frequently the greater their distance from the border. Those near the frontier, intending to return to Mexico themselves shortly, probably hold their money to carry home in person. A labor agent, dealing with Mexicans on the frontier and speaking Spanish fluently, said that the returning immigrants often had $200 gold in their possession, which is a fortune for a workingman in central Mexico. The editor of a Spanish paper in El Paso, himself a former Mexican official, said that many Mexicans returned, especially from the mining country, with this sum. They either spend it in ostentatious display among their neighbors when they get home and return to the United States penniless the following season, or else buy land and stock. The few thrifty ones probably accumulate enough after a few trips to the north to place themselves above the harder and poorer paid kinds of labor in Mexico. Two men of this character were met at Zacatecas; one had a stall in the market.

People familiar with both races say the Mexicans are thriftier than the Negroes. Some of the Pueblo Indian laborers in the Southwest are said to be savers, and this may be an incipient trait in the Indian stock of the Mexican peon. But many employers in the Southwest and in Mexico say that whisky, gambling, and fine clothes absorb most of the Mexican's surplus earnings. Love of display is a very common trait among them and leads to some desirable results, such as the improvement of the homes among New Mexicans, and probably also among the immigrants. But their lavish expenditure seems to be due partly to actual lack of foresight, to forgetfulness, when they have money, that they will ever again be without it. For instance, when the beet harvesters return to El Paso from Colorado, in the fall, they usually have plenty of money, yet not over 30 per cent of the laborers-by actual count kept at one mill-will take the trouble to form parties of ten, and thus secure a party railway rate to the frontier, which would save each laborer several dollars. This is not due to ignorance-for in the particular instance mentioned the mill manager took special trouble to inform them that they could save this money-but apparently to a desire to show off by traveling independently.

Thrift is an important element in the efficiency of labor; for where it is present the laborer usually works more regularly, dissipates less, and is constantly urgent for higher wages. On the other hand, the thriftless laborer is a good man for emergenciesa short job pleases him as well as a long one-and he will work cheap. If the thrift of the Mexicans increases with experience in the United States, though there is not much reason to expect this in any immediately observable degree, they will lose some of the peculiar qualities that make them desirable to employers at present, but at the same time acquire others that will add to their value in

a different direction. In the comparisons made by employers and foremen of Mexican with other immigrant labor, the peculiar serviceability of each in a different way was sometimes lost sight of, and the Mexican was judged by the European or Oriental standard or vice versa. This consideration should qualify the following observations:

Different employers in the beet fields, in comparing Mexicans with Japanese, said: "Japanese want better pay, but are quicker and so are as cheap as Mexicans. They get out earlier in the morning." "Our farmers will engage good Mexicans for the following year. They are about equal as workers to Russians and Japanese, but not so intelligent and thrifty. Different nationalities don't work together. Russians and Japanese will observe their contracts better than Mexicans. Mexicans are the best spenders. Russians are desirable savers, because they save to buy farms. The Japanese are bad savers, because they save money to send away." "The Japanese push up wages." (Given as an unfavorable comparison with Mexicans.)

In other employments Mexicans and Japanese were compared as follows: "Old Mexicans are better laborers than Japanese for a large employer because they do not go in gangs, under a head man or agent like the Japanese. [However, in the beet fields they work under "patrones" of their own nationality.] Every Japanese gang is a trade union; they come and quit together. Among the Mexicans one is as good as another, and they will split up and go off singly to different jobs, but don't all quit at once." These observations were repeated in substance by other employers. "Mexicans are cheaper, and in many cases just as good man for man. Japanese now demand at least $2 a day, about the they are getting $2.25 a day at the tunnel." Colo.) "We prefer to work Mexicans. anybody but Japanese. They hate the Japs. recently on a stone crusher, when we were very short of labor, the Mexicans feeding and the Japanese in front of the machine. The Mexicans hustled the Japs so hard that they drove them off the job and we had to substitute Mexicans."

same as a white man, and (This was near Trinidad, Mexicans will work with We had a mixed gang

Reference has already been made to the fact that for railroad work Mexicans are preferred in many places to Greeks, and even to Italians. The following are memoranda of conversations with employers and foremen familiar with workers of these nationalties: "On railways Mexicans are better than Greeks and Italians, and next to the American hobo."""New Mexicans are better laborers than Italians or Greeks." "Cholos' are generally preferred to Greeks or Japanese, and some prefer them to whites." "Railways prefer Mexicans to Japanese and Europeans because they don't combine." "Mexicans are rapidly displacing Greeks and Japanese in railway

work in California." "While the Southern Pacific Railway has Mexicans generally on the sections, near El Paso, where there are some dangerous cuts, it employs Italians." "Mexicans do more work per man [on railways] than Greeks and Italians. They are more willing, and if one is discharged the others will not quit.”

A railroad manager has been previously quoted as saying that for emergency work Negroes were better than Mexicans, but that for plodding work the latter were to be preferred. Mexicans are considered better cotton pickers, because they will work the season out, while Negroes stop in the midst of a crop to spend their money. Another employer said: "Negroes are better physically, but less diligent, so Mexicans accomplish as much as they." In southern Texas Mexican labor is everywhere preferred to Negro labor, and is supplanting it upon public works in many places, including some of the larger cities along the Gulf coast and in central Texas. An asphalt contractor in Los Angeles said: "Cholos' are better workers than Japanese, Chinese, or Negroes."

