now charge somewhat lower prices than their competitors and are in sufficient number to take as their share more than a small percentage of the business of the community or of the district in which their shops are located.

Portland, Oreg., for ten years following the introduction of direct steamship connection with Japan, in 1887, was the most important supply center in the Northwest; but more recently this position has been lost to Seattle. In 1909 there were some 97 business establishments conducted by Japanese in Portland. Practically all of the establishments, the business of one contractor being an important exception, are small, and most of the business conducted is incidental to supplying the needs of the Japanese. In fact, the 10 barber shops, the 14 restaurants serving American meals, and the 4 art and curio stores alone have more than a small percentage of white patrons. Though the prices charged are the same as at the other small barber shops, about 50 per cent of the patrons of the Japanese shops are white persons, chiefly laborers. The restaurants serving American meals have only a very small percentage of Japanese patrons. Inasmuch as the curio stores have been conducted by Asiatics chiefly, the competition of the Japanese engaged in business has been limited practically to the barber and restaurant trades.

San Francisco has been the port of arrival of the majority of the Japanese immigrating to the United States, and has also been a more important center of Japanese business than any other American city. Its establishments have been more numerous than those of any other place, and a larger percentage of the business has been conducted on a large scale. It is here, too, that the Japanese have met with the strongest resistance offered to their advances and that race lines are most clearly drawn against the laboring class. The more than 50 hotels and lodging houses, the 18 barber shops, the 13 bathhouses, the 28 pool rooms and shooting galleries, and a great many small shops conducted by Japanese are patronized almost, if not quite, exclusively by the members of that race. Among the small shops and other establishments to which reference is made are 8 book stores, 3 drug stores, 7 confectioners' shops, 1 meat and 4 fish markets, a few fruit stands, a sake store, and 1 sake brewery, the 4 dealers in bamboo goods, and 3 tofu (bean curd) manufacturers. On the other hand, 2 of 8 photographers have some white patrons, some of the 22 supply stores and groceries find as many as 20 or 25 per cent of their patrons among the white people, the watch repairers and jewelers from 10 to 15, the 18 tailors from 10 to 35, the 34 cleaning and dye shops from 30 to 100. The small gentlemen's furnishing stores also have a small percentage of white patrons. In none of these cases, however, has the gaining of white trade had any particular significance. The more complete provision for meeting the wants of the Japanese has (in some lines) had more. The 42 art and curio stores are patronized largely by white persons, but these compete chiefly with similar stores conducted by the Chinese. The three branches of business in which the percentage of white patrons has been large, in which the Japanese establishments have been relatively numerous, and where the prices charged have been comparatively low, are the laundries, restaurants serving American meals, and the shoe-repair shops, to which further reference will be made presently.

In Sacramento the Japanese have established 2 laundries, 2 restaurants serving American meals, 10 barber shops, and 1 gentlemen's furnishing store outside of the well-defined Japanese quarter, embracing some five or six city blocks, primarily to secure white patronage. The vast majority of their places of business, however, are located within the Japanese quarter. The 37 boarding and lodging houses, the 7 bathhouses, the 4 small hand laundries, the 28 restaurants serving Japanese meals, the 4 employment and real estate agencies located in the Japanese quarter are patronized exclusively by Japanese. The percentage of white patrons of the 1 dry goods store, the 2 drug stores, the 4 jewelry and watch-repair shops, the 1 curio store, the 3 fish markets, and 4 confectionery shops is comparatively small. Nor do the 6 small tailor and dye shops and the 8 gentlemen's furnishing stores located in the Japanese quarter have a large percentage of white patrons. On the other hand, from 15 to 40 per cent of the patronage of the 12 groceries, 2 of which are very large, from a very small percentage to 30 per cent of that of the 16 barber shops, and the larger part of the patronage of the 6 restaurants serving American meals, here located, are from white persons.

Thus the number of establishments having a large percentage of white patrons is comparatively small, and the establishments, with the exception of two grocery stores, are small shops. Of much more importance than the competition for white patronage, however, is the transference of Japanese trade from white shops formerly patronized by them to shops established by their countrymen in recent years, and the change in the population of the district constituting the present Japanese quarter. With the establishment of tailor shops and gentlemen's furnishing stores some of the white shopkeepers located in or within a few blocks of the large Japanese settlement have, within the last few years, lost a part of the business they formerly transacted with the Japanese. As the Japanese have come to the district in which they are at present located, the other races have gradually moved away, partly because of the fact that the rental value of property has increased as the Japanese have offered higher rents, partly because of the dislike most white people evince toward living in or near the Japanese colony. With this change in the character of the population, the white proprietors of the small groceries and other stores, the restaurant keepers, barbers, and others dependent for the greater part upon the patronage of those who live in the immediate vicinity, have suffered loss of business, for the Japanese, for reasons already mentioned, usually patronize shops conducted by their countrymen.

