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Our Migrant DefendersJOHN H. TOLAN
Still less is there anything static about the American people today. Each year more than a million American families change farms. About one fifth of our native born Americans live in states other than those in which they were born. More than 4,000,000 persons migrate annually across state lines in pursuit of industrial employment. The hope of greener pastures has made us a nation on wheels. Never was this clearer than now, when we are gearing our economy to the urgent needs of defense production. Army cantonments, camps and military establishments must be built. Shell, powder and shell loading plants must be erected. Shipbuilding and aircraft centers must expand at tremendous pace. Heavy goods industries must step up production. Everywhere men are wanted. Defense centers themselves cannot fill the need, and workers with strategic occupational skills are being sought the length and breadth of the land. Hailing from every part of the nation, millions of men, women, and children have been setting out in buses, trucks, autos, trailers—anything that goes—in the good American tradition in pursuit of jobs. Beginning a year and a half ago, five members of Congress making up the House Committee to Investigate the Interstate Migration of Destitute Citizens undertook to trace at first hand an earlier agricultural chapter in the search for employment, for new homes and security. We traveled more than 20,000 miles and heard more than 500 witnesses. We watched the human tide of agricultural workers move north and south along the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards. We heard men and women from the Dust Bowl tell us of the tragedies which destroyed their farms and sent them on their pitiful and, all too often, fruitless wandering. We went to the construction camps where huge gangs come in and depart. We passed countless trailers on the road; watched trucks with men and women loaded like cattle moving to harvest jobs hundreds of miles away. We saw the makeshift shanties, tents, and camps that serve as "homes" to hundreds of thousands of migrants. Then, in April, we returned to Congress with our story. We had received more than three million words of testimony. We published eleven volumes of hearings which painted the picture of destitute migration in human, social, and economic terms. And in our final report we presented twenty-one recommendations for action. The situation had shifted as we watched it; the problem of destitute migration, born out of the unemployment of the thirties, was in process of dissolution, and was rapidly being transformed into job migration. If an adequate defense labor supply was to be recruited, millions of Americans had to move to fill the defense demand for workers in factories, fields, mines and offices. New problems loomed of as great moment as the hardships of stranded peoples. In April, Congress by unanimous resolution reconstituted us as the Select Committee Investigating National Defense Migration. We returned to the field holding hearings in San Diego, Hartford, Trenton, Baltimore, and in Washington, D. C. Now, as this article is printed, hearings have been held in the key defense city of Detroit. Again the situation had shifted as we watched it. Here in the auto center we took up the effect of defense priorities in dislodging workers from non-defense production.
"Men Wanted"Everywhere we had seen "Men Wanted" written large over American defense districts; for a year and more our migrant defenders have become strategic factors in industrial expansion.The defense boom towns have been magnets which have already drawn to them upwards of 2,000,000 people in addition to the normal tides of migration. There are indications the total will reach 4000,000. Take these examples:
In Hartford, Major Leonard J. Maloney, director of the Employment Service, told the committee that well over 100,000 persons have come into Connecticut during the past year in search of jobs, Bridgeport alone receiving more than 60,000 newcomers.What becomes of these defense time migrants? Do they find jobs ? Are they being misdirected to places where there is no employment? If they find themselves stranded, what then? How do they live? What of housing? Are schools and hospitals adequate to meet their needs? Are communities opening their doors to the newcomers whose labor is so welcome, or are they thrust to the bottom of the social scale, feared as possible public charges? What are they thinking about, these new neighbors? Can they save for the post-defense period? Will they go back "where they came from" when the boom they call "demountable" subsides? "Houses Wanted"In a single article, I cannot attempt to answer all such questions, but I can underscore a few of profound national concern. Our hearings at Washington brought out the startling urban housing shortage which has accumulated. Outstanding authorities indicated that it would be necessary to build at the rate of one million housing units a year for fifteen years, or more than double that of the first quarter of 1941, if we are merely to catch up with arrears which do not include defense housing needs. But general figures are not as revealing as the actual experiences of people themselves. A Baltimore witness, a plumber and pipe fitter, recently from West Virginia, told us of his difficulties in finding shelter for his family. His story was repeated time and time again by other workers who came before us.
