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Section XIII.

APPENDIX.

APPENDIX.

For the purpose of permitting the presentation of the Japanese side of the whole matter contained in this report, there is appended hereto the following:

(1) Memorial address prepared by the Japanese Association of America (in California) and presented to the President of the United States while at San Francisco on September 18, 1919, upon the occasion of his visit to California. This covers the whole range of Japanese relations to this state.

(2) Truth of the Japanese Farming in California by Toyoji Chiba, Managing Director of the Japanese Agricultural Association of California.

MEMORIAL PRESENTED TO THE PRESIDENT WHILE AT SAN

FRANCISCO ON SEPTEMBER 18, 1919.

THE JAPANESE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA.
No. 444 Bush Street, San Francisco, California.

Honorable WOODROW WILSON,

President of the United States of America,

San Francisco, California.

MR. PRESIDENT: The Japanese Association of America, on behalf of resident Japanese in the State of California, extends greetings to you and begs to add its voice of welcome to that of the great state which you now honor by your presence. It sincerely hopes that the noble task in which you are now engaged may be fully realized, and that world peace and happiness may be the ultimate rewards of the labors for humanity to which your great efforts are devoted.

The Japanese people of this state, trusting implicitly in the lofty spirit of justice and fair dealing which have characterized your every public act and expression, take advantage of your presence in California to lay before you a few facts and figures bearing upon their relations to the community in which they reside, and they venture to ask for them your respectful and disinterested consideration.

The cry against our people may be historically traced as far back as 1887, when there were no more than 400 Japanese in the entire state. The so-called Japanese question did not, however, assume an acute character until 1906, when the school question arose. Unfortunately that question was settled by the politicians and not determined upon its true merits. At any rate, ever since that date, the Japanese "question" has become an issue of a most complicated nature--political, economic, racial, diplomatic-always resulting in the suffering of the Japanese residents. A few of the more familiar cases might be men tioned. The "Gentlemen's Agreement," under the workings of which America prohibits Japanese immigration, has been so strictly administered by the Japanese government that there has been no immigration from Japan. The alien land law of this state, enacted in 1913, prohibits Japanese ownership of land and limits the terms of lease to three years. This limitation strikes at the very foundations of farming so far as the Japanese are concerned, and the limitation is substantially interfering with all Japanese agricultural enterprises. Not satisfied with these annoying measures, innumerable anti-Japanese bills were introduced at the last session of the State Legislature. One of these proposed to deprive the Japanese of the right to lease land while another proposed to segregate Japanese children in the public schools.

These facts, not to mention others, have tended to strain the historic friendly relations between the United States and Japan. We regret the situation. However, the Japanese residents, on the whole, have so far entertained the faith that the American Government would

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