CHAPTER 4: THE INCEPTION OF DISCORD BETWEEN JAPAN AND
THE US
2. US ANTI-J APANESE EXCLUSIONARY POLICIES AND PRACTICESChinese Exclusion Act
Now I must address problems relating to the exclusion of Japanese immigrants, which arose in theUS at about the time the Russo-Japanese War was being fought. Along with the struggle forsupremacy in Manchuria, those problems formed one main current of conflict between Japan andthe US.
The first East Asian immigrants to the US were Chinese, who began arriving in California during
the Gold Rush, in 1848. There was a grave shortage of manpower needed for railway constructionin the American west, as well as in the emergent mining industry in California. At first the Chineselaborers were made to feel welcome. However, their numbers soon swelled, and when they did,
discord with American laborers resulted, arose, giving birth to a movement to exclude Chinese.
The exclusion crusade gained strength until finally, in the 1880s, the Chinese Exclusion Act waspassed (and later made more stringent. After 1906 Chinese laborers were permanently barred fromentering the US and its possessions, and Chinese nationals were denied the right to become
American citizens.
Japanese emigration to Hawaii
Japanese emigration to the US began as far back as 1861, but at first the number of immigrants
was very small. However, in the 1880s, when the Chinese Exclusion Act went into force, thenumber of Japanese laborers entering the US, replacing the Chinese, began to burgeon.
In Hawaii, after the middle of the 19 th century, most of the workers in the sugar-cane industry wereChinese immigrants, but once the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed, it affected Hawaii, eventhough Hawaii was not US territory. As stated earlier, King Kalakaua visited Japan in 1881, at
which time he expressed his hope for more Japanese immigrants to Hawaii. In 1884 the Agreement
Between Japan and Hawaii Concerning Emigration from Japan 1 was concluded, and in 1885 thefirst group of 944 public contracted workers arrived in Hawaii. Subsequently the number ofJapanese immigrants ballooned. By 1900 there were 61,111 Japanese residing in Hawaii (39.7%of the total population). 2
The Japanese were the largest foreign group in Hawaii; they outnumbered Chinese and native
Hawaiians by two to one, and Americans by nine to one. According to Griswold, “Had the issue

Konishi Naojirō, ed., Hawaikoku fūdo ryakki (Brief description of the society of the Kingdom of Hawaii) (inJapanese) (Tokyo: Eishodo, 1884).
12

Griswold, op. cit., 339.

1[of which nation Hawaii should belong to] been decided by numbers of settlers alone, the islands
might well have gone to Japan.”3
Nevertheless, Hawaii was annexed by the US in 1898.
Anti-Japanese trend gains momentum
Until about 1900 Japanese immigration to the continental US did not cause a serious problem. Butwith the dawning of the 20 th century, the number of Japanese immigrants suddenly soared. Thereason for this increase was the new territorial status of Hawaii, and the subsequent large numbersof Japanese moving to the West Coast of the US, California in particular. As if corresponding with
their increase in numbers, the anti-Japanese movement began to gain momentum.
The Japanese government took remedial action by limiting the number of Japanese emigrants
bound for the US, but the anti-Japanese trend in the US remained unabated. Soon politicians fromwestern states resorted to using the “Japanese problem” as a political platform. The RussoJapanese War served to fuel the flames of the anti-Japanese movement in large part because thewar had given rise to a national perception of conflict between Japan and the US. When the war
was near an end in May 1905, the Japanese and Korean Exclusion League materialized in SanFrancisco. The organization used propaganda and provocation to lobby the US Congress, aiming
to achieve its objective of expanding the Chinese Exclusion Act to include Japanese.
On April 18, 1906 San Francisco was visited by a huge earthquake, which was followed bycatastrophic fires. Since Japan had been plagued by earthquakes throughout its history, theJapanese government was quick to send a gift of ¥500,000 for disaster relief. That gift would beequivalent to over ¥1 billion today, and it amounted to more than the total of similar gifts fromother nations. Nevertheless, little appreciation was shown for Japan’s generous gesture. ProfessorŌmori Fusakichi, a seismological expert from Tokyo University and his team, who came to theUS to do research on the earthquake, were greeted by stone-hurling vandals. Japanese restaurants
were boycotted, and all the city’s newspapers were filled with hateful, anti-Japanese rhetoric day
after day, which further poisoned the already anti-Japanese atmosphere.
Proposed segregation of Japanese schoolchildren
In October 1906 the San Francisco Board of Education ordered the segregation of Japanese
schoolchildren, a decision that had been brewing since the preceding year. As a result, Japanese
students who had been enrolled in public schools were to be forced to attend a segregated school(the Oriental Public School) located on Clay Street in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
There had been unceasing vituperative attacks on Japanese immigrants, likely designed to justify
the enactment of a Japanese Exclusion Act. But according to Griswold, “The school board seems
to have acted more in response to a desire to humble the Japanese than on the merits of the case it

3Ibid., 339-40.