The Chairman. And where did you live when you first came here? "Hot-beds" and Trailer CampsThis witness told us of a rooming house a few doors away where his brother and two cousins lived with more than twenty-five others. They slept five and six to a room, shared one cold water bathroom, and each paid $4 a week. But he was only one among the many whose testimony fills our hearings' reports with accounts of "hot beds"—beds used in three shifts; of rent rises ranging from 75 to 200 percent; of the absence of even the most primitive facilities.
An Oklahoma family of eight described what it meant to live in a one room cabin in San Diego. They paid $78 a month of the family's monthly wages of $135 for it.We have seen vast trailer camps without adequate water supply or sanitation. We have seen families camping in tents and shanty towns near the newly built plants—fine, upstanding families whose desperate attempts to find proper shelter had met with endless frustration. Everywhere we heard the same story:
Mr. Arnold (interrogating). Will you describe the house you occupy in Fort Howard?We have visited localities which we are confident are typical, where there are literally no adequate houses available to the newcomer making $30 a week and less. The Call for Federal ActionThe problem was frankly admitted by Charles F. Palmer, coordinator of the Division of Defense Housing Coordination, who testified before us in Washington in July. Referring to the wage workers in defense plants and their housing needs, Mr. Palmer stated that the average wage "was for a time well under $30. It went to about $24 a week. We feel that the income is a little higher now than it was a few months ago .... We were amazed to find out that as many as 80 percent—and that is what our figures show—are in that very low income bracket in the defense industries."
Dr. Lamb (staff director, interrogating) What do you regard as the proper housing expenditure for workers in this group?Summing up building for this income group Mr. Palmer concluded, "Well, the answer is that practically all that has to be done by public funds." Here then you have a key to the wretched and congested conditions to be found in many communities. Private capital is unable to realize a return on housing for the majority of workers' families, and government funds thus far made available for defense housing, and now fully allocated, total under $400,000,000. That is merely a fraction of what would be needed to do the job. In view of the accumulating need, the problem remains almost untouched. The localities alone cannot cope with it. It is national in scope and born of a national emergency. I am convinced that the federal government must meet these pressing social obligations and give a far greater measure of assistance for the extension of low cost housing. In this, I find myself heartily in accord with the testimony of Governor Robert Hurley of Connecticut, who said to us:
I believe that housing, especially in this time of defense emergency, should be regarded by the federal government as a vast national problem, comparable to... training a great army and navy... (or) creating in America an "arsenal for democracy." Housing must be included in that picture of national defense. In my judgment, the federal government should adopt all necessary measures for the immediate planning, construction, and financing of large scale housing facilities in all defense centers. What Small Towns FaceWhat of other community facilities? said Jasper McLevy, mayor of Bridgeport, testifying at the Connecticut hearings:
...our health problem is just as serious. You have to provide proper sanitation to take care of those thousands of people. If any kind of epidemic should start in one of these defense industries, all of the armies in the world wouldn't mean anything. That would do more to destroy the morale of the country than anything else ....Throughout the country there are numerous small towns of a few thousand people which will be called upon to absorb new workers far in excess of their present populations. Raymond Wayman represented the civic organizations of Fallbrook, Calif. (1,500 pop.), but he spoke for such towns elsewhere. He said:
We have every reason to believe that this construction (a large navy ammunition depot) is going to throw an insurmountable burden on us with 2,000 to 4,000 people moving in.... We do not have the proper sewers to take care of this tremendous additional population.... Our school facilities are completely inadequate in view of the coming events.... The road situation is such that to handle the increased traffic much improvement will be necessary. Lastly, steps should be taken to increase the supply of water available.Jonathan Daniels, editor of The Raleigh News and Observer, told us:
Educational authorities have estimated that 250,000 children have moved to defense towns to crowd the schools. The schools are undoubtedly crowded, but by no means all of the children have ever gotten into the schools to crowd them. Practically no pretense has been made around such towns at enforcing any compulsory school attendance laws ....Glenn L. Martin, President of Glenn L. Martin Company of Baltimore, said:
