Again the Yellow Peril

Abstract

RACIAL antagonism resembles justice in one respect if in no other: it may sleep but it never dies. The conflict of ^ color is resurgent in the Dominions of the British Empire where Asiatic immigration is still a problem, and in the Crown Colony of Kenya where Hindus, Britishers and blacks are agitated over racial equality. It is resurgent in the United States, whether in the case of the negro, the Indian, or the Japanese. In a domestic sense, the Oriental problem in the United States is relatively unimportant. Contrasted with ten million negroes and 250,000 Indians, there are less than 150,000 Japanese in the United States. But from the international standpoint the problem may become one of considerable magni tude. The Japanese cannot be called an inferior people as is done with the Indians and the negroes; and they, alone of the color groups in this country, are represented by a sensitive and powerful government abroad. Agitation of some sort against the Japanese in this country has recurred from time to time ever since 1900. President Roosevelt believed he had brought it to an end when he nego tiated the Gentlemen's Agreement of 1908. President Wilson did penance for it when he consented to the Lansing-Ishii agree ment of 1917 and allowed Japan to secure Shantung at the Paris Peace Conference. Undoubtedly President Harding hoped that the Washington Conference would dissipate all the misunder standings between the two great powers of the Pacific. Nevertheless the anti-Japanese agitation continues on the Pacific Coast, under the leadership of the Exclusion League and the American Legion. It is becoming aggressive in and about Seattle, a neighborhood which hitherto has been comparatively sympathetic with the Oriental. It has appeared in other parts of the State of Washington where, because of the anti-alien policy of the Department of the Interior, Japanese farmers have been unable to renew their leases of public lands. It has cropped out in the Utah, Idaho and Montana legislatures where anti Japanese legislation has been debated. It is an endless theme in Hawaii, where the Labor Commission appointed by President Harding protested recently against the menace of alien domina