Washington Post
TEDDY’S ONLY TARIFF REFORM.
He comes out for an inheritance tax, an income tax, and mildly urges a ship subsidy and currency reform.
A bill providing for free trade with the Philippines passed the House in the last session, but it met its death in the Senate at the hands of members who feared that it would seriously affect the beet sugar industry. The President again recommends the adoption of this measure, or at least a reduction in the Philippine tariff; and, as one result of his visit to Porto Rico, he asks that the inhabitants be granted United States citizenship. A special message on this subject, it is said, will go to Congress later.
The Japanese Question.
His utterances on the Japanese question are perhaps the most sensational in the entire document. At least they have proven so, from two points of view. After paying a splendid tribute to the “little brown men” of the Orient, and advocating the adoption of naturalization laws in their behalf, he makes an attack upon the principle of state rights which has attracted more than ordinary attention. The exclusion of Japanese children from the public schools of San Francisco, which is discussed more at length elsewhere, has occupied a foremost place in the public mind for some time, and it is generally conceded to have largely resolved itself into a question of state rights, and the power of the federal government to force an observance of international treaties on the individual states, particularly where state laws alone are involved. The President demands that the civil and criminal laws of the federal government be so amended as to “enable the President to enforce the rights of aliens under treaties.”
Further along he made some nebulous threats about employing all the force of the army and navy in behalf of the Japanese, if necessary, and at once the California representatives were, themselves, up in arms. The President hastened to explain that he had been misunderstood—that he only meant to say that he would protect the Japanese from mob violence, by aid of the army and navy, if necessary, so the members from the Pacific slope are satisfied.
In the meantime the President has instructed the department of justice in California to make a test case of the state law segregating “the children of Mongolian parentage” from the whites in public schools, and it is believed that the matter will thus be settled.
The remainder of the message is devoted to the Rio conference, the situation in Cuba, Central America and Alaska, the maintenance of the navy at its present efficiency, and the approaching session of the second peace conference at the Hague.
Mr. Watson’s Views.
While various public men have selected a variety of sentences from the Presidential Message as being particularly striking, our readers may have a natural curiosity to know what sentence in the message of the President most impressed our Editor-in-Chief. His section of the Magazine had been closed before the President’s message was made public, but in a private letter to me, Mr. Watson remarks that the finest sentence to be found in Mr. Roosevelt’s recent message to Congress, is this: