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.)