sional men-2 interpreters, 3 dentists, and 5 physicians the last two groups practicing among Japanese exclusively. The other Japanese gainfully employed, the official class and clergymen excepted, are employed for wages by white persons.

It is estimated that about 350 Japanese men are employed as domestics in private families. The more experienced command from $40 to $50 per month as cooks. These wages are much higher than those earned twenty years ago. The usual wage was then $14 or $15 per month. At no time has the number of Japanese domestics been sufficiently large seriously to affect the employment of other races. It is estimated that about 120 Japanese men are employed about hotels, bars, clubs, and in stores conducted by white proprietors. As porters they usually earn $12 per week or $50 per month and board. As bell boys, another capacity in which they are employed about hotels, they earn about $30 per month and board. In this latter capacity they are now employed to the exclusion of other races in most of the high-priced hotels of the city. The few employed in stores conducted by white men serve as porters and general workers. One newspaper is published by the Japanese in Portland. It is an eight-page daily with a circulation of about 800. The Japanese maintain two churches. The Methodist Mission was established in 1893 and has about 70 members. The Buddhist Mission was established ten years later. It has about 570 members, 270 of whom live in Portland and its vicinity, the others in more distant country places. The Japanese Association of Oregon was organized in February, 1909. It unifies the various kinds of organizations among the Japanese and serves to protect and promote the interests of that race as do the associations organized in other States.

CHAPTER VII.

JAPANESE IN CITY EMPLOYMENTS AND BUSINESS IN DENVER.

The first Japanese settled in Colorado a little more than ten years ago. When they first came to the State they were engaged very largely in maintenance-of-way work on the railroads and in business in Denver. The latter city became a supply center. In 1900, however, they found employment in the coal mines, and somewhat later in an iron and steel plant at Pueblo. Shortly after that time they engaged in handwork in the sugar-beet fields, and subsequently became tenant farmers in large numbers. In 1909 the Japanese population of the State was estimated at 6,000. Of these, some 400 or more were engaged in coal mining, 128 in iron and steel manufacture, and 4,500 in agricultural and construction and railroad work, the agricultural laborers swelling the ranks of those otherwise employed during the seasons when little work is done in the beet fields. Denver is the supply center and the place of residence for the majority of the Japanese in the State when they are not employed.

According to an investigation conducted by the Japanese Association of Colorado, July 15, 1909, the number of Japanese in Denver was 526. Of these, 489 were adult males, 24 married women, and 13 children. This census contained few of the laborers who reside there when not at work. If these and miscellaneous persons not included in the above are added, the minimum number is estimated at about 725. During certain months of the year the number is much larger. About the middle of August, for example, many agricultural laborers come to the city to remain until the beet harvest begins toward the end of September. The Japanese population at that time is about 1,500. Again, at the close of the beet harvest in December a still larger number come to the city until they find other employment for the winter months or until agricultural work begins again in the spring. At that time the number is in excess of 1,500. With the growth of the Japanese population, Japanese have engaged in business in Denver primarily to provide for the wants of the remainder of that race residing there and to furnish supplies to those gainfully occupied in different parts of the State. Few have engaged in business in the smaller cities and towns. In 1909 five establishments were reported for Pueblo and two each for Colorado Springs and Eaton and one each for Greeley and Fort Collins, but the entire number outside of Denver does not greatly exceed a dozen. In Denver in 1903 there were two restaurants, one bamboo furniture manufacturer, and one boarding house. More recently, with the great influx of agricultural laborers to the beet fields, which began in 1903, the number of establishments conducted by Japanese has greatly increased. The number in July, 1909, as ascertained by an agent of the Commission, is shown in the table following. It shows also the number of persons gainfully occupied in the several establishments engaged in each kind of business specified.

TABLE 12. Japanese engaged in business in Denver, Colo., June, 1909.

a Patronized by Japanese only.

214

114

Japanese confectionery «.
Japanese drug store a
Jewelry shop..

Labor contractors a.

3

0

Laundries.

Lodging houses..

20

Massage parlor a.

712

412122

Photograph gallery a.
Pool rooms.

Restaurants

3

3

2

3

(Japanese

meals)..

10

33

3

Tofu manufacturer a..

1

b Not including 5 newspaper men with branch offices, 4 house-cleaning agencies with 130 men, 2 physicians, 2 dentists, a hospital, a "bamboo worker," a carpenter, a job painter, and 2 prostitutes.

The total presented, viz, 67 establishments, comprising 133 persons gainfully occupied, does not include 5 newspaper men, with branch offices; 4 house-cleaning agencies, with 130 men; 2 physicians, 2 dentists, several craftsmen, and a few others gainfully occupied in the Japanese colony or in connection with Japanese institutions.

The Japanese are more conspicuous in the general field of domestic service than in any other branch of employment in Denver. There are 4 house-cleaning agencies, controlling some 130 men, who do house-cleaning and domestic work by the day. There is also a group of Koreans, as large as any of these 4, likewise employed. Some 100 Japanese men are regularly employed as domestics in private families, but they are only a small percentage of the total number so employed. There were also, in 1908 and 1909, 22 students attending the public schools of the city and the University of Den

ver.

This accounts for the vast majority of those residing in the city throughout the year other than those engaged as professional and business men and their few dependents.

An agent of the Commission made a general investigation of the business conducted in Denver by the Japanese. The number of the establishments was too few to warrant a general statistical analysis. The general results may be briefly presented. Most of the Japanese live and, with few exceptions, conduct their business in two or three blocks of the older part of the business district of the city. There, as elsewhere, the vast majority of the proprietors, their families, and employees live in the rear or over the rooms in which business is conducted.

