Your TR Source
President Roosevelt writes to Philip A. Stanton to discuss a new California law that forbids Japanese children from going to school with white children. Roosevelt says this law would violate America’s treaty with Japan and the Federal government would challenge it in court. The rest of the telegram is missing.
1909-02-08
President Roosevelt writes his son Kermit about recent guests at the White House and taking walks. Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt needed a break and took Ethel Roosevelt away for forty-eight hours on the Sylph. He says his hands are full with California trying to keep Japanese out of their schools. Congress is refusing to provide fortifications for the Philippines and Hawaii or allow Roosevelt to build up the navy. Kermit has taken notes on the envelope.
1907-02-04
This article describes an interview given by Kentarō Kaneko, a longtime advocate of friendly relations between Japan and the United States, to Kokumin. Kaneko voices his opposition to the anti-Japanese crusades going on in America, especially regarding the segregation of Japanese schoolchildren in California. He finds these attitudes doubly offensive in the wake of a large donation made by the Japanese people to earthquake relief in California despite a famine in Japan. Kaneko is pleased that Japanese newspapers remain moderate, probably due to Japanese gratitude for American charity funds.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-10-26
Victor Howard Metcalf updates President Roosevelt about the tense situation growing between Japan and the United States over the segregation of Japanese children in schools. The California Supreme Court’s decision will be based on whether or not the treaty with Japan had a “most favored nation” clause. This will determine what the United States’, and thus California’s, obligation is to educate immigrant Japanese students in the same manner that it educates immigrant children from European descent, who are educated as if they were American children. United States District Attorney Devlin seems to think the clause was not included. This needs to be determined to decide whether or not segregating the students was in violation of the treaty. Metcalf notes hostility to the Chinese that is nearly as bad as towards Chinese immigrants and mentions that both parties are in support of legislation to restrict Japanese immigrants.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-11-02