This conclusion received open acknowledgment in the fact that Japanese Consuls in California took part in the publicity circulated during the recent election in California when an anti-alien land law was passed overwhelmingly. It has also been charged that the dozen prominent citizens of the United States who visited Japan last year did so at the expense of the Japanese who saw to it that only such scenes as might delight the eye were shown to these gentlemen who have given us fair tales of their trip and of the Japanese people.

In the recent publication entitled California and the Oriental1 issued by the State Board of Control of California, there is shown the fact that fully two-thirds of the increase in Japanese population in continental United States in the last decade has fallen on California. The birth-rate statistics of California show that in 1910, 96.13 per cent of the children born were white, while in 1919 only 90.86 per cent were white or as to Japanese only, in 1910 2.24 per cent of children born were Japanese, and in 1919 7.82 per cent were Japanese.、 In 1910, to 1,000 white women in California there were born 99 children. In 1919, to 1,000 Japanese women there were born 288 children, which is about an average showing of the difference in fecundity between whites and Mongolians. There are about three times as many Japanese men as women in California. It must be apparent why we oppose the further bringing of Japanese women to our state.

Of the 3,893,500 acres of land under irrigation in California, the Orientals occupy 623,752 acres, or about one

1California and the Oriental, by the State Board of Control of California, 230 pages with tables, statistics, graphs and maps, will be sent on request. State Board of Control, Sacramento, California.

sixth. The total farm crops of California for 1919 amounted to $507,811,881, but this included grain and other products which the Orientals do not raise. Reducing the total to the groups of crops in which the Orientals are active, we have $187,000,000 as the yield for 1919. Of this the Japanese alone produced $67,145,750 or about one-third. In 1915 the Japanese were third in nationality among the fishermen on the coast of California. In 1919 they stood first and represent as a nation one-third of the men so employed. And remember, this puts the coastwise fishing trade with its knowledge of shore line, harbors and defences in the hands of men who are aliens and who might become enemies.

May we transfer our problem to other parts of the country? What would be the effect if one-sixth of the best farming land in Iowa or Ohio had been taken over inside of twenty years by unassimilable aliens? Suppose one-third of the fruit and garden truck industry of New York, Georgia or Florida, or all of the potatoes raised in Maine, had passed from the hands of citizens into the hands of people who can not become citizens. The fishing fleets of New England were formerly the schools for American seamen. Suppose one-third of these fishermen were suddenly found to be aliens who could not serve our colors in case of need. Suppose the great fishing fleets of England and France had been alien during the war or that ours became alien and a war began. Suppose one-sixth of the editors or teachers were such aliens, or suppose that one-sixth of the preachers were aliens bowing down to another idea of God and teaching a religion linking Deity with a foreign ruler as twin images of adoration. Just suppose.

Much is being said in the discussion of the Japanese question about the

gration from Japan through action by Congress; and the third step, the amending of the Constitution of the United States to the effect that children born in this country of parents ineligible to citizenship themselves shall be ineligible to citizenship.

California appreciates that before these things can be brought to pass sentiment in the East must be created in her favor. She fully believes that with the facts before them the people of this nation as a whole will cordially endorse her attitude. She knows that at present entire sympathy does not exist for her, although she believes that in recent months there has been a change in her favor. She realizes that a hard task presents itself and is prepared to meet it.

Comparatively little bitterness of feeling exists in California on the part of Californians toward the Japanese. There are, of course, a few white men and women who talk loudly, angrily and unwisely. Among the Japanese themselves there has been little evidence of hatred, although, and not unnaturally, they do show resentment. So far the controversy has proceeded with remarkable restraint on both sides. The white people of California are determined. If our fellowcitizens of the East and the Government at Washington show a sympathetic attitude, there should be no break in the rather tranquil situation that exists here. If this coöperation is denied and California feels that she is to be left to shift for herself, then bitterness and strife will develop, and to an extent likely to embroil America and Japan.

Just now, as this is written, the Japanese are threatening to resort to the courts along two lines: first, to have determined their eligibility to American citizenship on racial grounds; and, second (should the former fail), to

have decided the constitutionality of the alien land measure just approved by the people of California.

