Stage Articles

The resentful Filipinos, unwilling to be caged by American overlords, revolted in 1899. The insurrection dragged on scandalously for seven years. In 1900 the Democratic presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan, trumpeting anti-imperialism as the "paramount issue," again ran unsuccessfully against the prosperity president, William McKinley. The victor was fatally shot late in 1901 after serving only six months of his second term. Theodore Roosevelt, moving up from the vice presidency, promptly launched a two-fisted, big-stick foreign policy. By strong-arm methods, he secured a canal zone at Panama and then "made the dirt fly." By devising the Roosevelt corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, he intervened in the bankrupt Dominican Republic to prevent other powers from intervening. By mediating a settlement at the end of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, he won the Nobel Peace Prize. And by interceding in the quarrel between California and Japan over Japanese immigrants, he worked out the "Gentlemen's Agreement" for amicably halting the inflow.

Albert Beveridge Deplores Unpatriotic Talk (1900)
The Filipino troops, under their leader Emilio Aguinaldo, had cooperated loyally with the Americans in capturing Manila. They had received informal promises of freedom, but when these were not honored, they rose in revolt. The fighting between Filipinos and Americans rapidly degenerated into brutal guerrilla warfare. Albert J. Beveridge of Indiana (see Chapter 30, Albert Beveridge Trumpets Imperialism, 1898), recently elected to the U.S. Senate, went to the Philippines on a personal tour of inspection and reported his findings in an impressive Senate speech. Should the anti-imperialists have been silenced by his argument?

It has been charged that our conduct of the war has been cruel. Senators, it has been the reverse. I have been in our hospitals and seen the Filipino wounded as carefully, tenderly cared for as our own. Within our lines they may plow and sow and reap and go about the affairs of peace with absolute liberty. And yet all this kindness was misunderstood, or rather not understood. Senators must remember that we are not dealing with Americans or Europeans. We are dealing with Orientals. We are dealing with Orientals who are Malays. We are dealing with Malays instructed in Spanish methods. They mistake kindness for weakness, forbearance for fear. . . .

Mr. President, reluctantly and only from a sense of duty am I forced to say that American opposition to the war has been the chief factor in prolonging it. Had Aguinaldo not understood that in America, even in the American Congress, even here in the Senate, he and his cause were supported; had he had not known that it was proclaimed on the stump and in the press of a faction in the United States that every shot his misguided followers fired into the breasts of American soldiers was like the volleys fired by Washington's men against the soldiers of King George, his insurrection would have dissolved before it entirely crystallized.

The utterances of American opponents of the war are read to the ignorant soldiers of Aguinaldo, and repeated in exaggerated form among the common people. Attempts have been made by wretches claiming American citizenship to ship arms and ammunition from Asiatic ports to Filipinos, and these acts of infamy were coupled by the Malays with American assaults on our government at home.

The Filipinos do not understand free speech, and therefore our tolerance of American assaults on the American President and the American government means to them that our President is in the minority or he would not permit what appears to them such treasonable criticism. It is believed and stated in [the islands of] Luzon, Panay, and Cebu that the Filipinos have only to fight, harass, retreat, break up into small parties, if necessary, as they are doing now, but by any means hold out until the next presidential election, and our forces will be withdrawn.

All this has aided the enemy more than climate, arms, and battle. Senators, I have heard these reports myself; I have talked with the people; I have seen our mangled boys in the hospital and field; I have stood on the firing line and beheld our dead soldiers, their faces turned to the pitiless southern sky, and in sorrow rather than anger I say to those whose voices in America have cheered those misguided natives on to shoot our soldiers down, that the blood of those dead and wounded boys of ours is on their hands, and the flood of all the years can never wash that stain away. In sorrow rather than anger I say these words, for I earnestly believe that our brothers knew not what they did.

Congressional Record, 56th Cong., 1st sess. (January 9, 1900), p. 708.

