American democracy and Asiatic citizenship

Front matter

Class; J-j ^/ D i

BooL

9^

Part I— Political Chapter Page

I. The New Asia and Its Significance for America 3

II. Japan: Her Problems and Claims ....... 14

III. China: Our Treaties and Our Treatment ... 30

IV. An Historical Sketch of Legislation Dealing

WITH Immigration 49

V. An Historical Sketch of Legislation Dealing

WITH Naturalization 54

Vl. Democracy and Citizenship 80

VII. The Rights and Duties of Nations 91

VIII. A Policy and a Programme for Constructive

IX. Criticisms Criticised 122

PART II— STATISTICAL X, Chinese in the United States 137

XL Japanese in the United States 162

XII. Situation on the Pacific Coast 188

XIII. Situation in the Hawaiian Islands 220

XIV. Conclusion 252

Introduction

The American Japanese problem remains unsolved. Diplomatic correspondence over the questions at issue between the two governments came to a stop in the summer of 1914, neither being satisfied with the position assumed by the other, and neither seeing what the next step should be to reach a position satisfactory to both.

Important writers of both lands have continued vigorously to discuss the international situation. In each land there are those who denounce the alleged weakness of their own government in dealing with the asserted aggressive deeds and policies of the other. Such writers, however, are dangerous guides. Urging our "right" and denouncing their "wrong" does not help to solve actual problems. In spite of the fury of their fine writing and their hysterical exhortations they make no important contribution to the solution of the problems or to the establishment of permanently right and mutually satisfactory relations.

On account of the strained relations that developed between America and Japan in 1913 over the California Anti-AHen Land Law, the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, responding viii INTRODUCTION

to appeals from missionaries in Japan, established a Commission on Relations with Japan "to study the whole question in its relation to the teaching of Christ," and "to seek to rally the Christian forces of the United States for the solution of the problem, and for the promotion of such measures as are in accord with the highest standards of Christian statesmanship."

The writer, who had the honor to present to the Federal Council the memorial of the missionaries, was made the representative of the commission, has been given prolonged extension of his furlough, and under the auspices of the commission of the Federal Council has had unusual opportunity for the study and presentation of the question in every part of the country.

His twenty-six years of missionary service in Japan, and this experience in the United States, in which he has met not only chiychmen but large numbers of business men in chambers of commerce and trade boards, as well as representatives of organized labor, particularly on the Pacific coast, have led the writer to certain definite cojiclusions as to the problem itself, and also as to the true methods for its solution. These conclusions have been presented in various volumes, pamphlets, and magazine articles, which present, of course, his own views and convictions, and for which the commission of the Federal Council is not responsible.

INTRODUCTION ix

The discussions of this volume are strictly limited to the field selected for consideration; namely, the legislation which should now be enacted by Congress in order that America may do her part in setting right our relations with the Far East. Americans should reaUze that modern Asia has rendered not only obsolete but dangerous any policy that ignores their problems, needs, and essential rights.

The only real solution of the new problem that has been set for the entire world by the new Japan and the new China is to be found in our adoption of a new Oriental poHcy and programme. That policy and programme should embody two fundamental principles:

While, on the one hand, it should provide real protection for the Pacific coast States from the dangers of excessive Asiatic immigration;

It should also, on the other hand, give to Asiatics the same courtesy of treatment and the same equality of rights as America readily accords to all other people, whether they come from Europe, Africa, or South America.

To the casual thinker these two principles may seem to be not merely incompatible but positively contradictory. In point of fact, however, they are not necessarily either incompatible or contradictory.

The policy that embodies both these essentials may be summed up in two principal propositions:

First. All immigration should be regulated hy the

X INTRODUCTION

principle that America shall admit only so many immigrants from any particular people as she can genuinely Americanize.

Second. Privileges of citizenship should be given to every individual who personally qualifies, regardless of his race.

Regulation of all immigration on a percentage principle affords the protection needed by the Pacific coast, and indeed by the entire country, from an excessive immigration from any land.

The granting of naturaHzation to every individual who qualifies removes all humiliating race discrimination, which discrimination is particularly resented just now by Japan.

