Franklin Roosevelt on Racial Intermarriage as the One Good Reason to Ban Japanese Immigration

Somebody on Twitter noted that the Franklin Roosevelt’s 1925 column below wasn’t available anywhere on the Internet except via the Wayback Machine. I offered to post it. I’ve done so here and at https://rasmusen.org/special/Roosevelt_Macon_Telegraph.htm . You may also be interested in William L. Neumann’s “Franklin D. Roosevelt and Japan, 1913-1933,” Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 22, No. 2 (1953), pp. 143-153. Note that long before he was President from 1933 to 1945, the 31-year-old Roosevelt served, after two terms as a New York State Senator, as Assistant Secretary of the Navy 1913-1920.

I have boldfaced certain passages below that I found particularly interesting.

We have been reading during the past few days about the “attack” on Hawaii by part of the American Navy and the “defense” of the islands by another part and by the Army and local Militia. A few months ago the flamboyant public announcement of these maneuvers by the Administration in Washington caused a distinct flurry of public feeling and adverse criticism in Japan, and certainly did little to enhance the cause of peace between Japan and the United States. It was the manner of the announcement, rather than the actual holding of maneuvers by the Navy off our Pacific seaboard. Japan could have raised no possible argument if the maneuvers had been announced for what they were – the working out of the problem of the defense of the Pacific Coast in precisely the same broad manner as we have worked out problems on several occasions relating to the defense of the Atlantic Coast and adjoining waters. For Hawaii bears a somewhat similar relation to the Pacific seaboard, that Guantanamo and Porto Rico and the Virgin Islands do to the Atlantic Seaboard. In this connection the average American and the average Japanese have very cloudy and often erroneous points of view about the relations between the two countries. What could be more simple than for jingoes and trouble maker sand pessimists to point out that Japan is the dominant power in wealth and in military resources on the Western side of the Pacific, that the United States occupies the same position on the Eastern side, and that a clash of interest is inevitable. These dangerous agitators then point out the bogey of Japanese immigration and the Japanese infiltration into what they call our privileged commercial markets. Japanese jingoes, at the same time, complain of American insults through exclusion laws and the pretension of America to the control of the trade of China and other parts of the Far East.

Let us first examine that nightmare to many Americans, especially our friends in California, the growing population of Japanese on the Pacific slope. It is undoubtedly true that in the past many thousands of Japanese have legally or otherwise got into the United States, settled her and raised up children who became American citizens. Californians have properly objected on the sound basic ground that Japanese immigrants are not capable of assimilation into the American population. If this had throughout the discussion been made the sole ground for the American attitude all would have been well, and the people of Japan would today understand and accept our decision.

Anyone who has traveled in the Far East knows that the mingling of Asiatic blood with European or American blood produces, in nine cases out of ten, the most unfortunate results. There are throughout the East many thousands of so-called Eurasians – men and women and children partly of Asiatic blood and partly of European or American blood. These Eurasians are, as a common thing, looked down on and despised, both by the European and American who reside there, and by the pure Asiatic who lives there.

The argument works both ways. I know a great many cultivated, highly educated and delightful Japanese. They have all told me that they would feel the same repugnance and objection to having thousands of Americans settle in Japan and intermarry with the Japanese as I would feel in having large numbers of Japanese come over here and intermarry with the American population.

In this question, then, of Japanese exclusion from the United States, it is necessary only to advance the true reason – the undesirability of mixing the blood of the two peoples. This attitude would be fully understood in Japan, as they would have the same objection to Americans migrating to Japan in large numbers.

Unfortunately, Japanese exclusion has been urged for many other reasons – their ability to work for and live on much smaller wages than Americans – their willingness to work for longer hours, their driving out of native Americans from certain fruit growing or agricultural areas. The Japanese themselves do not understand these arguments and are offended by them.

As to commercial rivalry as the cause for a clash between the two nations, I fail utterly to see that the argument has weight. Our principal commercial rival throughout the years has been Great Britain, and yet this has not been advanced as a reason for a pending war with her. The civilization of Japan is far older than our own, and in the field of the philosophy of life the Japanese regard us as children who are passing through the stage which they, themselves, underwent 1,000 years ago. Yet it was not until a generation ago that the Japanese nation decided to emulate the Western nations in material things. Since that time, Japan has made almost unbelievable strides. She manufactures today almost every known article, and is competing with American and European nations in selling these articles all over the world. It is true that the cost of manufacture in Japan is, on the whole, far below what it is here, but it is true also that the cost of manufacture in many European countries is also far lower than in the United States. As Japan advances in successful materialism her wage scale, her conditions of living, and her cost of production, therefore, will increase until the difference is no longer so great.

In other words, economic conditions tend to seek the same level. We are, today, competitors with Japan in many of the markets of the world. Is that a cause for war? Often I have thought that those materialists who assert that all wars are caused by economic and trade rivalries ought to be put in the insane asylum. History shows us many wars in which trade rivalry had but little part. History shows us, on the other hand, countless wars which were brought about by prejudice, by a misstatement of facts – by religious fanaticism – by hastily spoken words.

The Japanese people and the American people are both opposed to intermarriage of the two races – there can be no quarrel there. The Japanese people and the American people do not want to invade each other’s countries – there can be no quarrel there. The Japanese people and the American people both seek trade expansion in legitimate channels and under fair conditions of world wide competition – that is not a cause for war. The Japanese Navy is at perfect liberty to carry out so-called strategic problems involving the defense of their coast. We have the same right with respect to our own coasts. But it is hardly tactful for the American Government to give its own citizens, and the Japanese nation as well, the impression in seeking publicity for the Navy, that we are trying to find out how easy or how difficult it would be for the Japanese Navy to occupy Hawaii prepatory to a descent on our own Pacific coast!

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT Warm Springs, Ga.

[Macon Telegraph, April 30, 1925]