JAPANESE IN CALIFORNIA. COMMITTEE CN IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION, The committee met at 10 o'clock a. m., Hon. Albert Johnson (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. Gentlemen, we are honored this morning with the presence of Senator Phelan, who desires to be heard on the subjects we have been discussing for the last few days. Senator, the com mittee will be glad to hear from you. STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES D. PHELAN, A SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA. Senator PHELAN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the committee for this opportunity. I had heard that Dr. Gulick, who is the proponent of a plan by which a certain percentage of the nationals of the various countries may be admitted to the United States, has made a statement before you. I have been so busy that I have been unable to follow in detail the testimony, but the doctor has spoken and written on the subject so much that I have the general idea that he desires to admit a certain number of nationals based on the number of the people of that particular nationality who are in the country at the present time, and I can only see in his plan a desire by that means of admitting Japanese and other orientals where now the law bars them; and I am very strongly of opinion that the bar should not be let down. Of course, you gentlemen are familiar with the condition at the present time. The immigation law gives us a certain degree of protection. The Chinese-exclusion law gives us absolute protection from the Chinese, and the gentlemen's agreement is supposed to give us protection from the Japanese. Very little is said about the gentlemen's agreement because we have been overawed constantly by the supersensitiveness of the Japanese, who are always described as a proud people and who are seeking racial equality. Hence, there has been a certain subservience on the part of the administration, both the present administration and other administrations, in a diplomatic way, to avoid any conflict or any irritation. A very desirable thing to do when your life is not at stake, but you do not put on soft gloves with a man who is making an assault upon you. If you consider that he is endangering your life, you are very apt to treat him not in a diplomatic way, where diplomacy will not serve, but in a forcible way, and hence I have very little sympathy with the manner in which we have approached the subject, but I can understand the reasons for it. 3 The Japanese came out of their wars in Asia as great fighting men, and they were always considered a menace to the west coast of the United States and the islands of the Pacific; and when we came out of the war as great fighting men the situation changed, and there was less need of that careful diplomacy. If we had a statement to make we were free to make it, because we had behind us a very powerful Army and a very powerful fleet, and there is no use of mincing things. A man who is able to enforce his will is much better entitled to a hearing in the court of nations than a man who is impotent and powerless, or believes himself to be impotent and powerless, as the American people to a great extent believed themselves to be noncombatant before we demonstrated to the world our extraordinary ability in men and resources to fight battles. So I think we can now talk on this subject in a perfectly free way, whereas during the last three years and during the pendency of the war I have felt a certain restraint; and although I saw the danger in the encroachment upon my State, I did not make any loud protest, because we were associated with Japan, among the other powers, in making a war against a common enemy. I just want to clear the atmosphere and say that there ought to be plain talking at this time. There is no need of giving offense. I was asked the other day to give an interview to two or three leading papers in Japan by their correspondent here and I gave it to him, and he said I could release it in 48 hours, so far as he was concerned, as he was going to cable it to Tokyo, and I would be very glad to give it to the committee for its record. I will not take your time in reading it. The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, the statement will be placed in the record. (The interview referred to follows:) INTERVIEW BY UNITED STATES SENATOR JAMES D. PHELAN, OF California. [Cabled by request to the Tokyo Nichi Nichi and Osaki Nainichi.] I am glad to have this opportunity to explain to the people of Japan the CaliFornia attitude toward them, which necessarily must be the national attitude. There should be no misunderstanding, because misunderstandings breed trouble. Great numbers of Japanese, men and women, are in California, and are acquiring large tracts of agricultural land. The State law forbids ownership, but they take it in the name of their children born on the soil, in the name of the corporations, and so circumvent the intent of the law. They also lease lands and work for a share of the crop, and when thus working for themselves are impossible competitors, and drive the white settlers, whose standards of living are different, from their farms. The white farmer is not free from cupidity when tempted by Japanese to sell out at high prices, and they do sell out and disappear. The State, therefore, is obliged as a simple matter of selfpreservation to prevent the Japanese from absorbing the soil, because the future of the white race, American institutions, and western civilization are put in peril. The Japanese do not assimilate with our people and make a homogeneous population, and hence they can not be naturalized and admitted to citizenship. Therefore, the question is principally economic and partly racial. Japan herself excluded Chinese in order to preserve her own people, and that is what California, Australia, and Canada are doing. Japanese statesmen must surely, for these reasons, acquit Americns of race prejudice. We are willing to receive diplomats, scholars, and travelers from Japan on terms of equality, but we do not want her laborers. We admire their industry and cleverness, but for that very reason, being a masterful people, they are more dangerous. They are not content to work for wages, as the Chinese, who are excluded, but are always seeking control of the farm and the crop. Immigration and naturalization are domestic questions, and no people can come to the United States except upon our own terms. We must preserve the soil for the Caucasian race. The Japanese, by crowding out our population, produce disorder and bolshevism among our own people, who properly look to our Government to protect them against the destructive competition. California, by acting in time, before the evil becomes even greater, expects to prevent conflict and to maintain good relations with the Japanese Government. The American Government rests upon the free choice of the people, and a large majority of the people are engaged in farming pursuits. They form the backbone of every country-the repository of morals, patriotism, and thrift, and in time of their country's danger spring to its defense. They represent its prosperity in peace and its security in war. The soil can not be taken from them. Their standards of living can not suffer deterioration. Their presence is essential to the life of the State. I therefore urge the Japanese Government and people to put themselves in our place and to acquit us of any other purpose in the exclusion of oriental immigration than the preservation of our national life and the happiness and prosperity of men and women who founded the Republic, who have developed its resources, and who occupy the land. It is theirs in trust for their posterity. The people of Asia have a destiny of their own. We shall aid them