In a very striking and fearless passage the President deals
with the Japanese question in California. It is the duty of the United States, he urges, not only to treat all nations fairly, but especially to remember their obligations to the stranger within their gates. "It is the sure mark of a low civilisation, a low morality, to abuse or discriminate against or in way humiliate such stranger who has come here lawfully, and who is conducting himself properly." The attitude of hostility to the Japanese, though limited to a few places, he pronounces to be "most discreditable to us as a people," adding that it may be fraught with the gravest consequences to the nation. After a generous tribute to the wonderful development of the Japanese and their many fine qualities— courage, generosity, patriotism, and courtesy—he declares that it is a "wicked absurdity" to shut them out from the public schools in California. The President suggests that Congress should pass an Act specifically providing for the naturalisation of Japanese who come intending to become American citizens, and further earnestly recommends that the civil and criminal statutes of the United States be so amended
and amplified as to enable the President, acting for the United States Government, to enforce the rights of aliens under Treaties. "Even as the law now is something can be done by the Federal Government towards this end, and in the matter now before me affecting the Japanese, everything that it is in my power to do will be done, and all of the forces, military and civil, of the United States which I may lawfully employ will
be so employed It is unthinkable that we should con- tinue a policy under which a given locality may be allowed to commit a crime against a friendly nation, and the United States Government limited, not to preventing the commission of the crime, but, in the last resort, to defending the people who have committed it against the consequences of their own wrongdoing."
