessary to include the metropolitan
area which is adjacent to the city and which receives some of the services of the
city, such as police and fire, but not to the extent furnished within the corporate
limits. The population in this area according to the last census was 114,906; a
conservative estimate today is 150,000, or an estimated increase of approximately
35,000. . • ' •
Transportation is a problem that requires serious attention, both as to public
conveyances and private automobiles. During the peak hours when the major
part of the workers in the several industries and Brookley Field report for work
and in the afternoon on their return home from work, all busses are crowded to a
point where no more can be handled. Certain streets of the city are heavily con-
gested with automobiles. Mobile being one of the old cities of the country, street
planning did not take into consideration heavy movements of motor vehicles.
There are comparatively few through streets and these few must bear the burden.
The 100 percent use of all busses extends over a period of 5^ hours each work-
day ; during the balance of the day, about 60 percent are in use.
About 2 weeks ago, a representative of the Public Roads Administration came
to Mobile with representatives from the State highway director's office and the
State highway patrol. I called' in representatives from the larger industries,
Brooklev Field and the chamber of commerce. Several conferences were had
with a view toward staggering hours over a longer peroid, each industry to coor-
dinate their system with the others so that the movement would be as smooth as
possible and would not interfere with production. Mr. Sowell, from the Public
Roads Administration is expected back in Mobile this week to carry on with the
plan. Practically all of the industries have signified their willingness to help.
When this plan is put into operation, it is hoped to receive the cooperation of
retail stores, offices, banks and all institutions employing the white collar group
by pushing down their opening and closing hours so as not to interfere with the
heavy movement from industry. A number of the larger plants are working
overtime; the movement from these plants at about the same time as the clerk
movement begins, adds to the congestion.
We need badly to widen some of the narrow through streets; to open new ave-
nues and to connect certain existing streets. A good bit of thought and attention
is being given to this matter. A plan is underway to carry out a small part of
this street program if the city has the legal ability. The matter of financing is
now receiving study. In any event, the city is badly in need of an extensive
street program.
As the tire situation becomes more critical and thousands of additional work-
men are brought in and many who now reside a long distance move in closer, the
burden upon public conveyance will be beyond the capacity of present equip-
Up to this time, the supply of water is ample to meet the demand. Total aver-
age pumpage has increased from 9,000,000 to 10,000,000 gallons daily. An
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12213
additional supply will be necessary if the population increases as is anticipated.
A filtration plant is needed — encroachment on the watershed by human habita-
tion and soil erosion make it a vital necessity. The United States Health Service,
the Alabama Board of Health and the Mobile County Board of Health strongly
recommend this addition. This filtration plant, extensions to the water dis-
tribution system and construction of a new sanitary sewer main are included in
a project which has been approved by the Department of Public Works, and
which will be placed before the people at an election on May 14. The future
needs are additional water supply and extensive additions and corrections to
sanitary sewer system. The necessity for a large portion of these additions comes
from the area beyond the city limits and is due almost 100 percent to war indus-
tries.
The number of new houses built in 1941 is 1,700.
Number of Fedeial Housing units under construction or approved is 3,600
dwelling units; single room dormitories for 500 men and trailer court for 300
families. These are both within and outside the corporate limits. The Federal
Housing Administration has approved 3.000 homes to be built with private capital
during 1942.
Law enforcement and traffic has suffered to some extent, chiefly a lack of traffic
officers. The department is now short six or seven men and it is with extreme
difficulty that new men can be found. The compensation of a private in the
department is $131 per month as compared to $70 paid 4 or 5 years ago. While this
is a considerable increase, it does not compare with wages earned by a number of
men in industries. The ability of the city to pay higher wages is controlled
altogether by receipts. The anticipated growth will require additions to the police
force to insure proper protection.
The fire department of the city is entirely motorized. With few exceptions,
the apparatus is from 14 to 20 years of age. Recently, we added a new 100-foot
aerial ladder truck and one 500-gallon pumper; a 750-gallon pumper is on order
and expected. In addition to these purchases, a project was filed with the depart-
ment of public works for a new one-truck fire house to be built near the new
housing developments; one new truck to be stationed at this new house and one
new truck to give added protection to the downtown area, which is congested, and
the industries. This project was disapproved by the Atlanta office of department
of public works. It is urgently needed to give added protection to existing indus-
try and new residence construction — therefore, we hope to have it reopened. The
age and condition of most of the fire equipment will necessitate its replacement at
an early date if proper protection is to be given new development.
Local hospitals have been crowded for some time. Providence Infirmary,
Mobile Infirmary, and Allen Maternity Home, all private ii stitutions, have at
present a total capacity of about 225 beds. The city hospital, a strictly charitable
institution has 110 beds. With the added population' up to the present time,
more facilities are necessary. Projects have been approved for a 50-bed addition
to each of the Providence and Mobile Infirmaries and for the construction of a
new 100-room city hospital. This new hospital with additions to existing insti-
tutions should relieve the situation but when they are ready for occupancy, the
load will have increased again so that more facilities wilJ be needed.
It has been conservatively estimated that 10 to 15 thousand additional employ-
ees will be needed in the war industries and Brookley Field during the next 4 or 5
months.
All of this additional load has been added to our city which has suffered greatly
from financial problems and low income. Almost all of the population increase
is due to war needs. These matters have been explained to numerous com-
mittees, boards, engineers, and investigators of the Federal Government. In one
instance, a group of 10 or 12 Congressmen came here for a personal investigation.
In every instance we were told that Mobile was the "hot spot" of the country and
that help was needed and needed quickly and yet, it has been extremely difficult
to get assistance. This assistance is necessary if local production is to reach
planned quantities.
Recently, a planning committee was authorized to give study and make recom-
mendations as to the needs of the community. The personnel of the committee
will be composed of officers of the Army and Navy stationed here, representatives
from several large industries, and a local attorney. It is understood recommenda-
tions from this group will receive priority rating which is so necessary.
12214 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
In addition to projects already approved, the most important for consideration
for immediate future needs are as follows:
Additional water supply.
Additions and corrections to sanitary sewer system.
Widen streets and open new streets.
New city jail; present jail condemned.
Provide recreation, badly needed.
Additions to fire department.
Further study of hospital additions.
Experience will show definite needs as the trend of growth is in one direction or
another. Close attention will be given to any possible demands and efforts to
provide service will be made.
It is most important that the Federal Government take notice of existing
conditions and render immediate assistance. The need is now; the war will not
wait for us to prepare.
Exhibit 15. — Statement by C. F. Anderson, Director for Ala-
bama, United States Employment Service, 711 High Street,
Montgomery, Ala.
The Shipbuilding Industry in Mobile, Ala.
The Mobile office of the United States Employment Service has been affected
materially by the expansion of war industries in the area. The Employment
Service is being relied upon to a greater extent, especially in supplying skilled
and semiskilled workers to defense jobs. Much of the recruiting for these classi-
fications is done through our clearance system since this type of labor supply has
long since been exhausted locally. In-migrants to the Mobile area have very
definitely increased the activities of the local employment office. It is estimated
that between 65 and 80 percent of new applications (between 617 and 760 reg-
istrants on the basis of approximately 950 applications in April 1942) taken in
the white division are in-migrants. This figure will run 15 to 20 percent (between
250 and 308 registrants on the basis of approximately 385 applications in April
1942) in the colored department.
Open orders are held by the employment office from the shipyards for [men
skilled and semiskilled in the following occupations:
Shipfitters Ship electricians
Marine pipefitters Sheet-metal workers
Arc welders Machinists
The Employment Service is constantly on the look-out for applicants coming
into the office who might be qualified for any of these jobs, and if qualified, are
referred to the shipyards.
Recruiting needed workers from other areas is done through our clearance
system. Briefly the clearance system works in this way — all sources of local labor
supply are exhausted for workers to fill local needs. If and when local supply
is inadequate clearance orders are instituted for distribution to other areas within
the State, and, if need be, clearance orders are forwarded to the regional and
national levels. The last order which has just been put into national clearance
was for 1,000 electric welders. The clearance system of the United States Employ-
ment Service is far more widely used and is functioning now much better than
was true in the past. In Alabama only 7 clearance placements as order holding
office and 13 clearance placements as applicant holding office (a total of 20) were
made in March 1941 with this number increasing to 2,338 clearance placements
as order holding office and 2,773 clearance placements as applicant holding office
in March 1942. A high percentage of the skilled and semiskilled persons included
in these placements were for the shipbuilding industry in Mobile.
In addition to using the Employment Service, local war industries still rely on
the old methods of hiring at the gate, recruiting by word of mouth, and through
their employees. Probably one major reason for a continuation of this type
recruiting is the large numbers of job seekers at their employment offices every
day. A large percentage (probably 60 to 70 percent) of these job seekers are
in-migrants.
In Mobile it is definitely becoming a very acute problem to house these addi-
tional incoming people. In fact, the labor turn-over is some of the war industries-
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12215
is alarming. This is partly attributable to suitable living quarters not being
available for workers, especially the better type.
As above stated, there is already a somewhat acute shortage in certain war
industry jobs and the situation is expected to become much more acute in the
near future. Already considerable relaxation in specification of job qualifica-
tions is noticeable by the number being hired in the nonskilled, semiskilled, and
trainee classifications.
The use of increasing numbers of vocational education trained people will
continue to alleviate the labor shortage to some extent. Local training material
has practically reached the exhaustion point in the Mobile area, and we are at
present bringing trainees in to a resident center from contiguous States. One
of the major factors contributing to our inability to recruit for training is that
very few eligible for training are able to sustain themselves without working
while taking training.
The acute housing shortage in Mobile is affecting very materially the efforts
in recruiting needed laborers for war industries.
An estimated number of available nonregistered workers, including women and
handicapped workers, is 1,100. Of this number approximately 45 percent (495)
are estimated to be women. Not more than 3 to 5 percent are thought to be
handicapped persons who are available for employment.
Break-down of Mobile County active
file
through Apr. SO, 19tf
White
Negro
Occupation group
Men
Women
Men
Women
Un-
der
21
21
to
44
45
to
64
65
and
up
Un-
der
21
21
to
44
45
to
64
65
and
up
Un-
der
21
21
to
44
45
to
64
65
and
up
Un-
der
21
21
to
44
10
1
no
1
0
0
0
4
0
2
128
45
to
64
0
0
15
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
16
65
and
up
Professional and managerial
9
26
15
14
28
41
18
54
16
36
256
30
53
22
56
31
1(17
57
203
28
78
674
17
26
31
2(1
19
60
11
34
4
37
253
3
14
18
6
5
11
1
3
0
13
74
17
31
13
0
3
6
0
3
0
74
40
134
71
3
33
16
101
10
66
16
490
17
50
55
0
46
4
24
3
7
1
207
0
3
2
1
5
0
0
0
0
0
11
0
1
13
6
0
0
4
24
4
41
93-
5
1
35
16
13
5
33
56
24
443
631
2
1
12
10
3
2
6
9
2
270
320
0
0
2
3
0
0
0
0
1
36
42
0
0
20
0
0
0
0
0
0
30
0
1
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
Agricultural fishery, etc
Skilled
Do_
Do
Unskilled
Do
Total
Total white
men,
1,157
Total white
women,
782
Total negro
men,
1,092
Total negro
women,
176
Summary, Mobile County:
Men-
White 1,157
Negro 1,092
Total 2,249
Women:
White .. .__, 782
Negro 176
Total 958
Grand total 3,207
Included in the count the following Work Projects Administration registrants:
Men:
White 300
Negro 403
Total ^03
Women:
White 307
Negro 23
Total 3^0~
Grand total... 1 033
12216 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Also included are:
Trainees 193
Stevedores 137
(Negro, 133.)
Exhibit 16. — Statement by Col. V. B. Dixon, Commanding
Officer, Brookley Field, Mobile, Ala.
War Department,
Air Corps,
Brookley Field, Mobile, Ala.
STATUS OF PERSONNEL SEPARATIONS
The House Committee Investigating National Defense Migration requested
that Maj. George Dunn submit a report to your office showing the status of
personnel separated from service with the Army Air Corps at Brookly Field
and the reasons for their separation. Major Dunn having been assigned to other
duties which preclude him from submitting this report, the information is fur-
nished by the undersigned.
At the close of business on April 30, 1942, there were included on the Air
Corps pay roll for this depot a total of 7,079 civilians. Of this total, approxi-
mately 2,000 are mechanic learners in the training schools away from the station.
This would make approximately 5,000 workers at the Field of whom 400 are
administrative and clerical workers, 1,100 unskilled, 1,650 semiskilled, and 1,850
skilled workers.
It is expected that from 8,000 to 10,000 civilians will eventually be employed
at this Depot. All personnel are employed under regulations promulgated by
the United States Civil Service Commission arid that agency does all of the
recruiting for the requested workers through its district and field offices. Approxi-
mately 1 percent of the positions are filled by transfers here from other govern-
mental agencies. Most of the workers now employed have come from the States
of Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee.
Since the beginning of employment at this station, approximately 8,150 persons
have been employed. Of this number 1,071 have left our employ for various
reasons. About one-half of these have entered military or naval service with a
large percent of the balance having left because of inadequate housing facilities,
high rents, and the high costs of commodities in the immediate vicinity. The
number of employees leaving this station would be much greater except for the
fact that this headquarters has not expanded the activities of this depot as rapidly
as needed because it was realized that skilled employees would immediately
resign when they found they could find no suitable place to live. For this reason,
no action has been taken to return to Brookley Field approximately 1,000 qualified
employees now absent in trade schools and other depots throughout the United
States, although these men are needed and are on the pay roll of this station.
It is, therefore, obvious that the acute housing situation in Mobile has adversely
affected the operations of this activity to a far greater extent than indicated by
the labor turn-over reported in the above figures.
To alleviate the acute shortage of homes in Mobile, it is the recommendation
of this office that immediate action be taken to expedite the construction of
defense homes now authorized and, further, action be taken to prove additional
defense houses, including the necessary schools, hospitals, etc., as recommended
by the Mobile Emergency Board for Procurement of Necessary Facilities.
It is further recommended that action be taken to prevent individuals in the
city of Mobile charging exorbitant rents for rooms, apartments, etc., in accord-
ance with the instructions of the United States Government relative to the
freezing of rents. Failure to take this action has made it possible for many
individuals in Mobile to charge exorbitant prices for rooms, apartments, etc.,
that must, of necessity, be occupied by defense workers.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12217
Exhibit 17. — Statement by W. C. Griggs, Superintendent,
Mobile Public Schools, Mobile, Ala.
The Public School Situation in Mobile
The school situation in Mobile is best shown by the school enrollment figures
in the following exhibits — exhibit I and exhibit II. The gain in enrollment during
the past 3 years has been at a much more rapid rate than for the years immediately
preceding and indications are that this rate will be stepped up to a still higher rate
during the next year or two, due to increased migration of workers into Mobile
County.
The figures are summarized here.
(Exhibit I) 10 vears, 1931-32 to 1941-42:
(a) City white 1,380
(b) Suburban white 1, 702
Total 3,082
(c) City Negro 844
(d) Suburban Negro 886
Total 1,730
4,812
(Exhibit II) 3 years, 1939-40 to 1941-42:
(a) City white 531
(6) Suburban white 979
Total 1,510-1
(c) City colored 150
(d) Suburban colored 200
Total 350
1; 860-2
(a) Maximum enrollment, city and suburbs, white 13, 25R
Maximum capacity, city and suburbs, white 11,218
Beyond capacity 2, 038
(6) Maximum enrollment, city and suburbs, Negro 7, 114
Maximum capacity, city and suburbs, Negro 5, 880
Beyond capacity 1, 234
Beyond capacity 3, 272
Exhibit I
1932-33
1941-42
Gain
1939-40
1941-42
Gain
City, white:
2,312
563
439
177
350
483
448
518
477
394
459
445
2,994
722
683
202
374
528
540
579
521
426
452
424
682
159
244
25
24
45
92
61
44
32
17
•21
3,104
651
495
214
367
502
446
495
487
414
437
403
2,994
722
683
202
374
528
540
579
521
426
452
424
'10
71
188
Clark
J 12
7
26
94
Old Shell Road
85
Russell .
34
12
Yerby
15
21
7,065
8,445
1,380
8,014
8,445
531
12218 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Exhibit I — Continued
Total gain:
10 years, 1932 to 1942 - 1,380
3 years, 1939 to 1942 531
In 7 years, gain 849
In 3 years, gain 531
Total 1,380
1932-33
1941-42
Gain
1939-40
1941-12
Gain
Suburban, white:
119
192
803
104
286
260
611
64
169
151
546
150
428
985
294
435
477
1,006
165
154
624
31
236
182
190
149
217
395
101
i 15
138
78
139
232
860
217
353
357
864
147
134
252
473
150
428
985
294
435
477
1, 006
165
154
289
624
11
196
125
77
82
120
142
18
20
37
151
Total
3,305
5,007
1,702
4,028
5,007
979
Total gain:
10 years, 1932 to 1941.
3 years, 1939 to 1941 ..
In 7 years, gain 723
In 3 years, gain 979
Total... 1,702
Exhibit II
1932-33
1941-42
Gain
1939-40
1941^2
Gain
City, colored:
513
580
490
728
986
195
778
731
550
723
1,286
268
265
151
60
i 5
300
73
870
731
521
673
1,158
233
778
731
650
723
1,286
268
192
0
29
50
128
35
Total
3,492
4,336
844
4,186
4,336
150
Total gain:
10 years, 1932 to 1941.
3 years, 1939 to 1942..
In 7 years, gain.
In 3 years, gain.
1932-33
1941-42
Gain
1939-40
1941-42
Gain
Suburban, colored:
615
44
234
661
22
103
179
34
994
74
232
1,044
26
123
209
76
379
30
12
383
4
20
30
42
910
56
235
990
20
102
187
78
994
74
232
1,044
26
123
209
76
84
18
13
54
6
21
22
12
1,892
2,778
886
2,578
2,778
200
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12219
Exhibit II — Continued
Total gain:
10 years, 1932 to 1942 — - 886
3 years, 1939 to 1942 _200
In 7 years.. 686
In 3 years 20°
Total - - 886
Relief through the Lanham Act has been promised.
1. One building south of Brookley Field, 8 rooms which is now under con-
struction.
2. One building south Ann Street, 28 rooms.
3. One building, north Prichard, 40 rooms.
Contract for No. 3 was supposed to have been let April 30. It has not been
let.
Three more Government housing projects are being set up now that will
mean about 3,000 more houses. It seems certain that they will be built. This
will bring from 1,500 to 2,000 more pupils.
The number of periods at Murphy High School have been increased to 7.
To accomplish this we have staggered pupil attendance to care for the more
than 1,000 extra pupils. Pupils under this plan enter and leave at various times.
We fear that this may lower morale, increase truancy, and worry parents.
Teachers under the stagger plan have less opportunity for personal contact
with pupils. Pupils despair of getting special help. Parents have less chance
to confer with teachers.
Teen-age boys and girls are leaving school to take employment. However,
most of these are in the senior class and will be permitted to graduate if the
principal receives a report of the progress in development on the job. Those
thus conditioned have achievement in class work that makes it certain that
they would graduate.
At 4:30 p. m. December 12, 1940, representatives from the office of education
and the State department of education came to my office to see me about a
survey of our conditions. Three members of my staff were put at their disposal.
We have had many subsequent surveys and have made many reports. Eight
rooms of the 70 or 76 proposed will be ready by next September. Our population
is rapidly increasing. If houses could be had, it would increase more rapidly.
It is known that many have not brought their families. Some have taken work
elsewhere in order to be with their families.
It is difficult to plan for the placing of pupils and determining the number of
new teachers to employ. We cannot determine the number of months our
prospective funds will carry the ensuing session.
Exhibit 18. — Statement by Emmett B. Frazier, M. D., F. A. C. S.,
Chairman, Hospital Committee, Mobile County Medical
Society, Mobile, Ala.
Hospital Facilities in Mobile
Mr. George Simons, consultant with the' National Resources Planning Board,
has just completed a preliminary report on the Mobile defense area. This is a
most comprehensive and careful study and is based on accurate observation.
Mr. Simons has agreed to my sending a part of his report, a transcript on the
hospital situation. Mr. Simons went with me personally to visit each one of the
hospitals and interviewed the superintendent of each one.
As you will note, the nurses home for City Hospital, the additional building at
the Mobile Infirmary, alterations at the Providence Hospital, and funds for a
new Federal-constructed hospital have all been approved by the Government.
Plans and specifications for each of these ventures have been completed. The
architect for the nurses home at the City Hospital advises that as yet he has not
been able to obtain a bidder from among the contractors. Bids on the other
projects have not yet been announced.
12220 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
For some time our hospital situation has been most acute. It is necessary to
send all obstetric cases home after about 6 or 7 days by ambulance to make room
for additional maternity cases. Oftentimes, it is necessary for maternity cases
to remain in the labor room, or surgical cases to remain on the operating floor,
until beds can be secured.
A tepresentative of the United States Public Health Service, making a survey
in Mobile several months ago, made the observation that some of the space which
we now have in one of the hospitals is not being used to advantage. Mr. Simons
also made this same observation. In this they are quite correct. At the City
Hospital there is an entire floor in a comparatively new addition which could
easily care for 55 patients. This is now being utilized for a venereal-disease clinic,
and a nutritional and dental clinic for children. Both of these activities could
well carried out in some other portion of the building or be easily moved elsewhere.
Dr. Chason, our local health officer, would make no objection to having this clinic
moved. This City Hospital is a city- and county-owned institution and is leased
to the Sisters of Charity for a period of 10 years. This contract was renewed
about 4 years ago and has about 6 more years to run. The Sisters of the City
Hospital have not wished, heretofore, to enter the private hospital field in compe-
tition with the Providence Hospital, which is a Catholic institution for private
patients. However, at a conference at the City Hospital this morning with
Sister Gertrude, she expressed her willingness to open one of these wards for the
care of private industrial injuries, provided the City and County of Mobile would
furnish the necessary equipment. The Commissioners have already expressed
themselves as willing to do this, and so it is most likely that within the next 2
weeks this can be accomplished.
Hospital Facilities
The only hospital service in Mobile and Baldwin Counties is furnished by three
hospitals in Mobile, (1) City Hospital, (2) Mobile Infirmary, and (3) Providence
Hospital. A United States Marine Hospital operated by the United States Public
Health Service is located in Mobile, but it is not available to the public. There
is also a small maternity home operated by a church. But as far as general
hospital service is concerned, the three numbered above serve the public. Ac-
cording to reports of the medical profession these hospitals also serve cases in a
large tributary area extending beyond Mobile and Baldwin Counties.
The capacity and ownership of each hospital is as follows:
Owner
Capacity
125
110
Church
100
335
' Since mid-year, 1941, all the hospitals have been operating beyond capacity.
Rooms have been crowded, cases have been obliged to leave the hospital earlier
than advisable, cases requiring hospitalization have been unable to gain admit-
tance. The hospitals have been so crowded that it has been impossible to give
the desired attention and the staffs have been greatly overworked. Sister Helen,
Administrator of the Providence Hospital, operated by the Sisters of Charity
stated, "For the year past we have had a marked increase in our admissions,
making it necessary to add more beds. Several private rooms have been made
semiprivate, the sun parlors have been utilized as three-bed rooms, and the four-
bed wards have had two beds added. We feel that patients are not receiving full
benefit of their hospitalization, due to lack of facilities. Many people who need
hospital care are inconvenienced by waiting for appointments or find it impossible
to secure a hospital bed. It is impossible to carry out the principles of good
hospital housekeeping, for our rooms are not vacant long enough to afford the
opportunity of adequate cleaning and airing."
PROVIDENCE HOSPITAL
The following tabulation shows how the actual admissions to the Providence
Hospital have increased in the 3 years, 1937 (a normal year), 1940 and 1941.
Patients remaining on the 1st of the month are not included.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
Admissions to Providence Hospital
12221
1937
1940
1941
1937
1940
1941
178
134
191
210
165
177
193
214
186
177
214
231
240
256
270
268
399
290
312
369
368
194
210
172
149
140
274
361
268
237
221
388
370
368
346
262
Daily average.
Julv
176
231
332
This tabulation imparts a better understanding of Sister Helen's remarks
Until the middle of 1941 the Providence Hospital had onlv 88 beds available- 12
additional beds were added during the latter part of 1941. From a monthly
average of 176 actual admissions to the Providence Hospital in 1937, the average
has nearly doubled to 332 for the year 1941.
MOBILE INFIRMARY
The Mobile Infirmary now has 110 beds all filled and with every bit of available
space being utilized. Conditions of overcrowding are as bad, if not worse, than
those observed at the Providence Hospital. The following tabulation shows how
the admissions to this hospital have also increased.
Average number of actual admissions per day
1937.
1938.
1939.
1940.
1941.
92
102
The average number of actual admissions per day here have increased from 64
in 1936 to 102 for the year 1941.
At the time of these observations (February 1942) it was impossible to secure
hospitalization at either the Providence Hospital or Mobile Infirmary.
CITY HOSPITAL
The City Hospital, operated by the Sisters of Charity under contract with the
city, has a capacity of 125 beds. It is a large sprawling and roomy institution
caring for both white and colored patients. Although its facilities are currently
taxed it could accommodate more beds by certain rearrangements. Rooms located
in the basement and space on the first floor now occupied by nurses could be utilized
by patients, providing space is made available outside the building for nurses.
Additional beds might also be placed in the wide corridors connecting units of the
plant. The following tabulation shows how the services of this hospital have
ncreased:
House patient adrnissions. City Hospital, Mobile, Ala.
City-county patients
Private pay patients
1937
1941
1937
1941
N. B.
Others
Total
N. B.
Others
Total
N. B.
Others
Total
N.B.
Others
Total
29
30
34
37
35
27
41
35
39
40
33
30
211
187
226
234
219
217
247
254
262
258
237
242
240
217
260
271
254
244
288
289
301
298
270
272
41
51
47
26
51
46
54
47
46
43
41
305
268
303
297
265
275
332
321
280
277
255
245
363
309
354
344
291
326
378
375
327
323
298
286
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
19
25
25
20
18
30
26
27
33
33
27
26
20
25
25
21
18
30
26
27
33
33
27
26
2
0
1
0
0
0
1
2
1
6
2
0
32
41
25
35
30
45
40
43
37
37
45
31
Hay
30
>eptember
)ctober
November
December
38
43
47
31
Total
410
2,794
3,204
551
3,423
3,974
4
307
311
15
441
456
12222
HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
House patient-days
City-county and private, 1941 41, 998
City-county and private, 1937 40, 462
1941 increase over 1937 1, 538
Out-patient emergency cases
City-county
patients
Private pay
patients
1937
1941
1937
1941
295
238
264
316
361
309
381
364
322
308
319
342
400
423
489
531
554
563
803
879
705
640
595
520
6
5
12
5
5
3
5
0
9
5
5
April
8
17
July
13
26
14
21
Total
3,819
7,102
66
106"
1941 increase in emergency cases, over year 1937 (city-county) 3, 283
1941 increase in emergency cases, over year 1937 (private cases) 40
In its report of January, 1942, the United States Public Health Service stated,
"Additional general hospital beds should be provided. For a contemplated
metropolitan Mobile population of 180,000, the beds required would be 4.5 times
180, or 810, a deficit of 465 beds, irrespective of the rest of the county's needs."
Neither of the shipyards have provided for any hospital service. Each has a
first-aid station but no hospital.
APPLICATIONS FOR INCREASED FACILITIES
Applications filed with the Defense Public Works for increased hospital facilities
have been approved, but to date (April 1942) no action has been taken on them.
These projects are described as follows:
Alabama, 1-223, city hospital, 52-bed nurses home. — The completion of this
project will relieve space within the hospital now utilized as nurses home. The
project was approved on March 21 but the offer has not yet been accepted.
Final plans for the nurses home have been completed.
Alabama, 1-225, Mobile infirmary and Providence Hospital. — Projects have
been approved — offers accepted. The plans and specifications for the Providence
addition will be ready April 15 and for Mobile Infirmary about May 20. It is
estimated that these projects will be completed by October or November 1942.
Alabama, 1-189, construction of a new 100-bed hospital. — The construction of a
new 100-bed hospital at a cost of $510,000 was approved for Federal construction
on February 27, 1942. Plans and specifications will be ready for approval during
April. About 9 months will be needed to complete the project.
Unfortunately when the above projects have been completed there will still be
a deficiency of 200 to 300 beds as judged by the recommendations of the United
States Public Health Service.
The location of additional hospital facilities beyond those currently approved
is necessarity influenced by the judgment of the Mobile medical profession,
which points out that outside the corporate area of Mobile there are few, if any,
medical men experienced in hospital staff or administration work. Even in
Mobile there is a shortage of nursing and staffing personnel due to the demands
of the Army and Navy for doctors and nurses. It is the consensus of opinion
that it would be practically impossible to staff hospitals not located within the
present hospital area of Mobile.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12223
Accordingly, any additional hospital facilities should preferably be located on
the grounds of the existing institutions and additional expansion should be of
temporary construction. Following this line of thought, at least 100 additional
beds could be located on the grounds of the City Hospital, 50 at the Mobile
Infirmary, and 50 at the Providence Hospital. These added facilities will not be
a final answer to the hospital problem of the Mobile area, but they will serve to
relieve a situation that is becoming increasingly acute as now constituted.
Exhibit 19. — Statement by C. V. Dismuk.es, Mayor, City of
Prichard, Prichard, Ala.
Report on the City of Prichard
The city of Prichard, Ala., incorporated in 1925, had an official census popula-
tion of 6,084 in 1940. The present estimated population inside the city limits,
embracing an area of 1.2 square miles, is conservatively 10,000.
The population of the city of Prichard plus its police jurisdiction, extending 3
miles from the city limits and including the suburban communities of Plateau,
Krafton, Chickasaw, Whistler, and a part of Toulminville, is conservatively
estimated at 30,000. The city of Prichard furnishes police and fire protection
for this area.
The yards of the Gulf Shipbuilding Corporation at Chickasaw, the Southern
Kraft Mill of the International Paper Co. and the Associated Continental &
Terminal Bag Mills, the Hollingsworth & Whitney paper mill, the Gulf Foundry,
the J. C. Sanders Cotton Mill and several large sawmills and other industries are
located in or near to the Prichard police jurisdiction. Also, with the opening of a
new road to the Pinto Island yard of the Alabama, Dry Dock & Shipbuilding Co.,
numerous workers at that yard are moving to the Prichard area.
The Prichard area is desperately in need of more adequate housing facilities.
Provision of 2,000 defense dwelling units near Chickasaw will give substantial
relief but it appears that due to the constant influx of new workers, even more
units will be needed.
Two sanitary sewerage projects, financed in part by Work Projects Administra-
tion grants, are under construction to furnish relief in Prichard proper but more
sewer lines are a definite necessity for health protection.
The Federal Government has allocated approximately $300,000 for a new
junior high-grade school just north of the Prichard city limits which should relieve
serious overcrowding of the two existing public schools in Prichard and schools in
Plateau, Chickasaw, and Whistler.
Provision of public recreation facilities for defense workers is strongly desired.
The city of Prichard has purchased a site for a recreation project and has applied
for a Federal grant of approximately $30,000. At present, there are positively no
public recreation facilities in this entire area.
Opening of a new improved highway from Chickasaw through Prichard to
Toulminville should relieve traffic congestion, now an exceedingly difficult prob-
lem. The highway project is under way, with Work Projects Administration
assistance.
Our immediate needs, therefore, are more sewerage, more housing and public
recreation.
We are in dire need of more adequate fire protection.
Exhibit 20.— Statement by George D. Brown, Superintendent,
Madison County Board of Education, Huntsville, Ala.
In regard to the Madison County school system and the effects of national
defense migration upon it, permit me to briefly explain the situation as I see it.
This area has been a national defense area only a few weeks; therefore, up to the
present, we have not felt the effects of defense migration to the extent that we
will feel it just a little later.
12224 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
A large part of the construction labor for the Huntsville Arsenal has come'froin
Madison and adjoining counties. These workers have driven from their homes
to their work. Only a small percentage of the 12,000 workers has moved into
this area. Since this is the case, our school system has shown an increase in
enrollment of only a few hundred pupils beyond our normal increase and most of
this increase has been in the West Huntsville section where the school was already
badly overcrowded. Since cars and tires are wearing and cannot be replaced, we
predict that several hundred construction workers will be forced to live in the
arsenal vicinity. This will add many families and additional children.
Our huge increase in school enrollment will come with the operation of the
arsenal when large numbers of skilled workers with their families will come here
to make permanent homes. Hundreds of new houses will be constructed for the
operators.
The county school system works 100 percent in cooperation with the State
department of education; however, most of the administration is in the hands
of the county officials. The State's staff is always available to the county when
needed. Many supervisors, such as vocational agriculture and home economics
come from the State department. More than half the school funds are furnished
by the State. At present the county is levying all taxes permitted under the
State constitution. We anticipate very little increase in revenues. Due to the
arsenal's acquisition of much ad valorem tax property, our local school revenues
will probably show a decrease.
The personnel of the county school system is composed of 5 members of the
county board of education, superintendent and office force, 35 white principals
plus 230 other white teachers, 85 Negro principals and teachers, four county me-
chanics, and 52 school-bus drivers. Salaries for teachers vary from $50 per
month up to $220 per month, depending upon the type certificate held, the num-
ber of years' experience, and type position. We follow the State salary schedule
for both white and colored. Due to the low salaries, we have lost many qualified
teachers who have entered other work with much better pay. We now have a
shortage of teachers.
We have more than 10,000 white and 4,000 colored students. Classes vary in
size from a normal load of 20 or 30 up to 82 pupils. The largest classes are in the
West Huntsville school. This school's elementary department is operating on
2 shifts per day. The State owns 2 of the mill schools, Rison and West
Huntsville, while the Lincoln Mills own the Lincoln school property and the,
Merrimack Manufacturing Co. owns the Joe Bradley school property. Of course,
teachers and operation of the schools, regardless of ownership, are on the same
basis. All other school buildings in the county for whites are owned by the
State and are fairly well distributed. Most of the colored school buildings are
owned by churches, lodges, and so forth. We are badly in need of many additional
classrooms, 60 for the whites and 80 for colored. This does not include the West
Huntsville school, where the greatest need exists. We are gradually constructing
new rooms; however, funds will not permit the construction of the necessary
number. We have made application to the Public Works Administration for
funds to construct additional rooms to take care of the increase brought about by
national defense migration.
Until recently, 2 years' work at an approved teachers college was required for
a certificate. Now the minimum requirements for a regular certificate are 3 years
at a teachers college. Of course under certain conditions emergency certificates
may be secured. Such practices will eventually lower the school efficiency.
This county has found it necessary to secure several emergency certificates this
Our schools follow the State curriculum. Many national defense classes have
been organized during the last year to teach vocational subjects that could not
be had in the traditional curriculum. Much good has come from these classes.
We have 36 weeks for high and 28 for grammar schools. Funds will not permit
longer terms for grammar grades. Until more funds are available, neither terms
nor opportunities can be increased. Also, until more funds are available, we will
continue to lose good teachers, classes will grow, and the needed school buildings
cannot be furnished.
Transportation has made it possible to go far in the consolidation of white
schools. Naturally, children will have better attendance where transportation
is available. Overcrowded conditions usually come first in the rural schools
having the most transportation. We have three busses hauling colored children
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12225
to school. Invariably, these colored schools having transportation have the
best attendance.
In conclusion I wish to say that although our situation has become acute due
to defense migration in only one place, West Huntsville, there is a strong proba-
bility that it will grow worse in the immediate future. We will need additional
rooms, additional facilities and teachers, and additional transportation. In order
to secure these, we must receive financial assistance from the Federal Government.
Exhibit 21. — Statement by W. K. Wittausch, Assistant Direc-
tor, Division of Research and Statistics, Federal Housing
Administration, Washington, D. C.
There are attached hereto various data concerning Federal Housing Adminis-
tration operations in northern Alabama.
Table I shows the operations in Madison County (Huntsville) under titles I,
II, and VI, for the years 1940 and 1941, as well as cumulative bus-ness from
1935 through 1941.
Table II shows the number of new homes started since the designation of defense
areas, in the areas in northern Alabama which have been so designated.
There is attached also a mimeographed statement showing on one side the total
business for the United States and on the other the operations in the State of
Alabama.
Table I. — Madison County, Ala., Federal Housing Administration operations
through Dec. 31, 19 %1 1
Title I
Title II
Title VI
Total
Number
Amount
Number
Amount
Number
Amount
Number
Amount
72
79
259
$21, 772
31,118
106, 356
5
16
$24, 700
58, 800
207, 300
77
95
321
$46, 472
89,918
313,656
' Net mortgages accepted.
Table II. — New homes started since defense area was designated through Dec. 31,
1941
Date desig-
nated
New homes started
Total
family
Northern Alabama area
Title
I
Title
II
Title
VI
Total
dwelling
unjts pro-
vided
June 24,1941
Apr. 9, 1941
do
....do
5
40
1
3
3
54
5
405
151
55
174"
445
152
58
3
228
451
Florence, Sheffield, Tuscumbia
152
58
Dec. 11,1941
3
230
106
785
891
899
Source: Division of Research and Statistics, Operating Statistics Section.
National
The Federal Housing Administration was established in June 1934 under the
provisions of the National Housing Act for the purpose of improving housing stand-
ards and establishing a system of mutual mortgage insurance. The Federal Hous-
ing Administration lends no money; it does, however, insure qualified lending
60396— 42— pt. 32-
-19
12226 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
institutions against loss on home mortgage or property improvement loans. The
great volume of residential construction and property improvement resulting from
the Federal Housing Administration program has stimulated widespread business
activity and employment.
From the beginning of operations in 1934 through December 1941, the net vol-
ume of Federal Housing Administration business in the entire United States
totaled $5,731,518,665. Of this volume, mortgages accepted for insurance under
title II on 908,189 small homes amounted to $3,932,762,703 with 619,493 for
$2,822,827,914 representing new homes and 288,696 for $1,109,934,789 existing
homes. The net volume of defense home mortgages accepted for insurance under
title VI, established March 28, 1941, amounted to 36,940 for $133,129,950; and
mortgages also insured under title II covering 344 multifamily or large-scale rental
projects, with 36,764 dwelling units, amounted to $139,950,516; while under title
I, 3,697,061 insured property improvement loans amounted to $1,525,675,496, of
which 33,468 for $84,138,929 represent loans financing the construction of new
small homes insured under this title since February 3, 1938.
Under the title II home mortgage insurance program both borrowers and lenders
have benefited to a great extent. It is no longer necessary for the prospective
home owner or builder to resort to the use of a second mortgage, because lending
institutions have found the Federal Housing Administration long-term, amortized
mortgage to be a sound investment. The Federal Housing Administration policy
of insuring only those mortgages that qualify as to character of the neighborhood,
quality of design and construction, and the borrowers' capacity to pay, has raised
the standard of home-mortgage financing.
Under title VI, thousands of defense workers have been provided modern dwell-
ings in about 300 districts designated by the President as defense areas. No
initial down payment is required of the purchaser on an owner-occupied title VI
home. The regulations governing the insurance of defense home mortgages re-
quire the builder to have an equity of 10 percent of the property value, and title
does not pass to the purchaser until he acquires a corresponding equity in the
property.
The title II large-scale housing program has met the demand for modern, well-
constructed dwelling units for a large number of families to whom home ownership
was impossible. Furthermore, it has been shown that long-term investments in
rental properties are sound provided the projects are financed by fully amortized
mortgages.
More than 3,000,000 families have financed the improvement and modernization
of their homes under the title I program with the proceeds from insured property
improvement loans. Moreover, thousands of commercial, industrial, and farm
enterprises have improved their properties through loans made available under
this title. Since February 1938 loans on new small homes also have been eligible
for insurance under this program, and to date 33,468 of these dwellings have been
financed.
Alabama
From the beginning of operations in June 1934 through December 31, 1941, the
net volume business of the Federal Housing Administration in Alabama totaled
$51,289,342. Of this amount $32,885,822 1 represented one- to four-family home
mortgages accepted for insurance; $2,888,100, one- to four-family "defense" home
mortgages; $1,373,700, large-scale rental housing mortgages; and $14,141,720,
property improvement loans insured.
Under the small home provisions of the National Housing Act (title II), Federal
Housing Administration has accepted for insurance $32,885,822 in mortgages
on 8,557 1- to 4-familv homes. Of this amount, some 76.5 percent or
$25,166,045 represents mortgages on 6,170 newly built homes. Small home mort-
gages are limited to a $16,000 principal, a 20-year term, and an amount not to
exceed 80 percent of the appraised value of the property. However, mortgages
on new home properties for which the principal does not exceed $5,400 may be
insured up to 90 percent of the appraised value and for a term of up to 25 years.
The maximum interest rate on Federal Housing Administration insured mortgages
is 4x/2 percent a year. The borrower also pays an insurance premium of one-half
of 1 percent a year on the outstanding mortgage balance into a mutual insurance
fund out of which losses due to foreclosure and other causes are paid.
The title VI defense housing amendment of March 28, 1941, facilitates financing
of homes constructed bv private builders to meet the housing requirements of
workers in the defense industries. In the 9 defense areas of Alabama designated
by the President, Federal Housing Administration has accepted for insurance
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12227
mortgages amounting to $2,888,100 on 869 1- to 4-family title VI homes.
Moreover, homes valued under $6,000 and apartments with a maximum monthly
rental of $50 located in defense areas may be insured under the regular small
home and large-scale housing provisions of the act and thus receive priority
preference for rationed materials.
Under the large-scale housing program of Federal Housing Administration,
properties consisting of 1 or more multifamily structures with accommodations
for 5 or more families, or groups of single-family structures with accommodations
for 10 or more families are eligible for mortgage insurance. These properties are
built for rental purposes, or in the case of groups of single-family structures, for
sale to individual buyers. The maximum mortgage principal insured is $5,000,000
and is not to exceed 80 percent of the estimated value of the property. The
maximum interest rate is 4 percent a year; for mortgages of $100,000 or less it is
Al/i percent. Their average maturity is 26 years. In Alabama, there are 7 large-
scale Federal Housing Administration projects with an aggregate mortgage prin-
cipal of $1,373,700 providing dwelling accommodations for 367 families.
Under the title I property improvement and modernization program, Federal
Housing Administration has insured 42,652 loans amounting to $14,141,720. Of
this amount, $149,826 has financed the construction of 110 class 3 new small
homes, the net mortgage proceeds of which are limited to $3,000 by legislation.
The remainder of the loans has financed improvements to existing homes, commer-
cial and industrial properties, farm homes and buildings, and other miscellaneous
structures.
Exhibit 22. — Statement by J. H. Meighan, Chairman City
Commission, Gadsden, Ala.
The 1940 census for the city of Gadsden was 36,975, and for Etowah County
it was 72,580. Since this census report was made public, Gadsden has taken in
the Bellevue Highlands section on the mountain, including Tuckahoe Heights
and that area adjacent to the ordnance plant known as Starnes Park and Campbell
Court. This will increase the population within the city limits at least 1,000,
and it is estimated from the records of industrial plant employment rolls that at
least 1,000 people have moved into Gadsden within the last" 18 months, which
will give Gadsden a 1942 population of approximately 39,000. Attalla adjoins
Gadsden's boundary line, and this city has a population of 4,585. A great many
Republic Steel Corporation and Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. employees reside
in Attalla. The breakdown shows white 78 percent, colored 21 percent and
foreign born 1 percent.
The latest figures as of February 10, 1942, show 12,668 people employed in
industry, actually manufacturing products, at least 80 percent of which is for
defense. (See list following.)
Judging from past records, Gadsden has been able to furnish sufficient labor so
far to take care of all demands. As an example, Republic Steel Corporation and
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Dwight Manufacturing Co., Agricola Furnace Co.,
A. & J. Manufacturing Co., and other smaller plants have a full quota of trained
men now, who began as laborers or apprentices. A great number of unemployed
have been absorbed by the expansion at Republic Steel, the erection and putting
into operation of the ordnance plant. So, far all labor necessary has been secured
locally with the exception of skilled labor of certain character, and in most cases
a training squadron has been brought in and common labor converted into skilled.
In the last 18 months one new laundry has been erected and is in operation.
Two restaurants on Broad Street (main business street) and quite a number of
sandwich, barbecue, and soft-drink establishments have been opened for business;
a number of beauty parlors, a bowling center, increasing of golf club to 18 holes,
and a night club on the edge of town.
The traffic situation is being handled, though at times it is acute, but the ever-
increasing demand for parking space, truck and bus demands, and through traffic
from the old city proper to East Gadsden and to Alabama City (part of Gadsden)
and Attalla makes it necessary to erect as soon as possible another bridge over
the Coosa River in order to establish a through city route from the Attalla-
Birmingham Highway across the city to Anniston Highway.
Since 1937 there has been a gradual increase in occupancies; in fact it has kept
close step with the industrial pick-up. Over 1,000 nouses have been erected,
mostly in the $25 to $35 rental bracket. Our crying need is for houses of better
class, $40 to $65 per month. We need apartments. The demand for furnished
12228 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
apartments is much greater than the supply. At present we are taking care of all
demands in the lower rental brackets. The 250 units erected by the Government
at Campbell Court and Starnes Park are available to defense workers only,
approximately 60 being occupied. However, the ordnance plant will soon be
going full capacity, and that will mean the employment of possibly 1,000 more
men, and these units will all be taken then.
Transportation facilities are adequate. Our main worry now is the tire situa-
tion, which quite naturally will increase bus transportation, as well as railway
travel. So far, our local needs in city bus transportation have been met promptly
and so long as the operating company can secure busses, this situation will be taken
care of. Railroads are also supplying necessary equipment to date. The situa-
tion at the ordnance plant is handled well, to date, with a bus schedule that meets
present needs.
Gadsden sorely needs the additional bridge over the Coosa River and a truck or
heavy-duty road through the Attalla highway: A modern safety engineered
traffic set-up, which is now being considered by our city commission.
The city of Gadsden has experienced no detrimental advance in local rentals;
such as has been experienced is believed to have been justified, and there is no
complaint.
Gadsden has kept abreast of the rapid growth of the city in educational and
health matters, and the city has recently completed a new waterworks plant that
was constructed with consideration of furnishing an adequate water supply for the
next 25 years. .
An amphitheater seating 2,000 people, an auditorium with a capacity of 2,000,
a modern three-unit armory, municipal swimming pool, three golf courses, two
champion high school bands, football teams, basketball, and many other recrea-
tional offerings are available. The local community Young Men's Christian
Association conducts an extensive playground athletic program for boys and girls.
Employee!
Republic Steel Corporation 4, 600
Dwight Manufacturing; Co. (textile) 3, 000
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co 1, 300
Lansdowne Steel & Iron Co 600
Sauquoit Spinning Co. (textile) 5o0
Gadsden Iron Works 45U
Alabama Pipe Co 580
A. & J. Manufacturing Co ^1U
Agricola Furnace Co 375
Southern Manufacturing Co 219
Etowah Lumber Co 3b3
Alabama Gas Co 21
Wallworth Alabama Co. (Attalla)_._ 3UU
Attalla Manufacturing Co 1Q0
Total 12,668
Miscellaneous small industries *> OM
Total 14,501
Exhibit 23.— Statement by C. A. Donehoo, Superintendent of
City Schools, Gadsden, Ala.
Following are the enrollment figures of the Gadsden city schools at the end
of tke first term for each of the past 3 years. We are on a semiannual promotion
basis and the figures for the current year will not be comparable unless we take
the first term figures. The total enrollment for each year will be about 300
greater than the figures indicated because that has been about the normal gain
resulting from admitting 6-year-olds at the beginning of the second term. The
second-term figures are not now available for the current year.
January 1940, 8,071; January 1941, 8,133; January 1942, 8,331.
The enrollment trend for the period 1932-40 was fairly stationary. Some years
we lost pupils and some years we gained.
The increase of 240 pupils from 1940 to 1942 has been the result of defense work
in this city. The increase has resulted in overcrowded classes, producing an
extra burden upon teachers who were already carrying too heavy a teaching load.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12229
We also do not have sufficient classrooms available and have rented a recreation
room from the Federal Housing Agency.
The city officials have made an application to the Federal Security Agency
for two school buildings, one of which has been approved, plans drawn, and bids
opened in Washington. If the contract kas been awarded by the Public Works
Administration we have not been advised.
We are operating at present 18 schools (17 are owned by the city and 1 is
rented) — 11 schools offer instruction in elementary grades; 3 schools offer in-
struction in elementary and junior high grades; 1 school offers instruction in
junior high grades; 1 school offers instruction in junior and senior high grades;
1 school offers instruction in senior high grades; 1 school offers instruction in
elementary, junior, and senior high grades.
Local industries are being expanded for war production at this time and there
is every indication that the defense pupil load will be doubled or tripled before
the end of the year.
We have recently completed a survey of the number of pupils who have moved
to Gadsden since July 1, 1940, and have found a total of 671. The parents of
298 of this number are directly employed in defense industries.
Exhibit 24. — Statement by Dr. C. L. Murphree, County Health
Officer, Etowah County Health Department, Gadsden, Ala.
The recent expansion in industrial work with an influx of population has placed
a big burden on the health department with its limited personnel, in keeping up
health supervision of the population. There has been somewhat of an increase
in the incidence of scarlet fever, and of course the summer incidence of polio-
myelitis. We have been able to control other infectious diseases to perhaps nor-
mal limits. We have two private hospitals and one public hospital for tuber-
culosis in Etowah County. These private hospitals are perhaps adequate for
the service they are rendering. We lack facilities for the indigent and lower
income groups. The tuberculosis hospital is full and has quite a long waiting
list.
Our inspection department which has for its object the control of meat, milk,
and foods and their dispensation in various stores, cafes, and hotels. The ex-
pansion of our population has materially increased this problem and is an addi-
tional burden to the health department.
The water supply of Gadsden was established about 40 years ago with a maxi-
mum capacity of 25,000 people. We have been forced to supply 50,000 people.
With this was an additional hazard of too rapid filtration. Last year we began
the construction of a new plant which we think will be finished by the close of
this year and which will give an adequate safe water supplv to a population of
around 100,000 people.
A communication received from the State health department last spring
informed us that Etowah County was considered in the defense area and that
there would be available from the funds appropriated by Congress a sum of
money for the construction of a health center, the county to furnish a lot and
architect fees. The county authorities made this a No. 1 project in this set-up
and submitted a project for reviewing. We were finally informed that the appro-
priation would be cut to 25 percent of the amount necessary for the construction
of a building for a health center. In the present financial condition of Etowah
County this made the construction of the building prohibitive. In any rapidly
expanding county, schools, streets, and roads always have precedence, and in
endeavoring to keep up these this county is not in a "condition to make extensive
appropriations for other projects.
At present the health department in this county is located on the third floor of
an old courthouse, with long stairways leading to it and no elevator service. This
is r serious handicap for the operation of clinics, many of which we have had to
discontinue or not take up. We still carry on the venereal disease clinic but are
still seriously handicapped by the inaccessibility of our quarters. A ground-floor
building accessible to the public would materially add to our usefulness and make
possible additional clinics which we cannot now carry on.
Unless the county gets material help it will be many years before it would be
in a position to provide for the necessary housing of an adequate health depart-
ment.
12230 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Exhibit 25. — Statement by Edgar S. Enochs, City Clerk,
Treasurer, City of Sheffield, Ala.
A. Governmental Set-up
1. The city of Sheffield has a commission form of government. There are three
commissioners. An election is held every year for one vacancy, as a result two
experienced men are always in office.
B. Financial Statement
1. Sources of revenue:
5 mills ad vaorem tax $17, 377. 93
Privilege and auto licenses 16, 113. 64
Fines and forfeitures 18, 439. 84
Interest on delinquent taxes 616. 91
City's share of liquor store profits 12, 244. 13
Tax equivalent — waterworks 2, 700. 00
Tax equivalent — light plant 10, 201. 67
Miscellaneous 4, 551. 14
Total for 1940-41 82,245. 26
2. Sources of revenue (anticipated for next year — 1941-42) :
5 mills property tax 17, 000. 00
Interest on delinquent taxes 400. 00
Privilege licenses (after $6,000 for school bonds) 13, 500. 00
Motor vehicle licenses (Y3) 3, 000. 00
Bents and mortgage collections 450. 00
Fines and forfeitures 19, 000. 00
Collections — cemetery lot sales 600. 00
Tax equivalent— light plant 10, 000. 00
Tax equivalent — waterworks 2, 700. 00
City's share of ABC store profits 12, 500. 00
Share-State gas tax 850. 00
Special appropriation — waterworks 6, 000. 00
Miscellaneous revenue : 800. 00
Total 85,971.00
3. Total general property or ad valorem tax for current year composed of —
Mill*
City 1S-0
School 10-0
State * 5
County 7-5
The city has reached its tax limit.
4. What steps has the city taken to increase its revenue? None.
5. Does the city expect an increase of revenue from in-migration alone? No.
C. Housing and Rent Situation in Sheffield
1 What building is going on inside and outside of city? — A. The Tennessee
Valley Authority is planning to build 40 units, the Defense Homes Corporation is
finishing 160 permanent-tvpe houses, and Stackhouse, a contractor, has built 54
Federal Housing Administration houses. These are inside the city limits.
I have no data on buildings outside the city limits.
2. To what extent can building expand within the city?— A. Sixty percent of
the area of Sheffield can be used. There are plenty of vacant lots that are not
now being used. , ,. . T . , ,
3. Relation of housing to health and juvenile dehquency.— A. I am informed
by the Colbert Countv Public Welfare Department that Sheffield has a com-
paratively high rate of delinquency. This condition is due to poor housing
conditions for the low income groups and poor recreational facilities. The rate
of juvenile delinquency, the department tells me. has not increased due to the
defense program in this area. . , _ , ,,i
\ 4 How does the city control contagious diseases? — A. The county health
department holds a clinic once a week in the municipal building for the treatment
of the Negroes and poorer class of people.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12231
D. Education
1. What facilities does the city have for maintaining high standards? — A. The
citizens of Sheffield have always recognized the importance of schools and have
insisted that every possible effort be made bjr the city government to establish
and maintain schools of a high quality. In addition to the regular funds provided
for the schools by the Alabama Minimum Program, the city of Sheffield taxes
itself 2 mills of the assessed valuation of all property for school purposes. Over
a period of years, the city commission has made regular contributions to the
school fund from the city's general fund. Under normal times and conditions,
the above fund while not sufficient to provide everything desired, was adequate
for a sound educational program, with a 9-months school for every school child
of this community regardless of grade or color.
Within the last 2 years this city has increased considerably in population and
the Sheffield schools are called upon to provide additional facilities for a corre-
spondingly increased enrollment without additional revenue. This situation has
resulted into greatly increased teacher loads and will necessitate a shorter school
term unless we can get aid from some outside source.
2. Number of school buildings?- — A. Four white, one colored, all grades from
1 to 12.
3. Average size of classes? — A. Thirty-five and upward.
4. Are any of schools working on shifts? — A. No.
5. What expansion plans does the school system have? — A. The Sheffield Board
of Education has developed plans for expansion by building a 10-room grammar
school, grades 1 to 6, when such a building is needed, which school will serve the
northeast section of the city, where children are now walking great distances to
school.
6. If so, what are these plans? — A. The board of education owns a school site
approximately 650 by 400 feet in this vicinity. Preliminary plans for this school
have been drawn by an architect and are on file in the office of the city superin-
tendent. Neither the city of Sheffield nor the board of education has any funds
to devote to this building.
Exhibit 26. — Statement by E. A. McBride, Superintendent,
Talladega County Board of Education, Talladega, Ala.
The Childersburg school is under the direction of the Talladega County School
Board. All schools in the county are under the supervision of the county board
with the exception of the schools in Talledega City and Sylacauga City.
There are two national defense projects located in Talladega County and
two more near the north end of the county. All four projects have affected
the rural schools of this county. The total enrollment for 1938-39 was 9,223,
for 1939-40 was 9,081, for 1940-41 was 8,870, and for 1941-42 was 11,085. The
number of children transported during 1940-41 was 3,990 and during 1941-42
was 4,688. Sixteen school busses have been added to take care of increased
enrollment and to cut down on the number of trips made for each bus.
Sixty-one teachers resigned before our schools opened last September to accept
employment with the national defense organizations or moved to other sections
because of the high costs of living in this area. Twenty-five teachers have resigned
during the year. There are now 41 teachers in this system who are now teaching
for the first time.
To meet the increased enrollment we need 77 classrooms. Allotment has been
made by the Federal Government for 41 classrooms, but only one project is under
construction at present. Every available space has been utilized and some classes
have been taught in school busses during the fall when weather permitted. Three
school buildings were located in the defense area, representing a loss of 16 class-
rooms.
Many children have enrolled but were withdrawn after a few weeks because
their parents moved to some other defense job or else returned to their former
home. Other children came in immediately so our total enrollment has remained
about the same or has increased during the year. The powder plant and bag-'oad-
ing plant are now operating so we are having an increased number of children
whose parents are on the operating force as well as many children whose parents
are still engaged in construction. Both plants are to be expanded so we will have
a rather large increase in our school population.
The population of Talladega County has increased during the past year from
51,000 to 85,000 or probably 90,000 at the present time.
12232 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
The crowded conditions at school and in the home and trailer camps have not
been conducive to good health; however, there have been no epidemics. Every
effort to protect the health of the children as well as the people has been made and
has been successful up to this point.
Exhibit 27. — Statement by A. H. Watwood, Principal, Childers-
burg High School, Childersbtjrg, Ala.
Childersburg Consolidated School is a unit of the Talladega County school
system. It serves an area extending from 10 to 15 miles from the school center.
The program of study is given to all grades from 1 through 12.
The following facts relating to the present conditions show to some extent the
problems that have developed here due to the defense works located near Childers-
burg:
Total number registered during 1940-41 was 515.
Total number registered to date during 1941-42 is 1,206.
Eleven extra teachers have been added this year.
Three extra school busses were added. Each of these makes two trips and
carries more than 70 children per trip.
All teachers except four resigned near the beginning of the present school term.
These teachers found employment in the defense works, local post office, and other
Federal projects.
Nine teachers have resigned during the present school year. These people were
employed by the defense works and other agencies offering higher salaries.
The school auditorium has been divided into six rooms, agriculture classes
confined to the shop, home economics classes are meeting entirely in the kitchen,
and regular classrooms divided to make room for the new pupils.
Living conditions make it impossible for teachers to live in the community.
Some teachers live in Birmingham, one in Alexander City, and some found board
and rooms in other towns.
One or more families are soon to move into each of "the 100 units of Federal
houses. This will add many more pupils to the school.
Grade 1 has enrolled 147 pupils.
Grade 2 has enrolled 135 pupils.
Grade 3 has enrolled 130 pupils.
Grade 4 has enrolled 128 pupils.
Grade 5 has enrolled 91 pupils.
Grade 6 has enrolled 155 pupils.
Grade 7 has enrolled 127 pupils.
Grade 8 has enrolled 93 pupils.
Grade 9 has enrolled 76 pupils.
Grade 10 has enrolled 61 pupils.
Grade 11 has enrolled 20 pupils.
Grade 12 has enrolled 27 pupils.
There are 23 rooms now in use.
Records relating to new pupils and to those who withdraw, together with
hundreds of references requested from the defense officials have greatly increased
work in this office with no additional help. '
Exhibit 28. — Statement by J. H. Hill, M. D., County Health
Officer, Talladega Country Health Department, Talla-
dega, Ala.
The following statements are submitted with reference to conditions at Childers-
burg, Ala.:
The local health department has made every effort to be alert to the sanitary
and health conditions of the people in this area. At all public housing facilities
provision was made for safe water supply and safe excreta disposal before allow-
ing the places occupied. In the stationary structures, such as bunkhouses and
tourist cottages, the places were screened against flies and mosquitoes. At all
places where large groups were housed provision was made for sanitary bath
facilities, including both hot and cold water. All these public establishments
are inspected by one of our sanitary officers at regular intervals. Our sanitary
facilities for excreta disposal will hold up well until the hot months arrive when
new constructions will be necessary if the present population in these places con-
tinues.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12233
While there has been definite overcrowding and living conditions have been
rather far from the ideal, there has been no undue prevalence of communicable
diseases. In fact, there has been no major communicable disease arising in any
of these places where large groups are congregated. I may state further that
there has not been a single case of typhoid fever reported in the county during
the past 12-month period. The same is true of epidemic meningitis and smallpox.
There has been no percept-able increase of diphtheria in the county during the
year and only a slight increase of scarlet fever, which statement seems to be
true, with reference to scarlet fever, throughout the southeast. Immunization
clinics have been conducted at the various centers for the purpose of immuniza-
tion against typhoid, diphtheria, and smallpox. A free venereal disease clinic
is also conducted weekly at Childersburg.
The water situation has given us great concern during the past year, but at the
present time there is no occasion for worry. The sanitary sewage system is
inadequate, but plans are under way for meeting this condition and a new water
supply will be under construction in the near future. We have made every
effort within our means to have a health center constructed at that place so as
to be able to better serve the health needs of this area, but in spite of our efforts
covering a period of almost 8 months, this project has only reached the paper
stage while facilities for recreation which were planned at the same time and
with the same Government agencies, is now ready for occupancy. We were in
great fear that an epidemic of influenza with its attendant, pneumonia, or epi-
demic meningitis might spring up under these crowded conditions and we would
have no facilities for caring for the same. We have no isolation wards in the
hospitals of this county. Fortunately, however, we have gone thus far without
the most urgent need of this facility.
Exhibit 29. — Statement by Henry N. Doyle, Talladega County
Health Department, Talladega, Ala.
Before the present emergency the town of Childersburg had a population of
about 450 persons. The present population, within the Childersburg area, has
never been determined, but it has been estimated that there are at least 10,000
persons living within a radius of 3 miles of the town.
The greater portion of this increase has been absorbed by trailers, newly built
houses of very poor construction, tents, and in a few cases made over barns and
chicken houses. During the first few months of construction the population was
largely composed of males. These men were comfortably housed in bunk houses.
However, after they were able to save a little money, they soon sent for their
families. This added greatly to the congestion for in but few cases had they pro-
vided for their housing beforehand.
Before construction of the powder plant began the sanitary conditions of this
area were only in a fair state. The town had a sewer but this did not serve the
entire population. Since January 1, 1941, the Talladega County Health Depart-
ment has supervised and approved 207 excreta disposal installations. These may
be broken down as follows: Private privies, 139; public privies, 45; private
septic tanks, 16; public septic tanks, 7.
s The town of Childersburg estimates that they have made 100 sewer connections
since that date. There has been an undetermined number of privies installed that
could not be approved by this department as they did not meet the State specifica-
tions. Most of these installations have been outside the town. The sanitation
program was not pushed in the town as an enlargement of the sewer system was
expected to begin at any time. This project was started last week and should be
completed during the early part of the summer. Sanitation in this area is by no
means complete and the program is still going on.
All meat markets, eating establishments, bunkhouses, trailer camps, tourist
and tent camps are under supervision of the county health department and
sanitation of these establishments is closely watched. Classification of these
establishments are as follows: Bunkhouses, 34 (not all in operation at this time;
many closed due to lack of business) ; trailer camps, 16; tent camps, 1 ; restaurants,
The increase in water consumption is shown as follows: April 1941, 347,395
gallons; May 1941, 953,000 gallons; June, 1,756,179 gallons; July, 2,262,288
gallons; August, 2,569,182 gallons; September, 2,489,433 gallons.
12234 HTJNTSVILLE, ALAV HEARINGS
During August and September the well was producing at its capacity and did
not meet the need of -the town. Consequently, many old wells were placed into
service and much unsafe water was being consumed in private residences. Dur-
ing the month of October the du Pont Co. agreed to furnish the town with
10,000 gallons per day. This alleviated the situation and since that time the
town has been able to meet its needs. A new filter plant and water system is
under construction and should be completed before the peak demands are needed
during the summer months.
Prior to October 1941, the town had no garbage collection service and this
situation had become a great nuisance. In October the United States Public
Health Service loaned to the town a truck to be used for this purpose. Personnel
has been provided and this situation has been greatly improved.
The defense housing project in Childersburg is complete and is ready for
occupancy. This will provide homes for 100 families, which will be a small
fraction of the need. This project is served by its own water system which is
approved by the State board of health. Sewage disposal is through the town's
system. There is another defense housing project at Sylacauga, 10 miles distant,
which will take care of 150 families.
The greater part of the milk supply for the Childersburg area is pasteurized.
This comes from Sylacauga and Birmingham. There are a few distributors of
grade A raw milk. Accurate figures on this subject are not available.
My comments have been limited to the Childersburg area, which is within a
radius of 3 to 5 miles of the city. However, a great many of the people working
here live in adjoining counties as well as at Birmingham and Sylacauga.
Exhibit 30. — Statement by R. E. Thompson, Superintendent,
Tusctjmbia Schools, Ttjscumbia, Ala.
February 17, 1942.
The sources of revenue for the Tuscumbia city schools are as follows: State and
county educational funds from the county board of education; city 3-mill dis-
trict tax and the special 3-mill city tax from the city of Tuscumbia; in addition
to the former, the city gives from their general funds as much as they are able to
pay. For the past 2 years we have run the 9-month terms, but have accumulated
about $2,000 indebtedness in doing so. In 1938-39 we ran some short of 9 months
on account of lack of funds. This year the amount anticipated from all sources
is approximately the same as we received last year. However, our operating ex-
penses are greater this session than in previous years.
In administration we have one superintendent, two supervising principals, and
one teaching principal. We have 19 teachers in the high school for whites; 13
teachers in the elementary school for whites, and 10 teachers in the Negro school.
Due to increased attendance we are this week adding an additional white and an
extra Negro teacher.
We pay State minimum salary schedule which is based on training and experi-
ence. In the white schools this runs from $90 per month to $135 per month or
an average of approximately $110 per month. In the Negro school the monthly
rate is from $55 to $70 or an average of approximately $65 per month.
During the school year we have had seven teachers resign to take better-paying
jobs, some to go into defense work.
In the white high school we have enrolled 630; white elementary 511; Negro
school 472. We have an increase in all departments.
We have 1 high school building which was constructed for accommodating 400
pupils, but we have 630 in this building and can accommodate them only by using
laboratories for class rooms and by having two classes and a study hall at ail times
in the auditorium. The Southern Association of High Schools warns us this year
that our classes are too large. We need at present time at least 8 more class rooms
to relieve the crowded condition in high school and the overcrowded rooms in the
white elementary school. We at present have our application in with the Public
Works Administration for a new building, and base our plea on the fact that we
have more than 300 white children from defense families.
For next session it is apparent that we are going to have more defense workers'
families and still more crowded conditions in class rooms and buildings. Then
too, we are faced with the problem of teachers working for less than most defense
workers are paid. Many teachers are leaving the teaching field for other work.
Our teachers at present are paying some $10 per month more for board than they
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12235
paid last year and this is due largely to their having to compete with defense
workers who can afford to pay more for living expenses.
We sincerely trust that the Public Works Administration in some way will
grant us funds to apply on a new building. We have the land and $15,000 in a
building fund to apply on a new building. The Public Works Administration has
advised us that we do not show a sufficient increase over our 1940 enrollment to
justify their granting funds for a new building. We were crowded in 1940, but
we are more greatly crowded today, especially in the high school where we have the
upper 6 grades. We need very much to move at least 200 pupils out of this
building. And if a new building were possible we would move this number out of
high school and about 100 out of the elementary school. We have ample accom-
modation in our Negro school.
Exhibit 31. — Statement by R. E. Harper, M. D., County Health
Officer, Colbert County Health Department, Tuscumbia,
Ala.
The statutes of Alabama place upon the State department of health the
responsibility — ■
(1) Of exercising general control over the enforcement of the laws relating to
public health, and of adopting and promulgating rules and regulations for the
administration of said laws;
(2) Of investigating the causes, modes of propagation, and means of preven-
tion of disease;
(3) Of safeguarding the avenues of conveyance of drinking water;
(4) Of inspecting establishments and institutions dealing in commodities or
dispensing services that may have a public-health aspect; and
(5) Of exercising control over county boards of health and county health
officers.
Further, the State department of health is charged with the duty of:
(6) Supervising the collection of vital statistics;
(7) Conducting bacteriologic, serologic, and vaccine laboratories;
(8) Furnishing rabies treatments to persons bitten by rabid animals;
(9) Conducting educational campaigns for the dissemination of knowledge re-
garding tuberculosis, hookworm disease, typhoid fever, malaria, and other
preventable, diseases;
(10) Exercising supervision over milk supplies;
(11) Promoting the physical welfare of the entire citizenship of the State,
particularly the younger-age groups of the population; and, finally,
(12) Acting as an advisory staff to the State in all medical matters and matters
of sanitation and public health.
Local health administration — It shall be the duty of county boards of health
in their respective jurisdictions and subject to the supervision and control of
the State board of health —
(1) To supervise the enforcement of the health laws of the State, including
all ordinances and rules and regulations of municipalities and of the county board
of health and of the State board of health; to supervise the enforcement of the
law for the collection of vital and mortuary statistics; and to adopt and promul-
gate, if necessary, rules and regulations for administering the health laws of the
State and the rules and regulations of the State board of health.
(2) To investigate through county health officers, or quarantine officers, cases
or outbreaks of disease, and to enforce such measures for the prevention or
extermination of said disease as are authorized by law.
(3) To investigate through county health officers or quarantine officers all
nuisances to public health and through said officers to take proper steps for the
abatement of such nuisances.
(4) To exercise through county health officers or quarantine officers special
sup( rvision over the sanitary conditions of schools, hospitals, asylums, jails,
almshouses, theaters, courthouses, churches, public halls, prisons, markets,
dairies, milk depots, railroad cars, lines of railroads (including the territory
contiguous to said lines), industrial and manufacturing establishments, offices,
stores, banks, club houses, hotels, rooming houses, residences, the sources of
supply, tanks, reservoirs, pumping stations, and avenues of conveyance of drink-
ing water, and other institutions and places of like character; and whenever
insanitary conditions are found to use all legal means to have the same abated.
(5) To elect a county health officer, subject to the approval of the State com-
mittee of public health, who shall devote all of his time to the duties of his office.
12236 HUNTSVILLE, ALA.; HEARINGS
and to fix his term of office at not less than 3 years, in such counties of the State
as shall, through their proper authorities, make appropriation for full-time health
service.
The present personnel of the Colbert County Health Department consists of:
One health officer, two sanitation officers, two nurses, one X-ray technician, one
secretary, and one part-time meat inspector.
The sources of funds for salaries, travel, and office maintenance are local and
State. Locally, the county appropriates $7,000,000 annually, the city of Sheffield
$480, the city of Tuscumbia $300,000 and the Florence Packing Co. makes
a donation of $120 annually. State funds come through the State health depart-
ment, and are derived from the State treasury, the United States Public Health
Service, the children's bureau, and a few other sources, the information on which
I do not have.
Colbert County is one of a group of counties in the State in which local funds,
appropriated for the health department, are matched by State funds. However,
the State department is now appropriating slightly more than is being appro-
priated in Colbert County. Our total budget is $17,480 of which $7,900 is ap-
propriated locally. An increase in the budget for the next fiscal year would
depend upon an increase in the local appropriation, which I do not anticipate.
This department is maintaining four venereal disease clinics, each conducted
weekly, 1 maternity-spacing clinic conducted weekly and 1 pneumothorax clinic,
conducted twice a month. There are approximately 425 persons on our active
files receiving treatments for venereal diseases. The average attendance at our
maternity-spacing clinic is about 12, but only a small percentage receive the
spacing service. The average attendance at our pneumothorax clinic is about 40,
half of whom are residents of Colbert County. The others are residents of
Lauderdale and Franklin Counties.
Complete records are kept of all the clinic work conducted by the health de-
partment. However, the necessary follow-up work, particularly with venereal
diseases is inadequate because of the lack of nursing personnel. All of our clinics
are conducted at the health department except three venereal disease clinics.
These are held in Sheffield, Leighton, and Cherokee.
The Colbert County Hospital, located between Sheffield and Tuscumbia, is the
only hospital in the county, and has a normal capacity of 50 beds. It has no
wards or beds for tuberculosis cases or other contagious diseases. The Colbert
County Tuberculosis Home, an institution for the isolation of far-advanced cases
of tuberculosis, will be discontinued March 1, 1942. This institution has been
maintained entirely by the county.
There are no Army camps in Alabama within a radius of 75 miles of any part
of Colbert County. I cannot state positively whether there is an Army camp in
Mississippi or Tennessee within a radius of 75 miles of the county, but I do not
believe there is.
Sheffield, Tuscumbia, Leighton, and Cherokee, four of the five incorporated
towns in the county, have public water supplies under direct supervision of the
State health department. The water supply of Sheffield and Tuscumbia, is com-
bined, the plant being located in Sheffield. The water supplies of Sheffield,
Tuscumbia, and Leighton are adequate for the present population, and would be
for a considerable increase in populations. The water supply at Cherokee is not
always adequate during the summer months. There are three semipublic water
supplies at Muscle Shoals City, which are small but adequate foi the present
population. A considerable increase in population at Muscle Shoals City, which
seems to be a certainty, would probably necessitate a larger water supply.
Only Sheffield and Tuscumbia have sewer systems. These appear to be
adequate for the present populations, but have probably reached their capacity.
An extension of the sewer system of Sheffield is contemplated.
As stated above, 4 venereal disease clinics are conducted in the county by the
health department. Approximately 425 persons are on our active files, ' but
the average weekly attendance is about 275. This shows the need for follow-up
work which we cannot do because of the lack of adequate personnel. However, a
limited follow-up on prostitutes and others who are reported to be spreading these
diseases is maintained, and these persons are required to take treatments regularly.
Legal authority has been granted health departments by the State to incarcerate
and treat such persons who refuse to be treated at the clinics or by private
physicians.
I do not believe the present housing conditions in Sheffield and Tuscumbia
are vulnerable to any particular form of contagion, but if the anticipated growth
of this area materializes, precautions, especially with reference to adequate
sanitation, will have to be taken to prevent the occurrence of contagion.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12237
I am sorry I cannot give you data on all public health standards as compared
with the statements and figures given in this letter. The most urgent need
of this department is additional personnel, particularly nurses. Public health
standards call for a public health nurse for each 5,000 population. On this basis
we should have 7 or 8 nurses.
Another urgent need of this department is a building of adequate size and
suitable arrangement for personnel and clinics. This being a defense area,
the county has made application for Federal funds with which to build a new health
center. It is hoped that these funds will be made available.
Exhibit 32. — Statement by Rtjftjs Porter, Superintendent of
Education, Colbert County, Tuscumbia, Ala.
Herein we submit the following information as requested by the committee on
social and economic problems and school data on the area served by this office.
The Colbert County Board of Education has supervision over all schools in the
county outside the cities of Sheffield and Tuscumbia. This includes 25 white
schools and 13 Negroes, employing 120 white teachers, 34 Negroes. Serving
these schools are 33 white busses and 4 busses run for Negro children. There are
3,950 white children enrolled and 1,260 Negroes in these schools.
With reference to the attendance in the schools of this county, with the excep-
tion of the increase caused by defense migration, has been a fairly stable figure for
a number of years as there has been a decrease in the elementary schools caused by
a lower birth rate. The loss in numbers in the elementary schools has been offset
by approximately the same number of junior and senior high school increase.
On this basis we can, therefore, state that the holding power of the school is cer-
tainly higher now than in the past years. This school system has had an approxi-
mate increase of 250 students in the past year caused by the defense efforts. The
number of children will necessarily increase in proportion to the degree in which
additional plants are located in this section. Approximately 78 percent of the
children enrolled in schools of this county are transported by State-owned and
operated busses.
I would like to submit additional information relative to the following items:
1. In the main the State department of education serves as an assisting agency to
the county schools. The department of education, of course, has certain authori-
ties set forth by the School Code of Alabama over the general educational pro-
gram. Such items as budget approval, approval of warrant issues, distribution of
State funds, certification of teachers, approving of school buildings and to some
degree location, devising proper equitable regulations for the division of money by
the counties and cities, determining the teacher units based on average daily
attendance, handling the purchase of State owned textbooks and prescribing
regulations for their care, assisting the counties in obtaining State prices on various
equipments purchased, are some of the items rendered the county and city school
programs by the State department.
The State department of education in Alabama toward this county has never
shown itself dictatorial or has not in any way tried to eliminate the local board of
education's initiative in developing the kind and type of school program this
board cared to. We have felt that the State office has been a helping department
and has rendered us invaluable service in the developing of our schools.
2. The revenue to oprate our schools is derived from the following sources:
A. State funds:
1. Minimum program fund.
2. Public school fund.
3. State and Federal vocational fund.
B. County revenue:
1. Three mill county-wide tax.
2. One mill special educational tax.
3. Three mill district school tax.
(The above seven-mill tax is all levied and collected on the total assessed
valuation of Colbert County and is all that the State constitution allows).
4. Poll tax ($1.50 per person a year to the age of 45 with some exceptions
for soldiers, cripples, etc.)
5. Tennessee Valley Authority refund, which revenue is paid by the
Tennessee Valley Authority for lands being taken off the tax col-
lections caused by the building of Pickwick Dam.
12238 HUNTSVILLE,, ALA., HEARINGS
We do not anticipate any additional increase in State funds for the next scholas-
tic year and from the following figures on the assessed valuation of the county
we therefore do not anticipate any increase on local revenue.
1937 $12, 746, 649
1940 $12, 384, 863
1939 12,453,511
1938 12,406,721
1936 13, 6C9, 783
1935 13, 660, 594
3. Total of 120 white teachers, including all principals, draw a total of $1 1,407.50
making an average monthly salary of $95. Of this total 120, 96 of these people
work only seven months a year, of the remaining 24, 20 of these teachers work
approximately 8% months per year, the remaining 4 work 12 months a year.
The county this year employed a young man as supervisor of schools for 9
months $1,500, and the salary of the superintendent is set by the board of educa-
tion at $2,700. The minimum salary for any person in the white schools is $65
per month and the maximum salary for classroom teachers is $140 a month.
To date the loss in teacher personnel has not greatly affected the efficiency of the
school operation, however indications are if the condition grows worse the loss will
begin to affect the efficiency of our operation. The school board has been able to
employ a number of married women who have moved in the area whose husbands
are working at the defense plants. This has brought us an additional supply of
fairly well trained people, however a great many of our schools are not available
to them as these women are usually located in the cities of Tuscumbia and Shef-
field and the driving distance to the schools will forbid them from accepting
school offers.
Total of 34 Negro teachers, including all principals, draw a total of $2,142.50,
making an average monthly salary of $63. All of the Negro teachers work 7
months a year. The minimum salary for classroom teachers is $45 and the
maximum $92.50.
4. Sizes of classes run anywhere from a maximum number of 50 to a minimum
number of 15, with the average size of classes about 33. At present the increased
enrollment has not justified the schools going on a shift basis.
5. This school system is composed of 27 school buildings centrally located over
the county and the system is considered to a fair degree consolidated.
In the east end of Colbert County where R. S. Reynolds Metals Co. and Rolling
Mills is located, also the electro-metallurgical plant, this area has had to absorb
the burden of the additional load and additional classrooms are needed at several
schools, namely, Leighton Elementary, Leighton High, Brick and Leighton colored
Application has been .made through the defense public works under the Lanham
Act for such additions.
6. The State of Alabama requirements for certificates requires a minimum of 3
years of college training at an approved teachers college or school of education
for an Alabama certificate, however those people already holding certificates can
get them renewed on the basis of conditions set forth on the face of that certificate.
The State of Alabama does issue an emergency certificate to the local superin-
tendent if and when he makes a statement to the department of education that all
available certified teachers in that area have been exhausted and that no other
available certified person can be found for that particular job. These emergency
certificates are granted on a 1-year basis only, non renewable for the next school
term. This county has had to avail itself of the emergency offer in requesting
such certificates for about four people this year.
7. The curriculum program in Alabama has been undergoing a change for a
number of years to a certain degree. The traditional curriculum has been altered
to adjust to the national emergency. Additional emphasis given to shop work,
tools, both power and hand, installed. I think to a certain degree typing, short-
hand and bookkeeping have been emphasized to a greater degree. Carpenter
work, electrical, blacksmith, auto mechanics, first aid, Diesel and gas motors have
been studied thoroughly. More emphasis is being put on physical and health
education and the emergency has developed the further need of the hot lunch
program which endeavor has been assisted by Surplus Commodities Act and the
Work Projects Administration. It is felt that this movement has been highly
worth while and should be encouraged by the local school units, State and Federal
agencies. We are finding that this is one of the greatest improvements that the
schools in this area have made over a long period of time.
8. The school year in this area has been on a basis of 7 months elementary,
9 months high, 5 days per week. As yet the board of education has not recom-
mended the 6-day-a-wcek program, however this is under consideration at the
present time. We do anticipate a shortage of farm labor this spring and many
.agricultural changes are anticipated. For an example: Colbert County has been
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12239
raising 300 acres of peanuts per year. I am informed bv the county agent that
the Federal Government has placed a quota on this county of 3,000 acres for
next year. I am persuaded to believe that this quota will" be made and yield
increased largely due to the 4-H Club boys and girls and to what extent effort
is put toward the movement.
We have lost a number of high-school boys dropping out of school going to
defense works, however there has been one encouraging feature that has pre-
vented the maximum number from leaving, inasmuch as most of the plants are
taking only the graduates for their better jobs and have discouraged any boy
from leaving school that has not completed the 12 grades offered in this State.
Marriages have increased and in proportion there is an increased number of
married women attending school.
9. The outlook for the next school term indicates that the size of the classes
will be larger. With the present revenue it will be impossible for us to continue to
add teachers in proportion to the increase in school enrollment. This increase
will have to be absorbed by the present teaching units taking on additional loads
The offering of the high schools cannot be expanded without additional revenue'
There is definite need for a wider range of subjects to meet the defense efforts
but this cannot be done without additional financial help.
The board of education is limited in capital outlay expenditure and where
classrooms are now needed it will be impossible for us to build such on present
revenue, and hallways and auditoriums will have to be partitioned for addi-
tional space. The supply of teachers who have certificates is practically ex-
hausted and more of the older group will have to be called on to take the place
of the younger teachers who have resigned to obtain better jobs.
10. The school space that is available in Colbert County is entirely too far
from the point of congestion that transportation would help to relieve the crowded
condition. For instance we have a few buildings in the west end of Colbert
County some 25 miles from the crowded area and it is impossible to transport
pupils this far to obtain school advantages, especially the grade children.
Exhibit 33. — Statement by Mrs. W. O. Reed, Director, Depart-
ment of Public Welfare, Colbert County, Tuscumbia, Ala.
1. The following is a break-down of the financial statement of Colbert County
from October 1940 through September 1941, which is our fiscal year. "Number
of clients" in column V refers to number of families receiving cash assistance
through this Department by the month under the categories of old-age assistance,
aid to dependent children, aid to the blind, aid to the handicapped, and temporary
aid. In column VI "Average per client" means average cash grant per month
per family. In column VII "Number eligible— not receiving" represents the
number of families who are eligible for cash grants through this Department, but
who do not receive cash grants in view of the limitation of funds.
Source of funds
Federal
III
Total
IV
Number
clients
V
Average
per client
VI
Number
eligible
not receiv-
ing cash
VII
Month
Lccal
1
State
II
1940
$770. 14
793. 74
804. 14
818. 70
829. 00
847. 30
897. 63
943. 67
962. 50
960. 00
974. 94
926. 25
$770. 14
793. 74
804. 15
818. 70
829. 00
847. 31
870. 64
924. 68
923. 00
935. 00
949. 44
925. 25
$1. 233. 28
1. 277. 48
1, 297. 00
1, 337. 25
1, 346. 00
1,350.55
1, 3S7. 00
1, 438. 00
1, 406. 00
1, 457. 00
1, 486. 87
1, 463. 50
$2, 773. 56
2, 864. 96
2, 905. 29
2, 974. 65
3, 004. 00
3, 045. 16
3, 155. 27
3, 306. 35
3.291.50
3, 352. 00
3,411.25
3,315.00
291
311
313
320
321
317
322
316
314
316
325
312
$9.53
9.21
9.28
9.30
9.36
9.61
9.80
10.46
10.48
10.61
10.50
10.63
114
107
1941
108
107
July
116
120
Total
10, 528. 01
10, 391. 05
16, 479. 93
37, 398. 99
3,778
9.90
12240
HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
2. In several ways the in-migration of people into the county has affected the
welfare client. Primarily the client has been affected from the standpoint of
housing (see point 5 for discussion). Apparently the living costs in this section
have always been considered exceptionally high, but with the influx of defense
workers and others, living cost increased. The client with his inadequate grant
was unable to compete in securing adequate house, food, or other necessities.
In many instances persons who at one time were employees of Work Projects
Administration have had larger earnings than at any previous period in their lives
from defense opportunities. These people have entered a campaign of reckless
spending, with no particular planning of budgeting system to enable them to
profit by their increased earnings. Following a man's release from a year's em-
ployment at the defense plant, within a few days the client finds himself at the
door of the welfare department apparently in no better shape financially than
prior to his period of employment. In some instances the client is wearing better
clothing and he looks as though he had more nourishing food. In many instances,
however, there seems to be no change.
One of the effects of the increased industrial activity is that the laborer's
attention is attracted by the large wages so that he can readily give accounts
of waiting hours unsuccessfully to secure an interview for employment at one of
the defense plants, but he completely loses sight of the smaller job with less pay
which may have possibilities for permanency. The job with big pay is alluring
regardless of short period of employment, whereas the little job with small pay,
though it be permanent, has no attraction. Persons are no longer interested
in farm work but prefer employment by an industry.
3. As our county appropriation for the past 2 or 3 years has been somewhat
constant we anticipate neither an increase nor decrease in county funds. In the
event, however, there should be a decrease in county funds the effect upon the relief
people would mean that they would be even less able to secure adequate house,
food, medical care and other necessities. During the month of December 1941
the average grant per family in Colbert County was $1 1.06 per month. A decrease
in funds would undermine the morale of the people inasmuch as they would be
even less able to secure necessities of life. Cost of living has decidedly increased
so that the value of a dollar is much less than a year ago.
4. Under point 1 we gave by months the number of persons receiving cash grants
and the number of eligibles for whom no funds were available in Colbert County.
The following figures, which we secured from the Work Projects Administration
office, Decatur, represent the months, beginning October 1940, continuing through
September 1941, the number of men and women employed upon Work Projects
Administration under column I, and under column II the number of persons
certified as in need of Work Projects Administration but due to inadequate
quota were not working:
Month
Work
Projects
Adminis-
tration
I
Work
Projects
Adminis-
tration-
awaiting
assignment
II
Month
Work
Projects
Adminis-
tration
I
Work
Projects
Adminis-
tration-
awaiting
assignment
II
1940
435
353
393
373
341
784
800
880
900
913
1941
March
452
395
512
469
535
485
819
675
461
May...
245
260
1941
July
213
August
256
As persons awaiting assignment to Work Projects Administration apparently
have no income, during the past fiscal year they were afforded food stamps
through the food stamp offices as follows:
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12241
Month
Number
of
families
Food
stamps
Month
Number
of
families
Food
stamps];
1940
701
786
802
865
822
804
$6, 192
6,766
6,479
7,341
6,955
7,070
1941
655
517
286
238
295
179
May.
