The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-05-11

San Francisco in justification of it's
 savage and illegal proceedings This l time the better element in San Fran | cisco has resorted to the right remedy It is trying to send many prominent i persons to the state prison. That is
 the way to do 1t. The prospect of im- l mediate punishment makes municipal
 officers keep honest.
 It has so happened in the course of human events. that the San Francisco
 school board, perhaps the most ridicu-
 lous body or the planet-has been able ] to make itself conspicuous throughout l the civilized world. The only valid ar ! gument that has been set forth for the
 exclusion of Japanese from the or l dinary schools is that grown Japanese
 came into the primary grades in order 1 to learn the rudiments of English. This | is undesirable. The simple and obvious l remedy for the abuse was the exclu-
 sion of all adults from the primary
 grades. That this method was not usea was due to political considerations The measures which were taken were
 due to race and industrial prejudice. l The anti-Chinese of the '70's had a cer- l tain justification. It looked as if the 1 immense population of the Chinese em-
 pire might empty itself into the United
 States ani swamp the Anglo-Saxon. 1 The Chinese are, from the purely economic point of view, the best immi-
 grants that we have ever had. They
 have tireless industry; they are eco-
 nomical, temperate, thrifty. They are very canny, md at the same time they
 are more honest than any other people.
 Any bank in San Francisc will tell you that the word of a Chinese merchant 1 is better than the bond of most white men. The same respect for a contract, | verbal or written, is characteristic of ] the working classes. They are the only i class of working men in the state upon whom you can depend. The funda- mental objection to them is that they
 are, industriously and commercially,
 too smart for us. l suppose that we
 have right to protect ourselves
 against their superiority by excluding l them.
 The Japanese have not the eomnier- l cial honor of the Chinese. It is less
 than fifty years since this great ani highly civilized nation has emerged
 from feudalism. Under any feudalism I persons engaged in what we call "bus-
 mess" are regarded as seamps and
 swindlers, and, being so regarded, they | are such. The emergence of Europe l from the feudal system began some six
 centuries ago, and during these six l centuries western civilization has been
 trying to build up a standard of com ! mercial honor without very conspicu-
 ous success. If the Japanese are be- 1 hind us in this regard, we must re- member how short time they gave had! If the Chinese are ahead of us. We must remember that they never | had to pass through the feudal system,
 and that from time which is almost immemorial the merchant has been
 held in the highest esteem so long as l he was honest. When he was not hon est he was gone. But the Japanese are sowing a desire and capacity to ac- quire this new virtue among the other | good things which they have found in western civilization It should be ada
 ed that a great deal of what seems to us lack of truthfulness in them arises from an exaggerated politeness. But the Japanese as we see them here have many virtues, and as for the children they have better manners and better morals than white children of the same class. We could treat the Chi
 nese in this country as we pleased or
 exclude them altogether; but the Jap
 anese have behind them highly power- ful, sensitive and warlike nation who will not put up unresentfully with an insult The action of the school board was a simple and gratuitous insult to
 the subjects of friendly nation and it was intended so to be. It Is often said
 out here that we could Tick" Japan.
 Perhaps we could in the long run, but we certainly do not want to.
 l understand that the eastern papers
 publish most contradictory accounts of
 such progress as has been made in the rebuilding of San Francisco, and have been often asked what is the truth con- cerning it. The buoyant hope and de- termination which first followed the disaster were superseded by a period
 of depression. There was such an amount of dirt (politely called debris)
 and the dirt was of such an appalling
 character, made up of dust and ashes,
 brick, stone, structural iron and steel, and many less imaginable things, that
 the mere clearing away in order to
 build seemed a hopeless task. but hope
 returned. l do not go to San Francisco
 often. It is not pleasant place just
 now; but every time I do go, am in- creasingly astonished at what has been
 done. While many of the buildings are f1imsy, temporary structures in which enormous business interests are housed. already there are complete, or nearly
 so a great many substantial buildings
 of kind to do credit to any city, and
 hundreds more are begun. When the completeness of the destruction and
 the awful scarcity of material and la-
 bor are taken into the account, the progress is simply amazing. With the
 blessing of him "who giveth beauty for
 ashes,' there will be a greater and
 nor splendid San Francisco than be-
 fore.
 SHOES OF WHALEHIDE.