Our company must raise the employment rolls from its present 18,000 men to 42,000 men within the next year.... As it becomes apparent that more and more workers will be employed, the collateral problems loom larger—housing, roads, social control, price control, education, recreation, etc.... Some alarm might be taken at the crowded condition of the Baltimore hospitals. So strained are they that, even under present conditions, prior to the expected influx of new residents, it is extremely difficult to secure beds.One of Mr. Martin's employees gave personal evidence of the truth of Mr. Martin's words. His wife, he said, would have to be confined at home—a run-down, four-room wooden shack, without running water—which five adults and five children share. Committee investigators, checking the story, called hospital after hospital only to find no maternity case "from out of town" could be accepted. Page after page of the record, the story runs:
The need for more schoolhouse facilities is desperate....Dr. Thomas Parran, U. S. Surgeon General, testified in Washington that surveys made by the U. S. Public Health Service indicated that:
...practically all defense areas are deficient in one or more of the essential facilities which they must have if they are to meet the demands imposed upon them by the emergency situation. Briefly stated, the amounts of money, in addition to present expenditures from all sources, which will be needed to provide the necessary facilities in the areas surveyed, total $1,885,137,891.Dr. Parran's conservative estimate did not include provision for such community needs as schools and roads. Yet the disparity between it and the sums thus far appropriated for health and housing alone represents a menacing gap in our national defenses, a gap written large in terms of morale and efficiency. Hazards of Job HuntingAmong the other problems which we have probed is the extent to which the training program is seeking to utilize local labor supply and thus avert unnecessary migration. Another is the extent of discrimination especially against Negroes and the foreign born—even second and third generation Americans with distinctly foreign names. Here is a cause of much migration which otherwise would be unnecessary. By attacking the morale of production itself, it is hindering defense "How is labor being recruited?" we often ask. This question has filled the committee's record with tragic stories of exorbitant fees paid to private employment agencies and labor contractors, out of all proportion to the wages earned. The committee's staff obtained proof of excessive registration charges and of workers being sent to non-existent jobs only to be left stranded and at the mercy of the community. Witnesses told how certain agencies induce the discharge of workers solely for the sake of collecting additional fees, and even split these fees with some of the very employers of the discharged workers. These uncontrolled practices include the importation of workers from distant points to many communities where local labor is not fully employed. The labor market is glutted, wage and hour standards are depressed, and community facilities are overburdened. A severe burden is placed on the community to which the unfortunate migrant is misdirected. It is obvious that unnecessary and misdirected migration should be prevented and that abuses in the recruiting of labor should be eliminated. Toward these ends, I have introduced HR 5510, a bill to regulate private employment agencies and labor contractors in interstate commerce. Many workers set out spontaneously in pursuit of employment and in that pursuit there are no certainties. What of those who fail to get jobs? We have not been able to obtain precise estimates of their numbers but everywhere we have found the problem a serious one. If they find themselves stranded, they are more than likely to discover that, lacking "residence" or "settlement" in the new community, no assistance is available, for many states require three, four, and even five years of residence as an assistance requirement. I have come to believe, and in this the majority of our committee concurs, that Congress should legislate a fourth category under the Social Security Program for general relief under a grant-in-aid basis, and that such grants-in-aid should be conditional upon the abolition by the state of residence requirements to receive such relief. In making this suggestion I do so with the needs of the post-emergency period particularly in mind. At that time the many millions who have migrated to defense centers may find themselves unemployed and without settlement. To seek to return such workers to their areas of legal settlement, areas which did not receive the benefit of their defense employment, and to ask such areas now to bear the burden of their unemployment, would be a distinctly inequitable distribution of benefits and burdens. Priorities UnemploymentUntil