The AFL and Mexican Immigration in the 1920s: An Experiment in Labor Diplomacy Open Access

In the first decades of the twentieth century, the attitude of the American Federation of Labor towards the immigration of foreigners into the United States was clear and uncompromising. According to the AFL, the waves of immigrants who poured into the country served only to depress the general wage level of the country and, by providing ready-made pools of strikebreakers, constituted a major barrier to the effective unionization of the workingmen of the United States. Therefore, the AFL consistently supported and lobbied for all legislative attempts to restrict immigration into the United States.

Until the 1920s, the AFL’s attention was concentrated mainly on immigrants from the Orient and Europe. Oriental immigration was effectively cut off early in the century, and immigration from Europe was drastically restricted, first by the outbreak of war in Europe and then by the passage of increasingly restrictive legislation, beginning with the imposition of a literacy test in 1917 and culminating in the National Origins Act of 1924. At the very moment when the AFL’s efforts to close the front door on cheap labor seemed to be crowned with success, however, it began to creep through the back door and seep through the walls. Stimulated by the war, during the 1920s hundreds of thousands of Negroes began a vast migration from the rural South to the industrial cities of the North. Around 900,000 Canadians, many of them poor French-Canadians, moved across the northern border, and half a million Mexicans were counted legally crossing the southern border. The number of Mexicans who did not bother with the immigration formalities was not known, but it was certainly not insignificant.

There was nothing the AFL could do about the internal migration of the Negroes, and the fact that most AFL unions were international unions with substantial membership in Canada made pressing for the restriction of immigration from that country an embarrassing proposition. Immigration from Mexico, however, was different, and throughout the 1920s the AFL tried to have it severely restricted. After President Samuel Gompers failed in his attempts to include Mexico among the countries subject to the National Origins Act of 1924, William Green, Gompers’ successor, tried a new method. Gompers had cultivated very close relations with the Confederación Regional Obrera Mexicana (CROM), the dominant Mexican labor confederation. Green eventually persuaded CROM to agree to a plan which would drastically restrict Mexican immigration by cutting it off at its source—CROM officials were to press the Mexican government to restrict emigration from Mexico to the United States. The plan was not as farfetched as it may sound. After all, the Japanese government had been persuaded to do essentially the same thing in 1907, when it entered into the famous Gentleman’s Agreement with the Roosevelt Administration. The difference was that in this instance the foreign government involved would be acting at the request of the AFL and its unionized friends within the foreign country.

Samuel Gompers first became seriously concerned about the adverse effects of Mexican immigration on the AFL during World War I, when wartime labor shortages forced the U.S. government to drop its literacy requirements for immigrants from Mexico and to encourage the importation of Mexican contract labor. Gompers feared that after the war, with labor shortages over, these Mexican workers, and others who might follow, would accept lower wages than their American counterparts. Some years later, Lewis Warfield, an American transportation engineer with friends in high Mexican and American government circles, recalled a conversation which he had with Gompers and John Murray, one of Gompers’ major advisors on Mexican policy. Warfield claimed that they told him that “they had no interest in Mexican labor other than to keep them from coming here after the war.”¹ Although either Warfield or Gompers must have been, at the least, exaggerating, it is doubtful if the story was completely fabricated. Soon after the war ended Gompers wrote to Secretary of Labor William B. Wilson making it clear that the AFL wanted the wartime exemptions to Mexicans dropped, and Wilson assured him that this would be done.² The AFL’s fears about the effect of the Mexicans on the postwar labor situation appeared to be borne out during the Steel Strike of 1919, when large numbers of Mexican strikebreakers were transported from the Southwest to struck companies in the Chicago area.

The steelworkers were not the only union feeling the effects of Mexican immigration. At the AFL Convention in late 1919, John L. Lewis proposed that the AFL officially oppose immigration from Mexico, as well as that from Europe and the Orient. Lewis justified this proposal by pointing to the “disposition on the part of certain mining interests of this country to import Mexican labor to displace American labor in the mines in certain producing territory.” He added that the question was also of concern to the metalliferous miners and railroad maintenance-of-way men.³ Lewis’ resolution was passed, and in the ensuing years the AFL’s lobbyists in Washington worked hard to have Mexico included in the immigration restriction bills which were being proposed in Congress.

