best done proceeds. After the process of assimilation has taken place to a certain extent, the native-born element will do much to hasten it if it is not prevented by discrimination from occupying the normal place it will wish, provided the older elements do not prove to be too conservative, and in so far as they control the situation, bring them up as Japanese.

With the clannishness natural to the Japanese, the respect for their elders, the differences representing diverse civilizations to be overcome, and the situation which obtains, considerable time will be required to make much headway even with small numbers. The progress made will depend largely upon the degree of coöperation between the diverse elements in the community. The question should be raised whether the organizations of the Japanese should not be less official in their aspects, less shaped as though the country was to be colonized and exploited for gain, and be conducted more than they generally are with reference to securing the adoption of American standards. The question should be raised, also, whether something cannot be done to secure a more general observance of Sunday, and to give women the place in the family and the family life we expect in the United States. However much it may be needed, the general practice of having the women gainfully occupied in men's work in the field, cannot but alienate the native element and give the Japanese lower standing in the communities in which they reside. When a people is admitted to the country, their presence imposes obligations upon the native population. We have been neglectful in this matter. But when admission is secured, it imposes an obligation upon the newcomers to give heed to the normal standards of the country to which they have been admitted. Both the Asiatic and the white races are on trial in the West. The final outcome is important. Will the white races, when their institutions are safeguarded by a narrowly restricted immigration, give necessary opportunity and coöperation and avoid evils and friction? Will those admitted retain their clannishness and seek chiefly to make gain rather than strive to become Americans?

THO

CHINESE IMMIGRATION

UNITED STATES IMMIGRATION COMMISSION

HOUGH a few thousand Armenians are found in the West, most of them in Fresno County California, and perhaps a thousand Syrians in Los Angeles, most of the Asiatic immigration has been from eastern Asia China, Japan, Korea, and India. For reasons already given elsewhere, no special investigation was made of the Chinese. Such data as were obtained were secured incidentally to the investigation of other races and of industries in which Chinese are or have been employed. A few points concerning their number, occupations, and related n..ters may be commented on briefly, however, chiefly for convenience in discussing Japanese immigration, upon which most emphasis was placed in the investigation made in the Western division.

According to the census, the number of Chinese in the continental United States in 1900 was 93,283. Of these, 88,758 were males and 4525 were females. In all probability the number of adult males was somewhat larger than the figure reported, as it is almost impossible to enumerate all but a negligible percentage of the foreign-born males living under such conditions as were at that time found among the Chinese. It is impossible to estimate the number of persons of that race now in the United States, as many have died or returned to China since 1900, while others. have returned from China to this country, and men, women, and children of the eligible classes to the number of 19,182 have been admitted to the United States between July 1, 1899, and June 30, 1909. Moreover, it is acknowledged by those familiar with the administration of the law that some foreign-born have secured admission as "native sons," while others have been smuggled across the Canadian or the Mexican boundary. However, it has become evident from the investigation conducted

by the Commission that of the number of Chinese in all of the cities of the West, many are occupied in growing potatoes and the coarser vegetables. Such interests are usually combined with general farming, however.

The Portuguese are excellent farmers, and frequently, while improving their land, obtain two or three crops from the same field in the course of the year. In their thrift, investment of savings in more land, in the character of their housing and standard of living, they are very much like the Italians. In some instances, however, their housing is of a distinctly better type. The one important difference between the two races, besides the kind of crops usually produced, is found in the fact that the Italians coöperate in leasing land, while the Portuguese are very individualistic and seldom rent or own land in partnership. Because of this circumstance and the fact that the members of this race, unlike the Asiatics and German-Russians, have not been induced to settle upon the land as a solution of the labor problem, the Portuguese, in spite of their perseverance in their efforts to establish themselves as independent farmers, have usually made slower progress in this direction than the Italians, Japanese, and German-Russians.

