WHERE THE PROBLEM DOVETAILS
1
I have come now to the most delicate and most difficult task in the
whole problem, that of the dovetailing of nations. Twice has this phase
of the subject come before us: once when we met it in that welter of
racial experiments, Hawaii and the South Seas in general; and again in
that great outpost of the white race, Australasia. But in the one it is
too localized, and the other too much in anticipation. In Hawaii it is
hard to say which race has justly a prior right to possession; in
Australia the problem is only imminent.
But in California and the entire West the impact of the two races of the
Pacific has taken place. Nothing but a just solution can possibly be any
solution at all. Let me therefore define the problem at the very outset,
lest that which is really irrelevant be expected, or insinuate itself
into the discussion.
Primarily, the problem of Japan in America is not a racial one.
Primarily it is political, and hinges upon the rights of nations.
Secondarily, it is economic, and only in so far as the political and
economic factors are unsolvable can the problem become a racial one, and
terminate in conflict. All attempts at handling the situation which do
not take into consideration these two factors would be like crossing the
stream to get a bucket of water. For nothing can be done without
reciprocity, and reciprocity is the last thing that Japan would ever
consent to, as it involves a transformation in her political philosophy
and the relinquishment of her own position from the very outset. Hence,
before we can even approach the consideration of facts in California, we
must get clearly in mind exactly what Japan is doing within her own
territories. Japan is the appellant. Japan demands that her people be
given free entry the world over. We are not asking her to let our people
enter Japan and her possessions as laborers and agriculturists. Hence,
before she can make her plea at all rational, she must show that she
herself is not discriminating in the identical manner as the one she
objects to.
Now, in only one or two instances have I seen that question emphasized.
In all the literature I have read emanating from Japanese sources, in
the lectures of its propagandists here, I have never seen it faced
fairly and squarely. The actions of Japan are ignored or glossed over.
The protagonists of Japan in California--Americans, mind you--make of it
purely an American issue, as though discrimination were a fault peculiar
to ourselves. Two blacks don't make a white, but neither do two blacks
quarrel with each other for being black.
The questions in the order of their importance then are:
Does Japan permit the free entrance of alien labor?
Does Japan permit the ready purchase by aliens of agricultural land?
Does Japan make the naturalization of aliens easy?
Does Japan permit the denaturalization of its people abroad?
Now, these are all political problems, for the simple reason that the
very economic conditions of Japan make them unnecessary. That is,
Japanese labor is essentially cheap labor, and owing to the great
crowding there would be little likelihood of any great influx of Korean
or Chinese labor were the bars not raised fairly high. And the bars are
high. The number of Koreans admitted is greater largely because Koreans
are now subjects of the mikado, but even they are kept in check by
Japanese objections to their entrance, and conflicts between Japanese
and Koreans are not unknown. Chinese are permitted to enter Japan only
by special permission from the local authorities, as provided for in a
regulation in force since 1899. Forgetting the two hundred and fifty
years during which the doors of Japan were sealed; forgetting that even
after the opening of Japan a foreigner had to obtain a special passport
to travel from Kobe to Kyoto, a distance of forty miles inland;
forgetting all the psychological factors that have by no means broken
down the crust that still closes most of Japan to alien possession or
acquisition, one is still amazed at this discrimination against
fellow-subjects and Chinese, to whom the Japanese are in some essential
way, at least, related.
But let us see what happens to these people when they do get in. Let me
quote a statement in the bulletin of the East and West News Bureau, a
Japanese propaganda agency located in New York.
In Japan proper the Korean laborers are estimated to number about
20,000. Compared with Japanese laborers they are perhaps superior
in point of physical strength, but in practical efficiency they are
no rivals of the latter. They feel that they are handicapped by
strange environments and different customs, which partly account
for their low efficiency. But experienced employers assert that the
Koreans are markedly lazy, and that their work requires overseers,
which naturally results of curtailment of their wages.
According to inquiries by the Osaka police on conditions among
Korean laborers in the city, many of them have been thrown out of
employment on account of the economic depression; that they are
mostly engaged in rough work, such as carrying goods around or
digging holes, etc., as unskilled laborers. It states that they are
indolent and have no interest in work which requires skill and
attention; they are simply contented as cheap laborers.
