60 PROCEEDINGS OP THIRTY-THIRD FRUIT-GROWERS ' CONVENTION. 



asparagus and celery and other large industries of production that 

 bring millions of dollars into California and into your pockets and 

 into the pockets of the people, money that furnishes work and wages 

 for white people, work that they perform and wages which they dictate 

 themselves— all that depends upon the prosperity of rural production 

 in this State, and rural production in this State depends upon labor 

 that you can rely upon, that will keep its word and do its work, and we 

 know of no other form of labor than that which served this State so 

 well— the laborious, patient, orderly, faithful Chinese. 



Now, we have introduced an Asiatic problem here. It is a singular 

 thing to study that the people have been taught to hate the Chinaman 

 on account of his virtues, and they are being taught to hate the Japa- 

 nese because of his vices. He has our vice of ambition, wants to get on 

 and do for himself, and just in proportion as the volume of Chinese 

 labor in California has declined and the field has been left to the Jap- 

 anese, the Japanese has shown his unpleasant peculiarities; but the 

 moment that you restore the balance, lift this infamous Exclusion Act 

 which we have enacted against the Chinese and let the Chinese come — 

 in proper numbers — the moment that the balance is restored, that the 

 equilibrium is returned, then you will see the Japanese betraying less 

 of the vices of the white man, because he will have competition in the 

 field. (Applause.) 



I say nothing against the Japanese. They show qualities that have 

 been inured in them for ages, because they come of a race and a nation 

 where the soldier has been at the top for ages and the business man at 

 the bottom; the business man a pariah, the soldier a hero; and the 

 Japanese government, realizing that to take its stand with other nations 

 it must have commercial honesty, has begun inculcating in her public 

 schools, from the primary grades to the university, the necessity of 

 recognizing the principles of commercial honor. Japan has learned 

 that to achieve a commercial career she must observe the law of nations, 

 and she has begun the reform of ages of misapplication of principles to 

 her people. 



But we can't dismiss this. The crying need, the burning issue in 

 California is, Are the rural producers of this State to be permitted to 

 have that form and kind of labor upon which their prosperity and the 

 welfare of the State depend"? You know there are a few Chinese left. 

 The man who gets a Chinese gang on his place feels that he has secured 

 a prize in the lottery of fortune. Last night I was talking with a 

 gentleman who is an owner on the delta, and he said, "I have had the 

 greatest luck on earth. I have succeeded in filling four of my five 

 tracts on the delta with Chinese, and I am perfectly content, because I 

 know the work is going to be done whether I am there or not." But 

 they are disappearing. Every means have been used. When laborers 



