The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1906-12-13

/
striving to avoid poking the Goals He
Is aware that the venerable honorable
Japanese problem is ticklish, and he
sees the necessity of politeness. Ac-
cordingly for the present he seems to
have sheathed the big stick and re-
sumed the presidential smile. The
average citizen, irrespective of party,
no doubt will assent to this course as
the way Of wisdom. We are not look
ing for trouble with Japan. This is
hot party question. It concerns all
the people. Peace with honor, peace
with politeness--that is the thing.
The race question as to the Japanese
in California and elsewhere on the Pa
cific coast is sectional just now, but it
may become general San Francisco
does not object to the Japanese in
racial sense on the same ground as the
south objects to the negro. The OBJ
lection is based, strange to say, large
~ upon the aptitude Of the Japanese
for acquiring American business eff
cheney and for taking the place of the
white man as a workman The Jap
as everybody in California calls him
is apt. He picks up information with
! surprising celebrity and adapts it to
his uses with amazing ease. He is not
an intellectual inferior There is not
so very much objection to his inter-
| marriage with the whites-none at all
in many instances. In this respect he
is not to be considered along with the
Chinese. The Jap is of higher order.
Union Labor Aroused.
California has discovered that the
Japanese are taking away the white
| mans business and the white mans
| job. Union labor, which is particular
" strong in San Francisco, is up in
arms against the Nipponese for that
reason There is a state labor or
ganization in opposition to Japanese
| encroachments. When they find it de-
sirable these imported people can work
very much more cheaply than white
men can work, because they can live
more cheaply. The same condition OBJ
tains in business. They can make
hard struggle. With the Japanese COM
petition in business many white men
go to the wall. -.
There is man in Japan named Nj
shomura, who controls the cobbler
trade in San Francisco. He operates a
regular monopoly in shoe mending.
His monopoly extends to other impor
tant towns in California. He has a
system, operated by his agents in that
state, which has made it almost imper-
alive for you to get your shoes soled
by a Jap. He is rich and lives in his
fowery Japan.
One Uchigama of San Francisco mo-
nopolizes the potato growing business
in the rich Sacramento valley. He is
millionaire. He corners the San Fran
| cisco spud market when he likes. He
employs Jap labor altogether on his
vast potato plantations. E0'
One Nagasama of San Francisco
owns and operates one of the largest
vineyards in California He used to be
a domestic servant, a "housemaid."
He is worth millions. His wines are
| drank in New York, Liverpool, London,
| in each of which cities he maintains
branch establishments. .-.
Not Americans, but Subjects Of Japan.
There is growing up in California a
line of Japanese communities in the
midst of white communities. The Japs
have their own banks, their own shops,
their own clubs. They are not citizens
! Of the United States, but subjects Of
Japan. They come over, in fact, to ac-
quire occidental culture and occidental
| cash, returning to apply these two con-
| venient commodities to the glory of
Nippon and to their own personal ad-
| vancement in the land of flowers. Each
| Jap who takes American education and
American money to his native island
| adds to the intellectual and material
| strength Of his empire.
He adds also to it's fighting strength
Therein lies food for thought. Fifty
| years ago the United States opened
| Japan to modern civilization. We crow
ed about it for nearly fifty years. We
! sent our emissaries to the island en-
| pire, teaching them about the white
mans God. Yet the Shinto shrine and
the Buddhist temple flourish in San
| Francisco, and in the great temple at
Tokyo the $4,000 gods Of ancient Nip
pom still grin with sardonic grimness
and the greatest Of these is the war
god.
The Japanese can fight Did they not
whip the Chinese in 1894 and the Rus
slams in 1904? Only the other day
they launched the most powerful bat
tleship afloat and from a native ship
yard too. They learned how to build 1t
from us and from Europeans. In
America and Europe they are learning.
learning, day by day and year by year
Shall San Francisco at it's own eX-
pense educate large alien population
so that this population may return to
Japan and use the education thus ac-
| quired in strengthening the mikado's
empire to the end that the empire may
fight more vigorously and more intelli-
gently against us in the event of war
| when the ultimate ma StorShin IF the