OCR Text |
Show For Humanity's Sake The following appeal from Clifton, Clif-ton, Arizona, to the Arizona congressional con-gressional delegation, gives one a clear picture of what is happening happen-ing in the copper mining communities commun-ities of tne west. Utah, Arizona and Montana are the three largest lar-gest copper-producing states in the Union. The time has come to demand of Congress immediate relief from the importation of duty-free foreign copper. "Announcement has been made this past week by the Phelps Dodge Corporation that operations opera-tions in the Clifton-Morenci copper-mining district would cease about July 1st. It is difficult to picture the situation sit-uation to you and your colleagues. collea-gues. For some months past operations oper-ations have been on a curtailed basis of two to three days per week, which means that most families with small savings have been compelled to use a part of these savings to live on while wor&mg only part time. Now that they will bp deprived altogether of any income ri'ts these families on charity immediately. A great many of these people have lived here from 10 to 30 years, have raised families here, have a small income; but as nothing can be raised in a rough mountainous district such as this, they are compelled to buy everything every-thing which they eat, and, with no income and pactically no savings sav-ings you can no doubt realize the condition. It is nothing short of criminal that a condition can come about whereby a community of some 8,000 or 10,000 people can be closed down to the point where an actual exodus must take place and our population scattered to the four winds and thrown on an already serious unemployment condition throughout the country. The conditions here are no different dif-ferent from those in copper camps all over the country, but as copper mining has been the chief industry of our State the condition here is acute. While people living in the agricultural sections of the State have their homes and can raise a part of their living, they are dependent to a great extent on the mining camps for a market for then-products, then-products, and you can no doubt realize the conditions in our farming farm-ing districts, which are almost as serious as in the mining camps. Tf this session of Congress will put a tariff of 5 cents per pound on copper imported into this country, it will make it possible for the mining camps in this Statf: to keep operating and give employment to the thousands who are now wihout a means of livelihood. live-lihood. It will also alleviate the suffering of the families who must now depend on the charity of the world at large. We would urge with all the force at our command that you get the picture of conditions in this State, as well as other copper-mining Sates, before youi honorable colleagues in Congress and ask them, for humanity's sake, to consider most seriously and immediately the imposition of a tariff on copper imports. Yours most sincerely, HARRY W. HILL (and 489 other citizens of Greenlee Green-lee County, Arizona.)" |