a few weeks ago, as already noted, everywhere we had seen "Men Wanted" written large over American defense districts. Now suddenly signs like that have been taken down in the automobile towns—Detroit, Flint, Pontiac—among them. Elsewhere plants making refrigerators, aluminum kitchen utensils, silk stockings, and zippers are cutting production. In every section shortages of such critical materials as steel, iron, zinc, magnesium, aluminum, and silk are forcing hundreds of firms engaged in civilian production to slow down and in many instances to close. Out of these slowdowns and close-downs there is emerging a potential migratory movement which in turn may reach huge proportions. Authorities have already indicated that this wave of unemployment may involve a total of as many as 2,000,000 workers within the year. The problem which confronts us is not an easy one. One hundred thousand or more men affected by the allocation program in the Detroit area alone may not find reemployment locally until next summer when new defense plants will be ready to operate. Many of these workers will set out on the migrant trail. Short term, meager unemployment compensation benefits will not hold them. Where plants, unable to get materials for civilian production, can convert their equipment into fulfilling defense contracts, the transition will not be a difficult one. But unless present tendencies shift rapidly, for many hundreds of other rants the close-down may be a "blackout" for "the duration." In Detroit, the committee got its first large scale close-up of this new chapter of defense migration. Further hearings on these perturbing problems will be held shortly in St. Louis and Washington, D. C. The fact of material shortages is upon us. It is obvious we cannot have our cars, electric irons, refrigerators, and aluminum cooking pans if we are to have guns, tanks, and airplanes we need. Because this dislocation involves real hardship to the workers and employers directly affected, no effort must be spared to alleviate it. Wherever possible, conversion from consumer to defense production must be speeded so that no machinery will needlessly lie idle. Defense contracts should be spread over a wider geographic area. We cannot afford to neglect the possibilities for subcontracting orders, thus failing to bring into play the fullest number of plants. We must not overlook the abundant possibilities for the pooling of the equipment of smaller firms so that collectively they may bid for defense orders too large for any one among them to cope with alone. Here were two of the questions uppermost in our minds in projecting the Detroit, Washington, and St. Louis hearings: Are we doing enough to maximize the utilization of our resources both in terms of men and equipment and so to minimize defense dislocation and unnecessary migration? When unemployment can in no way be averted, what more than is at present contemplated can we do to cushion the blow? Our purpose, in each instance, is to bring out the best thought of the communities we visit so that we may be able to formulate constructive recommendations for tiding us over a most difficult transition period. For this is a new facet of the committee's investigation which is still fully to be explored. It superimposes new patterns of migration on those with which the committee has become thoroughly familiar. When the Emergency EndsRepeatedly, as we have moved about the country we have asked the question, "After defense, what?" Dr. Abel Wolman, chairman of the Maryland State Planning Commission, answered frankly: "We have tremendous fears as to what will be the fate of these very large infiltrations from other parts of the state or outside of the state, after the defense period collapses." It is these fears that lead cities to hesitate to build badly needed sewers and water mains, that block much necessary housing expansion, that halt the construction of schools. I am profoundly convinced of the need for Congress to continue its study of post-defense problems. Everywhere I have been, the words of the President have run through my mind: "I would ask no one to defend a democracy which in turn would not defend everyone in the nation against want and privation. The strength of this nation shall not be diluted by the failure of the government to protect the well-being of its citizens." It is for the Congress of the United States to implement this pledge with action. I am confident that if we can bring to that body the experiences we have had during the last year-and-one-half as we have followed the path of our migrant defenders, and make them as real to others as they have made themselves real to us, the President's fine challenge will be taken up. This is no time to plead that we cannot afford to meet the needs of our people. Essential social services and protection against abusive practices are as much the stuff defense is made of as guns, tanks, and bullets. They are more than that. They are a right and privilege of the democratic way of life
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