to be wired, sometimes from far Bombay, Korea, Mongolia and Manchuria, always attacking Japan. Evidence of design in this evil doing is found in the republication of all these news items in a metropolitan daily in San Francisco, and in other papers which naturally would not do this except by an arrangement.

So proceeds this conspiracy against the peace of nations. All of this bad work is dangerously trifling with the friendship of nations and the peace of the world. We speak of it as "the Japanese problem." Is it not rather an American problem? Does it not involve the education of public opinion in this country to demand the truth from the American press, and to drive the envenomed agitator against other nations and their people from the public platform? Does not the solution of the problem require that we see our own danger from ourselves? Is it not worth while to ask ourselves how long society can last with its public opinion based upon prejudice and poisoned by persistent falsehood? With this American problem solved there will be no Japanese problem. The truth will have disposed of it.

What influenced the two hundred and twenty-two thousand California voters to vote against the antiJapanese initiative? The truth was the only influence. It was what they had seen, their experience and contact with the few Japanese who are here. They had seen the Japanese convert barren land like that at Florin and Livingston, into productive and profitable fields, orchards and vineyards, by the persistence and intelligence of their industry. They had seen the hard pan

and goose lands in the Sacramento valley, gray and black with our two destructive alkalis, lie, cursed with barrenness like the fig tree of Bethany, and not worth paying taxes on, until Ikuta, the Japanese, decided that those lands would raise rice. After years of persistent toil, enduring heartbreaking losses and disappointments, he conquered that rebellious soil and raised the first commercial crop of rice in California. Due to the work of that great Japanese pioneer this state now has a rice crop worth sixty million dollars a year, and the land that he found worthless now sells for two hundred dollars per acre.

Or these voters had seen the repulsive "hog wallow" lands in the thermal belt of the west slope of the Sierra, avoided by white men, so unproductive and forbidding that they defaced the scenery, reclaimed by the genius and toil of the Japanese Sakamoto, and now transformed into beautiful vineyards and citrus orchards from Seville to Lemon Cove. They had seen that 70 per cent of the total seventy-four thousand acres owned by Japanese, was these lands that disfigured the state until they had been reclaimed by Japanese genius and industry. They had met the Japanese industrially and socially. They knew their personal dress, their uniform cheerfulness, their cleanliness, their scrupulous neatness of politeness and good manners, their kindness and their gratitude for just and considerate treatment, their sobriety and respect for law, and seeing and knowing all this no falsehood, however subtle, could swerve them from obedience to the truth.

4

FOR

in American-Japanese relations have been turning their attention to the question of the eligibility of the Japanese to become American citizens through naturalization. We have extended this privilege to the German, the Englishman, the Frenchman, the Italian, the Negro, the Russian, and others; why not to the Japanese? Has not the Japanese shown himself capable of assuming the obligations of American citizenship? Can he not fit in with our democratic scheme of government? The answers to these questions are both negative and affirmative.

The eligibility of alien Japanese to become American citizens is a part of the larger question of citizenship by naturalization. Political science usually recognizes two general sources of citizenship—namely, birth or descent, and the formal grant or conferment by the state. It is the latter with which we are here concerned.

When the Federal Constitution was adopted the national government took over the whole problem of naturalizing aliens. It would have been folly to have allowed each state to determine its own naturalization laws, so among the powers granted to Congress was that of establishing "an uniform rule of naturalization."

In accordance with this provision Congress has passed a number of laws. The first act was approved March 26, 1790. In the first section it is provided that "any alien being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for a term of two years may be admitted to become a citizen."

1 U. S. Statutes at Large I, 103.

The phrase "free white person" was used in all of our naturalization laws down to 1870, when the law was changed to meet the conditions arising out of the Civil War and reconstruction. The law of 1870 reads: "The naturalization laws are hereby extended to aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent. "

By an oversight, apparently, the phrase "free white person" was omitted from the law, so in 1875-it was again amended. As amended it reads: "The provisions of this title shall apply to aliens being free white persons, and to aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent.” There has been no change in this feature of the naturalization laws since 1875.

The question has often been raised: Did not Congress by "extending" the naturalization laws to aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent thereby remove all race discrimination from our naturalization laws? It is quite obvious that there was no Asiatic problem in the United States at the time the first law was passed in 1790 and for seventy years thereafter.

