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49-646: The CJIC was a successor organization to the Japanese Exclusion League, which was itself a successor to the Asiatic Exclusion League (AEL), originally known as the Japanese and Korean Exclusion League. Significant anti-Asian prejudice in the United States manifested first against Chinese laborers during the construction of the transcontinental railroad in the 1860s. By barring Chinese laborers,

98-526: A heart attack at the age of eighty. He was succeeded as Executive Secretary of the CJIC by his son Harold Jedd. The CJIC continued to publicize the danger posed by Japan to Hawaii, issuing a release in October 1938 that warned of the “Japanese Threat to Dominate Hawaii.” The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, ended any hope for establishing an immigration quota for Japan. The CJIC subsequently supported

147-507: A middle class life. In December 1907, the organization was renamed the Asiatic Exclusion League to include the exclusion of Indian and Chinese immigrants in their agenda. Advocating for the "white man's country" and the prohibition of Asian labor immigration, the AEL set up branches across the Pacific coast of North America, achieving transnational status and cross-border labor organization. Once

196-507: A political solution, the FCCCA would work to educate the public and gain influential supporters throughout the country. The CJIC did not regard this as a retreat and so maintained its attacks against the FCCCA throughout 1926. In early 1927, the scope of the CJIC's activities expanded to include opposition to immigration from Mexico and The Philippines . This was accompanied by a relative reduction in interest in Japanese exclusion. Within one year,

245-598: A psychological advantage.” In February of the following year, the CJIC resumed its attacks on pro-quota movements, beginning with a letter-writing campaign to California legislators. With the onset of the Great Depression , business interests on the West Coast created their own pro-quota movement in hopes of stimulating more trade with Japan. Throughout 1930 and 1931, pro-quota movements continued to gain momentum, with several cities passing pro-quota resolutions. In July 1931,

294-501: A quota of immigrants from Japan. As Executive Secretary of the CJIC, McClatchy led a coordinating body composed of seven members. These included the executive officers of the following organizations, all of which shared an interest in maintaining Japanese exclusion from the United States. The California department of this military veterans organization was concerned by potential Japanese aggression and had maintained an anti-Japanese position since its founding. Legion Adjutant James K. Fisk

343-414: A quota. It was primarily concerned with the effect Japanese exclusion had on international relations. According to McClatchy, Gulick “converted” the leaders of the FCCCA to his point of view and, as leader of the organization's Oriental Department, pushed anti-exclusion as an established church policy. From the late 1920s to the late 1930s, businessmen on the West Coast who traded with Japan sought to modify

392-640: A week after the San Francisco Chronicle began printing a series of anti-Japanese articles. The league was dedicated to excluding Japanese people from the United States and was funded mostly by the California Building and Construction Trades Council, a prominent labor union . In December 1907, it was renamed the Asiatic Exclusion League , which was then reorganized as the Japanese Exclusion League (JEL) in September 1920. The Japanese Exclusion League

441-596: The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 in effect excluded most Chinese immigrants to the United States. Shortly after the turn of the century, rising numbers of Japanese immigrants led to anti-Japanese agitation and anti-Japanese sentiment on the West Coast . In order to quell the unrest, a diplomatic compromise known as the Gentleman's Agreement was worked out between the United States and Japan . The agreement held that

490-658: The Eastern Hemisphere , but did not contain restrictive quotas for nations in the Western Hemisphere . Starting in the late 1920s, the CJIC advocated the exclusion of Mexican immigrants on the basis that they were not white or black and therefore could not become citizens under the Naturalization Act of 1790 , revised in 1870. McClatchy and California Attorney General Ulysses S. Webb testified before Congress in 1929. According to McClatchy, Mexican Indians were “of

539-640: The Japanese and Korean Exclusion League . Among those attending the first meeting were labor leaders and European immigrants , Patrick Henry McCarthy of the Building Trades Council of San Francisco, Andrew Furuseth , and Walter Macarthur of the International Seamen's Union . Following the first meeting, the San Francisco Chronicle published a picture of laborers who collected at

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588-634: The mass removal of Japanese Americans from the Pacific Coast. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo made U.S. citizenship available to Mexicans residing in the lands won by the U.S. in the Mexican-American War . The treaty did not comment on the racial status of Mexicans. The right of Mexicans to obtain citizenship was confirmed in 1897 by a federal judge in Texas who ruled on the case In re Rodriguez . The Immigration Act of 1924 closed off immigration from

