Bonners Ferry herald. [volume] (Bonners Ferry, Idaho) 1904-current, 1914-07-31
PASSAGE OF ANTI-ALIEN LAND
BILL BY THE STATE
WAS DELIBERATE
MET INDUSTRIAL CONDITION
Demand for Relief From Their Own
ing the Lands Had to Be Met
One Town Has Four Times as
Many Japs as Whites.


bill by the legislature of California in
May of last year and the international
complications that resulted therefrom
are still fresh in our memory. The
action of the California legislature had
nothing directly to do with our immi-
grafton or exclusion laws and regula-
tons; it concerned merely the rights
of aliens who have already been Tor
may be in future) admitted into this
country. Nevertheless, the causes
that led to this action and the growth
of similar conditions elsewhere upon
the Pacific coast are likely to have
considerable bearing upon future
changes in our laws respecting Asiatic
immigration.
And let us not assume that Califor-
mia acted hastily or was in any sense
playing to the galleries" The Webb
bill simply met an industrial and so
cial condition which had for several
years been growing more serious and
acute and was passed in response to
a unanimous and irresistible demand
! for relief Even the San Francisco
Chronicle, one of the few papers that
opposed the bill, was impelled to say:
with perfect friendliness to the Jap
anese nation, the people of this state
are overwhelmingly opposed to their, or
any Orientals' owning our land" The
demand for this legislation proceeded
directly from the farmer, through the
| offA af hn OF n o.
resolutions demanding anti-alien land
legislation, against which not one sim
gle vote was recorded. And the farm
ers' representative, Mr.. Newman, put
the case before joint legislative COM
mittee in these terse words: IF you
don't give us relief, we are going to
lose our homes; not by mortgage fore
closure, but by Japanese Enclosure"
The Panama exposition is the Cali
fornians' darling project. Into it the
people of that state are themselves
putting about $17 100000. The Japan
csc exhibit, for which half a million
dollars had been promised, was to be
the gem of the oriental exhibit. Any
anti-Japanese agitation would be det-
rimental to the exposition interests
and California greatly desired to con-
serve those interests. On former &C.
casions President Roosevelt and Pres
ident Taft had interviewed to delay &C
ton upon the. Japanese problem. But
by this time the situation had become
more acute and neither the best eff
/ forts of the exposition directors nor
of President Wilson could delay the
action.
At present there are about 10000
Japanese in California and half of
these are engaged in agriculture. In
the beginning the California rancher
welcomed the Japanese laborer. He
filled a gap created by the decrease of
Chinese since the exclusion act and
he was the best labor available until
the hoped-for influx of farm labor
from Europe after the completion of
the canal.
Japanese farm labor falls into two
classes; the gang labor of the picking
and harvesting crew and the alf-the-
year labor The movement of these
gangs of temporary Japanese laborers
constituted no serious social problem
But the farmer began to find it to his
advantage to employ the all-the-year
labor by means Of leases. The advan-
tage to the landlord was that it re
lieved him from the uncertain dispo
sition of the gang labor, which could
not then jump up and leave him in
the middle of crop growing or har
vesting operations.
But these leases proved stepping
stone to Japanese ownership of the
lands. Once a foothold was gained
Japanese colonization operated to the
exclusion of the whites in two ways
First, by forcing the whites out Of
employment upon the soil. The ex
tent of this crowding out was revealed
in an investigation conducted by the
state in 1909. A commission visited
4,102 farms in 90 counties. 1t found
1873 of these farms operated by Jap
} anese either as owners or lessees. Or
these Japanese farms 90 per cent o
the labor was Japanese. OF the re
naming 1860 farms, operated b,
white men, SO per cent of the labol
was white, 81 per cent Japanese anC
the remaining 10 per cent Chinese
Mexican, Hindu and Indian. In othe
words, the coming of Japanese int
s control of less than half of the farm
of given community causes reduc
ton of white labor employed on al
: the farms by approximately 90 pc
cent-which practically means its oh
liberation.
Second, by social pressure. Socia
intercourse between the races is i'm
possible. 1t is not so much that tn
white agriculturist cannot Compel
with the Japanese agriculturist as
is that he will not live beside him
So, in the fruit growing districts o
California, when the Japanese get
foothold through ownership or long
term leases, there is nothing for tn
| American family to do but to move