7.1. Japanese Segregation http://www.ck12.org
Message to Congress –Theodore Roosevelt
Source: Roosevelt’s annual message to Congress, December 4, 1906.
Here and there a most unworthy feeling has manifested itself toward the Japanese [such as] shutting them out of
the common schools of San Francisco [and] mutterings against them in one or two other places, because of their
efficiency as workers. To shut them out from the public schools is a wicked absurdity.
It’s absurd that the mob of a single city may at any time perform acts of lawless violence that would plunge us into
war. A city should not be allowed to commit a crime against a friendly nation.
Questions:
1.Sourcing:What kind of document is this?
2.Sourcing:What do you think the intended audience was?- Do you trust what Roosevelt says in this document?
Roosevelt Letter to Secretary Metcalf
Source: Letter from Roosevelt to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, Victor Metcalf, who went to San Francisco
to investigate the Japanese segregation crisis, November 27, 1906.
The White House
Washington, Nov 27, 1906
My Dear Secretary Metcalf:
....I had a talk with the Japanese Ambassador and told him that in my judgment the only way to prevent constant
friction between the United States and Japan was to keep the movement of the citizens of each country into the other
as restricted as possible to students, travelers, business men and the like. It was necessary that no Japanese laboring
menis, of the coolie classinto the United States.... The Ambassador agreed with this view and said that he had always
been against Japanese coolies going to America or Hawaii. Of course, San Francisco’s action will make it difficult
for most Japanese to agree with this view. But I hope my message will smooth over their feelings....
Sincerely yours,
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Questions:
1.Sourcing:What kind of document is this?
2.Sourcing:What do you think the intended audience was?- Do you trust what Roosevelt says in this document?