J V 6455 L4 MAIN ii i IIIHI urn in i mi ii in ii in ii in i mi 23 ET7 i 1 1915 mmigration Some New Phases of the Problem 1 25 Cents GIFT 1 | 9 , 5 Immigration Some New Phases of the Problem Price 25 Cents Immigration Some New Phases of the Problem A series of addresses delivered before the International Immigration Congress at the Civic Auditorium, San Francisco, Cal., August 9, 10, 11, 1915 Edited hy Frank B. Lenz it Immigration Secretary Young Men's Christian Associa- tion, San Francisco, Cal. August, 1915 Published by The American Sociological Society and The Committee of One Hundred, Federal Council of Churches in America uf Committees International Immigration Congress Under Joint Direction American Sociological Society, Prof. E. A. Ross, President, Madison, Wis., and Sub-Committee of One Hundred, Federal Council of Churches in America; Charles W. Blanpied, Chairman, 124 East Twenty-Eighth Street, New York City. Local Committee on Arrangements Chairman, Prof. Ira W. Howerth, University of Cali- fornia, Berkeley Executive Secretary, Frank B. Lenz, Y. M. C. A., San Francisco Rev. Charles F. Aked, San Francisco Dr. H. P. Guy, Berkeley Robert Newton Lynch, San Francisco Rabbi Martin A. Meyer, San Francisco Paul Scharrenberg, San Francisco Prof. M. F. Wildman, Stanford Prof. Edw. Elliott, Berkeley Bishop E. H. Hughes,, San Francisco John H. McCallum, San Francisco Prof. Jessica B. Peixotto, Berkeley Rev. Paul Smith, San Francisco Hon. J. Stitt Wilson, Berkeley Advisory Committee Dr. Danna-W. Bartlett, Los Angeles, Cal. Prof. E. S. Bogardus, Los Angeles, Cal. Dr. F. D. Bovard, Philadelphia Pres. C. J. Bushnell, Forest Grove, Ore. Sen. Walter S. Davis, Tacoma, Wash. Pres. Wm. T. Foster, Portland, Ore. Mrs. F. A. Gibson, Los Angeles, Cal. John A. Goodell, Portland, Ore. Dr. Sidney L. Gulick, New York, N. Y. Dr. Prescott F. Hall, Boston, Mass. Kiyo Sue Inui, San Francipco, Cal Prof. Jeremiah W. Jenks, New York, N. Y. Chancellor David Starr Jordan, Stanford University. Prof. Shailer Matthc-ws, Chicago Bishop Francis T. McCoimell, Denver Dr. Henry J. McCoy, San Francisco Prof. Theresa S. McMahon, Seattle, Wash. Dr. Ng. Poon Chew, San Francisco Dr. Peter Roberts, New York Hon. Chester H. Rowell, Fresno, Cal. Swan Samson, Tacoma, Wash. Rev. Wm. G. Shriver, New York Prof. Edward A. Steiner, Grinnell, Iowa Rev. Robert Walker, San Francisco Hon. A. J. Wallace, Los Angeles Hon. Harris Weinstock, San Francisco Pres. Benjamin Ide Wheeler, Berkeley Forward The immigration question is so closely associated with our problems of industry, education, economics and religion that we scarcely know where to begin in seeking a so- lution. Many books have been written on the subject, many conventions have been held, many investigations have been made but nothing has been accomplished in the way of a constructive domestic program. The immigration laws of the various states are in no way co-ordinated. The federal government's interest in the immigrant ceases when he leaves the port of entry. Very little human interest is being shown toward him. In the following addresses a plea is made for open mindedness and justice toward all immigrants. Charges which are untrue have so often been brought against the for- eigner that there is a great deal of misin- formation concerning him. The spirit in the West toward him is often found to be unjust and unamerican. It is our sincere hope that this pamphlet may clear the atmos- phere on some of the problems of immigra- tion and lead to clear, unprejudiced thinking on the subject. F. B. L. 312805 Table of Contents Page The Immigration Problem 1 By Prof. Ira B. Cross, University of California The Immigrant Woman , 9 By Mr.s. Kate Waller Barrett, M. D. D. Sc., U. S. Immigration Service Hebrew Immigration 14 By Rabbi Martin A. Meyer, Temple Emanu-El San Francisco Land and Labor and Immigration : 16 By James W. Muller, Editor "Labor Clarion' Manufacturers and Immigration on the Pacific Coast 20 By Robert Newton Lynch, Vice President and Manager Chamber of Commerce, San Francisco Japanese Immigration Remaining Problems and Suggested Remedies 24 By Prof. H. A. Millis, University of Kansas Japanese Education in America 40 By K. S. Inui, Secretary Japan Society of America Chinese Immigration 50 By Kee Orvyang, Former Consul at San Francisco The Pacific Coast and the Panama Canal 53 By Sen. Walter S. Davis, Tacoma, Wash. After the War What? 56 By Dr. David Starr Jordan, Chancellor, Stanford University The State and the Immigrant 61 By Simon J. Lubin, President Immigration and Housing Com- mission of California The Work of the California State Commission of Immigration and Housing...68 By Ceo. L. Bell, Attorney and Executive Officer The Literacy Test 7 7 By Hon. William Kent, Member of House of Repreesntatives from California Report of Committee on Resolutions ... ....79 ^ A"^ ctr The Immigration Problem 7ra 5. Cross, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Economics, University of California. An American author gives us the following prose-poem in which he aptly describes the immigration situation in the United States : I am the immigrant. Since the dawn of creation my restless feet have beaten new paths across the earth. My uneasy bark has tossed on all seas. My wanderlust was born of the craving for more liberty and a better wage for the sweat of my face. I looked toward the United States with eager eyes kindled by the fire of ambition, and heart quickened with new born hope. I approached its gates with great expectation. I entered in with fine hope. have shouldered my burden as the American man-of-all-work. contribute eighty-five per cent of all the labor in the slaughtering and meat packing industries. do seven-tenths of the bituminous coal mining, do seven-eighths of all the work in the woolen mills, contribute nine-tenths of all the labor in the cotton mills, make nineteen-twentieths of all the clothing, manufacture more than half the shoes, build four-fifths of all the furniture, make half of the collars, cuffs and shirts, turn out four-fifths of all the leather, make half the gloves. ' refine nearly nineteen-twentieths of the sugar. I make half of the tobacco and cigars. And yet I am the great American Problem. When I pour out my blood on "your altar of labor, and lay down my life as a sacrifice to your God of Toil, men make no more comment than at the fall of a sparrow. My children shall be your children, and your land shall be my land, because my sweat and my blood will cement the foundations of the America of Tomorrow. If I can be fused into the body politic, the melting pot will have stood the supreme test. Immigration, then, is a great American problem, not the great American problem, but one of several problems pressing for solution at the present time. Its influence is felt by every phase of our social. economic, political and religious life. It is no new problem. We have been face to face with it since the earliest days of the colonial era. During the intervening years we have had recurring agitations against the influx of the so-called "undesirable races" at one time resulting in the formation of a fairly powerful and active national political organization. The American Party, with its slogan of "America for the Americans" at other times culminating merely in "Immigration Congresses" or "Immigration Conventions." where papers have been read and various matters discussed, but where nothing substantial or of lasting value has been accomplished. All things considered, it is doubtful if the immigration situation today is any more critical in its nature, if as critical, than it has been in the past, yet restrictionists would have us believe that unless the influx of "ignorant and poverty stricken hordes" is checked, the nation is inevitably doomed. It has always been thus. Propagandists who are desirous of a change, no matter in \vhat field they are interested, are always addicted to a policy of exaggeration. A calm, truthful and unvarnished statement makes but a slight impression upon the pub- lic mind. The longer one studies the immigration problem, the more one is surprised to find that when considered from an historical standpoint, there is but a single argument used in these later years which was not used earlier in the agitations against the immigrant, and that is that <>ur immigrants, now coming from the Mediterranean countries rather If" than from the North European States, are less desirable in every regard lian were the North Europeans. In every other connection, however, the arguments employed today are the very same as were used by our ancestors decades ago. We have been told that immigrants reduce wages, degrade the lot of American workers, lengthen the hours of labor, retain their love for their fatherland, have their national societies and refuse to abandon their national customs and manners ; do not assimilate ; cannot be welded into a homogenous American people. They have had no training in democratic institutions, having come from those countries which are ruled by kings and queens, and such things. and hence they are bound to be a menace to our political institutions ; that they congregate in our cities and give us our slums, and our insane, criminal and pauper classes ; that they are in league with the Pope and are desirous of turning the United States over to him, body and soul ; that they are illiterate, and so on ad infinitum, through a long list of arguments with which all of you are thoroughly acquainted, and which are supposed to prove conclusively the necessity of restricting, or pos- sibly, of completely checking the immigration of the "undesirable races/' These arguments were used against the North Europeans in the early days, in fact down to as late as the last decade of the last century. But now that the North European races do not come to us in such large numbers, owing to the great economic development of the countries represented, we have merely transferred our attacks from them to the South European races, and find that the old arguments are still useable. We now consider the North European races to be the best immigrants that w,e ever had, and undoubtedly feel that if they were again coming to us in large numbers, we would offer no objections to them. Memory is a fickle thing ; it has always been so, but in no connec- tion is it more dangerous than when relied upon in the discussion of economics and social problems. We think and talk of "the good old days" of fifty or a hundred years ago, or even farther back than that in our history, and almost universally we do not have one spark of evidence, one tiny thread of fact, upon which to base our contention or our idea. V When we get down to "brass tacks" and 'carefully examine our ex- perience with the North Europeans we find some interesting matters. First, as regards assimilation. We all know that the Englishman is one of the most difficult individuals to assimilate. He clings to his citizenship, to his mannerisms, and to his country's customs most per- sistently. The present European war has enabled us to learn that we have not as yet thoroughly assimilated the hyphenated North European, especially the Germans, long considered one of our most desirable classes of immigrants. In the matter of crime and also of pauperism, the Irish give us our most serious problem. In criminality the Irish are followed by the Germans, although in major offenses the Germans take first rank. In this state the Germans are exceeded only by the Mexicans in the number of convicts in our two state prisons. We also * know that the North Europeans settled in one part of the town, and had their national societies, just as do our South European races today. I was born in a town which had a large German population, and I well remember how our neighborhood felt about the German Turner Societies, the clannishness of the German race, and other similar things. I spent about ten years of my life in another town predominantly Scandinavian, and here again I noted the feeling of opposition and antagonism evidenced towards these races. In the factory where [ worked, it was they who were accused of having made it possible by their cheap labor for the employer to reduce wages to a considerable extent. Here in California, we are now told that the Chinese were the : best farm laborers that we ever had, and even the trade-unionists, who were primarily responsible for their exclusion, now declare that the Chinese were far superior to the Japanese and Hindus of later years. In passing, may I state that I attack no race, nor do I praise any race of immigrants. I make no plea for unrestricted immigration, nor for a policy of restriction. I am merely attempting to lay certain mat- ters before you for the purpose of showing the necessity of a saner point of view in connection with the discussion of the immigration problem. 3 From any point of view, then, we can say that it is ever a case of the current immigration being undesirable, while the older immigra- tion, which comes no more, is ever desirable. It is time, therefore, that we were learning that after all, our oppo- :ion to immigration is for the most part a matter of racial prejudice. 'e attack any race, no matter which one it happens to be, that comes us in any great numbers. As a people we shall' never be able to >mk our prejudices ; we shall always have some sort of an immigration problem \vith us. Prejudice cares naught for facts. It shapes its arguments regard- less of them. One of the most interesting instances of this arises in connection with the oft repeated argument that our earlier immigrants settled upon our free lands, and consequently were not a menace to our institutions. The desirable lands now being gone, our later immi- grants congregate in cities, enter our manufacturing industries, and as a consequence bring us serious social and economic problems. Taking the United States census of 1870 as being late enough to have permitted the earlier immigration to have asserted its tendencies, Prof. Page of the University of West Virginia shows us some interest- ing facts. Among the farming population 21 per cent were Scandina- vians, 12 per cent w r ere British, 13 per cent were Germans, 7 per cent were Irish, and 23 per cent were natives. Among those engaged in personal service and in the professions, 12 per cent were Scandinavians. 8 per cent were British, 11 per cent were Germans, 24 per cent were Irish, and only 8 per cent were natives. In trade and transportation, there were twice as many Irish and twice as many Germans as natives, while in manufacturing, almost 9 per cent were Scandinavians, 23 per cent were British, 19 per cent were Germans, 14 per cent were Irish, and only 7 per cent were natives. In 1870, 56 per cent of all steel and iron mill employes were immigrants. Seven-tenths of the employes of the Cambria Steel Company at Johnston, Pa., were Welsh. The desire v of the immigrants to settle upon the land was not so strongly evidenced in those early days as many have been led to believe was the case. The tendency then as now was to enter manufacturing, trade, transportation, personal service, and the professions. We have also been told that we are getting a horde of immigrants who cannot speak the English language. Prof. Ripley of Harvard tells us that "for the entire colonies at the time of the Revolution, we have it on good authority that one-fifth of the population could not speak English, and that one-half at least was not Anglo-Saxon by de- scent." Jn^l910, only fifteen per cent of our total foreign-born popula- tion could not speak English, in spite of the fact that in these later years most of our immigration has come from non-English speaking countries. . Other instances could be cited to show that much of our opposition to the immigrant is not based on facts. It is based on racial prejudice, on selfishness. In every race there is a desire to monopolize things. Most people are inherently selfish. It is but natural for us to want to keep the good things of life, the jobs, the land, the natural resources of the nation, for our own people. Yet all of us are immigrants, or descendants of immigrants a fact which practically all of us overlook. On the other hand, however, is it not justifiable for a people to be selfish, to look out for its own welfare even at the expense of other races, and even though it be accused of evidencing racial prejudice? All of us are acquainted with the oft met person who delves in public gardens, as it were, and neglects his own household. Today we are seeing altogether too much of that spirit being shown on all hands and in all connections. It is incumbent upon a nation to so arrange its affairs as to bring the greatest degree of comfort and w r elfare to its citizens. It is incumbent upon a race to protect itself against the encroachments of other races. If it does not do so, who will? Whence will protection come if not from the race itself? A community pro- tects itself against undesirable citizens in many ways. A social group or lodge of any kind does not admit all persons to its ranks, ^p? a Jif people, a nation, finds that certain immigrant races, or certain qualities in individual members of various races, are detrimental to its welfare, it has the undoubted right to restrict such immigration, and it should do so in so far as international treaties and relations with other conn- tries permit.~7 The United States has long been considered the asylum for the economic, reilgious and politically oppressed of all the world. Many have come to think that this country was especially created for that purpose. Such -was not the case. Each group of early colonists was eager to keep out other groups. From the various waves of immigra- tion that have swept over our country, we have developed a conglom- erate race called the American people. Although our ancestors were immigrants, we as their descendants must conserve the welfare of the nation of our own race, even though it becomes necessary for us seri- ously to restrict immigration or to check it completely. .^Restriction, however, should come only after we are certain, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that immigration has become harmful. As in the early days our Puritan forefathers blamed Satan for all things, from plagues and failures of crops to the stubbing of one's toe, so in th % ese later years we have become accustomed to claim that all of our social, economic, political and religious problems are due to the presence of the* immigrant. There is no other equally important economic or social question in connection with which there exists such a mass of misstatements, poorly analyzed data, baseless accusations, and what not. Even our greatest authorities, to say nothing of lesser lights and 'the members of various government and church commissions, seem to lose their capacity to reason clearly and to judge fairly when considering this question of immigration. One noted writer tells us that the United States is being flooded with a degenerate class. "They are the defective and delinquent classes in Europe, the individuals who have not been able to keep pace at home and have fallen into the lower strata of its civilization." Others tell us that it is only the strong, the sturdy, the ambitious who migrate to the United States. Many authors declare that the immigrant reduces wages ; others state that he has not reduced wages, but that his pres- ence has merely tended to prevent wages from rising as rapidly as they otherwise would have done ; while still others inform us that the immigrant has pushed the American worker out of the lower grades of unskilled labor into the skilled trades, and that the American is now engaged in those trades which pay the highest rates of wages. Sweat- ing is laid at the door of the immigrant, yet we are told that in other countries, where there is no or but little immigration, sweating also exists. The immigrant is accused of corrupting politics, yet in many communities where the immigrant is of no numerical consequence, we find political corruption existing in a most flagrant manner. He is also accused of being illiterate, and it has been proposed that he be excluded by means of a literacy test. It is felt by some that the ability to read and write separates the good from the bad, the desirable from the undesirable. Yet we know from our own experience that such is not the case. We are told of the great difficulties which are met with in the assimilation of these later immigrants. But we forget that today we have many agencies of assimilation which did not exist in the earlier days. The very fact that so many of our immigrants are in our cities make it such that Americanization is much more easily possible than would otherwise be the case. The school, the social settlement, the trade-union, the movies, the church, the playground, all, and more, are assisting in the work of assimilation. \Ye can assimilate anything, with the possible exception of the Oriental and the negro^, $ The worst part about all of us is that we are impatient. J\\ c want the immigrant to become Americanized, assimilated, within a few^v months, or at best within a few years, after his arrival in our midst.]/ On the face of it, such a thing is impossible. The best that we can hope for is that the first generation, the immigrants themselves, will be but slightly affected by Americanizing influences. It is the second generation which will respond most readily to our efforts. Yet where serious attempts are made to reach the first generation, even there we find the readiest sort of response. Note the work now being done in the Ford Automobile Company plant, in the social settlements, in the night schools and elsewhere. Immigrants are eager for training, for what we can give them, for the rudiments of an elementary education long denied them in their own country. Let us make it possible for them to get such things. And so on through a long list of accusation and replies. We truly need some modern Moses to lead us out of this wilderness of confusing statements, misrepresentations and lies. We need facts. We need a correct interpretation of the facts which we already have at our dis- posal. Much remains to be done before we can hope for a solution, even a partial solution, of the immigration problem. By all means let us not act until we know what the situation really is. Let us have facts as a basis for our action. Finally, we must realize that if we permit immigrants to come to us, and to settle in our midst, we must of necessity, for our self-protec- tion, for the welfare of society, and for the individual good of the immigrant, do something to make his assimilation, his co-operation in our American life, more possible. We must do all that we can to assist his adjustment to New World conditions. /We must make a "conscious effort to forge the people in this country into an American * race that will stand together for America in times of peace or of war.^y As Francis Kellor has well said : "The most important subject before the American national govern- ment today is the adoption of a domestic immigration policy, with ade- quate official machinery to carry it into effect. Our international policy of admission, exclusion and deportation needs a human, constructive supplement for the nationalization of those admitted. Such a domestic policy comprises seven closely related fields of thought and activity which should be welded together, each one now lying in a different sphere of administration, and so ignored, belittled or isolated as to be of small value in the Americanization of admitted aliens. These in- clude : "1. Direct, expeditious and safe distribution of admitted aliens to des- tination, with suitable train, terminal and transfer facilities and municipal facilities for directing immigrants within the city. "2. Security of employment and adequate, co-ordinated, regulated labor market organization through which admitted aliens may find work, with equal opportunity to engage in occupations by which they may earn their living. "3. Maintenance of American standards of living, by removal of dis- criminations in localities, housing, sanitation, over-crowding, rentals and supplies. "4. Opportunity for intelligent, safe investment of savings, with such information, organization and legislation as will accomplish this, including banking institutions, loan funds, agricultural colonies and workingmen's home projects. "5. Reduction of illiteracy and advancement of knowledge of the English language and civics, extension of public social facilities of the industrial training. "6. Higher and more simplified standard of naturalization requirements, uniform state naturalization laws, simplification of processes, and increase of facilities for naturalization and for co-ordination of educational require- ments with educational facilities. "7. National cooperation in the care of public charges, increased facili- ties for locating deportable persons, and better co-ordination of state and national work." A constructive domestic immigration policy is indeed sadly needed. The issue is not "What are the evils of immigration?" but rather "What can be done to assist in making the work of the Melting Pot more quickly effective ?" The government, industry, and philanthropy have as yet scarcely scratched the surface of this most important and fruitful field of untold possibilities. I regret that time does not permit a further discussion of this phase of the question, but I am sure that it will be fully dealt with by others during the sessions of this Congress. Now is the time to act. Now is the time to take up the conditions of the nearly thirteen million foreign-born in this country, and to for- mulate and execute measures for the welfare of the country. For the first time in many years this country is free from the absorbing de- mands made by the entrance of hundreds of thousands of immigrants yearly. Now is the time to establish adequate machinery for dealing intelligently and efficiently with increased immigration after the war. Unless we do these things, the Melting Pot will not have stood the supreme test. In conclusion then may we not say (1) that our opposition to im- migration is based on selfish motives; (2) that such selfishness may or may not be justified by circumstances; (3) that there is nothing to justify the oft repeated contention that America must, regardless of circumstances, remain the asylum, the dumping-ground for the eco- nomic, social, religious and political oppressed of the world; (4) that we may be justified in restricting or in completely prohibiting immigra- tion ; (5) that there is no equally important field of economic, social and political thought in which there is such a confusion of ideas, such a great need of facts upon which to base one's conclusions ; and finally that we as American citizens owe it to ourselves and to the immi- grant to see that everything is done for the purpose of making his Americanization rapid and complete. Let us realize that the immi- grant is both a liability and an asset. /^ In closing may I say that I make no plea for unrestricted immi- gration, nor do I hold a brief for the restrictionists. I only desire to call attention to the necessity of sanity, of serious thought, of well- balanced reasoning in the discussion of the Immigration Problem. The Immigrant Woman By Mrs. Kate Waller Barrett, M. D. D. Sc., Special Agent U. S. Immigration Service. The consideration of the subject of immigration is not new. Ever since the days of the Athenian Republic, nations have had the subject to deal with in some form. The United States has passed through several stages in its attitude on the subject. In early Colonial days immigration was so earnestly desired that enforced immigration was resorted to and unwilling law breakers were deported from England to this country and