The AFL was unable, however, to have Mexico included in the first postwar immigration restriction law, passed in 1921, which established quotas for European countries based on three percent of the number of people born in those countries residing in the United States as of 1910. But a majority of the Congress was not satisfied with that measure, and pressure for a more stringent law built up. By 1923, it was obvious that a new, more restrictive act would be passed. The major issues now became what kind of bill would be passed and which countries would be subjected to the quota. In September 1923, Gompers held a conference with Secretary of Labor James J. Davis and finally secured the Administration’s agreement to include Mexico under the quotas in the new immigration bill which it was framing.⁴

One of the major obstacles to passage of an immigration bill which subjected Mexico to the quota was the frequently-voiced charge that this would lead to a deterioration of relations with Mexico and Latin America as a whole. Severely restricting immigration from Mexico without doing the same to immigration from Canada would leave the United States wide open to charges of discrimination against its darker-skinned neighbors. To meet this objection, Gompers reluctantly asked that Canada be included in the administration’s bill as well.⁵ The administration acceded to this request. In late 1923 Davis assembled a conference of labor leaders in Washington to read them the administration’s newly completed immigration bill. Along with pushing the base year for calculating a new two percent quota back to 1890, the bill called for the inclusion of Mexico and Canada under its provisions.⁶ It appeared that Gompers’ lobbying efforts might be crowned with success.

The administration’s bill was introduced in the Senate. In the House, however, Representative Albert Johnson, the powerful Chairman of the Immigration Committee, was guiding a bill through his committee which would not subject Canada and Mexico to a quota. In March 1924, Gompers met with him and tried to persuade him to include the two countries in his bill. But Johnson refused, claiming that it would never pass the House in that form. Gompers continued to have the AFL lobbyists press for the inclusion of the two countries in the House bill, but to no avail.⁷ In the final bill which emerged from the House-Senate joint conference Mexico and Canada were exempt from the quota system.

Gompers’ health had been failing throughout most of 1924. In December of that year, while attending the inauguration of President Plutarco Elías Calles in Mexico City, he was fatally stricken. He died shortly thereafter in El Paso while being transported back to Washington. It was left to Gompers’ successor, William Green of the United Mineworkers, to try to deal with the problem of Mexican immigration.

Green had a less flamboyant, duller personality than Gompers, but he was endowed with a certain amount of shrewdness. In the late 1910s and early 1920s Gompers had succeeded in cultivating close relations with CROM, but after the end of World War I the AFL was deriving little real benefit from this relationship. In his last years, Gompers appears to have been satisfied with playing the role of “defender of the Mexican Revolution in the United States” and receiving in return continual paeans from gratitude of those he defended.⁸ Green’s ego was less in need of inflation than that of Gompers, and he was more concerned with the practical benefits that the AFL could derive from its ties with CROM. Green soon sought to use this close relationship with CROM to have the Mexican government cut back the emigration of Mexicans to the United States.

The ambience of the years 1924 to 1928 proved to be uniquely encouraging for experimenting in this fashion. Within Mexico, CROM had supported the government of General Álvaro Obregón during the serious revolt raised against it by General Adolfo De la Huerta in 1923. In 1924 it was suitably rewarded by Obregón’s successor and ally, General Plutarco Elías Calles, with high positions within his government and the full support of his government in its organizing ventures. Calles appointed the leader of CROM, Luis Morones, Secretary of Industry, Labor, and Commerce, and Morones was generally regarded as one of the most powerful men in the country.

Also, the period was one of strain and crisis in Mexican-American relations. In the course of enforcing the agrarian reform provisions of the Constitution of 1917 and drawing up new laws reasserting the nation’s residual ownership of the subsoil wealth of the country, the Calles government enraged American agricultural, mining, and oil interests in Mexico. These acts aroused the ire of the Coolidge Administration. The hostile attitude of the Calles government toward the Church and the enforcement of the anticlerical provisions of the Constitution led in 1926 to the closing of all the churches in Mexico. Stories of atrocities committed against priests and believers flowed north from the Rio Grande into church and lay publications in the United States and led much of the Catholic hierarchy in the United States to call for American intervention against Calles.

