Self restraint urged as check to immigration

Every Sunday, “Back in the Day” looks at an article that ran on this date in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. The items are verbatim, so don’t blame us today for yesteryear’s bad grammar.

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Would Have Made Exclusion Act Unnecessary, Paul Scharrenberg Contends

The principle of self-restraint as a means of controlling immigration and emigration problems was advocated by Paul Scharrenberg, secretary-treasurer of the California State Federation of Labor, in a public lecture give at Mission Memorial hall yesterday afternoon under the auspices of the Institute of Pacific Relations.

"If the workers of Japan could have persuaded their government that it should restrain the numbers of workers going from Japan to America, we would never have had the exclusion act of 1924, Scharrenberg said. …

"There are some persons," he said, "who try to make other believe that the American Federation of Labor in trying to protect its standard of living sought only the exclusion of the people it felt were inferior. However, the truth is that the federation has never claimed that either the Japanese, Chinese or Hindus were in any way inferior. We have claimed that exclusion of the laborers of these countries was necessary to protect ourselves.

"An example of what might have happened in California had not the exclusion act been passed is seen in what has happened in Hawaii. These islands years ago had strong unions of white mechanics and a flourishing labor council but this has all passed away and the white mechanics were forced to leave. …

"There are 400,000,000 people in China; but 110,000,000 in the United States, and California is by comparison just being settled. China would not miss a million or two laborers but their influx would make California definitely an Asiatic community.

"The American Federation of Labor has always been willing and ready to aid in immigration questions. But it would not help either Asia or America to allow a large influx of Orientals. Immigration never raises the standard of living of the country from which the immigrant comes. And it usually results in a lowering of the standard of living of the receiving country. …

"We in California often look to Hawaii. We understand the experiment you are making here and are agreeable to your making any sort of melting pot you want here, but all we ask of you is that you don’t force it on us in California."