We are going to confine ourselves in this hearing entirely and absolutely to this one phase of the question; that is to say, the question of the exclusion of ineligible aliens, and are not concerning ourselves or addressing you or stating anything with reference to any other feature of the bill or the subject before you.

In presenting this matter it is my duty to present the facts and the conditions to you, and I desire to follow in any way the wishes of the committee. I have prepared, for the purpose of conserving your time as much as possible in presenting the matter in some understandable way, a condensed statement. Possibly I am going to be too brief in some of my statements as to facts, most of which are entirely new to you, many of which will be new to others in Congress here, and if in those statements I am too brief I trust you will interrupt and question me, so that I may make the thing clear as I proceed.

The CHAIRMAN. I suggest that you summarize your facts as you think best, and then if you wish to supplement or enlarge them in a written statement you may do that, Mr. McClatchy.

Mr. MCCLATCHY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You have already been kind enough to suggest that a brief could be filed, and I will do that. Our departure was so hurried that that brief was not prepared, but I will stay here and prepare it.

In 1790, over 130 years ago, the United States by Federal act made ineligible to citizenship all the yellow and brown races, in effect half the population of the globe, including the Hindus, the Malays, the Japanese, the Chinese, and even the Philippinos. That has been the law since that time, that particular feature not having been modified or changed. That law undoubtedly was enacted because of all races which come to this country or which may come to this country, the yellow and brown races of Asia are the least assimilable. They are those races which are most difficult to amalgamate into American citizenship. And I use the term "assimilation " throughout my talk in the sense of amalgamation. There is no real assimilation unless it is amalgamation.

The yellow and brown races do not intermarry with the white race, and their heredity, standards of living, ideas, psychology, all combine to make them unassimilable with the white race. If we are to restrict immigration, therefore, it is plainly proper that we should deny first entrance to that element which is hopelessly unassimilable because under our own laws it may never enjoy the privilege of American citizenship. So we have the logical reason for the provision which has been inserted in the House bill and now under consideration before your committee, to the effect that aliens ineligible for citizenship shall not be admitted into this country. Senator COPELAND. Has there never been any change in that law? Mr. MCCLATCHY. I understand that so far as concerns the exclusion of yellow and brown races, Senator, it has never been changed. I think that is absolutely correct. It may have been modified in minor particulars.

The CHAIRMAN. We admit the black race to citizenship.

Mr. MCCLATCHY. Yes; we admitted the black race on account of conditions which I shall not consider at this time.

Against this plan most determined opposition has been brought, and whether that opposition comes through the Department of State

or comes through church organizations or commercial interests or so-called immigration associations we find behind it all the hand of Japan. So in this measure, which is not discriminatory, we are forced to consider particularly the case of Japan, because Japan has insisted on making her protest against it on racial and national grounds. So that I want at the outset to avoid the charge or implication that we are taking in this matter any discriminatory action against Japan, and it is Japan's own action which has forced upon us making the prominent feature of this presentation the case of Japan.

We start with the assumption that immigration is a domestic question which it is our right to regulate by our own laws, in accordance with our own interests, regardless of the interests or protests or demands or threats of other peoples and other nations. And least of all should we be diverted from legislation which is manifestly in the interests of this country by the demand or protest of any or all races which under our own laws are made unassimilable because they are ineligible to our citizenship.

Of all the races ineligible to citizenship under our law, the Japanese are the least assimilable and the most dangerous to this country. Understand me, I make that statement in no offensive sense. I have a very high regard for the character and ability of the Japanese nation and the Japanese people, and I realize that it is in effect their strong racial characteristics which make them so dangerous a factor if admitted to this country as permanent residents. Let me say, therefore, that there is no prejudice on my part, no prejudice on the part of the people of California. We realize that the Japanese can be good and friendly neighbors, and we want to remain with them as good and friendly neighbors. But neighbors may be friendly and continue indefinitely as friends if they do not attempt to live in the same house.

Let me say, too, for the particular benefit of those who live in the Eastern States that the average easterner, coming into contact with the highly cultured Japanese, usually or often graduates of our American colleges, has no conception of the character of Japanese immigration which is coming into Hawaii and filling the fruitful valleys of California and Washington. Frequently, therefore, and naturally, he has the feeling that California has an unjust and unfair prejudice in this matter.