The present volume seeks to present the various facts and factors involved in the new world-situation, and to consider carefully the various questions that arise when one tries to think through the pros and cons of the above proposals.

For example, the student of the subject needs to know much about modern Japan, her problems and her claims, for only so can he understand why America cannot carry out international poKcies as though Japan were not on the map. He needs to know, moreover, not only the new China that is looming up, but also the facts of our treatment of China and the Chinese during the past decades. These subjects are therefore presented in Chapters I, II, and III. Other chapters show how our deal-

INTRODUCTION xi

ings with Asiatics permanently residing in our country have inevitable relations with our ideals of democracy — with the very foundations, indeed; of our government and of our institutions.

The student needs still further to know in some detail the history of our federal legislation dealing with immigration and naturalization, and with their effects on Asiatic immigration. He needs also to know the character of the Chinese and Japanese permanently settled in the United States. Attention is therefore given to these subjects.

What, moreover, are the facts as to the processes of Americanization that have been moulding our Oriental population both on the Pacific coast and in Hawaii ? These matters are discussed in Chapters XII and XIII.

It is in the light of all these facts that a new national poHcy is proposed. This policy deals with methods for the regulation of immigration and with standards for the naturaUzation of aliens. Free and frank discussion of these proposals is earnestly invited.

The heavy work of securing from the many reports of the Bureau of Immigration the data needed for the statistical summaries given in Part II was done by Mr. Thomas P. Jones and Miss Frances E. Atwater. For this invaluable aid the author wishes to express his indebtedness. To his sister also, Mrs.

xii INTRODUCTION

F. F. Jewett, the author owes more than can easily be told for repeated careful reading of the manuscript in its various stages of development, and for numerous suggestions of the highest value.

The inadequacy of the statistical section of this volume the writer keenly regrets. He is painfully aware of the perils of statistics — ^both those due to faulty handling and also those of positive error in computation, transcription, and proofreading. Whoever reports errors detected will earn his gratitude.

Sidney L. Gulick.

PART I POLITICAL

Chapter I The New Asia And Its Significance For America

Asia is no longer a sleeping giant whose wealth may be ruthlessly exploited and whose vital interests may be haughtily ignored. The West and particularly the United States should awake to the significance of the New Asia. West and East must find methods for mutually advantageous co-operation, good-will, and respect, or their rivalries, jealousies, and struggles will carry both down to destruction in frightful tragedies.

Europe's catastrophe has suddenly shown how closely interwoven is the fabric of the modern world. The interlinking of the life and interests of the nations had advanced much further than was realized. Even Asia begins to figure as a mighty factor in Occidental affairs. Some regard this as ominous. We talk of the "yellow peril"; yet for decades, nay, for centuries, Asiatics feared and opposed an actual and progressively overmastering "white peril."

For three hundred years geographical barriers have been rapidly vanishing, barriers that separated mankind into groups and furnished the conditions under which they grew into div^se races and civilizations.

Now that oceans and mountains have vanished, mighty races find themselves face to face. The things that keep them apart to-day are languages, civilizations, color, facial appearance, and especially prejudices and group selfishness. The increasing contact of nations and races has been long in progress, but has now been suddenly revealed. It began afresh in modern times with the discovery and the conquest of America by the white peoples of Europe. The coasts of Africa and the southern part of Asia gradually came under their control.

But with the white man^s most recent discoveries in science, and the mastery of her secrets and titanic forces, his power has increased in the most extraordinary way. This has led to fresh incursions into unexplored regions in search of stores of undeveloped wealth — wealth which he has seized with little regard for the interests or rights of native populations.

Thus has the white man too often proved a "white peril " to the native populations of every land whither his curiosity or desire for wealth has taken him.

The first effectual repulse of white men by men of another color has only recently come from Japan. Her reaction on the white man's approach deserves special attention, as through her all Asia is rapidly taking on new forms of life and the white man has begun to talk about the "yellov/ peril."