Few of the other south European immigrants are engaged in agriculture. A few Greeks have become tenant farmers, but without much success. About Watsonville, California, a comparatively large number of Dalmatians have engaged in apple growing, but this instance perhaps stands alone. In fact, immigrants from the south European countries, and the east European as well, Italians and Portuguese excepted, have come to the West too recently to have established themselves. Moreover, in most cases the number of transient laborers is large as compared to the number who have come to this country to make their permanent home. The principal exception to this is found in the German-Russians, an agricultural people, who have come to this country to escape heavy taxation and military service and in search of better land. Within some twenty years several thousand have come to Fresno County, California, where they have worked at unskilled labor to begin with, though a comparatively large number have been able to establish themselves as farmers, which is the goal practically all have in view. The

acreage controlled by them is roughly estimated at 5000. In Colorado there are perhaps between 800 and 900 tenant and landowning farmers of this race, occupying for the greater part holdings in excess of 60 acres and not infrequently much larger tracts. This farming has developed within the last ten years and has been incidental to the growth of the beet-sugar industry. The sugar companies have brought large numbers of families of this race from Nebraska to do the hand work involved in growing sugar beets. From laborers doing the hand work on a piece basis they have rapidly advanced to tenant and to landowning farmers. Their advance is in part to be ascribed to their great industry, the labor of all members of the family except the smallest children, to their very great thrift, to the liberal advances of capital made by the sugar companies, and the credit extended to them freely by the banks.

Not even the Japanese have made as rapid advance as the German-Russians. A comparatively small number of GermanRussians are engaged in tenant farming in one locality in Idaho also. They, too, were brought to the community (from Portland) by the manufacturers of beet sugar, and settled upon the land. In their housing and the number engaged in the different industries in which they have found employment in the past, they have materially decreased within the last decade or so. It is unlikely that the migration from the Coast States, mainly from California to the East, and the more general distribution of Chinese throughout the country, explain entirely the decreasing number of persons of that race, including the native-born, found in the West.

The immigration of Chinese laborers to this country may be said to date from the rush to California in search of gold sixty years ago. Within ten years a relatively large number of persons of that race, more than 45,000 in fact, found a place in the population of that State. Before the close of the decade of the sixties, they had engaged in a variety of occupations, as the absence of cheap labor from any other source, their industry and organization, and the rapid growth of the country placed a premium upon their employment. The largest number (some 20,000 in 1861) engaged in gold mining; several thousand, m any of them imported under contract, were employed toward the end of the

decade in the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad, which was to form the first of the transcontinental ays making possible an influx of laborers from the East. Other Chinese engaged in gardening, laundering, domestic service, and hand labor in the fields, while still others found employment in factories and workshops or engaged in business for themselves. As domestic servants in San Francisco, in 1870, they numbered 1256 out of a total of 6800, their number being exceeded by that of the Irish only, of whom 3046 were reported. Chinese laundrymen numbered 1333 in a total of 2069 reported. As laborers in domestic and personal service they numbered 2128 in a total of 8457. According to the census for 1870, they numbered 296 of 1551 persons employed in San Francisco in the manufacture of boots and shoes, 1657 of the 1811 employed in the manufacture of cigars, 253 of 393 employed in the manufacture of woolens, and 110 of 1223 employed in the manufacture of clothing, a total of 2316 of a grand total of 4978 employed in these four industries. These were the chief branches of manufacture in cities in which they found employment. With the development of salmon canning in Oregon and Washington during the eighties and still later with the development of the same industry in Alaska, they were for many years employed almost exclusively in canning, under contract, the fish caught by white fishermen. They also constituted a large percentage, when not a majority, of the "powder makers" and general laborers employed in powder factories.

For twenty years, beginning in the late sixties, several thousand found employment as construction laborers upon the new railways constructed from time to time and as section hands upon those already constructed. They also found employment as general laborers, engine wipers and boiler washers, and in other occupations calling for little skill in railroad shops. Or still previous to 1870, as hand laborers in the orchards, fields, hopyards, and vineyards of California north of the Tehachapi, and in the canneries and other establishments incidental to conserving and marketing the crops produced. In 1870 they numbered 1637 in a total of 16,231 farm laborers reported by the census for California. Though the estimate made by the California bureau of labor in 1886, that Chinese constituted seven eighths