JAPAN AND THE UNITED STATES 155 



nish. They have the faults of their virtues, and the uneducated Japan- 

 ese sometimes show these faults in unpleasant fashion. 



There are still more urgent reasons why the Japanese themselves 

 should insist on exclusion of their coolie laborers from Canada and the 

 United States. The nation can not afford to have America know it by 

 its least creditable examples. A hundred Japanese rice-field hands are 

 seen in America, to one Japanese gentleman. Thousands of men who 

 never knew a Japanese merchant or artist or scholar have come in con- 

 tact with Japanese draymen or laundrymen. They have not always 

 found these good neighbors. The present conditions are not permanent, 

 perhaps, but as matters are to-day it is to the interest of Japan, even 

 more than to the interest of California, that the present agreements 

 should be maintained. 



Just after the Eussian War, when America's sympathy was almost 

 wholly on the side of Japan because the attitude of Russia was be- 

 lieved to be that of wanton aggression, a series of anti-Japanese articles 

 were published ' in various American newspapers. Who wrote these 

 articles and who paid for them, I do not know, but their various 

 half-truths and falsehoods had an unfavorable effect on American pub- 

 lic opinion. All sorts of half-forgotten slanders were revived and fol- 

 lowed in their wake. Among these is the ancient falsehood that Japan- 

 ese banks employ Chinese tellers because they can not trust their own 

 people. Of all the banks in Japan only one, the Yokohama Specie 

 Bank, which does a large Chinese business, has ever had a Chinese em- 

 ployee. 



The school affair in San Francisco was also unfortunate, although 

 in itself of no significance whatever. In the great fire of 1906, the 

 Chinatown of San Francisco was entirely destroyed. After the fire a 

 temporary schooUiouse was established in the neighborhood. There 

 were no Chinese children in this school and the teacher, perhaps fear- 

 ing loss of position, asked the School Board to send the Japanese chil- 

 dren in the neighboring region to her. The School Board, apparently 

 ignorant of possible international results, formed of this an " Oriental 

 School." There were no Chinese children concerned, nor is it at all 

 clear that Japanese children would have suffered even had such been 

 present. 



Under our treaty with Japan our schools, as every other privilege, 

 were open to Japanese subjects on the basis of " the most favored na- 

 tion." To send Japanese children to an " Oriental School " was prob- 

 ably a violation of this clause of the treaty. It is not certain that this 

 was a violation, but it appears as such on the surface. So far as I 

 know, there has been no judicial decision involving this point. In any 

 case, the apparent remedy lay in an injunction suit, and in a quiet de- 

 termination of the point at issue. It was a mistake, I believe, to make 



