June and July, 1958, 1958

Mitchell spent the first part of the summer in California inspecting farm labor conditions; for details on what he found, see his highly pessimistic letters to Fay Bennett and Gardner Jackson (July 25, 30). Before he left for the West, Mitchell delivered a lengthy statement to the House Agriculture Committee opposing plans to make the Mexican Farm Labor Importation Program permanent (June 11). In the course of his testimony, Mitchell charged that California governor Goodwin J. Knight, then up for re-election, was involved in a shady deal involving Mexican farm workers; see Galarza's letters on the impact these charges had in California (June 13, 16) and letters from Gardner Jackson and David A. Munro on their efforts to obtain a signed statement on the charges from Mitchell's source of information (July 14, 17, 28). During this summer, the union conducted an "experiment", operating a labor supply program in conjunction with the Pennsylvania Farmers Association; for information on this venture, see the correspondence with the Association and with organizer George Stith throughout the summer