The Washington herald., 1914-03-09
WHAT JAPAN ASKS Us 70 DO.
~ JAMES cnnELlGAN.


Out Of the mystery surrounding thu
negotiations of Japan with the STATE
Department concerning the settlement
Of the alien land question in California
comes a responsible intimation of thu
plan urged by the japanese.
What Japan desires is new treat,
granting to Japanese subjects in ths
United States the rights accorded to tn,
citizens or subjects of the most fayoret
nation.
In effect the Japanese government
has said to the American government
I'VE care little or nothing about the
material rights involved in the immi'
grafton or land ownership question, bul
we insist that you shall not publicl,
tell US we are an inferior people"
Such a treaty as Japan now asks foi
would at once defeat the anti-Asiatic
policy of California by giving to jap
anese residents the right to acquire
possess, enjoy, transmit and inherit real
property or any interest therein" now
permitted only to "sliens eligible to
citizenship under the laws of the United
States"
A most favored nation" treaty with
Japan might automatically become a
part of the California law-expressly
intended to prevent japanese land own
ership-which provides that aliens moi
eligible to citizenship shall own or pos
sess real estate ito the extent and fol
the purpose prescribed by any treaty
now existing between the government oi
the United States and the nation OF
country of which such alien is citizen
or subject and not otherwise"
California would undoubtedly insis,
that its law refers only to treaty "now
existing is, at the time the statute
was enacted.
Should the new treaty suggested BY
Japan be executed and ratified it would
raise the tremendous and as yet un-
settled question whether treaty, de-
clared by the Constitution to be ''the
supreme law of the land can modify
the police power of a sovereign State.
For the Supreme Court of the United
States has declared that the police pow
er-the undehnable power to deal with
public health, safety, morals and gen.
eral welfare-is so inseparable from
sovereignty that even the people are
powerless to divest themselves of it.
And this was said, remember, of the
police power of State.
All decent and fair-minded Ameri-
cans are anxious that every unneces-
sary cause of irritation between the
japanese and American peoples should
be eliminated.
The solemn warning OF Washington
farewell address is as true today as
when it was written:
Nothing is more essential than that
antipathies against particular nations and
passionate attachments for others should
be excluded, and that in place of them
just and amicable feelings toward all
should be cultivated. The nation which
indulges toward another habitual hatred
or habitual fondness is in some degree
slave. Antipathy in one na.
ton against another disposes each moro
readily to offer insult and injury, to lay
hold of slight causes of umbrage.
Hence frequent collisions, OBJ
stinate, envenomed bloody contests.
Nor can any human mind fail to ap-
preciatc the natural pride that inspires
Japan's desire to remove singing hu-
initiation put upon her people.
Yet it is more than doubtful whether
most favored nation" commercial
treaty such as the japanese ask for
could, in the present state of Ameri-
can public opinion-particularly in the
Pacific States-be ratified by the United
States Senate
Our dual system OF government
sovereignties within sovereignty-makes
the settlement of international issues
like this extremely difficult.
The earnest proteststion that the Jap
anese care little about the substance of
most favored nation" rights and would
not take any advantage of them of
fensiye to the people OF California, but
would be content with formal re-
moval of an intolerable and unjustifed
stigma upon their race and nationality.
does not seem to touch the heart of the
existing situation.
1t has been made evident that an
overwhelming majority of the people of
the Pacific States are opposed to even
an abstract recognition OF Asiatic equal
ity, and that any attempt to satisfy the
keen pride of Japan must be politi-
cally disastrous to the party that at
ter,ots ~