THE MOOD OF AMERICA

...Warren accused the Chamber of "twisting figures" and denounced as "calloused" the business leaders' all-out efforts to trim the state's social welfare program...

...McLain took a different route this time in qualifying his latest pension proposal...

...The press run of the March issue of his newspaper, the National Welfare Advocate, amounted to 151,000...

...The Bonds of Sorrow There must have been some raised eyebrows among the members of the American College of Physicians who heard an American Medical Association official wonder out loud whether it is good to keep people alive as long as possible...

...They are, in a real sense, the bondservants of our "Factories in the Fields...

...Wey-bret's committee held hearings on the eve of election at which McLain was thoroughly smeared...

...Unless there is decisive action on the national front too, George Mc-Lain's pension playground is very likely to be the nation...

...The man behind it all, George McLain, Mr...

...5, 1949, at which the pension repeal measure also would be voted on...

...7. Elimination of the county from the cost contribution to old age assistance, using the wider tax base of the state and Federal government contribution...

...In the bitter fight over Proposition 2, the pension repealer, Warren picked Sen...

...6. State administration of the old age assistance program...

...On Mar...

...before legislative sharpshooters under pressure he is a cool customer indeed...

...It is simple for growers to have their "wetbacks" deported, certified, and returned—often within hours...

...He looks more like "a Santa Anita playboy than a champion of righteousness...

...But for the project to be administered correctly there must be a housing program controlled by the government and a minimum wage scale — properly enforced — which corresponds closely to that paid U.S...

...The State Chamber had sponsored "a rich man's caravan" to Sacramento at which a large assemblage of top-drawer bankers and business and agricultural leaders held an unprecedented session in the State Assembly chambers to roast Warren and state welfare and "spending" policies...

...Among the ranchers caught exploiting "wetbacks"—300 in number—in the Imperial Valley recently was Ambassador to Mexico William O'Dwyer's brother, Frank...

...He is generally well-poised, with a world of self-confidence...

...Warren to call a special election on school bonds for Nov...

...They said to me, 'When you're through with them, notify us and we'll pick 'em up.' Little effort is made to provide decent housing for the "wetbacks...

...And the governing cliques of the communities in which "wetbacks" toil protest violently when U. S. officers interfere with the new, super-imposed status quo...

...McLain is big, suave, bold, and relentless...

...And at every turn of the road he has been callously treated...

...His best wage was 65 cents an hour— as a cement-finisher—more than a dollar under the lowest building trades scale...

...After the repeal of his pension law...

...The government has indicated that at least 200.000 Mexican nationals will be needed for farm work in the U.S...

...Over the course of the past nine years, McLain has practically rewritten the State's Welfare and Institution Code...

...The Institute also conducts 300 meetings a month throughout the state...

...Last January, on the occasion of an Assembly Ways and Means Committee hearing in Los Angeles, he personally turned the crank at 4 a.m...

...In California, first the National Farm Labor Union and now the Culinary Workers and Building Trades unions have found their membership deprived of work by the hiring of the brutally exploited "wetbacks...

...Warren —George McLain—and to date Warren has been unable to find a way to comb him out of his hair...

...Hardly had the ink dried on the Proposition 4 ballots than business forces, using a so-called "Council of the Blind" as a front, hysterically called for repeal and the ouster of Mrs...

...If we don't stop this labor-busting practice soon, everything we fought for will have been lost...

...In case of rejection, the law stipulates that the measure go on the next election ballot...

...It is standard for them to put in nine hours of labor for eight hours of Pay...

...Simply by legalizing the "wetbacks" that number could easily be obtained...

...The insignificantly few revocations in the face of massive evidence that "wet-backs" are widely used points up the lack of manpower in the Immigration Service, the pressures brought to bear upon the Immigration men by the growers and businessmen, often through Washington channels, and collusion between the growers and government officials...

...And the more unscrupulous growers pay nothing...

...Though explosive at times, he does not harbor grudges...

...The legislative deadline passed Apr...

...Under the treaty with Mexico, a grower who knowingly hires "wetbacks" may have his contract for certified labor revoked and all Mexican nationals removed from his property...

...An editorial in The St...

...Today's longer life span has increased the financial burden of supporting the older members of the population, he said...

...McLain speaks daily in a professional, persuasive radio voice over 27 California radio stations to an estimated audience of one million...

...In 1934, the average pension payment in California was $26...

