An effort to mix
together, out of hand, the peoples representing the culminating points
of two such lines of divergent cultural development would be fraught
with peril; and this, I repeat, because the two are different, not
because either is inferior to the other. Wise statesmen, looking to the
future, will for the present endeavor to keep the two nations from mass
contact and intermingling, precisely because they wish to keep each in
relations of permanent good will and friendship with the other.
Exactly what was done in the particular crisis to which I refer is shown
in the following letter which, after our policy had been successfully
put into execution, I sent to the then Speaker of the California lower
house of the Legislature:
THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, February 8, 1909.
HON P. A. STANTON, Speaker of the Assembly, Sacramento, California:
I trust there will be no misunderstanding of the Federal Government's
attitude. We are jealously endeavoring to guard the interests of
California and of the entire West in accordance with the desires of our
Western people. By friendly agreement with Japan, we are now carrying
out a policy which, while meeting the interests and desires of the
Pacific slope, is yet compatible, not merely with mutual self-respect,
but with mutual esteem and admiration between the Americans and
Japanese.
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