Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1909-03-13
A PROBLEM THAT
MUST Be SOLVED
So Says a Prominent Californ-
ian Regarding the jap
anese Question.


Republican in Golfers Weekly.
Do the American people realize that
they are now facing on our Pacific
frontier what may easily become the
most significant crisis which the west
ern world has confronted since Their
mopylae--a question not of policy or
prosperity or progress, but Of exis-
tence!
Nothing can keep our Pacific coast
essentially a white mans country eX-
cept our continued determination to
keep It so. Nothing can preserve the
essentially American social texture OF
the state bordering on the Pacific, eX-
eept the preservation Of the racial in
.egrity 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 new frontier
at the Rockies the Mississippi or the
Atlantic, with all west of the new line
outside the precincts of the white mans
world. 1t Is question on which
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 Pacific coast no
future generation will ever have the
chance to establish IL 80 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 flood from the Orient has start
ed. Nothing can stop ii unless we do.
We did stop it from China, because
China was helpless, but that helpless
ness will not last long. 1t has been
checked from Japan by the grace of
Japan, but that grace may not last
long. And we may have to deal with
India about It, But the reservoir that
Is tapped Is limitless. Literally hun
dreds OF millions of brown 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, If they are
equally free to do so. And then-the
deluge.
The worst of it is that, temporarily
and economically, we need them, end
therefore some of our short sighted cap
italists desire them. 1t is a fair and
empty land that awaits development
and IL Is capable of being exploited
far more rapidly than the white man
alone can do it. Industrially. the West
can be full grown in one generation
II we will permit it. but not by the
labor of all the white men it can get
The West can absorb men faster than
white men are Consenting to come
A deliberate dog in the manger policy
is the only way to reserve for future
generations of our race the resources
which we have not time nor men 10
develop 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 Ia disappearing The
migratory hobo is not desirable either
as a worker or a citizen. In the grest
fruit industries the harvesting is being
done more and more by Orientals, In
dians and Mexicans. The Pacific Goa st
Is the ideal region of the world for the
small farmer where a few acres make
a competency and the isolation of coun-
try life 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
furrendering to the japanese volun-
| tary monopoly. The japanese will not
accept subordination. He knows that
he is the equal of the white man, and
he is quite prepared to maintain that
equality. large population Of native
born japanese would have the right to
vote and would insist on exercising It
Up to the present time the japanese
have refused to Understandable 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
welcome are our interiors. The Jap
| anese, to whom we object, are, as q
race, our equals. But they are a diff
ferent race, physically, and nature will
keep them different through all the
| generations unless there is mingling OF
blood We owe 1t to the posterity OF
both races that this experiment be not
/ tried, in either America or Japan.
Since that far day when there first
awoke in the white mans breast the
| germinal instinct to go west" the
whole history of one-half the world
has consisted in following that i'm
| pulse. The other half of the worlt
was, IOT US, on Il u1IIerenL planet. NOW
! at last the long migration is ended anC
the two have come together. The fu.
| ture will turn on the new relation OF
| these hitherto unrelated halves AnC
the nature Of that relation will depend
! very largely on what we do in the i'm.
mediate future in California. Oregon
! Washington and British Columbia
| Shall the frontier OF the white mans
! world be drawn at the Golden Gate, ol
right down the middle of our socia
structure? Shall the line be geographi,
! or social? Or if we repeat in Cali.
fornia the Hawaiian experiment shal
! there be another geographic frontier
with California forever on the brown
! mans side of it?
This is not a plea for an immediat,
! exclusion treaty, or any other specific
measure. But It is the cry OF the un.
born generations of the West for the
right to be born Of Occidental blood
| and under American institutions. II /,
! the call to the warders of the western
! mark to be true to the trust which ;
! hundred generations Of westward far.
! ing men have bequeathed to them
! And it is reminder of the high dut,
/ not 10 surrender at the Western Dor.
| der and at the elimination OF our civi,
| lization the victory which the heroe,
| OF Thermopylae won for us in at tn,
Eastern border in the beginning. 1t II
! the one message, the only essentia
/ WI no