Japan's first contact with white men from Europe occurred in 1541. For sixty years and more Europeans had free opportunity in Japan. Under the instruction of Roman Catholic missionaries, several hundred thousand Japanese became Christians. Then Japan took fright at the white man's methods and ambitions. She closed her doors, expelled the missionaries and merchants, exterminated the Christian religion, and, until 1853, lived a life of almost complete seclusion. No Japanese were allowed to leave her shores nor were foreigners allowed to enter her land.

All this was done to escape the Occidental flood, which, during the intervening three hundred years, completely engulfed the peoples of North, Central, and South America, and large parts of Africa, Asia, and Australia. Even China was seriously humiliated and injured. She was forced by the so-called opium wars (1845 and 1858) to give to the British not only privileges for ordinary trade, but for trade even in opium. Military and naval bases were also taken by Europeans.

Japan soon discovered that she was unable longer to resist the encroachments of foreigners, and in 1854 made her first treaties. After a dozen years of inner turmoil and a revolution, she frankly accepted the new world-situation created by the white nationS; and undertook to learn their methods in order to meet them on a basis of equahty.

This epoch-making decision was announced to the nation in an edict of five articles by the young Emperor, who as the first Emperor in a thousand yearS; unhampered by a dual form of government, held direct rule over the people. The edict (1868) virtually ordered the people to abandon ancient superstition, to prepare for representative government, and to go out into all the world and learn whatever was good and true.

In response to this edict a psychological as well as a social, industrial, and political revolution took place. All that Japan has been doing for fifty years has been but the practical carrying out in concrete ways of the new ideal and the new national policy that was then proclaimed. Recognizing that she could no longer carry out her historic policy of complete isolation and self-sufficiency, Japan deliberately plunged into the life of the world in order to learn its best and to incoiporate it into her life in such ways as to stand upon a basis of equality with the other great nations of the world.

In carrying out this new policy Japan reorganized the entire political, social, educational, economic, and industrial order of her ancient civilization. The sufferings entailed upon her people by the process few foreigners know.

During the major part of this period of storm and stress in which she was adopting and adapting Western customs, methods, and machinery, and striving to fit herself for her new place in the world, America's treatment of Japan was above reproach. Being in marked contrast to that of other lands, it called forth a gratitude toward, a friendship for, and a confidence in, America that Americans cannot easily realize. Witness our helpful diplomacy throughout the entire period, our return (1883) of the Shimonoseki indemnity ($875,000) with $30,000 interest (used by Japan in preparing for foreign commerce the harbor facilities of Yokohama), the religious, educational, and philanthropic work of American missionaries, and especially our welcome in America to her students, giving them every opportunity, not only in our schools, colleges, and Christian homes, but in our factories and industries.

The processes of reorganization and acquisition, however, are now largely over. The consequences are beginning to appear. The West is awakening to what has happened. It sees Japan's power, both actual and potential. Fear and suspicion are developing. For Japan is now equipped with " civilization," with factories and shipyards, with bayonets, bullets, and battleships, and with Occidental ideas and with ideals as to the right of virile nations to expand, and to dominate over those that are weak or backward, taking possession of their natural wealth and exploiting their laboring classes. Two important and successful wars — with China and with Russia — and the annexation of Korea, have startled the world — both the East and the West.

China, too, is now moving. Japan's successes and Europe's fresh aggressions have at last awakened that mighty people. In the nineties the "Powers" of Europe, having completed their '''division of Africa," began to look with greedy eyes on China. In 1896 Germany, Russia, and France compelled Japan to return Port Arthur to China in order to maintain, as they stated in their deceitful diplomacy, the integrity of China and the permanent peace of the Far East. But in 1897-1898 Germany took Kiao-Chao as indemnity for the killing of two German Jesuit missionaries. Russia received Port Arthur as a reward for having kept Japan out of the same. England took Wei-hai-wei and France took Kwan-chau-wan to keep up "the balance." In each case the impotent Manchu government made treaties with those "friendly Powers," giving them concessions and "rights." But the people of China grew anxious. /There soon developed (1900) the "Boxer uprising." China's common people of the north sought to turn the white man out and keep "China for the Chinese."