William Jennings Bryan Vents His Bitterness (1901)
In 1900 the Republican President McKinley, who favored keeping the Philippines, again ran against the Democrat William J. Bryan, who favored giving them independence. Republicans accused Bryan of prolonging the insurrection by holding out false hopes. One popular magazine published a picture of the Filipino leader on its front cover, with the query, "Who is behind Aguinaldo?" The curious reader lifted a flap and saw the hawklike features of Bryan. McKinley triumphed by a handsome margin, and Republicans misleadingly hailed the results as a national mandate to retain the islands. The next year Bryan expressed his bitterness as follows, several months after the United States had captured Aguinaldo. What is his strongest rebuttal to Republican charges that the Democrats were responsible for prolonging the insurrection? How good a prophet was Bryan?

In the campaign of 1900 the Republican leaders denied that their party contemplated a permanent increase in the standing army. They asserted that a large army was only necessary because of the insurrection in the Philippines, and they boldly declared that the insurrection would cease immediately if the Republican ticket was successful. The Democratic platform and Democratic speakers were blamed for the prolongation of the war. "Just re-elect President McKinley," they said, "and let the Filipinos know they are not to have independence, and they will lay down their arms and our soldiers can come home."

Well, the Republican ticket was elected, and the Filipinos were notified that they were not to have independence. But a month after the election the Republicans rushed through Congress a bill authorizing the President to raise the regular army to 100,000, and now, after a year has elapsed, the insurrection is still in progress and the end is not yet. Some of the worst losses of the year have been suffered by our troops within two months. . . .

After the Republican victory made it impossible for the imperialists to blame the anti-imperialists for the continuation of hostilities, the Republican leaders declared that Aguinaldo, actuated by selfish ambition, was compelling his countrymen to continue the war. But even after his capture and imprisonment--yes, even after his captors had secured from him an address advising his comrades to surrender--the insurrection continued.

How long will it take the imperialists to learn that we can never have peace in the Philippine Islands? That we can suppress open resistance is certain, although the cost may be far beyond any gain that can be derived from a colonial government, but that we can ever make the Filipinos love us or trust us while we rule them through a carpetbag government is absurd.

If the Republicans had read the speeches of Abraham Lincoln as much recently as they did in former years, they would have known that hatred of an alien government is a natural thing and a thing to be expected everywhere. Lincoln said that it was God himself who placed in every human heart the love of liberty. . . .

Commoner, November 22, 1901.

The Nation Denounces Atrocities (1902)
Many of the Filipino tribes were simple peoples who knew little of so-called civilized warfare. Some of them would horribly mutilate and torture American captives, sometimes fastening them down to be eaten alive by insects. The infuriated white soldiers retaliated by shooting a few prisoners and by administering the "water cure"--forcing buckets of dirty water into Filipinos, deflating them with rifle butts, and repeating the painful process. In certain areas the Americans herded the populace into reconcentration camps, somewhat after the manner of "Butcher" Weyler in Cuba. General Jacob ("Hell Roaring Jake") Smith was "admonished" by the War Department for an order (not carried out) to kill all males over ten years of age on the island of Samar. How sound is the parallel that the New York Nation here draws between Spanish behavior in Cuba and U.S. behavior in the Philippines?

Even if the condemnation of barbarous warfare in the Philippines by the imperialist press is somewhat belated, we welcome it, as we welcome everything that compels Americans to give attention to a subject to which too many of them have become increasingly indifferent. Silence, we know, is consistent with shame, and may be one of the signs of its existence; and the fact that only a few of the more unblushing or foolish newspapers have defended Gen. Smith's policy of extermination shows what the general sentiment is.

To allege the provocation which our soldiers had is to set up a defense which President Roosevelt brushed aside in advance. To fall back on the miserable sophistry that "war is hell" is only another way of making out those who engage in that kind of war to be fiends. It is, besides, to offer an excuse for ourselves which we did not tolerate for an instant in the case of Spanish atrocities. That is our present moral humiliation in the eyes of the world.

We made war on Spain four years ago for doing the very things of which we are now guilty ourselves. As the Chicago News pointedly observes, we are giving Spain as good reason to interfere with us on the ground of humanity as we had to interfere with her. Doubtless she would interfere if she were strong enough and thought she could acquire some islands in the virtuous act.

Nation (New York) 74 (May 8, 1902): 357.