Although Green was by no means elated over the unhappy state of Mexican-American relations, it did, in a certain sense, strengthen the AFL’s hand in dealing with CROM. In order to retain its favored position within Mexico, CROM had to continue to demonstrate its usefulness to the Calles government. One of the best ways it could do this was to retain its close ties to the AFL, thus assuring the Calles regime of an influential American voice to defend it against the charges of “Bolshevism” that were levelled against it by its enemies within the United States. The threat of armed intervention by the United States was voiced frequently enough (the memory of the American invasions in 1914 and 1916 was still fresh) to make the task of defending the government of Mexico appear to be that of defending it against forces working for an invasion of Mexico. Thus, it was in the interest of both CROM and the Calles Government that the relationship between CROM and the AFL continue to be a solid and amicable one.

The problems which Mexican immigration created for the AFL were dumped into the lap of Green soon after he succeeded Gompers. In the spring of 1925, the AFL was planning a major organizing drive in the Southwest, concentrating on Arizona and New Mexico. Clarence Idar, who was to direct the drive, made it clear to Green that continuing immigration from Mexico presented a major obstacle to the plan and made a successful outcome seem doubtful. In his reply to Idar, Green outlined the AFL’s dilemma with regard to Mexican immigration, explaining the complications which would ensue if the government placed Mexico and not Canada under the quota: “The Mexican government could rightfully protest and would undoubtedly do so.” The AFL had not yet decided upon what course it would now follow, Green said, but the Executive Council intended to arrive at some conclusions and to formulate a policy within the next few months.⁹ Green had attended Calles’ inauguration and had been much impressed by, as he phrased it, “how controlling was the influence of the Mexican Federation of Labor” (CROM) in Mexico.¹⁰ His impression, if exaggerated, was an understandable one.

The American labor leader soon determined to enlist what appeared to be the tremendous influence of CROM on the Mexican Government to help solve the AFL’s “Mexican immigration problem.” By early May 1925, he was seriously considering calling a full-fledged AFL-CROM conference to deal with the matter.¹¹ A few days later, when another report of the adverse effects of Mexican immigration came in from Arizona, Green definitely decided to call a meeting with CROM to work out a long-term solution to the problem.¹² Meanwhile, as an immediate measure, he asked CROM to obtain the cooperation of the Mexican consuls in the United States for the AFL organizing campaign in the Southwest. This the CROM did promptly, and Eduardo Moneda, the Secretary-General of CROM, sent Green several letters in which he quoted the promises of cooperation with the AFL which CROM received from various consuls.¹³

At the next AFL Executive Council meeting, Green proposed an AFL-CROM conference on immigration, but the Executive Council deferred a decision. It recommended that Green investigate the matter further. Green devoted much time and thought to the matter and finally decided that the only solution lay in working through CROM.¹⁴ He invited Moneda and his associates to come to Washington on July 23 or 24 to discuss Mexican immigration.¹⁵ Two days later, Coolidge’s Secretary of State, Frank Kellogg, gave added impetus to the conference by precipitating a crisis in Mexican-American relations. Kellogg threatened that the United States government would stop enforcing the arms embargo on Mexico (and thus aid anti-Calles plotters) unless the Mexican government complied with its demands. These demands included the immediate restoration of land “illegally” taken from Americans in Mexico in the course of enforcing the agrarian reform decrees and the indemnification of the Americans for their losses.¹⁶ Green telegraphed Moneda immediately urging that, because of the importance of the immigration question and “recent developments of vital interest to both American and Mexican labor,” CROM send a delegation of at least three representatives to the conference.¹⁷ Then, in a statement to the press, Green said that, although the conference had been called to discuss the immigration question, Kellogg’s statement had “created additional reasons for an exchange of views.”¹⁸ After vigorous protests from the AFL and other anti-interventionist groups, Kellogg soon modified his statement, and the storm subsided. Luis Morones then took ill, so the conference was postponed until late August so that he could attend.¹⁹

