Bisbee daily review., 1909-02-11

,rule of racial relation. With the pres
 ent state of feeling in California witl respect to the Japanese, segregation
 is the best possible prevention of dis order and race conflict. When twC
 kinds of people are hot in racial har
 mony, 1t Is wise % keep them apart
 and this Is especially true of children
 who share all the cn'mosities without
 the patience and discretion of their
 parents. Caucasian and Mongolian
 adults might endure enforced or acci. dental association without friction or 1, riot. but their children are not apt to be so self-contained.
 What Is true of these races Is true of all inharmonious races. and wher- lever there is prejudice or uufriendli- ness on racial lines the simplest way out Of the difficulty is separation in all kinds of social contact.
 It would be unjust 10 provide tho Japanese with interior schools. and for that there would be cause for just complaint, but we understand that the intent of the legislature is only to sep arate, not to discriminate. and it is plain to reason. as it has been judi claliy declared in repeated decisions, that separations with equal facilities lis not discrimination. Statutes for separate schools anI separate cars or compartments haze been so often sustained by the courts that the ques- tion is no longer debatable except as a matter of policy. and the policy Is amply justified as means of preserv- ing the peace If nothing else.
 Moreover. if California may not separate her Japanese school children she may not consistently separate her Chinese or Korean or negro children Indeed. if this principle must be yield ed at the behest of Japan. then Chins. may justly demand that Chinese chil- dren attend the same schools as na- tive American children So. there arc othe- international complications which nay follow California's aban- donment o; the policy of segregation.
 The president made a mistake in the first instance in accepting the Japanese view that segregation was an indignity. He should have prompt Y advised the Representative nation that it has a false notion of equality. In truth. Japan itself makes the issue of inequality and improprlety by seek iEg to have its children appear where they are not welcome. A proper sense of dignity would suggest to a selfrcspecting anI well poised peo- pie that social amenities and racial relations are matters of temperament. or custom, not of law. and that there can be no comfort or happiness in an enforced association. The president should also have advised Japan that the United States government guar antees personal and property rights but cannot possibly regulate private conduct or the domestic affairs of a state. Instead, he accepted Japan's distorted notion and now finds him self powerless to control
 We cannot think that the statesmen of Japan will magnify this incident in- to cause for war or into an act of bao faith upon the part of the United States. If so. they are a very silly lot, and they are so clearly in the wrong that they will be shsmed be- fore an intelligent world
 There will be ID war on this ac- count. But the occasion admo1' shes the president to be more careLh in future; it warrants California in stsnd- ing firm. and 1t advises the whole people that this as good time as any for setting an important matter of t~o-fold aspect
 In the frst place. no federal goyer- rn.s can be permitted to limit the right of a commonwealth in the reg ulstion of it's purely local concerns. nar may presidential interference with state legislation be tolerated. We reach despotism at one bound when