intelligence of a great man, and he changed all his views in respect to the Japanese question as soon as he was informed.

The Californians needed no threat of that kind. He invited them. to Washington. They agreed that as long as they were protected by an exclusion law, which Congress could grant-provided the gentlemen's agreement, which he said he was about to negotiate, would fail that was all they asked. He said, substantially: "I have negotiated now an agreement with Japan. We realize that this constant friction out there is going to lead to trouble. They have agreed to a gentlemen's agreement by which they will regulate the incoming of Japanese, and I yield that because they are a proud and a sensitive people and the idea of exclusion is offensive to them." And so the gentlemen's agreement was born.

Now, that is the only barrier between the United States and Japan, because the treaty gives no protection and the addendum to the treaty seeks to incorporate the gentlemen's agreement, and the gentlemen's agreement gives to Japan the right to determine who shall come, the understanding being that laborers shall not come. But it is so loose, so vague, so evanescent, that you can not put your hands on it. Nobody knows exactly what it is.

California is going to ask the State Department to graciously inform the Senate of the United States what this agreement is. In "platforms" the parties denounce secret treaties. Nothing could be more secret than this. As the Frenchman said, What you can not put your hands on it is a dream." This is a dream. can not find it.

You

Oh, here is a book, The Real Japanese Question, by K. K. Kawakami, the author of Japan in World Politics, Japan and World Peace, etc., published by the Macmillan Co. I came across Kawakami many times. He is the busiest propagandist that Japan employs in the United States, and he even accused me of having stolen his secret correspondence out of his waste basket. When I was in the Senate I had access to a great deal of information, and a secret service agent sent me some very damaging information concerning Kawakami and his activities as an agent of Japan, and when I get secrets I like to give them out for the information of Congress. He now gives here what I think is a pretty fair statement of what must be the gentlemen's agreement.

The chairman yesterday sought information in the Commissioner General of Immigration's report of 1908. It is only a written expression or interpretation of what the commissioner thought to be the gentlemen's agreement. This is the first time that I have actually seen it in print, in Mr. Kawakami's book. He says:

66

The gentlemen's agreement" of 1907

I do not think it went into effect until July 3, 1908

excluding Japanese laborers from America, is not in the shape of a formal treaty or agreement. The term applies simply to the substance of a number of informal notes exchanged between the State Department and the Japanese Ambassador at that time. Briefly stated, the agreement is this:

First. Japan of her own accord will refrain from issuing passports to Japanese laborers desiring to enter territories contiguous to continental United States, such as Mexico or Canada.

Senator KING. Senator, do you not think that is rather a great concession, speaking as to the dignity of a nation, to make by Japan,

if she had laborers who desired to go to those other countries and those countries did not prohibit them? I am merely getting your reaction from that.

Mr. PHELAN (reading):

Japan, of her own accord, will refrain from issuing passports to Japanese laborers desiring to enter territories contiguous to continental United States, such as Mexico or Canada.

Of course, the object of Roosevelt was to prevent them from coming over the borders. Mexico has about 4,000 Japanese there and does not want them. Mexico within the last three months has made a decree against the Japanese. Just think of it. They do not want the Japanese even in Mexico. They want to protect their own people. Obregon is trying to give his own people a chance in life. They would be devoured as by a plague of locusts if the Japanese came in. Canada has barred Japanese. So I do not know how they could get them into Mexico or Canada even with a passport.

Second. Japan will recognize the right of the United States to refuse the admission to continental United States of Japanese of the laboring class whose passports do not include continental United States.

That is, Japan concedes to us the right to refuse admission. He says passports do not include continental United States. They can include continental United States if they want to. Here it is:

Third. Japan will issue passports to continental United States only for Japanese of the following four classes: (1) Nonlaborers, such as travelers, business men, financiers, etc.

We all concede that. It is in the Johnson bill.

(2) Japanese, whether laborer or nonlaborer, who have already become domiciled in continental United States.

That is to say, if they once got in here they can get a passport to come back should they leave.

(3) Parents, wives, or children of Japanese who have become domiciled in continental United States.

(4) Japanese who have acquired farming interests in continental United States and who wish to return there to take active control of those interests.