This quotation is illuminating in many ways. First, it strikes me as
being anything but fair play on the part of Japanese in America to send
out such discriminating and unkind accounts of a people whom they have
now taken in as fellows in an empire, and whom they are "trying to
assimilate." Secondly, it is not quite true, for Japanese manufacturers
are going to Korea with their factories. If Korean laborers are
efficient in Korea, why not in Japan? But the fact of the matter is that
the Japanese, quite naturally, are not going to give the best jobs to
Koreans with their own men round about.
Now let us see what the British Vice-Consul at Osaka has to say of
Japanese labor, in a report to Parliament. Admitting that external
conditions have much to do with the poor quality of the Japanese
workman, and that in time and under better conditions he will improve,
the vice-consul says: "The standard [of intelligence] shown by the
average workman is admittedly low," while some of his sub-captions are:
"Docility," "Apathy," "Cheerfulness," "Lack of Concentration," "Scarcity
of Skilled Labor," and under the caption "Why Wages are Low" he says:
"Labor is plentiful and inefficient."
It is seen, therefore, that the opinion of the vice-consul in the matter
of the Japanese is similar to that of the Japanese in regard to the
Korean; and so it goes. The point in the whole question, to my mind is,
that Japanese discriminate as much against other races as they are
discriminated against. Not until Japan lays low the chauvinistic notions
about the superiority of the most inferior Japanese to the best
foreigner can we expect that other nations will set to work to remove
the obstacles toward a clear understanding.
In America the very reverse is true. No one ever asserts that the
Japanese is inferior to a white man. What is said is that the white man
is essentially an individualist who at maturity starts off in life by
himself, whereas the Japanese is bound by all sorts of notions of
ancestor-worship which submerge him completely in the group.
Furthermore, as a group the Japanese are able to overcome the greatest
odds that any individual can raise against them. The nature of that
group-consciousness will be analyzed in the answer to some of the other
questions.
2
But to return to Japan: That Japan has no occasion for fear of a serious
invasion of aliens is evident from recent figures that show that there
are only 19,500 foreigners there, of whom 12,139 are Chinese, 2,404
Britons, 1,837 Americans, 687 Russians, 641 Germans, and 445 French.
These figures are, however, unreliable, and antedate the Russian
Revolution. However, the question here pertinent is whether any of these
would be permitted to engage in such industries as the Japanese engage
in here; for instance, agriculture. That can be answered in the
negative. The Japanese land law, however generous it may seem from mere
reading of the statutes, does not extend that privilege to foreigners.
The first proviso of the law is that the person desiring to own land in
Japan shall be from a country wherein Japanese are permitted to own
land. In other words, if America does not allow a Japanese to acquire
land, no American can do so in Japan. As it stands, therefore, no
Japanese can complain if American laws make a similar ruling. The second
provision excludes from any and all ownership, in any and all
circumstances, the Hokkaido, Formosa, Karafuto (Sakhalin), or districts
necessary for national defense. Considering that every other inch of
ground is held in plots of two and a half acres per farmer, to whom they
are the beginning and end of subsistence, the privileges innocently
extended are mighty short. The law virtually excludes all right to any
agricultural lands that any foreigner might be able to avail himself of.
There is one kind of real property foreigners do wish to own, and that
is property for business purposes. But they cannot own that, even; they
may only lease it on long leases under conditions that are frequently a
hardship and often enough insecure. They may lease land under the
so-called superficies lease, but that means virtually evading the law,
and is always expensive. Even ordinary leases are frequently encroached
upon, as foreigners in the ports are only too well aware. While I was in
Kobe, Japanese were forcing foreign business firms out of the former
foreign settlement, which fully fifty years of white men's toil had
converted from a worthless bit of beach land into one of the most
up-to-date "suburbs" in the Orient, and which is now the best part of
Kobe. This was done by calling in leases, by making the rents
prohibitive, and by "buying out" foreign lease-holders at almost
exorbitant rates, just as the Japanese buy out white men in California.
