an agreement with Japan under which Japan by her own act was to keep out Japanese immigration; at that time it had worked so successfully for the first six months of its operation the Japanese population in the continental United States had decreased 2,000; and that if in the future similar satisfactory results were not obtained from it, then California had just ground for complaint and the Federal Government could and would apply the necessary remedy-meaning enforcement of an exclusion act.

I want to read that telegram to you, because it is the foundation of our claims. This is the telegram:

I trust there will be no misunderstanding of the Federal Government's attitude. We are zealously endeavoring to guard the interests of California and of the entire West in accordance with the desires of our western people. By friendly agreement with Japan we are now carrying out a policy which, while meeting the interests and desires of the Pacific slope, is yet compatible not merely with mutual self-respect but with mutual esteem and admiration between the Americans and Japanese.

The Japanese Government is loyally and in good faith doing its part to carry out this policy, precisely as the American Government is doing. The policy aims at mutuality of obligation and harmony.

In accordance with it, the purpose is that the Japanese shall come here exactly as Americans go to Japan, which is in effect that travelers, students, persons engaged in international business, men who sojourn for pleasure or study, and the like, shall have the freest access from one country to the other and shall be sure of the best treatment; but that there shall be no settlement en masse by the people of either community in the other.

During the last six months under this policy more Japanese have left the country than have come in, and the total number of Japanese in the United States has diminished by over 2,000. These figures are absolutely accurate and need not be impeached. In other words, if the present policy is consistently followed and works as well in the future as it is now working, all difficulties and causes for friction will disappear, while at the same time each nation will retain the self-respect and good will of the other.

But such a bill as this school bill accomplishes literally nothing whatever in the line of the object aimed at, and gives just cause for irritation, while in addition the United States Government would be obliged immediately to take action in the Federal courts to test such legislation, as we hold it to be clearly a violation of the treaty.

On this point I refer you to the numerous decisions of the United States Supreme Court in regard to State laws which violate treaty obligations of the United States. The legislation would accomplish nothing beneficial, and would certainly cause some mischief. In short the policy of the administration is to combine the maximum of efficiency in achieving the real object which the people of the Pacific slope have at heart, with the minimum of friction and trouble, while misguided men who advocate such action as this against which I protest are following a policy which combines the very minimum of efficiency with the maximum of insult, and which, while totally failing to achieve any real result for good, yet might accomplish an infinity of harm.

If in the next year or two the action of the Federal Government fails to achieve what it is now achieving, then through the further action of the President and Congress it can be made entirely efficient.

I am sure that the sound judgment of the people of California will support you, Mr. Speaker, in your efforts. Let me repeat that at present we are actually doing the very thing which the people of California wish to have done, and to upset the arrangement under which this is being accomplished can do no good and may do harm. If in the next year or two the figures of immigration prove that the arrangement which was worked so successfully during the past six months is working no longer successfully, then there would be good ground for grievance and for the reversal by the National Government of its policy. But at present the policy is working well, and until it works badly it would be a grave misfortune to change it, and when changed it can only be changed effectually by the National Government.

The CHAIRMAN. What year was that written?

Mr. MCCLATCHY. That was February 9, 1909, Mr. Chairman. Promptly, the very next day, in response to the assurance of President Roosevelt that the United States had an agreement which would fully protect California in this matter, and that she would be protected under that agreement or under another agreement already provided for, the California Legislature killed all those bills to which the President had taken exception.

The President then sent out two wires, which are a part of the record, and are significant. One was to the speaker of the assembly:

Accept my heartiest thanks and congratulations for the great service you have rendered on behalf of the people of the United States. I thank the people of California and their representatives in the legislature.

The second was, however, very much more significant. It wes a telegram to Governor Gillette :"

Gov. J. M. GILLETTE, Sacramento:

WASHINGTON, February 10.

Accept my heartiest congratulations. All good Americans appreciate what you have done. Pray extend my congratulations individually to all who aided you. I feel the way in which California has done what was right for the Nation makes it more than ever obligatory to safeguard the interests of California. All that I can do to this end either in public or private shall most certainly be done.

I want to impress upon the committee this: That there was a contract between the State of California and the Federal Government, under the terms of which the Government was indorsing California's position as to the exclusion of Japanese immigration, and that if she would do certain things which would placate Japan and not provoke friction the Government itself would see that this agreement would be carried out, either in the way in which Japan proposed to carry it out or forcibly by an exclusion act.

