Title: "Press and Public Unite Against the Jap," San Francisco Chronicle, 3/6/1905, (denshopd-i69-00013)
Densho ID: denshopd-i69-00013

PRESS AND PUBLIC UNITE AGAINST THE JAP

PRESS OF STATE WAKENS COMMONWEATH'S DANGER

The press of the entire country is beginning at last to seriously consider the Japanese question. Most of the editorials noted in the exchanges heartily indorse the stand taken by the "Chronicle" and insidious evil which threatens it. However, there are some dissenting voices, and from these can be learned the startling character of the arguments which are going to be advanced in favor of the Orientalization of America. One editor frankly confesses that he wants to see servile labor established as a permanent institution. Others raise the cry of laissez faire, and think that in some way or other the problem will settle itself. But, one and all, when they go into particulars, admit the premises upon which the "Chronicle" arguments are based. It is universally conceded that the Asiatic can live amid surroundings which an American thinks fit only for his horse or his dog. Nobody denies that the subjects of the Mikado preserve their racial characteristics when transplanted to our soil, patronize merchants of their own nationality, and keep their earnings out of the great arteries of American trade.

"Chronicle Receives Strong Editorial Indorsement

The following extracts from characteristic editorials, printed by leading newspapers throughout the State and country, show on which side of the impending struggle for supremacy of the white laborer the power of the press will be exerted.� Local conditions in some instances have tinged the editorial utterances with prejudice or partiality, but, judged in their entirety, these clippings constitute a remarkable anthology and indicate the widespread attention which the "Chronicle" articles have attracted:

SHOULD NOT BE PERMITTED.
From the Alameda Daily Argus.

The "Chronicle" has a long article this morning on the menace to the country of Japanese immigration. The coming of strange peoples of any nationality, with ways of living and ideas of government entirely different from those that obtain here is not desired. The arrival of thousands every month at the port of New York, out of the byways and the muck of Europe is to us greatly more dangerous than the coming of the Japs from the other direction. When the hordes that swarm in at the other side of the country are checked, then the Japs should be arrested outside the Golden Gate.

SHOULD BE CONSIDERED BY CON
From the Santa Clara Journal.

The "Chronicle" begins a careful and conservative exposition of the problem which is no longer to be ignored--the Japanese question. It has been but lightly touched upon heretofore; now it is pressing upon California, and upon the entire United States; as heavily and contains as much of menace as the matter of Chinese immigration ever did; indeed, it is more serious, socially, industrially and from an international standpoint. It demands consideration. It is not about time the sober-thinking American and American Congress were taking this matter in hand and dealing with it with the firmness that the gravity of the situation demands?

GREATEST QUESTION OF DAY.
From the Hanford Daily Sentinel.

The "San Francisco Chronicle" of Thursday ably and timely discussed the greatest question that faces the Pacific Coast to-day, and that is the Japanese question. That great newspaper called attention to the menacing situation in a mass of argument that is irrefutable, and pointed out the situation so that any one who can read must understand. The Chinese question was one great bone of contention, but it was a fish bone compared to what the Japanese question soon will be to the white man's home and the white man's occupation here in this country if measures are not taken to limit the inflow of the Asiatics. Every citizen of California ought to read and reread the "Chronicle's" article.

THE BROWN PERIL.
Reno Evening Gazette.

For many years the Western States of this country have regarded the Chinese as a menace. It is due to their influence that the barrier known as the exclusion act was erected to prevent the men with queues from overrunning the country. By them more than any other section has the yellow race been deemed a peril. Now, however, a movement has been begun against another Oriental people, and this time the man who is counted a danger is the Japanese.

That Japan intends to dominate the Orient is the opinion of James Archibald, expressed in a "Chronicle" interview. He says that they have enacted laws which practically exclude the foreigner from their island. They prohibit the alien from holding land, from entering into any business, from practicing any profession, from teaching in any school. Mr. Archibald, too, warns the United States against this danger that comes out of the Land of the Rising Sun.

These are serious words, but to many of us they do not express a new fear. We of the West have surely been walking in darkness if we have not observed the steady, soft-footed way in which the Japanese have worked themselves into and become a part of our country's life. We do not favor any national attitude which would build a great wall between us and the rest of the world. Neither the United States nor any other nation is sufficient unto itself. But, as the "Chronicle" says, "we wish for no more race problems," and the race that does not assimilate with ours creates that problem. We concur with the writer quoted, in the belief that the American people should awaken to the fact that what seems but a hand-shadow now may soon become a portentous cloud.

