California north of the Tehachepi, and in the canneries and other establishments incidental to conserving and marketing the crops produced. In 1870 they numbered 1,637 in a total of 16,231 farm laborers reported by the census for California. Though the estimate made by the California bureau of labor in 1886, that Chinese constituted seven-eighths of the agricultural laborers of the State, was doubtless a great exaggeration, they did most of the hand work, such as hoeing, weeding, pruning, and harvesting, in all localities in the central and northern part of the State in which intensive farming was carried on. Their presence and organization at a time when cheap and reliable white laborers were difficult to obtain made possible the high degree of specialized farming which came to prevail in several localities. They occupied a much less conspicuous place in the harvest work involved in general farming. Being inefficient with teams, and white men being available for such work in most localities, they were practically limited to hand work. In other States than California they found little place in agricultural work, the largest number being employed in the hop industry of the Northwest. In fact, until the eighties few of the Chinese resided outside of California. This race never gained a place in coal mining except in Wyoming, where they were employed in the mines developed after the completion of the Union Pacific Railway.

The ease with which the Chinese found employment and the place they came to occupy in the West is explained by several facts. First of all, they were the cheapest laborers available for unskilled work. The white population previous to the eighties was drawn almost entirely from the eastern States and from north European countries, and, as in all rapidly developing communities, the number of women and children was comparatively small. According to the census of 1870, of 238,648 persons engaged in gainful occupations in California, 46 per cent were native-born, 13 per cent were born in Ireland, 8 per cent in Germany, 4.8 per cent in England and Wales, 2 per cent in France, and 1.4 per cent in Italy. The Chinese, with 14 per cent of the total, were more numerous than the Irish. The Chinese worked for lower wages than the white men in the fields and orchards, in the shoe factories, the cigar factories, the woolen mills, and later in most of the other industries in which the two classes were represented. As a result of this, a division of labor grew up in which the Chinese were very generally employed in certain occupations while white persons were employed in other occupations requiring skill, a knowledge of English, and other qualities not possessed by the Asiatics, and sufficiently agreeable in character and surroundings to attract white persons of the type at that time found in the population of the West. Upon occasion, too, the lower cost of production with Chinese labor caused more of the work to fall into their hands as they became well enough trained to do it. Instances of this are found in the manufacture of cigars and shoes in San Francisco. Chinese labor was well organized and readily available, for the cigar makers, shoemakers, and tailors, as well as the launderers, were organized into trade guilds with an interpreter and agent or "bookman" in each white establishment in which they were employed. Agricultural laborers were secured through a "boss" and employed under his supervision. The same organization was found in fish canneries, where the work was done under contract at so much per case, also

in the fruit and vegetable canneries-in fact in all industries in which more than a few men were employed. The hiring and supervision of men in this way was convenient and of great advantage to the employer in such industries as were seasonal in character. In agriculture, where several times as many men were wanted for a limited period as during the remainder of the year, this organization of labor placed a great premium upon the Chinese as employees.

In the manufacture of cigars, some manufacturers state that Chinese were found to be much slower than women and youths, while in the manufacture of boots and shoes they never attained to highly skilled work. In other industries, however, they were very generally regarded as efficient workers for all kinds of hand work. This is especially true of fish, fruit, and vegetable canning and of all kinds of hand work in orchards and vegetable gardens. Though unprogressive and slow, they accomplished much work through industry and long hours, and by the exercise of care the quality of the work performed was of a high order.

Finally, to mention only the more important of the facts giving rise to an effective preference for Chinese for such work as they were employed to do, in canneries, on the ranches, and in other places where the employees ordinarily could not live at home, they found favor because they involved the least trouble and expense. They provided their own subsistence where white men, if they did not live close at hand, would ordinarily be provided with board. Lodgings were easily provided for the Chinese, for whatever may be said concerning their standard of living as a whole, they are gregarious and are less dissatisfied when "bunked" in small quarters than is any other race thus far employed in the West.