ship loads of slaves were brought from Africa. Let us not forget that one of the most conspicuous problems that this country has to face in regard to aliens dates from this latter source. One of the charges made against King George in the Declaration of Independence was that he interfered with immigration and yet as early as 1780, Benjamin Franklin declared that unless the immigration from the continent is stopped the English language will cease to be the language of the country. Also in spite of the fact that William Penn showed himself to be an able forerunner of the present day immi- gration agent in the manner in which he advertised the advantages of Pennsylvania, we find that at that early day others were deploring the fact that those who were coming were very inferior to those who had come with the first ships. It is remarkable what virtues priority seems to give in the eyes of many ! After the country became fairly well populated there was a period of indifference to the subject and it was only in 1882 that any effort towards regulating immigration was undertaken by the government. At the present time I might characterize the attitude of most of our citizens as one of questionings if not of hostility, toward unrestricted immigration. In spite of the attention which has been directed to the subject in the past ten years when we have been receiving annually over one mil- lion aliens, most legislation has been abortive and unrelated to the crux of the matter. The cause of this confusion in legislative enact- ment is due largely to the fact that none of the political parties and no candidates for election have had the courage to define their' position upon this subject for fear of losing the naturalized vote. To my mind the hyphenated American citizen is as much interested in a sane and J intelligent solution of this question as the native born. He has sought this country for larger social or economic opportunities and frequently has a greater appreciation of American institutions than those born 9 under the Stars and Stripes. A pertinent question for every native son of the United States to ask himself, especially those of Colonial descent, whose fathers' blood made possible this government and who with bloodless effort availed themselves of the treasures that nature had stored up in geological periods, is: If I had not been born to this heritage of freedom would I have had the courage to claim it? Upon his ability to answer this subject in the affirmative rests their position as the leaders of the future destinies of this Republic ; if answered in the negative, no adventitious circumstances, no pride of birth, no unjust laws can build a fortress around them sufficient to protect them for long against the onward and irresistable march of progress. I never see an alien woman in the street, in her peasant costume, with the look of anxiety and often fear on her face that I do not mentally make obeisance to her, for I question if I would have had the bravery to do what she has done. What she has done, it did not matter how circumstance pressed. And so we pay, one way or another for all that we have, it does not matter in what form it comes. Now that Nature has been tamed, the only way that we can hope to keep alive the splendid pioneer spirit of our ancestors is to stand on the frontiers of moral reform and to be the Adventurous Bowman for civil, economic and religious liberty. Easy living, easy dying is as true of the national as of the physical body. While there is nothing startingly new in the general subject of immigration the problem of the unattached alien woman is new in its present form. We who trace our ancestry back to the Colonial days, rather resent having our attention called to the fact that large numbers of women who were deported from Great Britain to the colonies and whose progeny were doubtless absorbed into some of the first families for eligible females were rather scarce in those days. A picture of what the inhumanity of man caused some of those first alien women to suffer has come down to us in that wonderful classic "Nanon LeCaut." If you want to know what our civilization has cost alien women, read some of the official M. M. S. preserved in the Library at Paris, of the settlement of Louisiana. A young friend of mine went to Paris t<> prepare a thesis upon the settlement of Alabama and she told me the horrors that were revealed to her in those musty documents were un- believable. Let us not forget that much of the civilization of America was built upon the sufferings of alien women and that the ties which bound together the thirteen colonies was cemented with her blood. But it is with the alien woman of today that I have to deal. 10 The movement of unattached women of every nationality is a sig- nificant feature of the clay. It is an unmistakable sign of her unrest and dissatisfaction of the old order. Even our own daughters prefer oc- cupation far from their home in the majority of cases. This practice on the part of American women has effected European women. Form- erly men of the family came first. Now it is not at all unusual to find women coming first and sending back for the men of the family. Many have said to me that American women do not have to have a home, Why should they? A boarding house answers every purpose. In considering the alien woman it is safe to say that if you multiply the injustices which alien men are subjected to it w r ill not exaggerate^ her plight. All that he suffers she suffers also and added to it the burden incident to her sex. If the injustice is economic and he is a married man, the woman must stretch the family purse to meet the demands of the family and if any member must go without, it is always the mother. Is it any wonder that foreign children are so often ashamed of their mothers because they are so different from other children's mothers and because of this, drift away from her wholesome influence. If we believe that in a well ordered American home, the mother should be the center, is it not time we took some forward step which will lead to some permanent constructive measures that will dignify the alien mother who is often an uncrowned heroine. Something has been done at Hull House by establishing a museum of hand industries but every locality should perfect some machinery where the alien mother might have just recognition without having to wait to get to heaven to receive it. The economic injustice to which the self supporting alien woman is subjected, is well known. Usually unskilled and incapable of initi- ative, there are practically no labor unions which are open to her and she has practically no redress from greedy employers. Frequently / I have had in my charge in New York, girls who had been employed in a private family for several months and then have been taken out on the street and left, in order that they might not be forced to pay them their earnings. Sometimes it has taken weeks to find where the parties lived, for as strange as it may seem, these girls often stay for months in a house and never learn the name of a street. The number of girls thus cheated must be enormous for their fear of the invisible govern- ment often make them afraid to make complaints and it is only the few cases that fall into the hands of some philanthropic organization that are ever heard of. Social injustice is the alien woman's reward at every turn. Even the legislation which is passed to protect her often becomes a boomer- ang. The Deportation Acts of the Federal Department of Immigration / 11 cover the punishment of those who contribute to her delinquency as much as to punish her. In spite of this fact and although the sym- pathy of the heads of the Department have always been with the friendless woman, minor officials have seen in this law an opportunity to magnify their importance and to swell the amount of work they have accomplished, have been indefatigable in arresting women, but " strange to say are very unsuccessful in finding the guilty male partner. A well merited rebuke was administered by a Federal Judge in San Francisco lately when he declined to hold the woman until her partner in crime was also arrested. Nothing is more in keeping with the wishes of a man when he has gotten a woman in trouble than to have her deported and thus put the ocean between them, thus ridding him of his incumbrance. But I am glad to say that the recent order of the Secretary of Labor and Com- ^ missioner-General Caminetti, placing all women held for deportation in the hands of a woman officer and in the custody of some private society, preferably of her own nationality and religion, assures every woman of having friends who will see that justice is done her. The difficulty of alien women getting in touch with the best class of her countrymen is another source of social injustice and often sheer loneliness and the desire to talk to some one who speaks her own language will cause her to seek companionship among those, who, if other avenues were open to her, would not attract her. In every city there are groups of those of the same nationality, segregated into clubs, with different objects, all giving opportunities for social com- panionship and development, but these organizations are all for men. I know of none such for women. True, there are National organ- izations for women but they are invariably exclusive and the woman who needs them most is not eligible for membership. If they are not exclusive the best women of that race don't go to them. But it does not matter how democratic a man's club may be you will find the leading citizens of that nationality in the city, belonging to them. The importance of reaching the alien woman is paramount if we are going to Americanize our foreign population. She is the crux of ^ the whole subject. It is she who selects the neighborhood and the house in which the family live and the church -which they attend. She has the opportunity to supplement the lessons at school and her attitude towards the problems of daily life unconsciously are reflected in the other members of the family. In the states in which women have the ballot she will be sought for by the ward politician and her ideals of the ballot will reflect the attitude of her teacher. As some practical suggestions as to the means, I would recommend that every state pass a law similar to the California law whereby teachers may be sent into the home to instruct the mothers. That 12 efforts be put forth by the men's clubs to form national centers to which the mother's may be gathered and where they will be addressed in their own language. .That our national holidays be set aside espec- ially for the education in American ideals. That special occasions of joy be participated in on the national holidays of that nationality. That we educate ourselves in the contributions that each nation has made to our literature and that we voice our appreciation of these contributions. That we see to it that the municipality is not lax in enforcing the health laws in the foreign community and that if any part of the municipality must suffer at the hands of the street cleaning department it shall be other than the foreign district where frequently the streets and alleys are often the only playgrounds or parks. Neigh- borliness on the part of the women of the community who have a recognized standing will do more to wipe out the injustices than any other one thing. When the exploiters find they have the club women of the community to deal with they will be more careful or at least more guarded in their approach. That the inferior courts, particularly the police courts be dignified and organized upon a basis that will command for them the same respect as the Superior Courts, for it is in the police courts that the alien usually gets his introduction to the legal machin- ery of this country and his first impressions are the most lasting. That in each locality the District Attorney's office set aside a par- ticular time, putting in charge one of his most efficient assistants with a good interpreter, to hear the complaints of alien women. That where there are juvenile courts, special probation officers are detailed to get in touch with the foreign districts and enlighten the mothers upon the scope and value of the juvenile court, in order that when necessary she can use the court unofficially. In this way the arrest of many children would be prevented and the court would assist in up- holding parental authority. Many things which make for national deterioration are laid at the door of the alien which do not rightly belong there. I was interested to note at a recent disgusting performance I attended there was not apparently a foreigner there. The audience was composed of well dressed American boys, and girls. I could not help but think that if such a performance had been given by foreign element the whole city would have rung with the cry that our American Institutions, our American Sunday was being murdered by foreign influence. The above suggestions are based upon the belief that it does not matter how much we may disagree upon the policy of immigration, that we are all agreed that after the alien has been admitted into this country he is entitled not only to be given his just right but also to have the best opportunity to become a good citizen. 13 Hebrew Immigration B\ Rabbi Martin A. Meyer, Tew pie Emann-El, San Francisco. Since 1881, the volume of Hebrew immigration to America has taken on such proportions as to suggest a separate and particular problem. There has been a steady increase so that up to and including 1910, 1,562,800 Jews entered our ports. This great number came for the most part from the countries of eastern and south-eastern Europe, i. e., from Russia, Roumania, Galicia and in smaller numbers from Turkey, both European and Asiatic. Though there is a certain homo- geneity from the racial point of view, due to a common origion, yet there is a marked diversity of racial types noted, due to the crossing of the Jew with the people of the respective lands in which he dwells. And these newcomers, again, represent a different type from those who are older residents in this land, who came for the most part from northern and western Europe. The reasons for this large number of Jews leaving their old time abode and seeking the promise of the new land are not difficult to determine. In fact the same motives that have urged immigrants since the inception of the United States of America are still potent with them. Primarily, they come to avoid the religious persecution, the political discrimination and the legal oppression to which they are subjected in these lands of their origin. Added to this is the universal fact, amounting to a law of human nature, that a man seeks the op- portunity either for himself or his family to earn a better living. Most of these countries from which they come are admittedly poor ; and when, as is the case in Roumania and Russia and Poland, there is an economic boycott in force against the Jews, the cup of misery is full to overflowing. And to these and millions like them, America is the promised land. The characteristics of this group are marked along many lines of human activity and thought. Industrially, the Jewish group shows a far larger percentage of skilled and professional units than almost any other group. They come as permanent residents. They acquire property as soon as they are financially able, and there is a marked tendency, encouraged by the leaders of American Jewry, for them to settle on the soil. Though their percentage of illiteracy is higher than is desirable, yet it is lower than that of almost any other group of the new immigration. And the avidity with which they and their children take to our public schools is fine proof of their capacity and a further indication of the discrimination against them in the old country even as to the possibilities of receiving an education. And in many cases be- 14 fore Yiddish was recognized as a European language, the charge of illiteracy was not well founded. They bring with them the living standards of the lands of their origin. Centrifugal forces speedily overcome the initial centripetal ones ; and the ghetto is left behind as quickly as economic conditions permit. And yet withal, it is noted that the living standard of the ghetto is superior to that of similar city quarters a half century and less ago. Crowding is due to economic pressure, for as rapidly as income increases the boarder disappears. Sweating was not of their creation, but their elementary economic position has been kept alive largely because of the little skill and small capital required and by the constant accession of fresh hands from Europe. And the American demand for cheap goods put the seal of approval on an institution recognized by those involved as vicious. They bring with them certain Well denned social and economic ideals ; so that unionism prospers among them as demonstrated by the higher percentage of those engaged in the garment industry being in the unions than of workingmen at large throughout the country. Political- ly speaking, the bulk of them are democratic idealists as witnessed by their advocacy of the newer economic philosophies and their recognized independence at the ballot box. They acquire citizenship at the ear- liest opportunity, in marked contrast to the members of many other groups. While as citizens of their new communities, they are entitled to their proportionate share of public relief, it is a well known fact that they apply for such aid in significantly small numbers. They are aided by their Jewish fellows of longer residence, and the ghetto is famous for its own far reaching charities. There are many difficulties arising out of the transitional. It is naturally difficult for the older members to readjust themselves wholly ta their new environment, and the rapidity with which the younger folk acquire American ideas and manners creates a serious conflict between the old and the new. Yet all in all, the standard of Jewish home life is being conserved, often under tremendous difficulties, both economic and social. The traditional morality of the Jew has suffered and there is a lot of noisy discussion about gangsters and slavers. There has been considerable hysterical exaggeration for a dozen gang- sters can get more publicity than a hundred thousand decent law abiding citizens. And the overwhelming majority are of this latter class. Religiously speaking, the majority fall away from the orthodoxy of their parents, and but few take up American Reform Judaism. But it may be said without fear of contradiction, that this does not mean that they are an easy field or a fair field for the zealous Christian mission- ary. Racial consciousness is very strong among them and the national movement has a marked conservative tendency in their lives. Their intellectual interests are very strong, and like the thirsty traveler of 15 the desert, they seek to quench their thirst for books at schools, li- braries, social centers, and even in their own cafes. They have an active literary and artistic life within themselves, and we can look forward to a rich new stream in American life from this source. As to the question of their assimilability, we are first confronted by what is meant by assimilation. However we interpret it, we must be on guard against a too rapid throwing off of the old and confusing a thin veneer of what Americanism really stands for. There is too much "left handed Americanism" in the ghetto as well as in other immigrant groups. It is the fountain of gangsters and similar social dangers. I do not think that the immigrant, Jewish or otherwise, cre- ates new problems. He may intensify their proportions. Yet aside from the pedagogic question of his schooling and the social-political ones of his assimilation, no really new ones exist. And even these are hardly new. The big question in my mind with reference to this group and every group like it and I hold that each group needs special examination for the determination of our attitude towards them what is the promise of the group? What can it offer America? Does it offer America anything? And most of all, what shall be our attitude toward the newcomers? Shall he remain a prob- lem or a promise ? A duty or a difficulty ? I trust I may not be charged with chauvinism in holding that no group promises more, has more to offer and is ready to give more to the national life than this group of newcomers Israelites, sons of the ancient law, citizens of the new liberty. Land and Labor and Immigration By James W. Mullen, Editor, San Francisco "Labor Clarion." When this nation was young the inducement of broad acres of virgin soil, idle and free, awaiting the strong hand of toil, could with earnestness, honesty and sincerity be held out to the ambi- tious and the oppressed of the old world to come to our shores and establish themselves as free and independent citizens of the greatest nation in all the annals of time, but the day of land as a door of opportunity for the immigrant in the United States is gone forever, and it is utter nonsense to give time and attention to such thoughts at the present period in our history until some construc- tive, workable plan of prying the land monopolist loose from his holdings has been devised, and a feasible means established for 16 making available to those who will use them the vast acres of now idle yet highly valuable productive lands. No one will dispute that there are still unused untold thousands of acres of rich soil capable of wonderful production if placed under the plow, but to hold this fact before the prospective immigrant as an inducement to come here is little short of criminal when these lands are known to be in the hands of avaricious and unprincipled speculators and held at prices far beyond the reach of the humble immigrant. The organized workers of this country have always been opposed to large land holdings for this very reason, but when land was still plentiful, labor was not strong enough to make its opposition effective. The question, however, is now receiving attention from many other powerful sources, as is amply indicated by the following editorial in the California Outlook : "California wants immigrants. We are spending hun- dreds of thousands of dollars in promotion, to attract immigration. Sometimes we succeed. As, for instance : Seventy-nine Spaniards, looking for work, landed in San Francisco. They drifted into the Latin quarter of Oak- land, where they were cared for, partly by the Associated Charities and partly by kindly neighbors. Finally some one hit on the happy idea of deporting them. So they are now turned over to the immigration officers to be emi- grated. "California wants immigrants. When these particular ones came, it proceeded to export them. With others, it deals more indirectly and less summarily. But the general rule is that if you turn over immigrants to the various bodies organized for promotion of immigration, they will throw up their hands in horror and cry take them away. "For instance, is there a Chamber of Commerce in California that would be anything short of horrified if the California Development Board would turn over to it a thousand, or even a hundred able-bodied, honest, dili- gent men, skilled in agriculture, and desirous of working at.it? "California wants immigrants with money enough, earned somewhere else, to buy our land of us, at a higher price than we paid for it. "In other words, California wants customers. We are looking, not for people or development, but for mercan- tile profit in a commercial transaction. And we have the 17 goods to sell, too; the mercantile bargain is a good one, on both sides. "Is this too cynical a view? If you think so, just try the experiment of cross-examining anybody engaged in promoting immigration, and see whether it is human beings he is looking for, or check books. "It is a humiliating confession, and we shall not be really civilized so long as it remains true. What we really need is human beings, to work, to transform the latent resources of the state to active wealth, for their own good and ours. California is all right and the workers are all right. If, somehow, they can not be got together, the fault is ours. We are not organized right. But we aren't ; and we might as well confess it." There are no persons in our country today more anxious to see this nation made the refuge of the oppressed of other lands than are the organized workers, but we must always take into con- sideration the price to be paid for making it such. We must not shut our eyes to the consequences. W r e can not afford to have our standards of life torn down, and the American worker brought to the level of the old world toiler, and that is precisely what unlimited immigration holds in store for us. The results of an official investigation just published by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, made in New York City during the month of February, shows that approximately 398,000 workers, or 16.2 per cent of all wage-earners in the city, were then out of employment. This investigation is checked up and verified by a very complete inquiry made by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company of Xew York, upon the request of Mayor Mitchel, among its policy- holders in the city, made in January, 1915, covering 155,960 fam- ilies, which disclosed 45,421 persons, or 18 per cent of all wage- earners in those families, out of employment. Both investigations excluded irregular or part-time workers, and cover only workers with no jobs whatsoever. What this condition means to the country at large can be seen by applying the percentage to the workers of the country as a whole. According to the United States census, there were in 1910, in the United States. 