Doesn’t Anyone Remember Tom Lehrer?

In the entire weekend discussion of the President Bush’s “guest worker” proposal for (mostly) Mexicans in the United States, there was a yawning omission. Doesn’t anybody remember Tom Lehrer, George Murphy, or the braceros? As the master himself was wont to say, “Here’s a song about that.”

Shortly after the 1964 election in which California elected a singer/actor, George Murphy, as its new Senator, Tom Lehrer presented his musical “salute to your new junior senator” at the legendary Hungry I in San Francisco. Some of what Lehrer said and sang, so long ago, requires updating. In his introduction to the song “George Murphy,” he said, “I'm from Massachusetts, and I feel that we have a certain right to gloat over the other states because Massachusetts is after all the only state with three senators.” That is no longer accurate. Substitute Arkansas for Massachusetts and it becomes accurate today.

But part of that old, relatively unknown song is current, accurate, and applies to the Bush proposals on Mexican workers in the United States. The few of you who are devotes of the opera of Lehrer know exactly where this is headed. You’re smiling; I know you are.

“Hollywood's often tried to mix
Show business with politics
From Helen Gahagan
To Ronald Reagan
But Mister Murphy is the star
Who's done the best by far....”

Gahagan was a Congresswoman from California, a former Broadway star, defeated by Richard Nixon in a campaign that attacked this actress as being “pink down to her underwear.” The names of the candidates have changed with the passing decades, but not their politics. Ronald Reagan was just beginning his first term as Governor of California. Thirty-nine years later, Hollywood is still up to its Spockian ears in politics.

But the subject of today’s sermonette is the Bush proposal on Mexicans in the United States, and what should and will happen to that proposal as it wends its way through Congress. The charges and countercharges, the social and legislative battles have only just begun. But in the flood of words broadcast and written in the opening weekend of this struggle, no one mentioned that we HAVE ALREADY HAD such a program. It worked. And it lasted for 22 years.

“The movies that you've seen
On your television screen
Show his legislative talents at a glance
Should Americans pick crops, George says no
'Cause no one but a Mexican would stoop so low
And after all, even in Egypt, the pharaohs
Had to import Hebrew braceros....”

The Bracero program was negotiated in 1942 between the US and Mexico, and adopted by Congress as a law. With so many Americans going into the military, or into war production industries, there simply wasn’t the manpower available for American farmers to bring in their crops with American labor. On an accelerated basis, the US and Mexico agreed that hundreds of thousands of Mexicans would come into the US for certain agricultural jobs, at certain minimum wages, with a savings program built in with that money being returned to the workers when they returned to Mexico.

There were problems with the bracero program, but overall it was essential to the economies of both the United States and Mexico during WW II. In fact, the program worked so well that it was extended after the war for 20 years, not ending until 1964.

My understanding of the bracero program is that Mexico cooperated with the US in policing the border between our nations, and that illegal immigration was held to an absolute minimum. The Mexican workers in the US were not guaranteed general access to American schools or medical facilities, and when they had children born while they were in the US, those children were Mexicans, not Americans.

The program was ended because of the conclusion that the program caused the Mexican “guest workers” to be treated inhumanely. Yet the opposite conclusion, that anyone in the United States regardless of how or why they got here are entitled to the full panoply of American health, education and social services today is bleeding our nation dry in public costs, especially in California, Texas and Florida.

Am I suggesting that anyone should die for lack of emergency medical care, as Billie Holliday did on a southern highway because, being black, she could not be taken to the nearest hospital? Of course not. But I am suggesting that the level of services available should be a matter of negotiation between the US and Mexico, with Mexico participating in the payment of the costs for that.

Next is the matter of citizenship. There have been instances of Mexican women who are eight months pregnant, dying in the deserts of Arizona, or in locked vans attempting to smuggle them into the US, because they wanted their children to be born in the US and therefore become American citizens. This is an insane result for all concerned, and Congress has the power, if it so chooses, to solve this problem by legal definition.

No child born of parents in the US illegally, or legally under tourist or guest worker provisions which require them to return to their own nations, should become American citizens by accident of such births.

Again, I am not suggesting any attempted change (if attempted, I do not think it would succeed), to change the citizenship status of any child or adult who is now recognized as an American. However, going forward, this problem can and should be solved in the legislation that will eventually grow from this proposal.

A good friend of mine, and colleague as a journalist, is a Canadian who married an American, is working toward his American citizenship, and all three of their children are Americans. If one parent is an American, the children are American. And, the goal of preserving families should be retained. This policy only presents a problem when it is pushed to the limit – an infant just born to illegal immigrants is an “American” and therefore the entire extended family of eight people have a leg up on remaining in the US and becoming American citizens.

And let’s address the tendency of “immigrant rights” organization to avoid the word “illegal” in all they say and write, and even going so far as to claim that it is prejudicial even to refer to these “undocumented workers” as “illegals.” When Jesse James robbed a bank at gunpoint, was he making an “undocumented withdrawal”? When a fat cat pays a bribe to a politician, is he only making an “undocumented political donation”? Gimme a d*mned break.

If and when a legislative program results from the Bush proposal, it should make an absolute distinction between all who are granted the right to work in the US for a period of years, and those who have violated US law and continue to violate it by staying here illegally. A centerpiece of the legislation should be that all Mexicans or other nationals who wish to work in the US MUST sign up for the program with full ID (photographs and fingerprints) to do so. And all who do NOT sign up that way, are subject to immediate arrest and deportation. To give Mexico an incentive to control its own side of the border, the costs of apprehending and expelling all illegals after the new program is set up, should be reimbursed from the Mexican government.

