Speech #680076956

The question is. far greater than a question of a particular or specific locality. It Is. in my opinion. a question fundamental in its scope. It involves. indeed. the exercise of the power which unquestionably rests in the Congress of the United States and the power which any nation of necessity must have in relation to its immigration problems. It has been said so often that it is quite trite to repegit it that immigrtion is a domestic question. that it is. indeed. the right of any nation for itself to determine who may come within its borders. and karticularly it is the prerogative of the Congress of the United States to decree what it may see fit concerning immigration. Those who come from the territory from which I come have been for many .years in the the past acutely interested in the immigration problem in one aspect. and. of course. in the immigration problem in its larger aspect. too. We ]lave had in existence. as has been stated upon the floor here. a gentlemens agreement with Japan the design of vhic _was to prevent the 595t coming of laborers into the territory of the West. and to preclude the economic difficulties which subsequently might arise from immigration of those who are unassimilable In character. and who constantly. continuously. and forever owe their allegiance to a foreign power. For some reason that 1 never have been able wholly to fathom. the United States Government yielded Its right to determine the character of its immigraton front the Japanese Empire as it has yielded it in the case of no other nation. In respect to every other country our Governmatn not only has tenaciously held to the right but has jealously guarded the right of determining who could come. in what luimbers. and in every other particular has insisted that our Government ahne should be the sole judge. and as at fundamental propositlon it will be obvious that a nation must guard this right. or a nation yields at once its jurisdiction and its control over that which peculiarly is its own province. ]in the instance in respect to Japan. yielding perhaps to a pride or presunption asserted by no other land. we entered into what was termed the gentlemens agreement. Those of us who have eyes and may see. who are residents of California. know that the gentlemens agreement has not been effective.