A San Francisco Weekly Defends the Army (1902)
Moderate defenders of the Republican administration replied that the charges of cruelty were grossly exaggerated, that atrocity stories were being used by Democrats for partisan advantage, and that in any event such tales did not affect the question of the United States' duty in the Philippines. The Outlook (April 26, 1902) concluded: "The humanity of the army as a whole cannot be discredited by single acts of cruelty, no matter how abhorrent these may be in their character." The extreme imperialists openly avowed a policy of brutality. Shockingly frank was the San Francisco Argonaut, a respectable and long-lived weekly magazine. How does it apportion the blame for the existing situation between Republicans and Democrats? What force is there in its case for the army?

There has been too much hypocrisy about this Philippine business--too much snivel--too much cant. Let us all be frank.

WE DO NOT WANT THE FILIPINOS.

WE WANT THE PHILIPPINES.

All our troubles in this annexation matter have been caused by the presence in the Philippine Islands of the Filipinos. Were it not for them, the Treaty of Paris would have been an excellent thing; the purchase of the archipelago for twenty millions of dollars would have been cheap. The islands are enormously rich; they abound in dense forests of valuable hardwood timber; they contain mines of the precious metals; their fertile lands will produce immense crops of sugar cane, rice, and tobacco. Touched by the wand of American enterprise, fertilized with American capital, these islands would speedily become richer than Golconda was of old.

But, unfortunately, they are infested by Filipinos. There are many millions of them there, and it is to be feared that their extinction will be slow. Still, every man who believes in developing the islands must admit that it cannot be done successfully while the Filipinos are there. They are indolent. They raise only enough food to live on; they don't care to make money; and they occupy land which might be utilized to much better advantage by Americans. Therefore the more of them killed, the better.

It seems harsh. But they must yield before the superior race, and the American syndicate. How shortsighted, then, to check the army in its warfare upon these savages; particularly when the army is merely carrying out its orders and the duly expressed wishes of the American people, as shown through their elections and their representatives.

Doubtless, many of the excellent gentlemen now in Congress would repudiate these sentiments as brutal. But we are only saying what they are doing. We believe in stripping all hypocritical verbiage from national declarations, and telling the truth simply and boldly. We repeat--the American people, after thought and deliberation, have shown their wishes. THEY DO NOT WANT THE FILIPINOS. THEY WANT THE PHILIPPINES.

It is no one party, no one class, that is responsible for our Philippine policy. It is the people of the United States. The Democratic Party shares equally the responsibility with the Republican Party. The Democratic Party voted for the war with Spain. Had it opposed the fifty-million [arms] appropriation, the war could not have taken place. The Democrats advocated the purchase of the Philippines. For a time the confirmation of the Philippine treaty was in doubt. It was the direct personal lobbying of William J. Bryan with the Democratic Senators which led to the confirmation of the Philippine purchase, and which also led to the present bloody war. Mr. Bryan said at the time that he advocated the confirmation of the treaty in order to put "the Republicans into a hole." He has certainly put his country into a hole. Is he proud of his work?

We are all responsible. You, reader, are responsible. If you are a Republican, your party has made this action part of its national policy. If you are a Democrat, your party, by its vote in the House of Representatives, made the war possible, and by its vote in the Senate turned the scales for the purchase of the Philippines.

But if we, the people of the United States, are responsible for the Philippine campaign, the American army is not. The army is only seventy thousand out of seventy millions. The army did not ask to go there. It was sent. It has fought for four years under tropic suns and torrential rains, in pestilential jungles and miasmatic swamps, patiently bearing the burdens placed upon it by the home country, and with few laurels to be gained as a result of hard and dangerous duty. Nearly every general officer returning from the Philippines has returned to either a wrecked reputation, newspaper odium, or public depreciation. Look at Merritt, Otis, Merriam, MacArthur, Funston. The best treatment that any of them has received is not to be abused. And yet, with these melancholy examples before them, our army toils on uncomplainingly doing its duty.

The army did not bring on the war. We civilians did it. The army is only doing our bidding as faithful servants of their country. And now that they have shown a perfectly human tendency to fight the devil with fire, we must not repudiate their actions, for their actions are our own. They are receiving the fire of the enemy from the front. It is shameful that there should be a fire upon them from the rear.

San Francisco Argonaut 50 (May 26, 1902): 342.

