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

N -
j THE CALIFORNIA SITUATION.
/ Editor Honolulu Star-Bnlletin,
Sir: AT the present time, while the
Interest OF the people of Honolulu is
enIivened by the legislation enacted
i by the California legislature anent the
Japanese question, statement of con
1 ditions in California may not come
amiss, and a comparison of these
i conditions in Hawaii nei might en-.
Tighten those who have never been in
/ California, and therefore know Of
conditions which are hearsay only.
\ As for myself, can speak of actual
observations, and while i must admit
] that l am prejudiced unfavorably to
! the Japanese, | will try to give an
unbiased statement OF facts,
| | have not the context OF the bill
i passed by the California solons and
i 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 newspaper
man of ability and has been mem.
Der Of the Legislature for several
j 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-
1 cause big stick had been swung un,
comfortably close to their official
heads. Senator Sanford's eenstitu,
ency being composed largely of far
mers and fruit raisers, 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 encroachments OF
i these classes of people, Nearly
every member of the California leg
| islature has within his jurisdiction
not one, but many cases of the en-.
i croachments of the Japanese upon
their own homes. Assemblyman
i 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 $2.25 per
DAY for the inferior quality of their
labor in other orchards that the own
ers of the poorer orchards are prae-
itically forced to either abandon them
or lease them for what they can get.
The strawberry output of Sacra-
mento county, raised within stones
i throw of the capitol, is controlled by
j the Japanese, who ship carload after
carload to all parts of the coast.
The grape industry is rapidly com.
1 ing under the domain of the little
brown men by right of purchase and
j lease. and at the present rate at
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.
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-
Eers, 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 a 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
i by the process.
In San Francisco, the japanese live
in any part of the city alongside the
white man, and in many instances
i own their own homes. They are not
4 segregated as are the Chinese, and
j compelled to live in 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. :<@ =:
Newcastle, the center of a large
fruit district, has recently had its
/ troubles, few Japanese having
bought property or secured leases and
tneighbors to sell out or lease to them
to rid themselves of company which
they considered noxious-but not I'M
til after lawsuit proved that the
leases could not be broken or the
| property sales abrogated. Vacayille,
the cherry district, is dominated by
4 the Japanese. .a.-. :
A comparison of conditions in Ha-
waii will show the same conditions as
to the ownership and leasing of prop.
erty, these conditions being the more
noticeable because of the fact that
i the IanannSo arn. mora nI1rnnrnIIc