Volume Vi Part 20 (1/2)

[Ill.u.s.tration: Portrait.]

Rear-Admiral Charles S. Sperry.

At Auckland Rear-Admiral Evans, who had spent forty-eight years in the navy, having reached the age limit of sixty-two years, was succeeded in command by Rear-Admiral Sperry. Unusual honors were accorded the fleet by j.a.pan. Each American wars.h.i.+p was escorted into the harbor of Yokohama by a j.a.panese vessel of the same cla.s.s and many other evidences of friends.h.i.+p were manifest during their visit. The fleet then proceeded to China, through the Suez Ca.n.a.l and the Strait of Gibraltar, and at the end of one year and sixty-eight days, after covering 45,000 miles, dropped anchor in Hampton Roads. The accomplishment of this feat, without precedent in naval annals, still farther contributed to the establishment of the prestige of the United States as a great world power.

In 1889 the government of the United States purchased from the Indians a large irregular tract of land not then occupied by them and erected it into a separate territory under the name of Oklahoma. When it was opened for settlement, April 22, 1889, a horde of settlers who had been waiting on the borders rushed in to take possession of the lands. Cities and towns sprang up as if by magic. The loose system of government exercised by the five civilized tribes became steadily more ineffective when the Indian Territory was thus brought into contact with white settlers. By 1893 affairs had become so confused that Congress decided to take steps toward the ultimate admission of the territory into the Union as a State. A committee of the Senate reported that the system of government exercised by the Indians cannot be continued, that it is not only non-American but it is radically wrong, and a change is imperatively demanded in the interest of the Indians and the whites alike, and such change cannot be much longer delayed, and that there can be no modification of the system. It cannot be reformed; it must be abandoned and a better one subst.i.tuted.

Gradually the five tribes--Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, and Seminole--were shorn of their governmental powers. Lands were allotted in severalty, certain coal, oil, and asphalt lands being reserved. A public school system was established and maintained by general taxation.

In his message to Congress, 1905, President Roosevelt recommended the immediate admission of Oklahoma and Indian Territory as one State and Arizona and New Mexico as another. A statehood bill embodying this recommendation was pa.s.sed by the House, but was amended in the Senate so as to strike out the provision relative to the admission of New Mexico and Arizona. Opposition to the admission of the last two territories as one State came princ.i.p.ally from the great mining companies of Arizona supported by the railroad corporations. They were in practical control of the territory with hundreds of millions of dollars in property. They were fearful of the loss of control and an increase of taxation under such a combination. Finally an act was pa.s.sed by Congress, in 1906, enabling the people of Oklahoma and Indian Territory to form a const.i.tution and State government and be admitted into the Union. The enabling act provided that all male persons over the age of twenty-one years who were citizens of the United States or who were members of any Indian nation or tribe in said Oklahoma and Indian Territory, and who had resided within the limits of said proposed State for at least six months next preceding the election, should be ent.i.tled to vote for delegate or serve as delegates in a const.i.tutional convention. A number of Indians were delegates in this convention. The const.i.tution, which was adopted by the voters, September 17, 1907, was greatly criticised on account of its radicalism. The new State, the forty-seventh, was formally proclaimed by the President in 1908. It has an area of 70,000 square miles. In 1900 the population was 800,000 which was increased to 1,500,000 by the date of admission. The wonderful climate and fertile soil together with the energy of its population have continued to attract thousands of immigrants each year.

The exclusion of j.a.panese students from the public schools of San Francisco, 1906, seemed for a time to augur grave results. One-half of the ninety j.a.panese who were in attendance upon these schools were above sixteen years of age and were taught in the cla.s.ses with little children. The order of the San Francisco school board excluding the j.a.panese was in harmony with the California law which permitted local school boards to segregate Mongolians in schools apart from those for white children. But this order nullified our treaty with j.a.pan which provided that the subjects of that nation should be granted the same personal rights when in this country that our own citizens enjoy.

President Roosevelt acted with promptness and decision. His att.i.tude was shown in his message to Congress, December, 1907, in which he said: ”To shut them out from the public schools is a wicked absurdity ... .

