who enters our country secretly and illegally. I
grant you it would prove too expensive and annoying to make a firm
effort to stop this illegal immigration by preventive measures along
our international boundary and coast-line, but if we destroy the Jap's
opportunity for profit at our expense, we will eliminate the main
incentive for his secret and illegal entry, which entry is always very
expensive. I believe seven hundred and fifty dollars is the
market-price for smuggling Japs and Chinamen into the United States of
America."

"But we should take steps to discover these immigrants after they
succeed in making entry--"

"Rats!" the bluff old contractor interrupted. "How are we going to do
that under present conditions? The cry of the country is for economy
in governmental affairs, so Congress prunes the already woefully
inadequate appropriation for the Department of Labor and keeps our
force of immigration inspectors down to the absolute minimum. These
inspectors are always on the job; the few we have are splendid, loyal
servants of the government, and they prove it by catching Japs,
Chinamen, and Hindus every day in the week. But for every illegal
entrant they apprehend, ten escape and are never rounded up. Confound
them; they all look alike, anyhow! How are you going to distinguish
one Jap from another?

"Furthermore, Mr. Parker, you must bear this fact in mind: The country
at large is not interested in the problem of Oriental immigration. It
hasn't thought about it; it doesn't know anything about it except what
the Japs have told it, and a Jap is the greatest natural-born liar and
purveyor of half-truths and sugar-coated misinformation this world has
known."

"Easy, old timer!" Don Mike soothed, laying his hand on Conway's
shoulder. "Don't let your angry passions rise."

Conway grinned.

"I always fly into a rage when I get talking about Japs," he explained
deprecatingly to the ladies. "And it's such a helpless, hopeless rage.
There's no outlet for it. You see," he began all over again, "the
dratted Jap propagandist is so smart--he's so cunning that he has
capitalized the fact that California was the first state to protest
against the Japanese invasion. He has made the entire country believe
that this is a dirty little local squabble of no consequence to our
country at large. He keeps the attention of forty-seven states on
California while he quietly proceeds to colonize Oregon, Washington,
a