4,610
1941
July
August
2,513
Total
6,950
Thus we see that the awaiting assignment family received on an average of
$8.63 per month, which amount he used for food. Thus the average per month
afforded the awaiting assignment group is less than the average cash grant per
month to social-security categories. (You will note that the number of families
awaiting assignment who received food stamps varies from the number of families
awaiting Work Projects Administration assignment, according to figures secured
from Work Projects Administration. This difference in number is due to the
fact that nonhouseholders are ineligible for food stamps.)
We were unable to secure rentals by the month for the past year. However, a
study of our case load revealed that we have about 432 families at the present
either receiving cash grants or approved as eligible. Of this number, 12 are
boarding in unrelated homes, 81 are living with relatives so that they do not have
to pay rent; 113 families secure rent free as they live in shacks in too bad condition
to warrant payment of rent, in tents, in houses on the landlord's farms, etc.; and
55 families own their own homes or shacks which afford shelter. The remaining
172 families pay rent. Prior to October 1, 1940, the average amount of rent these
families paid per month was $4.60 per month. On, or after, October 1, 1941, the
average amount paid per month was $5.38, or an increase of about 17 percent
for rent. In one case rent jumped from nothing to $17 per month. In most
instances the increases in rents were in the towns or larger communities.
In making this study of our case load it was particularly noteworthy that in
most instances in the urban sections when the families were notified that their
rent would be increased from 25 to 100 percent, the families, realizing the impos-
sibility of paying this amount, merely moved to houses which were in much
worse condition, in more undesirable sections of town, or crowded into one or two
rooms. In view of this tendency to escape to worse living quarters, due to the
client's inability to pay rent, the actual picture as to the increase that was expected
of the clients would show more than 17 percent advance.
It seems that rents increased to a greater extent on houses and apartments
ranging between $10 to $20 per month. In many instances the houses clients
occupied were repaired following the clients moving and in turn the houses were
rented to laborers on the defense projects.
(The above figures represent a fairly accurate break-down regarding living
arrangements of our families as we made a study of the entire case load. These
figures, however, refer merely to those receiving cash grants through our depart-
ment and in no way reflect the plight of the Work Projects Administration
employees) .
Apparently delinquency has not particularly increased during the past year as
it was always exceptionally high in this section. This fact has a direct bearing on
housing of the low-income group and accordingly even though delinquency may
not have increased noticeably this year, at least there seems no possibility of a
decrease as long as the clients are being pushed into even poorer living quarters.
Apparently neither hospital nor health facilities have been increased because of
the indigent outsider but there seems to be a possibility that health facilities will
be increased in the county in the future.
In Colbert County apparently there are 40 women enrolled in a class in business
training in typing and shorthand in Tuscumbia sponsored by vocational education,
and 8 persons enrolled in a similar course sponsored by National Youth Adminis-
tration.
Tennessee Valley Authority, likewise, has a training class in blueprint reading
for 25 Negro employees.
For the most part, persons enrolled in above training classes have to have a
certain degree of education as a basis so that persons with practically no education
are not afforded an opportunity to learn these trades or acquire these skills.
60396— 42— pt. 32 20
12242 HUNTSVILLE, ALAV HEARINGS
There continues to be, according to the records of Alabama State Emp^yment
Service, a large number of unemployed unskilled laborers who are unable to be
absorbed by the defense programs due to lack of skills.
Apparently Work Projects Administration projects afford about the only source
of recreation for low-income groups. According to an announcement on January
22, 1942, in the Tri-Cities Daily, R. A. Hoyer, field agent of the Federal Security
Agency, announced that he filed applications for four recreational buildings in the
Muscle Shoals district in behalf of the local cities. Included in the applications
were: An $85,000 community center in Florence; a $75,000 gymnasium and com-
munity center in Tuscumbia; a $40,000 community center in Sheffield; a $40,000
Negro gymnasium, that will probably be located in Sheffield, and will serve the
Negroes of the entire district. The buildings are to be erected to meet the needs
here for recreational centers and serve thousands of defense workers. According
to rumors in Tuscumbia, in the event one of the buildings is erected in Tuscumbia
for defense workers a large playground will be added to the project for white
children.
Exhibit 34. — Statement by Charles F. Varn, Secretary-
Manager, Chamber of Commerce, Anniston, Ala.
The official 1940 census for Anniston showed a population of 25,523, a 14 per-
cent increase over 1930; in the metropolitan area, which comprises Anniston,
Oxford, Hobson Citv, Blue Mountain, Fort McClellan, and environs, the 1940
population was 35,284, an 18 percent increase over 1930. The Calhoun County
population as of 1940 was 63,319, a 13.8 percent increase over 1930. Today
Anniston city limits enjoys an approximate population of 35,000 although last
year some 40,000 resided here. In the metropolitan area today we enjoy a
population of 60,000 as against approximately 65,000 last year.
During 1940 the construction program at Fort McClellan aggregated $7,750,000,
building cantonments, utilities, and other essential construction to house up to
25,000 troops. Peak labor employed on the project was in the neighborhood of
7,500 persons. During 1941 continued permanent improvements amounted to
$5,500,000. with peak labor around 3,500. During 1941 the Anniston ordnance
depot located at Bynum, 10 miles west of Anniston, was underway at a cost of
-$10,600,000. Peak labor went around 6,000. The Coosa River ordnance plant,
18 miles south, costing $24,000,000, and the Alabama ordnance depot at Childers-
burg, 45 miles southwest, and costing in the neighborhood of $75,000,000, only
slightly affected our housing situation.
In October 1940 the New York National Guard was assigned to Fort McClellan.
A good number of the families of these 18,000 officers and enlisted men of the
New York outfit came to Anniston to live. Meanwhile Anniston's 83 industries
went to maximum production, increasing the number of employees and subse-
quent housing needs. Local stores and commercial houses likewise increased
their employee personnel to take care of the increased business, and this too added
to the problem of more living accommodations.
Realizing an acute emergency existed, the chamber of commerce appointed a
housing committee to study the situation and take necessary steps to remedy it
insofar as possible. Personnel of committee comprised a representative from the
real estate dealers, labor, building material, furniture and furnishings, and women's
clubs. A campaign was undertaken to convert empty attics, servants' quarters,
spare rooms, etc., into apartments and housing accommodations. A majority
were furnished throughout, special arrangements having been made with local
furniture stores to include this in a reasonable rental. Building materials and
hardware dealers furnished free estimates to prospective remodelers. Labor
agreed to give special priority to these repairs to speed the needs, with no increase
in labor rates. A housing bureau was then established in the office of the chamber
of commerce and a full-time employee assigned as director. During the 8-month
period which the office was in existence 702 apartments, houses, and rooms were
rented through this bureau. In addition, approximately 100 others were rented
in the adjoining communities of Jacksonville, Piedmont, Eastoboga, Lincoln, etc.
These accommodations represented living quarters for 2,500 persons. This
represented mostly the families of soldiers at the fort, and executives of the various
defense projects. Workers in the various defense projects found their own
accommodations in the homes of people in the industrial sections, and in outlying
suburbs. The old Alabama Military Institute Building was leased to a private
individual and cot space for defense workers rented.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12243
Since then with the cooperation of Fort McClellan a homes registration office
has been established and a billeting off cer put in charge as director. A local
fair-rental ccn mittee has also been appointed to handle rental increase disputes.
Statistical comparison of new home construction and remodeling since 1987
1941
1940
1939
1938
1937
Number new homes -._
264
157
132
60
121
72
140
56
Curing 1941 some major relief was indicated in the matter of housing accom-
modations. You will note that twice the number of new homes were constructed
as compared with the previous year; 157 were remodeled. In addition 8 apart-
ment houses were built containing 99 units. An 85-rocm addition to 1 of our
leading hotels is under way. In the outlying sections of the city a large suburban
development got under way representing an investment of approximately
$300,CC0. In 1940 the white low-cost housing project containing 165 units was
opened, and a new Negro lew-cost housing project, containing 82 units, is expected
to be under construction shortly.
Some relief was experienced with the designation of Anniston as a critical
defense area for group construction of homes under title No. 6, liberalized
ledeial Housing Administration program. No appreciable assistance is felt in
the construction priorities of homes where houses rent for not more than $50 per
month. C onsideiable discouragement is indicated on the part of new home
builders, Iederal Housing Administration and insurance loans, etc., on account
of delay in obtaining materials, contractors, and increase in costs of building.
Investigation of the records of the home legistration office, real estate dealers,
etc., shows that a shortage of apartments and houses continues to exist, with no
vacancies reported. They do have approximately 200 rooms for rent, but this
is far from satisfactory. Presently fort McClellan is a replacement training
center, the New York National Guard Division having been transferred to the
Pacific coast. These new officers are having some difficulty in getting the re-
quired living accommodations in the metropolitan area. Housing accommoda-
tions at the post are very limited. Additional housing facilities at the post and
at the Anniston ordnance depot at Bynum, for the permanent garrison executives,
would assist considerably in relieving the shortage. Anniston with so many
of its industries engaged in war products does not have a single workers' defense
housing project. Housing relief to the farmers and tenants vacating lands
taken over by the Government for addition to Fort McClellan (Pelham Range)
and the ordnance depot, was given through Farm Security Administration, but
no relief has been given town industrial defense workers. An overcrowded
condition, therefore, exists in the industrial sections of the city.
Exhibit 35. — Statement by C. C. Moseley, Superintendent,
Anniston Public Schools, Anniston, Ala.
SCHOOL ENROLLMENT
We have compiled data showing school enrollment trend from 1938-39 to date.
A copy of same is attached. I may say that the approximate 1,000 increase in
enrollment over this period has been -largely due to defense activities. The
Pupil Registration Card Form Public Act 137 (of which you are perhaps familiar)
shows that we had by count 745 defense pupils in our Anniston schools on Febru-
ary 2, 1942. Of these, however, there was some doubt about some 218 of them,
leaving without doubt 527 pupils chargeable directly to defense work. There are
perhaps many more than these but we were unable to get the days on which they
moved into Anniston and, therefore could not count them. I may say, too, that
many defense pupils have registered in the Anniston schools since we compiled
the data on February 2, 1942. They are coming in daily.
The reasons for these defense pupils being in Anniston are:
1. The expansion at Fort McClellan. Originally there were two or three
thousand soldiers stationed there but the Twenty-seventh Division brought in
about 22,000. Millions of dollars were spent in this expansion program.
12244
HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
2. The ordnance depot. The ordnance depot was built about 6 miles from
Anniston at a cost of $1 1,000,000. This project has not yet been completed. We
are also told that still other expansions will be made there.
3. The du Pont powder plant, only 40 miles away at Childersburg and the bag-
loading plant about 30 miles away at Talladega have caused people to move to
Anniston and go back and forth daily to work. This was due to the fact that they
could not find housing any nearer to the two plants.
4. News now comes to us that the shell-loading plant, located about 6 or 7 miles
out from the ordnance depot, will be built shortly.
5. A large number of our local industries in Anniston are engaged in defense
production either in whole or in part. The Kilby Car & Foundry Co. is engaged
in total defense production. The Monsanto Chemical Co. does a large percent of
defense production. The nine pipe shops, all of the machine shops, the knitting
and yarn mills, etc., do quite a bit of defense production work.
This sudden influx of defense pupils has caused the City Board of Education of
Anniston to make temporary arrangements to house pupils by: using basement
rooms (which are merely storage rooms), a principal's office, halls, libraries, and
auditoriums and two basements of old churches for classrooms. Teachers have
been employed and many more need now to be employed. We are running a
double session in five different rooms at the present time (this means that half of
the children come in the morning and half come in the afternoon1).
Enrollment of Anniston public schools, Anniston, Ala., Feb. 3, 1942
WHITE SCHOOLS
June 30,
1939
June 30,
1940
Oct. 10,
1940
Oct. 10,
1941
Dee. 5,
1941
Jan. 8,
1942
Feb. 2,
1942
379
583
244
220
355
426
371
547
241
165
386
454
391
578
248
194
414
440
426
595
228
268
417
426
446
624
240
287
448
464
45S
636
252
294
455
473
294
2,207
786
476
2,164
721
505
2,265
850
521
2,360
859
530
2,509
877
535
2,568
890
536
300
962
266
960
318
1,053
333
1, 056
344
1,068
346
1,080
1,262
1,226
1,371
1,389
1,412
1,426
3,469
3,390
3, 636
3,749
3,921
3,994
NEGRO SCHOOLS
311
669
288
707
295
703
306
753
321
787
323
796
339
980
995
998
1,059
1,108
1,119
1,151
Cobb Aye.:
216
89
211
115
2S2
156
314
159
330
159
332
160
161
305
326
438
473
489
492
487
1,285
1,321
1,436
1.532
1,597
1,611
1,638
4,754
4,711
5,072
5,281
5,518
5,605
5,709-
Exhibit 36.— Statement by Frank J. Nolan, Manager, The
Ingalls Shipbuilding Corporation, Decatur, Ala.
The Ingalls Shipbuilding Corporation makes it a practice to employ as much
local labor for, say, a distance not in excess of 20 miles from Decatur as possible.
This tends to give us a steady labor factor in that the larger percentage of men
who own their own homes are not so wont to pick up and move and drift around
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12245
and leave us. However, high wages and many other inducements to every kind
of tradesman we employ here in the yard- have taken their toll of our best labor.
The wages far exceed what the shipbuilding industries can pay labor today. We
have consequently over a period of months possibly a year lost many of our first-
class men, such as welders, shipfitters, machinists, pipe fitters, etc. These men
have been lured away from us by such organizations as the defense projects in
Alabama and shipyards on the Gulf coast who offered practically unlimited
inducement for these men to come and work for them.
In our welding category, we have had naturally to train all these men from
raw material even going so far as to certify them by American Bureau of Shipping,
and Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation.
Certifying welders in these Bureaus cost our company many dollars and we do
not get the benefit of their services after we have expended much money, time, and
effort in making them first-class welders.
In the case of ship fitters, I can say the same thing with the exception that
they do not have to be certified, but the money invested in them by our company,
while they are in the formative stage of learning, is considerable, and when we have
taught them and they become first-class men we have in many instances lost
them to other yards, including defense projects, shipbuilding companies, etc.
We operate schools under the Work Projects Administration, and the auspices
of the University of Alabama, and Auburn, and Polytechnic Institute in Decatur
for the teaching of shipbuilding, blueprint reading, and the art of welding. These
schools are carried on in the evening and some of the instructors are our foremen
in this plant. The schools are well attended by men employed in our plant and
also by men from other plants. These schools are open to the public, but are
limited in size, for instance, 30 men are all we can take care of in the ship-fitting
school at present, and 15 men are all we can take care of in the welding school at
present, owing to the limit of the number of welding machines available for this
purpose.
The difficulty in obtaining skilled employees is no doubt well known to the
Members of Congress, the House of Representatives, and other affiliated depart-
ments of the Government and is universal throughout the country and we, like
all others, have to suffer the consequences of the extreme lack of competent and
expert workmen. We are, therefore, forced to procure men mostly from raw
material, teach them, and build them up in the hopes that in a year from now they
will be worth their salt to us.
At the present time we could use the services of approximately 50 more skilled
mechanics in the welding, ship fitting, pipe fitting, machinist, carpenter, etc.,
trades. The procurement of these men at this time is slow, and we have to take
our chances with all other corporations looking for the same kind of help.
The many cases of top men in various trades leaving our employ to accept
employment in other companies for higher wages and longer hours and promised
overtime are far too many to enumerate in this letter to you. Suffice it to say,
the numbers run into scores.
The pathetic part of the story with the majority of these men who leave our
service, is that they eventually wind up with us, where they started from. Either
they cannot make the grade, or they are sick and tired of too much overtime, or
there is too much pressure and driving put on them to get out the work, or the
living conditions which they have had to accept as part of their many environ-
ments were nonacceptable to them for one reason or another. In Mobile the
housing seems to be the big problem. At Sheffield, Ala., men drive from Decatur
daily to Sheffield and back, which is 40 miles each way. The same thing may be
said for Huntsville, and I presume this is retroactive of most counties in the State.
The following is a schedule of the force employed in this yard. In June 1939
there were 105 men on the force. In June 1940 there were 152, and in June 1941
there were 138. At the present time we are building up our force and we hope
to bring it up in the neighborhood of 200, or better as soon as possible.
Regarding the difficulties faced by our corporation with respect to adequate
frontage for building berths. I understand that this is being taken care of to a
certain extent and that negotiations are now in progress to increase our present
water frontage which is so sorely needed at the present time.
This plant is doing nothing but national defense work. We are constructing
boats for the Quartermaster Department, United States Government. The work
on hand and considering the total number of contracts will carry this plant over
for a period of 12 months from this date, without further contracts being obtained/
but in the event the corporation expanded considerably more contracts could be
taken care of.
12246 HTJNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
This statement may not contain all the information you desire, but it gives you
a fair retrospect of what we have been up against, and are today for that matter,
with the migration of labor.
The corporation extends to its employees every facility for their comfort and
contentment, safety and the purchasing of the best equipment obtainable to enable
them to perform their work quickly and efficiently.
I personally have given this migration matter many hours of study and have
come to the conclusion that the personal equation enters into it almost entirely.
I know of no other way to circumvent the migration of labor, as if an employee
once gets the idea of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, 75 percent will
follow this rainbow and take their gamble on making out. The other 25 percent
usually stick. The 75 percent having the idea that if everything else fails after
a period of months or sooner they can return to their original employment.
In my opinion were it possible to stabilize hours and wages for all classes of
help I believe some of the migration problems might be licked.
Exhibit 37.- — Statement by L. L. Lively, Alabama Hosiery Mills,.
Inc., Decatur, Ala.
We manufacture ladies' full fashioned stockings and during the past 6 months
have used the following kinds of yarn — nylon, rayon, cotton, and silk.
Enclosing exhibit No. 1 which reflects the employment statistics for the years
1939, 1940, and the first 7 months of 1941 which was immediately prior to the
silk "freezing" order— it also shows the break-down between male and female
employees. All male workers are employed in the legging and footing depart-
ments while the female workers are employed in the topping, looping, seaming,
examining, and mending departments.
Also enclosing exhibit No. 2 which shows the monthly employment figures
from August 1, 1941, to February 1, 1942. This same exhibit shows the reasons
for the various separations from August 1, 1941, to February 10, 1942.
Up until this time practically all of the 33 full-fashioned knitters who have
accepted employment in defense work have gone to the Government arsenal at
Huntsville and as advised you several weeks ago, it costs us in the neighborhood
of about $1,200 to train a male worker to become a knitter in full-fashioned
hosiery.
At this time we do not know how long we can operate on the available stocks
of materials.
The types of equipment we use to manufacture full-fashioned hosiery include
legging machines (42 and 45 gage), footing m.achines (42 and 45 gage), topping
stands, looping m.achines (24, 26, 28, and 30 points), seaming machines (styles
41,200 and 41,300) and examining forms (expansion type). Up until this time
we have not been able to find anything for defense that can be manufactured
with our equipment, but our employees who are skilled in the use of their hands
can be easily trained to assemble a number of items. Such an operation would
not only contribute something to the war program but it would employ workers
many of whom are women who cannot leave their homes to seek employment
elsewhere.
So long as we are operating, we have very little if any idle floor space but what
we need right now m.ore than anything else is guidance and direction in connec-
tion with converting our peacetime industry to war production. Understand
it is definitely up to management to decide what articles the employer should
change to for defense work, but we are not interested in making something of
which there is a surplus. We have been told that some companies who did not
have an engineering staff of their own have had to employ outside engineers to
recommend or suggest some plan, but most engineering firms who do that kind
of work are extremely busy and it is not convenient for them to devote much
time to the small employer.
With kindest regards, remain
Yours very truly,
Alabama Hosiery Mills, Inc.
L. L. Lively.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12247
Table No. 1.
-Alabama Hosiery Mills, Inc., employment statistics for years 1939
1940, and first 7 months of 1941
Male
Female
Total
Male
Female
Total
1939
248
251
261
274
280
272
252
248
256
270
285
296
281
281
252
248
268
281
290
300
314
318
325
328
312
304
306
325
327
310
311
516
520
542
564
580
586
570
573
584
582
589
602
606
608
562
559
1940
243
242
237
234
234
231
232
229
228
228
230
230
232
230
232
318
314
288
266
268
276
274
280
283
294
300
305
310
314
315
July
August
500
October
507
July....
September
1941
December
1940
March
530
May
February
July
April
Table No. 2. — Alabama Hosiery Mills, Inc., monthly employment figures from
Aug. 1, 1941, to Feb. 1, 1942
Male
Female
Total
Male
Female
Total
1941
215
212
211
212
298
296
292
295
513
508
503
507
1941— Continued
December
1942
196
190
296
267
Employee separations from Aug. 1, 1941, to Feb. 10, 1942
Number of
Reason : employees
Reduction of force 34
Accepting defense work 33
Joining family whose husbands or fathers have accepted employment on
defense projects in other localities 23
Going into military service 15
Accepting other types of employment 13
Dismissed — most of these for inefficiency 12
Going to school 8
On account of health 7
To keep house and take care of children 6
Confinement 6
Accepting civil-service employment 4
Accepting employment in another hosiery mill 3
On account of eyes 2
Quit — personal reasons 2
Returned to the farm 2
Total ..: 170
Exhibit 38. — Statement by H. M. Jones, Representing Cooper,
Wells & Co., Decatur, Ala.
We are manufacturers of full-fashioned hosiery and up until the Government
froze our silk we were operating three full shifts using silk and nylon altogether
in the manufacture of hose. We only have silk to operate on for a very short
while, probably a month or 6 weeks and when this supply is exhausted we will
have to use whatever yarns we can get, such as cotton, rayon, and probably
12248 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
some nylon. Of course you realize the Government is taking a part of the nylon
so if the Government eventually takes all the nylon we will have to concen-
trate on cotton and rayon of which I am afraid we will be unable to secure a
sufficient quantity to operate on full-time basis.
Our employment statistics for the year 1939 was 350. The year 1940, 340.
August 1941, "290. In August the Government froze our silk and we were forced
to lay off 75 employees of which 37 were male and 38 female. Our employment
figures month by month from September 1941 to date are as follows: September,
190 employees. In October we called back some of the employees which were
laid off and this brought our October records to 201. November and December
we employed 197 and January 1942 we dropped to 190 employees. This drop
was caused by employees leaving our organization and going to the arsenal in
Huntsville and other Government jobs.
If we were able to secure yarns to start up our plant in full we would probably
be unable to secure enough "knitters to operate on three full shifts basis. Should
we have to employ inexperienced operators it would take us approximately a
year to train an employee to be a fair operator and would cost approximately
$800 to $1,000.
The equipment used in the manufacture of full-fashioned hosiery is legger,
footer, looper, and seamer machines. The different equipment which we use in
the manufacture of full-fashioned hose cannot be converted to manufacture any
type of war material.
Exhibit 39. — Statement by Dr. J. E. Dunn, County Health
Officer, Lauderdale County Department of Public Health,
Florence, Ala.
The State health department, through its various county health departments,
is intrusted with the protection of the public health of the State and enforces, if
necessary, the State health laws and regulations as directed by the State board of
health which is an integral part of the Alabama State Medical Association.
The Lauderdale County Health Department is made up of a health officer, three
full time public health nurses, one sanitation officer, one inspector, one secretary,
and one part time meat inspector. The Work Projects Administration furnishes
in addition to the above personnel, one nurse, one clerk, and one maid. Funds
for the health department personnel are gotten from county, city, State, and
Federal sources. There is no anticipation at the present time of increased per-
sonnel, due to lack of funds, although additional assistance is greatly needed.
The health department operates immunization clinics, clinics for venereal
disease, tuberculosis, maternal hygiene and child spacing clinics, and cooperative
clinics with the Alabama State Crippled Children's Service. All records are kept
on regulation State adopted forms. A follow-up treatment is done in the clinics
and is followed, where possible, into the homes by visiting nurses. Sanitation,
inspection, vital statistics, consultation, isolation, and other methods of disease
control are among the activities of the department.
The hospital situation in Florence is beyond description. The present institu-
tion is inadequate, dirty, unsafe, unequipped, and unmanaged. However, I am
glad to say that this terrible condition is being remedied and a new, modern,
60-bed hospital is under construction. It has been made possible by the Defense
Public Works project. The local medical society, hospital board and govern-
mental authorities have secured the services of a hospital manager whom we feel
will eliminate most of the above hazards. I am unable at this time to break these
60 beds down to the various services, but there will be general medical, surgical,
obstetrical, and isolation facilities.
Approximately 25 patients are hospitalized annually from this county through
a joint State program in the tuberculosis sanatorium at Decatur, Ala. The
population of the county (1940) was approximately 46,000 people; therefore, one
can readily see that general hospital and tuberculosis beds are far below public-
health standards. It is estimated that our population is now well above 50,000.
The annual budget for the health department for the next fiscal year is $16,640,
made up of local, State, and Federal funds. The county has increased the budget
by $300.
The county is within the radius of Camp Forrest, bringing it under the May Act.
The water supply for the general town population is adequate. Additional
plant capacity has been added to the Florence waterworks. County and indi-
vidual supplies, of course, need great improvement. Sewage-disposal facilities
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12249
for Florence are very poor and do not adequately take care of the present popula-
tion. Although most of the city has sewers, the outlets are considered a hazard
by State and county health departments. Arrangements are being made for an
additional sewer system to serve a Tennessee Valley Authority housing project of
approximately 200 homes. All other projects have adequate sewers, but, aa
before stated, the outlets are causing us much concern. Untreated sewage is
flowing into the boat canal which is kept pooled due to Pickwick Lake. All the
city outflows are below our water supply but only a short distance above that of
Sheffield, Ala. The State planning commission is calling a meeting in the Tri-
Cities February 19, at which time this problem is to be discussed.
Special attention is being paid to venereal disease control. As stated before,
a clinic is operated twice weekly at the county health department. We have
adequate laws and ordinances concerning venereal disease but lack personnel to
enforce them. Since the fall of 1939, 441 cases of venereal diseases have been
admitted to the clinic. This represents the indigent group. A survey this date
indicates the presence of approximately 30 prostitutes within the city of Florence.
Steps are being undertaken to curb their activities.
The question of housing cannot be answered as several projects are under con-
struction and new defense activities just beginning. Many families are in the
same houses, trailer camps are present, and every available space is occupied, the
sanitation of which has been of great concern to this department and every effort
made to keep sanitated. Adequate ordinances are present, but again, enforcing
personnel is needed. Naturally, overcrowding encourages contagion; what it
will cause I cannot say, but we are making every effort to be familiar with existing
and changing conditions.
Exhibit 40. — Statement by Mrs. Ruth R. Arnett, Director,
Department of Public Welfare, Lauderdale County,
Florence, Ala.
1. I am sure you are aware of the matching basis for categorical assistance in
this State. In Lauderdale County local funds are available monthly, as follows:
County governing body. $1, 500
City of Florence 125
Community Chest (private donations) 600
Total 2,225
Attached is a table showing the number of cases receiving assistance by categories
for the calendar year 1941. The average grant for each category for each month
and the average grant for all categories for each month are given.
2. The increased industrial activities in Lauderdale County have affected the
welfare clients as follows:
(a) Rising prices have made the already inadequate grants more inadequate.
(b) Housing is more congested.
(c) Crime among juveniles and adults has increased, particularly social crimes.
This comes to the attention of the welfare department in an increased number of
cases involving delinquent children, prostitution, desertion, and nonsupport.
3. No increase or decrease in county funds is anticipated.
4. The figures given for question No. 1 show the number of people receiving
assistance by months. An attached chart shows the number working on Work
Projects Administration and awaiting assignment to Work Projects Administra-
tion by months.
5. No figures are available for rentals by months; however, case workers have
observed a definite increase in housing problems during the past year. Evictions
have increased. Conditions already bad are made worse as families of six or eight
move into one-room shacks. Often two such families attempt to live together in
the same house. This seems largely due to the influx of defense workers who can
pay higher rents and who therefore take the houses available.
Frequent newspaper articles call attention to the demand for rooms, apart-
ments, and houses, and request that all available space be listed with the homes
registration bureau. A Work Projects Administration survey made in October
1941 shows an increase of 51.1 percent in monthly rentals here since September
1940. This information applies to housing for all classes. The situation for the
lower-income groups seems even more acute as their housing has always been poor.
For example, a number of families live in one-room apartments in an undesirable
12250
HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
rooming-house district. The rent was recently raised on these rooms from $4 to
$6 per month. Because of low grants, some of these dwellers could not pay the
increased rent and had to move in with other families. Some families have not
been given a chance to pay the increased rent as the landlord wanted to repair the
house and triple and quadruple the amount asked for as rent. It is felt that there
is a definite relationship between crowded housing conditions and delinquency.
6. Relief rolls have not been appreciably increased by the influx of "outsiders."
The Salvation Army reports a slight increase in the number of transients cared
for. The red-light district has at least doubled its area. The unmarried mother
cases have increased. Several needy families, consisting mostly of girls, have
moved to this area apparently for the purpose of employment in prostitution.
7. The training programs and recreation facilities undertaken for low-income
groups are helpful, but are not undertaken on a large enough scale to be noticeably
effective. The county has a recreation project employing a supervisor and 29
certified workers. This project is no larger than it was last year, in spite of the
greater need for supervised recreation. At this particular time, a number of
representative citizens and groups have expressed their desire for an additional
preschool center for white children and one for colored children, a male noncertified
recreational worker to help prevent delinquency among adolescent boys, a full
time noncertified Negro recreational worker to work with colored groups.
There are a few adult education centers in this county. One supervisor serves
Lauderdale and Colbert Counties. The Work Projects Administration training
program for Work Projects Administration workers will probably be helpful.
So far it has not been in operation long enough for results to be observed.
Cases receiving public assistance and average grants for the calendar year 1941
HI
o.2
January..
February.
March
April
May.
June
July ....
August...
September
October..
November
December.
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197
11.43
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11.34
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14.90
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14.83
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14.96
J
12.50
24
13.67
1
13.00
12
14.00
:r">
13.05
190
11.27
98
14.93
1
12.50
23
13.28
1
13.00
12
12.92
317
12.90
192
11.27
93
14. 96
1
12.50
24
13. 15
1
13.00
12
12.46
315
12.84
193
11.46
92
14. 58
1
12.50
25
13.52
1
13.00
14
12.18
3?6
12.54
194
11.36
98
14.34
1
12. 50
25
13.12
1
13.00
12
12.66
331
12.43
193
11.39
92
15.49
1
12.50
25
13.12
0
0
12
13.17
323
12.76
L9S
11.35
96
15.40
0
0
24
11 88
1
5.00
12
13.17
3;>s
12.62
200
11.19
HU
15.57
0
0
23
11.96
n
0
n
12.94
339
12.65
205
11.39
106
15.26
0
0
21
12.07
n
0
11
13.55
3-i:-(
12.70
232
11.30
lll'J
14.94
0
0
24
11.77
0
0
11
13.55
376
12.45
1,380
1,446
1,440
1,538
1,395
1,520
1,412
1,487
1,623
1,194
1,088
1,100
1 This number includes all of the awaiting assignment to Work Projects Administration employment
groups, some of whom are receiving assistance through the food-stamp plan.
Lauderdale County certified load, Work Projects Administration
Month
Awaiting
assign-
ment
Working
Total
Month
Awaiting
. assign-
ment
Working
Total
1941
1,278
1,303
1,455
1,450
1,208
926
1,334
1,331
1,108
1,028
1,029
1,013
2,612
2,634
2,563
2,478
2,237
1,939
July.
896
872
876
767
808
828
866
888
894
938
931
920
1,862
August
1,760
October
November
December
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12251
Exhibit 41. — Statement by Miss Virginia C. Gibbs, Work
Projects Administration, Decatur, Ala.
The Rent Situation in Huntsville Resulting From National Defense
Migration
With the announcement by the War Department in the latter part of June 1941
that a defense plant was to be built near Huntsville, a perceptible increase in the
sale of real estate was immediately noticeable. Quite a bit of speculation was
done as it was felt that the housing situation would be a problem almost from the
beginning. Other property owners began repairing and remodeling with the
expectation of renting for more than had ever been received for such property.
Within a few days after the announcement by the War Department, rents began
to advance and in many cases have continued to the present time. In many
instances the increase was from 50 to 75 and even 100 percent. Some local people
who were working for moderate salaries found themselves forced to move because
the increased rent plus the other rises in living expenses made it impossible for
them to remain in the houses they were renting.
Since the beginning of the construction of the arsenal there has been a steady
influx of workers from all parts of the country seeking work. As there was a
shortage of houses even at that time, estimated by the department of public
welfare to have been about 25 percent, the condition has gradually become more
acute.
The chamber of commerce early began assisting people coming into the town to
find living quarters by keeping on file a list of the houses, apartments, and rooms
available for rent. This was a voluntary service on the part of that agency. A
recent report from the chamber of commerce is that there are no houses or apart-
ments listed with them and only a few rooms are left. It has been most difficult
to assist families to find places and in some instances the wives and children have
had to return to their former residences while the heads of the families stayed in
Huntsville. Other instances were cited of families having to live in very crowded
quarters at the hotels. In many cases the people renting property objected to
children, especially where only rooms were rented.
No figures are available as to the number of persons the chamber of commerce
has assisted in finding quarters; however, the demand for rooms, houses, and
apartments is still heavy. It is estimated that from 12 to 25 requests are made
each day. Besides these there are, of course, those who have been able to make
their own arrangements. It was felt that the number of families who are attempt-
ing unsuccessfully to find homes really constitutes a problem.
The chamber of commerce also attempts to help with keeping rent reasonable.
Where the rent is exorbitant the rooms or houses are not listed.
In September 1941 a sample survey of rent in Huntsville was made by the
Work Projects Administration Division of Research at the request of Office of
Production Management. Average rentals for September 1940 were used as a
base for computing the rent increases. This survey showed that among dwellings
that were rental units in September 1940 and September 1941 rent rose from
$13.31 to an average of $17.55. Only 22 percent of rental units had decreased
during this period. It was found that rent increases occurred more frequently
and were higher in the white than in the colored neighborhoods. The average
rent was $23.12 in the white communities and $8.98 in the colored. This survey
was made on half the dwelling units in Huntsville. About 65 percent of these
units covered were rental.
It is felt that since this survey was made that rents have continued increasing
and that the percentage would now be much greater. It was also stated by one
rental agent that where houses had been rented before the defense plant was
placed in Huntsville the increase in rent has not been so great. However, where
houses have been built or remodeled for renting the rent has been much greater.
The increased rent rates, according to the director of the department of public
welfare, have worked a great hardship on the clients of that agency. Many
families have been forced to double up or do with less room. One instance was
cited of 10 people living in 1 room. The rents of the houses and rooms these
people live in have increased from 50 to 100 percent. The same thing has been
found true from observation of Work Projects Administration families coming to
Intake. In practically every case it has been found that rent has been advanced
sharply.
12252
HUNTSVILLE, ALA.,. HEARINGS
Some steps have been taken and are being taken to alleviate the congested
housing situation. Within Huntsville and the surrounding areas 11 trailer camps
have been built within the past few months, including 1 Government camp
under the supervision of Farm Security Administration with some 200 trailers
already in use and an additional 200 being prepared for. Another privately owned
camp is also in the process of being constructed.
Besides the trailer camps there have been 2 tourist camps constructed with 10
cabins each. Approximately 10 new boarding houses have opened up; 3 bunk-
houses with 24, 36, and 10 bunks have been built. Many individuals have built
houses.
The health department, which gave the above information, stated that it also
seemed that almost every house in Huntsville had roomers or boarders. Even
out in the rural areas any number of homes are found with roomers and boarders.
Since the location of the arsenal in Huntsville a new subdivision, Mayfair, has
been built. When completed there will be 138 houses in the division. The aver-
age cost of the houses is $3,500, with down payment of $350 and monthly pay-
ments of $27.
Presidential approval of another housing project has also been given recently.
This calls for 300 permanent dwellings for the employees of the arsenal. Each unit
is estimated to cost $3,750 and construction will be under the supervision of the
Federal Works Agency. It is estimated that construction will begin immediately
on these houses.
Taken as a whole the housing situation in Huntsville at the present time is acute
The completion of the houses in the Mayfair division and the building of 300 per-
manent houses previously mentioned will relieve this to some extent; however, it
will be some time before these houses will be ready for occupation. From observa-
tion it is believed that as a whole rents have advanced some 50 percent since the
location of the arsenal in Huntsville. The people coming into Huntsville from
other sections are in many instances having to live in very crowded quarters and
often in undesirable places.
Percentage distribution of sex and race by age groups
MADISON COUNTY WORKING LOAD, FEB. 13, 1942
White
Colored
Male
Female
Male
Female
366
54.1
124
18.3
151
22.3
36
5.3
12.8
22.4
18.8
20
20
6
18.5
30.7
20.2
23.4
5.6
1.6
7.3
10.6
20.5
27.8
29.2
4.6
5.6
25 to 34
22.2
35 to 44
25
I 30.5
13.9
2.8
Total
100. 00
100.00
100.00 I 100.00
MADISON COUNTY AWAITING ASSIGNMENT LOAD, FEB. 13, 1942
319
62.4
106
20.7
66
12.9
20
Percent of total number •-
4
18 to 24
7.8
35.4
24.2
13.8
14.7
4.1
6.6
21.7
27.3
27.3
16.1
1
10.6
18.2
31.8
16.7
21.2
1.5
5
5
35 to44
30
25
55 to 64
30
5
Total . ---
100. 00
100. 00
100. 00
100. 00
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12253
Inventory of awaiting assignment, Madison County unskilled and above unskilled
Total
unskilled
Total
above un-
skilled
Male un-
skilled
Male
above un-
skilled
Female
unskilled
Female
above un-
skilled
472
86.9
71
13.1
347
84.2
65
15.8
125
95.4
6
4.6
Total
inn ™
Madison County certified load
Month
Awaiting
assign-
ment
Working
Total
Month
Awaiting
assign-
ment
Working
Total
1941
1,107
922
979
893
886
942
1,651
1,743
1,658
1,621
1,508
1,288
2.758
2,665
2.637
2,514
2,394
2,230
1941
July
1,014
998
904
821
591
655
1,105
1,091
1,016
958
936
807
2,119
2,089
February
March
April.
November. _
December
1,527
1,462
Exhibit 42. — Statement by W. G. Henderson, State Work
Projects Administrator, Montgomery, Ala.
Comparison of Work Projects Administration Load at Peak Periods
Prior to the Defense Period With the Load of the Defense Period
The peak load of the Work Projects Administration employment in Alabama
was reached in November 1938, when 61,295 persons were employed on Work
Projects Administration projects. During this same period, there were 51,022
persons certified as eligible for Work Projects Administration who were not
employed because of limited quota. In January 1942 there were 21,837 persons
employed with 11,536 awaiting assignment to Work Projects Administration.
These figures represent a decrease of 65 percent in the working load and 68 per-
cent in the group awaiting assignment.
Even in the periods in which the peak load was reached, the quota was not
sufficient to give employment to more than 50 percent of the persons certified as
eligible for Work Projects Administration. While there has been a reduction of
approximately 68 percent in the number of persons awaiting assignment since
the period of greatest employment, the ratio of the awaiting assignment group
to the working load remains the same.
The figures for each month since the beginning of the defense program show a
decrease in the number of persons employed on Work Projects Administration
with the exception of the period November 1940 through March 1941, when
Alabama was given a small increase in quota to be used in agricultural areas in
which crop failures were widespread.
The following table gives the Work Projects Administration load at peak
periods prior to the defense program and the month-by-month figures since the
beginning of the defense program in June 1940.
12254
HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Number of Work Projects Administration active certifications for selected months and
for period June 1940 through January 1942
Nov. 30, 1938
Mar. 29, 1939
Dec. 27, 1939.
June 26; 1940.
July 31, 1940.
Aug. 28, 1940.
Sept. 25, 1940
Oct. 30, 1940.
Nov. 27, 1940
Dec. 25, 1940.
Jan. 29, 1941.
Feb. 26, 1941
Mar. 26, 1941
Apr. 30, 1941.
Mav28, 1941
June 25, 1941.
July 30, 1941.
Aug. 27, 1941.
Sept. 24, 1941
Oct. 29, 1941.
Nov. 25, 1941.
Dec. 30, 1941.
Jan. 27, 1942.
All certified persons
Certified employed
Certified awaiting
assignment
Female
Total
Female
Total
Female
Total
Num-
ber
Percent
of
total
Num-
ber
Percent
of
total
Num-
ber
Percent
of
total
112,317
9,846
8.3
61, 295
8,166
13.3
51, 022
1,680
3.3
66, 536
9,617
14.4
55, 286
8,241
14.9
11,250
1 376
12.2
67, 293
8,333
12.4
50, 831
6,913
13.6
16, 462
1, 420
8.6
66, 742
9,356
14.0
32, 829
5,418
16.5
33,913
3,938
11.6
61, 660
9,021
14.6
32, 636
5,532
16.9
29, 024
3.489
12.0
61, 289
8,978
14.6
33, 143
5,537
16.7
28, 146
3,441
12.2
60, 480
8,918
14.7
32, 460
5,558
17.1
28, 020
3,360
12.0
60, 787
9,188
15.1
36, 727
6.448
17.5
24. 060
2,735
11.4
60, 845
9,263
15.2
37, 078
6,830
18.4
23, 767
2,433
10.2
60, 596
9,345
15.4
38, 083
7,188
18.9
22, 513
2,157
9.6
59, 453
9,421
15.8
38. 830
7,295
18.8
20 623
2,126
10.3
58, 180
9,330
16.0
39, 003
7,314
18.7
19, 177
2,016
10.5
55, 803
9,261
16.6
33, 996
6,587
19.4
21, 807
2,674
12.3
51,991
9,008
17.3
33, 362
6,066
18.2
18, 6?9
2,942
15.8
47, 561
8,347
17.5
31. 185
5,345
17.1
16,376
3,002
18.3
46. 024
8,419
18.3
30,081
5,165
17.2
15,943
3,254
20.4
42. 992
7,936
18.4
22, 725
3,955
17.4
20, 267
3.981
19.6
42, 034
8,488
20.2
23, 479
4,279
18.2
18, 555
4, 209
22.7
40, 146
8,236
20.5
23, 164
4,540
19.6
16,982
3,696
21.8
38, 001
8,315
21.9
23, 574
4,884
20.7
14, 427
3,431
23.8
37, 367
8,266
22.1
23. 177
4,982
21.5
14, 190
3,284
23.1
35, 419
8.059
22.7
22, 344
4,946
22.1
13, 075
3,113
23.8
33, 373
7,811
23.4
21,837
4,936
22.6
11,536
2,875
24.9
COMPARISON OF WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION WORKERS PRIOR TO THE DEFENSE
PERIOD WITH WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION WORKERS OF THE PRESENT
PERIOD
The average age of the Work Projects Administration worker in Alabama in
May 1939 was 38.1, compared with 42.2 in February 1942.
A comparison of the ages, race, and sex of the Work Projects Administration
workers in the two periods is given below:
Years
Percent
workers
over 35
years of
age
Percent
workers
over 55
years of
age
Percent
workers
over 65
years of
age
Female work-
ers as percent
of total
employment
Colored work-
ers as percent
of total
employment
1939
55.0
69.5
18.4
21.7
1.7
4.2
15.8
22.6
29.8
1942 .
32.5
These figures show that the present Work Projects Administration load is made
up of older persons and a higher percentage of women and Negroes than were
employed during the predefense period.
In May 1939 the employment at the unskilled rate was 73.7 percent of the total
employment, while 61.7 percent of the persons currently assigned are working at
unskilled jobs. This does not mean that a higher percentage of Work Projects
Administration eligibles are skilled persons than those of 1939 as there are several
factors which contribute to this situation. During periods of exapnsion of
employment, relatively more unskilled persons are employed than during a
period of curtailment. Therefore, a reduction of 65 percent in employment
during the defense period would, of necessity, reduce the proportion of unskilled
workers. In the first period, many skilled persons were assigned at unskilled
rates because the type of projects afforded limited opportunities for skilled
workers. For example, in 1939, 65 percent of the total Work Projects Adminis-
tration male workers were employed on county-wide road projects where a high
proportion of the work was classified as unskilled, whereas 40 percent of the
present load are on such projects. Unskilled jobs in the sewing room were
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12255
numerous and 25 percent of the women were given employment on these projects
in 1939 compared with 9.7 percent at the present time. The improved type of
project due to the requirement of engineering plans and the increased use of
machinery on projects provides more opportunities for intermediate and skilled
jobs and has, consequently, reduced the number of skilled workers who were
formerly forced to accept unskilled jobs.
In addition to the change in the type of project, the Work Projects Administra-
tion has done a training job over a period of time, and, in many instances, persons
formerly able to do unskilled work only have been reclassified as semiskilled and
skilled workers on the basis of their Work Projects Administration experience.
Likewise, large numbers of persons who came to Work Projects Administration
with skills related to some type of work on the project have been able to adjust
to other skilled jobs required on Work Projects Administration projects.
The fact that 25 percent of the load is employed on projects for the construction
and improvement of military and naval facilities also affects the total picture
as a higher percentage of skilled persons are employed on these projects. When
quota reductions are made, it is the policy to reduce employment on other projects
leaving the certified national defense projects sufficiently manned.
In addition to these facts, the largest number of persons leaving the Work
Projects Administration for private employment have been the young group, of
which 65 percent are unskilled.
WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION LOAD AND ESTIMATED NEEDS BY COUNTIES
A table is given below showing the total number of persons certified as eligible
for Work Projects Administration and the estimate of the number of persons
who would be considered as in need and eligible for Work Projects Administration
employment if applications were made to the local referral agency. The estimate
of unmet need is made on a monthly basis by the Employment Division and is
done on the county level in conjunction with local agencies and officials.
Feb. 3, 1942
Autauga. _.
Baldwin...
Barbour...
Bibb
Blount
Bullock....
Butler
Calhoun.. .
Chambers-
Cherokee..
Chilton....
Choctaw...
Clarke
Clay.
Cleburne. _
Coffee
Colbert....
Conecuh...
Coosa
Covington.
Crenshaw..
Cullman...
Dale
Dallas
DeKalb....
Elmore
Escambia..
Etowah
Fayette
Franklin...
Geneva
Greene
Hale
Henry
Houston...
Jackson
Jefferson . . .
Working
load
Awaiting
assign-
ment
71
66
279
2, 158
Number
persons
eligible but
notcerti
fled
350
220
390
576
241
361*
320
542
474
303
187
511
341
191
82
259
1,022
373
314
729
1,106
398
663
352
537
201
361
354
125
3,345
12256
HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Feb. 3, 1942 — Continued
Counties
Working
load
Awaiting
assign-
ment
Number
persons
eligible but
not certi-
fied
Total
66
876
362
131
503
77
189
713
281
158
281
1,475
95
2,521
1,056
69
43
149
59
16
51
172
149
254
117
593
1,205
177
192
52
236
65
76
109
5
565
81
110
107
63
112
428
363
249
23
103
68
30
17
56
27
31
45
528
756
46
61
177
253
550
200
841
284
130
300
250
450
200
70
1,550
400
1,318
375
146
209
23
300
1,702
43
324
930
150
1,500
3,050
1,928
350
600
140
390
2,184
798
1, 037
T impstonp
863
3)6
494
1,528
812
468
458
3,088
1VT nrnp
607
4,267
1,794
464
275
275
427
1,748
111
552
1,106
435
1,662
4,171
Walker —
'573
853
369
21, 956
10, 701
28,468
61, 125
1
Although it is too early to feel the full impact of unemployment in Alabama due
to curtailment in production of nonessential goods, a survey made by Work Proj-
ects Administration early this month showed the following number of persons
released due to priorities:
Total released 4> 882
Total now unemployed by industries:
Automobile salesmen » J^
Rubber industry 1. 023
Filling stations 339
Electrical and gas appliances 08
Bottling works 78
Other (pipe shops, foundries, etc.) A 0o7
Total unemployed Feb. 1 4, 467
EMPLOYABILITY OF WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION WORKERS
Persons certified for Work Projects. Administration employment are considered
employable in relationship to the work to be performed on Work Projects Adminis-
tration in that they can perform work for which they are qualified in a satisfactory
manner without entailing any particular hazard to themselves or others. The
accomplishment of the Work Projects Administration in this State in building
airports, roads, armories, etc., give concrete evidence of the work which they have
been able to do. Many of these persons, however, would not be able to meet the
production requirements of industry, nor the employment standards with respect
to age, physical condition, skill, or education. As employment increases, the older
workers will undoubtedly be considered as employable but at the present time
many of them are barred because of the age limitations imposed by industry.
A report was received in January of this year to the effect that 1,500 women
were needed in a certain defense plant in this State. Employment requirements
were secured from the United States Employment Service and the employer,
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12257
following which a review was made of the women who were working and awaiting
assignment in the county where the plant was located, for the purpose of deter-
mining what persons might be assisted in securing defense employment. Of the
73 women employed and the 21 awaiting assignment to Work Projects Adminis-
tration, only 16 of them were within the age limit required by the plant. In an-
other county where 500 women, between the ages of 18 and 35, with a seventh-
grade education, were to be employed, a review of the certified women in 5 counties
adjacent to this plant was undertaken. There were only 12 women in all 5 coun-
ties who met the qualifications of age and education necessary for employment in
this particular plant.
A comparison was made recently of the age of male workers currently employed
on Work Projects Administration in a county in which there was little defense
activity and one which afforded many opportunities for employment. In the first
county, only 20 percent of the remaining Work Projects Administration workers
were over 55 years of age, while in the defense county 37 percent of ihe workers
were above this age. Tn the nondefense county, a 22 percent of the skilled group
were over 55 years of age, while-in the defense area, 47 percent were over the age
of 55.
A spot study was made in April 1941 in 13 counties in defense areas to deter-
mine the effect of the national defense activities on the Work Projects Adminis-
tration load. This survey showed that 53 percent of the total certified load were
over 45 years of age, 65 percent of them had no skills, 63 percent had a sixth-grade
education or less, and 15 percent had some physical disability. Of the group
between the ages of 18 and 35, it was found that 54 percent had a sixth-grade
education or less and 65 percent of them had no skills. This same study revealed
that only 304 persons out of the approximately 7,000 cases reviewed had skills
which were in demand in defense employment.
These figures show that employment opportunities are limited to a large number
of Work Projects Administration workers because of age, physical condition, and
lack of skills and education.
FARM LABOR AND WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION
It has been the policy of the Work Projects Administration in Alabama since
the inception of the program to encourage workers to return to private employ-
ment and this policy is being prosecuted vigorously and thoughtfully with respect
to both farm and industrial labor. Since January 1, 1942, when anticipatory
reports of the shortage of farm labor began to receive widespread circulation
throughout the State, Work Projects Administration has made a diligent effort
to get Work Projects Administration eligibles with agricultural experiences in
contact with farm operators in need of additional labor. As of this date, reports
of such shortages have been received only in the central and southern parts of the
State. In seven of these counties, the Work Projects Administration has cooper-
ated with local groups and has made referrals of Work Projects Administration
labor directly to the farmer. Surveys had been made locally to determine the
names and addresses of landlords needing labor and the types of agricultural
workers required. Work Projects Administration representatives have referred
certified Work Projects Administration eligibles to these jobs on the basis of the
occupational background and qualifications of the individual worker rather than
attempting to close down projects indiscriminately, thus throwing large numbers
of nonfarm workers out of employment. Similar activities of direct placements
are now being carried on in four other counties.
In one county in which there were approximately 300 certified eligibles, there
were 107 persons with farm backgrounds. Fifty direct placements were made
by Work Projects Administration to farm jobs, 19 persons failed to report for
interview because they had secured private employment either in industry or
agriculture, 8 persons were removed because they refused to accept private em-
ployment, and 30 were continued because they either lived in towns too far
removed from the available jobs or because of some physical disability which
rendered them unfit for farm work.
In another county in which reports of farm shortages have been widespread
since December and newspaper accounts had expressed considerable alarm over
the possibility of a serious farm shortage, a complete review of the Work Projects
Administration eligible list was made for the purpose of assisting with placements
of farm labor. Local surveys indicated that 110 wage hands and 90 tenants
were needed. Out of the total list of 162 eligible Work Projects Administration
persons, 102 had farm backgrounds. At the time of the review, 42 persons had
60396— 42— pt. 32 21
12258
HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
either made farm plans or had secured work at the triangular Army camp in Dale
County and did not report for interviews; one person was removed because he
refused private employment. The other persons were referred to landlords who
had reported the need for workers. Thirteen of them were able to get farm jobs
but 33 were not accepted by the landlords to whom they were referred. Typical
statements received from landlords in this county are given below:
"I thank you for sending this person to me but I cannot pay him enough to
make a living with the dependents he has."
"I have got plenty of hands at this time."
"This man does not have enough help to tend the crop I have."
"He already owes me and can't pay."
"Keep this man on Work Projects Administration. He can't farm."
"Probably could use him after March 15 by day on the farm."
"This is to certify that I do not need Mr. S on my farm because I have all the
labor needed."
Despite the fact that reports continue to be made of the shortage of farm labor,
a survey conducted by Work Projects Administration showed an estimated 13,000
persons with agricultural backgrounds unemployed and in need in this State on
February 1. In some sections, advancements and arrangements are being made
from 2 weeks to a month earlier than in previous years because of the anticipated
shortage but in most counties in the State, arrangements are not made until
March 1 to 15. In some instances, tenants or sharecroppers who are expected
to advance themselves are not able to secure credit either from the advance
merchant or the banker.
A large number of farm day laborers are used for only short periods during the
spring and fall months. The 3,806 farm day laborers now employed on Work
Projects Administration will, in accordance with the policy pursued since the
beginning of the Work Projects Administration program, be made available and
will be required to accept farm work which meets the standards set forth in the
law when such work is available.
Farm people, as a rule, are loathe to move any great distance from familiar sur-
roundings but many of them will be forced to seek employment elsewhere because
it is impossible for them to earn a subsistence compatible with decency and health
on the farm. It is believed that the majority of the agricultural group would be
encouraged to remain on the land if they could be given employment at a subsist-
ence wage during the periods in which they are not needed on the farm.
THE WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION RECREATION PROGRAM IN ALABAMA,
FEBRUARY 1942
The Alabama Work Projects Administration recreation program is now operat-
ing in 22 counties. Five of the 22 counties are both industrial and military defense
areas. They are: Mobile, Madison, Calhoun, Russell, and Etowah. Six of these
counties are military, namely, Montgomery, Houston, Henry, Dallas, Tuscaloosa,
and Morgan. (Tuscaloosa and Morgan have only small air fields.) Two others
will be military areas in the near future; they are Dale and Coffee. Four of these
counties are industrial areas, namely, Colbert and Lauderdale (Muscle Shoals
area), Talladega (Coosa River Valley area), and Jefferson. Five of these counties
are not defense areas. They are rural counties. These are Cherokee, Pike,
Lowndes, Covington, and Perry.
The 1940 population of the defense areas with the greatest increase in population
and the estimated population of these at some recent date are:
Defense area
1940
population
Estimated increase in
population at a re-
cent date
51, 832
114,906
32, 447
25, 523
2,995
66, 317
72, 580
37, 014
28, 276
29,860
7,993
5,515
46, 230
15,043
30,000 (Nov. 1, 1941).
?
10,146 (Nov. 22, 1941).
6,029 (1941).
?
1,557(1941).
1,485 (1941).
?
2,220 (1941).
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12259
The recreation program conducted in Alabama is a community recreation
program for all ages. It includes playground and athletic activities, com-
munity night gatherings, square dancing, social dancing, crafts, recreational
music, clubs, and other activities. In defense areas, special effort is made to
absorb the defense people (soldiers and/or defense workers) in the normal com-
munity activities. In the military areas, special facilities and activities are pro-
vided for the soldiers, such as servicemen's centers, home hospitality and church
recreation. Work Projects Administration has assisted with the planning of 10
of the defense recreation centers that have been opened in the State during
the past year and is assisting with leadership in 9 of the centers at present. One
of the 10 centers which Work Projects Administration assisted in planning, in
Montgomery, Ala., is operated now by United Service Organizations. The 9
centers in which Work Projects Administration is used now are: Huntsville, in
Madison County (industrial and military); Gadsden, in Etowah County (mili-
tary) ; Jacksonville, in Calhoun County (military) ; one white center and one
Negro center, in Selma, in Dallas County (military) ; Dothan, in Houston County
(military) ; Headland, in Henry County (military) ; Sylacauga and Talladega, in
Talladega County (industrial). The activities of these centers are reading,
writing, lounge room, indoor games, music, dancing, and special events such as
square dances, bingo parties, and dancing classes. The last center to be opened
was in Sylacauga, in a Federal community building. The center is operated by
the Sylacauga Park and Recreation Board assisted by Work Projects Admin-
istration.
Some figures on participants in the W7ork Projects Administration recreation
program are :
1. State of Alabama — July 1941 543, 886
Cities:
Ph«nix City 7, 353
Selma i, 553
Opp 3, 625
Anniston and Jacksonville 45, 393
Counties:
Mobile (city and county) 62, 994
Coffee 8^ 254
Perry 27, 712
Montgomery (city and county) 79, 582
Henry 16, 997
Pike 1,220
Lauderdale 26, 470
Tuscaloosa 13' 864
Madison . ~_~_ 55' 580
Jefferson 83, 519
Talladega 28,207
Colbert 26, 918
Cherokee 18, 507
Morgan 36, 138
2. A few specific attendance figures are:
Childersburg — First community night program, July 15, 1941, held in high
school auditorium attended by 400.
Madison County. — Activities at Huntsville Soldiers' Center week of January
24 to 30, 1942, included: 182 soldiers served free coffee or hot chocolate Saturday
and Sunday, 15 at evening parties, 18 on tours. Activities week of November 26
to December 2 included: 260 served free coffee Saturday and Sunday, 53 invited
to homes, 31 invited for tours. Attendance month of January 1942 — 1,005
soldiers and 1,510 others (total, 2,515).
Activities at Farm Security trailer camp near Huntsville, of about 200 trailers,
established December 1941, include preschool group, mothers' club, playground
activities, ladies' club, adult parties, defense classes. Average daily attendance,
30 to 50.
Selma Soldiers' Club. — Average weekly attendance at center of 900 soldiers.
First soldiers' dance held August 23, 1941, attended by approximately 700
soldiers and 250 girls. Average attendance at biweekly soldiers' dances — 300
soldiers and 200 girls.
Mobile. — Present weekly dancing classes at Brookley Field average of 100 soldiers
and 50 girls. Weekly program at Seamen's Bethel, 200 approximate average;
12260 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
weekly square dances at Choctaw Park, 500 approximate average; weekly Satur-
day night soldiers' dance, 200 to 500 soldiers, approximate average.
Montgomery. — During summer of 1941, approximately 1,000 soldiers partic-
ipated an average of 2 hours each in the playground activities, church recreation,
and dances of the city Work Projects Administration program.
Sylacauga. — Dedication program of Federal Community Building February
10, 2,500 approximate attendance.
Present Thursday night square dances, average of 500.
On playground daily average of 300 in summer and daily average of 200 in
winter.
Sixty players participated in annual summer men's tennis tournament. Average
number on plav area for matches, approximately 400.
Street dance of August 15, 1941, attended by 3,000.
Band concert of August 28, 1941, attended by 450.
Types of programs and number of participants, January 194%
Number of counties 22
Number of units operating:
White ' 121
Colored 37
Total 158
Activities:
Art and handicraft:
Adult 1,038
Children 3,298
• ___
Total 4,336
Athletic activities:
Baseball type 18,395
Tennis type 33, 545
Soccer-football tvpe 10, 202
Rugby-football type 5, 802
Hockey type 4, 196
Basketball type 23, 980
Other games and contests 149, 238
Total 245,358
Dancing:
Folk 2,631
Social 9,089
Tap 708
Other 16,790
Total 29,218
Recreational drama:
Tournaments 163
Pageants 53
Plays 208
Puppet and marionette 48
Stunts 936
Dramatic clubs 589
Other 2, 133
Total 4, 130
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12261
Types of programs and number of participants, January 1942 — Continued
Activities — Continued.
Other recreation:
Hiking 431
Nature study 260
Picnicking 423
Hobby clubs 1, 155
Other clubs _ 2,715
Parties 5,387
Community nights 20, 183
Morning play centers 5, 623
Story-telling hours 7, 387
Total 43,564
Recreational music:
Bands 98
Rhythm bands 669
Harmonica bands 5
Other 5,069
Total 5, 841
Clubs:
Glee clubs 71
Other 8,679
Total 8,750
Grand total 341, 197
2. Locations:
Cherokee County, county-wide.
Colbert County, county-wide.
Etowah County, Gadsden.
Lauderdale County, county-wide.
Madison County, county-wide.
Morgan County, county-wide.
Calhoun County, county-wide.
Jefferson County, county-wide (exclusive of Birmingham).
Talladega County, county-wide.
Tuscaloosa County, county-wide.
Coffee County, county-wide.
Covington County, county-wide.
Dale County, Ozark.
Dallas County, Selma.
Henry County, county-wide.
Houston County, Dothan.
Lowndes County, Fort Deposit.
Montgomery County, county-wide.
Pike County, county-wide.
Perry County, county-wide.
Russell County, Phenix City.
Mobile County, county-wide.
Current reports received in this office indicate that some changes have taken
place in this State which merit additional information from this office to supple-
ment the report which was submitted to the committee in February.
The February report gives the working load in January 1942 at 21,837 and the
awaiting assignment load as 11,536. As of April 21, 1942, there are 19,034
employed on Work Projects Administration and 4,179 persons awaiting assign-
ment. On April 1, 4,623 agricultural workers were estimated to be unemployed
and eligible for Work Projects Administration in contrast to the 13,000 agricultural
workers who were unemployed when the report was submitted in February.
I am attaching hereto a revised report showing the working, awaiting assign-
ment, and the estimate of unmet need by counties as of April 1. This report should
12262
HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
be substituted for the one contained in the report of February as it is indicative
of the changes which have occurred in the number of persons eligible for Work
Projects Administration employment in this State.
March 1942
Unmet needs, estimate
Unem-
ployment
in Agri-
culture
Unemployed in industry
Persons in
need pri-
County and district
(a)
Total
(6)
Male
(O
Female
(a)
Industry
(6)
Service
trades
to
Domestic
marily due
to reasons
other than
employ-
ment
State totals
16,616
10, 934
5,682
4,623
6,707
2,550
755
1,981
No. 1:
200
300
197
190
100
290
157
125
310
137
200
180
164
320
275
147
137
215
152
132
90
215
112
106
175
101
145
95
122
295
206
122
63
85
45
58
10
75
45
19
135
36
55
85
42
25
25
150
200
124
122
82
30
72
96
240
50
150
65
80
295
180
65
15
50
12
5
3
30
24
2
15
15
3
25
8
15
10
11
20
10
45
20
6
200
34
13
25
13
18
1
15
17
3
70
1
18
68
50
60
2
15
15
2
25
12
5
20
30
70
5
10
50
Winston
80
Total
3,292
2,420
872
2,001
423
151
182
535
No. 2:
Bibb
283
100
60
20
146
2,903
133
77
105
189
29
60
2,755
1,157
264
85
32
18
82
1,866
112
59
161
21
35
2,443
669
19
15
28
2
64
1,037
21
18
47
28
8
25
312
488
108
138
85
22
5
7
8
10
29
12
10
31
6
69
1,882
78
57
60
88
13
5
2,318
330
2
3
760
22
64
110
2
12
10
10
151
14
17
8
35
Shelby _„„
60
8
25
15
170
26
5
8
rp ',.."""
30
262
397
9i
100
Walker..-
160
Total
8,017
5,905
2,112
451
5,129
1,497
342
598
No. 3:
88
15
15
23
55
9
108
15
42
84
40
21
26
29
104
51
65
34
60
io"
15
25
3
30
10
50
9
32
6
24"
22
28
15
5
8
30
6
78
5
39
42
75
8
15
26
5
104
51
65
12
20
15
15
2
30
43
5
20
15
6
p. . " "
25
3
22
6
55
10
40
17
14
5
24
15
10
5
37
76
8
20
6
9
2
9
15
15
29
95
37
40
5
6
9
10
4
15
6
2
18
12
5
Montgomery
327
31
14
148
75
252
28
8
75
3
148
75
250
31
2
118
25
2
50
25
8
4
30
Tallapoosa
50
Total....
1,508
584
924
905
165
87
76
275
=
'
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
March 1912 — Continued
12263
Unmet needs, estimate
Unem-
ployment
in Agri-
culture
Unemployed in industry
Persons in
need pri-
County and district
(a)
Total
(6)
Male
(c)
Female
(a)
Industry
(6)
Service
trades
(O
Domestic
marily due
to reasons
other than
employ-
ment
No. 4:
345
71
203
460
343
850
191
780
235
225
121
70
25
27
102
15
67
354
85
80
40
125
108
41
4
60
46
30
26
13
100
196
4
16
15
10
12
30
80
Mobile
441
46
55
35
50
450
60
200
75
40
60
Wilcox
35
25
Total ...
3,799
2,025
1,774
1,266
990
815
155
Certified persons working and awaiting assignment, as of Apr. 1, 19J+2
District and county
Working,
Work
Projects
Adminis-
tration
Awaiting
assign-
ment,
Work
Projects
Adminis-
tration
District and county
Working,
Work
Projects
Adminis-
tration
Awaiting
assign-
ment,
Work
Projects
Adminis-
tration
State total (25,358)
18, 476
6,882
No. 3— Continued.
11
132
88
36
120
32
168
112
84
588
104
123
102
119
124
159
20
147
2,330
62
125
12
97
22
76
No. 1:
3
26
367
117
197
394
251
216
744
297
387
598
119
230
902
48
33
64
112
114
16
124
119
176
531
5
154
82
37
102
41
Butler
Chilton.. .
49
Colbert
1
DeKalb ...
Dale
Dallas ... .
31
17
Hale .
19
408
Total 1
4,896
1,899
Pike
Russell
16
17
No. 2:
Bibb
115
327
44
31
73
3,148
48
37
42
38
131
176
521
1,100
23
15
15
1
20
1,947
19
9
45
19
56
46
398
573
Total . . .
Clay
5,135
No. 4:
145
77
32
230
285
7
210
1,130
105
107
125
161
Choctaw
Clarke
Shelby
St. Clair ..
Greene
Talladega
Mobile
Monroe
Walker
27
Total
5,831
3,186
Washington
47
No. 3:
93
147
9
47
2,614
12264 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Exhibit 43. — Statement by Maj. Gen. E. B. Gregory, Quarter-
master General, United States Army
Subsistence Activities and Procurement Methods in United States Army
With reference to your request dated February 5, 1942, for information concern-
ing the Army's procurement methods in regard to perishable subsistence, the fol-
lowing outline of subsistence activities and procurement methods undertaken by
the Army is furnished you with the hope that it will be helpful to you and your
committee in investigating national defense migration:
1. Nutrition. — (a) The national nutrition program for civilians is reaching
homes of all incomes. Both men and women are nutrition conscious. Since the
soldiers in our new Army come from every walk of life, at least one-third of them
have not been adequately fed. It is necessary, therefore, that the meals provided
will furnish maximum nutrition — there must be all the essentials for energy,
growth and health in the best proportions.
(b) This then is the basic problem in feeding our rapidly expanding Army
soon to reach 3><> million men.
2. Menus. — (a) A master menu is prepared for each month (sample attached)
and offered to all corps areas as a guide. This takes into consideration:
(1) Value of the ration.
(2) Nutrition.
(3) Variety.
(4) Appetite appeal.
(b) Because of the great activity of the soldier, the yardstick used calls for
standards well above the one set up for civilians by the nutrition committee of
the National Research Council.
Army standards for 1 day's menu for one man:
Vitamin A 10,000 international
units
Vitamin C 110 milligrams plus
Calories 4,200
Iron 24 milligrams
Phosphorus 2.2 grams
Calcium 1.050 grains
Protein 140
Vitamin B-l 3.0 milligrams
Vitamin B-2„ 3.1 milligrams
Requirements are based on the fact that a 30-day month will consist of 9
days on which usually very active soldiers will be only moderately active, and of
21 days with strenuous activities.
3. Cooking. — (a) Comments that the food is of high quality but often spoiled
in the cooking are reported from time to time. The bakers' and cooks' schools are
giving training as fast as possible to men assigned to this duty.
4. Food habits. — (a) Food habits are formed because of racial, regional, or family
conditions. Menus must be made which are general in type. Men have to be
introduced to new foods gradually. Too drastic changes in their accustomed diet
make for discontent.
(6) It is believed that the Army has an opportunity to make the most important
contribution to nutrition of any agency in the world today. Food habits will
be modified and improved and will be carried back to civilian life.
(c) The purchasing system adopted by the Army today enables the troops to
have in addition to nonperishable items an abundance of fresh fruits and vege-
tables, milk, fish, and eggs— foods all considered essential for their mineral and
vitamin content. Our present feeding methods represent vast improvement
over methods used in previous wars when almost entire dependence had to be
placed upon nonperishable subsistence..
5. Task forces— (a) Good feeding in the United States has set the standards
for feeding the task forces. The same yardstick is used in analyzing these rations.
It is more difficult to feed adequately when nonperishable rations have to be used,
but it can, and is, being done due to the thought put on procurement of the Army s
6. The purchasing methods of -perishable subsistence for the Army. — (a) The
purchase of fresh fruits and vegetables for the Army is accomplished through a
series of 30 quartermaster market centers. These are buying agencies and
strategically located with reference to posts, camps, and stations and also with
reference to the principal growing areas in the United States.
(6) A large number of these quartermaster market centers are located in the
South in such important centers as Chattanooga, Tenn.; Anniston, Ala.; Macon,
Ga ; Columbus, Ga.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Orlando, Fla.; Hattiesburg, Miss.;
Alexandria La.; Houston, Tex.; San Antonio, Tex.; Fort Worth, Tex.; El Paso,
Tex.; and Oklahoma City, Okla.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12265
(c) The requirements for the various posts, camps, and stations which these
market centers serve are sent to these market centers where they are abstracted
and consolidated. The whole system is coordinated at field headquarters, perish-
able subsistence section, office of the Quartermaster General, Chicago, the central
office. There is enclosed a list showing location of each of these quartermaster
market centers.
(d) It has been found necessary to coordinate and clear requisitions through
our Chicago office in order that these market centers do not compete one with the
other and to assure that the taxpayer's dollar is spent to the maximum advantage
in the feeding of our soldiers.
(e) Our Chicago office is staffed with civilian experts who know the growing
conditions and the market for each of the principal commodities. Our potato
buying, for example, follows the national field of production. Our offices en-
deavor to view the procurement of perishables from a national angle rather than
a local one. During the season when potatoes are plentiful, good and not expen-
sive in Florida, Louisiana, and Alabama, a large portion of the Army's require-
ments comes from these States. Later as the growing season advances, potatoes
are bought in other potato-producing States such as California, Idaho, Indiana,
Michigan, and Maine.
7. Local purchases. — (a) It is a policy of the quartermaster market centers to
utilize, insofar as is possible, locally grown commodities to fill Army requirements
providing, however, that they are of the quality required by Federal specifications
and available in sufficient quantity, and are properly graded and packed. In
this connection, it is interesting to note that various State agencies have been
doing splendid work in educating farmer groups to grade and pack their produce
to meet Federal specifications in order that they may sell collectively to local
quartermaster market centers. It is the desire of the Quartermaster General
to continue to purchase perishable subsistence locally insofar as it is possible,
and every advantage will be taken as in the past to utilize fully such splendid
crops as the South is noted for such as sweetpotatoes, citrus fruits, strawberries,
melons, and in fact, all types of fruits and vegetables.
8. Relation between Army purchasing and civilian needs. — (a) In response to
the question as to whether the Army, itself, has noted or encouraged any changes
in typos of agriculture, it has not, nor has it advocated any increased acreage
since, in general, there has been a surplus of fruits and vegetables and no difficulty
has been experienced so far in obtaining all requirements.
(6) A factor which has been a guiding one in not advocating increased acreage
in the vicinity of posts, camps, and stations, is the fact that the fluctuation in
strength of troops has been so marked that it has been impossible to guarantee or
to even estimate with any degree of accuracy the quantities which would be needed
at the time a specific commodity was ready for harvest.
(c) In addition, we have been faced with the problem in some instances where
local growers have asked higher prices for the same commodities than growers in
other areas particularly if the local crop is short. This problem has been solved
by directing and coordinating purchases through our central office in Chicago in
such a manner as to cause the least possible disturbance or impact on local markets
since it has been realized that civilian needs must be considered along with those of
the Army.
(d) Our aim has been to avoid any increase in price to the consumer due to the
relative nearness of large concentrations of troops to a small established civilian
community.
9. Data relative to purchasing fresh fruits and vegetables for the Army. — (a) In
answer to the question relative to the dollar value expended in the several States,
there is forwarded herewith a copy of Subsistence which outlines market center
operations.
(6) Relative to the question as to the most important fruit and vegetable crops
used by the Army, they are listed below in order of importance.
Vegetables: Fruits:
Potatoes. Apples.
Onions. Oranges.
Cabbage. Grapefruit.
Root vegetables. Lemons.
Lettuce. Melons.
Celery. Grapes.
Cauliflower. Various small.
Deciduous fruits.
12266 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
10. Milk for the Army. — (a) Relative to the supply of fresh fluid milk and dairy
products, particularly in the South, the inquiry has raised a very interesting point
and one which this office has recognized; that is, the threat of the shortage of fresh
fluid milk to meet the demands of our rapidly increasing Army.
(b) A qualified representative of this office, fully acquainted with the production
and distribution of milk, has spent a large portion of his time in the>field to encour-
age the development of new sources of fresh fluid milk and to utilize to the fullest
possible degree sources currently available. Much has been accomplished by work-
ing with and in cooperation with the State milk control boards. An outstanding
example is the mutually advantageous cooperation between the State Milk Control
Board of California and this office toward the solution of the Army's milk problems
in California.
It is hoped that the above brief outline of the Army's activities and methods
employed in the procurement of subsistence supplies, particularly as they apply to
perishable subsistence, will be helpful in the work undertaken by your committee.
Very truly yours,
E. B. Gregory,
Major General,
The Quartermaster General.
Exhibit 44
AGRICULTURAL WAGE AND HOUR LEGISLATION IN FOREIGN
COUNTRIES
November 14, 1941.
Gen. Philip B. Fleming,
Administrator, Wage and Hour Division,
Department of Labor, Washington, D. C.
Dear General Fleming: The next five hearings of the committee will be
concerned primarily with agricultural labor shortages. We are eager to have
the Wage and Hour Division prepare a comprehensive study of the application
of minimum wage legislation to agricultural workers by other nations. Such a
study would assist the committee in considering the desirability of minimum
wage legislation for American agricultural workers.
This study, to be of greatest assistance to the committee, should be submitted
not later than February 15, 1942.
If there are any questions in connection with the study, would you contact
Mr. F. P. Weber, Room 286 Library Annex, extension 309 on the Capitol
exchange?
With all good wishes, I am
Sincerely.
John H. Tolan, Chairman.
Report by Wage and Hour Division, Research and Statistics Branch, February
23, 1942, Department of Labor, Washington, D. C.
CONTENTS
I. Introduction. II. Legislation in various countries— Continued.
A. Agricultural wage and hour legislation in C. New Zealand— Continued,
foreign countries. 3. Machinery of operation.
1. The need for regulation. ' 4. Enforcement of the act.
2. Possibility of regulation. 5. Agricultural awards.
3. Methods of regulating hours. 6. Effect of awards.
4. Methods of regulating wages. 7. The Agricultural Workers Act.
II. Legislation in various countries. 8. Scope.
A. Australia— Federal legislation. 9. Provisions of the act.
1. Type of legislation. (a) Dairy farm workers.
2. Applicability to agriculture. (6) Workers on wool, meat, and gram
3. Machinery of operation. farms.
4. Enforcement procedure. (c) Market garden employees.
5. The pastoral awards. 10. Enforcement of provisions.
6. The fruit growers' award. 11. Effect of the act.
B. Australia— State regulation. D. Great Britain.
1. Type and relation to Federal legislation. 1. England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
2. Applicability to agriculture. (a) The Corn Production Act, 1917
3. Effects of wage and hour regulation in (6) The Corn Production Repeal Act,
rural industries. , , m,1921- . „ , ,Tr
C. New Zealand. (c) The Agricultural Wages (Rcgula-
1. The Industrial Conciliation and Arbitra- tion) Act, 1924.
tion Act. (<0 Machinery of operation.
2. Applicability to agriculture. («) Administration of act.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12267
II. Legislation in various countries— Continued.
D. Great Britain— Continued.
1. England, Wales, and North Ireland-
Continued.
(f) Minimum wages provisions.
(g) Maximum hour provisions.
(h) Recent developments.
(0 Effects of the act.
2. Scotland.
(<z) Machinery of operation.
(6) Minimum wage provisions.
(c) Maximum hour provisions.
(d) Recent developments.
3. The Irish Free State.
(a) Machinery of operation.
(6) Administration and enforcement.
(•-) Provisions for minimum wages,
(rf) Provisions for hours of work.
E. Germany.
1. Provisions for hours of work.
2. Provisions for minimum wages.
3. Recent development.
F. Austria.
1. Provisions for hours of work.
2. Wage provisions.
3. Recent developments.
G. Hungary.
1. Act II of 1898.
2. Act XXV of 1923.
3. Recent developments.
H. Czechoslovakia.
1. Collective agreements.
2. Maximum hour legislation.
I. Sweden:
1. Collective agreements regulating wages
and hours.
2. Legislation regulating hours of work.
3. Scope of the act of 1939.
4. Administration of the act.
5. Hour provisions of the act.
6. Effects of the act.
7. Proposed minimum wage legislation.
J. The Baltic countries.
1. Estonia.
(a) The proclamation of November 1918.
(b) The act of October 1921.
(r) Agricultural Labor Code of 1939.
(d) Provisions for hours of work.
(e) Supervision and enforcement.
II. Legislation in various countries— Continued.
J. The Baltic countries— Continued.
2. Finland.
3. Latvia.
4. Lithuania.
K. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
1. Wage provisions.
2. Hour provisions.
L. Spain.
1. Early hour legislation.
2. Recent hour legislation.
3. Regulation of wages.
M. Italy.
1. Regulation of working hours.
2. Regulation of wages.
3. Enforcement of wage and hour regula-
tions.
N. Mexico.
1. The Mexican Constitution of 1917.
2. Provisions for minimum wages.
3. Provisions for hours of work.
4. Operation of wage and hour provisions in
agriculture.
O. Cuba.
1. Provisions for hours of work.
2. Provisions for minimum wages.
P. Dominican Republic.
Q. Central America.
1. Costa Rica.
2. Guatemala.
R. South America.
1. Argentina.
(o) San Juan.
(6) Tucumen.
2. Brazil.
3. Ecuador.
(a) Decree of December 30, 1936.
(6) Labor Code of Ecuador, 1938.
(c) Hours of work provisions.
(<2) Minimum wage provisions.
4. Peru.
(a) Provisions of minimum wages.
(6) Provisions for hours of work.
5. Uruguay.
(a) Minimum wage provisions.
(6) Recent developments.
I. Introduction
A. AGRICULTURAL WAGE AND HOUR LEGISLATION IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES .
Wage-and-hour regulation in agriculture is of comparatively recent origin,
dating in most cases from the first World War or early post-war years. Condi-
tions peculiar to agriculture make the regulation of working conditions in this
field of activity more difficult than their regulation in most manufacturing indus-
tries. Agricultural activity is largely determined by natural conditions, which
influence working hour requirements and the ability to pay wages. Crop produc-
tion is highly seasonal, with two peak periods, for sowing and harvesting, when the
whole efforts of the farming staff scarcely suffice to master the situation. The
seasonal peaks may be intensified by the climatic conditions of the region, which
determine the length of the periods of growth for the crops and the periods during
which preparatory field work and harvest work are possible. The shorter the
season for agricultural work, the more pressing becomes the work and the longer
hours tend to be. Stable or unstable weather conditions also affect the pressure
of work. Furthermore, the needs of livestock, involving regular periods of work
at intervals, also increase the length of the working day on the farm.
The supply of labor, the size of the farming unit, the relation between density
of population and available land, all affect the labor conditions in agriculture.
Where seasonal and casual labor is abundant, hours of work may be kept more
regular throughout the year than when the farmer, in order to have enough
labor at his disposal during the busy season is sometimes obliged to offer all-year
employment. In the latter case, the farmer depends upon a constant labor staff
to accomplish a varying amount of work. Naturally this staff works much longer
hours during the busy season. On larger farms regulation is easier than on smaller
farms, where division of labor is not possible, and a few workers are obliged to do
all the work. Moreover, the larger farm is likely to have a number of labor-
saving machines which the smaller farm may not be able to afford. In over-
populated areas, where the poorest Jand must be cultivated, and even the best
12268 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
land is cultivated with the greatest intensity, the law of diminishing returns
operated to increase the required amount of labor and decrease the returns per
unit of production.
Finally, the economic conditions under which agriculture is carried — its pro-
ductive capacity, technical development, efficienty of organization, and general
profitability — influence the wages and hours of work. In 1938 the International
Labor Office asked the members of a permanent agricultural committee ap-
pointed by it to prepare short reports on agricultural labor problems in their
respective countries. Analyzing these reports, the International Labor Office
states :
"Many reports draw attention to the close relation between the wage level of
agricultural labor and the low profitability of farming in general, the latter leaving
a very narrow margin for agriculture to increase unaided the earnings of the labor
it employs.
"Some of the reports examining this question in greater detail refer to the general
trend in the economic situation of agriculture over a long period, which has been
such as never to have allowed the farmer sufficient profit to enable him to under-
take the investments of machinery or other equipment which would have kept
the level of efficiency of human labor up to what it is in other occupations." '
Louise E. Howard, formerly Chief of the Agricultural Service of the Inter-
national Labor Office, and corresponding member of the Czechoslovak Academy
of Agriculture, writes:
"It would indeed be absurd to ignore the low earning power of agriculture as
an integral part of the agricultural wages situation. By comparison with industry,
agriculture is far behind in its productive capacity because it is far less well
equipped, financed, and organized; by comparison with the output of the indus-
trial worker, the agricultural worker's output is modest, partly for the same reasons
as determine the achievement of the whole of agriculture." 2
Adverse economic conditions in agriculture may be aggravated by economic
policies which affect the price structure. When price relations between farm
products and industrial products develop in a way unfavorable to agriculture,
causing lower income and higher costs of production and making debt burdens
and taxes heavier to carry, farmers attempt to remedy the situation by producing
more with less and cheaper labor. The result is not only longer hours and lower
wages for farm workers, but also still more farm products on the markets, reducing
agricultural prices still further and aggravating the situation of the farmers.
1. The need for regulation.
The above summary indicates that various conditions are peculiar to agriculture
and that therefore the regulation of hours and wages in agriculture will always
present special problems. Nevertheless, the need for some form of regulation has
been recognized for years. In 1919 and again in 1921 attempts were made to
place the item of regulation of hours of work in agriculture on the agenda of the
International Labor Conference.3 In 1933, at the Tripartite Preparatory Con-
ference on the Reduction of Hours of Work, the workers' group presented the
following resolution:
"The workers' group of the Preparatory Conference has noted with great regret
that, in the discussions on the question of the limitation of working hours, agri-
culture is from the outset excluded.
"The workers' group strongly protests against the exclusion of agriculture in
dealing with questions of this importance.
"The workers' group notes that rationalization and the crises are bringing
about ever-increasing unemployment, in agriculture, as in other industries, and is
convinced of the absolute necessity of a limitation of the over-long working hours
of agricultural workers.
"The workers' group therefore requests the Conference to recommend to the
governing body of the International Labor Office that it should ask the Inter-
national Labor Office to initiate an immediate inquiry into working hours in
agriculture with the object of bringing about as soon as is in any way possible an
International Convention on the Regulation and Limitation of Working Houra
in Agriculture." 4
1 International Labor Office, Studies and Reports, Series IC. No. 14, Social Problems in Agriculture,
1938, p. 92.
2 Howard, Louise E., Labour in Agriculture, 1935, p. 210.
3 International Labor Office, op. cit., p. 21.
4 International Labor Conference, 17th sess., Geneva, 1933. Report of the Tripartite Preparatory Con-
ference on Reduction of Hours of Work, 1933, pp. 21-22.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12269
The Report of the Permanent Agricultural Committee of the International
Labor Office,5 appointed to study agricultural labor problems, states:
"The existence of an unlimited and unregulated working day in agriculture
does not seem rational in a time which has become conscious of the physical damage
that long hours of work may cause to the classes of population employed under
such conditions and of the increase in the efficiency of human labor which may
be achieved by a shorter but rationally organized working day." 5
The gap between hours of work in agriculture and in urban occupations is
generally recognized as detrimental to the interests of agriculture as a whole.
Legislation regulating the hours of work in industry has been passed in nearly
all progressive countries of the world, and hours of work have been reduced in all
industries. As hours of work grow shorter in industry, the gap between hours
of work in agriculture and in urban occupations grows wider. This causes the
more intelligent and ambitious agricultural workers to be drawn off into the indus-
trial field. In 1926 a resolution adopted by the Fourth Congress of International
Land Workers Federation at Geneva in 1926 stated:
"The efforts to secure an international limitation of the working day in industry
to 8 hours without extending at the same time the slightest degree of protection
(concerning hours) to the agricultural worker, must necessarilv encouiage the
drift of population to the towns." 6
The permanent agricultural committee of the International Labor Office also
stressed this gap in its report, stating:
"It is generally admitted that the long working hours in agriculture are one
of the main causes of the rural exodus which comprises individuals of all layers of
the agricultural population, and not merely wage-paid labor." 7
The need for some form of wage regulation in industry is emphasized by the
low wage level in this occupation. The International Labor Office, analyzing
the leports of the members of the permanent agricultural committee on agricultural
labor problems in their respective countries, writes:
"All of the national reports admit in some terms or other the low standard of
living of agricultural labor and the desirability and necessity of bringing it-
nearer to the level of workers engaged in other occupations." 8
Louise E. Howard, formerly Chief of the Agricultural Service of the International
Labor Office, and corresponding member of the Czechoslovak Academy of Agri-
culture, writes:
"Agricultural wages always have been and still are very low. This becomes
only too obvious when they are measured against indusrial wages. It is a fact of
the greatest significance that agricultural wage rates seldom attain much more
than one-half, are often only one-half, and occasionally even only one-third, of an
average industrial wage * * * in all wage tables agricultural wages rank at
the bottom of the table; they are apt to fight for the last place with such occupa-
tions as the restaurant industry or domestic service, or even with the women's
wages as such.
