Senators and representatives in Congress be requested to use their best endeavors to secure the passage by Congress of a suitable measure to prevent the immigration of Chinese and

Japanese coolie labor --- and all other undesirable alien labor.".

.1

It is interesting to note that in this Resolu

This

tion the Japanese were mentioned for the first time as being a menace to the laboring population of California. resolution urged the renewal of the Geary Exclusion Act which was soon to expire.

Besides this resolution by the legislature being sent to Congress at this time, there was a Memorial sent at the same time, drawn by a convention called for that particular purpose. This convention was called by the supervisors of the County and City of San Francisco, and sat November 21-22, 1901, in San Francisco. It represented county and municipal bodies, civic, commercial and labor organizations In substance it was about the same as the Joint Resolution

sent by the legislature, urging the renewal of the Geary law which would expire the following year, setting forth the effective way in which that law had excluded the Chinese while it had been in operation. It maintained that the Chinese population of California had materially decreased in

1.

Calif. Statutes, 1901, p.940

the last twenty years and the United States should fear no harm befalling her commercial relations with the Chinese Empire should this law be renewed because our trade had increased over 50% during the time the act had been in effect.1 This insistence on the part of California, no doubt, was largely responsible for the reenactment by Congress of all the laws pertaining to exclusion then in force, in 1902, which was before the expiration of the Geary law. With the passage of this act by Congress, the Chinese question died in the State of California. In the year 1905, for the first time since it became involved in politics, it was not used as campaign material. After a half century, as the center of the most bitter race feeling that has ever been manifested in the United States, the Chinaman retires to the background and his place is taken by another.

1. Sen. Doc. 191 (1901) vol. 16.s.n. 4234.

Chapter III. Anti-Japanese Legislation.

It will be remembered that it was in the Joint Reso

lution sent to Congress in 1901 that the first mention was made of the Japanese as being undesirable and a menace to the people of the State of California. The question of Japanese immigration arose about the year 1899, the year of the abrogation of our consular jurisdiction in Japan. Seeing the opposition that her immigrants were beginning to meet in this country and realizing the danger she may be creating for herself by allowing her unskilled workmen to enter, she refused to issue passports to that class coming direct to the United States. There has no law passed Congress excluding Japanese nor has any law of such a nature passed the California legislature. No restriction is placed on their coming by any treaty agreeinent. The only check on their coming is placed by the Japanese government itself by refusing to issue passports to her unskilled workmen, all other classes being allowed to come and go freely.

It was the passage of an ordinance by the School Board of the city of San Francisco, segregating the Japanese, Chinese and Korean children from the whites and sending them to the Oriental School that brought the Japanese question