Shall Japanese-Americans in Idaho be treated with fairness and justice or not? Addresses and proceedings at mass meeting citizens of Idaho ... Boise, Idaho ... January 23, 1921

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Shall Japanese- Americans in Idaho be Treated
With Fairness and Justice or Not ?

Addresses and Proceedings at Mass Meeting

CITIZENS OF IDAHO

AUDITORIUM FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH

BOISE, IDAHO

Evening of January Twenty-Third
1921

Resolution passed without a dissenting vote at the mass meeting by audience
of twelve hundred:

RESOLVED:

THAT IN MASS MEETING ASSEMBLED THIS AUDIENCE EX-
PRESS ITS CONVICTIONS THAT IN ALL MATTERS OF. LEGISLA-
TION CONCERNING THE DISCUSSED QUESTION OF JAPANESE
PEOPLE IN AMERICA THAT WE ADVISE THE RESTRICTION OF
FURTHER IMMIGRATION FOR THE PRESENT AT LEAST, BUT
THAT THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN HERE FOR YEARS AND ARE
AMERICANS IN SPIRIT BE GIVEN CITIZENSHIP IF THEY MEET
THE HIGH NEEDED CONDITIONS OF THE SAME AND THAT
THEY BE TREATED WITH THE SAME CONSIDERATION AS WE
TREAT ALL PEOPLES UNDER THE STARS AND STRIPES.

ORIGIN OF THE MEETING.

The meeting was called by Frederick Vining Fisher, the Pastor of the
First Congregational Church of Boise, entirely on his own initiative, without
asking the support of the Church, the Pilgrim Brotherhood or the United
Americans of which he is a State Director, solely in the interest of truth
and justice. Attacks on the Japanese in the Forum of the Chamber of Com-
merce and the introduction of a bill in the State Legislature to petition Con-
gress not to allow citizenship for American resident Japanese in any new
treaty to be made caused Mr. Fisher to ask the citizens to come together
and consider the real facts in the case.

THE CALL FOR THE MEETING.
FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH.
Dear Sir- Boise, Idaho, January 21, 1921.

I take it that like every true American you are in favor of fair play. If so,
you will welcome this brief letter from me.

Let me state the case: There is a strong agitation at this time against
the Jews and the Japanese, one in the east, the other here in the west. We
of the west feel keenly that the agitation against the Jews is unjust and
un-American, but we do not realize that the agitation against the Americans of
Japanese descent may also be equally unjust. Idaho, like other western states,
will soon be asked to take sides on this grave issue. We must put aside
race prejudice and settle the question on pure merit and justice. We must
know the facts. Idaho cannot retain her self-respect if unwilling to look
the issue square in the face.

For this reason I have personally telegraphed Col. John P. Irish, Chair-
man of the American Committee of Justice of California, who single-handed
went out last fall and got over 222,000 votes for justice to the Japanese in
California in the face of an inflamed public sentiment, falsehoods and im-
mense anti- Japanese propaganda, asking him to come and speak to Boise
and Idaho next Sunday night from my pulpit at the First Congregational
Church, State and Seventh Streets, at 7:30 p. m.

Col. Irish is from Iowa, has lived for years in northern California, is
one of the foremost men of California, a brilliant speaker, a true American.
He knows what he is talking about.

Our Church will seat twelve hundred people. It is only fair to Idaho,
the question at issue, to Col. Irish and the cause of justice to have every
seat taken that night.

Will you come and bring other men and women?
Yours for a square deal in Idaho for all men. p

THE SPEAKER OF THE MEETING.

Col. John Powell Irish, Oakland, California, Chairman American Com-
mittee of Justice, rancher, attorney, late Naval Officer of Customs, Port of San
Francisco. Born Iowa City, Iowa, 1843; regent University of Iowa; founder
of the law and medical departments of that University; member of Iowa
legislature. Moved to California early Eighties. Editor Oakland Times.
Prominent in politics and national matters. Offered cabinet position by
President Cleveland. Trustee First Unitarian Church of Oakland.

INTRODUCTORY.

"The 1200 seats in the Pilgrim Congregational Church were all filled Sun-
day evening when many visitors including a large number of legislators
assembled to hear Col. John P. Irish speak on the Japanese question as it
involved California, his home state.

"While waiting for Colonel Irish, who spoke in the morning at the
Presbyterian, Christian and Methodist Churches and in the evening at the

Baptist Church, to arrive from this last engagement, the Rev. Frederick Vining
Fisher, Pastor of the Church, said:

" 'We are not assembled here in the interest of Japan or of any people,
but in the interest of our own country and fair play. Personally, I am in
favor of restricting all immigration for two years and of then selecting our
own immigrants instead of letting the steamship companies do it for us. I am
in favor of restricting oriental immigration, but I do ask for fair play for the
orientals who are now on our soil.'

"INTOLERANCE OF AMERICANS.

"Mr. Fisher remarked upon the intolerance of the American people in
the various sections as he had seen it in his travels. In Massachusetts, he
said, they struggle with a Canadian problem, in Texas with a Mexican, New
York has the Jews, and California the Japanese. In the course of his brief
address he paid splendid tribute to the Irish, the Mormons and to Henry
Morganthau, the ambassador to Turkey, who is a Jew.

"Mr. Fuji, a Japanese farmer living near Nampa, spoke briefly of his love
for America and his desire to have his children raised as Americans. Mr. Fuji
came to America at the age of 20, having been educated in Japan. He is now
35 years of age and claims to be thoroughly Americanized." — Idaho States-
man, January 24, 1921.

"DR. BRYAN ADDRESSES.

"Prior to the address of Colonel Irish, Dr. Fisher introduced Dr. E. A.
Bryan, commissioner of education, who presided over the remainder of the
meeting. Dr. Bryan briefly outlined two Americanization bills now pending
before the state legislature, which are the first bills of its kind ever introduced
in this state. The bills referred to provide for the education of persons of
foreign birth and for the rehabilitation of injured ex-service men and injured
industrial employees.

"In his address of introduction of Dr. Bryan, Dr. Fisher outlined the aim
of the mass meeting which he had called of his own initiative, 'We are not
assembled here in the interests of Japan or of any other nation, but in the
interests of our own country and fair play.' Dr. Fisher then stated that 'his
own personal opinion was that the United States should close the doors of
immigration to all nations, until such a time when we have become acquainted
with those who are at present within our shores. After that has been accom-
plished and the doors again opened, immigration should be under the direct
supervision of American agents abroad, which would enable us to choose to
a certain extent those desirable as American citizens.'

"DR. FISHER ON RACIAL PREJUDICE.