After much ineffective state and local legislation in California the further immigration of Chinese of the laboring class was forbidden by the first of the federal exclusion laws enacted in 1882.a There had been opposition to the Chinese in the mining camps of California as early as 1852, this finally leading to the miners' license tax collected from them alone, in the cigar trade in San Francisco as early as 1862, and in other trades in which the Chinese were engaged beginning somewhat later. For the opposition many reasons were assigned, but the most important appears to have been race antipathy based upon color, language, and race traits, which has frequently found expression where numerous Chinese and white men of the laboring classes have been brought into close contact. This feeling found expression not only in San Francisco on numerous occasions, but in many other towns in California, in Tacoma, where Chinese have not been permitted to reside, and in the riots at Rock Springs, Wyo., in 1882. In public discussion many reasons were advanced rightly or wrongly for excluding the Chinese, but that the opposition was more than a part of a labor movement is evidenced by the fact that many ranchers who were employing Chinese at the time voted "against Chinese immigration" at the election held in California in 1879, at which time the matter of Chinese exclusion was submitted to popular vote.

It has been estimated that the number of Chinese in the United States at the time the first exclusion act went into effect (1882) was

a See Vol. II, pp. 785-788.

132,300. The number of Chinese laborers did not diminish perceptibly for several years after this. More recently, because of the wider distribution of the Chinese among the States, the decreasing number in the country, the large percentage who have grown old, a strong sentiment against employing Asiatics in manufacture, and the appearance of the Japanese, a change has taken place in the occupations in which the Chinese engage.

During the nineties, with the growth of the fishing industry on the Pacific coast, the number of Chinese engaged in cannery work has grown, but owing to the increasing difficulty involved in securing them and the higher wages which they have come to command since 1900, an increasing number of Japanese and, very recently, Filipinos, have been employed.

During the year 1909 some 3,000 Chinese were employed in canneries in Oregon, Washington, and Alaska, most of them migrating from San Francisco and Portland. The number of Japanese employed was approximately the same. Both races are employed in the great majority of the establishments, a Chinese ordinarily having the contract for the work done, employing his countrymen for the more skilled work, and Japanese, under a Japanese "boss," and other persons for the less skilled occupations. The Chinese command much higher wages than the Japanese. In fruit and vegetable canning in California perhaps 1,000 or more Chinese are employed. Of 750 men employed in six asparagus canneries on the Sacramento River, nearly all are Chinese secured through one Chinese "boss." Most of the others are employed in two canneries operated by Chinese companies. In other canneries European immigrants of the newer type, chiefly Italians, Greeks, and Portuguese, have been substituted for them. In some instances where Chinese were formerly employed but were discharged by their employers because of the feeling against the race or because of public criticism, Asiatics are not now employed.

Few Chinese are now employed in railway work. As section hands they had all but disappeared ten years or more ago, and the number still employed in railway shops is small. As they grew old and their numbers diminished so that they could not furnish a large percentage of the laborers required their departure was hastened by the wellorganized Japanese, who took employment at the same wages (and less than was paid to other races), though the Chinese are almost universally regarded as better "help" than the Japanese except in such occupations about the shops as require adaptability and progressiveness. The Chinese were in part replaced by other races before Japanese became available, and where this was done it was generally at a higher wage, except in the case of the Mexicans, than the Chinese had received.

The Chinese engaged in agriculture were very largely replaced by Japanese. The Chinese engaged in the growing of sugar beets were underbid and displaced by the more progressive and quicker Japanese and have all but absolutely disappeared from the industry. In the hop industry the Japanese underbid the Chinese as the Chinese had the white men. Because of this fact and the further fact that the

a Coolidge, Chinese Immigration, p. 498. The number reported by the census for 1880 was 105,465, of which number 75,132 were in California, 9,510 in Oregon, 5,416 in Nevada, 3,379 in Idaho, 3,186 in Washington, and the remaining 8,842 in other States.

Japanese had the same convenient organization and were more numerous, the Chinese have come to occupy a comparatively unimportant place in that industry. The same is true in the deciduousfruit industry, though Chinese lease orchards and in almost every locality are employed in comparatively large groups on some of the older ranches. The largest amount of land is leased by them and the largest number of them are employed for wages in the orchards and on the large tracts devoted to the production of vegetables on the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers. In a few localities they migrate from place to place for seasonal work, but such instances have become exceptional. Nearly all work in the same place throughout the year. Moreover, as the Japanese have advanced the Chinese have leased fewer orchards and withdrawn to grow vegetables or have gone to the towns and cities. Though the number employed in agricultural work is by no means small, they are no longer a dominant factor in the labor supply, and especially in that required for harvesting the crops. The place once occupied by them has for several years been occupied by the Japanese.

