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Great Negro Tide Surges Into Melting Pot of West

Peola Denham, 51, a Negro, with responsibilities more than enough to fill his great, copper hands, turned the palms outward expressively at his surroundings:

NO ANTI-ALIEN PROPERTY LAWThe measure to prohibit ownership of California real estate by aliens, or by a corporation a majority of the stock of which is owned by aliens, is dead. It as an act which, if made a law, would do incalculable injury to Southern California. It would necessarily limit the sale of orchards, vineyards, farms, unimproved lands and city blocks and lots to American citizens. It would cause to be withdrawn from investment hundreds of millions of dollars of English, French and German capital now loaned or available for loaning on real property. It would put many banks and trust companies out of business. It would check development and paralyze progress. It would cause mortgages to be foreclosed and real property to be sacrificed upon a forced and falling market. It would be of no advantage to anybody in the world, and it would serve only to gratify the whims and prejudices of those petty-minded people who hate men and women of foreign birth and who would like to slam the door in the faces of emigrants from beyond seas.There is now no danger of its becoming a law, as the Legislature has adjourned, thank God, but its mere pendency, accompanied by even a numerically respectable support, was a disgrace to the State. We invite the world to visit the Panama Exposition and behold the productiveness of our soil, the geniality of our climate, the marvel of our growth. Shall we say to the Englishman, the Irishman, the Scotchman, the Frenchman, the German, the Italian, the Spaniard, the Portuguese, the Scandinavian, the Switzer and the Canadian — “You cannot buy or hold any of our soil. California reverses the policy which for 100 years has prevailed in other States. She welcomes only those who were born within the territorial limits of the United States.”The provisions of the proposed illiberal and outrageous law would extend to mines, to water and power properties, and to all manufacturing and commercial enterprises that necessarily include the ownership of some land. It would be a waste of time to attempt to follow the far-reaching ramifications of the anti-alien bill in their blighting effect upon the interests of the property owners, and incidentally upon non-property owners who depend upon property owners for employment.It is astonishing that such a measure should even have received respectful consideration from any mebers of a California Legislature.

Any law that may be enacted by the California Legislature attempting to make a distinction between Japanese and other resident aliens so as to inhibit the former from buying or leasing real estate in California would not only be a violation of Art. 1, Sec. 17 of the State Constitution, but it would be as inoperative as the Pope’s bull against the comet, for the President and the United States Senate could annul such a law by treaty with Japan. [...]Wherefore let the Japanese holders of ten-acre tracts on which they cultivate celery and cabbages, and the Japanese owners of town lots whose occupants clean clothing or practice the tonsorial art, be not affrighted. Gov. Johnson and his Legislature will not take away from them their little holdings at the command of Gompers and McCarthy and Job Harriman, for Uncle Sam will reach forth his arm and say to the Sacramento solons, “Thou shalt not,” and they will perforce obey, for the same reason that the tail obeys when the dog orders it to wag — because the dog is bigger than the tail.