John Hay Twists Colombia's Arm (1903)
The Spanish-American War, which netted a far-flung empire, increased public pressure for an isthmian canal. Nicaragua had long been the favored route, but in 1902 Congress approved Colombia's Isthmus of Panama. Secretary of State Hay, by threatening to revert to the Nicaragua route, finally secured a treaty from the reluctant Colombian envoy in Washington. But the Senate of Colombia delayed ratification, for it was dissatisfied with the rather niggardly financial terms offered for this priceless asset--$10 million plus an annual payment of $250,000. Secretary Hay thereupon sent the following telegram to the U.S. minister in Bogotá, the capital of Colombia. Critics have contended that this statement contains an intolerable threat to a sovereign republic. Does it?

Department of State

Washington, June 9, 1903

The Colombian Government apparently does not appreciate the gravity of the situation. The canal negotiations were initiated by Colombia, and were energetically pressed upon this Government for several years. The propositions presented by Colombia, with slight modifications, were finally accepted by us. In virtue of this agreement our Congress reversed its previous judgment [favoring Nicaragua] and decided upon the Panama route. If Colombia should now reject the treaty or unduly delay its ratification, the friendly understanding between the two countries would be so seriously compromised that action might be taken by the Congress next winter which every friend of Colombia would regret. Confidential. Communicate substance of this verbally to the minister of foreign affairs. If he desires it, give him a copy in form of memorandum.

Hay

[When the American envoy in Bogotá conveyed this stern message to the foreign minister, the latter asked whether the threat meant hostile measures against Colombia or the adoption of the Nicaragua route. The American was unable to answer. Actually, Secretary Hay took liberties with the truth when he stated that Colombia had "energetically pressed" canal negotiations for several years. In fact, Washington had done the pressing.]

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1903 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1904), p. 146.

Theodore Roosevelt Hopes for Revolt (1903)

The Colombian Senate unanimously rejected the canal zone treaty on August 12, 1903. Among other motives, it hoped to secure for Colombia an additional $40 million--the sum that Washington was proposing to pay the heirs of the French company that had started the canal in the 1870s. The Panamanians feared that the United States would now turn to Nicaragua, as the law required Roosevelt to do if blocked, and thus deprive the Panamanians of the anticipated prosperity that the canal would bring. They had revolted against Colombia's misrule fifty-three times in the past fifty-seven years (by Roosevelt's count), and they were now riper than ever for rebellion. The following letter that Roosevelt sent to Dr. Albert Shaw, editor of the Review of Reviews, is often cited as evidence that he connived at the revolt. Does it provide good supporting evidence for that conclusion?

My dear Dr. Shaw: I enclose you, purely for your own information, a copy of a letter of September 5th from our Minister to Colombia. I think it might interest you to see that there was absolutely not the slightest chance of securing by treaty any more than we endeavored to secure. The alternatives were to go to Nicaragua, against the advice of the great majority of competent engineers--some of the most competent saying that we had better have no canal at this time than go there--or else to take the territory by force without any attempt at getting a treaty.

I cast aside the proposition made at this time to foment the secession of Panama. Whatever other governments can do, the United States cannot go into the securing by such underhand means, the secession. Privately, I freely say to you that I should be delighted if Panama were an independent State, or if it made itself so at this moment; but for me to say so publicly would amount to an instigation of revolt, and therefore I cannot say it.

Reprinted by permission of the publishers from The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, Volume II, edited by Elting E. Morison, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Copyright (c) 1951 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Official Connivance in Washington (1903)
The rebels in Panama, encouraged by Roosevelt's ill-concealed anger, revolted on November 3, 1903. Under the ancient treaty of 1846 with Colombia, the United States had guaranteed the neutrality of the isthmus, obviously against foreign invaders. In this case Roosevelt guaranteed the neutrality of the isthmus by having orders issued to the Nashville and other U.S. naval units to prevent Colombian troops from landing and crossing from the Atlantic port of Colón to Panama City and crushing the rebellion. On November 4, 1903, Panama proclaimed its independence. A little more than an hour after receiving the news, Roosevelt hastily authorized de facto recognition, which was extended on November 6, 1903. This unseemly haste suggested improper connivance by Washington, and in response to a public demand Roosevelt sent the following official documents to Congress. They consist of interchanges between Acting Secretary of State Loomis (Hay was then absent) and the U.S. vice-consul general at Panama City, Felix Ehrman. What do these documents suggest about U.S. complicity in the Panamanian revolution?

