Milford High School - Oak Lily and Ivy Yearbook (Milford, MA)

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THE OAK, LILY AND IVY. 21 Such an immigration law as the present one rather lessens our hope for peace, for it gives to the Japanese people a cause for unfriendly feeling, and not only prevents satisfactory relations between two countries but indirectly affects the whole world. As Mr. Matsudaira says, it is very difficult to cover the movement of peoples from one country to another by one law. The problem of immigration is rela¬ tively a new one. It is the first time in our history that it has taken on the serious aspect it now bears. Never before has it seemed to loom so large before the minds of not only the statesmen of the country but the people themselves, and to be a possible cause for war. The future alone can tell how these problems will be met. But as the law now stands, it decreases our efforts for world peace. The direction of the uni¬ verse now is assuredly toward peace. This can be seen very clearly by its cries for disarmament, the League of Nations, and the World Court. War is not an easy thing to abolish. One country alone can not do it and make a certainty of everlasting peace, but one country can do much toward disturbing the hopes of others in that direction. This is what our immigration law may be doing. The immigration law may not be a direct cause for war but it can surely be an indirect cause, for it causes feeling that leads to greater difficulties that are serious enough to cause war. Dorothy King, 1925. WILL EXCLUSION LEAD TO WAR? By the introduction of the Negro into the American Colonies there were sown the seeds of a controversy which shook the institutions of our republic to their very foundations, and ended only in four years of civil war. With this catastrophe in mind, a fear arose that history would repeat itself, if we continued to allow Asiatic races to colonize on American soil and become a menance to our own people and to American institutions. As far back as 1882, the attention of our government was called to this new peril when friction developed in California, where the Chinese in large num¬ bers were rapidly displacing the white people in industrial occupations. Believing that self-preservation of nations as well as individuals is the first law of nature, Congress took drastic measures to protect our people against the incursion of Asiatic hordes by passing the Exclusion Act of 1882 which settled forever the question of Chinese immigration. Later the Barred Zone Act was passed, shutting out the Hindus and all other Asiatic races with the exception of the Japanese, which she still continued to admit, subject to certain conditions. Thus we see that the Exclusion Act of 1924 barring the Japanese is not a new policy of our government, that it is not based on animosity toward Japan, but upon the fundamental principle of preserving our American institutions and standard of living, by barring from our shores those races which by character and customs are ineligible to citizenship and incapable of Americanization. In 1907 during Roosevelt’s administration, conditions of social and indus¬ trial unrest became so acute on the Pacific Coast that our government awoke to the fact that a Japanese immigration had already taken place which threatened to submerge our people and our civilization. With over 30,000 Japanese immi¬ grants coming into the United States in that year, the question had become an international problem and President Roosevelt after a careful examination of

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20 THE OAK, LILY AND IVY. why Japan should be grateful and should expect at least the same privileges as other nations is that it was an American, Commodore Perry, who by his visit to Japan in 1853 opened that country’s eyes to the vast possibilities of the future which would see her as one of the world powers, which position it holds to-day. From that day we have always befriended Japan. Our present immigration law, however, does not add to that friendliness; rather it does the reverse and no nation can afford to be unfriendly toward another nation. It hinders satisfactory solution of any international problems that may arise and builds up a wall of antagonism between us which prevents understandings in mutual interests. Then there is racial feeling. By such a law we might seem to look down on the yellow race. Such, however, is not the case. The United States gov¬ ernment is incapable of any such an unchristian act. Yet we ourselves should not be pleased to know that we were not wanted in Japan, or any country. Mr. Matsudaira, the new Japanese Ambassador to the United States, a very able statesman, says: “Japan’s objection to statutory exclusion has been a matter of principle. She has looked upon it from the standpoint of international amity and neighborliness and not merely from the standpoint of material loss or in¬ inconvenience. I understand that much hardship and inconvenience were ex¬ perienced by my countrymen immediately after the new law went into effect. I hope and trust that this hardship will be gradually mitigated by the judicious interpretation of the law and the considerate attitude of the authorities. I realize the difficulty of covering by a si ngle law all the complicated and intricate cases arising out of the movement of peoples from one country to another. Much, I presume, depends upon the discretion of the authorities concerned.” It is certain that immigration laws are necessary both for our own safety, in protecting the future of the nation and for the convenience of the immigrant himself. But in my opinion we do not need entirely to exclude the Japanese. They as one of the nations of the world should enjoy the privileges of the rest of the countries. The immigration problem, however, is relatively a new one in this country. Only the future can tell what conditions will arise from it and what new meas¬ ures will be enacted regarding it. Japan is comparatively a new country, but one that is rapidly advancing and one that may be considered as a world power. It needs the help of other nations to bring it up to their standards. Because of our friendliness toward that country it would therefore look to us for aid and we as a sister nation should respond, but now since the immigration law has passed, this is impeded both by uncertainty and some indignation on their side. That there is feeling can be shown by the letter received by the late Secretary of State Hughes from Mr. Hara Hara pre¬ vious to the passage of the law. It may not be as great now, but the feeling exists and will continue to exist. And it is a feeling that could bring about war. We do not want war with Japan, nor does Japan want war with us or any nation. Nevertheless all will agree that our present relations with Japan are somewhat strained, or, if not strained, they do not measure up to the standard of our friendliness with other nations. Some of this condition can be attributed to our immigration law. No country, I can safely say, relishes the idea of another war and it is the duty of every country to do its utmost to crush such an idea if any exists. The horrors of the late World War have satisfied all such inclina¬ tions in that direction. Furthermore no nation is in a condition for war for each one is undergoing its own period of reconstruction. War itself is the great¬ est menace to civilization, for it is during war times that the progress a nation might gain during peace is completely annihilated.

