With the Japanese cables the trouble has been largely due to congestion. The use of two important lines was cut off by the war, and as service on these lines has not up to the time of writing been resumed, owing to the disorganization of Russia and Germany, a heavy strain has been placed upon the transpacific cables. I am assured, however, that conditions would not be so bad as they are if the Japanese were entirely efficient in their handling of cable business, and my own experiences with cable messages, while there, would seem to indicate that this is true.
Moreover, at the time when cable congestion was at its worst, the Japanese refused to operate their transpacific wireless for more than seven hours a day; and even then they would take business only for San Francisco and vicinity, for the reason, it was explained, that they did not wish to be bothered with the details of figuring the rates to various parts of the United States. Lately they have increased their service to cover the states of California, Oregon and Washington; but that, at the time of writing, is as far as they have consented to extend it.
CHAPTER XX
The Average American and International Affairs—The Vagueness of the Orient—A Definition by Former Ambassador Morris—"They say"—The "Yellow Peril"—International Insults—Physiognomy—What the Japanese Should Learn About Us—Our Race Problems—Racial Integrity—Assimilation—Californian Methods—The Two Sound Arguments Against Oriental Immigration
If public opinion is fed with distorted facts, unworthy suspicions, or alarming rumours; if every careless utterance by thoughtless and insignificant men is to be given prominence in print; if every casual difference of view is to be magnified into a crisis, sober judgment and deliberate action become impossible.—John W. Davis, former Ambassador to the Court of St. James's.
Concerned with making a living, the Average American has as a rule neither the time nor the inclination to study international affairs. He expects his government to see to such things for him. He has no interest in what his government is doing with regard to other nations unless his personal feelings are in some way involved. Thus if he be a German-American he may take cognizance of our relations with Germany; or if he be a Russian-American he may desire that we recognize the so-called government of Lenine and Trotzky; or again, if he be an Irish-American he may wish the President of the United States to go personally to London and knock the British premier's hat off. But if he be simply an average unhyphenated American the chances are that he is disgusted with the clatter of the hyphenates and bored with the whole business of foreign relations and race problems. His main interest in governmental affairs at the present time has nothing to do with foreign relations but comes much closer to home. He is tired of paying heavy taxes, tired of paying exorbitantly for the necessities of life. He wants his government to remedy those two things. Then, because he is sick of hyphenated citizens and internal race problems, he wants immigration stopped.
The Orient is all vague to him. If he does not live on the Pacific Coast or in some large city where Japanese have settled, he may never have laid eyes upon a Japanese. Or if he has seen Japanese over here he may have seen them in the farming districts of the Pacific slope. Whether he has seen them or not, he has gathered some impression of them through newspaper accounts of the trouble there has been about them in California. He understands that their customs, religion, and food are unlike his—which may be taken as implying a certain lack of merit in them. He understands that Japanese women and children work in the fields. His own women and children do not work in the fields, but wear silk stockings, chew gum, and go to the movies—all of which, of course, counts against the Japanese, since to work in the fields is in these times almost un-American. And of course it is still more un-American to do what the Japanese labourers did in California until the patriotic Californians stopped them; namely to save money and buy farms.
Then there is this business about "picture-brides"—my Average American may have heard vaguely about that, though probably he does not know that the Japanese Government, in deference to our wishes, no longer allows picture-brides to come here. He would not think of such a thing as picking out a wife by photograph. None of his friends would do it, either.