provided that the subjects of that nation should be granted the same
personal rights when in this country that our own citizens enjoy.
President Roosevelt acted with promptness and decision. His attitude was
shown in his message to Congress, December, 1907, in which he said: "To
shut them out from the public schools is a wicked absurdity . . . .
Throughout Japan Americans are well treated and any failure on the part
of Americans at home to treat the Japanese with a like courtesy and
consideration is by just so much a confession of inferiority in our
civilization . . . . I ask fair treatment for the Japanese as I would
ask fair treatment for Germans or Englishmen, Frenchmen, Russians, or