tion or any future generation the right to protect the solidarity, the comfort, the safety of our Nation and those who comprise or may comprise it.

PERSONS WHO MAY NOT BE NATURALIZED.

The Supreme Court of the United States has recently decided that the nationals of oriental countries are not entitled to be naturalized as citizens of the United States under our naturalization laws, which limit naturalization to "free white persons and to aliens of Áfrican nativity and to persons of African descent" (sec. 2129, act of Feb. 18. 1875, amending act of July 14, 1870). (Decided Nov. 13, 1922, 258 U. S.-.)

Hence the House committee feels fully justified in offering in its measure provisions to correct the so-called "gentlemen's agreement," which is understood to be a mere memorandum, and which was given some strength several years after its promulgation, by the attaching to the commercial treaty with Japan (1911) of the following memorandum:

FEBRUARY 24, 1911.

In proceeding this day to the signature to 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.

Y. UCHIDA.

GENTLEMEN'S AGREEMENT GOVERNING IMMIGRATION FROM JAPAN.

To clearly understand the above it is necessary to know something about the original agreement; so the following statement relating to the so-called gentlemen's agreement, or Root-Takahira agreement, is reprinted:

[From the report of the Commissioner General of Immigration for 1908, p. 125.]

To section 1 of the immigration act, approved February 20, 1907, a provision was attached reading as follows:

"That whenever the President shall be satisfied that passports issued by any foreign Government to its citizens to go to any other country than the United States or to any insular possession of the United States or to the Canal Zone are being used for the purpose of enabling the holders to come to the continental territory of the United States to the detriment of labor conditions therein, the President may refuse to permit certain citizens of the country issuing such passports to enter the continental territory of the United States from such other country or from such insular possessions, or from the Canal Zone."

This legislation was the result of a growing alarm, particularly on the Pacific coast and in States adjacent to Canada and Mexico, that labor conditions would be seriously affected by a continuation of the then existing rate of increase in admissions to this country of Japanese of the laboring classes. The Japanese Government had always maintained a policy opposed to the emigration to continental United States of its subjects belonging to such classes, but it has been found that passports granted by said Government to such subjects entitling them to proceed to Hawaii or to Canada or to Mexico were being used to evade the said policy and gain entry to continental United States. On the basis of the above-quoted provision, the President, on March 14, 1907, issued a proclamation excluding from continental United States "Japanese or Korean laborers skilled or unskilled, who had received passports to go to Mexico, Canada, or Hawaii, and come therefrom."

Department circular No. 147, dated March 26, 1907, which has been continued in force as rule 21 of the immigration regulations of July 1, 1907, outlined the policy and procedure to be followed by the immigration officials in giving effect to the law and proclamation.

In order that the best results might follow from an enforcement of the regulations, an understanding was reached with Japan that the existing policy of discouraging emigration of its subjects of the laboring classes to continental United States should be continued, and should, by cooperation of the Governments, be made as effective as possible. This understanding contemplates that the Japanese Government shall issue passports to continental United States only to such of its subjects as are nonlaborers, or are laborers who, in coming to the continent, seek to resume a formerly acquired domicile, to join a parent, wife, or children residing there, or to assume active control of an already possessed interest in a farming enterprise in this country, so that the three classes of laborers entitled to receive passports have come to be designated "former residents," "parents, wives, or children of residents," and "settled agriculturists."

With respect to Hawaii, the Japanese Government of its own volition, stated that, experimentally at least, the issuance of passports to members of the laboring classes proceeding thence would be limited to "former residents" and "parents, wives, or children of residents." The said Government has also been exercising a careful supervision over the subject of emigration of its laboring class to foreign contiguous territory.

NOT A TEXT BUT A CORRESPONDENCE.

Statements brought out in House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization hearings on labor problems in Hawaii, 1921 (hearings, 67th Cong., 1st sess., pp. 213-941), shed some light on the preparation of the agreement:

The CHAIRMAN. As a matter of fact, was not this gentleman's agreement built up as the result of exchanges of correspondence between diplomatic officials of the United States and diplomatic officials of Japan?

Mr. MACMURRAY (of State Department). Yes, sir; it is not embodied in a single text, but it appears in the course of some long and argumentative correspondence between our embassy at Tokyo and the Japanese foreign office.

The CHAIRMAN. It was the result of a series of diplomatic exchanges?

Mr. MACMURRAY. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Is the gentleman's agreement a little memorandum laid on top of a pile of letters?

Mr. MACMURRAY. No, sir; it is not a memorandum or document in itself, but the gentleman's agreement is embodied in statements passing back and forth between them in the course of the correspondence.

The CHAIRMAN. We have never had the text of the agreement.

Mr. MACMURRAY. This is the statement of the Commissioner General of Immigration.

The CHAIRMAN. But that is not a State Department publication.

Mr. MACMURRAY. No, sir.

Mr. WILSON. It is more properly a gentleman's understanding than a gentleman's agreement.