"Dr. Fisher dwelt briefly upon his own observations of racial prejudice
which he had noted during his own life. 'In New England it is the Canuck;
in New York, the Jew; in the south, the negro; in the west, the Mexican;
in California, the Japanese.' He scored the elements that give rise to racial
prejudice and urged that the doctrine, 'Love thy God — and thy neighbor as
thyself be practiced as the truly American doctrine." — Capital News, January
24, 1921.

ADDRESS OF COLONEL JOHN P. IRISH.

My Friends:

It is a genuine pleasure to be in Boise again. In time past I spent many
a happy hour here. I crossed the territory that is now your state in its very
early days. I remember in the East they were singing:

"My four-horse team
Will soon be seen
Way out in Idaho."

I come up here now, the pioneer period pretty well past, and I think we
will have to put in our mouths a new song and set them lilting:
"My auto-mo-bile
Will soon show its heel
Way out in Idaho." (Laughter.)

You're changing rapidly, building your foundation well. In order that
you may develop, that every American community may develop, that all the

world may develop, and that the joys and the peace and the plenty of domestic
life may be enjoyed by all, wherever God's sun shines, the world wants peace.
The world wants that good understanding and that truth upon which peace is
always based. By inheritance and lineage I am a Quaker. I am opposed to
war. I stood by my country in her defensive wars and to preserve the union
of her states and all that, but I am opposed to war, as I believe every right-
minded man and woman is opposed to war. And reading the history of the
bloody struggles between men and nations from the time that humanity
emerged this side of the curtain of history I have observed that all wars
have their basis in misunderstanding, and that misunderstanding has always as
its foundation a lie. The Master whom we all follow said, "For this was I
created, and for this came I into the world, to bear witness to the truth,"
something that should be the easiest and the simplest of all things to do;
and if all men and all nations had in all ages borne witness to the truth, then
that red river that runs through all history from the beginning, its flow
continually enriched and increased by the blood of men, would never have
come down in its scarlet tide through all the ages, if all .had borne witness
to the truth.

Now we are here tonight to discuss a very grave question, a question
that involves the peace of nations and the peace of the world. It is a very
solemn thing to discuss. I propose to present to you the precise truth upon
that subject, because I come from a state that has been the hotbed and the
witch-kettle of all this question, California. I want the truth told and I want
the truth acted upon, because if an international policy or a national policy
or a rule of personal conduct be based upon a lie, the structure built upon it
is bound some day to fall, and the larger the structure, the more imposing its
architecture, the greater the woe and the want and the death inflicted when
it falls. So every international policy, every domestic policy, every rule of
personal conduct, should be based upon the truth, and then it will stand, it
will not fall, and, not falling, in its fall it will cause no woe, no waste, no
wounds, no death, no grief, no sorrow, no suffering. So I want the truth and
nothing but the truth.

I have read the anti-Japanese legislation proposed by the legislature of
Idaho, exhibited to me by a committee of your representatives. I observed
that that legislation is not based nor demanded because of any condition
existing in Idaho. It especially recites that it is demanded because of condi-
tions existing in California. That's a remarkable thing. You have Japanese
in Idaho. It appears they have given no cause of complaint. There is no
indictment of them, their behavior, their industry, their habits, in the pre-
amble of that legislation, but it is based upon conditions in California. Why,
if your legislature were to propose to pass a law vitally affecting the agricul-
ture and horticulture of Idaho and compelling those who practiced the art of
horticulture or agriculture to practice it according to the physical conditions
of California and not the physical conditions of Idaho, why, you would laugh
at them; but here you are asked to pass legislation that involves the peace of
nations and the peace of the world, to pass that not because of economic,
financial, industrial or social conditions existing in Idaho, but because of
conditions in California.

Now I don't blame your legislators. I don't blame anyone outside of
California who has absorbed ideas on this question from the literature fur-
nished by the venal press and the statements made by the venal mouths of
the anti-Japanese agitators in my state, I don't blame you for it, and I am
here to enable you to see both sides, to tell you the truth, to the end that you
may deliver yourself from any chains and gyves of false conviction that you
have entered into because of your misinformation.

Now what are the facts, the record, official facts?

The United States census of 1920 shows a population in California of
3,436,000 people, an increase in ten years of 44 per cent, while the average
increase in the United States is only 14 per cent. Of that 3,346,000 in Cali-
fornia 2 per cent are Japanese, 2 per cent, a fraction so small that there are
hundreds of people living in California that never saw a Japanese, a small
fraction, 2 per cent of that great population Japanese.

We go to the bitterly anti-Japanese report of the State Board of Control,
made to the Governor and sent to your State authorities. That report says
that Japanese cultivate, under leasehold and freehold, one and six-tenths per
cent of the farm land of California, and on that they produce 13 per cent of
our farm crops, worth $67,000,000. There are the mathematical, industrial
and economic facts. Is there anything now in that statement as far as I
have gone to indicate that there is any desperate condition in the State of
California on account of what that 2 per cent of Japanese are doing there, is
there anything to indicate a fearful condition, is there anything to warrant the
grave apprehensions stated in the legislation that is proposed here in Idaho?
I think not. Now these are the mathematical, economic and industrial truths
of the situation in California. But they say, Mr. McClatchy of the Sacramento
Bee says, that the biological fecundity of the Japanese is so great that in a
limited time, I think sixty-four years, because of Japanese births, the entire
state will be Japanese. When has it occurred in the history of the world
that 2 per cent of a population could outdo 98 per cent of it in biological
production? You see how absolutely ridiculous it is, absolutely ridiculous!
And yet McClatchy has published this abroad. I call him Malthus McClatchy.
Thomas Robert Malthus, an English professor, published a book in 1798
showing that inasmuch as the population of the world increases in a geometri-
cal ratio and the food supply in arithmetical ratio, or the other way, within
a hundred years the world will grow to be depopulated because there would
be no food to feed the people. That hundred years has gone by and we are
all of us eating three meals a day, and some five. I eat only two. So I call
him Malthus McClatchy because he has brought the same idea that Malthus
has, that 2 per cent of the population of California is going to biologically
outproduce 98 per cent of it.

Then again he has gone to the ouija board and he has got ouija board
mathematics to show that they are going to own the whole state in 165 years.
Well, I went to Sacramento and I got the first assessment on the property of
the original McClatchy, who came to Sacramento many years ago as an Irish
emigrant, I got the first assessment on his property, and then I got the
present assessment on the estate accumulated by him and two generations of
his family, and applying Malthus McClatchy's ouija board figure to the increase
of the wealth of the McClatchy family, I showed that in a hundred years the
McClatchy family will own all California (laughter), bag and baggage, banks,
everything, own all California. Then McClatchy quit that kind of figures.
He hasn't promulgated any of them lately.

