and in many respects capable, so that, speaking of them as a whole, they have tended to rise rapidly from the ranks of laborers to the economic position they occupied in their native land. Upon the other hand, the race prejudice against them, a prejudice in part due to that earlier exhibited against the Chinese, has prevented their employment in many branches of industry and, in those in which they have been employed, has cooperated with the lack of command of English and of technical knowledge to retard their occupational progress. Moreover, the fact that they are Asiatics caused them to fall heir to much of the work formerly done by the Chinese and to some extent to limit them to the fields of activity to which the Chinese had been restricted. These limitations upon their occupational advance have placed a premium upon engaging in petty business and farming on their own account.

The great majority of the Japanese immigrants to the Western States have found their first employment as railroad laborers, agricultural laborers, or in domestic and personal service, using the term in its broader sense. The first two branches of employment have been well organized under the Japanese "contractors" and "bosses; " the last has been found largely through the employment offices or house-cleaning firms. That the majority were thus employed upon their first arrival in this country is indicated by the following table, which shows the first gainful occupation of 1,808, from whom complete data were obtained with reference to the various ways in which they had been employed since their immigration.

TABLE 24.-First occupation of Japanese in the United States, by present occupation and industry.

Thus, of 439 men now engaged in business for themselves, 17.1 per cent were at first so occupied or were farmers. As opposed to these, 32.6 per cent were engaged in domestic or personal service, 20 per cent as farm hands, 15 per cent in various city occupations, and 11.2 per cent as railroad laborers. The occupational distribution of the 424 who are now city wage-earners was very similar. The great majority of the farmers and farm laborers, on the other hand, were first employed as farm hands. Of 490 farmers, only 18 began as such and 10 as business men, while 259, or 52.9 per cent of the entire number, found their first employment as farm hands, 103, or 21 per cent, as railroad laborers, and 54, or 11 per cent, as domestic servants. Two-thirds of the 414 farm laborers secured such as their first employment, while 23.4 per cent were first employed as railway laborers, and 4.6 per cent as domestic servants.

In this connection the following tables relating to their present and their last regular occupation before immigrating to the continental United States are of interest.

TABLE 25.-Occupation of foreign-born Japanese males before coming to the United States, by present industry.

TABLE 26.-Per cent of foreign-born Japanese males in each specified occupation before coming to the United States, by present industry.

TABLE 26.-Per cent of foreign-born Japanese males in each specified occupation before coming to the United States, by present industry-Continued.

These tables show three things of interest: (1) That the student class and the younger immigrants who had not been gainfully occupied at home are largely represented in the city trades and in trades drawing upon the city population; (2) that the rural employments have by far the largest percentages of those who were farmers or farm laborers abroad; and, (3) conversely, that most of the city employments have the largest percentage of those who were similarly occupied previous to their immigration. The city employments are those of the business men, of the miscellaneous wage-earners, and the laundry workmen, while those which draw chiefly upon the city population are the fish, fruit, and vegetable canneries. These show the largest percentage of those who had not been employed in their native land. The other industries are nonurban employments, and among their employees were from 61.5 to 80.7 per cent who had been engaged in agricultural pursuits previous to their immigration. The percentage of this same class employed in the other occupations varies from 28.7 of the business men to 61.1 of the laborers in the fruit and vegetable canneries. The contrast in the distribution of those who at home had been engaged in business and in city occupations is not so clearly marked, yet the representation of these classes in the groups of business men, laundry workers, and miscellaneous city wage-earners is much above the average for all occupations.

The more important of the data relating to the employment of and business conducted by Japanese in this country are best presented in three parts, the first relating to wage-earners in industry, the second to agricultural laborers and farmers, the third to employees in urban occupations and business. The employment of Japanese in industry constitutes the body of this chapter. The other data are presented in Chapters III and IV. Further data bearing upon these matters may be found in the special reports to which reference is made in connection with the several topics discussed.

JAPANESE AS RAILROAD LABORERS."

In spite of a well-defined tendency on the part of the Japanese to leave their employment as section hands in order to engage in agricultural labor and farming, or to engage in business in the towns

Further information bearing on most of the points touched upon in this section will be found in a report on “Immigrant laborers employed by the steam railways of the Rocky Mountain and Pacific Coast States."

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and cities, or to take employment with their countrymen who are so engaged, perhaps one-eighth of those gainfully occupied at the close of the year 1909 were on the pay rolls of the steam railway companies operating in the States comprising the Western Division, and chiefly in Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Útah, Wyoming, and Colorado. Few are employed in the States farther east and comparatively few in California. Between 6,000 and 7,000 a were employed as section hands and members of extra gangs during the late spring and summer months of 1909. During the other seasons of the year, when many return from their work in the beet fields and other agricultural labor of a seasonal nature, the number is materially larger. On the average they constitute between oneseventh and one-sixth of the laborers in the maintenance-of-way departments in the western division. Smaller numbers are employed in railway shops and still smaller numbers in the departments of bridges and buildings. All told, at the close of the year 1909 the Japanese employed in the three departments of railway work perhaps aggregated some 10,000.