One British druggist, Dr. Richardson, sold for $225,000 a corner plot
for which he had paid $12,500. He made a great profit in the deal, but
the process by which he, and others, were bought out is indicative of
the methods of the Japanese. For behind many of the real-estate dealers
was the Government, making loans at most favorable rates of interest
with the sole object of getting back into Japanese control as much of
the port plots as possible,--cost what it might. Even men of lifelong
residence in Japan must form themselves into corporations with their
wives and some Japanese as members, in order to own the land upon which
their residences are built. Some of these cases I investigated for the
"Japan Chronicle" and learned from the priest of the Catholic Church
that pressure was constantly being exerted upon him to make him
relinquish his hold upon the ground on which the church stands, because
it is in the heart of the business section. He said he did not know how
long he would be able to hold out against them.
How corrupt landlords may overstep the bounds is illustrated by a case
reported in the "Chronicle" of February 10, 1921. The editor says:
The notorious Clarke lease suit is a case in point. This was a
lease for twenty-five years, renewable for a further term of
similar duration. A syndicate of Japanese was organized which
purchased the land, knowing of the burdens upon it, with the hope
of worrying the lease-holder either into paying more rent or into
selling the lease for an inadequate sum. Suit after suit was
brought in various names, until at last a court was found to give
judgment raising the rent on the ground that taxes had increased
and the value of surrounding properties had expanded since the
lease was made. In justification of a judgment upholding this
decision, the Osaka Appeal Court declared that there was a local
custom in Kobe which permitted a landlord to raise the rent in
certain circumstances. No evidence was produced in support of this
contention, which was clearly against all contract law and rendered
lease agreements meaningless. The result was that the gang of
speculators who had banded themselves together to despoil a
foreigner were successful. The holder of the lease was forced to
sell and the syndicate profited greatly.
If the argument is raised that you will find bad people everywhere, and
that one cannot take the poorest type of person and set him up as the
example, let us recall the case of the Doshisha University. There,
because of these selfsame land and property laws, The American Board of
Commissioners for Foreign Missions placed the million dollars' worth of
property in the hands of Christian Japanese directors. Presently the
Government brought pressure to bear upon these directors, and they
yielded to their Government. In February, 1898, they virtually ousted
the foreign owners, turned the institution into a secular college, and
saw nothing dishonest nor immoral in the action. Japanese have of course
come to a better understanding of the rights in such cases, nor am I
trying to impugn the integrity of the "better-class" of Japanese. I am
merely bringing evidence to prove that not only are Japanese laws with
regard to the ownership of land by foreigners as discriminatory as those
of California, but their interpretation is a serious handicap to aliens
in Japan.
In America the fight is not to prevent Japanese from taking hold of land
for business purposes, but to prevent them from monopolizing
farming-lands, which, as Mr. Walter Pitkin has shown so clearly in his
book, "Must We Fight Japan?" are rapidly passing out of American hands
because of our vicious shallowness in agrarian matters. I am not as yet
bringing up the question of fairness, justice, generosity, or the rights
of over-crowded Japan. I am merely making parallels which seem to me
telling.
3
Does Japan make the naturalization of aliens easy? As far as the letter
of the law goes, there appears nothing in the eyes of a layman that
might stand in the way of a man, already married and with children, from
becoming a Japanese subject. There is no legal discrimination against
any race or color. But notwithstanding that there now are 20,000
foreigners in Japan, and that the number throughout the years must have
been much greater, there are on record only nine cases of foreigners
having been naturalized between 1904 and 1913; two English, two
American, five French; and ten cases of adoptions by marriage into
Japanese families. These, to my knowledge, do not include men previously
married. They are all cases of men who have married Japanese women, or
of women who have married Japanese men. There have been 158 Chinese who
became naturalized. This does not indicate that naturalization is
easy--except by marriage--and the general consensus of opinion is that
it would take a man fully fifteen years to become naturalized in the due
process of law.
Furthermore, the restrictions attached to the acquisition of Japanese
nationality take all the sweetness out of the plum, for even after you
have gone through the regular processes and have been permitted to sit
"amongst these gods on sainted seats," there are still exalted pedestals
beyond your reach. You may not become a Minister of State, President, or
Vice-President, or a member of the Privy Council; an official of
_chokunin_ (imperial-appointment) rank in the Imperial Household
Department; an Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary; a
general officer in the army and navy; president of the Supreme Court, of
the Board of Audit, or of the Court of Administrative Litigation; or
member of the Imperial Diet. Nor are the professions in all cases open
to you.
