INTRODUCTION BY PROFESSOR ALBERT BUSHNELL HART

To be an introducer to a distinguished man, a writer whose views upon a great question of our time, a question of tremendous import to the American people, has affected public opinion, who represents the ideal of attempting to find out what are the essentials of this great question and then to apply them to our twentieth century problems, a man who has looked forward beyond the bounds of our lives, beyond this century into the future history of the world, striving to discover those causes which have destroyed the nations of the past and to prevent that ruin for our own beloved country, is indeed an honor.

The Chinese question, the Japanese question, the Mexican question, and the Negro question are all questions of the same kind. Many years ago I had the pleasure of meeting in his own house the poet John Greenleaf Whittier, and one of the happy moments of that pleasant hour was

his recollection of a pleasant hour with another famous poet, Oliver Wendell Holmes. Holmes said, "My friend, I am going on a long journey surely, which looks very dark to me. I do not know where I am going. For all I know, I shall walk into heaven side by side with a Hottentot." "And I said," remarked Whittier, "Friend Oliver, thou shalt find many things in the Celestial City which will astonish thee." And so we shall find many things in the address of the evening which will astonish us. Lothrop Stoddard [applause].

LOTHROP STODDARD, ESQ.

[Owing to the limited space available, portions of the address have been omitted, as indicated. The complete stenographic report can be seen at the office of the Civic Secretary.]

Gentlemen of the Boston City Club, I am going to speak to you to-night on the Japanese problem in California. I am going to speak primarily on that, but from first to last I wish you to realize that this Japanese problem in California is only one phase of a world problem, that is, the relations of the white and the non-white races throughout the world.

I shall speak specifically, as I said, of California and the Pacific Coast, but the Pacific Coast we must remember is only one segment of the thinly populated world frontier, other segments of which are Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, and other regions where these same problems exist, with equal intensity and in some cases with even more acuteness. California, however, is the best field for examining this world problem. It is the first land where that problem was clearly recognized to be a problem. It was the first land which definitely attempted a final and radical solution, a productive solution by debarring the Asiatics, and it has been the special goal of all three of the Asiatic races which to-day show most marked migratory traits, that is, the Japanese, the Chinese, and the Hindus. They have tried to get in and tried hard, and California has tried desperately to keep them out.

It has been the goal of all three of the Asiatic migratory races, Chinese, Japanese, and Hindus. In fact, the present Japanese immigration is a secondary phenomenon in the history of Asiatic penetration. Chinese immigration was the first phase, and the way in which Chinese immigration was met forms so indispensable a basis to the understanding of the present Japanese immigration problem that it will be briefly reviewed.

This Chinese prologue of the present Japanese problem began shortly after the discovery of gold in 1849. At that time the number of people in California was very small. There were no trans-Continental railroads, and Americans to get there had to go around the Horn, or trans-ship across Panama, or to cross the prairies in imminent danger of massacre by the Indians. This produced a sharp labor shortage, and it did not take long for the Chinese to learn about this. The Chinese is a

very enterprising race, and one Chinaman will go back and spread the news through an enormous amount of territory. As soon as the Chinese learned of the golden opportunities awaiting them in California they began to swarm into California. In 1854, five years after the discovery of gold, more than 13,000 Chinese arrived, and the number steadily increased until in 1880 the Chinese population in the United States was more than 105,000, the greater part being in California. The banner year of Chinese immigration was 1882, when 39,000 entered the country.

Of course they could not prevent immigration, that was a Federal matter, but they began appealing to Congress. As early as 1877 the California legislature sent a strongly worded protest to Washington, inveighing against the moral, social, and political effects of Chinese immigration, pointing out that the male Chinese adults already almost equaled the voting population of the state, and concluding, " No nation, much less a republic, can safely permit the presence of a large and increasing element among its people which cannot be assimilated." In 1880 the California state government submitted the question of Chinese exclusion to a popular referendum. The result clearly showed that exclusionist sentiment was not confined to the laboring element, as was then frequently alleged, but was common to all classes. With a remarkably full vote, only 4,000 electors failing to cast their ballots, 154,638 votes were cast against and only 883 in favor of Chinese immigration. The effect of this referendum on Washington was decisive, and Congress passed a bill suspending Chinese immigration for twenty-five years. But the bill was vetoed by President Arthur.

The result was that California and other states as far inland as Colorado took matters into their own hands, and there were a series of exclusion measures passed quickly which culminated in the Geary Act of 1892. One of the gentlemen at the dinner to-night said that this is a national matter, but we must never forget one thing, that the people of the Pacific Coast think that this matter of Asiatic exclusion is a matter of life and death, and I think they are right, and you cannot expect any body of Americans to deliberately commit suicide. If the rest of their fellow-citizens refuse to see it, they will make them see it by defending their racial existence, and they will stop at nothing to accomplish this, they will stop at nothing to safeguard their racial integrity; and I for one honor them for that [applause].

These exclusion measures have worked. We see it in the dropping of the total of Chinese population. In 1900 the Chinese population of the United States had dropped to 89,000. In 1910 it had dropped to 71,000. I have not yet seen the census report of 1920 regarding Chinese in this country, but in 1919 the California official survey of the Asiatic population there reported that there were only 33,000 Chinese in the state, whereas in 1890 there had been 72,000. That exclusion law is the only thing which has prevented an influx of probably 20,000,000 Chinese into this country to-day.

