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 1905, the Board of Education of San Francisco passed the following resolution:

"That the Board of Education is determined in its efforts to effect the establishment of separate schools for Chinese and Japanese pupils, not only for the purpose of relieving the congestion at present prevailing in our schools, but also for the higher end that our children should not be placed in any position where their youthful impressions may be affected by association with pupils of the Mongolian race." On October 1, 1906, the Board took the next step and adopted this resolution: "That in accordance with Article X, Section 1662, of the school law of California, principals are hereby directed to send all Chinese, Japanese or Korean children to the Oriental Public School, situated on the south side of Cary street between Powell and Mason streets, on and after Monday, October 15, 1906."

On the day the latter rule went into effect there were 28,736 school children in San Francisco, of whom ninety-three were Japanese distributed in twenty-three primary and grammar schools of the city[9] and nearly half the Japanese children were in two of the twenty-three schools. When the primary schools, except the Oriental, were closed to the Japanese children the Japanese residents became indignant. They appealed to their consul, and he, to their ambassador at Washington. The latter, in turn, called on the President, reporting the matter at the same time to the home government. Alarmists began to talk of war with Japan. President Roosevelt dispatched Secretary Metcalf to California to make investigations. To use the President's words, "I authorized and directed Secretary Met