Well, there is a large question. "Parents, wives, or children of Japanese." You have heard the discussion with respect to wives. They have sent their photographs over there and they have gotten a wife. It was referred to here the other day as "mail-order wives," and then as there was great revulsion of sentiment, especially in the churches, about the acknowledgment of such wives as regularly married women, they said they would surrender that; and then they substituted the "Kankonan " bride, which simply means that the Japanese who wants a bride has to actually see the woman. He has to go back to Japan, and the steamship companies of the Japanesethey control most of the ocean traffic on the Pacific-have made such terms for the Japanese that it does not cost them very much more to go over there and get a bride and come back, except possibly the loss of their time. Then the Japanese Government, to facilitate this bride-getting, has extended the time from 1 month to 90 days within. which time the Japanese has to respond to the conscript law in case he goes back to Japan. Ordinarily he has only a month there, but the time was extended to 90 days to seek out a bride.

So this simply shows the directing mind of Japan following her nationals wherever they go and having a fixed and set purpose of colonization. Of course, the wives are exceedingly prolific. The fecundity of the Japanese is extraordinary. They have at home an excess population of 700,000 every year, and, as I shall show you from statistics, the birth rate in California is enough to alarm one. If you pass this law excluding Japanese, which is only one step, we still have the Japanese problem in California, which will require our best statesmanship to cure in order to redeem an American State, or a dozen States, which they infest. The Japanese problem will still be with us acutely even if you pass this legislation, which is but a preliminary yet a necessary step.

The wives have given birth to children in the neighborhood of Sacramento and Los Angeless at the rate of 33 per cent of all the births, and for every 11 births in all California to-day 1 is a Japanese. That is a problem in itself. And we have got nothing to do with it here except it should be our policy to keep out the wives as seed of future problems.

These wives are permitted to come in freely, and since the gentlemen's agreement 38,000 women have been imported into California for the uses of propagation in order to establish the Japanese colonies. Every child born is an American citizen under our very generous Constitution, intended to encourage population by European immigration of an earlier date when Asia was a closed book. What a Pandora's box we opened when Admiral Perry went there and opened the gates of Japan!

The CHAIRMAN. Senator, can you conceive of a gentlemen's agreement that would keep out the women and the wives? [Laughter.]

Mr. PHELAN. Well, I am told that in Monkish institutions celibacy is required in order that a man may give his whole time to his work. Otherwise he has distractions. Richelieu said, "The State is my bride."

We want to encourage the assimilable to increase and multiply. I am making comments, as I read these provisions of the gentlemen's agreement, in order that you may understand their significance.

When the Mormons went into Utah, the State of Senator King, they preached plurality of wives, just as under the old law of Moses, and it certainly is the best way to establish a Commonwealth. It is a quick way of establishing a Commonwealth, and I suppose under the regulations of such a community only those who could afford to have plural wives would enjoy them. But the object was to establish a Mormon settlement, and they succeeded. A more admirable body does not exist. All the men and children of men are husbandmen and they are bound together in a common cause, making of the sterile State of Utah, which only owns, I think, 16 per cent of its entire land, the balance being public land, a garden spot. And the Japanese are also as wise as serpents and as gentle as doves.

I may say, of course, that the object of the gentlemen's agreement was to exclude laborers, and I claim that the spirit of the gentlemen's agreement has been violated as well as the letter, because these women who have come in, 38,000 since the agreement, are actually not only wives but they are laborers. They all work in

the fields as they do in Japan, side by side with the men, and most excellent workers they are. So 38,000 in that one lot have been admitted as laborers and are so manifested, because while we stood by the gentlemen's agreement to exclude laborers, we consented at the same time that they might issue passports to "wives." It is a rather ridiculous situation to presume that woman is not capable of doing work side by side with man. But again this great birth rate will be the foundation for their permanent colonies in California. It is so apparent that he who runs may read. Japan had an important purpose in colonizing the Pacific coast-need I amplify?

(4) That Japanese who have acquired farming interests in continental United States and who wish to return there to take active control of those interests.

I have known Japanese of the laboring class without interests at all go back to Japan and return, but they had, by the aid of good American lawyers, become parties to alleged leases, signing the leases, and that gave them within the law that technical interest which entitles them to return. This whole law of agreement is honeycombed with evasions and subterfuges which have been a source of much prosperity-to our lawyers.

On the basis of this understanding President Roosevelt issued on March 14, 1907, an order excluding from continental United States Japanese or Korean laborers, skilled or unskilled, who have received passports to go to Mexico, Canada, or Hawaii, and come therefrom.