The conference finally convened in Washington on August 27, 1925. The four Mexican delegates were led by Morones and Eduardo Moneda. The AFL representatives were headed by Green and Matthew Woll.²⁰ At the conference, it soon became clear that the Mexicans were also concerned about the problems created by Mexican immigration into the United States, but from a different viewpoint than the AFL. They were worried about the economic and social plight of the Mexican immigrants, and the discrimination they met in the United States, often at the hands of AFL unions. The CROM representatives were intent upon securing guarantees from the AFL that Mexicans in the United States would receive the same treatment from AFL unions as that received by native-born Americans. To help achieve equal treatment, the CROM representatives saw two things which the labor organizations themselves could do: First, they could establish a system of “international union cards” which would guarantee a unionist membership with full rights in the counterpart to his union if he moved across the border. Second, they could make an effort to organize emigrating workers before they left their native lands.²¹

Green and the AFL delegates, on the other hand, were determined to deal with the problems presented by Mexican immigration by cutting it off at its source. They proposed the acceptance of the principle of “voluntary self-restraint.” In effect, this meant that CROM was to pressure the Mexican government into severely restricting emigration to the United States.²² The AFL delegates obviously thought that Morones, presumed to be the strong man behind Calles, would certainly be able to effect restriction.

There emerged from the conference a compromise declaration which embodied both the AFL and CROM views and thus pleased both sides. Each was able to read victory into the part of the agreement which expressed its proposals and to ignore the rest of the agreement and the possible contradictions therein. The AFL succeeded in having the final declaration open with a long preamble calling for the two organizations to press their respective governments for the “adoption and enforcement of this new principle of voluntary restraint.”²³ The agreement did admit, however, that lack of information prevented recommendations for specific legislation at that moment. Thus, the statement recommended that a joint committee, consisting of two members from each organization, be set up to study the problem and suggest specific action.²⁴

At the conference, the CROM representatives had readily admitted that Mexican immigrants often took jobs at lower wages than their American counterparts, but they claimed that this was for self-preservation. Because the immigrants were denied living conditions equal to those of native Americans, they were forced to take the first jobs offered to them. Mexican immigrants, according to the CROM delegates, were also hamstrung because they were denied the “facilities” to organize themselves or to join AFL unions. In order to satisfy these arguments, a statement affirming that immigrants should be guaranteed equal opportunity to join unions and equal status within them was written into the final agreement. However, there was no agreement to establish the most important means of facilitating this—the international union card.²⁵

Green was highly pleased with the outcome of the conference, and he apparently took the Mexican agreement to the principle of voluntary self-restraint to mean that Morones indeed would secure action on the part of the government of Mexico to restrict emigration.²⁶ Upon his return to Mexico, however, Morones made it clear that he in no way interpreted the agreement to favor the curtailment of Mexican emigration. He emphasized the importance of securing equal rights for Mexicans in the United States and said that he felt that the conference had achieved much along those lines. He also interpreted the section of the agreement dealing with equal rights for alien workers to apply to Americans working in Mexico as well, and said that this meant that they should not be entitled to higher wages and better working conditions than their Mexican counterparts. The closest he came to mentioning voluntary self-restraint was to say that CROM had always advised Mexican workers not to leave the country and would continue to do so. Those who did choose to leave, however, should be instructed not to depress wage levels in the United States.²⁷

Immediately after the conclusion of the conference, the official magazine of CROM took pains to point out that CROM opposed restrictions on the emigration of Mexicans into the United States. The only restrictions which CROM favored were those designed to curb the nefarious activities of the “enganchadores,” the men who hired Mexican labor under false pretenses. “The delegates of Mexico and the United States worked hard and nobly,” said CROM, “but, for their labor to be crowned with definite success, many suns and moons must pass, an indispensable interregnum for the Anglo-Saxons to convince themselves that they are not the superior beings they suppose they are.” It would be a long time, the editorial concluded, before the fruits of the labors of the Mexican delegation would be gathered.²⁸

