“Do the white farmers think that sign will frighten them away?”

“No; of course not.  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.  Once, when we were all primed to settle this issue decisively, the immortal Theodore Roosevelt—­our two-fisted, non-bluffable President at that time—­made us call off our dogs.  Later, when again we began to squirm under our burden, the Secretary of State, pacific William J. Bryan, hurried out to our state capital, held up both pious hands, and cried:  ’Oh, no!  Really, you mustn’t!  We insist that you consider the other members of the family.  Withhold this radical legislation until we can settle this row amicably.’  Well, we were dutiful sons.  We tried out the gentleman’s agreement imposed on us in 1907, but when, in 1913, we knew it for a failure, we passed our Alien Land Bill, which hampered but did not prevent, although we knew from experience that the class of Japs who have a strangle-hold on California are not gentlemen but coolies, and never respect an agreement they can break if, in the breaking, they are financially benefited.”

“Well,” the girl queried, a little subdued by his vehemence, “how has that law worked out?”

“Fine—­for the Japs.  The Japanese population of California has doubled in five years; the area of fertile lands under their domination has increased a thousand-fold, until eighty-five per cent. of the vegetables raised in this state are controlled by Japs.  They are not a dull people, and they know how to make that control yield rich dividends—­at the expense of the white race.  That man Okada is called the ‘potato baron’ because presently he will actually control the potato crop of central California—­and that is where most of the potatoes of this state are raised.  Which reminds me that I started to ask you a question about him.  Do you happen to know if he is contemplating expanding his enterprise to include a section of southern California?”