LIKENS JAPS TO WILD BEASTS.
From the San Francisco Argonaut.

In a long, and for the most part excellently reasoned article, the "Chronicle" shows that there are now in the United States, by conservative estimate, about 100,000 Japanese; it justly says that, with the ending of the war, it may reasonably be expected that the present moderate emigration from the Island Kingdom will be transformed into a brown Asiatic flood; it points out that, while personally the Japanese is a more pleasing individual than the Chinese, he is no whit more assimilable than his fellow-Asiatic, and is quite as efficient in reducing the white workingman's wage; it clearly shows how experience proves that any race--be it negro, Chinese or Japanese--which does not or will not assimilate, is destructive of communal life that should be purely American; it calls attention to the fact that the Japanese as a nation, in practice, exclude the foreigner from Nippon, and points out that this gives us further warrant for the taking of similar action.

The Japanese has remarkable qualities of brain and character. He is brave and strong. But you do not pause to admire the strength and agility of a wild beast when it prepares to spring at your throat. You are not concerned to applaud the cool nerve of the night invader of your household as he rifles your pockets, with a revolver at your head. When a conflagration, wind driven, threatens your domicile, it is not the part of wisdom to pause in admiration of the splendor of its appearance or the efficiency with which it reduces stately structures to heaps of smoldering coals.

WANTS SERVILE LABOR.
From the Modesto Herald.

The San Francisco "Chronicle" is working itself into fever heat in advocacy of the proposition to exclude the Japanese as a menace to our industrial and business life. While there is no overplus of Japanese in this State and country at present, the little brown men are coming at a rate that warrants serious consideration of the subject. California, more than any other state, needs a percentage of cheap coolie labor; a labor that at the same time can be readily commanded in comparatively large bodies. Conceding that we need a cheap labor of the Japanese or Chinese coolie class, our experience here at home with both and the relative attitude of the two races as peoples point unmistakably to preference of the Chinese. Labor of this class should be servile; of a servility inbred. The Chinese coolie is so servile, and that servility will not be eliminated from him through generations of Occidental civilization. The Japanese coolie, individually and collectively, as shown here in California, and as he is showing the world in his home life in Japan, as well as on the blody [bloody] fields of Manchuria, is an entirely different fellow. He is servile only to a degree, and only for the advancement of his own purposes. Beneath his servility we find aspiration, backed by application and brains; and if we scratch him a little too deeply we find a fighter of fanatical bravery. Because the Jap can and does undersell us in our own trades and industries; because he is irresistibly pushing into these trades and industries, and because we cannot assimilate him and cannot keep him down to the level in which he can serve us to our profit as well as his own, and not to our injury, he is a greater menace to us than the Chinese ever wore, assuming that the immigration continues, unchecked. We have no use for him, save in servile capacities, and he is servile capacities, and he is servile only as long as it suits him to be. The Chinese coolie, as a body, is the embodiment of servility, and hasn't a thought above it. It is to the Chinese coolie we should look for our cheap labor.

FAVORS EXCLUSION ACT.
From the Nevada State Journal.

The San Francisco "Chronicle" has awakened to the fact that we have a yellow peril. It says that we have 100,000 Japanese in this country, that these are of the lowest class in their country, that they can live on what a white man cannot, that they are supplanting white men and women in employment, and that as soon as the war between their country and Russia is over we can look for an influx of their brethren that will surpass all reasonable expectations.

It is a good time for the "Chronicle" to tell us these things, and it would have been better had it done so sooner. The country at large has been giving Japan its powerful moral support in the war against Russia, with the exception of the small minority who have urged that gratitude along was warrant enough for our remaining friendly to Russia. Now we have the more powerful motive of self-interest to urge in behalf of such a course.

If we are to enact an exclusion act against the Japanese, which we surely must, we cannot expect their nation to accept it in the same placid manner in which China received a similar measure directed against her people. The Japanese are a very conceited people, easily inflated with the notion of their own importance and prowess, and particularly "cocky" just at present over what success they have achieved against Russia. Let them win this war and their pride will be unbearable. For years to come Japan will go about with a chip on her shoulder, and it means "fight" for the first one that knocks it off. But let them be defeated and she will not be so apt to declare war the first time her toes are trodden on.