Now this campaign, as I have told you, began with the telling of false-
hoods to stampede the people of California into voting for an inhuman
initiative law to persecute the Japanese. That law forbids not only the leas-
ing of land to Japanese, but it provides that the children of Japanese shall
be torn from the guardianship of their parents and turned over to the
guardianship of the public administrator, a politician in office. That is a
violation of a primitive natural right of humanity. All down through the
Christian ages and the pagan ages, and clear down till the human race
emerged this side of the curtain of history, it has been held by man, taught
him by his nature, that the parents are the natural guardians of the child.
It is a natural, primitive right, and yet we voted it away from the Japanese
in California. If Japan were to pass a law of that kind relating to American
children, though there be not an American child in Japan, it would be such an
insult to our government that Washington would at once demand the repeal
of that law under a threat of war, and it would be repealed, and yet they
passed it in California, and we are part of Christian civilization, depriving
these people of a primitive, natural right of humanity. Our people were
stormed and driven and stampeded into these acts by the falsehoods and the
appeals and the defamation and the nagging of our venal press and our
venal politicians.

Now in the first place it became necessary to get around certain official
matters. In 1907, when Mr. Elihu Root was Secretary of State, we entered
into what is known as the gentlemen's agreement with Japan, by which
that government agreed that no laborers, no Japanese laborers, should have
a passport to come to the United States, unless they were members of

families that were already domiciled here, that no more passports should be
issued, no more laborers should come except the small number whose families
were already domiciled here. You go to the annual reports since then of the
Department of Labor and the Commissioner-General of Immigration in Wash-
ington City and you find in every report the official statement that the govern-
ment of Japan has scrupulously observed and enforced that gentlemen's
agreement. So when they talked about Japanese coming to California we
referred to this official United States affirmation that Japan had absolutely
and honorably observed that agreement. Something had to be done to counter
that. This is what was done to alarm our people with the belief that the
Japanese were surreptitiously filling up California by alien immigration. This
newspaper, this paper in Los Angeles, on the 31st of January, 1920, published
this: "A report made to the federal senate signed by John W. Abercrombie,
assistant secretary of labor, states" — then quoting with quotation marks —
"During the twelve months ending June 30, 1919, the agents of the federal
government apprehended 9,678 Japanese who were in California illegally and
secured their deportation." Now I knew by circumstantial evidence that that
was a falsehood, because that many Japanese, 9,678, would be several ship-
loads, and a transaction of that size couldn't escape the notice of the American
press. But I wanted something besides circumstantial evidence, and I wrote
on to the department of labor and got Mr. John W. Abercrombie's report,
and what is it? He reported to the senate that in the 11 years ending June 30,
1919, 4,000 aliens of all classes had been found illegally in this country and
deported by our government. That was his report. And yet this paper
published in quotation marks that he had reported that in the one year ending
June 30, 1919, 9,678 Japanese had been found here illegally and deported, and
that was in Abercrombie's report. I got the letter from the Commissioner-
General of Immigration. I sent him this statement. I got his letter. I have
his letter, absolutely denying the truth of it. I have Abercrombie's report.
Now when I got Abercrombie's report I copied and sent it down to the editor
of this newspaper and asked him to correct his statement. Did he do it? No.
And it is in circulation and doing duty in the State of California today.
Professor Malcomb, of the University of Southern California, told me two or
three months ago that at a meeting of the board of supervisors of Los Angeles
County a member of that official board got up and read out of that paper
that I hold in my hand that statement, and, frothing at the mouth with excite-
ment, he said, "They are coming — they are coming — armed — they are coming
to drive us out — and we have got to arm to defend our lives." There is the
result of this lie. Can that man who published that lie and refused to publish
the truth when I took it to him, can he go white-souled and clean into the
presence of his God. I don't think so, and you don't think so. That lie is in
circulation in California today, and upon that lie is based a statement of a
condition in California that warrants adverse legislation in Idaho.

Now there was one of the basic lies. Another one was published by a
man named Van Bernard, who is a member of the California legislature, who
wanted to arouse people on the question of land leasing. He published that
Japanese had leased in the upper end of the Sutter Basin 10,000,000 acres of
land. Well, now, when you remember that there are only 27,931,444 acres of
farm land in California, if the Japanese have leased 10,000,000 of that — why —
we are gone sure. (Laughter.) People at a distance who read that, and it
immediately went into the whole press of California, into the mouths of
agitators — people at a distance who read that, who didn't know where the
Sutter Basin is, said "10,000,000 acres, to arms," and they rushed right up
to join an anti-Japanese club. Now I am one of the trustees of the flood
control work on the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers carried on by the
state and federal government. I know every inch of the shores of those rivers.
The Sutter Basin runs from the mouth of Butte slough to the confluence of
the Sacramento and Feather rivers and the Sutter Basin has in it just
60,000 acres, 60,000 acres.

And yet this man published, and it is current in California, today, that
in that tract of land that has in it only 60,000 acres that Japanese in the
upper end of it had leased 10,000,000 acres. (Laughter.) And when I cor-
rected it could I get the correction in a single paper in California? No. The
lie was of too much importance and too valuable to let the denial of it be

published. Now, as a matter of fact, no Japanese ever leased an acre of
land in the Sutter Basin. The Sutter Basin belongs to Armour, the meat-
packer of Chicago, and when he opened out this tract of land he gave his
superintendent instructions never to lease any land in the Sutter Basin to
Japanese, and there has never been an acre of the land in Sutter Basin leased
to Japanse. Yet this 10,000,000-acre lie is doing duty today all over Cali-
fornia, impressing people that a condition exists there which they want you
to legislate against in the State of Idaho.

If lies that have been told — you will pardon me if I use plain language; I
know it doesn't sound very nice to say a thing is a lie, but I have to use
plain language, being a Quaker — if the falsehoods, the venom, diabolical false-
hoods, that have been published in California to stampede our people, to
fill them with rage and hatred and prejudice, were gathered together, it would
make a big book and a book fitted by its contents for just one library. That
would be the public library in hell (laughter) ; it would be a good book for
such a library, good reading for the keeper of the place.

Now I made it my business to spread the truth as far as my voice and
influence could reach in California. I took up this work on my own motion.
No man has ever paid me a dollar for it, nor can any man ever pay me a
dollar for it, because when I go, draw my last breath, I want my conscience
to be clean, I want to feel that I on my own motion have done something
to protect a world-wide humanity from the risk and danger of war by plead-
ing with my fellow-people in my native country to see to it that under inter-
national policies and domestic policies there shall be a foundation of truth
and nothing but the truth. That's my plea. That's what I am here for
tonight. I am seventy-nine years old, and if I live to be 109 years old, and
my voice remains with me, I will be pleading for the same thing. I am
pleading for the peace of the world. I am pleading for the mothers of sons.
I am pleading for the wives of husbands. I am pleading for the daughters
of fathers. I am pleading for them all, that this issue be treated from the
foundation of absolute truth, and nothing else, and if it be so treated, I
know that it will pass like a cloud and that these two great nations, these
two great peoples, these people with so many characteristics in common,
with so many things in their lives and their habits and their practices that
are desirable, these great people will continue on down the pathway of time
hand in hand and cemented together in friendship.

