Department of State,
Washington, June 6,
1900.
Personal.]
[Inclosure.]
Dr. Wyman to
Mr. Gage.
Treasury Department,
Washington, June 3,
1900.
Sir; The Bureau has received letters of May
25 and June 1 from the honorable the Secretary of State, addressed
to yourself, and inclosing copies of notes from the Japanese chargé
d’affaires at this capital, complaining of the action of the
Surgeon-General of the Marine-Hospital Service in prohibiting
Japanese subjects from leaving San Francisco without being
inoculated as a precaution against the bubonic plague, and
protesting against the alleged discrimination against Japanese
subjects in San Francisco in the enforcement by the national and
local health authorities of the measures adopted to prevent the
spread of this disease.
I have respectfully to state that no orders have been issued by this
Bureau requiring these preventive inoculations. As a temporary
measure, the plague having been officially declared by the local
board of health existent in Chinatown, San Francisco,
[Page 746]
inspections and some
restraints of travel were imposed in regard to Asiatics, inasmuch as
the plague had been found to exist only among the Chinese in
Chinatown, where also dwelt a number of Japanese. This action was
taken pending the declaration by the local board of health of an
infected area and the establishment of a cordon, and was necessary
for the protection of adjoining States because of the anticipated
exodus from Chinatown following the declaration of said local board.
It was an emergency measure and not intended to discriminate against
those who were not resident in Chinatown, and I have been informed
by Surgeon Kinyoun that in its enforcement exemptions were made in
favor of those who had not been within the infected area. Later the
local board of health, under authority of the board of supervisors,
declared the presence of plague in Chinatown and placed a cordon
around that section, and the orders above referred to were
rescinded.
There has never been an intent on the part of this Bureau to
discriminate against Japanese residents on account of their
nationality, and I am of the opinion that the carrying out of
certain measures by the local board of health has been erroneously
attributed to this Bureau or its representative at San Francisco.
That there might be no room for misunderstanding, I wired Surgeon
Kinyoun at San Francisco that the Bureau would not enforce, or
assist in enforcing, regulations which make race discriminations,
and have received a reply, under date of June 2, to the effect that
no racial discrimination is being made, so far as known to him, and
that any assertion that Japanese are still being inoculated or
prevented from leaving noninfected area is incorrect.
Walter Wyman,
Surgeon-General M. H.
S.