However, this is a minor matter compared with that of the inability on
the part of any Japanese to accept another nationality without official
consent. If he resides abroad after his seventeenth birthday he cannot
in any circumstances become a citizen of that other country unless he
has completed his military service. Women may freely relinquish their
nationality through marriage; not so men. If men are born abroad, they
must make a voluntary request for denaturalization between the ages of
fifteen and seventeen, but such other factors are involved that only a
negligible number of American-born Japanese have ever attempted to rid
themselves of their ancestral connections; and there is one case on
record in which the Government refused on a technicality, for the child
had applied for denationalization according to Western reckoning,
whereas Japanese count the child's age as from the day of conception,
not birth.
In view of this, then, there seems no point whatever in the fuss made
about Japanese being barred from citizenship. Again, I am not discussing
the advisability of this restriction, but merely trying to brush aside
many of the webs that have been spun for the netting of sympathy. The
relations between Japan and America are thus involved in an infinite
number of petty political regulations on each side, and nothing but a
complete sweeping away of all restrictions on both sides would ever
assume even the semblance of justice. But how far is Japan ready and
willing to go in this denationalization of herself? The most casual
study of her nationalistic aims and aspirations answers that question.
That the problem is essentially a problem for Japan to solve is
self-evident. That it is political and not racial, and that this
political problem is rooted in Japan's economic condition, is likewise
clear. For no nation loses its nationals except when the conditions at
home are worse than those abroad, worse than those of the country to
which her people wish to emigrate. Australia and New Zealand find it
almost impossible to lure out British laborers, while Germany's desire
for room was largely for the utilization of her mechanics and scientists
and others whom she had trained in such large numbers that she hadn't
enough work for them at home. Two changes in the structure of world
economics have accentuated a condition of racial conflict which have
hitherto been virtually non-existent. Religious and political conflicts
have always obtained, but the color line has been drawn only in very
recent times. As long as black and yellow people have been of a lower
order and have been willing to serve the white, there was never any
serious disorder between them. The color line is not marked even in
Europe to-day, for the same reason that it is not marked in Japan.
Europe is herself too crowded to be a desirable immigration station.
Whatever the causes of conflict may have been, to-day it is clear that
they lie in the endeavor on the part of white labor to maintain a better
standard of living than Oriental labor has yet attained. And in exactly
the degree to which certain Oriental labor groups have risen above
others, the conflict becomes manifest,--to wit, the objection on the
part of Japanese labor to Korean and Chinese coolies. No serious
conflicts take place between Fijian laborers and Indian coolies, because
the Fijian maintains his standard under competition, that being lower
than the Indian's.
We have therefore to study the problem of Japanese in America, the
so-called race conflict, not so much as it develops here but at its
source, Japan. And there, if I read Japanese conditions aright, the
problem is political and psychological in the main. Japan has come very
far along material modernization; she has virtually stepped up to the
front rank of nations. But the most casual observation reveals that that
is only so in part, that the advance is made as a government, not as a
people. That government is rooted in antiquated notions, is vicious in
many of its aspects, and is opposed to even the most conservative
developments of Western countries. That government refuses to recognize
the social forces that are at work within Japan for the leveling upward
of classes. And there is the rub.
4
Glancing over the history of the nineteenth century, we realize that all
nations have passed through a continuous struggle of the masses for
betterment of their conditions, political and social as well as
economic. During the greater part of that century Japan lay dormant, its
masses mentally mesmerized. The sudden impact of the West has stunned
the people more than awakened them. Only part of the social body is
coming to life,--a limb, an essential organ. To be generous, I might say
the brain is working, though from many of the actions of Nippon that
would seem doubtful. But certain it is that whether it is the brain or
merely the spinal column, instead of limbering up the rest of the body
as rapidly as possible, it is trying to retard it. Hence, the feverish
condition of the country.