637-465: The 1901 pamphlet "Some reasons for Chinese exclusion. Meat vs. Rice. American Manhood against Asiatic Coolieism. Which shall survive?" published by the American Federation of Labor , adding an introduction and appendices. Paul Scharrenberg Paul Scharrenberg (August 21, 1877 – October 27, 1969) was a German-American labor union leader. He served as Executive Secretary-Treasurer of

686-640: The CJIC was primarily targeting Mexicans and Filipinos . McClatchy still maintained an interest in Japanese exclusion, as when he spoke out against an immigration quota for Japan while testifying to the House Immigration Committee in June of that year. In September 1928, the California State Grange withdrew from the CJIC. Late that year, the pro-quota movements were gaining momentum, with McClatchy admitting that his opponents were “steadily gaining

735-767: The California Labor Federation from 1909 to 1936, legislative representative for the American Federation of Labor in Washington, D.C. from 1937 to 1943, and Director of the California Department of Industrial Relations from 1943 until his retirement in 1955. During his career he served on a number of boards and commissions, including the State Commission of Immigration and Housing, the San Francisco City Planning Commission,

784-530: The Immigration Committee of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce passed its own pro-quota resolution. McClatchy protested by publishing another anti-quota pamphlet composed as an open letter to the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce leader Wallace M. Alexander. After Japan invaded Manchuria in late 1931, McClatchy used the incident to argue that similar underhandedness would be employed by Japan against

833-564: The Japanese Foreign Office found that of nineteen California newspapers , ten were anti-Japanese and five were pro-Japanese, with the rest holding a neutral stance. Throughout the second half of the 1920s, the CJIC and the most prominent members of the anti-exclusion movement fought over the righteousness of their causes. In a special issue of the English-language newspaper The Japan Times and Mail published five months after

882-519: The Mongolian or Mongoloid race ” and were therefore ineligible for American citizenship. The CJIC followed the message up in October of that year with a press release bearing the headline “Mexican Indians Not Eligible for American Citizenship.” The CJIC's strategy to achieve Mexican exclusion was to find a suitable test case for a federal court, a favorable ruling from which would overturn the precedents that had theretofore permitted Mexicans to immigrate to

931-768: The School Board to adopt a policy segregating Japanese from white children be approved; (4) a campaign calling the attention of the President and Congress to this "menace", be taken over; (5) all labor and civic organizations in the state California are asked to contribute a fixed assessment to the cause." On May 19, 1913 Governor Hiram Johnson signed the Webb–Haney Act , commonly recognized as Alien Land Law of 1913 . These laws limited land leases by "aliens ineligible to citizenship." Consecutive amendments followed Webb-Hartley, passed in 1919 and again in 1920, only further restricted

980-523: The U.S. and naturalize. McClatchy searched the nation for a suitable naturalization judge to whom the opportunity could be presented. In doing so, McClatchy colluded with John Murff, a naturalization examiner, and John Knight of the U.S. District Court in Buffalo . The case in question was In Re Andrade (1936). The petitioner Timoteo Andrade was a citizen of Mexico who had been residing in the U.S. for twenty years when he filed his naturalization petition. The case

1029-473: The United States in order to modify the immigration law. In mid-1933, pro-quota strength increased with the new support of Roy Howard of the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain . McClatchy responded by seeking the support of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst . The result was a conflict between the pro-quota Scripps-Howard newspapers and the anti-quota Hearst papers. In March 1934, a CJIC release raised

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1078-597: The United States would not restrict immigration from Japan, while Japan was not to allow further emigration to the United States. The Japanese and Korean Exclusion League was formed in San Francisco , California in May 1905, two months after the California State Legislature passed a unanimous resolution requesting that Congress “limit and diminish the further immigration of Japanese.” The resolution passed within

1127-553: The United States, which was realized with the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924 . McClatchy, accompanied by California Attorney General Ulysses S. Webb and former U.S. Senator James D. Phelan , testified before the Senate Committee on Immigration prior to the passage of the act. His testimony included the following remarks: “ Japanese are less assimilable and more dangerous as residents in this country than any other of

1176-674: The Vancouver Trades and Labour Council. During this meeting the League issued a program that called for the abolition of all Oriental immigration which later led to a campaign resulting in the Oriental Exclusion Act of 1923 . Another important, albeit indirect, consequence of AEL activity was that the 1907 Vancouver riots led to the first drug law in Canada. The Minister of Labour (and future Prime Minister), William Lyon Mackenzie King ,

1225-423: The [earlier] organization created." McClatchy regarded the new law as an insufficient means to combat the pro-Japanese “organized propaganda” directed by church activities. He thus formed the CJIC as an authorized and representative committee with an executive force and permanent office. The general aim of the CJIC at this early stage was to gain broad support for the maintenance of the new law, which did not allow for

