The worst possible course in such a case is to fail to insist on the right of the Nation, to offer no action of the Nation to remedy what is wrong, and yet to try to coax the State not to do what it is mistakenly encouraged to believe it has the power to do, when no other alternative is offered.
After a good deal of discussion, we came to an entirely satisfactory conclusion.

The obnoxious school legislation was abandoned, and I secured an arrangement with Japan under which the Japanese themselves prevented any immigration to our country of their laboring people, it being distinctly understood that if there was such emigration the United States would at once pass an exclusion law.

It was of course infinitely better that the Japanese should stop their own people from coming rather than that we should have to stop them; but it was necessary for us to hold this power in reserve.
Unfortunately, after I left office, a most mistaken and ill-advised policy was pursued towards Japan, combining irritation and inefficiency, which culminated in a treaty under which we surrendered this important and necessary right.

It was alleged in excuse that the treaty provided for its own abrogation; but of course it is infinitely better to have a treaty under which the power to exercise a necessary right is explicitly retained rather than a treaty so drawn that recourse must be had to the extreme step of abrogating if it ever becomes necessary to exercise the right in question.
The arrangement we made worked admirably, and entirely achieved its purpose.

No small part of our success was due to the fact that we succeeded in impressing on the Japanese that we sincerely admired and respected them, and desired to treat them with the utmost consideration.
I cannot too strongly express my indignation with, and abhorrence of, reckless public writers and speakers who, with coarse and vulgar insolence, insult the Japanese people and thereby do the greatest wrong not only to Japan but to their own country.
Such conduct represents that nadir of underbreeding and folly.