Speech #820214747

I am very happy the Senator mentioned the address by General Ridgway. to which we all listened. If I recall correctly. in describing the Japanese people he used the adjectives: "Proud. sensitive. diligent. and homogeneous." I recall those words very distinctly. they made a very great impression on me. especially the adjectives "proud" and "sensitive." I have previously told the Senate. when there were very few Senators on the floor. my experience in Japan in 1937. when by accident I was in Tokyo on the anniversary of the date of the passage by Congress of the Japanese Exclusion Act. On that day the black flags broke out all over Tokyo. As an American. I walked through Tokyo looking at the black flags on the buildings. When I asked why the black flags were flying I was told. "This is Japans national day of mourning. This is the day on which we go into mourning because of the insult to us involved in your United States Oriental Exclusion Act." Every student of this subject knows that our Oriental Exclusion Act played a large part in creating the climate of opinion in Japan which led to the attack on Pearl Harbor. The only question is. how large a part. Every student has asked the question. Would there have been an attack on Pearl Harbor if it had not been for our Oriental Exclusion Act? Does not the Senator agree that these questions involve the peace and security of the United States as we look ahead. and that they are not merely domestic questions involving problems of our domestic economy? Does not the Senator agree that the risk and danger in insulting the great peoples of the east is infinitely too great a priceto pay for the kind of discrimination written into this bill. which my amendment proposes to correct?