Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1913-04-18
THE CALIFORNIA SITUATION.

/ THE CALIFORNIA SITUATION.
Editor Honolulu S.ar-Bulletin,
| Sir: AT the present time, while the
interest of the people Of Honolulu IS
enliyened by the legislation enacted
/ ny the California legislature anent the
Japanese question, a statement OF con
ditions in California may not come
amiss, and a comparison of these
/ conditions I'M Hawaii nei might en-
tighten those who have never been in
California, and therefore know OF
| conditions which are heaTsay only.
| As for myself, can speak of actual
observations, and while must admit
that am prejudiced unfavorably to
the Japanese, will try to give an
4 unbiased statement of facts. ~.
! have not the context Of the bill
passed by the California solons and
now reposing in the hands of the
governor of that sovereign state
awaiting his signature or veto. -.
Senator j. B. Sanford, of Ukiah,
CAL, father of the bill, is a newspaper
man of ability and has been mem
Der of the legislature for several
terms. He has seen other anti-Jap-
anese legislation enter and pass mus
ter of both houses, only to die in the
hands of the preceding governors, be-
cause big stick had been swung un-
comfortably close to their official
heads. Senator Sanford's constitu'
ency being composed largely of far
mers and fruit rafsers, who were be-
ing hard. pressed by the forcing tao.
/ tics of the Japanese and several class
es of Southern Europe and the Near
East, he has evidently found it nee.
essary to offer some method of es.
cape from the Entertainments of
these classes of people. Nearly
every member of the California leg
/ islature has within his jurisdiction
not one, but many cases of the en-
croachments OF the Japanese upon
their own homes. Assemblyman
Stuckenbruck, whose home is in the
| fruit belt of San Joaquin county, is
practically surrounded on all sides by
the Japanese who have leased most
of the orchards-or at least the best
orchards of the districts, and demand
such exorbitant wages as SIPS per
day for the inferior, quality of their
labor in other orchards that the own
ers of the poorer orchards are prac-
tically forced to either abandon them
or lease them for what they can get.
The strawberry output of Sacra-
mento county, raised within stones
throw of the capitol, is controlled by
the Japanese, who ship carload after
carload to all parts of the coast.
The grape industry As rapidly COM
ing under the domain of the little
brown men by right eof purchase and
lease, and at the present rate. al
which they have been acquiring such
property they would probably have
controlled the industry throughout
| California, as they do now in Fresno
county, within years. r.. ~
| George Shima, probably the great.
est Japanese financier on the coast,
controlled the potato output of the
United States by the crops raised on
the thousands of acres which he own
| ed and leased in the delta lands of
the Sacramento and San Joaquin riv-
ers, and in Texas. Last year, for the
first time in the past eight or ten
years, potatoes have been so cheap
! that it did not pay to dig them, be-
| ing sold at % cents sack in the field
or so cents on the levee, and all be.
cause few Japanese and Chinese
saw the big money that was being
| made by Shima and tried to break
his corner, They must have succeed
| ed, for / have never before heard of
| potatoes being so cheap. 1t is said
Shima lost several thousand dollars
by the process.
In San Francisco, the Japanese live
in any part of the alongside the
white man, and in many instances
own their own homes. They are not
segregated as are the Chinese, and
compelled to live in a restricted dis
trict Some few people, who have no
scruples against that race of people,
sell the property to them and there
by depreciate the value of adjoining
properties. =. i
Newcastle, the center of large
| fruit district, has recently had its
troubles a few Japanese having
bought property or secured leases and
practically compelled their white
neignbors to sell out or lease to them
to rid themselves of company which
they considered noxious-but not un-
til after lawsuit proved that the
leases could not be broken or the
property sales abrogated Vacaville,
the cherry district, is dominated by
the Japanese. va
A comparison of conditions in Ha-
waii will show the same conditions as
to the ownership and leasing of prop
49, ~ ~,
noticeable because of the fact that