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Izumi Hirobe is Associate Professor at Nagoya University.

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Japanese Pride, American Prejudice

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Contents

Abbreviations............................................................xA Note on Japanese Names.................................................xiiiIntroduction.............................................................1Part I: The Missionary Initiative1. The Immediate Aftermath...............................................212. The Origins of Pro- and Anti-Quota Movements..........................673. The Clergymen's Political Campaign....................................804. The Long Quiet Battle.................................................99Part II: The Business Initiative5. New Movements from the Pacific Coast..................................1216. Japanese Imperialism and the Immigration Question.....................1497. Howard's Pro-Quota Campaign...........................................1738. The Declining Impetus of the Pro-Quota Forces.........................1919. The Final Collapse: Toward Pearl Harbor...............................210Conclusion...............................................................224Epilogue: The Japanese American Initiative...............................233Notes....................................................................243Bibliography.............................................................291Index....................................................................313

Chapter One

The Japanese Response

The immigration bill which included the exclusion clause was passed on April 12, 1924 in the House of Representatives, and, in the Senate, a similar bill with the exclusion clause was passed on April 15. Without waiting to see whether the president would sign or veto the bill, Japan reacted to the passage of the law almost at once.

Initial Japanese reaction was universally hostile. From the government on down, everyone maintained that the law was based on racial discrimination and stained the prestige of Japan. According to a report made by Ambassador Cyrus Woods in Tokyo to the Department of State, protests came from "groups and organizations of varied character[:] educational, religious, social, political, commercial, industrial, financial, et cetera."

The Japanese media led the charge. Many editorial writers viewed the issue from the perspective of race and argued that the law was not only a national challenge to Japan, but also an insult to the yellow race in general. The Tokyo Nichinichi Shimbun proclaimed that a great race war was imminent. The Teikoku Daigaku Shimbun, the newspaper of the Imperial University of Tokyo, published an article by Hikomatsu Kamikawa, an associate professor, in which he argued that the immigration law symbolized white ethnocentrism and marked the onset of a race war. To emphasize this aspect of racial affront, some newspapers published the anti-exclusion views of non-Japanese Asian intellectuals, who advocated the solidarity of all Asians on this issue.

While some newspapers regarded the law's passage as an insult to Asians as a whole, others revealed a different kind of prejudice. The law, they argued, was an insult especially to Japan because Japanese were superior to other Asian nationals, whose immigration was already banned. The Osaka Asahi Shimbun, for example, not only declared the immigration law to be a product of incorrigible racial prejudice, but further argued that it could not accept the law because the Japanese were not inferior but superior to other peoples. Even the Chugai Shogyo Shimpo, a newspaper that specialized in commerce, declared that the law would not only cause great losses to countries in the East but would also lead to racial tensions. On April 21, 1924, fifteen major newspapers in Tokyo published a joint declaration about the exclusion issue. Since they still hoped that the law would be vetoed, the declaration was not radical. It read: "It is very clear that the anti-Japanese bill which was passed in both houses is unfair and immoral.... If the bill becomes a law, there will be no recourse other than to regard it as the defined will of the American people, and, as a result, it will injure deeply the traditional friendship between the nations."

American diplomats in Japan experienced the Japanese indignation firsthand. Immediately after Congress passed the bill, a staff member of the American embassy in Tokyo found a leaflet on his car from the Taibei Mondai Yukoku Seinendan (Patriotic Young Men's League Regarding the Japan-American Question), which was an offshoot of Nihon Rikkokai (the Japanese Strenuous Efforts Society), a Christian organization founded by Hyodayu Shimanuki to assist Japanese students who wished to study abroad. The leaflet urged Japanese patriots to "punish the hypocritical and cruel America." The leaders of Suihei-sha, an anti-discrimination league, handed Ambassador Woods a note of protest, which said that it was unreasonable for the United States, which had been an advocate of liberty, an emancipator of slaves, and a promoter of peace, to take an anti-Japanese attitude.

Mass rallies against the exclusion clause took place throughout Japan. As early as April 20, a national convention was held in Tokyo under the leadership of Ryohei Uchida, head of Kokuryu Kai, a major patriotic organization interested in foreign affairs. Kokuryu Kai had been organized by Uchida in 1901, at a time when there was a strong sense of the impending danger of Russia's seizing Manchuria. Mitsuru Toyama, an influential rightist activist, became its adviser. The organization preached pan-Asianism and Japanese expansion onto the Asian mainland. After World War I, Kokuryu Kai expanded its interests, expressing alarm at the uncomplaining acceptance of the Washington Treaty and the exclusion of Japanese immigrants by the United States and Australia. It also worried about social turmoil in Japan, especially the development of Taisho democracy. Kokuryu Kai's agenda included promoting harmony between the East and West and making Japan the leader of East Asia. On April 22, the Kokumin Shimbun sponsored an evening of speeches on U.S.-Japanese relations. According to a report by the Metropolitan Police, the event attracted as many as three thousand people. The speakers ranged from moderates to radicals, but radical views were the more numerous. Among the invited speakers was Kiroku Hayashi, president of Keio University, who emphasized that the immigration law was against the spirit of peaceful cooperation. Other speakers endeavored to stir up nationalistic feelings among the Japanese; Jiro Hayasaka, a reporter for the Kokumin Shimbun, proclaimed that if the United States did not heed the protests from Japan, the Japanese must prepare to respond to this racial affront, and Koki Hori, a professor at Tokyo Commercial College, argued that the American law was unwise because propagation of the Japanese was for the good of mankind.

