(6) In spite of these considerations, however, in most branches of industry the Japanese have found it difficult to make much advance. In the lumber industry, for example, the great majority of employers have never employed them at all. In some instances this is explained by the race antipathy of the employer, more frequently by that of the white employees or that of the community in general. The same situation is found in most industries in which the Japanese have been employed in so far as large groups of men are brought together at one place and the work is of such a character that the members of different races must work in close association. While exceptions are found in a few other industries, it is mainly in the salmon canneries and in railway work that a hostile public opinion has had little effect upon the employment of Japanese. (7) Chiefly because of the attitude of other laborers and the fact that many of the Japanese do not understand English and must be set at work in groups with an interpreter, the Japanese have always been engaged chiefly in unskilled work. In the lumber industry a few have advanced to semiskilled positions, but they have not made the progress the members of the same race have in British Columbia, where skilled white men have been more scarce. In fact, in Washington and Oregon few Japanese have been employed except in the "yards." Nor have they found a place in catching fish for the canneries as they did in British Columbia, while in the canneries they are, as a rule, employed to do the unskilled work during the busiest season, while the Chinese are employed more regularly and fill the positions requiring skill. They likewise occupy the lowest positions in the fruit and vegetable canneries and are engaged chiefly in preparing fruit and vegetables for canning. In the coal mines, with the exception of Wyoming, they are employed as miners and loaders--occupations in which the great majority of the new immigrants are employed, because the work is less regular and more disagreeable than in the other occupations. Likewise, in the three smelters where they are employed they share the commonest labor with Greeks and other recent immigrants from south and east European countries. Perhaps the Japanese have made greater progress in railway shops than in any other nonagricultural employment. Though most of those employed in shops are unskilled laborers, they have risen somewhat in the scale of occupations, and in several instances are found occupying positions which, with their versatility and capacity, might serve them as stepping stones to skilled work. These, in brief, are the more general facts relating to the employment of Japanese in these nonagricultural industries. The Japanese, who found their first employment in the canneries and as section hands and general-construction laborers, have shown a strong tendency to leave such employment for agricultural work or to find employment in the cities. The explanation of the movement is found partly in the higher earnings which might be realized, partly in the better conditions of living which might be found, partly in a very evident tendency exhibited by the Japanese to rise to the occupational and economic position they had enjoyed in their native land. In this way the large number who have engaged in agricultural pursuits or in city trades upon their arrival have been added to by those who were leaving their employment in other industries. As a result of this movement the number of Japanese engaged in railroad and general construction work and in coal mining in all of the States save Utah has been decreasing, especially since restrictions were placed upon the immigration of laborers from Japan and Hawaii. Their places have been filled by an increasing number of European immigrants, as a rule at higher wages. Business having been in a more or less depressed condition throughout the West since the end of 1907, the partial substitution involved has not caused much difficulty. Moreover, it may be said that none of these industries, save the salmon canning, has been materially assisted by or has become dependent upon Japanese labor. In the salmon canneries more Chinese or more laborers of some other race than Japanese are desired. With the beetsugar industry in several States and certain other agricultural industries in California it is different, for the farmers in many localities have for years relied upon Asiatic labor until a situation has developed in which the substitution of other races will involve inconvenience and will require radical changes in order to make the necessary readjustment. CHAPTER IV. JAPANESE IN AGRICULTURE. AGRICULTURAL LABORERS." The farms of the Western States furnish employment during the summer months to more than 40 per cent of their Japanese population. The number so employed in California during the summer months of 1909 was probably 30,000, in Washington 3,000, Colorado 3,000, Oregon 1,000, Idaho between 800 and 1,000, Utah 1,025, and Montana 700 or 800. Comparatively few are employed in the other States of the western division, in Texas, and in Florida. Of these, perhaps 6,000 are farmers (chiefly tenants), the others farm laborers. The work performed by Japanese farm hands is practically all connected with the more intensive crops, such as sugar beets, grapes, deciduous and citrus fruits, berries, vegetables, and hops, which require much hand labor during certain seasons. They also engage in clearing land in some localities. Japanese are rarely employed on ranches devoted to general farming. The most important branch of agriculture as regards Japanese laborers is the raising of sugar beets, in which between 10,000 and 11,000 out of a total of 25,500 persons in the industry as a whole are employed during the busiest season. The great majority of the Japanese farm laborers in Idaho, Montana, Colorado, and Utah are working in the beet fields of those States during the busy season, and a part of those in Washington, Oregon, and California are also similarly employed. In Washington and Oregon, however, the great majority of the Japanese farm laborers are employed in berry patches and truck gardens and very few find employment in fruit orchards. In California the Japanese are extensively employed in nearly all districts, raising vegetables, berries, citrus and deciduous fruits, nuts, etc. The range of their work, as well as their number, in California is much greater than in the other States. 99 66 • The investigation of immigrant agricultural labor embraced studies of the Deet-sugar industry of all of the Western States, the hop industry in Oregon and California, and intensive farming in several localities in California. The reports submitted relating to these give much more detail concerning Japanese agricultural labor than is here presented. The reports are as follows: Immigrant labor in the beet-sugar industry in the Western States; Immigrant labor in the hop industry of California and Oregon; ""Immigrant labor in the agricultural and allied industries of California; " " Immigrant farming on the reclaimed lands of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers; 'Immigrants in Fresno County, Cal.; Immigrant labor in the deciduous-fruit industry of the Vaca Valley; ""Immigrant labor in the garden-seed and deciduous-fruit industries of Santa Clara County;" "Immigrant labor in the orchards about Suisun; "Immigrant labor in the citrus-fruit industry; "Immigrant labor in the fruit industries of the Newcastle district; " "The celery industry of Orange County;" and “Immigrant labor in the Imperial Valley.” 