"There is thus generally a huge gap between the remuneration of agriculture and
of industry." B
Minimum wage legislation is especially necessary in agriculture because of the
lack of bargaining power of the agricultural workers. The permanent agricul-
tural committee stresses this:
"The well-known difficulties which the organizing of agricultural workers
encounters, owing among other reasons to the limited labor force on each farm,
the dispersion of farms and the disproportionate degree to which the agricultural
labor class is composed of young workers, has always been a great hindrance to
the development of collective bargaining and therefore in no State have agricul-
tural workers yet succeeded in getting either all regions of the country or all groups
of workers covered by collective agreements?" 10
And again:
"The limited success of the efforts of the workers to raise their conditions in a
world where the principle of collective regulation gains wider and wider acceptance
has, not unnaturally, resulted in the State tending to come to their assistance,
especially in countries with a tendency to overpopulation in the countryside, and
to wage rates in agriculture frequently, more particularly during a depression,
being so low that even the minimum standard of living is threatened.
5 International Labor Office, Studies and Reports, series K, No. 14, op. cit., p. 37.
• Quoted in Howard, Louise, op. cit., p. 113.
7 International Labor Office, op. cit., p. 37.
8 Ibid., p. 90.
1 Howard, Louise, E., Labor in Agriculture, 1935, p. 204.
16 Howard. Louise, E., op. cit., p. 204.
12270 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
"Collective bargaining based on a further development of trade-unionism in
agriculture would, even under favorable conditions, obviously be too slow a pro-
cedure to solve a problem which is of immediate importance. It is for this reason
that, even in countries where collective agreements exercise a considerable in-
fluence on wage conditions in agriculture the question of State intervention comes
up." »
The agricultural unions themselves are beginning to realize this. When in
early post-war years, minimum wage-fixing legislation for agriculture began to be
passed in some countries, various agricultural workers' unions declared their
opposition to such legislation. For example in Scotland the agricultural workers'
organizations in 1924 successfully opposed the application to Scotland of the
Agricultural Wages Regulation Act, believing that direct negotiation, with the
employers' organization would insure them higher wages. As time went on,
however, experience failed to substantiate this expectation, so that the workers'
union asked for State intervention, and as a result the Agricultural Wages Regula-
tion Act, of Scotland, was passed in July 1937. The changing attitude of the In-
ternational Land Workers' Federation is also a case in point. At the 1928 Con-
gress of the Federation it was only the less important unions which were not
opposed to State intervention. By 1935 the Federation at its Seventh Congress
in London reconsidered its attitude, adopted principles implying that the agricul-
tural workers' unions were now leady to contemplate a system of State regulation
of wages and requested the International Labor Office to study the problem.12
2. Possibility of regulation.
Although, as has been shown, the regulation of hours of work and wages in
agriculture presents special problems, these problems are by no means insoluble.
The best proof of this is that the regularization of the working day, the shortening
of working hours, and the establishment of minimum wages have already been
achieved in practice in many countries. The International Labor Office reported
in 1938:
"The fact that hours of work in agriculture are within certain limits covered
by legislation or collective agreements in at least fifteen countries, and that the
regulation of hours in agriculture has been maintained in the form it has been
first given, shows that regulation of hours is possible in principle and that it is
possible to secure for the agricultural worker the same protection as for workers
in other occupations, that is to say, he may know in advance how many hours
of his labor he must give in return for wages received." 13
With regard to wage regulation the International Labor Office states:
"In most European countries and in Australia and New Zealand, the wage
level of the agricultural worker is now to a greater or lesser extent influenced
by some form of wage regulation. In spite of many difficulties and of the insta-
bility which has characterized the agricultural situation ever since the war, the
scope and extent of such wage regulation systems has been maintained, while
in recent years and particularly as a sequence to policies introduced during the
agricultural crisis, a further development has taken place. Recent years have
seen a continued development of wage regulation in agriculture." u
While it is true that, to a certain extent, agricultural activity is dependent
upon natural conditions, it is not only natural conditions which have created
the long working day in agriculture. Many other conditions which are due to
social and economic organization and can therefore be modified, have also played
their part in fixing the long hours. Louise Howard writes of the lack of organi-
zation and efficiency which prevail in farming establishments:
"Have the reasonable requirements of labor ever been seriously and fairly
considered? Has not the farming industry been built up with almost criminal
disregard of human effort? Far too often the worker's labor is dispersed by the
cultivation of distant areas which ought to have been consolidated long ago; it
is wasted because the work is not properly planned by his employer; operations
are needlessly extended through want of proper tools; hour upon hour is consumed
in the course of the year because the lay-out of the farm is absurd; finally there
is in any case a tendency to extend production to a point where it can secure the
producer a living only at the cost of inordinate effort, and the farmer, while he
» International Labor Office, op. cit., pp. 73 and 86.
12 Ibid., pp. 80 and 87. . , . ,
» International Labor Office, Studies and Reports, Series K, No. 14, Social Problems in Agriculture,
1938, p. 38.
I* Ihid.. p. 31.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12271
expects the worker to join in this common effort, permits the reward secured by-
such additional labor to accrue solely to himself." 1S
Speaking before a United States House of Representatives committee, Ewan
Clague, Director of the Bureau of Employment Security in the Social Security
Board, stated:
"Employment service facilities can also be used effectively to direct the move-
ment of workers who migrate in response to seasonal demands for labor. This is
especially true in agriculture where the objective of the service is to meet the
needs of both growers and workers and at the same time to avoid unnecessary and
fruitless migration. Functioning in the agricultural labor market, and in coopera-
tion with other agencies, the employment service can be a means of stabilizing
farm-labor resources, providing a more adequate income to a limited number
of qualified workers, eliminating the irresponsible recruiting practices of labor
contractors, and providing growers with workers who are experienced in a par-
ticular type of crop activity." 16
The use of poor land in overpopulated areas not only operates to intensify the
length of the working day, but is generally uneconomic. In some overpopulated
countries in Europe this condition may not be easily remedied. In the United
States "this problem could be remedied by a combined program of soil conserva-
tion, reclamation, and resettlement. The Farm Security Administration has
moved many families from submarginal land, which has been purchased by the
Government for reforestation or some other useful purpose. The Bureau of
Reclamation of the Department of the Interior is carrying on various types of
reclamation development which will afford extensive opportunities for new
settlements in various parts of the country.17 At the San Francisco hearings
before the United States Committee Investigating Interstate Migration, testi-
mony was given to the effect that one project of the Bureau of Reclamation, the
Central Valley project in California, when completed will restore "to production
50,000 acres of crop land already abandoned," and "serve about 175,000 acres of
new land." 18
Programs aimed at stabilization of farm-industrial price relationships, which
are under evolution in many countries, will doubtless narrow the spread in prices
between farm products and industrial products.
Increasing advances in agricultural technique, advances which have largely
taken the form of labor saving machinery, have made the shortening of hours of
work increasingly possible. Thus, certain technical equipment such as beet
cutters, water pipes and electric lights in farm buildings, have simplified the work
and contributed towards shortening the necessary time taken by those occupations.
Other machines, for use in the field, are reducing the number of persons employed,
and thereby creating technological unemployment. One of the chief solutions for
this form of unemployment is the shortening of hours of work.
The International Labor Office points out that farmers may not be able to solve
the problems involved in shortening hours entirely by themselves. It reports
that many of the smaller farms "may need material assistance enabling them to
carry out the mechanization and rationalization necessary for realizing the
potentialities of a shorter working day. More systematic study of the technical
labor problems of the farm by experimental stations, etc., and a general spreading
of knowledge of the results arrived at may carry progress a good deal forward." 19
Writing of the need to bridge the gap between agricultural and other wages,
Louise Howard states:
_ "Nor need the capacity of agriculture to concede rather higher wages than have
hitherto prevailed be underestimated; the ineffective bargaining power of agri-
cultural workers has tended to let wages drop below their economic level. In any
case, the necessity for paying higher wages will stimulate agriculture to select and
use labour more carefully and above all more effectively, and this will be of great
benefit."
"The raising of agricultural wage rates should add to the buying power for
manufactured articles of the rural populations, who have hitherto had small
margin to relieve the present economic depression and to restore a proper balance
between industry and agriculture." 20
14 Howard, Louise E., op. cit., p. 112.
i» U. S. House of Representatives Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the Interstate Migration
of Destitute Citizens, 1941, p. 113.
« Ibid, p. 80.
18 Ibid, p. 82.
11 International Labor Office, op. cit., p. 38.
10 Howard, Louise E., op. cit., pp. 280-281.
12272
HUNTSVILLE, ALAV HEARINGS
As regards the question of the farmer's ability to pay minimum wages, it is of
interest to notice that minimum wage-fixing legislation has often come about in
connection with various measures to aid agriculture and that State help to agri-
culture and agricultural wage regulations have often come about together, the
latter designed as a means of securing to labor a fair share of the assistance given
to the farmer. The earliest wage legislation, that of England and Wales, was
contained in the Corn Production Act. This act was passed in 1917, during the
first World War, when as now, increased agricultural production was essential for
the conduct of the war. The primary purpose of the Corn Production Act was
to encourage the production of agricultural products. In return for a Govern-
ment subsidy the act required that farmers should pay their employees a minimum
rate of wages, determined for each county by a central agricultural wages board.
The reason for the inclusion of the wage provision was mainly to retain laborers
on the farm so as to make possible a greater domestic production of food for war
time needs.21 In more recent times farmers in Great Britain have been aided in
meeting the increased cost of labor resulting from minimum wage legislation by
preferential treatment accorded agriculture through regulation of imports by
means of tariffs and quotas, through government control of the prices of certain
commodities and through subsidies of almost 40,000,000 pounds a year.22'
In New Zealand the Agricultural Workers Act of 1936 is part of a comprehen-
sive program of economic planning applied to agriculture. In this program
prices, overhead costs, and wages are considered together, and other aspects of the
farm problem, including the organization of production and marketing, are
tackled. The act was passed to insure the passing on of a fair portion of the
increased income to be conferred on farmers by the Primary Products Marketing
Act, which guaranteed prices for various agricultural products. Minimum
rates were fixed with regard to the prices fixed for the agricultural products.23
A recent effort to obtain the passage of minimum wage legislation in Sweden
was also based on the introduction of State aid to agriculture.24
S. Methods of regulating hours.
Regulation of hours of work in agriculture is in most cases a post-war phe-
nomenon. The International Labor Office reports that the problem of regulation
covering hours of work in agriculture has been approached in all countries in a
very cautious way. The imposing upon agriculture of a rigid organization of its
working day has been avoided and room has been left for considerable elasticity
and adaption to practical needs.
Hour regulation has been imposed either through general legislation on hours
of work or special legislation for agriculture only. In some countries hours are
regulated incidentally in the course of fixing minimum wages. The minimum
wage orders issued specify the number of hours of work per day or per week to
which the minimum wage rates apply. In a few countries hours of work are
regulated by arbitration court awards. The countries in which hours are regulated
by the above-mentioned methods are as follows:
General hour legislation
Special agricultural legisla-
tion
Wage-fixing machinery
Arbitration court
awards
Czechoslovakia.
Spain.
Italy.
Mexico.
Argentina.
San Juan.
Tucumen.
Germany.
Austria.
Sweden.
England and Wales.
Scotland.
Ireland.
New Zealand.
Australia.
New Zealand.
The methods of regulating hours of work vary widely from simple rules restrict-
ing hours of work indirectly, to arrangements laying down definite detailed time
tables. The indirect method restricts working hours by specifying a minimum
nightly rest period the length of which is definitely stated in hours, and by specify-
ing the number of breaks in the day, with the length of each definitely stated.
By deducting the total of the nightly rest and the breaks from the 24 hours of
the day, the length of the maximum' working day is found. Indirect limitation
2i Sells, Dorothy M. D., British Wages Boards, (1939) pp. 20 nnd 26.
" Great Britain, The Ministry of Labour Gazette, vol. XI VIII, January- TVeember, 1910. p. 159.
23 International Labor Ofbce, Studies and Reports, series D No. 22, The Minimum Wage, 1939, pp. 164-165.
2< International Labor Oilier, Studies and Reports, series K No. 14, op. cit., p. 86.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12273
thus secures to the worker an absolute guarantee to certain minimum rest periods
either by night or by day, or both. It also lays down maximum limits to the
working day which c.annot be exceeded even during the busy seasons. However,
this maximum day may be anywhere from 10 to 14 hours or even longer, which
is a pretty long working day, even in the busy season. Indirect limitation can
normally be applied to all groups of workers, including farm servants and cattle
tending staffs, two groups generally excluded from direct limitation of hours.
Indirect limitation of hours is found in Hungary and Austria.
There are various methods of limiting hours of work directly. One method is
to fix the average hours of work per day over the period of a year. According to
this method a particular working day can ostensibly be any length, providing that
the average for the year does not exceed a specified number. Such an average
becomes of real value to the workers only when it is combined with the indirect
method of fixing the nightly and daily rest periods.
Another method of limiting hours of work in agriculture is to fix different aver-
ages per day for different periods of the year; for example, an average of 8 hours
during 4 months of the year, 10 hours during another 4, and 11 hours during the
remaining 4 months. A third method fixes an average working day over the year,
but also specifies the maximum day or the maximum week, perhaps varying the
maximum with the seasonal needs.
A fourth method is to fix a maximum working day. In this case a different
maximum working day may be fixed for various periods of the year, the duration
of which may vary from several months down to 10 days. In Lithuanian legis-
lation, now defunct, the range of the maximum working day was from 7 hours in
December to 12 hours from May to August.
A fifth method is the use of a maximum workweek. In English counties the
maximum workweek is generally 48 hours in winter and 52 in summer.
Where hour legislation applies to both agriculture and industry, a general
maximum working day or week is first specified, and then allowances are made
for certain deviations from the maximum, either within certain limited periods,
or over the whole year.
Whatever methods or arrangements are made, there is little and in some coun-
tries there are no limits on overtime. To work overtime when necessary is gen-
erally an obligation on the workers. Overtime, generally at higher rates, can
extend the ordinary working day for any length without any fixed limits. The
effectiveness of the maximum hours as fixed depends greatly on the rates for
overtime. Thus working hours are limited simply by the pressure of expense
on employers.
An absolute limitation of working hours comes into effect only when overtime
is itself limited to a certain maximum, or when it is allowed to be instituted only
under specified conditions. For example, overtime may be limited to 3 months
during the year, or so as not to exceed 2 hours a day or 12 hours a week, or 50
hours in the month, or 120 hours in the year.
Rates for overtime vary from 10 percent above ordinary rates to 1% times the
ordinary rates. Work on Sundays and holidays is sometimes paid for at the
same rates as overtime on weekdays and sometimes at higher rates, up to double
time.
4. Methods of regulating wages.
The simplest form of minimum-wage legislation is the laying down in a statute
of definitely fixed minimum-wage rates. The payment of less than the stipulated
amount is declared illegal. Sometimes the enactment of a statutory minimum
wage is combined with the provisions of administrative machinery for raising the
minimum (and subsequently also reducing it, but never below the minimum fixed
by statute).
A more elastic method is that of setting up special wage-fixing machinery.
Generally this machinery consists of a central wage board together with local
boards for the various divisions of the country. The central and local boards
are generally composed of members representing employers, members represent-
ing employees, and some impartial members. The chairman is usually selected
from among the impartial members, and usually casts a vote only in case of a tie.
In some countries the wages are fixed by local committees, while the central board
merely reviews them and issues the wage orders. In other countries the local
boards merely act as advisory bodies, while the central board fixes the wages.
In Australia and New Zealand minimum wages for a few groups of specially
skilled agricultural workers who are organized are fixed by arbitration covrt
awards. The arbitration court is authorized to fix a minimum wage sufficient
60396— 42— pt. 32 22
12274
HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
to enable a worker to support himself and family in a fair and reasonable standard
of comfort. The court is also empowered to alter the minimum-wage rate in
accordance with the cost of living and the prosperity of the industry.
An indirect method of regulating wages found in some countries is that of govern-
ment sanction of collective agreements. This sanction may take various forms.
In Germany, before the present regime, at the request of either one or both of the
contracting parties, the Federal Minister of Labor could make a collective agree-
ment binding for all agricultural employers and workers in the region concerned,
whether organized or not. In Italy the charter of labor makes it obligatory for
organizations of employers and workers to negotiate collective agreements, the
stipulations of which are applicable to all employers or workers in the region
whether organized or not. In Czechoslovakia, from the very first year of the
Republic, the agricultural advisory boards attached to the Provincial employment
exchanges took the initiative of convoking representatives of employers' and
workers' organizations to agree on working conditions in agriculture, and this
practice was continued throughout the life of the Republic. While collective
agreements proper were not signed, guiding principles were agreed upon, which
were later incorporated in collective agreements.
In Sweden a law was passed in 1 928 providing that during the term of validity
of a collective agreement, strikes or lock-outs to alter any of the terms of the agree-
ment were illegal. This has the effect of giving official sanction to such
agreements.
The various methods of regulating wages and the countries in which each method
prevails are as follows:
Government statute defi-
nitely fixes wage rates
Statute provides for the
setting up of local and
central wage boards to fix
wages
Wage awards by a
court of arbitration
Government sanctions
of collective agreements
New Zealand.'
Guatemala.
San Juan (Argentina).
Peru.1
Uruguay.
England and Wales.
Scotland.
Ireland.
Hungary.
Spain.
Mexico.
Cuba.
Dominican Republic.
Costa Rica.
Brazil.
Ecuador.
Australia.
New Zealand.
Sweden.
Germany.
Austria.
Italy.
Czechoslavakia.
i Provisions in statute for making changes in wages.
II. Legislation in Various Countries
A. AUSTRALIA FEDERAL REGULATION
1. Type of legislation.
Wages and hours of industrial workers and of a few small groups of agricultural
workers in Australia are regulated federally by the Commonwealth Conciliation
and Arbitration Act of 1904, as amended, and in the States by State industrial
arbitration acts, factory and shop acts, or wages boards acts. The Common-
wealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act of 1904 created a Federal Arbitration
Court with jurisdiction extending beyond the limits of any one State. In the case
of a labor dispute the court has power to summon representatives of both em-
ployers and employees to a compulsory conciliation conference, and in the absence
of a voluntary agreement to make an award binding on both parties. Since in
the bulk of labor disputes the questions of wages and hours of work have had
major importance, the court in effect has served as a minimum-wage and
maximum-hour fixing authority. Moreover, as Australia recognized that some
protection of the workers' wages was essential to the maintenance of peaceful
labor relations, the court was also given {he power to fix the basic rates of wages
payable to adult unskilled workers and to vary those rates from time to time m
order to safeguard a minimum standard of living.26
" International Labor Office, Studies and Reports, series D No. 22, The Minimum Wage, (1939) p. 7i
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12275
2. Applicability to agriculture.
The jurisdiction of the Commonwealth Arbitration Court is limited to dis-
putes arising between individual employers or registered associations of em-
ployers on the one hand and individual workers or registered unions of workers
on the other. Under the original Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration
Act, a labor dispute of a nature to give the court jurisdiction did not include a
dispute relating to employment in any agricultural pursuit. Amendments to the
principal act, however, have made substantial modifications, and now any asso-
ciation of not less than 100 workers in any industrial or agricultural pursuit may
be registered under the act. There are no legal difficulties to prevent agricul-
turalists thus organized and registered from coming into the court and asking
for an award binding on employers in their industries. The court, however,
has never been asked to make an award for agricultural workers except as to
pastoral and orchard workers. Thus, there are in operation only two Federal
rural awards, the pastoral award and the fruit growers award.26
The pastoral, or wool industry, however, is not only the chief of Australia's
rural industries, but it is the most important of all her industries. It is only in
the pastoral industry, moreover, that large-scale farming is the normal practice.
This industry employs the largest number of wage-paid workers among rural
industries. Fruit growing is the only other agricultural industry that employs
labor in considerable numbers, although in this industry, employment is highly
seasonal. Wheat and dairy production are the chief rural industries other than
wool, and wage cost is not high in these industries. They tend to be family
industries with holdings that can we worked under a system of peasant pro-
prietorship. Only in the pastoral, fruit-growing and sugar industries have trade
unions been organized.
The sugar industry may be said to be confined to one State, Queensland.
Among the pastoral workers the formation of a union has been found compara-
tively easy for the shearers make their way from station to station and State to
State in a body. They form a branch of the Australian Workers Union (A. W. U.),
a union with a membership of about 135,000, the largest in the country. The
fruit growers are organized in the Rural Workers Union of Victoria and the South
Australian United Labourers Union.27
3. Machinery of operation.
The Federal Arbitration Court consists of a chief judge and such other judges
as may be appointed. No judge may be removed from office except by the Gov-
ernor General in Council. Any duly registered organization of workers or em-
ployers may make a collective agreement with any other organization. Such
an agreement, if filed under section 24 of the Arbitration Act and certified by a
judge of the court has the same binding force as an award of the court. In the
event of no voluntary agreement being reached in a dispute, a judge of the court
summons representatives of the parties to a compulsory conference. If, as
usually happens, no complete agreement is then reached, the judge refers the
dispute into court. The court then decides the unsettled matters in dispute
and makes an award covering both these matters and such points as the parties
themselves may have agreed on.28
In setting the minimum wage rates the Court of Arbitration considers the cost
of living and sets a rate such that an unskilled worker may secure a living wage.
To this is added various increments for skill, expense, etc. The court also takes
into consideration the prosperity of the industry and the probable effects of the
competitive disadvantage that would be imposed by higher wage costs.29
The court may not alter the basic wage or award a wage-rate lower than the
basic wage, unless the question is heard by the chief judge and not less than two
other judges and the reduction approved by a majority of the members of the
court by whom the question is heard. The court may make special provision for
the payment of wages less than the minimum award rates to persons who for
special reasons are unable to earn those rates.30
The court has no power to make its award a common rule for the whole of the
industry to which it applies. Only those employers who are cited in an applica-
tion for an award can be bound by an award, and in practice the unions find it
28 International Labour Review, Agricultural Wages in Australia by D. B. Copland O. deR. Foemander,
vol. 25, No. 6, June 1932, p. 767.
»' Ibid., pp. 767-768.
28 1. L. O., Studies and Reports, series No. D, 22, op, cit., pp. 8-9.
« Ibid., p. 9.
«• Ibid., p. 9.
12276 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
necessary to serve "logs" (i. e., an application for an award and a statement of claims]
on all the employers whom they wish to have bound.31 However, the court gen-
erally announces that in future applications of such a kind a similar award will
be made. As a result of the strict application of this principle to a large number
of cases, a particular award tends to become the general practice.32
Awards and agreements are made for specified periods not exceeding 5 years,
and after the specified periods have expired, awards continue in practice until
new ones are made unless the court directs otherwise.
4. Enforcement procedure.
The Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Acts and the regulations made
under it are administered by the Attorney General's Department. The act pro-
vides for the appointment of inspectors, but in practice the awards are policed by
the workers' organizations concerned. Accredited union officials are given lim-
ited powers to enter factories and workshops for inspection purposes and in the
exercise of these powers are regarded by the court as its officials. The expense
involved is, however, borne by the unions. The system has been much criticized
by employers.
Failure to comply with the provisions of an award is an offense punishable by
a fine. Any worker who has been paid at less than the award rate of wages is
entitled at any time within 9 months to sue in any court of competent jurisdic-
tion for the recovery of the difference between the amount paid and the award
rate.33
5. The pastoral awards.
Awards in the pastoral industry generally cover shearers, station hands, wool-
pressers and cooks — that is, workers whose main or predominant work is as
pastoralists raising and/or shearing sheep, and not general farm laborers on
agricultural lands farmed in connection with sheep raising. The first wage award
for shearers was made by the Federal court in 1907, covering New South Wales,
Victoria, Queensland, and South Australia. Shearing had always been done
on a piece work basis and the court saw no reason to depart from the practice.
In awarding a wage rate (per 100 sheep shorn) the court was mainly concerned
with restoring to the shearer the same earning capacity, having regard to the intro-
duction of machine shearing, as he had enjoyed before the introduction of this
great change. The court believed that at the rate awarded earnings would be
sufficient to maintain the shearers and their families according to the Australian
standard of comfort. In 1916 the wage rate for shearers was raised to meet the
rising cost of living. In 1917 the rate was again raised because of the marked rise
in the cost of living due to the war. In 1923 the court increased the shearers'
rates again, as the cost of living was still rising. In making this award the court
took into consideration the effects of piece work as an incentive to greater pro-
ductivity which it believed previous awards had not sufficiently emphasized.
Tasmania was included in this award, but not Queensland, which had fixed a
higher rate for, shearers than that awarded by the Federal court. In 1926 the
Australian Workers Union claimed that the piece rate previously allowed was not
sufficient to enable the shearer to obtain the earnings necessary to meet the cost
of living due to time lost in traveling, time lost because of bad weather and expenses
incurred during the expedition. The court increased the rates in order to allow
an additional sum to represent a margin for skill and experience and for the time
spent on the expedition. In 1927 the court increased the rate in New South
Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania, but not in western Australia. The
differential represented a differential in cost of living and expenses. In 1930, due
to the depressed economic state of the country and drop in wool prices, rates
were reduced by about 20 percent.34
The court, in varying the wages of station hands, shed hands, wool pressers, and
cooks, is moved by much the same consideration as in the case of shearers — cost of
living and prosperity of the industry. Station hands (bullock drivers, boundary
riders, and others) were first included in an award in 1917. Until that year the
conditions of those men had been wholly unregulated. Then they were organized
by the A. W. U. and the court granted them the equivalent of the basic wage.
The employers were permitted to deduct a portion of this amount to represent the
32 International Labour Review, The Standard Working Week in Australia, by 0. deR. Foenander,
vol. 26, No. 1, July 1932, p. 61.
33 International Labor Office, op. cit., pp. 9-11.
34 International Labour Review, Agricultural Wages in Australia, by D. B. Copland and O. deK. *oe-
nander.'vol. 26, No. 5, June 1932, pp. 771-775.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12277
value of allowances and perquisites. To safeguard the workers against exploita-
tion, the court provided that the value placed against these allowances should
be approved by a board of reference or a union official. The award of 1930
reduced the wages of wool pressers by 15 percent and of cooks by 10 percent.
In 1931 wages of shed hands and station hands, which were basic wages, were
reduced by the full court by 10 percent and later wages of station hands were re-
duced by another 10 percent.35
As a result of the rise in the price of wool and the cost of living the Federal
court in March 1936, awarded pastoral workers of all kinds an increase of 12^
percent. In June 1936, the court again raised the wages of pastoral workers by
about 8 percent. In making this award, Mr. Justice Dethridge, Chief Justice of
the Federal court, remarked that throughout the world men who worked on farms
lived at a lower standard than men who worked in town. It was the duty of the
community to see that rural workers received as much in real wages as urban
workers. All politicians and all political parties seem to have flinched from any
attempt to raise the standard of living of rural workers to an approximate equality
with that of urban workers. This discrepancy was a matter for the legislature;
the arbitration court could not correct it.36
Although an award binds only those pa.storalists who are joined as respondents
in a "log" because the court has no power to make a common rule in industry, it
is generally understood that the award rates are paid by all pastoralists whether
they are included in the list of respondents or not.37
The first Federal award for shearers in 1907 stated that no shearer should be
compelled to work more than 48 hours per week nor after 12 o'clock noon on
Saturdays. In 1925 the hours were reduced to 44 and these hours were retained
in the awards of 1927 and 1933. By agreement, work might be prolonged by half
an hour on any day to finish off waiting sheep. Shed hands and other workers at
sheep stations who prepare sheep, etc., have since 1907 worked 52 hours per week.
All overtime must be paid for at time and a half.38
In the case of station hands (bullock drivers, boundary riders, etc.) the court
did not find it reasonably practicable to fix any definite hours of work at all. The
president of the court asked, "How is it possible to apply the 48-hour week to
men who are not seen for a week or weeks by the employer or his overseer, or about
the homestead, and who must do whatever is necessary for the stock or the fencing
as circumstances demand or permit?"39
6. The fruit growers award.
The first award for fruit growers was granted in 1912 on the application of the
Rural Workers Union of Victoria and the South Australia Laborers Union. It
covered harvesting operations only in these two States. The amount awarded
was equivalent to the basic wage for unskilled workers. In 1923 an awaidwas
made covering all States except Queensland. Basic rates were determined for
all the occupations — harvesting, pruning, etc., varying in different States with
the cost of living in those States. In 1930 employers complained that industry
was in a bad state and they could not afford to pay the rates awarded. The court
reduced the rate by the amount which it had been accustomed to add to the basic
rate since 1921 to provide against a lag of wages failing to overtake a rise in the
cost of living between periods of adjustment. In 1931 the full court reduced
the basic wage by 7% percent for fruit workers. This was to bring these workers
in line with the general reduction on the basic wage in 1931.40 Work on Sunday-
holiday, or in excess of 48 hours per week or 10;% hours on any weekday is to be
paid for at time and one-half.41
B. AUSTRALIA STATE REGULATION
1. Type and relation to Federal legislation.
In addition to the Commonwealth system of regulation, there are the separate
systems which operate in the various States. Conflicting or overlapping juris-
dictions in the sphere of industrial relations have created difficult problems.
35 Ibid., p. 776.
3» The International Labour Office, Industrial and Labour Information, vol. LIX, Julv-Sept. 1936, p.282.
37 International Labour Review, vol. 26, No. 5, 1932, op. cit., p. 770.
38 Howard, Louise E., Labor in Agriculture (1935), p. 129.
39 International Labour Review, the Standard Working Week in Australia, by O. deR Foenander, vol.
26, No. 1, July 1932, p. 56.
40 International Labour Review, vol. 25, No. 6, op. cit., pp. 778-779.
ix International Labour Review, vol, 25, No. 5, op. cit., pp. 778-779.
12278 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Since 1926, however, as a result of the High Court's decision in the case of Clyde
Engineering Co., Ltd., vs. Cowburn the main cause of overlapping awards has
been removed. In that case the Federal court ruled that a Federal award in an
interstate labor dispute prevails over any inconsistent State law or award. In
192S an amendment to the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act
provided that "When a State law or an award order or determination of a State
industrial authority deals with any matter dealt with in an award or order law-
fully made by the Federal court, the latter shall prevail and the former shall, in
relation to the matter dealt with, be invalid." 4a
2. Applicability to agriculture.
In Victoria and Tasmania, no wages board determination under the State laws
applies to agriculture. In South Australia no State award can be made for rural
workers under the State industrial acts. In New South Wales the Amending
Act of 1929 removed employees in rural industries from the operation of the
State industrial arbitration acts and rescinded all awards applying to them.
In Queensland the State Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act of 1929
limits the court jurisdiction in agriculture to the pastoral industry and the sugar
industry. In the pastoral industry minimum rates are set by the Queensland
industrial court for shearers, crutchers, wool pressers, wool scourers, shed hands,
and cooks.43 These rates are considerably higher than those fixed for pastoral
workers by the Federal court. The higher rate is justified on the basis of the
heavy railway and other expenses incurred by shearers in that State. Since 1922
the Federal court has not been making awards for shearers in Queensland.44
Hours of work for pastoral workers are 44 a week and 8 a day, with a half holiday
on Saturday. Shearers may work not more than one-half hour overtime to
finish up waiting sheep. Shed hands may work such additional time each day
as may be necessary to clean up after the cessation of shearing. However, if
this time exceeds a total of 30 minutes, the employer must pay for the whole of
the additional time at time and one -half the regular rate. Overtime is paid for
at time and one-half for the first 2 hours and double time thereafter. Work on
various specified holidays must be paid for at double time, but on others at only
time and a half.45 During the depression, wages were reduced frequently and
heavily, the reductions between February 1930 and April 1933, exceeding 28
percent. In May 1936 the Queensland industrial court increased minimum
wages in the wool-shearing industry by 12^ percent.46
In the sugar industry minimum hourly and weekly rates are set by the Queens-
land industrial court for field hands and cane cutters. Cane cutters may contract
to cut cane by the piece, and for such cutters pie.ce rates are set. Hours of work
are 44 per week and 8 per day, with a half holiday on Saturday. Overtime is
paid for at time and one-half. Piece workers may not work overtime except in
case of emergency. However, when thev work overtime, they are paid at straight
time. Sunday work is paid for at double time. Work on some specified holidays
is paid for at double time, and on others at time and a, half.47
In western Australia all industries, including agriculture, may be dealt with
by the State arbitration court, but the court has seldom been dnvited to consider
agricultural cases.48
S. Effects of wage and hour regulation in rural industries.
Awards of the Federal and State courts of arbitration regarding wages in the
pastoral and fruit-growing industries has raised the standard of living of these
rural workers.49 In addition, labor troubles have been greatly decreased in
both of those industries. Referring to pastoral conditions, Mr. Justice Higgms
"Formerly, there was continual trouble with the shearers, shed hands, wool
pressers etc. There was no certainty that the pastoralists could get their work
done * * * Since the constitution of this court there has been no general
strike among these men. There have been some local troubles but the executive
of the union brings all its influence to bear in favor of waiting for the courts.
« Anderson, Ocorge, Fixation of Wages in Australia (1929), p. 134
<a The Queensland Industrial Gazette, vol. 13, No. 3, September 24, 1938, p. 530.
« International Labour Review, vol. 25, No. 6, op. cit., p. 773.
<» International Labour Review, vol. 25, No. 6, op. at., p. 773. „«_«,
« The Queensland Industrial Gazette, vol. 13 No. 3, September 24, 1938, PP- ^3?: __. ^
« International Labor Office, Industrial and Labour Information, vol. LVIII, April-June 1936, p. 280.
Queensland Industrial Gazette, op. cit., pp. 551-552.
« International Labour Review, vol. 25, No. 6, op. cit., p. 781.
«o International Labour Review, vol. 26, No. 5, op. cit., p. 785. .
•o Ibid, (quotation from Higgins, Mr. Justice, A New Province for Law.and Order, p. ,5).
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12279
With regard to the fruit-growing industry, Justice Higgins stated:
"It is gratifying to find that in these interesting fruit settlements, which were
previously hindered by industrial troubles, work has been carried on since the
award without any serious interruption, and that both parties — the growers and
the workers — welcome regulation by the courts." 61
C. NEW ZEALAND
In New Zealand wages and hours in agriculture are regulated by either of two
laws — (1) the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, as amended; and (2)
the Agricultural Workers Act, 1936, as amended.
1. The Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act.
The Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act sets up a court of arbitration
and district conciliation boards for the purpose of securing settlement of labor
disputes. Disputes are referred to the conciliation boards in the first instance
and only if no settlement is thereby obtained do they go before the court, whose
decision is binding. Since rates of wages frequently form one of the most impor-
tant matters on which the parties to a labor dispute are unable to agree, the court,
in effect, has become a wage-fixing authority. In addition, the court is em-
powered to prescribe basic rates of wages for adult male and female workers sub-
ject to its awards and to vary them from time to time.62
2. Applicability to agriculture.
The jurisdiction of the conciliation councils and of the arbitration court is
limited to disputes arising between individual employers or registered unions or
associations of employers on the one hand and registered unions or associations
of workers on the other. Any incorporated company or any society of 3 or more
employers or of 15 or more workers may be registered as a "union." Any 2 or
more unions of workers or of employers in any field or related field of activity
mav be registered as an "association "
Formally, the act covers all industry including agriculture. However, the
court may refuse to make an award, if for any reason it considers that an award
ought not to be made. In the case of agriculture, the court has chosen to exercise
this power only in the case of a few groups of workers — shearers and shearing-
shed hands, threshing-mill and chaff-cutter hands, musterers, packers, and drovers.
In 1908, 1919, and 1925 applications for an award were made on behalf of general
agricultural workers but were each time refused. Refusal has generally been due
to the opposition of the agricultural employers and to the lack of strong organi-
zation among the workers.53 These groups, though small in number, are by no
means unimportant. The work they do is urgent and essential, and their wages
form a substantial part of the labor costs in sheep farming and wheat growing.
The nature of their work, which in most cases brings them together for lengthy
periods, is such as to favor trade-union organization. They are organized in the
New Zealand Workers Union.
S. Machinery of operation.
The courts of arbitration consists of a judge having the status of a Supreme
Court judge, and two other judges, one of whom is appointed on the nomination
of unions of workers and the other on the nomination of unions of employers.
The council of conciliation consists of an equal number (not more than four in
each case) of representatives of the employers and workers concerned, and is
presided over by a conciliation commissioner who is a permanent official of the
department of labor.
In any occupation in which a union of workers has been registered under the
act, the union and the employers may enter into and file an agreement fixing
minimum wages and other conditions of employment. If it is proved that the
employers who are parties to the agreement employ a majority of the workers in
the field to which it relates in the district in which it was made, the court may
make an order extending the operation of the agreement to all employers who are
engaged in the field in the district concerned.
If no agreement is reached, either side may have the dispute brought before
the council of conciliation. If no agreement, or only an incomplete agreement,
is then reached, the dispute is automatically referred for final settlement to the
81 Ibid, (quotation from Commonwealth Arbitration Reports, p. 214.)
. « International Labor Office, Studies, and Reports, series D, No. 22, The Minimum Wage, 1939, p. 133.
M International Labour Review, Agricultural Planning and Farm Wages in New Zealand, by E. J. Riches,
vol. 35, No. 3, March 1937, pp. 297-299.
12280 HUNTSVILLE, ALAV HEARINGS
court of arbitration. The award of the court is binding not merely on all the
parties to the dispute, but on every trade-union, association, or employer who is
engaged in the occupation to which it applies in the district to which it relates.
The court is directed to fix basic rates by general order without waiting to be
asked to do so by the parties concerned and to amend such general order from time
to time. In fixing a basic rate of wages the court must take into consideration the
general economic and financial conditions in New Zealand, the cost of living, and
any fluctuations in the cost of living since the last order, if any, was made. The
basic rate of wages of adult male workers must be such as would, in the opinion of
the court, be sufficient to enable a man to maintain a wife and three children in a
fair and reasonable standard of comfort.
The court has power to make provision in any award for the issue to any worker
of a permit for a specified period to accept a wage below that prescribed for
ordinary workers. Before any such permit is awarded, however, the union of
workers in the trade to which the award relates must be given an opportunity to
express its views on the matter and no permit may be granted except with the
authority of the Minister of Labor, to any person who is not usually employed in
the industry to which the award relates.54
4- Enforcement of the act.
The act is administered by the Minister of Labor. Inspectors of factories and
inspectors of mines are constituted inspectors of awards and are charged with the
duty of seeing that the provisions of any industrial agreement, award, or order of
the arbitration court are observed. The arbitration court may also empower a
representative of any union of workers to enter the premises of an employer bound
by an ward in order to interview the workers. Substantial penalties are fixed for
breach of an award. Any worker who has been paid at less than the rate of wages
fixed by an award is entitled at any time within 12 months to recover the difference
from his employer.55
5. Agriculhiral awards.
Awards covering wages in the shearing industry specify minimum rates for
machine shearers, blade shearers, pressers, other shed hands, and cooks. All
wages are subject to adjustment in accordance with the movement of wool prices
as determined by the Government statistician's index number for export prices
of wool. The determination of the index number is done by a committee con-
sisting of the Government statistician and one representative each from the
employers' and workers' union. A 44-hour week is provided. The workers are
allowed to work a 9-hour day so long as the aggregate number of hours worked in a
week does not exceed 44.56
Awards for threshing mill employees in North Island set separate rates for
drivers, feeders, and other workers. The hours of work are stated as between 7
a. m. and 8 p. m. Monday to Friday inclusive and from 7 a. m. to 5 p. m. on
Saturday. No weekly maximum is fixed.
The New Zealand Drovers and South Island Musterers, Packers, and Snow
Rakers' award prescribes weekly and daily rates of wages for drovers throughout
the Dominion and for musterers, packers, and snow rakers in South Island.
Musterers engaged by the week are entitled to an additional payment for Sunday
work.57
6. Effect of awards.
As a result of the protection of the court, the agricultural workers covered by
court awards have become the aristocracy of agricultural labor. Their wages are
much higher than those of other agricultural workers, and during a good season
they earn considerable sums. The wage rates and conditions fixed in their case,
however, have little influence on the terms of employment of the general laborers
who form the great majoritv of farm wage earners. During the virtual suspension
of compulsory arbitration, "from March 1932 to May 1936, the wages of workers
covered by awards declined substantially. The average decline in wage rates from
March 1932 was greatest in those occupations which had been protected by
arbitration awards. This was because the greater part of the reductions in other
farm wages took place earlier. Thus the awards delayed the reductions in the
wages in covered occupations. Moreover, the total decline, from the pre-
depression to the lowest rate was less in occupations formerly covered by awards.58
*< International Labor Office Studies and Reports, series D, No. 22, op. cit., pp. 155-157.
" Ibid, pp. 157-158.
«« International Labor Office, Industrial and Labor Information, vol. LX October-December 1936, p. 02.
« The Food Worker, vol. 20, No. 247, December 1939, p. 10.
58 International Labor Review, vol. 35, No. 3, op. cit., pp. 295-304.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12281
7. The Agricultural Workers' Act.
The Agricultural Workers' Act came into force on October 1, 1936. The pur-
pose of this act was to ensure that dairy farm workers should share in the benefits
of guaranteed prices for dairy products and to provide an adequate standard of
living for agricultural workers.
8. Scope.
The provisions of the act were limited at first to dairy farm workers. A dairy
farm was defined as "a farm on which not less than 10 cows are ordinarily kept
and from which milk or cream is sold or otherwise disposed of in the course of
business." The provision could be extended, however, by order in council to any
specified classes of agricultural workers after consultation with the organizations,
if any, of workers and employers concerned. The first extension occurred in
February 1937 when a guaranteed price was fixed for fruit exported and at the same
time minimum rates of wages were fixed for orchard workers. In April 1937 the
provisions of the act were extended to cover agricultural and pastoral workers on
farms producing wool, meat and grain (with the exception of workers already
covered by awards or agreements under the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitra-
tion Acts). In April, June, and July 1938, the provisions of the act were extended
to agricultural workers employed in market gardens in certain districts. As a
result of the various extensions practically all farm workers not under the juris-
diction of the arbitration court are now covered by the provisions of the Agricul-
tural Workers' Act.59
9. Provisions of the act.
(a) Dairy farm workers. — For the first 10 months of the operation of the act
(from October 1 to July 31, 1937, or the end of the first period for which guaranteed
prices were fixed for dairy products) , the minimum rates 6f wages for workers of
different age groups were fixed in the act itself. The rates for subsequent periods
are to be fixed by order in council, and in fixing them regard must be had to the
guaranteed prices of dairy products, provided in the Primary Products Market-
ing Act of 1936. No charge may be made for board and lodging provided by
employers. In any case where board and lodging are not provided, the minimum
rate of wages must be increased by a specified amount per week (17s 6d or roughly
$4.37). No deductions may be made for time lost except where such time is lost
by reason of default of the worker or by reason of illness or accident suffered by
him.
A permit to work for lower wages may be issued by an inspector to any worker
who is incapable of earning the specified minimum rates. A similar permit n ay
be granted to any woman or girl employed as an agricultural worker on any dairy
farm if the inspector is satisfied, having regard to the nature of the work per-
formed by her, the time occupied in the performance of her work and any other
relevant circumstances, that she is not reasonably entitled to wages at the
prescribed minimum rate.60
Maximum hours of work were not established as this was considered impracti-
cable. However, provisions for holidays with pay were made. All dairy-farm
workers employed for at least 4 consecutive weeks must be allowed a holiday of
not less than 7 days for every 12 weeks of employment, or a proportionate part
of this amount for every broken period of employment. This holiday is to be
taken when the employer thinks fit, but shall not be less than 28 days during each
year of employment. However, if the worker enjoys half a day off once a week,
an additional holiday of 14 days during the year will suffice to comply with the
act. The worker is entitled to his ordinary pay during the holiday, including
an allowance for board and lodging at not less than half of the specified rates.81
(b) Workers on wool, meat, and grain farms. — Minimum rates of wages for other
workers, who are not casual workers, are identical with those paid to dairy-farm
workers. No charge is to be made for board and lodging provided by the em-
ployers and the wages of any worker who is not provided with board and lodging
are to be increased by a specified amount (17s 6d or about $4.37) a week. The
wages actually being paid to any worker at the date of the coming into force of
the order were not to be reduced. For casual workers, different special rates were
established for harvesters, other workers, and youths under 18 years of age, with
board and lodging and without board and lodging. Permits to work for less than
M International Labor Office, Studies and Reports, series D, No. 22, The Minimum Wage, 1939, pp.
164-165.
80 Ibid. pp. 165-166.
«i International Labor Office, Industrial and Labour Information, vol. LXI, January-March 1937, "pp.
191-192.
12282 HUNTSVILLE, ALA./ HEARINGS
the prescribed minimum rate may be granted by an inspector of factories to any
worker who is incapable of earning the minimum rate or to any woman or girl
who, by reason of the nature of the work performed by her, the time occupied in
the performance of her work, or any other relevant circumstances, is not reason-
ably entitled to the minimum rate.62
Every worker is to be allowed a total of 18 days holiday with full pay for every
12 months' service. Workers employed for 3 months but less than 12 months are
allowed a proportionate number of days.63 ■
(c) Market-garden employees — In establishing minimum-wage rates for market-
garden employees differentials were set up for youths and for adults over 21
years of age. Lower rates were provided for females. The order in council pro-
vided that any male adult worker who at the date of the coming into force of the
order was receiving a wage of more than £4 ($20) a week, should on and from
that date receive an increase of not less than 2s 6d (about 62 cents) a week on his
wage. Provision was made for the issuance by inspectors of permits which sanc-
tioned, for specified periods, the acceptance of wages at lower rates than those
set out above.64 The hours of labor were fixed at 44 hours a week, 5)4 days a
week.65
10. Enforcement of provisions.
The administration of the Agricultural Workers Act is entrusted to the Minister
of Labor. Default in the payment of minimum rates is punishable by a fine. An
inspector may recover arrears of wages on behalf of the worker except if he has
reason to believe that the employer's default was due to misrepresentation made
to the employer by the worker.66
11. Effect of the act.
Because of the short duration of the existence of the act, little information is
available regarding its effects, especially on other than dairy workers.
The minimum rates first established for dairy workers were 60 percent above the
average rates in effect 6 months earlier. Although the average rates had probably
risen substantially during the previous months in anticipation of the provisions
of the act, and as a consequence of rising export prices, they were probably still
well below the minimum rate on the effective date of the act. Moreover, the aver-
age itself gives a very inadequate picture of the actual situation since rates paid
may vary considerably from one farm to another. Authoritative opinion in New
Zealand indicates that for workers on some dairy farms the rates fixed by the act
would make no difference, "but for those on marginal or heavily mortgaged farms
they are likely to mean a substantial increase."
In New Zealand the Agricultural Workers Act is a part of a comprehensive
program of economic planning applied to agriculture. In this program, wages,
prices, and costs are reviewed as parts of one problem; other aspects including
the organization of manufacture and marketing, are not overlooked. The act
was passed to insure the distribution of a fair portion of the increased income
conferred upon the dairy farmers by legislation previously passed, to their em-
ployees. If, as is apparently the Government's intention, the prices fixed for
dairy products are such as will maintain the farmers' net returns at a substantially
high level, the farmers will be able to pay the higher wages and there will be no
reason to expect any shrinkage in the volume of employment as a result of higher
costs, except such as may be brought about by the increased use of labor-saving
methods and equipment. Moreover, the Government's mortgage adjustment
plan contemplates adjusting mortgages on the basis of the guaranteed prices.
This will make it still easier for the farmer to meet the higher wages fixed by the
act.67
D. GREAT BRITAIN
1. England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
Attempts to regulate agricultural wages in Great Britain followed enactment of
the Trades Board Act to regulate industrial wages in 1909. After the passage of
this act, the question of the desirability of establishing minimum wages in agri-
culture began to be discussed and debated in various quarters. Finally, in 1913
82 International Labor Office, Sutdies and Reports, series D, No. 22, op. cit., pp. 167-168.
«3 The Food Worker, vol. 20, No. 247, December 1939, p. 10.
84 International Labor Office, Studies and Reports, series D, No. 22, op. cit., p. 162.
« The Food Worker, vol. 20, No. 247, December 1939, p. 10.
89 International Labor Office, Studies and Reports, series D, No. 22, op. cit., p. 169.
87 International Labour Review, Agricultural Planning and Farm Wages in New Zealand, by E.J. Riches,
vol. 35, No. 3, March 1937, pp. 326-328.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12283
a bill was introduced by the Labor Party, "to provide for the establishment of a
minimum wage and the regularization of the hours of labor of agricultural labor-
ers." This bill was defeated in the House of Commons. Later in 1913 Mr.
Lloyd George's Land Enquiry Committee recommended the establishment of a
legal minimum wage through the medium of some form of wage tribunal. In
1914 the Conservative Party introduced a bill called the agricultural employment
boards bill. The outbreak of war in 1914 prevented any further development in
this direction.68
(a) The Corn Production Act, 1917. — The need to increase the production of
home-grown food during the war led to the passage of the Corn Production Act
of 1917. The primary purpose of the act was to encourage the production of
agricultural products. In return for a government subsidy the act required that
farmers should pay their employees a minimum rate of wages determined for each
county by a Central Agricultural Wages Board set up in London. The two reasons
advanced for the minimum wage provisions of this act were (1) to obtain for the
comparatively underpaid agricultural laborers a decent standard of living, and (2)
to retain laborers on the farms so as to make possible a greater domestic production
of food for wartime needs. The act applied to Ireland and Scotland, as well as
to England and Wales.
The Central Agricultural Wages Board consisted of an equal number of members
nominated by workers and by employers, together with independent members
appointed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. Local representative
boards were also set up to advise the Central Wages Board. However, the Central
Wages Board was authorized to determine the minimum wage, and the local
committees only served in an advisory capacity.69
Due to the fact that each locality presented different problems, fixation of
district rates by a central board sitting in London, even though aided by repre-
sentative local committees of farmers and agricultural workers, received much
criticism. During the depression which followed the war, falling prices of agri-
cultural products and a large labor supply resulting from severe unemployment
among agricultural workers, caused farmers to agitate for the abolition of the
Wages Board. When in 1921 the Government decided to withdraw the subsidy
to agriculture, the minimum wage provisions were also abolished.70
(b) The Corn Production Re-peal Act, 1921. — The Corn Production Repeal Act
of 1921 substituted a system of voluntary district conciliation committees.
Wage agreements reached by these committees, upon registration with the
Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, could be rendered obligatory upon all
farmers in the district. Only six such registrations were made. Only three
committees out of a total of 63 maintained agreements throughout the period of
the operation of the act.71
From the time of the abolition of the act of 1917 wages in agriculture fell
continuously. Between 1921 and 1924 there were widespread agricultural strikes,
the most serious of which was the strike of 1923 which led the Conservative Party
in 1924 to support the Labor Party's proposal for the reestablishment of minimum
wages in agriculture.72
(c) The Agricultural Wages (Regulation) Act, 1924. — The Agricultural Wages
(Regulation) Act of 1924, which applied to England and Wales only, provided a
decentralized method of regulating agricultural wages. The act set up a Central
Agricultural Wages Board for England and Wales, but the actual wage fixing
power was given to county agricultural wages committees. For the purpose of
this act agriculture was loosely defined as including "dairy-farming and the use
of land as grazing, meadow or pasture land, or orchard or osier land or woodland
or for market gardens or nursery grounds."
(d) Machinery of operation. — The Central Agricultural Wages Board is com-
prised of 20 members and a chairman appointed by the Minister of Agriculture
and Fisheries. Eight of these members are nominated by employers' organiza-
tions, and eight by workers' organizations. The other four are impartial members.
The county agricultural wages committees consist of employer and worker
members in equal numbers and in addition two impartial members and a chair-
man. The representative members are nominated by employers or workers
68 Dallas, George, Farm Wages in England and Wales, Proceedings of the International Conference of
Agricultural Economics (l'j:j()1, pp. 442-443.
« Sells, D. McD., British Wages Boards (1939) pp. 20 and 26.
"> Sells, D. McD., op. cit., p. 34.
" Sells, D. McD., op. cit., p. 34.
" Cole, G. D. H., Short History of the British Working Class Movement (1940) p. 185.
12284 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
organizations and appointed by the Minister of Agriculture. The two impartial
members 73 are chosen by the Minister. The chairman is chosen annually by the
committee except in case of a deadlock, when the Minister appoints a chairman
The term of office of county agricultural wages committee members is 3 years,
one-third retiring annually, in order to preserve the continuity of each com-
mittee.74
The county agricultural committees are practically autonomous. They are
empowered to fix minimum wage rates and also to vary or cancel them. Rates
are first proposed, and a minimum objection period o" 14 days allowed. The
rates are then determined. No confirmation by the central board or the Minister
is required. The function of the Agricultural Wages Board is chiefly confined to
the routine matter of issuing the official orders directing payment of wages deter-
mined by the local committees. If a committee fails to fix a minimum, rate of
wages within 2 months after its appointment, or does not substitute a new rate
for one which has ceased to operate, or if a committee by resolution requests it,
the Agricultural Wages Board may exercise the rate-fixing powers belonging to
such committee. The Minister of Agriculture may upon his own initiative
direct a committee to reconsider any rate which it has fixed. The committee is
bound to reconsider, but is free to adhere to the rate it had originally determined.75
Orders of agricultural wages committees apply for a definite period of 12 months
or less. This does not include altering the orders before their expiration. Most
agricultural wages committees review their determinations at least annually,
though they may decide to prescribe the same rates for another year.76
The orders apply automatically to all employees within the jurisdiction of the
wage committee whether organized or not.77
(e) Administration of act. — The act is administered by the Minister of Agri-
culture and Fisheries. Since the definition of agriculture contained in the act
lacks precision, the Minister is from time to time called upon for administrative
purposes to decide whether a particular worker falls within the scope of the
act. Such decisions carry no final authority, however, as they eventually hinge
upon the interpretation of a court.78 The Minister may appoint as many investi-
gators and other officers as are necessary for enforcement. Employers failing to
pay the legal minimum rates are subject to a fine of not more than £20 ($100) for
each offense, and £1 ($5) for each day on which it is continued after conviction.79
(/) Minimum wages provisions.— The act directs agricultural wages committees
as far as practicable to secure to able-bodied men such wages as in the opinion of
the committee are adequate to promote efficiency and to enable a man to maintain
himself and his family in accordance with such standard of comfort as may be
reasonable in relation to the nature of his occupation. The committees generally
fix minimum rates of wages for time work to apply to all agricultural workers in
the country, or to any special class of such workers, or to any area, or to any
special class in any area of a county. Separate time rates are customarily set
for male and female workers. Minimum piece rates may be fixed at the discretion
of each committee. Upon complaint by a piece worker that his piece rate, not
fixed by a committee, fails to yield the applicable general minimum time rate, at
committee may direct payment of an additional sum to cover the difference
between what he did receive and what he would have been paid at the established
general minimum time rate, such amount being recoverable as a civil debt.
Provisions for exempting employers from paying the general minimum time
rate to workers incapacitated by physical injury, mental deficiency, infirmity
due to old age or other causes are also included in the act.80
Separate time rates, higher than those for ordinary adult agricultural workers
have been established by about half of the committees for horsemen, cowmen,
stockmen, shepherds, foresters, and harvesters. These special rates represent
an increment to cover longer hours or casual work rather than an increased rate in
recognition of greater skill.81
« Sells, D. McD., op. cit., p. 55.
?<Ibid., p. 56.
» Ibid., p. 58.
7» ibid, p. 154.
" Journal of Farm Economics, The British Program for Farm Labor, by Murray R. Benedict, vol. 22,
No. 4. Nov. 1940, p. 723.
'8 Ibid., p. 150.
»• Ibid., p. 58.
so Ibid., pp. 57-58.
6i Sells, D. McD., British Wages Boards (1939), p. 153.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12285
The local committees decide what benefits such as board and lodging, use of
cottage, coal, wood, etc., may be reckoned as part payment of the minimum
wage.82
(g) Maximum hour provisions. — The Agricultural Wages (Regulation) Act
states that the agricultural wage committees in each of the counties may fix wage
rates to vary according as the employment is for a day, week, month, or other
period or according to the number of working hours or the conditions of employ-
ment. In the exercise of their powers under this subsection the committee shall
so far as is reasonably practical secure a weekly half holiday for workers. In
practice, in determining the minimum wage rates, the committees also determine
the maximum hours of work per week to which the minimum rates apply. The
hours of work per week for which the ordinary male worker receives the minimum
weekly rate in the different counties generally vary from 48 to 50 in winter and
from 50 to 54 in summer. As a rule the hours of some workmen, such as stock-
men, carters, and shepherds are longer, frequently from 60 to 62 per week. Rates
for women workers are usually fixed per hour and maximum hours of work are not
always specified. When maximum hours for women have been specified they
have usually been shorter than those of men, generally being set at 8 hours a
day and 48 hours a week.83
Employment in excess of the specified number of hours to which the minimum
wage is applicable is considered overtime and paid for at overtime rates. Over-
time rates also are paid for employment in excess of a particular number of hours,
after a particular time in the day on the weekly half holiday, for employment
on Sunday, and for employment on certain public holidays. The overtime rates
are not as high as those usually found in American union contracts. That is,
they are not generally as high as one and a half times the regular rate. The
amount to be paid for overtime is generally stated in fractions of a shilling and
pence, and they vary somewhat in the different counties. A number of committees
have applied the same overtime rates to overtime employment on both weekdays
and Sundays. The more usual practice with committees, however, is to fix a
higher rate for Sunday than for weekday overtime employment. In one county,
Durham, the higher Sunday rate is also applicable to overtime employment on
the weekly short day. Some committees have applied the Sunday overtime rate
to employment on holidays and others have fixed a special rate for such
employment.84
(h) 'Recent developments. — As a result of decentralized determination of mini-
mum rates by a large number of committees, wide variations existed between the
orders of different committees, sometimes even between those applying to adja-
cent counties. Marked wage differentials between counties gave farmers in some
counties a competitive advantage over those living in others.
In the interest of greater uniformity in agricultural wages, the Agricultural
Wages (regulation) Amendment Act, giving increased power to the Central
Agricultural Wages Board, was passed in 1940. This act gave the Central
Board the right to fix a basic national minimum wage for adult male full-time
agricultural workers after consulting the county committees and considering
general economic conditions and the economic conditions in agriculture. County
committees may continue to fix wage rates above the basic minimum. In addi-
tion, any county that feels it cannot pay the minimum rate may appeal to the
central board, and the board, if it thinks the county committee justified, is
entitled to allow the minimum to be reduced in that area. The act states in part:
"The agricultural wages board shall, after consultation with the agricultural
wages committees, and after considering general economic conditions and the con-
ditions of the agricultural industry, fix a national minimum wage, and subject to
the provisions of the Act, the minimum rates of wages fixed by the agricultural
wages committees for every county shall be such as to secure that no man of full
age employed whole time by the week or any longer period in agriculture shall
receive, in respect of any week, less than the national minimum wage so fixed.
"Provided that, if the board satisfied on representations made to them by the
agricultural wages committee for any county, that owing to the special conditions
of the agricultural industry in that county or in any part thereof the minimum
wage for such workers as aforesaid employed in that county or part ought to be
62 Ibid., p. 57.
83 International Labor Review, Reports and Enquiries, vol. 25, No. 1, January 1932. pp. 91-92.
m Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Report of Proceedings Under the Agricultural Wages (Regula-
tion) Act, 1924, for year ending September 30, 1937, p. 17-19
12286 HUNTSVILLE, ALAV HEARINGS
lower than the national minimum wage, the board may fix a lower minimum wage
for that county or part in lieu of the national minimum wage.
"The board may at any time reconsider and if they think fit, alter the national
minimum wage for the time being fixed." 85
During the summer of 1940, the agricultural minimum wage board fixed a
national minimum wage for England and Wales. This award was accepted by
47 of the 48 agricultural county committees.86
(i) Effects of the act. — Despite the fact that the minimum wage rates are not
high in relation to both the kind of work done and the wages paid in other indus-
tries for comparable work, real wages of male agricultural workers had, by 1938,
increased some 35 percent over the level of 1924 when the act came into effect.
Farmers have been aided in meeting the increased cost of labor through prefer-
ential treatment accorded agriculture in the regulation of imports by means of
tariffs and quotas; through government control of the prices of certain commod-
ities; and through subsidies of almost 40,000,000 pounds a year.
Under the Agricultural Wages (regulation) Act of 1924, average weekly hours
have declined. The majority of farm workers now enjoy a weekly half-holiday
and additional pay for overtime. The conditions of their working lives involving
such matters as the exact value of benefits as well as hours and wages have become
standardized, and as a result they enjoy a considerably greater degree of personal
security and freedom.87
Moreover, the Agricultural Wages (regulation) Act has provided for the repre-
sentation of the interests of a group of workers who have been notoriously weak
in bargaining power. Organization of workers and employers has received en-
couragement; strikes are not prohibited. It is significant, however, that there
has been no important labor strife in agriculture in England and Wales since the
passage of the act.88
A summary report upon the operation of the act made by the Minister of
Agriculture and Fisheries in 1930, concludes that:
"Wage control has been accompanied by an absence of industrial disputes in
agriculture during a period (1924-30) when, if there had been no statutory system
of wage regulation, the industry would undoubtedly have experienced great
difficulty in adjusting wage rates to the changing value of produce, the variations
in the cost of living and the general conditions of the labor market. Agriculture
in this country has fortunately had comparatively little experience of the evils
of strikes and lock-outs, but it is obvious that the cessation of all work for wages
on farms at certain periods of the year would inflict extremely serious injury
upon the industry. How far the fact that agriculture has been spared this mis-
fortune in recent years is in any way due to the act of 1924 is a matter on which
the present writer would not venture to offer an opinion. While it is certain
that in some districts the organization at present existing among farmers or
agricultural workers is insufficient to lead one to suppose that a strike or lock-out
could be enforced over a wide area for a considerable period, there are other parts
of the country where undoubtedly the existing organizations are sufficiently
strong for this purpose. So far, there has been practically no indication that
either employers or workers in any district desire to reject the decision of the
Wages Committee and appeal to tlie clumsy and wasteful methods of strikes and
lock-outs. In attempting to assess the results of the experience of wage adminis-
tration this is one aspect the importance of which should not be overlooked." 89
2. Scotland.
The minimum wage provisions of the Corn Production Act of 1917 were applied
to Scottish agricultural workers against the desires of their representatives. The
repeal of the act in 1921 was welcomed in Scotland. It was felt that the Corn
Production (repeal) Act, 1921, with its system of conciliation committees for
voluntary bargaining between representatives of workers and of farmers would
lead to better terms for the workers than obtained under the compulsory minimum
wage set-up. The explanation for this reasoning is found in the fact that Scottish
agricultural workers were rather strongly unionized and had, since 1915 (more
extensively since 1917) been successful in meeting with the farmers every 6 months
«6 International Labour Office, Legislative Series, 1940, O. B. 2.
ss Great Britain, The Ministry of Labour Gazette, vol. XLVIII, January-December 1940, p. 188.
« Sells, D. McD., op. cit., pp. 159-160.
88 Journal of Farm Economics, The British Program for Farm Labor, by Murray R. Benedict, vol. 22,
No. 4, November 1940, p. 724.
•» Great Britain, Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Report of Proceedings under the Agricultural
Wages (regulation) Act, 1924 (1930) pp. 32-33.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12287
and negotiating voluntary agreements as to wages, hours, perquisites, etc.90
Their experience with voluntary agreements had been satisfactory to them and
continued to be satisfactory during the conciliation committee period from
1921 to 1924.
The rather strong union of Scottish agricultural workers, feeling that it could
obtain more by voluntary bargaining, joined with the farmers of Scotland, in
1924, to successfully oppose the application of the Agricultural Wages (regulation)
Act to Scotland. By 1935, however, it had become clear that the system of
voluntary agreements afforded insufficient protection in time of depression to
even a strong union. It had also become clear that the Agricultural Wages
(regulation) Act had worked well in England and Wales; and the Scottish workers
had come to favor the establishment of a similar system of regulation in Scotland.
A committee on farm workers in Scotland was accordingly appointed to report
upon the desirability of regulating the remuneration or the conditions of em-
ployment of these workers.91
The hearings of this committee 92 revealed, among other things, that the system
of voluntary bargaining had broken down during the depression of the early
1930's just as it had in England and Wales in 1922 and 1923, and that as a con-
sequence there had similarly been a considerable fall in agricultural wages. It
was further revealed that owing to the existence of statutory regulation the agri-
cultural worker in England had been protected from the severe fall in wages
suffered by his fellow- workers in Scotland, and that there existed a difference of
from four to seven shillings in the weekly pay of men engaged in comparable work
on opposite sides of the border. The report of the committee stated:
"The collapse of this system of voluntary collective agreements placed the
workers over most of the countryside (Scotland) in the position of having to
rely upon their own individual power of bargaining. We have demonstrated
already that this power has been severely restricted by such factors as the hiring
system, the housing shortage and the surplus of labor. These considerations
rendered it difficult for the worker to offer effective resistance to the series of
reductions in wages which, as we have shown, have taken place since 1930.
•'In contrast to the position in Scotland, we are informed that for the 4 years
prior to June 1930, during which prices of agricultural produce were for the
most part fallinsr, the minimum rates of wages fixed by agricultural wages com-
mittees in England and Wales had been practically stationary. * * *
"It is obvious that owing to the existence of statutory regulation the worker
in England has been protected from the severe fall in wages which his fellow-worker
has suffered in Scotland, and as an example of the measure of this protection it
was pointed out to us that there is at present a difference of from four to seven
shillings in the total weekly remuneration of married ploughmen engaged in
comparable work in neighboring counties situated on opposite sides of the
border." 93
(a) Machinery oj operation. — Upon the recommendation of the committee,
the Agricultural Wages (regulation) (Scotland) Act, was passed in 1937, providing
for Scotland substantially the same wage fixing setup as was provided for England
and Wales by the Agricultural Wages (regulation) Act of 192 1.94 The central
agricultural wages board consists of 6 members nominated by workers organiza-
tions, 6 nominated by the farmers organizations, and 3 appointed members. The
agricultural wages committees include not less than 5 nor more than S members
representing each side, and 2 independent members. The chairman is selected
by the committee. The wages committees were given the power to set the mini-
mum rates of wages, as in England. Statutory effect is given to these rates by
orders issued by the agricultural wages board. The power to direct a committee
reconsider a minimum rate was reserved to the Department of Agriculture for
Scotland.96
(6) Minimum wage provisions. — Some of the agricultural wages committees fix
flat basic weekly minimum rates for the whole district, some fix differential rates
for those who live away from the farm; some have created separate areas within
the district with varying minimum rates. Minimum rates are also set for juvenile
workers. Higher weekly rates are set for special classes of workers such as
shepherds, cattlemen, horsemen and plowmen, etc. These higher rates are
•« Scotland, Report of the Committee on Farm Workers in Scotland, Cmd. 5217, 1936, pp. 28-29.
•' International Labor Office, Studies and Reports, series D No. 22, op. cit., p. 106.
"Scotland, Report of the Committee on Farm Workers in Scotland Cmd. 5217, 1936, pp. 28-29.
•» Scotland, Report of the Committee on Farm Workers in Scotland, 1936, Cmd. 5217, pp. 28 -29.
•« International Labor Office, Studies and Reports, seiies D, No. 22, op. cit., p. 124.
" Sells, D. McD., p. 59 op. cit.
12288 HCNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
based on the additional hours of work spent by these workers on duties in connec-
+:-u with animals. Minimum hourly rates are fixed by all committees for male
L al workers. In some of districts minimum wage rates for women are fixed
a1 urly rates, in others, at weekly rates. As in the case of male workers, lower
rates are laid down for younger workers. In the districts where weekly rates are
set for female workers, hourly rates are fixed for casual female workers. All
committees fix separate weekly minimum rates for milkers, varying according to
the number of cows milked. Some committees provide slightly higher weekly
rates for cattlemen, dairy workers and poultry workers. Committees are em-
powered by the act to fix minimum rates for piece work, but only one committee
has done so, fixing piece rates for berry-pickers. Committees determine the
benefits such as house, board and lodging, milk, meal and potatoes, that may be
reckoned as payment of wages in lieu of payment in cash and the values at which
thev are to be reckoned.
In all cases the reckoning, as part payment of the minimum wages, of any
benefits or advantages other than those specified is prohibited. The Act requires
committees to grant, on application, permits of exemption to workers who are so
affected by phvsical injury, mental deficiency, or any infirmity due to age or to
any other' cause as to be incapable of earning the minimum rates applicable to
their class of employment.96
(c) Maximum hour provisions. — Agricultural wages committees have no power
to fix hours of work, but they may fix minimum rates so as to provide for a differ-
ential rate in the case of overtime and are required to secure a weekly half-holiday,
so far as it is reasonably practicable. Ten of the 11 committees in Scotland have
related the minimum rates for ordinary male workers to specific weekly hours of
work; the one exception has specified customary hours of work. The 10 com-
mittees have varied the weekly hours at different times of the year with a broad
distinction between summer and winter. Eight of the ten committees have divided
the year roughly into nine summer and three winter months, while the division
in the other two districts is eight and four months respectively. The summer
hours average 51 in six districts, 5VA in two, 51% in one and 52^ in one; the winter
hours average 43 in one district, 44 in three, 44)4 in two, 45 in one, 45^ in two, and
47 in one. Seven committees have fixed periods varying from 4 to 7 weeks
for harvest, during which longer hours ranging from 54 to 60 are prescribed as the
working week related to the minimum rates. Hours of speci.il classes of workers,
such as" shepherds and cattlemen are longer, being 63 in four districts. In some
districts the hours for such workers are those which are "customary".
For all workers, except some in the special classes to whom customary hours
apply, overtime rates are payable for all employment in excess of the weekly
hours on which the minimum rates are based, on the afternoon of the weekly
half day and on Sundays. In addition overtime rates are applicable to employ-
ment on certain specified holidays. . . ,
Overtime rates on an hourly basis have been fixed on the same principle as the
minimum rates, with a grading downward in the lower age groups. Nine of the
committees have fixed a higher rate for Sundays than for weekdays and in three
districts the Sundav rate applies also to employment on the weekly half day. A
flat rate throughout the week applies in the other two districts.97
(d) Recent developments. — An amendment made in 1940 98 in effect transferred
to the Scottish Agricultural Wages Board the power to fix minimum wages by
providing that if on receipt of the district agricultural wages committee's decision
regarding the minimum rates for its district "the board do not agree with the
decision of the committee, they may themselves by order vary the minimum rate,
and for that purpose shall have and may exercise all the powers of the committee."
The result of this amendment is that Scotland has returned to the centralized
agricultural wage regulation scheme embodied in the Corn Production Act_ of
1917, since the central agricultural wages board now has the final disposition
regarding any minimum rate in any district and for any type or age of worker.
This is a step further than the Agricultural Wages (Regulation) Act of 1940
took England and Wales, because 'in those countries, the agricultural wages
board, instead of having the power to vary any minimum for adult males doing
ordinary work and employed full time for a period of at least 1 week. The
Scottish board has not onlv this power but also the power to set wages, either on a
nation-wide or any other basis, for adults and adolescents, males, females, ordi-
nary, and special workers.
»e Twenty-Seventh Report of the Department of Agriculture for Scotland 1938, (1939) pp. 95-100.
«8 GreaUMtain, Ministry of Labour Gazette, vol. XLVIII, January-December 1940 p. 188.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12289
Data on the effects of the statutory regulation of wages in Scotland are not
available.
8. The Irish Free State.
The Corn Production Act of 1917, applied to all of Ireland, then part of England.
An agricultural wages board constituted by Department of Agriculture and
Technical Instruction for Ireland and consisting of six members representing
workmen, six representing employers, and four appointed by the department was
empowered to order the payment of minimum agricultural wage rates."
From 1921, when the English act was repealed, to 1936 no statutory wage
regulation for agriculture existed in Ireland. From the end of that period to the
present wages in agriculture have been fixed by the wages board created by the
Agricultural Wages Act of 1936.
(a) Machinery of operation. — The Agricultural Wages Act of 1936 required the
Minister of Agriculture to divide the country into a number of agricultural
wages districts, to group these into agricultural wages areas and to set up for each
area a committee, consisting of a chairman and an appropriate number (at least 2
from each district) of ordinary members, of whom half are to represent the em-
ployers and half the workers. All the members are to be selected by the Minister,
who must choose persons representative of agricultural emplovers and workers
respectively; this arrangement was instituted because the workers were insuffi-
ciently organized to select their own representatives. In addition the act required
a central agricultural wages board to be constituted composed of 12 members,
nominated by the Minister, and including a chairman, 3 "neutral" members, 4
employers' members, and 4 workers' members
The agricultural wages board is required to fix by order in each wages district
the minimum rates of wages for agricultural workers. When the board intends
to make such an order for any district it must inform the wages committee of the
area in which the district is situated of its intention, and the area committee may
then within 2 months make recommendations in relation to minimum rates, which
recommendations the board must take into consideration. Every order made by
the board must be laid before Parliament and may be annulled* bv a resolution
passed by Parliament within the next subsequent 21 sitting days.1
(6) Administration and enforcement— The act is administered bv the Minister
of Agriculture for Ireland. Inspectors hired by the board may require employers
to produce for their inspection wage sheets or other records of wages paid, and
the onus of proof that wages not less than the minimum prescribed rates have been
paid rests on the employer. Failure to pay the prescribed rates makes an em-
ployer liable to a fine of up to £20 ($100) plus £1 ($5) a day for each day during
which an offense is continued. Whether or not an employer against whom pro-
ceedings are taken is convicted, the court may, if it finds that he has paid less than
the prescribed rates, order payment of the difference. In addition to the right of
any agricultural worker to recover such difference by civil proceedings, officers of
the Board are empowered to institute civil proceedings for such recovery in the
name, and on behalf of the worker.2
(c) Provisions for minimum wages.— The act provides that any minimum rates
fixed by the board may apply universally to a whole district or to any special
class of agricultural workers, or to any part of a district. Minimum rates for
time work may be fixed by the hour, the day, week, month, year, or any other
period: and provisions may be made for overtime. Rates may also be fixed for
piecework. Further, the board may define the benefits and advantages which
may be reckoned as payment of wages in lieu of cash, and the value at which they
are to be reckoned.
The board may exempt certain agricultural workers from the provisions of the
act if it is satisfied that owing to physical injury, mental deficiency, or infirmity
due to age or any other cause, such workers are incapacitated from earning the
minimum rate.3
Two minimum wage orders have been issued by the agricultural wages board.
The first order came into operation on August 9, 1937. It fixed a flat minimum
rate of 24s (about $6) per week applicable to all male adult agricultural workers in
all the wage districts in Ireland. Lower minimum rates were fixed for workers
under 20 years of age. These workers were divided into three groups, based on
age, and separate minimum wages were established for each age group. The
"» Agricultural Wa?es Board for Ireland. Report on the operations of the act during the period Septem-
ber 1917 to September 1921, p. 1.
i International Labor Office. Studies and Reports, Series D, No. 22, op. cit p 146
' Ibid, p. 147.
* Ibid., p. 147.
60.196 — 42— pt. 32 23
12290 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
order, in addition, defined the benefits which may be reckoned as payment in
lieu of payment in cash, such as board and lodging, and the value at which they
were to be reckoned.
•A new order was issued on May 23, 1938, which raised the minimum for adult
workers to 27s (about $6.75) per week. Monthly minimum rates were fixed for
workers engaged under a contract of employment of 6 months' duration or up-
ward. In such cases lower monthly rates were fixed for the winter months —
October to P'ebruary, inclusive — then for the summer months — March to Sep-
tember, inclusive. Lower minimum rates both weekly and monthly, were fixed
separately for each of the three age-groups of young workers. Minimum rates
fixed by this order were made applicable throughout the Irish Free State with the
exception of one small district for which separate minimum rates were prescribed.
In this latter district the minimum rate was set at 33s (about $8.25) per week for
adult workers. The value of benefits in lieu of wages in cash were also definitely
defined in this order.4
(d) Provisions for hours of work. — The act does not provide for the establish-
ment of maximum hours of work, beyond stating that "any minimum rates fixed
by the Board in respect of a wages district may be fixed * * * according to
the number of working hours or the conditions of the employment, or so as to
provide for a differential rate in the case of overtime." 5 However, in both orders
issued by the agricultural wages board, the minimum rates have been made appli-
cable to a 6-day week of 54 working hours. Both orders have also fixed higher
minimum rates for overtime and for Sunday work.8
E. GERMANY
Before the National Socialist Government came into power, agricultural work-
ing conditions were regulated by collective agreement over most of Germany.
These agreements were in force on all farms which were directed by persons who
were members of an organization which had signed such an agreement; in many
districts this meant practically all employers. Further, by a declaration of the
Federal Minister of Labor stating an agreement to be of general binding force,
such agreements were extended to all farmers and workers in the district whether
organized or not.7
Stipulations in collective agreements were patterned after those contained in the
Provisional Agricultural Labor Code of January 24, 1919. This code was in form
a collective agreement between employers and workers to which the force of law
was given. After the revolution of 1918 in Germany, the Federal Council of
Farmers and Agricultural Workers had drawn up an agreement on working
conditions in agriculture, which was promulgated as the Provisional Agricultural
Labor Code by Federal order. The legislative authorities, however, did not take
part in preparing this code. The purpose of the code was to introduce uniform
conditions in agriculture as quickly as possible. After the promulgation of the
code, many of its provisions were included textually in subsequent collective
agreements. The code presupposed that collective agreements would be made,
for it provided that in undertakings in agriculture for which no collective agree-
ments existed contracts of service should be drawn up in writing for periods of
more than 6 months.8
Much of the importance of the collective agreements was due to the possibility
of declaring agreements generally binding. The Federal Minister of Labor was
empowered to declare agreements which were decisive factors in the conditions of
employment of any occupational group in a given area to be generally binding
within the area covered by them in respect to all contracts concerning the same
type of employment, even if neither the employer nor the worker was party to the
original collective agreement. Such a declaration could only be made on applica-
tion by one of the parties to the agreement or by an organization of employers or
workers, the members of which would be affected by the declaration.9
1 . Provisions for hours of work.
The Provisional Agricultural Labor Code stated that the daily maximum hours
in agriculture should be 8 on an average during 4 months, 10 on an average during
4 months, and 11 during the remaining 4 months. There wras no condition that
* Ibi L, pp. 147-148.
6 International Labor Office, Legislative Series, 1936, I. F. S. 4, pp. 5-6.
9 International Labor Office, Studies and Reports, Series D, No. 22, op. cit. pp. 147-148.
7 International Labour Review, Reports and Enquiries, vol 25, No. 1, January 1942, p. 74.
'International Labor Office, Studies and Reports, Series K, No. 11, Collective Agreements in Agricul-
ture, 1933, p. 35.
» Ibid., p. 41.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12291
these 4 monthly period? need be in consecutive periods, and in practice the period
during which an average 10-hour day was allowed was often divided between the
spring and the autumn. If the month is assumed to consist of 25 working days,
this arrangement worked out to a working year of 2,900 hours, or an average of
9% hours a day. While only an average of 8 or 10 hours respectively needed to
be observed during two of the periods, during the third period, the 11-hour day
could not be exceeded on any one day.
This guarded against an excessively long summer day. It was generally held
by interpretation that even during the other two periods the 11-hour day should
be the maximum working day.10 The arrangements laid down were exclusive of
overtime, which was unlimited except that renumeration for each hour of overtime
had to be at least one-tenth of the local day wage increased by 50 percent. The
code provided that the feeding and care of animals, as well as other necessary
work on Sunday, be paid for as overtime when performed by workers who had not
undertaken by contract to do it as a rule. It was further provided that for other
urgent work on Sunday and holidays double the local wage be paid. The time
at which work began and ended was fixed. Time spent going to and from work
was not paid for.11 Rest periods, which during the summer months could not be
less than 2 hours per day, and also the feeding times of drought animals, fell
outside working hours.12
All collective agreements contained stipulations on hours of work. The Pro-
visional Labor Code served as a model for these stipulations. A few agreements
simply referred to the legal text of the code. The yearly total of 2,900 hours
was mentioned as a maximum by some agreements, with provisions for distribu-
tion in three blocks of 4 months each as in the code. Other agreements fixed the
total number of hours for the year and left the distribution to local agreements,
or to arrangements on each individual farm. Other agreements followed the code
in abstaining from the mention of a yearly maximum and providing only daily
maxima for certain periods.13
2. Provisions for minimum wages.
The code contained no provisions on the rates of wages to be paid. The em-
ployer was bound under the general civil law to pay the agreed renumeration.
The amount of renumeration was agreed upon in the collective agreements.
In Germany renumeration wholly or partly in kind is still by far the most usual
form of wages for permanent agricultural workers. The renumeration in kind
usually consists of a dwelling, a piece of land, pasture, and feed for cattle, and a
certain quantity of produce, such as grain, potatoes, milk, fuel, etc. The Pro-
visional Agricultural Labor Code contained no regulations on lodging or board
of agricultural workers. It did provide, however, that wages in produce, agreed
upon, must be in stated percentages of the crop.14
S. Recent developments.
Under the National Labour Regulation Act of January 1934, State officials,
known as labor trustees, appointed by the Minister of Labour, are empowered
to lay down minimum conditions of employment for any group of undertakings,
including agriculture, within their area, such collective rules being legally binding
acts of the State. In practice many of the rules and regulations provided in the
Provisional Agricultural Labour Code and the former agricultural collective
agreements were taken over by the labor trustees and are only gradually being
replaced by new rules.15
Labor rules issued by the State labor trustees of East Prussia on May 17, 1940,
fixing the labor conditions of farm workers in two German districts (Zichenau,
Province of Suwalki, and Soldau, Province of Reidenburg) may serve to exem-
plify the new rules being laid down. In these rules the length of the working
day varies in accordance with the season, from 6y2 hours in winter to IOV2 hours
in summer for German farm hands. Money wages set for German farm hands
are more than twice as high as those set for non-German workers. These money
wages are set by the month and are about one-third higher in summer than in
winter. The amount of overtime pay per hour is specified. Provisions for pay-
ment in kind are made by specifying the amount of farm products per year, the
amount of coal for heating, and a house and barn for animals.16
10 Howard, Louise, Labour in Agriculture (1935), p. 124.
11 International Labor Office. Studies and Reports, Series K, No. 10, The Law of the Contract of Employ*
ment of Agricultural Workers in Austria, Germany and Hungary. 1930, p. 35.
12 International Labour Review, vol. 25, No. 1, op. cit., p. 82.
13 International Labour Review, vol. 25, No. 1, January 1932, pp. 95-97.
M International Labor Office, Studies and Reports, Series K, No. 10, op. cit., pp. 21-22 and p. 27.
IS International Labor Office, Studies and Reports, series K No. 14, the Minimum Wage, 1938, p. 81.
'6 U. S. Department of Labor, Monthly Labor Review, vol. 51, No. 2, August 1940, pp. 314-313.
12292 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
F. AUSTRIA
In the absence of Federal regulation of working conditions in Austria, such
regulation was exercised before the event of National Socialism by the provinces.
Agricultural labor codes were introduced in all the provinces in the years imme-
diately following the last war. These codes applied to undertakings in agricul-
ture and forestry. Because each province had its own code, and the difference
in the provisions of the various codes were sometimes substantial, agricultural
labor law was not uniform in Austria.17
1 . Provisions for hours of work.
In most of the Austrian provinces the agricultural labor codes regulated hours
of work indirectly by providing for a minimum nightly rest period the length of
which was definitely stated in hours, and by stating the length of the daily breaks
during the day. In most codes it was laid down that these daily breaks must
amount to at least 2 hours. By deducting the total of the nightly rest and the
breaks from the 24 hours of the day, the length of the maximum working day
was obtained.
In Vorarlberg the prescribed nightly rest was 8 hours during the period from
May 1 to October 31, and 9 hours during the rest of the year, and thus the maxi-
mum working day was 14 or 13 hours according to the season. In Upper Austria
the nightly rest had to be at least 9 hours, and consequently the maximum work-
ing day was 13 hours. The code stated further that maximum daily hours were
to depend on the season of the year, the weather, and local custom. The stipu-
lation on hours of work in Salzburg were the same as those in Upper Austria.
The Agricultural Labor Code of Tyrol was more favorable to the workers. It
prescribed that from May 1 to October 31a nightly rest of not less than 10 hours,
and during the rest of the year of not less than 12 hours, must be observed. The
time needed for meals was not included in this period. In Corinthia and Styria
the time spent in going from the farm or from the home of the worker, to the
place of work was included in the hours of work. In Lower Austria the time
spent in journeys between the worker's dwelling place and the place of work was
not reckoned in the hours of work unless the journey took more than 1 hour.
In that case, however, any time in excess of 1 hour was to be included or com-
pensated.
In some of the Austrian Provinces there was a combination of indirect with
direct limitation of hours of work. Thus in Lower Austria, Corinthia, Styria,
and Burgenland, the average working day for the year was fixed at 10 hours,
though not for workers entrusted with the care of livestock. This average work-
ing day was in three oases combined with stipulations concerning nightly rests
and breaks during the day, so that departures from the break and the nightly
rest period were fixed at 2 and 9 hours, respectively. In Styria the code stipulated
a break after each uninterrupted working period of 4 hours. In Burgenland,
even at the busy season, the worker had to be allowed an uninterrupted night's
rest of not less than 8 hours.18
Only three of the agricultural labor codes contained provisions on the time
when work should begin or end.
All codes allowed for the working of overtime. In Burgenland the worker
could not refuse work in excess of his normal hours if this was needed owing to
special seasonal conditions or when unusual circumstances made an extension of
the hours of work necessary. In Lower Austria and Styria overtime might be
required in case of need, and in emergencies, also on Sundays and holidays. In
Upper Austria, Corinthia, Vorarlbeig, and Tyrol, overtime was permitted only
in exceptional circumstances. In Salzburg any work between 7 p. m. and 4 a. m.
was deemed to be overtime. It was not permissible to demand more than 3
hours overtime on any 1 day. In all Austrian Provinces work on Sundays and
holidays was expressly allowed if this was considered urgently necessary to bring
in the harvest.
In Tyrol and Vorarlberg workers who had worked overtime were entitled only
to a compensatory rest period. In Lower Austria, Upper Austria, and Corinthia
special remuneration was due for overtime, but the amount was left to voluntary
agreement. In Styria, Salzbuig, and Burgenland, the payment for overtime had
to be at least 50 percent above the oidinary hourly rate. For work on Sundays
and holiHavs in Styria payment at double the ordinary rate was required. For
>7 Interna ional Labor Office, Studies and Reports, the Law of the Contract of Employment of Agri-
cultural W( rkers in Austria. Oermany, and Hungary, series K No. 10, 1930, pp. 7-8.
is International Labour Review, Reports and Enquiries, vol. 25, January 1932, pp. 90-91.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12293
harvest work on Sundays and holidays double the ordinary rate had to be paid
in Upper Austria and Burgenland, and triple the rate in Tyrol. In both Tyrol
and Burgenland all payments in cash and in kind were taken into account when
figuring payment for harvest work on Sundays and holidays, whereas the usual
practice was to consider only the cash wages.19
2. Wage provisions.
Agricultural labor codes contained no provisions on the rates of wages to be
paid. The employer was bound under the general civil law to pay the agreed
remuneration. The amount of the remuneration, therefore, had to be agreed
upon between the workers and employers. Most of the Austrian agriculture
labor codes contained a provision that remuneration must be fixed in the contract
of employment. If no wages were agreed upon the local remuneration was
deemed under the Civil Code to have been agreed to.