...Other agents round up "wetbacks" north of the border and deliver them to ranchers for so much per man...

...That ally is the flagrant abuses and inequities which continue to exist in California's present patchwork, two-headed, county-state pension monstrosity...

...But AMA Economist Frank Dickinson complained that the 20-year increase in American life expectancy in the last half century has, among other things, disrupted that "doctor-patient relationship" the AMA likes to invest with a mystic aura...

...Like many other "wetbacks," this Mexican worker was inspired to enter the U. S. illegally by a high-promising agent for a group of large-scale growers...

...Since that time pensions have been increased from $30 to $75—every increase wrung from an unwilling legislature...

...2. Cost of living increases based on government indexes...

...The background for this newest round in the long and bitter pension fight is a gripping chronicle of social conflict...

...to use 'wetbacks' as long as I kept them on the land...

...The efforts of his Citizens Committee for Old Age Pensions came to a climax in the 1948 Presidential election when his Proposition 4 won at the polls...

...Perhaps Mr...

...Displacing local agricultural labor, the "wetbacks" have forced thousands of these people to become migratory workers, and they, in turn, have lowered wages in areas far from the border...

...Steep deductions are made for their meals, sometimes little more than slop...

...III McLain runs a virtual public relations factory at his Los Angeles headquarters at 1031 S. Grand Avenue...

...Although actually authored by the Allen Boys of Ham and Eggs fame, the statement by Warren declared for "pensions as a matter of right" and stated that he did not feel pensioners should be forced to look to their relatives, for support...

...His income tax returns for the past five years reveal that he hasn't averaged as much as $2,000 yearly salary from the pension organization...

...Hunger and The 'Wetbacks' By Ralph Friedman San Diego OUR NUMBER one problem right now," says John Quim-by, secretary of the San Diego Federated Trades and Labor Council, "is to stop building contractors from hiring starvation-wage 'wetbacks' instead of men from the building trades unions...

...McLain is now establishing small neighborhood Social Welfare Clubs in communities throughout California to afford recreation for the aged and build "grass roots" political strength...

...Warren's appointee...

...Legislative Auditor Alan Post has placed its estimated cost at $100 million...

...5. Allowance of up to $150 for burial purposes for those without other resources...

...Although Weybret exhausted $35,000 of the taxpayers' money, he was not able to make good on his boast to "get McLain...

...Doctors and their patients accept that proposition as the first article of a physician's faith...

...It made Mrs...

...workers will fall accordingly...

...The growers, however, have taken advantage of a clause in the agreement which provides that illegals who appear before the Mexican consuls stationed on the border and then return to Mexico will be given high priority for importation hiring...

...Strong as are the bonds of shared joy, even stronger are the bonds of shared sorrow," he said...

...THE MOOD OF AMERICA Notes on Pensions and 'Wetbacks' Pension Uproar In California By John Canterbury Sacramento JUST before the California Special Election of 1949, at which the McLain pension program was repealed, a top national syndicate writer predicted: "If Proposition 2 [the repeal measure] is approved, it will be oblivion for George McLain...

...So it has, and most Americans are learning to adjust themselves and their institutions to that fact...

...Agree with him or not, he has a lion by the tail...

...to San Ysidro, Calif...

...From that day j. °n there has been one man who has been a nemesis to Gov...

...4. Medical and health payments up to $25 per month paid for by the state for pensioners without income other than their basic pension...

...Even contract workers suffer, discriminated against in violation of the treaty, and put to cut-rate illegal work, such as construction, truck-driving and road-building...

...Not unless they stop the abuses...

...He lives, eats, and breathes pensions—and politics...

...The initiative measure provided that the state legislature adopt it in its entirety within 40 days of the opening of the legislative session or reject it...

...There is an addresso-graph plate of each voting family in California and when McLain says the word, his staff can get out a mailing piece to 2,500,000 voters in 48 hours...

...McLain pointed out at a recent legislative hearing that the state's budget "experts" were off more than 300% in their estimates of the cost of the original McLain plan, Proposition 4, which became part of the State's Constitution...

...This is what John Quimby means when he says, "If we don't stop this labor-busting practice soon, everything we fought for will have been lost...

...McLain places it at $30 million...

...More often than not, they are forced to live in primitive, unsanitary "shelters...

...The "wetbacks" concentrate in the lush valleys of Texas, Arizona, and California...

