1960: "Harvest of Shame"

this taking place in the congo it has nothing to do with johannesburg or cape town it is not nasa land or nigeria this is florida these are citizens of the united states 1960. this is a shape up for migrant workers the hawkers are chanting the going peace rate at the various fields this is the way the humans who harvest the food for the best fed people in the world get one hired looked at this and said we used to own our slaves now we just rent them the secretary of labor looked at the migrant plight

and said i think that a great mass of what i called the excluded americans they are people who cry out the workers and their children and their wives who cry out for some assistance and whose plight is a shame it's a shame in america the president of the american farm bureau federation the largest farmers organization says i think that uh most social workers would agree that it's better for a man to be employed even if his capacity is such as to limit his income and uh we take the position that is far better to have

thousands of these folks who are practically unemployable earning some money doing some productive work for at least a few days in a year this is an american story that begins in florida and ends in new jersey and new york state with the harvest it is a 1960 grapes of wrath that begins at the mexican border in california and ends in oregon and washington it is the story of men and women and children who work 136 days of the year and average 900 a year they travel in buses they ride trucks they follow the sun well

i don't know it don't look like we'll ever get ahead i guess we'll just have to keep going until we can find something better a minister named cassidy who works with them says they are just as bad as a slave only on name they are not a slave but in a way they are treated they are wishing a slave and somebody has to make it thousands of dollars out of his sweat is that a slave or not they are the migrants workers in the sweat shops of the soil the harvest of shame brought to you

tonight by philip morris incorporated makers of marlboro filter cigarette with the unfiltered taste now edward r murrow this is cbs reports harvest of shame it has to do with the men women and children who harvest the crops in this country of ours the best fed nation on earth these are the forgotten people the under protected the under educated the underclothed the underfed we present this report of thanksgiving because were it not for the labor of the people you were going to meet you might not starve but your table would not be laden with the luxuries

that we have all come to regard as essentials we should like you to meet some of your fellow citizens who harvest the food for the best fed nation on earth david lowe talks to mrs doby 34 years old mother of nine children mrs dolby what uh what what things do you pick up north we pick strawberries and cherries who works with you out of this family here everybody except the baby who takes care of them in the field well they just kind of stay along with us or take care of themselves the one that can't

walk usually stays in the baby buggy what is an average dinner for the family well we just you mean what do we have in yes we well i cook a pot of beans and fry some potatoes or some corn or something like that how many quarts of milk do you buy for the children well we don't i don't we don't have milk except maybe when we draw our paycheck we have milk about once a week for all these children the baby has uh she is on the bottle and she uses about 15 cans of milk

a week but the older children have milk about once a week do they like to drink milk mrs dylan yes they like milk the only reason i asked that question i was quite shocked that they had milk only once a week just thought they didn't like it but they they like milk but it's well there's so many it a gallon of milk will make them a glass around and so we just can't afford it every day what do you want most for your children mrs doby well i'd like for them to have a career whatever

they want to be when they got older of course the smaller ones they've not don't realize yet to know what they'd like to be but the older the older girl she'd like to go to school if she could because she'd probably be like the boy have to quit since she's old enough she's she really likes to go to school but she had to miss last week because she had to keep the baby for me to work mrs joby wouldn't you ever care to have a house of your own i'd like to have a house if

we plan to buy one if we could ever get enough to pay down on one we'd buy one do you think this will ever happen well it don't seem like it this is belle glade florida where the exodus has its beginning every year the migrants call it their home what the circus people call their winter quarters their sarasota charles goodlatte chief of police of belle glade says the problem that we have now are the ones that that come here that uh don't have the money to rent a room uh they they'll sleep around the bars

in the grass and the packing houses around the lake area in the parks any place they can find to to sleep to rest for a few hours they come here with one thought in mind is to survive till the end of this season and save enough money to get to to the next state going north from towns like this throughout florida and throughout the south the two to three millions move out on their annual migration which ends in late november they carry with them whatever little they possess whatever little they are at the okeechobee labor

camp while families were preparing to move north there was still some work in the bean fields children as usual were left to fend for themselves jerome uh how old are you nine nine do you go to school yeah awesome where do you go to school jerome i did it over children elementary school i see what is your sister's name that's lois and uh what are your other sister's names katherine and beulah catherine and beulah what happened to your foot jerome jiggling at the battle wash us see you drove a nail in out by the wash