In Austria remuneration wholly or partly in kind is still by far the most usual
form of wages for agricultural workers. The labor codes all specify that all
wages in kind must be of good quality. The food of workers who live in the
employer's households must be wholesome and sufficient in quantity. In default
of an agreement, the nature, quality, and extent of the land the use of which i&
granted as part of the remuneration must be regulated in conformity with local
custom.
All Austrian agricultural labor codes except those for Tyrol and Vorarlberg,
recognize the right of workers to a bonus after a specified number of years of
employment in the same undertaking or with the same employer. This bonus
is paid in the form of a percentage on the last year's wages, which are taken to
mean only the cash wages, and is granted every fifth or tenth year. The pay-
ment of these service bonuses acts as a means of securing higher wages for workers
who have been employed for several years in the same undertaking.20
S. Recent developments.
The Austrian Constitution of May 1, 1934, provides for the establishment of a
Federal Economic Council consisting of seven corporations dealing respectively
with agriculture and forestry, industry, mining, handicraft, commerce and
transportation, banking and insurance, and professional and public services.
Each corporation within the Economic Council consists of a federation of organ-
izations of workers and a federation of organizations of employers. Thus the
corporation dealing with agriculture includes all the farmers and agricultural
workers. The corporations are supervised by the Chancelor's Department."
The Agricultural Corporation is empowered to regulate labor conditions in agri-
culture, especially through the conclusion of collective agreements, which are
negotiated by the farmers and workers sections of the corporation.22
G. HUNGARY
1. Act II of 1898.
Hungarian labor legislation dates back to the latter part of the nineteenth
century. The period immediately after the First World War which brought
about new labor legislation of a more modern type in Germany and Austria,
brought no change in Hungarian legislation. An act of 1898, regulating employ-
ment contracts of agricultural workers is the basis of all later acts dealing with
labor conditions. This act contains few regulations for the protection of the
workers. What it does regulate is the legal relations between employers and
workers. The primary purpose of the act seems to have been to ensure the
execution of those clauses of the employment contract which deal with the
performance of the work and the payment of wages agreed upon. The act
contains severe penalties for breach of contract. Moreover, attempts at com-
bined action by the workers are forbidden by clauses carrying penal sanctions;
namely, arrest and imprisonment.23
The act provides that when the wages for the harvest work are fixed, they
must not only be calculated as a certain percentage of the crop, but must also be
fixed either in the form of a definite weight on the crop (of the same average
'» International Labor Office, Studies and Reports, Series K No. 10, op. cit., pp. 33-35.
K Ibid, pp. 22-26.
11 International Labor Office, Industrial and Labor Information, vol. 52, No. 9, November 26, 1934, p. 271.
22 International Labor Office, Studies and Reports, Social Problems in Agriculture, Series K. No. 14.
1938, p. 77.
23 Howard, LouiselE., Labour in Agriculture, (1935) p. 82 and pp. 309-310.
12294 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
quality as the employer's crop during the year) or in cash. If the workers do
not wish to have their wages paid in the form of a percentage of the crop, they
are entitled at the end of their engagement to inform the employer that they
wish to be paid in the other form — that is to say, either the alternative fixed
weight or cash. They may not, however, ask for payment to be made partly in
the form of a percentage share and partly in that of a fixed weight or cash.24
The act provides that the working day shall last from sunrise to sunset, during
which time the worker shall be allowed a midday break of 1 hour and in addition,
from April 15 to September 30, a half -hour break in the morning and afternoon.^
2. Act XXV of 1 923.
In 1923 another act was adopted the aim of which was to prevent the undue
exploitation of agricultural workers. This act was regarded as provisional in
character, to be in force only until the end of 1924 unless its validity was pro-
longed by the Minister of Agriculture. This course was followed and the act
remains in force.
This act provides that if in any district the daily wages in money or in kind
paid to agricultural day laborers were so low, due allowance being made for
seasonal changes in wages and for the agricultural conditions in the district in
•question, as to constitute an excessive and unjustifiable exploitation of the labor
of the agricultural day worker and of his family, and would be inadequate for the
maintenance of the worker and his family, the Minister of Agriculture, on the
demand of the worker and his family, and if possible, after hearing the competent
Chamber of Agriculture, may issue orders, fixing from time to time a minimum
daily wage for agricultural workers.
The wages specified in the orders issued by the Minister were to be fixed by
agricultural wage committees set up in each district. Each committee consists
of a chairman, vice chairman, and four members. The members must be workers
and landowners in equal numbers. Provision is made for their election from
existing representative local agricultural committees or groups. The chairman
and vice chairman are elected by the members of the committees from amongst
five impartial persons nominated for the purpose by the Chamber of Agriculture.
The act provides that in fixing minimum wages, the working capacity, sex, and
age of the workers and the nature of the work to be done shall be taken into
consideration. Violation of the act makes an employer liable to a fine. A worker
is entitled to claim within a specified period the difference between the wage
fixed and that actually paid him. The agricultural wage committees hear the
case and decide upon its merits. The Minister of Agriculture decides in the last
resort.26
The act contained no provisions regarding hours of work.
In 1927 the International Labor Office in its survey of minimum wage fixing
machinery, reported with regard to the working of this act, as follows:
"The Minister of Agriculture had received no complaint from the workers
regarding the payment of rates lower than those fixed; also the Minister had
not received any report from a subordinate authority indicating that the workers
had formulated complaints or that penalties had been imposed on employers. In
addition to these indications regarding the absence of complaints, none of the
special agents charged by the Minister of Agriculture to examine and control the
fixing of wage rates for agricultural workers had reported cases of failure to observe
the determination of the wage commissions. In consequence, the Minister
of Agriculture is of the opinion that the wages fixed by the commissions have had a
beneficial influence on the wages of agricultural day laborers." 27
In 1930, however, the International Labor Office reported —
"The working of this act, which has been prolonged from year to year, has been
found on the whole disappointing. The proposed wage committees have been
set up in only a few districts. The total number of districts is 209 but in 1924
wage committees were in operation only in 39 of them, in 1925 in 35, in 1926 in
48, and in 1927 in 25." 28
In 1932, discussing falling wages in agriculture at the beginning of the depres-
sion, the International Labor Office reports —
"The position of wage-paid landless agricultural workers in Hungary, who
constitute the largest group in the national working population, became decidedly
»♦ International Labor Office, Studies and Reports, Series K, No. 10, The Law on the Contract of Employ-
ment of Agricultural Workers in Austria, Germany, and Hungary, 1930, p. 23.
2' Ibid., p. 32.
28 International Labor Office, Studies and Reports , series D, No. 17, Minimum Wage Fixing Machinery,
1927, pp. 82-84.
27 Ibid., p. 152.
28 International Labor Office, Studies and Reports, series K, No. 10, op. cit., p. 24.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12295
worse in the course of 1930. Owing to the fall in prices and the general lack of
cash resources of the farmers, these workers were driven to underbid one another
in their efforts to obtain employment and to accept terms having no reference
whatever to a minimum wage, which, in fact, they have had no means of
enforcing." 29
S. Recent developments.
Early in 1940 a bill was introduced before the Hungarian Parliament providing
for the introduction of a system of compulsory determination of minimum wages in
agriculture. The bill proposed important changes in existing legislation. The
new regulations would apply not only to agricultural wages paid in cash but to all
other forms of remuneration, including wages in kind and the share of the harvest
received by sharecroppers. About four-fifths of the wage of agricultural workers
is, in general, paid in kind and hitherto such payments were not subject to any
compulsory regulation whatever.
The bill further provides for the compulsory meeting of joint wage-fixing com-
mittees in each district every January. Apart from these compulsory annual
meetings, the chairmen of the joint committees are obligated to call a meeting
any time on the proposal of not less than three of their members. In the course of
their meetings, the joint committees are bound to determine whether it is or is not
necessary to fix the rates of minimum wages in their district. The Minister of
Agriculture, explaining the bill, expressed the view that it was not in fact at all
desirable to fix minimum wage rates in districts where wages were relatively high,
as experience had shown that in such cases the level of wages had a tendency to
fall to the amount fixed by the authorities.
In order to avoid excessive differences in the agricultural wage levels in different
districts, the bill provides for the establishment of a central agricultural wage-
fixing committee, the duty of which will be to draw up rules to be followed by the
joint committees of each district.30
H. CZECHOSLOVAKIA
Agricultural labor conditions in Czechoslovakia were regulated principally by a
system of collective agreements, voluntary in the eyes of the law, but encouraged
and regularized under government influence. Legislation regulating hours of
work in agriculture had been passed, but even in this field, collective agreements
supplemented and implemented the legal limitations on hours. No wages existed
and any wage regulation which took place did so only as a result of collective
agreements.31
1. Collective agreements.
In the very first year of the Republic, the agricultural advisory boards attached
to the provincial employment exchanges took the initiative of convoking repre-
sentatives of employers and workers organizations to agree on working conditions
in agriculture, and this practice was continued. This action of the employment
exchanges is explained by the particular labor conditions in Czechoslovakian
agriculture. The western part of the country, where the land is worked most
intensely, is highly industrialized. Industry attracts the workers, and agriculture
therefore suffers from a shortage of labor. In the east, on the other hand, there is
a large surplus of agricultural population, and the farmers in the west therefore
draw on these districts for part of their labor, making use of the official employ-
ment exchanges for the purpose. The employment exchanges were thus directly
interested in the settlement of conditions of employment in agriculture.
Agreements were concluded in the meetings held with these representatives,
and were signed by agricultural employers' and workers' unions, by other agri-
cultural associations, and by representatives of the government. These agree-
ments were not collective agreements proper, but only guiding principles. How-
ever, in practice these guiding principles had a similar effect, especially in regu-
lating wage rates. The guiding principles were either used as a basis for the
conclusion of contracts with individual workers, or incorporated in the text of
local collective agreements. Generally each individual undertaking concluded
with its workers or the competent trade union a collective agreement in harmony
with the guiding principles. Since the first renewal of the guiding principles, it
28 International Labour Review, The Agricultural Labor Situation in Hungary, vol. 25, No. 5, May 1932.
(supplement) pp. 673-674.
'0 International Labor Office, Industrial and Labour Information, vol. 73, January-March, 1940, pp.
248-249.
" Howard, Louise E., Labour in Agriculture (1935), pp. 84-85.
12296 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
generally became the practice simply to incorporate their text in the district
agreements.
Despite the regular collaboration of the authorities in the establishment of
guiding principles, there was no statutory foundation for such a proceeding, and
the government had no means of bringing guiding principles into existence if the
employers and workers could not agree. The workers had no legal guaranty
that the conditions laid down in the guiding principles would be applied. In
practice, however, the acceptance of these principles by central federations on
both sides meant that they were widely adopted and that unorganized employers
and workers were bound largely to respect them when giving or accepting employ-
ment.32
2. Maximum hour legislation.
In December 1918, about 6 weeks after the declaration of national independence,
the Czechoslovakian Republic adopted an eight-hour day act. The act applied
to all industries, including agriculture. The agricultural employers declared them-
selves in favor of the act, although they and the workers emphasized the difficulties
which would arise in agriculture. Special arrangements were therefore made. A
decree of January 11, 1919, provided that the strict 8-hour day need not be
retained, and that working hours might be distributed over a period of 4 weeks so
as not to exceed 192 (equal to 24 working days of 8 hours each). In cases of
emergency, overtime might be worked for 2 hours a day over not more than 4
weeks in the year upon application of a permit. Permits could also be obtained
for overtime work to meet special seasonal needs of agriculture, for another 16
weeks. This overtime must be specially remunerated. The decree contained no
stipulations for higher rates of overtime.
The decree only applied to persons living outside of the household of the
employer — daily or weekly agricultural workers. Persons resident in the farm
house, and engaged on permanent yearly contracts were covered by special pro-
visions in the original eight-houi day act. These provisions stipulated that
they should be given an uninterrupted period of 12 hours rest in every 24 hours,
which was another way of saying that their working day might not exceed 12
hours.
In practice, the provisions of the decree of January 11, 1919, were considerably
modified. It was the principle of the act that, where an aggregate of 192 hours
were allowed to be spread over 4 weeks, the number of hours exceeding 48 in 1
week would be compensated by corresponding rest periods in the following 3
weeks. However, the compensatory rest period proved difficult for the employers
to arrange during the busy seasons, and did not appeal to the workers in view of
the fact that they counted on their heaviest earnings just at such times. Within
less than 2 years from the promulgation of the 1919 decree, this arrangement had
been abandoned in practice. The same was the case with the provision for ad-
vance permits to work overtime. Generally, the conditions which made overtime
necessary could not be foreseen early enough to allow for previous authorization.
Collective bargaining further modified the application of the act. As stated
above, there was no provision in the act or the 1919 decree that payment for over-
time should necessarily be at a higher rate than the average rate per hour. But
collective agreements introduced the provisions that ordinary rates be paid for
the first 10 hours of work; the ninth and tenth hours, though overtime in the eyes
of the law, thus being paid at the same rate as the first 8 hours' work. The elev-
enth and following hours were to be paid for at higher rates.33
Thus, in reality, the 8-hour day had ceased to be anything but a legal fiction.
The only effective provision was that regarding the 12 hours' rest and 12 hours'
work for workers engaged on a yearly contract and living in the farmhouse.
This period of 12 hours actually became the legal maximum working day in agri-
culture, and in practice applied to all workers, since outside workers never worked
longer than resident and permanent workers.34
I. SWEDEN
1. Collective agreements regulating wages and hours.
Government regulation of working conditions in Swedish agriculture is a very
recent origin. Until 1918, hours of work, wages, and other conditions depended
entirely upon the arrangements made between the individual farmer and his
32 International Labor Office, Studies and Reports, Series K, No. 11, Collective Agreements in Agriculture,
33 international Labour Review, the Present Regulation of Working Hours in Agriculture, vol. 25, No.
1, January 1932, pp. 84-86.
s« Howard, Louise E., op. cit., p. 121.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12297
employees. Since 1919 a certain standardization of working conditions has been
effected through collective agreements between the employers and workers
organizations. In that year a national agreement covering southern and central
Sweden was concluded between the Swedish Union of Agricultural Workers and
the Central Federation of Swedish Agricultural Employers. The national agree-
ment provided general rules for the regulation of wages and other conditions of
work and for local agreements settling wage rates and hours of work in detail.
After September 1925, hours of work were regulated by a national agreement,
which allowed for variation within the provinces, and wage rates remained the
only matter regulated by local agreements. The union also concluded a pro-
vincial agreement with an independent employers' association, and a large number
of agreements with individual farmers. Until the late twenties, however, the
agreement concluded applied directly to only about one-fifth of the wage earners
employed in agriculture. Moreover, the organized workers were usually employed
on the larger estates.35
In 1928 a law was passed in Sweden giving official recognition to the collective
agreements which accelerated the growth of labor organization in agriculture.
The law provides that during the effective period of a collective agreement,
strikes or lock-outs to alter any of the terms of the agreement are illegal. Inter-
pretation and enforcement of these agreements is the responsibility of a labor
court on which are represented State, workers, and employers.38
2. Legislation regulating hours of work.
The first act regulating hours of work in agriculture in Sweden was passed in
1936. On the same date that the act became effective new collective agreements
came into force embodying the provisions of the act concerning hours of work
As compared with the act, however, the agreements were much more detailed.37
The act of 1936 was made provisional and valid only until 1939, with the un-
derstanding that a new act would come before the Riksdag during the 1939 session.
This was done to allow for an experimental period before making the act final.
In 1937 the act was amended to reduce the weekly hours of work and allow
greater elasticity as regards overtime.38 In 1939 the final act was passed.
8. Scope of the act of 1939.™
The act of 1939 applies to horticulture carried on as an independent under"
taking and to agriculture and all activities auxiliary thereto (such as construe"
tion work for the purposes of agriculture, etc.) not carried out as independent
undertakings. Not covered are (1) undertakings normally having less than
three workers; (2) milking and the care and lifting of root crops paid for on a
piece basis; (3) ditching and forestry work done on a piece basis; (4) domestic
work; (5) work carried on by the state; (6) work done under such conditions
that the employer cannot be expected to supervise it. Originally persons caring
for livestock were not covered but the 1939 act covers them. The reason for
the exclusion of certain kinds of piece work and of undertakings normally em-
ploying fewer than three workers is the great difficulty of strict application.
Domestic servants are excluded because they are not engaged in work for agri-
culture.
In calculating the number of workers no account is taken of members of the
employer's family or of estate agents, bookkeepers, or other salaried employees.
As the number of employees is subject to fluctuations the "normal" number em-
ployed on a particular farm is the determining number for administration and
enforcement.40
4. Administration of the act.
All matters of interpretation of the act or requests for exemption from any of
its provisions are examined and decided by a labor council, a body given special
powers regarding the application of the Hours of Work in Industry Act, as well
as the Hours of Work in Agriculture Act. The labor council consists of seven
members appointed by the government. Two of the members of this council
35 International Labor Office, Studies and Reports, Series K, No. 11, Collective Agreementsin Agriculture,
1933, pp. 54-57.
39 International Labor Office, Legislative Series, pt. II, Swe. 2, 1928.
37 International Labour Review, the Regulation of Hours of Work in Swedish Agriculture by Gunner
Havermark, vol. 39, No. 5 (May 1939), pp. 634-635.
38 Ibid., pp. 646-647.
30 International Labor Office, Legislative Series, 1939, we. 2-5.
« Ibid.
12298 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
are appointed on the recommendation of the Swedish Association of Employers,
and two on the recommendation of the National Federation of Trade Unions,
Two others are impartial members, and the seventh serves as chairman and head
of the council. The act regulating hours in agriculture provides that the gov-
ernment shall appoint persons acquainted with agricultural conditions to serve
for a specified period as members of the labor council when it deals with any
matters referred to in that act. One member is to be appointed from among
persons nominated by the central committee of the Swedish employers' associa-
tions and when serving on the labor council is to take the place of one of its mem-
bers selected on the recommendation of the employers' organizations. One
member is to be appointed from among the persons nominated by the Swedish
National Federation of Trade Unions, and when serving on the labor council is
to take the place of one of its members selected on the recommendation of the
workers' organizations.
The labor council decides at the request of a court, a public prosecutor, an
industrial inspector, or any person whose rights are affected whether a particular
worker is subject to the act. It grants permits for overtime employment and for
the arrangement of the hours of work in a manner otherwise than set forth in the
act. , . ,
The act also provides that if any national organization of employers and
workers which may be deemed to represent a majority of the employers and
workers in a particular field of activity covered by the act agrees upon a par-
ticular exception to the hour provisions or the overtime provisions of the act, the
government on the recommendation of the labor council or after consultation
with it may order that the exception be authorized for general use in the field of
activity in question.
Enforcement of the act is entrusted to the labor inspectorate, whose inspectors
are greatly aided by the strong workers' union. Offenses against the act aie
taken before the ordinary courts, where an offender is punished by a fine propor-
tionate to his means. The 1936 law provided that the alternative to payment of
the fine should be imprisonment, but the 1939 law omitted this penalty.41
5. Hour provisions of the act.*1
The act provides that the daily maximum for agriculture and horticultural
occupations shall be 10 hours per day. The weekly maximum for agricultural
workers is as follows: Hows ver
If the first working day of the week falls in — week
December, January, and February 41
March, October, and November 46
April to September 54
Horticultural workers may work a maximum workweek of either 48 hours
or during January, February, November, and December 42 hours, during March
and October 45 hours, and during the period April to September 53 hours. For
workers employed mainly as livestock tenders hours may not exceed 9 per day or
108 in the fortnight. Thus, the law allows a maximum normal working time of
about 2,500 hours in the year for strictly horticultural and agricultural work, and
about 2,800 hours for livestock tending.
Within the limits specified above the employer is free to distribute hours over
the different days, except that a collective agreement may impose extralegal
restrictions covering the distribution of hours. The length of the working day
will of course directly determine the number of days during each fortnight that
will be wholly or partly free, thus if 9 hours are worked per day on agricultural
work there will be 2 free days in each fortnight.
The labor council is empowered, at the request of any farmer, to allow the normal
hours of work to be distributed in some other way than that prescribed by the act.
A number of employers in central Sweden applied for the right to extend working
hours in February to 46 hours per week in exchange for reducing the November to
41 per week on the grounds that in that section of the country daylight in Novem-
ber ends too soon whereas in February the daylight not only lasts longer but there
is more need for work. In the south of Sweden, on the other hand, it was found
that more working time was needed in October and November on account of the
harvesting of the beet crop and plowing and sowing that have to be done at that
time.42
« International Labour Review, vol. 39, No. 5, op. cit., p. 640.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12299
The act allows for the possibility of working overtime,43 that is, in excess of
the maximum hours in special cases, but unlike the hours of work legislation of
most other countries, it contains no provisions relating to overtime pay. It
directly limits the amount of overtime which may be worked under given cir-
cumstances in stated periods of time, except in emergencies. The matter of
overtime pay for the hours of overtime allowed by the act, however, is left to be
settled by collective agreement locally, in the same manner as wages are settled.
The act provides for three kinds of overtime; for emergencies; for accessory
work, and general overtime.
Overtime for emergencies involving danger to life, health, or property may
be worked without previous permission from the labor council, but must be
reported to that body within 2 days after such overtime is begun. Overtime in
connection with birth, accident, or disease among livestock is also permissible
without previous authorization, and because of the frequency of such cases,
need not be reported to the labor council. Emergency overtime is not limited
to a stated number of hours.
Seven hours per week per worker of accessory overtime, that is, work done
outside the regular hours and upon which the work done during the regular hours
depends (examples are the preparation of engines, grooming horses, sharpening
tools, etc.) is allowed. The act refers to such overtime as "preparatory or finishing
work performed before or after the general hours of work" and "necessary for the
unhampered working of the undertaking." The labor council has defined acces-
sory work "to be such work that, if it could not be carried out as Overtime, the
rest of the workers or some of them would either be held up at xhe beginning of
the normal working day or have to stop work before the end of the normal working
day."
General overtime, defined as all other overtime except the two kinds specified
above, for example, overtime necessary to carry out urgent work during seed
time or harvest time, or to replace a worker who is absent or on account of any
other accidental need for increased hours of work, may be required up to 200
hours in any period of 12 consecutive months, provided that not more than
48 hours of such overtime be worked in a specified 4-week period. For this
purpose the year is divided into fixed 4-week periods beginning with the first
complete calendar week in November, and not more than 48 hours of general
overtime is allowed in any such period. On the other hand, the "period of 12
consecutive months'" is not fixed to begin on a specified date, so that the prescribed
limit of 200 hours may not be exceeded in any 12-month period.
If further exceptions are required on account of urgent necessity they may be
authorized by the labor council but not for more than 100 hours in any period
of 12 consecutive months.
The employer must keep a record of all overtime worked except in the case
of accessory overtime. The record is not required if he posts in the workplace a
timetable showing the hours at which the daily work is to begin and end, including
the accessory overtime. This record may be examined by an inspector or by a
worker or his representative at any time. The record must be kept for 3 years
from the date of the last entry therein.
6. Effects of the act.
The act has been in operation for a comparatively short time. Within this
time it is reported that workers have everywhere welcomed the general shorten-
ing of total annual working time that it has brought about. It is also recognized
that the act has prevented any unreasonable exploitation of unorganized workers
as may previously have existed. The provisions for livestock tenders seems to
have caused the greatest difficulties, and to have received the most criticism
from both employers and workers. The Agricultural Employers Federation
contends that the provisions concerning livestock tenders' hours cause difficulties.
In support of this contention it refers to a recent collective agreement concerning
these employees which in several important points does not conform to the pro-
visions of the act, making recourse to the facilities for exemptions necessarj'.
The workers maintain that the calculation of the hours of livestock tenders over
a fortnight, subject to a maximum of 9 hours in the day, makes it difficult to
arrange their customary annual holidays satisfactorily. If the maximum daily
hours are worked, the free day results automatically, for there must on the
average be one free day in the week. If a consecutive holiday is to be obtained,
some of these weekly free days must be accumulated, but this is impossible
43 International Labor Office, Legislative Series, 1939, Swe. 2-5.
12300 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
under the act as it stands, except by an application for examption. The em-
ployees and employers consider it desirable that the hours of livestock tenders
should be calculated over 6 weeks' periods, which would make it possible to give
the workers a consecutive holiday for a longer period.44
A special difficulty arises when a worker performs ope rations, some of which
are covered by the act and some of which are not. In these cases of "mixed
work" the principle adopted is that the regulations shall apply to the time spent
on work covered by the act but not to the rest of the working time. Thus a
worker might be required to work the maximum hours allowed under the law,
and then do additional work of a type not covered by the law. For example, the
act does not apply to milking paid for at piece rates. Thus the farmer can
distribute work other than milking by cattle tenders over the hours allowed by
the act in any fortnightly period and have the milking done outside of these
hours, provided it is paid for at piece rates.45
Although the act applies only to workers on farms which employ three or more
men, it actually affects the hours of work of nearly all agricultural employees,
because the smaller employer finds it almost impossible to obtain labor unless
he follows suit.49
7. Proposed minimum wage legislation.
In February 1936 the Government appointed a committee to find what steps
<could be taken to improve the wage standards of agricultural workers. In the
directions given to the committees, it pointed out that the State had been obliged
to take various measures to give State aid to farmers. It had not been its pur-
pose to favor certain agricultural groups through these measures, but in practice
it had been impossible to avoid a certain disequilibrium. Organized agricultural
workers had managed to avoid having their wages reduced during the depression,
but a large proportion of the workers were not organized, and in many cases their
wages were too low to maintain a desirable standard of living. As it was to be
expected that State aid to agriculture would be continued it seemed justifiable
that those agricultural workers who were in the weakest position would be given
certain State aid in order to improve their wages. The committee appointed
reported in June 1937, and recommended the setting up of minimum wage boards
which, when fixing regional wage rates, should, as a general rule, take as a basis
the collective agreements, of existing organizations of agricultural employers and
workers.47 The recommendation met with so much opposition from the conserva-
tive elements represented by the larger employing farmers, that it was never
acted upon. This attitude was adopted by the large farmers in spite of the
assistance given to them by the Government through farm price control and
other legislation.48
J. THE BALTIC COUNTRIES
Four Baltic countries — Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and Lithuania — are related
to one another not only by their geographical location on the eastern shores of
the Baltic Sea but also by their historical background, since they were all part
of the former Russian Empire. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were merely
provinces of that empire, but Finland was a state-with rather restricted autonomy.
The level of industrial development and relations and of educational standards
In the Baltic countries more nearly resemble those of the Scandinavian than those
of any other European group of countries.49
In the years following the war, attempts to fix agricultural hours of work by
legislation were made in all four of these countries. In Estonia an attempt was
also made to regulate wages. All these attempts failed, either because the legisla-
tion failed in practice and was repealed or because the proposed bills were never
passed. In 1939 Estonia passed a labor code which contained provisions regulat-
ing hours of work in agriculture. The other three countries did not make any
further attempts to pass wage-and-hour legislation.
1. Estonia.
(a) The proclamation of November 1918. — In Estonia a proclamation of Novem-
ber 1918 announced the adoption of an 8-hour day for all industry, including
agriculture. This was followed by a special Act of September 13, 1919, which
44 International Labour Review, vol. 39, No. 5, op. cit., pp. 645-646.
« Ibid., p. 639.
49 Margaret Cole and Charles Smith, Democratic Sweden (193S), p. 155.
47 International Labor Office, Studies and Reports, Series K, No. 14, Social Problems in Agriculture,
1938, p. 86.
48 Cole and Smith, op. cit., p. 155.
49 Monthly Labor Review, Wages in the Baltic Countries, vol. 49, No. 2, August 1939, p. 413.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12301
set a limit of 2,250 hours of work in the year for agricultural workers. The dis-
tribution of these hours over the year was left to provincial committees of farmers
and workers set up by the act. This system of committees broke down and it
was found necessary to regulate working hours for the year May 1921 to April
1922 by means of a special act of May 13, 1921.
This act fixed the daily working hours as follows:
Hours
May to September. _ 11
October 9
November 7
Hours
December and January 6
February and March 7
April io
This arrangement resulted in on an average of 9 hours per day for the whole year
(6) The act of October 1921— k new act of October 21, 1921, replaced the act
of 1919. This act provided for the fixing of wage rates as well as hours, by joint
committees of employers and workers. District joint committees composed of an
equal number of members elected by employers and by workers were to elect a
central joint committee composed of two representatives from each district. The
state was not represented either on the central committee or on the local com-
mittees, but it was responsible for convening meetings. The district committees
were to draft proposals, the central committees were to fix minimum wage rates
and average hours for each district. Average hours of work were to be fixed for
the different seasons, the yearly average not to exceed 9 hours per day. A
minimum uninterrupted rest period of 9 hours was to be secured to the worker
during the season when working days were longest.
This act never became of practical importance. The lack of any neutral
members or a chairman with a deciding vote prevented the committees from
arriving at decisions. As a result of the absence of sanctions in the legislation
and the general weakness of the workers as a group, little interest was shown in
this legislation. From the beginning there were difficulties in getting the joint
committees together. After a short time the committees ceased to function and
no attempt was made to revive them. On January 22, 1929, a bill was introduced
in the Estonian Parliament providing for their formal abolition.60
(c) Agricultural Labor Code of 1939. — A new Agricultural Labor Code was
passed in Estonia on May 25, 1939. This code contained provisions governing
conditions of work, employment of young persons and children, and hours of
work. The code defined as an agricultural worker, any person employed in
agriculture, excepting foremen not required to do manual work.
Agricultural work was defined as all work done on the farm itself (including
certain operations of an industrial character performed without outside help,
such as construction), and work — such as carting — done outside the farm but
economically connected with it.
A farm was defined to include any independent homestead with at least a
hectare of land intended for agricultural production or stock-raising. Work done
in horticultural establishments with a commercial objective was not considered
as agricultural work for the purposes of the act.
(d) Provisions for hours of work. — The Agricultural Labor Code stipulated that
the contracts of employment concluded between employers and workers must
contain provisions concerning hours of work and rest periods. Provision must
be made in particular for an unbroken nightly rest of at least 8 hours, except
during June and July, when this rest must be at least 7 hours in length. When the
length of the working day was 7 to 10 hours, there must be at least one break of
1 to 2 hours during the day. When hours of work exceeded 10 in the day, pro-
vision must be made for two breaks totaling 3^ hours a day, or 4 hours during
June and July. For- children under 14 years of age the length of the nightlv rest
might not be less than 9 hours and the length of the breaks during the working
day might not be less than 4 hours.
The working day was to begin with the arrival of the workers at the place
fixed by the employer as a meeting place and end when work stopped. Drivers
were required to give the necessary care to their horses after the end of normal
hours of work; the same applied to workers operating machines, which had to be
returned to the proper place after work had stopped.
In exceptional circumstances the normal hours of work laid down in the con-
tract might be extended, particularly with a view to protecting crops against
bad weather, making the repairs to agricultural machines necessary with a view
«° International Labour Review, vol. 25, No. 1, Jan. 1932, p. 83; International Labor Office, Studies and
Reports, Series K, No. 14, op. cit. 1938, p. 79, and Howard, Louise E., Labour in Agriculture, 1935, p. 119.
12302 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
to continuing work on the farm, completing certain operations for which ma-
chines were used, protecting crops and livestock against imminent danger and
carrying out exceptional transport work required by law. Any extension of
normal hours of work for one of the above-mentioned causes involved either a
corresponding reduction in the hours of work to be done on the following day, or
overtime pay.
Work might not be done on Sundays or public holidays, except certain indis-
pensable operations (tending cattle). In this last case, however, the worker was
entitled to at least one free Sunday a month. Further, each worker was entitled
to a dav's paid holiday for every 2 months' work and an additional day after
each 6 months' employment.
All overtime done outside normal hours of work, with the exception of the
above, was to be paid for at the rate prescribed for in the contract.
(e) Supervision and enforcement.- — The district authorities and the labor in-
spectorate were responsible for enforcement of the provisions of the act. Any
infringement of these provisions, found to have occurred by the supervising
official, had to be reported to the district inspector. The Minister of Social
Affairs, in agreement with the Minister of Agriculture, was authorized to issue
guiding lines and the necessary interpretations with a view to securing proper
enforcement of the act.51
S. Finland.
A commission was set up by the Government in May 1927 to study the question
of working hours in agriculture. The majority of the commission proposed that
that the workers should not be allowed to work regularly more than 9 hours per
day, averaged over the year, and not more than 10 hours on any one day, except
in the extreme North, where the longest working day might be 11 hours. Over-
time was not to exceed 6 hours per week and 150 hours per year. These pro-
posals were not accepted.52 No attempt to regulate wages in Finnish agriculture
was made.
S. Latvia.
A bill on working hours in agriculture was discussed in Parliament in 1924 but
rejected. It would have limited the average working day to 9 hours, that is to
say, 11 from May to September, 8 in October, November, March, and April, and
7 in December, January, and February.53
No attempt to regulate agricultural wages in Latvia was made.
4. Lithuania.
An act of April 18, 1922 stated that the working day, on a yearly average,
must not exceed 10 hours. The timetable for each month must be settled by
agreement between the parties, or in default of such agreement be as follows:
January, 8 hours; February, 9 hours; March, 10 hours; April, 11 hours; May to
August, 12 hours; September, 10 hours; October, 9 hours; November, 8 hours;
and December, 7 hours. The act further contained a clause stating that times
for beginning and ending work and breaks must be fixed by agreement between
the parties, or in default of such agreement by the labor inspector. The act was
replaced by an act of April 12, 1924, which maintained the last clause only, with
an amendment to the effect that time spent going to work should be included in
working hours, but not time spent returning from work.
The 1924 act was replaced by a new act of 1929, which contained no provisions
whatever on hours of work.53
K. THE UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS
The Soviet Labor Code of 1922 as amended in 1927, 1929, and 1936, makes
provision for the regulation of wages and hours of agricultural workers as well as
those of all other workers. The code distinguishes between agricultural estab-
lishments of an industrial type and working peasant holdings in which the hired
labor is of an auxiliary character. An agricultural establishment is classified as
an industrial type of establishment on the basis of its receipts and the number of
its employees, which must be at least three.54
« International Labor Office, Industrial and Labor Information,- vol. LXXI, July-September 1939,
pp. 122-124.
»2 International Labor Review, January 1932, op. cit., p. 83.
« Ibid., p. 82.
« Ibid., Russ. 2.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12303
/. Wage provisions.
The Labor Code provides that the amount of the employee's remuneration for
his work shall be fixed by collective and individual contracts of work, but it shall
not be less than the compulsory minimum wage fixed for a given period by the
competent state authorities for the class of work in question. The amount of the
remuneration shall be fixed in the contracts either at a time rate, on the basis of
the normal working day, or by the piece. The amount of the remuneration for
overtime shall be specifically noted in the contract, and shall not in any case be
less than one and one half times the normal wage for the first 2 hours and twice
the normal wage for subsequent hours, and the same for work on rest days and
holidays. Young persons shall be paid for the reduced working day in the same
way as employees of the same class working the full day.55
On small peasant holdings the amount of the wages of the employee shall be
fixed by agreement, provided that it shall not be less than the State minimum
wage fixed for the locality in question. The part of the wages which is paid not in
money but in kind (including allowances for food) shall not constitute more than
one-half of the total remuneration. An allowance for a dwelling shall not be
included in the wages. The councils of peoples commissariats of the United
Republics shall he entitled to fix other proportions between the parts of the
wages paid in money and in kind according to local conditions.58
2. Hour provisions.
The labor code provides that the duration of normal hours of work both in
production and in the accessory work necessary to production shall not exceed 8
hours. For persons between 16 and 18 years of age, the duration of the hours of
work shall not exceed 6 hours. The hours of work of persons engaged in agri-
culture, who are regularly employed at a monthly wage may be divided into several
reasonably long installments, provided that the number of breaks shall not exceed
two a day and that the total duration of working hours in the course of a month
shall not exceed the normal monthly number of hours of work.
Overtime may be worked for not more than 2 hours a day during the agricultural
season by agreement between the employer and the trade union, provided that the
wages shall be proportionately increased in the event of prolongation of the daily
hours of work. The payment for the above-mentioned overtime may by agree-
ment be included in the basic wage. In default of an agreement as mentioned
above, payment for overtime shall be made in accordance with the general rules.
The dates for the beginning and end of the agricultural season shall be fixed by the
people's labor commissiariats of the United Republics in consultation with the
officers of the trade union of land and forest workers of the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics.
The time spent in overtime work shall not exceed 4 hours within 2 consecutive
days. The total number of hours of overtime for each employee shall not exceed
120 hours a year. Persons who have not attained the age of 18 years shall not
under any circumstances be allowed to work overtime.57
On small peasant holdings an extended working day (i. e., a working day
exceeding 8 hours) shall be allowable by agreement between the parties at times of
special pressure of agricultural work. Nevertheless, the extended working day
shall not exceed 10 hours on an average over a given period of agricultural work
{plowing and sowing, harvesting the crop, threshing, haymaking, etc.).58
L. SPAIN
1. Early hour legislation.
In Spain a royal decree of January 15, 1920, established a general 8-hour day
and 48-hour week in all industries including agriculture. A stipulation permitting
the adoption of a 48-hour week instead of an 8-hour day was included. A special
decree of the same date attempted to make the principle adaptable to agriculture
mainly by taking out of the operation of the basic decree the pastoral industry,
all harvest work and all persons employed in a part domestic capacity in the
farm household. Special arrangements for overtime were also provided." These
allowed agricultural laborers to be employed for 10 hours a day in seasons of
heavy work and at times of urgency, provided that they were paid extra for those
« International Labor Office, Legislative Series, 1927, Russ. 2.
58 Ibid., 1936, Russ. 1.
« Ibid., 1936, Russ. 1.
*« Ibid., 1929, Russ. 2.
12304 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
2 hours. There is no evidence that this decree, as concerns its application to
agriculture, ever got beyond a paper enactment.59
2. Recent hour legislation.
After the revolution of 1931 the provisional government issued a legislative
decree regulating hours of work in general, and hours of work in agriculture in
particular. The decree established an 8-hour day. It provided, however, that
where it was impossible so to arrange the work as it establish a uniform working
day of 8 hours, the number of hours to be worked per week might be agreed
upon, subject to the condition that the daily hours of work should not exceed 9.
Domestic servants living in the farm house and hired by the year were exempt
from the application of the hour provision. However, the decree stipulated that
they should be given a nightly rest period of at least 10 hours, and that after a
particularly intense period of work they should be given a period of rest consisting
of 1 whole day for every 6 days' work, Sundays to be excluded.
Joint boards for rurallabor, set up in each district or province under an earlier
decree, and composed of local representatives of workers and employers elected
by the respective organizations of these groups were empowered to authorize
prolongation of the working day under certain circumstances or for specified
groups. These boards could authorize the working of 2 hours overtime per day,
provided such overtime did not exceed 50 hours per month or 120 hours per year.
If there was a scarcity of labor the annual number of overtime hours might be
extended to 240. During seed and harvest time, when transporting seeds .and
crops, and during periods devoted to combating plant diseases, the joint boards
were authorized to permit a prolongation of the working day to a maximum of
12 hours, time worked in excess of 8 hours to be considered overtime. For work
in market gardens, the joint boards were authorized to permit overtime during
the 3 months of greatest activity, which was to be indicated for each locality.
For the initial operations inherent in the manufacture of wine and cider, the
joint boards were authorized to permit an extension of the legal working day up
to 12 hours. The extra hours were to be considered overtime.
The decree provided special remuneration for overtime work. This remunera-
tion was to be the normal hourly wage of the worker, plus 25 percent for overtime
worked on week days, 40 percent for overtime worked during the night and
Sundays and 50 percent for overtime worked by women. The working of over-
time was not permitted in the case of children under 16 years of age.
The provisions of the decree were administered by the Ministry of Labor and
Social Welfare. A labor inspectorate was established to supervise the observance
of the provisions. Violators were liable to fines. Questions of an administrative
character were to be settled by the joint Boards. Appeals could be taken to the
Minister of Labor and Social Welfare whose decisions were final.60
S. Regulation of wages.
A decree of May 7, 1931, provided for the establishment of joint boards for
rural labor with power to fix wages, time tables, rest periods, conditions relating
to board and lodging of employees not working merely for daily wages, conditions
for dismissal, procedure for the conclusion of contracts; to supervise and administer
labor legislation; to settle labor disputes: to organize employment exchanges, and
"to exercise any other functions of a social character which may be beneficial to
agricultural workers." The decree provided that these joint boards be set up
in the districts or provinces designated by the Ministry of Labor and Social
Welfare, on its own initiative or on the application of the persons concerned.
Every joint board for rural labor should consist of a chairman, a vice chairman, a
secretary, and six members and six substitutes representing employees and the
same number of members and substitutes representing employers. The employers'
and employees' members should be elected by associations of employers and em-
ployee's in the district or province, which are registered with the Ministry of Labor
and Social Welfare. The chairman and vice chairman should be appointed by
the joint board. If the board fails to agree, these officers should be appointed by
the Minister of Labor and Social Welfare. The secretary should be appointed
by the Minister of Labor and Social Welfare after a prleiminary competitive exami-
nation for which a knowledge of agrarian questions and social legislation should
be required. The term of office of all members of the joint boards should be 3 years.
The decree stated that the decisions of the joint boards for rural labor be adopted
«« Howard, Louise, op. cit., p. 118, and International Labor Office, Studies and Reports, Series K, No.
2, Aprarian Conditions in Spain, 1920. p. 10.
«° International Labor Office, Legislative Series, 1931, Sp. 9.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12305
by an absolute majority of the employers and employees representatives at meet-
ings held on a first convocation and by an absolute majority of the members
present at meetings held on a second convocation. In the case of a tie, the
chairman should have a casting vote, provided that before voting he should
invite the two groups represented on the boards to come to an agreement. An
appeal against a decision adopted by a joint board might be lodged within 10
days with the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare.
The decree also stipulated that the Minister of Labor and Social Welfare might
set up subordinate joint committees where there were villages with more than 500
agricultural employees within the jurisdiction of a joint board for rural labor.
The committees were to supply information regarding the conditions and need
for regulation in their regions, to propose rules which they considered suitable,
and to assist the joint boards in applying regulations and supervising their ob-
servance. The subordinate committees were to be elected by the local employers
and employees associations in the manner prescribed for the joint boards, and
were to consist of two or three employees' members and the same number of
employers' members, who were to appoint a chairman, a vice chairman and a
secretary by agreement.61
In Italy hours of work are regulated partly by legislation and partly by collective
agreements. Wages are regulated entirely by collective agreements.
1. Regulation of working hours.
A general decree of March 18, 1923, with regulations pursuant thereto, applies
the 8-hour day and 48-hour week to all industries including agriculture. The
decree states that its provisions shall apply only to day laborers in agriculture.
Regulations issued September 10, 1923, define agriculture as comprising the
cultivation of land and woodland, the raising of plants, irrigation, the breeding
and management of stock, and the preparation, preserving, manufacture and
transport of the products of agriculture, stockbreeding and forestry.
The regulations give the employers considerable latitude in extending working
hours in agriculture beyond 8 hours in the day and 48 hours in the week, and give
the organizations of employers and workers further power by agreement to act in
the same direction. At all periods of the year, if bad weather conditions prevent
the full utilization of the hours planned, the employer may require the workers
to make up during the week the time lost by increasing the hours of work on the
following days up to a maximum of 10 per day, without paying any extra wage.
The 8-hour day and 48-hour week may also be exceeded, on account of "technical
or seasonal requirements" during 3 months of the year, provided that the average
duration of work during that period shall not exceed 10 hours in the day or 60 in
the week, except where agreements to work longer hours have been concluded
between the parties. In addition, overtime may be added to the normal working
day of 8 hours or week of 48 hours, but must not exceed 2 hours a day or 12 hours
a week or an equivalent number of hours on an average taken over a specified
period. Such overtime must be agreed upon by the parties, and must always
be paid at the rate of not less than 10 percent above that for ordinary work.
Further agreed exceptions may be permitted for preparatory and accessory work
which must be performed outside the normal hours. Finally, work m?y be
prolonged beyond the limits laid down in the regulations in case of c merger cy
and also in cases where cessation of work at the normal hours would entail risk
and damage to human being or to production. A decree of June 30, 1926, addi-
tionally provided that until further notice, and in spite of anything specified to
the contrary in the decree of March 15, 1923, or in the relevant contracts of
employment, all industrial, commercial," and agricultural undertakings were
authorized to increase by 1 hour the daily hours of work of their employees. A
decree of January 1927 stated that this extension to a 9-hour day was permissible
only by agreement between the competent organizations of employers and
workers and subject to the approval of the district labor inspectors office. Over-
time so worked must be paid for at a rate not less than 10 percent above that for
normal hours.62
The effect of all these possible extensions is to permit a 12-hour day at least
during 3 months of the year, of which the last 2 hours would have to be paid as
" International Labor Office, Legislative Serie?, 1931, Sp. 6.
« International Labour Review, The Present Regulation of Working Hours in Agriculture, vol. 25
No. 1, January 1932, pp. 8&-S8.
60396— 42— pt. 32 24
12306 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
overtime. Actually there is no final legal prohibition against a day even longer
than 12 hours. Pressure being put on thern the workers might be compelled to
give way on this point and work, say a 14-hour day in the busiest season.
2. Regulation of wages.
Agricultural wages are fixed by collective agreements. Under the Italian
corporative system parallel syndicates of workers and employers under govern-
ment supervision have been set up in each trade or occupation. Only one syndi-
cate in each occupational group is legal. All agreements are concluded between
the employer's syndicate and the worker's syndicate. Principles governing
capital and labor are laid down in a charter of labor issued in 1927. The charter
of labor makes it obligatory for organizations of employers and workers to nego-
tiate collective agreements the terms of which are applicable to all employers
and workers in any region whether organized or not. All strikes, boycotts, and
lock-outs are illegal. Disputes between workers and employers may be settled
by mediation on the part of the syndicate officials. If that proves fruitless, then
recourse can be taken to the courts of labor, which have jurisdiction in labor
disputes, and whose decision is final.63
S. Enforcement of wage-and-hour regulations.
Carl T. Schmidt, of Columbia University, states, with regard to enforcement of
hour regulations and wage agreements:
"Violations of wage-and-hour provisions of labor contracts are very numerous.
Evidence of this is to be found in the many complaints made by individual workers
to the syndical authorities, and in the guarded comments in the press. For
example, 'labor' newspapers pointed out that workers 'are obliged by the scarcity
of jobs to compete with one another to the extent of making contract terms almost
meaningless' and 'violations continue all along the line' and that 'the majority
of the employers do not respect the wages set in the contracts.' 64
"Generally workers suffer contractual violation to take place without protest,
and complain only when they are dismissed. Most of the individual contro-
versies are settled by the syndical officials, and usually their decisions favor the
complainants. But punishment of employers who violate contracts appears
to be rare." 65
N. MEXICO
1. The Mexican Constitution of 1917.
Mexico has had wage-and-hour legislation * since 1917. The Mexican Con-
stitution of 1917 provides that Congress and the State legislature should make
laws relative to labor in accordance with principles laid down in article 123 of the
Constitution. Among those principles were an 8-hour day and a minimum
wage, sufficient, in view of the circumstances prevailing in the different localities,
to satisfy the normal necessities of the worker's life, his education, and reasonable
pleasures, in his capacity as head of a household. The principles were intended
to apply to all employees, day laborers, servants, and craftsmen, and in general,
to all contract work. They" covered all industries, did not except agriculture
and did not differentiate between men and women. Article IX of section 123
provides that special commissions by appointed in each municipality subordinate
to a central board of conciliation established in each State, to determine the
minimum wage.66
In line with the provisions of the Constitution, several of the States passed com-
prehensive labor legislation; in others legislation was fragmentary. Moreover,
State laws were contradictory and confusing. Many disputes arose because of
differing interpretations of the labor laws by the various States. As a result,
the desirability of federalizing labor legislation was strongly urged by the pro-
visional government of Portes Gil during 1928 and 1929." The Federal Labor
Code of Mexico became effective August 28, 1931. At the same time the existing
State labor laws were repealed, so that the new Federal legislation became appli-
cable to the whole country. The coverage of the Federal Labor Code is analogous
with the coverage of the Constitution. Thus it covers all employees, day laborers,
« International Labor Office, Studies and Reports, Series K, No. 14, Social Problems in Agriculture,
1938. p. 77, and Schmidt, Carl T„ the Corporate State in Action (1939), pp. 63-64 and 94-96.
«< Schmidt, Carl T., op cit., p. 82.
•» Ibii., p. 93.
«« Mexico, Laws, Statutes, etc. The Federal Labor Code of Mexico (1931), pp. 3-4.
» U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bulletin No. 569, Labor Legislation in Mexico (1932), p. 1.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12307
servants, and craftsmen, and in general all contract work, in all industries, including
agriculture.68
The provisions of the Federal Labor Code, however, do not extend to the
farming communities (ejidos), because these communities do not employ any-
labor. The farming communities in Mexico are not modeled on such collective
agricultural enterprises as the kolkhoz of the Soviet Union. The system of
tenure in these communities can be described as semindividual, semicommunal.
Each farming community is an agricultural society composed of an average of
127 small peasant holders who till the land directly and who, for the general
purposes of administration and of supervising production, are self-governing.
Each peasant who is a member of the enterprise is allotted an individual plot of land.
He may not sell, lease or mortgage his plot of land or make any crop-sharing
arrangements. He must till his land himself. He may not hire any labor. He
can be aided only by the members of his family, or by other members of the
community.69
2. Provisions for minimum wages.
The Federal Labor Code of 1931, as amended by a decree of October 1933,
provides for a central board of conciliation and arbitration in each State and for
municipal minimum wage commissions. The central boards are composed of
one representative of the State, and one representative of the workers and one
of the employers, for each branch of industry in the State. In dealing with
general problems the board functions in full. In dealing with any given industry,
the board consists of the Government representative and one representative of the
workers and one of the employees in the given industry. The municipal minimum
wage commissions are composed of an equal number of representatives of em-
ployers and of workers in the municipality, not less than 2 of each, and a repre-
sentative of the municipal government to act as chairman.
Action to secure the fixing of minimum wages in municipalities is initiated by
the central board of conciliation and arbitration on the first day of October in
odd years. If the employers and workers do not complete the selection of their
representatives within the time limit specified in the law, the State central board of
conciliation and arbitration is empowered to complete the required number of
members for the commission. In the absence of municipal commissions, the
minimum wage is fixed by the respective central board itself.
The municipal minimum wage commissions in establishing minimum wages
must take into consideration the cost of living, economic conditions of markets
and absolute requirements to satisfy the needs of the workers. Piece work rates
must be so fixed that 8 hours of labor will normally yield a return not less than the
minimum wage. Work which by its nature is carried on in more than one munic-
ipality is to receive the highest of the minima established by the special commis-
sions concerned. Upon the application of the majority of employers or workers
in a municipality, and if conditions seem to justify it, the municipal commissions
are required to review the minimum wage fixed. The decisions of the municipal
commissioners are subject to review by the central boards, after which they are
promulgated by the boards.
An executive decree of September 7, 1933, established the national minimum
wage committee of five members, which working with State governors, municipal
authorities, progressive employers and workers in general, was to expedite the
fixing of minimum wages.
The Federal Labor Code of 1933 also provides that when a collective labor
agreement has been entered into by two-thirds of the employers and union work-
ers in a specified branch of industry and in a given district, the contract will be
binding on all employers and workers in the same branch of industry in that dis-
trict if a decree to that effect is issued by the President.70
S. Provisions for hours of work.
The Federal Labor Code of 1931 contains the constitutional provision that 8
hours shall be the maximum length of a day's work. For night work, the maxi-
mum is fixed at 7 hours. The maximum duration of a working day which includes
both day and night work is to be 7)4 hours. Unless due to an emergency en-
dangering human life or the continued existence of the undertaking, all overtime
must be pa-'d for at double the rate fixed for the usual working hours and is limited
68 Ibid., p. 1.
88 International Labor Review, The Agrarion Problem in Mexico, by Enrique Munauia. vol. 36 No 2
August 1937, pp. 223-236.
7° Pan American Union Bulletin, Minimum Wage Legislation in Latin America, by Eugene D. Owen,
July 1938, pp. 410-411.
12308 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
to three additional hours per day or 3 days per week. Persons under 16 years of
age may not work more than 6 hours per day, and, along with women, may not
in any case work overtime. For each 6 working days there must be at least 1
day of rest, and for more than 1 year of employment there must be a vacation,
the length of which varies with the length of service.71
4. Operation of wage and hour provisions in agriculture.
Very little information is available regarding the operation of the wage and
hour provisions in agriculture. A 1934 study published by the University of
North Carolina Press reported that minimum wages were being fixed at a much
lower figure than the workers had hoped for. The minimum wage for agricul-
tural workers was being set at 75 centavos (about % of a peso — or Mexican dollar).
Wage fixing commissions were giving little or no consideration to standards of
living, because the unions had not yet become conscious of the significance of
this factor and little information was available. However, the commissions
showed a definite tendency to consider the employer's ability to pay. Agriculture
had not yet been generally affected by the hour regulations. In some places the
peasant had a shorter working day, but in most places his hours were still from
sunrise to sunset.72
A United States Bureau of Labor Statistics report in 1939 indicated that wages
had risen somewhat. The minimum wages fixed for general farm work ranged
from 80 centavos (eighty one-hundredths of a Mexican dollar) in a part of Chiapas
to 2.75 pesos (Mexican dollars) for one municipality in Sonora, and 3 to 4 pesos
per day in the northern district of Lower California. Also the hour limitations
were evidently being complied with in many agricultural sections. The Bureau
of Labor Statistics reported that in the banana industry in the Vera Cruz consular
district workers paid on a piecework basis employed at cutting and hauling fruit
from farm to river were able to earn from 10 to 13 pesos for a day of from 8 to
10 hours. "Double rates were being paid for overtime." In the'henequen and
chicle industries located in the region of the Merida consular districts the Bureau
reports that "because of the extremely trying climate, hours are irregular through-
out the year but are on the average less than 8 per day." The usual day's work
in the jungle is from 6 to 8 hours.73 A recent article in a Mexican periodical re-
ported that the labor contracts of Indians coming from Guatemala into Mexico to
work on coffee plantations specify that their hours of work are limited to 8 hours
for day work, to 7 for night work and to 7]{ for mixed day and night work. The
contracts also state that they must receive double pay for overtime.74
O. CUBA
1. Provisions for hours of work.
An act of September 19, 1933, followed by regulations dated October 19, 1933,
established an 8-hour day in all industries in the Repbulic of Cuba, but provided
that "The 8-hour day shall not apply to the agricultural operations of the sowing,
harvesting, and carting of sugarcane and tobacco, the cultivation of secondary
crops liable to rapid deterioration and operations requiring rapid handling, in
cases where a worker carries out the work alone or with the help of a person or
persons performing the same operations and receiving the same remuneration,
whether at a piece rate or at a task rate or by the job." 75 An act of 1935 stipu-
lated that young persons under 18 years shall not be employed for more than 7
hours a day in any commercial or agricultural establishment and shall be granted a
rest period of 2 hours after a period of 3M> hours of work.76 The new Cuban
Constitution promulgated on July 5, 1940, provides that the maximum daily
hours of work shall not exceed 8 hours, .and may be reduced to 6 hours for young
persons 14 to 18 years of age. The maximum workweek shall not exceed 44
hours with pay for 48 hours. The provisions apply to all industries except those
"which on account of their nature must carry on work without interruption at a
particular season of the year" * * * "pending the promulgation of legisla-
tion laying down definitive rules for this exception."77 As far as can be ascer-
tained, no such legislation has yet been promulgated.78
" U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bulletin'No. 569, op. cit., pp. 18-19.
" Clark, Marjorie Ruth, Organized Labor In Mexico (1934), p. I(i4 and pp. 225-226.
73 U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Monthly Labor Review, Wages in Mexico, 1937 and 1938, vol. 48,
February 1939, pp. 404-106.
74 Trabajo v Provision Social, La Proteecion del Trabajo Asalariodo de Los Indigenes, by Javier, Urango
H., September 1941. pp. 53-68 (translated bv Mr. Eugene D. Owen of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.)
" International Labor Office, Legislative Series, 1933, Cuba 4.
76 International Labor Office, Legislative Scries, 1935, Cuba 2.
77 International Labor Office. Legislative Series, 1940, Cuba 1.
'8 International Labor Office, Washington, D. C. (Mr. Woodchek).
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12309
2. Provisions for minimum wages.
A decree of November 30, 1934, and subsequent amendments thereto, set up
machinery for the setting of minimum wages in all industries, including agriculture.
The decree established a national minimum wage commission, consisting of 18
18 members, of whom 4 represent various divisions of the Government, and 7 each,
designated by the Minister of Labor, represent employers and workers in sugar,
stock raising, tobacco, and commercial and railroad work. These members are
appointed for 1 year, but their appointment may be renewed indefinitely. The
commission acts through subcommissions which fix minimum wages for each zone
and each branch of industry, commerce, and agriculture, including any enterprise
of any sort carried on for the purpose of gain. No member of the commission
may be a member of more than 3 subcommissions.
Minimum wages are based on the index numbers of the cost of living, and take
into account payments in kind. In fixing minimum wages, the prices of the
products concerned are also taken into consideration. Thus the commission
has tied the wage of sugar plantation workers to the price of sugar, providing that
in no case may the wage go under a certain specified minimum, but it may rise
above that minimum as the price of sugar advances.79 Similarly, coffee-bean
pickers' wages have been regulated by the national minimum wage commission
in accordance with the value of coffee.80
The provisions of the decree are administered by the Ministry of Labor. Every
worker who is paid less than the minimum wage is entitled to recover the amount
by which he has been underpaid. Violators of the provision are liable to a fine.81
P. DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
The Hours of Work Act of June 21, 1935, establishing an 8-hour day in the
Dominican Republic excluded "agricultural and rural workers" from its provisions.
An act of April 19, 1940, instituted minimum wage legislation in the Republic,
which covered workers in agriculture as well as industry. The act provides for
the appointment by the Executive of a national committee for the regulation of
wages, composed of two Government officials, representing the Secretariat of
Agriculture, Industry, and Labor, and the Secretariat of Treasury and Commerce,
respectively, one agriculturalist, one industrialist, and one merchant, as permanent
members; and in addition two members of the chamber of commerce from the
region interested in the wage scale under consideration, as temporary members
but having voice and vote. The Executive is to choose from the permanent mem-
bers a person to preside.
The national committee for the regulation of wages is to recommend to the
Executive, when it deems such action necessary, minimum wage rates for every
kind of agricultural and industrial work performed in the Republic, and the form
in which the wages are to be paid, taking into consideration (1) the kind of work,
and the conditions, time and place in which it is done; (2) the current price of the
article produced; and (3) the average cost of living to the worker. The Executive
is authorized to establish these minimum wage rates by decree. Fines are pre-
scribed for violation of the legislation affecting the minimum wage, and of the
wage rates established. Collection of fines is entrusted to the mayors of the
communes within which the industries concerned are established or the work is
done.82
Q. CENTRAL AMERICA
1. Costa Rica.
An act of December 19, 1934, established machinery for the fixing of minimum
wages in all industries including agriculture. This act also provided that "the
working day shall be of 6 or 8 hours according to local custom, except in the case
of agricultural and industrial operations which owing to their nature need a greater
number of hours of work."
The act authorizes the establishment of a wage commission in each Canton of the
Republic upon the petition of 10 or more workers or employers resident in the
Canton concerned. Each commission is to consist of 2 to 4 employers and as
many workers, all appointed by the Ministry of Labor. The number of members
is to vary with the number of agricultural and manufacturing occupations in the
area involved and be fixed by the Ministry, in such a manner that the principal
79 Pan American Union Bulletin, Minimum Wage Legislation in Latin America, by Eugene D. Owen,
June 193S, pp. 406-408.
80 Cuban Minimum Wage Commission, Resolution No. 33, December 3, 1937.
8' International Labor Office, Legislative Series, 1934, Cuba 6.
M U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Monthly Labor Review, vol. 51, No. 1, July 1940, pp. 162-163.
12310 HTJNTSVILLE, ALAV HEARINGS
occupations are represented on the commission. In the 'central Cantons the
provisional governor, and in the smaller Cantons the administrative officer, is to
be a member of the local commission and preside over it. For the central Canton
of San Jose, one wage commission is to deal with all matters relating to manufac-
turing and another with matters relating to agriculture. The governor is to be
member of both of these commissions. The term of office of each commissioner is
2 years.
The function of the wage commissions is to recommend to the Ministry of Labor
minimum wage rates for various occupations within their jurisdiction. Upon
such recommendation the Ministry of Labor issues a decree fixing the wages,
attempting in this to bring into a unified whole the wages in the various industries
and regions. Such a decree becomes effective 10 days after publication in the
official journal, but may be suspended or altered by the Ministry of Labor, and
automatically ceases to be in force on July following its promulgation. Wages
may be fixed for each class of worker according to sex, age, physical capacity, and
kind of work. Minimum wages for piece work are to be such that the average
worker may earn an amount proportionate to the time wages established.
The local commissions are also authorized to insure that the administrative
decrees fixing wages in its area are duly observed, and to report any contraven-
tions which are committed. Payment of less than the minimum wage is punisha-
ble by a prison sentence and a fine.83
A decree of August 21, 1935, fixed minimum wages of agricultural laborers, to
be effective until the wage commissions prepared their recommendations, at 0.25
colon (about 4.5 cents) per hour on coffee, sugarcane, and tobacco plantations,
and at 0.50 colon (about 9 cents) per hour on banana and cacao plantations.84
In his annual report for 1938, the Director of the Technical Office of Labor
stated that because a commission cannot be established unless a petition is
received from interested parties asking for it, the minimum wage machinery was
not being established. By September 1938 only one such commission was in
existence, in the central district of San Jose.85
2. Guatemala.
By a resolution of July 19, 1923, the minimum wage of day laborers
engaged in agricultural labor in Guatemala was fixed at 8 pesos (about 13>3
cents) per day. On January 28, 1936, a resolution fixed 8 centavos of a quetzal
(about 8 cents) as the minimum daily wage for laborers engaged in agricultural
work in the department of Alta Verapaz.86
R. SOUTH AMERICA
1. Argentina.
Agricultural wages and/or hours are regulated in two Provinces of Argentina
by provincial legislation.
(a) San Juan.— In the Province of San Juan, an act of 1923 divides the Province
into two districts and specifies that in the first district workers employed in
agricultural work and cattle breeding in general shall be paid 3 pesos (about
$1.50) for the legal working day; in the second district workers employed in
agriculture shall be paid 3 pesos (about $1.50) for the legal working day, and
those employed in cattle breeding 2 pesos a day (about $1), but in no case less
than 55 pesos a month (about $27.50) .87
Another act, passed in the same year, provides an 8-hour day and 48-hour
week for all workers, including workers employed in agricultural work. How-
ever, for workers engaged in breeding, herding, care and transport of cattle, and
other outside work which does not require great and continuous physical effort
"the legal working day is deemed to be the time whether continuous or inter-
mittent, required by the nature of the work." Hours of work performed in excess
of the legal working day are to be paid for at 50 percent above the normal wage.88
(b) Tucumen.- — In the Province of Tucumen, an act of 1923 stipulates that the
legal working day shall not exceed 8 hours in the day or 48 hours in the week
throughout the Province in all industries including agriculture. In case of
«3 International Labor Office, Legislative Series, 1934, C. R. 1. . n™™
84 Pan American Union Bulletin, Minimum Wage Legislation in Latm America, by Eugene D. Owens,
June 1938, p. 330.
es Pan American Union Bulletin, Pan American News, May 1940, p. 415. ,w„„«
8« Pan American Union Bulletin, Minimum Wage Legislation in Latin America, by Eugene L>. Owens,
July 1938; p. 409.
87 International Labor Office, Legislative Series, 1923, Argentina 4.
88 International Labor Office, Legislative Series, 1923, Argentina 1.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12311
agreement between workers and employers the Department of Labor may-
authorize a 10-hour working day on 90 days in the year. Overtime work is to
be paid for at the rate of 50 percent in excess of the normal wage.89
The Minimum Wage Act of 1923 excluded agricultural workers from its
coverage.90
2. Brazil.
Agricultural workers in Brazil are covered by minimum wage legislation but
not by maximum hour legislation. A legislative decree of June 13, 1940, estab-
lishes an 8-hour day in private employment but specifically excludes "persons
employed in agriculture, for whom a special system shall be established." 9I As
far as can be ascertained, no such system has yet been established.92
An act of January 14, 1936, makes provision for the establishment of minimum
wage boards of 5 to 11 members in each of the 22 geographical divisions of Brazil.
The members of these boards are to be elected by recognized organizations of
employers and workers and appointed by the Ministry of Labor, Industry, and
Commerce. The chairman is to be appointed by the President of the Republic.
The chairman and members are to hold office for 2 years, and are eligible for
reappointment. Decisions of the Board are arrived at by majority vote and in
case of a tie, the chairman may cast a deciding vote.
The boards are to fix minimum wages on the basis of results of inquiries con-
ducted by the Ministry of Labor, Industry and Commerce. In fixing the mini-
mum wage the boards are to be guided by section I of the act, which states that
"Every laborer has the right to receive in payment for his services a minimum
wage sufficient to satisfy, in a given region of the country and in a given period,
his normal needs for food, shelter, clothing, hygiene, and transportation." The
tentative wage set by the Commission is to be made public, in order that dissent-
ing views may be taken into account before the final decree is issued. A definite
time limit is set for each step in the establishment of the minimum wage. The
wage finally fixed is to be established by decree of the President of the Republic,
which is to go into effect 60 days after publication in the official newspaper. A
minimum wage so fixed is to remain in force for 3 years unless circumstances
arise which, in the opinion of three-fourths of the members of the commission,
materially affect living conditions, in which case the wage may be revised.
Minors working as apprentices may receive half the wage set for adults, and
persons employed in a specified list of unhealthful occupations may receive one
and a half times the minimum wages. Contracts which call for a wage lower
than the decreed minimum are null and void.
The Administration of the act is entrusted to the recognized workers unions
and employers associations. A worker who is paid less than the minimum wage
is entitled to make a claim for the difference before a local conciliation and arbi-
tration board. Penalties, in the form of fines, are provided for violations of the
Minimum Wage Act.93
S. Ecuador.
(a) Decree of December SO, 1936. — A decree of December 30, 1936, amplified by
another decree of February 2, 1937, laid down definite minimum wages for agri-
cultural workers in Ecuador. Adult agricultural workers were to earn not less
than 0.60 sucre (about 12 cents) per day in the sierra, and 1.20 sucres (about 24
cents) on the coast. Adult males less than 18 years of age and females of any
age were to receive not less than two-thirds of the wage for an adult male. The
decree was to be administered by the Minister of Social Welfare and the Legisla-
tion. Fines were prescribed for violation of this legislation.94 The Ecuadorean
Labor Code of August 5, 1938, repealed all previous legislation including this
decree.
(b) Labor Code of Ecuador, 1988— The Labor Code of Ecuador, August 5, 1938,
fixed hours of work and provided for the establishment of minimum wages in all
industries, including agriculture.
(c) Hours of work provisions. — The Labor Code provides a maximum working
time of 8 hours per day for 5*4 days per week. For the purpose of payment of
wages Saturday afternoon shall be considered as worked. The ordinary working
day shall be divided into two spells with a break of 2 hours after the first 4 hours.
"• Internationa] Labor Office, Legislative Series, 1923, Areentina 1.
»o International Labor Office, Lesislative Series, 1923. Argentina 2.
" International Labor Offire, Legislative Series, 1940. Brazil 5.
« International Labor Office, Washington. D. C. (Mr. Woodchek).
»' International Labor Office. Legislative Series, 1936, Braz. 1.
m Pan American Union Bulletin, Minimum Wage Legislation in Latin America .by Eugene D. Owen,
July 1938, pp. 408-409.
12312 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
By an agreement in writing between the parties, the daily hours of work may
exceed 8 hours, provided that the authorization of the labor inspector shall be
obtained and overtime shall not exceed 4 hours a day or 12 hours a week. In the
case of need, to prevent serious loss to the undertaking owing to an imminent
accident or in general any unforeseen event or emergency requiring immediate
attention, the daily hours of work may be increased without previous authoriza-
tion from the labor inspector, but the employer shall be bound to notify the labor
inspector within 24 hours after the danger or accident. At harvest time, if
considerable loss or damage is threatened, the workers shall be bound to work
overtime, and even on rest days.
Overtime worked during the day or before midnight shall be paid for at time
and one half the regular rate. Overtime worked between midnight and 6 a. m.
shall be paid for at twice the regular rate. Work performed on Saturday afternoon
and on Sunday shall be paid for at twice the regular rate.95
(d) Minimum wage provisions. — The Labor Code provides that minimum wage
boards shall be set up in the chief towns of the province and in the cantons and
places where the Ministry of Social Welfare and Labor may consider this neces-
sary, for the purpose of fixing minimum wages for the areas in question. These
boards are to be composed of a delegate of the general labor directorate, a medical
practitioner appointed by the employees insurance fund, a delegate appointed
by the municipality concerned, one representative of the employers and one
representative of the workers. If the decisions of the board are not adopted unani-
mously, dissenting members may appeal within 3 days to the general labor
directorate, which shall issue its decision after hearing the opinion of the employees
insurance fund. If for any reason whatever, the boards fail to perform their
duties, the minimum wages shall be fixed by the Ministry of Social Welfare and
Labor. The minimum wages shall be revised by the boards every two years unless
special circumstances require that a revision should take place before the lapse
of this period.
In fixing the minimum wages the board shall take the following factors into
account:
1. The amount necessary to satisfy the normal needs of subsistence of
the employee considered as the head of a family, with due regard to the eco-
nomic and social conditions of the area for which the minimum wage is to
be fixed.
2. The various general branches of the industrial, agricultural, commercial
and manufacturing activity in relation to the expenditure of physical and
mental energy required for the kind of work in question.
3. The actual output of work.
4. The suggestions and explanations of the parties concerned, both em-
ployers and employees.96
The provisions of the Labor Code are administered by the general labor directo-
rate and subdirectorates set up in the various towns. Violations of the code are
punishable by fines. Labor commissaries appointed by the general labor directo-
rate bear all claims arising under the code. Appeals may be taken to the district
courts and the supreme court.97
4. Peru.
(a) Provisions for minimum wages. — Agricultural wages paid to native workers
in Peru are regulated by the Indigenous Workers Section of the Sierra Act of 1916
and the Presidential decree of 1923. The purpose of the act of 1916 is to prevent
employers from exploiting indigenous workers, for example, by paying them
exclusively in kind (food, concessions- of pasture and arable land, irrigation etc.)
or arbitrarily overassessing the value of remuneration paid in kind in such a way
as to deprive them of their freedom (by involving them in debt). Besides pro-
viding for the suppression of the abuses of payment in kind, the act of 1916
stipulates that whatever facilities may be granted to the indigenous workers as
remuneration, they must be paid cash wages, at a minimum rate of 20 centavos
daily (about 20 cents).
The decree of 1923 instructs the municipal councils of the Andes Provinces to
fix the minimum wages of indigenous workers by special order at the beginning of
each year. In fixing minimum wage rates, the municipal councils must take
ss International Labor Office, Legislative Ser es, 1938— E c. 1, Sections 63-82.
96 Ibid., sees. 43-62.
" Ibid., sees. 421-431 and 446-460.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12313
into account (a) information received from the committees for the protection of
indigenuous workers and the district councils, and (6) information which they are
able to collect regarding customary wage rates in the province concerned. In no
case may the rate be less than the minimum of 20 centavos daily prescribed in the
act of 1916.
The minimum wages fixed by the act or the municipal councils are binding
upon employers, who must keep a special detailed account for each of their workers
showing the number of days worked, assistance given, advances made, and wages
paid. The local representative of the native affairs section of the Ministry of
Public Health, Labor and Social Welfare, when presented with a claim and called
upon to assess the total amounts of a worker's debt, must take the regulation
minimum rates into account. In November 1938 the municipal councils of the
Provinces of the Sierra had not yet assumed the duties assigned to them by the
Presidential decree of 1923. Actual minimum wages were generally above the
rates fixed by the act of 1916.98
The wages of some agricultural workers are regulated by awards made by
arbitration courts. A decree of 1936 provides for the setting up of conciliation
boards and stipulates that disputes in which these bodies are unable to effect a
conciliation must be settled by an arbitration court. Since wage questions fre-
quently constitute the points upon which agreement is most difficult to attain, the
arbitration court is frequently, in practice, a wage-fixing authority.
Collective claims made by associations or groups of workers must be submitted
to the Labor Section of the Ministry of Public Health, Labor and Social Welfare.
The Labor Section of the Ministry transmits the claim to a conciliation board
composed of two representatives of the workers and two representatives of the
employers and presided over by the head of the Labor Section. If the solution
adopted fails to satisfy both parties, the dispute must be settled directly by
decision of an arbitration court. The arbitration courts are composed of one
delegate appointed by each party and a judge nominated by the president of the
Supreme Court. In the case of individual claims reguarding wages or other
causes of dispute, the head of the Labor Section is alone responsible for the con-
ciliation proceedings. If such proceedings fail to bring about a settlement the
same official must make an award. Appeal may be made against such awards,
within a prescribed time limit, to the labor directorate. Thus, in individual
disputes of this kind the labor authorities, too, engage in the fixing of wages.
An example of an award covering agricultural workers is that of July 27, 1934,
in respect of a collective claim put forward by the workers' organizations of the
Valle de San Vincenza de Canete, one of the principal centers of cotton produc-
tion in Peru. This award laid down minimum wages for all the agricultural
workers of the region (men, women, and minors), numbering about 18,000. The
practical effect of the collective agreements and arbitration awards based upon
this legislation would seem to extend beyond the field to which they directly
apply, for the terms of individual contracts are influenced, in a certain measure,
by standards which they set."
(b) Provisions for house of work. — A decree issued in 1919 established an 8-hour
day in industry and agriculture, in the absence of contracts to the contrary.1 The
Civil Code of 1936 stipulated that every contract of employment, whether in-
dividual or collective, shall be subject to certain principles among which was a
maximum working day of 8 hours.2 There is no info mation regarding the
extent to which the 8-hour day is actually applied in agriculture, nor the effect
of its application.
5. Uruguay.
Although, until 1940, hours of work legislation in Uruguay specifically excluded
agricultural workers, the countries' minimum wage legislation was first applied
to agricultural workers, and extended only gradually to other workers. Gener-
ally, hour legislation in Uruguay was designed chiefly to improve the lot of the
88 International Labor Office, Studies and Reports, Series D, No. 22 (The Minimum Waee), 1939, pp.
179-180. '
«» Ibid, pp. 185-188.
• Vigil, Manuel A., Legislation Del Trabajo, 1937, p. 60.
international Labor Office, Legislative Series, 1936, Peru 3.
12314 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
urban laborers, despite the fact that Uruguay is predominately a pastoral and
rural country. This was due to the strong political influence of organized work-
men in cities. The dominant political party had recruited most of its strength
from the inhabitants of the large cities, and as a consequence was somewhat less
concerned with the plight of the laborers on the large agricultural estates. How-
ever, at the time when minimum wage legislation was being considered, the
President of Uruguay was Jose Batlle y Ordonez, a progressive who introduced
many so-called "radical" reforms. When his party was attempting to obtain
minimum wage legislation for urban workers, President Batlle pointed out that
so far agitation for social legislation had been an urban affair, and proposed in
the conference of his party's leaders that the party advocate a minimum wage
for rural workers. Thu ; this legislation became a political issue, advocated by
the urban party in power. The conservative landowners fought its passage for
over 2 vears, but the party in power succeeded in getting it passed on February
15, 1923.3
(a) Minimum wage provisions.- — The Minimum Wage Act of 1923, unlike the
minimum wage legislation for agricultural workers in a great majority of European
countries, but similar to that of New Zealand and several other Latin-American
counties, instead of establishing wage-fixing boards, itself fixes the minimum wage.
The law provides that workers between 18 and 55 years of age employed on estates
assessed for purposes of the real estate tax at $20,000 to $60,000 shall receive a
minimum wage of $18 per month or $0.72 a day. On very large estates assessed
at more than $60,000, the minimum wage is raised to $20 per month and $0.80 a
day. The minimum wage for workers between 16 and 18 or over 55 years of age
is $15 per month. In addition to the minimum wage, employers are required to
furnish healthy living quarters and sufficient food, or pay an additional $12 per
month to cover such costs. Exemptions are provided for in the case of workers
with physical defects, or who for similar reasons, cannot be expected to earn the
minimum wage. The exemptions are given by regional councils with the cooper-
ation of the health officers. Employers whose property is assessed at less than
$20,000, are exempt from all the minimum wage requirements.
On April 8, 1924, regulations were issued for the practical application of the act.
These regulations provided that the Bureau of Labor issue special work books to
be kept by employers for each worker, and to be examined periodically by govern-
ment inspectors. Workers who are paid wages below the legal minimum are
entitled to appeal to the lieutenant mayor or justice of the peace and, concurrently,
the inspector of labor may intervene.4
With regard to the effects of this legislation, Percy A. Martin, of Stanford
University, and Earl M. Smith, director of the Pan American Institute in Monte-
video, Uruguay, reported in 1927:
"One of the writers had occasion to spend some time on a number of large
Uruguayan estancias and, to the best of his knowledge, the law of minimum wage
has proven a distinct success. Rural laborers are cognizant of its terms, the
reports are universally kept, inspectors regularly make their rounds, and recal-
citrant establishments are forced to live up to the provisions of the law. During
1936, 137 fines were collected for breaking this law. Instances have arisen where
employees signed for the legal wage and without protest received less. It is
impossible to determine how common is this deceit, but it cannot be very general, ,
for the average wage of country laborers has gradually risen to $18, the legal
minimum for the middle-size establishments. Indirectly, therefore, all rural
labor has benefited from the law." 5
(b) Recent developments. — An act of December 20, 1940, lays down rules govern-
ing the conditions of work in rice fields. It provides that the hours of work in the
rice fields shall be 8 hours a day, divided into two periods of 4 hours each, with an
interval of not less than 1 hour between these periods. The minimum wage of
workers in the rice fields shall be 1 peso and 50 centimes ($1.50) a day.6
„j, Simon G., Utopia in Uruguay (1938), pp. 136-141.
„„ American Union Bulletin, Minimum Wage Legislation in Latin America, by Eugene D. Owen,
July 1938, pp. 412-413; and United States Bureau of Labor Statistics Bulletin, No. 4G7, Minimum Wage
Legislation in Various Countries, bv Rudolph Broda, 1928, p. 101.
» U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Monthly Labor Review, Labor Legislation in Uruguay, vol 25, No.
4, October, 1927, p. 14.
» International Labor Office, Legislative Series, 1940, Ur. 1.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12315
Exhibit 45. — Backgrounds of the War Farm Labor Problem
Report Prepared by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics and the
Farm Security Administration, United States Department of Agri-
culture, Washington, D. C.
backgrounds of the war farm labor problem
Introduction
The report on farm labor in the United States which follows is the work of
several agencies of the Department of Agriculture, particularly the Bureau of
Agricultural Economics and the Farm Security Administration. The main
purpose of the cooperating agencies has been to assemble in a single study the most
important facts about the highly varied conditions of farm employment. Much
has been written on the subject already but most of this has covered isolated or
special aspects of the many problems in the farm labor field. It was felt, there-
fore, that an over-all study would be of value.
The project was conceived before the declaration of a state of emergency and
before the beginning of large-scale defense preparations in America. The bulk
of the work was done before the outbreak of war on December 7, 1941. Hence
the emphasis is on long-term problems, problems which were of importance
throughout the preceding decade and are still of importance today.
The beginnings of the defense program brought about changes in the farm labor
situation. These changes were crystallized into clean-cut form by the actual
declaration of war. However, it would be a mistake to assume that the problems
of farm labor are now entirely different because of the changes resulting from the
present war effort. Not only is there a very real and tangible connection between
what happened in the field of farm labor a few years ago and what is happening
today, but also it is impossible to solve adequately the pressing problems of today
without looking beneath the surface for main causes.
The farm-labor situation may be described broadly in terms of labor supply.
Throughout the 1930's there was an oversupply of farm labor; today there is
much concern over possible shortages. A few years ago it was the social responsi-
bility of government to do something about the worst effects of an oversupply
of farm labor. Today it is a wartime necessity to prevent shortages of labor from
holding back the farm production which is an essential part of the war program.
The change from a surplus labor market in agriculture to one of comparative
stringency has its counterpart in other industries and throughout most of our
economy. There are, however, significant differences. The oversupply of labor
in agriculture was probably greater than in other industries and the social effects
were worse. Conversely, the most frequent complaints about labor shortages
have come from the farming community. Moreover, while other industries have
expressed apprehension over shortages chiefly of specialized and skilled workers,
agriculture has been faced with a depleted and understocked labor market in all
categories of skill.
There is a close relationship between the large oversupplies of agricultural labor
in the recent past and the current fears of insufficient labor. Extreme competition
among workers in a chaotic labor market has contributed to the depressing of the
status of farm workers below the accepted American standards of decent living.
Farm wages are well below those in industry. They increased somewhat during
1941, but did little more than keep pace with industrial wages, which also rose.
If there has been any exodus of wage labor out of agriculture since the beginning
of 1941 it must be taken as a sign that those who work for hire in agriculture do
not have the conditions of life and work which make urban employment more
attractive. The same differentials between agricultural and industrial employ-
ment existed during the depression of the 1.930's but they had negligible effect
as long as there was little chance for a farm worker to get a steady factory job.
The fact that farm wages are rising today (1942) is an indication that some sort
of partial adjustment is being made. But no coordinated program has been
developed to give farm laborers the kind of stakes in their jobs which would keep
them attached to the agricultural industry and thus guarantee farm production.
The need of such a program is clear from the fears which have been expressed over
the farm labor supply situation.
No precise measurement of the supply of farm labor relative to the demand
exists. However, trends are clearly visible. During the 1930s there were
consistently more farm workers seeking farm employment than there were jobs
12316 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
on farms. Labor shortages did occur in agriculture, to be sure, but they were
temporary and local in nature and resulted almost entirely from bad distribution
of an ample labor force.
With the 1941 crop season, as a result of the general increase in economic
activity, the trend toward scarcity of farm labor set in markedly. Many alarming
reports of impending shortages of farm labor were issued. At the end of the 1941
harvests, it was apparent that much of the clamor about shortages was exaggerated
and unwarranted. But it was also clear that in some areas, for example, in regions
close to concentrations of war industry in such States as New York, Connecticut,
and New Jersey, there was genuine difficulty in obtaining sufficient labor. The
reasons for this reversal of trend were evidently the increase of employment in
war industries and to a lesser extent the absorption of manpower into the armed
forces. Many former farm workers went into jobs vacated by persons who found
jobs in war-production industries.
It is to be expected that these two drains on the farm labor force will continue
through 1942 and as long as the war lasts. As a consequence it is to be expected
that the number of local shortages of farm labor will increase, particularly near
the centers of war industries. However, there was no indication at the end of
1941 of a general shortage of farm labor which would limit farm production to
any marked extent. There are still several millions of unemployed workers,
many of them temporarily unemployed as a result of the conversion from the
production of consumer goods to the production of implements of war. At the
point where the normal labor reserves of industry are exhausted — and this point
may not be too distant — real stringency may be expected to occur in the farm
labor market.
The reasons for the difficulties in getting sufficient farm labor are revealed by
a study of the record of the past decade. The proper remedies are determined
by the* nature of the sore spots. The need of adjustments which will render the
farm labor force a stable, productive group is obvious and pressing.
Agriculture is being called upon to break production records in a wide variety
of crops as its share in the winning of the war. Much of this production will
have to come from large commercial farms which are dependent on hired labor.
To stabilize the needed hired labor force may require positive action based on
knowledge of the farm labor situation over a period of years.
Part 1
i. problems of farm labor
To catalog the disadvantages of the status of farm laborers is in effect to
describe their living and working conditions. There are few respects in which
farm labor is not at the bottom of the scale among the gainfully employed.
Farm wages are in most instances lower than the lowest wages paid for un-
skilled labor in industry. Earnings of farm workers are even lower than would be
indicated by wage rates because of short periods of employment during the year.
Farm wage rates have risen during the past year (1941), but the rates of in-
crease have hardly done more than keep pace with those in the higher industrial
wage levels. On the whole, the economic status of farm workers has changed
little for the better, if at all. Tradition in agriculture has rooted the rights of
producers in land tenure. But farm workers have no tenure. On the other hand,
neither laws nor the customs of hire give them the protection at work or other
advantages enjoyed by most industrial laborers. Not even the legal right of
farm laborers to bargain collectively for the terms and conditions of their em-
ployment has been affirmed for farm laborers as it has been for industrial workers.
Practically none of the protective social and labor legislation has benefited
the farm worker with the exception of the Sugar Acts of 1934 and 1937. There
is no legislative control over wages or hours of work in agriculture. There is
little public regulation over the employment of women and children in this
industry.
Hiring methods have been haphazard; that is to say, the methods which sufficed
for the hiring of the traditional hired hand, based on slow turn-over and the
recruitment of men from within relatively small communities where everyone
knew everyone else, have been carried over into the hiring of seasonal labor on a
large scale. The results have not been good. The failure of hiring methods to
work properly is at the root of much of the labor supply difficulty. The failure
is clearly visible now that farm labor supply is reduced, but it existed formerly,
too, except that then the burden of maladjustment fell on the worker. In the
1930's bad distribution of labor supply in farming meant further aggravation of
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12317
unemployment. Today it can mean shortage of farm labor in some areas while
in other areas surpluses of labor may still remain.
Low earnings, intermittent employment, and general lack of security affect all
aspects of the lives of farm workers, and are of concern to the rural population
as a whole.
From the viewpoint of the Nation, the disadvantages of the lowered status
of farm workers can be measured in a number of ways.
Ihe most pressing and immediate disadvantage has already been noted; that
is, the increasing danger of farm labor shortage. But there are other disadvan-
tages which go deeper and which are of at least equal importance in the war emer-
gency. Added up, the various handicaps of farm labor create a kind of status
which can be called second-class citizenship. Effects of second-class citizenship,
like those of slavery, cannot be confined to a single group. Perpetuation of
low levels of economic and social status and insecurity for one group creates
forces which pull other groups down to the same levels.
Finally there is the difficulty of enlisting disadvantaged citizens in the war
effort. Axis nations must force unwilling populations along with them, whereas
in a democracy every individual has a stake in victory. The bargaining position
of the individual farm workers has improved in the last 2 years, but little has been
accomplished to put them as a class on an equal footing with other American
workers. Such equality is vital for their full participation in the war effort.
Financial or other material assistance to farm wage workers will not be sufficient
to raise their morale to the level necessary for maximum production. It is true
that in many respects it is easy to measure contributions to security in money
terms, but farm workers need more than food or clothing or the many things
which money can buy, important as these may be. Starving armies have won
great victories. The Chinese soldiers who have fought off the Japanese war
machine since 1937 are, by and large, at least as badly off economically as the most
underpaid farm wage workers in America. But they fought because they had
something to fight for. Unquestionably the same is' true of the disadvantaged
groups in our population. Equality in status and opportunity is probably the
single most important factor at the root of the morale problem.
