Introducing the American Spirit

by Edward Alfred Steiner

During luncheon, which in our honor was served à la Nippon, we discussed the anti-Japanese legislation which at that time was menacing the peaceful relationship of the two countries.

All the Japanese agreed that they had no right to demand unrestricted immigration; but they were urgent that no crass distinction should be made between them and other races, and that they too should have the right to obtain citizenship when they had proved themselves fitted for it.

During this discussion the Frau Directorin and our host were carrying on a picturesque conversation; that is she did the talking and he smilingly said “Yes” to everything she said. She felt highly flattered that he understood her English, which was still about seventy-five per cent. German, while his was ninety-nine per cent. Japanese.

That night as we were leaving the city a delegation met us at the station to complete their Oriental hospitality by presenting us with beautiful and valuable souvenirs.

After such brief and friendly relationships with these people it is easy to come to very one-sided conclusions about the problem they present to the people of California. The situation is serious, but not so serious that, in order to try to meet it, we must cease to be gentlemanly in our relation to them.

It is the peculiarity of all people who face race problems, to face them irrationally and to think that in order to maintain racial dignity one must insult, demean, and humble other races; and the people of the United States in general, and those of the Pacific Coast in particular, have not yet learned a better and more rational way.

Strong race prejudice is not necessarily a sign of race superiority, and the people who constantly proclaim their superiority by humiliating and persecuting others have a hard time proving it.

If what I was frequently told is true, that California “wants no immigrants unless they are something between a mule and a man,” then I can understand their animosity towards the Japanese; for they are altogether human and want to be so treated.

Beside the many racial varieties with which we came in contact on the Pacific Coast, we found there all the types produced in the United States, and while neither the Herr Director nor myself was able to differentiate them by external variation, we discovered them by different and contending ideals. From that standpoint they were even more interesting than the Orientals. Every shade of political and religious opinion, every kind of economic doctrine, every variety of social standards we found, besides currents and cross currents not easily discerned or classified. In spite of the difference in race, class, religion and politics, we found three well defined ideas expressed, upon which there is such an agreement that they might be called the California Confession of Faith.

First and foremost is the belief in the climate and the resources of the state. There is no religious doctrine in existence unless it be the monotheism of the Jews, which is so dogmatically held as this faith, that California is unsurpassed in climate, productiveness, in all those opportunities for a leisurely existence (provided you have worked hard elsewhere to get the necessary money) as are offered by its mountains and sea, its luxuriant homes and all other factors which contribute to the health and happiness of mankind. The only possible rival to California is Heaven itself, and just because in these unbelieving and unregenerate days so many people are not sure that there is such a place, or if there is, are in doubt that they will have a mansion reserved for them, they are leaving the farms and towns of the more mundane Middle West and prosperous East to get a taste of Heaven in California before they go to that “bourne from which no” wanderer has returned.