IMMIGRATION: The Wetbacks

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Last week the illegal wetback labor system did not lack for critics: many a citizen of the states involved not only cried, "Shame!" at a condition which savored of slavery, but protested that the low-paid laborers were working the economic ruin of dozens of farming towns. In the Imperial Valley, 34-year-old Hank Hasiwar, organizer for the National Farm Labor Union, was not only agitating among the wetbacks (who, however, cannot become union members) and protesting to Congress, but also trying to unite merchants and businessmen against the system.

But the wetbacks kept coming.