DIFFERS AS TO TERRITORY OF HAWAII.

It will be noted from the text above that the "gentlemen's agreement," in so far as it purports to apply to the Territory of Hawaii, is a little different than for the United States.

This brings a new set of vexing problems, too intricate to be discussed here, but always standing in the way of every effort and adding to the difficulties of the construction of permanent immigra tion legislation. Hawaii is a Territory of the United States and not an insular possession.

IMMIGRATION AND TREATIES.

During consideration of various bills by the committee one of its members, Representative Box, was designated to make a study of immigration and treaties, and his statement (hearings, Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, 67th Cong., 4th sess., p. 493) follows in part:

Moreover, our experience as to the attitude of our Presidents toward this problem should warn us of the great danger of passing absolute or chief control of it to him.

The President's constant contact with delicate and difficult questions of our foreign relations and the necessity of maintaining cordial diplomatic relations with foreign countries expose him and his advisors and agencies to the constant tendency toward too great liberality in immigration regulations.

Our own people now almost uniformly confess that we have in the past been liberal to the point of ruinous looseness in our immigration policies, but even such restrictive measures as have been adopted in the past have nearly all been enacted in the face of Executive opposition. Nearly every step forward in the policy of restriction has been taken by overstepping the President's veto of restrictive laws.

In 1879 President Hayes vetoed the first Chinese-exclusion act (2 1. C. R. 580). In 1882 President Arthur vetoed an act suspending Chinese immigration for a period of 20 years (21. C. R. 581). On March 3, 1897, President Cleveland vetoed an immigration act excluding illiterates (21. C. R. 573). President Taft vetoed an immigration bill in 1913 containing a restriction against the admission of illiterates (p. 101, Rec., special sess., 59th Cong.). In 1917 President Wilson vetoed an act excluding illiterates, but Congress passed it over his veto.

In 1868 the Burlingame treaty between the United States and China declared it to be the inalienable right of men to migrate and emigrate at will. California had then been, for 15 years, alarmed and in trouble on account of the coming of great numbers of Chinese. The California Legislature had passed laws in efforts to protect the State. Pacific coast cities had passed ordinances for the same purpose. Congress itself, in 1862, had taken note of the degradation and slavery of Chinese coolie laborers, and had forbidden American ships to transport them. This was seven years before the Burlingame treaty was made by the President and ratified by the Senate, declaring the right of such people to migrate to the United States to be "inalienable. aptly did the treaty-making power deal with the problem in that instance.

So

Conditions in California and on the Pacific coast were then and soon afterwards so bad that, in 1872, California was pleading with Congress for the exclusion of the Chinese; that is, for the deprivation of the "inalienable right" of Chinese to come to America in tens or even hundreds of millions.

A congressional committee was sent to California, where it found conditions very bad. In 1879 Congress passed what was practically a Chinese exclusion act and undertook to abrogate the obnoxious sections of the Burlingame treaty of 1868.

Here another unfortunate incident to immigration regulation by treaty developed. President Hayes vetoed the exclusion act, giving as one reason his contention that Congress had no right to abrogate a treaty. His action illustrated the fact that the President can nullify an exclusion act of Congress and that Congress has no power to relieve the country of a treaty so dangerous as was that one by any majority less than two-thirds of both branches. President Hayes claimed that Congress had no power to abrogate a treaty at all.

The President can make such a treaty with the approval of two-thirds of one branch of Congress.

A new treaty was made by the United States and China in 1880, in which China succeeded in limiting the freedom of the United States to deal with Chinese immigration in its own way. This treaty stipulated that the United States might limit or suspend the coming of laborers only and prohibited the United States to forbid general Chinese immigration.

In 1880 Congress passed an act suspending Chinese immigration for 20 years. President Arthur vetoed the act, chiefly on the ground that a 20-year suspension of Chinese immigration was not "reasonable" within the meaning of that term in the clause of our treaty with China permitting the United States to limit or suspend the coming of laborers in such a manner and to such extent as "shall be reasonable."

It was soon found that this immigration treaty was unwise, and the United States asked China to agree to its abrogation. She objected and delayed until Congress passed a drastic Chinese exclusion law, from which the President withheld his approval until he became convinced that China would not enter a new treaty abrogating the treaty of 1880, of which the United States was now anxious to be rid.

President Roosevelt made an agreement, which he insisted on having treated as valid and binding, as being supreme law, without even consulting the Senate about it. He called it a "treaty."

If I may be permitted to say so, I doubt whether the gentleman's agreement made by President Roosevelt, to which the gentleman evidently refers, has any force or has ever had any force that America ought to recognize. To say that the President can by some secret understanding hidden in his bosom or by some written memorandum hidden in the archives of the Department of State, never submitted to the Senate, establish a law, a supreme law of the land, binding on the legislatures of States, binding on this body and the whole country, would be most extraordinary. That is the construction given to the gentleman's agreement. President Roosevelt, who made it, based his action on the facts as he saw them then. He would unquestionably say now that it did not work properly.