Why, the Japanese are a great people. The history is worth knowing.
I know it all, from their mythological days. And it is very interesting, indeed
interesting to any scholar, that the Japanese mythology shows the same order
of imagination, the same lively play of imagination, that the Greek mythology
does. They came on down, issuing out of their mythological period, entering
into actual history, until there was decreed what is called the first constitution
of Japan, issued in the year 600 of our era, a very interesting document.
Amongst other things it contains the declaration that the office should seek
the man. It sounds rather modern, doesn't it? Amongst other things it
contains a decree that those who administer the law shall hold the scales of
justice even between the rich and the poor, giving the rich no advantage over
the poor because of the wealth of one and the poverty of the other. Now
that was issued a public document, in Japan, a public decree, nearly 700 years
before the English Magna Charta, 1,166 years before the Constitution of the
United States. And yet you read those principles carefully and study them
out and it contains the germ of both of those great charters of equal liberty,
issued in the year 600. So they are not a barbarous people. Out of their own
mental and spiritual quality they evolved a civilization, they evolved a govern-
ment with its institutions and its forms, they evolved a form of the religious
idea highly spiritualized, and 'they evolved an art that charms the good taste
of the world. They are not barbarians. They are a civilized people. And
they were organizing government, they were cementing civilization, before
the Anglo-Saxon race was known, before the English language was spoken
on any tongue they, out of their mental and spiritual qualities, were evolvm
a civilization. Their institutions have gone on ripening. They have begun
now to take on the institutions of other countries, and notably ours, for they
have adopted a constitution, they have organized parliamentary government,

8

they are extending the franchise, in other words, they are becoming more and
more democratic all the time. Instead of nagging and abusing them we should
take this virile nation, with its beautiful history, we should take those people
by the hand and lead them on, because they love the United States, they are
heart-stricken at their treatment in California. You talk with intelligent, edu-
cated Japanese, as I do nearly every day, who come here from Japan, they are
appalled, they can't understand it, they don't know why it is done. I was
talking with a newspaper man the other day who landed here from Japan, a
very good English scholar; he says, "I can't understand it; I am going to
talk with the Governor." He went up and talked with our Governor and
came back. I said, "You understand it now?" He says, "No, I understand
it less than I did before; I don't see why it is." And it is hard for an
intelligent, thoughtful, mercifully minded American to understand why it is.

Now to continue this condition in California as to which you are asked to
legislate in Idaho, I have told you and I want you — it is easy to remember,
easy as the multiplication table — of the population of California 2 per cent are
Japanese; under freehold and leasehold they cultivate 1.6 per cent of the farm
lands of California; on that they produce 13 per cent of the farm crops of
California, worth $67,000,000 a year There is the background You can keep
that in your minds very easily

Now what about the land they own? You read every anti-Japanese
attack and they say, "They have usurped the richest land in California."
They do own some good land, but a great part of the acreage owned by
Japanese in California is land that no white man would touch. The soil of
California is the most spotted of the soil of any state in the Union, hardpan,
colloidal clay, sand, white and black alkali. I will admit that in our ever-
lasting brag about California we made the Eastern people believe all they
have got to do is to buy, sight-unseen, a piece of ground, and come out and
sit under a tree and let it make them rich. Don't you ever buy a square inch
of land in California sight-unseen (laughter); don't you do it; I know these
land agents; don't you do it. I have been a land owner there for thirty-five
years, and more. Don't you do it. (Laughter.) Don't you do it. (Laughter.)

They will tell you now about Florin and Livingston land usurped by the
Japanese. In 1913 when our legislature was in session, passing a law for-
bidding Japanese to own land, the Secretary of State in Washington, Mr.
Bryan, came out to Sacramento and talked with the legislature to see if he
couldn't get them to desist. The Governor of California, Mr. Johnson, said
to the Secretary of State, "I will show you one reason; that explains everything
why we are determined to do this. I will take you to Florin." He took him
down to Florin. Now Florin was a characteristic California land swindle.
The land there was sold to Eastern people who could feel the 20's jingling in
their pockets that would come to them from owning that land. They came
out there. The soil was red adobe, and sand, and hardpan. They, all smiles,
put up their shacks and moved on and went to getting rich. They found that
the land wouldn't raise anything. They sowed barley. It would grow up
about six inches and head out, and that was the end of it. It was what we
call goose barley. They tried everything. They couldn't raise anything on
the soil. They kept at it until they were beginning to starve out, and one day
a Japanese farmer came along, and he looked at the land, he made up his
mind that the Japanese by industry and skill could reclaim that land and make
it fruitful. And the owner of a piece of it was mighty glad to see him come.
The coming of that Japanese was to that owner like the shadow of a great
rock in the desert. He sold him his piece of land very cheap, too, and then
he went around and told how he had fooled the Jap; and then other owners
there who wanted to get away told that Japanese to bring more. And I heard
those men boasting in the Golden Eagle Hotel in the city of Sacramento that
although California had swindled them, they had passed the swindle on to the
Japs. The Japs moved in there, got leases and freeholds, and they began
fertilizing, redeeming that soil. I am not going to deliver you a lecture on
the chemistry of soils, but these refractory soils are very rich in plant food,
but it is held imprisoned in other elements so that the plants can not touch it,
nor consume the plant food. When you release it from that imprisonment,
then your land is fertilized. The Japanese have an absolute genius for the

reclamation of bad land. Applying that genius and their labor to Florin, they
released the plant food, and they planted grape vines and they planted straw-
berries, and they went on and on until Florin is today one of the show-places
of California, and when the Japanese farmers began to produce fruit there to
send to market they had to have boxes and to escape the California box trust
they very prudently built a box factory. Forty Japanese women worked in
that box factory. And the Governor of California, Mr. Johnson, took the
Secretary of State of the United States down to Florin to show him a terrible
example of the devastation wrought upon California by the Japanese, and he
took him straight to the box factory. He said, "Now, Mr. Secretary, look at
that; there are forty Japanese women at work in this factory and before the
Japanese came here there were forty white women working there, and they
have been crowded out of a livelihood by the Japanese women." The truth
being that until the Japanese built a box factory there was no box factory
there, for the quite sufficient reason that there was nothing to ship in a box.
(Laughter.) Yet the Governor of California told that to the 'Secretary of
State, and it made a deep and powerful impression upon Mr. Bryan; he was
inclined to weep salt tears for those forty white women who had been driven
out of a living where the forty Japanese women were making boxes in that
factory. Florin, I said, is a show-place. There are as many white people in
and around Florin as there were when the Japanese went there, but the Japa-
nese outnumber the whites. The only public school in California where the
Japanese children outnumber the white children — and the Japanese children in
the Florin public school, they also are a sort of show-place for California for
their cleanliness, their obedience to discipline and their studious habits, and the
avidity with which they learn. That is the only public school in California
where the Japanese outnumber the white people.