II. FACTORS BEHIND FARM LABOR PROBLEMS
In order to receive immediate attention, farm labor problems must be investi-
gated in their isolated aspects. However, from a long-range point of view, in
order to arrive at a reasonably permanent solution, they must also be studied as
parts of the economic and social structure of agriculture' as a whole. While some
analysts of farm labor problems may have identified too closely farm-worker
interests with farmer-emplover interests, it is nevertheless undeniable that con-
siderable unity of interest does exist. Rising farm prices and income, for example,
at least make possible increased farm-worker earnings. The interrelationship
may extend even beyond the framework of the agricultural economy. Improve-
ment of farm income usually accompanies general upward movement of business
activity associated with expanding industrial employment. Such an expansion
frequently attracts farm and rural workers and results in draining off surplus
labor from agriculture with consequent beneficial results for those who remain
because their bargaining position in the farm labor market is strengthened.
Detailed analysis of the forces which lie behind all questions in the field of farm
labor has not been undertaken in the review which follows. Only seme of the
more important factors which underlie farm labor problems are discussed.
A. Technology.
The effect on farming methods, farm size, and farm ownership of recent tech-
nological advance has varied from area to area. The initial effect of the introduc-
tion of new machines and methods often has been a modification of farming
patterns already customary in the locality, not the imposition of a new, uniform
type of farming for the area. In Iowa, for example, family farms, often operated
with the aid of a year-round hired man, were common. Here the initial result of
mechanization in many cases has been a marked increased in the acreages per farm
operated as "family size" farms. In other areas, increased corporate ownership
and operation have attended mechanization of farming.
By cutting down the time required for a crop operation, mechanization decreases
the labor requirement per unit of product and increases the area of operation per
man per unit of time. For a given volume of product the first of these effects
displaces farm workers from agriculture. By increasing the size of farm which a
12318 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
family can operate the second effect may reduce the number of farms operated.
Mechanization does increase the size of farms, often eliminating some family
farmers as well as croppers and laborers in the process, but it does not necessarily
displace the family farm as such. Thus, many former tenant operators and
owners, seeking wage employment, have explained their loss of a landhold with
the phrase, "tractored out, ''"even though family farms have not been eliminated
in the area from which they came.
This phase of the result of mechanization occurs in scattered areas. The
introduction of tractors in Texas, for example, has led in many cotton districts,
1 ( consolidation of tenant farms into large holdings, worked by wage labor.
Cases are reported in which from 3 to as many as 9 families were displaced by 1
tractor. The elimination of 20,000 farm units in Texas between January 1, 1937,
and January 1, 1938 (not a net decline of farms in the State), has been attributed
largelv to consolidation of units accompanying a change to tractor cultivation.
To this may be partly due the fact that 130,000 agricultural workers in the
State were unemployed, as revealed by the 1937 Census of Unemployment.
Output per farm worker increased about 40 percent between 1909 and 1939.
Despite slowly expanding markets during the early part of that period, total
employment in agriculture did not increase; in fact it probably declined somewhat
during the period. _ \
In times when there is little work in nonagricultural occupations, mechanization,
by displacing both individual laborers and independent farm families, leads to
farm labor surpluses, poorer jobs, and lower farm wages, thereby giving the
operators of larger than family farms a competitive advantge over operators of
efficient family farms.
In crops where mechanized equipment is available at all stages of land prepara-
tion, cultivation, and harvest, labor requirements tend to smooth out. Kansas
wheat farming where the harvesting is more than 90 percent by combine is an
excellent example. On the other hand, incomplete mechanization of crop opera-
tions, such as the mechanized cultivating, but hand harvesting of onions, greatly
accentuates the seasonal labor peaks of nonmechanized operations. In creating
this larger seasonal demand, incomplete mechanization makes the farm labor
situation more acute for both the farm operator and the farm laborer under con-
ditions of either full employment or underemployment. In periods of underem-
ployment the earnings of seasonal labor are reduced and, while the farm operator
may have a cheaper and more abundant supply of seasonal workers, he still has
problems of recruiting labor in the right amount and at the right time.
Although full employment will enable seasonal workers to get better pay and
working conditions, the mobile character of their occupation prevents a satisfac-
tory life. Moreover, by offering alternative jobs, full employment may so cut
the farm labor supply as to render extremely precarious the operation of larger
than family farms devoted to incompletely mechanized crops, especially those of
a specialized character.
The combination of incomplete mechanization with recent developments in the
refrigeration, transportation, and marketing of fruit and vegetable crops accentu-
ates still more the demand for seasonal labor, and the disadvantages inherent in
this type of labor for both the laborer and the farmer.
B. Lost markets.
The swift progress of mechanization during the last decade, with its conse-
quent displacement of farm workers, has coincided with losses of domestic and
foreign markets, which also result in displacement of labor.
A consequence of growing nationalism in Europe was a drive on the part of
many nations to become self-sufficient. ■ Bounties to agriculture within national-
istic countries and erection of tariff barriers against imports have resulted in loss
of markets to American farmers. Tariffs on industrial imports, set up by this
country, hampered exports of farm products by destroying trade reciprocity, and
collaterally encouraged the opening or diversion of lands on other continents to
crops formerly supplied by the United States. The effect of lost markets on farm
workers is now being cushioned to some extent by war employment and has been
alleviated bv the various Government programs of relief and rehabilitation. But
the loss of employment opportunities accompanying lost markets was serious and
both unemployment and underemployment of farm people still are grave prob-
lems in many farm areas.
Moreover, programs designed to cushion the effects of market loss may have
stimulated displacement from the land. Crop adjustment programs, for example
may have furnished part of the cash income necessary to purchase tractors and
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12319
other machines — just as high farm prices operated to speed mechanization dur-
ing the first World War. Also the adjustment program has conformed to the
common law and usage in making payments on a basis of landholds, a practice
which in some cases may have placed a heavy strain on local committees to pre-
vent landlords from divorcing tenants from their land and operating with wage
labor, with or without mechanization. It should be recognized, on the other
hand, that without the adjustment program, bankruptcy and displacement among
farmers would have been much more widespread, and distress among refugee
farm populations probably would have reached catastrophic proportions.
C. Trends in farm population.
The loss of farm employment opportunities due to technological and other
changes in the 1930's was accompanied by an increase in that part of the farm
population which falls in the productive age groups.
The excess of births over deaths in rural areas has always been high. And
after the disappearance of new opportunities on the geographic frontier, popula-
tion pressure on the land increased. The draining of youths from farm areas to
serve the swiftly expanding commercial and industrial world eased the pressure
of farm peoples on dwindlng farm opportunity from the turn of the century until
the depression beginning in 1929. But during the 1930's, with millions unem-
ployed in the cities, opportunities for urban employments were inadequate to
relieve the pressure of population in farm areas.
Nearly 400,000 farm males are reaching maturity and only about 110,000
farmers are dying each year. Possibly 110,000 more during the decade of the
thirties retired or left for other occupations. This constitutes a net annual addi-
tion to the "surplus" of males of productive age on farms. Estimates of the
number of men who could be spared from farm work without loss of production
for the market, together with the totally unemployed men on farms, totaled
3,000,000 or more at the beginning of 1940.
Proper utilization of the rural population which was formerly considered "sur-
plus," and which is now badly needed, is one of the key problems in the war
efforts.
D. The agricultural ladder.
The early American ideal was that every farm youth should rise, by successive
steps of economic advancement, up the agricultural ladder, from an unpaid laborer
on the home farm to the status of a paid laborer, thence to that of cropper or
tenant, and eventually to that of owner. At first this process was not difficult
because of the presence of free land in the public domain. But as the country
developed economically and free land disappeared, the movement upward on the
"ladder" appeared to be increasingly difficult so that today we have a large pro-
portion of the farm population working as tenants and laborers. This, of course,
raises the question whether farm laborers should reconcile themselves to remain-
ing without land tenure in agriculture — members of a permanent laboring class —
or whether the obstacles to movement up the ladder should be removed.
It was long customary to regard the farm laborer not as an ordinary hired
worker but as a farmer's apprentice. Often he was a neighbor's son or a thrifty
hard-working immigrant. Farmers complained that as soon as he became really
useful he left for a farm of his own. But in many areas by the 1930's the hired
man who ate at the farmer's table was rapidly being replaced by resident or mi-
grant seasonal workers.
A study of tenancy statistics, however, offers warning against overemphasis
upon movement up the agricultural ladder as having been characteristic of Ameri-
can agriculture -in the past. At no time have all American farmers, or even a
preponderant number of them, climbed the traditional ladder. In fact, of those
who have attained farm ownership, onlv a small percentage have done so by
taking successive steps one after the other up the ladder. Even in 1919, W. J.
Spillman ' found that only 20 percent of the 2,112 midwestern farmers included
in a study made by him took the four steps in the order: Unpaid familv labor,
hired man, tenant, and owner — while 34 percent of the owners had never been
on the hired man or tenant rungs but had passed immediately into ownership
at the time of leaving the home farm.
The Report of the President's Committee on Farm Tenancy 2 stated that
"Two significant generalizations may be drawn from a study regarding the age
1 The Agricultural Ladder, American Economic Review, vol. IX, supplements.
2 75th Cong., 1st sess, II. Doc. 149, Farm Tenancy, Report of the President's Committee on Farm Tenancy
1937, p. 54.
12320 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
of tenants and owners. First, decade by decade, it is becoming increasingly-
difficult for farmers to climb the so-called agricultural ladder onto the ownership
rung. Second, there is developing a permanent tenant class from which relatively
few emerge into ownership." In other words, there appears to have be<m a'
slowing of the movement up the agricultural ladder.
The same report also pointed out that "in recent years movement (on the
agricultural ladder) from rung to rung has been predominantly in the direction
of descent rather than ascent. (There is) an increasing tendency for the rungs
of the ladder to become bars — forcing imprisonmer' in a fixed social status from
which it is increasingly difficult to escape." 3 From 1 926 to 1937 approximately
one-third of all Americans who owned farms slipped down or off the "agricultural
ladder." In 1 year, 1933, over 5 percent of farm owners lost status. In certain
areas, for example, the Mountain and West North Central divisions, almost one-
half of the owners of farm lands dropped down the ladder. Under these circum-
stances it appears that the agricultural laborers do not represent a group of tenants
in the making but rather that tenants are to be regarded as potential wage workers.
E. Industrial employment and farm income.
Aside from long-run factors alreadv referred to, such as increase in farm pop-
ulation, decrease in demand for labor because of mechanization, and influences
affecting adversely the opportunity to rise on the agricultural ladder, the factors
which seem to affect most directly the welfare of the agricultural laborer are, first,
changes in the volume of industrial employment, and second, fluctuations in farm
income.
The tendency for the farm labor supply to move inversely in relation to changes
in factory employment is particularly noticeable in such States as New York and
Illinois. In Ohio, little relationship between movements in the supply of farm
labor and factory employment was discernible prior to 1928; since that date,
however, the correspondence in movements has been very close. In Iowa, which
is not so highly industrialized as the States already mentioned, there appears to
be little relationship between these two factors. In Georgia, as in the South
generally, and in California and Washington, a similarity of trends in the supply
of farm labor and in factory unemployment during the period from 1932 to date
is evident. Thus, there is apparently good ground for believing that changes in
the supply of farm labor are most immediately and directly influenced by fluctua-
tions in nonagricultural employment
It is clear that many factors, such as the volume of farm production, crop
acreages, and mechanization contribute to changes in the demand for farm labor.
Another influence governing the demand for farm labor is the farmer's abi i y
to pay wages. Farm wage rates are, therefore, a function of many variable
factors, including the ability of farm operators to hire, the competition between
industry and agriculture for labor, the available supply of farm laborers, and the
bargaining position of agricultural workers.
III. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACTION
A large number of proposals have been advanced to improve the status and
living and working conditions of farm labor. These proposals have been set
forth at different times by various people to meet different aspects of the problem.
In some part, their feasibility is a matter for legislative decision. But feasible
reforms in behalf of farm labor which do not require legislative enactment are
numerous. A few of the most important are set forth below. It will be seen
that some are of immediate applicability while others must be considered in
terms of long-range planning. They are set forth to indicate possible directions
of endeavor in the field of farm labor reform.
A. Regulation of wages.
1. It has been recommended that the system of wage regulation now in effect
in the growing of sugar beets or cane under the Sugar Act of 1937 be applied to
all crops for which any kind of benefit, payment, or loan of any description is
extended by the Federal Government.
2. Voluntary wage boards: It has also been proposed that recommendations
as to farm wage rates be made by voluntary wage boards. Such recommenda-
tions would not be binding except insofar as they received the support of public
opinion. The wage boards themselves might be public bodies similar to those
3 75th Cong., 1st sess., H. Doc. 149, Farm Tenancy, Report of the President's Committee on Farm
Tenancy, 1937, p. 5.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12321
set up in recent years by the Governor of California for cotton picking and chop-
ping, or, following the pattern of English wage boards, they might consist of
epresentatives of labor and of farmer-employers, as well as of the Government,
r public at large.
g State Minimum Wage Laws. (See p. 163.)
4. Wage Payment and Wage Collection Laws. (See p. 170.)
B. Stabilization of farm employment.
Various proposals have been offered to decasaulize the employment of farm
wage workers:
1. More efficient recruiting and placement of farm workers within an area of
production through the strengthening and extension of the Farm Placement
Service of the United States Employment Service.
2. State and Federal regulation of recruiting and transportation of farm
workers by private individuals, contractors, and employment agencies.
3. Extension of the Farm Security Administration camp program to provide
a physical base for improvement of the farm labor market.
4. Encouragement of the cooperative use of labor pools by local farm operators
both on a seasonal and year-round basis.
C. Legal protection of economic, civil, and political rights.
1. Extension of State and Federal social-security legislation to farm workers-
2. Inclusion of farm labor under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1937 and
under similar State laws.
3. Coverage of farm workers by the National Labor Relations Act and by
similar State laws.
4. Elimination of poll taxes and other voting restrictions.
5. Repeal or invalidation of State laws and regulations which promote or en-
courage the practice of forced labor in agriculture.
6. Extension of safety regulations and State workmen's compensation laws to
farm laborers.
7. Prohibition or regulation under State child labor laws of employment of
children on farms operated by persons other than the parents or guardians of the
children employed.
D. Public assistance programs.
1. Development of large-scale public works programs for rural areas to balance
public works programs in urban areas.
2. Expansion of the food and cotton stamp plan and surplus commodity
distribution.
3. Uniform drafting of relief standards based on minimum standards of sub-
sistence independent of prevailing wage rates, if necessary.
4. Regulation of public assistance in such manner as to interfere as little as
possible with the movement of farm workers between the relief rolls and the
labor market.
5. Establishment of uniform settlement laws requiring a reasonably short
length of residence to establish settlement.
6. Extension of uniform Federal direct relief where adequate relief is not
available in local areas.
E. Special programs for agricultural workers.
1. Expansion of housing programs for farm workers particularly in the form
of camps and labor homes.
2. State regulation of private housing, especially housing maintained by em-
ployers for farm workers.
3. Securing of tenure on the land for selected agricultural workers through
programs similar to the tenant-purchase program under the Bankhead-Jones Act
and through cooperative farming.
4. Expansion of medical and health facilities for farm workers through agri-
cultural workers' health and medical associations, a number of which have
already been set up in several States.
F. Expansion of industrial opportunities in post-war planning.
1. Agricultural representation on industrial-planning boards.
2. Recognition in national planning of the long-time continuing problems
created by constant movement between rural and urban areas as a result of
differences in population growth and economic opportunities.
60396— 42— pt. 32 25
12322 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
3. Development of long-time projects on a public works basis directed toward
better conservation practices, improvement of rural housing, and the like.
4. Assumption by agriculture of responsibility for its technological casualties.
In the present war situation the following proposals seem worthy of immediate
consideration :
1. Regulation of wages in agriculture.
2. Rationalization of employment and strengthening and expansion of the
Farm Placement Service of the United States Employment Service.
3. Extension of the migratory labor-camp program of the Farm Security Ad-
ministration to assist in meeting farm labor-supply problems.
4. Extension of social-security legislation to farm labor.
Part 2
i. a description of farm labor
A. The number and distribution of farm laborers.
Labor power expended on farms is drawn from several sources which include
the farm operator, members of his family, members of neighbor families and hired
outsiders. On a majority of farms in the United States the labor of the farm
family, including that of the operator, suffices.4
During 1939, 63 percent of the farms of the United States hired no labor for
cash wages according to early reports from the 1940 Census of Agriculture. The
1930 census showed that 58 percent of the farms had hired no labor in 1929.
On April 1, 1940, there were 5,204,161 farms (85.4 percent) out of a total of
6,096,799 which had hired no labor for 2 days or more in the previous week. In
January 1935, 85.8 percent of the farms were in this class. These months, of
course, are not representative of the year as a whole. However, the figures indi-
cate the extent to which farmers are dependent upon unpaid family labor for
many farming operations.
During the week of March 24 to 30, 1940, of the entire working force on the
farms of the United States, 35 percent were owner-operators or managers and 22
percent were tenant-operators including croppers. Croppers, considered by them-
selves, made up 5 percent of the farm labor at that time. Unpaid farm family
workers made up 27 percent of the total workers on farms as compared with 16
percent for hired laborers.
1. Trends in employment. — Changes in the volume of total farm employment
are difficult to define.5 From the census data (table 1), it appears that the total
number of persons engaged in agriculture on April 1, 1930, was somewhat greater
than on June 1, 1900, and considerably less than the number thus engaged on
April 15, 1910.
« The following definitions of terms used should be noted: "Total farm employment": Farm operators
plus unpaid farm family members who work on the farm plus hired farm laborers. Farm laborers
Unpaid farm-family members who work on the farm (other than the farm operator) plus hired farm laborers.
"Unpaid family laborers":— members of the farm family, other than the farm operator, who work on the
farm, part-time or full time, without wages. ,.
6 The difficulties lie in interpreting the Census data. The first of these relates to the dates when the cen-
suses were taken, in 1900 on June 1, in 1910 on April 15, in 1920 on January 1, in 1930 on April 1, and in 193.->
in January. It is obvious that a count of farm laborers in January, when agricultural hiring is at the lowest
point of the year, cannot be compared directly with the count secured in April, when employment has greatly
increased. Moreover, neither the January nor the April figure tells much about the number oflaborers al
the peak of the season in June, July, or August. A second difficulty arises from the fact that the methods
of census enumeration differ, even when, as in 1910 and 1930, the census month was the same. Finally,
there is the difficulty of securing proper answers to questions relating to farm labor.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12323
Table 1. — Farm laborers and expenditures for farm wages in the^Uniied^States,
1900-1940*
Number of farms
Gainful workers in agriculture
Percentage as farm laborers
Farm laborers, total 2
Average per farm *...
Wage workers, total 2
Average per farm *
Unpaid family workers,
total2
Average per farm *
Percentage of farms hiring
labor6 —
Cash expenditure for farm
labor «
Average per farm « •_ _
Average per farm hiring * 6.
Census year and date
5, 737, 372
10, 248, 935
43.6
4, 469, 446
0.78
2, 103, 297
0.37
2, 366, 149
0.41
1910, Apr. 15
6. 361, 502
12,388,430
50.1
6. 205, 434
0.97
2. 894, 900
0.45
$521, 729, 941
$82
$179
6, 448, 343
10, 665, 812
4,186,130
0.65
2, 336, 009
0.36
1, 850, 121
0.29
$1,098,712,517
$170
1930, Apr. 1
10, 482, 323
41.7
4, 372, 258
0.70
2. 727, 035
0.43
1. 645, 223
0.26
$955, 420, 313
$152
$363
1940, Mar.
23-302
(196,799
162, 547
40.6
721,977
0.61
358, 454
0.39
363, 523
0.22
'37.1
791,558
$128
$346
' Omitted data not available.
2 Occupational data from 1900-1930 are of principal occupations reported without regard to actual employ-
ment at the date of the Census. Similar data for 1940, were obtainable only by estimates from data taken
on different bases; the Bureau of the Census estimate for such a total of gainful workers in agriculture was
9,162,547, as given.
3 Estimate released by the Bureau of the Census, Mar. 28. 1942. See preceding footnote.
4 All farms.
« Data for numbers of persons were compiled and estimated from various census reports and confidential
preliminary information.
• Within the year preceding that of the Census.
7 In the week of Mar. 23-30, 1940, 14.6 percent of farms hired labor the equivalent of 2 or more days
» Including value of board furnished. Separate data for cash wages are not available.
After careful interpretation of these figures the authors of Trends in Employ-
ment in Agriculture, arrived at the conclusion that between 1909 and 1936 aver-
age total agricultural employment declined 10 percent, or from 12,209,000 to
10,997,000. The bulk of the decline took place in the 3 years prior to 1920 and
was brought about by the wartime demand for labor in other industries. From
1919 to 1926 total agricultural employment increased about 4 percent. Between
1926 and 1934 it declined about 6 percent or 700,000.6
These changes for the country as a whole are reflected in diverse ways in the
several crop-production areas. Total agricultural employment declined more
rapidly from 1909 to 1936 in the eastern dairy, eastern cotton and corn areas,
than in the United States as a whole. In the range and northwestern areas, on
the other hand, throughout the period, total agricultural employment increased,
due to the rapid growth of crop acreage. In other areas, such as the delta and
western dairy areas, between 1909 and 1936 there was little change.7
Farm laborers (family members and hired workers, as distinguished from farm
operators), numbered 4,372,258 according to the Census on April 1, 1930. This
was slightly below the 1900 figure, almost 2 million less than that of April 15, 1910,
but somewhat above the January 1920 figure.
It is generally agreed, however, that the figure for 1910 is misleading. On the
basis of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics8 figures, which are adjusted
averages for the year, the number of farm laborers dropped from 5,998,000 in
1910, when they formed 49 percent of the total farm labor force, to 5,131,000 in
1920; there was a further decrease in 1930 (to 4,943,000), and in 1935 (to 4,607,000).
In the last-named year they formed 41 percent of the total farm employment.
But the difficulties in interpreting the Census data are such that it is by no means
certain that in 1930 there were fewer hired and unpaid family laborers than in
1910 or that this group made up a smaller proportion of the entire farm labor
force.
• Shaw, Eldon E., and Hopkins, John A., Trends in Employment in Agriculture, 1909-36, Works Progress
Administration, National Research Project, Report A-8, Philadelphia, Pa,, November 193S p 11
7 rbid., p. 79.
8 U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Agricultural Economics.
12324 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Prof. John D. Black, in one attack upon the problem, ignores the figures for the
Nation as a whole, and, after examining varying tendencies in different States,
says that:
"A reasonable conclusion from this analysis of the farm tenure structure (en
bloc) is that piling up at the foot of the tenure ladder — increase in the propor-
tion of farm workers not ready or able to become tenants — has probably been as
significant a development as increase in the proportion at the tenancy level. This
is not surprising, but it is not generally realized. It is mainly a phenomenon
associated with the general intensification of our agriculture, as cultivated row
crops have increasingly taken the place of sown crops, livestock farming, grain
farming, dairy and poultry farming of hog and beef-cattle farming, and fruit and
truck crops of field crops. Increasing use of power machinery has offset this
trend in many sections since 1910, and may do so increasingly henceforth. But
in other sections the need for hand labor will be dominant. In the South the
cropper system has for the most part kept down the fraction technically reported
as laborers by the Census; but the proportion of tenants has increased more than
enough to compensate for this."9
This "damming up" of farm laborers on farms undoubtedly means that hired
farm work is becoming a permanent, rather than a transitional, occupation for an
increasing number of farm people. Among these hired farm workers are pro-
portionately fewer tramps, hoboes, "bindlestiffs," and drifters — who figured so
largely in accounts of farm labor two decades ago. On the other hand there are
proportionately more of those who may be regarded as normal farm people, many
of them young persons.
Part of the difficulty appears to lie in the lessened likelihood of farm laborers
rising up the "agricultural ladder" to farm tenancy and ownership. Moreover,
in the past, opportunities for employment in industry have been lacking.
The next question is whether hired farm laborers, as compared with unpaid
family laborers, form an increasing, decreasing, or stationary proportion of the
total farm labor force. This question, also, is extremely difficult to answer.
Only since 1910 has the Census differentiated between hired and unpaid family
laborers. In 1910 hired laborers and family laborers appear to have formed
■ nearly equal proportions (23 and 26 percent, respectively) of the total working
labor force on the farms of the country. Between 1910 and 1920 the proportion
of family laborers among the total farm workers diminished to about 20 percent
and remained at that level until 1935. The hired laborers, on the other hand,
increased to 25 percent in 1920 and 26 percent in 1930, but under the influence
of the depression dropped to 22 percent in 1935. 10 The proportion of family
workers is especiallv high in the Southern States. (See table 2.)
In 1930 hired workers formed a particularly large proportion of the total farm
labor force in California (56.4 percent), Nevada (52.9 percent), Arizona (53.0
percent), Florida (46.6 percent), Maryland (44.9 percent) New Jersey (53.3
percent), Massachusetts (54.2 percent), Rhode Island (59.6 percent), and Con-
necticut (53.0 percent) » (See also table 2.)
According to estimates of trends of employment made from data of the Bureau
of Agricultural Economics, the annual average number of hired workers em-
ployed on farms on the first of each month have declined from 2,868,000 in 1909
to 2,566,000 in 1940 and to 2,532,000 in 1941. But this decline did not occur
uniformly throughout the period. Between 1909 and 1916 employment of hired
laborers increased, and after a setback ending with 1919, rose to its peak in 1926,
and remained at a high level until 1929. Between 1929 and 1934 the annual
average numbers of hired workers employed on the first of each month decreased
21 percent, after which there was a slight recovery until 1937 when a decline
again occurred.12 (See table 3.)12
• Black, John D., and Allen, R. H., The Growth of Farm Tenancy in the United States, Quarterly Journal
of Economics, May 1037, pp. 406-407.
io Shaw and Hopkins, op. cit. _ . _ '
ii Fifteenth Census of the United States 1930, Population, vol. IV, Occupations by States.
12 Census data on Wages paid to farm laborers ought to offer some check on the comparative number of
hired farm laborers in the various census years. On this point see "Research in Farm Labor, John D.
Blacfc, editor: Social Science Research Council, Bulletin No. 16, page 1 : "If we may assume that the enumer-
ators wen> equallv negligent in collecting data upon wages in all four of these census years, these data indi-
cate more labor h'iivd for wages in 1930 than in the two preceding Census years, and perhaps as much as in
1900. In view of the fact that the 1900 Census was more complete than that of 1910, and probably than
any census since, we mav be safe in saying that more labor was paid wages in 1930 than in any preceding
census years— certainly more per farm hiring labor. This is contrary to popular impressions, but seems
to be supported by other evidence. . „„„k„ki„
"However, some important qualifying statements are needed. As the yeers have gone by probably
more fanners' sons have received wages for work done at home. The decline in size of farm families should
also have reduced the amount of unpaid family labor available; likewise the increase in time spent in school.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12325
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NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12327
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HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Table 3.
-Agricultural employment in the United States, 1909-40— Annual average
of number of persons employed on first of each month
Total employment
Average
number
(thousands)
Index
(1'.I21-2'J
= 100)
Family workers '
Average
number
(thousands)
Index
(1924-29
= 100)
Average
number
(thousands)
Hired workers
Index
(1924-29
= 100)
1910.
1911-
1912.
1913_
1914-
1915.
1916.
1917.
1918-
1919-
1920-
1921-
1922.
1923.
1924-
1925-
1931.
1932.
1933.
1934.
1935.
9,172
9,149
9,047
9, 050
8,856
8,507
8,322
8,479
8,511
8,528
8,491
8,488
8,577
8,507
8,296
8,340
8, 305
8,323
8,469
8,571
8,590
8, 506
8,702
8,486
8,261
8, 176
8, 145
8,019
2, m;s
2,877
2,870
2,889
2,905
2,919
2,934
2,966
2,933
2,841
2,784
2,8S3
2,901
2,915
2,894
2,874
2,869
3,027
2,950
2,956
2,988
2,850
2,690
2,498
2,433
2,346
2,429
2,561
2,631
2,620
2,595
2,566
i Includes farm operators as well as unpaid members of the farm family who work on the farm.
Source: Bureau of Agricultural Economics, U. S. Department of Agriculture.
Although the Bureau of the Census classifies sharecroppers as tenants, theii
economic and social status is in important respects more like that of hired laborers
than that of tenants.13 Under the law in some southern States, for instance
Arkansas, South Carolina and Georgia, the cropper is declared to be a wage
laborer, paid for his labor by a share of the crop.14
The total number of sharecroppers in 1930 was 776,278; in the Agriculture.
Census of 1935, the number fell to 716,256; and in 1940 declined still further tc
541,291. In 1920 croppers constituted 5 percent of the total farm labor force
in 1930, 7 percent; in 1935, 6 percent; and in 1940, 6 percent. As further tech-
nological improvements are made, their numbers are likely to decline still further
Croppers are proportionately less numerous in Texas and Oklahoma than ir
the Delta and Eastern Cotton areas (table 4).
2. Geographic distribution. — The numerical distribution of hired farm laborers
among the several geographic divisions, crop areas, and States is uneven (figun
I). Heavy concentrations appear in several parts of California, in the Sail
River district of Arizona, in the Rio Grande, Corpus Christi, and Black Prairu
districts of Texas, in the sugar-cane district of Louisiana, in the Mississippi anc
Arkansas Delta cotton areas, and in scattered fruit and truck crop districts ir
Florida and along the Atlantic Coast.
If sharecroppers had been included, the cotton-producing States would show t
much heavier concentration of hired labor than appears in figure I.
As regards crop areas, wage laborers are especially numerous, compared witl
family laborers, in the range area and the eastern dairy area (table 5). Hirec
workers are least important in the cotton and tobacco districts of the Middk-
East; in the three cotton areas, where sharecroppers are numerous; and in th<
i? See further discussion on p. 45. . _, . .. „ ,, T „_ <
u Book, A. B., A Note on the Legal Status of Share Tenants and Sharecroppers in the South, Law i
Contemporary Problems, October 1937, p. 545.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12329
small grain area. Certain fruit and specialty-crop States (e. g., California)
have higher percentages of hired farm workers, compared with family workers,
than any of the major farming areas as such (table 6).
It may be noted that the percentage of hired farm workers decreased from
1909 to 1936 in all areas except in the western dairy area where it remained
little changed, and in the eastern and western cotton areas where it increased.
Although in the month of January 1935, 85.8 percent of the farms of the United
States hired no workers, there was a relatively small number of farms on which
workers were hired in large numbers (tables 7 and 8). At that time, 5,844,756
farms hired no laborers, and 967,594 each hired one or more. While 722,645
hired only one laborer, 11,410 (two-tenths of 1 percent) hired 10 or more laborers;
their employees, 244,132 in number, made up 15 percent of the total hired farm
laborers in the country. Farms which hired 10 or more laborers per farm were
for the most part in the South Atlantic, West South Central, and Pacific States.
It is on these farms that labor problems are most likely to arise, by contrast
with the small or medium-sized farm, on which the 'hired man and a seasonal
laborer or two work in close cooperation with the farm operator.
Table 4. — Sharecroppers in the United States, 1930 and 1940 1
State and region
1930,
number
Percent-
age of
total farm
operators
1940,
number
Percent-
age of
total farm
operators
Change,
1930-40
Number
Percent
225
1,646
17, 253
1,834
69, 091
48, 939
100, 854
4,816
2.3
3.8
10.1
2.2
24.7
31.0
39.4
8.2
225
1,644
16, 238
1, 123
60, 300
33, 474
60, 934
3,407
2.5
3.9
9.3
1.1
21.7
24.3
28.2
5.4
0
-2
-1,015
-711
-8, 791
-15,465
-39, 920
-1,409
0
-5.9
-38.8
-12.7
-31.6
-39.6
Florida
-29.3
South Atlantic
244, 658
21.1
177, 345
17.4
-67,313
-27.5
30, 250
50, 304
65, 134
135, 293
12.3
20.5
25.3
43.3
23, 533
41, 490
41,370
125, 483
9.3
16.8
17.9
43.1
-6,717
-8,814
-23, 764
-9, 810
-22.2
-17.5
—36.5
East South Central
280, 981
26.5
231, 876
22.7
-49, 105
-17.5
Arkansas
75, 034
49, 428
21, 055
108, 122
31.0
30.6
10.3
21.2
47, 666
39, 631
4,952
39, 821
22.0
26.4
2.8
9.5
-27,368
-9, 797
-16,103
-65, 301
-36.5
-19.8
-76.5
Texas
-62.1
250, 639
22.7
132, 070
13.7
-118,569
-47.3
776, 278
12.3
541, 291
8.9
-234, 987
1 Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, Agriculture. United States summary, preliminary release
U. S.-2, Mar. 18, 1941.
12330
HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
WAGE LABORERS WORKING ON FARMS THE EQUIVALENT
OF 2 OR MORE DAYS IN THE FIRSTWEEK
OF JANUARY 1935
RSSQb^
A^
Each dot represents
100 laborers
U. S DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
BUREAU OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS
Figure 1
Table 5. — Estimated total farm labor force in principal farming areas l of the
United Slates in 1936 2
Total
(thou-
sands)
Family workers 3
Hired workers
Area
Number
(thou-
sands)
Percent
of total
in area
Number
(thou-
sands)
Percent
of total
in area
Percent
of total
hired in
area
Total
11,047
8,486
77
2,561
23
100.0
1,239
738
920
1,910
1,391
1,340
1,167
745
309
297
991
950
500
712
1,573
1,083
1,090
915
609
195
211
648
77
77
82
78
81
78
82
63
71
65
289
238
208
337
308
250
252
136
114
86
343
23
32
23
18
22
19
22
18
37
29
35
11.3
9.3
8.1
13.2
12.0
9.8
9.8
5.3
4.4
3.4
13.4
i The States in the specified areas are as follows:
Corn area: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio.
Eastern dairy area: Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Ver-
mont.
Western dairy area: Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin.
Middle eastern area: Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia.
Eastern cotton area: Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina.
Delta cotton area: Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi.
Western cotton area: Oklahoma, Texas.
Small grain area: Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota.
Range area: Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming.
Northwestern area: Idaho, Oregon, Washington.
Miscellaneous: California, Missouri, Florida, Delaware, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Maine.
* Unpublished data of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics.
' Includes the farm operator as well as the unpaid members of his family who work on the farm.
Of the 1,645,602 hired farm workers reported as working the equivalent of 2 or
more days during the first week of January 1935, 722,645 were on farms on which
only 1 worker was hired, 130,410 were on farms on which 3 workers were hired,
30,672 were on farms hiring 8 workers each, and 244,132 were on large-scale farms
hiring 10 or more each. Of the last total, 58,116 were in the South Atlantic States,
66,448 in the West South Central States, and 50c893 in the Pacific States. Four
States had half of the total— Florida with 25,609; Louisiana, 25,503; Texas,
26,641: and California, 47,737.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12331
Table 6. — Hired farm workers as percentages of total agricultural workers,1 by area
1909-36 2
nnu
1911.
1912
L913
1914
1915
191(3
1917
1918
1919
1920
1921
1<»22
192:;
1921
1925
1921.
1927
1928
1929
1939
1931
19:52
1933
1934
1935
1930
§s
fll
Farm operators included.
Data derived from Trends in Employment in Agriculture, 1909-36, op. cit., table 25, p. 78.
It should be noted that when this census was taken, employment in most
areas was at its minimum. In August 1935 it was estimated that there were
487,951 wage laborers on 20,437 farms hiring 10 or more; while on 186,837 farms
hiring 3 or more, the number of laborers was estimated at 1,191,624. The total
number of hired laborers on farms is estimated to have increased from 1,645,602
in January, to 2,752, 883 in August of that year.15
The employment data from the census of January 1935, analyzed in relation to
the principal crop areas, shows that in the cotton districts a high percentage of
hired labor works on farms hiring four or more, and also on those hiring eight
or more (table 9). This reflects the existence of the plantation system.
In the range area a relatively high proportion of hired labor works on the
larger farms. The same was true of the "miscellaneous" group of States, which
included California and Florida. Relatively few farms in the western dairy,
corn, and small grain aieas hired 10 or more laborers.
The geographic distribution of farms hiring 10 .or more workers in January
1935, is similar to that of so-called large-scale farms.16 Prominent among them
are truck and fruit farms, cotton plantations, crop-specialty farms (such as those
specializing in sugarcane, sugar beets, beans, tobacco, potatoes, and hay), eastern
dairy farms, and stock ranches (table 10 and fig. II). A similar map for summer
probably would show twice as many farms hiring 10 or more workers. The
2,727,000 hired laborers scattered about on the farms of America, at the time
of the census of April 1930, were of diverse types and characteristics.
i» Wendzel, Julius T., Distribution of Agricultural Employment, the Agricultural Situation, vol. 22,
No. 2, February 1, 1938, p. 15.
18 For information concerning large-scale farms, which are likely to employ labor in considerable numbers,
see Jennings, R. D., Large Scale Farming in the United States, 1929. U. S. Department of Commerce,
Bureau of the Census; and Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, Washington, 1933.
A farm, with certain exceptions, was considered large-scale if the value of its products amounted in 1929
to $30,000 or more. Such farms were found to be widelv distributed.
Tt should be noted that owing to the census definition of a farm as an "operating unit," the combined
old" South, or those of a multi-unit organization of "chain" farms or "managed" farms were not included
in the Jennings study. Thus, the combined operations of some of the large fruit, truck, cotton-growing, and
livestock production companies were excluded save as a part or all of their operating units may have been
included as large-scale farms.
The average amount spent for hired labor on the large-scale farms was $13,385 as compared with an average
of only $363 by all farms reporting hired labor in the United States in 1929.
12332
HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
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NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
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12336
HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Table 9. — Distribution of hired farm laborers in principal farming areas by number
of laborers employed per farm, January 1935 '
Number
of farms
reporting
no hire:!
laborers
Number
of farms
reporting
hired
laborers
Total num-
ber of
hired
laborers
Percentage of hired
laborers on farms
reporting
4 or more
8 or more
Number
5, 844, 756
Number
967, 594
Number
1, 645; 602
Percent
31.4
Percent
17.6
Corn
767, 108
367, 327
492, 906
1,055,043
593, 761
685,615
626. 421
465. 681
149, 716
169.612
473, 536
142, 171
112,989
106, 790
144, 885
95, 742
51, 297
87, 921
60. 997
25, 969
24, 708
114, 125
181,433
171,347
130, 389
226. 304
192. 760
131,932
163. 036
81, 561
61. 806
41.667
263, 457
11.9
22.1
8.0
23.1
40.9
54.5
36.1
14.1
50.3
28.9
49.7
5.3
10.7
3.0
8.3
19.2
37.4
20.0
4.9
33.9
12.3
34.0
i Data are derived from Distribution of Hired Farm Laborers in the United States, by Julius T. Wendzel,
Monthly Labor Review, vol. 45, No. 3, September 1937, pp. 561-568. The information was derived from the.
special agricultural census of 1935. Employment during most of the year is normally larger than in January.
Table 10. — Percentage distribution of hired farm laborers in the United Stales by
geographic divisions, and by age, 1930
Laborers in specified age groups: Percent of total in division
Total
Geographic division
65
10-14
15-17
18-19
20-24
25-29
30-39
40-49
50-59
60-64
years
Age un-
ers
years
years
years
years
years
years
years
years
years
or
known
more
Pet.
Pet.
Pet.
Pet.
Pet.
Pet.
Pet.
Pet.
Pet.
Pet.
Pet.
Pet.
0.3
6.2
7.1
16.1
11.2
16.6
15.3
13.6
5.6
7.9
0.1
3.5
Middle Atlantic
• .4
6.4
7.9
16.3
11.0
16.5
14.8
13.0
5.5
8.1
8.2
East North Central
.3
6.1
9.8
22.0
13.1
16.0
12.0
10.3
4.2
6.1
15.1
West North Central
.5
6.2
10.6
27.4
15.4
15.8
10.2
7.6
2.7
3.5
15.2
South Atlantic
2.9
9.2
10.6
22.0
12.4
15.6
11.2
8.8
3.0
4.2
18.7
East South Central
2.5
8.9
11.0
23.7
12.9
14.8
10.1
8.5
3.0
4.5
9.9
West South Central
2.0
7.9
10.9
24.0
13.8
16.0
11.2
7.9
2.7
3.5
14.5
Mountain
.7
5.5
8.7
21.6
14.2
18.4
14.1
9.3
3.3
4.1
5.7
Pacific
.2
3.0
6.0
16.7
13.5
19.6
17.6
13.1
4.4
5.8
9.2
United States
1.3
6.9
9.7
22.1
13.3
16.3
12.3
9.6
3.5
4.9
.1
100.0
Source: Unpublished information furnisned by the Bureau of the Census.
B. Characteristics.
1. Racial and national origins. — With respect to race of the farm wage workers
in 1930, 66.7 percent were native whites, 19.7 percent were Negroes, and 6.8
percent were foreign-born whites, as .compared with percentages of 62.7, 34.5,
and 0.8, respectively, among unpaid family workers (table 11).
This predominantly native-born character of the hired farm workers contradicts
a popular impression. In surveys made by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics
in 1936, in 11 counties in as many States, nearly two-thirds of the 3,879 hired
laborers interviewed reported they were born in the State in which they were
found working. In some areas where people of foreign birth have settled in
large numbers, they retain the languages and customs of their old homes to such
an extent that their American-born children are often mistaken for aliens. This,
for example, is true of the Mexicans in the Southwest. It needs to be emphasized
that the hired farm laborers of the United States are now almost exclusively
native-born Americans. The foreign-born, largely Orientals and Mexicans,
are concentrated in California and the Southwest.
2. Age and sex groups. — Most farm laborers are men. Only 171,000, or 6
percent of the 1930 total, were women. The larger part of these were Negroes
in the South.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12337
As regards the age of hired farm workers, in 1930 about 18 percent of them were
under 20 years, as compared with over 60 percent of the unpaid family workers.
About half of the hired workers were more than 30 years of age. Concerning
child labor in agriculture, very little appears in the census data on the hired labor-
ers, probably because it was not reported. In New England, the Middle Atlantic,
States, and on the Pacific coast, a larger proportion of the hired workers than
elsewhere were in the upper age groups (table 10).
3. Dependents. — Other information with respect to the personal characteristics
of hired farm laborers is derived from a few special studies in widely scattered
areas, such as those carried on by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics in 1936.
Data were secured from one county in each of 1 1 States. About half of the hired
farm laborers were married.
A«
FARMS HIRING 10 OR MORE LABORERS FOR THE EQUIVALENT
OF 2 OR MORE DAYS DURING THE FIRST WEEK
OF JANUARY 1935
OF AGRICULT
BUREAU OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS
Figure 2
Table 11. — Percentage distribution of all farm laborers in the United States by
wage, classes, race, and age, 1930
Laborers in specified age groups: Percentage of total in class
"3.2
O K>
g
1
°S
Class and race of laborers
o3
03
>>
03
>>
C3
>>
to
>>
c3
03
09
>>
>>
11
1
«?£
CO
a>
O
cs
S
s
£
4-
£
OO
s
&
°
s
1
CO
6J0
<
P-,
Unpaid family workers:
Native white
Pet.
Pet.
Pet.
Pet.
Pet.
Pet.
Pet.
Pet.
Pet.
Pet.
Pet.
Pet.
Pet.
9 0
12 1
22 9
19.1
21.2
6.2
5.0
2.1
1.1
0.4
0.9
(')
23.7
Foreign-born white
.2
1.6
8.5
10.6
19.4
9.7
11.1
10. 5
9.2
5.0
14.2
(')
.3
Negro
15.7
14.9
17.9
13.4
15.1
6.1
7.5
5.2
2.7
.7
.8
(')
13.1
Other races
11.9
11.6
IS. 1
1 5. 5
22. 9
8,4
6.3
2.4
1.4
.6
1.0
(')
.7
Wage workers:
Native white
4
1.4
6.1
10. H
24.6
13.8
15.7
10.7
8.6
3.2
4.6
0.1
41.5
Foreign-born white .
(0
.1
.8
1.9
8.0
9.3
18.3
22.9
19.2
8.1
11.3
. 1
4.2
Negro
1.9
3.6
7.1
9.7
19.7
11.7
15.8
12.6
9.7
3.4
4.7
. 1
12.3
Other races
1.0
1.6
4.0
6 9
18.8
15.9
21 . 2
16.2
9.2
2.5
2.6
. 1
4.2
All classes
4.7
6.0
11.5
12.4
21.0
10.6
12.4
8.9
6.6
2.4
3.4
.1
100.0
i Less than Mo of 1 percent.
Source: Unpublished information furnished by tbe Bureau of the Census.
60396— 42— pt. 32 26
12338 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Nearly half of the laborers had dependents, consisting most often of a wife
only; nearly as frequently there were also one or two children.
4. Place of residence. — The question of the previous experience and environ-
ment of farm workers is important. Are they country folk or do they come from
the towns and cities? Have they worked at other occupations? On these mat-
ters information is very inadequate. Of a total of 620 farm wage workers in
17 counties in Texas, according to information secured from the Farm Security
Administration, in the summer of 1938, one-third were from the open country,
one-fourth were living in villages of less than 2,500 population, one-third were
from cities having between 2,500 and 25,000 inhabitants, and the rest were from
larger cities.
Of 1,237 transient harvest workers interviewed in North Dakota in the summer
of 1938, 37 percent had their permanent homes on farms. Almost 20 percent
gave addresses in villages of less than 2,500 population, while 43 percent were
from larger places.
5. Previous work experience and occupational training. — In the same State, at
the same time, 3,297 farm workers told of their previous employment and trade
experience. Of this number 612 were nonfarm persons of local origin working in
the harvest, 868 were farm family workers, and 1,405 were transients. Six per-
cent of the farm family workers stated that they had learned a skilled trade, as
did 18 percent of the local harvest workers, and 30.5 percent of the transients.
Among the total of 641 workers who had learned a skilled trade, over half claimed
experience as mechanics and artisans. The next highest occupation was "trans-
portation and communications," which accounted for 12.3 percent. This was
followed by the retail "trade group" with 11.5 percent. Nine other occupations
had scattered representation.
Sixty-three percent of 3,285 workers of all types stated that their usual work
was in agriculture; similarly some 69 percent of the local harvest workers, and 57
percent of the transients. However, it is significant that some 64 percent of the
transients held social-security cards, showing they had worked in some nonagri-
cultural employment covered by the Social Security Act.17 This was true also
of about 40 percent of the local harvest workers, 12 percent of the male workers
hired for the season or year, and 12 percent of the unpaid male farm family workers.
6. Previous farm tenure status. — What proportion of the hired laborers has had
previous farm experience as owners, tenants, or sharecroppers? Of the 2,315
farm laborers interviewed in 10 counties in as many States by Bureau of Agri-
cultural Economics investigators in 1936, 63 percent had no experience in a higher
tenure status, about 6 percent had been owners, 10 percent had been tenants,
and 25 percent had been sharecroppers. Among 1,630 hired workers on New
Jersey farms that same year, about 92 percent had had no other tenure experience,
4 percent had been owners, 4 percent had been tenants, and less than 1 percent
had been croppers. Fourteen percent of 620 agricultural workers interviewed in
17 counties in Texas in 1938, according to the Farm Security Administration, had
been farm operators at some time subsequent to 1929.
In general, it appears from these scattered studies that in all areas the majority
of farm laborers have had no experience in a higher tenure status on the farm, but
in some areas, especially in the South, there is a significant proportion of farm
workers who have fallen from a higher rung of the ladder of farm tenure.
7. Classes of hired farm laborers. — Of much significance are the farm worker
classifications according to duration of employment and type of relationship with
the farm operators. Unfortunately, in these conditions, no census data are
available.
All too often, in agricultural circles, farm labor is dismissed with casual reference
to the "typical hired man" on the family-size farm, as though the importance of
all other forms of farm labor were negligible. On the other hand, in nonagricul-
tural circles it is all too commonly assumed that only migratory farm laborers
have problems worthy of attention. Both assumptions are faulty. Although in
many areas the status of the migratory farm laborer is unsatisfactory in the
extreme, and requires all the attention that it can get, so too do the following
problems: The plight of local residents who are deprived of seasonal jobs because
of the farmer's use of migratory workers; the changing status of the "hired man"
in the Middle West; the difficulties of the southern sharecropper and the southern
i? It was not customary in North Dakota for the employment service to request agricultural registrants
to obtain social-security cards.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12339
wage hand; and the position of the contract laborer on sugar beets from Michigan
to California.
Differences in economic and social problems and status suggest the following
system of classifying hired farm laborers:
1. The "hired man" who lives on the farm.
2. The regularly employed farm hand who lives off the farm.
3. The seasonally employed farm hand who is a local resident.
4. The seasonally employed farm hand who is not a local resident but who is
not "migratory".
5. The migratory seasonal farm laborer.
6. The "contract" laborer of the sugar beet areas.
A separate class also might be included for seasonal gang labor because this
system of employment gives rise to problems different from those of other seasonal
labor.
Some would add a class for sharecroppers, in view of the many similarities
between their economic status and that of hired labor. Save for the sharecrop-
pers, who are largely concentrated in the South, no adequate information is
available as to the numbers of persons in each of these various classes of farm
laborers.
In 1935, 716,000 sharecroppers were reported, and 541,000 in 1940. It is
commonly assumed that most of the 1,645,602 wage workers reported working on
farms for a period of 2 or more days during the first week in January 1935, were
fairly regularly employed workers, since otherwise they would not have been at
work at that time of least employment. It is not known how many of these were
"typical hired hands," regularly employed dairy workers, local residents fairly
regularly engaged on nearby farms, and the like. In August 1935, according to
an estimate, in addition to the 1,645,602 wage workers referred to above, some
1,107,281 other hired hands were at work on the farms of the United States. Most
of these would undoubtedly be classed as "seasonal", but no one can say with
certainty how many were migratory workers or local residents or wage hands
resident on or near farms.
C. Women and child workers.
The center of interest in this discussion of labor on the farm is the hired workers,
as distinct from the unpaid working members of the farm operator's family.
Accordingly, we are at a disadvantage in treating the labor of women and children
on the farm, since by far the larger number of them are members of the farm oper-
ator's family. The number of hired child and female workers, however, is un-
doubtedly in excess of the figures reported in the census. This is the case, first,
because the occupational census of 1930 was taken on April 1, at a time when
relatively few workers of these classes are employed. In the second place, the
census did not enumerate the occupations of persons under 10 years of age, al-
though it is known that younger children do considerable work on farms. And
finally, the hired employment of women and children on farms is likely to be ob-
scured by the fact that they are frequently members of the family of a hired male
laborer, who alone is reported in the census since he receives the wages earned by
all members of the group.
1. Women in farm work. — Successive censuses have reported a gradual decline
in the number of women in agricultural occupations. On April 1, 1930, a total of
909.939 women were thus occupied, making up about one-twelfth of all persons
engaged in agriculture (table 12). 18 The majority of women farm laborers are
native-born; and of these, two-thirds are Negroes. Because of the immigration
restrictions of the last 25 years, foreign-born women are now rare among farm
workers except in the case of such groups as the Mexicans in sugar-beet areas, and
the Italians in some Atlantic coast truck" farming sections. Women make up a
considerable proportion of the migratory labor which follows the truck and fruit
crop harvests and picks cotton in Texas, Arizona, and California.
The work done by women farm workers is varied. Usually it does not include
much heavy and prolonged physical labor. Much of their activity consists of
weeding, hoeing, and picking truck crops and small fruhs, also cutting, grading,
and packing for shipment to market. In the sugar-beet areas, particularly east
of the Rocky Mountains, women take part in all hand operations. In cotton
areas they chop and pick; in tobacco areas they hoe, top, and sucker.
18 TJ. S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930,
Population, vol. V, General Report on Occupations, p. 76.
12340 HUNTS VILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Table 12. — Women engaged in agriculture, Apr. 1, 19S0
Total 2
Farm laborers
Geographic division
Unpaid
family
workers
Wage
workers
Number
6,281
16, 301
37, 946
44, 761
289, 344
293, 133
188, 817
13, 896
19, 460
Number
772
2,148
4,958
8,571
153, 195
194, 307
106, 594
2,827
1,636
Number
1,185
3,227
4,446
West North Central
5,033
78, 906
35, 056
35, 152
3,163
5,145
909, 939
475, 008
171, 323
i U S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930,
Population, vol. IV, Occupations by States, compiled from State tables 4.
2 Includes farm operators, managers, and foreman, r- ™
well as farm laborers.
Little information is available concerning the wages of women farm laborers
in this country. At piece-work rates on tasks requiring quickness and skill rather
than strength, as in truck crop or small-fruit picking, women are usually able to
earn as much as men in the same working time. Their efficiency, in heavier
tasks, as compared with that of men, is difficult to measure. In cotton areas a
woman is apt to be called a three-quarter hand or half-hand, indicating roughly
her comparative capacity.
Living conditions for female laborers who engage in seasonal farm work away
from their regular homes are likely to be unsatisfactory. Farm employers usually
provide only the minimum of housing and housekeeping facilities, if any. Quar-
ters are frequently only makeshift, such as old buildings temporarily cleared of
farm equipment and never intended for human dwellings.19
Little attention has been paid to the effect of living and working conditions
upon the health of women farm laborers in the United States, or to the indirect
effect upon their families. It is evident that one effect must be the enforced
slighting of home work and attention to children.20 Fatigue and lack of time
prevent giving proper attention for food preparation, care of children, and of
dwelling. Pressure for time frequently necessitates serving of foods easiest to
prepare but not conducive to family health. Children are often left to the care
of others slightly older or are taken to the fields.
2. Child labor on farms: Extent.— Agriculture, even in its inactive season, is
the Nation's principal employer of child labor, according to the census. How
much larger an employer it is in rush seasons can only be surmised. In some
areas it has been known that two or three times as many child laborers have
been at work on farms as were reported by the census.21 The 1930 census of
occupations reported that 70 percent of employed children between 10 and 16
years old were engaged in agriculture.
In April 1930, 469,497 young people 10 to 15 years of age were reported by
that census to be gainfully employed as farm laborers (table 13). Nearly half
of these child wage workers and 54.6 percent of the unpaid family workers were
whites. In each class, nearly 4 out of 9 were Negroes.22
Causes: Any discussion of child labor in agriculture must, of course, distin-
guish on the one hand between (1) the performance of chores on the home farm,
ordinarily a beneficial process, or (2) the employment of boys and girls, properly
safeguarded, during periods that do not conflict with schooling, at tasks which
do not tax their strength; and (3) on the other hand, the sort of child labor which
19 The President's Conference on Home Building and Home Ownership (Washington, D. C, 1932),
^Vt^Z^^V'c^Ln's Bureau, Child Labor and the Work of Mothers on Norfolk
^IZ^Z^Sofcmd SSrlfdi&rSi Resea2r4chPR2Pports, vol. 1, No. 20, May 26, 1937, p.
22 Compiled from unpublished data furnished by the Bureau of the Census.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12341
is physically or educationally harmful. Even on the home farm, unfortunately,
economic circumstances are frequently such as to force the owners', tenants', or
croppers' children to work longer and harder than is good for them, or than is
good in the long run for the community.
The children of the wage laborer in agriculture are peculiarly subject to the
economic ills which beset the lives of their parents. These children frequently
start work at an age lower than would be permitted in industry; they work
under conditions that are not regulated, for unlimited hours; their education is
neglected; and their earnings, though necessary to the family budget, are meager.
For single men working steadily at farm labor the wages are, at best, none too
high; for married men earnings are usually so low that additional income from
other members of the family is indispensable. When wages are cut or unem-
ployment occurs, the situation becomes worse. Consequently, farm laborers by
the thousands are forced to work their wives and children, with little regard to
the ultimate consequences.
The farm work which children do is varied and extensive.23 Much of it is
"stoop" work — tasks like weeding, picking strawberries, truck crops, and prunes.
The sugar-beet crop has always been a large user of child labor. Children chop
cotton and pick it wherever it is grown. Tobacco production involves a series
of operations often performed by children — transplanting, hoeing, topping, suck-
ering, worming, and harvesting. Truck farm work done by children includes
transplanting, thinning, hoeing, weeding, harvesting; and harvesting may mean
cutting, pulling, or picking followed by trimming, washing, grading, bunching,
and packing. The variety of truck crops and operations is large. Fruit work
done by children is largely confined to the picking of small fruits.
Table 13.— Child laborers in agriculture, Apr. 1, 1930
UNPAID FAMILY WORKERS
Number of
farm work-
ers—all
ages
Child workers
Geographic division
Number
Percent of all
workers
10 to 13
years
14 to 15
years
10 to 13
years
14 to 15
years
Number
10, 102
33,017
117,435
176, 271
452, 571
481,511
340, 304
32, 601
Number
226
429
1,663
4,058
58, 219
77, 548
42, 997
1,734
305
Number
879
2,680
8,297
13, 987
68, 718
72, 077
44, 786
2, 952
789
Percent
2.2
1.3
1.4
2.3
12.9
16.1
12.6
5.3
1.9
Percent
8.7
Middle Atlantic
East North Central
7.1
7.9
15.2
15.0
13.2
West North Central
East South Central
West South Central
Pacific
4.9
1, 659, 792
187, 179
215, 165
11.3
13.0
WAGE WORKERS
96, 086
223, 201
412, 087
414,478
511,219
272, 426
395, 821
156,391
251, 263
277
426
739
7,885
3, 858
4,397
551
193
1,111
2,358
3,618
4,729
17, 173
7,499
1^700
0.1
.1
.1
. 2
1.6
1.4
1.1
.4
.1
1.2
East North Central
.9
1.1
3.4
2.8
2.4
West North Central __
East South Central
West South Central
.4
2, 732, 972
18, 384
48, 769
.7
1.8
Compiled from unpublished data furnished by the Bureau of the Census.
f White House Conference on Child Health and Protection, sec. Ill, Education and Training, Com-
mittee D, Vocational Guidance and Child Labor, Report of the Subcommittee on Child Labor, Child
Labor, Century Co., New York, N. Y., 1932, pp. 219-261.
12342 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
The South is the area in which child labor, both hired and family labor, is most
common, particularly the East South Central and South Atlantic States, with
their truck and berry crops, cotton, and tobacco. Fourteen States, all of them
Southern except Missouri, employ practically nine-tenths of the total child
workers of the ages 10 to 15 (wage workers plus unpaid family workers).24
There is close relationship between the proportion of child workers in agricul-
ture and that of farms operated by croppers. It is the practice in the South to
allot croppers land in proportion to the number of "hoe-hands" in their families.
Large families get the preference. Consequently use of child labor rises with in-
crease in numbers of cropper farms. While the cropper children work with and
for their parents, they are practically hired employees of the landlord.
3. Effects on children. — It is frequently asserted that the health and education
of children suffer from much of the work which they do on the farms. Some of
the permanent effects on the physique of the children are discernible only to the
skilled observer. Lowered vitality in later life may result, due to the strain of
cramped postures on undeveloped muscles and bones. Late fall chill and damp-
ness may cause colds and bring on complications.
Risks to health may not be serious if not prolonged. But too often the work
is carried on under heavy pressure to get crops off to market or to save them
from weather injury. A majority of children in some types of work put in days
of 8 or 10 hours, or longer. Such rush work may last several weeks, weather
permitting.
As regards school attendance and the scholastic attainments of child workers,
numerous survevs and the data of the census testify to the ill effects of farm
employment. Child labor in the South is accompanied by short school terms,
low attendance, and a high percentage of illiteracy among both whites and
Negroes. Two recent studies of child laborers in New Jersey reported that they
had lost an average of 39 days of school attendance; 25 and that at least two out
of five of those children were retarded.29
A Pacific Northwest study showed that nearly two-fifths of a group of migra-
tory children were retarded from 1 to 3 years in school.27 The finding was not
much better among children of nonmigratory hop pickers. They also were out
of school for long periods.
The right of children to a common school education is well recognized in this
country. But too many children of farm laborers are still deprived of it. Cali-
fornia is making a notable start in providing schools intended to follow the major
movements of migrant farm laborers, to relieve local schools of the demoralization
caused by entrance and departure of large groups of nonresident children, and
to provide the migrants with school facilities patronized largely by their own
class of pupils.
4. Regulation of child labor in agriculture. — The evils of child employment in
agriculture have long been recognized. They have been condemned by the
Sixth National Conference on Labor Legislation, by the Interstate Conference
on Migratory Labor held at Baltimore in February 1940, and by the White
House Conference for Children in Democracy. However, only a very few
States have as yet attempted any kind of regulation, and the Federal Fair Labor
Standards Act does not apply to agriculture.
Child labor laws fixing minimum age for employment — the accepted method
of regulating other forms of child labor — are largely ineffective in dealing with
this phase of the problem. State child labor laws either exempt agriculture
altogether, or set no minimum age for such employment outside school hours and
during school vacations, at which times most agricultural work is performed.
Even those laws which nominally apply are not enforced in practice for children
in agricultural work, because of opposition to the regulation of such work, and
because of difficulties in inspection.
Compulsory school attendance laws have been a more effective means of regu-
lation. This has been true in spite of many difficulties, including: (1) Children
leaving school early to go to the country to work, and returning late; (2) pressure
on local school authorities to close the schools for "crop vacation"; (3) absence
of school facilities for children of migratory families who follow the crops.
24 Unpublished data supplied by the U. S. Bureau of the Census.
M Report of the Commission to Investigate the Employment of Migratory Children in the State of New
Jersey, Trenton, N. J., 1931. pp. 67-90.
«• National Child Labor Committee, A Summer in the Country, Publication 377, New York, N. Y.,
March 1939, pp. 24-27.
« Sidel, Tames E.. Pick for Your Supper, National Child Labor Committee, New York., N. Y. June
1939. Publication 378, pp. 24-36.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12343
Half a dozen States have adopted some regulation of agricultural employment
of minors. California has applied to agriculture the provisions of its regular
child labor law relating to ages and hours of employment. Massachusetts and
Pennsylvania require special employment certificates for children going into
agriculture. The Wisconsin Industrial Commission was given authority to
regulate the work of children under 16 in certain types of industrialized agri-
culture and has issued one order applying to child employment in beet fields.
Nebraska has also limited the hours of child beet workers.
Pennsylvania and New Jersey prohibit the employment in agricultural work
of out-of-State children who have not complied with the educational require-
ments of their home States. Maine and Kentucky apply their regular compulsory
school attendance laws to migratory children.
The Sugar Act of 1937 28 provides that sugar-beet and sugar-cane producers
who receive Government payments authorized in the act may not directly or
indirectly employ on the crop any children under 14 years of age, except their
own, nor allow children between the ages of 14 and 16 to work longer than 8
hours in any one day on the crop. No comprehensive survey has been made of
the effects of this Act, but there is evidence that the amount of child labor
employed on sugar-crop production has been reduced.29
D. Sharecroppers.
1. A type of farm labor. — The 1935 census reported 716,000 sharecroppers in
16 Southern States, representing 39 percent of all tenants and over 20 percent of
all farmers in that area. Croppers are concentrated on the rich bottom lands of
eastern Arkansas and western Mississippi, where cotton plantations predominate.30
Particularly in these plantation areas, and in other areas of the South, they are
the most important source of labor in the production of cotton. Assuming
three workers per sharecropper family — a conservative estimate — there were
1,611,000 worker-members in cropper families in the eight principal cotton-
producing States, as compared with about 488,000 hired laborers.31
The purpose of this section is not to present an account of all the problems of
the Southern sharecroppers, but rather to show how similar is their position in
agriculture to that of the agricultural wage laborers. Ordinarily the share-
cropper is classed as a tenant, although, as Brannen states: "From the standpoint
of farm organization, whereby the landowner contributes the capital and equip-
ment, and the cultivator of the land contributes the labor, and the landowner
retains a large measure of control of both the land and equipment and the labor,
the relationship is virtually that of employer and employee rather than that of
landlord and tenant." 32
In some States, as stated 33 the cropper is designated in law as a wage laborer
working for a share of the crop as wages. Study of the reasons for the rapid
spread of sharecropping in the South after the Civil War bears out this view.34
In the hill areas of the South and in other areas not characterized by a plantation
system, the sharecropper more nearly approaches the status of a tenant.
Of all the characteristics usually considered essential in a tenancy agreement,
the cropper contract exhibits only one; namely, assumption of risk. Like other
tenants — and like the owner himself— the cropper takes a chance on the con-
juncture of weather, soil, and seed; unlike bona fide tenants, he' has little or
nothing to say about the selection of crops, the methods or time of cultivation
or harvesting or the markets in which the crop is to be sold. Usually he bears
half of the cost of ginning, bagging, and ties, and half of the cost of fertilizer,
when commercial fertilizer is used on cotton crop on which he works. He
receives, ordinarily, one-half of the returns from the sale of that crop. The
same principles may extend to practices in crops other than cotton. But he is
no entrepreneur; he does not manage, neither does he supply any appreciable
capital. In no sense does his tenure status rest upon controf of land or of the
use to which land is put. He supplies labor power like other laborers, and in
most other respects, save that of method of compensation, his position is like
?8 Public Law 414, 75th Cong., 1st sess. sec. 301 (a).
« Child Labor in Sugar Beet Fields, The Child, vol. 1, No. 11. May 1937, p. 17.
81 For more detailed information on numbers and distribution of croppers in the South see Turner, H.
A., A Graphic Summary of Farm Tenure, U. S. Department of Agriculture Miscellaneous Publication
No. 261. Washington, D. C, December 1936.
*> Since members of cropper families often hire out, some duplication exists between these 2 figures.
32 Brannen, Co. O., Relation of Land Tenure to Plantation Organization, Fayetteville, Ark., 192S, p. 31.
88 See p. 22.
« Banks, Enoch Marvin, The Economics of Land Tenure in Georeia, Studies in History, Economics,
and Public Law, vol. XXIII, No. 1, Columbia University Press, New York, N. Y., 1905, p. 79.
12344 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
theirs. His field work is closely supervised by the farm manager or riding boss;
his teams and tools are supplied. (His employer-employee relationships as they
affect farm labor in general are discussed in pt. 3.)
From the point of view of the plantation manager, the advantage of keeping
the cropper in tenant status lies in the assurance thus given that the cropper
and his family can be depended on to remain on the plantation through the
harvest season, with its heavy demand for hand labor. There is the further
advantage that losses resulting from a bad crop year or low prices will be shared
by the cropper who, in effect, subsidizes the owner by reducing his own already
low standard of living. For the cropper the advantage lies in the assurance of
support, through the furnish system, from early in the year until the harvest
season when the landlord often turns over part of the cash from cotton seed
sales, in lieu of advances.
For both owners and croppers correlative disadvantages exist. On the one
hand the plantation owner sees himself under the necessity of supporting labor
at times when it is not actually being used, and on the other, the cropper sees
himself and his family bound to the plantation by ties which prevent them from
taking advantage of opportunities elsewhere.35
Economically, as in the matter of function, there is little to choose as between
cropper and wage hand. The wage hand on the southern plantation is not,
like the strictly seasonal hands, a mere laborer by the day. Often resident on
the plantation the year round, he has a house and certain perquisites. Often,
indeed, although still regarded as a wage hand, he works a small patch of cotton
and thus blurs still further the distinction between himself and the cropper.
Everywhere one finds such gradations of status, from wage hand to renter, as
well as a constant shifting of individuals, from year to year, from cropper status
to that of wage hand and back again.
There are similarities between the problems of the cropper and those of the
plantation wage hand. First among such similarities is the difficulty both have
of earning enough to maintain even a subsistence standard of living. Second is
instability of tenure and of employment. Third is the trend toward loss of
income due to deterioration of tenure status through reduction of the cotton
acreage per cropper. Fourth is the danger of complete displacement, as a result
of the increased use of tractors and large-scale equipment. All these factors
contribute to the economic insecurity of the cropper and render his position little
more to be desired than that of the wage hand.
Also to be considered are the unsatisfactory conditions on the job and the lack
of any advantage between cropper and wage hand in this respect. Such con-
siderations support the view that, in considering the South, to exclude the cropper
would rob a study of agricultural labor of most of its value.
2. Incomes of croppers and wage hands. — Data regarding sharecropper and wage
laborer incomes indicate that the cropper enjoys little income advantage over
the wage laborer, particularly when the figures are adjusted for differences in
the numbers of workers in the average families of croppers and laborers. Table
14 indicates that in a number of studies neither among sharecroppers nor among
wage hands did the annual net cash earnings ordinarily exceed $100 per worker;
and even when goods for home use and perquisites were figured in, the total
seldom exceeded $150 in either group. The slightly higher income per cropper
worker is almost wholly accounted for by the difference in the value of goods
produced for home use. The cropper, because of his year's tenure, is better able
than the wage hand to work a garden, keep a cow, a pig, or some chickens. Per
family, the difference in income between cropper and wage hand is greater because
of the larger size of the average cropper family.
The standards of living maintained at such income levels were described in
the Report of the President's Committee on Farm Tenancy as "below any level
of decency." 36 Repert B. Vance recently further portrayed the unsatisfactory
living standard of this low-income group." Tenants' housing is described as the
poorest in the Nation, their customary clothing as inadequate, and their diet as
being a frequent cause of pellagra. Gardens and livestock production for home
use are frequently lacking; "rations" are mostly obtained on credit; money income
is meager. Back-breaking household labor reflects the absence of household
conveniences. Medical and health services are inadequate; patent medicines are
the main resource in illness.
s6 Goldenweizer, E. A., and Truesdell, Leon F., Farm Tenancy in the United States, Census Monograph
IV, Bureau of the Census, Department of Commerce, Washington, D. C, 1924, p. 15.
38 Farm Tenancy, op. cit. p. 7.
" Vance, Rupert B., Farmers Without Land, Public Affairs Pamphlets No. 12, Public Affairs Com-
mittee, New York, N. Y., 1937, pp. 19-20.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12345
Table 14. — Adjusted sharecropper and wage laborer net income in specified areas,
1932-87 1
Total net
family
income
including
home
use and
perquisites
Net cash
family
income
Percent
which
home use
and per-
quisites are
of total
net income
Net income
per person
Net income
per worker
Class of worker, year, and area
Total
net
Net
cash
Total
net
Net
cash
SHARECROFPER
1932: Yazoo, Mississippi Delta
1933: Yazoo, Mississippi Delta
1934:
Yazoo. Mississippi Delta
Arkansas: Red, Arkansas, and
Mississippi River Basins
Dollars
252
334
381
334
569
386
360
373
204
424
492
518
570
530
310
401
489
483
561
648
243
239
193
205
242
245
405
344
371
Dollars
119
202
243
217
355
204
207
230
98
261
303
187
312
367
204
162
303
313
349
430
168
164
126
136
166
169
292
228
273
Percent
52.8
39.5
36.2
35.0
37.6
47.2
42.5
38.3
52.0
38.4
38.4
63.9
45.3
30.8
34.0
60.0
38.0
35.0
38.0
34.0
30.9
31.4
34.7
33.7
31.4
31.0
27.9
33.7
26.4
Dollars
66
95
109
88
96
74
69
96
49
118
114
93
104
156
82
73
109
118
95
108
87
70
84
64
97
91
109
93
76
Dollars
31
58
57
60
39
40
59
23
73
70
33
57
108
54
39
67
78
59
72
60
48
55
43
66
63
79
62
56
Dollars
87
119
136
159
167
133
124
170
85
146
141
133
150
196
107
106
245
161
140
158
128
109
129
151
136
156
138
128
Dollars
41
72
87
103
104
70
71
105
41
1935:
Yazoo, Mississippi Delta
90
87
48
South Carolina, Coast Plain,. _
1936:
Yazoo, Mississippi Delta
Mississippi, Black Belt
Georgia, lower Piedmont
Texas, Piney Woods cotton
1937:
Arkansas: Red, Arkansas, and
82
136
70
43
152
104
South Carolina Piedmont
87
105
WAGE LABORER
1934:
Arkansas: Red, Arkansas, and
Mississippi River Delta
88
75
84
Black Pelt
65
104
94
1937:
Arkansas: Red, Arkansas, and
Mississippi Deltas
South Carolina Piedmont
South Carolina Coast Plain
112
91
94
1 Source: Holcomb, E. J., Income and Earnings of Farm Laborers, U. S. Department of Agriculture,
Bureau of Agricultural Economics, Washington, D. C, May 1940, processed.
3. Causes of low income.- — Some of the causes of this low level of income apply
both to croppers and wage hands; some are peculiar to one class or the other.
Among the causes applicable to both are, first, the dependence upon the farm
resources of the South of more persons than the land, as it is now used and man-
aged, can support, and, second, the persistent reliance upon cotton as the one
cash crop. Moreover, both cropper and wage hand are highly seasonal laborers;
although the cropper may have a year's -tenure, he seldom works more than 6
months in the year, while members of his family are even less fully employed.
The cropper and the wage hand both suffer from insufficiency of paid employment.
In addition, both cropper and wage hand spend their lives at simple manual
labor that is highly inefficient and unproductive. In some plantation areas it
is not uncommon to see a sharecropper using the outmoded "double shovel" on
his cotton patch, while in an adjoining field on the same plantation, a wage laborer
drives a tractor pulling a four-row cultivator. The practice of using the tractor
on sharecropper cotton is increasing but the sharecropper seldom benefits, since
its use usually involves the deduction from his small prospective income of charges
for the work performed.
Among the causes of low income that in recent years have caused especial
concern to croppers, are (1) reduction in cotton acreage per cropper, (2) changes
in rental arrangements, and (3) the "furnish" system.
12346 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
In the past the size of the cropper family, which fixed the amount of labor avail-
able for cotton picking, was the chief factor in determining the size of the cropper
tract. This varied from 15 to 25 acres, some part of which was usually in corn.
Of recent years there has been a tendency to reduce the acreage per cropper
family, and thus to diminish its annual income. In some areas, indeed, the
cropper cotton has been reduced to a mere patch, thus creating a status different
from that of the bona fide cropper, and yet not quite like that of the wage hand.
Under this arrangement the labor of the cropper family is retained on the planta-
tion, but is used, to an increasing extent, upon the wages-cotton crop of the plan-
tation rather than upon the cropper's own planting. This tendency toward
reduction in the acreage of cotton per cropper has grown out of the general reduc-
tion in cotton acreage in the South under the Agricultural Adjustment Adminis-
tration programs. It was necessary for each plantation operator to decide
whether the reduction in his total acreage should be made in the cotton worked
with wage hands or in that worked with tenants and croppers. If the choice
fell against the latter, it was a matter of getting rid of some of the croppers alto-
gether or of reducing the acreage per cropper.
During recent years there has appeared in some areas a tendency to modify
the customary rental arrangements by reducing the cropper's share of the crop,
say, from 50 to 40 percent, or by making new charges upon him for the perform-
ance of services either not rendered before or performed free of charge. One of
the new charges is that for tractor work performed on the cropper's acreage; data
from three Arkansas delta counties reveal that from 25 to 40 percent of the croppers
on plantations using tractors, have to pay such charges.
Since croppers receive a part of their supplies, their so-called furnish, direct
from the landlord or his agent, or secure credit from the plantation store or com-
missary, or from a local merchant on the landlord's endorsement, cropper income
may be materially affected by the prices charged for food and supplies and by the
terms on which credit is secured. In this respect the wage hand sometimes is
in the same position as the cropper, being under some compulsion to trade at the
plantation store. The rate of profit on goods sold to plantation labor varies
widely. Goods may be sold at current retail cash prices and 10 percent may be
added to the account as interest at the end of the year, or goods may be sold at
credit prices, which exceed cash prices.
A study of 112 croppers in North Carolina in 1928 showed that furnish ad-
vances, mostly in cash, amounted to over 63 percent of the cropper's cash farm
income, while the interest paid on those advances amounted to more than 10
percent of the total cash income.38
It is this system, together with the dependence of the cropper upon the land-
lord for the keeping of accounts, that has fastened debt so inexorably upon the
cropper class. Hoffsommer's study of 1,022 relief households in December 1933
indicated that, for approximately one-half of the years spent at sharecropping
by all relief households reporting, the economic outcome was "broke even."
Roughly, 20 percent of the years showed a profit on the growing of cotton and 30
percent, a loss. More than one-third of the tenants were indebted to their
landlords.39
4. Instability of tenure. — It is often asserted that, despite the low income of the
cropper, there is a certain permanency about his position as a tenant which the
wage laborer lacks. Undoubtedly there is some truth in this view. Once the
year-end negotiations are over and the cropper is settled on a plantation with his
family, he has a certain amount of security as regards the coming year. However,
the regular wage hand, resident on the plantation, differs from him only slightly
in this degree. Both those groups enjoy a decided advantage over the nonresident
seasonal wage hand.
Unfortunately, this comparative stability does not extend in satisfactory
degree from 1 year to another. The extent to which croppers move has indeed
become notorious. In his study, The Relation of Land Tenure to Plantation
Organization, Brannen states that, of all the croppers in selected counties in
1920, more than half had been less than 2 years on the farms they then occupied.40
According to a comprehensive study in 1924 of the mobility of Oklahoma farmers,
from one-half to three-fourths of all croppers in most of the cotton areas of the
State were new to the farms they were operating that year; and the average period
38 Vance, Rupert B., op. cit. p. 17.
'• Hoffsommer. Harold. Landlord-Tenant Relations and Relief in Alabama, United States Federal
Emergency Relief Administration, Division of Research Statistics and Finance, Research Section. Re-
search Bulletin, Series II, No. 9, Washington, D. C, November 14, 1935.
*• Brannen, op cit. p. 46.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12347
of cropper residence on a farm was about a year and a half. In seven of the crop-
reporting districts of the State, between two-thirds to three-fourths of all crop-
pers were for the first time operating the farms they were on. The direct cost
of such a volume of movement was estimated to be about $2,000,000 a year, at
least half of which was of no economic or social benefit to the farmer who moves,
to the owner of the land, or to the State. Useless moving was estimated to have
cost the farmers interviewed, in direct cost only, an equivalent of 5.4 percent of
their per capita net wealth.41
Records secured in Arkansas in 1938 showed that wage laborers and share-
croppers alike were highly mobile.42
Two-fifths of all farm occupancies lasted 1 year only, while nearly three-fifths
(59 percent) of the occupancies did not exceed 2 years. Moves were usually for
short distances. Over one-third of the farm-to-farm moves of the Arkansas
families were over distances' of less than 3 miles, while 62 percent of the moves
did not involve distances greater than 8 miles.
Such frequent moving, even for short distances, has a direct effect on the
economic and social status of the families. Aside from the direct cost, pulling
up roots may involve a change of schools for the children and the breaking of
church and community associations. Farm and home improvements, moreover,
are not to be expected from such transient tenants, other than those which can be
fully utilized within the period of a year.
5. Deterioration of tenure status. — The parallel between the cropper and the
wage hand has recently been increased by a new danger already referred to:
Though the form of cropper status in retained, the economic reality of that
status, limited as it is, may gradually deteriorate until the small advantage which
the cropper at one time possessed over the wage hand disappears entirely. Under
such circumstances, indeed, the cropper finds himself no better off than the wage
hand as regards income and yet, because of his share relationship, is deprived of
the wage hand's freedom of movement. This process appears to be taking place
on a considerable scale. The chief indication is the decline in the acreage of
cotton per cropper family.
Further destruction of the distinction between the cropper and the wage
laborer is involved in the practice not uncommon on ruany plantations, of working
croppers "through and through." Under this system the croppers jointly work
on the combined acreage of all cropper cotton tracts under the operator's super-
vision. In many instances no indication of the identity of the individual cropper
patches is given until the crop is ready for chopping. The "through and through"
system is particularly suited to plantations on which tractors and multiple-row
equipment are used extensively. Often a "through and through" system is also
followed at picking time when croppers work as a gang in picking the cotton of
the entire plantation, receive wages for so doing, and in turn are charged for the
cost of cotton picking on their individual tracts.
This break-down of the old distinction, even in the matter of cotton acreages,
between sharecropper and wage hand is undoubtedly due in part to the progress
of mechanization, and in part to the reduction in cotton acreage in recent years.
6. Displacement. — Voluntary movement of croppers, as of tenants generally,
has long been a characteristic feature of the Cotton Belt. Dissatisfaction with
low income, desire to escape from a load of debt carried over from year to year,
the hope of self-betterment, more restlessness, custom, and habit, all play a part
in what is generally recognized as a wasteful reshuffling of the personnel of cotton
production. Ordinarily, the cropper has little incentive to remain in one place.
He has little livestock and no machinery; his household belongings are few;
under the one-crop system, he has no interest in long-time plans.
Of late, however, the threat of complete displacement has increased the eco-
nomic insecurity of the cropper, and emphasized the vagueness of the line sepa-
rating him from the wage hand. Reduction of cotton acreage, increased use of
mechanical equipment, the consolidation of farms and the desire on the part of
planters to work the cotton crop with wage hands, have created conditions
conducive to such a development.
A survey of 221 farms in three bottom land counties of Arkansas (Mississippi,
Chicot, arid Pulaski) showed that a definite shift from sharecropper and share
— i |]
41 Sanders, j . T. Economic and Social Aspects of Mobility of Oklahoma Farmers, Oklahoma Agricultural
and Mechanical College, Agricultural Experiment Station. Bulletin 195, Stillwater, August 1029, p. 3.
42 Barton, Glen T. and McNeely, J. O. Recent Changes in Farm Labor Organization in Three Arkansas
Plantation Counties, Arkansas Univeristy, College of Agriculture, Agricultural Experiment Station.
Preliminary Report, Fayetteville, September 1939, Processed, p. 41.
12348 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
tenant labor took place between 1932 and 1938. In 1938 the number of share
workers had decreased by 13.7 percent from that of 1932, while the number of
wage families had increased by 44.3 percent. However, the net decrease in the
number of households, including single hands, amounted to only 0.6 percent.
During the period under consideration, the cropland in the 221 farms increased
by 8,653 acres, due largely to land-clearing operations. Accordingly, in order
to hold the land factor constant, calculations were made on the basis of the
number of families in each tenure class per 10,000 acres of cropland. On this
basis there had been a decline of 27 percent in the number of sharecroppers and
share renters, and an increase of 19 percent in the number of wage families. The
displacement, computed on this basis, was 16 percent. Most of the changes
from share labor to wage labor occurred on mechanized farms. On 121 farms
surveyed in three counties in the upland area of Arkansas (Clark, Pope, and
Independence), there had been between 1932 and 1938 a decrease of 14 percent
in the number of share renters and of 12}£ percent in the number of sharecroppers,
but, in contrast to the bottom land area, no increase in the number of wage
families. The net reduction in the number of households, including single wage
hands was 12^ percent. Calculated in relation to 10,000 acres of cropland, the
decline amounted to 15^2 percent in the case of share renters, and 20 percent in
the case of sharecroppers, while the decrease in the total number of households,
including single wage hands, amounted to 16 percent.43
Expanding economic activity and employment opportunities accompanying
the present war will undoubtedly provide alternative employment for some dis-
placed sharecroppers and laborers. The social and economic aspects of labor
displacement in the South will thus be different in the immediate future from
those in prospect until just recently. However, farm organization adaptations
to a decreased labor supply during the war may result in serious economic and
social problems in the period of post-war adjustment.
The unsatisfactory character of the job status of the sharecropper, in which
he is with difficulty to be distinguished from the wage hand, arises from the
completeness of supervision to which his work is subjected, the lack, despite a
share in the crop risks, of any share in decisions or control, the loss in some areas
of any indentity of interest in that part of the acreage which is formally allotted
to him, and his complete dependence upon the operator for animals and tools.
The engaging of croppers as family units involves severe restrictions upon the
family members. Indebtedness to the landlord, so common as to be a pattern
of relationship, increases the sense of dependence.
Few deny that one of the most serious faults in plantation organization is the
inefficiency of the low grade of labor employed, the lack of incentive to self-better-
ment and the consequent inertia and indifference. But it cannot be denied
either that when opportunity to rise is present, as on tractor jobs calling for skill
and resourcefulness, among the young at least inertia vanishes and a ready
response to opportunity is apparent. The lack of any security in tenure, and the
indeterminate legal position of the sharecropper, discourage him from improving
his land or buildings since such improvements might merely be gifts to his land-
lord. Thus he wastes his free time in less productive activities and the land
goes uncared for and the buildings unrepaired. The unsatisfactory working con-
ditions of the cropper thus contribute to the basic land-use problems of the South,
draining off natural resources, and causing failure to return fertility to the land
by the growing of cover crops and the raising of livestock.
7. Racial characteristics. — The racial factor perpetuates and intensifies the
disadvantages to which the majority of sharecroppers are subject. Sharecropping
is peculiarly the lot of the Negro on the land in important areas of the South.
In the United States the ratio of tenancy as a whole is much lower among white
farm operators than among operators classified as nonwhite (which is virtually
synonymous with Negro in the South).
In this group, 74.5 percent of the nonwhite farm operators, as against -10.5
percent of the white operators, were classified as tenants in the census returns
for 1940.44 .
Nonwhites represented a scant 23 percent of all farm operators in the South in
1910, but more than 55 percent of the cropper operators in that area. Consider-
ing cropping as a category of farm tenure rather than as a category of farm labor,
« McNeelv, J. O. and Barton, Glen T. Land Tenure in Arkansas: II Change in Labor Organization
on Cotton Farms. Arkansas TTniversity. College of Agriculture, Agricultural Experiment Station. Bulle-
tin 397, Fayetteville, June 1940. ^ ^ ... a..a
« U. S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, (a) Fifteenth Census of the United Stairs
1930. Agriculture vol II, pt. 2. Southern States. Table 9. (6) Sixteenth Census of the United States,
1940. Agriculture U. S. Summary. First series. Table VI (supplemental for the Southern States).
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12349
Negro farm operators in the South are roughly 4^ times as likely as are white
operators to be found in the status of croppers. At the present time, apparently,
the absolute number of nonwhite croppers is greater than that of white croppers
(299,118 against 242,173 according to the 1940 census figures). Croppers
constitute some 18 percent of all the farm operators in the South (541,291 out of
3,007,170), but Negro croppers account for 44 percent of all Negro operators,
according to the 1940 census figures; whereas white croppers account for scarcely
more than 10 percent of all white operators.
During the decade preceding the last census, the proportional decrease in the
numbers of croppers was definitely more rapid among white than among Negroes
in the South. The total number of croppers as a whole declined by some 30 per-
cent between 1930 and 1940, but within that total the number of whites fell 37
percent while the number of nonwhites fell 24 percent. Apparently the forces
that forced croppers into economic positions less desirable, or in some cases per-
mitted them to rise into positions more desirable, than cropping, were less opera-
tive among the nonwhite than the white groups.
Community and social handicaps to which Negroes are subject generally
throughout the South combine to keep them cropping to a greater extent than in
the case of white croppers. The Negro is likely to be at a greater disadvantage
than the white cropper in any dispute that may arise with his landlord. Attitudes,
dating back to the days when chattel slavery was a legal institution, underly the
handicaps to which the Negro cropper is subject in addition to the usual cropper
handicaps of extremQ poverty, bad housing, inadequate education, etc.
The problem of the sharecropper cannot be separated into the problems of the
white sharecropper on the one hand as opposed to the problems of the Negro
sharecropper on the other. Rather, the general sharecropper problem exists in
peculiarly intensified and aggravated form among the sharecropper majority who
are Negro.