house what did your mother do for that she put some alcohol on where do you sleep jerome in his bed you have this big bed yeah what happened how did you get that hole in that bed there jerome rats but what now jerome you are taking care of kathy of beulah and lois yes now are you going to give them lunch today yes what are you going to feed them almost uh do you have any food here to give them yes i see what time does your mother come home the following day a lean king

the mother of jerome kathy lois and beulah again was picking beans ailing king i saw your children yesterday at the okeechobee camp why didn't you put them in the nursery don't make enough to pay for it how much does it cost to put them in 85 85 cents that's right elaine what time did you come out the field this morning six o'clock what time would you get home about 3 30 4 o'clock six this morning to four o'clock this afternoon that's right how much did you earn a dollar one dollar that's right one dollar is

that because the beans were poor quality that's right has this happened before that's right uh how much will your food cost you today about two dollars alien how old are you 29 how many children do you have 14 how old were you when you first started working in the fields eight you've been working 21 years on the field that's right eileen do you ever think you'll be able to get out of this kind of work no sir all the migrants travel fourth class if there is a privileged class they ride in their own jalopy in

the best jode family tradition the long journey begins through atlanta nashville indianapolis on route to the fields and orchards of america lowell has been following the migrants for the past nine months some are freewheelers who travel as a family unit he met the parsons family as they were about to leave belle glade tomatoes for indiana strawberries mr parsons do you think the farmers you work for care about your problems nelson they're not in particular worried about you they just want their stuff out and you get away as quick as possible would you say that you're

welcomed when you're needed well that is the only time that you are welcome is when they are needing you they're they're friendly and everything but once they're done with you why they'd rather for you to move did they ever ask you to leave their places oh yeah they tell you if you're finishing up like tomorrow while they had rather for you to be out and gone in about three days and that way they'll cut down on their electric bills and all the other stuff what do you want most in this world for you and your

family i'd like for my family to be well stay together as much as possible i'd like to be on a farm somewhere out away from many people to where they could attend one church and be interested mostly in one school and that way i believe they'd all be better satisfied mr parsons do you think this will ever happen not to raise it i'm going now no most of them ride 1500 to 2000 miles to work in vehicles owned by crew leaders who recruit the workers for the migration north this is the roach family looking for

work mr roach how did you happen to come to this place well i came to augustine and i was talking to some people and they told me to came on down to weight cross that it was drop smart work around waycross see well how many miles you've been traveling looking for work so far about sixteen hundred and something mr roach where did you spend the night last night with your family over in the woods fell off on the side of the road our little dirt road is left side in the woods outside your car may

i ask you sir what did you have for dinner and your family last night well we had uh blowing sausages on our loaf bread that isn't very good food for a growing family is it well we made on it how much money do you have in the world right at this moment i'll have about a dollar uh 45 cents well what do you intend to do about food for your family today well i've i've always worked and always figured i could i could get work i had never been where i couldn't get a little something

to do the vegetables the migrants picked yesterday move north swiftly on rails produce on route to the tables of america by trailer is refrigerated and carefully packed to prevent bruising cattle carried to market by federal regulation must be watered fed and rested for five hours every 28 hours people men women and children are carried to the fields of the north in journeys as long as four days and three nights they often ride ten hours without stop for food or facilities the first stop is normally at yuli florida one mile from the georgia border a checkpoint

for farm labor leaving the state there are other stops kingsland georgia for bread and sandwich meat dairy and georgia for facility a roadside stop on route in south carolina one thousand miles north of belle glade florida by way of u.s route 17 and 301 through jacksonville savannah charleston wilmington and newbern is elizabeth city north carolina a bean stop good for six weeks worth this camp was home for 40 days for the families of tom lockett's crew now 30 hours out of belle glade miss blakely how many years have you been working in agriculture in the

fields practically all of my life i haven't did no other way much but in the field all of my life i raised all my kids awakening i noticed that uh there's some straw over there what is that for well that was the straw they brought for the people to sleep on well uh weren't mattresses supplied here they used to be but they ain't now mrs blakely where is the water supply over here that's it red job for how many people but this and that'll be honestly all used the same and how many how many bathrooms

are there here now where do you where do you use the bathroom where where are the facilities don't have one we use our tin tubes uh mrs brown how did the children uh fare on the journey up north well they got kyle you know when rudder you know that soul riding handling but we made it miss brown may i ask how old you are i'm 37 mrs brown how many years have you been working in the fields all my life do you remember how old you were when you started i was about a year old

