The way in which anti-Japanese agitators have persistently distorted and misrepresented the so-called Japanese immigration issue is one of the very serious aspects of this most unfortunate situation. This spirit of deliberately misunderstanding and misrepresenting the Japanese seemed to possess the Senate when it insisted on distorting the obvious meaning and purpose of Ambassador Hanihara's famous letter to Secretary Hughes. One thing is clear. If our country wants world peace and goodwill it must as a whole, through its press and its legislatures, deal more sincerely and understandingly with Japan, her problems and her policies. Two important factors in this unfortunate situation should be noted. We should keep in mind the vast volume of misinformation regarding Japan and the Japanese which has issued from the anti-Japanese agitators of the Pacific Coast. It has been almost impossible for our people to know the facts. This it is that prepared Congress to do the needless and even humiliating thing which it did. The people have been led to believe that California was being flooded with Japanese immigrants; that the Gentlemen's Agreement was being flagrantly violated; that Japan had vast plans of military aggression for the capture and annexation of California; that Japanese controlled a large proportion of the best agricultural land of California; that Japanese laborers were in fact soldiers; that the coming of picture brides was a part of this military scheme; that Japan controlled and directed all Japanese in America by an imperium in imperio in harmony with these alleged grandiose ambitions, etc. Americans have been deliberately taught to suspect, fear and hate Japan and the Japanese. A vast and vicious propaganda of hate, even embodied in a number of popular novels, has carried these poisoned ideas all over America. We need also to note the mischievous politics that have made use of the Asiatic problem for more than fifty years. Because of personal and party ambitions, in the years of Presidential elections it has apparently been impossible to deal with this difficult question in a careful, scientific and rational way. Congress has been repeatedly stampeded. All well-informed men and women know and lament the sinister influence of mischievous politics. The politicians, no doubt, congratulate themselves on the differential legislative treatment of Asiatics, ignoring the fact that not a little of that legislation is in violation of treaties, of agreements, and of the principles of international courtesy and amity. ADDING INSULT TO INJURY Those who defend the action of Congress in enacting the exclusion law insist that Japan should not regard it as aimed particularly at her or as discriminatory against her people, for it also excludes all other Asiatics. They claim that what Japan really wants is "preferential treatment" as compared with other Asiatics. In point of fact, all other Asiatics had already been excluded by earlier laws— the Chinese exclusion law (1882) and the “Barred Zone" Act (1917). The sole and only purpose of the exclusion clause in the Immigration Act of 1924 was to abolish all Japanese immigration and to annul the Gentlemen's Agreement. This purpose was notorious. Secretary Hughes called pointed attention to it in his letter of February 8 to the Honorable Albert Johnson, declaring that "it would be idle to insist that the provision is not aimed at the Japanese," since the other exclusion laws are continued in force. The assertion that Japanese should not feel offended by the discriminatory law because it treats all Asiatics alike exhibits extraordinary failure to appreciate the situation. A man kicked down stairs which many are freely ascending is not likely to feel mollified by being told that a dozen others like himself have received the same brutal treatment. In resenting his ill-treatment, moreover, he naturally pleads his own case. It is not necessarily his duty to champion the cause of his fellow-sufferers. It should, however, be added that intelligent Asiatics all feel offended and mortified by our law. The old exclusion laws were fairly rigid and excluded laborers successfully. This new law excludes all, including the highest and most cultured, and adds insult to injury, for it puts exclusion on a new basis which carries implications stoutly resented. REMEDYING THE SITUATION What is to be done? Can the situation be remedied? It is, of course, useless to ask Congress to rescind its action until a change of mind has taken place on the part of the people generally. The fundamental question concerns the nature of our present naturalization law, which permits only Whites and Africans to become citizens, as though the accident of color were vital to citizenship. As now interpreted by the Supreme Court, literally and legalistically, that law is obsolete. Fitness for citizenship and for naturalization is not a matter of color but of personal qualities. We need to amend this law so that our great Republic shall base its definition of fitness for citizenship on a correct principle. Our antiquated lawadopted in stages many decades ago, when we lived in a world of peoples and races far apart-is an affront now to more than half the world. But I do not intend to argue this matter at length. I wish merely to say that the amendment of this law should be urged by Americans, not by Japanese nor by any other nationality. Americans should urge it, not to please Japan, but to express more adequately the real meaning and significance of the fundamental principles of democracy, liberty and fraternity. These are the only principles on which our national life can be wholesomely built up and international relations of amity and peace be permanently maintained between the great races. It should at once be stated with utmost possible emphasis that the proposal to give privileges of naturalization to all who qualify personally, regardless of race or color, is not a proposal to open the doors to promiscuous or free immigration. Not at all. Naturalization and immigration are two distinct things. Much of the difficulty in recent discussions has developed because these two matters have been so commonly confused. The restriction of all immigrationeven its rigid restriction-as on the Reed plan embodied in the new law is, in principle, what I have advocated for many years. But if we allow any immigration by quotas, such quotas should in my judgment include all peoples. The numbers which would be admitted from Japan, China and India would, on the quota plan, be absolutely negligible. Finally, omitting many other matters that might well receive consideration, I wish to record