Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 February 1907 — WASHINGTON LETTER. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON LETTER.

Political and General Gossip of the National Capital. Special Correspondence to The Democrat. A number of sensational papers have been trying hard this week to prove the imminence of war between this country and Japan. Of course, the public school case in San Francisco is still unsettled, and there have been a number of Japanese held up recently by the immigration inspectors on the Pacific coast for the violation of the alien contract labor law. Altogether things are not so placid as they might be between this country and Japan, and the yellow papers have taken pains to magnify every incident anti to insist that not only is war imminent, but that both this country and Japan are preparing for it 'by strengthening their armies and navies, and making other preparation! for a sanguinary conflict. Denials of these stories have been given out both at the White House and the War Department, but the mere fact that the government took the trouble to deny, them only served to lend them a color of possibility. The situation is simple and might as well be explained so that no one else will lose sleep over the prospect of an immediate yellow invasion. Japan has no more idea of war with this country than we have of a war with England. Relations have been somewhat strained, not between the two governments, but between the mass of the Japanese population and the residents of the Pacific slope who regard the Japanese much as the people of the south regard negroes, and who want none of them except as laborers on the railroads and farm hands. Both the government of this country and that of Japan are fully alive to the situation and efforts are being made now to adjust matters satisfactorily by treaty so that there will be no Japanese exclusion act passed shutting out the Japs from this country on the same basis as Chinamen are now excluded. Much has been made of the reported activity of the Japanese in Hawaii, where it was declared they bad already perfected a military organization, and were ready to capture the island as soon as the signal should be given by their home government. Commissioner of Immigration Sargent has recently returned from Hawaii, and a prominent Hawaiian planter, Lorin Thurston, is now in Washington on business with one of the Departments. Both of these gentlemen have given out statements fully covering the situation in Hawaii, and agreeing in all essential details. They say there is a population of about 60,000 in the Hawaiian islands and that the planters there wish there were more. They are necessary as field hands and laborers and are the only source of labor supply, as Hawaii is entirely cut off from European immigration. Nevertheless these Japanese are not allowed to remain in peace in Hawaii where they are wanted, but are being continually enticed to the Pacific coast by immigration agents who thrive by hiring them out to the railroads and big ranchmen of California, Washington and Oregon. There is a scarcity of labor on tha coast as there is over much of this country just now and while the Californians do not want the Japanese in their schools and do not want to allow them social equality, they are glad enough to have them as laborers. The disturbance over the Japanese school question in San Francisco has inflamed the minds of the Japanese at home and there is, it is true, considerable anti-American feeling in Japan, but it is the wish and would be to the advantage of both countries to allay this irritation and if the matter could be dropped by the newspapers the State Department and the Japanese foreign office would have little trouble in adjusting their differences. t t t Orders have been given by the Panama Canal Commission for the collection of samples of sand, dirt and gravel, from along the line of the big ditch and of other points in the canal zone with a view to having them analyzed in this country to see whether there may not be a considerable amount of gold and other valuable minerals dug out in the construction of the canal. An effort is being made to secure an appropriation of $5,000 to have these analysises made at the Jamestown exposition where the government is now putting up its apparatus for the analysis of “black sand.” This black sand work has been carried on for two years past at Portland, Oregon, and has proved of immense value, allowing the separation at a very small cost of gold, platinum, iron ore, circon and a number of the rarer minerals from ground hith-

erto considered worthless It has slways been known that there was gold on the Isthmus of Panama. There are good paying placers that have been worked for fifty years in Nicaragua, north of the canal zone and there are almost equally good gold fields to the south. Old records show that there were once profitable placer workings at the very summit of the great Culebra and if the government finds it possible to recover this gold at small expense it may go far toward defraying the cost of the canal. The commission is not saying much about the investigation; but it is being carried on nevertheless and should it prove that there is a bo-, nanza in valuable minerals along the line of the proposed canal, the republic of Panama and the old French construction company will have every reason to be very sorry that they ever sold out to the United States. 111 It is understood that the bassoon playing mayor of San Francisco and the board of education are coming to Washington by invitation of the president to have a consultation on the question of the Japanese exclusion from the public schools. It is believed that the president will capture the bunch, at any rate it will benefit the Californians to emerge for a moment from their occidental provincialism.