Now, then, what happened? According to President Roosevelt's testimony, his successor, President Taft, made in the treaty of 1911 with Japan a concession which destroyed the very safeguard which Roosevelt had placed in that agreement by providing that the nationals of Japan might have admission as residents and for business purposes. Even there, however. Japan, by a note which was appended to the bottom of the treaty and signed by the Japanese ambassador, specifically said

The CHAIRMAN. You are referring to the treaty of 1911?

Mr. MCCLATCHY. Yes, Mr. Chairman. If you have it there you will notice a note at the bottom

The CHAIRMAN. I have only an excerpt from it.

Mr. MCCLATCHY (continuing). In which it is specifically said that Japan guarantees to carry out the intent of the agreement as to the exclusion of Japanese labor.

Now, then, the result has been, as we shall see later, that under the agreement which has been in effect since then the very purpose of the agreement in preventing the increase in Japanese population of this country, with the obvious injuries and consequences which would result, has not been fulfilled, and that population has steadily and very largely increased.

The CHAIRMAN. Did it increase by reason of the Japanese coming here for purposes of trade under the treaty?

Mr. MCLATCHY. Partly, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Of course that might be temporarily or for a long time, you know.

Mr. MCCLATCHY. Yes. This is the footnote that was appended to the treaty and signed by the Japanese ambassador:

In proceeding this day to the signature of the treaty of commerce and navigation between Japan and the United States, the undersigned, Japanese ambassador in Washington, duly authorized by his Government, has the honor to declare that the Imperial Japanese Government are fully prepared to maintain with equal effectiveness the limitation and control which they have for the past three years exercised in regulation of the emigration of laborers to the United States.

That was practically a pledge on the part of Japan to the United States that, notwithstanding the removal of Roosevelt's safeguard. they would on their honor and through their own efforts still serve the purpose for which that agreement was made and specifically outlined, to wit, prevent the increase of Japanese population in this country.

The CHAIRMAN. Is there anything said about the increase of Japanese population in this country in the papers themselves? Mr. MCCLATCHY. No; there is not.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. McClatchy, is there not a distinction between what you call the laborer or immigrant and traders and merchants coming from Japan under the commerce clause of the treaty?

Mr. McLATCHY. Mr. Chairman, I have shown you from President Roosevelt's own language that the danger which he and Japan foresaw was that the development of Japanese communities in this country was going to lead to racial and international friction, and that it was the intent of that agreement to prevent an increase of Japanese population in this country. He says that specifically in some of these things which I have read to you.

Now, the difficulty with this Japanese agreement is this: It is not a document which is accessible to the country. It is a secret understanding, consisting of an interchange of notes, and even the House Committee on Immigration has been refused permission to see what that gentlemen's agreement is and just what it says and what it means. And the best evidence which we have been able to produce is that of Mr. Roosevelt himself, who made the agreement.

Just think! In a nation like this we have conceded to Japan under that agreement the right to say how many Japanese shall come into this country. The fact is that under the orders of the department to the officials in each port any Japanese who presents himself with a passport from Japan must be admitted unless he has contagious disease. No such relinquishment of sovereignty has ever been made by any other nation on the face of the earth, and we have never made it ourselves to any nation save Japan; and Roosevelt did it, relying absolutely on Japan's honor that she would fulfill the conditions of the agreement; and apparently Taft, even after the removal of the safeguard, relied on it that she would still do it under the footnote to the treaty.

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman's agreement, so far as we know it, did not exclude traders from coming, did it? It was directed specifically, was it not, at the laborers, the immigrants?

Mr. MCCLATCHY. I think not, from President Roosevelt's language. You must remember that we are denied access to the documents, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, it has been published, I think, in the House reports somewhere.

Mr. MCCLATCHY. It has never been published. Secretary Hughes in a letter to the House committee, which was published in its hearings within two years at least, specifically said, in response to the request of the committee to be permitted to see what the agreement contained, that it was a confidential correspondence between Japan and the United States and that it could not be shown even to the House Committee on Immigration without the express permission of Japan.

The CHAIRMAN. Waiving that for a minute, we entered into that treaty with Japan in 1911, did we not?