As against this, it is estimated that as many as 13,000 were similarly employed in 1906, when the number reached its highest point. In order to indicate the importance of railroad work as a source of employment for Japanese immigrants to the Western States, those engaged in railway construction work as members of general construction gangs must be added to the numbers given.

The Japanese were first employed as section hands near the close of the year 1889 or early in the year 1890, when they replaced some Chinese at work on a road with a terminus at Portland, Oreg. Their employment on other roads with terminals at that place soon followed. The railroads with western terminals at Tacoma or Seattle began to employ Japanese as section hands in 1896 and 1898. On the railroads in the Southwest their employment dates from the close of the nineties, while on the railroads centering in San Francisco and Oakland and extending north to the Oregon line, east to Ogden, and south to Los Angeles, their employment began somewhat earlier. With these beginnings, when the Japanese in the country were comparatively few, the number employed increased with the expanding immigration from Japan and Hawaii until 1906. Three causes contributed to this increase in the number of Japanese engaged in railroad work. In the first place, they were made available through contractors at a time when industries were expanding and it was impossible to retain as section men (at the wages which had obtained) the Americans, Irish, and north Europeans, who had constituted the majority of such laborers previous to 1895, and when the number of Chinese available had become small as a result of the operation of the exclusion laws and the tendency of that race to seek agricultural employment or to withdraw to the cities. In the second place, they were willing to work for a lower wage than the

"Estimate based upon records of the Japanese contractors for railroad labor and of most of the railroad companies.

Estimate contained in the Japanese-American Yearbook. Judging from the records of the larger contractors who are still in business, it was perhaps not far wrong. A large number, especially in California, have ceased to be contractors for railway labor since limitations were placed upon the immigration of Japanese laborers.

Italians, Greeks, and Slavs, who were being steadily employed in large numbers. In the third place, except where Mexicans have been available, they have generally been regarded as satisfactory laborers. The same set of circumstances explains their employment in railway shops and in bridges and building departments during the last ten years, and after they had established their position in the maintenance of way work. Of the circumstances mentioned, the organization of the Japanese through contractors serving as employment agents must be emphasized above all others. Greeks, Italians, and Slavs must be "recruited" from the East and usually through general employment agencies. Standing orders with Japanese contractors at the western ports have given greater assurance of the necessary labor supply, and, moreover, such an arrangement was more convenient for the railway companies. The only race as easily and as conveniently secured has been the Mexican through the supply companies organized within the last ten years to provide certain railroads, with which they made contracts, with laborers of that race. The details supporting the above statements and supplying the more complete information which the importance of this branch of employment requires are best presented by summarizing briefly the history of the employment of Japanese as section hands and as members of "extra gangs" on a few of the more important steam railways of the West.

The first Japanese employed as section hands were secured near the end of 1889 or early in 1890 from a Portland contractor who was or had been a member of a large emigration company in Japan. From that time, when possibly 100 were substituted for as many Chinese, they increased in number on the road which first gave them employment until 1906, and, with the Italians, Greeks, and various Austrian races, gradually took the places of the Irish and natives, who were permitted to leave for more remunerative work elsewhere. In 1896 600 Japanese were employed at $1 per day. In 1905 the average number employed was 1,052; in 1906, 1,221; in 1907, 1,049; in 1908, 782. Before 1902 their wages had been increased to $1.50, and they were then increased to $1.60, the rate which has since obtained, except for a short time beginning in 1908, when the wage was fixed at $1.40 per day. The Japanese, at first paid considerably less than the members of any race save the Chinese, are now paid the same as the Italians and Greeks, who, with the Japanese, have constituted for several years the majority of the employees in the maintenance of way department. With few exceptions, the roadmasters have preferred the Japanese to the Italians, Greeks, and Austrians, so that it has been the policy of this company to employ as many Japanese as the Portland contractor could supply. From 1905 to 1907 they constituted about two-fifths of the maintenance of way laborers employed. Two railroads operating farther north began to employ Japanese as section hands in 1896 and 1898, respectively. The laborers have been obtained through a supply company with its main office in Seattle, but with branch offices at the various division points in Washington and Montana. The average number of men supplied by this Japanese corporation for the eleven years 1898 to 1908, inclusive, were 200, 600, 2,145, 1,199, 1,082, 1,069, 1,515, 1,372, 1,824, 2,295, and 1,936, respectively. When first employed, the Japanese were paid 10 or 12