would you like to get out of this work i shall war do you think you'll ever be able to i'm hoping so do you think you'll be able to though i don't know 20 miles from kitty hawk north carolina the workers driven 900 miles north by crew leader norman hall picked beans at the prevailing rate of 50 cents a hamper lunch is not a picnic whether brought from the labor camp or purchased at the open air kitchen or in a bottle heated by the rays of the sun in a survey in 21 states conducted by

the national council of churches the migrants themselves listed the evils of labor camp life bad housing flies mosquitoes dirty beds and mattresses unsanitary toilets and lack of hot water for bathing one employer of hundreds of migrant laborers was asked are they happy people well i guess they got a little gypsy in their blood they just like it a lot of them wouldn't do anything else a lot of them don't know any different that's all they want to do they love it they love to go from place to place they don't have a worry in the

world they're happy than we are today they eat tomorrow they don't worry about they're the happiest race of people on earth mr jones do you think that uh the migratory labor makes a living wage they make a poor living in other words uh sometimes it's just like the farmer sometimes when things are good when the yields are good and they can make good money they make a good living it but take year in and year out from different seasons different sections of country i'd say no they make a poor living there are days when beans

are not ready for harvest and that's one more day with no income ed king a crew leader hauled his workers to this camp at powell's landing virginia where they worked five weeks pulling corn and picking beans and when the fields have been stripped in north carolina and virginia the trucks and buses again move north this is little creek ferry outside of norfolk 20 000 migrants are ferried to the fertile fields of the virginia cape and the eastern shores of maryland and delaware for beans tomatoes asparagus and potatoes for one crew hardship was climaxed by disaster

the death of a migrant we had a little trouble on the road about four o'clock this morning sunday morning and um our car and a little red has this ever happened before with any cruise coming up north once as i remember or the federal law what happened everybody got killed every year as predictable as the seasons there are accidents resulting in death and serious injury to these laborers on june 6 1957 at the intersection of u.s route 301 and state highway 102 nine miles from fayetteville north carolina 21 migrants were killed 17 males three females

and the baby boy the police report stated one of the causes of the high loss of life was the packaging of the occupants of the truck today only six states have laws providing for the safe transportation of migrants within their borders the state of north carolina is not one of the six secretary of labor mitchell hardly a year goes by that we don't read in the paper of some very serious accident where uh sometimes a dozen or more people have been killed purely because there is no interstate standard with regard to safety another complication of

the migrant stream is the constant flow of foreign workers into the available pool of domestic workers hundreds of thousands of mexican brasseros and thousands of offshore laborers from the caribbean area hired by contract depress the wage scale of the domestic migrant this controversy is most bitter on the west coast joseph woods a marine combat veteran of the pacific competes against the brasseros lo talked to the woods family under a tree which was their home in california mr woods how did you happen to pick this spot to camp well someone told us about it and they

said it was all right to camp here where do you get your water supply we go to town after and how do you bring it back here in can we have a 10 gallon can what do you use for sanitary facilities mr wood well just get by the best we can how many days will you have to be picking cherries in order to find enough money to move into a house well probably quite a few they usually want a month's rent in advance so by the time the cherries are over here we'll be moving somewhere

else anyway mrs wood tell me about the children do they go out in the orchards and work with you when you work well we have taken them out sometimes but they're a little too small to work who takes care of them here my father stays here and takes care of them usually do you think that you'll ever make enough money picking fruit mr woods in order to get settle down in one place and have a home of your own i don't think so throughout the united states there are others like the woods family who are

not able to enjoy the luxury of living in a labor camp in new jersey a few miles from princeton is this labor camp there are two water taps and two outhouses families live in one room usually in one bed the single men live in the bull pit four people live in this room in new jersey a family of six will move into this room nearby a trotting raceway has new stables for horses they cost five hundred thousand dollars at cutchog new york 300 migrants live in this camp owned and operated by the potato growers association

of long island this is migrant housing 90 miles from times square today some have tried to leave the endless migratory stream wherever this happens the local slum areas expand this is riverhead long island new york the minister said this is as primitive as man can live this settlement of former migrants is called the bottoms in chenango county new york state a farm labor camp the ultimate goal of ed king's crew 1257 miles from belle glade the migrant mission serves one half pint of milk and one cracker to each child this is their lunch their parents