E. The hired man.
In the last week of March 1940, according to the census, there were 739,000
laborers working on farms who were hired by the month. How many of these
were hired men, in the old sense of the word, there is no way of knowing; in the
Corn Belt and dairy areas they probably constituted a considerable proportion.
Even in these districts, however, their numbers were diminishing.
In the past and until recent years the hired man was regarded as one of the most
permanent and typical figures on the American farm. He was characteristic of
farm life in the nineteenth century while family farming still predominated and
half or more of the country's gainful workers were engaged in agriculture.
The hired man was frequently the son of a nearby farmer; as such he was the
social and intellectual equal of the members of his employer's family. If not so
well vouched for, he could by industry, ability, and character soon establish his
own reputation and place in farm circles. He was readily accepted as a member
of the farm group. In the East he was usually an unmarried man. He ate at
his employer's table, lodged under the same roof, and shared the plans, work,
joys, and sorrows of the household. He worked for wages, usually by the month.
By saving he often acquired a farm of his own in the locality. Off his employer's
farm, the hired man was a member of a closely knit community, free to attend
church, socials, ball games, or carnivals.
The best of the hired men were almost professionals. Such men had judgment
and initiative. They understood the handling and care of livestock. They
could be trusted to carry on farm work intelligently, without constant super-
vision. They did not receive high money wages, but they did not have heavy
expenses. They could easily save much of their income. Opportunity to climb
the agricultural ladder was fostered by the- cheapness of farm land, low cost of
equipment, and the possibility of going West to homestead on cheap public lands.
West of the Hudson the hired man was often a family man. Accordingly, he
was often given a dwelling. He frequently received, in addition to his money
wages and dwelling, such perquisites as milk, eggs, fuel, flour or meal, meat at
slaughtering time, vegetables and fruit in season, use of a horse, and other privi-
leges. Sometimes he was allowed pasturage and feed for his own cow instead of
milk ; or land for garden and use of work stock and tools with which to work it
instead of vegetables. Practices were apt to be uniform locally, but they varied
regionally. The allowance of corn meal was characteristically southern; of flour,
northern and western.
Of shortcomings in the life of the hired man, there were many. A farm hand's
wage rates were low, for part of the pay was practice in the business of running a
12350 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
farm. Often the wages were lower in winter than in summer. Sometimes in
winter there was actual unemployment. Savings accumulated slowly. As the
years passed, it took longer to begin farming by one's self; the agricultural ladder
became harder to climb.
Often perquisites were not so good nor so generous as the hired man thought
reasonable. Foods served at table were often the subject of complaint as to cook-
ing or variety, and room and bed as to comfort. The married man's house might
be small for his family, inconvenient for his wife's work, and in poor repair. He
might need more than the quart of milk his employer allowed. The meat might
be restricted to the poorest cuts. Vegetables and fruit might be decidedly limited
in variety, quantity, and quality, particularly in winter. The hired man might
have to fit his own stove wood, or even cut it from the timber. The garden
space might be soo small, and the man and his wife might have to work it on their
own time; in addition, the employer might refuse use of work stock or equipment
to work the garden, or to leave the farm on business or pleasure.
Many hired men disliked the frequent necessity of working alone. Working
conditions, due to heat, dust, cold, rain, and long days, were often disagreeable.
Opportunities to leave the farm for diversion and recreation were limited.
Too frequently, personal relations between the farm operator and the hired
man were not of the best. Personal misunderstandings and irritations were easily
magnified. The employer might not take the man into his confidence and talk
over plans and difficulties; he might criticize shortcomings, and fail to compliment
good work.
The hired man might not be taken into the farm family as he expected. There
was also the possibility that the farmer might forget that he also was once a young
man getting a similar start in life, and might look down upon his hired man as an
inferior. In more recent years many farmers came to speak of all hired men as
shiftless incompetents. This was a sign of the break-down of the system.
The old-time hired man is vanishing because developments in this century have
changed the conditions of farm life and affected the possibilities of his advance
ment. Opportunities for hired men to become farmers have declined, as public
land was occupied, and as other land and farming equipment became more costly.
Native-born farmers' sons have been attracted away from the farm to nonagri-
cultural work, and to town life, — and strangers (many of them alines) have taken
their places. Mechanization, often leading to consolidation of farms, has reduced
opportunities for year-round employment. And where large-scale, semiindustrial-
ized agriculture has become the dominant type of farming the old relationship
between operator and workers has disappeared.
F. Migratory agricultural workers.
1. Growth of the agricultural migratory labor force. — One of the most far-reaching
and significant changes in the farm-labor force over the last few decades has been
the growth in the number of migrant agricultural workers. (Effects of the war
may disrupt this trend temporarily or permanently.) With this increase in the
size of the migrant group has come the creation of new problems for the farm-
labor force. Also the old handicaps of low income and insecurity which faced
the farm laborers have become intensified.
The migratory portion of the agricultural labor supply is composed of those
workers who follow from place to place seasonal cycles of agricultural work. In
addition, there are workers who engage partly in nonagri cultural pursuits and
partlv in seasonal farm work. Temporary migrants in transition to a new place
or type of employment are also part of this group. Agricultural migrant laborers
travel as family groups, as single individuals, or in gangs.
2. Areas of demand. — The areas of demand for seasonal migrant workers are
found mainly where production is specialized and organized on a commercial
basis. The increased application of machine techniques and the growth of com-
mercial farming have combined to alter the requirements for wage labor in agri-
culture. There is an ever-growing need for a large mobile reserve of short-time
seasonal workers in the harvesting of many crops. The use of migratory workers
in connection with cotton is a byproduct of the development of large-scale farm-
ing units in the Southwest and Far West, the existence of terrain suited to the use
of tractors, and the absence of thickly populated sections from which to draw the
necessary seasonal labor.
In some areas of the old South, as in southeastern Missouri and parts of the
Delta, where large mechanized units have developed, nonresident seasonal workers
also have been required. Migrants have long been necessary in certain fruit-
and truck-crop areas which lack an adequate resident labor force. For cotton
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12351
and for small fruits and vegetables, the hand-labor requirements are exceptionally
high during harvesting.
The sugar-beet areas of the North and West have traditionally depended upon
migrant labor to perform cultivating as well as harvesting operations. Sugar beets
demand as much hand labor during cultivation as they do during harvesting, and
probably have the greatest hand-labor requirements of any crop.
The wheat areas of the Midwest also use migrant labor for harvesting. The
trend here, however, has been the reverse of that found in the other crop areas
enumerated. During the first quarter of this century the movement of unattached
single men into the Wheat Belt of the Great Plains area was one of the country's
outstanding migratory phenomena. The extended use of the small combine-
harvester has reduced the amount of seasonal labor required and the adaptability
of "exchange" labor has further curtailed the use of seasonally hired labor.
Although the numerical significance of this movement has declined, it is still of
importance, particularly in North Dakota.
Certain speciality crops, such as hops on the Pacific coast, shade-grown tobacco
in Connecticut, cranberries in New Jersey and Massachusetts, and peanuts in
Virginia and North Carolina, have large seasonal labor demands for nonlocal
workers.
3. Sources of supply.— The stream of migratory agricultural workers is fed from
manv sources. First, there is the large body of regulai seasonal migrants who
follow the crops, year in and year out. Moving in and out of the main body are
the removal migrants, transient refugees from drought, the tractor and curtailed
farming and employment opportunities. These farm workers may be displaced
farm owners, tenants, and croppers on their way to permanent settlement. Lack
of opportunity, of course, has resulted in many of these entering the stream of
habitual migrants. Year-round hired laborers join the ranks of transient farm
workers when they are pushed out of regular employment. Unemployed indus-
trial workers, and" many who are laid off seasonally frequently seek agricultural
employment. Underemployed share-croppers, tenant farmers, or farmers, and
members of their families, often work in nearby farm areas to supplenent their
cash incomes. High-school and college students on vacation, and children who
migrate to agricultural areas with their parents, are sources of seasonal labor on
the farm.
4. Types of movement.— Although there are certain definite patterns of move-
ment in the flow of seasonal workers from area to area or from crop to crop, the
routes of individual workers are frequently varied. Thus, some migrants work on
only one crop and follow it from area to area as it matures and becomes ready for
harvesting. Others work on several crops, following a route that takes them from
State to State. Still other migrants harvest a diversity of crops in the same
geographical area; here the mobility is confined to moving about in this area,
although the migration to the area may have been . of considerable distance.
Still others move long distances for a comparatively lengthy period of employment
in a single crop, as, for example, the movement of Mexican workers from Texas to
the sugar-beet fields of Michigan. Some seasonal laborers simply migrate to
areas near their homes for a short period of work.
5. Number and characteristics. — Seasonal agricultural laborers include women
and children as well as men. The employment of women and children arises out
of the fact that the habitual migrant of today is frequently a married man. His
family must move about with him. Even occasional migrants, those who work
at agricultural pursuits only part of the year, frequently travel with their families.
In the case of the removal migrants, those who are migrating in the hope of
finding a new home, families usually move together because of inability to subsist
apart, and because of the necessity of utilizing the labor of all members of the
family.
The number of migrants in the various classes described above is unknown.
Both the need for seasonal workers and the actual migration are subject to wide
fluctuations. The difficulties in making an over-all estimate of the number of
agr'cultural nvgrants in the United States are manifold. The Tolan committee,
which is studying migration in all its aspects, has not attempted to make such an
estimate. "Although monthly data showing the numbers of hired farm workers
are available it is not known how many of these are permanently hired and how
many are seasonally employed." 45 Moreover, it should be noted that not all the
45 U. S. Congress, House of Representatives, Select Committee to Investigate the Migration of Destitute
Citizens, 77th Cong., 1st sess., H. Rept. 369, Washington, D. C, 1941, p. 337 (hereinafter referred to as the
Tolan committee).
12352 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
workers available for seasonal employment are migratory — there are many locai
nonmigrant laborers who find work at those occupations which hire great numbers '
of migrants.
It has been estimated on the basis of census figures that between 1 and 2 million
workers are needed seasonally in agriculture besides those hired the year round.
This figure is. of course, subject to qualifications.
In 1937, Paul S. Taylor hazarded a preliminary estimate that there were from
200,000 to 350,000 regular agricultural migrants in the United States.46 No
estimate has been made since that t;me. Counting the workers who enter the
migratory farm labor market temporarily is also a difficult task, and not even a
guess has been made as to their numbers.
It should be noted that Taylor's estimate includes packing-shed workers and
their families as well as field workers and their families.
The extensive fluctuations in both demand for and supply of migrant farm labor-
ers are best understood by a few illustrations. Thus, the movement of 20,000
workers into the Arkansas berry fields in 1934 was followed by almost complete
absence of migrants in 1935 due to the poor crop. On the other hand, cotton
acreage in the San Joaquin Valley of California, after more than doubling between
1935 and 1937, declined by about 40 percent under the cotton program of 1938,
without any visible decline of migration into the area.
A report of the Secretary of Labor estimated that between 1930 and 1937
more than 200,000 persons emigrated from the Great Plains region, of whom more
than 100,000 went to California, perhaps 60,000 to the Pacific Northwest, and
about 12,000 to eastern Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan.47 A comprehensive
study of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics 48 indicates that the net migration
into California during the 1930's totaled more than 1,100,000 persons. The
three States of the Pac'fic Northwest experienced a net in-migration of 260,000
individuals during this decade. The net in-migration into Arizona during this
same period totaled 31,000 persons.
These westward migrations were not predominantly agricultural in origin nor
exclusively from the drought areas. "Less than one-fourth of all families enumer-
ated in the migration survey in California had been engaged in agriculture either
as farmers or farm laborers pr;or to migration. Pupils from one-third of the
families enumerated in the Pacific Northwest and in Arizona indicated that their
fathers had been engaged in agriculture either as farmers or farm laborers before
migrating." 49 The male heads of the families migrating to California were
classified by occupational status before and after migration to that State. There
was a large decrease in the number of farmers and a large increase in the number
of farm laborers. These trends bear out the observation already made that many
removal migrants do not again settle on the land, but are pushed down into the
status of wage laborers.
The difficulties of the removal migrants, after they ha^'e left their places of
origin and have taken to the road, arise from two primary sources — first, the lack
of opportunities for relocation; and, second, the effect of their entry into an
already overcrowded migratory-labor market. In terms of the history of previous
movements to the far West, the number of families that have moved to the Pacific
coast in recent years from the Great Plains area and other places of origin is not
impressive. It is only when we take into account the lack of free or low-cost
lands and of employment opportunities in industry within the areas to which
these people have gone that we are able to appreciate the demoralizing effect
upon them of being transferred so swiftly from a settled status upon the land to
one of complete dependence upon a shifting and overcrowded labor market.
Their presence aggravates already existing problems of health, housing, relief,
low incomes, and lack of organization among the migratory farm labor group.
Removal migrants thus create a set of problems peculiar to themselves. At the
same time, as migratory laborers, they must fit into established patterns of
movement within and between the crop areas. So doing, they create problems
for those who regularly "follow the crops."
6. The main streams of migration. — (a) The Atlantic seaboard. — Extensive sea-
sonal labor movements take place in Florida, especially in truck and cane-sugar
« Taylor, Paul 8., Migratory Farm Labor in the United States, Monthly Labor Review, U. S. Depart-
ment of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, March 1937.
« Migration of Workers, preliminary report of the Secretary of Labor pursuant to S. Res. 298 (74th Cong.),
Washington, 1938, vol. 1, pp. 60, 62. „ „ „
« Janow, Sevmour J., Volume and Characteristics of Recent Migration to the Far West, U. S. Bureau
of Agricultural Economics, and Farm Security Administration, region XI, Department of Agriculture,
printed in Tolan committee hearings, pt. 6, San Francisco, pp. 2269-2326.
« Ibid, p. 2276.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12353
areas around Lake Okeechobee, in truck areas on the eastern shore, in scattered
spots on the Gulf coast, and in the Ridgeland citrus and truck area running south-
west to northeast across the center of the State. The demand for seasonal labor
is greatest in the truck and fruit areas where winter and early spring vegetables
of many kinds — string and lima beans, celery, tomatoes, peas, cabbage, radishes —
as well as citrus fruits and strawberries, are grown in commercial volume. It is
estimated that from 10,000 to 12,000 workers are used seasonally in the Kidgelands
citrus and vegetable area; many of these are recruited from local residents. The
greatest concentration of migratory seasonal workers is in the truck-garden and
sugarcane areas around Lake Okeechobee and in the truck areas on the southeast
shore of the State. A large majority of migrants in Florida are Negroes, engaged
primarily in field work. The white migrants are employed principally in packing
houses. In the southeastern part of Florida, where some 50,000 seasonal workers
are employed, about three-quarters of the labor force are migrants; likewise in the
Florida citrus industry.
The neighboring States of Alabama and Georgia provide most of the Florida
agricultural migrants, the rest coming from Mississippi, Louisiana, North and
South Carolina, and as far west as California. Although many of these laborers
follow crops the year round, some are tenants and sharecroppers who come to
Florida during the winter months.
The migratory agricultural workers generally work in several different places
in the State before leaving it; most of them specialize in certain crops. Potato
workers harvest the crop in Dade County between December 20 and April 30.
During this period they move into Palm Beach County and up the State to St.
John, Putnam, and Alachua Counties. They then leave the State and move up
the eastern seaboard into North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey;
some go on to Long Island, some even to Maine. At the end of the season these
workers gradually sift back down the eastern seaboard into Dade County to begin
their cycle of potato work over again. Strawberry pickers work from December 1
to May 15 in four counties of the State, ending up in Bradford County. From
there they leave Florida and move into Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and the
west coast. Some even go to the State of Washington and to British Columbia.
Most return to Florida by the same route; a few take a northern route through the
Midwestern States. Another group of the berry pickers migrate to Michigan and
Ohio to pick berries and fruits.
Agriculture in the States immediately to the north of Florida — Georgia and
Alabama — offers little opportunity to the migratory laborer aside from the
Georgia peach crop and the asparagus beds of the Georgia and South Carolina
Coastal Plains. In the truck- and berry-farming section of southeastern North
Carolina, however, the demand for seasonal agricultural workers is marked.
From 15,000 to 20,000 workers, many of whom are Negroes, are employed there.
From this area, migrant workers move north into the potato fields of the North
Carolina Coastal Plains and the lower Virginia Peninsula, where from 10,000 to
15,000 workers are employed in May and June. A migratory stream then moves
via the east shore of Virginia into Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and New
York.
Perhaps the greatest demand for workers in this northern movement is in New
Jersey. Beginning in the latter part of April, asparagus, potatoes, strawberries,
beans, and peas in southern New Jersey require between 2,000 and 3,000 non-
resident workers, as compared with some 6,000 during July and August. These
nonlocal workers are composed mainly of white families from the Philadelphia,
Camden, and Trenton areas. In September and October some 2,000 to 3,000 are
needed in the cranberry bogs. In the central potato region, at least 4,000 migra-
tory laborers are used from July to October in harvesting the potato crop. These
are chiefly unattached Negro men.
(b) Mississippi Valley. — As an alternative to the route up the Atlantic sea-
board, some workers, after the close of harvesting activities in the fruit and truck
crops in Florida, proceed along the Gulf to the Hammond strawberry area in
Louisiana and thence up the Mississippi Valley. In the northward migration
along the Mississippi River Negroes from the Southeast are joined by workers
from the Southwest. The latter are used primarily in the strawberry, tomato,
and truck areas of White, Benton, and Washington Counties, Ark.50 Cotton
chopping and cotton picking in the Mississippi Valley, as well as the fruit and
berry harvests in western Kentucky and Tennessee, provide employment for mi-
grant Negroes. About 30,000 migrants are used in the Mississippi Valley berry
»° Arkansas Emergency Relief Administration, Transient Labor in the Berry Fields. Little Rock, 1934.
60396 — 42— pt. 32 27
12354 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
and truck regions.51 Western Tennessee and Kentucky are not only points to
which workers migrate, but are sources of farm laborers who move seasonally
into other agricultural areas. Migrants from this region join those from Texas
and the Southwest, after the berry and truck harvests in the Missouri-Kentucky-
Tennessee triangle, in a further northward movement to the fruit and truck har-
vests in Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan.
There are other migration patterns such as those to and from the vegetable
areas in western New York. However, these are of relatively minor importance,
on the basis of the number of migrant workers involved when contrasted with
the two major movements along the Atlantic seaboard and Mississippi Valley.
(c) Sugar beet migrations. — The movement of workers in sugar beets usually is
confined to a journey from the point of origin to the area of work and back again.
This is in contrast to the fruit, truck, and berry migrations which afford employ-
ment to migratory workers moving through successive crops and areas.
Labor for use in the sugar-beet fields is frequently recruited by the sugar-beet
factories, which exercise close control over the care of the crop and the manner
of its working. California, Colorado, and Michigan are the principal sugar-beet
producing States, but this crop is also important in restricted areas in Utah,
Nebraska, Oregon, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Ohio, Minnesota, Wisconsin,
South Dakota, North Dakota, Iowa, Kansas, Indiana, Washington, and Illinois,
In California the labor contractor is used to recruit the necessary labor. To a
lesser degree this is true also of Montana and Idaho. In the remaining States
the workers are recruited through the sugar companies or beet growers' associa-
tions or are locally available.
The contract work in sugar-beet growing is done principally by Spanish-speak-
ing people of American or Mexican birth from California, New Mexico, Texas,
and Colorado.
It has been estimated bv the Sugar Division of the Agricultural Adjustment Ad-
ministration that about 50,000 interstate and intrastate migrant workers were
employed in the sugar-beet areas in 1939. This comprised 53 percent of the con-
tract labor force of the industrv.
(d) Wheat Belt migrations. — During the first quarter of this century the move-
ment of unattached single men into the Wheat Belt of the Great Plains area was
one of the country's outstanding migratory phenomena. The bulk of the out-of-
State laborers poured in from States to the east. There were thousands of them.
The harvest began in Texas in June, and, progressed north into Canada. Com-
paratively few harvest hands followed it from south to north, the majority worked
in only one or two States. Successive waves of workers entered and left the
harvest as it swept north. Today the numerical significance of this movement
has declined and the migratory pattern has changed in many respects, but it is
still important. The reduction in the numbers of outside workers required to
harvest the wheat crop has been brought about by two major developments.
The first is the extended use of the small combine, which has reduced materially
the man labor requirements of the crop. The adaptability of exchange labor has
also further curtailed the use of seasonally hired labor in the wheat harvest.
Whereas formerly about 250,000 workers entered the stream of migrant wheat
harvest hands, now only 50,000 men move about in search of this work. Most
of these migrants who obtain work are employed in the spring wheat areas of
North Dakota, which utilize about 25,000 migratory workers as harvest hands.
The largest group of out-of-State migrants in North Dakota in 1937 and in
1938 came from Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin. Most of the harvest hands
migrated from States to the south and east of North Dakota, very few transients
coming from the far Western States.52 Most (about 85 percent) of these migra-
torv harvesters were single, that is without family attachment. Very few family
groups join the Wheat Belt migration, although some married men who leave
their families at home are occasionally among these migrants.
From North Dakota, some of the harvesters go to Minnesota, Canada, and
Montana for work. The great majority, however, do not move to other States
for the harvest after the work in North Dakota is completed. To some extent
the harvesters have been moving into the potato fields of that State.
(e) Cotton migration. — In the Old South the need for extra hands during the
cotton chopping and picking seasons has been met thorugh the use of the share-
cropper system. In those areas of the Old South where it has proved more profit-
»' Tolan committee, op. cit., final report, p. 338.
« Data from studv conducted in 1938. Men and Machines in the North Dakota Harvest, by Robert
M Cullum, Josiah C. Folsom, and Donald O. Hav, Bureau of Agricultural Economics and Farm Security
Administration, cooperating. Washington, D. C, April 1942. Additional sponsors of the study were
North Dakota and Kansas Agricultural Experiment Stations.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12355
able to adopt the methods of the West, as in southeastern Missouri and in parts of
the Delta, workers migrate to the cotton fields from surrounding urban centers.
These laborers generally are displaced sharecroppers and tenants who congregate
in the towns and cities of the South from whence they are drawn into the cotton
fields as needed seasonally. It is in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California
that the cotton migrant is the rule and not the exception.
The greatest cotton migration lies within the State of Texas. The migratory
cycle begins in the truck and vegetable crop area of the lower Rio Grande and the
winter garden area in Zavalla, Frio, Dimmit, and La Salle Counties from December
through March. Around the first of September the picking season in the Black
Prairie and Grand Prairie areas has started and from there the workers move
westward to the High Plains district. From the High Plains, where the main part
of the crop is harvested in October, those who follow this complete cycle return
to the winter garden or to the lower Rio Grande Valley. Although cotton produc-
tion provides the most important demand for seasonal workers in Texas, large
numbers of migrants are also required for winter garden vegetables, particularly
spinach, citrus fruits, and onions.
It is estimated that 325,000 migrants were employed in Texas agriculture in
1939. From 60 to 65 percent of Texas migratory workers are of south Texas
origin. Twenty to twenty-two percent originate in central Texas and 9 to 10
percent in west Texas. Only 2 or 3 percent are from other States. Mexicans
(Spanish-speaking whites) are most important among the migratory groups, repre-
senting about 85 percent of the total. Other whites are estimated to be about
10 percent and Negroes about 5 percent of the total Texas migratory labor force.53
(/) Other Southwestern migrations. — Workers move out of Texas to work on
other crops. The movement of Mexicans to the sugar-beet fields of the Mid-
western and Far Western States takes place each year, and involves anywhere
from 8,000 to 12,000 workers.
Certain patterns of migration out of Texas are discernible. "According to one
authority, a work pattern was to be found in Texas and Oklahoma, beginning at
the southern tip of Texas and extending north into Oklahoma, and northwest
and west across Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, into California * * * Two
routes cut across the Texas Panhandle from Oklahoma to Albuquerque, N.
Mex. The beet and berry pickers moved from as far south as San Antonio all the
way across intervening States to Minnesota, with branch routes extending out to
States on either side of the main routes." 54
In New Mexico the need for seasonal workers is based on the requirements of
the pea, broom corn, and cotton harvests of the Pecos River and the Rio Grande
Valleys. The general scale of farm operations in New Mexico is small compared
with that found in Texas, Arizona, and California. This is especially true with
respect to cotton. It is estimated that at least one-half of the 8,000 to 9,000
seasonal workers required in the harvesting of the three crops must be migratory.
A study of 235 interstate migrant households in New Mexico shows that many
of the migrants working these crops had recently removed from farms in Okla-
homa and Texas.55 Among the migrants in the study who had been on the move
for the entire year of 1937, Texas was reported as the principal State of employ-
ment by more heads of families than any other State. Oklahoma, New Mexico,
and California were also given as principal States of employment by the full-time
migratory workers. Part-time migratory workers reported New Mexico, Texas,
and Oklahoma as the States of principal employment. The interstate migratory
workers were primarily Anglo-Americans, with some Negro workers who were
found primarily in the cotton fields where they seem to be preferred for picking
cotton. Very few of these migrants were of Spanish- American origin. The crops
of New Mexico are regarded as sources of employment by removal migrants on
the way west as well as by regular migratory workers.
Arizona similarly demands a considerable number of casual seasonal workers
for the harvest of its crops and provides a temporary scene of employment for
removal migrants seeking a chance to relocate on the Pacific coast. In a study of
518 cotton workers and their families in Arizona,56 it was found that 85 percent of
the migrants who first left home in 1937 originated in the four western cotton
States of Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri.
« Tolan committee op. cit., pt 5, Oklahoma City, Migratory Farm Labor in Texas Agriculture, by staff
members of Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, pp. 1923-27.
M Tolan committee, op. cit., hearings, pt. 5, pp. 1808, 1884.
M Sigurd Johansen, Migratory-Casual Workers in New Mexico. New Mexico Agricultural Experiment.
Station, and Works Progress Administration, (March 1939).
66 Brown, M. J., and Cassmore, Orin, Migratory Cotton Pickers in Arizona, Work Projects Administra-
tion (1938).
12356 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
These workers were not regular migrants coming to Arizona but were made up
of new refugees moving westward to California. Oklahoma and the other three
western cotton States were also the original homes of a large percentage of the
full-year migrant group.
In 1937 Arizona cotton growers were dependent for the most part on removal
migrants for the vast majority of the workers necessary to pick the cotton crop.
These migrants work one season and then move on. They are supplanted by a
new group of workers the following year. Thus, Arizona cotton is picked by
workers who stream across the State in a continuous movement, a movement
which is not part of a cycle of migration such as that found in Texas.
(g) Pacific coast migrations. — One of the most recent studies of the removal
migrants in California,57 indicates that, out of 6,655 families studied, 41.6 percent
came from Oklahoma, 15.7 percent from Texas, 10.7 percent from Arkansas, 7.1
percent from Missouri, and 5.3 percent from Arizona. Of 5,295 reporting occupa-
tions prior to migration, 4,652 reported farm backgrounds. About one-third of
those with farm backgrounds had been owners, tenants, or croppers. The
reason most frequently given for migration was lack of work but this was fairly
closely followed by drought.
Though removal migrants are currently an important source of seasonal
workers in the States of the Southwest and the Pacific coast, sight should not be
lost of the fact that their employment is adapted to an established need of agri-
culture there. With the rapid expansion of irrigated farming in California since
1890 it has been essential for the operators of the larger farms to recruit labor from
cheap labor markets of the world.
The Chinese coolies, originally imported for the construction of the first trans-
continental railroad, were later drafted for agriculture and were followed succes-
sively by Japanese, Filipinos, workers of Hindustan extraction, Mexicans and,
during the current decade, by relocation migrants, principally from the southern
Great Plains States.
In California, agricultural crops requiring significant amounts of labor are
produced as far north as Tehama County and southward to San Diego and
Imperial Counties. In the Sacramento Valley deciduous fruits, asparagus, and
peas require the greatest amounts of labor, totaling about 33,000 workers in 1935.58
The Central Coast Counties, including Sonoma in the north and San Luis Obispo
County in the south, produce deciduous fruits and truck crops requiring about
53,000 workers at their peak. In the San Joaquin Valley, grapes, cotton, and a
variety of other crops require a maximum of about 75,000 workers. In Southern
California, citrus fruit is the most important single crop except in the Imperial
Valley, where lettuce, peas, and melons predominate; the combined labor require-
ments of these plantings amount to about 56,000 laborers during the period of
greatest need.
Table 15 lists the seasonal labor requirements for 53 of the State's 58 counties
by months and the demand for migratory workers by months in 33 counties. The
figures on seasonal labor requirements take account of the working days available,
time limits for the various tasks, distance between jobs, and the mobility and
versatility of workers, so that they represent the number of workers that would be
needed under a rationalized use of the labor force. It will be noted that the
difference between the peak requirements in September and the minimum require-
ments in March is over 96,000 workers, and that the maximum demand for
migrants is for about 50,000 in October. Though the figures are not comparable
they give an idea of the relative dependence of agriculture on resident and migrant
workers.
Washington, Oregon, California and, to a lesser extent, Idaho represent a
fairly continuous labor market. The Idaho areas of intensive agriculture, where
sugar beets, potatoes, beans, fruits, and vegetables are grown, follow the course of
the Snake River through the State. It is probable that if full advantage were
taken of the available resident labor supply, little migration would be necessary.
In fact there has been some decline in the once heavy migrations of Mexicans and
Filipinos. However, there is still migration for beet work, and for the potato
and vegetable harvests.
•7 Farm Security Administration, U. S. Department of Agriculture, A Study of 6,655 Migrant Households
in California, 1938. Based on data from migratory farm labor grant recipients. To be eligible for these
Farm Security Administration grants anplicants were required to be bona fide workers in need with less than
1 full vear of residence in the State of California.
48 Figures on demand in the county groupings listed are derived from Survey of Agricultural Labor Re-
quirements in California, 1935, State Relief Administration of California, Division of Research and Surveys,
December 1935.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12357
Table 15. — Seasonal labor requirements and demand for migratory workers l in
California agriculture, 1985
Month
Seasonal
workers
required
(53
counties)2
Nonresi-
dent
laborers
required (33
counties)3
Month
Seasonal
workers
required
(53
counties)2
Nonresi-
dent
laborers
required (33
counties)3
Number
61, 649
50,500
48, 173
73, 035
103, 240
102, 810
Number
13, 004
16, 829
13,319
19, 407
38, 513
30, 634
July
Number
93, 728
130, 330
144,720
126, 835
65, 610
56, 760
Number
35, 366
41,053
41,258
49, 551
17, 744
7,620
1 Not resident in county of employment.
2 Adams, R. L., Seasonal Labor Requirements for California Crops. California Agricultural Experiment
Station. Bulletin 623. Berkeley, Calif., 193S. Table 5, pp. 22-23.
3 State Relief Administration of California, Division of Research and Surveys. Survey of Agricultural
Labor Requirements in California, 1935. Table 3, p. 21.
The need for migrants in Oregon is based on the harvest of apples, pears, prunes,
cherries, grapes, nuts, and hops in Willamette Valley and the Umpqua and Rogue
drainage area. Some 45,000 workers are needed in the Willamette Valley in the
early part of July and in recent years this need has been filled by removal migrants,
by regular casual migratory workers moving up from California and by intra-
state migrants from Portland and from the lesser towns fairly close to the area.
The Malheur area with its peas and asparagus requires the importation of workers.
Klamath potatoes require roughly 1,500 casually employed workers in September
and October. Some of these migrate into the State from California, but many are
recruited from the ranks of the unskilled sawmill workers.69 In the Hood River
and The Dalles areas, apple and berry operations require approximtely 10,000
workers.
The demand for seasonal workers in Washington arises from the crops of apples
and hops in the Yakima Valley and Wenatchee areas, and from the Puget Sound
truck and berry areas. Yakima Valley requires a peak of about 33,000 workers
in the second week in September, and about 11,000 in the third week in October,
but in no other month of the year are more than 5,000 workers needed, while
from the second week in November through the last week in May the number
ranges from a few hundred to 2,000.60 An estimated 4,000 to 6,000 resident
laborers are avilable for this work. In the Puget Sound berry area the demand
rises to 27,430.
7. Problems. — Fundamentally, the problems of migratory farm workers stem
from inadequate income. Like most underprivileged groups, if their earnings
were sufficient they could effectively demand better housing, sufficient food, and
adequate medical care. Other disabilities of migratory workers flow from their
lack of status in the community, occasioned by their disfranchisement, and their
loss of settlement. They are American citizens with no voice in the community
and incapable of using the polls — the traditional American method of effecting
the social or economic betterment of any group of citizens. Their banishment
from the political responsibilities of community life results in exclusion from the
benefits ordinarily accorded residents of a community — such as adequate relief,
protection of civil liberties, etc.
(a) Earnings, income and relief. — The cumulative effects of low agricultural
wage rates, unorganized and overcrowded 4abor markets, irrational movements
of workers, uncontrolled recruiting, time losses in movement, time losses while
on the job, and seasonal unemployment, result in extremely low earnings for
seasonal agricultural workers. Estimates of annual income of family groups,
varying with the time and locales of the data, indicate that the median family
income of migrant farm workers mav be expected to range between $350 and $400
(tables 16 and 17).
The meagerness of these incomes is demonstrated in available data concerning
the extent to which these families were forced to supplement their earnings by
M Basis for description of Oregon, Idaho, and Washington requirements is analysis by George B. Her-
Ington. labor relations representative, Farm Securitv Administration, in unpublished report, Narrative
Report of Progress of Study of Agricultural Labor Status, Washington-Oregon-Idaho, 1938.
M Landis, Paul H., and Brooks, Melvin S., Farm Labor in the Yakima Valley, Wash, Agricultural
Experiment Station. State College of Washington, Bulletin No. 343 (December 1936). Table 8, p. 29.
12358
HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
recourse to public relief. The Mexicans of south Texas, whose median family-
earnings during 1938 were high compared with most migratory workers, sought
relief in that year in 9 percent of the 300 cases recorded. Along with migratory
farm workers'' need for relief goes unusual difficulty in obtaining it because of
inability to meet residence requirements.
In one of the areas visited in a survey of beet workers conducted by the Chil-
dren's Bureau, 97 percent of the families visited had received relief in the year
prior to the survey. Six months was the most usual period over which relief was
received. In a survey of migratory cotton pickers in Arizona, 110 of the 371
migrant family groups which had been on the road only part of the year, had
received public assistance of some kind during 1937. Brown and Cassmore noted
that it was obvious from the earnings data in the study "that the great majority
of the cotton pickers finished the year either actually in need of relief or in imme-
diate danger of becoming so."
Farm Security Administration Labor Division surveys show relief incomes
for from 9 percent to 42 percent of the families included in various surveys. The
median amount received ranged from $25 to $250 a year (table 18).
(b) Unemployment. — Unemployment and underemployment must be considered
in any evaluation of the income of the migratory workers. The limitation that
the seasons place on employment in agriculture is unquestionably of main im-
portance in this connection. Actual travel between jobs seems to occasion a
relatively slight loss of time. Johansen found that 72 all-year migrant families
lost but slightly over 2 weeks of the year on the road, while Brown and Cassmore
reported a loss of not more than 3 weeks on the part of the all-year cotton mi-
grants studied.
Table 16. — Median family income of migratory and seasonal farm workers as
reported in selected studies l
State
Median
annual
income
Number
of
families
Year
Dollars
430
574
154
357
459
393
414
561
611
559
400
Number
343
136
(5)
178
518
48
28
300
175
87
26
1934-35
1936-37
1937
1935
1938
New Mexico:
1937
1937
Texas: 10
1938
1938
1938
1938
i See also table 22, p. 92. .,,,.,,,
2 Johnson, Elizabeth S. Welfare of Families of Sugar-Beet Laborers. Does not include relief or value of
August 1937, p. 5. Does not include relief and presumably does not include value of perquisites.
* Hamilton, Horace N. Texas Farm Labor Study, unpublished data.
6 Not available. , . ,
• Landis, Paul H. and Brooks, Melwin S., Farm Labor in the Yakima Valley, Washington. Agricul-
tural Experiment Station, State College of Washington, Bulletin No. 343 (December 1936), pp. 55-56. In-
cludes relief income. . . .
7 Brown, Malcolm and Cassmore, Owin, Migratory Cotton Pickers in Arizona, Work Projects Adminis-
tration (1939), p. 14, table 4. Includes relief and value of perquisites.
8 Johansen, Sigurd, Migratory— Casual Workers in New Mexico, New Mexico Agricultural Experiment
Station, State College, New Mexico, and Work Projects Administration (1939), p. 31. Does not include
relief or value of perquisites.
9 Ibid., earnings of families engaged primarily in cotton work, p. 33. Does not include relief or value of
perquisites.
>» Menefee, Selden C. Mexican Migratory Workers of South Texas, Work Projects Administration
(1941), pp. 37-38. Includes income from relief and value of perquisites.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12359
Table 17. — Median gross income including perquisites and days worked during a
preceding year, for migratory farm worker families interviewed in selected areas by
the Federal Security Agency Labor Division, 1939 and 1940
Area and year
Total
number
of cases '
inter-
viewed
Number
of
migrant
cases '
inter-
viewed
For migrants, dur-
ing year preceding
interview 2
Median
gross
income
Median
days em-
ployed
1940:
181
161
159
313
121
273
269
244
226
258
408
236
494
532
179
327
239
128
50
170
160
156
311
119
196
56
203
220
257
100
76
142
384
76
304
77
125
50
$167
415
376
412
431
296
251
326
716
353
275
313
653
417
353
212
233
327
417
Elizabeth City area, N. C
Northampton and Accomac Counties, Va
Hightstown area, N. J
192
176
183
197
191
St. Johns County, Fla
192
Pemiscott, New Madrid, Dunklin, southeast Missouri
1939:
118
143
173
164
162
Benton County and Washington County, Ark., and south-
139
1 A case represents a family unit, which may consist of one or more persons.
2 Does not include all cases interviewed in all areas because of incomplete answers.
Table 18. — Median relief income for farm workers interviewed in selected areas
the Federal Security Agency Labor Division, 1940
Area
Number
of family
heads and
single per-
sons inter-
viewed
Percent of
total fam-
ilies inter-
viewed
receiving
relief
Median re-
lief income
of those
families
receiving
relief
170
160
156
311
119
196
56
203
220
257
100
9.4
18.8
9.0
19.9
2.4
14.8
16.1
19.2
33.2
22.5
42.0
Elizabeth City, N. C
Meggett, S. C_
32.17
Humboldt, Tenn
90.50
Outside of time lost between jobs, there axe many other factors that tend toward
underemployment of migrant workers. Johansen's study indicates that in a
total employment of 3,438 weeks for 72 all-year migrant families, 958 weeks or
'27.9 percent, were lost on the job. Moreover, one-half the jobs held by the 89
families employed in agriculture in this study were of less than 9.7 weeks' dura-
tion. Table 17 reports median days of employment, during the year preceding,
-of migrants interviewed by the Farm Security Administration Labor Division in
various areas. An examination of these data reveals the extent of unemployment
which these groups suffered. It should also be mentioned that any work re-
ported, no matter of how short duration, was considered a day's work. Thus
workdays of 1 or 2 hours are included in the figures. The problem of full em-
ployment is thus associated not only with the intermittent character of the
employment periods, but with the intermittent character of daily employment
12360 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
while actually on the job. This, however, is a characteristic of seasonal employ-
ment which affects all workers, transient or local, and is discussed more intensively
elsewhere in this report.
(c) Housing. — The living conditions of agricultural migrants have been called
worse than those of any other group in the United States. During the 1930's
they reached a particularly low point:
"Such families (those of agricultural migrants) probably have the worst living
conditions of any group in the United States. Usually they have no homes
except temporary roadside or ditch-bank camps, often without any kind of
sanitary facilities or even a decent water supply. Ordinarily, their only posses-
sions are a second-hand automobile, a tent, a few blankets, and cooking utensils.
Their children have no chance for education, adequate medical care, or normal
home and community life. Accumulating any reserve against the gaps between
jobs or the risk of accident and illness is completely beyond their reach. Mal-
nutrition and sickness are common among both adults and children. Though
relatively free from chronic disease, and younger than the settled population
they suffer from about 74 percent more disabling illness." 61
Owing to the constant change which characterizes their lives, the housing of
migrant workers presents unusual complications. Three aspects are of impor-
tance: First, shelter while the migrants are on the road; second, housing while
waiting for employment or lying over between jobs; and third, housing while
employed.
Housing on the road consists of a tent or trailer, a low-rent tourist cabin, or
merely the shelter of the family car or truck, parked by the roadside. In many
parts of the South, the Southwest, and the Pacific coast, it is a common practice
to convert vacant lots on the edge of town into temporary squatters' camps.
"Whatever the cause, every community in Texas which is a concentration
point and distribution center of migratory workers becomes, during the harvest-
ing season, suddenly transformed into an open camp with a high fluctuating
migrant population deprived of facilities, however primitive, to meet the most
elementary needs of life — washing, bathing, cooking, and a decent or protected
place to rest or sleep." 62
Commercial camps are often little better than such squatter arrangements yet
cost from $0.25 to $1.25 for a single night's lodging. Their advantage lies in
the water supply and sanitation, which are often sadly inadequate. Regulation
is usually of the most casual sort, consequently they often fall far below ordinary
standards of sanitation, cleanliness, and orderliness.
Housing during periods of idleness between jobs is ordinarily of a similar
character, with the evils intensified because of longer period of occupancy. But
on some farms during slack periods workers are permitted to continue to occupy
the cabins in which they live while at work.
As regards the inadequacy of the housing furnished by most growers to their
seasonal hands, all sections of the country are on much the same level, whether
we refer to the colonies sometimes established by sugar-beet companies for
Mexican field hands; the tobacco sheds and barns of North Carolina which
house the itinerant strawberry pickers in bunks that line the walls; the straw-
berry shacks of Tangipahoa Parish in Louisiana; the commercial row houses of
Belle Glade in Florida; the shacks near the tobacco fields of Connecticut; the
apple orchards of Virginia; or the tomato fields of Indiana.
Landis' and Brooks' study of farm labor in the Yakima Valley points out that
although the average size of a transient family was 3.5 persons, 66.3 percent of
the transient families studied lived in one room dwellings, usually tents or tourist
cabins. Of all transient families, 43.3 percent lived in tents, 32.6 percent in
tourist cabins and only 11.7 percent in some more permanent form of dwelling.68
Such cond'tions are common. Overcrowding, filth, vermin, lack of sanitation
are characteristic.
In New Jersey, for migratory workers in the cranberry bogs, "crude barracks
des'gned to house 10 to 30 families are provided. These barracks offer only a
minimum of shelter with no comforts or conveniences. None of those observed
had any bathing or laundry facilities. A common kitchen is provided but is
usually inadequate, and cooking is done over open fires or on kerosene stoves
brought bv the workers." 64
•' Report to the President by the Interdepartmental Committee to Coordinate Health and Welfare
Activities, Migratory Labor, Social Security Bulletin, September 1940.
M S'lvermaster, N. Gregory, Summary Report and Recommendations on Migratory Labor Problems
In Texas (unpublished manuscript).
68 Landis and Brooks, op. cit., pp. 42, 43.
68 Cruikshank, Nelson II., Notes on Agricultural Labor in Southern New Jersey based on reconnaissance
trip to area, September 19-24, 1938, October 19, 1938 (unpublished manuscript).
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12361
The Texas Farm Placement Service reported the following:
"In March of 1938, the county judge of one of the principal cotton-producing
counties of the Amarillo district (Texas) advised the Service that about 300
Negro workers were stranded on a large cotton plantation in the adjoining
comit v
"The living quarters for these people are known as dug-outs, about 3 feet in
the ground, with weatherboard side and roof. There were 3 or 4 such places of
abode, 80 feet long by 12 feet wide. Bunks were arranged in tiers and approxi-
mately 100 people were housed in each 'dug-out.' Cheap wood cook stoves were
furnished and large groups used one stove. The ventilation was extremely poor,
and there were no toilet facilities except surface toilets. At one time, it was said
that there were over 500 Negroes in this camp. These people were piled up like
hogs in these places throughout the winter; having no transportation facilities,
they could not get away, and the pay received was spent for food. This particular
grower made more cotton than he could pick; consequently, he had scattered
cotton to pick into March of 1938. ,
"During the 1937 season, when cotton was good and a good picker could pull
500 pounds or more, 40 and 50 cents was the lowest paid. After Christmas, when
cotton was thin and 200 pounds per day was the maximum, this grower reduced
the price for pulling to 25 cents per hundred. During rainy weather, when the
Negroes could not work, he would advance them 20 cents per day in merchandise
from his commissary. In February, it was said that there were 23 days of bad
weather when no one could work and debt to the commissary was accrued. Their
condition became unbearable. The sheriff learned of the situation and visited the
camp. He found two dead Negroes in one of the dug-outs, covered with old
gunny sacks. They had died of pneumonia. The situation was discussed with
the owner of the property and he told the officials that there was nothing to be
alarmed about, that as soon as the weather warmed up the Negroes would 'fade
out.' " 65
Such conditions constitute a menace to the communities that tolerate them.
Inadequate sanitation makes for the breeding and propagation of diseases as does
exposure to contaminated water. Crowded quarters increase the hazards of
exposure and multiply the contacts so that the danger of spreading diseases to the
commum'tv is greatly increased. «,.„.„ e
(d) Health of migrants.— In the fiscal year 1936-37 the California Bureau of
Child Hvgiene carried on a study of the health of migratory children in the Central
Valley of California. Table 19 indicates the relative frequency of health defects
between the 1,002 migrant children studied and a comparable survey made on
1,000 resident children examined in rural centers and small communities during
the same year.
Table 19. — Incidence of health defects in 1,002 migratory children and 1,000
resident children examined by the Bureau of Children's Hygiene in rural areas of
California, 1936-37
Age groups
Residence status
Less
than 1
1 to less
than 2
2 to less
than 6
6 and
over
Total
Percent
31.1
56.8
Percent
50.4
79.7
Percent
73.3
85.4
Percent
65.7
91.3
Percent
60.5
83.6
Source: Faverman, AnitaE. Study of the Health of 1,000 Children of Migratory Agricultural Laborers in
California (Report of the Migratory Demonstration, July 1936-June 1937). California State Department of
Public Health, San Francisco, 1937, p. 20.
It will be noted that the migratory children appear to suffer from health defects
to a very much greater degree than resident children. While the comparative
incidence of defects sheds light on the relative disadvantage of the two groups,
the fact that 83 out of each 100 migrant children examined were defective in some
respect is even more alarming.
68 Texas Farm Placement Service, Annual Report, 1938, pp. 40, 41.
12362 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
A total of 1,369 defects were found in the 1,002 migratory children. The
largest single type of defect observed involved the tonsils and adenoids. How-
ever, there were 41 cases of communicable diseases, 32 gastrointestinal ailments,
167 nutritional defects, and 137 respiratory illnesses, or a total of 377 defects
more or less directly attributable to inadequate diet and housing.66
The public health officials of Kern County, Calif., have closely observed the
migrant health problem. Their vital statistics for 1937 indicate infant deaths
from prematurity are highest during months when labor requirements for agri-
culture are greatest. Similarly infant deaths of all kinds increased during the
expansion of cotton acreage between 1925 and 1937.67 The county depends almost
entirely on an influx of migrant workers for the harvest of its cotton crop.
An expression of the Kern County Health Department as to the relationship
between poor accommodations and health is found in the following statement
from the Kern County Health Bulletin for June 1937: v
"With adequate camp facilities available, many of the present problems of our
governmental department would be mitigated. 'Squatter camps' could be quickly
dissolved. The constant threat of outbreak of communicable disease would be
lessened. Health authorities coidd enforce sanitary provisions, and disease car-
riers could be effectively controlled. * * ■* Plenty of fresh water, sanitary
toilets, and camps free from flies and vermin would form a basic living condition
that would tend to protect the health of the workers and would insure a healthier,
sturdier employee to Kern County's greatest industry: agriculture."
The possibilities opened to the migrant groups through supervised and well-
regulated camps and houses are illustrated in the experience of the Farm Security
Administration's camp and labor homes for agricultural workers at Shatter, in
Kern County. Through the facilities offered by the camp, public health repre-
sentatives were enabled to make 1,112 home calls on camp families during the
first 6 months of 1938; to hold 23 health inspections involving 785 individual
examinations of children in the camp play area; to give prenatal care and in-
struction to 73 pregnant mothers; to hold 7 well-baby clinics with a gross attend-
ance of 270; to give 1,882 individuals typhoid inoculations; to immunize 113
against diptheria; and to vaccinate 819 against smallpox.68
(e) Education. — Many factors prevent migrants from obtaining full educational
opportunities. Some of these are the generally lower levels of rural schools, the
added strain that a sudden influx of children places on existing facilities, the neces-
sity of employing children of school age in the fields to augment the meager
earnings of their parents, the interruptions in regular school attendance induced
by an unsettled way of life, the indifference of parents and school authorities to
the attendance of migrant children even where it is presumably compulsory, and
the diffidence on the part of parents and children toward school attendance where
they do not have suitable clothing.
Attendance records of schools in' Imperial County, Calif., indicate the fluctua-
tions which confront educators in communities through which large numbers of
migrants pass. Since this county uses much Mexican farm labor, enrollment
figures for Mexican children are revealing.
In June 1930 the number of Mexican children enrolled in the school districts
with peak enrollment in the fall was 58.5 percent of the annual average Mexican
enrollment, while in November of the preceding fall it had been 125.9 percent.
In terms of percentage of all children attending, the Mexican element constituted
29.6 percent of the student body in November but only 16.8 percent in June of
the same school year.69
Shifts of this sort are difficult to predict and as a consequence seasonal schools
are crowded and makeshift facilities are often used. In one instance 125 children
were crowded into a single room where 3 teachers were trying to hold classes
simultaneously and another in which an abandoned cow barn was used as a school-
house for migrants.70 Frequently, the practice of setting up classes for migrants
in auditoriums, hallways, or in temporary tent annexes is resorted to by the school
authorities.
«« Study of the Health of 1,000 Children of Migratory Agricultural Laborers in California, op. cit., table
«' Kern County Department of Public Health, Division of Vital Statistics, Excerpts from Graphic Pres-
entation of Birth, Death, and Other Vital Statistics, for Kern County, year 1937 (mimeographed), p. 12.
«» Rowell, Edward J., The Child in the Migratory Camp— Health, California Children, vol. 1, No. 9,
September 15, 1938. , „ ,_ ,„ „ __.. ..
68 Cf. Taylor, Paul S., and Rowell, Edward J., Patterns of Agricultural Labor Migration Within the
State of California, Monthly Labor Review, November 1938, table 1. Apparently monthly "enrollment"
data were gathered specially in Imperial County.
" Study of the Health of 1,000 Children of Migratory Agricultural Laborers in California, op. cit., p. 37.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12363
The conflict between earning power of the children in the fields and school
attendance has been aptly stated by a superintendent of public instruction in a
Florida county — "Education is in competition with beans in this county — and
beans are winning out." .
One device used to ease this conflict is the establishment of special schools tor
migrants, as is done in some counties in Texas and California, which begin classes
at 8 o'clock in the morning and dismiss at 12:30, in order to leave the afternoon
free for picking cotton. Another is the closing of schools entirely in some areas
where there is a short sharp peak of operations. This latter is of some benefit
to the children of resident seasonal workers since it permits the children to work
without loss of school time. Frequently, where the time of harvest permits, the
closing of the schools is accomplished through the extension of the period of the
teachers' institute.
The indifference of attendance officers toward the enrollment of the children
of the mobile seasonal workers is frequently a measure of the attitude of the
communities toward the migrants. The Department of Labor notes an instance
in which a cotton grower was fined $50 on each of two charges of employing resi-
dent children in the fields, but a third charge was dismissed when it was revealed
in the trial that the child was a member of a family from another State.71 Gen-
erally this indifference does not appear so openly, but is reflected in the attitude
that a district must first take care of its own.
Inevitably the result of such circumstances surrounding the education of
migrant children is retardation. Even where a conscientious effort is made to
educate them, their retardation and irregular attendance make adjustments to
the schools' routine and discipline most difficult.
Each of the several field studies reporting on this aspect of migrations confirms
the failure of our educational svstems to reach migratory seasonal workers.
In the Washington hop fields, less than half the workers enumerated in one
study had advanced beyond the eighth grade and one-fifth had not reached the
eighth grade.72 The California State Relief Administration's study of migratory
workers in the San Joaquin Valley divided the children of school age as follows:
Advanced, whites, 8.0 percent; Mexicans, 1.5 percent; normal — whites, 22.5
percent, Mexican, 12.3 percent; retarded— whites, 69.6 percent, Mexican, 86.2
percent. The same distribution for all California School children was reported
as being: Advanced, 5.2 percent, normal, 45.0 percent, retarded, 49.8 percent.75
"Migratory-Casual Workers in New Mexico" 74 indicates that of 185 migratory
children from 7 to 15 years of age 13.6 percent were advanced, 21.6 percent
normal, and 64.8 percent retarded. These figures tally very closely with the
experience reported in the California study.
(/) Special handicaps of the migratory workers. — The loss of "settlement" which
results from the migratory life places the migrant in a position in which he cannot
exercise the fundamental right of all American citizens — the right to vote. Even
in cases where he has maintained settlement in a State, the difficulties involved
in casting an absentee ballot usually prevent him from voting.
Inextricably bound up with the exercise of the franchise is the treatment accorded
the migrant, who is an outsider in the community, in matters involving civil and
political liberties. This, of course, stems also from community attitudes toward
the poor or destitute transient who, until the depression, was frequently con-
sidered a "hobo." It also flows from the resentment of local workers toward
outside laborers who, the former believe, will work under conditions unacceptable
to residents.
The preference of many employers for an outside labor force is frequently
expressed and is based on the fact that these workers will accept lower wages and
generally worse conditions of employment than will local workers. Of course
there are instances in which the local labor supply is not sufficient to meet the
peak seasonal demands of a crop, and farmers, regardless of preferences, are
forced to resort to nonlocal labor. Uncontrolled recruiting frequently results
71 Migration of Workers, op. cit., p. 154.
" Renss, Carl ¥., Landis, Paul H.. and Wakefield, Richard. Migratory Farm Labor and the Hop Indus-
try on the Pacific Coast. Bulletin No. 363, Agricultural Experiment Station, Pullman, Wash., August 1938,
p. 41.
In the Landis and Brooks study, op. cit. p. 60, it i? suggested that even in the field of farm labor there may
be some correlation between education and earning capacity or at least adaptability to environment. At
least it points out that for the families studied there was greater tendency to be on relief for those of less
education; 63.4 percent of those who had not passed the eighth grade reported receipt of relief: 48.1 percent
of those who had had some high-school education; and only 27.8 percent of those who had gone beyond high
school.
73 California State Relief Administration, op. cit., p. 14.
74 Johansen, op. cit., p. 40.
12364 HTJNTSVILLE, ALAV hearings
in oversupply and in depression of wage rates, forcing the local worker to accept
wage rates offered or be passed over in favor of a migrant.
In 1939 reports of a good harvest brought an excessive number of transient
workers to North Dakota. Many of them rode the freights. Along the two
mainline railways these laborers congregated in the transient centers of the larger
towns and made their "jungles" behind warehouses. They constituted a problem
for the communities. In some towns, the police kept transients moving. In
others, they were fingerprinted, given a meal and a bed in the county jail, and
then told to clear out. The transient "jungles" on the outskirts of one city were
raided at noon each day.75
"Exclusion of the migrants from normal community life is an evil which marks
them as a group apart" 78 Thus, even sugar-beet migrants who are established
in the community for 6 and 7 months each year, are physically and socially isolated
from the population around them. Elizabeth Johnson found with regard to these
workers:
"In most if not all communities visited the beet workers were isolated from the
rest of the population, occupationally, socially, and residentially, consequently
they were often looked upon as a distinct and inferior social class * * *. The
low social status of beet laborers appeared to be partly due to their willingness to
do the arduous, monotonous hand labor of the beet fields at the wages offered and
to the poverty and living conditions associated with their occupation * * *.
"The feeling against the 'Mexicans,' as both Spanish- Americans and Mexicans
were locally designated, had apparently been definitely increased during the
depression years. When times were good, labor badly needed, and earnings from
beet work high enough to support the families the year round, the Spanish-
speaking families were comparatively welcome in the beet areas. Under depres-
sion conditions, however, they had frequently to be supported during the winter
months by communities that resented the need to care for the 'sugar company's
Mexicans.' Likewise, willingness of the 'Mexicans' to 'work for half wages and
eat half rations' were seen as a threat to the employment opportunities and living
standards of the other wage earners of the community * * *." 77
In his statement to the Tolan committee, John Beecher, supervisor of Farm
Security Florida Migratory Labor Camps, stated with regard to the status of
migrants and community attitudes toward them:
"* * * into whatever community the migrant goes his status is the lowest
in the social scale? His labor is welcome, but he is not. He and his family are
feared as possible sources of physical and moral contagion, and even more as
possible public charges should they become stranded there. In no sense does the
migrant 'belong' — he has no political rights and his civil rights have proved to be
more theoretical than real on the rare occasions when he has tried to assert them.
He and his family seldom participate in the normal social life of the communities
through which they pass — they do not as a rule attend the local churches, or fre-
quent the local parks and amusement places. Special recreational devices are
sometimes provided to catch their spare pennies — low-grade bars and dancehalls,
cheap fairs, medicine shows, and the like." 78 In instances where the migrants
are of foreign extraction or nonwhite, they are ostracized and denied the privileges
of the ordinary American citizen to an even greater extent.
The hostility of a New Jersey community toward migrant Negro potato pickers
is illustrated by the following occurrence. Some 1,000 southern Negroes were
imported into Cranbury for its potato harvest in 1939. On August 12, 15 masked
men wrecked a shack in which 7 Negroes were living. The raiders then drove the
potato pickers across a field under a barrage of shotgun fire. Five of the seven
were ordered to strip and their hands were than taped behind their backs. The
only woman in the group and her husband were taken farther afield and daubed
with white paint. The terrified pickers were then warned "to get back down
South where you belong." 79
"Official restrictions on the personal liberties and free movement of migrants
have taken various forms." 80 The methods used have been passage of vagrancy
laws and the establishment of border patrols and "bum blockades."
Some of the most serious denials of civil liberties have been in connection with
organization by migratory workers to improve their working conditions and terms
of employment. This problem is shared by all types of hired farm labor, and is
discussed in more detail in a later section. (See p. 139.)
to Cullum, Folsom and Hay, op. cit.
w Tolan committee, Report, op. cit., p. 39.
" Johnson, op. cit., p. 80.
" Tolan committee, op. cit. hearings, pt. 2, Montgomery, Ala., p. 536.
»• Typewritten ms. in files of Labor Division, F. S. A., entitled "Granbury, New Jersey," August 1939.
so Tolan committee report, op. cit., p. 393.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12365
II. ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL STATUS OP FARM WAGE WORKERS
A. Earnings and incomes.
A "shift from farming as a way of life to farming as a commercial enterprise" 81
is believed by some writers to have been caused by technical changes in agricul-
tural production, and by increase in the number and productive importance of
large farm enterprises. This shift in turn is associated with important alterations
in economic relationships among men and women engaged in agriculture. Says
one writer, ''the trend toward the introduction of business methods on the farm
indicates a more extensive use of labor-saving machinery, a reduction in the
number of small farmers and the traditional hired men, and the creation of a large
landless agricultural working class." 82
In spite of the size and importance of this class, information is scanty concerning
its standards and problems of living. The farm laborer is the forgotten man in
American agriculture. What little material is available indicates that farm labor-
ers, as a group, receive lower average incomes and have lower standards of living
than most other occupational classes in America.
Moreover, the birth rate among farm laborer groups is higher than that in any
other major occupational class in the Nation. One-fifth of all farm families in
the Nation are farm laborer families. The scope of the problem of their earnings
and levels of living becomes apparent.
1. Incomes and levels of living. — Income is the greatest single factor influencing
the living standards of farm labor. Incomes of farm laborers are far below what
is needed for a decent standard of living for their households.
The farm laborer family must spend most of its income for bare necessities —
food, clothing, and shelter, but above all, for food.
Summarizing many studies of standards of living, Carl C. Taylor and others
conclude:83
* * * when the income is below $1,000 per year, 59.9 percent of the entire
budget must be spent for food and 92.8 percent must be spent for purely physical
needs excluding health. Families with income as low as $600 per vear cannot even
have adequate food, clothing, and shelter, and their lives are inevitably robbed
of practically everything except these bare physical necessities. In areas where
50 percent or more of the families live on this low income level, the area can hardly
be described as anything but a rural slum. In such areas low-income families
not only live under disadvantages themselves, but tend to pull down the level of the
social and institutional life of the communities in which they live.
When gross farm income is at the low level of $600 per year, an increased
proportion of the income naturally must go for food to provide even the barest
essentials to sustain life. The housing of families at this income level offers only
the very minimum of shelter and comfort, and the clothing is anything but
adequate. After the items of food, housing, and clothing are accounted for in the
family budget, very little, if any, remains for so-called 'advancement' items,
including education, religion, recreation, charity, insurance, and health."
In part, the low income of farm laborers is caused by low wage rates, but in even
greater degree by insufficient employment, attributable to the inevitable season-
ality of agriculture, and to the surplus of farm labor manpower which has existed
in rural areas in relation to the opportunities for its effective use.
Available data on incomes received by hired farm workers, although scattered
and incomplete, acquire added significance when compared with the annual in-
comes that would be received if workers were able to secure full-time employment
at rates reported by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics of the Department of
Agriculture 84 (table 20). Full-time individual earnings at monthlv rates without
board would have ranged in 1940, under these conditions, from $280 in the East
South Central States, to $793 on the Pacific coast. Similarly, earnings at daily
rates, without board, would have been $208 and $558, respectively, in these areas.
It is revealing to compare such possible earnings with those actually reported
in a series of 11 uniform field studies conducted in 1936. These showed average
annual earnings of adult farm laborers plus dependents, ranging from $131.06 in a
Louisiana parish, to $650.99 in a California county (table 21). Such sums are
low for laborers without families, and seriously deficient for those with families.
81 Tolan committee report, op. cit., p. 276.
w Hopkins, William S., Social Insurance and Agriculture, Social Science Research Council, Pamphlet
Series No. 5, Washington, September 1940, p. 2. [Italics supplied.]
«3 Taylor, Carl C, Wheeler, Helen W., and Kirkpatrick, E. L., Disadvantaged Classes in American
Agriculture, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Social Research Report No. VIII, Washington, D C
April 1938, p. 8. f '
8* These figures, it is admitted, furnish a more accurate picture of the average rates paid to laborers in the
general farming areas of the country than they do in the specialized crop areas, where casual employment
and piece rates prevail and labor is hired to a considerable degree through contractors. However, they are
the only continuous and Nation-wide series of wage rate data available.
12366
HTJNTSVLLLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Table 20. — Earnings in terms of reported wage rates assuming full-time employ-
ment, 1940 1
Regions
Average
wage rate
per month
without
board
Earnings
if fully
employed
Average
wage rate
per day
without
board
Earnings
if fully
employed
New England.. -
Dollars
57 62
46.61
41.64
38. 75
26.90
23.30
28.17
51.89
66.07
Dollars
691
559
500
465
323
280
338
623
793
Dollars
2.64
2.37
2.12
2.01
1.22
1.04
1.24
2.25
2.79
Dollars
528
208
United States
36.68
440
1.59
318
1 Full-time employment for monthly wage rate assumed to be 12 months; for daily wage rate, 200 days.
Source: Crops and Markets, vol. 18, Nos. 1, 4, 5, 6, January, April, May, and June 1941.
Table 21. — Averane annual income of farm workers from agricultural and nonagri-
cultural sources in 1 county in each of 11 States, and proportion of single workers,
1935-36 "
County, State, and area
Total
earnings 3
Agricul-
tural
earnings
Nonagri-
cultural
income
Average
relief
receipts
Percentage
with no
dependents
1. Fentress County, Tenn., self-sufficing
Dollars
111.57
131.06
170. 54
187. 70
206. 33
254. 41
341. 18
307. 92
311.68
353.29
650. 99
Dollars
69.06
100. 04
162. 13
168. 60
185. 26
212. 05
224. 13
286. 36
292. 57
285. 96
626. 95
Dollars
42.51
31.02
8.41
19.10
21.07
42.36
117.05
27.01
19.11
67.33
24.04
Dollars
15.21
6.21
1.36
3.36
3.*9
7.48
19.66
9.55
5.02
1.31
7.49
Percent
43.2
2. Concordia Parish, La., cotton area
3. Karnes County, Tex., cotton area
4. Todd County, Ky., tobacco area ..
5. Lac qui Parle County, Minn., wheat
49.0
25.6
36.1
94.2
6. Pawnee County, Kans., wheat area
7. Archuleta County, Colo., stock-ranch
area - - --- --
8. Livingston County, 111., corn area
9. Hamilton County, Iowa, corn-hog area.
10. Wayne County, Pa., dairy area
11. Placer County, Calif., fruit area
67.5
63.6
55.0
68.8
73.4
30.7
1 Sources: Surveys of agricultural labor conditions in the respective areas, and published with titles sim
ilar except the area names. For example, that for Tennessee is: Vasey, Tom, and Folsom, Josian C
Survey of Agricultural Labor Conditions in Fentress County, Tennessee. U. S. Department of Agricul'
ture. The Farm Security Administration and the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, Washington, D. C-
Data are arithmetic means.
2 Total gross earnings, exclusive of relief receipts. Data on perquisites and home-use goods and on travel
expenses not secured.
Other recent studies, though not uniform with the foregoing, confirm the
inadequacy of total earnings of farm laborers in a variety of crops over many
areas (table 22). 85
For example: In the Yakima Valley, Wash., the median annual cash income of
farm laborer families interviewed in 1935-36, was between $500 and $600; of
single workers, between $350 and $400. The median number of weeks worked
per year ranged from between 40 and 50 for families; to only 36 to 39 for heads of
families or workers without families. The foregoing were all nonrelief cases.
The plight of relief cases was far more serious. Their median annual earnings for
families was between $200 and $225; for family heads, between $170 and $180; for
single laborers, between $135 and $155. Total annual employment ranged from
11 to 20 weeks; that is, from less than 3 to perhaps 5 months.86
2. Wage rates. — Wage rates alone are of little value as indicators of the economic
position of workers who receive them. Earnings are products of two factors:
wage rates and time employed. Irregular employment at relatively high wage
85 For earnings of sharecroppers see pp. 47-51.
•« Landis and Brooks, op. cit., p. 59.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12367
rates frequently yields lower annual earnings than continuous employment at rela-
tively low rates.
The only continuous statistical series on farm wage rate is that compiled quar-
terly by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics of the Department of Agriculture,
which reports wage rates on per day and per month bases, with and without board.
Wide regional variations are revealed by these data.
3. Time rates versus piece rates.—- The employer usually chooses whether time
rates or piece rates shall be paid. Piece-rate pay usually has advantages for him
over time rate, because the former makes easier the employment of workers of
varied speed and degree of skill. Under piece rates women and children may fre-
quently be used to supplement adult male labor, which might not be practicable
under time rates. Piece rates remove any incentive for the individual worker to
permit work to "drag along" in the hope of prolonging the period of employment.
Piece rates offer a further advantage to the employer by making uniform the
costs attributable to each unit of production.
Table 22. — Earnings of farm laborers; Various studies, 1935-39
1
Median an-
Median an-
nual cash
nual cash
Area, type of agriculture, and labor
earnings
exclusive of
Area, type of agriculture, and labor
earnings
exclusive of
relief
relief
income
income
1. Sugar beet labor families, 19352 (resi-
3. New Jersey:
dent and nonresident; Michigan,
A. Truck, general, dairy, 1935'..
M31
Minnesota, Montana, Wyoming) .
B. Truck, 1938'...
8 265
A. From sugar beets only
$340
4. Texas, 1937: »
B. From all sources
430
A. Migratory labor
228
2. Yakima Valley, Wash., 1935-36:
B. Resident labor
228
Resident:
5. California: Nonresident, 1935 »
i"261
A. Fruit and general farms:3
6. Florida, 1938-39:'i
Single workers
217
A. Migratory truck labor,
Family heads
198
Okeechobee area
12 399
Nonresident:
B. Migratory truck labor,
A. Fruit and general farms:3
Manatee area
12 345
Single workers
334
C. Citruslabor, Polk County...
12 688
Family heads
297
D. Celery labor, Sanford area. ._
"281
B. Hop pickers, 1936-37: *
7. Louisiana, 1938-39:" A. Migratory
Single persons:
tory strawberry labor, Hammond
Earning in agri-
»352
area
12 203
culture only...
. Earning in agri-
culture and
elsewhere:
Nonrelief
cases
«620
Relief cases .
«566
Families:
Earning in agri-
culture only...
'496
Earning in agri-
culture and
elsewhere:
Nonrelief
cases
»826
Relief cases .
*549
i See tables 16 and 17, pp. 74-75, for income data more specifically concerning migratory farm laborers.
2 Johnson, Elizabeth S., Welfare of Families of Sugar Beet Laborers, Bureau Publication No. 247, Chil-
dren's Bureau, Department of Labor, 1939, pp. 61-68.
3 Landis, Paul H., and Brooks, Melvin S., Farm Labor in the Yakima Vallev, Washington, Washington
Agricultural Experiment Station, Bulletin No. 343, 1936, pp. 54, 70. The differences in income of resident
and transient groups is probably partly explainable by an abnormally large proportion of relief cases among
the resident group. Relief cases have much lower income than others.
* Reuss, Carl F., Landis, Paul H., and Wakefield, R., Migratory Farm Labor and the Hop Industry in
the Pacific Coast, Washington Agricultural Experiment Station, Bulletin No. 363, 1938, p. 56.
8 Arithmetic average.
6 Folsom, J. C, Farm Labor Conditions in Gloucester, Hunterdon, and Monmouth Counties, New Jer-
sey, April-May 1936. U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, Washington,
D. C, 1939, p. 44.
7 A Summer in the Country, National Child Labor Committee, New York, N. Y., Pub. No. 377, 1939
p. 18.
8 Unpublished data obtained by Texas Agricultural Experiment Station in 1938.
• Migratory Labor in California, California State Relief Administration, San Francisco, 1936, p. 121.
10 The arithmetic average was $289.
■i Unpublished data obtained by the Farm Security Administration early in 1939. The families were
working predominantly in the types of production named. Earnings of white families were considerably
highor, sometimes nearly double those of colored families.
12 Includes some perquisites, which were received in rare instances.
12368 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
From the employee's point of view the piece-rate enables him to earn as much
each day as his physical abilities permit and to increase total earnings by using
his entire family to add their output to his own.
When care and quality are essential, or where the work done does not lend itself
to standard measurement by the piece, time rates are preferred. Where labor has
gained sufficient organized strength, it has called for the adoption of time rates
as the first step toward winning the principle of the living wage; because time
rates ignore variations in the output of workers. Where work is steady, as in the
case of a permanent "hired hand," the time rate is paid in the form of a daily or
monthly wage.
The seasonal worker, however, is usually paid on a piece-rate basis, minus
possible penalties. Deductions for work not up to a set standard may be made
before piece rate wages are paid out.
On some farms where small numbers of hired laborers work with their em-
ployers, efforts have been made to increase efficiency by sharing profits. Some-
times this has been done by granting a bonus on the total net profits of the farm,
but more often by sharing returns on certain enterprises which have been made the
responsibility of the hired worker. Profit sharing of this kind is really an attempt
to apply the principle of the piece rate to the more varied farm operations that
do not lend themselves to unit measurement. However, this bonus method has
never been widely practiced. Most frequently it has been used as an incentive to
profitable farming practices on the part of hired managers, rather than hired
hands as such.
4. Speed of work. — The prevailing method of payment in modern industry is
by the hour. Sometimes the speed of workers is stepped up and maintained by
linking their activity to the operations of a machine. This method of boosting
production has often resulted in harm to workers' health.
Agricultural processes offer little opportunities for "speed-ups," though in some
instances similar practices have been applied. On one large farm in the wheat
belt the operator reported that a tape recording device was attached to the tractor
so as to record every minute of idle time. In other cases where mobile equipment
is used together with labor, the machine can be employed to set the pace for
the worker. In California, for example, workers digging potatoes are assigned
"spaces," usually about 75 paces apart, behind the tractor-drawn digger.
Sometimes the speediest workers are used to set a pace for others. In hoeing
corn and cotton, and in cutting cane, "row men" are employed, sometimes at
slightly higher rates of pay, to set the pace. In California fruit groves a "pacer"
is assigned one row of trees, and pickers are discharged if they do not keep ,up
with him. , . •
5. Variations in reaional wage rates. — Reasons for regional variations in wage
rates for similar work are not easy to isolate. It has been suggested that they
"appear to be due to differences in the effectiveness with which productive re-
sources and equipment are used in relation to manpower; such factors as the
industrial competition for labor, the opportunity for some degree of permanence
of employment, the efficiency of the laborers and their standards of living, also
have influence." 87
The ranking of geographical divisions according to wage rates in agriculture
follows roughly the order according to (a) gross, and (6) net farm income.88
6. Forms of wage payment.— Throughout the country, cash is the predominant
f ■ rm in which agricultural wages are paid. Scrip and token money have been
used frequently, but, other than cash, the only important form of payment is that
of "perquisites." Because of their variations, perquisites complicate greatly
tke proMem of determining just what real wages are actually being paid to farm
workers.
"In industry, cash wages prevail and variations are likely to apply to a con-
siderable number of workers. In agriculture, on the other hand, perquisites
make up nearly two-fifths of the wages of noncasual hired farm hands the country
over and iheir nature may vary from farm to farm. Perquisites are ordinarily
defined as emoluments given in addition to wages at the going race. In agri-
culture, however, they are looked upon by both worker and employer as emolu-
ments in place - f cash wages, „he two together constituting total wages.
"Perquisites mav include a wide range of goods and services, such as board and
room, housing, dairy and meat products, flour and meal, and various privileges,
87 Ham, William T., The Status of Agricultural Labor, Law and Contemporary Problems, vol. IV, No.
'88Bl°ackr, John D., Agricultural Wage Relationships: Geographical Differences, Review of Economics
Statistics, vol. XVIII, No. 2, May 1936, pp. 68-69.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12369
such as that of keeping livestock, with feed or pasturage. The precise combina-
tion is determined by custom." 89
The practice of giving perquisites is widely prevalent. In 1925, it was found
that 97.5 percent of the noncasual and 85.5 percent of casual farm laborers re-
ceived them. Board was given to 50.5 percent of the noncasual laborers, and to
74.1 percent of the casual laborers. Lodging was provided for 74.3 of the former
and for 61.7 percent of the latter.90
B. Causes of inadequate employment*
Failure of the agricultural worker to secure enough employment, even though
wage rates are at a reasonable level, to make possible a living at minimum stand-
ards for himself and family the year round may be due to competition for jov>s
available, or to that seasonal irregularity which is a part of agriculture itself.
Competition for farm employment comes from two sources— firsv, from other wage
workers of rural or industrial origin, and second, from workers who are unpaid
members of farm families. There appears to be a tendency for the competition
from unpaid farm family workers to increase during periods of economic depres-
sion. Lnfortunately, this is also the time when wage earners, ordinarily em-
ployed in industry, flock to the country to compete with the bona fide agricultural
wage workers for the decreased number of jobs.
1. Seasonality of work. — The necessarily seasonal character of many types of
agricultural work is usually offered as an explanation of the irregular character of
much farm employment. Cotton must be picked before it becomes discolored
or lost; wheat must be harvested within a few days of its ripening if it is not to
fall or be damaged by rain. Fruit must be gathered before it falls or rots. The
farmer's return from a year's investment of management, labor, and cash depends
largely upon his ability to get the crop harvested at the right time. Seasonal help,
often in considerable volume, is frequently indispensable for a short period. The
type of farming and the kinds of crops produced largely decide how much labor
will be hired during the busy seasons of the spring, summer, and fall.
The employment of hired helpers is subject to much greater seasonal variation
than is the employment of farm families. Analysis of data for the years 1925-36
indicates that the employment of hired labor will usually range from a low of
70 percent of the annual average in January to highs of 119, 120, and 122 percent
of the annual average in the months of June, July, and October, respectively.
The seasonal variation in employment of family workers on the other hand is less,
usually ranging from 84 percent of the annual average in January to 115 percent
in June and 111 percent in July and October.91 The demand for seasonal labor
varies greatly in the different crop producing regions.
Indicative of the seasonal nature of such employment, even for owners and
operators, are the census data on off-farm employment for pay or income. Of the
6,096,799 farm operators in 1940, 28.7 percent had worked thus in 1939. The
average number of days in such employment was 137 per operator reporting any.
Two out of seven who worked part-time away from their farms did some work on
other farms. It is estimated that 13 percent of the available working time of the
operators was spent in off -farm employment for gain.
2. Climatic conditions. — Aside from the basic alternations of season, variations
from the normal climatic cycle may affect employment drastically. A retarded
season at planting time may result in a shift from one crop to another in an area,
marked by changing the labor demand later in the season. For example, either
weather conditions or anticipated market conditions in truck-growing areas may
cause a shift from a crop (such as green beans or tomatoes), calling for large
amounts of labor later in the season, to a crop (such as cabbage) which will call
for about one-third as much labor in harvesting operations, and at a different
time. After the crops are planted the amount of labor needed remains un-
certain. Excessive rain, hail, or windstorms, frosts, droughts, insect pests,
diseases, or other of the numerous unpredictable hazards of farming, may render
useless further expenditure for labor. There is no uniformity in the distribution
of these causes for crop damage from year to year and the workers who come
into the area from outside have no way of knowing the conditions of the crop in
particular sections, so they frequently go to a locality where in previous seasons
89 Ham, William T., The Status of Agricultural Labor, Law and Contemporary Problems, vol. IV, No.
4, October 1937, p. 564.
90 Folsom, Josiah C, Perquisites and Wages of Hired Fnrm Laborers, Technical Bulletin No. 213, U. S.
Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C, January 1931. pp. 52-54.
•i Bowden, Witt, Farm Employment, 1909 to 1938. Monthly Labor Review, vol. 48, No. 6, June 1939,
p. 1251.
60396— 42— pt. 32 28
12370 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
they have had plenty of work, only to find that crop losses have wiped out the
need for them.
3. Marketing conditions. — Irregularity of work of the farm laborer is also due
in part to changes in market conditions, especially in the case of perishable crops.
Lettuce, which requires a large amount of hand labor in its harvest, provides one
of the most striking illustrations of these fluctuations. In the harvesting of
deciduous crops such as apricots and peaches, the grower finds his prices con-
tingent upon conditions similar to those in the lettuce market. When the prices
for fruit for canning and for fresh fruit fall sharply, the grower finds he is better
off not to go to the expense of harvesting the crop. Such conditions are disastrous
to growers and laborers alike. The hardship to the worker is more akin to that
experienced by the operator than is sometimes recognized. Just as the grower
has his investment in the crop and is dependent on the harvest for the return of
his earlier outlays as well as for a profit, so the worker has come to the area in
anticipation of receiving employment, frequently having spent for travel all he
could save from other jobs through the season, only to find on arrival that there
is no demand for his labor.
However, the irregularity of employment from which hired agricultural laborers
frequently suffer cannot all be laid at the door of seasonality or market conditions
or type of farm organization. Much of it, as will be indicated later, is due to
lack of proper facilities for getting men to jobs and finding jobs for men.
4. Hours of work. — In nonagricultural industries the average length of the
normal work day declined from 11.5 hours in 1850 to about 8.1 hours in 1937.92
There has also been wide acceptance of the 5 or 5^-day week.93 In 1890 the
normal work week was 58 hours.94 In 1940 the normal work week was 40 hours
for workers coming under the provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. It
has been estimated that more than 12,600,000 are affected by this work week.95
In agriculture the problem is not only that of a long work day but also that of
a short work day. In the case of the hired man, the long work day is the general
practice, but the problem of the seasonal worker is quite different. In a situation
in which there is an excess supply of labor, with farm workers competing with
each other for jobs, the farm operator can maintain a long work day when con-
ditions are favorable for a quick harvest, but when conditions are not favorable
he can employ his labor for only part of the day.
A study of hours of work of farm operators and hired men in the principal
farming areas in the United States shows that the work day on farms in 1936 was
practically as long as that a century earlier in industry and manufacturing. The
data collected do not indicate great differences in the length of the work day as
between areas or as between the three busy seasons. The longest days for
operators (13.2 hours) are reported for the summer season in the winter wheat
area and the shortest — excepting those for specialized farms — for the spring
season in Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas cotton area (10.4 hours). For hired
workers the longest days (12.5 hours) are reported for the spring season in the
western dairy area and the shortest — excepting specialized farms — for the spring
and fall seasons in the eastern cotton area and the spring season in the Mississippi,
Arkansas, and Texas cotton area (11.4 hours).96
The seasonal worker, who follows the harvest from one area to another with
the result that he is generally employed in a series of rush periods, is also subject
to long workdays. Frequently because of the condition of the market, the
harvest hand may work only a small part of the day, but must remain available
for work. In some crops like citrus fruits, the harvest may be delayed or spread
over a considerable period when the prices are low, but when good prices are
reported, growers become anxious to get as much as possible delivered to the
market before it breaks. During the potato harvest in central New Jersey,
harvesting operations are "irregular and feverish. If weather and market con-
ditions are favorable for digging and picking, operations usually begin at 4 or
5 a. m. and last till 10 or 11 a. m. During the late morning and early afternoon
usually no work is performed because potatoes are subject to scorch from the sun.
Work usually resumes at about 4 p. m. and continues until dark. No potatoes
are du<2, picked, or graded, however, until they are sold. The major requirement
92 Daugnerty, Carroll R., Labor Problems in American Industry, New Ed. Cambridge, 103°, p. 192.
93 The Bureau of Labor Statistics, in a survey of 395 plants in 11 industries, showed that 210 of these plants
were on either a 5 or 5^>-day week. Monthly Labor Review, March 1941, p. 541.
M Daugherty, Carroll R., op cit., p. 192.
05 Monthly Labor Review, December 1940, p. 1470.
<" Hopkins, John A., and Newman, Wm. A., Length and Changes in the Farm Work Day, Report New
54, National Research Project, Works Progress Administration .1937, pp. 6, 11, 13, 16.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12371
for workers in potatoes, according to the farmers, is the ability to "stand hard
work and heat,' and workers must be willing to work at any hour when needed
for the wages offered."97
In the hop yards of the Yakima Valley, Wash., over three-fourths of a group
of 443 pickers interviewed were in the field for 10 or more hours a day. One-fifth
of them worked 12 hours. Hop picking is back-breaking work, paid for on a
piece-rate basis, so that the cost of any rest periods or inefficiency due to fatigue
is borne by the pickers.98
Sugar-beet workers, practically all of whom are employed on an acreage-
contract basis, work during the two rush seasons as many hours each day as
human endurance will permit. In the thinning and hoeing operations pressure
for long hours arises from the provision in the contract that the grower may hire
extra help and deduct its pay from the contract price. In "topping" there is
added pressure arising from the necessity of leaving the beets in the ground as
long as possible to insure a high sugar content, and yet of getting them out of
the ground before freezing weather. Thus, the harvesting season is telescoped
into a very short period. Hours of labor, according to a survey made in 1935
by the Children's Bureau of the United States Department of Labor, were at
least 12 a day for half of the fathers of families at thinning time and at least
11 hours a day for half of them at topping time. The workweek has 6 and some-
times 7 days.99
Hours of work for those employed in the seasonal labor of harvesting the
vegetable and fruit crops in the southern part of New Jersey are frequently
longer than those for regular hired workers,1 Here, also, since piece rates prevail,
there is no standard workday. The hours of work are determined by the condi-
tions of the market, the weather, the available labor supply, and the limits of
human endurance. In a study of 251 families employed in this area in the
summer of 1938, 10- and 12-hour days were found to be common. The longest
hours were worked in asparagus, tomatoes, potatoes, and string beans.2
Thus, the usual objectives of farm workers, as far as hours of work are con-
cerned, are twofold: First, to decrease the length of the workday without reducing
total earnings, and second, to provide for some form of compensation for days
in which they report for work but learn that there is little or no work available.
In nonagricultural industries this problem has been lessened to some extent
by the recognition by business of its responsibility toward its workers, by the
enactment of Federal and State maximum-hour laws, and by contracts negotiated
between employers and labor organizations. It is not uncommon for union
contracts to limit the length of the workday and to provide for compensation
to the worker when he reports for work and finds no work is available. This
practice exists in the shipbuilding, aircraft, rubber, railway, coal, and newspaper
industries.3
5. Labor turn-over.- — Labor turn-over in agriculture is high as compared with that
in other industries- — higher, indeed, than can be accounted for by strictly seasonal
considerations. In some areas of high seasonal labor requirements, a new working
force is recruited each day. Little attention has been devoted by farm operators
to the costs involved in a high rate of turn-over or to means of reducing it.
Use of perquisites to reduce turn-over: Some types of agricultural enterprises,
however — such as dairying — which afford relatively long periods of employment,
recognize that a high labor turn-over involving constant training of new personnel
may be more costly than the effort to reduce it. Accordingly, such enterprises
often emphasize the necessity of providing satisfactory living quarters for farm
workers and their families, sometimes at no cost to the worker, or at a relatively
low cost, provided he remains throughout the season. Permission is usually
given to occupy the quarters during periods when there is no work on the farm.
Electric light, water, and other facilities and perquisites may be provided free
of charge.
On the other hand, where seasonal labor is employed and a surplus of labor
exists, the farm operator does not feel responsible for providing decent lodging
for his workers. When workers are paid on a piece-rate basis and the harvesting
97 Liss, Samuel, Farm Migrants in New Jersey, Land Policy Review, June 1941.
98 Reuss, C. F., Lanclis, P. H., and Wakefield, R., Migratory Farm Labor and the Hop Industry on Pacific
Coast, Agricultural Experiment Station, Bulletin No. 363 (1938), pp. 24-25.
99 Wages, Employment Conditions, and Welfare of Sugar Beet Laborers, Monthly Labor Review, Febru-
ary, 1938, p. 332.
1 Folsom, Josiah C, Farm Labor Conditions in Gloucester, Hunterdon, and Monmouth Counties, New
Jersey, April-May 1936, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C, 1939.
2 A Summer in the Country, National Child Labor Committee, Now York, 1939, p. 22.
8 For a discussion of the exclusion of agriculture from legislative limitations on hours of work, see p. 170.
12372 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
requires little or no skill, the farm employer is not particularly concerned over
the labor turn-over and does not find it necessary to offer any inducements for labor
to remain on the job.
Use of penalties to reduce turn-over: However, during certain seasons in areas
in which it is necessary to keep seasonal labor at hand, especially in areas remote
from centers of population, penalties rather than inducements are resorted to.
One of the most common is the "hold-back," or "bonus," as it is often called by
those who favor its use. Under the "bonus" a portion of the payment for work
performed early in the season is withheld until completion of work scheduled to be
performed later in the season. This system is used most extensively in the sugar-
beet States, where by custom the grower holds out $1 per acre of the amounts
earned by the beet worker in the spring or early summer for "blocking, thinning,
and hoeing," as a guaranty that the same worker and his family will be on hand
to take care of the harvesting, or "topping" of the beets in the fall.