The comparison with the Indian is generally unfavorable to the Mexican. In the beet country the Indian is considered cheaper and more reliable, if not otherwise better labor. An employer said: "Indian boys from 14 to 20 years old, such as we have had here, will do as much as any laborers, Mexican, Russian, or Japanese." A foreman in Arizona, whose statement could not be verified, said: "The Santa Fe paid Navajo Indians $2 a day when it was paying 'cholos' $1.25, because Indians did nearly double the work." At the Gallup (N. Mex.) coal mines it was said: "Navajos are better than Mexican immigrants, and the latter are about as good as the Greeks and Japanese." The Yaqui Indians also are considered good workers. The governor of Arizona said: "The best labor we get from Mexico is the Yaqui Indians. They are more regular and industrious than the other immigrants from that country. They come up here, fraternize with the Mexicans, and then buy arms and go back home to shoot Mexicans." A mine manager in Mexico said: "Mexican labor in Mexico is not as good as Mexican labor in the United States. The best labor we have here (in Sonora) is the Yaqui Indians."

The general relation of Old Mexican to New Mexican or Americanborn labor of Mexican descent is thus summarized by those familiar with both: "Old Mexicans are increasing (in the Colorado beet fields) relatively to New Mexicans." "From 1900 till 1905 New Mexicans were the chief beet-field workers. Since 1905 Old Mexicans have been supplanting them." "New Mexicans are not employed so much as formerly, because they can get work at home." "When they can make them understand (i. e., speak Spanish or have an interpreter), farmers take Old Mexicans in preference to New Mexicans. The latter are pretty smart and lazy." "The New Mexi

(

cans are at the stage where a little learning is a dangerous thing." "I have nothing to do with New Mexicans, because they are too smart for me and too vicious." "Texas Mexicans, whom I sometimes employed for ranch (farm) work in Mexico, were better than the natives, because they were more intelligent and knew how to use tools and implements." "New Mexicans make at least double as good coal miners as Old Mexicans." "Section foremen around here prefer New Mexicans to Old Mexicans, because the latter are so slow to understand." New Mexicans are better than Old Mexicans for lumber yard work, because they are more intelligent." "New Mexicans are better yard men and lumber pilers than white men."

66

All of these comparisons are understood to apply only to unskilled or semiskilled labor. In any higher class of employment the European would in all cases be preferred.

HOME LIFE AND STANDARD OF LIVING.

The wants of the Mexican peon are hardly more complex than those of the original Indian from whom he is descended. An adobe hut with an earth floor, or even a shelter of branches against the wind, a few pieces of pottery, a serape or a sheepskin to lie on at night and to keep out the keener blasts by day, a modicum of cotton clothing, sandals, and a cheap straw sombrero are a sufficient domestic equipment. Corn, beans, and chilis are the staples of his coarse and simple diet. Equally cheap pulque or its more potent and dangerous distillation, mescal, supplies the stimulant demanded by the crudeness of his food, and card playing affords the diversion needed to break the monotony of his life.

In New Mexico one can observe a more advanced stage in the transformation from this simple and unprogressive condition than is to be seen as yet in Mexico itself. For the same influences are at work upon the Pueblo-Aztec races in both republics, though they have come a little earlier in the north. Thirty years ago the New Mexican villager had no use for money. There was not even an iron hinge in his hut. His pottery was fashioned by his own hands, as was the rude plow with which he scratched a bit of valley land. Clothing was often woven by the family from the wool of his own flocks. Old settlers remember when jury fees were almost the only money country

men ever saw.

Then came the railroad, along which circulated dollars, as well as other commodities new to the country. The peasant felt the pressure of novel needs about the time he found a market for his labor. Gradually his standard of living rose. Now, except in remote localities, the adobe hut, to which the American-born Mexican wisely clings, usually contains an iron bed, frequently a good cooking range, and not

unusually other furniture. His windows are glazed, cheap prints adorn the walls, and a white spread sets forth the importance of the bed. These adobe dwellings are usually neat and clean, with an orderliness not always to be found in the homes of immigrant laborers from Europe.

The New Mexican no longer is village shy, averse to leaving the neighborhood where he was born and where he can always find shelter and food among his friends. He makes seasonal migrations to distant parts of the west in search of work, often leaving his family behind him to attend to the crop in his absence. A Las Vegas (N. Mex.) merchant received answers to an advertisement in a local Spanish paper from Texas, Arizona, California, Wyoming, and Colorado, so widely had the resident Mexicans scattered to find employment upon the ranches and the railroads. One little village had 70 men absent, mostly in Utah as sheep herders. As a rule the hamlets in the irrigated bottoms do not afford work for wages, so this migration of the Spanish-speaking people within the United States is a migration for money-not the nomadic restlessness of an old Indian stock, but a definite seeking after better economic conditions after the means to supply new needs.

Although the women stay at home and do not themselves become carners, they appear to be the spenders, or the ones for whom money is first and chiefly spent. A Mexican laborer will dress his wife and children expensively while he wears rags himself. Social emulation or some kindred sentiment seems to account for the slow but steady improvement in the New Mexican home. In fact, showy furniture frequently stands as a symbol of means rather than of use. A well draped bed will occupy a prominent place in an apartment where the family sleeps on the floor. And these new standards of style and ostensible comfort are set by the women rather than by the men. The immigrant from Old Mexico is passing along the same road as his brother north of the line, only he is a little behind. He dons American working clothes when he crosses the border; and if he goes into a boarding camp becomes accustomed to a dietary scale far above that to which he was accustomed at home. It is doubtful if the fresh-meat-eating laborer ever returns willingly to a vegetable diet. Some Mexicans in Texas seem to appreciate the United States chiefly as a place where there is more to eat than in Mexico. In migrating to the United States the Mexican loosens the home tie more than does the New Mexican in his migrations; for he goes to a greater distance and to a different country. Therefore he breaks away more completely from the system of communal dependence common to the Spanishspeaking peasantry of both countries, where the lazy man and the man out of work live off their relatives and neighbors, so that the sense of individual economic responsibility is never developed. The com