...4, and in the face of $100,000 in'debts, McLain declared he would "bounce back like a rubber ball...

...unions which are elsewhere powerful are mere skeletons because- of cheap "wetback" labor...

...When Upton Sinclair's EPIC platform of that year contained a plank for a $50 state pension, it was considered a wild dream...

...Their lot has been described as peonage, slavery, and feudalism by unemotional observers, including Immigration officials...

...On Apr...

...II By treaty, Mexican nationals may be brought into this country for temporary work if employers can prove to this government that no local help is available...

...4. The lawmakers failed to act on the McLain measure and buck-passed it along to the voters...

...Proposition No...

...Dickinson has another reason for questioning the wisdom of prolonging life...

...Pitting the state's aged citizens against the school kids in as reprehensible a manipulation of pressure groups as any state has ever seen, the repeal forces induced Gov...

...Gov...

...This method required only 127,000 signatures—half the number usually needed...

...In your country life is better—so they say...

...The exploitation of "wetbacks" has not only depressed the already pitiful conditions of the Mexican-Americans in the southwest, but has reduced the living standards of others...

...The new pension measure is being savagely opposed by such forces .as the State Chamber of Commerce, the California Taxpayer's Association, the County Supervisor's Association, the County Welfare Director's Association, and other groups that are reported to have raised $200,000 to fight McLain...

...Wetbacks" or "wire-jumpers," they seep through the thinly-scattered 900-man Border Patrol of the Immigration and Naturalization Services to the tune of about a million crossings a year—and the number is mounting...

...This measure removed pension administration from the 58 counties, increased pensions to $75 a month, lowered the eligibility age to 63, tossed out responsible relatives clause, permitted pensioners $1,500 in personal property, up to $3,500 in assessed valuation of real property, and otherwise liberalized the pension laws...

...They are as much a part of the large-scale farming pattern as the latest mechanical equipment...

...this year...

...They are to the modern corporate farm what Negro slave labor was to the plantation...

...Since the Proposition 2 repeal election in November, 1949, his organization has paid off $100,000 in debts...

...If there be somebody who is not convinced by that thought, Mr...

...McLain is oblivious of time, often working late into the night with his staff...

...on the mimeograph machine to get out a 40-page booklet outlining his case in facts and figures for next morning...

...Will they be able to stop George McLain...

...These increases may be traced directly to the pressure of the McLain organization...

...Wherever the "wetbacks" have made inroads, organized labor has suffered heavily...

...The headquarters has a fully-equipped print shop and files which contain hundreds of thousands of nameplates of members and registered voters...

...Urban trade unionists out here, hitherto only remotely aware of the "wetback" threat to organized labor, are now fighting back with every weapon they possess, carrying their case to the highest state and federal officials...

...Much of McLain's zeal for welfare reform is said to spring from the fact that his father, when once in need, was "pushed around" handily by the Welfare Department...

...About half the "wetbacks" are caught and deported, but as the officers turn to round up another batch, the deportees filter back into the states...

...With the help of a subservient Attorney General (the since defeated Republican Fred Howser), the re-pea/ measure oddly enough was given the exact title which McLain's prior Proposition 4 had borne— "Aged and Blind Aid...

...3. Repeal of the responsible relatives clause...

...The victory was considered a tribute to McLain's lobbying ability...

...when the work is done they telephone the Immigration men to deport the unpaid and virtually defenseless illegals...

...McLain was charged with bribery of a legislator, contempt of the committee in failing to produce his records, and other counts in a long series of court actions...

...His impact on the field of welfare laws and administration is unquestionably far-reaching...

...today the figure is 104,000 and it is safe to say that the great bulk of the newcomers will find their way northward where they will be ruthlessly exploited by big ranchers and chiseling contractors...

...He has heard talk of big money, but he has worked for as low as 15 cents an hour...

...Dickinson in shedding any tears in regret...

...We have found 'wetbacks' working in building trades for as low as 45 cents an hour, displacing union men who get up to eight times as much...

...But that is impossible, and most persons, enjoying their extra 20 years of life, will not join Mr...

...But these legal charges reached a complete dead-end when the state appellate court threw out the case...

...Briefly, the McLain measure provides for: 1. A floor for old age security payments of $75 per month...

...In three weeks they came up with 327,000 signatures...

...McLain took to the stump and campaigned all-out for the Governor...

...I know one fellow who has been deported 32 times...

