Discrimination Against Japanese in California A National and an International Issue. The message of President Roosevelt and the Report of Secretary Metcalf* which followed have given the Japanese Question in California special prominence, though it was the action of the Board of Education of San Francisco and the agitation underlying it which have made it a national and an international issue. So many misleading statements have appeared in the daily press and so harmful are they in their effects that they should not be allowed to pass without refutation. This is impossible through the daily press of San Francisco. The Object of This Pamphlet. The object of this pamphlet is to give the gist of the question in all its bearings in as little space as possible; to embalm current literature upon the subject; to furnish proof of the real nature of the campaign, laying stress upon the fact that large and influential classes in California have no sympathy with the movement against the Japanese; and to point out the only satisfactory solution to the problem. Twenty years of close contact with the Japanese in their own country and on the Pacific Coast, and a careful study of the California Problem, on the ground and at first hand, should enable the writer to shed valuable light upon the questions that have aroused the peoples. of he two nations, if not of the world. Embalming Current Literature. A great deal of literature is available on the subject, some of which it seems well to "embalm" for future reference, as well as for present use. As will be seen by the following quotation, others alsoare engaged in embalming: "We reproduce this to give our readers an idea of the intolerant attitude of some of our Eastern critics," says the San Francisco Chronicle of December 30, 1906, in commenting upon an editorial in the Journal of Commerce of New York, "and to embalm it so that it may be resurrected in the near future, when the whole country comes to the same conclusion we have reached." Unless all signs fail, this I will not be soon. *For text see Appendix. CHAPTER I. A Campaign of Extravagance and Misrepresentation The Chronicle Fears that the East May Learn the Real Situation. Just before Christmas, 1906, a so-called citizens' meeting in San Francisco, arranged and managed by the Japanese and Corean Exclusion League and the Labor Organizations affiliated with it, and addressed by Mayor Schmitz and others, was the occasion of fears which are well expressed in the Chronicle. The Mayor took occasion to refer to his unfortunate situation as an indicted man before a Judge whom he detests, and from whose jurisdiction he has, by various means, sought to escape. The object of the meeting was to condemn President Roosevelt for his attitude on the Japanese question in his Message to Congress. Most of the speeches were extravagant, but were confined to the question at issue. The Mayor's break and its result can best be described in the language of the Chronicle: "In a speech the other evening to a meeting which he should never have been permitted to address, Mayor Schmitz lugged in an attempted defense of himself which was utterly out of place, and in the course of his remarks he said: 'I find myself against a bottled-up Judge.' A conditions of affairs under which an indicted criminal presumes to thus attack the Judge before whom he is to be tried, is outrageous. That he should assume that the audience whom he was addressing would patiently listen to such an attack on a Judge of the Superior Court, will tend to make the people of the East, whom we are trying to convince of the wisdom of the exclusion of all Asiatic coolies, more consistent than ever in their assertion that the opposition to Japanese immigration is promoted by 'the scum of the earth.' Some of the Eastern journals do not hesitate to say that, and worse, and that the same meeting which listened approvingly to resolutions favoring the exclusion of Asiatic coolies was made the occasion for an open attack on the judiciary will make it very hard to change their opinions. And however vigorously we here may protest and resolve, we cannot exclude Asiatic coolies until we convince the people of the East that it is desirable to do so." Eastern Opinion Reflected. The opinions of the Eastern Press, which are so much feared in the above editorial in the Chronicle, are well reflected in the editorial department of the Review of Reviews for January, 1907. The editor, in referring to the Japanese question, says: "Secretary Metcalf's last piece of work before his transfer to the Navy Department was his investigation of the condition of the Japanese in California. President Roosevelt sent in Mr. Metcalf's report on December 18, accompanying it with a brief message of his own to Congress. As the facts have now come to be clearly known, it is not easy to find language strong enough to characterize fitly the absurd behavior of the school authorities of San Francisco. They have allowed the merest trifle to assume such dimensions that it is now under serious discussion in every newspaper of every civilized country of the entire world. The facts seem to be that about ninety Japanese were at one time attending San Francisco schools. Of these perhaps half* were young men above the age of sixteen who were trying to learn English and had to be taught with little children in the primary grades. The other half were bright, clean, well-behaved children against whom no possible complaint could be made. The San Francisco School Board could easily have adopted a simple age rule for primary classes which would have admitted the handful of small Japanese children and kept out the young men. Nobody would have objected to such an arrangement, and the famous international controversy would have been avoided. The result would have been about forty Japanese children scattered through the schools of a great city, with an average of not more than one to each large school building. "But it is evident that the San Francisco school authorities intentionally voided the adoption of a common-sense rule regarding the age of children in primary classes, in order to seem to have a complaint against the Japanese and an excuse for shutting them out of the ordinary schools and assigning them to the so-called Oriental school, so placed in the burnt district that small children could not get to it. Now that the facts are known, there is only one state of mind that the country can as a whole properly adopt with respect to the San Francisco school authorities, and that is one of derision. Foolish and fanatical labor leaders had worked up a strong feeling in favor of the exclusion of the Japanese. And the School Board of San Francisco was too cowardly to act with ordinary common sense, and was guilty of conduct that seems scarcely short of imbecility. The solution of the question was perfectly simple. As a matter of course, the grown-up Japanese should not have been allowed for a moment to enter the grades with white children. Equally as a matter of course, the few scattered Japanese children should have been taken care ofas the