Senator REED of Pennsylvania. Is that in the continental United States?

Mr. MCCLATCHY. No; continental United States and Hawaii. Senator REED of Pennsylvania. The bill we are considering refers only to the number in the continental United States.

Mr. MCCLATCHY. Then it would be about 72,000-1,400 persons a year.

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. I have this thought, that under the gentleman's agreement there is a distinct restriction on Japanese inmigration. This quota system which we will now add to that. supplies an additional restriction. It does not in any sense liberalize the present law; it supplies an additional bar. I understand that that is not satisfactory, that you want absolute exclusion?

Mr. MCCLATCHY. Yes, Senator; and if you will permit me, I will go into that now if you prefer.

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. No; I did not want to disturb the order of your remarks at all, just so long as you do not pass over the subject entirely.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. McClatchy, I would be very glad to have you, when you come to it, discuss the effect of including the Japanese in the quota law.

Mr. MCCLATCHY. I am prepared to do that, Mr. Chairman. That is one of my topics.

I was speaking of the Japanese children born here and the difficulty of making American citizens of them. They are educated in separate Japanese schools in California and Hawaii, where they are taught to be loyal and ideal Japanese citizens. Again, I only refer to that as a fact and as indicating that that class of people is dangerous for us. It is perfectly proper for Japan to educate her citizens in Japanese loyalty. A great many of those children are sent back to Japan between the ages of 6 and 8 years, and they remain there until they are 17 or 19, and when they come back they are not American citizens, they are Japanese citizens, loyal, and they never become American citizens in intent or ideal after that.

Why, two years ago-and I suppose the conditions are about the same now-there were, according to the admission of the Japanese, 15,000, and according to the estimate of the health board in the territory, 20,000 Hawaiian-born Japanese children in Japan, receiving their education in Japanese schools and destined to come back when they were 17 or 19 years of age as full fledged loyal Japanese citizens entitled to all the rights and privileges of American cizens but drilled to do the will of Japan in peace and in war. From California it is estimated that there are 15,000 Californiaborn Japanese children in Japan receiving a Japanese education. I can not quote the exact figures, but there were 6,600 of those children sent out from the port of San Francisco in three years, to receive that Japanese education and come back.

Senator HARRISON. What is your estimate of the Japanese in Mexico?

Mr. MCCLATCHY. I do not like to talk about things on which I am not informed, Senator, and I do not know. I may say this enly, that so far as I know and believe, Mexico is used largely as a

temporary abiding place for those who intend ultimately to get into the United States. The same is true of South American ports.

Now, the Japanese maintain in this country a government within a government. That is to say, as I have indicated they are subject individually, whether born here or immigrants, to the orders of the local associations, which in turn are subject to the central associations in the five consular ports of the Pacific coast, and those in turn are under the direct orders of the local Japanese consuls. That is not my statement; that is the statement of a Japanese. Professor Yoshi Kuno, and I have it here in one of my exhibits.

Senator KING. Mr. McClatchy, when I was in California and when I was in Hawaii I talked with a good many Japanese; some of them voluntarily sought me and in other cases I sought them for the purpose of getting information, with a purely open mind. I discussed with them very frankly some of the matters to which you are referring, and some of the young men who were contemplating going to Japan to complete their education stated to me that they did it with a great deal of reluctance. They said that there was a sort of bar sinister placed upon them by the Americans: that there in Hawaii the Americans, the Anglo-Saxon race, always looked upon them as Japanese, and American newspapers were always denouncing them and denouncing the country of the birth of their fathers, holding it up as the awful example, that it was the yellow peril, that it was the menace of Anglo-Saxon institutions, and of our country. And they conceded that the attitude of the American mind was that they were to be outcasts even if they were American citizens under the American flag; that we erected social barriers against them and political barriers agains them, and that there were economic barriers against them; and that whereas they might be born here and be American citizens by reason of birth, our attitude forbade any possible amalgamation, assimilation or association, political, or otherwise.

It seems to me there is a good deal in that. Have we dealt properly and fairly with the young Japanese boy and girl born in America? Have we dealt fairly with the Jew, with the Italian, with the Greek, with the Hungarian, with the Pole, with these young boys, and girls who were born here and with those who have come here? Have we held out a welcoming hand with a view to assimilating them, or haven't we too often pushed them out, ostracized them, put them into the ghetto and forced them to assume a feeling of affection and loyalty to their fatherland that they did not want to assume?