To put this Executive order into operation the Department of Commerce and Labor on March 26, 1907, issued a circular which reads as follows. This is such an obscure thing that I think I need not read it. But here it is:

Aliens from Japan or Korea are subject to the general immigration laws. Every Japanese or Korean laborer, skilled or unskilled, applying for admission at a seaport or at a land border port of the United States, and having in his possession a passport issued by the Government of Japan, entitling him to proceed only to Mexico, Canada, or Hawaii shall be refused admission.

If a Japanese or Korean alien applies for admission and presents a passport entitling him to enter the United States, or one which is limited to Mexico, Canada, or Hawaii, he shall be admitted if it appears that he does not belong to any of the classes of aliens excluded by the general immigration laws.

If a Japanese or Korean alien applies for admission and present a passport limited to Mexico, Canada, or Hawaii, and claims that he is not a laborer, either skilled or unskilled, reasonable proof of this claim shall be required in order to permit him to enter the United States.

If a Japanese or Korean, skilled or unskilled laborer, is found in the Territory of the United States without having been duly admitted upon inspection the procedure employed under the general immigration laws for the arrest and hearing of aliens who have entered the United States surreptitiously shall be observed.

That is a great deal of verbiage and very little actual restriction. The Japanese having passports and they seem very easy to getcome to the United States, and they are only detained in practice at the immigration station in case they have contagious diseases. They are not subjected to the illiteracy test or any other test to which Europeans are subjected. Hence they have been treated with great consideration. If they have a passport issued by the Japanese Government without any right on the part of the United States to interpose an objection they enter the United States.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Phelan, has not Canada a gentlemen's agreement with Japan?

Mr. PHELAN. I am not perfectly familiar with it.

The CHAIRMAN. I do not know except by report. You need not go into that.

Mr. PHELAN. I understand they have a head tax of $1,000.
Mr. BOWLES. They have a gentlemen's agreement.

Mr. PHELAN. Now, this gentlemen's agreement is the only protection. Theodore Roosevelt objected strenuously-it was one of the causes of his break with President Taft-against the treaty of 1911, and because he said it destroyed the gentlemen's agreement, and practically opened wide the doors. Now, that is your protection to-day; the gentlemen's agreement and the treaty of 1911, when this bill is proposed by the House committee and approved by the House committee, and in order to refresh your memory let me read from Union Calendar No. 61, H. R. 6540, section 12, paragraph (b). I think I can show you that there is no substantial difference between this and the gentlemen's agreement, except transferring the jurisdiction where it properly belongs to the United States for the regulation of the incoming hordes of Asiatics. There is no interference with commerce or trade. That was the pretended object of the treaty of commerce and navigation of 1911, to promote trade, not to promote. immigration or protect the evil which everybody had seen. apparently, except Mr. Taft. He made a proposition before the Japanese societies night before last for another conference. It is said, "The United States never lost a war and never won a conference."

The CHAIRMAN. As a legal proposition, as an international proposition, the term "immigrant" does not extend to those who are admitted for the purpose of trade under commercial treaties.

Mr. PHELAN. That would be a fair interpretation.

The CHAIRMAN. In the ordinary acceptation of the term an immigrant would not come within that classification.

Mr. PHELAN. Not at all, but the facts stare us in the face.
The CHAIRMAN. That is the view of the Secretary of State.
Mr. PHELAN (reading from the bill, section 12):

(b) No alien ineligible to citizenship shall be admitted to the United States unless such alien (1) is admissible as a nonquota immigrant under the provisions of subdivisions (b), (d), or (g) of section 4, or (2) is the wife or the unmarried child under 18 years of age of an immigrant admissible under such subdivision (d), and is accompanying or following to join him, or (3) is not an immigrant as defined in section 3.

The exceptions are to be found in section 3, where, under the caption, "Definition of 'immigrant," " the bill says:

When used in this act the term "immigrant" means any alien departing from any place outside the United States destined for the United States, except (1) a government official, his family, attendants, servants, and employees.

They have admission under the Johnson bill just as they have under the gentlemen's agreement and the treaty of 1911:

(2) An alien visiting the United States as a tourist or temporarily for business or pleasure.

The same is in the treaty or agreement:

(3) An alien in continuous transit through the United States, (4) an alien lawfully admitted to the United States who later goes in transit from one part of the United States to another through foreign contiguous territory, and (5)