Now, why do I say that the Japanese are less assimilable and more dangerous as residents in this country than any other of the peoples ineligible to citizenship under our laws?

First, with great pride of race, they have no idea of assimilating in the sense of amalgamation. They do not come to this country with any desire or any intent to lose their racial or national identity. They come here specifically and professedly for the purpose of colonizing and establishing here permanently the proud Yamato race. They never cease to be Japanese. They have as little desire to intermarry as have the whites, and there can be no proper amalgamation, you will agree, without intermarriage. In Hawaii, where there is every incentive for intermarriage, the Japanese have preserved practical racial purity, and I commend to your attention in proof of that the National Department of Education Bulletin No. 16, 1920, and other references which will appear in my remarks.

In pursuit of their intent to colonize this country with that race they seek to secure land and to found large families, and they are constantly being urged by their leaders and by their vernacular newspapers to beget children and to get land, in order that they may permanently maintain in this country that great race.

They have greater energy, greater determination, and greater ambition than the other yellow and brown races ineligible to citizenship, and with the same low standards of living, hours of labor. use of women and child labor, they naturally make more dangerous competitors in an economic way.

They do not distribute themselves as individuals throughout a great country or a great district. Some eastern gentlemen have said to me. "Why. the position of California is absurd. On your own statement you have only got 100,000 Japanese in a population of 4,000.000, and you have only got 150,000 Japanese in a national population of 110,000,000."

That is not a weak solution though; it is a concentrated solution in small districts. For instance, of the 100,000 Japanese in California 75 per cent are confined to 7 of our 58 counties, and in those 7 counties they concentrate in a few districts. And so they do elsewhere. They select the better and richer districts, and they concentrate there, secure possession and control of communities and industries, and make their presence felt, so that in those communities they succeed in time in becoming the paramount influence.

They are a unified nation, with national pride and intent on maintaining a position as a world power. That is quite a different position from that occupied by any other of the races ineligible for citizenship. They are insistent on securing recognition and social rights, quite proud and sensitive, and therefore all the more occasion and probability of friction and trouble when in large communities they are settled in this country.

They never cease to be citizens of Japan. They are not permitted to expatriate after 17 years of age. The children born in this country and carefully registered to secure all the rights of American citizenship are only a little less unassimilable than their immigrant parents.

In support of these contentions I am quoting various references, but I shall not take up your time by reading them. However, if on any point that I make you have grave doubt I wish you would ask me to explain further, or give me an opportunity to make an explanation in personal conference.

Japan claims and insists on every individual Japanese (whether he be born in Japan and an immigrant here or born in the United States and accorded all the rights of American citizenship) discharging all the duties and obligations of Japanese citizenship, and vicariously punishes his relatives in Japan if he fails to do it. I will just read one extract in support of that last statement. The Honolulu Advertiser of January 16, 1923, contained a very striking item in regard to the case of Henry K. Fukuda, member of the Society of American Citizens of Japanese Ancestry, born in Hawaii, a citizen of the United States, claiming and exercising all the rights and duties of American citizenship.

It seems that Fukuda, as all other Japanese born in this country and claiming American citizenship, was cited to show himself in

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Japan and perform his military duty, and he failed to do so. had certain relatives over there, and those relatives were punished because Mr. Fukuda, an American citizen, declined to go back to Japan and perform his conscription duties. He has a receipt showing that H. Nakahara, who was his relative, had paid $5 to the district attorney of the Iwakuni district for alleged violation of the military conscription law by H. Fukuda.

Senator KING They insist upon dual citizenship, the same as Germany did for a while?

Mr. MCCLATCHY. They do, Senator, but they carry it to a very much greater extent. Germany does not in this country maintain associations under which every American citizen of German parentage is influenced and controlled; those associations subject to major associations, and those in turn subject to the control and direction of the local German consul. That is the fact with regard to Japan and the Japanese, and here I have in my exhibits the proof of it. For instance, from Yoshi Kuno, a professor of the University of California, a Japanese, a son of one of the great generals of Japan, in this country many years, but not a citizen of the United Stateshe has published a statement, in the interest of permanent friendship between the United States and Japan, showing the way in which Japan has been determinedly and persistently doing these things, and warning that a continuance of that policy must inevitably result in the breach of those friendly relations between this country and his own country of Japan. I will leave that with you, Senator, and be very glad to call your attention to any specific point in it.

