"You are forgetting the shibboleths," Kay ventured to remind him.

"No; I am merely explaining their detrimental effect upon our
development. The Japanese are an exceedingly clever and resourceful
race. Brilliant psychologists and astute diplomatists, they have taken
advantage of our pet shibboleth, to the effect that all men are equal.
Unfortunately, we propounded this monstrous and half-baked ideal to the
world, and a sense of national vanity discourages us from repudiating
it, although we really ought to. And as I remarked before, we possess
an alert national conscience in international affairs, while the Jap
possesses none except in certain instances where it is obvious that
honesty is the best policy. I think I am justified, however, in
stating that, upon the whole, Japan has no national conscience in
international affairs. Her brutal exploitation of China and her
merciless and bloody conquest of Korea impel that point of view from an
Anglo-Saxon. When, therefore, the Tokyo government says, in effect, to
us: 'For one hundred and forty-four years you have proclaimed to the
world that all men are equal. Very well. Accept us. We are a
world-power. We are on a basis of equality with you,' and we lack the
courage to repudiate this pernicious principle, we have tacitly
admitted their equality. That is, the country in general has, because
it knows nothing of the Japanese race--at least not enough for
moderately practical understanding of the biological and economic
issues involved. Indeed, for a long time, we Californians dwelt in the
same fool's paradise as the remainder of the states. Finally, members
of the Japanese race became so numerous and aggressive here that we
couldn't help noticing them. Then we began to study them, and now,
what we have learned amazes and frightens us, and we want the sister
states to know all that we have learned, in order that they may