Now the next place was Livingston, in Merced County, another charac-
teristic California land swindle. The land is clay, alkali, hardpan, sand; that
was sold to Eastern people and a big colony of them went out there whooping
with pleasure, smiling as they looked upon the natural beauties of California.
In a few years they were going to be richer than the dreams of avarice. They
went to work on that soil. They couldn't raise enough on it to support a horned
toad (laughter), and they starved out and quit, broken in heart and purse,
and left that land there under the blazing sun of the San Joaquin Valley as
barren as the fig-tree of Bethany, and it lay there for years. Mr. Sato, a
Japanese farmer, went down there and looked at it. He found the land
could be bought for about $10 an acre, and a party of his Japanese friends
went down and they bought 395 acres of that land and they began work on it.
They began working humus into the soil, working bacteria into the soil,
getting the colloidal clay turned by the humus they worked into it until that
unlocked the plant food in that soil. Then they planted trees and vines and
the plant food grew to be very rich and the trees and vines grew phenomenally.
Then white men rushed in there and paid a big price for that land, and
following the practice and the method of the Japanese pioneers, they pro-
ceeded to redeem it by the methods the Japanese had followed. They tell you
too in these official reports that wherever a Japanese farmer settles white
farmers would go away. This was never true in any locality in California, and
in Livingston, where 185 Japanese redeemed that land by their genius and
their labor, the whites now outnumber the Japanese 8 to 1. Now in the
report of our State Board of Control you read that the Japanese own
8,000 .acres of the richest farm land in Merced County. They give no proof
of it. It is simply a statement. Now the County Assessor is the sworn officer
whose duty it is to know who owns land and I wrote to the County Assessor
of Merced County, and he sent me his official report under his oath and
signature. In his official report he says there are 185 Japanese in Merced
County, they own 395 acres of farm land and 36 town lots; 30 Japanese children
are in our public schools, 3 in the high schools and 27 in the primary schools.
I have talked with their neighbors, who all say they are good people to do
business with and unobjectionable. Now there is the story of Livingston.
Livingston is another of the localities held up as a place where Japanese own
the richest land in California. Bancroft

Why, I could continue case after case of reclamation by Japanese genius
and Japanese industry of the bad lands of California. I will tell you one

10

more case. Up in Sonoma County, near the town of Santa Rosa, was a hill
so barren that it wouldn't raise weeds, but there was a big spring on top of
it. The Japanese went there and looked at it, got control of it, dug out the
spring, got a bigger flow of water, harnessed the water for irrigation and be-
gan fertilizing the soil, hauled manure from the stables of Santa Rosa, by
hand, on a hand car. He fertilized the soil, terraced it, irrigated it, and today
he is taking $800 an acre off of it in strawberries, a beautiful garden on what
was a barren hillside. I was coming up past it last summer in an automobile;
there were several passengers, and one blatant anti-Japanese agitator, and
when we got to that hillside he pointed to it and said, "Look at that," with
an oath, "Look at that blankety-blank Japanese, got hold of a piece of the
best land in Sonoma County." (Laughter.)

I say I can multiply it, and when the history of agriculture in California
is written that chapter in it that will honestly tell the work of Japanese genius
and toil in the reclamation to fertility of bad lands will read like a romance.
Ikuita went up the Sacramento river, found there the goose and alkali and
hardpan lands not worth paying taxes on, made up his mind that rice could
be raised on it. Our State University jeered at him, the Agriculture Depart-
ment told him it would be impossible, but he persisted for seven years during
all sorts of hardship and loss and heartbreaking disappointment, and finally
he produced the first commercial crop of rice raised in the State of California,
a big crop, sixty sacks to the acre, and the white men rushed in and paid $200
an acre for that land, which until the Japanese pioneer had shown what could
be done with it wasn't worth paying taxes on it, and today in normal seasons,
as a result of that Japanese pioneer, we have in California a rice crop worth
from thirty to sixty millions of dollars a year as a result of the genius and
the foresight and the insight of that Japanese. There's no anti-Japanese agi-
tator in California that's ever introduced a new crop into California worth one
dime. (Laughter.) They are the agitators, and they are the office-holders;
they are the men who eat their bread in the sweat of the taxpayer's face, and
they have added nothing to California except a system of falsehood and agi-
tation and detraction and defamation which disgraces the state.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, I have spread the whole subject before you.
I have given you the sample falsehoods that are told, that are in circulation
today. I started out alone to make a one-man fight for the honor of my state,
to appeal to its Christian civilization. I started out remembering what Japan
had done for California, remembering that in 1906, when the earthquake had
uprooted the foundations of San Francisco and the fire had shaven clean its
site, I was there in that pitiful and picturesque tragedy, and I saw tens of
thousands of the people of San Francisco hungry and hopeless, unhoused and
unsheltered by the flames, and their cry going up to the world for help, and
Japan was the only foreign country on the face of the earth that heard and
heeded, and Japan immediately wired $250,000 in gold that was paid over to
the Relief Committee of which United States Senator Phelan was chairman,
and that Japanese gold was spent to feed and to shelter the suffering and dis-
tressed people of San Francisco, and yet the anti-Japanese agitators are in the
legislature of California today proposing to pass a law to prohibit the Japanese
the right to buy a house to shelter his family. Why, it gives me the most un-
pleasant possible feeling. I begin to wonder why Sodom and Gomorrah were
destroyed and a place permitted to live and bloom and blossom and its people
to riot in pleasure when they will eat the bread and sleep on the pillow of a
charitable and kind neighbor and then stab the donor in the back, and I hate
for my state to establish a reputation of that kind, because by and by history,
dipping its pen in the ink of truth, will tell the truth about it all. And do
you think that sound, safe public policy, international, national or state, can
be based upon conduct like that? I don't think it can. I don't think it can.
The politicians of my state are trying to make it the South Carolina of the
Pacific Coast. South Carolina claimed the right to nullify the Constitution
and laws of the United States, and notwithstanding the blow that Andrew
Jackson hit it, South Carolina continued to inculcate that theory, the nulli-
fication of the laws and Constitution of the United States, and that cult went
on until it produced the Civil War with all its woe and all its waste. The
politicians of my state are trying to make a South Carolina of California and
they are trying to inculcate their cult of nullification here in Idaho, in Utah,

11

in Oregon, and the Pacific States, and inasmuch as that course of conduct and
political policy on the part of South Carolina brought on one war, the same
course, the same foundation of falsehood, threatens another war between
nations, and when a war between nations comes it means a world war.