1274-864: The auspices of the Trades and Labour Council . Its stated aim was "to keep Oriental immigrants out of British Columbia." On 7 September, riots erupted in Vancouver when League members besieged Chinatown after listening to inflammatory racist speeches at City Hall (then on Main Street near Georgia Street). 4,000 people shouting racist slogans, by the time the riot reached City Hall, it had reached 8,000 people. The crowd marched into Chinatown, vandalizing and causing thousands of dollars' worth of damage. The mob then rampaged through Japantown , where they were confronted by residents armed with clubs and bottles with which they fought back. The organization flourished immediately following

1323-490: The continental United States. This was taken together with the Gentlemen's Agreement (1907–1908) with Japan , in which the Japanese government agreed not to issue passports for those laborers seeking work in the United States. This ended the immigration of much-maligned Japanese laborers. The league enhanced its activities by recruiting members, pledging political candidates to an exclusion law and by attempting to organize all of

1372-660: The exclusion clause so as to permit Japan an immigration quota. Their efforts were coordinated by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, which was mainly led by Wallace M. Alexander . Alexander was a businessman and trustee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace . The purposes of the CJIC were: 1) to keep advised as to propaganda and efforts directed against the national policy of restrictive immigration; 2) to be prepared with data and literature to meet argument and attack; 3) to actively oppose anti-exclusion movements through distribution of literature and presentation of

1421-409: The facts by speakers. To these ends, the CJIC kept in touch with the expressed sentiments of the Japanese, prepared and issued leaflets, and sought to “remove cause for difference of opinion among Americans and restore better feeling on the part of the Japanese." Support for Japanese exclusion was generally divided on the West Coast around the time when the CJIC was founded. A 1924 study conducted by

1470-669: The league was started they immediately began working to prevent any increase of Asians along the Western coastlines. The league used strong-arm methods and violence against Asians to try to ensure the rigorous enforcement of the Chinese Exclusion Act and expand its provisions to other Asian immigrants. They moved quickly to broaden their goals and aimed to prevent immigration of all people of East Asian origin. Their collective aims were to spread false anti-Asian information and to sway legislation towards restricting immigration. In response to their efforts General Ulysses S. Webb , Attorney General for

1519-453: The leasing of land. The latter amendment, represented the most demanding measures this far and was praised to close one and for all any and all loopholes that allowed for Asians to gain ownership. It passed overwhelmingly as a ballot initiative and went into effect on December 9, 1920. A sister organization with the same name was formed in Vancouver , British Columbia , on 12 August 1907 under

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1568-451: The meeting saying: "Some present owned their own little homes; while a majority know what it is to sit with the good wife of an evening, figure on approaching rent day and make up the cash on hand to see if there is enough to carry the family over to the next day." The Chronicle also mentioned of resilience coming from the men attending the meeting, angrily ranting against the foreign men who were preventing them from owning homes and achieving

1617-515: The passage of the immigration act, prominent Japanese citizens expressed their dissatisfaction with the exclusion clause. In response, the CJIC issued a pamphlet in which McClatchy argued that the Gentleman's Agreement had been “inefficient” and that the exclusion clause of the 1924 act was not due to racial prejudice . In December 1925, the executive committee of the FCCCA promulgated its new position on Japanese exclusion. Rather than continue to pursue

1666-427: The peoples ineligible under our laws…They do not come here with any desire or any intent to lose their racial or national identity…They never cease being Japanese…In pursuit of their intent to colonize this country with that race they seek to secure land and to found large families…They have greater energy, greater determination, and greater ambition than the other yellow and brown races ineligible to citizenship, and with

1715-467: The product of an overall atmosphere of white racism against Asians that prevailed in Canada and the United States from the 1800s on, culminating in the imposition of a head tax and other immigration policies designed to exclude Asians from Canada, as well as Japanese American internment and Japanese Canadian internment during World War II . In 1908, the Asiatic Exclusion League reprinted

1764-569: The right to attend San Francisco public schools, but as part of the Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907 , the Japanese government agreed to stop issuing passports to Japanese laborers. Applying active pressure on Congress, in March 1907, Congress approved amending existing immigration legislation, thereby allowing President Theodore Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 589 that ended migration by Japanese or Korean laborers from Mexico , Canada , and Hawaii to

1813-545: The riots, but began to dwindle by the following year. The AEL resurfaced in the early 1920s, this time claiming a membership of 40,000 in the province in the period leading up to the passage of the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923 , which ended virtually all Chinese immigration to Canada . In August 1921, there was a meeting held by the AEL bringing together church leaders, businessmen and veterans from World War I as well as representatives from six trade unions and