But it was too late. Six "civilized" armies marched up to Peking, and, to teach China a lesson regarding the sacredness of treaties and the white man's "rights," in addition to the outrages and destruction wrought by the soldiers, they saddled upon China an indemnity exceeding $300,000,000, far exceeding the actual costs. Poor China !

Then, according to mutual agreement, all the allies withdrew their troops to their home lands, except Russia. Ignoring her promise, she not only left her troops in Manchuria, but began to send in thousands more. Japan became anxious. Negotiations were started. Russia procrastinated, meanwhile increasing her east Siberian forces, completing her Siberian railroad, and gaining diplomatic and other footholds in Korea. This exasperating, insolent, and ominous policy caused the Russo-Japanese War.

Japan felt that the complete possession by Russia of Manchuria, Mongolia, and Korea threatened her very existence as an independent nation. The "partition of China" also by the European nations would surely follow. But Japan's acquisition of Occidental "civilization" had been so far successful that single-handed, though indirectly supported by her alliance with Great Britain, she beat back the "bear from the north" and saved, not only herself, but China also from the threatened European invasion that had swept over all of south Asia from Mesopotamia to Cochin-China, and of north Asia from European Russia to Alaska.

One month after the signing of the treaty of peace between Russia and Japan at Portsmouth, N. H., China's conservative leaders at last saw the light and definitely abandoned her ancient and proud policy of self-sufficiency. From that wondrous victory of Japan over Russia, China learned that knowledge from the West such as Japan had been acquiring for forty years could alone enable Asiatics to meet white aggressors successfully.] The ultraconservative Empress Dowager, who had been cutting off the heads of reformers both literally and metaphorically, became herself a great reformer. She abolished China's ancient system of classical education and ordered the introduction throughout the empire of Occidental education. This was in 1906.

The changes that have followed in the intervening years have been beyond belief to those who thought they knew China. Millions of Chinese are studying Western ways. Nearly 1,400 Chinese students are now in American institutions of learning. Tens of thousands of Chinese young men have studied in Japan since the war with Russia, seeking short cuts to Western knowledge. In 1910 and 1911 some 15,000 Chinese students were studying in the single city of Tokyo, Japan. Not for centuries has China's outlook been so bright. In 1912 the ahen Manchu dynasty was driven from the throne. Repeated efforts for the re-establishment of monarchy have failed. The nation is pushing forward with remarkable insistence for modern forms of government and for alignment with the life of the West. The opium trade has been stopped and its curse has been substantially overcome. Political graft is being eliminated. Occidental education is proceeding, and desire for reforms is wide-spread. If China can avoid further alien intrusion, her future is decidedlyhopeful.

A New China is now clearly above the international horizon. Her young men are training for intelligent leadership of that mighty people. In two or three decades they will be guiding China's policies. Will they be friendly or hostile to us ?

The Orient is acquiring a new life — a new vitality. The motive power that will more and more direct its policies is twofold. The first factor is practical. It will come from the pressure of an increasing population — ^pressure that will grow mightily with every new decade. For Occidental hygiene, medical science, and ideals as to the value of the individual will rapidly multiply China's millions. Japan's population has doubled in fifty years. Will China's population do the same? "Where wiU they live? Whence will they secure their food ?

The second factor is psychological. Orientals are not lacking in pride, in courage, in determination, and in ideals. An armed Orient will resent discourtesy, humiliation, and unfair dealing. It will fight for honor — for equal treatment. If the West claims superiority and right based on might, the East when ready will challenge its claim and test its might.

The adoption by Japan and China of the mechanical, economic, social, and political elements of Occidental civilization constitutes indeed the beginning of a new era in human history. We are not at the end but at the beginning of the mighty movements in Asia that are transforming them. The impact of the West on the East is now beginning to bring results that were not anticipated. Asia has been compelled by the pressure of the West to realize that she could not carry on her life regardless of the West. The West is beginning to discover that she cannot carry on her life regardless of the East.

More and more the essential unity and community of mankind is coming to light. No fragment, no nation can continue longer to live as if it were the whole. Each part must accept its place as a part of the whole and live for the welfare of the whole. Failure to do this will bring disaster after disaster, if not complete destruction.

