Mississippi failed to attract much outside investment or European immigration, although European Jews settled in the larger cities such as Meridian and Jackson. Planters recruited Chinese workers for agriculture from 1900 to 1930, but the newcomers did not stay long in the fields. They became merchants in small towns. Planters also had recruited Italian workers for field labor, and they complained about peonage conditions to their consulate. A State Department investigation ensued in some areas, including an Arkansas plantation owned by prominent US Senator LeRoy Percy of Greenville, Mississippi.