The Anti-Japanese Agitation

The “agitation” against the Japanese was given a major push by the media. There were people who were anti-Japanese, of course, but the Hearst papers and their sensationalist (and sometimes non-nonsensical) articles really got the ball going. This spread to other papers.

I like the way this author writes, bringing up a point I haven't seen brought up elsewhere.

He says that those who believe the Japanese are using illegal business practices should be required to prove that they are. He also adds that the idea that the Japanese were “displacing” white workers was really nothing other than “the sense that every man is a competitor with every man who engages in the same occupation...”

He then takes on the idea that the Japanese cannot be assmiliated. He later attacks the idea that the Japanese are, on purpose, outbreeding whites.

He also works on meeting rumors with facts.

He exposes another newspaper lie.

He basically argues that, instead of putting the Japanese down, help them to come up to white standards. That they themselves are trying to improve is shown by the fact that “the purchase of Bibles on the part of the Japanese is greater, pro rata, the even among Americans.”

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