ourse. The
lower standards of living of the Oriental enable him to pay much higher
prices for land than a white man can."

"But," she persisted, "these aliens have a legal right to own and lease
land in this state, have they not?"

"Unfortunately, through the treachery of white lawyers, they have
devised means to comply with the letter of a law denying them the right
to own land, while evading the spirit of that law. Corporations with
white dummy directors--purchases by alien Japs in the names of their
infants in arms who happen to have been born in this country--" he
shrugged.

"Then you should amend your laws."

He looked at her with the faintest hint of cool belligerence in his
fine dark eyes.

"Every time we Californians try to enact a law calculated to keep our
state a white man's country, you Easterners, who know nothing of our
problem, and are too infernally lazy to read up on it, permit
yourselves to be stampeded by that hoary shibboleth of strained
diplomatic relations with the Mikado's government. Pressure is brought
to bear on us from the seat of the national government; the President
sends us a message to proceed cautiously, and our loyalty to the
sisterhood of states is used as a club to beat our brains out. Once,
when we were all primed to settle this issue decisively, the immortal
Theodore Roosevelt--our two-fisted, non-bluffable President at that
time--made us call off our dogs. Later, when again we began to squirm
under our burden, the Secretary of State, pacific William J. Bryan,
hurried out to our state capital, held up both pious hands, and cried:
'Oh, no! Really, you mustn't! We insist that you consider the other
members of the family. Withhold this radical legislation until we can
settle this row amicably.' Well, we were dutiful sons. We tried out
the gentleman's agreement imposed on us in 1907, but when, in 1913, we
knew it for a failure, we passed our Alien Land Bill, which hampered
but did not prevent, although we knew from experience that the class of
Japs who have a strangle-hold on California are not gentlemen but
coolies, and never respect an agreement they can break if, in the
breaking, they are financially benefited."

"Well," the girl queried, a little subdued by his vehemence, "how has
that law worked out?"

"Fine--for the Japs. The Japanese population of California has doubled
in five years; the area of fertile lands under their domination has
increased a thousand-f