That is worthy of consideration, though I express no opinion. Mr. MCCLATCHY. Senator, that suggestion is an entirely fair one, and what you say is well grounded. That is quite true. But remember just this distinction. You in the East here, who come in contact with the cultured and desirable Japanese, have no idea, no conception, of the class of immigration which comes into California. I have, I am proud to say, among the Japanese many friends. I have been able to discuss these questions with them in perfect frankness and amity, with Vicount Shibusawa, the most prominent private citizen of Japan now, and others. And there has always been that trouble, that even where they have individually the desire to become thorough Americans there is, as you say, this bar.

But that is hopeless, Senator. That is the result of the absolute unassimilability of the two races. Whether it is our fault or theirs,

it exists. It is mutual. And since it is so, it is our duty, as I see it, to protect our race and our people and our Nation, with all its faults, rather than to sacrifice it by letting in an unassimilable alien people at their request or demand.

We do not differ very much, Senator, when all the facts are before us, on that point at least.

Senator KING. I did not express an opinion. I was just citing some of the suggestions which have been made to me.

Mr. MCCLATCHY. I agree with you, Senator, on that point, but I say that these are conditions which we face.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. McClatchy, when you come to the end of your statement of facts I want to ask you to discuss the numbers that come in under the gentleman's agreement.

Mr. MCCLATCHY. Yes, Mr. Chairman; I have that. Do you want me to take it up now?

The CHAIRMAN. No; I do not wish to interrupt the order of your argument.

Mr. MCCLATCHY. Now, I want to show you why, in the judgment of California, aliens ineligible to citizenship are so hopelessly unassimilable, and why, in our judgment, of all those races the Japanese, notwithstanding our friendly feeling toward them, are the most unassimilable and the most dangerous.

The CHAIRMAN. Let me say that the reason why I asked that question is this: Suppose there were only 100 coming in, a very minimum number, then you would come to the international question of disturbing our international relations with Japan? I want to know whether, in point of numbers, it is reduced to a minimum so that it is a negligible quantity, or whether in practical operations, under present conditions, it is a menace.

Mr. MCCLATCHY. I will come to that, Mr. Chairman. But I will say briefly that California will not be satisfied with any quota, no matter how small, for reasons which I think will commend themselves when I present them to your judgment.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, Mr. McClatchy, in that aspect of it, how many come in now under the present law, and, secondly, how many would come in under the quota?

Mr. MCCLATCHY. Under your quota?

The CHAIRMAN. Under the 2 per cent quota. You need not answer it now, but when you come to discuss the numbers, I wish you would. Senator REED of Pennsylvania. I can put the figures in the record, Mr. Chairman. About 1,400 would come in if the quota were 2 per cent, based on the census of 1910. If the quota were based on my amendment, it would be about 300 persons per year.

(At this point the hearing was suspended for about 10 minutes to permit members of the committee to attend upon a vote in the Senate.)

where

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. Continue your statement, please, Mr. McClatchy.

Mr. MCCLATCHY. I have shown the reasons why California believes that it is impossible to assimilate the Japanese into American citizenship, not because of their fault-it is ours, if you like-but the two races are unassimilable, and, therefore, it is a danger to the peace and friendliness and good will of the two nations to have that condition continue in this country.

President Roosevelt, who gave perhaps more consideration and thought to this subject than any other President of the United States, was very firmly of that opinion. His evidence is all the more striking, because in 1906, in a message to Congress, he suggested the propriety of admitting Japanese to citizenship. He entirely changed that attitude afterwards when he had the facts before him, and then afterwards was firmly and determinedly side by side with California in the declaration that the two races were so unassimilable that it was dangerous and suicidal to permit them to maintain in this country communities of Japanese. He stated that view frankly to the Japanese themselves, and it was because of his attitude that the so-called gentlemen's agreement was afterwards entered into.

As illustrating Roosevelt's point of view, let me read to you only a couple of paragraphs from his autobiography. I will leave the balance to be considered by the committee in the exhibits:

There has always been a strong feeling in California against the immigration of Asiatic laborers, whether these are wageworkers or men who occupy and till the soil. I believe this to be fundamentally a sound and proper attitude which must be insisted upon.

