The Bon Homme County independent. [volume] (Tabor, S.D.) 1904-1913, 1909-03-18
A PROBLEM THAT
MUST Be SOLVED
So Says a Prominent Californ-
ian Regarding the Jap
anese Question.
chester n. Roweli, Edltor Of h FRESNO

IL HOIlu ~ ShAN~S L
mopylae-a question not of policy or
prosperity or progress, but OF exis-
tencei
Nothing can keep our Pacific coast
essentially a white mans country ex-
cept our continued determination TO
keep 1t so. Nothing can preserve me
essentially American social texture OF
the state bordering on the PACING, eX-
cept the preservation of the racial in
tegrity Of their population. And II that
is not guarded, nothing can prevent the
caste system and the wreck OF free IN
stitutions from spreading backward
over the mountains and across the
plains. absolutely without limit, until
the white man at last takes another
stand and establishes q new frontier
ut the Rockies, the Mississippi or the
Atlantic. with all west of the new line
outside the precincts of the white mans
world. It is a question on which a
blunder once made, can never be rec
titled. The frontier of the white mans
world must be- established some day,
somewhere. Unless this generation es-
tablishes 1t at the PACING coast no
future generation will ever have the
chance to establish it so far west or TO-
maintain 1t anywhere except by. war
and permanent lines Of garrisoned for
tresses. The problem is ours in the
next few years in California, Washing
ton, Oregon and in the capitol and
White House. The consequences are.
the whole worlds, everywhere for
ever. :
The food from the Orient has start
ed. Nothing can stop it unless we do.
We did stop 1t from China, because
China was helpless, but that helpless
ness will not last long. 1t has been,
checked from Japan by the grace or
Japan, but that grace may moi last
long. And we may have to deal with
India about 1t. But the reservoir n
is tapped is limitless. Literally hun
dreds of millions of brow men, yell
low men and bronze men would now
like to come to America, for the same
reasons that the Europeans wanted
to come; and they will come, just as
the Europeans have come, IL they are
equally free to do so. And then-the
- deluge.
The worst of it is that, temporarily
and economically, We need them, and
therefore some of our short sighted cap
itallsts desire them. 1t is a fair and
empty land that awaits development,
and it is capable of being exploited
far more rapidly han the white man
alone can do 1T. Industrially, the West
can be full grown in one generation,
If we will permit it, but not by the
labor of all the white men 1t can get.
+ The West can absorb men faster than
white men are c~onsenting to come.
A deliberate dog in the manager policy
is the only way to reserve for future
generations of our race the resources
which we have not time nor men to
deSelop ourselves.
Already we raise more fruit than
we can hire men to gather, even with
the aid of Indians, Mexicans and such
~orientals who have been admitted. Our
large land owners cry aloud for work
ers, and they like the Oriental best.
Under the policy Of laissez faire, the
free play of natural forces would soon
work out the inevitable result. 1t has
begun already. The class of free white
farm laborers is disappearing. The
migratory hobo is not desirable either
as q worker or a citizen. In the great
fruit Industries the harvesting is being
done more and more by Orientals, In
dians and Mexicans. The Pacific coast
is the ideal region of the world for the
small farmer, where a few acres make
a competency and the isolation Of coun-
try lie disappears. But there are be-
ginnings which, il unchecked, would
mean the end of the small farmer, also.
The Japanese does not remain q coolie.
When he can, he buys or rents land.
Wherever many Japanese settle, as
owners or renters, white men move out,
surrendering to the Japanese a volun-
a monopoly. The Japanese will not
accept su~bordination. He knows that
he ia the equal of the white man and
he is quite prepared to maintain that
equality. A large population OF native
born Japanese would have the right To
vote and would insist on exercising 1t
Up to the present time the Japanese
nave refused to understand-and per-
haps we cannot blame them, since we
mostly do not understand ourselves
that insistence on race separation does
not mean the assertion Of race inferior
ity. Many OF the Europeans whom we
.,,nloDN,,A va ~ fnfnNinrG Tho Ton.
anese, to whom we object, are, as G
race, our equals. But they are a diff.
ferent race, physically, and nature viii
| keep them different through all thu
generations, unless there is mingling o.
blood. We owe it to the posterity O.
both races that this experiment be no
tried, in either America or Japan.
Since that far day when there frs
awoke in the white mans breast tn,
germinal instinct to "go west" tn,
whole history Of one-half the worlC
has consisted in following that i'm
I pulse. The other half Of the worl'
I was, for us, on a different planet. Nov
I at last the long migration is ended ant
! the two have come together. The fu
: ture will turn on the new relation o
these hitherto unrelated halves. An,
the nature of that relation will Deepen,
very largely on what we do in the i'm
! mediate future in California, Oregon
, Washington and British Columbis
, Shall the frontier of the white man
: world be drawn at the Golden Gate, o
right down the middle of our socis
. structure? Shall the line be geographi
: or social? Or If we repeat in Cali
fornia the Hawaiian experiment, sha
there be another geographic frontie
with California forever On the brow
mans side of 1t?
This is not a plea for an immediat
exclusion treaty, o. any other specif
measure. But ii is the cry of the vi
born generations of the West for til
right to be born of Occidental bloc
and under American institutions. 1t
the call to the warders Of the wester
mark to be true to the trust which
hundred generations of westward fal
ing men have bequeathed to Their
And it is a reminder of the high dut
not to surrender at the Western boz
der and at the elimination of our civ
l~ization the victory which the herot
of Thermopylae won for US In at II
Eastern border in the beginning. 1t
the one message, h only essenti
message, which h Pacific coast hs
to utter to the American people.
"