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presented. The segregation order was one with the anti-Japanese riots, boycotts and Congressional
resolutions that marked the progress of the exclusionist movement.” 4
The Japanese government responded with a protest that condemned the segregation order,
pronouncing it a contemptuous act that categorized the Japanese as an inferior race, and caused
grievous insult to their national pride and honor.
For some time President Theodore Roosevelt had been worried about the effect the exclusionist
movement might have on Japan-US relations, and he was extremely critical of the segregation
order. In October 1906, he wrote the following in a letter to his son Kermit:
I am being horribly bothered about the Japanese business. The infernal fools
in California, and especially in San Francisco, insult the Japanese recklessly
and in the event of war it will be the Nation as a whole which will pay theconsequences. 5In a message to Congress delivered at the end of 1906, Roosevelt spoke of the progress Japan had
made, saying that it “now stands as one of the greatest of civilized nations.” He also referred to thegenerous gift of $100,000 Japan had sent to the people of San Francisco after the earthquake. He
drew their attention to the friendship that had developed between the two nations, and the economic
and cultural cooperation. Roosevelt referred to the segregation order as a “wicked absurdity.” Herecommended that legislation be passed enabling Japanese immigrants to become American
citizens. And he warned that if persecution of the Japanese continued, he would not hesitate toemploy the military forces of the US to stop it. Roosevelt’s hard-line stance on this matter waswelcomed by the Japanese, but only antagonized the residents of California. 6
The Gentlemen’s Agreement and its aftermath
Roosevelt ultimately succeeded in convincing the San Francisco Board of Education to rescind theschool segregation order. But in its stead appeared a prohibition against Japanese with passports
for Canada, Mexico, or Hawaii entering the continental US, and also a treaty limiting the numberof Japanese immigrants.
Subsequently the US warned Japan that if the aforementioned prohibitions had no effect and that
the Japanese government did not make a sufficient effort to limit the emigration of laborers, aJapanese Exclusion Act was likely in the offing. Between November 1907 and March 1908, 11
memoranda were exchanged between Foreign Minister Hayashi Tadasu and US Ambassador to4Ibid., 350.

Theodore Roosevelt to Kermit Roosevelt, letter, 27 October 1906
https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Research/DigitalLibrary/Record/ImageViewer?libID=o280819&imageNo=1.
5

Transcript of President Theodore Roosevelt’s Sixth Annual Message to the Senate and House ofRepresentatives, 03 December 1906; https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/december-31906-sixth-annual-message.
63

Japan Thomas J. O’Brien concerning limitations on the emigration of laborers, before anagreement was reached. 7
That agreement was what is referred to as the Gentlemen’s Agreement. In it the Japanese
government voluntarily agreed to prohibit new immigration to the US. Only laborers who werereturning from visits to Japan; the parents, wives, and children of laborers already residing in theUS; students, merchants, and the like could now enter the US. No new laborers were permitted.
Later the Japanese government made every effort to suppress any recurrence of anti-Japanese
campaigns in the US by steadfastly adhering to the terms of the Gentlemen’s Agreement.
Historian Payson J. Treat’s perspective on the Gentlemen’s Agreement follows:[U]nder the agreement, the Japanese Government scrutinized carefully every
applicant for a passport. Its officials knew perfectly whether a man was amerchant or a laborer. There have been few if any cases of passports having
been wrongly granted.
(…)
Man for man, the Japanese immigrants compared very favorably with theEuropean immigrants of this period. They were generally literate, almost
always law-abiding, industrious, and ambitious to rise in the world. 8
Unfortunately, the Gentlemen’s Agreement did not succeed in calming anti-Japanese crusades,though it remained in force until 1924. The aforementioned Mr. Griswold describes those
offensives as follows:[The Gentlemen’s Agreement] was constantly shaken by exclusionist
activities on the Pacific Coast, and by the pursuit, on the continent of Asia,of a policy precisely the opposite of that which Roosevelt had counseled.
Anti-Japanese bills and resolutions kept piling up not only in the California
legislature but also in those of Nevada, Oregon and Washington.97
Gaimushō (Foreign Ministry of Japan), Nihon gaikō bunsho (Documents on Japanese foreign policy), 403, 1907: “Beikoku ni oite honpō imin tokō seigen oyobi haiseki no ken” (Travel restrictions on and exclusion ofJapanese emigrants to the United States).”
8Treat, op. cit., 256-57.

9Griswold, op. cit., 360.

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