A New Asia means a new world. Each haK, East and West, White and Yellow, must in some way overcome its inherited tendencies to arrogance and pride, selfishness and greed. We are members one of another. We must adjust our national policies, our political and economic relations, and our mental attitudes in order both to express and to realize the new life upon which the entire human brotherhood is inevitably and irrevocably entering.

To appreciate these matters the better we shall study in the following chapters the problems and the claims of Japan and China; the history of our legislation dealing with immigration and naturalization, the relation of citizenship to democracy, and the rights and duties of nations.

We shall then present in outline the needed policy and programme for dealing with the entire problem.

Chapter II Japan: Her Problems And Claims

Japan's entrance into the life of the world and acceptance of the civilization of the West has not been to her an unmixed blessing. In important respects her problems have become more intense. Her modern system of miiversal education giving world outlook; ideals, and ambitions to millions of her young men and women; her extraordinary industrial development and international trade bringing wealth and a higher scale of life to millions, but also bringing grinding toil, poverty, disease, and wretchedness to other millions; her new political system giving responsibility for national as well as for local government and causing the entire nation to consider and decide upon international relations and policies; her new ideals as to the value and rights of the individual begetting throughout the nation a spirit of insistence on rights and a forgetting of the importance of service and the necessity of duty; her modern hygiene and her medical and surgical efficiency giving remarkable success in battling with epidemics no less than with the regular diseases, and making possible a lower death-rate and a longer average of life — these many blessings have brought also many new problems.

The full discussion of these problems, however, is no part of our plan. We need to consider them only so far as they throw light on the character of the policy which America should adopt in her dealings with Japan.

Japan's old policy kept her people at home, almost stationary in numbers and relatively docile and contented. Her new policy opens their eyes to the great world, gives them efficiency in dealing with it, multiplies her millions and fires them with ambition both personal and national. Mighty economic and psychological forces are at work sweeping the entire nation along in its course and making certain for Japan an important role in international affairs.

A few concrete facts may help Americans to understand the situation better, and to sympathize more truly with the people as they face their modern problems.

Japan proper has an area of 147,000 square miles (California has 158,000), of which one-sixth, or about 15,000,000 acres, is under cultivation. Many States have more cultivated land than has Japan (Kansas has 30,000,000; Nebraska, 24,000,000; Indiana, 17,000,000; New York, 14,000,000; Ohio, 19,000,- 000). The average farm in Japan is two and a half acres, a half-acre to each individual on the farm, and a quarter-acre to each inhabitant of the nation.

Tenants pay for farm rentals 57 per cent of their rice, and 44 per cent of other crops. Taxes consume

16 per cent of the total yield of the farms. Farmer debts amount to $475;000;000; paymg interest rates from 7 per cent to 20 per cent. The total private income of Japanese is taxed at from 20 to 30 per cent.

The population of Japan proper is nearly 55,- 000,000, growing yearly by about 700,000. (Great Britain has 46,000,000; Canada, 8,000,000; Australia, 6,000,000; and New Zealand, 1,100,000; total, about 60,000,000.)

With the exception of copper, Japan is poor in mineral resources. While the coal production of the United States was 458,000,000 tons in 1916, that of Japan was 22,000,000 tons, only enough to supply the United States Steel Corporation for eight months. Japan has no iron to speak of, and no cotton. She sells large quantities of her high-grade rice to foreign lands and imports low-grade rice for herself from China.

"It has often been pointed out that the population of Japan is not so dense as in Belgium or England. But Belgium and England are almost wholly arable; Japan is almost wholly mountainous. If we eliminate from the figures of area the unproductive lands of each country, the population per square mile works out approximately: England, 466; Belgium, 702; Japan, 2,688. A population of 2,688 on every square mile of arable land — ^less than a quarter of an acre of land for each person ! There is more good land in mountainous Kentucky than in all Japan." *

* "Japan and Anaerica," by Carl Crow, p. 11.

Japan's problem is how adequately to feed, clothe, house, and educate her multiplying millions and give them that larger, richer life of the modern world for which their intelligence, industry, education, ambitions, and world outlook are fitting them.

