82 ROWE— THE UNITED STATES AS [April 24. 



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 vi^ho have committed it against the 

 consequences of their own wrong doing." 



In 1909, in his inaugural address, President Taft emphasized this 

 serious defect in the conduct of our foreign relations, in the follow- 

 ing words : 



" By proper legislation we may, and ought to place in the hands of the 

 federal executive the means of enforcing the treaty rights of such aliens in 

 the courts of the federal government. It puts our government in a pusillani- 

 mous position to make definite engagements to protect aliens, and then to 

 excuse the failure to perform those engagements by an explanation that the 

 duty to keep them is in states or cities, not within our control. If we would 

 promise we must put ourselves in a position to perform our promise. We 

 cannot permit the possible failure of justice, due to local prejudice in any 

 state or municipal government, to expose us to the risk of a war, which might 

 be avoided if federal jurisdiction was asserted by suitable legislation by Con- 

 gress and carried out by proper proceedings instituted by the executive in the 

 courts of the national government." 



It is clear that no nation can shirk the responsibilities of its inter- 

 national obligations without arousing widespread opposition. The 

 constitutional authority granted to our federal government is suffi- 

 ciently comprehensive to include all powers necessary to meet our 

 international obligations. We cannot permit our states, which oc- 

 cupy no international status, to plunge us into irritating controversies 

 with foreign countries. The dignity of the national government 

 and the demands of national self-respect require that the federal 

 executive be given statutory powers sufficiently broad and that the 

 federal judiciary be given jurisdictional authority sufficiently com- 

 prehensive to enable the national government to do its full duty in the 

 protection of the person and property of aliens resident within our 

 borders. The first step in this direction is the enactment of a law 

 giving to the federal courts jurisdiction over all cases in which the 

 treaty rights of a citizen or subject of a foreign country are involved. 

 A bill to this effect has been before the Congress of the United States 

 on several different occasions. Its precise text is as follows : 



" Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United 

 States of America, in Congress assembled, that any act committed in any 

 state or territory of the United States in violation of the rights of a citizen 