This is not mere speculation. As I have said, only such countries as
have an inferior economic condition suffer from the exodus of their
laboring people. That exodus takes place for several reasons. From
Europe it has come because of the hunger for religious freedom, to
escape political oppression, or merely to get a new start in life. And
though we have few political or religious exiles in America from the
Land of the Rising Sun, they come because of an unconscious desire for
relief from Japanese social domination. I am convinced that that which
most Japanese so prefer in America is that sense of individual
freshness, that desire for individual expression, for freedom from the
clutch of family and oligarchy. It is unconscious, and without doubt few
Japanese when brought face to face with the issues would admit it, so
deeply ingrained is the education and training at the hands of the
political administrators. Only here and there is some such statement
made, with an eye to the press and the galleries.
Were Japan to extend to the masses greater freedom, there would be
plenty of work for them at home. There is scientific advancement to be
made. Japanese are frightfully behind in the scientific habit. I have
been told by a friend at one of our greatest institutions of medical
experimentation that with but one exception the Japanese who come there
have to be constantly dismissed for their incompetence. There was no
anti-Japanese sentiment in the mind of the person who made this
statement. Japanese still need generations of training to acquire the
scientific spirit. Their historians prove this. In the business of life
Japanese have plenty of work at home which could easily absorb all the
man-power, both masculine and feminine, at their command, without the
necessity of shipping any of it abroad. But the vulgar acquisition of
wealth, the vulgar acquisition of political prestige in the world, the
vulgar appeal for equality which no man or nation with true dignity and
self-respect would mouth to the extent that Japanese officialdom has
mouthed it, the vulgar wearing of its sensitiveness on its sleeve,--it
is these with which bureaucratic Japan is preoccupied. While, at home,
every effort on the part of Japanese to secure manhood suffrage, to
arise to the dignity of true men, of which the masses are as capable as
any race on earth, is discouraged. On the one hand pleading, in
mendicant fashion, for racial equality abroad; on the other, refusal to
give the people at home racial equality. On one hand it is asserted
loudly that "The Japanese do not like to be regarded as inferior to any
other people. In no country will they be content with discriminatory
treatment";[1] on the other, Prime Minister Hara answers the demand for
the franchise with the maudlin fear that it would break down
"distinction."
[1] From the _Kokumin_, a leading newspaper.
So that the problem of Japan and the world is largely a political
problem which she must face at home. Raising the standard of living;
increasing the economic welfare of the masses; extending the rights of
the people who are clamoring for it in sections, not only to the
intelligent elements but down to the very _eta_; cleansing the social
pores of the empire,--these will in themselves automatically solve the
problem for the world. The people don't want conquest. They are not
aggressive. But the misguided leaders,--there's the rub.
5
As to Japan in America--or, more specifically, the Japanese in
California--the problem is for us to solve. I once heard an American
sentimentalist who practises law, and hence assured an audience he ought
to know what he was talking about, say that the trouble in California
was that the Japanese will work and the American is an idler and won't
work. Why he wasn't howled out of the auditorium I don't know. That
America has reared this vast continent and made it one of the most
productive countries in the world did not seem to enter the head of this
lawyer. Yet the Japanese problem will not be solved by exclusion alone.
We hear constantly that the reason for the conflict is that Japanese as
groups and as tireless workers are able to outwork Americans; and, in
certain special types of industry, that is proved. But were the
conditions made more acceptable to Americans in those industries, and
were we to devise mechanical means of production suited to them, it
would not be long before Japanese labor would find it extremely
unprofitable to come here, just as it finds it unprofitable to go to
Manchuria and Korea, where it has to compete with the cheaper Chinese
and Korean labor. Laws and restrictions can always be evaded, and the
price of vigilance is more costly than the gain. But those laws that are
basic in the condition of life no man can evade.
The Gentlemen's Agreement has not worked because gentlemen themselves
seldom work. It has not worked because it has denied America the right,
as all nations claim it, to determine who shall or shall not come in.
Gentlemen never exact such agreements from their friends. They realize
that a man's home is his domain, to be entered only on invitation.