Were Americans under the physical and economic conditions of the Japanese sketched above, would they not regard their load and their problems as staggering? And would they not feel compelled to avail themselves of every possible opportunity for trade, emigration, and legitimate territorial expansion? And with their history and intrinsic ability, would they not earnestly ask of the nations of the world a square deal, equal treatment, and honorable recognition ?

If America were in Japan's place as to population, food-supplies, and natural resources, what would she do?

The mutual impact of the expanding life of both Japan and the United States comes at three points, and requires some kind of adjustment of policies, if these two powerful, ambitious, and able nations are to live together as good neighbors.

These three points of impact as they have emerged historically, relate to matters of Japanese immigration into the United States, to the treatment of Japanese in the United States, and to the respective policies of the two nations in China. With reference to the third point we present no discussion in this volume, as it has already been discussed rather carefully in "America and the Orient/',^ and is not immediately connected with the purpose of the present volume.

Nor shall we discuss the general features of Japanese immigration to Calif ornia, the conditions there, the wrongs they have done and also suffered, and the improvement in the general situation that is now beginning to take place. These more general aspects of Japanese immigration have been considered at some length in the earlier chapters of "The American Japanese Problem."^

In this chapter I wish to emphasize the difference between the view-points of the Japanese and American Governments, and also of their respective peoples in regard to the "gentlemen's agreement." In general it may be said that both governments are well satisfied with its nature and its results while the peoples are not satisfied.

The government of the United States sees that without any legislation on our part, Japan by her own restrictive policy in regard to the issuing of passports, beginning in 1908, has practically stopped the coming of new Japanese labor immigration to the United States. The administration of the Chinese

^ "America and the Orient," Sidney L. Gulick (Missionary Education Movement, New York, 1916).

2 "The American Japanese Problem," Sidney L. GuHck (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1914).

exclusion laws, on the contrary, has caused us an enormous amount of trouble and expense, and has necessitated repeated legislation; and even so our laws have been continuously evaded by considerable numbers of insistent Chinese immigrants. Japan's administration of the gentlemen's agreement is more satisfactory to us and also more successful than our administration of our own Chinese exclusion laws.

The Japanese Government is also well satisfied v/ith the "agreement" because it thereby has prevented the enactment by the United States of Japanese exclusion laws, which would be exceedingly humiliating, as they would subject Japanese to the same invidious and discriminatory treatment that has been inflicted on the Chinese.

The people, however, in both countries who know of the " agreement ' ' are by no means satisfied. Some Americans insist that the restriction of Japanese immigration should not be a matter of Japanese courtesy merely. We should have our own laws regulating the matter. Should Japan decide to suspend the "agreement" and suddenly send over to us tens of thousands of immigrants we would be at her mercy, for we have no laws that would authorize their rejection or deportation. Americans who urge this view, however, are probably not many. Most Americans have implicit trust in the word of Japan. We believe most confidently that she will continue faithfully to administer the "agreement."

The people of Japan, on the other hand, milHons of them, keenly resent the action of their government in giving us that pledge and in administering it so strictly. Few Americans realize what it means to tens of thousands of ambitious young men and women. They know that in America are millions of uncultivated acres and vast undeveloped resources. They are eager to go to a land flowing with milk and honey, where gold is cheap and wages high. They are able and willing to work. They cannot understand why their government should enter upon and rigidly enforce a policy so humiliating and unfair.

Does not America open her doors to immigrants from every country of Europe? they ask. Are Japanese indeed so inferior to the immigrants of those countries that they are not worthy of equal opportimity in that land of plenty and opportunity for all? America's rejection of Chinese immigration is indeed intelligible, for Chinese are in truth an inferior race. But, they continue, we Japanese are in no respects inferior to Italians and Slavs, Turks and Armenians, Africans and Mexicans. We are peaceable and industrious and efficient. We ask no special favors. We are willing to take only what we earn. Why then does America deny us opportunity ? And why does our government weakly and shamefully yield to such a dog-in-the-manger policy and so insulting to our race ? Is America dominated by race selfishness, and her pohcy controlled by race pride and prejudice?