Throughout j.a.pan Americans are well treated and any failure on the part of Americans at home to treat the j.a.panese with a like courtesy and consideration is by just so much a confession of inferiority in our civilization ... . I ask fair treatment for the j.a.panese as I would ask fair treatment for Germans or Englishmen, Frenchmen, Russians, or Italians .... In the matter now before me, affecting the j.a.panese, everything that is in my power to do will be done, and all of the forces, military and civil, of the United States which I may lawfully employ will be so employed.”

But the problem was not settled, for early in the year 1909 anti-j.a.panese resolutions were brought before the legislatures of California, Nevada, Oregon, and two or three other Pacific States. The bills before the legislature of California provided:

1. For the segregation of j.a.panese and other Orientals in residential quarters at the option of munic.i.p.alities.

2. That aliens should not own land in California.

3. That aliens should not become directors in California corporations.

4. For separate schools for j.a.panese students.

On February 8, President Roosevelt sent a telegram to the Speaker of the California a.s.sembly giving the Government's views on the pending bills.

”The policy agreed to by both governments,” he said, ”aims at mutuality of obligation and behavior. In accordance with it the purpose is that the j.a.panese shall come here exactly as Americans go to j.a.pan, which is in effect that travellers, students, persons engaged in international business, men who sojourn for pleasure or study, and the like, shall have the freest access from one country to the other, and shall be sure of the best treatment, but that there shall be no settlement in ma.s.s by the people of either country in the other.” While there is nothing in the Const.i.tution or laws to prevent the President from urging a State legislature to vote for or against certain pending bills, such a course is unusual. It had become a national question, however, and the President's energy in handling the problem is worthy of praise.

According to the census of 1900, there were over 700,000 children under sixteen years of age at work in the mills, mines, factories, and sweat-shops of the United States. Nearly all of the States had child-labor laws, but they were ordinarily poorly enforced and no State was wholly free from the blight of this child slavery. While fourteen years was the minimum in most of the States, a few permitted the employment of children of ten years of age. In the majority of cases there was no legal closing hour after which children might not be employed.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Cotton-mill operatives so small that in order to reach their work they have to stand upon the machinery.

[Ill.u.s.tration: About thirty children, age 10 to 15.]

The spinning-room overseer and his flock in a Mississippi cotton-mill.

The subject was given national prominence through the Beveridge-Parsons Bill introduced into the Senate, December, 1907, marking an epoch in the history of federal legislation. This bill proposed to exclude from interstate commerce all products of mines and factories which employ children under the age of fourteen. The bill was not, however, brought up for discussion. The leading arguments of its opponents were as follows: (1) That the question was local only; (2) there was no reason to believe that federal would be better than State administration; (3) that it was limited in effect since it could not prevent children being employed in the manufacture of goods to be sold within a State. A bill pa.s.sed both houses and was signed by the President, authorizing the Secretary of Commerce and Labor ”to investigate and report on the industrial, social, moral, educational, and physical conditions of woman and child workers of the United States, wherever employed, with special reference to their age, hours of labor, term of employment, health, illiteracy, sanitary and other conditions surrounding their occupation, and the means employed for the protection of their health, persons, and morals.” An appropriation of $150,000 was made with which to carry on this investigation. Among the demands of the National Child Labor Committee have been a shorter day's work for children between the ages of fourteen and sixteen, health certificates for factory employment in dangerous trades, and the regulation of children in street trades.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Electric train, Long Island R. R.

The period of Mr. Roosevelt's administrations was notable on account of advances made in various other directions. Electricity was applied to new and larger uses. Power was transmitted to greater distances. Niagara Falls was made to produce an electric current employed leagues away.

Electric railways, radiating from cities, converted farms and sand-lots into suburban real estate quickly and easily accessible from the great centres. Telephone service was extended far into country parts, and, with the rural free delivery of mail, brought farmers into quick and inexpensive communication with the outside world, robbing the farm of what was once both its chief attraction and its greatest inconvenience--isolation.