customed to speak of the Italian, for example, with contempt, as a "dago." Still more emphatic is he in his denouncement of the Chinese, the Japanese, and the Hindus as members of an inferior race. Of course, the cultivated man, especially one who has traveled widely, knows better. As Professor Steiner has so well reminded us, the first immigrant to America was a dago named Columbus, a man of learning and of the highest cultivation. Moreover, when at the present day Americans go to Europe to study art and architecture they are very likely to go to the land of the great dagoes, Michelangelo, Giotto, Raffael, Leonardo da Vinci, and others of similar rank. Nowhere in the world have we been able to find in centuries past, or do we find in the world to-day, people of higher cultivation than the Italians. Moreover, if instead of turning our eyes to Europe, we go to the Far East, and visit the Chinese and Japanese, we are equally imprest, as we meet members of the wealthier and more cultivated classes in society, with their high degree of intelligence, with their intellectual training, and especially, perhaps, with the personal qualities which have made them the world over models of courtesy and of manners that characterize the gentleman.

ARE OTHER RACES INFERIOR?

It is hardly to be expected, however, that people who have not traveled and who have not read widely should recognize that the ordinary workingmen from the Orient with whom they come into keen competition, and who often underbid them in wages, especially in doing work of the most arduous type, belong to cultivated races; and it is natural that they

should look upon them as inferior people. Moreover, whether they recognize this fact or not, whether or not we ourselves believe that race prejudice is something to be heartily condemned, we must still recognize the actual existence of this feeling as an important political fact.

RACE FEELING ELSEWHERE

The feeling against the negroes has forced us to recognize that race feeling is an extremely important political question and may well become a social question.

Moreover, we should recognize the fact that the feeling on the Pacific Coast against the Chinese, the Japanese and the Hindus is not in itself exceptional. A similar feeling against these same races is found in Canada, in Australia, in South Africa, in every place where these oriental races have come into immediate contact with the white race, and especially when they have come into active competition with it in ordinary labor. We must recognize this feeling, then, as a usual one and one that must be considered when we come to political action.

ORIENTALS NOT EASILY ASSIMILATED

Altho these races may not be considered in any way inferior to ourselves, it is a fact that they are materially different: that they are not so easily assimilated as are the members of the European races; that they do not readily marry with our people nor our people with them. And we should reflect that, short of intermarriage, there is no real amalgamation of races.

FORM A SEPARATE CLASS

On the Pacific Coast they have, as a matter of fact, usually made an entirely separate working class. Generally speaking, when they have entered largely into a business, or when they have undertaken certain classes of work, there has been a rapid separation between them and the American workingmen, they taking the harder kinds of labor and the members of the white races taking types of work entirely different. In this way they have become, to a considerable extent, almost a separate caste. Indeed, there is a feeling on the part of many people who have carefully observed conditions in that region that the Chinese and Hindus— not the Japanese-have almost made a servile caste; and many of the most thoughtful, most cultivated, most kindly people on the Coast have thought that, inasmuch as these are facts, they must be recognized, and that it is wise for us to take action accordingly.

GOVERNMENTAL ACTION OF CHINA AND JAPAN

The Governments of China and Japan have really no reason to object to our wishing not to admit the working people of their races in large numbers. As a matter of fact, Americans are not admitted to China or to Japan on even terms with the natives there. They can go into these countries as residents only in very limited communities; they are not permitted to buy land; and they are not admitted to citizenship in those countries. In truth, our country, as a whole, has treated the members, particularly of the Japanese race, more liberally than the Japanese have treated the Americans. The Japanese have been allowed to buy land, in many instances in large tracts;

and tho at the present time we are taking rather active measures to exclude them from coming in large numbers, and in some States are preventing their holding of land, up to date, at any rate, we have treated them more liberally than they have treated us.

It may be well argued, then, that it is better for them, better for us, better for the civilization of the world at large, that each country, where such fundamental differences exist, attempt to work out its own problems independently, instead of each working them out in the country of the other.

ADVANTAGES OF ASSOCIATION WITH OTHER NATIONS

We should not fail to recognize, nevertheless, the great advantage that comes from intimate association with people who are different from ourselves. One of the mistakes that we often make in our social intercourse, as well as in our political relations, in associating with people of similar tastes and habits, is to form a little clique or society of persons like ourselves, forgetting that in our intimate intercourse with them, while we may derive enjoyment, we obtain very few new ideas. In talking with men trained as we have been trained, meeting the same people, thinking along lines similar to our own habits of thinking, it is not likely that we shall give them many new thoughts, or that we shall derive much from them. On the other hand, when we meet with people of a different type from ourselves, from them we gather many new ideas, if we are thoughtful and can free ourselves from prejudice. It is they, rather than our most intimate associates, perhaps, from whom we learn most and to whom we owe most in our advancement. Indeed, it is often true, that from people who

are really opposed to ourselves, we learn the most. By opposing our ideas, they rouse us to activity.

Advantage of Contact With Educated Orientals

We ought, then, not to fail to get the benefit from contact with foreigners, especially those whose racial customs differ widely from ours. In order, however, to secure this advantage, it is not necessary that they immigrate in large numbers, and especially that they come as people of the unskilled laboring classes. Rather should we encourage our own people to travel in foreign countries; to get the ideas that come from the study of different civilizations; and we should encourage the coming to our shores of people of the better trained and more intelligent classes-travelers, scientists, students, merchants, and others from whom we can gather new plans of work. While it may, for economic as well as for social reasons, be wise to exclude the common laborer, it can not but be unwise to exclude trained men and women who come to us usually merely for a temporary sojourn, and from whom we may learn much that will tend to benefit our own civilization. Moreover, by exchanging ideas and giving to them the benefits of our civilization, which differs from theirs, we may give to them an equal advantage, and thus the civilization of the world will be promoted. Whatever views we may hold with reference to the ordinary immigration question, so far as the Orient is concerned, there can be no doubt that we ought to uphold a policy of friendly intercourse between the oriental nations and our own, in order that each may get the benefit of the civilization of the other.