A perusal of the federal censuses from 1790 to 1860 indicates that there was no such problem. Beginning with the census of 1790 the classification of races is as follows:

White, Colored, Chinese, Indians. A note at the bottom of page 378, table 5, indicates that the Japanese are included in the Chinese.

It is obvious, then, that down to 1860 or 1870 very little thought was given to the question of just what races were included in the term "white persons," but as soon as the Asiatic problem became acute on the Pacific Coast, Congress was urged to pass a law not only restricting Oriental immigration but also denying citizenship to Chinese. Section 14, of the Chinese restriction act of 1882 provides: "That hereafter no State Court or Court of the United States shall admit Chinese to citizenship, and all laws in conflict with this act are hereby repealed." Previous to the enactment of this law a very considerable number of Chinese were naturalized, the naturalization courts apparently including them in "white persons.'

A popular opinion has prevailed for some time that by the laws referred to

above the Japanese, along with the Chinese, have been excluded from citizenship through naturalization. On the contrary, there is no specific federal statute denying them this privilege. Where we have refused to grant them papers of citizenship it has been done by the courts in their interpretation of the term “white persons" as found in our laws.

Just what races are included within the term "white persons" has been a question with the courts for some time past. A variety of interpretations have come from our tribunals. Thus in 1893 in the case of Saito vs. United States1 the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Massachusetts laid down the theory that the Japanese do not come within the meaning of the term "white persons" as used in our maturalization laws. Shebato Saito, a native of Japan, applied for naturalization papers and his application was denied by the court upon the following grounds: "The act," held the court, "relating to naturalization declares that the provisions of this title shall apply to aliens being free white persons, and to aliens of African nativity and persons of African descent. The Japanese, like the Chinese, belong to the Mongolian race and the question presented is whether they are included within the term 'white persons.' The court rules that the statute must be taken in its ordinary sense, and that the application of Shebato Saito must be denied upon the ground that he was of the Mongolian race and that the term 'white person' excluded the Mongolian race, and therefore the application is denied." The same ruling has been applied touching the Burmese. Thus in the case of Sanco Po,2 a native of British Burmah, the court held that the Burmese are Malays, and under 162 Federal Reports, 126. 238 New York Supplement, 383.

modern ethnological subdivisions, are Mongolians. "The petitioner," continues the court, "falls squarely within the provisions of Section 2169 U. S. Revised Statutes which limit naturalization to free white persons and to persons of African nativity and African descent, for he is neither."

In those cases dealing with the Japanese the courts have taken the position that the term "white persons" does not include the Japanese.1

On the other hand, a number of Japanese, as formerly in the case of Chinese, have been admitted to American citizenship by the courts. A notable case was that of the distinguished international lawyer, author and editor, Misuji Miyakawa, who died in this country in 1916. Mr. Miyakawa was the chief counsel for the Japanese in the famous school controversy in California in 1906. Others have been admitted in California, Indiana, Florida and New York. It is estimated that some fifty or a hundred, or perhaps more, Japanese were naturalized before the Bureau of Immigra

1A perusal of the following cases will reveal the great lack of uniformity in determining the meaning and scope of our naturalization laws.

In re Ah Yup (1878) 5 Sawyer 155, excluding Mongolians; in re Camille (1880), 6 Fed. 256, excluding a half-breed Indian and white; in re

Gee Wop (1875, 71 Fed. 274), excluding a Chinese; in re Rodriquez (1897) 81 Fed. 337, admitting a native of Mexico; in re Kumagai (1908) 163 Fed. 922, excluding a Japanese; in re Knight (1909) 171 Fed. 299, excluding a halfbreed Mongolian and white; in re Najour (1909) 174 Fed. 735, admitting a Syrian; in re Helladjian (1909) 174 Fed. 834, admitting an Armenian; in re U. S. vs. Dolla (1910) 177 Fed. R. 101, admitting a Hindu; in re U. S. vs. Balsara (1910) 180 Fed. 694, admitting a Parsee; in re Young (1912) 198 Fed. 715, excluding a halfbreed German and Japanese; in re Alverto (1912) 198 Fed. 688, excluding a quarter-breed Spaniard and Filipino; in re ex parte Shadid (1913) 205 Fed. 812, excluding a Syrian; in re Mozumdar (1913) 207 Fed. 115, admitting a Hindu of the Brahman Caste; in re Burton (1900) 1 Alaska 111, excluding an Indian.

tion and Naturalization issued more strict orders touching the naturalization of aliens. These orders were issued in 1911 and were to the effect that clerks of courts should not receive declarations of intention or file petitions for naturalization from aliens other than white persons, and persons of African nativity or African descent.