In Los Angeles the 90 boarding and lodging houses, the 58 restaurants serving Japanese meals, the 2 banks, besides the printing establishments and some petty manufacture of Japanese goods, are the principal Japanese places of business patronized exclusively or almost exclusively by the members of that race. The other branches of business are patronized to some extent, and most of them largely, by non-Asiatics. From 60 to 90 per cent of the patrons of the 7 laundries, something less than one-half of the patrons of the 26 baths, a little more than one-half of the patrons of the 44 barber shops, a considerable number of the patrons of most of the 33 pool halls and billiard parlors, the vast majority of the patrons of the

21 restaurants serving American meals, the majority of the patrons of the 17 cobbler shops, from 20 to 50 per cent of the patrons of the 16 tailor and dye shops, about 18.5 per cent of the patrons of the groceries and provision stores investigated, a considerable percentage of those of the 3 fish markets, about one-half of the patrons of the 5 watch-repairing shops, a small percentage of the patrons of the 8 drug and book stores, about 30 per cent of those of the 1 liquor store," and a considerable percentage of the patrons of several of the numerous cigar and fruit stands were members of other races than the Japanese, as were practically all of the patrons of the 15 art and curio stores constituting one of the most important branches of Japanese business.

With the exception of the art stores and some of the laundries, practically all of the Japanese establishments are located in or very near the two districts in which the Japanese have colonized, and most of their patrons are residents of these same districts. Among them are some Mexicans, a small percentage of negroes, and a large percentage of foreign-born whites of the laboring class. Though a majority of the Japanese establishments are patronized by other races, and some of them almost exclusively so, the competition of these, because of the comparatively small amount of business done by them, has not been of any special importance except in the case of the cobbler shops, restaurants, pool rooms, barber shops, and laundries.

The California cities to which reference has thus far been made are the larger supply centers. Watsonville may be taken as the representative of the smaller cities and towns which serve as supply centers for the farmers and agricultural laborers of the community, with the qualification that the situation which obtains there is the result of a longer period of growth, and that Japanese count for much more than in most of the agricultural centers.

In this town of 5,000 inhabitants the number of Japanese business establishments is 37. The number of boarding houses patronized by Japanese only is 10; of restaurants serving Japanese meals, 1; of billiard and pool rooms and bath houses not frequented by white persons, 4 each. On the other hand, the 2 barber shops, the cobbler shop, the bicycle shop, and the 3 supply stores have a small percentage of patronage by white people, while persons of that race constitute the majority of the patrons of the small hand laundry and of the 5 small restaurants serving American meals. These are all small establishments save one store conducted by a Japanese corporation, and with the exception of the restaurants are of no special importance in so far as their patronage by white persons is concerned. Of more importance, however, is the more complete provision year after year for meeting the needs of the Japanese. Most of their wants are now supplied by their countrymen in business. However, one large store, conducted by a corporation of white men, being in better position to meet the needs of the numerous Japanese farmers and to extend credit to them, does more business with the Japanese than the large Japanese supply house to which reference was made above.

Because of their more recent settlement in the cities and towns of the Rocky Mountain States, the Japanese have not engaged so exten

• The others entered in the table are little more than sale agencies.

sively in business there as in the cities of the Pacific Coast States, and most of the establishments conducted by them are devoted chiefly to supplying the laborers of that race at work in the rural communities. The number of Japanese business establishments in Salt Lake City in 1909 was 46; in Ogden, 43; in Denver, 67. These are the three important Japanese supply centers of the "Mountain States." In Salt Lake City the supply and grocery stores and the boarding and lodging houses, the most important branches of business engaged in by the Japanese, are patronized almost exclusively by their own countrymen. On the other hand, the 5 small restaurants serving American meals, the barber shops and baths, employing 8 men, the 3 curio shops, the 3 small tailor and dye shops, and the largest of 3 billiard and pool rooms are patronized largely or principally by white persons. These Japanese establishments are relatively very few, however, and the prices charged are, as a rule, the same as those charged at numerous shops of the same general character conducted by the members of other races. In Ogden most of the Japanese establishments of any particular importance are directly connected with Japanese labor. The establishments having any considerable percentage of their patrons among the white races are the 1 small laundry, with 5 employees; the 1 restaurant serving American meals; and the 4 barber shops, with a total of 8 chairs, and the pool rooms connected with them.

