displaced race. In 1906 they numbered 1,000; 1908, 900; at the |
beginning of 1909, 700. They are now paid $1.40 per day, while
the Italians, the other important racial element in maintenance of
way work, are in some cases paid $1.50. On the other two roads
referred to, the Japanese are paid the same wages as all white |
men, $1.45 per day; and in one case more than the Mexicans |
employed on the southern end of the route. They are also paid
the same wage as Greeks, Italians and Slavs, and all white men |
employed on another road with its western terminus in Utah.” ? |
The report further says: “With few exceptions the Japanese |
are preferred to the Greeks, who are most invariably ranked as |
the least desirable section hands, because they are not industrious |
and are intractable and difficult to control. As between Japanese |
and Italians, opinion is fairly evenly divided. The same may |
be said of them and the Slavs. Though the Japanese are usually |
ranked below the Chinese and Mexicans, they compare favorably |
with the south and eastern Europeans, who constitute a still |
larger percentage of the common laborers in maintenance of way
work.” 3
Such was the situation in 1909. “In more recent years, ;
with the scarcity of Japanese laborers and a still greater apprecia- |
tion of them on the part of the roadmasters, practically all, if not |
all, underpayment of Japanese maintenance of way men has dis- |
appeared. In every instance in which data were recently secured, |
it was found that Japanese and European immigrants were being |
paid the same rate—$1.50, or whatever it might be, per day of ten |
hours. Not only have the Japanese risen to the general wage |
level; as the most interesting detail observed in my investigations, ©
because of efficiency, ambition, long employment and trust- |
worthiness, today many Japanese are employed as foremen of
section and extra gangs—and frequently, perhaps more frequently t
than not, over Greek and Italian laborers. The San Pedro, Los
|
|
{

      

Angeles and Salt Lake has about thirty Japanese foremen; the
Oregon, Washington Railroad and Navigation Company, five;
the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, twenty-five—eleven of them
over non-Japanese “gangs,” while many are found on the

2Immigration Commission Reports, vol. 23, p. 41.
3 Ibid., pp. 41-42.

\

|
;
|