Pea pickers in Colorado, California, and Idaho, hop pickers in the Yakima
Valley, Wash., strawberry workers in North Carolina, and many other groups
have become accustomed to being paid on a piece-work basis, with a "bonus"
to follow if they stay until crops are harvested. Objection to this system on the
part of the worker is common, on the ground that the "bonus" is not an extra
wage payment, but is rather the arbitrary withholding of a payment already due.
Other methods of keeping laborers on the job depend on credit advances by
operators or labor contractors, so designed that the worker falls into debt and is
kept in that status until his payments at the end of the season permit him to
"pav out." This system is by no means confined to cotton sharecropping, where
it has long been in use, but is also found frequently in all systems of labor con-
tracting. The labor contractor is, of course, in a very advantageous position in
the collection of his loans, for the worker depends upon him for future employ-
ment. In a report on conditions in New Jersey truck-crop farms in 1938, the
National Child Labor Committee states that the "padrone" is further fortified
in his control over the movements of workers through the fact that he is able to
give or withhold information which will affect the granting of relief.4
6. Inefficient recruiting.- — An additional cause of inadequate employment among
agricultural workers is the inefficiency in recruiting workers in many areas. This
inefficiency results in much lost time and labor turn-over and is discussed under
The Farm Labor Market, beginning on page 117.
C. Wage payments and collections.
Most wage earners, completely dependent upon their pay envelopes, need to
receive pay regularly and at comparatively short intervals. Yet it is not uncom-
mon for farm employers to pay wages at long intervals, or withhold them for
considerable lengths of time, or even fail to pay them in full. The resident in-
dustrial worker and his family who loses a week's wages may suffer want and
privation, or remain dependent on borrowing. The seasonal agricultural worker
and his family may be hopelessly stranded by delay or failure in payment of wages
(as in the case of many Dust Bowl migrants who were recruited to pick cotton
in New Mexico in 1936, and were unable to return to their homes). If workers
move, on the other hand, they may never get paid. The practice of withholding
wages until it suits the convenience of the employer to pay, often means that
workers, despite their own narrow margins, are obliged to help finance for con-
siderable periods of time the farm which employs them.
Farm workers are sometimes deprived entirely of wages due them for work
they have done. In some cases farm operators do not pay seasonal workers in
agriculture until all other obligations are taken care of. In other cases, wages
are withheld to insure that workers remain until the close of the harvest season.
Often, because of the eagerness for employment, farm workers fail to come to an
understanding as to the amount they are paid. Legitimate wage claims are
often never pressed because the workers fear retaliation. In many States lack
of civil rights has handicapped Negro, Mexican, Spanish- American, and Filipino
workers in taking advantage of legal means to obtain what is theirs by right.
A study by the National Child Labor Committee revealed that in Oregon and
Washington hop growers withhold from 10 to 25 percent of the wages of hop
pickers, to be paid to the worker only if he stays on the job until the end of the
season.5 In paying wages, most hop growers use a ticket on which is punched
1 A Summer in the Country, National Child Labor Committee, New York, 1939, p. 15.
« Sidel, James E., Pick for Your Supper, A study of Child Labor Among Migrants on the Pacific Coast,
National Child Labor Committee, June 1939, p. 17.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12373
or written indelibly the number of pounds in each bag weighed. Hop tickets
are cashable at a company store, at which pickers are expected to buy. Failure
to do so sometimes results in delay in the payment of wages.
Another investigation of about 250 migrant agricultural workers employed in
southern New Jersey during the summer of 1938 showed that in many cases
wages were held back, in full or in part. The workers felt "this was done to
force them to remain on the farm whether they were earning anything or not."
The investigation also revealed that "for the most part the families were in
debt for living expenses and had no choice but to remain until they could collect
earnings and pay their bills." One family received nothing for picking beans
because the farmer "forgot" about it. Another family was "still trying in mid-
October to collect $85 for day work done in June." 6
D. Housing.
The great majority of the million and a half houses occupied by farm laborers
and sharecroppers are below standards of health and decency.
1. Typical areas. — Here are some significant examples:
(a> Missouri. — In southeast Missouri, 85 percent of the white farm laborer
families and nearly all the Negro families lived in small unpainted box houses.7
A box house is a single- wall house, constructed without wall studding. Strips
are sometimes placed over the cracks, but frequently not. Many of the houses
do not have glass windows; those that do very often have broken window panes.
(b) Texas. — In a Texas study of 573 laborers' houses,8 the typical residence
was a two-room box house. Half of these were unscreened and most of the
remainder were either inadequately screened or the screens were in poor condi-
tion. Nineteen percent of the houses had no glass windows; 79 percent were in
fair condition; and only 18 percent were in good condition; 53 percent were
valued at less than $150 and 70 percent at less than $250; 7 percent had no privy
of any kind and 87 percent had unsanitary unimproved outdoor privies. Nine
and a half percent of occupants owned their homes; 54 percent received their
houses rent free; and 36.5 percent paid an average of about $3 per month rent.
The above facts apply to the permanent homes of Texas farm laborers. When
these families go on the road to pick cotton, as over half of them do, they have
practically no housing facilities at all. Of 283 such families surveyed away
from home, 162 had no housing whatever; 2 were rooming and boarding; 13
lived in their trucks; 41 lived in open sheds; 11 lived in barns; 18 lived in little
labor shacks; and 36 lived in houses similar to their permanent homes.
(c) Sugar-beet areas. — Housing conditions in the sugar-beet areas are likewise
very unsatisfactory.
"Forty-seven percent of the families interviewed at their residences were found
to be living in quarters of not more than 2 rooms and only 29 percent lived in as
many as 4 rooms. Some families shared their few rooms with 1 or 2 other families
during the working season. Since the rooms of the typical 2-room shack or adobe
houses were not more than about 12 feet square there was usually no space for
more than 2 beds. The large families would lay mattresses on the floor at night
for the children to sleep on, and in the daytime stack these extra mattresses on
top of the 1 or 2 bedsteads. It was customary to many families for more than 2
people to sleep together in 1 bed or on 1 mattress, and this was a particularly
trying situation when there was illness in the family. In nearly two-fifths of the
families interviewed at their residences there were 3 or more persons to a room,
and in two-thirds there were 2 or more to a room. Twenty-five families (4 percent
of those reporting) actually had 6 or more persons to a room and a few had 10
persons to a room. There were 3 or more persons to a room in 52 percent of the
migratory families interviewed at their beet-season residence, whereas the corre-
sponding proportion for the nonmigratory families were 35 percent." 9
A report by the Secretary of Labor 10 states:
"Living quarters for seasonal agricultural laborers are to a large extent furnished
by the growers. This is general throughout the Southwest, West, and Northwest
6 National Child Labor Committee, A Summer in the Country, Publication No. 377, New York, March
1939, pp. 16-17.
7 White, Max R., Ensminger, Douglas, and Gregory, Cecil L., Rich Land— Poor People, Research
Report I, Farm Security Administration. Region III, Indianapolis, Ind., January 1938, pp. 40-43.
8 Data from an unpublished study made in Texas in 1938 by the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station,
the Works Progress Administration, and the Farm Security Administration.
6 Johnson, Elizabeth S., Welfare of Families of Sugar Beet Laborers, IT. S. Department of Labor, Chil-
dren's Bueau, Bureau Publication No. 247, Washington, D. C. 1939, pp. 76-77.
10 U. S. Department of Labor, Migration of Workers. Preliminary Report of the Secretary of Labor to
75th Cong., 1st sess., pursuant to S. Res. 298 (74th Cong.), Washington, D. C. 1938, pp. 137-138.
12374 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
in the areas in which large numbers of seasonal laborers are employed. The
housing furnished by the growers has long been a subject of discussion and
concern. The standards of the agricultural labor camps (in California) have
declined steeply in the last years notwithstanding their being subject to the in-
spection of the State commission of immigration and housing. In the words of
the report of the National Labor Board, in 1934, speaking of Imperial Valley:
"We found filth, squalor, an entire absence of sanitation, and a crowding of
human beings into totally inadequate tents or crude structures built of boards,
weeds, and anything that was found at hand to give a pitiful semblance of a home
at its worst.' * * *
"At a tent camp visited by the Children's Bureau representative in an extensive
cotton area of Arizona (near Phoenix) there were 18 tents arranged in a square
with a vacant space in the center. This space was used for parking cars, and
apparently for piling up refuse, as it was littered with old boxes and rubbish at
the time of the visit. The tents were located only a few feet off the highway and
an irrigation ditch ran along one side of the camp. There were no screens for the
tents. A small two-lid wood stove was furnished for each tent. The rest of the
furnishings had to be supplied by the workers. Only a few of the workers had
beds. Most of them slept on blankets on the ground or made pallets from long
grass hay gathered nearby. In practically none of the tents visited were there
chairs — wooden boxes being used for this purpose. Most of them had a table of
some description and makeshift shelves and cupboards."
2. Regulation of farm workers' housing. — In 1931 President Hoover's Committee
on Farm and Village Housing of the Conference on Home Building and Ownership,
found that conditions approached a satisfactory level only when State authorities
assumed some responsibility in the matter.
Thirteen States have regulations covering at least some labor camps,11 but prob-
ably not all of these apply to camps for farm laborers.
In California, New York, and Pennsylvania, labor camps operated by employers
are under the jurisdiction of the State departments of labor. In New York,
however, a detailed code is in force only for cannery camps. In Pennsylvania
regulations issued by the industrial board apply to labor camps in general. The
division of immigration and housing of the California Department of Industrial
Relations has jurisdiction over all labor camps and over auto and trailer camps in
unincorporated areas, but not over squatter camps.
The codes which have been issued in these States require that bunkhouses,
tents, or other sleeping and living quarters be constructed to meet certain general
standards; that eating and cooking quarters be kept in a clean and sanitary condi-
tion with screened openings; that convenient and suitable bathing facilities and
toilet facilities be provided; that garbage and refuse disposal, bedding, and
ventilation satisfy stated requirements. Persistent efforts over a considerable
period of time have brought improvements in all three States.
3. Federal housing for agricultural workers. — The general failure of the States to
provide decent housing created a need that has been met in part by a Federal
agency, the Farm Security Administration. The Farm Security Administration
has developed a twofold housing program: (1) Camps for migratory seasonal
workers, and (2) "labor homes."
Camps for migratory seasonal workers: In 1935 construction was started on the
first migratory labor camps of the Federal Security Administration, at Marysville
and at Arvin, Calif. ; the former opened in December of that year.
Each camp provided facilities to accommodate about 100 families. These
facilities included: Tent platforms grouped about toilet, laundry, and bathing
facilities; a small building for the isolation of workers afflicted with communicable
diseases; a warehouse; and a home for the manager.
The operation of the camps brought to light the complete isolation of the
migratory workers from normal community and social relations. Accordingly,
additions were made to the original physical lay-out so as to contribute to a healthy
social life. Community buildings were provided so that campers might hold
assemblies and recreational meetings. In each camp clinic facilities were built so
public health authorities might operate efficiently.
Camp design and construction has become fairly standardized during the past
7 years. The typical camp is laid out in streets, with an entrance facing the main
route of travel.
ii Arkansas, California, Delaware, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsyl-
vania, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12375
Nearby is the office and residence of the camp manager. In the center of the
camp stands a utility building with hot and cold running water, shower baths,
laundry and ironing rooms. Every family has access to sanitary toilet facilities.
Attached to some camps are small farm plots on which are produced subsistence
crops to augment the variety of foods available to the campers. These plots are
usually operated under the direction of the camp manager, the produce being sold
on a cooperative basis to the occupants.
Management of Federal Security Administration camps: Management of the
camps is carried on in as democratic a manner as possible. The campers elect a
central camp committee which serves as the governing body, represents them in
all relationships with the manager and establishes such local rules as are necessary
to maintain harmony. All problems of discipline and all controversies are taken
care of by this committee. The camps are subject to local laws and to police and
health inspection by accredited officers, but they are not subject to entry by
"vigilantes" or deputies acting beyond the limits of the law. Camp managers are
appointees of the United States Government and are responsible for the operation
of the camps. To them are referred for final determination all decisions and recom-
mendations of the camp committee.
Care of children: One of the problems of migratory agricultural workers'
families is that of the care of younger children during working hours. Ordinarily
the only choice is between taking them into the fields and leaving them alone in
the roadside camp or jungle. In a number of Farm Security Administration camps
nursery schools have been established. These operate from 9 in the morning to
mid-afternoon 5 days a week, under the direction of trained nursery school teachers
assigned by the Work Projects Administration and assisted by young people in
training from the National Youth Administration. The daily program in the
schools includes a health check by the camp nurse, a hot lunch at noonday, guided
play, and rest periods. In one of the Florida camps there are arrangements for
the children to sleep at the school, at least for the early hours of the night, since
the workday in the vegetable fields often lasts until 10 o'clock in the evening.
Regular school attendance by older children is difficult to arrange, even in the
Government camps, since the necessity of moving from place to place remains.
But at each camp efforts have been made to work out arrangements with local
school authorities so that these handicaps may be reduced to a minimum.
Farm Security Administration camps and job placement: The migratory labor
camps are located at terminals on the main routes of migration between crop
areas. Those now in operation on the west coast constitute a chain, the activities
of which are closely coordinated.
In Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Texas, where the State employment
services are well established, the Farm Security Administration camps make use
of their information. An Employment Service man operates in each camp as
farm placement agent. On entering the camp, migrants register with the agent,
and in this way every effort is made to use to best advantage the available em-
ployment opportunities. Working relationships between the Farm Security
Administration and the State Employment Service in California, Arizona, and
the States of the eastern seaboard were developed for the 1942 season.
Farm Security Administration mobile camps: As a part of the Farm
Security Administration camp program, 23 mobile camps have been constructed.
These are portable units designed for use in establishing camps in areas where
work is available only for short periods. After the season is over, the camp is
dismantled and moved to another area. During the 1941 season these 23 mobile
units served 47 areas. The units are equipped with portable power, water and
bathing units, offices and clinics built into trailers, and portable tent platforms.
These camps, accompanied by management personnel, are set up each season on
a chain of leased sites.
Farm Security Administration labor homes program: Another phase of the
Farm Security Administration farm labor program is the attempt to stabilize
some of the migrant families by providing cottages, with garden plots attached.
Thus the family acquires a base from which the older members, during certain
seasons of the year, may go out to seek work, possibly at some distance. Rentals
for labor homes vary somewhat in different parts of the country. Monthly
rentals range from $3 in Missouri to between $5 and $9 in Florida, Oregon,
Texas, Washington, and California.
As opportunities present themselves, some of the families occupying labor
homes are assisted to obtain farms on which they can establish themselves with
the aid of rehabilitation loans.
12376 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
As of January 1, 1942, there were 35 permanent and 23 mobile camps in opera-
tion. These 58 camps are capable of serving 13,674 families at any one time.
Since harvest peaks occur at different times in different parts' of the country, it is
not expected that all camps will be fully occupied at all times. Because of the
constant movement in and out of camps, however, it is estimated that the number
of persons benefiting from use of Farm Security Administration camps facilities
in the course of a season is about two and one-half times the total capacity at
any one time.
Funds were provided for the construction during 1942 of additional facilities
to house approximately 7,000 families. This included 16 additional standard
camps and 27 mobile camps. Without new units completed there would be a
total of 101 migratory labor camps capable of serving 20,607 families at one time.
Additional camps are also under consideration.
Value and prospects of Farm Security Administration camp program: While
the sponsors of this camp program do not claim for it any efficacy other than
that of a palliative, it is clear that during a period of acute maladjustment of
conditions in the seasonal labor market, it is a palliative of importance. To sense
how important, one need only visit a Farm Security Administration camp,
such as that at Tulare, and then for purposes of comparison spend a time at the
extensive shanty town area near Farmersville, Calif. At the present time the
migratory camp program reaches hardly 10 percent of those who are in need of
its aid. But as an example of what can be done and of the response of migrants
to the effort to do it, the camps have exerted much influence upon communities
and large-scale agricultural undertakings. It is hoped that the program can be
expanded to assist in most effective use of the available labor supply, which is so
vital during this period of national emergency.
E. Food and subsistence.
Data on food and subsistence resources on farm laborers are scanty. Most of
the available information relates to wage hands and sharecroppers of the South,
of whom it can be said without exaggeration that no other large rural group in the
United States has so low a standard of diet. The usual fare is meat (mostly
fat pork), meal, and molasses. Garden products are rare.
A study of 141 farm wage worker families in the Arkansas River Valley 12
showed that the average value of family liv'ng produced on the farm was $106,
which was supplemented by $293 cash wages. Sharecroppers in the Arkansas
River Valley produced $152 worth of family living items and earned $296 of
additional cash income.
Another Arkansas study of 423 Arkansas wage-labor and sharecropper families
found that home-use products amounted to $129 per family; $58 of which was
for house and fuel; $18 for garden and other vegetables; $50 for livestock and
livestock products; and $3 for miscellaneous items. Most studies indicate that
over one-half and frequently two-thirds of all cropper expenditures are for the
purchase of food, such as it is. The remainder of their expenditures must pay
for the clothing, health, education, and other requirements of the families.13
Under these circumstances hygiene and medical care are practically impossible,
and victims of ill health are forced to resort to home and patent remedies. Little
of the income can be spent on clothing. The tenant farmer, his debts to his
landlord often absorbing all his cash income, pleads for a little money, at least
enough to buy his w'fe a dress. Each year in the Black Belt thousands of farm
mothers chop cotton and pick cotton and then fail to get a new cotton dress at
the end of the year. The clothes for the children in many of the families are
strikingly inadequate.14
F. Health.
Where such conditions prevail it is small wonder that wage hands and croppers
are often ill-clothed, undernourished, unhealthy, and illiterate. "The effects
of low income with attendant poor housing and manager diet are evident when
measures (if health are applied to the cotton tenant household. The lack of
i2 Leonara, U. E., and Loomis, C. P. A Study of Mobility and Levels of Living Among Negro Share-
croppers and Wage Laborer Families of the Arkansas River Valley. Farm Population and Rural Welfare.
Activities, vol. XIII, No. 2, April 15, 1939, p. 9.
is Barton, Glen T., and McNeely, J. G. Recent Changes in Farm Labor Organization in Three Arkansas
Plantation Counties, Preliminary report, Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, Fayetteville, Sep-
tember 1939, pp. 21, 29-31.
>4 Taylor, Carl C, Wheeler, Helen W., and Kirkpatrick, E. L. Disadvantaged Classes in American
Agriculture, United States Department of Agriculture, Social Research Report No. VIII, Washington,
D. C, April 1938, p. 117.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12377
screening facilitates the spread of malaria; the primitive water supply and sani-
tary facilities contribute to typho;d epidemics. The lack of balance in the diet
is a major factor in the incidence of pellagra, a disease almost entirely confined to
the poor classes in the South. Inadequate food also contributes to digestive
disorders." 15
Health needs of farm laborers are bound up with health needs of the farm fanrly
and the rural community as a whole. Only in the case of certain special groups,
such as the seasonal workers drawn from other areas, is there need for special
measures other than those which should be undertaken for the benefit of low-
income farm families generally. The regular farm hands and the seasonal workers
who are local residents stand to gain no less than the farm families from the
extension of rural public health services, and the growth of rural medical centers
and hospital facilities.
1. Relationship between health and housing. — Problems of housing and health
can hardly be separated. In Kern County, Calif., for example, a serious health
situation arose in 1937 because of the large numbers of migrants living in so-called
squatter camps, with shelter of the most primitive sort, lacking proper facilities
for sanitation. A vigorous campaign for the elimination of these camps was
carried out. The result was twofold, according to a report of the Kern County
Health Department issued on July 1, 1939. On the one hand, there was a develop-
ment, in the more remote areas, of ranch accommodations for workers — a tent
camp for newcomers, a cotton shack camp for less recent arrivals and some two-
or three-room houses for more permanent workers. On the other hand — in the
ranch districts adjacent to Arvin, Shafter, Delano, and several other towns,
as well as in the two new communities, Lamont and Weedpatch— there was a
heavy concentration of low-income workers. In the city of Bakersfield there were
several new subdivisions occupied almost entirely by people from Oklahoma,
Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri. Some of these communities had no satisfactory
water supply, drainage systems, or means of sewage disposal. The large squatter
camps had disappeared but in their stead appeared rural and suburban slums.
Under such conditions the promotion of community health means, first of all
the promotion of low cost, soundly financed housing programs. As the report
above referred to points out, the people in these rural slums are anxious enough to
cooperate with the sanitation inspector, and to learn from the health department
nutritionist the selection and preparation of healthful and economical foods.
But development of health consciousness among these families will not suffice
until it is possible for individuals, or cooperative groups, to finance the building of
low cost, durable houses with proper water supply, sewage disposal, and drainage.
2. Medical aid for migratory farm workers. — No general program has been ini-
tiated in the United States to meet the health and medical aid requirements. of
hired farm workers and members of their families, who, because of their low in-
come status, cannot avail themselves of other facilities. But because of the special
situation and the acute nature of the needs existing among the migratory workers
in California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, the
Farm Security Administration has been instrumental in launching a health pro-
gram among the farm workers in these States.
With the beginning of the great influx of migrants into these areas in 1934 and
1935, the problem of bad health, already serious, became even more acute.
Disease was common among the people uprooted from relatively sheltered modes
of living and forced to live in trailers, woodside camps, and jungles. It was soon
discovered that special health deficiencies developed as a result of the conomic
destitution, the living conditions, and the mobility of this group.
The unsanitary living conditions in private migrant camps, which commonly
afforded only the'barest essentials for sanitation, are responsible for a large amount
of preventable sickness among members of migrant families. For example, 90
percent of the cases of typhoid reported in California in 1936, occurred among
these people.
The Farm Security Administration began its health program among the migra-
tory farm workers in February 1938. The first aid was given in the form of grants
to farm laborers' families needing relief, but lacking residence status. During the
first 4 months, 27,800 grants were made in California and Arizona. But there was
no way to be sure that grants given for medical service were used for that purpose,
and there was no way to guarantee that payment would be made to the physician
i* Woofter, T. .T., Jr., et al.. Landlord and Tenant on the Cotton Plantation, Research Monograph V,
Works Progress Administration, Washington, D. C, 1936, p. 105.
12378 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
when he had rendered the service. Moreover, the grant program could not be so
controlled as to place the needed emphasis on preventive measures.
The California State Department of Health had been sending doctors, nurses,
and social workers to follow the movements of the migrants and to vaccinate and
inoculate from 60,000 to 70,000 familes every year; and the State department of
immigration and housing had been sending inspectors to visit private camps and
issuing warnings to owners of properties where sanitary conditions are found to be
below State standards. The great influx of migrants overtaxed the staff of this
agency and in the long periods between the visits of inspectors, sanitary conditions
in the private camps often became so bad as to constitute a menace to public
health. Furthermore, in the rush of a harvest season, the condemnation of the
worst camps and the wholesale evictions from the most unsanitary sites did little
to improve health conditions, for wherever the army of homeless migrants settled
the conditions from which they had come were soon reproduced.
Farm Security Administration medical program : In order to establish more effec-
tive health control and medical-care facilities for migrants and to assure physicians
and hospitals payment for services rendered, the Farm Security Administration in
March 1938, with the cooperation of the California Medical Association, the
State department of health, and the State relief administration, formed the
Agricultural Workers' Health and Medical Association (AWHMA) incorporated
under State laws. Each of these agencies has a representative on the board of
directors of this nonprofit association. Clinics were set up and administered by
the association with funds supplied by the Farm Security Administration. The
association has been expanded to include Arizona.
The Farm Security Administration medical care program is no longer con-
fined to California and Arizona although most of this work has been done in
these two States. By January 1, 1942, 35 standard camps and 23 mobile camps
were in operation in California, Arizona, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Texas, and
Florida. Each standard camp has a health center with a public health nurse in
charge and an isolation unit for contagious diseases. Each of the larger mobile
units has a mobile clinic with a nurse in attendance. The various State health
departments assist in preventive and immunization work.
By June 1941, there were nine clinics in California and seven in Arizona.
Fifteen other emergency clinics or referral offices had been set up in the two States
at points of migratory concentration. A migrant may apply for membership in
the association. When approved, he is given a card, good for 1 year, entitling
him and his family to receive the care of the local physicians (who serve in rotation
at the clinics) or to care on a referral basis. In the latter case he may choose from
a panel of participating doctors and dentists. Services include surgical and other
specialist care, X-rays and other diagnostic services, prescription drugs, hospitali-
zation, and limited dental care.
During; the fiscal vear, 1940-41, the Agricultural Workers' Health and Medical
Association reported 118,309 clinic visits, 41,951 referral cases, and 11,394 cases
of hospitalization. The clinic visits cost the association $1.44 per visit. Cases
referred to physicians and dentists averaged $11.18 per case, and hospitalization
averaged $37.39 per case. A total of $1,431,242 was spent during the year.
Phvsician and hospital expenses accounted for the largest expenditures with a
total of $310 out of every thousand spent being paid to the former and $298 to
the latter. Another $114 went to the clinics, $18 to dentists, and $5 to nurses.
Drugs accounted for $35, miscellaneous expenditures for $11, and operating and
administrative costs for $209 of every thousand dollars spent.
Because of a lack of suitable hospital facilities at Eleven Mile Corner in Arizona,
the association established a 55-bed convalescent home there which reported,
during its first 5 months of operation, 455 persons hospitalized, with a total of
2,678 davs of hospital care provided.
Plans are under consideration for the establishment of similar centers at Fresno,
Calif., and in the Okeechobee region in Florida.
Programs administered by the Farm Security Administration in cooperation
with the local and State health authorities have been organized for Florida, Texas,
Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.16 These latter programs differ from that of the
Agricultural Workers' Health and Medical Association of California and Arizona
in that the clinics are located in the migratory camps. Consequently medical aid
is readily available only to occupants of the camps and to migrants in the sur-
rounding vicinity. As the programs develop, however, the scope of their opera-
tions will be expanded.
'« In Florida, the Migratory Labor Health Association; in Texas, the Texas Farm Laborers Health
Association; and in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, the Agricultural Workers' Health Association.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12379
The details of the programs vary in each region, though the main outline is
similar. The migrant population in Florida, for instance, is fairly stable, making
possible some emphasis on preventive and corrective care. All persons registered
in the camps are expected to undergo physical examinations. An attempt is
made to correct physical disabilities, to encourage proper prenatal, delivery, and
postnatal care, to give immediate treatment for nevereal disease and to provide
other necessary medical, dental, and hospital care. Local physicians hold daily
sessions in the camp clinics and are on call for emergencies. Owing to a lack of
qualified doctors in the areas surrounding the camps, cases are not referred to
outside physicians.
In the Pacific Northwest region and Texas, where the migrant populations are
continually on the move, the camp programs cannot hope to engage in anything
more than emergency care. In these areas local physicians hold regular session
in the camp clinics. Cases needing special attention are referred to other physi-
cians, surgeons, and nearby hospitals. Actually, the program in Washington-
Oregon, and Idaho had only been in operation since July 1, 1941. (During the
preceding year medical care was extended through the direct grant system to
migrant families).
Figures for the medical aid programs in these latter areas do not cover a year's
period. However, where comparable, the costs are similar to those experienced
in California and Arizona. A considerable expansion of the program is contem-
plated for the present year. School lunches and nursery meals are provided as
part of the various medical aid programs.
Although the migrant workers are obligated to repay the cost of services if so
requested, their economic status in most cases precludes any possibility of repay-
ment, but some workers have been able to repay a few dollars.
Analysis of the cases treated indicates that many of them suffered from an
accumulation of chronic ailments long neglected because of lack of the where-
withal to pay for medical services. The operation of the various medical aid
associations shows that migrant farm workers' families without money to pay
doctors' bills will more readily apply for aid to a public agency set up for the
purpose than to a private physician.
When measured in relation to the needs, the present medical program is inade-
quate. It should be expanded to preserve the health and usefulness of other
thousands of workers, and to prevent the spread of epidemics.
Part Three
i. the farm labor market
A. Men and jobs.
1. Hiring practices. — A lack of efficient procedures for bringing together workers
and jobs characterizes the farm labor market. The haphazard methods in opera-
tion in this field reflect factors which have already been discussed — the over-
supply of farm workers and their lack of organization. These haphazard methods
also contribute to the basic difficulties of hired farm workers; low earnings, inter
mittent employment, and consequent low levels of living. The characteristically
wasteful employment practices of the farm labor market are thus part of a vicious
circle of disorganization; disorganization permits them and, in so permitting,
becomes accentuated.17
The following discussion of hiring practices applies primarily to the hiring of
seasonal workers, since the most difficult hiring problems in agriculture relate to
seasonal employment.
An excellent start was made in developing methods of farm placement during
the war period, 1917-18, and such methods were advocated in the twenties by such
experienced students of farm employment as Prof. D. D. Lescohier, of Wisconsin.
Nevertheless, although the farm placement work of the United States Bureau of
Employment Security is expanding rapidly, personal methods of securing work and
of securing workers are still prevalent.
A farmer puts up a sign; he advertises in the paper or over the radio, or through
the filling station men; or he goes with a truck to the labor quarter in town.
Sometimes he does these things through an agent or a growers' committee. Some-
times he turns the whole matter over tc a contractor or padrone.
In any case, his sole concern is to secure an abundance of labor to apply for work;
if there is much more labor than is needed, so much the better, for he will be safe
from having to pay high wages. The laborer on the other hand, at the very same
17 Tolan committee report, op. eit., pp. 364-365.
12380 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
time may be anxiously searching for work, relying on personal inquiry, a chance
handbill, or the well-known grapevine, usually quite uncritical of the source of
information and unsuspecting that the grapevine telegraph may lead him to an
area where there is a hopeless surplus of labor.
The results of numerous surveys indicate that personal, informal ways of bring-
ing together workers and jobs predominate in the farm labor market. In Karnes
County, Tex., in 1936, 92.9 percent of the operators interviewed said they engaged
in an active search for farm laborers when they needed them.18 In the same
county, 89.5 percent of the workers employed stated that they found their jobs
through personal search. Eight percent of the remainder said they secured their
jobs through a friend, and less than 1 percent (0.6 percent) said they found
their jobs as a result of the operator's search for labor.
A similar situation was reported for Wayne County, Pa., in the same year.16
Four out of five (80.8 percent) of the workers interviewed reported they had
secured their jobs bv personal search, while nearly 9 out of 10 (88.3 percent)
of the operators stated that they sought out workers, themselves, when they
needed labor. In fact, 71.4 percent of 2,200 workers (who responded to 11
studies in as many States) stated they found their jobs by their own efforts or
through the activities of a friend. At the same time, 75.1 percent of the 1,477
employers who responded stated they engaged in personal search for labor. In
1935, 967 of 1,220 jobs (79.3 percent) secured by 252 transient workers in the
Yakima Valley 20 were located by workers inquiring at the place of employment.
The proportion for resident workers was practically the same.
Ten farm-wage-worker surveys undertaken by the Farm Security Administra-
tion in 1940 corroborate the findings of these earlier studies. Questioned on the
way in which they found their current jobs, only 1.3 percent of the responding
workers said that they had used public employment services.21 Nearly three-
tenths of them indicated they had secured their employment through direct or
indirect farmer solicitation — solicitation by farmer, or his agent, newspaper
advertisements, or labor contractors. The rest of the workers indicated that their
employment resulted from their own initiative.
The very informality of employment practices in the farm labor market, how-
ever, leads to ambiguity of responses in schedule surveys. For example, in the
Karnes County survey mentioned above, the great majority of the farm operators
said that they actively sought their workers. At the same time, the great majority
of the workers said that they found their jobs through personal search. All this
bears witness to the same situation: an absence of systematic methods of farm
employment.
Recruiting practices of various kinds are often used in combination. In
Arizona, for example, the Farm Bureau Federation sponsors the Farm Labor
Service which carries on an extensive recruiting campaign on behalf of growers in
the intensive cotton-growing districts of Maricopa and Pinal Counties. In the
fall of 1937, advertisements for cotton pickers and news releases describing the
demand for workers, the advantages of Arizona climate, and the favorable living
conditions were carried in newspapers in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Colorado,
New Mexico, Utah, and southern California. In addition, agents left word at
poolrooms, lunchrooms, road stands, and filling stations that cotton pickers were
wanted. These activities were augmented by paid radio announcements.
In addition to the activities of the Farm Labor Service in 1937 Arizona growers
put up signs along the road, advertising for cotton pickers, and occasionally went
into neighboring States with trucks to recruit workers. Many truck loads of
people were also brought west by independent Arizona truck owners who recruited
in Oklahoma. Sometimes these truck owners collected fees ranging from $10 to
$20 a head for adults, and $5 for children. At other times they arranged with
the growers to supply workers and were paid a per capita fee which the growers
subsequently deducted from the workers' earnings.
It is not, however, necessary to recruit actively all, or even a large part, of the
seasonal farm labor force for many work locations. Such a situation is that of
Berrien County, Mich., where, it is estimated, some 10,000 migrant workers are
annually employed. Prior to 1941, the farmer employers of Berrien County did
18 Vasey, Tom, and Folsom, J. C, Survey of Agricultural Labor Conditions in Karnes County, Tex.,
TJ. S. DeDartment of Agriculture, Washington, D. C, November 1937, p. 14.
19 Vasey, Tom, and Folsom, J. C, Survey of Agricultural Labor Conditions in Wayne County, Pa., U. S.
Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C, 1937, p. 10.
2° Landis, Paul H. and Brooks, Melvin S., Farm Labor in the Yakima Valley, Wash., agricultural experi-
ment station, State College of Washington, Bulletin No. 343, p. 45.
21 A total of 2,312 farm wage workers responded to this question.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12381
not find it necessary to solicit workers for their increasingly large summer harvests.
A stream of migration annually brought workers to their farms. Behind this
stream were the pressures of depression and drought distress, and a chance act
which gave it direction.
"This attraction to Berrien County can be explained very largely by publicity
the county received in Arkansas in 1931. At that time many people in Arkansas
were suffering seriously from the effects of the severe crop failure of the 1930 season.
Citizens of Berrien County undertook the task of alleviating this suffering by
collecting and shipping to Arkansas truck loads of food, clothing, and other necessi-
ties. This gesture of good-neighborliness was widely publicized in Arkansas.
Berrien County, Mich., became to many people in that region of the South an
oasis toward which they turned their conveyances when dislodged from their land.
A small initial migration was sufficient to stimulate a large movement. Reports
of high wages filtered back by letter and by word-of-mouth. Reports of earnings
of $5 and $6 a day picking cherries or peaches failed to mention that these earnings
were made on special days which were few in number. The movement grew
steadily throughout the decade." 22
Started originally, perhaps by rumor or chance discovery of employment, and
developed by repeated experience, these habitual farm-worker migrations con-
stitute one of the major mechanisms for bringing workers to seasonal farm jobs.
Though the initiative in such cases comes from the worker, the lack of information
or alternative experience often results in an oversupply of farm workers at par-
ticular job locations. A paper published in the congressional hearings on inter-
state migration described the effect of uncontrolled and, for the most part, un-
solicited migration to Berrien County:
"It is becoming increasingly common to place large numbers of workers in the
field for a few hours rather than turn some away and permit the balance to work
regularly. This situation works a hardship on the workers because their wages are
very small for a day's work. Under these circumstances there is no [sic] oversupply
of labor, and the more workers that are available the better it pleased the producer.
At times when there is a large supply of labor because of increased migration or a
partial crop, these conditions have an effect on the prices that are paid. Naturally
when there are two or three workers where only one can be used, these workers
compete for the job, and wages can be driven down to very low levels."13
While worker initiative is a factor in bringing workers to agricultural jobs, farmer
employers seldom rely entirely upon the unsolicited, yet expected, appearance of
workers.
Curbstone labor markets: In many cities near truck and fruit areas, certain loca-
tions have come to be accepted as hiring places for workers. Usually these are
vacant lots or city squares where the growers' trucks can load and unload. As the
workers are recruited, they board the trucks and are transported directly to the
field.
In the summer of 1938 such a market was observed in Trenton, N. J., where
hundreds of Negro workers were recruited each day. Another was observed at
Millville, N. J., where workers, most of whom were white, were recruited to harvest
the vegetable crops on nearby farms. Apparently no bargaining regarding the
wages took place, the growers or their agents simply announcing the hourly or
piece-work rate in effect.
Some of these labor markets, though not formally designated and under no
community control, have come to be accepted community institutions. Some
take on certain aspects of a labor auction. In the so-called business section of the
Negro quarter in Belle Glade, Fla. (in the heart of the Okeechobee vegetable-
growing area), each morning between 6 and 7:30 o'clock during the green-bean
season, appear 10 to 50 trucks belonging to growers in search of pickers. Each
grower is represented by an agent, usually a Negro, whose function it is to recruit
at the lowest piece-work rate possible, a sufficient labor force to meet the day's
demands. Milling about these trucks are from 1,000 to 3,000 field hands who are
seeking work at the highest rate obtainable.
The growers' agents harangue the crowd through megaphones or through their
cupped hands, stating whether it is a first or second or late picking, giving the
length of rows and condition of the crop as well as the piece-work rate offered.
At first the workers appear to be indifferent. Sometimes when the operators
22 77th Cong., 1st sess., House Select Committee Investigating National Defense Migration, pt. 19,
Detroit hearings, p. 7926.
« Tolan committee, op. cit, Chicago hearings, pt. 3, p. 1243.
12382 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
are known to be under the necessity of harvesting their crop immediately, the
workers by holding back can force a slight increase in the piece-work rates.
At the end of the first half-hour the trucks begin to load up and in another
20 minutes the situation changes so that the competition for workers gives way to
a competition for jobs. When the trucks are finally loaded to capacity, which
often means a load of from 50 to 80 persons, they drive off to the grower's field,
where each worker is assigned his row. At the end of the day he is paid off in
cash and the next morning he goes through the same process of locating his day's
work. Seldom do the employers make any effort to hold their pickers from one
day to the next, so the process of recruiting an entire force is gone through each
day during the season.
No comment is necessary to make clear what a far cry this is from the em-
ployment procedure of the operator of a family farm when he engages his hired
man.
Advertising for help: Other recruiting mechanisms are necessary when the
labor supply is separated from the demand for it, either by geographic or racial-
linguistic barriers. Newspaper advertisements, inspired newspaper stores, radio
announcements, and other means of making known the demand for labor comprise
one type of recruiting. These techniques have the common characteristic of un-
controlled broadcasting. They often lead to the appearance of excessive labor
supply at advertised points of demand.
These techniques and their resultant situation work to the advantage of the
agricultural employer. In a report submitted to the congressional committee
investigating interstate migration, the Texas State Employment Service stated:
"Local organizations, such as chambers of commerce, local and State newspapers,
labor and emigrant agents, flashed notices and ads and bulletins calling for labor
or promising labor to demanding farmers. Some farmers, needing perhaps from
50 to 100 workers, would cry loudly for 1,000 merely to assure themselves an
abundant supply from which to pick and choose. The employer's interest in a
plentiful labor supply is, obviously, twofold. He desires a mobile labor reserve
large enough to handle his peak operations; he desires, equally, a supply that
must accept low wages, long hours, and poor working conditions. With a labor
market entirelv unorganized, the farmer-employer had to depend upon deliberately
scattered rumors and advertising to achieve his two desires." 24
2. The labor contractor. — Frequently the farm operator, to be relieved of the
responsibility of securing his seasonal hands, makes an agreement with a labor
contractor, who undertakes to supply, either for a lump sum or on a per capita
basis, the number of workers required. In some of the older sections of the coun-
try this system has long been in vogue. The cranberries in the bogs of New Jersey,
eastern Long Island, and Cape Cod have long been picked by gangs recruited by
the "padrones" from the foreign-speaking people of the nearby metropolitan
centers. For work in the hop yards of the Pacific Northwest, Indians 25 are re-
cruited through the chief of the tribe. Mexican workers for the truck fields of
Alameda and Santa Clara Counties, Calif., are secured by contract; also Filipino
labor for the lettuce fields of the Salinas Valley and the asparagus fields of the
Sacramento delta.
In the western cotton sections, the labor contractor furnishes a truck and recruits
a gang of laborers. He transports them, presumably free of charge, after the
cotton and fruit harvesting season. He acts as recruiting agent, contact man, and
business agent for the laborers and takes the responsibility of collecting the la-
borers' earnings from the farmer and of weighing and hauling the cotton or truck
crops. In Texas the contractor receives from the workers from 5 to 10 cents for
each hundred pounds of cotton picked, and from the farmer, about $1.50 per
bale.26
For picking strawberries in the Florida west coast area, labor contractors supply
gangs of Negroes recruited in Sarasota, Tampa, and Fort Myers. For this same
crop in southeastern North Carolina, Negro laborers are recruited in Wilmington,
N. C, and as far away as Greensboro and Charlotte. In this case, the labor
contractor does nothing more than recruit the workers, charging the growers
from 50 cents to $1 a head for transportation. Frequently nothing in the agree-
ment specifies how the workers are to get back to their homes. At the end of
2* Tolan committee, op. cit., Oklahoma City hearings, pt. 5, p. 1809.
"Reuss CarlF , Landis, Paul H., and Wakefield, Richard: Migratory Labor in the Hop Industry on the
Pacific Co'ast, Washington Agricultural Experiment Station, Bulletin 363, p. 30. ,._,.. „
26 Hamilton. 0 Horace, The Social KfiVcts of Recent Trends in Mechanization of Agriculture, Progress
Report 579, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, December 1938, p. 10 (mimeographed).
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12383
the strawberry season these same workers are often picked up by other contractors
who take them to the potato-growing areas of the coastal plains, or to the melon
fields and peach orchards of the sand-hills region of North Carolina.
Labor contractors also operate at an advantage where there is a geographic
barrier between sources of labor supply and labor demand. At times this barrier
may be the wide distances between crop areas, as in Texas and in California.
Sometimes it may be a congested area through which it is difficult for workers to
move independently. Because the contractor can take truckloads of workers by
ferry from Norfolk, Va., to the Virginia Peninsula for the potato harvest, he is in
an advantageous position since it would cost several dollars for the worker to go
over in his own car. A somewhat similar situation exists in southern New Jersey,
accessible from the South only by ferry or by a circuitous route involving miles of
extra travel and payment of tolls, and in eastern Long Island and on Cape Cod.
The abuses of the system spring from the lack of definite arrangements about
transportation charges. When the settlement is made, the worker is usually far
from home, often with his family and at the mercy of the contractor for return
transportation. It is not unusual for disclosure of additional charges and de-
ductions from wages to be made by the contractor at this time.
Another evil arises from the practice of the contractors of making cash advances
to unemployed workers in slack periods, with the understanding that they will
work in his gangs during the next season. The contractor deducts the loans from
the wages paid him by the farmer, together with interest and other charges. This
loan business can be quite remunerative to the contractor. Consequently he
often makes loans to more people than those for whom he has steady jobs. Since
his interest is primarily in getting for his people only enough work to pay back
their debts to him, he puts more people to work than the job would normally
require, thus reducing the period of employment per worker.
Frequently, both the workers and communities suffer as a result of the fly-by-
night operations of some contractors. Ordinarilv the contractors' obligations are
fulfilled when they have recruited and delivered to the operator the labor force
agreed upon. If, due to weather or market conditions, the work does not material-
ize, the workers are left stranded in a strange community.
The system, moreover, operates to the disadvantage of laborers resident in the
locality, who are deprived of the employment which, reasonably, ought to be
theirs.
Concerning some of the abuses of the labor-contractor system, the Secretary of
Labor, testifying before the House Committee Investigating Migration of Desti-
tute Citizens, stated:
"Migratory workers are often preyed upon by unscrupulous labor contractors
who are nowhere, as yet, subject to any effective regulations. Whole families
may be brought long distances from homes by these contractors and fo-ced to
remain even under intolerable conditions, because the contractor has advanced
the money for transportation and food, or because the worker will lose his season's
earnings, if he goes back, assuming he can finance the return journev. Inci-
dentally, farmers, too, are often victims of the contractors' practice 'of labor
stealing.
"The transportation facilities provided for migratory workers by labor con-
tractors and others, for which fares are collected, are 'in many cases not only
disgraceful but dangerous to the migrants themselves and to others on the high-
ways. Much of the transportation concerning which we have received complaints
is in overcrowded, open trucks, making long journevs, crossing one or more
State lines. Some of it is intrastate. The collision in' Texas between a railroad
train and a truck carrying 44 farm workers, the voungest being 7 vears old, is a
striking illustration of the prevalent abuses. This particular accident did not
come under the jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission, but many
trucks similarly loaded are known to operate in interstate commerce." 27
The need for regulation: The record of the hearings of the Committee is
replete with examples of useless migration stimulated by the spreading of misin-
formation with regard to the exisetnce of jobs; the charging of excessive fees
both for transportation and for obtaining jobs for workers; the charging of high
prices in stores operated by contractors; the operation of unsanitary and over-
crowded housing in order to secure greater profits.
As a result of this investigation, the committee has recommended that there
be established Federal regulation of private emplovment agencies and labor
contractors engaged in interstate commerce.
27 Tolan committee, op. eit., Washington hearing, pt. 8, pp. 3332, 3333.
12384 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Although a few States have enacted and have enforced laws which regulate
such operations, such practices have not been curbed where the contractor operates
in interstate commerce.
A bill was introduced in the first session of the Seventy-seventh Congress
(H. R. 5510), which would provide for the registration of employment agencies
engaged in interstate commerce. Such registration involves the payment of a
fee and the filing of a bond with the Secretary of Labor. The bill prohibited —
(1) The dissemination of false or misleading information with respect to employ-
ment or opportunities for employment.
(2) The charging of a fee which is in excess of that provided for in a statement
filed with the Secretary of Labor. Such fees must be just, reasonable, and
nondiscriminatory.
(3) The splitting of fees with employers or associations of employers.
It called for:
(1) The furnishing of a complete statement to the employee concerning the
conditions of employment.
(2) The furnishing to each employee of a statement of the existence of a strike
or lockout, if such exists.
(3) Regulation by the Secretary of Labor of lodging houses or stores serving
people seeking employment.
Provision was made for the enforcement of the law, and penalties are listed for
all violations of the law.
The enactment of such a bid would eliminate the major evils of labor contracting.
Variants of the labor contractor system of recruitment occur in some localities.
In the strawberry areas of Louisiana and North Carolina, for example, labor
"runners" are utilized. Labor runners are, in a sense, labor contractors for one
crop season each year. In the areas referred to they are usually Negroes
living in towns removed from the strawberry areas. During the off-season, a
grower keeps in touch with his runner, often strengthening the relation with
holiday gifts. When the strawberries are ready to be picked, the grower notifies
his runner to assemble a crew of pickers. The runner usually receives a small
commission for his services and enjoys a favored position at the work location.
He serves as a go-between both prior to and during the harvest.
3. The employment committee. — In Michigan, the sugar beet growers delegate
recruitment to their "emplojment committee." This committee, on which the
sugar beet processing plants are represented, recruits Spanish-American workers
from urban centers in New Mexico and Texas. Employees of the sugar companies
sometimes go to New Mexico and western Texas to recruit the necessary labor
supply. These agents circulate handbills, put up posters, or directly solicit
individual workers. Frequently, railroad expenses or reimbursements for travel
by automobile are met, or advanced. Investigation by the Michigan State
Department of Labor and Industry in 1938 revealed that labor was recruited from
New Mexico and Texas even when unemployment was severe in Michigan.
The methods of bringing together men and jobs in the farm labor market are
highly inefficient and socially wasteful. Overlapping efforts of the grower, or
his agents, to find labor and the job-seeeking activities of the workers themselve
create a situation in which controlled use of labor is impossible and consequent
hardships for the workers are unavoidbale.
In the 1936-37 Report of the Farm Placement Service in Texas, there is cited
an illustration of the results of this uncoordinated method of seeking employ-
ment. In Lubbock County, Tex., the peak of the cotton-picking season is
reached in the latter part of October and in November, and workers begin to
move into the area as they finish picking in the other sections. In 1935, by the
tenth of October, exaggerated reports of the cotton yield resulted in great num-
bers of workers pouring into Lubbock from every direction, though the picking
had not yet actually begun and the growers were not ready for their labor.
There were no housing facilities and no camping grounds. About the time the
great mass of workers reached Lubbock, cold rain set in, leaving hundreds of
families, without means of shelter, camping in the open spaces. The situation
grew more serious as sickness developed, especially among the small children.
No aid was available for them from public services; they were ineligible for re-
lief; and the growers would do nothing for them because they could not go to
work until the rain ceased.
The extreme distress among the many workers coming to this area in search
of work was alleviated only when the Employment Service arranged with the
Salvation Army to find and allocate all available shelter and to open soup kitchens.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12385
More than a week elapsed before the rain stopped and it was dry enough for the
workers to go into the fields. . . - . ,
B Methods of supervision of farm labor. — Problems of supervision for farm la-
borers are varied. For the hired man, the problem of supervision on the farm
does not exist. Such supervision as is required is immediate and direct. For
the greater part of each working day the employer and the hired man work side
by side at the same, or similar, tasks. ,
Moreover, the farm operator desires a worker to be able to carry on certain
phases of the work without supervision. For example, the hired man may have
the responsibility of feeding and caring for the workstock while the farm opera-
tor reserves for himself the tasks and chores incident to caring for the other live-
stock. When the labor of the operator and that furnished by the members of
his family and his regularly hired help is supplemented by additional labor hired
for seasonal work, the supervision may still be direct.
On general farms operated by hired managers, supervision is usually direct, as
also on many smaller fruit, truck, and dairy farms where more hired workers
are likely to be employed than on general farms of comparable size or scale.
However, serious personnel problems are found on the large-scale farms where
(as the census of 1935 showed) even in January a considerable force of hired
workers is employed. Here, as in industrial concerns where many workers are
gathered under one roof, importance attaches to questions relating to efficiency
of management in terms of output, routing and distribution of labor, specializa-
tion hours of work, fatigue, and the effect of all these factors upon employer-
employee relationships. At the present time, it is true, many farm managers
regard as the essence of good labor management merely the securing of a plentiful
supply of labor at the proper periods. For the rest, they are content to divest
themselves altogether of management and supervision functions, transferring
these to a labor contractor, a padrone, the field man of a sugar company, or the
agent of a cooperative growing, packing, or shipping association. The result is
that the manager thus escapes direct responsibility, not only for the management
and supervision in the fields but also for the welfare of the laborers during their
work on the farm, and for the effects of their presence in the community.
The work in a large agricultural enterprise can be organized on the basis of
division of labor, certain gangs being assigned to specific tasks, or on a unit
basis, each gang being held responsible for a complete unit of the enterprise.
On some large-scale farms there is a combination of both of these methods. A
study of large-scale farms in the Corn Belt 28 found that labor gangs under fore-
men responsible to the general managers of the farms were divided into two
groups. Some of the smaller gangs were assigned year-round responsibilities,
such as the care of work animals or the swine herd. Other gangs were assigned
to various jobs, differing according to the season.
On a large sugar plantation in Florida where 4,200 Negro workers are em-
ployed, field foremen are responsible to the general farm manager; each has
charge of about 100 men. Responsible to the foremen are gang leaders, each
over 7 to 15 men. These gang leaders work with the men and are paid on a
piece-work basis, with a small bonus for good production by their gang. Each
is responsible for the organization and supervision of his gang in the field. He
cannot hire or discharge, but can make recommendations to the superintendent.
On cotton plantations the supervision exercised by the landlord may be gen-
eral, consisting only of advice to the tenant or cropper in regard to agricultural
methods; or the supervision may be very close. Of 215 plantations studied in
1924,29 68 percent reported close supervision, 30 percent general supervision, and
2 percent no supervision. On the closely supervised plantations every activity
is controlled by the management. A rising bell is rung in the morning and the
bell is rung again at the beginning and end of the work day. The riding boss,
in charge of 15 to 30 tenants, croppers, and wage hands, gives constant atten-
tion to their work. Frequently the owner, or general manager, visits each work
site at least once a day. The owner or manager has direct charge of all the
varied plantation enterprises, including purchasing, marketing, and credit ar-
rangements. He supervises the accounting office, the store commissary, and the
gin. Responsible to him are the overseers of the tenant and cropper farms.
These men have charge of the blacksmith shop, the garage, the tractor shop,
and the grist mill. Responsible to them are the assistant riders, each with direct
28 Mumford, D. Curtis, Economic Aspects of Large-Scale Farming in the Corn Belt, Bureau of Agri-
cultural Economics. January 1930. (Unpublished manuscript.)
29 Brannen, C. O., Relation of Land Tenure to Plantation Organization, U. S. Department of
Agriculture, Bui. 1269, Washington, D. C, 1924, p. 2-*.
60396— 42— pt. 32 29
12386 HTJNTSVILLE, ALAV HEARINGS
responsibility for the work of 20 to 30 croppers. The overseers and their as-
sistants lay out the work each worker or tenant is to perform on a day-by-day
basis and direct the work as closely as foremen on construction work or in man-
ufacturing plants direct the work of the men over whom they are placed.
Supervision by agents of shippers or processors: The practice of transferring
the functions of labor management from the farm operators to representatives of
a shipping or processing concern is common in the fruit and vegetable-growing
areas of the country.
In citrus groves much of the picking is done by crews recruited and organized
by the packing or canning companies or by the cooperative marketing agencies of
the growers. The pickers assemble each day at the packing house rather than at
the groves and are organized into crews, each crew composed of a foreman, a
loader, a truck driver, and a gang of pickers numbering from 10 to 40. The
foreman has supervision over detailed work assignments and over preliminary
inspection of the fruit to determine as to its size and ripeness according to stand-
ards set by the packing house tester. He may also adjust the piece work rate in
the field, depending upon the quantity of fruit of the desired size or color.
In the areas where vegetables are grown for preserving, it is frequently the
practice for canning companies to purchase a vegetable crop in the field, in which
case supervision of the harvesting operation is assumed by the company.
A type of indirect supervision is prevalent in the sugar-beet-growing areas.
Frequently the sugar company, having recruited labor for the grower, does not
terminate its relationship to the beet workers when they arrive in the fields.
Though direct supervision is left to the grower, the company usually requires
that its representatives have access to the fields to inspect the growing crops.
The enforcement of what the sugar company regards as good farming practice
thus may put the grower in the position of a field foreman over his contract laborers
carrying out the instructions of the company. The contracts between the growers
and the workers usually stipulate that in the event of any dispute between the
parties with respect to the interpretation of the terms of the contract or the amount
or character of the work performed, the arbiter shall be the "agricultural super-
intendent" or "fieldman" of the sugar company.
Supervision by labor contractors: The functions of labor contractors in the
hiring of farm labor have been discussed. However, contractors also serve as
supervisors of work in some areas.
In the California fruit and truck areas, for example, 30 the grower makes a con-
tract with a "picker," who provides and supervises a gang of field workers.
Usually the grower reserves the right to insist on an adequate force of men, to
discharge men whose work is unsatisfactory, and to decide the time and method
of harvest. The grower remains the judge of the execution of the contract and
has the right to terminate it. The contract specifies the amounts to be paid the
contractor, the living quarters to be furnished, and the piece and time wage
rates of the workers. Complete payment by the grower is deferred until the end
of the season, as a guarantee of fulfillment of the contract.
In the case of Mexican labor employed under the contract system, the contrac-
tor usually agrees both to provide the required labor force and to supervise the
field work. Sometimes he is on the payroll of the grower as a foreman. Some-
times he agrees to harvest the crop for a flat sum agreed upon in advance; out of
this he pays his workers, depending for his profit on the margin between the
amount paid the workers and that paid to him for the harvesting of the crop.
This profit is sometimes augmented by means of a charge to the workers for their
transportation. Sometimes the contractor supplies the labor and supervises the
field work, and is paid a percentage on the piece-rate, the actual payments to the
workers being made by the operator.'
The system generally in use with Filipino labor contractors differs somewhat
from that of the Mexicans. The Filipino contractor usually supplies workers on
an hourly basis and provides the supervision. He furnishes lodging and board
either at his own or at a grower's camp. Where he is not paid wages as a field
boss, he depends for his return on his charges to the workers for board. He han-
dles the time sheets and pays the men. In some cases he reserves for himself a
percentage of the piece-rate payment, in addition to the charge for board.
In the cotton areas of Texas the supervision of pickers is left entirely to con-
tractors.31 The contractor, usually a Mexican with a truck, takes responsibility
*° Rowell, Edward J., Unpublished report to Director, Labor Relations Division, Farm Security Admin"
stration, on The Background and Problems Affecting Farm Labor in California.
»> Hamilton, C. Horace, Social Effects of Recent Trends in Mechanization of Agriculture, Progress
Report No. 579, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, College Station, Tex., 1938.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12387
for harvesting an entire crop, weighing and hauling the cotton and collecting the
laborers' earnings from the farmers. For these services, the farmer pays him a
stipulated sum for each bale of cotton, and the workers pay him a percentage of
their piece-work payments.
Although the contract system may operate to the advantage of the farm worker
by providing some continuity of employment because the contractor is able at
times to secure jobs better than an individual), the delegation of supervision by
the actual employers to his labor contractor is subject to abuses that injure both
working and living conditions of farm laborers.
C. Farm placement and stabilization of employment.
Irregularity and uncertainty of earnings are the particular curse of the workers
in the special-crop areas where relatively high day or piece rates may be offered
for short periods. The causes of this irregularity of employment are to be found
partly in the inevitably seasonal character of agriculture, partly in the adoption
of crop systems which result in the piling up of seasonal requirements, and partly
in the disorganization of the farm labor market which results in the presence in
a crop areas of an unnecessarily large supply of workers. Thus the measures for
promoting continuity of employment fall into two main groups — (1) those which
are intended to help in adjusting the supply of farm labor to the demand for it, and
(2) those which are aimed at flattening out peaks in the demand for labor and mak-
ing it more uniform.
Of these two sorts of measure, the former has thus far received most attention
and has attained the greatest measure of success. The problem of seasonal
employment, and the difficulty of keeping the supply of laborers in proper relation
to the demand for their services are not peculiar to agriculture; they have appeared
and in varying degree have been overcome, in the construction industry, in long-
shore work, and elsewhere. In agriculture, because of the scattered character
of the work units, the organization of effective employment exchanges is more
difficult than in industry, but the difference is only one of degree. As a matter
of fact, in certain farm areas of the United States very considerable success has
been attained in fitting the right men to the right jobs in proper numbers. In
Australia, also, where in some areas conditions are similar to those in the United
States and Canada, seasonal farm labor arrangements have been very effectively
worked out. Especially noteworthy are the well-managed "traveling gang"
systems in the pastoral industry, in grain threshing, fruit harvesting, hay making
and ensilage operations, and in scrub clearing.
1. Development of the Farm Placement Service. — The United States Farm Place-
ment Service was created by the Wagner-Peyser Act of 1933 as a part of the
United States Employment Service. Farm placement supervisors in States using
large numbers of farm wage workers advise the respective State employment
services concerning placement programs for agricultural workers. The actual
farm placement work, however, is performed by the State employment services.
The financial support for these services comes from grants-in-aid from Social
Security Board funds and from funds appropriated under the Wagner-Peyser Act.
The director of the Bureau of Employment Security in the Social Security
Board stated the objectives of the farm placement program in the following terms :
"Employment service facilities can al o be used effectively to direct the move-
ment of workers who migrate in response to seasonal demands for labor. This
is especially true in agriculture where the objective of the Service is to meet the
needs of both growers and workers and at the same time to avoid unnecessary and
fruitless migration. Functioning in the agricultural labor market, and in cooper-
ation with other agencies, the employment service can be a means of stabilizing
farm-labor resources, providing a more adequate income to a limited number of
qualified workers, eliminating the irresponsible recruiting practices of labor con-
tractors, and providing growers with workers who are experienced in a particular
type of crop activity." 32
Prior to 1941 the Farm Placement Service was handicapped by limited funds,
few offices, and general indifference on the part of farmer-employers. Under the
stress of war conditions with a fear of farm labor shortage growing, the Farm
Placement Service has been expanded and growers have gone to it more frequently
with their needs. In addition, national coordination of the program has been
advanced by federalization (on January 1, 1942) of the formerly autonomous
State offices. Hence the Farm Placement Service is just now beginning to reach
a position in which it can accomplish its objectives.
«Tolan Committee, Op. Cit., Washington hearings, testimony of Ewan Clague, pp. 3562-3563
12388 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
In the records of the Tolan committee appears an example of the way in which
in the past local employment offices have sometimes found it necessary to dis-
card the usual interview and registration procedure, and thus were unable to
make and control placements. In his testimony before the congressional com-
mittee the district manager of the Tennessee Employment Service stated:
"Various truck drivers, both Jiose from the plantations and independent
drivers, visit the office, state how many workers they desire to secure, and as fast
as possible trucks are loaded and sent out. A referral card, which is an introduc-
tion to the employer, is given to the truck driver, and in case of an independent
driver who has no particular destination, directions are given to him as to where
to take the labor.
"Generally, orders have been sent in in advance by many plantation owners
and if none are on hand the telephone is used in calling various plantation owners
whom we believe are in need of labor. Orders are secured and information is
given to these independent drivers as to where to go. An independent driver is
generally paid a commission for hauling labor at the rate of so much a person for
transportation charges. He is also generally used by the plantation owner the
balance of the day on hauling operations during the day and brings workers back
at night. * * * Trucks and automobiles of all makes and sizes are lined up
for over three blocks on the streets leading to the bridge and also on the side
streets. Thousands of workers start gathering at an early hour of the morning
and mill about from truck to truck deciding as to where they wish to go and for
a couple of hours there is a bustling scene as workers are loaded into the trucks
and trucks pull out. .
"Quite often a number of trucks are left over and several hundred pickers.
The interviewer calls various plantations until he can locate a plantation to send
this suplus labor to. In this way, many more workers are placed for the day
than would otherwise be." 33
However, even in the pre-war years, the Farm Placement Service was able to
make some progress. The record of the Texas Farm Placement Service was par-
ticularly noteworthy. The accomplishment .if the Texas organization were
summarized in the Tolan committee's record as follows:
"In 1939 the Texas service made more than niO.OOO agricultural placements.
According to the statement submitted to the committee by the assistant director
of the State employment service, the Farm Placement Service has been careful to
verify the authenticity of requisitions for labor. It has rejected or (inly partially
filled requisitions which it believed to be excessive, has attempted to provide
fuller employment over the year for the workers it serves, and has aivon place-
ment preference to workers resident in the vicinity of job opportunities. While
these policies have resulted in many instances in the refusal of employers to use
the Service, and in the use by employers of other devices for the purpose of creat-
ing local surpluses of labor, the Farm Placement Service has been successful in
gaining a wide degree of acceptance among employers. The increasing number of
placements made by the Service each year suggests that it is growing in impor-
tance and influence in the farm labor market of the State. The Service has elimi-
nated evils associated with earlier methods of labor recruiting, and has served
workers and employers in reducing the amount of aimless migration and in avoid-
ing, to some extent, local shortages and oversupplies of labor which formerly
resulted from the complete lack of organization in the farm labor market of the
State."34 . e . , . x
Past experience would seem to indicate quite definitely that grower acceptance
of the Farm Placement Service is a necessary condition before the Placement
Service can stabilize farm employment in any reasonable degree. This accept-
ance is growing as the acquiring of seasonal farm workers becomes increasingly a
2 The need for regularizing farm labor demand. — The effort to improve the meth-
ods of job-finding and labor distribution is one approach to the problem of in-
creasing the continuity of farm employment. The second logical line of attack
is to try to regularize the demand for labor on the farm so as to flatten as far as
possible the seasonal peaks in labor requirements. To this end proposals to
modify farm practices and cropping systems have appeared from time to time
during the last 30 vears, only to be quite generally ignored. Despite notable
examples of individual accomplishment, too little attention has been given this
problem to make clear what can be done.
" Tolan committee, op. cit., Montgomery hearings, pt. 2, testimony of E. M. Norment,[pp. 784-785.
«4 Tolan committee, op cit., Report, pp. 122-123.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12389
In the opinion of most farm management experts, the opportunities for ab-
sorbing more laborers through alterations in farming systems and changes in
farm practices are so limited as to be negligible. By adding to their present
undertakings others designed to utilize labor during slack seasons, farmers could
stabilize employment. By eliminating the capital investment in labor-saving
equipment and bv performing on the farm processing that is now done elsewhere,
farmers could employ a greater number of workers. Such developments would
probably result in higher production costs and for this reason would not be
generallv adopted except at, low wage rates for labor. Changes in types of
farming'such as those which follow the development of irrigation, the opening of
range and forest land for crop production or the development of new-labor con-
suming enterprises, as vegetable production, have only limited possibilities of
increasing the use of laborers.
The trend, for economic reasons, has been in the direction of decreasing, rather
than of increasing, the demand for farm labor. In most of the areas in which hand
labor is employed on a large scale, the movement has been toward greater speciali-
zation in production, the growing of fewer kinds of products on farms, and the
use of equipmenl, which replaces labor. Improvements such as the tractor and
tractor equipment, milking machines, and spraying equipment, have all tended to
reduce the amount of regularly employed labor used in production. On the other
hand, with the exceptions of the corn picker and the combine harvester for small
grain and seeds, few developments have reduced the need for harvest labor.
The effect has been to increase the need for hired labor for short periods and to
reduce the time during which such hired labor will be required.
The trend toward larger farms, accompanying improvement in equipment, has
served to increase the size of the farm units and to accentuate further the need for
seasonally hired labor. The larger farm calls for an investment in equipment
which reduces rather than increases the amount of labor used. Much of the work
on cotton is still done by hand labor but the time required has been reduced for
all operations except picking. Tillage and harvesting machinery has reduced the
total labor for small grains. The combine harvester has nearly eliminated
seasonal labor for harvesting and threshing of small grains. Corn machinery,
particularly in the Corn Belt, has increased the acreage that could be handled
by one man. For such crops as fruit and truck, the transformations brought
about by large umt operation have undoubtedly increased the need for hired
workers but have at the same time eliminated many small-scale producers.
Although the increase in production of fruit and vegetables may have increased
the amount of labor used in truck and fruit areas, the tendency to specialization
by areas has been increasing the concentration of seasonal labor rather than
providing permanent employment.
On family farms adjustments can be made and lines of production can be de-
veloped which will utilize more fully the available supply of labor. Such supple-
mentary enterprises as dairying, poultry production, beef-cattle feeding, and to
some extent the production of truck crops, can be developed to obtain a better
utilization of family labor. Consequently, there may be some possibility in
limited areas for developing enterprises to use year-round hired labor, but the
returns from such enterprises are likely to be too low to justify them unless mar-
kets for these products are at the same time expanded. Diversification, carried
to a commercial scale, offers limited possibilities for absorbing unemployed
workers except at very low rates of pay.
A limited possibility for expansion may be found in those areas in which the
farm enterprise is expanding. The development of fruit and truck production
or other products requiring a great deal of hand labor may be feasible in some
instances. An illustration of this is the recent development of such enterprises
in the Pacific Northwest with the resulting demand for a greater number of
workers. The substitution of crops for native grasses in some range areas has
opened new fields for farm employment. The expansion of the dairy industry
in general farming and in grain-producing areas likewise has offered additional
employment.
For those areas offering semipermanent employment to workers, the develop-
ment of part time or subsistence farms may offer a desirable alternative to the
present system of part-time employment of migrant labor. The practicability
of part-time farming by farm laborers, however, depends upon their ability to
secure employment on other farms or from sources outside agriculture for a
great part of the year.
12390 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
D. Collective bargaining.
For the last hundred years, workers in countries of the" Western World have
resorted to organization as a means of improving their working and living condi-
tions. Most of these efforts, however, have been made by nonagricultural work-
ers. In the United States, particularly, union organization has been confined
in the past to workers in nonagricultural establishments. Indicative of a scarcity
of farm-labor unions in the United States is the observation made as recently
as 1935 by a foreign observer and student of the subject: "There are no organ-
izations of agricultural workers whatever in Canada or the United States of
America," although she noted that beginnings were appearing.35 This observa-
tion is valuable not so much as a strictly accurate statement, but rather as a
reflection of the difficulties involved in establishing permanent unions of farm
wage workers. The obstacles confronting such an achievement have been
formidable in the past and to a large extent remain so today. Nevertheless, at
various times, organized industrial workers in this country have found it desirable
and even necessary to support labor organization in the field of agriculture.
The danger existed, it was believed, that rural workers who remained unorganized
constituted a potential competitive supply of cheap labor that could undermine
the labor standards industrial workers had achieved through union organization.
In some European countries the state itself has assisted in the organization
of agricultural laborers as a means of furnishing a basis for a system of wage
boards or for implementing other measures of social legislation. Thus, in con-
trast with the United States, where only a small fraction of the approximately
4,000,000 farm wage workers and sharecroppers are organized, farm laborers in
these European countries had been successful in establishing relatively permanent
and influential unions as early as the 1880's, and by the 1920's these unions could
claim memberships totalling about 3,000,000.36
The purposes of union organization in agriculture, as in other industries, are of
a varied character — economic, cooperative, educational, fraternal. On the eco-
nomic side the purpose is twofold. On the one hand, the aim is to establish a
standard rate of wages; on the other, to define and standardize the amount and
kind of work to be performed for the standard rate. In addition, however, there
is hardly any method for improving the lot of laborers, which has not, at some
time or other, served as an objective of trade-union action. Regulation of work-
ing conditions has been made, so far as possible, a part of the collective agreements
with the employer. But the provision of union benefits such as payments made
in the event of unemployment, illness or death also has played an important part
in improving worker welfare through union organization. In some countries, as
with "approved societies" in England, unions and their cooperating associations
have been used by the State as a mechanism for social insurance systems.
1. Factors retarding union organization. — A number of difficulties are usually
pointed out to account for the slow growth of unionism in agriculture. Hired
men on farms are widely scattered and lack the close and regular contacts with
one another that encourage and effectuate organization. Where these farm work-
ers have close personal ties with their employers or have good prospects of rising
up the agricultural tenure ladder, they constitute poor timber for organizational
efforts. Seasonal workers, particularly in areas of crop concentration, have close
contacts with one another, but the irregular character of their work, especially
if they are migrants, makes relationships so casual that lasting organizations are
difficult to form. Moreover, the low wages and intermittent earnings of these
workers do not permit them to pay dues regularly and in sufficient amount to
sustain their union, extend its activities, and create a financial reserve out of
which unemployment and other benefits may be paid. Where such organiza-
tional attempts have been supported financially by fellow unionists in other in-
dustries or by interested groups of urban persons, relatively stable union locals
have been set up.
The strong resistance of large farm employers to union organization has also
handicapped the development and stability of unions among the agricultural
»« Howard, Louise E., Labor in Agriculture, London, Oxford Press, 1935, p. 183.
so Collective bargaining in agriculture developed steadily in some of the European countries after the
first World War and bv 1933, it. has been estimated, covered about 5,000,000 agricultural workers. One
of the largest and most influential farm laborers' organizations today is the Scottish Farm Servant's Union
founded in 1912. „ _ ,_-- .
The international movement among agricultural workers unions also followed the war. In 1920 two
organizations were established: (a) The International Landworkers' Federation and (6) The International
Federation of Christian Landworkers' Trade Unions. These two bodies claimed a combined member-
ship of over 3,000,000 farm workers in the 1920's. (Louise E. Howard, Labor in Agriculture London, Ox-
ford Press, 1935, p. 185.)
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12391
workers. The record of attempts to organize unions among farm workers has
been marred by violence. Small farm operators also have opposed unions in
agriculture. This opposition has rested on the fear that the union organization
would put an end to the flexibility of wages, the one remaining flexible factor in
their costs of production.
The fact that agricultural workers are not guaranteed the same rights as non-
agricultural workers under the National Labor Relations Act has also been an
obstacle to the development of unions among farm workers.
Because of these unfavorable circumstances organization of agricultural workers
has not been the energetic concern of the labor movement in this country. Where
such attempts were made, the organizational and structural methods customarily
used among urban workers have proved inadequate for use among farm wage
laborers. In spite of the foregoing very tangible and formidable obstacles,
attempts at unionism in American agriculture have been made in the past, and
in more recent years such efforts have made some headway.
2. Development of farm labor unions — (a) Prior to 1914- — The history of trade
unions among American workers outside of agricultural occupations extends back
to early in the nineteenth century. Unions of farm workers, however, date 'only
from the beginning of the present century, although protective and fraternal
organizations among minority racial groups or unions organized on the basis of
foreign national origin or language of their members were founded before 1900.
One of the first general unions for farm laborers was the Sheep Shearers' Union
of North America, organized along craft lines in 1903, incorporated in Montana
10 years later, affiliated as a federally chartered union with the American Federa-
tion of Labor in 1932, and merged with the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and
Butchers Workmen of North America (A. F. of L.) in 1940. Prospective mem-
bers were required to be able to shear 100 head of sheep per day. In 1935 this
union reported a membership of about 1,500. It is, apparently, the oldest func-
tioning agricultural union in the country today.
Little organizing was clone among farm workers by the American Federation
of Labor prior to the First World War. A few city central bodies and State
federations of labor called for farm labor organization at a number of national
conventions of the American Federation of Labor during the period 1909 to 1913.
These bodies argued that seasonal farm hands competed for jobs with American
Federation of Labor organized craftsmen in small communities where skill and
specialization was not, as yet, at a premium. Others supported such action on
more humanitarian grounds, pointing to extremely poor conditions among the
migratory harvest workers on the Pacific coast.
Because the federation was trying to create a rural market for its union-label
.goods by cooperating with agricultural groups, it was not disposed to begin in
the rural areas an organizing campaign that would antagonize the farmers. The
American Federation of Labor executive council devised plans for union organi-
zation in agriculture, but no action was taken.37 Thus on the eve of the First
World War the job of organizing labor in the field of agriculture was left to a
younger organization which had entered the farm scene during the first decade
of the present century, chiefly in the corn and wheat areas of the Middle West
and in the fruit districts of the Pacific coast — the Industrial Workers of the World
(I. W. W.).
(b) World War period (1914-18). — At that time, single or unattached seasonal
harvest workers were numerically more important than they are today. It was
natural, therefore, that the Industrial Workers of the World should have con-
centrated its efforts on this type of farm laborer which, in the main, was migratory
in character. The economic situation created by the First World War, moreover,
favored a drive to better the conditions of these workers. Farm-commodity
prices had risen, the corresponding movement of farm wages lagged, and the
increased demand for farm products strengthened the bargaining power of farm
labor.
Farm labor activities of the Industrial Workers of the World were restricted
almost exclusively to the far and Middle West and it was in these areas that it
achieved its greatest success between 1915 and 1917. Although the social
philosophy of the Industrial Workers of the World touched the roots of our eco-
nomic system, propounding, among other things, the abolition of the wage system,
its immediate program of action lay within the framework of the prevailing econ-
omy. It sought to abolish illegal restraint of all kinds, demanded for workers
37 Lorwin, L. L., the American Federation of Labor, 1933, pp. 110-111.
12392 HTTNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
proper board and lodging, a 10-hour workday, a standard wage of $4 a day during
the harvest season, and free transportation where the latter proved necessary.38
The organizational structure of the Industrial Workers of the World included
a "department of agriculture, land, fisheries, and water products," and an Indus-
trial Union for Agricultural Workers.39 It has been estimated that in California
in 1914 the Industrial Workers of the World had a number of paid and unpaid
organizers, 5,000 dues-paying members in 40 branches, and a large following
among thousands of other unskilled and migratory agricultural workers.40 In
1916 the Industrial Workers of the World claimed some 18,000 workers in its
Agricultural Workers' organization.41
The Industrial Workers of the World did not lay any basis for a permanent
system of collective bargaining in farm and rural areas, but its activities resulted
in obtaining higher wages in a considerable number of cases and led to general
improvement in the working and living conditions of migratory agricultural work-
ers. A number of reasons are generally offered to explain the decline of this
body. The principal ones are (a) the agricultural depression of the post-war
years; (b) the loose structural form of its organization; (c) the failure to consoli-
date its gains; (d) the concerted and violent opposition of farmers against some
of its syndicalistic tactics; and (e) its suppression by the public authorities. The
Industrial Workers of the World gradually disappeared, and after the war few
remnants of organized existence remained.42
(c) The 1920' s. — Farm labor organizational activities in the 1920's were feeble
and desultory. Interest of the American Federation of Labor in this field after
the war was limited to the action which it took in 1922 in chartering a National
Agricultural Workers' Union. No actual organizational work seems to have
taken place and the charter was withdrawn the next year.43 An attempt was
made also to establish a closer relationship between the American Federation of
Labor and the Fruit and Vegetables Workers' Union of North America, an inde-
pendent union organized in 1922. This union claimed about 1,900 members
when it affiliated with the American Federation of Labor the same year it was
organized.
The next year, however, it was disbanded.44 No agricultural unions seem to
have been affiliated with the American Federation of Labor during tfhis period
until 1932 when the Sheep Shearers' Union of North America joined the federation.
In 1928 two independent unions of Mexican workers were organized, one with
a membership of 1,200 among the fruit and vegetable workers in the Imperial
Valley of California, the other with a membership of 2,000 in the sugar-beet
areas of Colorado and neighboring States.45 These were practically the only
organizations of agricultural workers of any importance formed during the
decade 1920-30. Neither union survived.
(d) Since 1.930.- — (1) The Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union
of the Trade Union Unity League: The economic depression which began in the
fall of 1929 brought a new period of organizational activity among agricultural
workers. Between 1929 and 1933 wage rates paid to hired farm labor dropped
by more than half, the Bureau of Agricultural Economics index declining from
180 in 1929 (1910-14 = 100) to 85 in 1933.46 -Earnings were cut still further as
the farm labor market became glutted with former farm workers returning from
the economically depressed urban centers.
At this juncture, in California's chief crop-growing regions, leadership in organi-
zational work was taken by the Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial
Union (C. A. W. I. U.) during the period 1931-33. In 1933 alone, according to
the union, its representatives led more than 40,000 worker^ in 22 strikes through-
out the agricultural valleys of California. The Cannery and Agricultural Workers
Industrial Union was affiliated with the Trade Union Unity League (T. U. U. L.).
Like the older Industrial Workers of the World, the Trade Union Unity League
and its affiliated union organizations sought elimination of an economy based on
36 Veblen, Thorstein, Essays in Our Changing Order, p. 32.
« U. S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, United States Handbook of American Trade
Unions (1929 ed.), Bulletin 506.
<o State Relief Administration of California, Migratory Labor in California, 193G, pp. 56-57.
« Brissenden, P. F., The Industrial Workers of the World, A Study of American Syndicalism (Columbia
University Studies'), p. 338. , .
« See 192.) Handbook of Labor Statistics and S. S. Gamb's the Decline of the Industrial Workers of the
World. 1932.
« Sufrin, S. C, Labor Organization in Agricultural America. American Journal of Sociology, 43:544-5o9
(1938).
« Lorwin, L. I.., op cit., pp. 4r-4, 476. and 4S2.
« Report of dov. C. C. Young's Mexican Fact-Finding Committee, Mexicans in ( alifornia, 1930.
49 U. S. Department of Agriculture, the Agricultural Situation, Janury 1942, p. 24.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12393
private profit'and ownership of the means of production. Unlike the syndicalist
philosophy of the Industrial Workers of the World, however, the principles of
the Trade Union Unity League called for greater attention to bread-and-butter
problems of trade-unionism and to political action as an adjunct to industrial
organization. . ,
The brief life of the Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union was
marked with a succession of strikes, on a scale larger than any previously seen
on the farms of the Pacific coast. However, it was unable to maintain and
stabilize its membership after strikes were ended. When a number of the Cannery
and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union leaders were arrested, tried, and com
victea on charges of violating the California criminal syndicalism law, the union
was dealt a severe blow from which it failed to recover. In 1935 it was dissolved
when its parent organization, the Trade Union Unity League, recommended that
its members join the American Federation of Labor.
(2) Federal locals of the American Federation of Labor and independent unions:
The National Recovery Administration campaign of 1933 gave new strength to
efforts to establish unionism among agricultural workers. Farm workers in many
parts of the country applied for charters as Federal locals, that is, as locals to be
affiliated directly with the national American Federation of Labor organization.
Independent agricultural laborers' unions also sprang up. They were established
among onion pickers in Ohio, cranberry pickers in Massachusetts, and sugar-beet
workers in Michigan, Ohio, and the Rocky Mountain area. California saw the
growth of many new American Federation of Labor locals as well as the rebirth
of many old independent unions. Arizona and Washington were also affected.
Cotton workers' unions evolved in Alabama, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.47 In 1935
it was estimated that there were 98 agricultural labor unions of which 54 were
affiliated with the American Federation of Labor as Federal locals.48
Although neither the National Recovery Administration nor the Agricultural
Adjustment Administration assumed responsibility over the working conditions
of farm labor, the workers themselves thought they were included under the acts,
and many of the newly organized groups appealed to the National Recovery
Administration Labor Advisory Board to establish labor standards. Others sent
in proposed labor codes of fair competition to the National Recovery Adminis-
tration. In 1933, for example, some 35,000 Negro and white citrus workers in
Florida joined an independent union which appealed to the Labor Advisory
Board for protection under the codes.49
By 1936, it was reported, that American Federation of Labor had given Federal
charters to 62 locals of which 40 were field workers and 22 were cannery and
packinghouse unions paying per capita taxes on 7,600 members.50 The chief
request of the 13 delegates representing farm workers at the 1936 American
Federation of Labor convention was for an international charter so that agricul-
tural workers could set up their own staff with their own funds and thus render
better service to the local unions. This request had the support of several
State Federations of Labor. The matter was referred to the executive council
which in 1937 turned down the request for an international charter but agreed to
set up a national agricultural workers' council, presumably a preliminary step
before deciding whether to issue such a charter. Dissatisfied with this decision,
most of these locals met at Denver, Colo., in July and formed a national organiza-
tion of farm and food processing workers; this body assumed the name of the
United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America, which
voted to affiliate with the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
At the annual convention of the American Federation of Labor held in October
1937, after many of its former federal farm laborer locals had joined the Congress
of Industrial Organizations, the executive board was instructed to call a conference
of all its remaining federal locals of agricultural, packing, and cannery workers.
There is, however, no record of such a conference having been called and in 1938
the question of organizing agricultural workers was not discussed at the conven-
tion. The president of the American Federation of Labor reported at the time
that there were 64 local unions of agricultural, cannery and citrus workers with a
total membership of about 22,000.51 Most of these locals were in canneries in
17 Unions mentioned in different issues of the Rural Worker, August-December 1935.
48 Sufrin. S. C, Labor Organization in Agricultural America, the American Journal of Sociology, January
1938, p. 548.
16 Labor Fact Book II, Labor Research Association (International Publishers), p. 163.
bo Proceedings of the 1936 Convention of the American Federation of Labor. One delegate at this conven-
tion stated that the high per capita tax led these locals to pay for only one-tenth of their actual membership.
51 Proceedings of the 1938 American Federation of Labor Convention, p. 84.
60^96— 42— pt. 32 20
12394 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
California and Washington, a few were located in Florida. Not many of these
were locals of field workers.
In 1939 the executive council reported that the American Federation of Labor
had chartered 13 new locals of agricultural, canning, and citrus workers since
July 5, 1938. The proceedings of the 1939 annual convention of the federation
that year listed the following unions in this field: Fruit and Cannery Workers'
union, Olympia, Wash.; Fish Cannery Workers, Pittsburg, Calif.; Agricultural
Laborers, Orange County, Calif.; Cannery Workers' Union, San Pedro, Calif.;
Beet Sugar Workers' Union, Santa Ana, Calif.; Cereal Workers' and Allied In-
dustries, Battle Creek, Mich.; Cotton Workers' Union, Chattanooga, Tenn.;
Fruit and Vegetable Workers' Union, Salinas, Calif.
Others listed in the 1940 convention proceedings were: Cannery Workers''
Union, Hay ward, Calif.; Packers and Preserve Workers' Union, San Francisco,
Calif.; and Vegetable Packing House Employees' Union, Princeton, Fla.
At the 1940 convention of the federation, the delegates from the California
State Federation of Labor introduced a resolution that the American Federation
of Labor approve the establishment of an autonomous National Council of Fruit
and Vegetable Cannery Workers, Preserve Workers, and Dried Fruit and Nut
Workers. It was claimed that locals of these workers had a combined member-
ship of 60,000 which over a period of 3 years had paid in a total of about $225,000
in per capita taxes to the American Federation of Labor. The resolution also
provided that all federal chartered locals in this field be requested to become part
of such a council and that a definite proportion of the per capita tax paid by them
be allocated back to the National Council for organizational work. This resolu-
tion was referred to the executive council of the American Federation of Labor.
In the spring of 1941, the American Federation of Labor assisted the striking
lemon pickers in Ventura County, Calif., in forming a local and then chartering it
under the name of the Agricultural and Citrus Workers Union.52 In the spring of
the same year, the American Federation of Labor seems to have secured a foothold
in the agricultural and food processing field in southern New Jersey. The
Seabrook Farms signed a written agreement with the Amalgamated Meat Cutters'
and Butchers' Workmen of North America, an affiliate of the American Federation
of Labor. The agreement established practically a closed shop since all the field
and shed workers employed by the company were to become members of the union.
The lowest pay under the contract was to be 35 cents an hour for unskilled farm
labor. Wage increases, among other benefits, were provided in the agreement.5*
(3) Sharecroppers' and tenants' unions: Organization of sharecroppers in the
South began in Tallapoosa and Lee Counties, Ala., in 1931. In the spring of that
year a union of sharecroppers and day laborers, mostly Negroes, was formed
under the name of the Sharecroppers' Union of Alabama. Branches were later
set up in Florida, Georgia, and in the Carolinas. Its activities on behalf of share-
croppers and other disadvantaged tenants and farm workers were forcibly resisted
by planters and much violence resulted.
In the spring of 1935, the union led a strike of a few hundred cotton choppers
in Alabama and claimed success in boosting wages on a number of plantations
up to 75 cents and $1 a day. In the summer of the same year, it conducted a
strike of a few thousand cotton pickers in central Alabama where harvesting
wages were reported as low as 35 cents a day. In more recent years, the union
has attempted to eliminate abuses under the Agricultural AdjustmentAdministra-
tion crop control program.
In 193G, this union claimed a membership of about 12,000 in Alabama, Louisiana
and North Carolina.54 Most of it, however, was in Alabama where the organiza-
tion originated. In that year it merged with the Alabama Farmers' Union which
is affiliated with the Farmers' Educational and Cooperative Union of America,
more commonly known as the National Farmers' Union.
»2 George Meany, Peonage in California, American Federationist, May 1941, p. 5.
•' New York Herald Tribune, March 16, 1941; southern New Jersey is the area in which the Agricultural
Workers' Union, an American Federation of Labor federal chartered union, seems to have had jurisdiction
since the early 1930's. This union, under the name of the Agricultural and Cannery Workers' Union of
Southern New Jersey, was orisinalJy one of the. Trade Union Unity Lea-ue affiliates before it was chartered
by the American Federation of Labor in 1935. With the formation of the United Cannery, Agricultural,
Packing and Allied Workers of America in 1937, it was one of the American Federation of Labor federal
chartered unions which transferred its affiliation to the Congress of Industrial Organizations. In 1934, tins
union claimed membership of about 1 ,000 seasonal truck farm workers in eight locals. A strike, which the
union conducted avainst the Seabrook Farms in April 1934, increased hourly wa<?e rates from 12 and 15 cents
to 25 and 30 cents, thus strengthening the organization. A subsequent strike in June of the same year against
the company seems to have prevented Vage cuts but the union apparently suffered organizationally. Its-
present strength is not known.