ROOSEVELT ON THE GENTLEMEN'S AGREEMENT.

After a good deal of discussion we came to an entirely satisfactory conclusion. The obnoxious school legislation was abandoned, and I secured an arrangement with Japan under which the Japanese themselves prevented any emigration to our country of their laboring people, it being distinctly understood that if there was such emigration the United States would at once pass an exclusion law. It was of course infinitely better that the Japanese should stop their own people from coming rather than we should have to stop them, but it was necessary for us to hold this power in

reserve.

*

Unfortunately, after I left office a most mistaken and ill-advised policy was pursued toward Japan, combining irritation and inefficiency, which culminated in a treaty under which we surrendered this important and necessary right. It was alleged in excuse that the treaty provided for its own abrogation; but of course it is infinitely better to have a treaty under which the power to exercise a necessary right is explicitly retained rather than a treaty so drawn that recourse must be had to the extreme step of abrogating if it ever becomes necessary to exercise the right in question. (Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography, p. 414.)

Quotations with reference to the "gentlemen's agreement" have been made more freely, perhaps, than is necessary in a report from a commmittee of Congress, advocating passage of a measure, but have been made because of continued difficulty in finding the so-called text of the "agreement," and because of the shortage of copies of House hearings for the past two or more years on the many phases of the problems which attend each attempt to write a satisfactory immigration act.

The provisions of the committee's proposal in reference to the admission and nonadmission of "persons ineligible to citizenship" are as follows:

An immigrant not eligible to citizenship shall not be admitted to the United States unless such immigrant is admissible as a non-quota immigrant under the provisions of subdivision (c), (e), or (h), of section 4.

The subdivisions of section 4 referred to are as follows:

(c) An immigrant previously lawfully admitted to the United States, who is returning from a temporary visit abroad;

(e) An immigrant who continuously for at least two years immediately preceding the time of his application for admission to the United States has been, and who seeks to enter the United States solely for the purpose of, carrying on the vocation of minister of any religious denomination, professor of a college or seminary, or member of any recognized learned profession;

(h) An immigrant who is a bona fide student over sixteen years of age and who seeks to cater the United States solely for the purpose of study at an accredited educational institution particularly designated by him and approved by the Secretary.

The committee believes that these exceptions serve to clarify the 'gentlemen's agreement," and that the enactment of the plan into law will end in a satisfactory manner, without friction, a most troublesome problem.

THE NEAR EAST REFUGEE PROBLEM.

It is not possible for the United States to offer more than a modicum of relief even if immigration restrictions were greatly relaxed. Principal relief must be through the association known as the Near East Relief. This organization shipped overseas in 1921, 13,408 tons of clothing, food, medical supplies, and other commodities, valued at $2,186,833; and up to November 30, 1922, shipped 25,322 tons, valued at $4,251,074.

The total value of Near East Relief's operations to date approximate $73,000,000.

The report of this association, February, 1923, says:

Refugees now homeless and without adequate provision for food and shelter for the coming winter, 1,250,000.

Refugees threatened in Anatolia and Constantinople, and even now in flight from regions which may witness a greater disaster than Smyrna, 1,250.000.

Total number now homeless or threatened with exile, 2,500,000. In the face of this tragic situation, it is impossible to estimate the probable mortality as these millions of destitute people try to weather the rigors of winter in their shelterless condition. The deaths are estimated to number a thousand a day. Without doubt, thousands more of children will be thrown upon the world's charity.

High officials of the Near East organizations have told this committee that it is not desired to bring either 5,000,000, or any part of that number of Armenian orphans and homeless children to the United States. They could not be placed. To bring that number would cost $7,000,000. Probably as many refugees are Greeks as are Armenians.

COMMON LABOR.

Employers of labor in the United States have undertaken to show to the committee that there is a shortage of common labor; that aliens must be had to do the rough work, the trench digging, the excavations, the road building, the repairing of railroad beds, the handling of heavy raw materials, etc., and, while the committee agrees that there has been recently an absence of unemploymentquite striking in comparison with the fact that 5,000,000 or more wage earners were out of work in the United States only 12 or 14 months ago the committee is of the opinion expressed by Walter Renton Ingalls, engineer and author, of Mount Vernon, N. Y., that "the alleged labor shortage and the effect of immigration curtailments are being misunderstood and overrated." (Hearings, serial 6-C.) Mr. Ingalls says:

Although business activity in the United States increased greatly in 1922 in comparison with the abyss of 1921, i do not find from examination of the statistical evidence that the rate of production in the latter part of 1922 was any higher than in 1913. The aggregate production of raw materials was about the same in 1922 as in 1913. Factory employment in the State of New York, which is considered to afford a fairly reliable sample for the whole country, rose in the latter part of 1922 about to the level of the middle of 1914 when this series of figures began. Building construction in 1922, while the greatest on record in terms of dollars, appears from my own studies of this subject to have been less in terms of quantity in 1922 than in 1913.