The gravest defect of the Japanese is their lack of training in democratic institutions. Having been given little opportunity to share in public or political activities in Japan, their understanding and training in civic duties is notoriously weak. Obviously this must hinder the process of Americanization to a great extent. To counteract this weakness the dissemination among them of a knowledge of American civics is necessary. It may be most effectively done by allowing them to share in a measure the American communal activities. But this is a privilege denied them.
The foregoing discussion of the cultural conditions of the Japanese in America is important, not in determining whether or not the Japanese immigrants are qualified to become American citizens--for this is out of the question at present, since the right of naturalization is not granted to them--but to show what is the character of the influence which is exerted upon the native-born Japanese, Americans by birth, by their parents. The core of the Japanese problem in America is, in our opinion, whether or not American citizens of Japanese descent can become worthy Americans. Those immigrants who came from Japan will die out in the course of time, and further immigration can be stopped. In this way it is possible to curtail to a minimum the number of alien Japanese in the United States. But the American-born Japanese are American citizens and they are here to stay. Whether these young Americans will become a strong and successful element of the American people or whether they will degenerate to a kind of parasite and become America's "thorns in the flesh" is really a question of cardinal importance. But this depends much on the freedom and opportunity which are extended to their parents in this country. Thus the treatment of the Japanese in California or elsewhere in the United States assumes an aspect of vital significance to the nation. It is not a question of the abstract principles of justice or equality alone, but one of concrete and vital interest to America's own welfare.
It is in this connection that all sorts of pressure and oppression--economic, political, social, and spiritual--exerted on the Japanese population, become most objectionable and harmful. These discriminatory efforts against the Japanese obstruct the Americanization of native-born Japanese in two ways. They prevent the parents from becoming well-to-do and refined people, and from getting permanent occupation and homes, all of which are essential if parents are to bring up their sons and daughters to a respectable standard. They also unconsciously imprint on the tender minds of children the idea that their fathers and mothers were not treated kindly in America, whose loyal citizens they are destined to become. What do those exclusionists really mean, when they insist that the Japanese should be given no opportunity to progress either in agriculture or industry because they are unassimilable people? Do they mean thereby to check Japanese immigration? They surely cannot mean this, for there are other and more friendly ways of achieving their object, since Japan has more than once expressed her willingness to coöperate with America in this respect. What else can they mean but that they want to hinder the American citizens of Japanese descent from becoming worthy Americans by ostracizing and persecuting their parents?