Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1904-12-23
Japs in the Single Mills.

has done more to demoralize prices
than any other cause, is simply owing
to the fact that the plodding, pains.
taking little brown mans product is
the result OF careful attention to de.
tails OF manufacture
This should not be so. The willie
man has superior intelligence and
equal skill, with the advantage that
he has the trade at his fingers ends,
while his competitors have to be
taught many things belonging to the
difference in national environment.
An American takes naturally to ma.
chinery, and he is surrounded BY
woodworking devices peculiar to his
country from early life. japanese
readily adapt themselves to handi-
craft, but their methods are OF the
slow, ploIding nature, and it is just as
true that they are readily adapted for
development: OF skill for operation
of machinery. To meet this condi-
ton We have white labor combined,
moro to ensure good wage rate than
the manufacture Of satisfactory pro.
duct. 1t seems to be main object to
regulate their plans after the custom
OF the inhabitants of Dean Swift's
"Pbilosopher's Isle" where everything
was operated by abstruse mathemati.
cal calculations that were made to es-
tablished precise rule. Equal and ex.
act Justice seems to be the rule adopted,
which properly applied, may not be
Objectionable, but when perverted by
an effort to render minimum service
for the maximum pay, is wrong in
principle and will inevitably clash,
when confronted by conditions which
afford an insurmountable factor for re-
ducing wage-cost in presenting pro-
duct OF general use with practically
the world for q market. Instead of
producing good article at the least
cost to the employer, the effort seems
to be to get over the minimum amount
of work with very little attention to
those details which contribute so much
to excellence of the finished product.
In other words, the disposition, seems
to be, as alleged by mill proprietors,
for white laborers 10 just even up their
pay, without any thought Of possible
embarrassment in markets when their
wares are brought in competition with
work done under different conditions.
Unions may provide for maintaining
the ratio between labor and other
costs that enter into these considera-
tions, when the former is rendered by
white men, whose maintenance is
based upon a fixed sum expended for
good food and clothing, for self and
sometimes with dependents to support,
but when that important factor of
production is reduced to tho cost of
serf labor, wide margin is presented
for competition between the American
and Jap product in the open market.
The present stagnation to the shin
gle trade in the State. is largely owing
to this condition of affairs. It has
made owners of mills ready to sell and
the little Brown man as willing to buy,
and the result is now under develop.
ment at Bellingham. The Japs have
bought. it is said, several mills, and
begun operation OF one in that city.
The single weavers have made vigor.
Gus protest and besides inaugerating a
boycott Of the Jap shingles, have served
notice on the intruders to leave the
country. and even attempted TO wreck
the mill. They we're discovered by
the Japs, one night last week, med.
ding with the machines, with the
evident intention of placing them in
condition for breakage when the
mill started up. They were elected
by display of firearms. and q guard
has been established with instructions
to shoot if there is any further moles.
tation.
1t is feared that the end will de.
velop into open warfare under the
feeling that exists between the shin
gle-weavers and the Japs.