A compilation of these speeches was published within a month of the meeting. The preface examined the history of U.S.-Japanese relations and highlighted the inconsistency in U.S. policy toward Japan. The United States had opened Japan seventy years earlier by force, yet now persecuted the Yamato race by barring immigrants from entering the spacious territory of America. The book insisted that Japan's voice was being ignored because its military was not strong enough, and thus maintained that a military buildup was necessary.

The view that Japan should build its military strength was common, as is apparent from a series of twelve articles on the immigration issue that appeared in Kaizo, a progressive monthly magazine. In one of them, Tatsukichi Minobe, a well-known scholar of constitutional law, maintained that it had become clear that the anti-Japanese movement in the United States was forged out of contempt for the Japanese and argued that since the strength of the United States was far beyond that of Japan, cooperation with Asian nations should be promoted. The general tone of these articles was not violent, but the possibility of war against the United States appeared in many essays. An editor's note, in particular, declared that if the U.S. president failed to veto the law, Japan would have to either accept the insult or go to war. Launching a war with the United States was not considered realistic by most Japanese, however, even in the first heat of outrage. Educated Japanese, moreover, also realized that without the backing of considerable military strength their voices would not be heard by the United States; their silence on the issue did not necessarily mean that they were satisfied with the situation.

Nihon oyobi nihonjin was a rightist publication, put out by Seikyosha, an organization founded in 1888 that strongly criticized the unquestioning imitation of all things Western in Japan. The magazine responded to the passage of the immigration bill quickly, basically regarding the immigration question as the beginning of a race war between whites and non-whites. After expressing its deep regret over the exclusion clause in the May 1 issue, this bimonthly magazine gave extra space to special articles on the immigration question in the May 15 issue, calling it the "issue of indignation against the U.S." The author of the editorial for the issue said that he could only laugh at those who saw a ray of hope in the possible veto of the bill by the U.S. president because he knew that the president would not do so. He argued that what the United States really wanted was to build a white America, and so the rejection of the Japanese revealed their true intentions. He concluded that Japanese exclusion was neither a simple immigration question nor an economic question, but was rather part of a racial struggle.

Outside the Tokyo area, demonstrations against exclusion were no less prevalent. On April 21, a women's group organized a public protest in Nagoya. In Osaka, four major newspapers and a local business organization convened a mass meeting that drew a lot of attention. The participants passed a declaration demanding reconsideration of the law by the U.S. Congress and sent telegrams requesting a veto to President Calvin Coolidge. In Manchuria, anti-exclusion protests were also heard among the Japanese community there. Since Manchuria was not a part of Japan territory, the Japanese community there emphasized the importance of cooperation among all nonwhite peoples, and especially between Japanese and Chinese. Manshu Nichinichi Shimbun, a newspaper published in Dairen, argued that the Christians in the West who professed an inclusive love for humankind nonetheless harbored deep racial prejudice against non-white races. At a civic convention that was organized in Dairen, speakers advocated cooperation between the Japanese and Chinese to counter Western domination of the world. An editor of the Manshu Nichinichi argued that since the world was controlled by the white race and non-whites were looked down upon as slaves, Japanese and Chinese should end their "marital quarrel" and cooperate to cope with Western racial discrimination. The convention concluded with the passage of a resolution which requested that the United Stated agree to an amicable settlement of the immigration question.

The Japanese cabinet took the issue seriously. Before the bill was passed, the cabinet had been very optimistic about the development of the U.S. immigration bill. In early April, Foreign Minister Keishiro Matsui simply gave it as his opinion that "Mr. Hughes's view would prevail in the end, and that nothing would be enacted prejudicial to the international status and dignity of Japan." This optimistic attitude had to be changed. On April 14, British Ambassador Charles Eliot thought Masui "grave and despondent." Immediately after passage of the bill, Premier Keigo Kiyoura indicated to Viscount Nobuatsu Makino that, as prime minister, he felt obliged to take responsibility for the incident. Makino felt that, depending on the course of events, Kiyoura was actually prepared to resign. Matsui expressed his pessimistic expectation that President Coolidge would not veto the bill.