1862-488: The same low standards of living, hours of labor, use of women and child labor, they naturally make more dangerous competitors in an economic way. ” After the passage of the 1924 Immigration Act, McClatchy took formal leadership of the Japanese Exclusion League, which was reorganized and renamed the California Joint Immigration Committee, in part because of “the prejudice which the name of

1911-512: The segregated Oriental School which was established some two decades earlier in 1884. Many Japanese Americans challenged the school board's ruling by stating that the segregation of schools went against the Treaty of 1894 . The Treaty did not address education; however, it did guarantee that equal rights be given to Japanese Americans. As part of the Japanese Americans' challenge, they secured

1960-468: The state of California began to apply a markedly greater effort into enforcing laws that prohibited Asian ownership of property. AEL framed a campaign geared towards the San Francisco Board of Education to exclude Japanese and Koreans from public schools. The San Francisco school board ruled in October 1906, that all Japanese and Korean students would be forced to join their Chinese counterparts at

2009-677: The threat of “a flood of immigrants from all the colored races of Asia.” In February 1935, McClatchy published CJIC releases that claimed the Japanese government was distributing pro-Japanese textbooks in American public schools, particularly in Hawaii . No evidence was found to support this claim. After the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of July 1937 and ensuing breakout of full-scale war between Japan and China , American public opinion of Japan dropped sharply. On May 15, 1938, McClatchy died of

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2058-660: The union from 1909 to 1936, was a Principal Member of the CJIC. Representing farmers who ran small-scale operations, this organization opposed Japanese immigration due to the competition that Japanese farmers introduced to the state. Opposition to Japanese exclusion was strongest on the East Coast . The groups against exclusion and the CJIC's activities consisted of various national and regional clergy associations, businessmen, institutes of higher education, and peace activists. The most prominent of these were as follows. Led by former U.S. Attorney General George W. Wickersham , NCAJR

2107-626: The western states in a concerted movement that would force Congress to grant their aspirations. For the forces against congress the AEL created a platform of five planks to bring forth to Congress: "(1) Extending Chinese Exclusion Laws to exclude Japanese and Koreans, except those exempt by the terms of the Chinese Exclusion Act, from the United States and its territories; (2) the members are to pledge not to employ or patronize Japanese or to patronize any person or form employing Japanese or dealing with products coming from such firms; (3) actions of

2156-583: Was Chairman of the CJIC. NSGW was a brotherhood founded in 1876 whose membership was limited to those born in California. The organization was chiefly concerned with issues of nativism rather than the economic effects of Japanese immigration. John T. Regan of the NSGW was a Principal Member of the CJIC. The unskilled members of this 9,000-strong labor union were particularly opposed to Japanese immigrants, whom they believed undercut wages. Paul Scharrenberg , secretary of

2205-425: Was a pressure group representing the interests of nativists, veteran's organizations, women's clubs, labor unions, and farmers. Its operations were led and largely financed by its volunteer special representative Valentine S. McClatchy , a former newspaper publisher. McClatchy and his friend Hiram Johnson , the senior U.S. senator for California, were the leading figures in the effort to block Japanese immigration to

2254-516: Was founded in 1921 by Sidney L. Gulick , an educator who spent twenty-five years as a missionary in Japan before returning to the United States. Once the Immigration Act of 1924 had been passed, NCAJR distributed pamphlets written by Gulick and fellow missionary William Axling . Gulick argued that excluding Japanese immigrants was damaging relations with Japan and that the only way to address the problem

2303-469: Was sent to investigate the riots as well as victim claims for compensation. One claim was submitted by opium manufacturers, which sparked an investigation into the local drug scene by King. Particularly alarming to the minister was that opium consumption was apparently spreading to young white women. A federal law was soon passed "prohibiting the manufacture, sale and importation of opium for other than medicinal purposes." Both Asiatic Exclusion Leagues were

2352-459: Was to institute a quota. One line of attack used by the CJIC against NCAJR was that advocates for modification of the law were beholden to Japan on account of their past work and were therefore concerned more for the well-being of Japan rather than the United States. This ecumenical association of Protestant denominations publicly opposed the exclusion of Japanese immigrants and called for the immigration law to be changed so as to provide Japan with

2401-525: Was ultimately decided in Andrade's favor, marking a significant setback to Mexican exclusion. Asiatic Exclusion League The Asiatic Exclusion League (often abbreviated AEL ) was an organization formed in the early 20th century in the United States and Canada that aimed to prevent immigration of people of Asian origin. In May 1905, a mass meeting was held in San Francisco, California to launch

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