The foregoing examination establishes the fact that much of the anti-Japanese agitation in California is due to the congestion of Japanese in that one State, as pointed out by the authorities of California, and as confirmed by the extinction of anti-Chinese sentiment in California, consequent upon the exodus of large numbers of Chinese from that State.
We have seen that the Japanese population in California increased from 86 in 1880 to 70,196 in 1920 at the annual rate of 1403. We shall now see how each of the three factors—lawful entrance of Japanese into the United States, smuggling, and birth—has contributed to this increase.
Immigration.
Without question, the coming of the Japanese who are legally permitted to enter the United States has been the largest factor contributing to their increase in California. Of the total Japanese entering the continental United States since its beginning up to the end of 1920, estimated at 180,000,[15] California claims to have received about two thirds,[16] or approximately 125,000. Since California’s present Japanese population is 70,196, of which about 25,000[17] are American-born children, it means that out of the total number of Japanese immigrants (125,000) who entered California, only 45,196 survive now in that State, the rest having either migrated to other States, or died out, or returned home.
One reason why the Japanese immigration is viewed with so much apprehension is because the facts of the situation are not rightly understood. The number of Japanese coming to the United States has decidedly increased in recent years, especially since the war, the annual number reaching the ten thousand mark. This would certainly be alarming were it not for the correspondingly large number of Japanese who returned every year. The following table shows the percentage of those who returned out of the total arrivals:
| Year. | Arrivals. | Returned. | Percentage of Returned Against Total Arrivals. |
| 1916 | 9,100 | 6,922 | 76% |
| 1917 | 9,159 | 6,581 | 72% |
| 1918 | 11,143 | 7,696 | 69% |
| 1919 | 11,404 | 8,328 | 73% |
| 1920 | 12,868 | 11,662 | 90% |
The growing number of Japanese coming into America and the increasing high rate of their return, as shown in the above table, clearly indicate the fact that the character of the Japanese now entering the United States has decidedly changed. The explanation of the high rate of Japanese entrance is to be sought in the growing business, diplomatic, intellectual, and other relations between America and Japan which the recent war brought about. In the field of business, the number of branch offices of Japanese firms employing Japanese clerks and managers rapidly increased in the large cities of the United States. Students who formerly went to Europe for study now flock to America and enter the large universities of this country. Many of the newly rich whom the unique opportunity of the World War has created, have taken it into their heads to see the post-war changes in America and Europe. But these Japanese visitors are not immigrants; they are not coolies; they do not come to America to work and settle. They will give America no trouble, for they stay in this country only a brief period of time. They are America’s guests, as it were, and they should not be treated as immigrants. The rough handling of these visitors, as sometimes happens in the Western States, gives them a bad impression of the American people at large.
That most of the Japanese now coming to this country are temporary visitors is shown by the following table which distinguishes non-laborers from laborers:
| Year. | Total. | Laborers. | Non-Laborers. | Percentage of Non-Laborers Against All. |
| 1916 | 9,100 | 2,956 | 6,144 | 67.5% |
| 1917 | 9,159 | 2,838 | 6,321 | 69 % |
| 1918 | 11,143 | 2,604 | 8,539 | 77 % |
“Gentlemen’s Agreement.”