The growth of Japanese business in Denver has been chiefly since 1903 and has been incidental to the employment of many laborers in the growing of sugar beets. Most of the establishments are located in the ill-defined Japanese quarter, and the 10 boarding and lodging houses, the 10 restaurants serving Japanese meals, a bank, a fish market, 2 confectionery shops, and a drug store are patronized almost, if not quite, exclusively by Japanese. Two dairies, the 4 supply stores, the 4 barber shops, and a few other establishments are patronized to some extent by white persons, and in some instances by negroes, but except in the case of the first mentioned the Japanese patrons constitute a majority. The Japanese establishments are relatively few and unimportant. Indeed, the only instance in which Japanese competition has been of any importance in Denver was in the restaurant trade a few years before the influx of any large number of laborers of that race, and that was successfully opposed by the white restaurant keepers and their unionized employees.

In the other Rocky Mountain States the Japanese establishments are few, and these few are largely lodging houses and restaurants for Asiatic laborers and American restaurants and small laundries depending upon American patronage. The only thing noteworthy is the absence of any feeling against them-save in Butte, Mont., where they were not permitted to engage in business at all-and the freedom with which all classes of white persons patronize the small restaurants.

Of much more importance than the extent to which white people have patronized Japanese establishments in different places is the basis upon which such competition as has arisen has taken place. This phase of the matter is best brought out by an account of the laundry, restaurant, shoe repairing, tailoring and dyeing, barber, and provision trades, in which alone, it is evident from what has been

said, has there been any great amount of competition between Japanese establishments and those conducted by the members of the various white races.

LAUNDRIES.

All told the Japanese conduct perhaps as many as 160 laundries in the cities and towns of the Western States. Most of these are in the cities of Washington and California. Of the cities investigated by the agents of the Commission, the largest numbers were found in Seattle with 37, San Francisco with 19, Los Angeles with 7, and Sacramento and Tacoma with 6 each. The approximate number of persons employed for wages in the Japanese laundries was 275 or 300 in Seattle, 75 in Tacoma, 350 in San Francisco, 30 in Sacramento, and some 75 or 80 in Los Angeles.

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Thus the total number of laborers employed in the 75 laundries of these 5 cities is 800 or 850. The average number for each laundry is thus approximately 11; but this would be increased somewhat were proprietors, frequently two or more partners, included in the total given. The small average indicated is due to the fact that the majority of these laundries are small hand laundries, employing little capital and few men, and doing a small business. Twenty-one of the 37 in Seattle are small establishments connected with Japanese barber shops and bathhouses. Of the 16 independent establishments, 12 employ about 8 persons each; 1, 15; 2 about 30 each; and the largest about 40 men. In Los Angeles only 2 employed as many as 20 men, in Sacramento the largest number employed was 9, in San Francisco, 37. It is significant that 24 laundries for which detailed information was secured, in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Fresno, employed 213, but that 2 of these were operated without hired assistance, 3 with 1 employee each, 4 with from 2 to 5, 6 with from 6 to 9, 4 with from 10 to 19, and 3 with 25, 32, and 37, respectively.

The amount of capital employed was less than $1,000 in 7 of the 24 cases, $1,000 but less than $2,000 in 6, $2,000 in 2, $3,000 in 5, and $3,200, $10,000, $15,000, and $40,000 (including the value of the real estate occupied) in the remaining 4. The gross receipts from the business conducted during the year preceding the investigation were less than $2,000 in 4 cases, $2,000 but less than $3,000 in 4, $3,000 but less than $5,000 in 2, $5,000 but less than $10,000 in 6, $10,000 but less than $20,000 in 4, and $26,400, $35,000, and $42,000, respectively, in the remaining 3 of the 23 reporting data relating to their gross earnings for the year. The total gross earnings for the 23 were $220,740, an average of approximately $9,887.

In all of the five cities to which specific reference has been made, there are numerous white steam laundries, and in some cases, as in San Francisco, numerous French hand laundries, in which several times as many persons are employed as in the Japanese laundries. In San Francisco alone the employees of the white steam laundries number 3,000, while those of the Chinese and French laundries increase this number to 5,000 or more. Yet in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Fresno, and in various smaller places serious complaint has been made of Japanese competition in the laundry trade, while in San Francisco and Los Angeles organized effort had been made to limit this competition.