38.107,336 persons 10 years of age or over engaged in gainful occupations. Taking the bureau of labor sta- tistics' figure of 16.2 per cent, and assuming that the same condi- tion of unemployment existed in other parts of the country as existed in New York last winter, then there were more than six 18 million men, women and children out of work, wanting work and unable to get it. Of course the conditions last winter were very abnormal. There was probably considerably more unemployment than usual. In addition, the census figures of total wage-workers include every kind of workers, farm as well as mine and factory. But even if we assume that normal conditions of unemployment were only half as bad as they were in February, 1915, and that only 8 per cent instead of 16 per cent of all the workers are out of work, we still have the enormous figure of more than three million people out of work ! Such a situation is appalling. We cannot afford permanently to keep millions of our people at or near the starvation line. We cannot afford to have poverty and the fear of poverty always in our midst. The number of workers permanently unemployed is greater by nearly a million than the total membership of the American Federation of Labor. There are as many unemployed in the United States as the - total vote given to Mr. Taft in the last presidential race. There are about as many unemployed people in the United States now as there was total population in the country when the first census was taken. There are more unemployed workers in the United States today than there are people men, women, children and infants in the states of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Nevada combined. It must, therefore, be plain to the dullest comprehension that there are too many people in the country as it is. If the country were as it might be there would be room for several millions more and enough for everybody, but as we have to deal with what we have, rather than what we believe we ought to have, of necessity we must consider prob- lems as we find them and not as we would like to have them. And, this statement applies to every part of the world and to every class of people, from the nation efficiencized to the highest degree to the people who plow with sticks and live in caves. As things are there are more working people than we can find jobs for, which is an unhealthy situa- tion for the man out of a job and for the man who has a job. Too many men and too few jobs do not make wages or service rules for the advantage of the man who has a job. Work at any price does not mean prosperity for anyone ; even the employer who pays any price will fall under the wheels of his own machine before he drives it very far. Every sane man must agree that there is a limit to our capacity to absorb immigration. We meet all sorts of finely spun theories based on what used to be and what ought to be, but they don't fit in with 19 what is. The liberal policy of forty yeras ago does not work well with the present; it passed its day of practicability and has become a menace. We have far exceeded our capacity, and the American worker is not going to permit his liberties to be niched from him by holding out false hopes to the oppressed of other lands merely to satisfy the greed-crazed elements of our social structure. For these reasons, and in the interest of both the foreign and American toiler, the wage workers of the United States insist there shall be a limit placed upon the number of aliens permitted to enter our portals, and in so doing yield to no element of society in the sincere desire for the uplifting, improving and ennobling of the human race as a whole. The interests of all, save the greedy few, can the better be conserved by placing the bars to entrance to our country high enough to keep out those who, by coming here, would drag us down. Manufacturers and Immigration on the Pacific Coast By Robert Newton Lynch, Vice President and Manager, San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. The opening of the Panama Canal has created a profound revolu- tion in trade and industrial conditions on the Pacific Coast. The effect of this revolution has not yet been accurately estimated, but it is fair to say that the man on the Pacific Coast has been enabled to turn his face from the setting sun and to regard the East with the awakening realization of a new field of operation. Heretofore the great pressure of eastern business has forced the western manufacturer and jobber to the very rim of the continent. The smallest business area has been enjoyed on the Pacific Coast for the distribution of goods, while the eastern jobbing houses or manu- facturers' agents have extended their operations to much of the terri- tory that should naturally belong to San Francisco and other Pacific Coast centers. The opening of the canal seemed certain to affect this condition, and when the rates which had been established through the canal announced, with tolls, were 40 per cent below those expected, without tolls, the full force of the revolution commenced to be felt. The effect of these rates demand that the great bulk of products destined for Pacific Coast points from a large eastern section, will come by water to San Francisco harbor and other Pacific Coast ports, this to be distributed to local centers of consumption. 20 Coupled with these exceeding low rates, the Interstate Commerce Commission of the United States, in the now famous Long and Short Haul case and the Intermountain case, has established conditions even more favorable to the Pacific Coast. These decisions make it only possible for the railroads to compete with the water rate established through the canal at the expense of the demoralization of much of their intermediate business. The practical effect seems to be that rail- roads will prefer to handle business from San Francisco to interior points at a profit, rather than to handle the business from eastern points to the same places by rail at a loss. Thus, San 'Francisco, wfhich at one time, was the terminus of a railroad or two, has now become the beginning of great railroad systems. The effect of this new order will probably be felt as far east as the Rocky Mountains, and the western business man can look with confidence to the expectation of the natural western territory which is tributary to western ports. The natural things for middle western manufacturers, under this new order, will be to establish factories on the Pacific Coast to care for Pacific Coast business. Fortunately, the growing population of the Pacific Coast area makes this an attractive thing. There are at the present time some six million people west of the Rocky Mountains, half of whom are in the state of California. The West is the most rapidly growing portion of the United States, and California, with all of its wonderful resources and ability to sustain a great population, will doubtless enjoy a continuous growth, which will make it a great market for a growing industrial activity. The opening of the Canal has also stimulated in California and the Pacific Coast a greater development of natural resources. It is realized that ships coming to Pacific Coast ports must not only bring raw ma- terials and goods for distribution, but must have something to carry away. San Francisco harbor is a great basin which drains the navigable waters of the State. The great valley of California is destined to have a growth coincident with the exchange of products and opening of markets in the outside world. California products will move at prac- tically half the freight cost under this new order. It is interesting .in all of this to show the rapid development of coast to coast traffic across the isthmus even before the opening of the Canal. For example, coast to coast tonnage via the isthmuses of Pa- nama and Tehuantepec has increased 446 per cent in the last six years. According to the figures of the Department of Commerce and Labor for the year ending June 30, 1913, the total value of all goods shipped via both isthmuses amounted to $131,556,285, of which $87,564,507 was westbound and $34,991,778 eastbound. 21 The leading articles so shipped ranked as follows : Westbound, manufactures of iron and steel, $18,755,779; manufactures of cotton, $11,067,774; manufactures of paper, $6,467,774. Eastbound, Wines, $4,044,320; fruits, $3,708,094; wool, $3,469,217; canned salmon, $2,- 129,703. The largest eastbound item was sugar from Hawaii to the Delaware Breakwater, amounting to $19,309,351. The first year the Canal is opened the total tonnage should easily reach 1,000,000 tons valued at $150,000,000. Assuming that tonnage has increased with' the inauguration of each new steamship line and with the numerous lines that intend to use the canal, tonnage totals should increase at a greater rate than is commensurate with the in- crease in reproduction or consumption on the Pacific Coast. Figures so far compiled regarding the movements through the canal show the following interesting facts : Two hundred and fifty-seven vessels used the Panama Canal before December 1, 1914. Two hundred and twenty-seven were laden. By principal routes, and with an indication of the tonnage on which tolls are assessed, this traffic may be summarized as follows : Coastwise, eastbound 54 320,155 Coastwise, westbound 61 282,020 U. S. Pacific Coast to Europe 34 248,020 Europe to U. S. Pacific Coast 8 38,318 South America to U. S. and Europe 24 166,917 U. S. and Europe to South America 15 74,644 U. S. Atlantic Coast to Far East 24 148,207 Miscellaneous routings 7 19,203 Vessels without cargo 30 Total ....257 1,297,484 The tolls collected on this traffic aggregated $1,135,205. Collections of tolls began in May, 1914, when barges were first allowed to use the canal, and assumed considerable volume with the opening of the Canal on August 15, to ocean going vessels. The harbor of San Francisco has made adequate preparations to meet this new situation. The San Francisco harbor front is owned by the State of Cali- fornia. New docks and wharves are being built under a $10,000,000 state bond issue, the interest on same and all sinking and redemption funds being paid for out of the harbor revenues. The Bay of San Francisco covers an area of over 420 square miles a. id has a shore line, exclusive of navigable inlets, of 100 miles. The City and County (Consolidated) of San Francisco has a water front- age on the bay of 10 miles. The pierhead line is 800 feet from the 22 bulkhead line and is fixed by the United States Government. On January 1, 1915, there was a total completed sea wall 18,690 feet in length, 34 complete piers and three planned, from 600 to 1,000 feet in length and from 100 to 200 feet in width. The total berth space of all piers is 48,728 lineal feet. The dock area of all piers is 3,471,697 square feet. The Embarcadero, the street fronting the harbor, is also owned by the State, which operates a Belt Line Railroad over its entire length. On January 1, 1915, the Belt Line was 20,600 feet long. Freight can be unloaded directly on to the freight cars on the Belt Line from the freighter alongside the dock (the Belt Line being connected with the main lines of the transcontinental railroads, and the spur tracks serv- ing San Francisco's industrial area), so that freight can be transferred direct from steamer to warehouse or .factory. Deep water is found in all the docks and wharves on the San Francisco water front. Typhoons and hurricanes are unknown and the greatest Pacific Liners dock without difficulty in any weather and at all stages of the tide. Ten fathoms is the average depth in the bay, so that safe anchorages are obtainable at all times. A depth of six and seven fathoms is reached at the end of all piers. The only transport docks owned by the United States are at San Francisco. The first settlers selected the San Francisco side of the bay for shipping, and it is both the deep water and the sheltered side. The east side of the bay will not see any deep water shipping until the San Francisco side has been solidly built up. The silt from the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers piles up on the east side of the bay, necessi- tating constant dredging to maintain a given depth. The Oakland Estuary has a depth of six fathoms. The only protected bight on the east side of the bay is owned by the United States Government and may be the site of the future naval base. At the present time the Federal Government has made an arrangement with the Hunters' Point Dry Dock Company (on the San Francisco side), to construct a dry dock 1,050 feet long. This will be the largest dry dock on the Pacific Ocean. The United States will have first call on this dock at all times for the docking and repairing of government vessels. Two docks are now being operated at Hunters' Point one of them being 750 feet long. All of the passengers and freight steamers sailing from San Fran- cisco leave from the San Francisco side of the bay, with the exception of small lumber schooners. Direct steamer connections may be made from here to all points along the Pacific Coast of North and South America, Russia, Japan, China, the Philippines, the Orient, Hawaii, Xew Zealand, and Australia, as well as service through the Canal to Atlantic Coast points and Europe. 23 This new order of things, brought in by the Canal, enables a western man to turn with a new vision toward the East, and will doubtless de- velop a situation which, strengthened by rapid development of manu- facturing and commerce, will enable the western man, when he again turns his face toward the East, to look to the Orient with greater am- bitions for foreign trade, and will make this Pacific Coast area the center of a new world-wide commerce. Japanese Immigration Remaining Problems and Suggested Remedies By Prof. H. A. Millis, University of Kansas. I have been requested to speak on the subject of some unsettled questions connected with Japanese immigration. As a student of im- migration problems, I shall claim the right to speak frankly, and shall gladly concede that right to all others however much their views may differ from mine. In speaking frankly I trust no offense will be taken. Certainly none is meant to be given. In such matters we cannot afford to speak otherwise than frankly. Moreover, for one, I believe that when we brush aside misunderstandings no two groups of us are really far apart after all. The subject to which my remarks are addressed carries with it the implication that there is something connected with Japanese immigra- tion which has already been settled. The one thing really settled is that there shall not be a free flow of laborers from such a high pressure country as Japan to the low pressure United States for the mere pecu- niary gain of those who come. No country can afford indefinitely to provide the opportunity for draining off an excess of population found elsewhere the diminished numbers to be quickly replaced by a high birth rate. There are few in the United States who will question the wisdom of the principle of restriction rather vigorously applied and most of the Japanese people freely concede it. Japan has for some time been acting upon that principle in restricting emigration directly or indirectly, i. e., by way of Mexico and Canada, to the United States. She has applied it also in dealing with Chinese laborers who came to her own shores. With reference to this matter I wish not to be misunderstood. Until conditions materially change, vigorous restriction of the free movement of laborers from Japan must be taken for granted. It must not be taken for granted, however, because of any alleged inferiority 24 of the Japanese race, for it is not an inferior one. Nor must it be taken for granted because of dependency, disorder, ignorance, or undesira- bility attaching possibly to some individuals, for there has been no problem of any moment connected with any of these. Nor, again, must it be taken for granted because of gambling or related evils found in some places, for the communities in which such evils have arisen are chiefly to blame for them. Nevertheless, in a practical world re- strictions must be taken for granted, because of evils for which no one in particular was to blame, but connected with the earlier influx and perhaps inherent in a comparatively free movement of immigrants from Eastern Asia to such a country as the United States. One of the evils experienced and which is indissolubly connected with any considerable immigration of Asiatic laborers is the conflict of economic standards. We have witnessed it in industry when em- ployment was taken by the Asiatics as section hands and shop and mill laborers at lower wages than others were paid. Seldom, it is true, was the underbidding through the acceptance of lower wages great. The primary reason for the difference of only about twenty or twenty- five cents per day in wages was that the slightly lower sum was suffi- cient to absorb the numbers available. The wages accepted in Hawaii and elsewhere would indicate that the rates accepted here might have been lower if need be to be effective in securing employment. But when the immigration was greatest, industry was expanding, there was a shortage of labor at the wages then current, and the contractors, working in connection with boarding-houses and other sources of sup- ply, could place their Japanese laborers at the slight discount indicated. Yet that the immigration of Japanese laborers and the organized search for employment previous to 1908 was accompanied by effective under- bidding is an established fact. In spite of the expanding industry, a check was placed upon the increase in wages and improvement in labor conditions. That organized labor was the first to protest against the competition was only to be expected, for organized labor stands for the maintenance and improvement of standards. Laborers without organization, also to the best of their limited ability, stood opposed to any impairment of their working conditions. But the Japanese laborers were employed much more extensively in agriculture than in industrial pursuits such as those just mentioned. They accepted the places vacated by the ageing and disappearing Chi- nese, maintained the old Asiatic labor economy, and extended it to new branches of agriculture as they developed in California and to the sugar industry as it gained an important place in several of the western states. They found employment chiefly as migratory hand laborers in the growing of intensive crops, where much of the work is of the 25 , stoopover variety and unattractive to white men. They easily found place in such occupations because they were organized by and easily secured through bosses, were easily shifted from place to place as needed, were easily housed and self-subsisting, and, to begin with, al- ways accepted lower wages than white men, whether paid by the day or by the job. They, of course, by reason of their availability, cheap- ness and fair efficiency, had not a little to do with the rapid advance of branches of agriculture of an intensive type and of farming commu- nities where the supply of labor was not at all commensurate with the needs of the highly specialized operations most profitable if labor was readily available on favorable terms. Indeed by Asiatic labor not a few of the out of the way places were brought to that state of develop- ment where they could be settled by others. In other words, their labor was to a considerable extent supplementary to that of others. More- over, it must be admitted that their presence made more employment for laborers in some occupations in which they did not themselves compete for work. Yet it is true that there was considerable displace- ment of other laborers because of the easy terms on which the Japanese could be obtained. The disappearance of the Chinese was hastened by their competition, and in some instances white laborers as well were displaced. The Japanese were effective competitors and generally un- derbid for work. Moreover, others tended to withdraw as certain agricultural occupations became tainted. My investigations have led me to the conclusion that the economic effects of the employment of the Japanese in agricultural work were (1) to promote certain kinds of farming and to hasten the development of the natural resources, (2) to cause an advance in land values, (3) to retard the subdivision of large holdings and to maintain a certain amount of capitalistic agricul- ture, (4) to retard the advance in wages of unskilled laborers and to extend the old labor economy, and (5) to give the Japanese a pivotal place in the labor supply, especially in many California communities. As this pivotal place was secured less room was left for the employ- ment of others in certain occupations and they sought work elsewhere. Most of the Japanese who came to us brought only their hands and sought to better their economic condition as laborers in some of the lower and more distasteful walks of life. With time, however, a rela- tively large number became shopkeepers or tenant or land-owning farmers. Few races have made the transition as quickly as the Japa- nese, and in their shopkeeping and farming, differences in standards corresponding to those in wage-employment became evident. The number of Japanese farmers, most of them tenant, in the \\Vst in 1909, was perhaps not far from 6,000. Many of their 4,000 holdings were not farms, but small plots, so that the combined acreage held by 26 them was perhaps approximately 200,000, about three-quarters of it in California. Though this acreage seems to be of little consequence where millions of acres sparsely settled are found in the West, it had perhaps tripled in five years, and the details connected with the rapid progress thus shown, were significant of what might be expected to happen were large numbers admitted to the country, and gave rise to fear for the future especially in those localities in which most of them found place. More recently they have continued to make sub- stantial progress as farmers. It is my opinion that with a large immi- gration of Asiatics, and especially of Japanese, much of the land would rapidly come into their possession and important changes in the com- position and life of agricultural communities settled in would occur. With an immigration problem, an important land problem would in- evitably develop. The reasons for this conclusion may be briefly pre- sented. Numerous things have combined to place a premium on shopkeep- ing or farming by the versatile and efficient Japanese. The Japanese are ambitious and the immigrants of every ambitious race tend strongly to rise in the adopted country to the position they occupied in their native land. This is especially true of the Japanese who find the wage relation distasteful. With them to be a wage-earner is to show inferi- ority; to be economically independent shows merit. Again, their ad- vance as employees to the higher occupations has been made difficult, and this has virtually forced many to leave the wage-earning class in order to advance at all. Most of them have been employed in gangs and limited to work done by gangs. A third important factor is found in the fact that they are a home-loving people and wish to have their families with them. Ordinarily this has been difficult unless they be- come shopkeepers or farmers. If laborers, they were expected to be rolling stones, and to live under such conditions as to make a desirable family life- impossible. Again, because of the great respect attaching to agriculture in japan and the highly developed agricultural arts there found, in so far as labor and scientific application are concerned, the Japanese have been the more eager to obtain possession of farms. But most important of all, has been the place they have occupied in the agricultural labor supply, especially in California. It is a general fact that the land tends to fall into the possession of the race employed as laborers, if the race is a capable one. It has been only a slight change from the employment of Japanese laborers under a "boss" to share tenancy where the landowner provided most of the equipment, did the work with teams, advanced the wages of the em- ployees, managed the business in all of its details, sold the produce and 27 collected the selling price, and then shared this with the tenant after all bills were paid. Cash tenancy, with liberal advances and the rent collected out of the receipts from crops sold, differs little except that more of the risk is taken by the tenant. To the landowner, however, either arrangement has had the distinct advantage of interesting the "boss" and obtaining with a greater degree of certainty his co-operation in securing laborers as needed and in supervising them at work. Most of the tenant farming by Japanese in the growing of grapes and de- ciduous fruit in California and in growing sugar beets everywhere has grown out of the fact that the Japanese worked under a "boss" and occupied a dominant place in the labor supply required for taking care of the crop. As some landowners leased their holdings and secured an advantage in the labor market, there was the more reason for others to do so. Again, the Japanese, like the Chinese before them, have had an advantage over other races, as competitors for land, in California especially, because they could be easily and cheaply provided with shel- ter. If not the bunkhouse, then a corresponding shelter would suffice, and if a new structure was required, it was frequently built by the tenant with the privilege of removing it upon the expiration of the lease. The landowner and his family, if they desired, as in most cases they have, could occupy the farm residence and reserve such part of the farm as was desired. The members of no white race could be had as tenants unless the family residence was let with the land ; or cot- tages, superior .to those which have generally been provided, were erected at the landowner's expense for their use. With respect to the kind of housing required, the Asiatics have competed with others for \ the possession of land of the basis of a lower standard. It has been an important factor in explaining the advance of the Japanese as tenant farmers. The Japanese, like the Chinese before them and now, have been willing to pay higher rents than others for land such high rents in fact that the owner has frequently found it more profitable to lease his land than to farm it on his own account. That the Japanese and Chinese can afford to pay a relatively high rent is explained in part by the fact that their efficiency and the kinds of crops grown by them will bear it ; in part by the fact that they have a different standard of appli- cation ; and in part by the fact that the income in prospect from farm- ing need not be so large as that expected by most other farmers. The Asiatic farmer expects to work hard and for long hours ; the Japanese is usually assisted in garden or field by his wife, if he has one ; the opportunities for employment other than as an unskilled laborer have been limited, and as a result of careful and efficient growing of 28 intensive crops his return per acre is ordinarily a large one. But whatever the reason or reasons, the most nearly universal fact in the West has been that the Asiatics, with the possible exception of German Russians in Colorado, have been the highest bidders for land. This fact is undisputed. In some localities the sums paid have been ruin- ously large, so that an organized effort has now and then been made by the Japanese organizations to limit the amount paid. It is equally true that they have paid correspondingly high prices for the compara- tively small amount of farm land purchased. Another factor of some importance in explaining the progress of Japanese as farmers is the ease with which they, like the Chinese and the Italians, form partnerships to carry on their enterprises. Of still more importance has been the aid extended by commission men and others interested in the marketing of the crops. Liberal advances have been made on crops in order to control the marketing of them. Fruit shippers have frequently served as middlemen in the leasing of land, and here and there have leased land themselves and then sublet it to Asiatics in order to control the marketing of the crops. And, finally, one not unimportant fact entering into the situation has been the reclamation and reduction of raw land by the Japanese tenants. Numerous instances are found in Washington and Oregon and along the Sacramento River here in California. It should be stated, however, that, for the most part, the lands acquired by the tenants have been those improved by others, though when acquired they were perhaps devoted to a more intensive purpose. Thus, numerous factors have cooperated to explain the rapid prog- ress of farming by the Japanese. In passing, some of the community effects should be noted, for they are of importance. Japanese farming has been accompanied by a tendency toward a rise in land values and the keeping of large holdings intact as profitable investments. It has placed a slight premium on absentee-landlordism, and, though it is not true that the earlier elements in the farming popu- lation have been driven out of any community in California, and though it is true that Americans have continued to move into localities where the largest percentage of Asiatics were settled, it has tended to deflect the tide of settlers moving west to other localities. Moreover, in a few cases the acreage of certain crops has been greatly increased by the Japanese farmers until prices have broken and others have tended to withdraw from their production. In this way the thesis is maintained that with a large immigration of Japanese laborers, a land problem would develop. The compara- tively small influx of earlier years