That sign is merely a polite intimation to white
men who may contemplate selling or leasing their lands to Japs that the
organized sentiment of this community is against such a course. The
lower standards of living of the Oriental enable him to pay much higher
prices for land than a white man can."
"But," she persisted, "these aliens have a legal right to own and lease
land in this state, have they not?"
"Unfortunately, through the treachery of white lawyers, they have
devised means to comply with the letter of a law denying them the right
to own land, while evading the spirit of that law. Corporations with
white dummy directors--purchases by alien Japs in the names of their
infants in arms who happen to have been born in this country--" he
shrugged.
"Then you should amend your laws."
He looked at her with the faintest hint of cool belligerence in his
fine dark eyes.
"Every time we Californians try to enact a law calculated to keep our
state a white man's country, you Easterners, who know nothing of our
problem, and are too infernally lazy to read up on it, permit
yourselves to be stampeded by that hoary shibboleth of strained
diplomatic relations with the Mikado's government. Pressure is brought
to bear on us from the seat of the national government; the President
sends us a message to proceed cautiously, and our loyalty to the
sisterhood of states is used as a club to beat our brains out.
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