Speech #640001503

It is natural that Japan should look upon this effort at exclusion as a discrimination against her people as a race and because of race prejudice. And this feeling of the Japanese nation is not without foundation. We are admitting into this country many immigrants. and admitting them to citizenship. wvho are worse in many respects. more degrading and detrimental to the moral and social conditions that prevail in this country. than the Japanese. As a means of preventing an excessive influx of Chinese and Japanese subjects into this country. laws have been enacted by Congress intended to exclude all laborers coming from those countries. especially from China. and their exclusion has been provided for by treaties between those nations and our own. In th e last treaty with Japan no direct provision was mnide for the exclusion of her subjects. but we had her promise that she would use all proper means to prevent the emigration to the United States of such of her subjects. and so far as I have been able to learn she has kept that promise with strict fidelity. Besides the Federal laws I have mentioned. State law.s have been enacted forbidding Japanese to hold and own real estate. As might well have been expected. this was resented by the Japanese nation and has led to diplomatic correspondence and complications. But however distasteful such legislation may be to Japan. it is absolutely necessary as a defense against an influx of a horde of foreign immigrants that would. as it already has done in some localities in California. crowd out native laborers and landowners who can not live as they live or compete with them in the intensive farming and gardening in which they engage. It is evident that some amicable agreement adjusting this delicate and important matter should be reached by the two nations. Notwithstanding all precautionary measures taken to prevent the coming into the United States of Japanese laborers. they have come in large numbers and are still here.