...Pension in California, is a 48-year-old, third generation Cali-fornian, whose father, now deceased, was a well-to-do paving contractor in Los Angeles...

...farm workers...

...Fred Weybret, Republican of Salinas, chairman of the Senate Social Welfare Committee, to do a hatchet job on McLain...

...Earl Warren's role in this pension struggle has been a curious one, to put it mildly...

...Why pay the "prevailing" contract wage of 60 cents an hour when labor can be had for one-third that rate...

...He takes $75 a week, and the Institute pays his expense money as needed...

...Dickinson looked nostalgically at the days when doctors could not cure, but only hover sympathetically and helplessly around dying children's bedsides...

...Out here, far from the Rio, they are sometimes called "wire jumpers...

...He thinks quicker than most of his associates...

...If both of these steps are not taken the Mexican nationals will continue to be abused, and the wages and working standards of U.S...

...He dug up an obscure provision of the initiative law used only three times in the state's history...

...Once elected, the Governor is charged with "climbing into bed with the Chamber of Commerce elements" and forgetting his promises...

...Proposition 2, the repeal measure, throwing out most of the liberalized McLain features, carried...

...6 he blasted the State Chamber of Commerce charges of "extravagance" in the state budget and the Chamber's proposals for restricting the program of social welfare...

...McLain set his oldsters at work...

...Growers object to legal importation because of the "red tape" involved, because contract labor is subject to the scrutiny of Mexico, and because "wetbacks" are cheaper...

...He has consistently resisted the urgings of Institute members to move to more elaborate quarters...

...When pressure of work will permit, he takes great pride in personally conducting visitors—a humble pensioner or prominent politico—through his teeming headquarters...

...Even his bitterest opponents privately fear, respect, and even like him...

...He is not sure...

...An Associated Press dispatch referred to McLain as "the smartest and cleverest lobbyist in Sacramento...

...If he is salting away fabulous sums, as his opponents monotonously cry on the front page, no one to date has been able to find any evidence of it...

...In 1942, when the Governor was seeking votes, he issued his famous "pension pledge...

...The need for a uniform, simple, adequate, and equal-treatment national pension system is tremendous...

...He also has one powerful, constantly-working, if silent ally...

...14, the State Assembly beat down a bill which would have barred pensioners from contributing to McLain's organization by a heavy margin of 54 to 19...

...Louis Post-Dispatch...

...Myrtle Williams, McLain's aide, State Director of Social Welfare, supplanting Gov...

...A sharp operator, a promotional genius, and a fiercely-controversial figure in brawling California, McLean has built an organization so interwoven with the welfare fabric in California as to constitute literally a duplicate Welfare Department: it is doubtful if he could now be dislodged...

...II Gov...

...McLain lives modestly with his wife in a small, upstairs apartment looking out on an alley in the back of the Institute's headquarters...

...Mexicali, on the border of the Imperial Valley, had a population of 64,000 a year ago...

...A natty dresser, his clothes nevertheless reflect good taste...

...And bounce back he did with a new initiative measure titled, "Old Age Assistance," which will appear on the next state ballot...

...In too many counties "wetbacks" are hired, often through state employment offices, while thousands of local workers are unemployed...

...Williams...

...A San Diego county grower told a local reporter: "The immigration men told me it was O.K...

...First, however, the farmers must show a shortage of labor...

...In my country," this man says, "hunger is part of the earth...

...Warren, who behind the scenes is already hard at work building his fences for the 1952 Presidential prize, is worried about McLain...

...In Texas, A.F.L...

...It will be recalled the ex-mayor frequently spends his vacations on his brother's ranch...

...Dickinson would be happier if the clock could be turned back 50 years, when people were dying younger...

...Biit the economic reason is the more cogent one...

...McLain has an ingratiating, magnetic personality, an innate shrewdness, and an ability to get right to the point...

...His California Institute of Social Welfare has 100,000 dues-paying members and owns clear a $250,000 building...

...The name "wetbacks"—Mexican nationals who illegally cross the border—comes originally from those who forded the Rio Grande River, but it has been extended to all who enter the U. S. without certification along the 1,600-mile border, from Brownsville, Tex...

...But like many of the other political "smart boys," this expert reckoned without the resiliency of the organizer of the old folks who, regardless of the blood pressures he is generating in California and elsewhere, is well on his way toward becoming the Number One pension lobbyist in the nation...