by instruction and example, but we can not suffer them to overwhelm the civilization which has been established by pioneers and patriots and which we are dutifully bound to preserve. Senator PHELAN. The immigration laws are working out and the gentlemen's agreement is not serving the full purpose by any means for which it was intended. I have before me here the report of the Commissioner General of Immigration of 1908, page 125, chapter 4, "Japanese immigration," and I understand this is the only printed reference in a book which is now out of print, to the so-called gentlemen's agreement, and the purpose which it was intended to serve. I am at a loss, Mr. Chairman, to know exactly how far you have gone into this matter, and I do not know whether I should refresh your recollection by reading this. The CHAIRMAN. We have not heard that read. To section 1 of the immigration act approved February 20, 1907, a proviso 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 such citizens of the country issuing such passports to enter the continental territory of the United States from such other territory or from such insular possessions or from the Canal Zone." The following is the comment of the commissioner general: 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. Mark you, this was in 1907: 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 had found that passports granted by said Government to such subjects entitling them to proceed to Hawaii or to Canada or 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 have received passports to go to Mexico, Canada, or Hawaii, and come therefrom" (Department Circular No. 147, dated Mar. 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 the 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 states 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 the emigration of its laboring class to foreign contiguous territory. It will be seen, therefore, that the report for the past fiscal year covers a novel phase of the immigration question, viz, the exclusion from the continental portion of this country of certain classes of aliens, such exclusion being based in part upon the provision of law mentioned, but principally upon the mutual undertanding of the two countries affected, and to be brought about largely by said two countries uniting upon a policy, agreed by both to be necessary and desirable, one of the countries exercising control over the departure and the other over the admissions of the persons whose emigration and immigration it ́is desired mutually to control. It is believed that the tables and comments furnished constitute a striking illustration of what far-reaching and desirable results may be expected to ensue when two equally interested countries cooperate in good faith toward their accomplishment. All that is necessary is that there shall exist a clear conception of the object sought by each country, a working understanding of the field to be covered and the administrative details to be carried out, and general good faith upon the part of all concerned. That is the gentlemen's agreement which Dr. Gulick's plan seeks to break down. If it is true that Japan sincerely desires to keep men of the laboring classes at home, then there is no- Mr. WELTY (interposing). Let me ask you right here, did you read the gentlemen's agreement which was promulgated by the President? Senator PHELAN. The gentlemen's agreement has been something which nobody could put their hands on, and I stated this is the nearest expression in any public writing of the gentlemen's agreement. You will see that it avers here that the Japanese Government desires to keep its laborers out, and the United States desires to see that they are kept out, and that on that basis the Governments came together, and that constitutes the gentlemen's agreement of 1907. Mr. RAKER. That was a verbal agreement, and this is the interpretation of it? Senator PHELAN. It was a verbal agreement and this is the only written interpretation I know. It was after the school incident in California that President Roosevelt, I think, became greatly alarmed of the aggressive aspect of Japan, for whose fighting men he had very great respect, and he knew that our coast was not defended. So he summoned to Washington several California officials and they agreed to oblige him, in view of the serious condition which he described, to let the school question go by the board. There was an attempt to segregate the Japanese from the whites, and that is a very serious condition to-day. The matter came up in the last session of the California Legislature. A bill was introduced for the purpose. Where there was not sufficient room for both, boards of education were authorized to erect a school especially for orientals, and there was another outcry about that. As I recall, it passed the assembly and it was throttled in the senate by the governor and his friends, who were desirous of keeping down any Japanese agitation at that time, on the alleged ground that it would interfere with the peace negotiations in Paris. So, because California receded from its position on the school question in 1907, the Japanese, through President Roosevelt, came to this agreement, that rather than suffer the humiliation of having the United States exclude them by law, they would exclude themselves. They would issue no passports except to certain designated classes. There would be students and diplomats and travelers and merchants and Japanese who had returned to Japan and had an interest in this country in land or who had wives or children here. Mr. RAKER. Senator, the same question came, again, from the National Government here at Washington to the legislature and to the governor of California to throttle this legislation, did it not? Senator PHELAN. That was subsequently. Mr. RAKER. I mean at this last session of the legislature, was not the same effort made by the National Government? Senator PHELAN. An extraordinary situation occurred. The leaders of the senate of the California Legislature feigned alarm. I appeared before the body and made an address at a joint session, and subsequently one of their members, Senator Inman, who is a very sincere opponent to the Japanese encroachments in California, introduced bills. Under the law there, at this period, he could not introduce a bill without two-thirds consent, and they held the thing up for days, the governor advising against any action; and finally, they passed a resolution asking the Secretary of State, then in Paris, whether it would be prudent at this time to pass such legislation, and they got the answer they expected that it would not be prudent at this time to pass such legislation, because on the other side of the table in Paris, and negotiating on matters of much greater importance, were the Japanese. So when the California Legislature abdicated in favor of President Wilson and Secretary Lansing, the Japanese might well say to the President and Mr. Lansing, "It is up to you. Are you going to countenance this discriminatory legislation in California?" and they were fighting the Japanese demand for racial equality and free immigration at Paris. Notwithstanding the expressed views of President Wilson on this great subject, which I have here, it was a diplomatic move to say that at this time action would probably be imprudent. The legislature took that view and refused two-thirds consent to Senator Inman to even present his bill; but a resolution had been passed prior to this asking the Paris conference to deny racial equality and free immigration. There is no question at all in my mind-absolutely no question-as to the feeling of the people of the State of California on this subject; but, as I say, they have been overawed, or, in the language of the street, they have been "buffaloed" by the Japanese Government, |