ORIENTALIZED WASHINGTON

Robert Bridges Favors Unrestricted Immigration From Asia -- What It Would Mean to This City and This State.

An Orientalized Washington is the "splendid vision" conjured up by Robert Bridges' advocacy of unrestricted immigration from Asia.

He is quoted as declaring: "I am opposed to any legislation that would keep the Japanese, or the people of any other nation out of this country."

And again, as asserting: "My view is as broad as the world itself. I believe the people of the world should be allowed to go where they please."

Precisely what would be the outcome of Bridges' plan of leasing lands to Japanese and of permitting all other Orientals unrestricted admission to the United States?

One needs but little imagination to perceive the inevitable result!

Japanese would take over the farms of the state, gradually ousting the white agriculturalists from the rural districts.

Schools that now have only a handful of these people would come to have a predominating number of them.

In sheer self-defense, the white farmers would withdraw from the farms, leaving the countryside to the hard-working, thrifty Japanese. In the end, they would dominate the arable lands of the commonwealths and the schools in the rural districts.

Of course, a few white farmers would remain -- me like Bridges, who own extensive areas and who would farm them with Orientals, including Japanese.

In this way would be built up a Prussianized landowning aristocracy in Washington, comprising a few immensely rich men, who would profit from the labor of innumerable Oriental serfs and semi-slaves.

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Let us look at the situation that certainly would be developed in the cities as a result of unrestricted Oriental immigration.

Japanese, Chinese coolies and Hindus would throng to the centers of population.

So, also, would the dispossessed farmers throughout the state.

We should have a double problem of congestion, with these farmers and the Oriental immigrants both striving desperately to earn a living.

Inevitably, we should have an appalling slum problem. The dispossessed farmers, lacking training in trades, would have to take up the most common labor. The Orientals subjected to this desperate competition of the native-born, striving to exist, would earn only a pittance.

Bridges has been appealing to those whose pet catch-phrase is "internationalism." In his stand for unrestricted Oriental immigration, we now know what their and his "internationalism" means!

What would be the effect on the organized craftsmen of cities like Seattle?

With three or four men, white or Oriental, seeking every chance for employment, unions would go crashing and men now members of them speedily would sink to the Oriental level of living prescribed by the competition of the economical, hard-working newcomers from across the Pacific.

The state Grange realizes this circumstance. Its views on the subject have been thus emphatically expressed by its secretary, Fred W. Lewis:

"Five or six years ago, the Washington State Grange formally placed itself on record against the growing practice of establishing Japanese farming in this state under the leasing guise, denouncing it then as a menace to American farming ideals and living conditions."

This is no fanciful picture. An identical situation obtained in the South prior to the Civil War.

The small white farmers and the white craftsmen, subjected to the competition of the enslaved negroes, were unable to earn enough to develop intellectually, politically or economically.

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Out of such a situation would come dreadful problems, economic, social and political, which only a man like Bridges could view unmoved.

In the first place, the Japanese, whether leaseholders or day laborers, would be disenfranchised.

They would not have the ballot. They would not be allowed to own land.

Bridge leased his farms because he undoubtedly regarded this as a "good business proposition." Other men, as astute as he, would do the same thing.

But, neither he nor they long would continue to lease to Orientals. More money would be obtainable by farming the land with this non-voting, submissive labor.

That was the theory on which the South proceeded when it farmed its cotton and tobacco fields with negro slave labor.

That was precisely what the cane growers of Hawaii have done.

What chance would "free white labor -- to quote a phrase that was familiar to every American residing south of the Mason & Dixon line prior to the Civil War -- have in competition with this semi-slave Oriental labor, working on the farms of the big ranchers such as Bridges?

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Turning again to the cities of the future, does anyone suppose the Oriental, if permitted to flock to America in the unlimited numbers Bridges proposes, long would remain a submissive common laborer?

Everywhere that he has gone, the Oriental has been willing at first to take the most menial labor, because even the relatively low wages paid for this labor has seemed fabulous to him.

But, just as soon as he has had a chance to look around, he has sought to improve his condition.

He has aspired to be a carpenter, a bricklayer, a plumber, a plasterer, a printer, a drayman -- in fact, he has sought to prepare himself so as to command the good wages paid skilled and semi-skilled workers in the community where he has chanced to reside.

His aspiration has been identical with that of the white immigrant from Europe.

Time was when Irish aliens did all the heavy work in Eastern United States. Now, they are ruling states and are electing Presidents.

The first German settlers were glad to work as porters or as farm laborers. Now, we have millionaires, captains of industry and manufacturers by the thousands who descended from that original German stock.

The first Norwegian settlers in the Middle West and Northwest were glad to accept work as farm hands. Now they, or their descendants, own immense areas, which they till with traditional care and untiring industry.

This has been the uniform progress of the immigrant in the United States. It takes only two or three generations at most to make the blood of the newcomer the seed of great enterprises.

To the glory of America, this process has built up the great, rich, generous nation we have today.

Does anyone suppose that Orientals, if permitted to come to America in unlimited numbers, as Bridges proposes, would not seek to do the same thing?

The original immigrant would be disfranchised and could own no land.

But the son of the alien Oriental, born in the State of Washington, would be a citizen of the United States, eligible to hold land, to aspire to office -- in brief, to do anything any other citizen could do.

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The Farmer-Labor Party has made an issue in this campaign that would not have arisen had it not been for its unfortunate selection of a gubernatorial candidate.

The revelation of Bridges' land-leasing to Japanese is not mere campaign buncombe.

The man himself stands for an idea -- perhaps, he calls it an ideal -- which is of vital importance to the public.

No man and no woman can vote for him who does not favor unrestricted Oriental Immigration. Bridges does. If elected governor, any time his opinions on this matter were asked, he would be compelled to reply as he did recently at Maiden, Wash.

"I am opposed to any legislation that would keep the Japanese, or the people of any other nation, out of this country."

There are other issues in the state campaign, of course, but they are dwarfed by this one.

The Farmer-Labor Party made it when it nominated Bridges and when Bridges accepted the nomination.

All that has been done to date has been to expose a chapter in his private life, of which there is official record -- a record that is attested by the signature of Byron Phelps, candidate on the Farmer-Labor ticket for the office of county auditor. Mr. Phelps who, of course, merely performed an official act in recording the lease, was county auditor at that time and now seeks another term in office.

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How many men and women in this sate desire to see it Orientalized?

How many wish to see a land-holding aristocracy, based on semi-slave Oriental labor, built up in this commonwealth?

How many are prepared to force our present labor to descend to the level of the immigrant from Japan, China and India?

Robert Bridges, by his own admission, is wiling to risk these things.

He is convinced that is the right course to pursue conviction into the governor's mansion and into the governor's office if elected.

But, the question is, how many others hold to the same opinions?

The vote on November 8 will answer that question.