The Days of a Man 1913 



of the facts, added to some substantial grounds for 

 dissatisfaction on the part of our own population. 

 I shall try, therefore, to give my readers an idea of 

 the situation as it appeared to me, but in so doing 

 must repeat myself a little. 1 



For several years previous to the annexation of 

 j^ awa jj by tne United States in 1900 and for seven 

 years afterward, steamship companies were very 

 active in securing Japanese laborers for the sugar 

 plantations of the Islands. These men came from 

 the ranks of floating laborers about the Inland Sea, 

 notably from Yamaguchi, Hiroshima, and Okayama, 

 and were held in a kind of semi-slavery. Emigrating 

 before the day of free schools, compulsory attendance, 

 and the obligatory study of English in Japan, they 

 had had no education, and so possessed neither Japan- 

 ese nor American culture. Annexation set them free 

 to go whither they pleased. Many now settled in 

 Honolulu and Hilo, engaging in new forms of labor; 

 still others moved on to California, where, as they 

 discovered, wages were still higher, and their inrush 

 from 1904 to 1906 locally attracted general attention. 



Most Californians hope to avoid a racial stratifica- 

 tion of any sort in the state. Least of all do we look 

 with favor on any large body of underpaid laborers. 

 Meanwhile, however, notwithstanding the contrary 

 statement, the Japanese government has never 

 favored the emigration of rice-field hands to regions 

 where they are unwelcome and their presence produces 

 economic disturbances or anywhere in such numbers 

 that untraveled people judge all Japan by them. 



For these several reasons Root and Takahira, repre- 

 senting the two nations, adopted in 1907 the "gentle- 



1 See Chapter xxvi, page 5, footnote, and Chapter xxvin, page 95. 