99 66 99 66 The history and conditions of employment of Japanese differ from one State to another. For that reason the facts are best presented for several of these States separately. CALIFORNIA. The Japanese were first employed in agricultural work in California about 1887. The entry and the subsequent extensive employment of Japanese in the farming districts of this State was made easy, because of the previous employment of Chinese. In many parts of the State the Chinese had predominated for years, so that the restrictions on their immigration paved the way to the extensive employment of the Japanese, who soon adapted themselves so as to fit into the Chinese system of labor and living conditions. Among other things they adopted the Chinese "boss" system. At first the Japanese worked in small unorganized groups, but as their numbers increased and they were more extensively employed, they soon became organized into " gangs "under leaders or bosses. Though individuals move rather freely from one group to another, this form of organization has been important in explaining the advance made by the Japanese in agriculture as in other industries. One of the first of the agricultural districts in which the Japanese found employment was the Vaca Valley, where four came in the winter of 1887-8. In 1890 4 Japanese went to Fresno, and the following year 30 found work there in the vineyards. In 1891 they first sought employment in the Newcastle fruit district. In 1892 13 Japanese were employed as hop pickers in the Pajaro Valley. They appeared also in the Lower Sacramento and San Joaquin River country, and in the Marysville and Suisun districts in the early nineties. In the early nineties the members of this race gained a foothold in the beet fields of the State. After once securing work, the number of Japanese in a district increased rapidly, and they found employment on more and more ranches, especially while the immigration was at its height from 1899 to 1906. They were later in entering agricultural work in southern California than in the northern part of the State. This was due largely to the fact that the districts of the south had been more recently developed, and that few Chinese, whom the Japanese followed in agricultural work in the north, had been employed there. Japanese were just beginning to find employment in the citrus fruit industry in 1900, and their employment in most localities of importance in citrus fruit growing dates from 1903 or 1904. Large numbers of the first Japanese brought to the southern part of the State were employed on the railroads, from which most of them were discharged in favor of Mexicans about 1902. The discharged men drifted into farm work, in certain parts of which they predominated or constituted a large percentage in most districts in 1909. In some localities the Japanese laborers have merely made good the decrease in the number of Chinese due to natural causes, and supplied a part or all of the laborers needed for the expanding industries. In other localities there has been a net displacement of Chinese and white men engaged in certain agricultural occupations. The chief competition with the Japanese in the handwork involved in sugar-beet growing are Mexicans, Chinese, Koreans, and Hindus. In fact, white men have never been employed to any great extent in this work. In other cases, as in the citrus fruit industry and in the deciduous fruit industry in most of the localities in which this industry centers, the competition is principally between white persons and Japanese. In most localities the Japanese at first offered to work for less pay than any other race. Underbidding of white men was all but if not quite universal, of Chinese, previous to 1900, very general. Underbidding of the Chinese and white men was the method commonly used by Japanese for some years to gain a foothold in the various districts. In one community where the Chinese were paid $5 per week, the Japanese first worked for 35 or 40 cents per day in the early nineties. In another locality the price for work done by Japanese by contract was first estimated on a basis of 45 cents per day as against $1 for Chinese, and in the later nineties at day work Japanese were paid 75 to 90 cents per day where Chinese were paid $1. In a third district they were paid 70 cents per day and for two or three years their wages varied from 60 to 90 cents as against $1.25 per day for Chinese and $1 per day, including board, for white men. Before the close of the nineties, however, the wages paid Japanese had begun to rise and the increase in their wages continued even when the influx of the members of this race was greatest. The continued rise in the wages of Japanese farm laborers during the years since 1900, when the number of immigrants of this race was largest, is explained by the employment of these laborers in more and more of the rapidly expanding agricultural districts and also the greater opportunity and employment offered them at better wages in other industries and in the Pacific coast cities. They were also well organized under "bosses," which greatly aided them in securing work at the higher wages. The Chinese were decreasing in number and the better class of white men did not care to engage in the seasonal farm work when regular work could be found at good wages elsewhere. With prosperous times and an inadequate labor supply under prevailing conditions, with new opportunities opened for them, and especially with restrictions upon their further immigration, the wages of Japanese have increased more than 50 per cent within fifteen years and, especially since great restrictions were placed upon the further increase of their numbers, they have ceased to greatly underbid other laborers. Their organization has, in fact, been used in some instances to effect an increase in the prices paid for contract work. That California should give employment to more Japanese farm laborers than the other States of the West is due mainly to the greater specialization of large districts in intensive agriculture and because they were convenient substitutes for the disappearing Chinese in those industries which had been built up with comparatively few white hand laborers. These intensive crops require large numbers of handworkers at certain stages in their production and it has been most difficult to secure these temporary laborers. The migratory Japanese have assumed such great importance in the agricultural districts of the State by supplying the greater part of this urgent demand for seasonal workers. They have been well adapted to the disagreeable handwork and have generally been secured at lower wages than white men. They have been convenient for ranchers to |