In the name of common sense, then, let us cease our maudlin and uncalled for sympathy with the yellow nation in this war.

APPROVES OF THE CRUSADE.
From the Vallejo Daily Register.

The crusade the "San Francisco Chronicle" has inaugurated against unlimited Japanese immigration receives much approval here. The little brown man is a menace to white labor on this Coast, and the fight Mr. de Young's great paper is making comes none too soon.

THINKS EXCLUSION NOT ENOUGH
From the Daily Colusa Sun.

The Sun has persistently called attention to the commercial war that must follow in this country the close of the war between Japan and Russia, no matter what the result of that war may be, and we now call special attention to an article by James F.J. Archibald on the subject which we clip from the "San Francisco Chronicle" of Saturday. The "Chronicle" of the same day has a good editorial on the subject. Mr. Archibald's article should be read by every one. This conflict is coming, and it is only a short distance in the future.

CUSTOMS ARE DEMORALIZING.
From the Chico Record.

Nik Kaumanns, the German beet sugar specialist, from his experience in the Sandwich islands, does not take a roseate view of the Japanese as laborers, and believes that in them the United States is threatened with a serious problem; that, while they are good workers, they have customs which are demoralizing, and are, when they gather in any considerable numbers, so arrogant as to place the employer at their mercy and at the same time drive all other labor out of the market. He believes in that system of labor on the farms which will make the laborer practically one of the family, or at any rate inspire him to feel that he has a common interest in the success of the undertaking he is engaged in, and to become permanently identified with the locality in which he finds employment.

CALLS IT RACE PREJUDICE.
From the Christian Advocate.

The "San Francisco Chronicle" has amazed its best friends by publishing a series of articles directed against the immigration of the Japanese into America. Its chief contention is that at the close of the present war large numbers of the Japanese are likely to come to America to better their condi

tions. It shows that from 1901 to 1904 about 8000 Japanese have landed in San Francisco. This movement of the Japanese has been developed almost entirely since 1880, at which time there were less than 100 Japanese in this country.

On general principles we favor the limitation of immigrants. The continuity and solidarity of the Nation's life depend on the homogeneity of the people. Every nation must stand for that principle. We insist on the absolute right of every nation to limit and control the number of immigrants coming into its boundaries.

The unfairness of the "Chronicle's" argument is in its sub-dominant tone of race prejudice. The idea that the Japanese are responsible for hoboism, the increase of crime, and yet admitting that they are industrious, upright and that the records of crime in the Scate [State] scarcely show the name of one Japanese criminal, makes a queer argument. The argument of the "Chronicle" would, were it true, turn all industry into hoboism. If one man dare not work lest he take the place of another who might work if he didn't work is a new principle of economics. Put the argument another way: If the Japanese were a lot of lazy, drinking louts, hanging about the race tracks refusing to work, then we could afford to have them come because they would not be in competition with the honest toiler.

The law of industry works another way. Honest industry begets industry. Work creates more work. We should say that the redeeming feature of the Japanese, population is that they are intense workers. The "Chronicle's" argument comes to this: Japanese immigrants promote crime by not doing it. Then race tracks, saloons, gambling dens promote righteousness by not doing it. The "Chronicle" has usually been fair, and we are at a loss to account for this singular lapse.

MAKES A TELLING ADMISSION.

From an editorial published in the Pacific Presbyterian and in the Pacific, a Congregational paper, in which the "Chronicle" is scored, but its main contentions admitted: Last week the "San Francisco Chronicle" started a newspaper crusade against the Japanese and it has been taken up to some extent by other newspapers of the State. The "Chronicle" calls on the East to make common cause with the Pacific States against the coming of these Asiatics to our shores, and tells the California employers that if they cannot make up their minds to get along without Japanese help such a sentiment will be brought to bear in all probability as will not conduce to good markets or profits. Throughout the "Chronicle" articles have the ring of the old Dennis Kearney cry--the ring of the words with which he ended each of his harangues: "Whatever else may happen, the Chinese must go."

But, strange to relate, the Asiatic alone gets belabored by the "Chronicle" and nothing is said as to the Italians and other nationalities that have come into California during recent years, hundreds of them to every ten of the Asiatics, and have crowded the native born American out of many a place and many a coveted opportunity.

