and directed the United States district attorney to assist them in the effort to have their rights vindicated by the courts. The incident created intense excitement throughout the country, and the press was filled with discussions as to whether the United States had the constitutional power to make a treaty which should override the laws of a state. While the old question of state-rights was thus being hotly debated, the really significant question as to whether the Japanese treaty conferred school privileges was almost ignored. The treaty guarantees to Japanese subjects in the United States, in "whatever relates to rights of residence," the same privileges, liberties, and rights as native citizens, or citizens or subjects of the most favored nation.' The question as to whether the right to attend the public schools is a right of residence is open to debate; there is authority and reason for the opinion that it is not; but even granting that it is, it seems preposterous for foreigners to claim in this country under the "most-favored-nation" clause greater rights and privileges than are enjoyed by native-born citizens, who in many states are subject to segregation by race in the public schools. California did all that could have been justly demanded of her under the treaty when she furnished equal, not identical, school facilities."

But the school question was not the real question

1 Treaties in Force, 1904, PP. 474, 475.

'Am. Pol. Science Rev., I., 329, 510; Am. Journal of Int. Law, I., 150, 449.

at issue: the San Francisco school authorities could easily have excluded Japanese men from association with little children in the lower grades, which was the main ground of complaint, by the adoption of an age limit which is usual in most city schools. The real question was the exclusion of Japanese laborers from competition with American laborers, and the assignment of Japanese children to a separate school was merely an incident in a general agitation against the Japanese begun by the labor unions of California.

The question has been adjusted, temporarily at least, without being pushed to a conclusion in the courts. Japan does not wish her subjects to come in large numbers to the United States, and for some time past it has been the practice of the Japanese government not to issue passports to laborers desiring to come to the United States, though passports are issued for Hawaii, Canada, and Mexico, the holders of which in many cases finally enter this country. Relying upon a continuance of this policy, Congress inserted in the immigration act of February 20, 1907, a clause authorizing the president to exclude from the continental territory of the United States holders of passports issued by any foreign government to its citizens to go to any country other than the United States or to the insular possessions of the United States or to the Canal Zone. March 14, 1907, the president issued an executive order directing that Japanese laborers coming from Mexico, Canada, or

Hawaii be refused permission to enter the continental territory of the United States.' The San Francisco school board thereupon agreed to admit Japanese children to the ordinary schools under certain conditions of age and ability to use the English language.

In recent years Japanese have been coming to the Hawaiian Islands in such large numbers as to give rise to serious apprehensions as to the future control of that important group. The whole subject of Japanese immigration calls for treaty regulation, and it is to be earnestly hoped that the two countries will soon reach a satisfactory agreement on a basis that will insure a continuance of the traditional friendship and good feeling.

1 Am. Journal of Int. Law, I., 450.

IN

CHAPTER XVIII

ECONOMIC TENDENCIES

(1895-1907)

any attempt to analyze the economic and industrial development of the present generation three movements at once arrest our attention: first, the organization of capital; second, the organization of labor; and third, governmental interference for the regulation of both in the interests of the general public. The concentration of capital in large-scale production, which is the most striking feature of modern industry, is due to the ever-extending application of machinery and to the growing complexity of the processes of production. The economic advantages of large business units are too familiar to need repetition: in certain lines of industry the tendency to concentration is inevitable and cannot be stayed by legislation. To state the problem philosophically, co-operation is the great law of social development.1

For three or four years following the Spanish War, the unprecedented prosperity of the country and the rapid accumulation of capital greatly accelerated 1 Ely, Evolution of Industrial Society, chap. v.

1

industrial combinations. Bankers, brokers, and lawyers became promoters of such organizations and undertook to float the stock of the purchasing or holding companies. The most gigantic industrial combination that the world has ever seen was the United States Steel Corporation, organized in 1901 under a New Jersey charter. This concern purchased the stock of eleven great companies which had control of about three-fourths of the steel industry of the United States, thus bringing under one management capital amounting to $1,100,000,000. The extent to which other combinations control the output of the various lines of industry is difficult to determine, but in sugar about 90 per cent. is controlled by a single combination, and in petroleum at least 82 per cent.' As to the ultimate outcome of all this combination, the Industrial Commission, in its concluding report of 1902, says: "There is reason to believe that the movement toward concentration of industry will go steadily on, but there is no reason for thinking that within measurable time the combinations will cover the entire field of industry. There will still be left abundant opportunity for individual ownership and management." " Since the date of this report the fever for organization has somewhat subsided, and it is not so easy now for a promoter to get the capital to float new schemes of consolidation.

2

In the case of railroads competition had in most 1 Industrial Commission, Report, XIX., 604. 2 Ibid., 600.