Meanwhile the attention of the whole country was called to the anti-Japanese sentiment in California, which threatened to involve the nation in international complications. The American public in general manifested surprise and indignation at the attitude of the Californians. Those who had been watching sympathetically the remarkable progress of the Japanese nation and whose contact with the Japanese was limited to their association with a few Japanese students or officials utterly failed to comprehend the situation on the Pacific coast. From their point of view an act of injustice was being done to a people who merited our kindest consideration. The Washington Evening Star in the following words expressed the general attitude of the people in the eastern states:

To the extent that there has been any actual outbreak of anti-Japanese feeling anywhere in this country, the people of the United States have occasion to be ashamed of themselves. . . . . If the people of the coast are in truth engaged in any form of anti-Japanese crusade or are showing a prejudice against the Japanese, they are open to the emphatic condemnation of the whole people of this country. Our interests in the Far East, to speak commercially, are too heavy and important to be placed in jeopardy by a wanton insult of the dominant power. Our good faith as a nation is pledged to the observance of certain international proprieties. Let proper representations be made to the Japanese people that will repudiate the mistakes and follies of those who are now engaged in this foolish, dangerous propaganda.”1

1 Quoted by the Literary Digest, Nov. 3, 1906, p. 622.

President Roosevelt, in his message to Congress in December, 1905, gave considerable space to the California-Japanese problem and in strong terms repudiated the exclusion movement. Later in the month, after receiving Secretary Metcalf's special report on the situation in California, he sent another message to Congress in which he reiterated his former views and spoke of the injustice of discrimination against the Japanese pupils.1

This Federal opposition to the segregation of Japanese pupils had some influence on those in authority in San Francisco, for no immediate attempt was made to carry their segregation policy into effect. On April 18, 1906, occurred the San Francisco earthquake which caused the destruction of thirty-six out of seventy-five schools in the city. In the autumn of that year the Board of Education of San Francisco, claiming that because of the recent calamity their school accommodations were inadequate, ordered the oriental children to attend a separate school. When this order was issued there were ninety-three Japanese pupils attending twenty-three schools and it was asserted that, distributed as they were in various parts of the city, they could have been accommodated without overtaxing the capacity of any school. The school board endeavored to justify their action by pointing out the danger of allowing Japanese young men to sit in the same classes with white girls in the primary

1 The Congressional Record, 59th Congress, 2nd Session, Senate Doc. No. 147.

grades. Since they did not make public the fact that there were but six Japanese boys above fifteen years of age in the primary grades at that time, their cry of the moral peril of innocent children served the purpose of gaining much sympathy for their cause.

The Japanese on their part were so offended at this act of discrimination against them that they refused to send their children to the oriental school. Formal protests received from Japan through the regular diplomatic channels further complicated the affair and made it necessary for the Federal government to take a hand in bringing about a settlement. After considerable negotiations the San Francisco school authorities ended the difficulty by adopting regulations which defined the age limits within which alien children could attend the different grades of the public schools, an arrangement which was perfectly satisfactory to the Japanese, since it avoided invidious race distinctions. This compromise was agreed to by the authorities in San Francisco upon the consideration that the Federal government should take steps to stop the immigration of Japanese laborers.1

During the progress of these negotiations, the bitter feeling against the Japanese in San Francisco broke out in open acts of violence. Japanese places of business were attacked and wrecked, and assaults were made upon Japanese in different parts of the city. Dr. T. Omori, recognized as an authority on seismog

1 Kennan, George, "Japanese in San Francisco Schools," the Outlook, 86: 246.

raphy, who had been sent to San Francisco by the Tokyo Imperial University to investigate the causes and effects of the earthquake, was stoned by a crowd of ruffians while engaged in his scientific observations. It should be remembered, however, that San Francisco at that time was in a disorganized condition and that the disorderly elements in the city were with difficulty kept under control.

In February, 1907, Congress, in response to the demands of the people of California, took its first step toward the exclusion of the Japanese by incorporating in the Immigration Act the following provision:

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 territories of the United States to the detriment of the labor conditions therein, the President may refuse such 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.1

In accordance with this action President Roosevelt on March 14, 1907, issued a proclamation 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." This regulation stopped the flow of

1 Senate Documents, 61st Congress, 21: 110.

Japanese immigration from Hawaii as well as that across the border from Canada and Mexico, but it was still within the power of the Japanese government to grant passports that would give the right of entrance into the United States. Japan, however, knowing full well that further Japanese immigration might lead to a direct act of exclusion, asserted its intention to issue passports to continental United States only to non-laborers, or to laborers who were former residents, or settled agriculturalists. This so-called "Gentlemen's Agreement" has been strictly adhered to by the Japanese authorities and has effectively stopped the immigration of Japanese laborers.1 61926

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In 1911, when America and Japan entered upon negotiations for a new treaty, the people on the Pacific coast and especially in California demanded that the treaty should expressly provide for the exclusion of Japanese laborers. The American government, however, thought it unnecessary to subject Japan to this humiliation, since the problem was being satisfactorily solved by a voluntary agreement. The following note,

1 The Commissioner General of Immigration in his report for the year 1909 (p. 121) expressed the following opinion about the "Agreement": "The experiment certainly with the cooperation of the Japanese government, much more completely accomplished the exclusion of Japanese laborers, as defined in the regulations putting the arrangement into effect than have the Chinese exclusion laws ever operated to prevent the immigration of Chinese laborers as defined in such laws, and is working at this moment with a greater degree of relative success.'

Mr. Tokutomi in an article in the Kokumin Shimbun of Dec. 26, 1914, said that "the 'Agreement' has made it almost as difficult to get to America as it is to get to heaven."