We are in favor of protecting our own native-born population from all foreign encroachments that tend to make conditions worse than they are now. We do not wish to see the standard of living lowered, but raised. But we do not, however, believe in discrimination. Let us have immigration laws that will keep out the undesirable of other nationalities as well as those of China and Japan.

One of our readers, a man whom we highly esteem, wrote us from Southern California a few weeks ago that he feared it would be necessary for him to go back East in order to make a living because of the coming of the Japanese into the orange picking and packing work.

But from what we know of the situation in the East we do not see how his condition could be bettered by such a removal.

There is the other side to the Japanese labor question on this Coast, upon which the "Chronicle" has not touched. There are good and able men who claim that the fruit industry of California demands this labor. They will not sit idly by while is sounded the slogan, "Whatever else may happen, the Japanese must go."

By all means let us protect the laboring man, but let us not be so senseless as to kill the fowl that lays the golden egg, even if it be not a very large egg. In this respect, certainly, something is better than nothing.

THINKS JAPS RAISE WAGES.
From the Daily Californian.

The "Chronicle" is making a strenuous effort to work up a sentiment against Japanese immigration, but overshoots the mark when it declares that the Japanese are driving white women out of domestic employment. There is a wonderful scarcity of household help in California, and it is safe to say that twice over as many women could find employment as are now engaged in such work.

Nor does the "Chronicle's" argument hold good that the Japanese, as domestic servants, are cutting under the wages for which women will work. The Jap comes high as domestic, and it may be said that his presence in this country has had a tendency to raise the wages of such labor rather than to decrease them. The little brown men are employed numerously in this kind of work, and they stand for a fairer wage rate than was formerly paid to women thus in a way establishing a scale higher than the old one, and of which all such laborers are the beneficiaries.

MUST BE NO COOLIEISM.
From the Stockton Daily Mail.

The "San Francisco Chronicle" has performed a public service by calling attention forcibly to the menace of Japanese immigration. The State Senate did right in urging Congress to take the matter up, and doubtless there will be serious consideration of the problem of what should be done to protect the Pacific Coast from an influx of undesirable Mongolians.

The desire for cheap labor has given us the race problem in the South, and it is generally regarded as one of the most serious matters for sociologists to consider. It would be folly to allow the same demand for cheap labor to permit the growth of conditions on the Pacific Coast that would produce another race problem that would be more difficult to solve than the one in the South.

It is not necessary to discuss the reasons why Japanese coolies should be excluded from this country. The Japanese will work for almost any wages in order to secure a foothold in a region, and then, when they have displaced competitors, they suddenly become arrogant and enforce unreasonable demands.

The Modesto Herald the other day declared that California needs "a percentage of cheap coolie labor--a labor

that at the same time can be readily commanded in comparatively large bodies." This was the old argument used to justify slavery. Its acceptance would indicate our willingness that a large element of our population must live as coolies in order that another class may get rich.

In this great State of California there must be no coolieism. If there are industries which can be successful only on condition that the majority of those who engage in them must live in squalor let us not seek to develop them here.

As slavery was accompanied by the "po' white trash" in the South, so coolieism on this Coast would degrade large numbers of our white population. It is a pernicious doctrine that California needs coolies. Better, far better, turn our fertile valleys back into cattle ranges, and give us again the days of the vaqueros and the padres than to make of this land of promise a dumping ground for the cheap labor of the Orient.

COMMENDS WOODWARD.
From the Petaluma Argus.

A concurrent resolution has been introduced in the State Senate by E.F. Woodward, Senator from Sonoma county, asking protection for the Pacific Coast from the heavy influx of Japanese. The resolution was adopted by the unanimous vote of the State Senate, and will probably be adopted by the House. This is the right stop, and it is well that it has been taken by our representatives. We are glad to note that it came from our own good Senator, Mr. Woodward.

FAVORS DIPLOMACY.
From the Sacramento Union.

On the subject of Chinese immigration this country came to a fixed judgment many years ago. All the general arguments which apply to the Chinese apply also to the Japanese. In the one case as in the other there are the same points of radical difference between the Japanese and the American races, the same social incompatibilities, the same economic incongruities and the same political problems. We think nobody will wish that there should be fusion of the two races or that at any point or in any relation the Japanese should replace the white race. If there are those at Florin, Roseville or elsewhere who would rather see the fields tilled by Japanese than by white men, they are pitifully in the minority. The universal feeling is bound up in the familiar and significant remark that this is a white man's country and must be so maintained.