I do not believe either suit will be brought, at least with any real hope of winning. The present talk is meant not only to "save the faces" of the Japanese here and influence opinion across the Pacific, but also for the effect it may have on Washington. The Japanese are strategists, and persistent. If they lose at one point they turn to another, always seeking to make the best of a situation, good or bad.

So far as the racial issue is concerned, I am informed that such a suit has lain dormant before the Supreme Court of the United States for years, and that the Japanese Government itself has not encouraged action. As to the constitutionality of the land measure, it was passed upon by several of California's ablest attorneys, and it is not a complete secret that more than one of Japan's diplomats and legal advisers have pronounced it suitproof.

There is no need of excitement over Japanese threats. It is natural that they should feel as their talk indicates, to say nothing of the obvious purpose to influence opinion, and, if possible, to strike a bargain. California has won, and she feels happy and secure in the victory, limited though it is.

There has been more or less talk of superiority and inferiority as between the races, but not a great deal. The issue is a fundamental difference, an unbridgeable difference; not one of superiority or inferiority. Granting equality, the standards of the races are almost as opposite as the poles, and there is no possibility of a common trend ever being evolved. Assimilation is impossible. True, there are a few marriages here and there, but they are the exceptions that prove the rule.

Many of our states by law forbid such marriages. On this coast, and more particularly in the Hawaiian Islands, the Japanese themselves show little disposition to intermarry with the whites; but, on the contrary, a strong desire to marry among themselves. Their racial instinct is very decidedly developed. The two peoples run along different lines physically, morally, socially, economically and politically. As they differ in color so do they in tradition, habits and aspirations. Obviously, therefore, it is unwise for the two races to meet in numbers. If they should, the clash is inevitable. The situation in California is bad enough now; it must not be permitted to be

come worse.

What is the present situation in California? Many people who do not understand or who do not want to understand ask why all this agitation over 100,000 Japanese in a total California population of over 3,000,000, or the ownership or control by these people of half a million acres or so in a state that has 99,617,280 acres, and of which area 28,828,951 acres are in farms.

Watch the gopher at work. He starts to bore into a levee, and as he progresses he is joined by more of his kind; then, in due time, the other side of the embankment is reached, and a little stream of water passes through. As the dirt crumbles, a flow increases and unless promptly checked the bore soon becomes a wide gap with the water rushing through and overflowing the land. That is the flood that means loss, and perhaps eventual disaster. That is exactly what is happening in the state of California today through the Japanese policy of peaceful penetration, of conquest by colonization, or, as Yoshi Kuno, Japanese Professor in the University of California, describes it, the "bloodless struggle." As the

water flows in a stream, so do the Japanese move in bodies, not scattering widely or as individuals, but settling in strong groups. The result, in time, is the dispossession of the whites in such

areas.

I do not compare the Japanese to the gopher to give gratuitous offense, but because to my mind the illustration really portrays the situation here; absorption by seepage, so to speak. I frankly admit the intelligence, the industry and the thrift of the Japanese, the wonderful strides made by Japan since Peary's time and her proud position today as one of the great nations of the world. But these very facts, because of the fundamental difference between the two races, are what make the situation so alarming today. The Chinese and the Hindoo may have intelligence, may have industry, but they are not aggressive, they do not seek to dominate, nor are they backed by powerful nations intent upon the domination of the Pacific Ocean, if not of the world.

What has happened in the Hawaiian Islands? Out of a total population of about 266,000, all races, it is estimated that 112,000 are Japanese. Very recently I had the pleasure of meeting the principal of one of the schools of Honolulu, and he told me that of the 40,000 school children in the Islands, 20,000 were Japanese; that all had been registered at the Japanese Consulate and that all were claimed by Japan as citizens of that nation. The Japanese in Hawaii today would hold political control if the Islands had statehood. The only way in which this nation can retain ascendancy is by keeping the Islands under the control of Congress, with an appointed commissioner or some such official in charge.

Surely we want no such situation to develop in the state of California.