eat lunch in the field sometimes 75 miles away this is the living space of the lean king and her five children the room is similar to their winter quarters in belle glade only smaller charles schuman president of the american farm bureau federation says we were the only group of people that furnish housing for our workers and we furnish these uh extra benefits perquisites some people some sections call it the furnish and it's almost impossible to calculate the value of these added benefits the same time we don't condone inadequate housing mr schuman why does the american

farm bureau federation so violently oppose federal legislation i think there'll be more rapid progress with state regulation than there will be with federal regulation we think that uh federal legislation will follow the route that almost all federal legislation does of additional and more stringent and more regulations with more and more red tape and more cutting to a certain pattern all over the country in effect uh it would probably rule out the use of migrant labor very quickly the middleman between the farmer and the migrant is the crew leader a remnant of the padron system in

wide use 60 years ago ed king a crew leader says well the crew leader he have to in a way you have to be the father and mother and all when he takes his crew out because the whole crew mostly be dependent direct down here reverend michael cassidy who travels with the migrants says well um some of the crew leaders they are good but the majority of them they are bad they are so bad that they are the worst that they can be they're trying to skin alive these migrants they take every diamond the dime

they make they try every scheme is possible for instance they they pay the the owner the grower pay them 45 cents to pick a crate of tomatoes and then they turn around they pay the labor 12 cents at the mosque and uh natural they have three or forty or fifty or a hundred people picking tomato he makes i know a man last year making here right in here fourteen thousand dollar the crew leader and all the men they left in here and i met him in alabama they were broke they never died because they didn't

make the money themselves everyone who knows anything about this situation agrees that the best hope for the future of the migrants lies in the education of their children but for the children of migrants education is not easy to come by there are six hundred thousand of them most state child labor laws ignore farm children and so far the children of migrants are concerned almost without exception they leave school at the age of 16 forever the united states office of education reports that the migratory workers have the highest rate of illiteracy in the country approximately one

out of every 500 children whose parents are still migrant laborers finishes grade school approximately one out of every five thousand ever finishes high school and there is no case upon the record of the child of a migrant laborer ever receiving a college diploma only six states have summer schools for migrants the new jersey school center is at cranberry laura how old are you 11 11 what grade are you in in the sixth sixth grade uh do you intend to go to high school laura yeah what would you like to be i'd like to be a

teacher what would you like to teach about i like to teach the fifth grade what do you think about going to school here in cranberry new jersey harry i like it i like it look good would you uh do you have any idea what you want to do when you grow up be a teacher well good how old are you patricia eight what grade nine what grade are you in so do you uh have any idea what you want to be here when you grow up yeah what's that a nurse otis what would you like

to do when you grow up i'll be a doctor you're going to be a doctor yes what kind of a doctor do you know a dentist mrs christine schack their teacher was asked about her pupils mr shank uh do uh your pupils who are most of them children of migrant families uh are they anxious to get an education terribly anxious even more so than the child in the normal school year do they get any help from their parents as far as school work is concerned usually you will find that the parents themselves are not educated

when we go out to enroll the children oftentimes the parent will make an x and the person interviewing will have to sign it in order to get permission for the child to be enrolled in school mr schack how does this problem affect you personally i think maybe i feel a bit of responsibility toward these children because i realize that we here in new jersey reap the benefits of their parents labor and the children are suffering because their parents are here doing this i saw one bright little girl her name was laura weeks will she really

have a chance to continue her education laura is from a rural area in florida and she is from an exceedingly large family in fact i believe there are eight or nine girls all girls in the family they have been coming to new jersey now for about three or four years to my knowledge laura is one of my returning pupils i've seen great progress from year to year and laura we've had her for three sessions however i think because of the family's financial conditions and its size of the family and the fact that she is in

a rural area that she probably will get no farther than upper junior high school or maybe complete high school with luck what about harriet damon harriet two is from a very large family there are nine children the daemon family we have six of them here in the summer program she is the oldest of the nine i doubt seriously that harriet will have an opportunity to advance her education one can't help but have compassion for those who find themselves in such a condition the federal government spend six and a half million dollars annually protecting migratory wildlife

this year congress failed to appropriate three and a half million dollars to educate migratory children senator harrison williams chairman of the subcommittee on migratory labor was asked if state or federal legislation was the answer many aspects can only be successfully uh dealt with at a national level for example wages uh we we can't uh we see states in competitive positions they're reluctant to raise wages or through legislation in their state because their farmers are competing with farmers in other states and we see in education some states who have taken great strides we can't expect states

