The Path Of Empire [69]
were concluded in the Treaty of Portsmouth (New Hampshire) in 1905. For this conspicuous service to the cause of peace President Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel prize.
Secretary Hay had therefore, in the seven years following the real arrival of the United States in the Far East, evolved a policy which was clear and definite, and one which appealed to the American people. While it constituted a variation from the precise methods laid down by President Monroe in 1823, in that it involved concerted and equal cooperation with the great powers of the world, Hay's policy rested upon the same fundamental bases: a belief in the fundamental right of nations to determine their own government, and the reduction to a minimum of intervention by foreign powers. To have refused to recognize intervention at all would have been, under the circumstances, to abandon China to her fate. In protecting its own right to trade with her, the United States protected the integrity of China. Hay had, moreover, so ably conducted the actual negotiations that the United States enjoyed for the moment the leadership in the concert of powers and exercised an authority more in accord with her potential than with her actual strength. Secretary Hay's death in 1905 brought American leadership to an end, for, though his policies continued to be avowed by all concerned, their application was thereafter restricted. The integrity of Chinese territory was threatened, though not actually violated, by the action of Great Britain in Tibet and of Japan in Manchuria. Japan, recognized as a major power since her war with Russia, seemed in the opinion of many to leave but a crack of the door open in Manchuria, and her relationship with the United States grew difficult as she resented more and more certain discriminations against her citizens which she professed to find in the laws of some of the American States, particularly in those of California.
In 1908 Elihu Root, who succeeded Hay as Secretary of State, effected an understanding with Japan. Adopting a method which has become rather habitual in the relationship between the United States and Japan, Root and the Japanese ambassador exchanged notes. In these they both pointed out that their object was the peaceful development of their commerce in the Pacific; that "the policy of both governments, uninfluenced by any aggressive tendencies, is directed to the maintenance of the existing status quo in the region above mentioned, and to the defense of the principle of equal opportunity for commerce and industry in China"; that they both stood for the independence and integrity of China; and that, should any event threaten the stability of existing conditions, "it remained for the two governments to communicate with each other in order to arrive at an understanding as to what measures they may consider it useful to take."
The immigration problem between Japan and the United States was even more serious than that of the open door and the integrity of China. The teeming population of Japan was swarming beyond her island empire, and Korea and Manchuria did not seem to offer sufficient opportunity. The number of Japanese immigrants to this country, which before the Spanish War had never reached 2000 in any one year, now rose rapidly until in 1907 it reached 30,226. American sentiment, which had been favorable to Japan during her war with Russia, began to change. The public and particularly the laboring classes in the West, where most of the Japanese remained, objected to this increasing immigration, while a number of leaders of American opinion devoted themselves to converting the public to a belief that the military ambitions of Japan included the Philippines and possibly Hawaii, where the Japanese were a formidable element in the population. As a consequence there arose a strong demand that the principles of the Chinese Exclusion Act be applied to the Japanese. The situation was made more definite by the fact that the board of education in San Francisco ruled in 1906 that orientals should receive instruction in special
Secretary Hay had therefore, in the seven years following the real arrival of the United States in the Far East, evolved a policy which was clear and definite, and one which appealed to the American people. While it constituted a variation from the precise methods laid down by President Monroe in 1823, in that it involved concerted and equal cooperation with the great powers of the world, Hay's policy rested upon the same fundamental bases: a belief in the fundamental right of nations to determine their own government, and the reduction to a minimum of intervention by foreign powers. To have refused to recognize intervention at all would have been, under the circumstances, to abandon China to her fate. In protecting its own right to trade with her, the United States protected the integrity of China. Hay had, moreover, so ably conducted the actual negotiations that the United States enjoyed for the moment the leadership in the concert of powers and exercised an authority more in accord with her potential than with her actual strength. Secretary Hay's death in 1905 brought American leadership to an end, for, though his policies continued to be avowed by all concerned, their application was thereafter restricted. The integrity of Chinese territory was threatened, though not actually violated, by the action of Great Britain in Tibet and of Japan in Manchuria. Japan, recognized as a major power since her war with Russia, seemed in the opinion of many to leave but a crack of the door open in Manchuria, and her relationship with the United States grew difficult as she resented more and more certain discriminations against her citizens which she professed to find in the laws of some of the American States, particularly in those of California.
In 1908 Elihu Root, who succeeded Hay as Secretary of State, effected an understanding with Japan. Adopting a method which has become rather habitual in the relationship between the United States and Japan, Root and the Japanese ambassador exchanged notes. In these they both pointed out that their object was the peaceful development of their commerce in the Pacific; that "the policy of both governments, uninfluenced by any aggressive tendencies, is directed to the maintenance of the existing status quo in the region above mentioned, and to the defense of the principle of equal opportunity for commerce and industry in China"; that they both stood for the independence and integrity of China; and that, should any event threaten the stability of existing conditions, "it remained for the two governments to communicate with each other in order to arrive at an understanding as to what measures they may consider it useful to take."
The immigration problem between Japan and the United States was even more serious than that of the open door and the integrity of China. The teeming population of Japan was swarming beyond her island empire, and Korea and Manchuria did not seem to offer sufficient opportunity. The number of Japanese immigrants to this country, which before the Spanish War had never reached 2000 in any one year, now rose rapidly until in 1907 it reached 30,226. American sentiment, which had been favorable to Japan during her war with Russia, began to change. The public and particularly the laboring classes in the West, where most of the Japanese remained, objected to this increasing immigration, while a number of leaders of American opinion devoted themselves to converting the public to a belief that the military ambitions of Japan included the Philippines and possibly Hawaii, where the Japanese were a formidable element in the population. As a consequence there arose a strong demand that the principles of the Chinese Exclusion Act be applied to the Japanese. The situation was made more definite by the fact that the board of education in San Francisco ruled in 1906 that orientals should receive instruction in special