RAYMOND LESLIE BUELL

A Japanese alien, even if he has lived here for forty years, cannot become a citizen if he wants to. But a Japanese child born here becomes one whether he wishes to or not. Obviously, it is absurd to deny citizenship to Japanese aliens on the ground of race when we force it upon their children.

The problem, therefore, reduced itself to [opium] production in Persia, Turkey, and Jugoslavia. The first of these countries declared that it could not restrict production without a loan of ten million tomans, customs autonomy, and a financial moratorium. The other two said that until other means of livelihood had been found for their peasant populations, production could not be limited.

There is nothing to be said in favor of the immigration of Japanese laborers into the United States. If unrestricted, it would wipe out American standards of living, eventually reduce us to the economic level of the Oriental, and implant an alien and half-breed race on our soil which might make the negro problem look white.

… the anti-Japanese agitation continues on the Pacific Coast, under the leadership of the Exclusion League and the American Legion.

A Japanese cannot become naturalized in this country as can a European. Congress has never passed a law expressly barring Japanese from naturalization, as it has done in the case of the Chinese; it has merely limited that privilege to "free white persons" and to negroes. But in November, 1922, the Supreme Court definitely ruled that free white persons meant only Caucasians, that the Japanese were not Caucasians …. The Japanese are now confronted with the unpalatable fact, laid down in unmistakable terms by the highest court in the land, that we consider them unfit to become Americans.

While the American proposals for the limitation of [opium] production may have been theoretically sound, the United States ignored the practical obstacles in the way of their achievement. In one sense these proposals were unfair, since they transferred the responsibility for suppressing the international drug traffic from the strong countries to lamentably weak governments such as those of China, Persia and Turkey. Financially, the United States stood to lose nothing and to gain everything by the acceptance of its proposals. The producing countries, as well as the governments of territories where smoking prevails, would on the other hand be obliged to give up revenues amounting to millions of dollars a year. In other words, the United States asked from the remainder of the world sacrifices which entailed no hardships for herself.

For the most part, the suppression of any kind of vice is regarded as a domestic problem, to be handled by one state without interference from its neighbors. But even leaving aside all moral considerations, it is true that so integrated has the world become that now-a-days one nation soon finds it impossible to prohibit the entrance of undesirable articles or persons into its own country without the cooperation of other countries. We have seen this in the case of liquor, drugs and immigrants. For these reasons the drug problem has become international.

There is nothing to be said in favor of the immigration of Japanese laborers into the United States. If unrestricted, it would wipe out American standards of living, eventually reduce us to the economic level of the Oriental, and implant an alien and half-breed race on our soil which might make the negro problem look white.

A Japanese alien, even if he has lived here for forty years, cannot become a citizen if he wants to. But a Japanese child born here becomes one whether he wishes to or not. Obviously, it is absurd to deny citizenship to Japanese aliens on the ground of race when we force it upon their children.

A Japanese cannot become naturalized in this country as can a European. Congress has never passed a law expressly barring Japanese from naturalization, as it has done in the case of the Chinese; it has merely limited that privilege to "free white persons" and to negroes. But in November, 1922, the Supreme Court definitely ruled that free white persons meant only Caucasians, that the Japanese were not Caucasians …. The Japanese are now confronted with the unpalatable fact, laid down in unmistakable terms by the highest court in the land, that we consider them unfit to become Americans.

While the American proposals for the limitation of [opium] production may have been theoretically sound, the United States ignored the practical obstacles in the way of their achievement. In one sense these proposals were unfair, since they transferred the responsibility for suppressing the international drug traffic from the strong countries to lamentably weak governments such as those of China, Persia and Turkey. Financially, the United States stood to lose nothing and to gain everything by the acceptance of its proposals. The producing countries, as well as the governments of territories where smoking prevails, would on the other hand be obliged to give up revenues amounting to millions of dollars a year. In other words, the United States asked from the remainder of the world sacrifices which entailed no hardships for herself.

The problem, therefore, reduced itself to [opium] production in Persia, Turkey, and Jugoslavia. The first of these countries declared that it could not restrict production without a loan of ten million tomans, customs autonomy, and a financial moratorium. The other two said that until other means of livelihood had been found for their peasant populations, production could not be limited.

For the most part, the suppression of any kind of vice is regarded as a domestic problem, to be handled by one state without interference from its neighbors. But even leaving aside all moral considerations, it is true that so integrated has the world become that now-a-days one nation soon finds it impossible to prohibit the entrance of undesirable articles or persons into its own country without the cooperation of other countries. We have seen this in the case of liquor, drugs and immigrants. For these reasons the drug problem has become international.

… the anti-Japanese agitation continues on the Pacific Coast, under the leadership of the Exclusion League and the American Legion.