has in fact resulted in one-third of the land about Florin, one-half of the orchards in the Vaca valley, a 29 still larger percentage of the orchards about Newcastle, and most of the farms above Sacramento along the American River coming into their hands and important community effects have been witnessed. The situation in several other localities differs from that in those mentioned only in degree. The progress of the Japanese as shopkeepers has also been rapid, especially since 1904. By 1909 they were conducting some four thou- sand business establishments in the West, these giving employment to approximately one-sixth of those gainfully occupied. At present, per- haps one-fifth of the Japanese in the West are so engaged, as principals or as their employees. As branches of business, contracting and the supply house came early, of course. So did the boarding house, the barber shop, the res- taurant and the places of amusement, for the members of this race were usually discriminated against by others and it was necessary for them to supply their own needs. But sooner or later they began in some places to compete with groceries, restaurants, clothes cleaning and tailor shops, and the like, for so-called American trade, and the compe- tition was usually on unequal planes. With lower wages bills incurred in the conduct of their shops and with a lower standard of necessary profit, considerable cutting of prices accompanied the progress made by them. Their laundry prices were effectively lower than those charged by their competitors, and this was equally true in most of the competi- xtive trades. Moreover, the shifting of population incidental to the settlement of newcomers in restricted localities was in some cases even more important than the cutting of prices. The formation of colonies thus added its weight to the under-selling with the result that though the number of their establishments was relatively not large and most of their shops quite small, established businesses and profits of rivals suffered in some cases. When such was the result, it was regarded as an evil by those injuriously affected, and opposition, in some cases organized opposition employing fines and boycotts and other methods of defense which appear drastic to the outsider, developed at new points. Thus, especially before immigration was greatly restricted in 1907. competition in unskilled labor, in some branches of petty business, and in certain branches of farming for which many localities in the West are peculiarly well suited, has taken place in unequal terms. There has been a conflict of standards. While the labor has been helpful in de- veloping the country because cheap, efficient and easily secured ; while it has been a great convenience in other cases, as in domestic service, and while profitable branches of agriculture have been caused to grow rapidly, the disturbing effects of even such a small immigration as has given us a total population of Japanese, old and young, of less than a hundred thousand, must be regarded as outweighing the good. The immigration of large numbers to settle on the Pacific Coast and to compete on unequal terms because of differences in standards must be regarded as undesirable from an economic point of view, unless one holds as no one can successfully maintain that the economic welfare of the country depends more upon the most rapid industrial progress, exploitation of resources and amassing of wealth than upon an im- provement in the lot of those at or near the bottom of the economic scale, with relatively low land values and the settlement of land along lines more nearly normal according to the American standard. The fundamental economic problem is to be emphasized. Yet the problem has not been merely an economic one. Because of clannish- ness on the part of the Japanese and the tendency of others to limit their relations with them to business affairs, colonies have tended to develop and the newcomers to be encysted in rather than be assimilated to the population. In spite of considerable capacity on the part of \ the Japanese for assimilation, it has not been taking place in desired de- gree, partly because of the strong appeal made by native institutions to a people living in colonies, partly because of the failure or refusal of others to do their share in a process which requires the cooperation of the several elements in the population. In the speaker's opinion a difficult problem in connection with assimilation has developed. Even with limited numbers the situation is such that assimilation of those here is now unlikely to occur in desired degree. With large numbers it would not take place. Naturally, considerable friction has developed, chiefly because of ^ differences in economic standards, and though immigration has un- doubtedly caused an expansion ofcommerce between the two countries, trade relations at one time were seriously imperilled. All of these things, the increase of dissatisfaction due to misunderstanding, misrep- resentation and organized agitation, the obvious difference in color, and the extreme solicitude of the Japanese government for the welfare of its subjects and its treatment of them as pseudo-colonists, have tended to produce a new race problem. Had matters continued for some years longer as they were ten years ago, such a problem would inevitably have resulted. Thus it is maintained that there can not be a free flow of laborers from Japan to the western part of the United States. But, happily, for seven years, with the gentlemen's agreement faithfully observed by the Japanese government and with the prohibition of re-migration from Hawaii, Mexico and Canada, we have had and now have no immigra- tion problem in so far as incoming Japanese laborers are concerned. 31 The statement is true that "with unswerving constancy and fidelity the Japanese government has maintained the gentlemen's agreement by which it undertook to suppress the immigration of laborers to the United States." It has done more. By regulating immigration to neighboring countries, the difficult border problem has ceased to be of importance. There can be no reasonable doubt that we have in the agreement the most effective exclusion arrangement, and the United States owes a debt of gratitude to the Japanese government for its cooperation in effecting it. The number of Japanese laborers in the country is slowly diminish- ing, and the problems involved in the earlier situation are gradually set- tling themselves. Of underbidding in the labor market there is now practically none ; the conflict of standards in petty business has become largely a matter of the past, and no serious or extensive problem con- nected with the land can develop. The feeling of opposition is less intense than it was. Nevertheless there are unsettled problems. They should be settled and the policy of drifting along with some harrassing legislation should not be permitted to continue if we can agree upon the direction positive efforts should take. With no particular immigration to complicate the situation, what are these unsettled problems to which consideration should be given? One is found in the gentlemen's agreement as a method of control ; others are found in connection with the treatment of immigrants who are here or who may be admitted. These two questions or groups of questions may be considered in turn. Though the gentlemen's agreement and the President's order relat- ing to the indirect immigration which accompanied it have served well as a method of restriction, the agreement has come in for considerable adverse criticism. Approaching the matter from different angles differ- ent groups have advocated new immigration legislation to replace it. First of all, a vigorous agitation for an exclusion law applying to all Asiatics has been carried on for years. It antedated the adoption of the agreement and has not died away since it became effective. Much of its force is found in the widespread but erroneous belief that the agreement is not effective as a restrictive measure, in the fear that it might cease to be effective, and in the feeling that the right to control immigration to the country is a sovereign right which should be exer- cised, not compromised by treaty or agreement. In the least offensive form this demand would find expression in a general immigration law which would admit only those who are eligible to become citizens by naturalization. Admission and the possibility of becoming citizens should go hand in hand, but exclusion in this way raises the additional question as to the soundness of the discrimination now involved in our naturalization law about which something will be said presently. But, 32 in so far as Japanese immigration is concerned, it seems to me that there is at present no problem to be solved by exclusion legislation, whatever form it might take. An exclusion law modeled after the Chinese exclusion act would be illogical when the existing agreement is more effective than any law of that character would be. It could solve no problem and it is illogical to enact any law unless there is a problem to be solved by so doing. The Japanese government has on more than one occasion expressed its willingness to continue the pres- ent agreement and it would be unjust to enact an exclusion law so long as she is willing and capable of limiting the issuance of passports to would-be immigrants. Moreover, to enact such a law as long as the Japanese government faithfully observes the agreement entered into in 1907, would be too serious an affront to a people jealous of its honor and determined to command the treatment due a first-class na- tion. To enact an exclusion law of any kind would be illogical, unjust and an affront to Japan. On the other hand, some would remove the restriction which now obtains. In Japan there seems to be some restiveness under the agree- ment and a limited amount of feeling that it was a temporary measure to tide over an emergency and that it has accomplished its object. A smaller number of persons on this side, interested in cheap labor, would be glad to see the bars let down. But to grant an unrestricted immigration under our present immigration law in order to meet the wishes of a minority in Japan and a small number in this country who wish cheap labor would be unwise for reasons already set forth. It would be out of harmony with the forward movement to which we are devoting so much effort. If the agreement is to be replaced by law at all, it should be replaced by a new immigration law of the general nature of the measure advocated so brilliantly by Dr. Gulick. Dr. Gulick's plan is best stated by himself. But, briefly put, his suggestion is that the number of independent immigrants admitted from any country, or of any race or mother-tongue, in any one year should be limited to, say, five per cent of the number of immigrants from that country already here and naturalized and the American-born offspring of the same stock. A system of registration would be worked out for the administration of the plan. All who secured admission un- lawfully or who were not law-abiding would be deported. The general effect of a measure shaped in this way would be to bring the control of all immigration under one law and to get rid of the Chinese exclusion act with its invidious distinctions, the strained and unsatisfactory interpretation of the present law in dealing with the East Indians, and perhaps to end the movement to enact an ex- clusion law applying to the Japanese. It would not limit immigration 33 from the Northwestern European countries unless under new condi- tions it should tend to expand much beyond its dimensions in recent years ; it would materially limit the more or less induced immigration of recent years from southern and eastern Europe, and would not ma- terially affect, for the time being, the number of Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, and East Indians coming directly to our shores. Were Dr. Gulick's plan applied to the figures given in the census of 1910, it would admit annually into the United States, including Hawaii, to begin with, a maximum, the excepted classes of wives, children, etc., not counted, of some 1,200 or 1,300 Japanese and about 1,100 or 1,200 Chinese immigrants. These figures, it would appear, are somewhat larger than of the corresponding classes admitted in recent years but the difference to begin with would not be material. With time the basic number to which his five per cent would be applied would increase because of a considerable number of Japanese who would become naturalized if given the opportunity his plan calls for, and because of the few thousand born annually in this country. Thus the plan would make possible a cumulative immigration. It was partly because of these cumulative figures, partly because of the administrative difficulties connected with a census the results of which were to be employed in this way, and partly because of the in- ducement held out to seek naturalization so as to increase the numbers which might be admitted, that I have elsewhere suggested a modifica- tion which in its essence would admit definite numbers arrived at in Dr. Gulick's manner, these numbers being based upon the census re- turns of 1910, but obtaining indefinitely unless waived by order prop- erly issued in any case where the motive for emigration was found in political or religious persecution. Thus, as has already been stated, under this plan the issues involved in the trans- Atlantic and the trans-Pacific immigrations would be joined, and reasonably so, for there has been a problem of large numbers in the so-called "newer immigration." What the situation will be after the present war is not clear ; we .can only guess, but there is the possi- bility of large numbers once the work of reconstruction has been com- pleted and the weight of the inevitable tax burden is felt. The best students of the subject of immigration those who can look beyond things merely personal to things in their collectivity, are generally agreed that radical restriction has been needed. They agree with the recent Immigration Commission that we have had "an over-supply of unskilled labor in the industries of the country as a whole, and a condition of retarded improvement with some deterioration of labor conditions which demanded legislation restricting the further admis- sion of unskilled labor." They are generally agreed, moreover, that 34 this problem is closely connected with the fact that more than four- fifths of the European immigration has recently been from the south- ern and eastern countries, which have the lowest standards, and the immigrants from which are most congested in their occupations and residence as compared to the distribution of the native-born. All agree that in the case of the "newer immigration" there are greater differ- ences in institutions and customs than in the case of immigrants from Northwestern Europe to be overcome in the process of assimilation. Most students are agreed that the South and East Europeans taken as a whole are less sensitive than the Northwest Europeans to the American environment, and that a situation has developed in the indus- trial centers of the East in which assimilation has proceeded in halting an uncertain fashion and out of which numerous problems of local government, administration and institutions have developed. Some argue that a wider distribution is all that would have been required, but it is probably true that it would have served to lower temporarily the content of the labor reservoir and then to increase the inflow from abroad. If so, high birth rates would continue the inflow indefinitely. A problem of dependency was developing out of the influx, and a proper use of the data available shows that some prominent elements in the immigration from the southern countries complicate and make more difficult the problem of maintaining law and order. Before the war our biggest problem was found in the trans-Atlantic immigration. Would it not be well to safeguard ourselves against its possible return ? It was stated a while ago that under the plan suggested there would be no material change in the trans- Pacific immigration. This w'as based upon the assumption, however, that the present effective bar against re-migration of Asiatics from Hawaii to the mainland would be retained or a desirable substitute found for it. Without such a bar an influx like that of ten years ago would take place because of the inferior conditions which are found in the Islands. It would result in an acute labor problem in the Islands and an undesirable situation here. I should not advocate any plan which would involve a re- migration from Honolulu to the mainland. Legislation along the lines suggested, supported by effective re- strictions upon re-migration of the kind mentioned, while leaving the numbers admitted not materially different from those during the last few years, would relieve the Japanese government of the embarrass- ment of the agreement in a way forced upon it and the criticism of those of its subjects who maintain that it was adopted only to save Japan's face and was expected to be temporary. Moreover, it would safeguard the situation in the event that the position of the govern- ment should be changed by growing democracy. It would meet the 35 position of our own people who maintain that the right to control immigration is a sovereign right and that this should be exercised, not compromised. But most important of all, it would disabuse many of our people of the erroneous impression that many laborers are actually being admitted, or, in the absence of strong opposition displayed, would be admitted, to the United States, and would go far to prevent dis- crimination by law and otherwise. My investigations have convinced me that there is a widespread feeling that many in some way or other are admitted. Others feel that in the absence of organized opposition, the agreement would not be effectively administered. Much of the opposed legislation has not been directed at serious problems but has appealed because anti-Asiatic and because it was felt to be necessary in order to prevent an influx of new immigrants. A measure of the kind suggested should go far to relieve the situation in so far as connected with mistaken views of what is actually occur- ring and with the apprehension of what might take place. Moreover, it would not stand in the way of literacy or other selective tests if they should be desired. Thus, it is maintained that restriction of immigration in general is needed. If proper -provision is made for those persecuted, the restric- tions imposed should discriminate in their effects but not in terms against the races of South and East Europe. They should discrimi- nate in their effects, but not expressly, still more against immigrant laborers from Asia, who withoout restriction are the cheapest and frequently the best organized and have the most injurious effects in competition, who institutionally and in thought and in mode of life have more to be overcome in assimilation, who are handicapped by an obvious difference in color, and who, moreover, find a natural stopping- place on the Pacific Coast, so that the effects of their immigration would be concentrated upon a limited territory. The plan suggested is believed to have merit in that it is restrictive, is general and non- discriminatory in form, would discriminate only reasonably in its effects, would correct false impressions with reference to Japanese immigration, and would not stand in the way of such individual selec- tive tests as might be considered desirable. Coming to unsettled problems relative to the treatment of Japanese residing in the United States, one of the most serious is found in the political disability under which they labor. At present Japanese, Chinese, and other eastern Asiatic subjects, because neither white nor black, are ineligible to become American citizens by process of naturali- zation. Some of the western Asiatics stand in the shadow of doubt. Though the disability under which all save the Chinese rest, is not the result of discriminatory legislation directed against them, but merely incidental under a law given shape many years ago and interpreted by the courts, the invidious distinction between races has come to be re- garded by the Japanese as "hurtful to their just national susceptibility," and the reasonableness of the law was officially raised in the long- drawn-out correspondence over the California land law. Certainly the political disability has opened the way for discriminatory legislation of the kind just mentioned. Moreover, the Japanese feel that it is unjust to withhold from them rights which foreigners may enjoy in Japan and which the Japanese themselves have in Canada. They nat- urally desire equal treatment under the law. As a matter of principle, all aliens admitted to this country, regard- less of race, should be admitted to a full partnership in our institu 7 tions as soon as they as individuals are properly prepared to exercise their rights and are willing to accept the responsibilities which must go hand in hand with rights. The reasons assigned by those who oppose an amendment of the naturalization law so as to permit the Japanese admitted to become citizens do not seem to me to be sufficient to support their case. It must be admitted of course that the Japanese have much of mediaeval loyalty to their native government. Rapid strides in economic matters have not as yet greatly affected the concept of the state held by those who have not emigrated. Yet it is undoubt- edly true that most of those who have decided to settle here perma- nently have had their mode of thought considerably changed, and it is probably true that those who sought the privilege of citizenship would accept its responsibilities in pretty much the same degree as they have been accepted by some of our European- Americans who have im- migrated from countries where the attitude toward the state is not materially different from that in Japan. Of course a Japanese vote might develop, but, if it did, it would not be unique in our political history. In any event the number of votes would be small. This might not be true in Hawaii, however, where the Japanese and Chinese constitute a majority of the popula- tion. But this raises the question as to the terms on which citizenship should be conferred. Under a proper naturalization law only a com- paratively small percentage of the aliens residing there could become naturalized. In advocating an amendment of the naturalization law so that it shall not discriminate against any race, I would not advocate a mere extension of the present law. Though the abuses under it are not so great as they once were, in many places its administration is little short of a farce. We cannot be said to have in operation any well-defined requirements always and everywhere to be met by those who seek citizenship. We hold citizenship too cheap and pay dearly for it. The 37 law should be administered by specialized naturalization courts and citizenship should be conferred only upon those who can read and write English understandingly, who know the structure of and prin- ciples underlying our government, and who have an acceptable knowl- edge of our history. But the law should be changed so as to make all who possess these qualifications eligible and provision should be made to enable immigrants of all races to meet the tests. Thus I would advocate a general naturalization law based upon in- dividual merit and not at all upon the matter of race. Such a law would be based upon good principle, would remove all contested cases growing out of doubtful eligibility, would tend to prevent discriminatory legis- lation, and would undoubtedly do more just now than anything else to further harmonious relations with the people across the Pacific which unites as well as divides us. At the same time it may be observed that the time will soon come when the number of native-born Japanese citizens will be as large as the number who could qualify for citizen- ship granted on proper terms. Their attitude as citizens will depend to a considerable extent upon the rights enjoyed by their fathers. The objections to such a law, extending rights enjoyed by whites and blacks to races of a different color, can be easily exaggerated especially if it is adopted along with a general restrictive immigration law. That they may easily be exaggerated is indicated by the fact that while we have forbidden the naturalization of Chinese in this country, those who gained citizenship in Hawaii at an earlier time are generally regarded as a good class of conservative voters. With an amendment of the naturalization laws of the kind sug- gested, the California and Arizona land acts would cease to be effective for they merely place limitations upon those ineligible to citizenship. It is my opinion that they were mistakenly adopted and were unjust, impolitic and unnecessary. Yet, I would not be understood to main- tain that in California there was not a problem in some communities closely connected with permanent tenure of the land largely because of the settlement of Japanese in colonies. Nor do I wish to be understood as maintaining that were the prohibition of land ownership rendered ineffective, no local problems would develop. There is a problem con- nected with an extensive colonization and a partial assimilation which must be solved if confusion and discord are to be avoided and right re- lations maintained. Representing a very different civilization, clannish in unusual degree, seeking much the same thing, and discriminated against and more or less avoided by most of the other elements in the population, of course the majority of the Japanese have settled in restricted localities and are more or less colonized. Colonies have their advantages in meeting the needs of a people in so far as they remain foreign. But unfor- 38 Innately the very existence of the colony makes assimilation difficult, tends to give its members inferior standing, and to cause the locality to be less desirable for residence by others. With the colony the full complement of Japanese institutions appears, association is chiefly with members of the one race, the learning English is retarded, and the native bonds loosen slowly in spite of the fact that the Japanese are very sensitive to certain parts of their environment. In the absence of colonies, Americanization appears to proceed fairly rapidly and no important community effects are to be noted. Livingston affords a case in point. In that community there has been no conflict of standards and no important colonization and the situation is normal according to American standards. Though the white residents may state that they would prefer families of their own color, the Japanese are well re- ceived and have good standing in the community. But unfortunately there seems to be no way in which the colony can be attacked directly. Time and more rapid assimilation must undermine it if it is to dis- appear. As has already been stated, with any large immigration it is be- lieved that assimilation of the Japanese would not take place. The problem would be complicated, as it has been in the past, by friction and discrimination. With a narrowly restricted immigration, however, friction over the clash of economic standards has tended to diminish and eventually discrimination will perhaps disappear. Certainly much should be said for an educational campaign to remove misunderstand- ing so that its disappearance will be hastened. Of course the Japanese are being assimilated. Those who return to Japan after some years spent in the United States, find the situa- tion difficult if not intolerable and frequently return here to reside permanently. Yet the problem of assimilation is