The policy of the United States at the time won no little praise from the Chinese government. Having no territorial ambitions in the Empire, the administration at Washington, through Mr. John Hay, Secretary of State, was able to announce that the United States favored an "open door" for trade and the maintenance of the territorial integrity of China. "The policy of the Government of the United States," said Mr. Hay to the Powers, in the summer of 1900, "is to seek a solution which may bring about permanent safety and peace to China, preserve Chinese territorial and administrative entity, protect all rights guaranteed to friendly powers by treaty and international law, and safeguard for the world the principle of equal and impartial trade with all parts of the Chinese empire." This friendly word, which was much appreciated by China, was later supplemented by the generous action of the United States government in returning to that country a large sum of money which had been collected as an indemnity for the injury to American rights in the Boxer uprising, and was discovered to be an overcharge due to excessive American claims.
While thus developing American interests in the Orient, the United States government was much embarrassed by the legislation of some of the western states against Orientals. Chinese and Japanese laborers were excluded from the country by law or agreements, but in spite of this fact there were large numbers of Orientals on the coast. This was resented by many whites, particularly trade unionists with whom the cheap labor came into competition, and from time to time laws were enacted by state legislatures that were alleged to violate the rights which the United States had guaranteed to the Chinese or Japanese by treaties with their respective countries.
Such a dispute occurred a few years ago over an attempt to exclude Japanese children from the regular public schools in San Francisco, and again in 1912 in connection with a law of California relative to the acquisition of lands by aliens--the naturalization of Orientals being forbidden by Federal law. These legal disputes arose from the fact that the Federal government has the power to make treaties with foreign countries relative to matters which are entirely within the control of state legislatures. The discriminations against the Orientals, coupled with the pressure of American interests in the Far East and the presence of American dominion in the Philippines, caused no little friction between certain sections of the United States and of Japan; and there were some who began, shortly after the Spanish War, to speak of the "impending conflict" in the Orient.