The Kalispell bee. [volume] (Kalispell, Mont.) 1900-192?, 1903-01-30
The Oriental Trading Company and
Japanese Laborers.
(Communiated.)

From the perusal of a short article
entitled Contract Labor" published
in the kalispal Bee of the 10th.
inst, the writer thinks it his duty
to point out the fact that its argu-
ments are based. for the most part,
on erroneous reports, and therefore.
wishes to prevent the misunderstood
ing of the people along the line of
the Great Northern railway. especial
ly the people of Kalispell, as to the
method by which the Oriental Trad
ing company is furnishing food and
clothing to the Japanese laborers
who are employed by the said rail
way company through the agency of
the former company
Whether the railway company
owes more to the people of Montana
in drawing its revenue from them
than the state owes to the company
fol her growth and development. is
mooted question. The statement
that the Great Northern Railway
company spends two million dollars
for Jap labor has been ridiculously
exaggerated. In fact, it does not
spend any more than one-fourth of
the amount mentioned. The article
continues to read, Since employment
of Japs no supplies have been pur-
chased from the local merchants.
What little -four and rice the Japs
use is supplied from a central store
by padrone and is transported free
OF charge by the railroad company"
One might as we'll make the mistake
to shoot wood cutter for a bear,
sheep for a coyote. and a shadow for
Harry Tracy. We are far from plac-
ing the blame upon the author of the
article for these erroneous reports,
and will be content in calling to his
special attention that the office of
newspaper man is to inform the
reader of the facts and occurrences
of our daily life in correct sense
The only provisions which We i'm
port from Japan to supply the Japan
csc laborers are rice, misc Cooked
beans), and shayn Ca kind of sauce).
The last two articles cannot be made
in this country. Had they been made
here and sold by American merch-
ants, We would have bought entirely
from such merchants instead of hav-
ing them imported from Japan, pay
ing high custom duties, through a
long. roundabout way. The quality
Of rice sold in this country is so in
ferior to that which is imported from
Japan that the laborers cannot eat
it All the rest of the food, such as
flour, meat and groceries are almost
exclusively bought from local mer-
chants.
1t is true that rice and the two
other articles thus imported from
Japan are supplied to the laborers
from our central store at Seattle,
and transported by the railroad COM
pany: but the company charges us
freight, though the author mentioned
it as being free of charge. For an
illustration, we take a last month
carload, weighing 20,S40 pounds, con-
sisting principally of rice, misc and
shayn, which was shipped from Seat
tie to Kalispell. The freight duty We
paid for the transportation is s2s3.07.
These supplies. together with those
bought from local merchants, have
been transported to the Japanese
sections and gangs distributed along
the line of the Great Northern rail- |
way from Cut Bank to Spokane, for
the transportation of which we paid |
nearly $780, and such are every |
month occurrences.
That we are buying from local
merchants food and clothing, hard |