titude in taking advantage of critical circumstances
in making bargains, have by contrast partially restored to popular
favor the patient, reliable Chinaman.

At first the Japanese were welcomed as unskilled laborers. They found
employment on the railroads, in lumber mills and salmon canneries, in
mines and on farms, and in domestic service. But they soon showed a
keen propensity for owning or leasing land. The Immigration Commission
found that in 1909 they owned over sixteen thousand acres in
California and leased over one hundred and thirty-seven thousand.
Nearly all of this land they had acquired in the preceding five years.
In Colorado they controlled over twenty thousand acres, and in Idaho
and Washington over seven thousand acres each. This acreage represents
small holdings devoted to intensive agriculture, especially to the
raising of sugar beets, vegetables, and small fruits.

The hostility which began to manifest itself against the Japanese
especially in California brought that State into sharp contact with
the Federal Government. In 1906 the San Francisco authorities excluded
the Japanese from the public schools. This act was immediately and
vigorously protested by the Japanese Government. After due
investigation, the matter was finally adjusted at a conference held in
Washington between President Roosevelt and a delegation from
California. This incident served to re-awaken the ghost of Mongolian
domination on the Pacific coast, for it occurred during the notorious
regime of Mayor Schmitz. Labor politics were rampant. Isolated
instances of violence against Japanese occurred, and hoodlums, without
fear of police interference, attacked a number of Japanese
restaurants. Political candidates were pledged to an anti-Japanese
policy.

In 1907 the two governments reached an agreement whereby the details
of issuing passports to Japanese laborers who desired to return to the
United States was virtually left in the hands of the Japanese
Government, which was opposed to the emigration of its laboring
population. As a consequence of this agreement, passports are granted
only to laborers who had previously been residents of the United
States or to parents, wives, and children of Japanese laborers
resident in America. Under authority of the immigration law of 1907,
the President issued an order (March 14, 1907) denying admission to
"Japanese and Korean laborers, skilled or unskilled, who have received
passports to go to