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In the present state of the world's progress it is highly inadvisable that peoples in wholly different stages of civilization, or of wholly different types of civilization, even although both equally high, shall be thrown into intimate contact.

This is especially undesirable when there is a difference in both race and standard of living. In California the question became acute in connection with the admission of the Japanese.

But the Japanese themselves would not tolerate the intrusion into their country of a mass of Americans who would displace Japanese in the business of the land. I think they are entirely right in this position. I would be the first to admit Japan has the absolute right to declare on what terms foreigners shall be admitted to work in her country, or to own land in her country, or to become citizens of her country. America has and must insist upon the same right. The people of California were right in insisting that the Japanese should not come thither in masses; that there should be no influx of laborers, of agricultural workers, or small tradesmen-in short, no mass settlement or immigration.

He devotes a whole chapter of his autobiography to the California question, and I refer the committee to it for further consideration. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. McClatchy, was not President Roosevelt willing to leave it to Japan as a question of honor rather than to have the United States pass a statute of exclusion?

Mr. MCCLATCHY. No, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Was not that the essence of the gentlemen's agreement?

Mr. MCCLATCHY. No, sir. I will say briefly now and explain it later

The CHAIRMAN. This is merely for my own understanding.

Mr. MCCLATCHY. To a certain extent you are right, Mr. Chair

man.

The CHAIRMAN. Here we have a proud people. We know their standing in the family of nations as one of the great nations of the world. Here is this great question of racial discrimination. Now, I thought Japan said to the United States, "Don't pass a law which would denote our inferiority. Leave it to our honor," and that

that was the essence of the gentlemen's agreement-that is, the absence of a statute of exclusion, leaving it to the honor of Japan.

Mr. MCCLATCHY. You are right to that extent, Mr. Chairman; but let me supplement it.

It was agreed between Japan and Roosevelt, representing the United States, that further Japanese immigration was going to be a very serious menace to the friendship of both peoples, and that it should cease. California demanded an exclusion act. Japan, as you say, said that would be a blow to her pride, and if permitted she would under her own system voluntarily prevent Japanese immigration coming into this country. Roosevelt said, "All right; will depend upon you in this matter." But Roosevelt did more. While he said he would depend upon her honor in the matter, he had a club, and that club was an agreement with Japan that if she failed through her passport system to prevent a further increase of Japanese population in this country, and even, if possible, to decrease it, he would under the agreement with her put into effect an exclusion act.

Senator SHORTRIDGE. That is absolutely correct.

Mr. MCCLATCHY. I am going to show you that from the brief prepared for the consideration of the State Department.

The CHAIRMAN. Then does not your proposition lead to this inference, that Japan has failed, practically?

Mr. MCCLATCHY. Absolutely. That is to say, the agreement has failed to accomplish what was its acknowledged purpose.

This whole matter is set forth very clearly in the correspondence which ensued between President Roosevelt and the legislature of California in connection with this subject. I think it is a matter that has not been before the committee and is not generally known. The CHAIRMAN. This is perhaps a rather unusual question. Do you think that if Roosevelt were alive, and President of the United States, he would say that the gentlemen's agreement with regard to the issuing of passports had been a failure, and that he would therefore come to the second proposition, that it is time now to pass this exclusion act?

Mr. MCCLATCHY. Mr. Chairman, I not only think so, but Roosevelt has in effect declared so, as I will show in a few minutes. To understand this matter you will have to have the story.

In 1909 the California Legislature had before it a number of anti-Japanese bills, and President Roosevelt, as we know, was very anxious that that friction between California and Japan should cease. He believed that some of those bills were unfair, while he held that the general attitude of California as to Japanese immigration was proper.

A commission of Californians, at the President's request, took the matter up with him. Senator Flint was one, Congressman Julius Kahn was another, and Franklin K. Lane was the third. Following that conference President Roosevelt telegraphed back to the legislature, in a telegram of February 9, 1909, to the speaker of the house. In that telegram he said what he had said to this commission, that he desired California to recede from this anti-Japanese legislation, which was only going to make friction, and some of which he believed to be unfair; that California's position generally was right; that he had taken the necessary measures to protect her; that he had

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