"PROMISED LAND"

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 8 March 1930, Page 9

"PROMISED LAND"

PROBLEM OF CALIFORNIA

INFLUX OF FILIPINOS SERIOUS MENACE FEARED SAN FRANCISCO, 3rd February. The influx of Rjliipirio workers, now arriving at an estimated rate of 10,000 a year at the three Pacific ports of entry, has reached stages designated in California as "the motAt serious Oriental labour problem since fthe Japanese 'invasion* prior to 1924." . The situation, said 1 l »o be alarming social workers and unio u labourites, is creating a background of western sentiment behind the Welch Act, reintroduced by Representative Richard Welch, of San Francisco. The inteasure classifies Filipinos as ali ens ineligible to citizenship, thus making thorn ineligible to entry under, the 19214 Exclusion Act.

Estimates as to the number oif !FI!N pino workers now in California rnjj from a total of 30,000 to Oo.Oi'lO. \n 1928, according to the imr ligratioir' .'section of the Commonwealth Club ofii San Francisco 4895 Filipinos landed in San Francisco, 1513 in Seati le and 58$ i in Los Angejes. The estimated totaj in these ports in 1929 was 10,000. ! The official Filipino population of Hat vail is 00,078, thus making an estims .teel total for both continental and insi tilar United States of 110,078. The probliem, therefore, it is said, is consider) ibly ■more serious than was the Japainese labour problem prior to 1924. ■

One serious moral hazard in the JPilipino question is the fact that only 3.7 per cent of arrivals are women,. while the Californian law forbids' intermarriage between white and Mongolians, construed to .include Filipinos by,' opinion of the Atfjorney-Generajf. Another i» the crime situation, the number of Filip.'nos in California penitentiaries. I • The health problem is the most sej-i----ous, since the low wages Filipij/io workers receive is insuftictient to guard thjem against disease. Thtey suffer partiim-' larly from tuberculosis and p.neumori ia. Generally, it is admitted, Filipino immigrants coming to'.the United Stances are young men, ambitious for education and willing to work, but work.at extremely low wages.' i

BARRIER IS FOUGHT . i Hawaiian sugar interests are anxious to amend the proposed Welch Bill, making an exception of the territory. Public opinion in Hawaii, however, apparently does not back the sugar men. Governor Wallace Farringtcm and the two newspapers there want no exception made, on the ground that some day Hawaii will be admitted as a State and any exception would be used as an argument for keeping it a territory! Commenting on the situation, the San Francisco "Daily News" says: "It's an axiom in trade, that cheap things cost more in the long run. Pacific Coast history proves that this law ap- j plies also to cheap labour. !

"In the late '7o's anti-Chinese niots broke out in California. The Chinese coolies, who had been imported by the thousands to do the rough work of the gold mines, became an economic menace to the white. Denis Kearney, 'sand lot orator,' inflamed the mobs with his cry, "The Chinese must go!' From Eureka to San Diego disgraceful scenes were enacted, hundreds of heads were cracked, scores of Chinese were killed. In 1882 Congress came to the rescue with the Chinese Exclusion Law.

"Then came the Japanese 'invasion,' in response to the call for cheap farhv labour. Because the Japs lived frugally, procreated freely and worked cheaply, anti-Japanese riots broke forth. A proud race was offended deeply by the 1924 Exclusion Act. HARVEST OF BLOOD "Now the third importation of cheap labour is bringing its harvest of blood. At Exeter and WatsonviJle fa California, in Yakima, Washington and in ( other coast centres demonstrations, against Filipinos are beginning. The first casualty occurred near Watsonville. Hawaiian sugar planters, charged with having brought Filipino labourers to the islands under contract to work at low wages in the sugar fields, were blamed for the race riots,' in California, by Paul Scharrenberg, secretary of the California State Federation of Laboitr. "The race' riots of Monterey and Santa Clara counties and their issue are inevitable as the result of the third invasion of Califoraria by Oriental labour," said the Labour 'leader. "Hawaiian sugar planters are primarily to "blame. Approximately 80,000 Filipino workers have been imported under contract with the sugar planters of Hawaii. There is nothing to prevent their coming from Hawaii to the mainland, and this they have been doing in large numbers. "In Hawaii the Filipino workers receive from Idol to 1.50d0l (four to six shillings) a day. On the Pacific, Coast they can command twice that. One can hardly blame the Filipino who refuses to be happy in Hawaii, if he can so easily move eastward to the promised land." "There are more Filipinos in California to-day by: nearly .100 per cent ,than there were Japanese at the time of the violent agitation against the Japanese that led. to the Exclusion Act of 1924. "In spite of the promised agitation of Hawaiian interests Filipino exclusion, whether through Filipino independence or through the Welch Bill, must follow that of the Chinese .*»d the Japanese. It is inevitable. Delay will only result in more riots and ugly demonstrations."