By implication this excluded the Japanese, and the courts since 1911 have refused to naturalize them, with the exception of a few Japanese naturalized by the courts because of their service in the military and naval forces of the United States in the late war.

In spite of the fact that the Japanese can not become American citizens by naturalization, all children born of Japanese parents residing here permanently are American citizens by the "law of the soil." The reports of the California State Board of Health show that between 1906 and 1919, inclusive, there were born in the state (the problem here being more acute than in other states) 29,529 Japanese children. From figures developed by the State Board of Control, which constituted Governor Stephens' investigating committee, from the total registration of minors made by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction as required by the act of the 1919 Legislature, the minor population of Orientals in the state on November 1, 1919, was 21,611. The fact that many Japanese children born in the United States were absent in Japan, and also the fact that a rather high mortality prevailed among them in this country, taken together, would account somewhat for the discrepancy in the figures as furnished by the State Board of Health and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction.

These children are American citizens by virtue of being born upon American soil. The situation presents some very

interesting anomalies. These sons and daughters being American citizens have all the civil and political privileges which the rest of us Americans enjoy. One very interesting and complicated case has come to the attention of the writer. A young Japanese lady, an American citizen by birth, and a graduate of a California university, married a native of Japan. Under our federal laws she lost her American citizenship, and, under the provisions of the California constitution that voters must be United States citizens, the privilege of voting in this state. There was born to this couple some three or four years ago a little daughter. This child is an American citizen. Under our present laws the parents must remain aliens. The mother, formerly an American citizen, is now an alien; the child is a citizen, and the father an alien-rather an anomalous case.

Some of the pertinent questions growing out of this situation are these: What will be the relation of the rising generation of Japanese-American citi zens to their alien parents? What will be the attitude of Americans toward this increasing number of American citizens of Japanese blood? And this number will continue to increase, as it is in California increasing today at the rate of 4,000 a year, as long as adult alien Japanese are allowed to immigrate. This situation is unique in the history of citizenship in the United States, namely, an increasing number of aliens ineligible to citizenship, at the same time an increasing number of American citizens, the offspring of these aliens. This presents a knotty problem to the sociologist and to the practical statesman.

The Japanese boys and girls born in this country are to a large extent being educated in our American schools and the testimony of many teachers is that they are, on the whole, as bright

and quick to learn as the average American boy or girl. The complaint comes from many quarters that these boys and girls are crowding into our schools in such numbers that they are driving out white children. On the other hand, it is argued that this is one sure way not only of Americanizing the children themselves but also to some extent of bringing their alien parents in contact with American ideals and principles.

It might be added that there is a movement on foot among those who call themselves the "exclusionists," to have the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution so changed that children born in the United States of alien parents, who themselves are ineligible to citizenship by naturalization, would not be considered as American citizens. This raises another interesting question, namely: Through how many generations would this remain effective?

Another interesting feature of the problem of American citizenship for Japanese is the practice of Japan with regard to children of her citizens born abroad. The report of the California State Board of Control, alluded to above, points out the following:

Every Japanese, wherever born, is a citizen of Japan unless expatriated. Every Japanese in the United States, whether American-born or not, is a citizen of Japan and as such is subject to military duty to Japan from the age of seventeen years until forty years of age, unless expatriated. The American-born Japanese holds dual citizenship; first, allegiance to Japan with compulsory military duty; and second, rights of citizenship in America. Under such circumstances, a Japanese, though born in America and thereby acquiring all the rights and privileges of an American citizen, owes his first obligation of allegiance and military service to Japan. It is contended by writers on international law that because our country is cognizant of this dual citizen