teachers would have been glad to manage them-without the interference of a political school board governed by demagogues. The young men who wished to learn English could have gone to the Oriental school or could have been taught English in night classes. Happily, the great Japanese nation is now well aware of the friendly sentiments of the American people." BITTERNESS TOWARD DEFENDERS Without exception, every man who has stood up publicly and defended the position of the Federal Authorities and of the Japanese has been the object of attack on the part of the city press. The situation is well revealed in an editorial in The Pacific* of January 24, 1907. This paper says: "Some of the newspaper attacks on President Jordan of Stanford, because of his position and utterances on the Japanese question, have been a disgrace to journalism. He has been called a liar, a hypocrite, a moral pervert, and epithet has been piled on epithet in the frenzy of the writers who seem entirely unaware that in so doing they injure themselves and their papers far more than they injure Dr. Jordan. Not many of the persons who have stood for what they regard the right, in this controversy, have escaped the venom of the persons who write with the same savagery with which men are clubbed and shot *About one-third.-Editor. to death by other elements of our society who cannot tolerate any opposition to their aims. Our daily papers, and some of the weeklies also, need to learn that what the public wants at this and all other times are facts and arguments, not abuse." *The organ of the Congregational Church on the Pacific Coast. Attack on President Jordan. A sensational article appeared in the Call of January 22, 1907, headed "Anti-Japanese Order Issued by Jordan: Orientals Segregated in Stanford Dormitory and Quartered in Basement: Practice Belies Recent Preaching: Strict Rule Denies Right of Mongolians to Occupy Comfortable Apartments." The article says: "This has been a rule of the institution almost since the day it opened its doors. As Dr. Jordan has jurisdiction over all matters pertaining to the dormitory, it is presumed that the law is of his own framing. At any rate, he enforces it to the letter. . . In the basement-poorly ventilated, ill-furnished, and with floor of cement-the Japanese, Negro and Chinese students are quartered." A few days after this appeaerd, the writer visited the Japanese Students' Club at Stanford, and not one present knew of such discrimination. Neither did several others with whom he spoke. The fact that the janitors occupy the quarters in the basement seems to be the only basis for this attack upon President Jordan. President Wheeler of the University of California returned from the East about the time that the President's Message was made public, and immediately became the target at which the shafts of the papers were fired. Great interest was manifested as to who influenced the President, and President Wheeler was openly charged with underhandedness and advised to attend to his own business in the University. The President and Secretary Metcalf. Secretary Metcalf and President Roosevelt naturally came in for their share. In an editorial in The Chronicle, January 18, 1907, we read under the title "Secretary Metcalf Forgot His Duty to the Nation": "The Pasadena News says that the San Francisco critics have been unjust to Secretary Metcalf, 'who had a duty to perform not as a citizen of a state but as a representative of the nation.' San Franciscans find fault with Metcalf because of his desire to please the President caused him to neglect his duty to the nation by sending in an utterly misleading report, which represented a condition as existing here totally different from that which really does exist." In another place he is advised to seek political preferment from the President, as he need expect no further honors from California. Equally bold have been the accusations of the President. Considerable space has been given to reports of the Exclusion League and Labor Organizations in their attacks upon the President, and the subject has also received due notice editorially. These are too insult - ing to reproduce. icle will be noted. Some of the editorial comments of The Chron LACK OF CONSIDERATION AND TACT: President O. A. Tveitmoe of The Japanese and Corean Exclusion League, at a public meeting held in San Francisco while Mayor Schmitz and the Board of Education were en route to Washington, and after a request had been made from Washington to cease agitation in order to make possible diplomatic success, said, as reported in The Chronicle of Februry 4, 1907: "You have no doubt noticed in the daily press some dispatches which might lead us to believe that this meeting should adjourn sine die at the command of President Roosevelt. The talk of war all over the world as a result of this school question was for a purpose. I do not believe that there is any possibility of war with Japan. But rumors of war have a perceptible effect upon the stock markets, you know. President Roosevelt saw fit to heap insults upon the people of California, but he was not honest in his expressions. He has now summoned our School Board to Washington to try and induce them to yield the stand it has taken under the state law-to shake the big stick in its face. He wants us to stop the exclusion agitation. He would have exclusion by treaty, but exclusion by treaty never excludes. Roosevelt and Root may hedge and scheme and try to throw dust in the eyes of the people of the Pacific Coast, but we know what the Oriental invasion means." Pressure in the Settlement. After the Mayor's party arrived in Washington and it was reported in the Press that the Californians might yield, hundreds of telegrams were sent to the Capitol, it is said, exhorting the Mayor and School Board not to yield. One from President Tveitmoe of the Japanese and Corean Exclusion League will be of interest. Mayor Schmitz replied: "I am a Californian and trying to do my duty to my State. Cannot succeed if hampered by hostile press of San Francisco." The telegram of Mr. Tveitmoe is as follows: We can "Hon. Eugene E. Schmitz, Washington, D. C.: ' Morning papers announce in big headlines that 'Mayor Schmitz Deserts Labor for Japs-Mayor and School Board Make Complete Surrender.' not and will not believe it. Exclusion League endorses City Attorney's telegram of yesterday, and demands exclusion by act of Congress. Treaty will not exclude. Sovereign rights must not be bartered away for promises, and should not be basis for compromise. We will not yield one iota of our rights as a sovereign people, regardless of cost or consequence. If President wants to humiliate American flag, let him tell California's Governor and Legislature to repeal the law, but he cannot coerce free Californians to bow in submission to the will of the Mikado. Roosevelt's power will not make one white man out of all the Japs in the Nipponese Empire. California is the white ́man's country, and not the Caucasian graveyard.”—The Call, February I, 1907. It is easily seen from the above that the exclusion leaders are |