molders, and, it is said, because they were not regarded by the employers as satisfactory workmen. In tea packing, partly because of their efficiency in such work, they are employed in two establishments, but in comparatively small numbers. In one of these they are found engaged in several occupations at wages varying from $40 to $65 per month, and corresponding to those paid to white women and men engaged in the same or similar work. With unimportant exceptions such as these, the Japanese have not been employed in industrial enterprises conducted by white persons in San Francisco. In business the Japanese have made more progress than in the various wage occupations in cities.

JAPANESE IN BUSINESS.

It is probable that between 10,000 and 11,000 Japanese in the 11 Commonwealths comprising the Western Division of the continental United States are engaged in business on their own accounts or are employed for wages by their countrymen who are thus occupied." The great majority of these Japanese establishments are located in a comparatively few large general supply centers San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Jose, Portland, Seattle, Tacoma, Spokane, Ogden, Salt Lake City, and Denver-but a few Japanese business establishments are found in almost every town of importance near which the members of this race are employed. Agents of the Commission investigated the business conducted by Japanese in Seattle, Tacoma, Spokane, Bellingham, North Yakima, and Wenatche, in the State of Washington; Portland, in Oregon; San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Fresno, Watsonville, and Vacaville, in California; Ogden and Salt Lake City, in Utah; Denver, in Colorado; and several towns in Idaho and Montana.

General information was collected in all of these places, while details were obtained and set down in schedules for representative establishments, proprietors, and employees in those having the largest number of Japanese engaged in business. The results of these investigations are set forth in a number of local studies. In this section of the report only the more general and significant phases of the situation are presented.

Many of the Japanese business establishments are of such a character that they are difficult to classify. In some branches of business their numbers change rapidly, old establishments disappearing and new ones appearing. The number of establishments devoted to each kind of business, as classified by the agents of the Commission in each town or city investigated, at the time the investigation was made (during November and December, 1908, and the first half of the year 1909), together with the total for each town or city and

• According to the Japanese-American Yearbook, the number of persons in these groups in California in 1909 was 7,078. Investigation by agents of the Commission, in all places in which any considerable number of Japanese are found, give the following corresponding figures for the States specified: Washington, 2,025; Oregon, 450; Utah, 300; Colorado, 200; Montana, 100; Idaho, 80; Wyoming, 50; Nevada, 50. The numbers for New Mexico and Arizona are very small.

b

Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Fresno, and Watsonville. See note, p. 91.

the total of the numbers for the several places, is shown in the following summary table:

TABLE 34.-Number of Japanese establishments engaged in each specified kind of business in selected localities in 1909.

In the larger cities there were doubtless some business establishments conducted concerning which information was not obtained by the agents. These omissions are more than offset, however, by the duplications contained in the table presented. In the larger cities the agents found it necessary to rely upon the records kept by the secretaries of Japanese associations, trade societies, and newspapers publishing yearbooks, checking the data thus secured by information gained at establishments actually visited and for which schedules were

taken. The records thus made use of contain much duplication, due to the fact that frequently two or more businesses, separately reported, are conducted as one and that much of this duplication has not been eliminated from the figures presented in the table. Labor contractors, in addition to the employment agency, almost invariably conduct hotels or boarding houses as a further source of profit and as a means of assembling laborers, and frequently conduct provision and supply stores as well. Many of the restaurants serving Japanese meals are carried on in connection with hotels and boarding houses. Billiard and pool halls and cigar stores are frequently connected with barber shops. Bath houses are usually connected with barber shops, small laundries, or boarding houses. The selling of books and drugs is usually combined in one business or affiliated with other branches of business enumerated in the table. The job printing is more frequently than not carried on in connection with the publication of a newspaper or magazine. Hence the table presented is of more value to show the variety of business and relative importance of the several branches engaged in by the Japanese than the actual number of establishments conducted by them. The table does indicate, however, that the number of establishments conducted by the Japanese is large-probably about 2,100 in the cities and towns covered by it. The foregoing table covers all but a few of the establishments in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, and Colorado. The total number in Nevada is about 22 (including 7 restaurants serving American meals, 2 serving Japanese meals, 2 laundries, 1 barber shop, and 4 stores); in Wyoming, 21 (including 5 restaurants serving American meals, 1 serving Japanese meals, 1 barber shop, 2 laundries, 2 photographers, and 5 stores and shops). The statement next presented for California is translated from the "Japanese-American Yearbook, 1910." The number of establishments and amount of capital and number of employees are as of November 1, 1909, the other figures for the year July 1, 1908, to June 30, 1909. The figures for the number of establishments are not complete.

a Value of real estate used for business purposes included, if owned.