present and in in- terest of present and future relations it should be attacked vigorously. It calls for much more effort than has been as yet put forth. Though the Japanese themselves have done more than any other race to pro- vide facilities for teaching the English language, more extensive facil- ities should be provided as a part of an internal immigration policy. There should be cooperaton between the school authorities and the Japanese association of each locality and night schools should be pro- vided for the adults. The Christian mission churches are doing much of value, but the provision for carrying forward their work is not adequate. Without passing judgment upon the relative merits of dif- ferent religions for different peoples, it may be said that nothing save the use of a common language seems to be of more value than the spread of Christianity in the process of assimilation of the Japanese. Its importance has appealed to me more and more as I have watched the changes going on in different communities. It is not too much to 39 say that here at home we have the best opportunity to support needed missionary work, to be done of course along the lines upon which that best done proceeds. After the process of assimilation has taken place to a certain extent, the native born element will do much to hasten it if it is not prevented by discrimination from occupying the normal place it will wish, provided the older elements do not prove to be too conservative, and in so far as they control the situation, bring them up as Japanese. With the clannishness natural to the Japanese, the respect for their elders, the differences representing diverse civilizations to be over- come, and the situation which obtains, considerable time will be required to make much headway even with small numbers. The progress made will depend largely upon the degree of cooperation between the diverse elements in the community. The question should be raised whether the organizations of the Japanese should not be less official in their aspects, less shaped as though the country was to be colonized and exploited for gain, and be conducted more than they generally are with reference to securing the adoption of American standards. The ques- tion should be raised, also, whether something can not be done to secure a more general observance of Sunday, and to give w r omen the \ place in the family and the family life we expect in the United States. However much it may be needed, the general practice of having the women gainfully occupied in men's work in the field, can not but alienate the native element and give the Japanese lower standing in the communities in which they reside. When a people is admitted to the country, their presence imposes obligations upon the native popu- lation. We have been neglectful in this matter. But when admission is secured, it imposes an obligation upon the newcomers to give heed to the normal standards of the country to which they have been ad- mitted. Both the Asiatic and the white races are on trial in the West. The final outcome is important. Will the white races, when their in- stitutions are safeguarded by a narrowly restricted immigration, give necessary opportunity and cooperation and avoid evils and friction? Will those admitted retain their clannishness and seek chiefly to make gain rather than strive to become Americans ? Japanese Education in America By Kiyo Sue Inni, Secretary of the Japan Society of America. The Pacific Ocean, some one has said, will either divide or unite us. With a contracting world, a world that is getting smaller every day, our starting point in the discussion on the solution of any prob- 40 lem will necessarily be based upon the presumption that the Pacific Ocean will be the theater of unified action, cooperation, and mutual sympathies. If there is anyone in the audience who has an erroneous idea that the attitude of the people on the Pacific Coast toward Orientals is getting worse, I would like to correct it. True, Japan is a greater nation than before, and therefore, for some people a much better sub- ject for notoriety or "grand-stand play" without incurring any political damage, as the Japanese do not vote ; hence the Japanese question was given greater publicity. But within the last few years, the feeling of the people on the Pacific Coast toward the Japanese, with the excep- tion of one or two places, has changed wonderfully for the better. What, then, is the real problem? It was America that first invited Japan to open her doors to the world. It was America that introduced Japan to western civilization and ideals sixty years ago. Before that time Japan was sleeping an uninterrupted sleep of 250 years in one stretch I mean so far as her contact with the western world is concerned. She preferred to live by herself. She was contented with the progress she was then making. She was satisfied with her achievements in the arts of peace. She did not care to open her doors, but you sent Commodore Perry and told her : "Now, Japan, it wont do for you to remain so long in seclusion. Why, this is the last half of the nineteenth century ! Japan, you must wake up and seize your opportunity ; you must open your doors." What could we do ? We simply had to open our doors for western civilization. You then said : "We will send you teachers, missionaries, advisers, merchants." So we submitted to the inevitable and welcomed them. Again you told us : "Japan, you had better send your students, merchants, teachers, mechanics, and farmers to America." We did so, were received, and as a result, ninety-five thousand of us are now in this country. But after some stay in this country we have learned of a peculiar political institution, of state and national governments. We have learned of extraordinary confusion and a heterogeneous mass of human races. We have found out some of the sad experiences of the Irish in Boston, of the Jews in New York, of the Germans in Philadel- phia, of the Italians in New Orleans, and of the Chinese in San Fran- cisco. We have learned that each succeeding race has had to suffer similar exploitation, embarrassment and discomfort. And, for the last five or six years, the Japanese have had their turn and been forced to face the volley of these arguments. However, we appreciate the history and the spirit of America. We appreciate also the peculiar political institutions of this country. We appreciate the strength and weakness of democracy and have appreci- ated not a little American friendship and kindness in returning to us 41 the Shimonoki indemnity ; the release of exterritoriality and the recog- nition of Japan as a member of the civilized nations, and, above all, America's moral and financial support at the time of the China- Japa- nese war and the Russo-Japanese war. Not only that, but we appreci- ate the fundamental principle of sovereignty, that it lies with America to say who shall come to her country and who shall not. In the case of the Chinese, you actually shut your doors against them by exclusion laws. In fact, you slammed your doors at the Golden Gate. We do not care, as an independent nation, to go through the same experience of humiliation as did the Chinese. So we thought it better, more politic, more expedient, more friendly, and, above all, more neighborly, to shut our doors in Japan so that we could not get out. This is what you call "The Gentlemen's Agreement." Japan herself agreed not to send any more laborers to this country. If you compare the statistics within the last seven years you will find that there are now in this country several thousand fewer Japanese than there were several years ago. About five Japanese have been going back to about three and a half or four coming in, and those four are coming back mostly for a second time, while the rest are immediate relatives, wives, and children of those who are already here with suffi- cient means to support them. In 1908, for instance, there were 103,000 Japanese in this country, and three years after the Gentlemen's Agreement went into effect, that number became 91,000, and the record of 1908 has never been reached. Even last year, when many came to this coast on account of the Fair, it reached only the ninety-nine thousand mark ; but this number seems to be only temporary as indicated by the movements of the Japanese in June, 1915, when four hundred and fifteen more went to Japan than came from that country. Therefore, while the immigration question is one of America's greatest problems, so far as Japan is concerned there is no immigration question ; for Japan is restricting her emigrants in Japan. Allowing the population of the United States to be about ninety- live v million, the Japanese constitute only one-tenth of one per cent. Cali- * fornia has about sixty-five per cent of this number, or one and one- half per cent of its population. The question with the Japanese therefore, is not what to do with Japanese immigrants, but rather, what to do with those already here under the jurisdiction of the United States ; what to do with one-tenth of one per cent of the American population or, one and one-half per cent of the inhabitants of Cali- fornia. Some have called the problem a political one. IUit I have failed to find it so, although it has often been a "politician's" question. Some 42 have called it an economic question. The impatient wage earners have cried that the Japanese work so cheaply that they lower the standard of living and wages. As a matter of fact, if they had post- poned their complaint until 1910, they would have found out from the special commission of the state appointed in 1910 to investigate the Japanese labor condition, that an average Japanese agricultural laborer was getting as much as any other laborer engaged in the same grade of work. Then there are still others who call the question racial. But to my mind it is largely a question of assimilation and education, in which we are particularly interested this afternoon. The natural ques- tion now arises; how much of the Japanese do w,e have to make over? What kind of education does he need? Close observation reveals the fact that in essentials there is a unity between the American and the Japanese ; in non-essentials there may be some similarities or differ- ences between them. As, for instance, politeness ; your politeness con- sists mostly in praising and elevating others, but leaving yourselves where you are. Japanese politeness consists in leaving others where they are and humiliating or belittling themselves. Although the form may be different, they both believe in the essential, politeness. Again, w 7 e often ridicule the Englishman's lack of humor, but every nation has a humor of its own. If the Englishman "cracks" a typical English joke, you may not appreciate it as quickly as you ought to. For instance, a few years ago I was in England and gave that Ameri- can illustration of the distinction between an optimist and a pessimist with that familiar story of the doughnut. You say an optimist sees the doughnut and the pessimist sees the hole. They did not even smile, and I repeated it again and again in vain. But next day, in the dining- room of my hotel, I found out that English doughnuts did not have holes ! So you see the trouble was not in the lack of humor in the Englishmen but rather with the doughnuts. Whatever is wrong here is wrong in Japan. What is immoral in Japan is not moral here. Politeness, modesty, generosity, thoughtful- ness, kindness, truthfulness, filial piety are the universal virtues though we may express or perform them in different forms or manners. So, when it comes to a basic question of morals, principles and ideals, we do not need to expect very much of a change in a Japanese. Even in the fundamentals of the religions of the East and West we find a great deal of similarity. Assimilation of the Japanese consists largely in the education in non-essentials, such as customs, habits, manners and ideas (not ideals), all of which can comparatively easily be taught through language. The question, therefore, is largely one of sociological, and not biological, assimilation. 43 I believe with Professor Edward Steiner, an eminent immigration authority, who says, "Blood is thicker than water, but language is thicker than blood." The Japanese are fast acquiring the English lan- guage, American habits and American customs. Miners perhaps need the spoken language least of any laborers among whom statistics are taken. In the Report of the Immigration Commission, Volume 23, page 155, you will find that the Japanese compare very favorably with any nation in their ability to speak English : No. of Persons Per Cent Interviewed 47.2 447 Japanese 34.2 _ -.225 Finns 23.3.... 479 Slavonians 22.7 - 214 Slovaks 18.8.... 245 Poles 17 ....193 Montenegrins 14 175 N. Italians 9 485 S. Italians While this does not cover all cases, many would agree by saying that the Japanese are perhaps the most ambitious race in the study of the English language and efforts to gain broader knowledge. There are today no less than fifty English language schools for Japanese in the country, seventeen of them right here in this very city, while many more are taking private lessons. Perhaps I am not very much mistaken when I say that seventy per cent of those who come to this country today can read or write English. Besides this education in the English language, with the last few years there has been a great awakening on the part of the Japanese to the realization that they need a wide and systematic education as to American habits, customs and institutions. There are no less than fifty Japanese Associations all along the Pacific Coast. The Japanese Association of America is the mother of thirty-four of them and it might be said that it is the center of Japanese public opinion. For the last few years "assimilation" has been the watchword of the Japanese communities everywhere. Two years ago, while the anti-alien land law was being discussed at Sacramento, a convention was called by the Japanese Association of America and they discussed the situation. Instead of showing any resentment, contrary to what one might expect, the delegates of the convention took upon their shoulders the faults or shortcomings that belonged to them. Instead of "fighting" the bill, they voted $30,000 to educate the Japanese on the Pacific Coast. Ever since, "the campaign of education" is a household phrase in Japanese communities. Indeed, as there was no proper translation for "campaign of education," they invented a new word, "keihatsun- 44 do," which you hear today on the lips of almost every Japanese on the Pacific Coast. Since then such men as the Honorable S. Ebara, mem- ber of the House of Peers and President of the Tokyo Y. M. C. A. ; the Honorable Y. Hattori, ex-member of Parliament; the Honorable S. Shimada, speaker of the House, and Reverend Dr. K. Tsunajima have been invited to cooperate with the Japanese workers on the Pa- cific Coast in their endeavor to give that gospel, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do!" learn to speak as Americans, think as Ameri- cans, feel and act as Americans. This year the Reverend Dr. D. Ebina, an eminent Congregational divine, and his wife, and Mr. Y. Kanamori, one of the most influential leaders of Japan, were invited to help in this work. With the cooperation of these people and many others the Japanese Association of America expects to carry on the campaign which may be grouped under four heads as follows : 1. General Social Education: Such as American political insti- tutions ; American social conditions, customs, habits, ideas, and ideals of Americans ; American home and religious life ; relation between America and Japan. 2. Moral Education: For example, responsibility to the commu- nity as a neighbor ; obligation of contract ; suppression of gambling. 3. Sanitary education : Under this head it is not necessary to say anything except that emphasis will be placed on the sanitation of camp life in particular. 4. Industrial Education : Under this head the usual work of Chambers of Commerce, Commercial Clubs, Agricultural Associations, will be undertaken. The greatest stress, however, will be laid on the giving of informa- tion concerning the industrial and economic organizations of Americ^ and the general uplift of business morality. Already the Japanese Central Agricultural Association and Business-men's Association have been organized to undertake the fourth department of the campaign. Such an organization as the Japanese Interdenominational Board of Missions has been hard at work to suppress gambling and reform shift- less people, although we have found very few of. them among the Japanese. A new force has come to help this work. Two years ago the Japanese Association of American College Graduates was organized. The Association, as the name indicates, is composed of Japanese col- lege men who are American-bred. Knowing as they do their native land as well as their adopted country, they feel very keenly the neces- sity of this campaign. Heretofore, most of the Japanese graduates of American colleges have gone back to Japan. Indeed, they are making a creditable showing for their Alma Maters. But members of this 45 organization felt that there was just as much need, if not more, for them in this country among Japanese communities as interpreters and connecting links between the Japanese and their American neighbors. There are today five hundred and seventy-six Japanese students in one hundred and sixty-eight different colleges and universities. To- gether with those in other higher institutions of learning, there are one thousand, one hundred and fifty-one Japanese students who are pur- suing higher education in America. No doubt many more who would have gone to Germany, England or France will come here, at least for some years to come on account of the war. When these students begin their active lives of usefulness in this country and interpret America to the Japanese, a greater work will have been done. So much for the education of eighty-five thousand adult Japanese. Then what about the education of 14,142 children. All this number, with the exception of 1497, are American born. They are Americans, though very young, and a very small per cent of them, indeed, have as yet reached the school age. As we have already noticed, the Japanese as an immigrant came to this country only ten or fifteen years ago, and their wives have been coming here only for the last six or eight years. There are today two hundred and ninety-three Japanese children in American high schools and three thousand and eight in the grammar schools scattered all over the Pacific Coast. San Francisco, for ex- ample, claims about ten per cent of these children, or about three hundred. They are fairly well distributed among the different schools and no one school has, as I understand it, much more than ten per cent of this number. We have no need to worry about them as they are in the midst of the great system of assimilation, the melting pot of all races, the American public school. The only feature that I might mention, which is, however, common with all other nationalities, is the presence of thirty-nine Japanese schools where they teach the Japanese language, geography and history one or two hours a day as supplementary school work. These children are so well Americanized in some cases that they often do not know how to spell the names of their cousins across the Pacific, who often write to them in English. By this I do not mean to say that we teach Japanese to these children with any sense of retain- ing the language of their parents, but rather to teach them, as a second language, that language which they need most besides their mother tongue, which is English, as you teach German or French in some other schools. Because all of us realize that, as neighbors of the Japanese across the Pacific, we shall have more to do with them than with any other nation. I hope some day that the study of the Japanese lan- 46 guage may be undertaken, at least in the schools of the Pacific Coast, one-tenth as much as the Japanese schools are teaching English to their children. These thirty-nine schools have another duty to per- form, that is, to teach Japanese children, born in Japan, sufficient English to enable them to join the proper classes in the regular public schools and hasten them in the procession of the human races to the melting pot. Thus, there has not been any Japanese policy of education of their children except to leave it with you and offering what little we could to help you. If you would call this a policy, our policy for the chil- dren has been : Native land above all and not "Vaterland uber alles !" Roughly speaking, this is what we are doing for the Japanese on the Pacific Coast. Now you may be interested to know what the Japanese leaders in Japan want us to do. Do you suppose that these Japanese, invited to cooperate with us, would come and say, "Do not forget you country, your Mikado, or your ancestors?" Let me give you my honest and sincere answer. Japan is living, she is moving, moving onward with the current of most modern thoughts and ideas much faster than you can imagine. True, twenty or thirty years ago every Japanese who left that country literally carried a large Japanese flag in his heart ; so large that he had no room for any affection f or any other nation. But things are different today. I can give you no better illustration than to quote what Count Okuma, the present Prime Minister, who is so dearly called "the grand old man of Japan," said to the Japanese emigrants to Brazil : "You are going to seek your fortune and happiness in a strange country. You are to belong to that country. You are in duty bound first and last to do your best in that country, for that country and with that country. You are, therefore, advised not to compare the things of your home country and those of your adopted one with any sense of contempt and criticism. First of all, adapt yourselves in the new country, and then, and then only, see if you can introduce the best that japan can offer." Professor I. Abe, of Waseda University, spoke these words to a Japanese tourist party who visited that country a year ago : "You are aware of the Japanese theory of marriage which signifies the death of the bride to her parental family and birth in her adopted one. You who are leaving one family of nations and are to wed another, will do well to entrust your future entirely to your adopted country with the same spirit as the Japanese bride." Honorable H. Eitaki, former Japanese Consul-General at Honolulu, said to the Japanese residents there at one of their meetings : "While japan can be much richer, yet she is not quite so poor as to anxiously await your money. It is a good thing to save money, but better still 47 to invest it and see what good you can do for yourself and your coun- try, which now is America." Honorable Y. Ozaki, former Mayor of Tokyo and present Minister of Justice, Dr. J. Soyeda, and many other eminent scholars and states- men have all sounded the same keynote of cosmopolitanism among the Japanese just as though one man wrote all of their manuscripts. This simply shows the trend of the current of thought among the Japanese today. Buddhism has often been spoken of as an obstacle in the assimila- tion of the Japanese. I do not care to use the term "even Buddhists" in connection with Buddhists. For they too are fast becoming inf enced by this great current of thought of world citizenship. Arch- bishop Asahi, of the Japanese Buddhist Church, who is an old man of eighty-three, and had the distinction of shaking hands with Commo- dore Perry at the age of twentV-one, a man whom you would naturally expect to be the model of conservatism and seclusion, gave a Japanese audience this advice a few days ago: "Love your wife, love your work, and love your community." In other words, he advised the Japanese to love San Francisco, love California, and love America. Thus Japanese leaders of today have dedicated the future of Japan to the proposition that the test of a great nation is the power of her people to make the world their home wherever they go. While I make this admission, I am not here to prophesy whether the Japanese will make good Americans. But this we know, that as early as the seventh century, when the Chinese civilization came to Japan, Japan adopted and assimilated Chinese literature, Chinese arts, Chinese religion and institutions within a few decades. Again, in the middle of the Sixteenth century, a few years after the triumphant religious expedition of that most devoted and energetic teacher, Francis Xavier, about one million Japanese had been converted to Christianity. This rapid change of conditions in Japan and assimilation of their civilizations in that country characterized the way in which modern European and American civilizations have been welcomed in Japan snce 1853. And might I not say without any hesitation what Japan had done? Within the last fifty years at least she has become West- ernized and Americanized much faster than any other nation in the history of the world. Now how about the Japanese in this country? While today it is impossible to find a pure race anywhere on the face of the globe, it is true that the Japanese are a mixture of all the Far Eastern races, and can easily adapt themselves in almost any clime or civilization. While I am not quite ready to accept the statement of Henry Ward Beecher, who said : "Let them come, we will swallow them all," I 48 do want to say that America is the greatest power of assimilation of all nations in the history of the world. We have noticed this fact : That Japanese children born in this country are, on the whole taller and their complexions fairer than their parents. This is especially true of Japanese girls, due, no doubt, to the food and climatic conditions. The writer has a friend who has a little boy five years of age. Upon coming home from kindergarten one day, he was crying very hard. When asked the reason, the boy earnestly replied: "Papa, today they were talking about a war between America and Japan. Papa, you were born in Japan ; you are a Japanese. I .was born in this country ; I am an American. I am afraid I will have to fight you !" Many Japanese are naturalized in Canada. When war was de- clared against the Germanic allies, some thousand Canadian-Japanese volunteered to fight for the cause of their adopted country. And yet I do not mean to conclude as to the assimilability of the Japanese. How can you tell whether a nation will become assimilated inside of ten or fifteen years. That is the length of time we have been here. You used to say the Germans would never forget their Father land even after they were here two or three generations. You know that they make good American citizens. You used to say the same thing about the Irish ; you used to say that they are good fighters but they will not make good American citizens ; but when these good fight- ers come to America they not only make good American citizens but become so assimilated they even turn into peace officers. So, friends, we do not know whether we will make good Ameri- cans or not, although we have some notion on this point. All we can say at this time is this : Such societies as the Japanese Association of America, the Association of American College Graduates, the Japanese Interdenominational Board of Missions and the Japan Society of America, of which I am secretary, are doing their best to make the Japanese in this country at least on the Pacific Coast some day, when given a chance, the best Americans possible. All we ask of you is, are you willing to give us a fair chance to do so? If you welcome Europeans with open arms and Orientals at tlv* point of the finger ; if you welcome Europeans with confidence and Orientals with suspicion ; if you give the Germans the right to partici- pate in politics and make the Japanese pawns in the political chess game; if you allow Italians the right to own land and become perma- nent residents and compel the Japanese to lease land for no more tha.