I am prompted to say this by the attitude of hostility here and there assumed toward the Japanese in this country.  This hostility is sporadic and is limited to a very few places.  Nevertheless, it is most discreditable to us as a people, and it may be fraught with the gravest consequences to the nation.  The friendship between the United States and Japan has been continuous since the time, over half a century ago, when Commodore Perry, by his expedition to Japan, first opened the islands to western civilization.  Since then the growth of Japan has been literally astounding.  There is not only nothing to parallel it, but nothing to approach it in the history of civilized mankind.  Japan has a glorious and ancient past.  Her civilization is older than that of the nations of northern Europe—­the nations from whom the people of the United States have chiefly sprung.  But fifty years ago Japan’s development was still that of the Middle Ages.  During that fifty years the progress of the country in every walk in life has been a marvel to mankind, and she now stands as one of the greatest of civilized nations; great in the arts of war and in the arts of peace; great in military, in industrial, in artistic development and achievement.  Japanese soldiers and sailors have shown themselves equal in combat to any of whom history makes note.  She has produced great generals and mighty admirals; her fighting men, afloat and ashore, show all the heroic courage, the unquestioning, unfaltering loyalty, the splendid indifference to hardship and death, which marked the Loyal Ronins; and they show also that they possess the highest ideal of patriotism.  Japanese artists of every kind see their products eagerly sought for in all lands.  The industrial and commercial development of Japan has been phenomenal; greater than that of any other country during the same period.  At the same time the advance in science and philosophy is no less marked.  The admirable management of the Japanese Red Cross during the late war, the efficiency and humanity of the Japanese officials, nurses, and doctors, won the respectful admiration of all acquainted with the facts.  Through the Red Cross the Japanese people sent over $100,000 to the sufferers of San Francisco, and the gift was accepted with gratitude by our people.  The courtesy of the Japanese, nationally and individually, has become proverbial.  To no other country has there been such an increasing number of visitors from this land as to Japan.  In return, Japanese have come here in great numbers.  They are welcome, socially and intellectually, in all our colleges and institutions of higher learning, in all our professional and social bodies.  The Japanese have won in a single generation the right to stand abreast of the foremost and most enlightened peoples of Europe and America; they have won on their own merits and by their own exertions the right to treatment on a basis of full and frank equality.  The overwhelming mass of our people cherish a lively regard and respect for