my conviction that they are mistaken who insist that the "question is closed". and that nothing can be done to heal the wound inflicted on American-Japanese relations by the ungentlemanly, unnecessary and essentially unethical action of Congress. The injury done not only to Japan but also to the United States is far more serious than is generally realized. The proposal to regard the question as "closed," in the belief that soon it will be forgotten is, in fact, likely to aggravate it. No question is ever closed and settled that is not settled right, as Lincoln once declared. We cannot afford to have our country appear before the world as in different to matters of international courtesy, honor and justice. When an error has been made or a wrong inflicted, even unintentionally, an honorable nation will surely desire to reconsider the question and will seek to set matters right. There is surely some way to do it. Let us earnestly search for it. T The Gentlemen's Agreement How It Has Functioned By KIYO SUE Inui Professorial Lecturer, Tokyo University, Tokyo, Japan HE summary procedure on the part of the United States Congress brought the Gentlemen's Agreement to an abrupt end. This Agreement was one of those peculiar and interesting international arrangements unprecedented in the history of modern nations. Many arguments have been advanced, various misunderstandings have been created and ill-feelings have been entertained because of the lack of adequate and accurate information concerning it. For many years its context was unknown, and until its last days the authority of those who entered into such an agreement was subject to challenge. Even as high an authority as Mr. Albert Johnson, Chairman of the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, of the U. S. House of Representatives, does not seem to possess a clear understanding as to the background of the Agreement. He alleges, for instance, that it was the evasion of the Japanese who held passports to neighboring states like Canada and Mexico in order to gain entry into the United States which caused the American and Japanese governments to enter into this arrangement. Prior to the Agreement, the Japanese were free to "enter, travel and reside" in the territory of America by the Treaty of 1894. Therefore, no "evasion" was necessary. During the early days of AmericanJapanese intercourse, there were very few Japanese who crossed the Pacific. Not until ten years after the enactment of the Chinese restriction laws of 1882 did the Japanese migrating to America exceed more than 1000; and this as the result of a vigorous campaign on the part of the industrial interests of the Pacific Coast to secure imported labor. Even this did not hasten any organized opposition against the entrance of the Japanese. In 1898 the United States annexed Hawaii where already forty per cent of the population were Japanese. In the light of this fact, the oft repeated panicky phrase of "the Hawaiianization of California" is a false misrepresentation, for it was after the American guarantee that Japanese rights and interests would be respected that Japan withdrew her protest and the annexation was completed. In 1900 for the first time the census of the United States included the arrivals to and from Hawaii. This brought the immigration figure to the United States up to 12,000, which was augmented to 30,000 in 1907, thus exciting the alarm of the laborites of San Francisco who held the control of the city's politics. BEHIND THE SCENES POLITICALLY However, the direct motives for the Gentlemen's Agreement must be sought in the famous San Francisco earthquake which occurred in 1906, when thirty-six out of seventy-six school buildings were destroyed. Taking this as a God-given opportunity the School Board, which was controlled by laborites, proposed to put into practice the segregation ordinances which had been a dead letter up to that time. The motive which prompted this significant action was of great consequence. My readers will undoubtedly recall the year 1906 as a memorable one in the history of San Francisco, not because of the earthquake alone, but because of the publicity thus gained, and the shortage in relief funds that were pouring into the city from all over the world. Just what happened to those who were concerned, including the city's political boss, is notorious. In the municipal administration were a group who did not care to have a great searchlight of publicity thrust upon the city. They sought to shift the focus of the world's attention upon some other object. Just at that moment Japan was winning the Russo-Japanese War. People began to talk about her, some to fear her as perhaps an ominous future foe. Here, certainly was an opportunity. Thus it was, we are told, that the School Board of the city, which was the cat's paw of the mayor and his coterie of friends, proceeded to segregate the Japanese children. Japan, naturally, but perhaps too vigorously, protested. Rumors were spread far and wide to the effect that "Japan is getting cocky;" "she is getting smart"; "she is finding fault with Uncle Sam"; "she is going to dictate as to what America should do"; "she is finding provocation to fight the United States"; "the victory gave her the 'big head'." Thus was the attention of the world shifted from the "earthquake" in the city administration to the rising power in the Far East. President Roosevelt in bis characteristic manner took the matter in hand and summoned the representatives of the San Francisco School Board with the hope of effecting a compromise. The result, in which Japan was compelled to do most of the yielding, was the now famous but defunct Gentlemen's Agreement. THE EXCLUSION ACT As a sequence of this growing alarm and agitation on the Pacific Coast, an immigration act was approved on February 20, 1907, a provision of which was attached to its Section I, which read 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. Clothed with this authority, 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." This pronouncement was soon followed by the Department circular and regulations. "In order," says Mr. Johnson, "that the best results might follow an enforcement of the regulations, an understanding was reached with Japan that the existing policy of emigration of its subjects of the laboring class to continental United States should be continued and should, by co-operation of the governments, be made as effective as possible.' It is to be noted here that so long as the freedom of travel within the territory of the contracting party was guaranteed by treaty to all classes of the Japanese, the Presidential procla |