^ three years at the most, force him to move about the country with his blankets on his shoulders without being able to make a home for ]- dear little boy or girl, who by birthright is an American citizen; the solution of one of America's problems is bound to be unnatural, liable 49 to be unfair, possibly un-American and even un-Christian. All we ask is a fair understanding and a fair chance. Let me repeat again, we know our weakness, we are doing our best to correct it. Will you, the makers of future America, will you, in whose hands the assimilation of future America is entrusted, will you help us and cooperate with us? Chinese Immigration By Kcc Owvang, Exposition Commissioner, Former Consul at San Francisco. Let me have the pleasure of raising the question at the outset as to what is the Chinese Exclusion Law. What is the essence of the spirit of it all? Is it born of justice or otherwise? I think if you will take the pains and trouble of finding it out for your own satisfaction and information, you will readily observe that the Exclusion Law is the outcome of a long series of unwise legislation in one of the chap- ters of American history. To be sure, the trouble dated back to the time when the Chinese and their Occidental brothers first came in contact with one another in the days of '49 in the days of mad rush after gold in California, and railroad construction on the western coast. Doubtless there were differences, strife and contention among them in the placer mines, which would inevitably arise when people of divers tongues, manners and customs come together for the first time. It was even difficult for the working people of the various European nations to get along well together in the earlier days of California, but we can easily imagine the greater differences existing between the Chinese and the white people whose religion and education have made them think and act entirely different from one another. In consequence, misunderstanding and discord were bound to arise. The early politi- cal leaders and other agitators, instead of attempting to alleviate con- ditions, instilled in the people at large hatred and prejudice which I think you will agree with me were unwarranted and unreasonable. Hdwever. we must not forget that most of these Chinese laborers came here at that time, at the invitation of the United States. The right of so coming of the Chinese people was guaranteed under solemn treaty between China and the United States, which treaty existed until 1880. The Chinese were then no longer desirable, and because of all these agitations and clamor of all the mischief-makers, the government of this country had committed itself to an act which justice cannot 50 defend. You know the United States solemnly agreed in said treaty that the coming of Chinese laborers may be suspended but never abso- lutely prohibited. But since that time the United States prohibited Chinese immigration and thus the government broke faith with China by passing a law in direct violation of said treaty and the courts have aided in said violation by deciding that Congress had the right to pass such an act. The American Christian missionary in China from that time on found their good work seriously hindered. Thus you see that from time immemorial political leaders, demagogues and agitators resorted to misrepresentation, falsehood and vehemence to secure their political jobs and favors, and they did not dare say anything favorable to the Chinese. I need not labor much longer upon this point. Suffice it to indicate that all this agitation directed against the Chinese by political demagogues was responsible for the Exclusion Act. The act excluding the Chinese immigration was not tempered with justice or a square deal. The Exclusion Law today is nothing but the culmination of all the early agitators. The reason for excluding Chinese people is racial, not economic. As a noted lawyer of this coast once said : "\\e are afflicted w'ith the malady of race hatred; and infected with this disease. Everything that the Oreiental does is, to our sick vision, distorted into an offense which causes us to vomit forth at home our rancor and spleen." All we ask of the American Government is to give the Chinese fair treatment and not favor in the matter of exclusion, and give us the same treatment as is accorded to people of other nationalities. I wish 1 had time to enter into details regarding the differences in which the people of other nations are treated. The Exclusion Law does not only exclude all Chinese, laborers, or coolies as you call them, but it inflicts tremendous hardships upon the Chinese of the exempt classes ; that is, merchants, travelers, students and teachers, and even officials at times. It seems that it is much easier for them to enter Heaven than to set foot on the American continent, even when they enter this port with the Consul's Certificate or other documents issued and signed by American diplomatic agents in China. The spirit of the Exclusion Law is to exclude the coolie class, but it was certainly not intended to hinder those who are above the coolie class when they are properly vouched for by the American Consular or Immigration Agent in China. On presentation of the proper certifi- cate they ought to be permitted to land without much ado. When the officials place all these obstacles in our way, can it be said that they are acting in a spirit of justice? The Exclusion Law as it stands is a dis- crimination against a single nation, a legislation against a race of peo- 51 pie, branding them as being totally unworthy of the privilege of travel, residence or citizenship in the United States. I frankly admit that there must be restriction for immigrants coming into this country, but the restriction ought to be applied to Oriental and Occidental people alike. There should be no unfair discrimination against a single na- tion, especially when that nation believes in peace and righteousness so firmly that it scorns to think that it has to be maintained or enforce by might. I sincerely hope to see the Exclusion Law altered to read, Restric- tion Law. If you do that you will have done much in removing the only element of friction between the two most friendly republics on each side of the Pacific. Aside from her objection to the Exclusion Law, China has every reason to be thankful to the United States. Political leaders and wild agitators in this country have inflicted much harm upon the Chinese people in the name of the Exclusion Law, while, on the other hand, many statesmen have bestowed much good and many blessings upon China. China cannot help but hold the United States in grateful memory. I say exactly what I mean, and mean what I say. The United States is the only powerful nation that has not at any time resorted to meth- ods of bullying, coercing or browbeating China for the sake of com- mercial gain. In short, she is ever ready to stretch forth a helping hand in any crisis that China might have to pass through. Who helped to preserve the integrity of China by means of the open door policy, but the United States? Who took the lead in returning a portion of the Boxer indemnity fund which the powers extorted out of China, but the United States? Which was the first power to recognize the establishment of the Republic of China, but the United States? Who is doing the best medical and educational work in China, but the United States? Counting up the blessings one by one we have much indeed to be thankful for to the United States. So you can readily see that the Exclusion Law is the only obstacle in the way of the most friendly relations between the two nations. Removing that, you will have a great admirer in the youngest republic of the world. America has always set a noble example to the world and a striking illustration is her position of neutrality in the present great war. As one great American said : "She ought to decree such wise things and such right things that she shall be considered a leader to the free na- tions of the earth." The best means, therefore, of modifying the Exclusion Law is for the Christian people as well as all fairminded Americans, to band to- gether and educate and awaken the public opinion to the realization 52 of the fact that there is but very little spirit of justice in the Exclusion Law. You will then have accomplished much in getting rid of the 'little element of friction between the two countries and you will have exemplified to the wide world that America is a land full of noble im- pulse for justice and humanity. The Pacific Coast and the Panama Canal By Senator Walter S. Davis of Tacoma, Wash. What part will the Panama Canal have in the peopling of the Pacific Coast? The building and completion of the Canal must be regarded as one of the greatest triumphs of man over Nature in human history. It is one of those deeds which make us proud of the human race and kindle our enthusiasm for our membership therein, and make us marvel at "the strength and stretch of the human understanding." Above all, it reveals the greatness of the human spirit which presses on to triumph, however great the obstacles in the path. The completion of the Canal is an epoch making event, destined to have a far reaching influence, not only upon American history and commerce, but upon that of the World as well. Just as the blocking up by the Turks, of the Venetian, and Genoese lines of trade to India led to the new way around Africa, and to Columbus' and Magellans' westward voyages caused the decline of Venice and Genoa, and the growth of Atlantic seaboard cities like Lisbon and London, so the building of the Panama Canal will bring new prosperity to cities like New Orleans, Galveston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Tacoma, Seattle, and Van- couver, B. C. To the United States, the military importance of the Canal is very great. President Roosevelt says that it has doubled the effectiveness of our Navy. No longer will the Nation be in suspense, while our warships make the long voyage around the Horn, as was the case with the Oregon in the Spanish-American War. The Nation also breathed a sigh of relief, when the Canal was completed, because it practically relieved the Pacific Coast from the fear of a descent upon it by the Japanese Navy, for the reason that many Americans had feared, that if war must come between the United States and Japan for the com- mercial supremacy of the Pacific, Japan would choose the time before the completion of the Canal. For years before the Canal was finished, the popular belief on the Pacific Coast was that it's completion would be the signal for the coming of swarms of immigrants from Europe. In our excited im- aginations we saw our streets thronging with strangers as did the cities 53 of the Roman Empire in the time of the Germanic immigrations. We were led to believe that thousands of steamship tickets were being sold in Europe on the installment plan. This was the feeling in the first Pacific Coast Immigration Congress held in Tacoma, in February, 1912. It was felt then that something must be done, and done quickly, to properly care for this incoming tide, as it would greatly add to our civic and social problems. So commercial bodies took up the question of diverting the stream of immigration from the city to the unde- veloped agricultural lands. The Y. M. C. A. and kindred organiza- tions began preparations for the moral and spiritual training of the new immigrants. Looking forward to a marked commercial develop- ment, Seattle created a Port Commission, Tacoma built a new Munici- pal Dock, both planning to receive a larger commerce. Other Pacific Coast cities made similar preparations. But what has been the actual outcome ? Our fears have all proved groundless, due, we may believe, first to economic stress, and second to the great war in Europe, both of which had not previously been taken into our calculations. There has been no increase either in our commerce or our immigration ; on the contrary large numbers have returned to Europe to take part in the mighty struggle. Perhaps after all this mighty force in the world called migration rests upon deeper laws than the gashing of a continent, and the shortening and cheapen- ing of the lines and means of transportation. I state it on the authority of the United States Immigration offices in both the states of Washing- ton and California, that not a single emigrant ship has yet come through the Panama Canal. In preparation for the writing of this paper, I interviewed United States Immigration officials. Foreign Consuls, resident on the Pacific Coast, Commercial Club secretaries, agents of steamship lines, and citizens competent to speak on the subject. To several I put the ques- tion : "Is the reported asle of tickets on the installment plan before the completion of the Canal true?" Replies were received on both sides. All those interviewed agreed that there was practically no im- migration coming through the Canal at present. .Before the war, eight Steamship lines had announced their intention of running emigrant ships through the Canal from Europe to the Pacific Coast. It was the belief of those interviewed, that the immigration to the Puget Sound country, would be largely from Scandinavia, while California would draw more largely from the peoples of Southern Europe. It was shown that until immigrants can go direct from Europe, and not by way of New York and then transshipping through the Canal, the rates of passage to the Pacific Coast would not be cheaper than by rail, from New York, the present rate from Scandinavia by New Y<>rk and by rail across the continent being $101, and from New York 54 by water through the Canal, $115 to the Puget Sound. The Ham- burg-American line had prepared to carry passengers to the Coast through the Canal direct from Europe, for only eight dollars more than the rate to New York. \l\ investigation showed that there is at present no steadiness in freight rates. One steamship agent said that the ships running from the Pacific Coast through the Canal to New York, are not carrying freights as cheaply as they could, but only low enough to get the trade. Also rates are demoralized by steamers carrying freight as ballast for nothing, or at a very low rate. Thus household goods by rail to New York are three dollars a hundred, but only forty-five cents a hundred via the Canal. Secretary Martin of the Tacoma Commercial Club, says one merchant might find it difficult to compete with another mer- chant who had secured the very low rate of transportation from some tramp steamer. Just as in the Tariff, it is not the amount of the rate, but its stability, that gives assurance to business, so merchants are on an equality if they have the same rates through a certain definite period. The results of the investigation made for this paper may be summed up as follows : ( 1 ) The completion of the Canal did not bring the anticipated im- migration to the Pacific Coast, due to the prevailing economic stress and to the war in Europe. (2) That while a fciv immigrants have come, not a single immi- grant ship has yet arrived on the Pacific Coast through the Canal. (3) That immigration into the United States now is practically at a standstill. ( 4 ) That had there been no war, the immigration would not have been as large as we had expected. Yet it would have been quite large. ( 5 ) That the reported sales of tickets to the Pacific Coast is not yet proven. Positive affirmations are made on both sides. (6) That the war so upset previous calculations and opinions, that even the best informed refused to give any prophecy as to the future of immigration through the Canal. ( 7 ) That after the ending of the war in Europe, the following forces will be active checks on immigration that might otherwise come through the Canal : a. Europe will need her men to perform labor at home. b. European Governments will take more active steps to induce laborers to remain at home by modeling their industrial development after countries like Denmark and Germany. c. That European Governments wftl strongly appeal to the patriotism of their people to remain at home. 55 d. That European Governments will make laws limiting the activ- ity of steamship agents who seem to be the cause of one-half the immigration from Hungary and from Russia, Bulgaria having already abolished them. e. That many desiring to emigrate will not have the necessary money, due to the financial exhaustion by the war. (8) On the other hand, many may come to this "land of great peace," determined to remove themselves and their families beyond the limits of countries likely at any time to be plunged into such frightful wars. Mrs. Kate W. Barrett, a special investigator for the United States Immigration Department, thinks that especially many women will come to America to escape the ravages of war. Mr. W. W. Husband, another immigrant inspector of the United States Depart- ment, thinks that for some time to come large numbers of immigrants may be expected from Russia and Austria-Hungary. (9) That when the tide of immigration does begin to come again to our Pacific Coast, it should, so far as possible, be diverted away from the cities and to the undeveloped agricultural lands. The Scan- dinavians will make fine citizens and farmers on the logged-off lands of the Puget Sound country. The Italians, whose chief business in their home land is to raise fruit, should find a like occupation for which they are so well fitted, on the fruit lands of California, instead of being herded in box cars and put to work on railroads, a work, which with its accompanying conditions, they very much dislike. (10) That the public school system, the Y. M. C. A., and like or- ganizations should do everything possible for the educational, moral and spiritual uplift of the new immigrant, while the State and Com- mercial clubs should see that he be protected from robbery by dis- honest real estate agents, and from exploitation by soulless corpora- tions. After the War What? By Dr. David Starr Jordan, Chancellor, Stanford University. The Great War will eventually come to a close through exhaustion, through lack of money, through starvation, or through sorrow and mourning. There is at present little prospect that it will end in any sweeping victory. It may be that Jean de Bloch, was right and that the armies of today with their hundreds of miles of battle front are too large to be maneuvered. Giant guns and swift instruments of murder balance one another. Armies seeming invulnerable, war activities have been more and more directed against non-combatants. 56 Little headway has been made by either side in those features com- monly regarded as legitimate warfare. Except for the invasion of Belgium, the Germans have accomplished little headway. And every- where non-combatants have suffered with the armies. The warfare at sea, on both sides, has been directed mainly against the property of private citizens. All this, the raids on seaside resorts, the capture of merchant ships, the sinking of fishing-boats, the whole matter of War Zones, blockade arid food contrabrand, is directed against those who cannot strike back. The only difference between this and old-time piracy is that the modern free-booters have framed their own rules, while the outlaw of the past defied all statutes. Fred- eric the Great, with the frankness of a King said: "As to war, it is a trade in which the least scruple would spoil everything. Indeed, what man of honor would make war if he had not the right to make rules that should authorize plunder, fire and carnage?" Let us assume that there will be no victory for either side, but that all nations concerned will find themselves defeated. The treaty of peace must come at last. There are many things we should like to put into this treaty, things essential to the future security and well- being of Europe. But we shall not get many of them. We may not get any. It may be that the drawn game will end in a truce, not of peace but of exhaustion. It is best not to expect too much, nor to demand all we want, before the war hysteria is over. After the war , is over will begin the work of reconstruction. Then will come the test of our mettle. Can Europe build up a solid foundation of peace amid the havoc of greed and hate ? Constructive work belongs to peace, and it may take fifty years to put the Continent in order. When the kill- ing is stopped, permanently, or for a breathing spell, the forces of law .and order must begin mobilization. There are many things we need to make civilization stable and wholesome. Every gain counts. We want foreign exploitation limited by law and justice. We want to see diplomacy and armies no longer at the call of adventurers. We want no more "red rubber," red copra 01; red diamonds. We want open diplomacy and we want democracy. Whatever is secret is corrupt, and the control of armies by an un- checked few is a constant menace to human welfare. The people who pay and who die should know what they pay for and why they are called upon to die. We want all private profit taken away from war. We want to see armies and navies brought down from the maximum of expense to the minimum of safety. We want to see conscription abolished and military service put on the same basis as other more constructive trades. A direct cause for modern warfare is the eagerness to find something for armies and navies to do. We want to abolish piracy 57 at sea and murder from the air. We want to conserve the interests of neutrals and of non-combatants. We want to take from war at once its loot and its glory. We hope especially for an abatement of tariffs and of all obstacles that check the flow of commerce. With a free current of trade, the Eastern half of Europe would lose its com- mercial unrest. We cannot mend all the defects of Geography, but we might refrain from aggravating them. Landlocked nations will not be so tempted to "hack away to the sea," if the sea is not made artificially distant by barriers to trade. We would like to have na- tions pay their debts, not struggle in rivalry of borrowing. We would welcome the day of fewer kings and they with limited authority. Furthermore, we would like to see manhood suffrage everywhere and womanhood suffrage, too. Councils of the people instead of "Con- certs of Powers," effective parliaments, not mere debating societies without power of action. We would like to see land-reforms, tax- reforms, reforms in schools and universities, in judicial procedure, in religion, sanitation and temperance, with the elimination of caste and privilege wherever entrenched. We would like to see every man a potential citizen of the country he lives in. We would like to see the map of Europe redrawn a bit (but not too much) in the interests of freedom and fair play. We would like to see the small nations left as stable as great ones, for small nations have done more than their share in the work of civilization. We believe that a nation can have no welfare independent of the individual welfare of its people. That na- tion is greatest which has most individual initiative and most abundant life. We would like to see our Belgium restored to the "permanent neu- trality" which is her right, and Luxemburg as well. We believe that the "Balkans should belong to the Balkans." We would like to see,, if it may be, Constantinople neutralized and autonomy restored to Alsace-Lorraine, to Finland, to Armenia. To hear from the Danes in Northern Schleswig, and from the Poles in Warsaw, Posen and Gali- cia. The people concerned should be consulted over every change in boundary lines. We would insist that the FTague Conference be made up wholly of serious men, not baffled by diplomatists, sparring for advantage. We would like to see the Hague Tribunal dignified as the International Court of the World, to extend and create Inter- national Law by its precedents. We would like to see Judicial Proced- ure and Arbital Decisions everywhere take the place of war talk and war preparations. To see the channels of commerce opened wide, neutralized, unfortified and free to all the world the Bosporus, the Dardanelles, the Straits of Denmark, Gibraltar and Aden, the canals of Suez, Panama, and Kiel as well. Above all, we should hope to see human life held as sacred as the llag. and patriotism become "plan- 58 etary," not merely tribal or provincial. Whatever is good for the world is good for every nation in it. All this leaves task enough for the lovers of peace. "Never again should the sword be sheathed; it should be broken." But the sword is most surely broken by rust, not often by another sword. Not much of all this will go into the treaty of peace. But the struggle will go on, the most intense since the days of the Reformation. A few resolute men, reckless of consequences, brought on the Great War. A few men, equally resolute, could make war impossible, if they had the backing their cause demands. To get peace is to do away with standing incentives to war. Only peace activities can achieve this. And among these activities, he who looks for it may find in full abundance the long-sought "Moral Equivalent for War." So much for Europe, what of America? Of this we may be sure, struggle will not be over with the war. And, whatever the move- ments in Europe, we shall have induced movements in America which will run in parallel lines. The movement for militarism in America, checked by the good sense of a democratic people, seems like a parody on the awful and self -destructive efforts of Europe. With the break- ing up of the great deep, we have parallel ebullitions in the neighboring ponds. And in the rebuilding of Europe, our part will not be one of sus- picion, hate and antagonism. Our stand is a braver one than that in- volved in acting as cogs in a huge machine of destruction. We are be- tween the lines. Ours is the Red Cross work. It is for us to carry the spirit of friendship and mutual help into a continent desolated with senseless hate. And with the problem of reconstruction comes the problem of Im- migration. Wlien we send relief to Europe, what will Europe send to America? Not her armies of this we may be certain. The in- vasion of New York is one of the bogies conjured up by the War Traders, who in our land as in every other, seek to project their most profitable trade into the future, who would have us celebrate the dawn of peace by making certain of another war. When the war is over, Europe will be short of men, as well as of capital by the use of which men can be paid. There will be little work to do and few men to do it, and the taxes will wax higher and higher as the means to pay them becomes more precarious. For a long time before the war, there was a steady stream of laborers out of oppressed Germany into Switzerland Hunger Pilger Pilgrims of Hunger, they were called at Basel, and one Italian economist forecasting the future, said that "in ten years we shall all be pilgrims of hunger." And so they will all be. And as Switzerland will not hold them all, they will flock towards America. 