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This Chinese prologue has important bearings upon the present Japanese situation in that the broad question of Asiatic immigration was clearly envisaged and certain broad rulings were laid down. The rights of the Chinese were argued before our highest federal tribunals, and Supreme Court decisions were handed down on the basic issues. Not only was the country accustomed to the fact of Asiatic exclusion by the Chinese exclusion legislation from 1882-92, but the equally important question of Asiatic eligibility for American citizenship was clearly decided in the negative. The founders of the Republic had obviously intended America to be a white man's country, the naturalization acts of 1802 and 1804 stating that "only free white persons were capable of naturalization. After the Civil War naturalization was thrown open to negroes, the act of 1870 stating that the benefits of the naturalization law were extended to "aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent." Our federal courts have decided that the 1870 extension applies only to Africans, and that the Asiatic races, both yellow and brown, cannot become citizens. The Courts have, however, ruled that children of Asiatics born in America are eligible to full citizenship. This last ruling has little bearing upon the Chinese, since few Chinese women ever came to America and consequently few Chinese children were born on American soil. It has, however, a most vital bearing upon the present Japanese problem, as will later be shown.

Lastly, the broad principles underlying the questions of immigration and naturalization were clearly defined. It has always been the contention of most international jurists that a sovereign state was the sole judge as to whom it should admit either to entry or citizenship, such prerogatives being an inherent part of its sovereignty and necessary to its self-defense. These contentions have been affirmed by our Supreme Court. In its decision on the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Court stated:

"To preserve its independence, and give security against foreign aggression and encroachment, is the highest duty of every nation, and to attain these ends nearly all other considerations are to be subordinated. It matters not in what form such aggression and encroachment come, whether from the foreign nation acting in its national character or from vast hordes of its people crowding in upon us. The government, possessing the powers which are to be exercised for protection and security, is clothed with authority to determine the occasion on which the powers shall be called forth.”

And another federal decision on the matter of naturalization states: "The grant of the privilege of citizenship is purely discretionary with the people of the country. It carries with it great powers of good and evil in the exercise of the ballot, and the great responsibility of the ballot box. It is no humiliation for an alien to be excluded from a privilege not a right."

These decisions are of fundamental importance. They prove that our action toward Asiatic immigration can be considered purely as a matter of policy, undisturbed by questions of legal right or obligation. Asiatics particularly Japanese are continually asserting that we have no "right" to discriminate between Asiatics and Europeans as regards either immigration or citizenship. Such contentions are shown

to be wholly baseless. On the contrary, both national and international law concur in giving us an absolute right to determine who we shall admit to our territory and our franchise. It is one of the bright spots of the present situation that the legal bases have been so thoroughly established.

Now, with the Chinese question out of the way, and the legal questions settled, we are in better position to study the Japanese problem. This problem is a very recent one, and it dates back only twenty years at the most. It was only twenty years ago that Japanese immigration was an absolutely negligible factor. In the year 1882, the banner year for the Chinese, only five Japanese entered this country. And the immigration of Japanese did not pass the thousand mark until 1891. Suddenly, in the year 1900, the number of Japanese immigrants jumped

to 12,000.

Instantly California took alarm. The history of Chinese immigration had taught Californians the latent possibilities of Asiatic immigration. They saw how a huge immigration could spring from a clear sky. They looked across the Pacific at Japan, somewhat smaller in area than their entire state, yet with a population then numbering 45,000,000 souls as against their own 1,485,000 inhabitants. In 1905 there came the question over the segregation of the Japanese pupils in the public schools of San Francisco, which developed into an acute diplomatic question because the Japanese took up the question very decidedly on the rights of Japanese, and you have a compromise rather favoring the Japanese. However, the Government was then convinced that something must be done, and they tried to settle the question by saving the feelings of the Japanese, and as a result in 1907 you get the famous "Gentleman's Agreement," which still regulates the admission of Japanese into this country.

The Gentleman's Agreement was this: The Japanese government agreed to discontinue the granting of passports to laborers. It contemplated that what we would call the middle class or the poorer class persons would be debarred, and it has come out that the laborers in the contemplation of the Japanese Government is something different. The farm laborer, for instance, is a laborer, but the farmers who ran their own farms are not laborers, and it is precisely this class of farmers who have been coming in and taking up the farms in California. The Gentleman's Agreement for a time kept down immigration. In the year before it the number that came was 30,000; the next year it was 18,000, and a year afterward 4,000. Since that year it has been steadily climbing. Last year, in 1919, the number admitted was about 16,000. The Gentleman's Agreement has not satisfied either the inhabitants of the Pacific Coast nor our experts of the Bureau of Immigration. I will quote from the recent report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration, who expresses his dissatisfaction with this state of affairs in his 1919 report. He says:

"Obviously, this situation is deplorable. A nation, no more than a man, should be placed in a position where an outsider can demand the opening of the door without giving a full account of himself and showing that he is a fit person to enjoy the hospitality that he seeks."