ABSTRACT
In December 1939 Fred Edwards left his home in Marysville, California, and drove to Spur, Texas, with the intention of bringing back his wife’s brother in law, Frank Duncan, a citizen of the United States and resident of Texas. They left Spur on New Year’s Day in an old jalopy. Duncan who had been unemployed for some time had twenty dollars with him. They entered California on 3 January reaching Marysville on 5 January. By the time they arrived Duncan had spent his twenty dollars. He remained unemployed for ten days before getting relief from the Farm Security Administration. The movements of Edwards and Duncan were far from exceptional. Migration into California from Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and other states to the east had been the subject of varying degrees of moral panic since the late 1920s. Migrants known as Okies and Arkies had moved to California in order to get promised work in the new agribusiness centres of the California valleys following the dust storms of the Great Plains. By the time Duncan entered California, migrants were mostly looking for work in the defense industry. It was in the defense industry that Duncan was finally employed – in a
answer the question whether, in a nation which protects the free movement across State lines of the products of its fields, factories, and mines, an employable citizen of that nation did not enjoy the same freedom of movement accorded to articles of commerce.’
