It is the sure mark of a low civilization, a low morality, to abuse or discriminate against or in any way humiliate such stranger who has come here lawfully and who is conducting himself properly.

I am prompted to say this by the attitude of hostility here and there assumed toward the Japanese in this country.

Nevertheless, it is most discreditable to us as a people, and it may be fraught with the gravest consequences to the nation.

Japanese soldiers and sailors have shown themselves equal in combat to any of whom history makes note.

She has produced great generals and mighty admirals; her fighting men, afloat and ashore, show all the heroic courage, the unquestioning, unfaltering loyalty, the splendid indifference to hardship and death, which marked the Loyal Ronins…

Japanese artists of every kind see their products eagerly sought for in all lands.

The industrial and commercial development of Japan has been phenomenal; greater than that of any other country during the same period.

At the same time the advance in science and philosophy is no less marked.

The courtesy of the Japanese, nationally and individually, has become proverbial.

They are welcome, socially and intellectually, in all our colleges and institutions of higher learning, in all our professional and social bodies.

The Japanese have won in a single generation the right to stand abreast of the foremost and most enlightened peoples of Europe and America; they have won on their own merits and by their own exertions the right to treatment on a basis of…

The overwhelming mass of our people cherish a lively regard and respect for the people of Japan, and in almost every quarter of the Union the stranger from Japan is treated as he deserves; that is, he is treated as the stranger from any…

But here and there a most unworthy feeling has manifested itself toward the Japanese--the feeling that has been shown in shutting them out from the common schools in San Francisco, and in mutterings against them in one or two other places…

To shut them out from the public schools is a wicked absurdity, when there are no first-class colleges in the land, including the universities and colleges of California, which do not gladly welcome Japanese students and on which Japanese…

We have as much to learn from Japan as Japan has to learn from us; and no nation is fit to teach unless it is also willing to learn.

Throughout Japan Americans are well treated, and any failure on the part of Americans at home to treat the Japanese with a like courtesy and consideration is by just so much a confession of inferiority in our civilization.

We wish, as we ought to wish, for a great commercial development in our dealings with Asia; and it is out of the question that we should permanently have such development unless we freely and gladly extend to other nations the same measure…

Where the several States have power I earnestly ask that they also deal wisely and promptly with such conduct, or else this small body of wrongdoers may bring shame upon the great mass of their innocent and right-thinking fellows--that is…

Good manners should be an international no less than an individual attribute.

I ask fair treatment for the Japanese as I would ask fair treatment for Germans or Englishmen, Frenchmen, Russians, or Italians.

I ask it as due to ourselves because we must act uprightly toward all men.

I recommend to the Congress that an act be past specifically providing for the naturalization of Japanese who come here intending to become American citizens.

One of the great embarrassments attending the performance of our international obligations is the fact that the Statutes of the United States are entirely inadequate.

They fail to give to the National Government sufficiently ample power, through United States courts and by the use of the Army and Navy, to protect aliens in the rights secured to them under solemn treaties which are the law of the land.

I therefore earnestly recommend that the criminal and civil statutes of the United States be so amended and added to as to enable the President, acting for the United States Government, which is responsible in our international relations…