The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1910-01-28
WOMEN HEAD MOVEMENT
FOR WHITE LABORING MEN
Continued from Page 0ne.)

Continued from Page One.)
property owner, looks at the question
from a property standpoint. In pro-
portion as the city grows will his hold
ings increase in value. Another one
has acreage holdings and wants people
to buy his acreage and settle down to
fruit growing and small farming, But
no white labor means no local markets
and no local markets mean no settlers.
Another one has a small business house
but the Japs spend scarcely anything.
All of them want roads and telephone
connection with the outer world. They'd
get them, too, if the Japs were re-
placed by white labor, because, don't
you see the business there would be
worth going after and the business men
of Everett would mighty soon solve that
road question.
Some months ago the mill changed
ownership, the Crown Lumber Co., with
head offices in San Francisco, taking
over the plant. 1t was hoped that the
new owners would replace the Japs with
white workmen. Conditions were bet
tered for a time. A radical change was
noticeable in the conduct of the com
pany store. White employees were APP
parently left free to patronize it or not
as they choose. The number of Japs
were lessened and more white men tax
en- on. It really looked as if it were
only a matter of time until Japanese
labor in Mukilteo would be a thing of
the past. But a sudden reversion to the
old order soon occurred. Residents of
Mukilteo claim that today there are
approximately IT'S Japanese there AT
least 125 are constantly working, the
balance forming a sort of swing shift
That means that there is always a sur
plus of japanese labor, and what a
handy club it becomes over the heads
of the fifty or sixty whites in the plant
People claim that if whit man is
given a Jap's job the other Japs refuse
to work with the white man. They
cite one instance where the Japs re-
fusing to work with the white man, he
was removed and Jap placed back on
the job.
People wonder if the actual condition
of things at the big plant are really
known by the head officers of the com
pany. They wonder. too. what powerful
interests are in and behind the Oriental
Trading Co. that they can work in such
perfect harmony with a corporation in
perpetrating a condition of industrial
slavery repugnant to every red blooded
American citizen.
Considering the deep feeling Of re-
sentiment at such conditions that have
existed so long among the major por-
ton of Mukilteo population, it is trib-
ute to the law abiding qualities of her
people that little or no outbreaks of
violence have occurred. A citizen of the
TOWN. explained it something like this:
"We have learned that we must go
behind the Japs to place the blame,
They come here for the most part ignor
ant of our customs, our standard of
living or our laws. 1t is the men who
employ them that we must reach for
they are responsible. We discountenance
any attempt at violence because that
would only make matters worse"
Another man said:
ut is a matter for legislation. There
appears to be no way to reach the cor
poration otherwise. They are what you
might call foreign corporation, cater
ing to local trade not at all. There
must be legislation enacted that will
stop corporations from employing Ash
attic labor as long as there are idle
white men in the country who need
work."
eyes, my friend, but legislation on
the subject is very far away as long as
the federal government maintain its
present position. 1t is not so long ago
that the legislature of the State of
California was about to pass some anti
Japanese laws, no more drastic than
yours would be. 1t is still fresh in our
minds how the big stick at Washing
ton, D. C., swung over the heads of
those impetuous legislators.
The same gentlemen we quoted awhile
back, said apropos of the Mukilteo
chamber of commerce;
"Our body has been criticised in some
quarters because we have not taken a