The number of Chinese engaged in mining has for many years been small, some 40 in coal mining in Wyoming as against several hundred formerly employed there, and several hundred as against many thousand in gold mining in California.

Many Chinese are living in the small towns of the West, engaged in laundry work, petty business, and gambling, or rather conducting places for gambling. The laundries are patronized chiefly by white people, the shops by Chinese, and the gambling places by Chinese and Japanese. In San Francisco they are much less conspicuously employed in domestic service and manufacture than formerly. Most of those engaged in domestic service are high-priced cooks in private families and in saloons. They now have a scarcity value. The most recently published estimate made by the assessor for the city and county of San Francisco of the number of Chinese engaged in manufacture (in San Francisco) was, for 1903, 2,420, the branches of manufacture having more than 100 being cigar making, with 800 Chinese in a total of 1,300; clothing, with 250 in a total of 1,050; shirt making, with 300 in a total of 1,500, and shoemaking, with 250 in a total of 950. Their numbers in all of these cases are smaller than formerly. In shoe and cigar making many were discharged during the seventies and eighties because of public criticism or fear of boycott. When white persons were substituted it was, in some cases at least, at a higher wage and for a shorter work day. At present the Chinese employed are among the low paid laborers in "white shops." The same is true of those employed in powder factories, where the number is much smaller than formerly.

The assessment roll for 1908 shows 20 cigar factories, 3 broom factories, 1 shoe factory, and 5 overall factories conducted by Chinese in San Francisco. By far the largest number of Chinese, however, some 1,000, are employed in the 100 Chinese laundries. The other branches of business are of comparatively little importance save the art and curio stores, which are conducted by business men from China. Of the Chinese in other cities much the same may be said, except that they occupy no important place in manufacture and that they frequently conduct cheap restaurants, patronized largely by

workingmen. In Portland they also conduct numerous tailor shops. On the whole, the Chinese have not shown the same progressiveness and competitive ability either in industry or in business for themselves as the Japanese. They have, however, occupied a more important place in manufacture, especially in San Francisco, where, until within the last twenty years, little cheap labor has been available from other sources.

JAPANESE.

The Japanese laborers have fallen heir to much of the work and the occupational and social position of the Chinese, whose diminishing numbers in the Western States since 1890 have been mentioned. The history of the Japanese in this country can be understood in certain respects only when connected with that of the Chinese whose immigration was earlier and who, in decreasing numbers, have continued to work along with the members of the newer race.

Until 1898 the number of Japanese immigrating to the continental United States had never reached 2,000 in any one year. In 1900 the total number in the continental United States, excluding Alaska, was reported by the census as 24,326. From 1899-1900 to 1906-7 the number arriving from Japan, Mexico, and Canada_varied between 4,319 (in 1905) and 12,626 (in 1900), while between January 1, 1902, and December 31, 1907, 37,000, attracted by the higher wages, better conditions, and better opportunities to establish themselves as farmers or as business men, came from the Hawaiian Islands to the mainland. For the greater part of this time these immigrants had come regardless of the avowed wishes of the Japanese Government, for the great influx in 1900 gave rise to a demand that the Chinese exclusion law should be amended so as to apply to Japanese and Koreans as well. As emigration to the continental United States was discouraged, however, the Japanese subjects emigrated to Hawaii, where their labor was desired on the sugar plantations, and then came in large numbers to the mainland. During 1906 and 1907 there was a similar movement from Mexico also, where several thousand laborers had been sent by the emigration companies under contract to work for corporations. A similar movement of less importance has also taken place between British Columbia and the United States, primarily because the latter presented better opportunities than the former. The influx of Japanese laborers has been controlled and reduced to small proportions during the last two years. This has been accomplished not by an exclusion law but by a series of measures which permits the greater part of the administrative problem to rest with the Japanese Government.

Since 1905 there has been a general and organized demand on the Pacific coast, and particularly in California, for the exclusion of Japanese laborers from the continental territory of the United States. The separation of Japanese from white children in the public schools of San Francisco, and other manifestations of anti-Japanese sentiment, together with a number of anti-Japanese measures under consideration by the legislature of California, precipitated an acute situation in 1906 and 1907. On the other hand it developed that the Japanese Government had for some time looked with disfavor on the emigration of its working population to distant countries, and an understanding was therefore reached between the Jap