Asiatic Exclusion League
The Asiatic Exclusion League (often abbreviated AEL) was an organization formed in the early 20th century in the United States and Canada that aimed to prevent immigration of people of Asian origin. United States In May 1905, a mass meeting was held in San Francisco, California to launch the Japanese and Korean Exclusion League. Among those attending the first meeting were labor leaders and European immigrants, Patrick Henry McCarthy of the Building Trades Council of San Francisco, Andrew Furuseth, and Walter McCarthy of the International Seamen's Union. Following the first meeting, the San Francisco Chronicle published a picture of laborers who collected at the meeting saying: "Some present owned their own little homes; while a majority know what it is to sit with the good wife of an evening, figure on approaching rent day and make up the cash on hand to see if there is enough to carry the family over to the next day." The Chronicle also mentioned of resilience coming from the men attending the meeting, angrily ranting against the foreign men who were preventing them from owning homes and achieving a middle class life. In December 1907, the organization was renamed the Asiatic Exclusion League to include the exclusion of Indians and Chinese immigrants in their agenda. Advocating for the "white man's country" and the prohibition of Asian labor immigration, the AEL set up branches across the Pacific coast of North America, achieving transnational status and cross-border labor organization. Once the league was started they immediately began working to prevent any increase of Asians along the Western coastlines. The league used strong-arm methods and violence against Asians to try to ensure the rigorous enforcement of the Chinese Exclusion Act and expand its provisions to other Asian immigrants. They moved quickly to broaden their goals and aimed to prevent immigration of all people of East Asian origin. Their collective aims were to spread false anti-Asian information and to sway legislation towards restricting immigration. In response to their efforts General Ulysses S. Webb, Attorney General for the state of California began to apply a markedly greater effort into enforcing laws that prohibited Asian ownership of property. Education AEL framed a campaign geared towards the San Francisco Board of Education to exclude Japanese and Koreans from public schools. The San Francisco school board ruled in October 1906, that all Japanese and Korean students would be forced to join their Chinese counterparts at the segregated Oriental School which was established some two decades earlier in 1884. Many Japanese Americans challenged the school board's ruling by stating that the segregation of schools went against the Treaty of 1894. The Treaty did not address education; however, it did guarantee that equal rights be given to Japanese Americans. As part of the Japanese Americans' challenge, they secured the right to attend San Francisco public schools, but as part of the Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907, the Japanese government agreed to stop issuing passports to Japanese laborers. Government Applying active pressure on Congress, in March