FOUR TO ONE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19437, 24 October 1925, Page 14

FOUR TO ONE

JAPANESE PEEIL. PROBLEM IN HAWAII The Army-Navy manoeuvres in Hawaiian waters, by concentrating American correspondents, Senators, and Congressmen at the “Crossroads of the Pacific,” seem to have brought to light many questions other than strictly war problems, although, as the New Haven Register remarks, “allied therewith in remote degree.’ ’

One of the many strange sights that greeted the visitors on the occasion of the annual May festival was that rf many thousands of bright-coloured paper fish, flying from clothes lines of Japanese homes all over the islands, each signifying a boy baby. The point of it is that every Japanese born in Hawaii is by virtue of that fact a full-fledged American citizen, entitled under the Constitution not only to vote, but to travel freely throughout the United States. There are 125,368 Japanese on the islands, of whom some 65,000, mostly still under the voting age, are American born. Four to One. In other words, the Japanese in the Hawaiian Islands outnumber the whites almost four to one. The Literary Digest quotes one correspondent:— “As the African slaves were brought over to work American cotton fields, a succession of races has been imported by the Hawaiian planters—first the Chinese, then the Japanese, and now the Filipinos. With the Japanese remaining strongly nationalistic, if not anti-American, and constituting an anonymously disturbing element in local affairs, the eyes of the most intelligent American citizens are anxiously turned towards that day when it appears probable the sons of Nippon will control the Hawaiian electorate.” The population by races now, compared with 1910, is shown in the following table.

“Un-American at Heart.” “The Japanese increased numerically more than any other racial group, partly because of a high birth-rate and partly because of considerable immigra tion up to the exclusion by law last year, notwithstanding the inhibitions imposed by the 'gentlemen’s agreement’ between the United States and Japan. “The Japanese are not naturally assimilable. All dther races in the islands intermarry and mingle socially to a considerable degree. The Japanese remain aloof. They are striving to perpetuate their culture and devotion to Japan through Japanese. language schools, which their children attend after the public school season. “American-born Japanese are American citizens, but anti-American at heart. Few of them have renounced their allegiance to Japan, as is now permitted by the Japanese Government. In the event of war between the United States and Japan, the Japanese element here would side with Japan, producing civil war in the islands, and requiring us to intern and support an enormous population.” The “Grand Old Man of Hawaii,” Judge Sanford B. Dole, the first Governor of the Territory, is opposed to statehood for the islands, “because if we had statehood, it might some day give us a Japanese Governor.” “Amer-ican-born Japanese promise to control the popular elections in the islands within a few years,” explains another correspondent, who says:

“California has 100,000 Japanese now, and views with alarm the multiplying number of Japanese in Hawaii who will have the right as American citizens to come legally through the Golden Gate, buy farms, vote, and go on multiplying. Problem for Congress

“So a bitter battle in Washington is assured when Congress reconvenes, with, perhaps, talk so frank and hostile that the debate over the Japanese exclusion section of the Immigration Act will seem mild when reviewed. This is the more true because the law seems to be all on the side of the Hawaiian Government’s demand that American citizenship, acquired by birth of Japanese on Hawaiian soil, must be recognised by the Federal Government in every particular, including the free right to travel. ”

“In other words, when Japan’s unassimilable citizens were ordered away from Uncle Sam’s front door, the Hawaiian Islands.” “This intention of the Japanese to enter this country,” declares a Boston paper, “must be considered in the light of what would be the political and social tinge of such a group in the United States. The law would be on its side, but the instincts, the interests, anti the experiences of zlmcricans would be all against it.” “Moreover, how about the rights of small peoples to deteimine their destiny for' themselves? Would the Japanese have the unalienable right to choose to transfer their allegiance to Japan? And in case of war, if in the course of human events war between the United States and Japan should arise, on which side would the Hawaiian Japanese cast their lots, with the Japanese, their racial kin, or with their nominal fellow citizens, the continental Americans who vigorously exclude Japanese from their sacred continental soil? “Here is a problem, and it is no light problem, either. It is a problem that may seem insignificant now, but has in it most potential possibilities.” smaveuafcjT- , Baoh.. odaor o

1910 1925 Japanese 76,675 125,368 Filipinos 2,361 39,608 .American, British, Germans, Russian . 14,867 34,272 Portuguese 22,301 26,791 Chinese 21,674 24,522 Others 1071 215 Hawwaiians 26,041 21,271 Caucasian-Hawaiian 8.772 13,134 Asiatic-Hawaiian 3,734 7816 Porto Rican 4890 6347 Korean 4533 5817 Spanish 1990 1939 Total 191,909 307,100