In accordance with your request of yesterday, I took occasion when
consulting with the Secretary about the California question, last night,
to inquire of him when and how he had presented to the Cabinet the
question raised by the California Initiative Petition. He said that he
brought up the subject just three weeks ago (May 25th). In reply to a
further question, he said that he had presented the matter on the basis
of a memorandum which I had prepared by his direction at that time.
This evidently refers to the attached memorandum epitomizing the
essential points of the initiative proposal.
[Enclosure]
Memorandum by the Chief of the Division of Far
Eastern Affairs, Department of State (MacMurray)
[
Washington
,
undated.
]
Mr. Secretary: The initiative proposal now
circulating in California, in the latest draft available to the
Department (that of May 14, 1920) contemplates two fundamental
purposes:—
- (1)
- o prevent the holding of agricultural lands by aliens not
eligible to citizenship; and
- (2)
- o prevent evasions of the existing restrictions upon their
right of holding lands, through the employment of guardians
or trustees or holding companies.
[Page 2]
Both of these objects are known to be directed against the Japanese;
but in both cases the measure is so framed as to avoid any-specific
discrimination on the grounds of race or nationality, by making use
of the distinction established by fundamental Federal law between
those who are and those who are not eligible to American
citizenship, and of the literal wording of our Treaty of 1911 with
Japan, which does not mention the right of holding land for other
than residential and commercial purposes.
The measure proposes to exclude Japanese from even the present right
to hold land under three year leases, by providing (Section 2) that
aliens not eligible to citizenship “may acquire, possess, enjoy and
transfer real property, or any interest therein, in this State, in
the manner and to the extent and for the purpose prescribed by any
treaty now existing between the Government of the United States and
the nation or country of which such alien is a citizen or subject,
and not otherwise.” In its note to the Japanese Ambassador of July
16, 1913,4 the Department stated unequivocally that
the Treaty of 1911 “does not grant the right to lease agricultural
lands at all.”
Sections three and four of the proposed measure are aimed against the
practice of appointing, as guardians or trustees for American born
minor children, natural or legal persons who are Japanese or which
are constituted with a majority interest in favor of Japanese.
The other provisions of the measure involve merely matters of detail
in carrying out these two provisions.