As the saying goes, “the Devil is in the details.” Those who think the US should stick its head in the sand and continue to ignore a disastrous situation will label any steps taken now as “amnesty.” But the program will not actually be an amnesty if it draws clear differences between those who are “guest workers” and those who are following all aspects of the law to earn their citizenship through existing channels.

The bracero program between 1942 and 1964 brought at its maximum about 700,000 Mexican citizens per year into the United States to work. It is both amazing to me, and appalling, that none of the politicians or talking heads who weighed in on the Bush proposal this weekend ever uttered the word “bracero.” It is garden-variety common sense that if the nation has done something in the past, any present proposal ought to take into account both the benefits and the liabilities of the last program, in designing any new program. “Those who forget their history are condemned to repeat it.” Georges Santayana.

One last tidbit from Lehrer’s song is appropriate here, since we are now into a presidential election year. Murphy’s two best-known performances on Broadway were in musical reviews. (His film appearances were mostly in B movies.) The song ends:

“Yes, now that he's a Senator, he's really got the chance
To give the public [long piano riff, punch the last four words] a song and dance....”

About the Author: John Armor is an author and columnist on politics and history. He currently has an Exploratory Committee to run for Congress.

When Jesse James robbed a bank at gunpoint, was he making an “undocumented withdrawal”?

Nope.

But, in those days, we hanged criminals or threw them in the gaol. In fact, in my town they used to have a "hangin' day". The people merrily gathered for the festivities, spread their blankets, broke out the fried chicken and watched the sheriff give the criminals a short ride on a shorter rope.

Nowadays, we hand out the blankets and fried chicken to the criminals while the politicians pick the pockets of the taxpayer to fund more blankets and fried chicken for the criminals.

It seems it is about time to bring back "hangin' day".

I vote we start with the politicians (you excepted, of course, Congressman) and then move on to cleaning out all the illegals in town (we can find them easy enough) and ship them back where they came from. They get one get-out-of-jail-free card, and then they get to join the politicians as the entertainment if they decide to show up again, uninvited.

This is a serious problem. We need to address it in a serious way or we are in even more serious trouble!

I wanna go back to Dixie,
Take me back to dear ol' Dixie,
That's the only li'l ol' place for li'l ol' me.
Old times there are not forgotten,
Whuppin' slaves and sellin' cotton,
And waitin' for the Robert E. Lee.
(It was never there on time.)

I'll go back to the Swanee,
Where pellagra makes you scrawny,
And the honeysuckle clutters up the vine.1
I really am a-fixin'
To go home and start a-mixin'
Down below that Mason-Dixon line.

Oh, poll tax2,
How I love ya, how I love ya,
My dear ol' poll tax.

Won'tcha come with me to Alabammy,
Back to the arms of my dear ol' Mammy,
Her cookin's lousy and her hands are clammy,
But what the hell, it's home.

Yes, for paradise the Southland is my nominee.
Jes' give me a ham hock and a grit of hominy.

I wanna go back to Dixie,
I wanna be a Dixie pixie
And eat corn pone3 till it's comin' outta my ears.4
I wanna talk with Southern gentlemen
And put that white sheet on again,5
I ain't seen one good lynchin' in years.

The land of the boll weevil,
Where the laws are medieval,
Is callin' me to come and nevermore roam.
I wanna go back to the Southland,
That "y'all" and "shet-ma-mouth" land,
Be it ever so decadent,
There's no place like home.

As good today as it was in 1964

Yep. Not much changed has it?

Remember the war against Franco?
That's the kind where each of us belongs.
Though he may have won all the battles,
We had all the good songs.

Vaughn Meador was supposedly on a plane to Las Vegas on the day JFK was gunned down. As popular as his act was, Meador was a one-trick pony and his entertainment career died in Dallas just as surely as Kennedy's had.

Meador was greeted by someone as he got off the plane. The person asked: "Do you know Kennedy's been shot?"

Thinking it was a joke, Meador used his Kennedy voice to reply "No, but if you'll hum a few bars, I'll try to fake it." Suddenly, nobody wanted to hear anyone cracking jokes with a Hyannisport accent.

Meador's life went all over the map after that from street person to minister until he died a few years ago.

Thanks for the interesting post.
I had wondered whatever became of Meader.

I have, over the past two years, seen an old Dick Van Dyke episode on TVLand where Dick and the other cast members are entertained by some comedian they know who does Kennedy (and other) imitations for them, cracking jokes. It was filmed in 1963 and it is eerie to watch.

I like his intro to "Folk Song Army", from his album:

"One type of song that is coming to increasing prominence in recent months is the folk song of protest. You have to admire people who sing these songs -- it takes a certain amount of courage to get up in a coffeehouse or a college auditorium and come out in favor of the things that everybody else in the audience is AGAINST -- like peace, justice, and brotherhood, and so on.

But, the nicest thing about a protest song is that it makes you feel so good. I have a song here which, I realize, should be accompanied on a folk instrument (in which category, the piano does not, alas, qualify) -- so, imagine if you will that I am playing an 88-string guitar. "

""During the bracero program, women were not permitted in the camps."

Kids under 21 aren't allowed permitted to drink; under 18 not permitted to smoke. Marijuana is illegal, too"

What I meant was that women were not part of the bracero program, just young men.

Later in your post, you are correct. Lots of us have ancestors who entered this country illegally, I'm quite certain.

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