and economic importance. This fact arouses in the breasts of the Californians the fear of losing control of the state, and makes the cry "California for Californians" a strong rallying point. To be sure, only 70,000 Japanese would not have aroused the clamor of the Californians had they been scattered or dispersed within a wider area or placed in such a cosmopolitan city as New York. Their settlement within the thinly peopled regions of California tends to not only germinate unnec essary clamor and economic conflict, but to magnify the nature of the problem in the eyes of the native population.

Moreover, Japanese are very prone to retain their native customs and traditions and language, which, combined with their habits of their grouping together, result in the appearance of some Japanese towns and communities. The phenomenon of grouping together of the same race with the same language, same customs, same amusements, is not, as you know, limited to the Japanese. You see it among the Italians and among the Jews and other European immigrants. But the Japanese feature becomes accentuated because of the marked difference in race, customs, and language. Suppose, for instance, an American colony 3,000 strong, with their churches and schools, their dance and music halls, their Barnum & Bailey's and other paraphernalia of American civilization [laughter], was planted and established in the vicinity of Kioto or of Tokyo. It is not difficult to imagine what kind of reception they would receive at the hands of the native communities. Unless this psychology is thoroughly grasped by the Japanese residents in California, and drastic measures are taken to remove the cause of that trouble, I am afraid the clamor of the Californians will not be downed. The Toyko government also has been rather slow to take measures to disarm the agitation of the Californians who fashioned such a discrimi natory law as was adopted on November 2 of last year.

The Land Law was once passed by the Japanese Diet in 1910, but it has not been promulgated by the Emperor, because of severe criticisms of its provisions by foreigners. As the case stands to-day, foreigners can own land in Japan in these ways: First, they can lease land at convenient times, which leases are renewable at will of the lessee. In the second place, the superficial title may be secured. The term current is for nine hundred and ninety-nine years, which is sufficient for one man [laughter]. In the third place, Americans can form corporations with the purpose of owning land. These corporations are juridical trustees, just as Japanese are. So that these three ways make the possession of land about as effectual as the fee simple would do. But what is wanted is to put on the statute books the land law which grants ownership of land in Japan, and its territories, to foreigners. I think that liberal law which is already introduced in the present session of the Diet will be voted, during this session. However, the Japanese Government has been too slow in going about it.

I have been reviling my own fellow-countrymen, and now I am coming a little more to the very point. I think much of the Californian agitation I said, "I think," but I have no doubt much of it is engendered by politicians, who have their own axe to grind. I have no

heart to pry into the secret of their motives. Many of the accusations or charges made against the Japanese are behind the times or they rest upon false premises. First, that the Japanese work for low wages. This is already exploded. As a matter of fact, the Japanese farm laborers receive higher wages in certain instances than the American laborers. In these instances, and they are not rare, the Japanese laborers are paid from $4.50 to $5.00, whereas the American laborers are paid from $3.50 to $4.00. Why? The main reason is due to the fact that the Japanese can do certain farm work, as, for instance, picking berries, and they are more efficient. In the second place, that the Japanese standard of living is lower than the American standard. This also needs careful scrutiny. This assertion was no doubt made long ago, but you cannot be quite sure of it to-day. So far as the diet of the Japanese is concerned, it may be different in kind from what the American farmers eat, but I can attest to the fact that the Japanese dinner is by no means less costly than the American dinners, for I eat both [laughter]. And there is no more liberal spender than the Japanese youth. He has in fact rather too much weakness for making display. He rather wants to ride in a Cadillac or a Pierce-Arrow instead of being contented with the creation of Henry Ford [laughter].

In one item alone, namely, dwellings, the Japanese dwelling cannot stand any comparison with the elegant and comfortable home of the American. But the reason is not far to see; Japanese farmers are uncertain of their future. Hence they have no incentive to build elegant homes.

In the third place, that the Japanese work too hard. That may be true and it may be they come into competition with the American farmer, but it would be rather rough on the Japanese to blame him for his industry.

