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Well, I don't think anyone in the Department of Labor thought this was a labor problem. At that time it is struck me as being strictly a Southern problem and a farming problem. That's not true, however, because the problem of agricultural labor really came sharply to our attention in the Southwest, where you had factories in the field, as someone put it.

Sharecropping is not the prevalent form in that area, nor is tenancy. The prevalent form is large acreage owned by one person or a company. It had originally been owned by one person, but one family had tended to become a company. Stock had been bought. They began to put canning and freezing factories right down on the same road with the fruits or vegetables. Some shipped to market and some canned right on the spot. Then we had trouble. There was a process in which the fruits of the earth were handled not the way men used to handle the soil and the earth as a wonderful natural phenomenon, but as a chemical process in a factory. You take one chemical and put it into the ground. Then you take some seeds and put them in there. A chemical action takes place and before you know it there are peas. You then pick the peas. They're run through a sheller, through a grader. They run right into a hopper into a can. The can is moved along on a conveyor belt. It's sterilized and heated. The capper puts on the cap.