given that violence against Japanese would be put down. Suits
were brought both in the California State courts and in the
Federal courts there to uphold the treaty rights of Japan. Mr.
Victor H. Metcalf, the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, himself a
Californian, was sent to San Francisco to make a study of the
whole situation. It was made abundantly clear to the people of
San Francisco and the Coast that the provision of the Federal
Constitution making treaties a part of the supreme law of the
land, with which the Constitution and laws of no State can
interfere, would be strictly enforced. The report of Secretary
Metcalf showed that the school authorities of San Francisco had
done not only an illegal thing but an unnecessary and a stupid
thing.

Meanwhile Roosevelt had been working with equal vigor upon the
other side of the problem. He esteemed it precisely as important
to protect the Californians from the Japanese as to protect the
Japanese from the Californians. As in the Alaskan and Venezuelan
cases, he proceeded without beat of drum or clash of cymbal. The
matter was worked out in unobtrusive conferences between the
President and the State Department and the Japanese
representatives in Washington. It was all friendly, informal,
conciliatory--but the Japanese did not fail to recognize the
inflexible determination behind this courteous friendliness. Out
of these conferences came an informal agreement on the part of
the Japanese Government that no passports would be issued to
Japanese workingmen permitting them to leave Japan for ports of
the United States. It was further only necessary to prevent
Japanese coolies from coming into the United States through
Canada and Mexico. This was done by executive order just two days