I implore you, my fellow-citizens, to Hook at it in the light of truth.
I have told you the truth and nothing but the truth tonight. I came here
for that purpose. I was not aware that I was to meet so many people. I have
been a sort of itinerant pastor today. This is the fifth church that I have talked
in and I met the good citizens, men and women, of Idaho and of Boise today,
and I have talked to them as I have talked to you. I have told them the truth.
My heart is in this movement here, and as long as God gives me voice I pro-
pose to raise it in behalf of national honor, in behalf of Christian civilization,
against persecution and against falsehood. I thank you and may all the
blessings of Providence be visited upon you. (Applause.)

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS OF COLONEL IRISH.

SOMEONE IN THE AUDIENCE: I would like to ask Mr. Irish why
the Japanese government requires through its consulate a report of all Japa-
nese immigrants in this country and those born in this country, Japanese, a
report of all births, deaths, marriages and numbers of families.

COLONEL IRISH: You want to inquire into the Japanese law of dual
nationality?

SOMEONE IN THE AUDIENCE: That's it.

COLONEL IRISH: Let me tell you something. The law of Japan is
that one born of Japanese parents abroad, outside the empire, remains a
subject of Japan. You have that in the report of our State Board of Control.
You have two long essays by our University professors. Now if the State
Board of Control had told the whole truth, they need not have said anything
about it. That law of dual nationality is the law of France, the republic of
France; it is the law of the republic of Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Belgium,
Holland, and Germany, the law of continental Europe. A person born in this
country of native Swiss parents, though the father be a naturalized citizen of
the United States, by the law of Switzerland is a citizen of Switzerland, and
if he go to Switzerland when he is of military age he is seized by the govern-
ment and required to serve seven years in the Swiss army. It is the same in
France, Germany, Holland, Belgium; all continental Europe has the law of
dual nationality. I am speaking by the card; I am an international lawyer;
I practice international law because farming and some other things don't give
me enough to do. You go to the library here and get John Bassett Moore's
book devoted to the discussion of that dual nationality. You will find there
cases. I remember the case of one Schneider. His parents were both natives
of Switzerland, married young, and came to this country, and the elder
Schneider became a naturalized citizen of the United States. This boy was
born here, under our Constitution a citizen of the United States. When he
was nineteen years old he visited Switzerland to call on the relatives still
living in Switzerland. He was immediately seized by the Swiss government
and put into the army. They have universal military training there, and they
require' seven years' military service. He was seized and put into the army.
He wrote the American Secretary of State his plight and the Secretary of
State told him the United States could do nothing for him, it was the law of
Switzerland; and he was held there, trying to get away. Finally he said to
the Swiss government, "Name a sum of money I can pay for my release."
They named a sum of money and he paid it and came home to the United
States. There in that international digest by John Bassett Moore there are
cases after cases arising under this law in France. Section 6 of the Civil Code
of France says, in terms, a person born of French parents outside the French
republic is a citizen of France and owes all the duties of citizenship, and there
is case after case of men born of French parents in the United States going
back there seized to do military duty. It is a very singular thing. Now the
father when he becomes a naturalized citizen of the United States cant be

12

touched by the government under which he was born, but his son becomes a
victim of the law of dual nationality.

Now Japan has the same law, but it is the only country in the whole
catalogue of countries claiming dual nationality that affords an escape from
it. By the law of Japan any Japanese person born outside the empire at any
time before he is seventeen years of age can by filing a simple document with
the consul release himself from all allegiance to Japan. That government is
the most liberal of them all, because it furnishes a means of escape, and all
continental Europe furnishes no means of escape whatever, and a man born
in this country of parents born in the nations of continental Europe who goes
back there under military age runs the risk of being put into the army and
claimed as a subject or a citizen of that country. Those are the facts. I have
them all here. Japan is the only one of them all that furnishes a means of
escape.

SOMEONE IN THE AUDIENCE: I want to ask for an answer to the
argument that is often advanced: aliens are not allowed to hold land in Japan.

COLONEL IRISH: By the law of Japan a corporation consisting en-
tirely of non-Japanese may buy and own all the land that it wants; a corpora-
tion consisting of aliens in Japan, by the law of that country, can buy and
own all the land that it wants, and any alien individual can lease land in Japan
for fifty and a hundred years' term. That is the law of Japan. In California
there is one point in this law, this initiative, which forbids a Japanese corpo-
ration to own land. An American corporation in Japan can own all the land
it wants to buy.

Then again, Madam, let me tell you something else that's interesting.
When Japan was first opened to the world Americans, Englishmen and so on
rushed in there, and the Japanese government, anxious to cultivate friendship,
granted perpetual concessions to Americans and to Englishmen and to Ger-
mans and to Frenchmen, perpetual concessions of land in her seaports, to be
always free of taxation, and the concession to be perpetual. Very good!
Japan was open, began to rise commercially, seaports became most important,
water fronts became valuable, and those perpetual concessions now are cov-
ered with millions of dollars in valuable buildings. Japan, some years ago,
said, "Well, you ought to pay us taxes on the buildings," — under the terms
of the concession they didn't pay any taxes on the land — "you ought to pay us
taxes on the buildings." No, they refused to do it. Japan took that question
to the Hague court and it was argued in the Hague court and was decided
against Japan. Thus owners of the concessions who own those millions of
dollars worth of valuable buildings pay no taxes whatever to the government
of Japan, that is the rule there today. And foreigners hold in that way in
Japan more millions of dollars of property than Japanese will ever own in the
United States. I don't think it is right myself. I don't think the decision of
the Hague court was right, but it is the decision; Japan abides by it.

SOMEONE IN THE AUDIENCE: What is the motive behind the
an ti- Japanese agitation?

