Miss Jane Addams, of Chicago, founder of Hull House, declared before an audience in Kansas City, that she had discovered in her world tour of a year ago that the United States was generally regarded as tactless in its legislation affecting international matters. Miss Addams, herself, admitted she was persuaded to the same belief, declaring that "America is inclined to be tactless," that "her international legislation sometimes is offensive to her sister nations, but she does not consider their reaction," for "she judges her own acts, and is surprised when some nation judges to the contrary."
Continuing, Miss Addams said she found abroad "an astonishing lack of cordiality toward the United States." She recalled appearing before an audience in Calcutta composed largely of Hindus. Following her lecture, she was asked by a Hindu whether Americans still believed all men were born free and equal. This was because of American legislation having been enacted to forbid the naturalization of Hindus.
Miss Addams also was in Japan. She said that when she addressed the Japanese she wished in her heart "my country had found some other way of dealing with their problems." She felt that "it was too bad we excluded them," and that "we might have accommodated a small quota" which "could have been widely scattered."
The questions raised herein seem to involve, in Miss Addams' opinion, international matters. They do not. Instead, such legislation as she has criticized has to do with a purely domestic condition. Neither the Hindu nor the Japanese may correctly hold that America's exclusion of them and refusal of the privilege of naturalization was "their problem." It was America's problem. The alien in his own country cannot possibly have any rights in America. How can he if he is not here? European statesmen are agreed that America's immigration law was domestic and not international. The only international feature it possibly could have is that it affects aliens by permitting a select few to come and by keeping all others out. And that is America's right. Japan, herself, is now excluding Chinese coolies because she does not want them. She does not want them because they can live and work more cheaply than the Japanese. Thus Japan seeks to protect her own standard of living against the Chinese coolies just as America did against both the Hindus and the Japanese.
Miss Addams did not say what was her reply to the Hindu regarding equality. She ought to know by this time that all men are not created free and equal. There are differences between peoples, races, nationalities and they have got to be considered on the basis of a superiority automatically creating an inferiority. Foreigners may say America is tactless and Miss Addams and others may agree, but that does not prove the case. A government is not necessarily tactless when it seeks honestly to protect itself and its people against such inequalities as common sense observation unmistakably reveals.
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