The Japanese Foreign Ministry remained basically calm on the issue of the exclusion clause, doing little except submitting official protests through diplomatic channels. However, this did not mean that officials harbored no ill-feelings about the clause. Although they rarely criticized the U.S. government in their official capacity, the negative views of Foreign Ministry bureaucrats appeared in the Gaiko Jiho, a semi-official bimonthly magazine on foreign affairs. The journal criticized the 1924 immigration law harshly. The May 15 issue declared that the Japanese should work ceaselessly for the abrogation of the exclusion clause, and should do so by instilling righteous indignation into the public conscience of the United States. The succeeding issue called the American anti-Japanese legislation not only a diplomatic problem but also a sin, from the perspectives of morality, pure reason, and humanity. While the Foreign Ministry, as the official agency of the Japanese government, remained calm, the Gaiko Jiho, its civilian offshoot, attacked the law vehemently. This sort of split attitude, which was observed in many sectors in Japan, would continue until the end of the 1930s.

The split psychology, which was observed in diplomatic circles, was also evident in the military sector in Japan. The Imperial Headquarters' calm attitude toward the immigration issue did not mean that there was no individual indignation against the anti-Asiatic attitudes of the Americans. Officers of the navy, whose number-one potential enemy after the Russo-Japanese War was the United States, were particularly indignant about American racism. When the first imperial defense principles were formulated in 1907, one of them concerned the issue of race and accepted the possibility that Japan and the United States might collide on the issue in the future. That possibility became more likely with the newly revised defense principles of 1923:

Japanese exclusion in California gradually extends to neighboring states and the situation concerning the Japanese question in Hawaii is not promising. It is extremely difficult to solve long-time complications based on economic problems and racial prejudice, and conflicting interests and emotional alienation will greatly grow in the future. If the Asia policy of the United States, which secures footholds in the Pacific and Far East and possesses great military power, follows this trend, it is inevitable for the United States to collide with the Japanese Empire sooner or later. The U.S. is, therefore, most central to our defense policy.

Some individual officers spoke out more explicitly on this point. In a rally held in Toyama prefecture, a major-general of the Imperial Army argued that the United States had intentionally timed the passage of the immigration law to take advantage of the disorder in Japan caused by the earthquake that had destroyed Tokyo in 1923. Some Japanese naval officers held extremely radical opinions on this issue. According to a security police report on the opinions of the top officers at the Yokosuka naval base, some officers complained of the inconsistencies in American policy, pointing out that the United States had proposed disarmament at the Washington Conference of 1921-1922 in an atmosphere of mutual conciliation, but that it had nonetheless expanded its air force and passed an anti-Japanese immigration law in 1924. These officers argued that since the capabilities of the Japanese fleet exceeded those of the American fleet, and since there were no soldiers ready to protect U.S. warships passing through the Suez Canal, there would never be a better opportunity to declare war against the United States. After a meeting at Yokosuka, the Kaigun Rodo Kumiai Renmei (Naval Federation of Labor) sent a declaration condemning the immigration bill to Samuel Gompers and President Coolidge. The Maizuru Division of the Naval Federation of Labor also telegraphed Foreign Minister Matsui, asking him to make every effort to abrogate the exclusion bill. And so, in military circles, too, although anti-exclusion feelings ran high, official outward appearances remained calm. But this pent-up indignation would later emerge, when the two countries' material interests came into direct conflict.

To the surprise of foreign observers, exclusion did not become an issue during the general election campaign, which culminated with the vote on May 10, because all parties had agreed not to take advantage of the issue during the campaign. The insult felt by the nation was so great that it was not difficult to reach such an agreement. This agreement was a wise one from the perspective of cordial U.S.-Japanese relations because any discussion would only have increased Japanese resentment toward the United States. The fact that it was not difficult to reach such an agreement among the different political parties also reveals how seriously they took exclusion as a national crisis which demanded a unified national response. Since the ruling party failed to win a majority vote, it became inevitable that the cabinet would change, and so the question of whether the Kiyoura cabinet should resign on account of the exclusion issue simply faded away.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, some Japanese were putting pressure on American friends to use their influence to persuade President Coolidge to exercise his veto. For example, Japanese women activists wrote to their American counterparts asking for their support on this issue. Tomi Wada of Kyushu Imperial University sent a letter to Jane Addams describing the Japanese as "very much troubled about the new immigration law which had passed in the U.S. Congress." The Ladies Association of Nagoya City also wrote to Addams, informing her that they trusted her "Christian spirit of love and justice to aid [them] in the solution of the present difficulty." Even before she received those letters, Addams had asked Coolidge to veto the immigration bill. Addams's telegram to the president read: "Organized as we are for the promotion of international peace and good will, we are deeply concerned over a situation which may so easily lead to grave misunderstandings and discord."

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Excerpted from Japanese Pride, American Prejudiceby Izumi Hirobe Copyright © 2001 by Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. Excerpted by permission.
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