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Show WHY NOT JAPAN1CSIC AMERICANS? Just now there is a good deal of hulabuloo because be-cause the legislature of California is trying to enact en-act a law forbidding any subject of the Japanese emperor to own land In the Golden Gate state. The thing has got into national diplomacy, and tho Japanese ambassador is having brief and frequent interviews with Mr. Bryan and every one else who seems to have any Influence over ti action of sovereign states. It looks as If Japan were tolling the United Statoa what laws would bo acceptable to the king of that country, and forbidding tho on-actmant on-actmant of any laws othor than those the Son of Heaven may consor. Tho wholo incidont hinges on tho fact that people, of California and maybe soma othor people, as well object to permitting tho same rights to tho Japs that aro aooordod to subjects of any othor land. That looks llko discrimination. There aro many and excellent reasons for rofuslng tho right to own land to any subject of any government other than our own. No man not a citizen of the United 1 States ought in any possible case to be allowed to 1 hold title to one foot of real estate of this great I nd glorious republic, no matter how much land I we may h: ve, or how much wo later may acquire. But at the same time, there is no good reason why the Japs should not be permitted to become citizens of tho United States. We allow natives of every European country to make common cause with us. We open our courts Sundays and holidays holi-days to give them "their first papers, and we prepare pre-pare the way and make straight the path for them , to get their final papers, and then we arrange for a near-non-partisan officer to tell them how tb vote. But wo close the doors of the republic tp the people of Japan. And there is no good reason for that. Japs are, as a matter of fact, better representatives rep-resentatives of the human race than m'lllons wo hae taken in and assimilated from the shores of the Mediterranean. They beat whole shiploads of Italians and Ciclliaus and Bulgarians and some Austria ns. They are better In every possible way than- thousands that have come from Russia, ami from Lithuania, and from Greece. The sentiment against them Is not creditable to the people of the United States, for it marks us as a narrow and prejudiced people, unable to senso the difference in men, but holding to the race antipathy an-tipathy as if it were liw and gospel. Taken ns we find them, the Japs are cleaner in j their persons, and a whole lot more commendable In their morals, than are countless tens of thousands thou-sands of our own good native-born nous. They adopt the dress and the customs and the conditions condi-tions of the United States. They are sober and industrious. They keep their places clean. They dress well. As a rule, they buy their clothes of the tailors, and they get the best there is in the shop. They don't get drunk as a general habit, nnd they don't engage In disorderly conduct. It would be an honor to the people of the United States to open the door to the Japs, and ask them to become citizens of this nation. They would by no means depress the general standards of American Ameri-can citizenship. It is folly of the rankest sort to pretend there is any racial or other objection to such a movement. One of the fool senators in California argued for the bill excluding Japs from ownership on the ground that JapB were different from other hu- man beings. He said he had seen a house within ten miles of Sacramento where a Jap lived with a white wife, and there was a baby ir the house. And then, like the darned fool he is, he added that If meant the assimilation of unasslmllable races. ff The three blank picas It does! In tho presence of that baby, tho child of a Jap father and an American Ameri-can mother, he still tried to tell his hearers that the races were v .assimilable. Folly could not go farther. As a matter of plain fact, no races are unasslmllable. unas-slmllable. There is no reason between the stars which would render impossible the union pf Esquimaux Es-quimaux and Patagonlan. An Infusion of New England old maids would have boon tho salvation o'f Mexico If tho infusing hod come fifty years ago. The best thing that ever -happened to England was when unasslmllable races were mlxod there. It would have beon worth the price of a dozen king- I doms If the Moors had remained In Spain. It would 1 have savod France the loss of 'Alsace and Lorraine if the Polanders hod overrun all Gaul nnd divided I il Into three parts before Napoleon condemned It to one part and that a small and diminishing one. What Is the use of talking about the inability of ( one race to assimilate with another in view of the fact that "a man and a woman aro all there is in this old world of ours?" Give the Japs a chance to become citizens of the United States, and offer them every sane encour- I ngemeut to do so. Then lot them buy land. Don't 1 sell them a foot before that, and don't lay a straw 1 in their way of taking that course. For the moat part, they would accept that propo- 1 sltion. They would be a strength and benefit to I the nation. And then there would be no objection I on earth to their owning all the land they could I pay for. Hut get thiu race hostility out of the I assemblies of representative Americans, and let it be heard no more excepting in the crazy wards of the cheap madhouses, where people are expected to be silly at all seasons. |