COLONEL IRISH: It is a very mysterious thing. The agitation was
begun by the Scripps and Hearst papers during the war. When our State
Department captured what is known as the Zimmermann letter and accompany-
ing documents it was at once disclosed that this anti- Japanese agitation was
German propaganda and the Scripps and Hearst papers stopped, until the
close of the war, then took it up again. It is no less German propaganda now
than it was then. If any of you can get a little book by Captain Olinger, a
captain in our regular army, written just after the close of the war, under the
caption, "The Technique of German Propaganda," and read that, you will find
it very enlightening. He said, "If any of you think Germany has abandoned
her purpose you err. Her propaganda now will be to separate the allies who
in union have overcome her in an action at arms. In one country Germany
will be playing upon race prejudices; in another upon religious prejudices — as
today amongst the Mohammedans; in another country commercial envy and
jealousy; all the time bent on the one purpose, to divide the allies who in union

13

have whipped her." Now that's what's going on. Why, there was in Cali-
fornia working on a Hearst paper before we went into war a German subject
named Brandeis. He was blatantly pro-German, and after we entered the war
he was still more vicious. Our secret service arrested him, turned him over
to the army, and he was held prisoner in Fort Douglas in Utah as an enemy-
alien till the close of the war, and when the war was over he came down to
San Francisco, and he has been writing and publishing as a serial in that anti-
Japanese organ, "The San Francisco Bulletin," with his signature, one of the
most infamous anti-Japanese stories, defamatory, false, in every statement
published and circulated by that German subject, a former officer in the
German army. Now when it was published that Lenine and Trotsky had
granted that 400 square miles concession in eastern Siberia to an American,
Lenine said they had granted that concession to an American because he
believed it would be one means of bringing on war between Japan and the
United States, which was his purpose. There is that element of propaganda.
Then there are other sinister influences always behind the urgency for a war.
Do you suppose that the sow forgets the cornfield in which she once fills her
belly? Don't you suppose she will go and hunt the same old hole under the
rail fence and get in again? Do you suppose that the people who enriched
themselves unduly by the spoils of war forget the corn patch and the hole
under the fence? No. They don't forget it. They know where to go when
they want another fill. There is that continual urgency all the time. These
two species of propaganda and the other, all the time; and it points to one
focus: every man that's engaged in it must be a conscious agent in a move-
ment to cause war; he must be conscious of it

SOMEONE IN THE AUDIENCE: Is it true, Colonel, that the Japanese
in California have insisted on maintaining their own customs and their own
churches and are keeping their own language?

COLONEL IRISH: Have their own churches, you say?
SOMEONE IN THE AUDIENCE: Yes.

COLONEL IRISH: Yes, they do. I know a half-dozen Methodist
churches maintained by the Japanese, some Presbyterian churches, a Congre-
gational church (applause), and down in Livingston the Japanese are all mem-
bers of the Episcopal church. They have their Episcopal church there and
their Japanese Episcopal minister. They have some Buddhist churches there
and I don't think the Buddhist churches are doing them any hurt. Now as
to the language, you must remember that a number — as a rule, the old Japa-
nese, I mean the fathers and mothers of Japanese children— have a very
inefficient control of the English language, because they grew up before
English was a compulsory study in the Japanese schools. English is a com-
pulsory study in all Japanese schools from the grammar grade up, but these
Japanese didn't have the advantage of that education. Now the rule is they
want to keep their children talking Japanese so that they can talk with their
young, but this happens: the children go to American schools and pick up the
English language very rapidly and the children go hpme and they begin to
teach English to their parents. That's a common thing all over California;
the Japanese school children carry English home, and begin to teach English
to their parents, and their parents continue to hold them talking Japanese, so
that means that both languages are maintained.

SOMEONE IN THE AUDIENCE: Tell us about the honesty and char-
acter of the Japanese. We hear it said so many times that they are dishonest
and can't be trusted.

COLONEL IRISH: I am very glad you asked me that question. The
first anti-Japanese association in California was made by an ex-convict who
came there from the Minnesota penitentiary at Stillwater, where he had served
a term for the crime of forgery. He was the first man to rail about the dis-
honesty of the Japanese and had a story that the Japanese were so dishonest
that in the Japanese banks they had to hire Chinese cashiers. It isn't true.
There never was a Chinese cashier in a Japanese bank. Mr. Phelan made a

14

speech to a woman's club in San Francisco in which he emitted all his anti-
Japanese spawn and when he sat down a lady got up and said, "Senator, isn't
it true that 80,000 trained Samurai soldiers are drilling under arms all the time
in California?" He said, "Yes, that's true." Another lady got up and she
said, "Senator, isn't it true that the Japanese are so dishonest that they have
to employ Chinese cashiers in their own banks in Japan?" "Yes, that is true."
She said, "I know it is because I have been in Japan." Well, in the audience
was Mr. Bellows, our state commissioner of corporations, who for eight years
was the American consul-general in Japan, and he couldn't stand it any longer.
He said to the first lady, "Madam, have you seen these Samurai drilling under
arms in California?" "No, I haven't." He said, "Madam, what is a Samurai?"
"Well," she says, "I don't know. It is something Japanese." (Laughter.)
He said, "Let me tell you something; there isn't a Samurai on the face of
the earth. The Japanese Samurai were the members of the clans of the
Daimios in the feudal age of Japan, and when the feudal age ceased and the
Daimios were shorn of their power and the Mikado became the sole sovereign
of Japan, the Samurai were reduced to the ranks of the people, and they are
simply the people of Japan." He says, "Madam, you say you never saw
them drill?" "No." "Did you ever see anybody that ever saw them drill-
ing?" "No." "Did you ever see anybody that ever saw anybody that saw it?"
"No, I never did." Then he turned to Senator Phelan. He said, "Senator,
you affirm the truth of this statement? Did you ever see them drilling?"
Phelan grabbed his hat and said, "I have another engagement," and ran out
of the hall.

Then addressing the lady who told him about the Chinese cashier in the
Japanese bank, "Did you go to the bank in Yokohama?" "Yes." "What did
you go there for?" "To have my American money changed into Japanese
money and there was a Chinese cashier there changed my American money
into Japanese money." "Did you go to any other bank?" "Yes." "Why
did you go there?" "To change my American money into Japanese money."
"Did you go to any other bank in Yokohama?" "No." "Did you go to the
Daichi Ginko?" naming over the Japanese banks in Yokohama. "No, I didn't
go to those banks." He said, "Madam, let me tell you something. The first
bank you went to is a bank owned by English capital. Every man in it is
an Englishman except that Chinese clerk who is hired, because he is cheap
and expert, to sit in that cage and change money, and it is an English bank.
Every other man in it is an Englishman. The second bank you went to is
an American bank owned by New York capital and every man in it except
the same Chinese clerk who sits there in a cage to change money is an Ameri-
can. Now," he said, "I was eight years consul-general of the United States in
Japan and it was my business to know the finance and banks, every industrial
district in Japan from Yokohama to Nagasaki. I deposited the public funds in
the Daichi Ginko. I deposited my private funds in one of the national banks.
I knew every bank in Japan. There never was a Chinese cashier in a Japa-
nese bank and there is not now." Phelan had left the room; he could not
again run away from saying that was true.

