JAPANESE IN AMERICA.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 114, 15 May 1924, Page 8

JAPANESE IN AMERICA.

IMMIGRATION TROUBLES.

" PYROTECHNICS " AT WASHINGTON.

(From Our Own Correspondeut.)

SAN FRANCISCO, April 17

The brief cabled dispatches sent from the United States to the Antipodes gave but a scant outline of the climax which was reached during c excited discussions in Washington regarding the Japanese threat issued to Uncle Sam should restrictive legislation be passed by the Washington Government regulating the entrance *of Japanese to America. There was a feeling of tenseness during the whole of the deliberations, and generally Congress was commended for its firmness in refusing to be either frightened or intimidated by the threat of " grave consequences " in the event of enacting the Japanese exclusion amendment to the Immigration Bill.

It was urged by leaders of thought in America that the regulation of immigration was a sovereign right of all sovereign states, and except where nations had limited their sovereignty by treaties on the subject no outside Power was entitled to express an opinion, and, far less, to dictate in the matter of its immigration laws. - :

Throughout the heated debate in Congress there were frequent references to the strong attitude of Australia and New Zealand, in particular, in regard to restricting the entry of Japanese to those Dominions of the British Empire, and this feature of the .situation was pointedly dilated upon by some of the Pacific Coast Senators.

"We are now going to see whether Americans are an aggregation of jellyfish or not," shouted Senator Samuel Shortridge, the Republican of California. " Are we going to back down before the threats of Japan, particularly when Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa exclude Japanese without eliciting threats and retaliation from Japan, and as Japan herself excludes Chinese, Koreans, Siamese, Javanese and other peoples she does not want" Japan has scrupulously observed the gentlemen's agreement with the United States and was prepared to continue to do so, Ambassador Hanihara declared in his famous letter to Secretary Hughes, a missive which was read by the latter to the Senate Immigration Committee.

Secretary Hughes said the Ambassador's statement of the essential points in the "gentlemen's agreement" corresponded with his own understanding of the arrangement. Heretofore thi understanding between Washington and Tokyo on the subject has been based on a long succession of exchanges and precedents, and the exact terms of the "agreement" never before had been reduced to precise form. The Ambassador expressed hope that full consideration would be given to the "grave consequences" which the proposed exclusion clause in the Immigration Bill would bring "on otherwise happy and beneficial relations" between the two nations.

Senator Hiram Johnson, the fiery politician of California's Republican ranks, in an address in the Senate, characterised the protest of Ambassador Hanihara as an "improper one to be addressed from the representative of 'one great country to another friendly one." Ambassador Hanihara's letter, he continued, contained a "veiled threat." Because of that, he said, he could not suppbrt the amendment pending in the bill which would have recognised the "gentlemen's agreement."

"The action of bringing about exclusion has been forced upon us," Senator Reed exclaimed, "and it means the waste of twenty years of diplomacy; the waste of much of the good accomplished by the Washington arms conference, and the throwing away of much of the good feeling which grew out of' American aid after the recent Japanese earthquake." Hurting Japan's Ambition.

Senator Walsh, Democrat (Massachusetts), said the question of the immigrant was "the greatest of fundamental sovereign rights," and the nation which ceased to control its immigration was not an independent nation.

Senator Reed, Republican (Pennsylvania), announced that the Japanese ambassador's letter had "materially changed the situation" and that; in the face of it he could not support the committee amendment.

In a statement made in the House, Chairman Johnson, of the House Immigration Committee, was protesting against enactment by Congress of an' immigration law with a Japanese exclusion clause because it "crushed" her "ambitions to possess Hawaii by colonisation." He declared the Immigration Bill passed on April 12 by the House applied to "every part and parcel of the United States where our flag flies, including Hawaii," and added: "And because it does the bill hurts not the pride, but the ambition of Japan. Make no mistake about that." He pointed out that Ambassador Hanihara, in his letter of protest, had said Hawaii was not covered by the "gentleman's I agreement."

The last time Congress proposed to exclude Japanese America backed down and truckled to Nippon. That was in the Wilson administration. In 1916 a Japanese exclusion provision was included in the Immigration Bill passed by the House. The Japanese Ambassador went to the White House and was closeted with President Wilson for an hour or more. What he said was never revealed, but the upshot was an order from the White House which caused the Democratic majority in Congress to kill the House proposal to exclude Japanese and to substitute therefor a Senate provision barring all Asiatics except Japanese. This was the law creating the Asiatic barred zone, the boundaries of which were so drawn as not to apply to Japan..

For nearly twenty years Japanese in the United States have been the cause of friction between the two nations. The question did not become a national issue until 1905, when President Roosevelt went on record flatly in opposition to a proposed Japanese exclusion law, and in 1906, when the action of the School Board of San Francisco, in attempting to exclude Japanese children from the public schools, was made the subject of protest by the Japanese Ambassador. i The first real protests against the Japanese were not made, however, until 1900. Hiitory of Agitation. i In 1880 there were only about 150 Japanese in the country. It was not until ISBS that .the Japanese Government authorised Japanese subjects to emigrate, and then with the expressed stipulation that they should never lose their allegiance to the Mikado, and that

they must return within three yearsEven under these restrictive conditions the number of Japanese emigrants rapidly increased, and by 1891 more than 1000 Japanese were arriving annually. In 1898 the number had doubled. In 1900 the arrivals numbered 12,635, dropped in 1901 to 5269, rose again in the following year to 14,270, in 1903 to 19,968, declined in 1904 to 14,264, and still in 1905 to 10,331, rose in 1906 to 13,835, and rose with a bound in 1907, the peak year, to 30,226, which increase, in combination with the tense situation developing on the Pacific Coast, led to the negotiations of the "gentlemen's agreement."'

This was a time when California welcomed the Japanese. The labour shortage which followed the enactment of the Chinese exclusion laws of 1882 and 1892 affected seriously the fortunes of Californian farmers, who eagerly sought for negroes, Mexicans, Filipinos, Hindus, Porto Ricans and Japanese. The increase in Japanese immigration, however, was so prompt and so tremendous that Californians, even farmers, passed rapidly from a state of gratification to alarm.

In deference to American opinion, the Japanese Government voluntarily amended its Emigration Act of 1896. the Foreign Department announcing in July, 1900, that it would issue no passports to Japanese coolies wishing to go to the United States. This voluntary limitation, the first "gentlemen's agreement," was not satisfactorily enforced. Agitation Continued. Agitation P in California continued. In November, 1904, the American Federation of Labour, in its convention in San Francisco, demanded that the exclusion laws be applied to Japanese immigrants. In 1905 was launched the anti-Japanese campaign. In March the Labour Council of San Francisco held a meeting, at which boycotts on Japanese were urged. In May the Japanese and Korean Exclusion League was organised. The League's "platform" demanded extension of the Chinese exclusion laws to include Japanese and Koreans. In the same month, however, Methodist ministers of San Francisco declared that "not one of the charges against the Japanese could be substantiated." David Starr Jordan, of Stanford University, said that an exclusion measure would mean "war between the United States and Japan," and the fruitgrowers of San Joaquin and Santa Clara valleys formally protested against legislation excluding Japanese labour. Californian Congressmen agreed to introduce exclusion bills in Congress, but President Roosevelt, in his annual message on December sth, 1905, interposed an ineffectual check to their plans by urging a non-discrimina-tory immigration policy. Though the issue was disposed of in Congress for the time being, the Exclusion League continued its activities, only temporarily interrupted by the San Francisco disaster on April 18th. 1900. when earthquake and fire partially destroyed the Californian metropolis.