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22 THE OAK, LILY AND IVY. the facts, decided that the Japanese should no longer be allowed to come here as laborers, agricultural workers or small tradesmen, and that further mass set¬ tlement or colonization should be prohibited. This decision resulted in the ad¬ ministration negotiating with Japan the so-called Gentlemen’s Agreement, by the terms of which all Japanese laborers excepting those who had already become domiciled here, their parents, wives and children, were thereafter excluded from the United States, the enforcment of the measure to be carried out by Japan her¬ self, instead of by our government. Japan of her own accord agreed, to issue no passports to Japanese laborers desiring to enter this country or adjoining ter¬ ritories and to issue passports to the United States only to business men, travel¬ lers, and students, hoping through this class of people to promote friendship, and to encourage trade between the two countries. People on the Pacific Coast were skeptical of the success of the Gentlemen’s Agreement from the beginning, and the results as time passed proved that their suspicions were well founded, as this act never produced the results expected. Like the Prohibition Law the agreement was broad, and easily evaded by the individual. Japanese laborers continued to arrive by devious routes, usually crossing the Canadian and Mexican Borders, thus proving the ineffectiveness of the Agreement, and the necessity of a more stringent statute. Although President Roosevelt who conducted the negotiations with Japan believed that the Gentlemen’s Agreement would settle the problem, the result of fifteen years of operation proved the diplomatic defeat of his efforts, and the futility of this act to restrict the entry of Japanese to our shores. In 1907 when this law was passed the number of Japanese in this country including Hawaii were 152,000. In 1922 there were 275,000, an increase of 123,000, and to this num¬ ber was being added 13,000 yearly by births alone. To find so many here already with the number steadily increasing caused justifiable concern on the part of those who realized what troubles may be caused by a large alien element whose lower standards of living gave them superior advantages in industrial competition. From the economic and social angle, the Jap is as different from the American as land is from sea. Neither can he be made to fit into our modern ways or customs. With his long hours of labor and Oriental standards of living, he is an unconquerable competitor of our people in whatever industry he selects, and wherever Oriental help was employed, it meant that Americans were idle. The women and men work side by side in the fields and the children are taught to work from the hour they can pull a weed or wield a hoe. The husband is the head one of the family and the profits of all hands are his, Japanese women having no property rights whatever. By the united efforts of a Japanese family, their competition with the white farmers is fatal to the latter and in small farm¬ ing and truck gardening they have driven white men out of production and now absolutely control the industry. In some of the country schools on the Pacific Coast the Japanese children outnumber the whites to such a degree that the white children are brought up in a Japanese atmosphere, a condition unsatisfactory to the white people who are compelled to send their children to private schools or move out of the neighborhood. Although some of the Pacific Coast states passed laws prohibiting the alien ownership of land, this act proved no barrier to the resourceful and unscrupulous Jap, who at once proceeded to evade the law by devising ingenious methods of procuring legal title to the land. To see our laws evaded, and contempt manifested by a wily foreigner who cares nothing for our institutions was an additional cause of discontent and protest from the wh ite people, and where is there an American who can blame them?