little sympathy for the Wilson Cabinet, and were determined to manage the affairs of the State to suit them, whatever the effects of their actions upon the policy of the Federal Government. I have always been, as I still am, a sincere admirer of Governor Johnson, his undaunted courage, his unflinching energy, and above all, his love of justice. Yet they tell me that the Progressive Governor of California, seeing that his influence was waning, was anxious to regain his popularity by catering to the wishes of the labouring class. At the last election he was elected by a very small majority, less than a hundred votes. When the anti-Japanese land bill was introduced in the fall of 1912, he saw a chance to befriend the labouring class. As the Argonant observes, the land bill " is just a bit of cheap political buncombe, meaningless and ineffective in itself, useful only in that it may help somebody to get votes under pretence of being a Japanese baiter."

What appears to be an inside story of the enactment of the land bill is told in a letter addressed to the London Nation by Miss Alice M. Brown, of Florin, who was a close observer of every activity of the California legislature in regard to the land legislation. Even conceding that her account of the situation may not be absolutely free from misconception, it nevertheless throws an interesting light upon the question. She says:

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When the agitation began in the legislature we thought it was just a flurry of organized labour that would soon end by being unnoticed. The session of the legislature this year was bifurcated and it was not until the middle of March that the agitation took an aggressive character. When the Judiciary Committee held a meeting in March, they permitted a member of our community [Florin] to appear before them. This man was

a disreputable person, shiftless, ignorant, and addicted to hard drinking, and naturally gave utterance to a stock of vicious falsehoods which shocked all respectable, fair-minded people of Florin. But the legislature took up his ugly lies and repeated them on the floors of both houses as the demand of the farmers of Florin to be saved from a terrible menace.' The intellectual citizens of Florin immediately took steps to controvert the falsification and begged the Judiciary Committee for a hearing. After repeated appeals it was finally announced that we could appear. We went to the capital prepared with facts and statistics, but to our great disgust and astonishment we were not permitted to say a word. Meanwhile, the same uncouth falsifier was called forth and given all the time he wanted to utter more falsehoods.

"We tried to get into the press so that the public might see the situation as it really was. But the press of California was closed and locked. We then turned to the Governor; he had no time to give us. At one time we waited for three hours at the door of the Governor's office, having sent in a letter of introduction written by his personal friend, and yet we were not permitted to set forth before him our side of the case. The only thing we could do was to print a protest, and the duty of preparing pamphlets describing the real status of the Japanese in our community was assigned me. These pam

phlets were distributed among the legislators, editors, and publicists in the State, but were given scant attention.

"We then saw that 'the demand of the people of the State for relief' was a political scheme to arouse race antagonism and curry favour with the labour-union element, and that the truth was not wanted because truth

would deprive those concocting the scheme of their ammunition for a great Japanese scare. With the lid tight on the truth, and with the doors of the press and legislature wide open to falsehood, the public mind could be inflamed and their political ends attained.

"I attended the session every time the land bill came up. The speeches in favour of the bill were simply torrents of abuse and vituperations, and a defiance of national authority. Once I asked an Assemblyman to set forth before the legislators some salient facts bearing upon the question, and the gentleman sighed: 'The Assembly is dead set; no industrial appeal, no human appeal, no appeal whatever would reach them, and I am going to save my breath.'

"When the bill was up for debate in the Senate, Senator Wright arose and said: 'You are all playing politics, dirty cheap politics; you all know you are, and you don't dare deny it.' They didn't, not one; they only sat and chuckled.

"We had not connected Governor Johnson with the political intrigue, feeling that in deference to the high honour he had held as a Vice-Presidential candidate last fall he would not stultify himself with undignified manœuvres and unjust discrimination. But with the coming of Secretary Bryan he showed his hand, and his identity with the sinister scheme became manifest. By that time he saw the chance to put Wilson in a hole, and he became feverishly anxious to pass a very drastic

measure.

"Mr. Bryan addressed both houses jointly in a private session. When he explained the Administration's wishes and promised them help by diplomatic adjustment, the legislature was bending to his plea. At that juncture however, the Governor sprang to his feet, and by a

virulent plea for 'State's rights' turned the tables against Secretary Bryan.

"From the beginning the Japanese community in Florin was made the centre of attack, and Florin's very prosperity was made over into dire calamity. Governor Johnson brought Secretary Bryan out here, taking as a guide not an intelligent, respectable citizen of our community but the ignorant whiskey-soak who could be relied upon to delude Secretary Bryan. When the party returned to Sacramento, Secretary Bryan allowed me an interview. I then told him the facts and history of agriculture in Florin, and the part the Japanese have played in it. He asked me many questions concerning what he had seen and heard, proving that he had been a close observer but had been greatly misinformed. I am sure he saw through Governor Johnson's duplicity."

All efforts of President Wilson and Secretary Bryan unavailing, the land bill was passed on April 15. Mr. Bryan had left Sacramento on April 3, after a stay of a week. While the bill was in Governor Johnson's hands awaiting his signature, the President made another, and the final, effort to prevent it from becoming a law. But the Governor stood firm and replied to the President:

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"By the law adopted we offer no offence, we make no discrimination. The offence and discrimination are contained, it is claimed, in the use of the words 'eligible to citizenship,' and in making a distinction between those who are eligible to citizenship and those who are not. We do not mention the Japanese or any particular race. The constitution of California in 1879 made its distinction and there has never been protest or objection. The naturalization law of the United States long since, without demur from any nation, determined who were and who were not eligible to citizenship. If invidious dis

crimination was ever made in this regard, the United States made it when it declared who were and who were not eligible to citizenship, and when we but follow and depend on the statutes of the United States and their determination as to eligibility to citizenship, we cannot be accused of indulging in invidious discrimination."

The Governor's reply was a lengthy one. As a piece of logical argument it is a splendid document and deserves the praise which it elicited from the editors of certain influential magazines in New York. Yet every one of us knows that a logical argument is not necessarily a convincing argument. There are arguments which, however logical, terse, and vigorous in expression, fall flat, and we fear that Mr. Johnson's reply to the President was, at best, a fine example of such arguments. He could silence his opponents, but not convince them. And to those who knew the inside story of the political game at Sacramento the Governor's argument is far from convincing.

The law puts" in a hole" not only the Wilson Cabinet but the Government at Tokyo. It provides that all aliens eligible to citizenship may acquire land, and that all aliens ineligible to citizenship may acquire land in the manner and to the extent and for the purposes prescribed by any treaty now existing between the United States and nation or country of which such aliens are subjects. Now the American-Japanese treaty expressly extends to the Japanese the right to own or lease or occupy houses, manufactories, warehouses, and shops; to lease land for residential and commercial purposes and generally to do anything necessary for trade. The treaty is silent on the question of ownership of farm land. Comparing the provisions of the treaty with those of the land law it is difficult to see how Japan could logically protest against