The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-01-24
Proposed Laws In California Against the Aliens May
 Yet Be Passed
GAME OF BLUFF SEEMS
 ID BE UNDER HEADWAY
It Appears to Be the Opinion In Wash ngton That Nothing Should Be Done Until the Warships
 Are In the Pacific.

Washington. January 23--(Special.)- .)-Ac- ton, now seemingly flying in the face of President Roosevelt, in the California Japanese impasse, is advocated by con siderable number of the California dele gation in Congress-
 The general tenor of the advice of these opponents of the President is in common parlance to find out what the President has up his sleeve. If there should be really any sufficient reason why the Cali fornians should not go ahead with their state business, California members of the House want to know what it Is. In other words it is desired to know whether there is any bluff in the business whereby the administration does not wish it's gentle mans agreement" with Japan disturbed. No one knows definitely tonight whether California representatives are bluffing when they say that their state legisla- ture ought to go ahead and pass anti alien laws or whether the President is bluffing when he says that if such laws are passed there will be trouble of se- rious nature. At any rate there has grown up sudden consuming desire to know from the White House whether Japan has threatened to do anything at all if the state of California passes legis- lation which will affect all aliens without discrimination"
 The bolder ones do not limit the phrase to without discrimination but say with or without discrimination.
 Some say that if the bills are passed Japan would regard 1t merely as current history.
 It has dawned on the minds of officials here that perhaps the bills would not look as bad in Washington as they have been represented to be by hearsay from Sacramento. Therefore there is the de- sire now to see the text of these interna- tionally important documents. great deal of stress is being laid here on the fact that Japan herself according to the Japanese embassy puts restrictions on Americans owning property in Japan The embassy authorities admit that an Amer ican citizen as such cannot own property unless he metamorphorizes himself into corporation. But all the same the move- ments both of the California delegation and of the White House are made with exceeding caution. Both sides of the con- troversy are fully aware that the Att lantic fleet ought to be moving back to the Pacific.
 There will now be about F days within which neither California nor the Presi- dent will be obliged to act finally. That period may be punctuated by some fur ther public expressions of hostility to the Presidents plans by members of the Cali fornia delegation, 1t may be that the President. in order to force his wishes for international reasons on the part of the state. will take the whole California del- egation into his confidence and let them read whatever there is in the archives of the state department or the White House which makes it imperative that California should yield. It is safe guess that while these archives might be instructive they would not be half as conclusive as the unpublished but altogether realistic opin- ions of the leading authorities of the state department itself and of the navy de- partment, namely that California ought to wait until the 16 battleships in the Medi terarnean are again in the Pacific.