While the Mexicans were emphasizing what could be called the civil rights section of the agreement, the AFL was playing it down. The Executive Council reported to the 1925 AFL Convention that as an immediate means of dealing with the immigration problem it urged the workers of both countries to join the union of their trade in the country to which they went. The council pledged its efforts to bring about observance of this principle by its affiliates, but there is no indication that any major effort was ever undertaken to persuade AFL unions to abandon discriminatory practices against Mexicans.²⁹

By December 1925, Green was beginning to doubt CROM’s desire to fulfill the part of the agreement concerning voluntary restriction of emigration. Reports of some of Morones’ statements on the subject were filtering back to the United States. Clarence Idar wrote Green concerning an interview which Morones gave upon his return to Mexico in which it appeared that CROM was interpreting the agreement differently from the AFL. Green asked Idar to send him a translation of the interview as soon as possible. He reaffirmed his faith in Morones to Idar, but it was apparent that his confidence had been shaken.³⁰ It is true that CROM had been trying to live up to its agreement to help organize Mexicans residing in the United States. Immediately upon the closing of the conference, CROM appointed Idar as its chief organizer in the United States.³¹ There was no indication, however, that Morones was doing anything to have the Mexican government adopt a restrictive emigration policy.

The AFL sent representatives to the CROM convention in March 1926, and they spent much of their time lobbying for enforcement of voluntary self-restriction. They were assured that the Mexican government had no desire to see a large number of its nationals leave the country, and hints were dropped that something would be done after the AFL-CROM committee of four met and came up with some specific recommendations.³²

For some reason, it took over a year to appoint the committee. CROM had named its two representatives shortly after the conference broke up, but Green delayed, possibly awaiting a good reason to have the committee meet in Washington. (The AFL could thereby save some sorely needed funds, and he would also have direct contact with the AFL negotiators.) Finally, in February 1927, an opportunity came with the decision to hold the Fifth Congress of the nearly defunct Pan-American Federation of Labor in Washington later in the year. Green appointed Matthew Woll and Edward F. McGrady, the chief AFL congressional lobbyist, as the AFL representatives on the joint committee and suggested to the Mexicans that the committee meet in Washington concurrently with the PAFL Congress. CROM agreed to this.³³

The joint committee assembled in Washington in early August at the AFL Head Office building. When the meetings were over, it was obvious that the AFL had won its demands. According to Green, he had instructed the AFL representatives to say to the Mexicans: “Unless you meet the issues, unless you stop this influx of immigration into the United States, if you do not do this voluntarily, then we serve notice on you that the quota provisions of the immigration law will be applied to Mexico.”³⁴ Green was, of course, bluffing, for Congress was still in no mood to risk the complications that would ensue with Mexico and Canada if one or both were placed under the quota. But either the bluff worked or the Mexicans signed agreements which they had no intention of carrying out. In either case, the AFL emerged from the meetings with a signed and detailed plan of voluntary restriction of emigration. The agreement outlined political and economic steps to deal with immigration problems. The political steps were ones which could be undertaken by government; the economic steps could be effected directly by the labor organizations themselves.

In the political part of the agreement, CROM agreed to press the Mexican government to enact emigration legislation “which, in substance would conform to the Immigration Law requirements of the United States.” This obviously implied cutting Mexican emigration to the United States to that which it would be if Mexico were placed under the two percent quota restrictions of the National Origins Act. In addition, CROM promised to seek the restriction of oriental and other “unsuitable” immigrants into Mexico.³⁵ In return, the AFL promised not to press for the inclusion of Mexico under the official quota.

The economic methods outlined in the agreement provided more substantial concessions to the Mexican demands, but none of major proportions. The two organizations agreed to cooperate to keep each other informed of labor conditions in their countries which might tempt employers to recruit cheap foreign labor, and CROM promised to make every effort to dissuade workers from emigrating to the United States and Canada. When they did emigrate, CROM was to encourage them to join the relevant American unions, warning them that failure to do so would result in the loss of their Mexican union cards. In return, the AFL agreed to make every effort to ensure Mexicans in the United States free access to and equal membership in its affiliated unions.³⁶ There was no agreement on inaugurating the main goal of CROM—the international union card. The AFL had obviously won a major “diplomatic” victory, on paper, at least.