59 The happiest man I saw in Greece was a soldier from America, who had bought for $100 his release from the army, and was headed back for "little old New York," where a man could do something, and be alone while he was doing it. He had come back to Greece for patriotism's sake. Now he was going back to his place as steamer- steward for his own sake. And all the others from America, the backbone of the Greek army, were going back to America, when they could get away and when they could get the money, for the service at a drachmc (19c) a month falls far short of union wages. To me this seems evident. During the war, traffic is scant and im- migration to America has fallen off almost to nothing. When the lines are open, the desire to emigrate from Southern and Eastern Europe will be found to be greatly increased Roumania, Greece, Italy, Serbia, Hungary, Macedonia, Poland, the movement both to North and South America will be greatly accentuated. Meanwhile the rulers of most nations will put all possible obstacles in the way of im- migration. The great problem of both Italy and Greece, next to those of war, is that of the loss of the people by immigration. But the means for emigration will be greatly reduced. Poverty will be the rule in Europe. A million people in Macedonia alone were helpless refugees in May, 1914. Their lot has not improved since then, nor has it gone better with any of the war-worn and war-torn nations. The French and Belgians seldom leave their homes ; but from Ger- many and Great Britain the tide of those who abhor military service is likely to rise. To what degree the movement towards freedom and away from war-taxes and war-burdens will rise, no one can say. And the problem of the immigrant is going to be more and more pressing until we solve it, or abandon the effort for its solution. The freedom of America is British freedom; it rose with the re- volt against a Prussian King, engaged in stupid fashion in Prus- sianizing England and her colonies. British Liberty and American Liberty have risen on parallel lines, and while our machinery of ad- ministration is very different from the British, our social fabric in its basal framework is the same. Americans have been defined as middle- class Englishmen, and we may accept the definition, for the same in stock, we have eliminated the upper and lower classes, those having privilege through inheritance, and those from inheritance debarred from life's comforts. The racial freedom belongs to the racial stock which secured it. No gifts to a nation comes from the outside. Each must earn what it gets. The races of the North of Europe, substantially identical with ours, are soon assimilated ; and so are some from the South of Europe and from Asia. Others come who have never known free- dom, never demanded it, and who for generations never learn t<- use 60 it. Those among us who need physical coercion are not good citizens and are not welcome. They are dross in the melting pot. They lower the average quality of the alloy into which they enter. Their pres- sure reduces the proportionate number of those fine strains of heredity who maintained our freedom and who give to our nation its color and destiny. And yet, however opposed to immigration by wholesale of "the beaten men of the beaten races," in detail it is impossible not to sym- pathize with these people. When one comes to know individuals in a miscellaneous pack of Balkan refugees, one sees the fine traits of hu- man nature cropping out here and there, and one's fear for the Eugenic future of his own nation, the "melting pot of Europe," "the land where hatred dies away," is lost in human sympathy. And it may be just as well. We are all in the same boat all races of men all on "the good ship Earth." If we develop a permanent civilization, it must rest on mutual help, for after all "Love is the Ful- fillment of the Law," and law is the expression of cause and effect, the best way in which actions and events may be bound together. Stanford University, California, August, 1915. The State and the Immigrant By Simon J. Lubin, President Immigration and Housing Commission of California. It is my purpose to consider with you some of the principles and policies underlying the work of the Commission of Immigration and Housing of California. Our executive officer, Mr. Bell, will tell you. in detail of actual accomplishment. A question, which more than once we have had to answer, runs something like this : "Why should the State devote special attention to the immigrant? Haven't we our own poor, our own exploited among the native born? And aren't they just as worthy of protection and assistance as the alien? In fact, doesn't our first duty demand that we serve our own ? Should not charity begin at home ?" Our State may justify itself from at least three different view- points. The act creating our Commission does not intend that any special favor be accorded the foreigner. But the stranger, ignorant of our laws, our customs, and often of our language, upon arrival finds himself beset by innumerable handicaps. The removal of these tends to place him upon an equality with those longer resident here. There is no favoritism in this ; merely an attempt to establish a mea- sure of justice. 61 Ordinarily, the immigrant is so situated that he becomes an easy prey to exploiters, that he finds it almost impossible to get on his feet economically ; misfortune drags him into the overcrowded quarters of our slums, those breeding places of disease, immorality, crime and ignorance; education in English and in civics is almost impossible to attain. Such a man is not on the road to becoming a useful citizen. Indeed, unguided and unprotected, he is liable to become a menace. The correction of these evils is no more than a matter of our own self-protection. Our efforts primarily are in the direction of our own welfare. From this viewpoint, the immigrant is only an accident in our activities. .. But the immigrant is not merely a potential menace, from whom we must protect ourselves. With the proper encouragement, he may become a positive source of benefit to our civilization. Each man brings to our shores certain inherited racial and national talents as well as certain personal faculties which we may encourage and de- velop to our own advantage. The social settlement was the first in- stitution in this land to give practical recognition to the fact that art and philosophy had not departed from the Greek, that music and the sense of legal order had not deserted the Italian, that with the Jew there still remains a worship of the beauty of holiness, a reverence for pure family life, and a deep-seated belief that a nation which breaks faith is as much a sinner as is the individual who does violence to the moral law. The settlement first recognized the valuable contributions that might be made to our culture by immigrants from Germany, from Russia, from England, from France and from the homes of the Norsemen ; yes, even from the pettiest of distant lands. And ad- visedly we might take the cue from the settlement in this respect, to do all within our power to bring out the latent possibilities from even the humblest of .the strangers within our gates. Our country, in its early history, borrowed ideals and practices from all peoples, both ancient and modern. Is it not conceivable that the descendants of those who contributed thus might still have something to give ? The State, then, in directing some attention toward the immigrant, is justified in three ways : First, by removing handicaps in the path of the stranger, it tends to place all upon an equality of opportunity ; then, by protecting and aiding the foreigner, it most wisely seeks the welfare of the whole commonwealth ; and finally, in encouraging the development of latent racial and personal talents, the State brings out valuable contributions to our culture. By way of rebuttal, another question is put to us: "If all this care is required to keep straight and to assimilate the foreign-born, are we not justified in excluding him, or at least in exercising far 62 greater caution at the gates? Should we not put into operation a more rigid selective process, to reject the unfit, and to admit the good?" Since my entry into this work within this State, more than three years ago, I have made it my business to refuse to discuss either publicly or privately the matter of exclusion or restriction, or the wisdom of maintaining the open door. Knowing that most discussions of this question are colored by deep-seated prejudice, the bias de- pending in great part upon what ship one's ancestors happened to come over on the Mayflower or the Kaiser Wilhelm it seemed to me that our entry into such discussions might cloud the real issue to which we are devoted. It is not my purpose now to discuss restric- tion, but incidentally to touch upon that subject merely to supply a background for the enunciation of a more positive and far different policy. The last census gave us more than thirteen millions foreign-born in the United States. These with their children numbered over thirty- two millions, or more than one-third of our total population. Were we to put into effect a policy of absolute exclusion, we should still be faced for many years to come by domestic immigration problems, crying for solution. In the matter of restriction, for some reason, we don't seem to be able to hit upon a satisfactory mechanical method of segregating the . unfit from the fit. The literacy test fails to impress favorably our veto-wielding Presidents, to say nothing of the steamship lobby and" the foreign national lobbies. The proposition to limit the annual in- flux of each nation to five or ten per cent of .those already here, besides involving innumerable administrative complexities, would hardly ap- peal to those who maintain the inferiority of our large immigration since 1881. The discriminating powers of scores of moderately paid inspectors at the ports is not a dependable machinery. You who have had ex- perience in employing men know how difficult it is to judge their capabilities and characters accurately even after months of intimate association. How much more fallible then is the opinion of the in- spector who must pass judgment upon sometimes hundreds in a day? Admitting that it is wise to keep out the known criminal, the immoral, the diseased and imbecile, I would maintain that it is rela- tively unimportant who else come in, and in what numbers. Do I then advocate a doctrine of laisscz faire? No, not by any means. The matter of supreme importance is not what we do at the gates, but what we do after the immigrant is admitted. The vital thing is not a policy of admission and exclusion, but a domestic immigration policy, whether we open wide the gates or keep them tightly closed. 63 First, for our own security, if not for his, we must protect the foreigner from abuse and exploitation. Then we must remove friction from the path leading to economic settlement. The effort of the na- tional Department of Labor to organize and co-ordinate the work of public employment offices is an attempt in this direction. Agricultu- ral 'cooperation and rural credits would help. Then we must make more common the opportunities to acquire a knowledge of English and the rudiments of civics. What sometimes seems to me to be most important of all is the establishment and maintenance of proper stand- ards of health, sanitation, housing, education, labor and justice. With wise minimum social, economic, educational and legal stand- ards determined and enforced, we make impossible the existence of many of those practices and habits which are repugnant to our civili- zation. The immigrant crowds into hovels, thus endangering our health and our economic structure. Well, enforce our five hundred cubic foot law and other housing regulations, and he must be half- way decent. The alien competes unfairly by throwing his women and his children into the stream of labor. Then bring to bear upon him our compulsory education law and our laws governing the employment of women and minors. The foreigner participates in corrupt politics and overloads our courts. Possibly our taking corruption out of our politics and putting more justice into our courts might remedy much of this. The protection of the foreign-born from exploitation, the building up of proper standards, and the opening up of economic and educa- tional opportunities are what are involved in the conception, a do- mestic immigration policy. There are two by-products of such a policy which are worthy of careful attention. First, it is selective, in a more positive way than any measure put into effect at the ports of entry. We know that the destination of most prospective immigrants is determined by the tone of letters received from friends and relatives resident here. If these letters carry the news that this is a land where the grafter prospers, where reward is not in the measure of effort and merit, where justice can be bought, then do we get out of foreign lands the man who thrives under such an environment. But if, on the other hand, these letters convey the information that this is a place for the industrious, the ambitious, the honorable and the just, and that these are encouraged in many ways, while others generally have a rough path to tread, then shall we attract to our shores only the desirable and the worthy. But we should not depend wholly upon the information sent through private correspondence. In picturing social, legal and edu- cational conditions and opportunities, it is practically trustworthy ; 64 but in presenting a picture of our economic status at a given time, it is not dependable. If his boss needs an extra man, Tony is likely to write over to Italy that the labor situation in this country is ex- cellent. His letter, passed from hand to hand, may start a small army in this direction. Intelligence of this sort should not be left to such a haphazard medium. Before long, I hope to see a conference of nations called to consider the advisability of devising a permanent machinery for disseminating promptly and accurately official data re- garding the world's labor demand and supply. Another by-product flowing from an established domestic policy of immigration is this : Whatever we do, with the immigrant directly in mind, \vorks to the advantage of our whole community. If we establish better schools for immigrants, we raise the whole tone of our educational system. If we put out of business and behind the bars the real estate shark who preys upon the alien, the employment agent who misrepresents and splits fees, the crooked notary and the shyster lawyer, and the white slaver, to that extent do we protect our native-born. If we prevent the foreign-born from overcrowding, from exploiting his women and his children, by the same effort we enforce these laws in regard to our own people. That is why we sometimes wonder why we are called a Commission of Immigration. In our effort to improve the condition of one element in our population, we tend to elevate the whole mass. Thus far, I have tried to give a justification for the State's devoting any special attention to the immigrant. Then I showed the need of a domestic immigration policy, pointing out that even with exclusion or restriction, we still should have internal problems to solve, and that their local solution is more important than matters of admission and rejection. In fact, the operation of such a policy is selective, and it benefits the native-born no less than the foreigner. Now, in the brief time remaining, let me touch upon some of the policies we have developed in working out our task. Our underlying motive is one of cooperation and economy. Our policy is to do nothing we can get any other agency to take up. Stand- ards of labor camp sanitation were worked out in conjunction with federal military authorities and the State Board of Health. We are cooperating closely with the State Board of Education and with local educational bodies to develop a program of immigrant education in English and in citizenship. We purpose to work out with municipal agencies a state housing and city planning program and through them to accomplish its enforcement. Our activities to relieve the winter unemployment situation take the form of pressure upon municipali- ties to perform their several duties. In our complaint department, 65 whenever possible, we refer cases to the competent authorities to enforce action : To the State Labor Bureau, to the Industrial Acci- dent Board, to the Board of Health, to district attorneys. In this way we make our small appropriation go as far as possible ; we co-ordinate state effort and prevent duplication of work and overlapping. Our cooperation is with national, state, county, municipal and private agencies. Again, we are governed by a policy that is not satisfied with watch- ful waiting, but commands us to go out after business. It has become a practice with many public agencies to open up an office, prominently indicated by an impressive sign-board, to employ a more or less com- petent staff of political hangers-on, and then patiently to wait, avoiding effort when possible. Following contrary lines, we have literally gone grubbing for trouble. Many of the five thousand complaints we have handled during the past year, we have deliberately sought out. That is our construction of the mandate, "Let judgment run down as waters." As a matter of fact, we have practically ignored specific complaints in our division of labor camp inspection ; investigations have been initiated by our own agents, going from camp to camp. We purpose not to wait to be urged by immigrants clamoring for op- portunities for education, but rather do we intend to thrust these opportunities upon them. Though inviting adverse criticism from some quarters, we persist in advertising our wares in the manner known to successful commercial enterprises. We believe in going out after business. Nor do we content ourselves with making destructive criticism only. After discovering that labor camp conditions within the state were a reproach, and after calling this fact to the attention of camp owners, we put into their hands a simple but comprehensive primer of camp construction. With this manual before him, the humblest camp owner could construct most cheaply a sanitary toilet, a practical shower-bath, a fly-proof cook house and mess-tent, and in fact lay out his camp in a way that would win the approval of sanitary experts. Where the manual itself is not sufficient, we supplement it with advice and suggestions personally given by experts. We have provided com- plete plans and specifications, with estimated costs, of a sanitary sew- age system for an unincorporated town. Last winter, we advised all the cities in the state as to what they should do to relieve the immedi- ate unemployment situation. It is gratifying to be able to report that our constructive suggestion were received in the finest spirit. We are now working on texts to aid those who desire to bring to the immigrant a knowledge of English and civics, and who purpose availing themselves of the opportunity afforded by the new home- 66 teacher law. We shall prepare a manual for those who are interested in city planning and housing. We have found that mere opportunity does not necessarily encour- age the embracing that opportunity. Experience has shown that our public schools must be backed up by a compulsory education law. The mass of the people either must be compelled to take advantage of possible benefits, or at least they must be led and directed. They must have their attention called to rights and privileges, and they must be shown the way. Even those who would lead others, often should be guided and advised. In the past, much of our effort has been directed necessarily at evident immediate evil, to remedy specific instances of abuse and in- justice. We shall continue that work, even with reinforced vigor. We feel that this task is essential to our program. But we realize that we should go farther and deeper ; we must go to the roots of things. In any final program, evils have to be attacked at their source. Therefore, we have determined upon certain lines of action. From one viewpoint, our most pressing problem is that of the dis- tribution of immigrants. If possible, we must prevent the further overcrowding of over-congested slums ; we must try to direct immi- gration to the rural districts and to the farms, for then the economic stability, both of ourselves and of the foreigner, is assured, and as- similation becomes an easier task. Profiting by Eastern experience, we know that in this matter of distribution, a force from behind will not avail ; the immigrant pushed out will not stay put. Rather should he be attracted to a certain environment. This appears a serious mat- ter when we contemplate the readiness with which our own people desert the farm for the town, and leave the town for the city. Today, the city does offer attractions that the country lacks real attractions, such as those of education, which, for many an immigrant, form the prime motive driving him to our shores. Today the country displays many a handicap to prevent profitable settlement upon the land. Therefore, we are projecting a thorough-going investigation into th& land-holding situation within our State, to arrive, if possible, at some practical solution. Therefore, we are examining the factors that make the country backward as compared with the city, in the hope that ultimately we may be able to present to the State some intelligent program. Cooperating with the State Board of Education, we hope to develop a course of action that will make our schools, both city and rural, more attractive and more useful to our foreign-born popu- lation, child and adult. Merely to summarize : I have tried to justify the State's entering into this immigration business on the ground (1) that we are showing 67 no special favors to the alien, but are merely striving, by removing, certain natural handicaps, to place him upon a basis of equality of opportunity; (2) that by protecting him from exploitation and by putting him in the way of getting better educational, social and eco- nomic advantages we are but working towards our own security and welfare; and (3) that we are developing certain racial and personal talents which will accrue to our own advantage. Then I pointed out the need of a domestic immigration policy, whether we regulate the influx or maintain the open gate. Such a domestic policy is selective in its influence upon future immigration. While aimed to solve the problems of immigration, it tones up our whole social, economic and educational status. Finally, I stated certain working policies we have developed : ( 1 ) We cooperate with other agencies, public and private, our aim being to do nothing we can get anyone else to do. (2) We do not wait for our tasks, but rather go out after business. (3) We point out exist- ing evils, but make constructive suggestions for their reform. (4) We attend to the problems at hand, but aim to get at the roots of things, and to remedy evils at their source. To what degree we have succeeded in our task, you may judge for yourselves from the account of our nineteen months' work, which will now be given you by our executive officer, Mr. Bell. The Work of the California State Commission of Immigration and Housing By George L. Bell, Attorney and Executive Officer. The President of the California Commission of Immigration and Housing, Air. Simon J. Lubin, has outlined the policies of the Com- mission and has discussed the underlying, abstract principles of the duty of the state to the immigrant. It is not my intention, therefore, to seek justification for the creation of the Commission. Leaving such questions aside, I wish to merely render a brief account of the actual accomplishments of the Commission. Some seven months ago the Commission printed a full and de- tailed report of its activities to date, and those who are interested will find that report much more valuable than anything I may outline in the few moments available. Copies of this report will be mailed free on request to the office of the Commission, No. 215 Underwood Build- ing, San Francisco. The Commission of Immigration and Housing of California was created by an act of the Legislature in 1913. The Commission was 68 not appointed and organized until October, 1913, and offices were not opened until December 15, 1913. Therefore, the active work has covered a period of only some 19 or 20 months. As has been pointed out. the Commission was created to expedite the assimilation and distribution of immigrants. This was the primary object, but in addi- tion the Commission was authorized to investigate and study the housing conditions of the state. A broad field of activities was out- lined in the organic act, and discretion was left in the Commission to select certain lines of work and eliminate others. The Commissioners serve without any compensation, not even receiving a per diem, but merely their travelling expenses. It is their task to formulate policies and map out definite fields of work for the staff of employees. During the month of December, 1913, the Commission employed special investigators to make preliminary surveys of general immi- gration and housing conditions, in order that it might find the pro- portionate size of its different tasks, and place the emphasis accord- ingly. With reference to housing, these preliminary surveys covered the tenements, cheap hotels and lodging houses of San Francisco. Enough of evil conditions were discovered to make it imperative that the Commission undertake a definite campaign to arouse the city au- thorities to a realization of the bad housing situation. Later on, in chronological order, the housing work in San Francisco and other cities will be described. Other preliminary surveys proved that the Commission would have to give serious attention to the education and naturalization of immigrants. It was found that California generally is careless in its citizen making. Therefore, from the very beginning, the Commission has been quietly and carefully working out a program of immigrant education. This program it will soon announce and put into effect with the cooperation of state and local educational authorities. A brief observation of police and other courts, and general invest- igations in the foreign colonies sufficed to show that immigrants are exploited at every turn. Consequently, plans were laid for the open- ing of a regular complaint department for the receiving and handling of complaints. The result of this work will also be told in chrono- logical order. I am going carefully through the formulative period of the work so that you may realize the peculiar difficulties encountered in working out a domestic immigration policy, and so that you may ap- preciate the fact that the Commission did not go blindly or arbitrarily into any particular field of work. In the midst of these preliminary surveys the Commission was plunged, almost unwittingly, into what was destined to be one of its most important works that of labor camp sanitation. Realizing that thousands of immigrants are scattered throughout the labor camps of 69 the State, the Legislature had authorized the Commission to "inspect all labor camps within the state." Although it had been planned to inspect labor camps during the summer season, the Commission was drawn into this work early in January, 1914, during the course of its investigations into the economic and social causes leading up to the now famous Hop- Fields' Riot at Wheatland on August 3, 1913. Approximately one half of the two thousand or more hop pickers then employed on the Durst Bros, ranch were immigrants, so there was ample cause for this investigation. The Commission's report on the condition in the hop fields has received wide publicity and this audience is undoubtedly familiar with it. It is not necessary to go into the details of the truly horrible, unsanitary living conditions, which existed on this ranch and which contributed not a little to the resentment and subsequent riots. Further investigations indicated that the conditions which had obtained in the hop-fields were in no way peculiar to that particular sort of labor camp. In fact it was found that the bad housing and unsanitary conditions in most of our labor camps would put a city slum to shame! The Commission decided that such conditions were a menace to the state and entirely unnecessary. The State Board of Health was charged with the enforcement of a weak and indefinite law governing the sanitation of labor camps, but that Board had no funds for this work. Consequently, this Commission was deputized by the State Board of Health to undertake the enforcement of this law. A sanitary engineer was immediately employed and an experiment in model camp making carried out in a state camp on the state highway. Having acquired this practical knowledge the Commission compiled a text or pamphlet on labor sanitation. Eminent sanitary engineers and health authorities assisted in the editing of this pamphlet and it has been pronounced to be the last word on the subject. The pamphlet contains detailed drawings, specifications and bills of materials for the con- struction of bunk houses, dining tents, kitchens, toilets, shower baths and garbage incinerators, and is couched in such simple language that the most ordinary carpenter can erect a model camp by merely follow- ing the pamphlet. The tone of the text is purely advisory and the aim is to educate the employer and the employee. Armed with this pamphlet, inspectors, under the supervision of a sanitary engineer, were sent into the field in the spring of 1914. The first accomplishment was the complete renovation of the hop pickers camp on the Durst ranch. A camp was maintained on that ranch in 1914, which was up to the finest model of military camps. In all in- stances the inspectors aided the owners in erecting model camps and there was no display of vulgar authority. The reports of the in- spectors were carefully gone over at the central office and letters of in- 70 struction sent out. As a consequence the active cooperation of the employers was secured ; there were no controversies ; no prosecutions were necessary, and practically every camp visited was improved, and the majority brought up to the minimum standard of sanitation. The Legislature of 1915 amended the labor camp law, making it somewhat stronger, and entrusting the enforcement to the Commission of Immigration and Housing. Consequently the work is now being carried on with renewed vigor. Up to date the Commission has in- spected 999 labor camps, housing 69,097 persons. The report blanks rilled out by the inspectors were carefully prepared to gather statistics concerning the migratory workers employed in these camps, and these statistics will undoubtedly throw considerable light on the problem of the migratory worker and the general problem on unem- ployment. Tabulations of the statistics gathered in the 876 camps in- spected up to November 1, 1914, disclose some interesting facts. The tables are given in full in the annual report. I will mention only a few striking facts : Of the workers employed in these camps, 50.7 per cent were im- migrant aliens. 