"Under present conditions we are virtually at the mercy of the Japanese," editorialized the Los Angeles Times. The Sacramento Bee, equally indignant, warned of a planned Japanese "invasion of industrial fields." And in a spirited appearance before a congressional committee, the Bee's publisher argued for "protective measures." The Japanese, he fumed, were after nothing less than "control of the country . . . through economic competition."
Those xenophobic outbursts were not made in 1989 but in 1920, during a time of "yellow peril" panic over Japanese immigration to the U.S. But they are not much different from the alarmed press comments...