The seven boarding and lodging houses are patronized exclusively by Japanese, chiefly farm and railroad laborers. These provide board as well as lodging. Besides these seven, there are three lodging houses which provide lodgings only and are patronized to some extent by white persons of the lower class. These 10 boarding and lodging houses are organized into a boarding-house association, the primary object of which is to prevent any unnecessary competition.

At the time of the investigation each member was contributing $5 per month to a fund for the purpose of establishing a cooperative supply house. There are 10 restaurants, all of which serve Japanese meals and "noodles" only. They have a few white and negro patrons, but the Japanese patrons are far more numerous than the others. These proprietors are organized into the Japanese Restaurant Keepers' Association, which regulates prices so that they may be uniform, and controls the location of restaurants, so that undue competition shall not develop. There are no Japanese restaurants serving American meals, and there is no competition between those serving Japanese meals and the restaurants conducted by the members of other races. When the Japanese first came to Denver, about ten years ago, however, several opened restaurants to serve American meals. It is said that the prices charged were lower than those which obtained at other cheap restaurants in the city, so that the competition of the seven or more Japanese establishments was keenly felt, especially by other establishments located near by. The white cooks and waiters were at that time strongly organized, and, acting in cooperation with the white restaurant keepers, they succeeded in cutting off very largely the supplies which had been furnished the Japanese restaurants by white dealers. This was done by means of a threatened boycott of offending dealers. Moreover, the Japanese were prevented from establishing a supply house of their own, and though the case was contested in the courts the Japanese restaurant keepers were soon forced to suspend business.

As indicated in the foregoing table, there were four dry goods stores. These are in fact supply stores. Two of them carry goods. of every kind, save perishable articles, needed by railroad and farm laborers, and most of their trade is with out of town laborers of the kind mentioned, employed through and working under the control of the proprietors of these supply houses as labor contractors. In addition to this supply business they have some city customers, both Japanese and white, the latter being the more numerous. One of the larger of the supply houses does a business of approximately $100,000 per year, 70 per cent of which is with farmers and laborers in various parts of Colorado. The value of goods imported from Japan during the year was $55,000, or more than one-half of the value of the annual transactions.

Besides these dealers who serve as labor contractors, there are several other Japanese contractors in Denver, making a total of seven. These men are engaged in providing laborers for work in the mines, as section hands on the railroads, and for construction of dams, reservoirs, and other reclamation work. The relations between the contractors and men are practically the same as in Seattle, where conditions have already been noted. Besides these labor contractors there is one employment office patronized exclusively by Japanese and chiefly by domestics and casual laborers employed in Denver. The other branches of business engaged in by Japanese are of less importance. There are four barber shops with one chair each. Three also have baths. The prices are the same as those charged in other shops of the same type, viz, 20 or 25 cents for hair cutting and 15 cents for shaving. While all of the shops are patronized by other races, the Japanese are the most numerous of all.

There are three laundries. Two are conducted by the members of one family without the assistance of outside employees, while only 1 Japanese man and from 3 to 4 white women are employed in the other. The latter, alone, has patrons other than Japanese, the majority of its customers being white persons. The prices charged are higher than those which are maintained by some white laundries but lower than those of some others. The competition is negligible. The Japanese conduct two dairies supplying milk in Denver. One has 33, the other 15 milch cows. Both Japanese and white persons are found among their patrons, the latter being in the majority. Both Japanese are members of the Dairymens' Association, and there is no underselling of other dealers. The three pool parlors are frequented by members of other races as well as by Japanese. Taking the three together, the percentages of the various races represented among the patrons are about as follows: White persons, 10; negroes, 20; Japanese, 70. The other business conducted by the Japanese is of little importance. Moreover, as is indicated in the foregoing table, most of the establishments have Japanese patrons only.

From the table to which reference has just been made and from this brief review of different branches of business conducted by Japanese, it is evident (1) that while the number of Japanese business establishments in Denver has rapidly increased since 1903, they are not comparatively numerous; (2) that with the exception of the supply stores and some of the lodging houses, they are small; (3) that the more important branches of business, viz, the labor agencies, supply business, the boarding and lodging houses, and the restaurants, as well as the majority of the small establishments, have been started primarily to provide for Japanese laborers while in Denver as transients and while at work in other places; (4) that the only branch of business in which there has been serious competition between Japanese and white establishments is the restaurant trade, and that the Japanese thus engaged were compelled to suspend business because of the organized opposition of their competitors and their employees; (5) that while a comparatively large number of the small shops and some of the larger stores have non-Japanese patrons, such establishments occupy such an unimportant place in the trade of Denver that their existence is of no particular consequence to business men of other races.

The most important organizations among the Japanese other than the purely business organizations among the restaurant keepers and the boarding and lodging house keepers, to which reference has been made, are the Japanese Association of Colorado, the Business Men's Association, and two "prefectural" societies, with memberships of 639, 25, 25, and 66, respectively. The Japanese Association of Colorado was organized a few years ago when the opposition to immigrants of that race was organized and directed through the local Japanese and Korean Exclusion League, and was designed to protect the interests of the members of the race in Colorado. Since the opposition has become less pronounced, the association has served the same purposes as similar organizations in other localities. The Japanese Business Men's Association is chiefly of historical interest. It was organized in 1907 as a result of a factional fight within the