Cut Bank pioneer press. [volume] (Cut Bank, Mont.) 1909-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.

are still fresh in memory. The
action of the California legislature had
nothing directly to do with immi-
grafton or exclusion laws and regula-
tions; it concerned merely the rights
of aliens who have already been Cor
may be in f~uture) 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 II land" The
directly from the farmer, through the
action of the state grange in passing
resolutions demanding anti-alien land
legislation, against which not n sin
gle vote was recorded. And the farm
ers' representative, Mr.. Newman, put
the case before a 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 inclosure."
The Panama exposition is the Cali
fornians' darling project. Into it the
people of that state are themselves
putting about SIT, 100000. The Japan
ese 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 60, 1000
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.
classes; the gang labor of the picking
and harvesting crew and the all-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 a 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 20 counties. It found
1873 of these farms operated by JAP
anese either as owner or ~lessees. On
these Japanese farms 90 per cent of
the labor was Japanese. OF the re-
naming 1850 farms, operated by
white men, SO per cent of the labor
was white, 81 per CEN Japanese and
the remaining 10 per cent Chinese,
Mexican. Hindu and Indian. In other
words, the coming of Japanese into
control of less than half of the farms
of a given community causes a reduc-
ton of white labor employed on all
the farms by approximately 90 per
cent-which practically means it's OBJ
liberation.
Second, by social pressure. Social
intercourse between the races is i'm.
possible. 1t is not SO much that the
white agriculturist cannot compete
with the Japanese agriculturist as 1t
is that he will not live beside him.
So, in the fruit growing districts of
California, when the Japanese get a
foothold through ownership or long
term leases, there is nothing for the
American family to do but to move.
The Jap may have to pay an exorbi-
tant price for the first piece of real
estate In a community but he knows