Mr. Loomis to Mr. Ehrman

Department of State

Washington, November 3, 1903

(Sent 3:40 P.M.)

Uprising on Isthmus reported. Keep Department promptly and fully informed.

Loomis, Acting

Mr. Ehrman to Mr. Hay

Panama, November 3, 1903

(Received 8:15 P.M.)

No uprising yet. Reported will be in the night. Situation is critical.

Ehrman

Mr. Ehrman to Mr. Hay

Panama, November 3, 1903

(Received 9:50 P.M.)

Uprising occurred [at Panama City] tonight, 6; no bloodshed. [Colombian] Army and navy officials taken prisoners. Government will be organized tonight, consisting three consuls, also cabinet. Soldiers changed. Supposed same movement will be effected in Colón. Order prevails so far. Situation serious. Four hundred [Colombian] soldiers landed Colón today [from] Barranquilla.

Ehrman

Mr. Loomis to Mr. Ehrman

Department of State

Washington, November 3, 1903

(Sent 11:18 P.M.)

Message sent to Nashville to Colón may not have been delivered. Accordingly see that following message is sent to Nashville immediately: Nashville, Colón:

In the interests of peace make every effort to prevent [Colombian] Government troops at Colón from proceeding to Panama. The transit of the Isthmus must be kept open and order maintained. Acknowledge.

(signed) Darling, Acting [Secretary of Navy]

Secure special train [to deliver message], if necessary. Act promptly.

Loomis, Acting

[Resolute action by Commander Hubbard of the Nashville, in response to his instructions from Washington, forced the Colombian troops to sail away from Colón on November 5, two days after the revolutionists seized Panama City.]

Foreign Relations of the United States (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1903), p. 231.

Roosevelt Launches a Corollary (1904)
The corrupt and bankrupt "banana republics" of the Caribbean were inclined to overborrow, and Roosevelt believed they could properly be "spanked" by European creditors. But the British-German spanking of Venezuela in 1902 resulted in the sinking of two Venezuelan gunboats and the bombardment of a fort and village. Such interventions foreshadowed a possibly permanent foothold and a consequent violation of the Monroe Doctrine. Sensing this danger, Roosevelt, in his annual message to Congress of 1904, sketched out his famous corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. Monroe had in effect warned the European powers in 1823, "Hands off." Roosevelt was now saying that since the United States would not permit the powers to lay their hands on, he had an obligation to do so himself. In short, he would intervene to keep them from intervening. In the statement embodied in his annual message, how does he justify this newly announced U.S. role, and what assurances does he give to the Latin American countries?

It is not true that the United States feels any land hunger or entertains any projects as regards the other nations of the Western Hemisphere, save such as are for their welfare. All that this country desires is to see the neighboring countries stable, orderly, and prosperous. Any country whose people conduct themselves well can count upon our hearty friendship. If a nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States.

Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power. If every country washed by the Caribbean Sea would show the progress in stable and just civilization which, with the aid of the Platt amendment, Cuba has shown since our troops left the island, and which so many of the republics in both Americas are constantly and brilliantly showing, all question of interference by this Nation with their affairs would be at an end.

Our interests and those of our southern neighbors are in reality identical. They have great natural riches, and if within their borders the reign of law and justice obtains, prosperity is sure to come to them. While they thus obey the primary laws of civilized society, they may rest assured that they will be treated by us in a spirit of cordial and helpful sympathy. We would interfere with them only in the last resort, and then only if it became evident that their inability or unwillingness to do justice at home and abroad had violated the rights of the United States or had invited foreign aggression to the detriment of the entire body of American nations. It is a mere truism to say that every nation, whether in America or anywhere else, which desires to maintain its freedom, its independence, must ultimately realize that the right of such independence cannot be separated from the responsibility of making good use of it.

A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents (New York: Bureau of National Literature, 1906) vol. 16 (December 6, 1904), pp. 7053-7054.

