re have been more migrants than
ever. One reason is that while in the past we used to eat fresh
peas, beans, strawberries, and the like only in summer, now we
want fresh fruits and vegetables all year round. To supply our
wants, great quantities of fresh fruit and vegetables must be
raised in the warm climates where they will grow.

Another reason is that more farm machinery is used now, and one
tractor will do as much work as several families of farm
laborers. So the extra families have taken to migrating or
wandering about the country wherever they hope to find work.

A further cause of the wandering is the long drought which turned
part of our Southwestern country where there had been good
farming into a dry desert that wouldn't grow crops any more. The
people from the Dust Bowl, as the district is called, had to
migrate, or starve. A great many of them went to the near-by
state Of California, which grows much fruit and vegetables. There
are perhaps two hundred thousand people migrating to California
alone each year.

Of course there isn't nearly enough work for them all, and there
aren't good living places for those who have work. That means
that the children--like you--don't have the rights of young
American citizens--like you. A great many of them can't go to
school, and are growing up ignorant; and they don't have church,
with all it means to us. They don't have proper homes or food, so
they haven't good health; and because they are not in their home
state or county, they cannot get medical and hospital care.

You may think we have nothing to do with them when you sometimes
pass a jalopy packed inside with a whole family, from grandma to
baby, and outside with bedding and what-not.

But we have something to do with them many times a day. Every
time we sit down at our table we have something to do with them.
Our sugar may come from these children's work; our oranges, too,
and our peas, lettuce, melons, berries, cranberries, walnuts . . . !
Every time we put on a cotton dress, we accept something from
them.

For years no one thought much of trying to help these wanderers.
No one seemed to notice the unfairness of letting some children
have all the blessings of our country and others have none. By
and by, the counties and states and Federal government tried to
help the migrant families. In a few places the government has set
up comfortable camps and part-time farms such as this story
describes.