The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1922-05-02
JAP MENACE IS
SAID To STARE
VALLEY IN FACE
w. S. Shearer, Lewiston
Lettuce King, Charges
District to be Overrun
With Nipponese.

Southern Idaho, particularly the
Boise and Payette valleys, is threat
ened with Japanese invasion, accord
ing to an interview with w. S. Shear
err, Lewiston lettuce king, which ap-
peared in the March II issue of the
Spokane Press. Adroitly, the story
does not specifically name the Cali
fornia Vegetable Union through which
the Idaho Producers Union this year
will market potatoes and head lettuce
on cooperative basis.
The story as it appeared in the
Spokane paper, is as follows:
Jap undergraduates from southern
California, beaten in four successive
attempts to fasten their hold on other
sections of western America, are now
trying to break into Boise and Pay
cite valleys, in southern Idaho.
Their efforts are being aided by the
financial-political group which con-
trolls the Mormon church.
white residents of these valleys,
including many Mormons, are up in
arms over the proposed Jap invasion,
and the Nipponese have lost the first
skirmish at least.
"Word of this situation was brought
to Spokane by w. S. Shearer, lettuce
king of Lewiston and former presi-
dent of the Idaho Farm Bureau feder-
alton. Shearer is one of the four
leaders among the Idaho farmers who
are battling the Japanese colonization
plans.
Japs Drive Out Whites.
around Los Angeles the Japs have
practically driven out the white mar
ketgardeners, just as they forced out
the Caucasion race in many districts
of Sacramento valley, further north
in California.
Jap fertilizing methods have de-
pleted the soil, however, so that Los
Angeles county no longer offers the
fertile field for Nipponese gardening
that it did when the Japs came ten
years ago.
For two years the Los Angeles
Japs have been seeking other tracts
to possess.
Tried Imperial Valley.
They tried to get into Imperial
Valley, the former desert reclaimed by
irrigation from Colorado river, on the
Mexican boundary west of Yuma,
Imperial Valley knew the story OF
Japanese aggression in other parts OF
California, however, and the Japs
were notified that attempts to infil-
trate there would bring a race war.
The Japs departed.
Next they tried the Phoenix and
Tucson districts, in southern Arizona.
In some parts of that state they set
tied in large numbers, but mostly in
smaller valleys, where they soon got
possession of all the available land.
The larger agricultural districts kept
them out.
Then in Texas.
Texas was the next field of settle.
ment. A little over year ago Japan
csc settlers were loaded aboard South
ern Pacific trains and deported from
areas where they had tried to colon
ize along the Rio Grande.
The fourth attempt was made early
this year in the Hood River section
of Oregon. Portland newspaper:
aroused the inhabitants to the peril
and the Oregon American Legion was
instrumental in frustrating the scheme
to settle Jap colony in that state
"The Japs have long been blocked
in their efforts to extend japanese
holdings around Yakima and between
Seattle and Tacoma. The effort to
settle large body of Japs near Spo.
kane never made much Roadway.
Mikado Aids Subjects.
After finding themselves blocked
in all these other directions, the gov.
ernment-controlled Japanese agenc,
which places the mikado's subjects in
strategic portions of the American
continent, turned to southern Idaho
Here deal was made with the
Mormon politicians who rule that por.
ton of the state, and it was arranged
that the Japs should enter first as la
borers. This has been the japanese