It is not pleasant to see the whole neighborhoods practically turned over to the Japanese, a condition which exists as more than one point in Sacramento county. It is not pleasant to think that there is hardly a place in the State which the Japanese, through their lower standards of living, may not claim for their own if they choose to settle in it and put themselves in competition with those who now live in it.

It has been declared that the authorities of Japan would easily find ways to discourage emigration if they were informed politely that it is unwelcome here; and it is further declared that to pass a hard-and-fast restriction law like that which now bars Chinese immigration would be a deadly affront to the Japanese national pride. We believe, therefore, that it would be the part of discretion to take up diplomatically with Japan the question of emigration to the United States and to seek a solution of the problem by gentler means than the enactment of an arbitrary restriction law.

SENTIMENT VERSUS FACT.
From the Oakland Herald.

American laborers who are accustomed to lives of comfort and a certain amount of luxury cannot successfully compete with men who can live on a daily allowance of rice, with nothing in particular on the side. To meet that sort of competition the Caucasian must sink to somewhere near the Mongolian plane of living, and who could consider such a consummation desirable?

The sentimental theory is on the side of admitting the oppressed and unfortunate of all nations through our gates. The hard fact is that if we do so we must expect to acquire some of their views of life, and, above all, we must compete with men who do not know the worth of manhood. Caucasian is Caucasian and Mongol is Mongol, and unless interbreeding of the races is a thing to be desired it is just as well to have a pond between them.

CALLS FOR INVESTIGATION.
From the Miner Transcript.

The charges made in the "San Francisco Chronicle" that Japanese are illegally coming into this country in great numbers in spite of our immigration laws are made with such detail and exactness that the Government should investigate them. The "Chronicle" is a conservative and responsible newspaper. There may be a difference of opinion as to the desirability of Japanese immigration--although there can be little difference in this State, where the evils of cheapening labor have been so apparent in the days of unrestricted Chinese immigration--but the "Chronicle's" charges are that the laws are being violated. Political pulls should not be allowed to prevent a searching inquiry.

SEES NO DANGER.
From the Sacramento Bee.

The "Chronicle" is publishing a series of articles calling attention to the growth of Japanese immigration. While as yet the number of Japanese in the United States as a whole is too small to excite much concern, should the immigration from Japan increase as rapidly as it has been doing of late years it will not be very long before the question of exclusion of Japanese labor will become a serious one for the Pacific Coast.

Some prophets already see in this question danger of future war between the United States and Japan, believing the Government of that country would regard exclusion of its citizens as an affront. But years ago it was said to be the policy of Nippon to discourage emigration, and after the close of the present conflict Corea and Manchuria may afford the overcrowded Japanese population all needed outlets, so that the present tendency in this direction would receive a natural check.

VOICE OF THE PEOPLE IS RAISED AGAINST JAPANESE

Every mail brings fresh evidence to the "Chronicle" that the Japanese invasion is no mere figment of a prophetic imagination, but a grim fact with which the laborers of California are already locked in a life-and-death struggle. Letters come pouring in, not from theorists or chronic malcontents, steeped in racial prejudices, but from long-suffering citizens of the United States--men with families to support and decent standards of living to maintain. They speak from bitter experience, for they have had their bread snatched from their mouths by the hands of the indefatigable Oriental; me who have been discharged at the nod of a Jap boss; women who have been turned away to make room for Asiatic servants; girls that have waited hopelessly for weary days around the doors of employment agencies in a desperate resolve to preserve their honorable status as wage earners--these unite in telling a story that cannot be gainsaid. In the face of such evidence, the smooth-sounding words of well-intentioned sentimentalists have the ring of hollow mockeries. The evil is a social and economic one, and as such must be met and solved.

Hundreds Write Indorsing the "Chronicle's" Position

The following extracts from characteristic letters received during the last few days in great abundance, reflect the prevailing public opinion without distortion. All have been given a hearing, even those whose words indicate a biased sentimentality of an ignorance of existing conditions. Every shade of opinion and views from every conceivable standpoint are represented. As will be seen, the great burden of the testimony is in favor of the indictment against the Asiatic intruder.

