That the Japanese issue was frequently made the football of minor political games in California is an undeniable truth. Wholly apart from the consideration of right and wrong, we cite a case of political activity which illustrates such a situation. Writing in the January (1921) issue of the North American Review, Mr. R. W. Ryder observes:
All during the late war—while the Japanese fleet was protecting our commerce and other interests by patrolling the Pacific—the most cordial relationship existed between the two peoples. But the Armistice had hardly been signed before agitation against the Japanese again manifested itself; however, not until it had been resuscitated and energized by one of California’s United States Senators who was soon to be a candidate for reëlection. This Senator, Mr. Phelan, appeared in California early in 1919, and at once made a visit to the Immigration Station at San Francisco and Los Angeles; whereupon he issued a statement characterizing the Japanese situation as a menace. Next, he addressed the State Legislature on the Japanese question. Prior to his address, although the Legislature had been in session for almost two months, it had done nothing regarding the Japanese. But a few days afterward several anti-Japanese measures were introduced....
The particular susceptibility of the Japanese issue to political agitation in California may be attributed to the safety and advantage with which it may be manipulated. The Japanese in California having practically no vote are safe toys for play. The possibility of magnifying the “menace” of the Asiatic “influx” is immensely tempting in this case, rendering it a most effective smoke screen for the tactics of private interests.
The San Francisco Chronicle stated, in its editorial on October 22, 1920, under the heading, “It Would Probably Have Been Settled without Trouble but for Politicians,” as follows:
Had no attempt been made to drag California’s Japanese question into politics we would probably have settled the question satisfactorily and with no fuss....
We think it probable that if the question had not been appropriated by politicians seeking to make capital for themselves it would have been possible to have obtained the coöperation, at least the acquiescence, of the intellectual Japanese leaders in the State, in measures designed to prevent the presence of their countrymen from being or becoming an economic menace to California....
That the question has been brought into politics, where it was not an issue and could not be, that it has been made a cause of irritation between Japan and the United States, and has given Japan a lever to use against us in all matters affecting the Orient, is due to the senior Senator from California, who sought to use the problem to advance his own personal interests.
The imaginary fear of an Asiatic influx, cleverly fermented by agitators, is certainly a strong cause of Japanophobia. Somehow we have a historical fear of foreign invasion. This fear is inculcated and whetted among the Californians by a hideous picture of a Japanese Empire, that, like medieval Mongolia, would send a storming army of invasion. One might gather from the reports of the Hearst papers in California that the Pacific Coast of North America was invaded by a Japanese army on an average of once a month. Whether misled by jingo journalism or aroused by the exaggeration of agitators—whatever the cause—it is simply amazing how large a portion of the California people honestly fear the utterly impossible eventuality of a Japanese invasion.
Quite recently another form of menace was suggested, which, because of its more plausible nature, has been widely circulated. It is the fear based upon conjecture that the Japanese will soon control the entire agricultural industry of California and that they will ere long overwhelm the white population in that State. This apprehension was by far the most effective force in deciding in the affirmative the initiative bill voted on by the California electorate on November 2, 1920.