Includes second and third partners, and members of family working without wages, as well as those who are hired for wages. Hence adding 2,937 for the hired partners or managers, the total number gainfully occupied in these establishments was estimated at 7,038.

The agents of the Commission found as a result of their investigation of Japanese business in the cities and towns mentioned in the above table:

(1) That most of the Japanese business establishments have been started in recent years; that the number in the large cities serving as supply centers has rapidly increased; and that a few establishments have been started in many smaller places as well.

(2) That with comparatively few exceptions the Japanese business establishments are small, employing comparatively little capital, being conducted with the assistance of comparatively few employees and having a comparatively small volume of annual transactions.

(3) That in the larger cities where there are many Japanese there are many branches of business and professions represented, so that because of clannishness, convenience in point of location and language, and the character of the goods carried in stock, as well as because of a feeling of opposition toward the Asiatics, with the result that they are not welcomed at white establishments engaged in personal service, the majority of the wants of the Japanese are met by their countrymen engaged in business and the professions.

(4) That while many of the Japanese establishments have been called into existence primarily to meet the needs of the members of that race, others have been started, chiefly in recent years, for "American trade," and are patronized largely or almost exclusively by white persons.

(5) That rather frequently, in competing with white establishments, the Japanese have underbid through a lower scale of prices. (6) But that because of organized opposition in some instances, and of the small number of Japanese establishments as compared to those conducted by other races, the trades which have been seriously affected by Japanese competition in most cities have been few.

(7) That in some instances the changes in the character of the population resulting from the settlement of Japanese, who trade chiefly at shops conducted by their countrymen, have seriously affected the business of shopkeepers and others located in or near Japanese colonies.

(8) That few white persons are employed in Japanese establishments.

(9). That usually, where there is competition between white and Japanese business men, the former maintain a shorter workday and a higher scale of wages than the latter. While the above statements represent general conclusions from the facts ascertained, the details differ materially in certain respects in the several localities.

Three facts go far toward explaining the rapid increase in business conducted by the Japanese during the last eight or ten years: First, the great influx of Japanese to the Western States; second, their welldefined tendency to rise from the ranks of wage laborers; and third, the tendency more recently exhibited by them in some branches of business to seek American patronage and trade.

The number of Japanese business establishments in Seattle in 1900 was about 50, in 1905 about 216, in 1909, 478. The number in Tacoma in 1905 was 23, in 1909, 63. The number in Portland in 1900 was about 28, in 1909, 97. In 1904 there were some 160 establishments in Los Angeles, in 1909 the corresponding figure was 495. The establishments in San Francisco numbered about 336 in 1904, perhaps 500 in 1909. In all of these cases the Japanese population had increased between the dates indicated, but not in proportion to the increase in the number of business establishments. In Utah and Colorado, and most of the other Rock Mountain States, the comparatively small number of establishments is the result of a rapid growth during recent years, since the Japanese who first found employment there as laborers not more than ten years ago have become a more settled part of the population.

This rapid increase in the number of business establishments is closely connected with the classes from which the Japanese immigrants have been drawn and the opportunities which have been opened to them as wage-earners in this country. It is a significant fact that of 394 business men who had migrated directly from Japan to this country and whose occupations previous to their emigration from their native land were ascertained, no fewer than 132, or approximately one-third of the entire number, had been engaged in business on their own accounts, 20 had been employed in stores, 54 had been city wage-earners, while 78, practically all from the nonwage-earning city classes coming to this country as students, had not been gainfully employed previous to their immigration. Opposed to these persons of the city classes there were 104, 14 of whom had been independent farmers, the other 90, farmers' sons, working on the father's farm before coming to the United States. These data drawn from 6 cities show (1) that a large majority of these men engaged in business in this country came from the cities of Japan, and (2) that a still larger number at home had not belonged to the wage-earning classes. In this country, however, most of them began as wage-earners. Indeed, less than one-sixth of 439 (45 of whom came to the continental United States from Hawaii or from Canada) whose first occupations were ascertained engaged in business on their own accounts as their first gainful occupation in this country. As opposed to the 70 who engaged in business, 143 found their first employment in • Exclusive of the offices of house-cleaning groups. -VOL 23-11- -8

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