As to their honesty, if you will pardon me, I don't want to keep you
here too late, but I want to explain something to you. Our civilization and
the Chinese civilization are both based upon contract. The Chinese are the
most faithful people in the world to their contracts; they shame all Christen-
dom. A Chinese will make good his contract at whatever sacrifice. It is part
of the Confucian philosophy that he should. The Japanese civilization is
based upon honor. They never knew what a contract was in Japan. It is
based upon Bushido, their code of honor. Two Japanese make a bargain and
later one of them finds that he is going to lose heavily; he goes to the other
and explains matters and says, "Surely you will not make me keep the bargain
under those circumstances?" And the thing is off. Their civilization is based
upon honor. Ours and the Chinese are based upon contract. Now the Japa-
nese statesmen see that their future career must be commercial, in contact with
the Western Nations, where civilization is based upon contract; they are en-
gaged in the mighty work of shifting the basis of their civilization from honor
to contract.

Mr. George W. Kennan, who you remember wrote the Russian exile
articles in the Century Magazine years ago, has spent a long time in Japan.

15

And he became much interested in this Japanese process for the shifting of
the foundation of their civilization. They use their public schools for it. They
have the second best public school system in the world, excelled only by that
of Germany. They begin in their public schools from the primary system up
to the university, teaching the obligation of a contract and the principles of
commercial honor. He says it is the most interesting thing that one can look
upon. They place no supernatural sanctions at all, as we do, behind it, but
because it is the thing to do for the welfare of the country. Now he says a
teacher in the primary schools will state a problem involving a contract and
the principles of commercial honor and every boy in the school has got to get
up and discuss that proposition, making them begin to think. Don't you see
it is a hard thing to make our people think? And after they have all discussed
it, all the boys in the room, then the teacher gives them the solution of what
ought to be done. That's practiced clear up to the university and they expect
in one generation to shift the base of their civilization.

Now as to their honesty? I have done more business with Japanese than
the average Californian. I never had a Japanese sidestep a contract, nor break
a promise. They have learned by bitter lessons in California what a contract is.
When they first came there they didn't know what a contract was and land-
owners up the Sacramento river — I know them and I know what they did —
they made contracts with Japanese farm laborers, which the Japanese signed,
not knowing what it meant; they toiled through the hot summer and the land-
owner took all of it except what remained as a very low wage they got for
their labor in producing it. When they found that they couldn't make a living
wage they walked off the land and from under their contracts. There isn't a
human being, white, black or yellow, who would continue to keep a contract
made in deceit.

In Stockton a merchant swore that his firm did a business of $200,000 a
year with the Japanese in San Joaquin county. He said, "We have given them
credit and we have never lost a dollar." A large grocer told the same story
of the Japanese, gave them credit and never lost a dollar. A bank president
went there and said that there was no record in a Stockton bank of a Japanese
failing to take up his note when he had been given credit; they always took
up their paper.

Now those are the official facts sworn to by those men doing business
with the Japanese in California. I know them to be true.

George Shima, our great Japanese farmer, told me a while ago that at the
beginning of the season a year ago he made a contract to deliver $20,000 worth
of onions to an American commission merchant in Los Angeles and the com-
mission merchant put up a forfeit. When the onibn crop was pulled the price
began to go down. This man came to Shima and said, "I am going to back out
of that contract." He said, "Onions are going down; I won't stand by my con-
tract." Shima said, "Suppose the onions had doubled in price and I had
refused to deliver, what would you have done?" He said, "I would have made
you fill your contract." And Shima said, "All right, I will make you fulfill
your contract."

16

IMPORTANT DATA.

CALIFORNIA—

Square Miles, 155,980.

Population Japanese, per figures U. S. Census, 70,000.

Less than one Japanese to each two square miles in state.

Two per cent of total population.
Own and lease 1.6 per cent lands of the state, raise 13 per cent of crops

worth $67,000,000.

IDAHO—

Square Miles, 84,800.

Population Japanese, per figures U. S. Census, 1,731.

Less than one Japanese to 40 square miles.
Own 2,733 acres.

Bought in war days nearly $100,000.00 worth of Liberty Bonds.
Japan needs 500,000 tons of phosphate each year and Idaho should furnish

that to Japan.

Japan buys largely now of the wheat of the Northwest.
Hence for the sake of mutual trade as well as justice there should be

fairness between Japan and the United States.

AN EDITORIAL BY THE CAPITAL NEWS.

The American Legion has raised a grave issue in the adoption of a reso-
lution declaring against granting the rights of citizenship to the Japanese.
In the face of the situation in the Pacific Coast States, where there is strong
opposition to Orientals, particularly Japanese, and relations are strained
between the United States and Japan because of that fact, the American
Legion resolution tends to intensify it.

A majority of the people of this country, especially in the West, will no
doubt approve that portion of the resolution declaring against the cancellation
of the so-called "gentlemen's agreement" between the United States and
Japan; for the exclusion of "picture brides"; and the rigorous exclusion of
Japanese as immigrants. Apparently the time has come in this country when
such a stand must be taken. Unless we take steps to stop the inroads of the
Japanese to this country, the agitation along the Pacific Coast will become
more serious than it is at the present time. "Pictures brides" are arriving
by the boatload* — young Japanese women whom the male Japanese now here
will marry. The traffic is becoming a regular thing. Japan should be as
interested as the United States in stopping it. That country should also be
interested in placing some control on her subjects who seek to come to the
United States by the hundreds and thousands.

We should call a halt on Japanese immigration, we should stop the picture
bride traffic, but whether we can go so far as to stop the naturalization of
Japanese is another question. We doubt if it can be done, and whether it is
wise to do it. To single out the Japanese and refuse to permit them to become
citizens of this country, if they so desire and are willing to give up the land
of their birth, and swear allegiance to the United States, may be carrying the
anti-Japanese controversy too far. We permit former subjects of other
countries to become naturalized and to develop into citizens. Should we
refuse the same right to the Japanese? We doubt it very much. Certainly it
would be unwise to take away from present Japanese citizens their rights as
citizens in this country. There are many Japanese who are not only engaged
in business in this country, but who are excellent citizens. Their children
were born in America and are attending American schools. To all intents and
purposes they are being brought up as Americans. They certainly have some
rights.

The question is a big and important one. No hasty action should be taken
in interfering with those who have sworn allegiance to our Constitution and
have lived up to our naturalization demands. Yet while we consider it, we can
block the inroads of the Japanese who are not qualified to become citizens and
who have no intention of doing so. — Boise Evening Capital News — Issue of
Friday, October 1, 1920.

*Picture brides ceased to come last August, the Japanese government having stopped
issuing passports to them in February, 1920.