KAHN GIVES STAND ON IMMIGRATION

Says Western Opposition Is Not Based on Race Hatred but Is Economic.

SCORES JAPANESE POLICY

Universal Service, Special by Leased Wire.

WASHINGTON, Thursday, Aug. 7. -- Congressman Julius Kahn, chairman of the House committee on military affairs yesterday issued a statement on the Shantung question. Mr. Kahn's statement in part follows:

"As one of the representatives from the state of California, and representing in part the people of the great Western section of this country, I want to take the opportunity to state in most emphatic terms the opposition to Oriental immigration in the West is not and never has been a racial question.

"With us it is entirely an economic question. The problem of Oriental immigration on the Pacific Coast has been an acute one for many years. I repeat there is no particle of hatred or race prejudice behind it. There is not now and there never has been any objection to the coming to our shores of Japanese of the socalled Shizuko class.

Object to Coolies.

"This class comprises the preferential people, the mechanics, bankers, scholars and students. The objection is altogether to the laboring class -- the coolie -- we still feel that our white working men cannot compete with Oriental labor.

"The latter have an entirely different standard of living. They can, and constantly do, underbid the Caucasian in almost every field of endeavor. It is for this reason alone that objection is made to the immigrant from the Orient.

"China long ago acknowledged our right to restrict the coming of Chinese coolies to our shores.

"Japan has likewise, through what is known as the gentleman's agreement, recognized the right of the United States to regulate the coming of Japanese laborers. If there be a lurking suspicion in any part of the world that that our attitude in this matter is due to race prejudice it ought to be dispelled without delay.

Calls It Smoke Screen.

"Personally, I object most emphatically to this matter being used as a smoke screen to mask the real intention of any country in the world.

"We in the United States, conscious of the fact that in our dealings with Oriental countries we have not been most emphatically object to any misrepresentation of our attitude at this time.

"Nor do I believe that the English colonies of Australia and New Zealand and the province of British Columbia in Canada have had any different motive in the passage of their exclusion laws. They, like us, are trying to protect their laboring class from the competition of the Asiatic coolies.

"Therefore the cry for 'racial equality' should have no terrors for the people of the United States. But surely Japan does not object to our immigration laws. She herself forbids the entrance into Japan of laborers coming from the countries who underbid Japanese laborers in her own territory.

"She has in recent months deported Chinese workmen from Shimonoseki who were brought from China to work at the Miroshima saw mill there. Evidently she treats the matter of the admission of cheap Chinese labor into Japan as an economic question even as we do with respect to Oriental laborers who seek to enter our country. The question of race equality is not involved in Japan any more than it is in the United States or in the immigration laws of the two countries.

"In November, 1917, about eight months after we had broken off diplomatic relations with Germany and had induced China to do likewise, the Lansing-Ishii agreement was negotiated at Washington. There is no record extant, at least none has been made public which discloses the fact that either President Wilson or Mr. Lansing had been informed by the Japanese ambassador, Baron Ishii, of the secret agreements between Japan and the governments of Great Britain, France, Russia and Italy under the terms of which these governments had agreed to support Japan's claims in Shantung.

Considers it Questionable.

"If Viscount Ishii failed to inform our government of the existence of these agreements, signed in the latter part of February or the early part of March, 1917, and after our country and China had severed diplomatic relations with the imperial government of Germany, was it not a questionable diplomatic practice on the part of Japan to have kept us in ignorance of the agreements to overrule our obligations to China?

"America, during its comparatively brief history, has formulated two distinct fundamental foreign policies. One is known as the Monroe Doctrine, the other the Hay Doctrine. In principle the two documents are practically identical. One refers to the countries of Central and South America, the other to China. The Monroe Doctrine was intended to protect the Latin-American states against European aggression. It was never intended to obstruct or to regulate the commerce or social relations between the countries on the Western Hemisphere and the countries of Europe and Asia.

"As a matter of fact the countries in Europe in many instances have developed a much more extensive trade with Latin America than has our own country.

No Special Privilege.

"Under the Monroe Doctrine our citizens are not given any superior or preferential position in regard to the commerce or the financial and social relations of the nations of the Western Hemisphere.

"The Hay document was intended to prevent injustice to China. It attempted to preserve the territorial integrity of the Chinese Empire and secure the maintenance of the principle of equal commercial opportunity for all nations that might desire to secure trade in China. The latter principle became known as the policy of the "open door." There was never any attempt either in the Monroe Doctrine or in the Hay Doctrine to secure special privileges for ourselves in the countries of Latin-America or China."