49.3 per cent were American born and naturalized immigrants. Therefore, in improving labor camp conditions, the Com- mission has not only protected immigrants but has guarded against the much feared lowering of living standards by races more careless than others in this regard. Of the 30,020 laborers concerning whom data as to skill was ob- tainable. 22,560 were unskilled and only 7,460 were skilled. \Yith regard to sanitary features : 353 out of 876 camps had no baths, 114 camps had no toilets, 364 had filthy toilets; garbage was strewn about the camp in 220 camps. 595 camps have been reinspected. Tabulations have been made of 228 of these reports. 72.3 per cent of the camps have been brought up to at least the minimum standard, and 77.1 per cent have carried out some one or more of the Commission's suggestions. The next field into which the Commission entered was that of protecting immigrants from exploitation. As I have stated, the Com- mission found early in its investigations the need of an office to which immigrants could come with their complaints and receive sympathetic treatment and secure justice. In April, 1914, such an office was opened in San Francisco. Posters were printed in twelve languages, informing immigrants that the Commission desired them to bring to its office their stories of exploitation, injustice and wrongs of every kind. The city .was placarded with these posters. An attorney was put at the head of this department, and an expert interpreter employed. In every case brought to the office investigators examine all witnesses of both the complainant and the defendant and in most cases an 71 informal hearing is conducted with all parties present, and settlements or adjustments are reached in nearly every case. Besides handling cases brought to the office, independent investi- gations into fraudulent schemes are conducted by the investigators, and the Commission found that it had to branch out over the state to reach the large migratory class of immigrants. Consequently, a branch office has been established in Sacramento and the posters have been scattered throughout the state. Up to August 11, 1915, 5091 cases have been handled by this de- partment. Tables in the annual report show the nature of these com- plaints in detail, and their disposition. In many instances it has been discovered that actual crimes have been committed and the Commis- sion has instituted some nineteen criminal proceedings, acting through its attorney and special prosecutor. These prosecutions have tended to discourage the professional immigrant exploiters and they have done much to make district attorneys and other officials appreciate the peculiar problems and difficulties of the immigrant, whose complaints they were formerly wont to summarily dismiss. The thousands of cases other than criminal are not so full of dramatic interest, but by settling them the Commission secured con- crete justice for the wronged individuals, and has thereby increased or restored the faith of thousands of immigrants in our American institutions. To give some conception of the nature of these com- plaints I wish to briefly outline a typical land fraud case. These are most common and are the most serious cases brought to our attention. There is probably no state where one hears more of the "back-to-the- land" movement than in California, and there is certainly no state where more is done to discourage and actually defraud the man who seeks to leave the city and go back to the land ! The following is a typical case of land fraud : An ignorant Slavonian while residing in the State of Washington, received a letter from a real estate company in San Francisco. The letter stated that the company- understood that this man was a leader in the Slavonian colony and that, in view of that fact, they were sending an agent to call upon him with an attractive offer of a fine city lot for $27.50. It was explained that this offer was made in order that he, as a famous man, might aid in ad- vertising the company. Later, the agent called, as promised, and represented to the Slavonian that the lot offered for sale was in a suburb of San Francisco, twenty minutes from the center of the city and on a five cent car fare line. It was represented that the streets were laid out and paved. 72 The fare to San Francisco from Washington was more than $27.50, so that the Slavonian decided to pay without going to see the land. Upon investigation, the Commission found that this com- pany has sold lots to nearly 100 immigrants and to as many American citizens. The prices varied from $27.50 to $250.00. Two agents of the Commission were used as de- tectives to investigate the case. When they called upon the company and pretended to be hunting jobs as salesmen, the manager frankly stated the scheme was fraudulent ; that if people saw the land they would never buy it. These agents tricked the manager of the company into sending statements of this nature, as well as other fraudulent statements, through the mail. The land was investigated and found to be an unsur- veyed tract in the hills two hours distant from San Fran- cisco ; the railroad fare is 75c for round trip. The Commis- sion sent out letters to all purchasers and thus succeeded in obtaining over forty fraudulent letters mailed out by the company to innocent purchasers. The case was taken up with the Federal postoffice au- thorities and all the members of the company were arrested charged with using the mails to defraud. They were held guilty by the committing magistrate and are now awaiting trial. In the field of housing the Commission has accomplished some tangible results and has laid the foundation for a general housing re- form movement throughout the state. One or two inspectors have been constantly employed making general and intensive surveys of the housing conditions in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Fresno, Bakersfield, Stockton and Oakland. It has been discovered that the existing tenement and lodging house laws are not enforced at all in some cities, and laxly enforced in others ; that local housing ordinances are weak and never enforced; that the real housing pro- blems is to be found in the single dwellings and shacks, and that no state or local law governs that class of buildings. Reports of the investigations have been given publicly and some good has resulted. The Commission was instrumental in having two tenement house in- spectors appointed in San Francisco, where there had been no attempt to enforce the law. In Sacramento two desperate attempts were made to secure the passage of a local ordinance to deal with the single dwelling problem which is serious. The Commission was not good enough at politics to succeed, but undoubtedly the newspaper publicity awakened the public conscience somewhat. In the other cities the 73 Commission has cooperated with the local health authorities in calling violations of the housing laws to their attention. The Commission made an unsuccessful attempt to have the in- adequate state hotel and lodging house law amended and to have a state law enacted to regulate single dwellings. But it was successful in having the state Tenement House Law amended so as to give this Commission power to enforce the law where the local authorities fail to do so. In the way of future accomplishments, tentative arrangements have been made with several cities to institute a housing conference to be made up of city and state delegates. - This conference will meet at regular intervals during the next eighteen months and draft a com- plete housing code or law for the State. The reports of the Com- mission on the conditions in the various cities will be used as a basis for working out the new law, and any recalcitrant city, which claims that it has no bad conditions and needs no law, can be brought to time by the publication of these reports. In fact we can indulge in a highly cultivated form of blackmail. In order to visualize the housing problem and to arouse the people generally to an appreciation of its seriousness, a complete housing ex- hibit has been assembled. In this exhibit is shown not only the bad housing conditions prevailing in this state, but also the good housing conditions here and elsewhere. Photographs and figures have been carefully collected in the East and in Europe which illustrate the ad- vantages and praticability of good housing. Likewise, an exhibit showing good and bad conditions in labor camps have been added to this. These exhibits will be taken from town to town and used in connection with lectures to inspire the people generally to demand better legislation and stricter enforcement. Moreover it will be used in an attempt to encourage the cities to establish city planning com- missions under the new law, and to make some provision for planning ahead for better housing. It is the hope of the Commission that it can go into the very fundamentals of housing and develop prevention rather than correction. The work of the Commission which I have described so far, has been concerned more with the environment of the immigrant than with the immigrant himself. But the Commission has not failed to appre- ciate the importance of educating and developing the immigrant. It realizes that perhaps the most constructive feature of the task of bringing about immigrant assimilation is to be found in the general education of immigrants. But the problem of educating adult immi- grants is a large one, involving numerous technical educational details which require careful study; therefore, the Commission has refrained 74 from advocating hastily planned systems or schemes. In the course of the work in the labor camps and elsewhere, valuable statistics con- cerning the educational needs of immigrants have been collected, and after a year of study the Commission is now ready to launch a definite program for citizenship training and general education of immigrants. The support of the State Board of Education in carrying out this pro- gram has already been pledged, and the Federated Womens Clubs of the State have agreed to throw their whole strength into the move- ment. Pamphlets will soon be published and a regular campaign in- stituted throughout the State to compel action in this important and long neglected field. Only one definite educational plan has been crystalized by the Com- mission, and that is in the form of a law providing for home teachers. This law was draughted by the Commission and passed by the recent Legislature. The immigrant mother who does not speak English is even more i helpless than the man, for even his failures give him education and slowly help him to adjust himself to the new life. With the woman in , her home there are few points of contact with educational opportunity. ! The Americanization of the children in the public schools often adds to her difficulties. The child takes command of the home and becomes ashamed of the mother. By statistics it was found that this is adding to delinquency and filling the juvenile courts. The quickest and surest way of dealing with the problem is by educating the mother in our language, our laws and our standards of living. For this purpose it is necessary to provide visiting teachers who will, as rapidly as possible, connect these mothers with the public schools and our civic life, and the new law provides for such teachers. There is much else of a miscellaneous nature that the Commission has done which we cannot take up here in detail. I wish to refer briefly to only two other definite accomplishments legislation draught- ed by the Commission, and the investigations and reports on unem- ployment. The amendments of the labor camp sanitation and tenement house laws, and the enactment of the home teacher law have already been referred to. Two other laws draughted by the Commission were also passed by the 1915 Legislature. One provides for the establishment of "zones" on docks where immigrants are landed, such "zones" to be under the control of this Commission, and only such persons as have permits from the Commission will be allowed to enter this ter- ritory. In this way it is hoped to keep the professional immigrant ex- ploiter away from his prey. The other law is a special code provision covering fraudulent land sales and making it a criminal offense to 75 make or publish an untrue or misleading statement concerning real estate. The Commission plans to cooperate with local officials in en- forcing this law, and so hopes to discourage land fraud and encourage the "back-to-the-land" movement. Finally I would call your attention to the efforts made by the Com- mission to carry out the following directions contained in Section 5 of the organic act : "The Commission shall devise and carry out such suitable methods as will tend to prevent or relieve congestion and obviate unemployment." The problem of immigration, in its most fundamental aspect, is almost identical with that of employment and its corollary, unemployment. Therefore, the general work and investi- gations of the Commission threw many sidelights upon the unemploy- ment question. But separate and entirely distinct investigations into this problem were begun in February, 1914, at the request of the Governor. The United States Commission on Industrial Relations requested this Commission to act as its agent in these investigations, and con- tributed a generous amount to defray the expenses of the work. In December, 1914, the report of these investigations was made to the Governor and certain recommendations were embodied therein. This report has been printed and copies can be obtained by applying to the office of the Commission. Some of the recommendations were en- dorsed by the Governor and acted upon by the Legislature. During the past winter the Commission was also directed by the Governor to represent the State in attempting to meet the more imme- diate unemployment problem that of relief for the destitute un- employed. The state could not furnish direct aid or relief, there- fore, the Commission devoted its energies to devising a plan of relief for cities, and to encouraging the local governments to adopt this uniform plan. The cities responded well and the benefits of uniformity of action have been acknowledged. A short report of this particular work has been printed and we shall gladly send copies free upon request. In conclusion, I trust you will not pass final judgment upon the Commission and its work until after you have carefully read its various reports. This short resume is meant to arouse interest only, and we invite your inquiries concerning the details of our work. 76 The Literary Test B\ Hon. }[ 7 illiam Kent, Member of the House of Representatives from California. Note. Due to the pressure of official business, Mr. Kent was unable to discuss the literacy test at the Congress. The following- address delivered in Washington expresses his views on the sub.iect. Mr. Kent. If it were possible to select immigrants in the line of the most enlightened policy, I should favor selecting them from na- tions that are most likely to blend in with our social system and to ap- preciate our democratic ideals people whose history has shown them to be inherently capable of self-government. Personally, I should vastly prefer, as an immigrant, an illiterate from one of these nations^ to the best educated Hindoo or Turk this, as a national matter and not on the ground of any personal prejudice. But as one means of curbing the introduction of more immigrants than our national digestion can assimilate, I shall gladly vote for the literacy test. There is one argument for this test that justifies its ap- plication. It is the ignorance of our foreign immigrants that has been chiefly responsible for their exploitation. Those capable of passing a literacy test would be less likely to lie down under the conditions that have been shown to exist in some of our centers of hothouse industry. Another point was raised here about the influence of immigrants on the cost of living. , There, is no question in the world but what the bad distribution of population, especially the increase in the cities, is largely responsible for the increased cost of food. There are too \>- many peo^le__eating^ancl too few people producing food. Inasmuch^ as a vast proportion of our immigration lodges in the cities, those immigrants certainly have a great influence on the cost of living as found in the prices of food. The tremendous and ultimate importance of the food supply is shown in the history of the ancient city nations which went to pieces from the fact of their being forced to seek food supplies by war, to introduce oppression and slavery that overgrown cities might be fed. Mr. Kent. I can not for a moment indorse the exemption proposed in this bill, which provides that those fleeing from religious persecu- tion shall not be subject to a literacy test. It is illogical and inherently contrary to good public policy. We are either legislating for foreigners or for our own country. It is fair to assume that we are true to our oaths of office and are legislating for this Nation. We are proposing a test that is supposedly for our own interest. If a person under this test is unfit for admission to this country, or if, to put it more mildly, we do not believe it good public policy to admit such a person, it is 77 hard to understand why one who has failed to pass the literacy test should be rendered available for admission by the mere fact of having been subject to religious persecution. Either in this particular case we are not exercising our function of legislating for our own country, but rather in the interests of certain foreigners, or else religious per- secution must produce civic effects of which we have as up-to-date remained in ignorance. It is more than probable under such an ex- emption as is here proposed, that thousands upon thousands of Turks would knock at our doors, claiming right to admission on the ground of religious persecution by the victorious Servians, Bulgarians, Greeks, and Montenegrins. It is also highly probable that many thousands of Turks will cross over into Asia Minor and there will proceed to com- 'mit new atrocities upon the Armenians, who will have an added reason for demanding admission to our country on the ground of being sub- ject to religious persecution. Xo amount of oratory, no amount of appeal to the early history of our country, can overcome the cold logic of this proposition. It seems to me impossible that any person can, in calm judgment, pretend that'j" religious persecution of itself can render eligible for admission to the privileges of this Nation, those found by other tests to be unfit. Immigration Bill February 2, 1914. The House in Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union had under consideration the bill (H. R. 6060) to regulate the immigration of aliens to, and the residence of aliens in the United States, and for other purposes. We in this country have a choice of two things. We can either act as a lighthouse or as a dumping ground. We can either work out the problem of democracy amongst the fit or we can say that we are willing to be flooded by the world and take our chances in the great world struggle. We can not digest all population that may come to .this country under a policy of unrestricted immigration. We can not ac- cept the dogma of the orthodox socialist, that every man has a right to go anywhere on the face of the earth that he chooses and there settle. We who are here owe our democracy to selected races. We owe our democracy to races that have long struggled for constitutional liberty and who knows what it means. Therefore I say that, in my opinion at least, it is necessary that we carefully select our citizenship. It is, more than that, necessary for democracy that all of the people who are in our country, whatever their avocations may be, should be a part of the electorate. We do not want a man who does not vote 78 to dig sewers and lay track, to black shoes, or to perform any other service, high or low. Our duty today is to see to it that the work that is called dirty work is made sufficiently dignified work for our children to perform. We know perfectly well that the resources of the world are not inex- haustible. There was a time not long ago when our people believed that the timber resources of this country were inexhaustible, and so we slaughtered and murdered our timber, and we are now coming to the end of that resource. It is just as idle to say that the land of this country is inexhaustible. We know perfectly well that the best land has already been taken up. We know perfectly well that if we become as thickly populated as some of the old countries we will have misery at our doors and lack of food and will be struggling for existence. Until we go ahead and by scienti- fic investigation find out better means of intensive agriculture, find out better means of supplying food to our people, find out better means of distribution among our people, find out where they can work more pro- fitably, where they can work under better circumstances, we had better cut off this immigration in every way in our power. I for my part would \ like immigration stopped until we can settle our own struggles amongst / ourselves and create better conditions for the people now within our borders. That not being feasible, we must look to some means of restriction, and in this literacy test I can see a means which, although not perfect, it is easy to argue against on sentimental grounds, yet at the same time has much to commend it. The people in our country who are most exploited, who are most abused, who furnish the most horrible example of what democracy ought not to be, are the people who from lack of education are most easily subject to oppression, and there- fore, pending other and better measures, pending a bill that might be all wise, I stand for this literacy test, knowing that it is not complete, knowing all the arguments that can be made against it, having great sympathy with those who stand against it. At the same time, in the interest of all our people, I believe that this is about as good a test as has been suggested, and I believe that it is one that at the present time we would do well to adopt. Report of Committee on Resolutions Whereas, There is being created a new Orient equipped with the machinery and ideas of modern civilization and alert to the demands of the modern world, and 79 Whereas, There has existed and still exists between the United States and all the nations of the Orient a deep and abiding feeling of good will and neighborliness, and Whereas, It is the evident desire of all good Americans to per- petuate the present state of amity and good understanding through a just treatment of all races, therefore be it Resolved, That this International Immigration Congress urge upon Congress and upon the people of the United States, the importance of adopting an Oriental policy, the fundamental principle of which shall be the just and equitable treatment of all races, and to this end suggest that the entire immigration problem be taken up at an early date, providing for comprehensive legislation covering all phases of the question (such as the limitation of immigration and the registration, distribution, employment, education, and naturalization of immigrants), in such a way as to conserve American institutions ; to protect Amer- ican labor from dangerous economic competition and to promote an intelligent and enduring friendliness among the peoples of all nations. Whereas, The new conditions, arising from the changed order due to the present war, will require a thorough reconsideration of the sub- ject of immigration and the data pertaining thereto, be it Resolved, That we urge upon the Federal Government the necessity of an International conference of the officials of different Nations as soon as feasible to consider the whole subject of immigration. Resolved, That this Congress endorse the action of the Federal Bureau of Immigration in ordering that all women held on warrant charges shall be placed in the custody of women officers, and placed in institutions, preferably of their own religion and nationality, in- stead of in the jail, pending trial, and that we express our apprecia- tion of this effort on the part of the officers in humanizing the law in dealing with this class. Resolved, That we believe that the conference which is being con- ducted by the Federal immigration officials in this city, dealing with the questions of employment and immigration, will be of great value in coordinating the activities of the Federal Government with those of the state and municipality, and we express our appreciation to Secretary of Labor Wilson, and to Commissioner-General Caminetti, for having arranged for this conference. DR. H. H. GUY, PROF. G. S. SUMNER, DR. Y. ICHIHASHI, PROF. IRA B. CROSS, MR. T. K. II WAN.;. 80 WW, OVERDUE.