to do it alone uh when they know their neighboring state with whom their farmers compete or not doing anything uh we we know that uh just about everybody in this country has some federal support for adequate housing through fha or whatever the program is except the farm community and the migrant farmer is the most poorly housed member of our society senator williams a democrat and secretary of labor mitchell a republican have called for legislation which will probably come before the next session of congress and only last week president eisenhower made the presidential committee on migrants

a permanent body but the real problem is that there are many kinds of farmers and many kinds of crops the big mechanized grain and dairy farmers use little or no migrant labor some of the major canneries do pay fair wages and provide adequate housing however it must be stated that most of the fruit and vegetable farmers find it economically impossible to build good housing like this to be used only six weeks a year the farmer claims he is trapped between what society expects and his market demands howard jones a grower in florida was asked if

he knew what his beans picked that day would bring in the market well uh you can't tell from one day to another some days you'll go down there and you'll get five dollars and i've seen them drop to a dollar a half the next day but one day they'll be three dollars the next day there might be two one day there'll be two and the next day there could be four who set your price well um that's what we all trying to figure out uh everybody i don't know the answer but uh the chains have

seemed to have more would do with setting the prices than anyone else it's too much difference between the price that they're paying the farmers all over the country and something they've we've thought about trying to get somebody to investigate it some of the congressmen the senators but you go up out of washington we had a group of boys go up there here a couple years ago they gave them a run around agriculture department they all give them a run around i i we believe that those chains have lobbyists in washington and they're going to do

pretty well as what they please mr mitchell some of the growers have told us that the chain stores fix the prices and they cannot meet those prices if they pay their labor a higher wage what about that well i wonder if that's a very valid argument that might be said of many other industries it might be said for example of the garment industry and i've heard it alleged that retailers dictate to the manufacturer the price they will pay for a garment and in effect say you produce the garment at that price no matter what it

takes to produce it however the garment worker in this country fares very well in terms of standard of living due in large measure to the efforts of people like mr patofsky and mr davinsky of the ilgwu and the amalgamated clothing workers and others who have taken what was a very substandard in the industry the in this not so long ago 1911 the great fire in new york uh today these workers are are thriving members of the community and and the price that my wife pays for a garmin today she gets a much better garment and

then than her mother ever had at a lower price so this argument that the uh that the farmer has to meet the dictation of the chain store leave me rather cold the migrant farm worker occupies the lowest level of any major group in the american economy the soil has produced no samuel gompers or john l lewis as secretary of labor mitchell states i think the afl-cio in the past has been too preoccupied with the other affairs and probably the farm problem was so tough that they were reluctant to tackle it i think their attitude and

policy has changed and they're making a greater effort now to organize than they ever have in the past farm labor however is excluded from all federal legislation designed to protect the rights of those engaged in interstate commerce to organize and bargain collectively in 1959 the afl cio set aside a hundred thousand dollars in an effort to organize the fruit pickers of california one of the large growers in california was asked what he thought of this effort to organize the fruit pickers i think their very lack of progress and their very lack of success in signing

up members has shown that the industrial type of union which they represent has no place or application to agriculture charles schumann president of the american farm bureau federation was asked how his organization felt about unions i think that the agricultural worker has needs to have the right to change jobs freedom to move about freedom to quit if he doesn't like it freedom to protest freedom to negotiate or they are organized but the right to strike at the time of harvest ought to be regulated in some manner the af of lcio organizing committee in california thinks

differently earlier this year they called a strike meeting of cherry pickers in stockton summer and the pay has been too low a meeting reminiscent of the days of auto and steel organizing in the 30s we have a stand as one or fail keep your hand upon the dollar an official of the organizing committee your negotiating committee met with cherry industry representatives for the first time in the history of agriculture they set a minimum of 110 per 16 quart bucket for good and average picking now some contractors and growers will try to beat down that minimum

price they'll say that they can't afford to pay 110 a bucket for the big crop that they're squeezed but the chrysler imperial needs fixing or junior thunderbird is on the blink now it's up to you and the rest of the pickers it's your program it represents united action sure you can get a job but if you can't live on what you make what good is the job you make about five or ten dollars today and tomorrow you're just looking for job and they stay on the street looking for jobs you what do the local people

