Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1900-11-01
HERE IS THE DANGER.


with an invasion of cheap Asiatic labor.
This glaring fact which stares us in the
face ought to cause the people to prepare
to meet it as they would the announce
ment that vessel from the Orient came
ladened with passengers sick with bubon-
ic cholera. In the one case our physical
being is menaced, in the other the whole
fabric of our republic is threatened.
The question in this election is up to
the laboring man and the small mer-
chant. Their very existence is endan-
gered. Already in this state we have
fully $1,000 japanese cheap laborers,
brought into this country illegally. This
is not drop in the bucket to what we
will have if the bars are to be let down.
Take the Philippines and the millions of
coolie labor in that country can come as
freely to the United States as they could
go from Washington to Idaho. Judge
Estee, of the federal bench, has just de-
cided that Chinaman living in Hawaii
can come to the United States and take
up his abode Notwithstanding the exclu-
sion law. Can you not see, then, what it
means for us to take the Philippines?
Already the places in this state have
been taken by cheap japanese labor. At
Everett 400 men have been discharged
and Japs placed at work. Two hundred
Japanese are working in the Port Blakely
mills to the exclusion of whites. And
there are whites wanting the places. Two
hundred and lightweight men registered
in Everett the other day asking for the
work being done by these Asiatic labor
ers. Hundreds of men walking the
streets of Seattle seeking work.
A small boy was arrested the other day
in that city for stealing. 1t developed
at the trial that his father was hunting
work; that he, too, had sought work but
with no success. He had a mother and
sister to support. They were starving.
He stole to satisfy their pangs of hunger.
Within the sight Of the court that tried
the boy are employed as dishwashers,
porters, window cleaners and in other
like occupations, fully twenty Japs.
And this is America, the boosted land
Of the free.
Is this not lesson. Is there labor
ing man in the state of Washington who
can close his ears, aye his eyes, to the
condition now and what it will be after
we have taken the Philippines and un-
loaded on this country million more of
this kind of laborers? This is not the
first lesson. We have had trouble on this
coast with the Chinese. We shut them
out by an exclusion law. That law ex-
pires in two years more. Such prominent
republicans as Grosvenor, the mouth
piece for the administration on the floor
of the house Of representatives, does not
favor the extention of that law. The re.
publican party in convention assembled
did not express itself on that question.
The policy it has pursued in the past
two years indicates that it wants this
cheap labor in our country. It seeks to
retain islands 1000 miles distant that
our country may be flooded with coolie
labor. The homes of the American
workingmen are endangered.
Workingmen Of the state of Washing
ton in this election you must express
yourselves. Believing or not some Of the
principles Of Mr.. Bryan, his election IL
your only salvation.