SPEAKS FROM KNOWLEDGE

Editor "Chronicle"--Sir: It affords me great pleasure to see an American newspaper of the standing of the "Chronicle" taking up the problem of the Japanese invasion. I am positive that the masses of people do not realize the danger that lurks in the wake of the inflowing Oriental. I have been in Japan nine times, and have studied the natives from every standpoint. I have seen them building ships, making watches, looms and a thousand other things after American patterns.

They are very discourteous to any foreigner, so much so that a foreigner cannot run a manufacturing plant in their country. They will not sell him any land nor allow him any privileges whatever. I know positively they will work ten to twelve hours a day for from 6 to 10 cents. I have seen the Japanese women coaling vessels, where two of them would carry a tub of coal weighing 200 pounds on a stick and run with it to the bunker.

I have closely observed the Japanese who are in the American Navy, and find them an exceptionally bright lot of fellows. I believe they enter the Navy for a purpose other than recompense. I earnestly hope that the Legislature will take action and protect the American workman, so that he will not be compelled to work in competition with this Asiatic herd.

FRANK T. EISENHEET.

A LABORING MAN'S OPINION.

Editor "Chronicle"--Sir: I am very glad to notice your article on the cheap coolie Japanese laborers who are falling over one another in their haste to come to the United States to learn the white man's ways. I am a white laborer, and I want to state that in several lines the brown cheap labor has got nearly all of the jobs, even driving out the Chinese. The Japs live in bunches like sheep herding together. Any worker on this Coast can tell you that the Jap is fast getting hold of the section-gang work, the railroad extra-gang work and the lumber work in most of places. Also fruit ranch work in all its branches, and they are driving out our girls and men from the office and house work in the city. They are also going into every line of business.

We have no need for these people--there are too many native Americans hunting for employment. I hope you will continue on in educating the people of this country against the danger that confronts them.

A WHITE WORKER.

CALLS FOR PAMPHLETS.

Editor "Chronicle"--Sir: Your articles on the Japanese invasion are very interesting. You are deserving of much credit for the masterly way you handle the subject. It is to be hoped that you will print the same in pamphlet form and mail copies to each Congressman, Senator, Governor and prominent diplomat of this and other countries.

E.R. DEMING.

HE IS RIGHT, TOO.

Editor "Chronicle"--Sir: Your stand against the Japanese peril is right, and I thank you for the pluck and American courage you have shown in placing this question before the people. Only, do not stop, but let the good work go on. It thrills me with admiration.

FRED PURDY.

WOMEN DRIVEN OUT.

Editor "Chronicle"--Sir: I have been following your Japanese articles with much interest, and voice the feelings of all true Americans in wishing you godspeed. In a recent article you state that female help is being driven out, and I wish to call attention to one case that has come under my observation. In a downtown boarding-house there have been employed in the past four or five women as cooks and waiters. Several evenings ago, when passing with my wife, we were surprised to see five Japanese working in the places of the women. It seems to me that cases like this should be known and published to deter employers from making a clean sweep of the white help, as in this instance.

A SUBSCRIBER

A MINISTER SAYS "AMEN."

Editor "Chronicle"--Sir: Your articles on the Japanese question are along the right line, in spite of all the resolutions of certain ministers. Your editorial of to-day hit the mark. This is by no means the first pertinent issue the "Chronicle" has brought up and pushed through right royally, and I am sure that your agitation of the Japanese question is calling forth more amens than anathemas.

I do not sign my name because I simply want to voice my commendation, to which my name would probably add nothing.

A CLERGYMAN OF THE CITY.

WANTS NO ASIATIC CURSE.

Editor "Chronicle"--Sir: You are to be commended for your able, patriotic and wise editorials on the threatening evils of Japanese immigration. Any citizen that has the future welfare of our country at heart will agree with and support your arguments. Continue in the good work. We do not want to be cursed with an Asiatic or Japanese mongrel mixture.

P. ROTHERMEL.

HAS TRIED JAPANESE HELP.

Editor "Chronicle"--Sir: I write to congratulate you upon the steps you have taken to open the eyes of the public to the Japanese question. Let us all go hand in hand to rid the United States of this nuisance. Do interest the ladies' clubs, that they may help. Also send such proof to Washington as will help us all. I am one who has tried Japanese help, and know of the treacherous character of the race.