Mr. MCCLATCHY. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. This is a clause of the treaty:

The citizens or subjects of each of the high contracting parties shall have liberty to enter, travel, and reside in the territories of the other to carry on trade, wholesale and retail, to own or lease and occupy houses, manufactories, warehouses, and shops, to employ agents of their choice, to lease land for residential and commercial purposes, and generally to do anything incident to or necessary for trade upon the same terms as native citizens or subjects, submitting themselves to the laws and regulations there established.

In our consideration of this subject we must draw the distinction between the immigrant; that is, the laborer, if you please, and persons coming here for purposes of trade under the commercial treaties which we have with various countries. Now, the question I was going to ask is whether the Johnson bill would not operate to repeal this provision of the treaty?

Mr. MCCLATCHY. I would rather that Attorney General Webb should answer that question. But I understand, of course, that any action along this line by Congress

The CHAIRMAN. Oh, absolutely; a statute repeals a treaty and a treaty repeals a statute.

Senator SHORTRIDGE. May I say just a word right there? There is no doubt whatever as to what was contemplated and agreed to in or by the so-called gentleman's agreement. It was contemplated that there would be a falling off or a decrease in the Japanese population in California, and in so far as Japan could they promised to carry out that agreement.

Now, the agreement has not been carried out, and there has been a very great increase in the population. When it came to the treaty of 1911, a portion of which you have just read, this bar as against immigration was removed. The activities of the immigrants from Japan were limited by the treaty, but there was no limitation in that treaty as to the number that might come. Recently the Supreme Court of the United States has upheld our State legislation, which prevents the owning of real property for agricultural purposes, for subleasing, etc. But the gentleman's agreement was to limit and to reduce the population or immigration. The treaty of 1911 removed all limitation as to immigration, but accompanying that treaty of 1911 was the declaration of the ambassador that the existing gentleman's agreement would be carried out in good faith.

Mr. MCCLATCHY. And that, I understand, Mr. Chairman, was done because the Senate in passing upon the treaty and approving it specifically provided that it was not to interfere with the immigration act. I think Senator Phelan can tell you more about that.

Now, let me indicate from President Roosevelt's own language just exactly what he meant in that agreement in regard to the particular point which you raised; that is to say, as to whether they were going to admit, regardless of the increase of population, traders, business men, and so on. I will read now an extract from a letter to the Hon. William Kent, written by President Roosevelt, dated February 4, 1909, just a few days before he sent that telegram to the California Legislature, which would indicate what was in his mind at the time:

Let the arrangement between Japan and the United States be entirely reciprocal. Let the Japanese and Americans visit one another's countries with entire freedom as tourists, scholars, professors, sojourners for study or pleasure. or for purposes of international business, but keep out laborers, men who want to take up farms, men who want to go into the small trades, or even in professions where the work is of a noninternational character. That is, keep out of Japan those Americans who wish to settle and become part of the resident working population, and keep out of America those Japanese who wish to adopt a similar attitude. This is the only wise, proper policy.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, you hit, it seems to me, one phase of this question.

Mr. MCCLATCHY. I think that meets your suggestion.

The CHAIRMAN. It is not a new question. It arises with regard to other commercial treaties that we have with other nations, whether the immigration quota is not in violation of them. It is argued with great force that the immigration law does not include traders who come here temporarily for trade purposes and then go back.

Mr. MCCLATCHY. Oh, yes; I think that is conceded.

The CHAIRMAN. Was the Japanese agreement intended to include those who come here for trade purposes, etc.?

Mr. MCCLATCHY. Provided they did not remain permanently.
The CHAIRMAN. That is what I mean.

Mr. MCCLATCHY. But the trouble was that those who came here for purposes of trade remained here.

The CHAIRMAN. Would not the Johnson bill exclude them from coming here temporarily for purposes of trade?

Mr. MCCLATCHY. No; my understanding is that it makes a specific exception of tourists.

The CHAIRMAN. Under the Johnson bill an immigrant is anybody coming to the United States from outside the territory of the continental United States. It covers everybody coming.

Mr. MCCLATCHY. But they make exceptions.

The CHAIRMAN. They make exception, but those exceptions are specifically stated in the nonquota classes, and the Japanese are not included.

Mr. MCCLATCHY. My understanding is that they except tourists, professional men, men who come for business, for temporary residence.

The CHAIRMAN. The State Department has taken the position that coming over here for temporary residence or for business is not broad enough to include the commercial traders covered by the