Furthermore, the agreement is not mutually retroactive. It says that
Japan has a right to decide the issue, and promises not to permit coolie
labor to enter America. I shall not enter the statistical controversy as
to whether flocks of Japanese have or have not evaded the agreement. An
agreement such as that should be evaded, and was loose enough to make
evasion simple. That is enough of an argument.
Japan pleads for room on account of the tremendous increase in her
population every year. When a great appeal is made, the number is stated
as 700,000 or 800,000, according to the emotional condition of the
appellant. Professor Dewey contends that the Japanese Government, in its
own records, admits to only some 300,000 or 400,000 a year. Whether the
increase in California is or is not as stated, on one side or the other,
matters little. Japan's grounds for appealing for room are sufficient.
If the increase is so disgustingly large in Japan, it stands to reason
that it would be as large, if not larger here, where economic
opportunity makes increase possible and desirable. Every child born in
America is a handle worth getting hold of. But on the other hand, it is
also true that wherever Japanese better their standard of living their
birth-rate falls, as with every race. In which case there is only one
answer to Japan's appeal for more room: Better your standard of living
and you will not need to invade our house. That disgusting process of
breeding which aggressive nations indulge in should be decried from the
house-tops. It is no great mark of civilization to breed like mosquitos.
Mosquitos need to reproduce by the millions because their eggs are
consumed by the millions by preying creatures. Civilization makes it
possible for those born to survive. (See Appendix D.)
Some students of Far Eastern affairs, like J. O. P. Bland, urge that
Japan has a right to the occupation of Siberia; and none will gainsay
that. But the fact is that though free to go both to Korea and
Manchuria, Japanese have not gone to these regions even to the extent of
one year's increase in population during the last ten years. Where,
then, is the argument? As has been shown, they do not go as settlers
because cheap continental labor makes it unprofitable. They go as
business-men, as the advance-guard of the empire, as the rear-guard of
the army. No one has ever raised a voice against the migration of
Japanese to these unpopulated regions--with the exception, perhaps, of
the natives. But ever and always one feels the hand of imperial Japan
behind each little man from the empire, and that hold on her nationals
is the thing that vigorous nations resent, because it threatens to
impair their status.
That is what California and the sixteen other states who share her views
feel. They are conscious of some subsidy behind every extensive purchase
of land. From somewhere Japanese get enough money to buy anything they
want. It is always the paternalistic arm of the Government round every
little son of Nippon, or the embrace of his family. That is where the
problem begins and that is where it ends. If only some chemical
substance could be discovered that, when poured over the Oriental, would
separate him from the mass, he would be as good a fellow as can be found
anywhere in the world. But that was what always irritated me in my
relations with Japanese in Japan. I never met a man I liked but that in
order to enjoy association with him I had to tolerate his group. If I
started off anywhere with one, I soon had a retinue. That racial
clannishness is to be found everywhere, but nowhere is it more sticky
than in ancestor-worshiping Japan.
Consequently, in whatever manner the problem is finally solved
here in America, one thing is agreed upon by both Japanese and
anti-Japanese,--that those here will have to be redistributed over the
country, their clannishness broken up. That is a problem which affects
not only the Japanese. However, nothing that is now done should in any
way be retroactive so as to deprive any single Japanese of the fruits of
his labor. Whatever solution is found for the Japanese problem in
America, one thing is certain,--that no war will ever be fought because
of Japanese immigration to America. Japan, as has been shown, would have
to readjust her own political thinking to such an extent as virtually to
revolutionize conditions in Japan in order to make an issue of the
citizenship problem and the matter of alien landownership here. Such a
revolution would considerably reduce the scope of the issues, they would
fall apart and virtually cease to exist.
If we are looking for the causes of a possible conflict in the Pacific,
they must be sought not in California but in China. The dovetailing of
the angle of our triangle in America is contingent upon the dovetailing
of the angle of the triangle in Asia. The one in America can be
dislodged only by a wrenching apart of the angle in Asia.
Japan's hegemony in Asia is a serious matter. Japan is an industrial
nation now. She is entitled to access to unused resources in China.
Propinquity accedes this, but propinquity precludes the necessity of
submerging China in the process. The Open Door in China means peace in
the Pacific. We leave it to time to determine what the walling up of
that door would mean.