supposed to do we live anywhere in a tent under a shade tree under river bridge we drink water out of a creek or anywhere we can get it five or six families drink out of one cup a tin can or anything else we would blame we tolerate that stuff if we stick together and say we won't do it we won't pick your chairs until you give us some uh restrooms in the field for the ladies and some for the men and some water fit to drink we won't pick them we get them the fruits of

the earth must be harvested to feed and sustain mankind what have you to show for picking since the harvest has begun we have barely made expenses but we've set a going scale keep your hand upon the dollar and a dime for every pail the question posed by thoughtful men is must the two to three million migrants who help feed their fellow americans work travel and live under conditions that wrong the dignity of man howard van smith awarded a pulitzer prize for his series of articles on migrant labor in the miami news says this i knew

next to nothing of the migrant situation four to five years ago i knew there were migrant camps but a migrant was just a person who worked in a farm to me after seeing what i have i am sure that i will devote the rest of my life to doing what little i can to help solve this problem secretary of labor james mitchell says i feel sad i feel sad because i think that it it's a blood on my conscience as well as the conscience of all of us who are whom society has treated a little

more favorably than these people they have no voice in the legislative halls they certainly have no voice in congress and their employers do have a voice their employers are highly organized and make their wants and terms and conditions known to our legislators i know of no greater pressure lobby so-called in washington than the farm group in all the the matters in which i am interested in i have been frustrated to a greater extent than in any other sphere of activity as secretary of labor in my inability to make any impact at all on in terms

of either regulations or law that would help the farm workers and the pressures of the farm groups are are tremendous we guarantee to the farmer no loss in certain crops there the farmer likes to participate in the government largest but uh lord help the fellow like myself who dares suggest that perhaps the government should do something about the workers that work on farms it seems to me that that in our kind of a country we no longer quarrel with the idea that a man is worthy of his hire a fair day's work for a fair

day's pay after all uh the employers of this country as indeed the workers are part of our uh of our way of life and uh uh it's it's morally wrong it seems to me for any man any employer to exploit his workers in this day and age i don't think we should tolerate it as a citizen in or out of this office i propose to continue to raise my voice until the country recognizes that it has an obligation to do something for them and while men of goodwill seek to write injustice the migrant the lonely

wanderer the outcast is trapped in the stream now it is november the last of the laborers in trucks buses and cars approach the southern states to start the cycle all over again the sunshine state welcomes them back homestead immokalee pahokee belgrade and hundreds of other communities this is home new housing is available the rent is 15 per room per week the migrant is at the mercy of the weather this year in florida there was a freeze killing beans tomatoes celery corn its byproduct was a bread line migratory farm workers are not eligible for unemployment insurance

this happened in the united states in 1960 a line of humans waiting for a ration of tinned goods milk and bread the secretary of labor says for the rest of my life in or out of office i propose to do something for them a hardened newspaper man says for the rest of my life i will do what little i can to help but perhaps julian griggs a chaplain for the migrants speaks for all of us is it possible to have love without justice is it possible that we uh think too much in terms of charity

in terms of thanks to giving day baskets in terms of christmas baskets and not in terms enough of eliminating poverty the migrants are back in belle glade winter quarters after months of travel and work one said he brought back a dollar and 65 cents another said six dollars another said we broke even we were broke when we left broke when we got back we asked him what they thought they could do to help themselves and they said nothing what can we do last week a presidential committee made up of the secretaries of labor agriculture interior

and health welfare and education made certain recommendations regarding the migrants here are some of them extend child labor laws to cover agricultural workers eliminate residence requirements so that migrants will be eligible for health education and welfare programs a federal law requiring crew leaders to register thus protecting migrants from exploitation extension of workman's compensation laws to agriculture new housing regulations states to pay local school boards for the education of migrant children there will of course be opposition to these recommendations too much government interference too expensive socialism similar proposals have been made before in fact 150 different

attempts have been made in congress to do something about the plight of the migrants all except one has failed the migrants have no lobby only an enlightened aroused and perhaps angered public opinion can do anything about the migrants the people you have seen have the strength to harvest your fruit and vegetables they do not have the strength to influence legislation maybe we do good night and good luck harvest of shame has been brought to you tonight by philip morris incorporated maker of marlborough filter cigarette with the unfiltered taste cbs reports harvest of shame was filmed

and edited by the staff of cbs reports under the supervision and control of cbs news you