Our ambassador of peace

President Roosevelt tells Secretary of War William H. Taft, who is dressed in traditional Japanese attire and holds an olive branch, “Taft, I guess you had better make a short Japanese trip” as he points out the window at explosions going off in Japan.

comments and context

Comments and Context

San Francisco-area politicians, newspapers, and agitators had long resented the presence of the Japanese in their midst. Japanese workers arrived in the United States since the 1870s (when Tokyo ended its isolationist emigration policies) and, generally speaking, unlike Chinese field workers and railroad laborers who tended to return home, many Japanese intended to become American citizens.

Nativists and others in California practiced prejudice and enacted exclusion laws. For instance, although Japanese school-age children seldom exceeded 100 in numbers, San Francisco schools required their segregation. Eventually, schools for Japanese, Chinese, and Korean children were established, but no such real or cosmetic allowances satisfied the Japanese community — and officials in Japan were mightily offended.

Riots broke out on both shores of the Pacific, and it was a situation that President Roosevelt sincerely regretted. He respected the Japanese culture, and recognized its growing military and diplomatic might after the Russo-Japanese War (in which Tokyo largely prevailed and whose negotiated end won Roosevelt the Nobel Prize for Peace), and he foresaw future tension with Tokyo if matters were not resolved.

In 1905 he had sent his trusted Secretary of War William H. Taft on a goodwill mission to Japan, with diplomatic instructions from the White House; accompanying the Taft party was the very popular Presidential daughter Alice. The result was the Taft-Katsura Agreement that established mutual understanding and respect and, despite official denials, spheres of influence.

In 1907, although his certain presidential nomination loomed, Taft undertook another diplomatic mission. By this time the local ugliness in San Francisco required the physical presence of Taft to convey Roosevelt’s assurances of respect and concern; and to codify (by another agreement that never was submitted to Congress but guided American policy until 1924) measures that would diffuse tensions — Japan’s voluntary suspension of emigration to America; assurances of equality in all regards for Japanese people already living in the United States.

Cartoonist P. B. McCord had fun at Taft’s expanse; the irony of a military-clad Roosevelt directing a peace mission; and Taft’s costume — in fact, Taft proved to be a sagacious and sympathetic arbiter regarding diplomacy and trade matters with Pacific powers as well as former Spanish colonies — but the cartoon well presents the situation regarding a thorny challenge to America.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-06-12

Creator(s)

McCord, P. B., 1870-1908

Language

English

Period

U.S. President – 2nd Term (March 1905-February 1909)

Page Count

1

Production Method

Printed

Record Type

Image

Resource Type

Cartoon

Rights

These images are presented through a cooperative effort between the Library of Congress and Dickinson State University. No known restrictions on publication.

Citation