It is said that the Japanese are headstrong and cocky, but this charge usually comes from those who find it easy to see beams in others' eyes while they are unmindful of their own. I am the first, my friends, to confess the many shortcomings and frailties of the Japanese, and admit that there are among them as many rascals and crooks and sharks as you will find elsewhere. As a rule, Japanese people are good-natured, simple-minded, chivalrous and high-minded people, ready to forget the wrong they have suffered and susceptible to the promptings and noble aspirations.

And in the last place, it is said that the Japanese are buying the best land in California. Now, my friends, this is not true. As a matter of fact, most of the land that the Japanese have purchased was at first wholly unfit for cultivation, or of the poorest quality, and only by dint of patience has it been converted into productive soil. Many thrilling stories are told of the enterprise and industry and patience of the Japanese engaged in this work, and that after failure and failure they have succeeded. What the people of California say is true, that they have reclaimed swamps, that they have rehabilitated old and abandoned ranches, and that they have reduced the prices of vegetables and necessary food, and they have grown an abundance in place of scarcity. In

the dining room upstairs Dr. Bronson of California dwelt upon one point. The anxiety of the Californians lies of course in the increase of the Japanese. Manifestly, the tendency heretofore has been toward the great increase. During the last decade they have increased 69 per cent. But I will tell you, my friends, that there are special causes for this marked increase during the last decade. In the first place, over 15,000 wives have joined their husbands, and 20,000 children have been born, and the remarkable growth of American Japanese trade during the war time, with which you are more conversant than I am, has brought a large number of Japanese business men and clerks to this country. Then, again, the high birth rate, which is in fact so high as to lend color to the scare of the Californians, that the white population will be overwhelmed by the yellow population in due time, is unwarranted, because it is certain that this higher rate will decrease. It is the first people I believe that Congressional investigation has shown concerning immigrants, that when they settle in a new land they naturally increase in the first period, and furthermore there is especial cause of that great productivity of the Japanese of the present day. Why? Because the Japanese immigrants to-day a large majority of them are between fourteen and fortyfour. The fourteen-year-old boy cannot have a child yet, but from 1902 to 1911 that percentage held, so that that percentage of the Japanese of the present day are at the stage of greatest productivity. Consequently, if immigration is strictly prohibited and normal conditions are maintained among the Japanese, the birth rate among them I am sure will hold at about the same rate that is maintained among the white population, and the enterprising, resourceful Californians are not to become scared or become panicky about the presence of one Japanese to every fifty of them.

Then, coming to the agricultural lands of California, Governor Stevens some of you may have read his report stated that there are in California over 28,000,000 acres of arable land, of which the Japanese own 74,000 acres and lease 384,000 acres. This is to say that the Japanese own one acre to every 376 acres, and lease one to every 72 acres of arable land. But you must remember that there are over 16,000,000 acres of land which are still left uncultivated in California. It is therefore unseemly for them to grumble about the utilization of a small portion of the waste land by the Japanese for productive purposes.

The Governor, again, says that the value of California's agricultural products was, in 1919, about $403,000,000. To this sum the Japanese contributed $67,000,000, which is equal to 13 per cent. There is one point which you must note, that there is a clear line of demarcation in the farming of the Japanese and the American farmers. While the Japanese monopolize from 80 to 90 per cent of the berries, asparagus, or what you call "garden truck" products, the American farmers monopolize the entire production of grain and hay and produce, from 80 to 90 per cent of potatoes and fruit, and nuts. Now, the products in which the Japanese are most strong are those products which the American farmers cannot advantageously produce, for the simple reason that their cultivation and gathering requires the squatting position to

which the Japanese are accustomed, but it would be torture to an American farmer, and even to you, I presume [laughter]. Consequently these industries are bound to be either wrecked or suffer greatly where the Japanese farmers are driven from the soil. Yet, in view of these plain facts, Californian agitators consider it injustice and would wring from the Japanese farmers these agricultural achievements.

The bill which was voted on in California last November 2 aims to prohibit the owning of land by the Japanese, second to prohibit the leasing of land by the Japanese, and third to prohibit the owning of property by Japanese minors who are American citizens by virtue of birth under the guardianship of their parents. In other words, to deprive the Japanese parents of the natural right to supervise and oversee their minor sons and daughters, in respect to the owning of real property, and in the first place to escheat to the state real property under certain prima facie presumptions, and finally to prohibit the Japanese from taking any interest whatever in any corporation or company that has to do with the owning of land. The drastic nature of the legislation is too apparent to be referred to. I will restrain myself from dwelling upon the injustice of that law which put, by implied language, the stamp of discrimination upon the head of the Japanese, and leave to the constitutional lawyers to elucidate whether this legislation does not violate the American Constitution in depriving certain residents who have been admitted here, from the equal protection of the law and the guaranty of that sacred document.