" Labor Research Association, Labor Fact Book III (International Publishers), p. 145.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12395
A group similar to the Alabama Farmers' Union and affiliated to the National
Farmers' Union, is the Louisiana Farmers' Union. The latter has local organiza-
tions which include sharecroppers and small tenant farmers who work in the cane
fields during the harvest period. This union has been active in filing wage claims
for its members under the provisions of the Sugar Act of 1937.
Another sharecroppers' and tenant farmers' union, organized in the South in
the early 1930's, was the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union. It originated in
eastern Arkansas in the summer of 1934 chiefly as a group opposing reported
abuses under the Agricultural Adjustment Administration crop control program
in the South, adversely affecting sharecroppers and small tenants. In 1935 it
conducted a cotton pickers strike in Arkansas and Texas which resulted, it was
claimed, in raising wages on a number of plantations to 75 cents and $1 per hundred
pounds of cotton picked. By 1937 this union claimed an enrolled membership
of about 30,000 in more than 300 locals located in 7 Southern and Southwestern
States. About 90 percent of its locals and membership were in Arkansas and
Oklahoma, 60 percent of them being in Arkansas.55 Locals were also established
in Texas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Missouri, and North Carolina. This was the
year the Southern Tenant P'armers' Union reached its organizational peak, being
recognized then as the largest union of agricultural workers in the South.
In the same year (1937), the union abandoned its independent status by
affiliating with the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of
America, but this affiliation lasted less than 2 years, the withdrawal being made
in March 1939. It lost an appreciable number of its locals and members to the
United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America at the
time of and since the split. The union claimed 40,000 members in over 100 locals
in the summer of 1940.59 Since 1934, the composition of the membership of the
Southern Tenant Farmers' Union has undergone a material change. In the early
years, some 90 percent of its members were sharecroppers or tenant farmers;
today over 75 percent are day laborers.
(4) United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America,
Congress of Industrial Organizations: In January 1935, a number of American
Federation of Labor federal locals, impatient witn the progress being made toward
obtaining a national charter, established a National Committee of Agricultural
and Rural Workers to coordinate their efforts and to work toward the establish-
ment of one Nation-wide union of all agricultural and rural workers. Their
ultimate objective was to obtain a national charter from the federation. This
committee sent out organizers, helped develop unions in a number of areas through
the country, published a union organ (the Rural Worker), and agitated for
lowering the per capita tax levied on farm-worker locals by the American Federa-
tion of Labor.
By 1937 this committee succeeded in setting up or in helping to bring together
joint organizations of agricultural workers' unions and cannery and packing-shed
locals in various parts of the country. Such organizations were the California
Federation of Cannery and Agricultural Workers' Union, the Northwest Council of
Cannery, Packing House and Agricultural Workers, New Jersey State Committee
of Agricultural and Cannery Unions, and the Colorado Conference of Beet Field
and Agricultural Unions.57 In California, the Federation of Cannery and Agri-
cultural Workers took a stand for Congres of Industrial Organizations affiliation,
after the State Federation of Labor (which desired the organizational separation
of field workers from cannery workers) 58 turned down a request for a State-wide
union including both types of labor.
In June 1937, 44 American Federation of Labor federal local unions and 8
independent unions issued a call to all agricultural, cannery, and packing-shed
unions to attend a national convention in Denver to form an international union
and to decide whether affiliation should be "with the American Federation of Labor
or the Congress of Industrial Organizations. The call to the meeting stated:
"The policy of the Congress of Industrial Organizations in successfully organi-
zing in industry-wide unions and their policy of aggressively assisting the organiza-
tion of the unorganized with advice, funds, and organizers make it necessary for
us to seriously consider affiliation to the Congress of Industrial Organizations." 5g
M Proceedings of the 1937 Convention of the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union.
M House Committee Investigating the Interstate Migration of Destitute Citizens. Montgomery hearings.
August 14-16, 1940, pt. 2, p. 826; also Southern Tenant Farmers' Union, Report of the Secretary. January
1940.
« Rural Worker, July 1937.
« Ibid.
« Ibid.
12396 HTJNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
It appeared at the start, therefore, that the Congress of Industrial Organiza-
tions, with its emphasis upon industry-wide organization, rather than the American
Federation of Labor, with its policy of preserving craft-union interests, would be
the choice for affiliation.
In July 1937, 97 delegates representing, it was claimed, about 100,000 workers
from 78 different locals (50 of which were stated to be agricultural field workers'
locals) from 21 States met in Denver, Colo., and organized an international — the
United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America (U. C. A.
P. A. W. A.) . Of the 78 locals represented, 45 were chartered American Federation
of Labor locals, a few were Congress of Industrial Organizations industrial locals,
and the rest independent unions, the latter including the Southern Tenant Farm-
ers' Union and racial unions of Filipinos, Mexicans, and Japanese on the Pacific
coast. The vote to join the Congress of Industrial Organizations was practically
unanimous. The chief strength of the new union was in California, Washington,
Colorado, New Jersey, eastern Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri. The dele-
gates voted to admit "all types of agricultural workers, all fruit, fish, and vegetable
canning and packing workers in allied fields." They further set forth as a basic
aim "to work concertedly with the general labor movement to bring about a
higher standard of living to all workers and small oppressed families." 60
The President of the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers
of America, in making his report to the second national convention, listed as the
major accomplishment of the organization since its founding "the establishment
on a stable trade-union bash of a Nation-wide organization." 61 This stable basis,
it was observed, did not rest on the agricultural field workers' locals, but rather on
the organized food and fish processing workers. The experience of their union
and of other agricultural unions had already demonstrated that although field
workers might join farm labor unions in considerable numbers, their adherence
was often unstable and their dues payments irregular; in short, they formed a very
poor basis for a strong labor organization. Consequently, the union adopted the
strategy of expanding its major efforts in organizing workers in semi-industrial
food establishments such as packing sheds and canneries. Because of their more
certain job tenure, higher earnings, and greater stability of location, workers in
these plants it was argued, could form more closely knit organizations, could
successfully bargain collectively with their employers, and could serve to launch
effective organizational work among farm field laborers. Once the industries on
the border line between farming and nonagricultural enterprise were strongly
organized, the union maintained the way would open to the successful organiz ation
of the field workers. According to this plan of organization, large locals of canning
and processing workers, with steady dues-paying memberships, would enable the
union to continue the organization of farm laborers who could not be expected to
be self-supporting in the early stages of union organization. _
It was held also that cannery and packing-shed workers, if organized, would
refuse to cross the picket lines of field workers or to work on nonunion agricultural
produce, and thus would increase the bargaining power of the field workers. A
number of incidents in California illustrate this strategy. Mexican lemon pickers
in San Fernando, it was alleged, were helped in a strike situation resulting in a
wage increase, when girl shed workers refused to cross picket lines.62 At Bryte
pear pickers, in was held, won a wage increase after a short strike in which they
participated with the packers and truck drivers in the orchard.63
In spite of the fact that the claimed 38,300 processing workers in 1938 make
up the main financial and organizational strength of the United Cannery, Agri-
cultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America, they were that year outnum-
bered bv the agricultural field worker members who, according to the union, totaled
about 86,000.64 Of the field worker membership, about 15,000 were said to be
located in the Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Montana sugar-beet areas,
38,000 were classified as cotton field workers in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri;
Alabama, and Texas; the rest were distributed among fruit and vegetable field
locals in California, Washington, and New Jersey, among a small number of
eo Proceedings of the First National Convention of the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied
"Report ofthe General President, Second Annual Convention, United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing
and Allied Workers of America, December 19:SS. _ j ih,vj w«.w™
62 Congress of Industrial Organization News, United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers
of America edition, October 17, 1938.
6^ Report of "he General President, Second Annual Convention, United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing
and Allied Workers of America, Dedember 1938.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION
12397
citrus workers locals in Florida, and among a few locals of sugar-beet workers in
the Michigan-Ohio area.
At the national convention of this union held in December 1940, a total mem-
bership of over 100,000 was reported for the United States, Canada, Hawaii, and
Alaska. Of this total, about 26,400 represented the industrial membership in
86 locals and about 75,000 were agricultural field workers organized in 159 locals.85
The agricultural workers' locals comprised, for the most part, sharecroppers,
fruit and vegetable workers and sugar-beet workers. It was stated that the
industrial membership figures were "conservative and reliable" while those of
agricultural field workers were rough estimates largely because it was difficult
to ascertain precisely the number of these workers who, in large part, were seasonal
and migratory.
The union's major gains in 1939 and 1940 were made in the industrial section.
The largest percentage increases in membership were recorded by locals in the
semi-industrial establishments which processed food, dried fruit and nuts, tobacco,
and grains. For the first time, a tobacco division was established within the
framework of the union. This move was an outgrowth of the jurisdiction over
the tobacco industry granted the union by the Congress of Industrial Organiza-
tions in January 1941. Gains were reported also in cotton processing, compress-
ing, and ginning. These gains were important to the union since as recently as
1938 the industrial membership was almost exclusively in fish-canning and sea-food
establishments. The activities of the union in 1939 and 1940 also resulted in
expanding its operations outside of the west coast districts, where formerly the
major efforts of the union were concentrated. The total rise in the industrial
membership in December 1940 over December 1938 was claimed to be slightly
over 80 percent.66
For 1939, 1940, and the first half of 1941, the union reported a total of more
than $1,500,000 in wage increases achieved through the international's contractual
agreements with employers. It will be noted that the average number of workers
per contract and per company covered is very small. "This means," the officers
of the union pointed out, "that a very large number of companies have been organ-
ized and contracts signed, but that the great majority of these have been very small
companies." Below is a tabular presentation of the number of contracts and the
number of companies, plants, and workers covered under them.67
1937
1938
1940
June 30, 1941
30
7,035
8,625
88
153
65
9,003
11,909
125
181
158
13, 169
19, 670
223
276
189
20, 269
Number of workers under contract:
Normal
Source: Proceedings of the Third National Convention of United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing
Allied Workers of America, December 1940.
As of December 1940, 153 union contracts covering about 18,000 semi-industrial
workers were distributed as follows : 68
Industry-
Number of
contracts
Workers
covered
36
10
5
11
13
17
50
11
2, 416
5,480
500
5,785
Fish canning and processing ._
Cotton and cottonseed processing, compressing, and ginning
Dried fruit and nut processing
Horticulture (greenhouse, nursery, cemetery, etc.)
443
Others
Total .
153
18, 054
«» Proceedings of the Third National Convention of United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied
Workers of America, December 1940. Since the third convention, 17 new locals were reported to have been
chartered. (United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America News, August 8, 1941.)
66 This percentage increase does not correspond to the membership figures reported for 1938. It is assumed
that a different 1938 base was used in this computation.
67 As of August 1941, negotiations were in progress in 14 other plants where National Labor Relations
Board elections had been won or organizational work completed.
M United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America, third convention, proceedings,
op cit.
12398
HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
Between November 1939 and December 1940, United Cannery, Agricultural,
Packing and Allied Workers of America had been a party in 48 National Labor
Relations Board elections, in 42 of which it polled a majority of the vote and was
designated as the collective bargaining agent of almost 9,000 workers.09 Since the
third convention in December 1940, it has won 14 out of 17 such elections. Be-
tween November 1939 and October 1940 the union engaged in 42 strikes involving
about 24,000 workers.
The union reportedly won 26 of these strikes, affecting about 22,000 workers.70
Most of the strikes were called by industrial locals 71 as a result of refusal by
employers to renegotiate new contracts calling for improved conditions.72
3. Strikes and employer-union relationships — (a) Strikes. — Strikes in agriculture
have attained numerical importance only since 1933. That low wages, long
hours, and other grievances did not result in a greater number of strikes before is
partly explained by the observation that, "discontent may be greatest precisely
when and because workers exist so precariously that they have no hope of better-
ing their immediate position through the use of economic weapons." 73
During the period 1927-39, 42 strikes involving more than 1,000 workers each
occurred, and 7 which involved more than 5,000 workers each. Two strikes of
cotton workers in California affected aprpoximately 10,000 workers each. Agri-
cultural strikes during this 13-year period included, on the average, 775 workers
each. More than one-half of these strikes occurred in fruit and vegetable areas
where large groups of field workers are employed. Although by far the largest
number of such strikes occurred in California, their widespread incidence is
indicated by the fact that 30 States and the District of Columbia were affected
by one or more strikes during the 6-year period 1933-38.74
Data on the outcome of 197 strikes reported for the 12 years (1927-38) indicate
that clear-cut gains were won by workers in 47 cases and partial success in 75.
Thus, total or partial objectives were achieved in 62 percent of the strikes in
which the outcome was known. The record of strikes in agriculture between
1927 and 1941 is shown in the following table:
Strikes in Agriculture, 1927-41
[Covers field workers only; packing-shed and cannery workers are excluded]
Year
Number
of
strikes
Number
of workers
involved
Number
of man-
days idle
during
year
Year
Number
of
strikes
Number
of workers
involved
Number
of man-
days idle
during
year
2
4
322
410
694
2,770
1935
19
28
28
34
25
14
22
14,888
15, 369
5,080
11,023
26, 207
2,130
10,070
139, 494
1936
259, 120
1937
32.842
5
5
10
35
27
2,905
2,020
1,762
34,012
25, 943
26, 080
15, 225
28, 687
516, 900
244, 753
1938
94, 040
1939
194, 880
1940
37, 359
1933
1941 (11 months)-..
388, 747
Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics, U. S. Department of Labor, Strikes in the United States 1880-1936,
Bulletin No. 651, p. 159, also, monthly issues of Monthly Labor Review, 1938-41.
About 85 percent of the strikes which occurred before 1940 were concerned
primarily with demands for higher wages or opposition to wage cuts. It can be
assumed that those in 1940 and in the first half of 1941, were, for the most part
for higher wages as farm commodity prices and cost of living rose. The fact
that union recognition was the major issue in but few cases indicates that organ-
ized collective bargaining on a long-run basis was not clearly envisaged by either
the farm operators or the workers.
»» It lost 5 elections and tied in the otter; slightly over 10,000 workers were involved in the 48 elections.
"> The union lost three strikes and the rest were indecisive.
« Five agricultural workers' locals and 37 industrial locals participated in these strikes.
« TJ. C. A. P. A. W. A., Third Convention, Proceedings, op cit.
« U. S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Strikes in the United States, 1880-1936, Bulletin
»«' Data compiled by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, Department of Agriculture, from all avail-
able sources. The data may include some small strikes not recorded by the Bureau of Labor Statistics
and sometimes other than field workers.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12399
Strikes in agriculture are costly to all concerned: Farm operators stand to lose
their perishable crops;75 striking workers are likely to lose much of their wages,
as other laborers are taken on to complete the harvest; the community stands to
lose because of reduction in business and labor, of lowered tax revenues, of in-
creased relief burdens, and of lowered political morality which accompanies
strikes and often results in violation of civil liberties. Unions and farm em-
ployers have become keenly aware of these difficulties and more and more have
had recourse to the United States Conciliation Service to mediate their disputes.
Between 1933 and 1938, the Conciliation Service was called upon 51 times to
aid in the settlement of agricultural labor controversies.
(b) Em-ploy er-union relationships. — While written union agreements between
agricultural field workers and growers are rare, they are not totally unknown.
However, agreements that have been reached usually lasted only during a specific
job and provided no basis for peaceful and orderly negotiation to meet future
problems. Perhaps the most important field agreement concluded in recent years
was the Blissfield, Mich., closed field contract of 1935. In June of that year the
Blissfield Beet Growers' Association of Michigan, representing about 1,400
growers, signed a closed field agreement with the Agricultural Workers' Union,
an American Federation of Labor Federal chartered local. About the same time,
another American Federation of Labor local at Findlay, Ohio, signed an agreement
with the Findlay sugar beet giowers. This agreement, however, was not a closed
field contract. The Blissfield agreement, which was in force until January 1,
1936, was described by the union as a model contract.
A number of agreements were signed by organized poultry and dairy workers
and employers in California in 1937. One of these agreements was signed by the
largest poultry farm in the United States, the Taylor Runnymeade Farms of
Reseda, Calif., with the Valley Poultry Workers Union, affiliated with the United
Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America. The contract
was in force from October 1937 to October 1938 and was renewed for another year
at the expiration date. In 1939 and 1940 these farms were struck because of
failure to renew the contract on conditions favorable to both parties. In 1937
and 1938 at least 10 written agreements were in force between the Dairy Workers'
Union in Los Angeles, affiliated with the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing
and Allied Workers of America, and farm and dairy companies located in a number
of California cities.
Two written agreements were on record in 1938 and 1939 between pea and bean
field workers represented by United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied
Workers of America in Seattle, Wash., and the Japanese Association of Brain-
bridge Island, Wash. Another, affecting pea pickers, was negotiated in Colorado
in 1938. On November 4, 1939, a written agreement was signed by a United
Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America local representing
cotton pickers and the Mineral King Cooperative Farms Association of Visalia,
Calif. Also, following a strike for a 5-cents-an-hour wage increase by some 2,700
celery cutters and shed workers near Stockton, Calif., in 1939, employers signed
an agreement with the Filipino Agricultural Laborers' Association (an inde-
pendent union). Two other written union agreements covering cotton pickers
were in force in Kern County, Calif., in 1937-38.
4. Other union activities. — For the most part, agricultural unions have used
methods other than economic weapons to gain their objectives.
In nearly all of the hearings held under the Sugar Act of 1937 on the determina-
tion of wage rates for workers in sugarcane and sugar beets, existing agricultural
unions have appeared on behalf of the workers. In line with their legislative
programs, the American Federation of Labor, the Congress of Industrial Organiza-
tions, and the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union are on record in favor of extension
of certain Federal and State labor and Social Security laws to agricultural labor.
In the case of Federal legislation, these organizations favor such extensions of the
Social Security Act, the National Labor Relations Act, and the Wages and Hours
Act. Agricultural workers' unions have also urged amendments or clarification
of the provisions in the Agricultural Adjustment Act and the Agricultural Market-
ing Agreement Acts which would eliminate administrative discriminations against
sharecroppers and share tenants. They also favor the establishment of farm labor
standards as a condition for growers receiving benefit payments similar to those
which now obtain under the sugar act. About 325,000 agricultural workers in
the sugar growing industry, about 160,000 of them being in the continental United
75 The gravity of the strike problem is indicated by the estimate that approximately 65 percent of Cali-
fornia's entire crop value was involved in the 1933 strikes. House of Representatives Committee on Labor,
Hearings on the Labor Disputes Act, 1935, H. R. 6288, p. 342.
12400 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
States, are covered by this act which provides for "fair and reasonable" restrictions
on the employment of child labor.
Agricultural labor unions have also attempted to secure work relief for members
during periods of unemployment and to prevent their removal from relief rolls
unless they are paid wages equal to those paid to unskilled workers on relief
projects in the locality. These unions also favor a Federal uniform election law
which would enfranchise many farm and rural worker snow deprived of their
votes by some State laws.
Some' unions in agriculture have made studies on the working and living con-
ditions of farm wage workers and have engaged in general educational activities
in the interest of their members and for the enlightenment of public officials.
During the present war emergency, agricultural unions have volunteered their
services in meeting farm labor supply problems.
II. LEGISLATIVE PROTECTION
It is now generally agreed that even if a worker receives fair wages and works
under satisfactory conditions, there are certain chances of life against which it is
difficult for him to make adequate provision. On the job, an accident may occur
involving inability to earn for a period, unforeseen expenses, and possibly perma-
nent disablement. Even if the worker has contributed by his own carelessness to
this event, and might therefore, as some think, be left to suffer the consequences,
there remains his family to support and educate. In a similar manner, sickness
may descend upon the wage earner or his dependents, creating problems with
which he is unable to cope. The danger of unemployment lurks always in the
background, with malnutrition, crowded housing, ill health, and family disorgani-
zation as its consequences. Finally, of course, there is the looming shadow of old
age, the fear of insecurity and dependency at a time when failing powers render
self-help difficult.
Among the measures which have been developed to assist in meeting these
hazards of working-class life, there are a number which involve in greater or
lesser degree the principle of insurance. This principle is simply that of dis-
tributing among many the losses sustained by a few. By the common method of
fire insurance each individual in an organized group is assured that, in case of the
destruction of his property he will be^ reimbursed from a fund gathered little by
little from the whole group by the insuring agency. Similarly people in many
lands have cooperated for the purpose of building up funds out of which sickness,
accident, unemployment, or death benefits are to be paid in case of need.
A. Wage regulation.
Efforts to increase income for farm workers — as well as income for other
workers — commonly are aimed at raising wage rates. This offers a convenient
point of attack.
The object of wage rate regulation is to bring about an increase in total earnings
by means of an increase in wage rates; to standardize such rates over a given area
so as to avoid underbidding among workers seeking employment; or to standardize
them over a period of time so as to avoid the wide fluctuations which occur,
especiallv in seasonal work.
In the United States, governmental action for the standardization of wage rates
may be Federal — as in the case of the determination of wages of sugar beet and
sugarcane workers under the Sugar Act of 1937; or the action may be in the nature
of State minimum wage legislation.
Nongovernmental regulation usually takes the form of agreements between
voluntary associations of producers and laborers or between a single producer
(individual or corporate) and such an association of the laborers employed by that
producer.
1. Government regulation in other English-speaking nations. — In Australia and
New Zealand: "Minimum wages" in the modern sense appeared first in the
Antipodes as part of a campaign to relieve conditions in "sweated" trades. In
1894 New Zealand gave its district conciliation boards power to set minimum
wage rates for underpaid workers. The first real minimum wage law was passed
in 1896 by the State of Victoria; it established boards in six notoriously underpaid
trades, including furniture making, baking, and bootmakmg. The purpose was
to raise to a minimum level of subsistence certain depressed classes so situated
that they were incapable of bargaining for themselves — rather than to establish
higher standard wage rates for all workers.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12401
Later, in 1900, the Victoria Act was expanded to cover other occupations in
which there was no evidence of "sweating"; it thus became the regular method for
fixing the standard wage rates.
In" the other Australian States the development was similar. In those States
minimum wage awards were closely connected with the system for arbitrating dis-
putes between employees and employers.
In Australia there is separate and independent arbitration legislation for the
whole Commonwealth and for each of the six States constituting the Common-
wealth. The original Commonwealth Act of 1904 excluded agriculture but later
any association of 100 or more workers in any industry was permitted to register
and to apply for wages awards. Among agricultural workers only the pascoral
and fruit workers have done so, the former for the first time in 1 907, the latter in
1912. At first the Commonwealth pastoral award applied only to sheep shearers
and other such skilled workers, but in 1917 the relatively unskilled shed hands
were included. Awards in the separate States may supplement the Common-
wealth awards, as by the grant of higher wages or by bringing in other groups of
workers. In some States agriculture is expressly excluded from the operation of
the Acts; in others, although not formally excluded, farm workers have seldom
asked for awards.76
Although the original Conciliation and Arbitration Act of New Zealand formally
included agriculture, the Court made no award applicable to ordinary farm work-
ers during 40 years' experience; however, it did include the pastoral industry and
such industrialized agricultural occupations as the frozen meat trade. In 1936
the labor government of New Zealand undertook to combine the enactment of a
statutory minimum wage for agricultural workers with the provision of adminis-
trative machinery for raising this minimum, and, subsequently, also for reducing
it, if necessary, but not below the minimum fixed by the statute.77 The Agricul-
tural Workers Act sets out a schedule for workers on dairy farms: Section 20 of
the act sets forth that its provisions may be applied by order of council, with the
necessary modifications, to any specified class of agricultural workers in addition
to those' on dairy farms. Under this section, an order in council was issued in
February 1937, extending the provisions to workers employed in orchards, and in
April 1937 to agricultural and pastoral workers employed on farms engaged in the
commercial production of wool, meat and/or grain. Subsequently, the question
of including workers on tobacco farms was under consideration.
The Agricultural Workers Act links the wages of agricultural workers — at pre-
sent only those of dairy farm workers — with the price of agricultural produce, as
fixed by the Primary Products Marketing Act. The latter established a fixed price
for butter and cheese and lays down the principle that prices may also be fixed
for any other agricultural produce.78
Great Britain: In England, where the Victoria system was adopted in 1909,
the development was similar. The English law applied first to four "sweated"
occupations; then to others with "exceptionally" or "unduly" low wages; and in
1912 the regulation of coal miners' wages was undertaken for the purpose of pro-
moting industrial peace rather than for the purpose of protecting a "sweated"
group. During the war, extension to additional trades was rapid, agriculture
being included from 1917 to 1921. In 1924 a new Agricultural Wages Act was
passed which, with modifications, is still in force. In 1937 it was extended to
Scotland.
The proportion of agricultural wage workers in relation to farmers is larger in
Great Britain than in the United States. In 1937 about 740,000 British workers,
of whom 110,000 were Scottish, fell within the scope of the Agricultural Wages
Acts. Of the 644,000 male workers employed in agriculture, about 75,000 were
casual workers and nearly 125,000 were under 21 years of age.79
According to the Agricultural Wages Acts the primary duty of the 58 local agri-
cultural wage committees was, under the general guidance of a central board, to
determine minimum time rates of wages for all agricultural workers in each county.
In addition to this duty, which is mandatory, the committees have power to fix
minimum piece rates as well as to order payment of arrears. The committees are
required to set forth what items in kind (such as board and lodging, fuel, potatoes,
milk, etc.) may be reckoned as part payment of wages in place of cash, and they
76 Howard, L. E., Labour in Agriculture, Oxford University Press, London, 1935, pp. 301-303.
77 Primary Products Marketing Act, May 1936; Agricultural Workers Act, September 193(i.
78 International Labour Office, Social Problems in Agriculture, Studies and Reports, Series K (Agriculture
No. 14, Geneva, 1938, pp. 81, 82.
79 Sells, Dorothy, British Wage Boards, Brookings Institution, Washington, D. C, 1939, p. 145.
60396— 42— pt. 32 30
12402 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
are required to evaluate such items when supplied. In connection with the deter-
mination of the wage rates, the committees deal with hours, with holidays, with
perquisites, and with permits of exception.
The success of the Agricultural Wages Acts from an administrative standpoint
is attested by the fact that in 1937, after a trial of 13 years in England and Wales,
the provisions were extended to Scotland. This success is all the more noteworthy
in view of the difficult circumstances in British agriculture during the period.
Although British farmers have complained of the rates of wages fixed under the
statutes as exceeding their ability to pay, their dissatisfaction in years preceding
the present war was in part allayed by the increase in agricultural prices due to the
preferential treatment accorded to agriculture through regulation of imports,
through marketing reorganization and through Government subsidies. The farm
workers, on the other hand, expressed disappointment that the minimum wage
rates were maintained at so low a level. Some complaint was also raised over the
failure to coordinate wage rates between adjoining counties and lack of complete
effectiveness in measures of enforcement. However, in 1938 wages were nearly
double the level preceding the first World War, and the real wages of male agri-
cultural workers showed an increase of some 35 percent over the level of 1924
when the Agricultural Wages Acts came into effect. In addition to this, average
weekly hours of work diminished during this period, the majority of farm workers
received weekly half-holidays and additional pay for overtime; practices regarding
the difficult matter of payments in kind were standardized; and the organization
of workers and employers, in spite of adverse economic conditions, was stimulated.
In Ireland: In Ireland an Agricultural Wages Act, passed in November 1936, set
up a Central Agricultural Wages Board, the chairman of which is also chairman of
the committees of the "wage areas" into which Ireland was divided for purposes of
the act. The Central Wages Board was given power to fix minimum wage rates
for agricultural workers after consulting the appropriate wage-area committee.
Parliament retained the right to nullify such wage rates within 21 days. The
first order issued under the act came into force on August 9, 1937, when a flat
minimum wage was laid down covering all the wage districts in Ireland.
The Irish system differs in principle from the English system in that it is the
central wages board and not the local committee which has the authority to fix
minimum wages and, also, in the lack of any assumption, in the Irish legislation,
that employers and workers are organized.8"
2. Government regulation in the United States. — In the United States minimum-
wage legislation, based upon the principles of the British Act of 1909, was initiated
in Massachusetts in 1912. By 1923 some 17 States had laws of this kind. After
the Adkins decision of the Supreme Court in 1923, which declared unconstitutional
a minimum wage statute of the District of Columbia, there was a lull until 1937,
when the Supreme Court reversed its earlier decision. In May 1940, 26 States,
the District of Columbia, Alaska, and Puerto Rico had minimum wage laws, but
all of these, with the exception of the Oklahoma statute, apply only to women
and minors.
No State has a minimum wage law that applies ^agricultural field workers:
In California, Oregon, and Washington there is a minimum wage order for women
and minors in fresh-fruit packing; and California had an order covering agricul-
tural occupations, but it was rescinded in 1922.
Under 12 of the present 29 laws agricultural labor could be covered, since it is
not specifically exempted. Orders, if issued, could however apply only to women
in three of these States, and to women and minors of both sexes in the remaining
nine. In no case could orders in any State apply to adult male farm workers.
The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which aims at establishing a floor for
wages and a ceiling for hours in the United States generally, does not apply to
agricultural laborers.
The onlv instance of agricultural wage setting bv Federal law is that embodied
in the Sugar Acts of 1934 and 1937. The Act of 1934, known as the Jones-
Costigan Amendment to the Agricultural Adjustment Act, gave the Secretary of
Agriculture the power to determine the total flow of sugar into the United States
market, to establish production quotas for continental and off shore producers,
and to make payments to producers of sugar beets and sugar cane who cooperated
in the program. Among the conditions which producers had to satisfy in order to
receive such payments were provisions relating to wage rates, the time and method
of payment, the adjudication of labor disputes, and the employment of children
below the age of 14 years.
80 Social Problems in Agriculture, op cit., pp. 80-81.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12403
The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 contained no provisions relating directly
to the establishing of labor standards for agricultural workers, nor was the in-
clusion of such standards contemplated during the period prior to its enactment.
The inclusion of labor provisions in the Jones-Costigan Act was, therefore, an
innovation in agricultural legislation.
The need for the adoption of labor standards for sugar workers grew out of the
disclosure of the distress of this group at the hearings on the subject of a Code for
the Beet Sugar Industry under the National Recovery Act in August 1933. In the
spring of 1934 the Secretary of Labor noted that "wages for beet workers have fallen
so deplorably that the Government is financing workers even during their term of
employment," and suggested that "if now the Government is to give benefit pay-
ments to farmers, it seems only reasonable for the Government to make it a
condition of such benefit that the farmers shall do something to relieve the United
States of the burden of caring for the farmer's own employees."
At the suggestion of the National Recovery Act administrator, the President
authorized the appointment of a committee to take immediate steps to formulate
with representatives of the beet sugar industry, the beet growers, labor and the
public, a plan for reorganization of labor policies in the sugar beet fields.
This committee made the recommendations which formed the basis of the labor
provisions of the Jones-Costigan Act.
Prior to the passage of the Sugar Act of 1937 the President stated: "It is highly
desirable to continue the policy which was inherent in the Jones-Costigan Act,
effectuating the principle that an industry which desires the protection afforded
by a quota system or a tariff should be expected to guarantee that it will be a good
employer. I recommend, therefore, that the prevention of child labor and the
payment of wages of not less than minimum standards be included among the
conditions for receiving a Federal payment." 81
Under the act of 1934 the Secretary of Agriculture had the right to set minimum
rates of wages and to determine the time and method of wage payment when and
if the occasion arose. The policy was adopted of exercising this right only when
the growers and laborers were themselves unable to come to terms. Wage rates
were established under the 1934 act only on one occasion: April 1935, for the beet-
growing areas in the four States Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana.
Before the next season came around, the pertinent provisions of the act had been
invalidated as a result of the Supreme Court decision of January 1936. Under
the Act of 1937 wage determinations by the Secretary of Agriculture were made
mandatory for all sugar beet and sugar cane producing areas. Accordingly, in
1937 and subsequent years fair and reasonable rates of pay were established
for workers in these crops not only in continental areas, but also in Puerto Rico,
Hawaii, and the Virgin Islands.
Substantial increases in rates were given the sugar workers under the wage pro-
visions of the sugar acts, resulting in considerable increases in their incomes; how-
ever, the standards applied as to what constituted "fair and reasonable" wage
rates took into account in the utmost detail all available data as to the relation
of wage rates to the returns from beets and cane received by the growers in previous
years. The determinations of the Secretary of Agriculture, in other words, repre-
sented an effort to return from the low levels of the depression period to the wage
rates paid in more normal times. It was relatively easy to do this because of the
fact that the growers of sugar beets and sugar cane were receiving payments
under the sugar acts which reestablished their incomes from these crops on levels
comparable with those received before the depression. And the further fact that,
through its control of the import quotas, the Government was able to influence
the price of sugar, underlay and serve as justification for, the whole proceeding.
Had sugar, like cotton or wheat, been on an export basis the story would have
been different.
3. Non-governmental regulation. — The second method of wage regulation is
based on arrangements, usually established by collective bargaining between
farmers, organized or individual, and associations of laborers. The initial
organization of agricultural laborers is a difficult undertaking, and the mainte-
nance of an organized group offers still further obstacles, so collective bargaining
in agriculture has hitherto achieved only limited success.
(a) In pre-war Europe. — In some countries agricultural trade unions have found
it advisable to go no further in the direction of establishing terms of employment
than to issue guiding principles to workers. In Denmark, for example, schedules
« United States Congress, Bouse of Representatives, Recommendations Regarding Enactment of the
Sugar Quota System. Doc. 156, 75th Cong., 1st sess., Washington, D. C, March 1, 1937.
12404 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
of wage rates published twice a year, indicate what is regarded by the union as a
reasonable wage. In Scotland, such schedules are drawn up by the union in
collaboration with the employers. The rates, however, are not binding for indi-
vidual farmers. In Czechoslovakia a system of this kind came into existence with
the direct assistance of the state.82
Despite the difficulties of union organization, in some European countries,
notably the Netherlands and Sweden, collective agreements have been arrived
at by free negotiation between farmers' and workers' organizations without the
support of any special legislation regulating agricultural wage rates. In the
Netherlands the typical collective agreement is highly localized in character.
In 1936 there were 326 of these, covering 20,677 farmers and 65,616 workers, as
compared with only 66 such agreements covering 3,810 farmers and 15,185 workers
in 1930. In Sweden, on the other hand, there is one national agreement covering
southern and central parts of the country with which are connected local agree-
ments negotiated by local branches of the national unions of employers and of
workers, the wage rates being fixed in the latter. In June 1937 over half of the
farms of over 100 hectares (247 acres) were affiliated with the employers' union.
In some countries collective bargaining in agriculture is definitely encouraged
by the government. For example, in Czechoslovakia representatives of em-
ployers' and workers' organizations were periodically called together by the govern-
ment to confer with each other and reach an agreement on guiding principles for
employment in agriculture. In Poland special legislation was passed in order to
encourage collective bargaining. In Italy, the charter of labor makes it obligatory
for organizations of employers and workers, whether agricultural or industrial,
to negotiate collective agreements, the provisions of which are applicable to
employers or workers in the region, whether organized or not.
(b) In Australia. — It is interesting that in Australia, where arbitration of labor
difficulties has been carried further than in any other country, the organization of
workers is assumed to be the basis of procedure, since only an organization is
entitled to claim an award by an arbitration court. In contrast to the usual
procedure in European countries, however, the organizations of workers ordinarily
do not themselves attempt to negotiate collective agreements with employers but
appeal directly to the arbitration courts.
In the United States there has been no development of labor organizations in
agriculture sufficiently powerful or permanent to conclude lasting agreements
regarding wages. There has been numerous occasions in which by a strike, or a
threat of strike, an organization of farm workers has secured higher wages for a
given seasonal operat4on. Such concessions, however, have seldom been embodied
in a formal agreement of long duration. At the present time a few written agree-
ments between field workers, dairy workers, and farm operators are in existence,
mostly on the Pacific coast. Written agreements are fairly common in the can-
ning and processing industries, on the borderline between agriculture and industry.
4. Summary of experience with wage regulation. — From the foregoing it appears
that the two systems of farm wage regulation — by governmental action and by
collective bargaining — both have shown a tendency toward expansion in recent
years. The fixing of minimum wages in agriculture through procedures estab-
lished by law has been developed in greater or less degree in England and Wales,
Scotland, Ireland, Hungary, Germany, Cuba, Mexico, Uruguay, Argentina,
Australia, and New Zealand. Methods of wage regulations through collective
bargaining have been developed to some extent in all the Scandinavian countries,
the Netherlands, France, Italy, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland.
In countries where collective bargaining exists, the number of farms and work-
ers covered has increased considerably in recent years, although in no country
have either the whole farm area or all kinds of agricultural workers been brought
under collective agreements.
The reasons for this twofold development vary with the countries concerned.
In most western countries during recent years the principle of collective bargaining
has gained ground. Efforts to apply this procedure in agriculture have been due
in part to the example arid influence of organizations of industrial workers,
in part to the growing interest among farm workers themselves; but the special
difficulties of accomplishing collective bargaining in agriculture, the narrower
range of such action and the lesulting limited success of the efforts of the workers
to improve their conditions, have led to action on their behalf by the State. This
has been the case particularly in the countries threatened with rural overpopula-
tion and in those in which agricultural wage rates sunk so low during the depres-
82 Social Problems in Agriculture, op. cit., pp. 73-78.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12405
sion that even a minimum standard of living was threatened. State action affect-
ing wages has in several countries been a part of the emergency policy carried out
during the depression for the benefit of agriculture in general.
The question naturally arises: Which is the more important method of agri-
cultural wage regulations— governmental or nongovernmental? The answer
thus far is governmental. Regulative methods involving recognition of a duty
on the part of the State to assist agricultural workers in maintaining minimum
standards of life up to now have had a wider range and have contributed more
to worker welfare than have the nongovernmental methods.
The latter are still in their infancy. During recent years effective methods of
collective bargaining in agriculture have not been developed with sufficient speed
to meet the needs arising from the rapid changes in agriculture. This seems to
have been recognized by the organized agricultural workers themselves. In
1935 the International Land Workers' Federation supported the setting up of a
permanent agricultural committee by the International Labour Office, for the
purpose of studying the application of national legislation to agricultural workers'
Regulation of farm workers' wages, whether by governmental action or collec-
tive bargaining, is likely to be especially helpful in increasing earnings in highly
seasonal farm work where a considerable number of workers are called for. In
such cases effective wage regulation is likely to require effective farm-labor place-
ment and direction of the movements of job-seeking farm labor from State to
State and area to area.
In those cases in which governmental authority is in a position to influence or
control the price of a farm product, governmental regulation of the wage rates
for labor contributing to that product is greatly facilitgted. In this connection
attention may be called to the widespread development of wage regulation in
connection with the production of sugar in several different countries.
In the past, farm workers — especially those who work in the fields — have been
unable to organize themselves to any great extent. Such self-organization is
today probably the method by which they can best secure improvement of con-
dition and extent of employment.
Before effective organization can take place, several requirements must be met:
(a) Legislative protection, both Federal and State, of farm workers in their
right to organize, thereby ending violations of civil liberties and threats of the
use of force and violence which in the past have been employed in many localities
to discourage or counteract such oragnization.
(6) Continuity of employment in one area and the congregation of a large
number of workers within "that area. The typical "hired man" has such con-
tinuity, but such workers are usually scattered thinly through an area. The
seasonal worker, on the other hand, though usually working together Math masses
of other farm workers, is mobile and does not remain long in any one area, unless
sufficient work opportunity can be found there.
As more and more farms in given areas go over to large-scale and mechanized
operations calling for the utilization of many hired workers, there is likely to be
a growing tendency for such workers to become more or less resident and to or-
ganize so as to secure for themselves standards of living comparable to those
enjoyed by workers employed in nonfarming industries.
B. Wage Payments and Collections.
In 16 States the State departments of labor now have power to assist wage
earners in the collection of wage claims which, in the opinion of the departments,
are valid and enforceable.83 However, some of these States (for instance, New
Mexico, Utah, and Wisconsin) specifically exclude agricultural workers from the
scope of the law. The wage claim adjuster in Utah reports numerous letters
and personal visits by agricultural laborers asking assistance which he is powerless
to render. More than 12 percent of all claims filed in writing were from agricultural
laborers. The Wisconsin Industrial Committee also has commented on the
volume of these claims which it is without authority to collect.
California's law has meant millions of dollars saved for wage earners. In the
single fiscal year 1938-39 the State labor commissioner's office collected over
half a million dollars for claimants, of whom approximately 15 percent were
agricultural workers, farm laborers, gardeners, fruit pickers and packers, milkers,
and stablemen.
83 Arkansas, California, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Hamp-
shire, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, and Ehode Island.
12406 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
One difficulty, even where the powers of the labor department are adequate, is
that rural workers can use its facilities less easily than urban workers. Farm
workers are seldom familiar with labor laws and with the services of a department
of labor, and are not within convenient reach of the offices.
A type of law often utilized by labor departments to secure the payment of
wages due, is that which requires employers to observe regular pay days. Two
States (Massachusetts and California) specifically include agricultural workers.
In 9 States agriculture is tacitly included in the law without specific mention;
in 13, the wage payment laws apply to corporations only; in 14, the laws apply in
enumerated industries, not including agriculture.
This law is enforced by complaint rather than by inspection, so there is no
difficulty in making this type of law applicable to farm labor, unlike other types
of legislation which are hard to enforce because of the need for inspection. There
is just as much reason to protect the agricultural worker against nonpayment of
wages as there is to protect any other type of employees.
C. Hours of work.
Federal legislation, limiting the hours of work, specifically excludes agricultural
labor from its coverage.
State legislation, with a few exceptions, also excludes agricultural labor, as far
as limiting the length of the working day is concerned. With the exception of
Vermont and Hawaii, all States and Territories have passed such laws applying
to men in private employment, in certain enumerated industries including em-
ployment on public works projects, the transportation industry where the public
safety is involved, and certain occupations which are considered dangerous and
unhealthy. Only Puerto Rico includes agriculture as coming under the S-hour-
day law. The other States and jurisdictions do not take in agriculture, either
through the failure to include it specifically under the listed occupations or
through specific exclusion.
In nearly all the States, including the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico,
measures have been passed designed to protect women from unduly long hours of
work in certain enumerated employment. Only three States (Mississippi,
Nevada, and Utah) and Puerto Rico apparently do not exclude women engaged in
agriculture. This inclusion appears to be merely nominal, as approximate orders
have not been issued, nor have the laws been enforced for the benefit of women
workers on the farms.84
D. Workmen's compensation laws.
Experience with workmen's compensation laws in this country covers a period
of about 25 years. Such laws are designed to give an injured worker prompt
medical care and money payments at a minimum of expense and inconvenience,
and to relieve the employer from liability for damage suits. Before the enactment
of such laws the only recourse available is an injured worker was a damage suit
based upon the common law principle of negligence. Under this procedure the
injured employee had to prove not only that the accident resulted from the
employer's negligence but that he himself had not assumed the risk of injury and
that the accident had not resulted from his own or a fellow employee's negligence.
Under workmen's compensation the question of blame for the accident is not
raised. The cost of work injuries is considered part of the cost of production; the
employer may insure his liability either with a private insurance company or a
State fund. 'Most States also allow self-insurance.
None of the compensation laws attempts to cover all employments. Moreover,
in 25 States, in Alaska, and in Puerto Rico employers of fewer than a stipulated
number of employees are exempt; the minimum exemptions range from less than
2 employes in Oklahoma to less than 16 in Alabama.
The accident hazard in agriculture. — There is no systematic accident reporting
for agricultural employment, largely because of lack of coverage by workmen's
compensation laws, and for that reason, comparisons of frequency and severity
rates with other industries are not possible. Nevertheless indications are that
agriculture is a decidedly hazardous employment.
"More people are killed in the course of farm work than in any other one
industry," says the National Safety Council.85 Occupational deaths in agriculture
were estimated at 4,500 in 1937, which represented over one-fourth of the total
fatalities in all industries and more than twice the number killed in manufacturing
industries — although the employment in the latter is more than one-third greater
m legislative protection of child workers in agriculture is discussed briefly on pp. 43-44.
m National Safety Council, Accident Facts, 1939.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12407
than in agriculture.86 In 1936, 6,100 agricultural workers received permanent
disabilities (partial and total), and 253,000 were temporarily disabled.87 In
1937, it is estimated, there were 13,500 permanent injuries and 252,000 temporary-
disabilities in agriculture.88
In Wisconsin, during 1938, 526 workmen's compensation cases in agricultural
employment were reported to the industrial commission and probably many
others were not reported. The largest group of injuries (168) occurred to farm
hands on general farms; grain threshing and hay bailing accounted for 80 accidents;
dairy farms, 57; fruit growing and orchard work, 47. In California, 10,333
tabiilatable accidents occurred to agricultural workers during a single year (1938).
It is a common belief that accidents which occur on the farm are usually of a
minor nature. The experience of a number of States does not support this belief.
In Minnesota, the duration of temporary total disability reported is as long for
accidents in agriculture as for many other types of employment. The compensa-
tion costs, however, ran much lower on the average, except for accidents in operat-
ing agricultural machinery, which are evidently apt to be extremely serious, for
they averaged $1,115 per case. Only three groups of industries exceeeded this
figure — mining, ore reduction and smelting, rolling mills and steel works. The
average for all industries is $208. The average medical expense per case was
higher in general farming than the general industry average:
General farming $44
Dairy farming 17
Stock farming 32
Garden and truck farming 25
Operating agricultural machinery 143
Average, all industries 89 32
In Ohio, in 1929, there was 1 fatality for every 77 claims filed; in agriculture, 1
for every 42 claims filed. In that State accident trends in agriculture have been
growing worse whereas there has been marked improvement in industry.
Such data indicate the need for workmen's compensation, both to assure the
injured worker and his dependents medical care and hospitalization and some
support in place of lost wages, and also to serve as a basis for accident-prevention
work. It would seem that there is just as much reason to apply the principles of
workmen's compensation — which have been accepted in industry for a genera-
tion— to injuries arising out .of agricultural employment as to those arising in the
course of other types of employment. A leg injury from a cutting tool used in
harvesting is just as disabling as one sustained in a factory. Boiler explosions
sometimes occur on farms — as do injuries from falls, falling objects, injuries
caused by animals, tractors, and motor vehicles. In fact a modern farm uses a
great deal of complicated machinery. Harvesting and picking involve lifting and
carrying heavy objects, such as crates loaded with fruits and vegetables, the use
of knives and other cutting tools.
If agriculture were to be treated in the same manner as other types of employ-
ment, coverage even then would not be complete. There are still very large
gaps in the coverage of nonagricultural workers under workmen's compensation
laws. It is estimted that in 1938 one-third of all those employed in mechanical,
manufacturing, and mining industries (which everyone would agree are hazardous)
were excluded from coverage by exemption of employers having less than a certain
number in their employ. In addition, many establishments are omitted because
more than two-thirds of the laws are elective instead of compulsory, and many
employers do not elect to come under them; still others neglect to insure their
risks. Thus, if agriculture were given the same treatment as industry, there
would still be many unprotected workers, until such time as the laws are improved
in those respects.
Only four States, at the present time, however, treat agricultural employment
on the same basis as nonagricultural employment. These States are Connecti-
cut, New Jersey, Ohio, and Vermont. In addition, California, which has a
compulsory type of law for nonagricultural employment, permits agricultural
M 1930 Census— Number gainfully employed in agriculture, 10,482,323; in manufacturing and mechanical
industries, 14,317,535.
« Monthly Labor Review, July 1938, p. 20.
M U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Problems of Workmen's Compensation Administration in the United
States and Canada. Bulletin No. 672, p. 37.
e* Minnesota Industrial Commission. Twenty fifth Binenial Report of the Department of Labor and
Industry, 1935-36. (St. Paul) (1936).
12408 HUNTSVILLE, ALA., HEARINGS
employers to elect coverage and presumes that they do so elect if their pay rolls
exceed $500 a year. Even in these States, not all agricultural workers are covered.
No State has issued a code of safety regulations designed to apply to farm
machinery.
Eight States provide for coverage of certain types of agricultural employment
connected with machinery — harvesting, threshing, silage cutting, and cotton
ginning and baling 90 — either by law, administrative ruling, or court interpretation.
Forty-two State workmen's compensation laws exclude or fail to cover agricul-
tural employment (save for the few mechanical operations already referred to).
Thirty-one of the forty-two permit agricultural employers voluntarily to come
under the act, but 11 do not even permit voluntary election.
It is not known to what extent agricultural employers elect coverage under the
permissive acts. Judging by experience in industry, however, the probability
is that in the absence of compulsion or strong inducement, few take the trouble to
cornplv and to insure their risks.
Further extension of the State workmen's compensation laws to argicultural
laborers is highly desirable, but at present the tendency seems to be in the opposite
direction. In 1937 the State of Florida excluded the following from its work-
men's compensation law, which already excluded agricultural and horticultural
farm labor and canning: The production and distribution by producer of dairy
products, and all labor employed in the production and handling of agricultural
and horticultural products in their natural or fresh state and whether the same
be engaged in picking, gathering, harvesting, processing, packing, canning, or
handling thereof, or in the hauling of same from the grove or field to the packing
house or cannerv.
Along these lines there can also be noted the exemption from workmen s
compensation laws in Oklahoma of construction, repair or demolition of farm
buildings. In Virginia, machinery used on farms is exempted from the safety
laws.
In Puerto Rico, since 1925, there has been practically full coverage of farm
workers under workmen's compensation, but operation of the law has not been
very successful because adequate rates have not been maintained and premiums
have not been collected.
Thus, mere inclusion of farm workers under workmen's compensation laws is
not enough. Provision must be made for adequate administrative machinery
and maintenance of standards.
E. Social insurance.
Since organized society has come to recognize a social responsibility in these
matters, and since wage earners are themselves frequently unable to provide the
resources out of which their needs can be met, in some countries the insurance
principle has been expanded by making contribution compulsory rather than
voluntary, and modified by making the employer, or the State, or both, con-
tributors to the funds from which benefits are paid to insured workers.
Accidents, for example, are bound to occur where machinery is used and one
may therefore conclude that industry, and ultimately the consumer of the goods
produced, rather than the injured worker, should bear the cost. Thus the entire
burden of an accident compensation system may be placed upon the employer,
as l he party best able to bear it temporarily, and ultimately, perhaps to pass it
on, as well as to take such measures as will reduce the accident hazard in the
plant to a minimum. In a system of insurance against illness or unemployment
on the other hand, it may seem desirable to have the costs divided between the
workers and the employers, though in some countries the State also contributes.
The extension of the* benefits of social insurance to industrial workers has pro-
ne, led rapidly during the last half century. Given their first great impetus in
Germany in the eighties under Bismarck, during the next three decades measures
designed to furnish a cushion against the impact of sickness, accident, and old
age were adopted in most of the European countries. England pioneered in
unemployment insurance in 1911; her system has been gradually extended until
it now covers over 13,000,000 workers, including those in agriculture. Germany
introduced unemployment insurance in 1927. In 1939 there were 9 nations with
optional plans for subsidizing trade-union and unemployment relief societies and
1 1 with governmentally subsidized unemployment insurance systems of a com-
pulsory character; many European countries had workmen's compensation acts,
frequently including agricultural workers. Eighteen nations now have some
system of governmentally instituted compulsory illness insurance.
•o Kentucky. Louisiana, Arizona, Minnesota, New York, Oklahoma. South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12409
In this elaborate network of social insurance legislation in foreign countries,
the agricultural workers have been included only to a limited degree. The
difficulties of doing so are numerous. Political considerations are among these.
Industrial employers may be expected to oppose Legislation calling for contribu-
tion. But the chances of overcoming such opposition are greater if it is not
reenforced by similar opposition from the farmers of the country.91 Hence, to
enlist agricultural support for social insurance of any kind, it frequently has
seemed necessary to exempt agriculture from such insurance. Furthermore,
serious administrative difficulties grow out of the widely scattered character of
agricultural employment (as compared, for example, with work in factories),
from its frequently seasonal character, and from the fact that agricultural workers
are often paid partly in kind, partly in cash. Finally, it often appears, even to
proponents of social insurance, that there is in agriculture no need for this pro-
tection comparable to the need in industry. In most of the western countries
in which systems of social insurance have come into being, the number of bona
fide agricultural wage earners (as distinct from the number of members of farm
owners' families) constitutes only a small percentage of the gainfully occupied
of the country. Moreover, regular farm hands have relatively steady employ-
ment.
The fact that despite these difficulties in a modern industrialized country like
Great Britain, farm workers in recent years have been included in systems of
unemployment insurance and old-age insurance is evidence of the feeling that
after all the position of the farm worker when unemployed, injured, ill, or without
support in old age, differs, if at all, only in degree from that of the urban worker,
and that if effective administration is possible, justice demands equal treatment
in such matters. Furthermore, in some countries there has been much concern
over what has been called "the flight from the land," one manifestation of which
is a relative shortage of farm workers. It was felt that to deny to farm workers
the benefits of social legislation enjoyed by industrial workers would increase the
attractiveness of employments, away from the land and lead to further flight.
In the United States the development of a comprehensive system of insurance
for the protection of wage earners against the unavoidable vicissitudes of life
is only now beginning, after the passage in 1935 of the Social Security Act. For
several decades after such legislation had become characteristic of western in-
dustrialized countries, prevailing opinion in the United States remained opposed.
In 1928 unemployment compensation was still being stigmatized as the dole
system and called alien to the genius of America, whose rugged individualism and
abundant resources were pointed to as assurances that every worthy person could
provide for a rainy day. Failure to do so was prima-facie proof of personal shift-
lessness. True, some circles held it was wrong to underestimate the importance of
unemployment to the average working class family, and equally wrong to accept
the seemingly fatalistic attitude ascribed to supporters of the European unemploy-
ment insurance systems — namely, that unemployment was neither preventable
nor reducible. Hence the development of what was regarded as a characteris-
tically American approach to the unemployment problem — that of prevention,
as embodied in such pioneer schemes as the Wisconsin Unemployment Compensa-
tion Act of 1932. This plan, however, lacked real opportunity to prove itself
under drastic circumstances ushered in by the depression which began in 1929.
After an unprecedented outpouring of relief to destitute unemployed, the need
revealed led to the passage of the Social Security Act of 1935, which provides for
the development of a comprehensive system of old-age assistance, unemployment
insurance, and aid for certain special needy groups.
1. Unemployment compensation. — Under the Social Security Act of 1935 co-
operation is provided for between the States and the Federal Government in the
establishment of State unemployment compensation laws. If such a State law
meets a few general requirements, and so is approved, the administrative costs are
covered by a grant from the Federal Government. The Social Security Act also
provides for a Federal excise tax on employers who employ eight or more workers
for certain specified periods. Employers in States with approved unemployment
compensation laws are allowed credit against the Federal tax levied in title IX
of the act for State contributions made under an approved unemployment com-
pensation law.
81 Douglas, Paul H., Standards of Unemployment Insurance, Social Service Monograph No. 19. Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, Chicago, 111. 1933. pp. 48-49.
12410 HUNTSVILLB., ALA., HEARINGS
The Social Security Act, title IX, relating to unemployment compensation,
originally exempted agricultural labor, without more precise definition. The
State laws did likewise. But this proved too vague for purposes of pay roll and
excise tax collection. The Treasury Department's Bureau of Internal Revenue,
hence, issued regulations defining agricultural labor and State administrative
agencies followed suit.92
As in the case of the exclusion of agricultural laborers from other forms of
legislation protection, difficulties of administration were advanced as the reason
for barring them from the Federal Social Security Act. It was alleged, for
example, that small-farm employers would find it hard to keep satisfactory
pay-roll records for purposes of tax collection especially where perquisites con-
stituted a substantial portion of the wages paid to farm hands. Even if such
records were kept, it was argued, collection of taxes would be arduous and ex-
pensive in view of the employment of farm labor in rural sections situated con-
siderable distances from commercial centers. It was further pointed out that the
migratory casual farm worker with his short-term job and frequent movement
across State lines, could be handled administratively under an insurance plan
only with great difficulty.
The Committee on Economic Security appointed by the President in 1934 to
make recommendations for a social-security program in the United States, must
have considered all these arguments. Nevertheless it "felt that agriculture
should not be excluded as an industry — the large agricultural operations should
be covered." 93 In the end, Congress did not include any agricultural workers.
It appears, however, that in excluding agricultural workers from the Federal
Social Security Act, Congress did not necessarily intend this exclusion to be
permanent. It charged the Social Security Board with "the duty of studying and
making recommendations as to the most effective methods of providing economic
security through social insurance." 94 In accordance with this congressional
mandate, after 3 years of study and experience, the Board submitted a report to
Congress and to the President in which it stated:95
"It is * * * recognized that the complete inclusion of employees engaged
in agricultural labor is fraught with great administrative difficulties. However,
the Board believes that the inclusion of large-scale farming operations, often of a
semi-industrial character, probably would reduce rather than increase administra-
tive difficulties."
Accordingly, the Board recommended "that the language of the present ex-
ception relating to 'agricultural labor (under the old-age insurance and unem-
ployment compensation titles of the act) be modified to make it certain that this
exception applies only to the services of a farm hand employed by a small farmer
to do the ordinary work connected with his farm." It further recommended
that "with a reasonable time allowed before the effective date, the 'agricultural
labor' exception be eliminated entirely." 96
At about the same time, similar findings and recommendations were made by
an Advisory Council on Social Security appointed in May 1937 by the Senate
Committee on Finance and the Social Security Board. This council, whose
task was to study the advisability of amending the 1935 act for the purpose of
extending old-age insurance to groups which up to that time were excluded,
reported as follows:97
"Recent studies indicate that the additional cost of extending coverage of the
system (to farm wage workers) 98 will be considerably less than originally esti-
mated since a larger number of such workers are already coming under the system
through employment in covered occupations on a seasonal or part-time basis.
Intermittent coverage of this character is not only unsatisfactory in the benefits
afforded, but is a factor of uncertainty in financing the program."
»2 United States, Treasury Department, Bureau of Internal Revenue. Regulations 90 relating to the
Excise Tax on Employers under title IX of the Social Security Act, Washington, D. C. Government
Printing Office. 1936. t , . „ ,„ _.
»3 United States, Congress, Senate, Economic Security Act, hearings before the Committee on b inanee,
74th Cong., 1st sess., on S. 1130, January 22 to February 20. 1035 (revised). Washington, D. C, 1935. See
testimony of Edwin E. Witte, Chairman of the President's Committee on Econonic Security, p. 219.
" Social Security Act of 1935, Public Law No. 271, 74th Cong., title VII, sec. 702.
•• United States,' Congress. House of Representatives. Report of the Social Security Board Recommending
Changes in the Social Security Act, H. Doc. 110. 76th Cong., 1st sess., Washington, D. C, January 1939, p. 9.
See also testimony by Arthur J. Altmever, Chairman, Social Security Board in Social Security Act Amend-
ments, hearings on H. R. 6635 before the Senate Committee on Finance, 76th Cong., 1st sess., V\ ashington,
D. C, June 12, 13, 14, 15, 26, and 29, 1939, p. 17.
•' United States, Senate, Advisory Council on Social Security: Final report. December 10, 1938, S. Doc.
4, 76th Cong., 1st sess., Washington, D. C, 1939.
»8 The full statement included also domestic employees in its recommendations.
NATIONAL DEFENSE MIGRATION 12411
Accordingly, the council stated that the coverage of farm employees under the
Federal old-age insurance program was desirable, and recommended that it take
effect by January 1, 1940," if administratively possible.
Despite these recommendations, congressional amendments to the Social Secu-
rity Act in 1939 not only failed to include the services performed on the large-scale
industrialized farms, but, by broadening the definition of the term "agricultural
labor," exempted from coverage under both old-age insurance and unemployment
compensation, an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 additional persons1 (engaged in
the commercial harvesting of crops or in processing, packing, packaging, and other
preparing of farm products for markets) .
Comparatively few State legislatures have as yet had opportunity to revise
their laws since the Federal amendments were enacted on August 10, 1939, at
which date practically all of the 1939 sessions were over, and in 1940 only 8
legislatures convened in regular session. The great majority of States are still
operating under the old definition. If these amendments are adopted in State
laws the effect, in the words of the Chairman of the Social Security Board, will
probably be, "to exclude persons employed by nonfarm employers such as large-
scale business firms that purchase and "harvest an entire crop" (such as chain
stores or commission houses) * * *. The new language is also intended —
"to provide exemption for central plants that clean, grade, pack, and prepare
products for market, store and transport the products to market or a carrier. In
the case of fruits and vegetables, the exemptions are intended to services 'incident
to marketing' which is intended to include preparation and transportation to a
carrier or market, whether done by a group of producers or by a commercial
handler. * * *
"The regulations (also) specifically except farmers' cooperatives with respect to
marketing as well as handling, planting, drying, packing, packaging, processing,
freezing, grading, and storing, even though 49 percent of the produce handled is
on behalf of nonmembers." 2
Such sweeping exemptions are prejudicial, not only to farm workers but to large
groups of employees of industrialized concerns handling agricultural products.
It is argued, of course, that inclusion of such workers tends to increase the
merchandizing spread between producer and consumer, and thus to lower prices
to farmers or result in a smaller retail demand. This argument exaggerates the
effects of such workers' benefits upon the prices the farmer receives for his prod-
ucts, and it ignores the important effect on such prices of the consumers' power
to buy. Recipients of benefits from such compensation plans bulk large among
the consumers of farm products.
Exclusion of some classes of farm workers from the benefits of the Federal
Social Security Acts may possibly be justified by: (1) Administrative difficulties
connected with the scattered nature of bona fide agricultural operation, (2) the
high ratio of employers to employees, and (3) the prevalence of systems of partial
payment in kind, perquisites. In such matters, effectiveness of administration,
and that alone, should be the determining factor. To employees of processing,
packing, handling, and distributing concerns, however, such considerations do
not apply, for no unusual administrative difficulty is involved.
No doubt it is tenable that farm laborers need assistance to achieve an improved
economic status and a greater degree of security. So far as administratively
practicable, such legislative aid should be granted them.
There is need for better knowledge of the relevant aspects of rural life and for
more careful investigation of the techniques to be employed if the economic
insecurity of farm laborers is to be dealt with on a social insurance basis. _
With reference to the present law (which applies only to employers of eight or
more workers for 20 or more days, each in a different calendar week) , it is to be
noted that even if agricultural workers were not specifically excluded, relatively
few of them would be included. In January 1935 the census reported only 16,840
farms employing as many as or more than eight workers; that is, only 1.74 per-
cent of the farms which hired labor and 0.25 percent of all farms. Later in the
season the number of such farms would be greater, but even so it can hardly be
maintained that the burden upon agriculture would be a crushing one.
2. Old-age insurance. — Federal old-age benefits as established by the Social
Security Act, are administered, not by the States, as in the case of unemployment
•• Advisory Council on Social Security, op. cit., p. 22.
• Estimates of the Social Security Board.
» Letter A. J. Altmeyer written May 2, 1940, to Hon. John W. McConnack, House of Representatives
Washington, D. C, in Congressional Record, vol. 86, pt. 5, May 3, 1940, p. 5488.
12412 KUNTSVILLE., ALA., HEARINGS
compensation, but by the Federal Government. Agricultural laborers are ex-
cluded from participation in these benefits, also, and presumably on similar
grounds. In the case of old-age assistance the administrative difficulties are much
less troublesome. Some of the problems, that do not arise here are:
(a) The need to be able to establish the past existence of a definite employer-
employee relationship in order to define employment status.
(6) The need to determine the availability and competence for "suitable" work
of the claimant for benefit in order that he may be reemployed as quickly as pos-
sible.
(c) The necessity for maintaining a network of public employment offices.
It is worthy of note that in Great Britain agricultural labor was included in
both the contributory health and the old-age insurance systems from their first
enactment in 1911 and 1925, respectively. In that country this development
was aided by the prior existence of approved societies, which were made the
administrative vehicle for these schemes. No such local groups exist generally
in the United States.
In closing this discussion of farm workers and of social insurance methods, the
words of the Committee on Economic Security in its report to the President may
be quoted:
"Agricultural workers, domestic servants, home workers and the many self-
employed people constitute large groups in the population who have generally
received little attention. In these groups are many who are at the very bottom
of the economic scale. We believe that more attention will have to be given to
these groups than they have received heretofore. We cannot be satisfied that
we have a reasonably complete program for economic security unless some degree
of protection is given these groups now generally neglected." 3
3 United States, Congress, House of Representatives, Message— the President Recommending Legislation
on Economic Security. H. Doc. 81, 74th Cong., 1st sess. Washington, D. C, January 1935, p. 40.
INDEX
Agricultural development of Alabama 12169-12170
Wicultural production (see also Naval-stores industry) :
Balanced farming for the South 12172-12175
Cash profits in food-for-victory programs 12049
Changing pattern in Alabama 11996-11997, 12001-12002
Cotton acreage not diverted to peanuts 12006
Crop control 12164
Diversification program, start of, in Alabama 12175-12176
Effect of fertilizer shortage 12028-12029
Egg production program 1 2087
Enlargement of goals 12087
Fertilizer requirements 12000-12001
Fertilizer shortage 12019,12025-12026
Food-for-victory program 11998, 12000
Importation of food into Alabama 12161
Labor shortages 12000-12001
Marketing system as impeding program 12088
Milk production increase in Alabama 12003
1942 goals H997
Opposition of plantation owners to food production program-. 12101, 12104
Parity prices.. 12012-12013
Peanut growing 1 1998, 12002-12003, 12005-12006
Pressure on land 12156
Relation between Army purchasing and civilian supplies 12265
Trends 12162
Utilization of low-income group 12090
Value of farm products 12171-12172
Agricultural wage and hour legislation (see also Wages and hours) :
Factors affecting wage schedules 12267-12268
In—
Argentina:
San Juan 12310
Tucumen 12310-12311
JS Federal regulation 12274-12277, 12400-12401
State regulation 12277-12279, 12400-12401
Austria:
Hours of work 12292
Recent developments 12293
Wage provisions 12293
Baltic countries. (See Estonia; Finland; Latvia; Lithuania.)
Brazil 12311
Central America. (See Costa Rica; Guatemala.)
Cuba:
Hours of work 12308
Minimum wages 12309
Costa Rica 12309-12310
Czechoslovakia :
Collective agreements 12295
Maximum hour legislation __' 12296
Dominican Republic 12309
Ecuador:
Decree of December 30, 1936.: 12311
Hours of work 12311-12312
Labor Code, 1938 12311
Minimum wages 12312
England. (See under Great Britain.)
Estonia:
Hours of work 12301-12302
Legislative enactments 12300-12301
Supervision and enforcement 12302
II INDEX
Agricultural wage and hour legislation — Continued.
In— Continued. ****
Finland 12302
Great Britain:
Administration of act 12284
Legislative enactments 12282-12283
Machinery of operation 12283-12284
Maximum hour provisions 12285
Minimum wage provisions 12284
Recent developments 12285-12286,12401-12402
Germany :
Hours of work 12290-12291
Minimum wages 12291
Recent developments 12291
Guatemala 12310
Hungary 12293-12295
Irish Free State:
Administration and enforcement 12289,12402
Hours of work 12290
Machinery of operation 12289
Minimum wages 12289
Italy:
Enforcement 1 2306
Regulation of wages 12306
Regulation of working hours 1 2305-1 2306
Latvia - 12302
Lithuania --- 12302
Mexico:
Constitution of 1917 12306
Hours of work 12307-12308
Minimum wages 12307
Operation of wage-and-hour provisions in agriculture 12308
New Zealand:
Agricultural workers act 12272, 12281-12282, 12400-12402
Applicability of act to agriculture 12279
Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act 12279-12280,
12400-12402
Northern Ireland. (See under Great Britain.)
Hours of work 12313
Minimum wages 12312-12313
Scotland:
Changing attitude on need for regulation 12270, 12286-12287
Machinery of operation 12287
Maximum hours 12288
Minimum wages 12287-12288
Recent developments 12288
Spain:
Early hour legislation 12303-12304
Recent hour legislation 12304
Regulation of wages 12304-12305
Sweden:
Administration of the act 12297-12298
Collective agreements ■- 12296-12297
Hours of work 12297-12299
Proposed wage legislation 12300
Scope of the act of 1939 12297-12300
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics:
Hour provisions 12302-12303
Wage provisions 12302-12303
United States 12400, 12402-12404, 12406
Minimum wage provisions 12313-12314
Recent developments 12314
Wales. (See under Great Britain.)
Methods of regulating wages fonlfS
Alabama Relocation Corporation: Families aided by 12069-12070
Alabama's position in the war effort 12135-12137
INDEX III
American Farm Bureau : Request for investigation of 12100
Anniston area: Overpopulation following defense construction 12242-12243
Brookley field (Mobile, Ala.) project: Housing shortages 12085-12086
Camp Croft area (Spartanburg, S. C.) : Situation of families displaced
by - 12075
Child delinquency in Madison County 11988
Childersburg area:
Effect of crowding on child welfare and education 12208-12209
Health and sanitation problems 12233
Lack of recreational facilities 12208-12209
Overpopulation following location of powder-mill 12206-12208, 12209
Pre-war picture 12204-12205
Situation of dislocated families 12066
Strain on school facilities due to defense influx 12232
Colbert County (see also Tuscumbia) : Public welfare program 12241-12242
Contracts:
Major war production contracts in Alabama 12188, 12189
Participation of Southern States in war contracts 12031, 12033
Reasons for limited participation of Southeast in war contracts 12033-
12034
Coosa Valley area :
Housing shortages 121 34
School facilities 12135
Conversion of small plants to war production:
Incomplete utilization 12142-12143
Increasing facilities 12112-12113
Practical difficulties 12143
Decatur:
Housing situation 12133
Industrial development ' 12132-12133
War production 12146
Disparity between incomes of farmers and industrial workers 12010-12011
Displacement of farm families:
Case histories selected 12078-12085
Economic displacements 12040
Effect of displacement on one family 12118-12122
Families displaced by Huntsville projects 11947
General aspects of problem 12041-12042
In—
Augusta, Ga 12075
Calhoun County, Ala 12068-12070
Camp Croft (Spartanburg, S. C.) 12075
Childersburg area 12205
Fort Benning area 12075
Fort Jackson area 12074
Henderson air field area 12077
Hinesville project area 12070-12072
Triangular division camp 12076-12077
Land purchase problems 12094
Negro communities displaced by Seibert arsenal project ___ 12063
Number of families and acres involved in Government land acquisi-
tion 12059
Relocation :
Classification of families by type^of occupation 12086
Farm tenants 12065
Program 12058-12062
Terrell-Lee plan, Geogria 12069
Wateree plantations 12062-12063
Secondary displacements 12045
Summary of findings by Farm Security Administration 12042-12043
Survey classification of families, Seibert arsenal project 12064
Employment (see also Farm labor) :
Adaptability of southern workers for skilled labor 1 1952,
12030-12031, 12109-12110
Areas in State of major labor demand 12185
Current state of labor market 12185-12186
IV INDEX
Employment — Continued. Page
Curve, 1940-42, nonfarm occupations 12190-12196
Demand for industrial and construction labor 12017-12018
Displaced farm families 12065, 12068, 12076
Effect of bad housing on efficiency of workers 12116, 12128, 12130
Effect of inadequate housing on stability of labor 1 1958-1 1959,
12114, 12116-12118, 12124, 12138
Hoisery workers 12246, 12247, 12248
Increases, Mobile area 12138
Labor force requirements 12106-12107
Labor market expansion in Alabama 12184, 12190-12196
Labor turn-over in shipbuilding industry. 12116-12117, 12124, 12138, 12211
Methods of recruitment 12214
Separation from service, reasons for 12247
Shipbuilding employees 12113
Sources of labor supply for Cherokee project 12017
Status of personnel separations from Brookley Field 12216
Unemployment 12256, 12262-12263
Utilization of local labor 12115, 12227, 12244-12245
Working conditions, naval stores labor 12177-12178
Employment Service:
Anticipated labor demands 12183
Clearance system 12214
Control of migration through clearance system 12187
Daily referrals of cotton pickers 12183
Operations of, in Mobile area 12214-12216
Recruitment program 1 2182-12183
Farm labor (see also Agricultural wage and hour legislation; Employment;
Wages and hours) :
Availability of surplus labor 12047, 12091-12093, 12103, 12141, 12319
Availability of Work Projects Administration labor 12165-12166
Background of report on, by Department of Agriculture 12315-12316
Characteristics of workers surveyed 12336-12339
Child labor 12340, 12343
Classes of workers, by State and geographic division 12325-12327
Collection of wages 12372-12373, 12405-12406
Contributing factors in diminishing supplv 12007-12008,
12018, 12317-12320
Daily referrals of cotton pickers by Employment Service 12183
Decasualization 12321
Deferment policy of Selective Service 12180-12181
Disadvantaged status of 12316-12317
Distribution of hired farm laborers in United States 12328-12329
Effect of lost markets on 12318-12319
Effect of shortage on use of submarginal land 12134-12135
Farm labor committees 12008
Farm labor expenditures, by type of labor 12323
Food and subsistence for 12376
Hiring practices 12379-12385
Index of agricultural employment, 1909-40 12329
Inadequate employment 12369-12372
Methods of supervision 12385-12387
Migratory workers (see also Migration) 12350-12364
Number and distribution of laborers 12322
Percentage distribution of hired farm labor 12331, 12333, 12336, 12337
Plans for improved utilization of family labor 12046-12047
Position of the hired man on the farm 12349-12350
Proposals for improving present status of 12320-12322
Protection of economic and civil rights 12321
Public assistance programs for 12321
Referrals of Work Projects Administration labor 12256-12257
Relative position of farmer and industrial worker 12011-12012, 12320
Sharecroppers 12328, 12329, 12343-12349
Situation in Tennessee Valley of 12099-12100
Social insurance for workers 12408-12412
Stabilization of employment through Farm Placement Service. 12387-12389
Stabilization of employment through regulation of wages 12320-12321
INDEX V
Farm labor— Continued. paee
Supply-and-demand surveys 11 999
Technology as affecting stability of 12317-12318
Total farm labor force in principal farming areas 12330-12336
Transportation of cotton pickers 12182
Trend in average farm wages and ratio of supply to demand 12018
Trends in employment of 12322-12324
Union organization and collective bargaining 12390 12400,
12403-12404, 12406
Use of school children in 12000-12001
Women workers 12339-12340
Workmen's compensation laws 12406-12408
Farm Security Administration:
Baby-chick program 1 209 1
Changes in program 12085
Conclusions based on survey of farm-family displacements, summar-
ized -. 12047-12048
Defense housing program 12095-12096
Food-for-victory loans 12096-12097
Food-for-victory program 12048-12049, 12089
Impact of war on rural rehabilitation program in —
Alabama 12049-12051
Florida 12052
Georgia 1 2052-1 2054
South Carolina - 12054-1 2056
Southeast area 12041-12045
Impact of war on rural resettlement program 12057-12058
Increased income for loan clients 12094
Rehabilitation loans 12095
Relocation program 12058-12062, 12065-12066
Tabulation of migration and off-farm employment of borrowers and
nonborrowers 12042-12043
Ten-year lease program 12088
Farm units:
Decrease in number in —
Alabama 12040, 12066-12068
Georgia 12041
Effect of war program on size of units 12102
Reclamation of available lands 12045
Federal aid for defense towns 12204-12209
Federal Housing Administration (see also Housing) :
Lending operations 12225-1 2226
New home construction in Alabama 12226-12227
Florence area: Effect of increased industrial activities on 12249-12250
Food costs in relation to family income 12011
Food-for-victory program. (See Agricultural production.)
Fort Benning (Ala. and Ga.) project: Types of families displaced by 12076
Fort Jackson (S. C.) project: Situation of families displaced bv 12074
Fort McClellan (Ala.) project: Situation of families displaced by 12068-12070
Gadsden :
Employment 12228
Methods of meeting industrial expansion 12227-12229
Population increases 1 2227
School survey 12228-12229
Gum naval stores. (See Naval stores industry.)
Health:
Authority of local health departments 1 1977-1 1978
Counties* receiving public health aid 12201
Effect of influx of defense workers on county facilities 12233
Effect of low income and bad housing on health of farm workers 12376-
12377
Hazards created by defense activities 12207
Hospital facilities in Mobile .12213,12219-12222
Operation of county health departments 12201-12202
Problems created by defense concentrations 12229, 12232-12233
Problems created by shift to war economy 12202-12204
Shortage in facilities and personnel _ 11981
Statutory responsibilities of State and local departments of health 12235
60306— 42— pt. 32 31
VI • INDEX
Health — Continued.
Summary of conditions in: Pa^e
Florence 12248-12249
Lauderdale County 12249-12250
Venereal disease control 11977, 11979-11980
Water pollution in Huntsville area 11971-11972, 11976-11977
Henderson air field (Fla.) project: Dislocation of farm families by 12077
Hinesville (Ga.) project: Situation of families dislocated by 12071-12072
Hinesville Relocation Corporation: Projects developed by 12072-12074
Housing:
Barracks for defense workers 12211
Congestions in Childersburg powder plant area 12206-12207
Construction of dormitories and barracks 12126, 12131
Crowding in defense areas 12186-12187
Defense housing program of Tennessee Valley Authority 12028
Defense worker requirements, Huntsville area 11 949
Effect of priorities on construction 12153
Farm workers 12373-12376
Inadequate housing as cause of labor turn-over 12114,
12116, 12117, 12118, 12124, 12138
Living conditions of defense workers, Madison County 11993-11994
Migratory labor camps requisitioned by Army 12096
New residential construction:
Huntsville area 11962, 12156
Mobile area 12128, 12129, 12213
Northern Alabama area 12226-12227
Sheffield area 12230
Under Titles I, II, and VI, National Housing Act 12225-12226
Overcrowding:
Anniston 12242-12243
Huntsville 12251-12252
Plan for temporary tent housing 12147, 12151-12152
Public housing projects, Birmingham 12165
Recommendations for improvement of conditions in Mobile 12131
Rent increases 12251
Rental rates, Huntsville 11954,11957-11958
Shortages :
As affecting labor turn-over 11958-11959, 12216
Coosa Valley area 12134
Decatur area 12133
Florence-Sheffield area 12107-12108
Quarters for ship's crews 12125-12127, 12130
Mobile area 12114, 12127, 12129-12130
Temporary 12151-12152
Trailer camps 12085-12086, 12096, 12252
Trailer housing, totals 11956
Type of planning required under war conditions 12150-12151
Units under construction 12107-12108
Un Contamination of water supply 11971-11973, 11976-11977
Extension of city limits 11961
Municipal government 1 1 960
New residence construction 11968-11969
Rental rates 11955
Revenues , 11960-11962
School facility requirements 11969-11970
Huntsville Arsenal (see also Redstone ordnance plant) :
Classification and salary of workers 1 1955
Cost of plant ' H952
Employment of workers 11948, 11953-11954
Hiring methods H 953
Housing of workers 1 19 49
Hours worked- . H 959
Income of workers 11956
Start of project 11947-11948
Types of labor H951
INDEX VII
Page
Income of southern farmers 12171
Land purchases:
Alabama Relocation Corporation 12077
Hinesville Relocation Corporation 12077
Palmetto Farms, Tnc 12077
Madison County {see also Huntsville):
Agricultural trends 1 2063
Child delinquency 11988-11989
Child welfare program . 11990
Clinics conducted . 11976, 11979
Community service program 11990
Compensation for loss in revenues 11965, 11968, 11969
Hospitals 11976
Loss in revenues from Government purchased lands 11964
Increased expenses for public facilities 11963, 11965-11966, 11970
Old-age assistance payments : 11991
Public assistance payments 11986, 11990
Public health budgets 11974-11975
Public health standards . 11978
Public welfare program 11982-11983, 11986-11987
Revenues 11963
Schedules showing distribution of public assistance funds 11984-11985
Sewerage disposal - 1 1976
Shortage of nurses 11981
Shor age of physicians 11980-11981
Source of revenue for public welfare 11982, 11987
Unemployment 11991-11992
Venereal disease control program 11977, 11979-11980
Mechanization:
Cotton picker 12179-12180
Farm labor problems created by 12317-12318
Migration:
Acceleration of early movement 1 2089
Causes:
Agricultural depression ■ 12159-12160
Inadequate housing : 12187
Inequality of opportunity 11999, 12010
Low farm income 1 12163-12164
Pressure on the land 12319
Effect of immigration on welfare clients 12241
Farm urban movement in South j 12040
Intrastate movement 121 86
Medical aid proposed for migratory farm workers 12377-12379
Out-migration problems in Southeast 12140
Participation in war contracts as affecting 12032, 12035
Pattern of movement 11996
Position of Tennessee Valley area in relation to problem 12014-12015
Prevention through stabilizing economic balance • 12159
State of orig"; employees, Huntsville Arsenal 11955
Type of famines migrating,. _ 12093
Mining developments in Southeast 1 12021
Mobile:
Applications for increased hospital facilities 12222-12223
Conditions surrounding defense workers 12123-12124
Effect of defense immigration 12137-12138
Hospital facilities 12219-12222
Inadequate housing 12129-12130
Increase in public school enrollments 12217-12219
Population increases 12137- 1 2 138
Port of Mobile 12128
Public facilities 12212-12214
Naval stores industry 12176-12178
Nutrition: Army standards 12264
Peanuts. (See tinder Agricultural production.)
VIII INDEX
Post-war planning: Pa&e
Agricultural conversion 12161
Balanced farm production 12006-12007, 12172-12175
Control of agricultural production 12160-12161
Conversion of plants 12154
Development of farm market 12162-12163
Expansion of industrial opportunities for farm labor 12321-12322
Food production 1 2000
Housing and site planning 12149
Position of Tennessee Valley Authority 12036, 12037
Procurement of capital in the South 12000
Reclamation of worn-out lands 12098-12099
Redistribution of labor supply 12136-12137
Regional planning commission for 12166-12167
Prichard (see also Mobile) : Community facility expansion involved in war
in-migration 12223
Production goals for 1942 in Alabama 11997
Recommendations :
For alleviation of housing conditions, Mobile area 12131
For improving conditions of naval stores workers 12178
Recreational needs in defense areas 12208-12209, 12257-12261
Redstone ordnance plant (see also Huntsville Arsenal):
Cost of plant 11952-11953
Demountable housing authorized for 1 1950
Peak employment 1 1953
Start of project 11947-11948
Rehabilitation of small southern farmer 12048-12049
Relief and public assistance (see also Madison County; Work Projects Ad-
ministration) :
Allocation of funds, Madison County 11982, 11986
Families afforded food stamps, Colbert County 12241
Public assistance cases, Lauderdale County - 12250
Public assistance grants, Colbert County 12239-12241
Variable grants 11990-11991
Relocation corporations:
Alabama Relocation Corporation 12059
Hinesville (Ga.) Relocation Corporation 12059
Palmetto Farms (S. C.) Relocation Corporation 12059-12060
Rubber shortage: Effect on tax revenues 11967
Santee-Cooper (S. C.) Dam project: Relocation of families displaced by_. 12075
Schools (see also Vocational training) :
Areas requiring additional facilities 12197, 12229, 12231, 12232
Curriculum changes to conform to defense needs 12238
Effect of rubber shortage on enrollments 12224
Enrollment increases 12197-12198, 12217-12219, 12243-12244
Enrollments, Gadsden 1 2228
Inability of county to meet needs 12224-12225
Length of terms 12200
Local boards unable to match Federal grants 12197
Overcrowding following influx of defense workers 12231, 12234
Relation of State department of education to local units 12198,
12237-12238
Sources of revenue ■- 12198-12199, 12237
Teachers, training and salaries 12200-12201
Transportation needs 1 2200
Variable grants needed 12146
Selective Service System: Policy on deferment of farm labor,. 12009, 12180-12181
Sheffield:
Problems created by defense concentrations 12230-12231
Sources of revenue 12230
Small business:
Difficulties encountered in seeking defense work 12143-12144
Guidance and direction in defense conversion needed 12246
Subsistence program of the Army 12264-12266
Talledega: Impact of defense influx on schools 12231
INDEX IX
Tennessee Valley area: Page
Adaptability to industrial enterprise 12015
Depletion of forest reserves by war-production program 12020-12021
Effect of industrial developments on 12155
Extension of manufacturing activities 12021-12022
Industrial expansion 12029-12030
Industrial production 12030-12031
Tennessee Valley Authority:
Agricultural and chemical program 12025-12026
Defense housing construction 1 2026
Development of river channel by 12026-12036
Employee transportation survey 12210
Expansion of power program 12023-12024
Forestry program 1 2026
Impact'of war on program of 12022
Industrial research program 12024-12025, 12026, 12036
Maior activities 12013-12014
Soil rebuilding program 12016-12017, 12027-12028
Stimulus to Southeastern industry by 12035
Vocational training programs 12026-12027
Traffic hazards surrounding defense areas 12207-12208
Transportation of workers :
Conversion of school busses for 12111-12112
Cotton pickers 12182
Distance traveled 12110
Huntsville area 11 956
Problems in Mobile area - 12212
Shuttle trains 12077, 12115
Survey conducted in Muscle Shoals district 12210
Survey of defense-plant employees 12108, 12110
Traffic hazards for commuting workers 12207-12208
Triangular division camp:
Change in plans for 12086
Relocation of displaced farm families 12076
Tuscumbia:
Health and sanitation problems 12236-12237
Overcrowding of schools following influx of defense workers 12234
School facilities 12238
United Service Organizations: Community service program 11990
Variable grants, need for, in defense areas expressed 12204
Vocational training:
Educational requirements for 12241
In-plant training 12113
Production-worker plan 12211
Shortage of Negroes available for 12114-12115
Specialized training needed in Alabama schools 12145
Training program of Tennessee Valley Authority 12026-12027
Workers in shipbuilding industry 12244-12245
Voluntary savings plan : Pay-roll deductions 1 1956-1 1957
Wages and hours (see also Agricultural wage and hour legislation) :
Earnings and income of farm labor 12365-12369
Effect of, on stability of farm labor 12047
Factors affecting wage of farm workers 12267-12268
Farm labor..... , 12018, 12166, 12406
Farm wage expenditures, by type of labor 12323
Minimum wages for farm labor 12100
Naval stores workers . . 12177
Need for regulation, agricultural labor 12268-12270
Regulation of farm labor wages, methods proposed 12320-12321
School teachers 12201
Summary of experience with farm wage regulation 12404, 12405
Wage differentials between industries 12187
Possibility of regulation, farm labor 12270-12272
War bond savings programs 12157
X INDEX
Work Projects Administration: Page
Comparison of load at peak period with load of defense period. . 1225S, 22254
Comparison of workers prior to and during defense period ' 12254
Employability of workers 12256-12257
Estimates of unmet needs 12262-12263
Load and estimated needs, by counties 12255-12256
Load, Lauderdale County _ 12250
Load, Madison County 12252-12253
Persons employed or certified, Colbert County 12240-1 224 1
Recreation program in defense areas 12258-12261
Referrals of farm labor 12257-12258
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