t
not a word of all this had been put upon paper, and that if the German
Emperor would consent to arbitrate, the President would praise him
publicly for his broadmindedness. The Ambassador was still convinced
that no arbitration was conceivable.

But just twelve hours later he appeared at the White House, his face
wreathed in smiles. On behalf of his Imperial Master he had the honor to
request the President of the United States to act as arbitrator
between Germany and Venezuela. The orders to Dewey were never sent,
the President publicly congratulated the Kaiser on his loyalty to the
principle of arbitration, and, at Roosevelt's suggestion, the case went
to The Hague. Not an intimation of the real occurrences came out till
long after, not a public word or act marred the perfect friendliness of
the two nations. The Monroe Doctrine was just as unequivocally invoked
and just as inflexibly upheld as it had been by Grover Cleveland eight
years before in another Venezuelan case. But the quiet private warning
had been substituted for the loud public threat.

The question of the admission of Japanese immigrants to the United
States and of their treatment had long disturbed American international
relations. It became acute in the latter part of 1906, when the city of
San Francisco determined to exclude all Japanese pupils from the public
schools and to segregate them in a school of their own. This action
seemed to the Japanese a manifest violation of the rights guaranteed by
treaty. Diplomatic protests were instantly forthcoming at Washington;
and popular demonstrations against the United States boiled up in
Tokyo. For the third time there appeared splendid material for a serious
conflict with a great power which might conceivably lead to active
hostilities. From such beginnings wars have come before now.

The President was convinced that the Californians were utterly wrong
in what they had done, but perfectly right in the underlying conviction
from which their action sprang. He saw that justice and good faith
demanded that the Japanese in California be protected in their treaty
rights, and that the Californians be protected from the immigration of
Japanese laborers in mass. With characteristic promptness and vigor
he set forth these two considerations and took action to make them
effective. In his message to Congress in December he declared: "In the
matter now before me, affecting the Japanese, everything that is in my
power