A CONSTANT READER

GIVES ADVICE TO MINISTERS.

Editor "Chronicle"--Sir: Let the Methodist ministers who favor Japanese immigration go to Japan. We want this country for the white race. They will not succeed in the Christianizing the Japs in a thousand years. Who wants to mix the Asiatic or yellow race with the white?

J. WATKINS

GOOD WORDS FROM A TRAVELER

Editor "Chronicle"--Sir: With the greatest enthusiasm I have followed your articles anent Japanese immigration, and hope they will lead to something more than talk. It cannot be denied that the Japanese are a great danger to our institutions. The stand taken by our Senate and Assembly should be followed by the same bodies in other states, and the great newspapers of the North should co-operate. We have no time to lose.

I wish you could urge the merchants and manufacturers to dispense with Japanese wherever good Americans are available. The city is full of idle, honest men. If we do not stop the little brown men they will overrun this country as they did Hawaii and Corea. I have traveled extensively abroad, and know by experience what I am writing about.

H.V. HOLLAND

READ WEDNESDAY'S ISSUE.

Editor "Chronicle"--Sir: I have noticed in your paper many articles about the Japanese driving white men out of employment, but not one word about their driving white women out of honest work. Is it because none realize the wrong they are doing the laboring class of women in our land? You would realize it if you had gone as I have, day after day, in your city hunting work, only to be told "I have just hired a Jap." You should talk as I have with discouraged girls in the employment offices--then and only then will you see what the Japs are doing to the morals of women who have to depend on themselves for a living. You would then wake up to the fact that by letting the Japs take the bread from our working girls' mouths you are forcing them to be fallen women.

Go the lodging-houses of San Francisco and you will find Japs doing chamber work. Go to the homes and you will find them doing housework. You will find them in dining-rooms. In fact, they are not only taking men's places, but slowly and surely filling every place where our women can work.

MRS. L. TANSEY.

GET A MOVE ON.

Editor "Chronicle"--Sir: It is good work your valuable paper is doing on this Japanese question. It is high time the Government should get a big move on. Keep up with the good work and the people will appreciate it. The paper that pretends to be the workingman's friend is too busy throwing bouquets at itself.

WORKINGMAN.

ALAMEDA OVERRUN.

Editor "Chronicle"--Sir: As a wage-earner and an American citizen I wish to express my gratitude to the "Chronicle" for the stand it has taken relative to the invasion of the Japanese Alameda county is overrun with Japs now. I could mention a very large nursery in my immediate neighborhood which employs for a mere pittance forty to fifty men, not one of whom can speak a word of English. The men remain in their places for a time and then strike. Their places are always filled from a never-failing supply. This has been going on for a number of years, in spite of our contract-labor laws. The attention of the State should be called to places like this at once. Now is the time to protect ourselves and our country.

I.B. LACY.

IT IS CONTRACT LABOR.

Editor "Chronicle"--Sir: I was deputy poll tax collector during 1899 and 1900, and have often seen the agents of boarding-houses in San Francisco appear on the water front to see if the steamers from Japan were yet in. As a rule they knew the number of Japs to expect. After passing the Immigration Commissioners the Japs would go from the wharf in wagons in loads of from ten to twenty to the different boarding-houses, which, to my knowledge, they knew about before they left the home port. A few hours later they would return to the Oakland ferry to be shipped to points in Salinas valley, Walnut Grove, Vacaville or Sacramento. On their arrival at Oakland I would again look at the poll tax receipts, and there were cases where they were gone, as well as the $30 they had upon arrival. The boarding-house keepers would buy tickets for them to the different points mentioned. At times I would be paid the poll tax by the boarding-house keepers.

There is no doubt that this immigration is contract labor and a detriment to our laboring classes. As the law stands it is very easy for the Japs to get past the immigration officers. I know Mr. Gaffney, who was at that time Japanese inspector, always put them through an examination, but they had been coached before leaving home.

As a rule they would be assigned to boarding-houses on Brannan street between First and Second, on Stevenson street between Fifth and Sixth, on Jessie street above Sixth, at 577 Geary street in the rear, and at times to the ones on Dupont street between Pine and California and on Pine street between Kearny and Dupont streets. This class of labor will be worse than that of the Chinese if left to run as at present.

