In 1913 the California state legislature proposed the California Alien Land Law of 1913 that would exclude Japanese non-citizens from owning any land in the state. (The Japanese farmers put the title in the names of their American born children, who were U.S. citizens.) The Japanese government protested strongly. Previously, President Taft had managed to halt similar legislation but President Woodrow Wilson paid little attention until Tokyo's protest arrived. He then sent Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan to California; Bryan was unable to get California to relax the restrictions. Wilson did not use any of the legal remedies available to overturn the California law on the basis that it violated the 1911 treaty with Japan. Japan's reaction at both official and popular levels was anger at the American racism that simmered into the 1920s and 1930s.