to fail to
insist on the right of the Nation, to offer no action of the Nation to
remedy what is wrong, and yet to try to coax the State not to do what
it is mistakenly encouraged to believe it has the power to do, when no
other alternative is offered.

After a good deal of discussion, we came to an entirely satisfactory
conclusion. The obnoxious school legislation was abandoned, and I
secured an arrangement with Japan under which the Japanese themselves
prevented any immigration to our country of their laboring people, it
being distinctly understood that if there was such emigration the United
States would at once pass an exclusion law. It was of course infinitely
better that the Japanese should stop their own people from coming rather
than that we should have to stop them; but it was necessary for us to
hold this power in reserve.

Unfortunately, after I left office, a most mistaken and ill-advised
policy was pursued towards Japan, combining irritation and inefficiency,
which culminated in a treaty under which we surrendered this important
and necessary right. It was alleged in excuse that the treaty provided
for its own abrogation; but of course it is infinitely better to have a
treaty under which the power to exercise a necessary right is explicitly
retained rather than a treaty so drawn that recourse must be had to the
extreme step of abrogating if it ever becomes necessary to exercise the
right in question.

The arrangement we made worked admirably, and entirely achieved its
purpose. No small part of our success was due to the fact that we
succeeded in impressing on the Japanese that we sincerely admired and
respected them, and desired to treat them with the utmost consideration.
I cannot too strongly express my indignation with, and abhorrence
of, reckless public writers and speakers who, with coarse and vulgar
insolence, insult the Japanese people and thereby do the greatest wrong
not only to Japan but to their own country.

Such conduct represents that nadir of underbreeding and folly. The
Japanese are one of the great nations of the world, entitled to stand,
and standing, on a footing of full equality with any nation of Europe
or America. I have the heartiest admiration for them. They can teach us
much. Their civilization is in some respects higher than our own. It is
eminently undesirable that Japanese and Americans should attempt to
live together in masses; any such attempt would be sure to result
disa