“But not because of strong racial prejudice.  The Chinese, like any other Oriental, are not assimilable; also, like the Jap and the Hindu, they are smart enough to know a good thing when they see it—­and California looks good to everybody.  John Chinaman would overrun us if we permitted it, but since he is a mighty decent sort and realizes the sanity of our contention that he is not assimilable with us, or we with him, he admits the wisdom and justice of our slogan:  ’California for white men.’  There was no protest from Peking when we passed the Exclusion Act.  Now, however, when we endeavor to exclude Japanese, Tokio throws a fit.  But if we can muster enough courage among our state legislators to pass a law that will absolutely divorce the Japanese coolie from California land, we can cope with him in other lines of trade.”

She had listened earnestly to his argument, delivered with all the earnestness of which he was capable.

“Why is he not assimilable?” she asked.

“Would you marry the potato baron?” he demanded bluntly.

“Certainly not!” she answered.

“He has gobs of money.  Is that not a point worthy of consideration?”

“Not with me.  It never could be.”

“Perhaps you have gobs of money also.”

“If I were a scrubwoman, and starving, I wouldn’t consider a proposal of marriage from that Jap sufficiently long to reject it.”

“Then you have answered your own question,” he reminded her triumphantly.  “The purity of our race—­aye, the purity of the Japanese race—­forbids intermarriage; hence we are confronted with the intolerable prospect of sharing our wonderful state with an alien race that must forever remain, alien—­in thought, language, morals, religion, patriotism, and standards of living.  They will dominate us, because they are a dominant people; they will shoulder us aside, control us, dictate to us, and we shall disappear from this beautiful land as surely and as swiftly as did the Mission Indian.  While the South has its negro problem—­and a sorry problem it is—­we Californians have had an infinitely more dangerous problem thrust upon us.  We’ve got to shake them off.  We’ve got to!”

“I’ll speak to my father.  I do not think he understands—­that he fully realizes—­”

“Ah!  Thank you so much.  Your father is rich, is he not?”

“I think he possesses more money than he will ever need,” she replied soberly.

“Please try to make him see that the big American thing to do would be to colonize his land in the San Gregorio for white men and take a lesser profit.  Really, I do not relish the idea of Japanese neighbors.”

“You live there, then?”

He nodded.

“Hope to die there, too.  You leave the train at El Toro, I suppose?”

“My father has telegraphed mother to have the car meet us there.  We shall motor out to the ranch.  And are you alighting at El Toro also?”