The National tribune., 1907-01-31
THE U. S. AND JAPAN.
tuition or law to the contrary notwith-
CONTINUED from page IL

tuition or law TO the contrary notwith-
standing
The bill set out that formerly sep
arate schools We're provided in Califor-
MA for native-born white and colored
children: that afterward the word
white" was stricken from the statute
and in a case brought in California il
was held that Chinese children born in
California were entitled to admission to
all the public schools. For the purpose
of preventing this the section was
amended so that the Board of Educa-
ton might provide separate schools for
children of Mongolian or Chinese de-
scent. At that time there were few
japanese children in California, and
this amendment was made only to pre-
vent the admission of Chinese children
to the schools. The bill alleged that
the japanese are not in any sense Mon
golians, but form a separate and dis
tinct race, and il is asserted that for
more than twenty years and until re-
Gently the authorities in California
have conceded that the japanese arc
not included in the term "Mongoiian,"
and have admitted them to all the pub
lie schools
The cases are now under advisement
by the Courts. and whatever the decis
ion, an appeal will be made to the
United States Supreme Court
The Race and Labor Feature.
Now for the sinister phase of this
very interesting situation-the race and
labor feature. The entire State of Cali
fornia, and indeed much of the whole
Pacific Coast, profess to be alarmed
over the influx of cheap japanese labor,
and its competition, claimed to be ruin
Gus and destructive with the native
labor. 1t is asserted that japanese
coolies are swarming into the country
by thousands, and spreading through
out all the branches of loWpriced man
ual labor. Wherever they appear they
drive out the Americans. Subsistins
on rice and dried fish, and sleeping in
wooden hunks in shacks they have es-
tablished a standard of living to which
native Americans cannot descend, and
consequently offer their services in the
outset at very low prices. Emphasis
should be laid upon the word Outset"
for it is shown that wherever the Jap
anese have succeeded in driving out the
native labor and monopoliZing the field,
they have Immediately raised their
prices and have assumed an arrogant
attitude, to which even the most tyrran-
ical American labor union is stranger.
On the fruit farms and ranches the Jap
anese coolies have virtually supplanted
all the American laborers
The coolies are soon followed by the
small tradeSmen of the same NATIONAL
ity. Storckeepers and restaurant keep
ers they are for the most part, and of
course the japanese immigrants pat
ronize their own countrymen and dis
criminate against the white merchants.
1t is alleged that gradually one line of
business after another is being monop-
olized by the japanese, and that not
content with being laborers and mer-
chants, they are gradually becoming
landowners and buying UP farms.
They are clannsh, and there is no de-
sire upon either their part or the ma
tive Americans to amalgamate in any
way. The Californans look upon the
Japanese as even more undesirable, if
possible. than the Chinese, and it is
charged that the Japanese merchants
do not have the same reputation for
probity possessed by the Chinese.
The Situation Very Acute.
In the city of San Francisco the labor
is very acute. For months a.
boycott was maintained against Japan
ese restaurants by the San francisco
Union, the japanese declining,
with some white restaurauteurs. tol
come into the union. The boycotting
anese restaurants being stoned by mobs
Of boys and young men, and their pro-
prietors assaulted In the streets. Upon
by the Japanese Consul. the
city authorities took rigorous measures
against the offenders. and promised that
the japanese should have all the pro-
lection the city could afford.
The Californians claim that it is pre-
posterous to think of amalgamation of
this alien race with their own. They
point out that the Japanese standard
of morality differs entirely from the
and that their views of the
relation between the sexes is Asiatic
and unthinkable to Americans. They
do not want amalgamation nor even
They want the japanese to
keep away from them, for the indus
trial and social reasons stated.
An Object Lesson.
The Californians claim that they have
a serious object lesson of the danger of
Japanese immigration in the present
in Hawaii, where the Japan
ese have literally overrun the country.
Out of 154 900 inhabitants in the Ha-
waiian Islands at the last census but
$4,000 were Caucasians. There were
Sc, 900 Asiatics, of whom $1,000 were
Japanese. Since that census and up to
1905, $4,000 more Japanese came in.
Since 1905 they have been coming in
to Hawaii in larger numbers and under
a thorough and far-reaching system of
recruiting Hawaii Is but a halfway
place on the way to California, for they
soon leave the Islands and make forl
the Pacific Coast of the United States
According to q report of the United
States Commissioner of Labor, the Jap
anese in Hawaii are now in almost COM
plete control of the clothing trades.
boots and shoes, food products. and oil
the production of coffee and rice. They
are rapidly getting control of all the
building trades and tin work. White
are leaving the Islands. The
Japanese have capital and are taking
over the jobbing trade. They are alb
sorbing the agricultural lands. and it is
asserted that for all practical purposes
Hawaii is to-day a japanese colony.
1t is said that no words can describe
the intensity of the hatred with which
the white mechanics and small mer-
chants of Hawaii regard the Japanese
who have taken their work from them
by doing it at prices for which they
cannot do it except by accepting the
Japanese standard of life. The Cali
fornians say that the white men of the
Pacific Coast are determined that the
japanese shall not be permitted to do
in California and Oregon what they
have already accomplished in Hawaii
They say there is no power on earth
which can compel the people of Cali
fornia to tax themselves against their
will to educate aliens who are notl