It is up to the Japanese Government to lay before the federal Government a formal protest of the legislation doubtless infringing upon the American-Japanese treaty of 1911 by invalidating the most favored nation clause contained in that treaty, in depriving or in denying Japanese nationals the enjoyment of privileges and rights which are accorded to other aliens. But, my friends, these legal disputes or diplomatic disputes will not settle this vexing question. I therefore leave to the legal experts and proper authorities this legal aspect, but I would rather say that the law is unwise and is futile.

It is unwise because if it accomplishes its object the Californians will be deprived of many delicacies which they are enjoying to-day, and moreover they will have to pay the penalty of their folly by the increased cost of living. They may gain some small end by this legislation, but they will put in jeopardy larger matters of greater importance than value. It is futile, gentlemen, because the law can be evaded by legal subterfuge which Governor Stevens himself confesses that the state cannot counteract, and, my friends, California has no lack of lawyers who are resourceful and ready enough to teach the Japanese the technical way of evading the law [laughter].

By this measure of persecution, therefore, the Californians are driving the Japanese to become a race of hypocrites and law-breakers, or to entertain in their breasts the bitter feelings of resentment born in the sense of injustice inflicted on them.

I have therefore the temerity to contend that a more liberal and wiser policy would prove in the long run a shorter way of solving this

perplexing question. Especially do I take issue with those who want to pile great humiliation upon the heads of the Japanese nation by enacting an exclusion law, and who want to deprive American citizens of Japanese blood from the right of citizenship which has been granted to them by the Constitution. This distinction rests upon the thesis that the Japanese are unassimilable, which is a presumption sustained neither by history nor Japanese psychology. Let me explain a little.

One fact that stands out in bold letters on the pages of Japanese history is her susceptibility to foreign ways and thoughts. The Japanese people are always perfectly willing to adopt and assimilate everything good that an alien country has to offer. Centuries ago they became familiar with the Chinese civilization, and adopted the Hindoo philosophy. Later they discovered that the Occident was a greater danger than were her Oriental neighbors and she hastened to learn everything that America, England, France, Germany, and Russia had to teach. How successful has been that work! How complete the transformation! What ideas or thoughts that are worthy of consideration in the Occident, what application of advancements that are essential to human welfare do you find neglected or not accepted by Japan? You have seen in two cases a monarchy replaced by a public régime, and the people not only controlling their own government, but profoundly impressed with the spirit of democracy, installing extensive public schools and educational systems. And so you see her universities turning out students capable of original research in Occidental countries; laws prepared under the most sound principles of jurisprudence; justice administered properly by an educated judiciary; her army and navy capable of upholding its honor, dignity, and rights; the people provided with an ample supply of periodicals, newspapers, and books; with mills and factories dotting the land, with places of amusement, movies and other social entertainments, their homes and mode of life immeasurably better. I might go on and on. This wonderful metamorphosis which Japan has undergone in the past fifty years is to me the concluding argument that her people are able or are assimilable to American ways and thoughts. Nor is Japanese psychology out of joint with American psychology. Both have more points of resemblance than of difference; both are immensely practicable people; but at the same time they are extremely susceptible to noble aspirations and ideas of sentiment. Both are progressive, both are victims of fad and notions, but they are at the bottom conservative, and are endowed with a plentiful supply of what you call good horse sense, sound common sense.

There are certain characteristics in the Japanese constitution which may seem incompatible with the American temperament. For instance, the too-abundant smile of the Islander, his studied self-restraint, and his inscrutable reticence often prove tantalizing, but to adopt your traits is a far easier job than to adhere to the old conventions. The rising generation is approaching too fast the American methods, and it causes dismay among the elders. The contention that it is impossible for them to assimilate American ideas and fads is too ridiculous to contemplate. You ask, What about the Japanese in California? Well, in the first