A Latin American Protests (1943)
Following up his new corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, Roosevelt arranged with the local authorities to take over and administer the customshouses of the bankrupt Santo Domingo. The European credits then had no real excuse for interfering, for they received their regular payments. In his annual message of 1905, Roosevelt added a refinement to his corollary to the Monroe Doctrine: to prevent European creditors from taking over customshouses (and perhaps staying), the United States had an obligation to take over the customshouses. In subsequent years, and pursuant to the Roosevelt corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, the marines landed and acted as international policemen, notably in Haiti, Santo Domingo, and Nicaragua. The Latin Americans, cherishing their sovereign right to revolution and disorder, bitterly resented this bayonet-enforced twisting of Monroe's protective dictum. Below, an outspoken Mexican diplomat, with a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University, expresses his wrath. It has been said that the Roosevelt corollary was so radically different from the original Monroe Doctrine (see Chapter 13, James Monroe Warns the European Powers, 1823) that the two should never have been associated. Was Roosevelt's corollary a logical extension or a radical revision of the Monroe Doctrine?

No document has proved more harmful to the prestige of the United States in the Western Hemisphere [than the Roosevelt corollary]. No White House policy could be more distasteful to Latin Americans--not even, perhaps, outspoken imperialism. Latin Americans are usually inclined to admire strength, force, a nation muy hombre [very manly]. This was imperialism without military glamour. . . . Moreover, it was a total distortion of the original Message. Monroe's Doctrine was defensive and negative: defensive, in that it was essentially an opposition to eventual aggression from Europe; negative, in that it simply told Europe what it should not do--not what the United States should do.

The Monroe Doctrine of later corollaries became aggressive and positive; aggressive, because, even without actual European attack, it urged Unites States "protection" of Latin America--and that was outright intervention; positive, because instead of telling Europe what not to do, it told the United States what it should do in the Western Hemisphere. From a case of America vs. Europe, the corollaries made of the Doctrine a case of the United States vs. America.

President Monroe had merely shaken his head, brandished his finger, and said to Europe, "Now, now, gentlemen, if you meddle with us, we will not love you any more," while Teddy Roosevelt, brandishing a big stick, had shouted, "Listen, you guys, don't muscle in--this territory is ours."

In still another corollary, enunciated to justify United States intervention [in Santo Domingo], the same Roosevelt said: "It is far better that this country should put through such an arrangement [enforcing fulfillment of financial obligations contracted by Latin American states] rather than to allow any foreign country to undertake it." To intervene in order to protect: to intervene in order to prevent others from so doing. It is the "Invasion for Protection" corollary, so much in the limelight recently, in other parts of the world.

[Latin American bitterness against this perversion of the Monroe Doctrine festered for nearly three decades. A sharp turn for the better came in 1933, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt, implementing a policy initiated by President Herbert Hoover, formally renounced the doctrine of intervention in Latin America. Thus what the first Roosevelt gave, the second Roosevelt took away.]

Luis Quintanilla, A Latin American Speaks (New York: The Macmillan Company 1943), pp. 125-126. By permission of the author.

President Roosevelt Anticipates Trouble (1905)
Secretary of State John Hay, attempting to halt European land-grabbing in China, had induced the reluctant powers to accept his famed Open Door policy in 1899-1900. But Russia's continued encroachments on China's Manchuria led to the exhausting Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, during which the underdog Japanese soundly thrashed the Russian army and navy. President Roosevelt, who was finally drafted as peace mediator, wrote the following letter to his close friend Senator Henry Cabot Lodge. Victory-drunk, Japan was becoming understandably cocky, while the race-conscious California legislature was preparing to erect barriers against Japanese immigrants. Why did Roosevelt regard the attitude of Californians as bigoted, foolish, and dangerous?

That Japan will have her head turned to some extent I do not in the least doubt, and I see clear symptoms of it in many ways. We should certainly as a nation have ours turned if we had performed such feats as the Japanese have in the past sixteen months; and the same is true of any European nation. Moreover, I have no doubt that some Japanese, and perhaps a great many of them, will behave badly to foreigners. They cannot behave worse than the State of California, through its Legislature, is now behaving toward the Japanese.

The feeling on the Pacific slope, taking it from several different standpoints, is as foolish as if conceived by the mind of a Hottentot. These Pacific Coast people wish grossly to insult the Japanese and to keep out the Japanese immigrants on the ground that they are an immoral, degraded, and worthless race; and at the same time that they desire to do this for the Japanese, and are already doing it for the Chinese, they expect to be given advantages in Oriental markets; and with besotted folly are indifferent to building up the navy while provoking this formidable new power--a power jealous, sensitive, and warlike, and which if irritated could at once take both the Philippines and Hawaii from us if she obtained the upper hand on the seas.

