Political candidates were pledged to an anti-Japanese
policy.
In 1907 the two governments reached an agreement whereby the details
of issuing passports to Japanese laborers who desired to return to the
United States was virtually left in the hands of the Japanese
Government, which was opposed to the emigration of its laboring
population. As a consequence of this agreement, passports are granted
only to laborers who had previously been residents of the United
States or to parents, wives, and children of Japanese laborers
resident in America. Under authority of the immigration law of 1907,
the President issued an order (March 14, 1907) denying admission to
"Japanese and Korean laborers, skilled or unskilled, who have received
passports to go to Mexico, Canada, Hawaii and come therefrom" to the
United States.
Anti-Japanese feeling was crystallized into the alien land bill of
California in 1913. So serious was the international situation that
President Wilson sent Mr. Bryan, then Secretary of State, across the
continent to confer with the California legislature and to determine
upon some action that would at the same time meet the needs of the
State and "leave untouched the international obligations of the United
States." The law subsequently passed was thought by the Californians
to appease both of these demands.
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