There have been in the neighborhood of 90,000 Japanese born under the American flag in continental United States and in Hawaii. Three years ago I had an official report from, I think it was, the department of justice in Tokyo, and there were exactly 64 of that entire number who had been permitted to expatriate under the laws of Japan. They were claiming and exercising the rights of American citizenship, and all but 64 of those 90,000 were tied up to Japan and compelled to do her will in peace and in war.

Senator KING. Have you evidence that they assented to this claim. of Japan and recognized their allegiance to the Japanese Government? Or was it a mere assertion of a claim by Japan which the American citizens resisted?

Mr. MCCLATCHY. For instance, every Japanese born in this country has to register with the Japanese consul, and he does register, as a citizen of Japan. He is subject to the control and direction of his local Japanese association. He can get none of the necessary privileges or rights in the way of communication with Japan, passports, and so on, unless he has fulfilled the duties required of him.

Why, over in Honolulu during the time when we were at war and under arms a number of Japanese had enlisted with the colors. Many of them, I suppose really all of them, were American-born citizens, and claiming rights as such. One of those American-born citizens, in American khaki, coming in from the camp came to the Japanese consul in Honolulu, and, under his right as a Japanese citizen, got credentials from that consul recognizing him as such so that he could bring over from Japan a picture bride.

Senator KING. You will recall that the War of 1812 was largely the result of the assertion by Great Britain of her right over English

men who had expatriated themselves and taken out American citizenship papers and had gone upon our ships, and they were seized upon the high seas.

Mr. MCCLATCHY. Senator, that was a hundred years ago.

Senator KING. I know. I am merely stating it as a fact. And yet England, perhaps improperly, certainly from our concepts of international law, asserted jurisdiction over those persons. Nevertheless, they did not assent to that. I am not expressing any opinion. Mr. MCCLATCHY. Do not misunderstand me. I am not denying the right of Japan to do these things. I am calling attention to the fact and suggesting that the fact is one of the strong indications that it would be absurd, criminal, and suicidal on the part of this country to admit as permanent residents people of a proud race who will be obliged to do these things.

Senator SHORTRIDGE. Senator, before we depart from that, with the permission of the chairman, I undertake to maintain that practically 100 per cent of the native-born Japanese in the United States and 100 per cent of those who have come here from Japan do submit and do yield obedience to the demands of Japan.

Mr. MCCLATCHY. I might supplement that, if I am not taking too much time, by referring the committee to the testimony of the Hawaiian commission before the House committee in either 1921 or 1922.

The big sugar strike in Honolulu developed this astounding fact: Hawaii had been priding herself on Americanizing the American born-the Hawaiian-born Japanese. The legion was particularly proud of the fact that it was educating those American citizens of Japanese ancestry. And yet they found in the course of that strike that with a few individual exceptions, there was not a single Japanese in the Territory of Hawaii, immigrant or Hawaiian born, who was not, under duress or voluntarily, conforming to the orders of the Japanese family leaders in Japan, and, directly or indirectly, actively or in other ways, upholding the strike as a racial matter.

Senator SHORTRIDGE. And guided by the consul.

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. I do not know whether the question has been brought up, but I see by the report of the Commissioner General of Immigration that in the last fiscal year there were admitted a total of 11,571 Japanese and there departed 11,172 Japanese, so that the net gain by immigration in the last fiscal year was 399 persons. Do you regard that as a menace?

Mr. MCCLATCHY. Senator, permit me to say-I will go into that now if you desire, but I am dealing with the matter of the actual result of the agreement later.

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. Very well.

Senator KING. As I understand it, under the bill which we are discussing now, if it should be enacted into law, the number which would be admitted would not greatly exceed 300.

Mr. MCCLATCHY. Oh, I beg your pardon, Senator. You are taking the 1910 census, as I understand it-you have already agreed to do that. The 1910 census would admit 3,000 Japanese a year.

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. That would mean that there were 150,000 Japanese-born residents in the country in 1910? Mr. MCCLATCHY. In 1910.