Most certainly the Japanese soldiers and sailors have shown themselves to be terrible foes. There can be none more dangerous in all the world. But our own navy, ship for ship, is I believe at least as efficient as theirs, although I am not certain that our torpedo boats would be handled as well as theirs. At present we are superior to them in number of ships, and this superiority will last for some time. It will of course come to an end if [Senator] Hale has his way, but not otherwise.

I hope that we can persuade our people on the one hand to act in a spirit of generous justice and genuine courtesy toward Japan, and on the other hand to keep the navy respectable in numbers and more than respectable in the efficiency of its units. If we act thus we need not fear the Japanese. But if, as Brooks Adams says, we show ourselves "opulent, aggressive, and unarmed," the Japanese may sometime work us an injury.

Japan Resents Discrimination (1906)
The San Francisco Board of Education precipitated a crisis in 1906 by ordering all Asian students to attend a specially segregated school. The sensitive Japanese rose in instant resentment against what they regarded as a deliberate and insulting act of discrimination. The Tokyo Mainichi Shimbun, a reputable journal, reacted as follows. Where was Japanese national pride most deeply wounded?

The whole world knows that the poorly equipped army and navy of the United States are no match for our efficient army and navy. It will be an easy work to awake the United States from her dream of obstinacy when one of our great admirals appears on the other side of the Pacific. . . . The present situation is such that the Japanese nation cannot rest easy by relying only upon the wisdom and statesmanship of President Roosevelt. The Japanese nation must have a firm determination to chastise at any time the obstinate Americans.

Stand up, Japanese nation! Our countrymen have been HUMILIATED on the other side of the Pacific. Our poor boys and girls have been expelled from the public schools by the rascals of the United States, cruel and merciless like demons.

At this time we should be ready to give a blow to the United States. Yes, we should be ready to strike the Devil's head with an iron hammer for the sake of the world's civilization. . . . Why do we not insist on sending [war]ships?

October 22, 1906, in T. A. Bailey, Theodore Roosevelt and the Japanese-American Crises (Stanford University Press, 1934), p. 50.

The Gentlemen's Agreement (1908)
The San Francisco school incident revealed anew that a municipality or a state could take legal action that might involve the entire nation in war. Roosevelt soothed the Japanese, but not the Californians, by adopting the Asians' side of the dispute. He publicly branded the action of the school board as a "wicked absurdity," and he brought that entire body to Washington, where he persuaded the members to come to terms. The San Franciscans agreed to readmit Japanese children to the public schools on condition that Roosevelt would arrange to shut off the influx of Japanese immigrants. This he did in the famous Gentlemen's Agreement, which consisted of an understanding growing out of an extensive exchange of diplomatic notes. These were officially summarized as follows in the annual report of the U.S. commissioner-general of immigration. In what ways did these agreements leave the fundamental issues unresolved?

In order that the best results might follow from an enforcement of the regulations, an understanding was reached with Japan that the existing policy of discouraging the emigration of its subjects of the laboring classes to continental United States should be continued and should, by cooperation of the governments, be made as effective as possible.

This understanding contemplates that the Japanese Government shall issue passports to continental United States only to such of its subjects as are non-laborers or are laborers who, in coming to the continent, seek to resume a formerly acquired domicile, to join a parent, wife, or children residing there, or to assume active control of an already possessed interest in a farming enterprise in this country; so that the three classes of laborers entitled to receive passports have come to be designated "former residents," "parents, wives, or children of residents," and "settled agriculturists."

With respect to Hawaii, the Japanese Government stated that, experimentally at least, the issuance of passports to members of the laboring classes proceeding thence would be limited to "former residents" and "parents, wives, or children of residents." The said government has also been exercising a careful supervision over the subject of the emigration of its laboring class to foreign contiguous territory [Mexico, Canada].

[The honor-system Gentlemen's Agreement worked reasonably well until 1924, when Congress in a fit of pique slammed the door completely in the faces of the Japanese. The resulting harvest of ill will had much to do with the tragic events that eventually led to Pearl Harbor and World War II.]

Annual Report of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, 1908 (1908), pp. 221-222.