J.J. McCARTHY.

FEARS JAPANESE WRATH.

Editor "Chronicle"--Sir: The "Chronicle" wine for itself the distinction of holding a unique position in its educational campaign against Japanese immigration. While the little brown men have made themselves more admired than any other people by their unparalleled valor in conflict with the hosts of Russia, a movement is started to put up the bars against such a race coming to the United States. Why should this country at such a time as this seek to put under the ban those of that country who want to come to our shores? Is it that we would be willing to incur Japan's displeasure, aye, possibly wrath,

rather than have to contend with the greater troubles domestically to which the little brown men present with us in large numbers would subject us.

J. AUBREY JONES.

FAVORS THE JAPS.

Editor: "Chronicle"--Sir: In your issue of February 23d I find a long dissertation referring to the so-called Japanese invasion of the United States, and must confess that I was very much surprised to see this article in a conservative paper. The wages earned by the Japanese as servants and as laborers in our vineyards, orange groves, hop fields, etc., are no less than the wages earned by the whites. So that the only field in which the Japanese compete with white labor is as house servants and farm laborers. However, while he comes into competition with white labor, he does not drive out the latter.

The danger of having a class in our midst which does not assimilate with us is perhaps not such a great evil as one would suppose. The Japanese coming over here are bent on acquiring our language. Consequently we have every reason to suppose that these little brown men will become fairly Americanized, even if they do not intermarry.

A READER

FORCES AMERICANS OUT.

Editor "Chronicle"--Sir: The discrimination against Japanese immigration, if made, should be made at once. The ground upon which it can be made is that emigrants from European countries become naturalized and are henceforth citizens of the United States; the Japanese, on the other hand, forces the Caucasian or American citizen out of business through being able to subsist on the diet of a mountain goat, but remains for all time a subject of Japan, to which country he carries American gold, and to which country he gives the knowledge gained in America, and stands ever ready to give his life for the overthrow of the nation from which he received his all.

A CITIZEN.

WOULD SUBSTITUTE THE NEGRO

Editor "Chronicle"--Sir: The idea advanced by the "Chronicle" in regard to the danger to this country arising through the general employment of Japanese servants on the ships of our Navy and by officers of the Army is one which, in view of recent events, must strike the minds of Americans with particular force. Our Government will doubtless give due heed to this danger and in answer to the question, "Who can be found to take the place of the Japanese discharged from this employment?" I wish to offer this suggestion: It would be of double advantage to the country to train and place in these positions the negro boys of our population. The negro is with us to stay. His loyalty and fighting qualities have been tested. Then let him be properly trained at the Tuskegee Institute or elsewhere and given this service of trust.

M.E.R.

A JAPANESE BOYCOTT.

Editor "Chronicle"--Sir: I am very glad to see that you have taken up this serious problem, for the enormous influx of these brown Orientals is a menace to the welfare of the white laborers of California, with which I am identified. Four years ago I was engaged by Mr. W. of Saratoga, Santa Clara county, to help him with his prune crop. I worked until noon, when a Japanese came up, counted the boxes and walked away. He came at night and again counted them. I was preparing to start work next morning when this same Jap, with Mr. W., came up, and the latter informed me that the Jap was the boss of a gang whom he had engaged to pick his prunes, but as they were not getting on very fast he had put me in to help things out. The Jap had come to him and said I was picking more prunes than any of his crew and consequently must be in the best part of the orchard, and if I was not taken out they would themselves quit in a body. The owner said he was sorry, but I would have to go, and go I did.

Some weeks after, this same Jap came to Mr. W., and said that his men needed some money. He was given to within a few dollars all that was coming to the gang. He borrowed Mr. W.'s wheel and started for town. Unlike the cat, he never came back; neither did the wheel. This story will be verified by the owner (whose name is given).

W. HANNAFORD

FROM COMMERCIAL TRAVELER.

Editor "Chronicle"--Sir: Allow me to congratulate you on your victory in having both houses of our State Legislature pass resolutions asking for the restriction of Japanese immigration. Being a commercial traveler, covering the whole State of California these last twenty years, I can see the evil that the Japanese invasion is doing in all lines of industry, especially to our white girls, who follow domestic employment. Traveling by railroad, stage or steamer, it is surprising to see the number and insolence of the Japanese.

THOMAS H. NICHOLS