Green had high hopes for the agreement, for he was convinced both of CROM’s intention to carry it out, and most importantly, of CROM’s ability to have the political steps put into effect by the Mexican government. His confidence in CROM’s ability to do so was based on his assessment of its influence with the Calles government. In justifying the agreement to the AFL Convention in October, 1927, Green said:³⁷

We are trying to get results, and if my information is correct, coming as it does from many sources, the Mexican Federation of Labor wields a tremendous influence in the governmental affairs of Mexico. Particularly does it exercise a tremendous influence in this administration.

Some have said there is an inseparable relationship between the Mexican Federation of Labor and the Calles government; some have said that the Mexican Federation of Labor dictates the policies of the Mexican government. No man can go to Mexico without coming from there with a deep impression that the Mexican Federation of Labor exercises a tremendous influence in the legislative and governmental affairs of Mexico.

If somewhat exaggerated, Green’s information was substantially correct. Unfortunately for the AFL-CROM agreement, however, events in Mexico soon brought about CROM’s downfall from its position of high influence and power. When in July 1928, President-elect Obregón was assassinated, CROM’s many enemies joined with Obregón’s supporters in charging that CROM was responsible for the deed.³⁸ Although the assassin was apprehended at the scene and appeared to have been motivated by religious fanaticism, rumors that Morones was at least the “intellectual author” of the crime continued to agitate Mexico City. Morones and his cohorts were forced to go into hiding to avoid violent retaliation. Calles himself never subscribed to the rumors, and, after interviewing the assassin, he seems to have satisfied himself that the assassination was indeed the act of a religious fanatic.³⁹ The police soon arrested a young Catholic zealot and a nun, who were charged with organizing the affair.⁴⁰

Still, the rumors continued, and Morones and other CROM office holders were forced to resign their government posts. For Calles, the support of Morones and CROM had rapidly changed from a political asset to a liability, and he soon cut his losses. CROM lost its public posts and its influence with Calles’ government and those of his successors. Deprived of its government support, CROM soon virtually disintegrated.⁴¹

The fall of CROM from grace highlighted the importance which the AFL had attached to CROM’s power in Mexico. With the loss of CROM’s influence, the AFL soon lost interest in working with CROM to solve the problems created for both the AFL and Mexicans by the influx of Mexicans into the United States. At its 1928 Convention, the AFL Executive Council reported that every effort had been made, by both the AFL and CROM, to implement the August 1927 agreement, but that “political changes in Mexico” made it impossible to “carry out the voluntary agreement.” Therefore the Executive Council again recommended the endorsement of an amendment to the immigration act making the quota system applicable to Mexico and Central and South America.⁴² The idea of voluntary self-restraint had died a quick death.

CROM was not unduly disturbed by the return of the AFL to backing the inclusion of Mexico under the quota, for by this time the possibility that this goal might be achieved appeared extremely unlikely. Relations between the governments of the United States and Mexico had improved perceptively, thanks to the new ambassador to Mexico, Dwight Morrow, and the new conservative course of the Mexican government, and there was considerable reason for the United States government to avoid antagonizing Mexico. In late 1929 CROM correspondent F. L. Bustamente reported from the United States that, although labor organizations were putting pressure on Capitol Hill to place Mexico under the quota, far greater pressure was coming from businessmen and chambers of commerce against doing so. In addition, the reluctance of the administration to allow a bill to pass which would antagonize Latin American countries unduly, meant that there was little possibility of obtaining the legislation favored by the union.⁴³ The AFL Executive Council admitted as much when, in its report to the 1929 Convention, it pointed to the great obstacles faced by the measure. In the cabinet, the Secretaries of State, Agriculture, and the Interior were actively opposed to it. Only the Secretary of Labor supported it.⁴⁴ Though the AFL continued to press for the inclusion of Mexico in the quota, its efforts in this direction were futile. When Green mentioned them to the Secretary-General of CROM in 1931, the latter was probably replying in all honesty when he said that Green could rest assured that they would in no way affect the cordial relations between CROM and the AFL.⁴⁵

Author notes