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THE CHINESE
BILL |
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Harpers
Weekly, April 1, 1882, page 194 (Editorial) |
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Mr. Taylor, the successor in the House of General
Garfield, made an admirable speech against the Chinese bill during the late debate, in
which he exposed the singular inconsistency of the arguments advanced to sustain it. The
Chinese are represented in one breath as a rotten race; the victims of hideous immorality,
and in the next as a people who are going to drive intelligent and sturdy American
laborers out of the field. At one moment every man, woman, and child on the Pacific coast
loathes and detests the leprous interlopers, and the next the same protesting people
neglect the honest American and intrust the care of their homes and of their children to
the leprous pariahs because they can be hired more cheaply. They are alleged to be a class
of persons who will never assimilate with us like other foreigners. But those who assert
this forget to state that our laws prevent assimilation by making the Chinese incapable of
naturalization. Moreover, if they are so disreputable and dangerous and degrading, and if
the Pacific population is so unanimously opposed to their coming, that population has an
obvious and easy remedy in its own hands. It has only to refuse to hire the lepers, and
they will come no longer. Part of the complaint is that they do not wish to stay longer
than will enable them to pick up a little money. The hope of wages alone unwillingly
brings them. If they can get no wages, they will be only too glad to stay at home.
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E
Pluribus Unum (Except The Chinese)
April 1, 1882, page 207
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The only ground upon which the bill prohibiting the
voluntary immigration of free laborers into this country can be sustained is self-defense.
Every nation may justly decide for itself what foreigners it will tolerate, and upon what
terms. But the honor and character of the nation will be tested by the motives of
exclusion. Thus in 1803 a bill passed Congress which prohibited bringing to the country
certain negro and mulatto immigrants. But it was a bill which sprang from the fears of
slave-holders, and which was intended to protect slavery. In the same year South Carolina
repealed her State law prohibiting the slave-trade. The objection was to black freemen,
not to black slaves; and it is not legislation to which an American can recur with pride,
because it was an inhuman abuse of an undoubted national right. We may, unquestionably,
determine who shall come, and upon what conditions, as we may decide upon what terms the
new-comers shall be naturalized. Against a palpable peril arising from the advent of
foreigners, we may justly defend ourselves. Now during the last twentyfive years the
Chinese immigrationand a large part of it was cooly trafficamounted to 228,000
persons, of which more than a hundred thousand have returned, so that by the census of
1880 the Chinese population in the country was 105,000. "All the Chinese in
California," says Mr. Hoar, "hardly surpass the number which is easily governed
in Shanghai by a police of a hundred men." Considering the traditional declaration of
our pride and patriotism that America is the home for the oppressed of every clime and
race, considering the spirit of our constitutional provision that neither race, color, nor
previous condition of servitude shall bar a citizen from voting, is it not both monstrous
and ludicrous to decree that American civilization is endangered by the "Mongolian
invasion?" |
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For the Republican party, which is responsible for
national legislation, the simple question is, whether a free laborer who wishes to come to
this country for a time and work honestly for honest wages shall be prohibited from
coming, lest China should be precipitated upon Western America and overwhelm the New
World. Can any such peril or the chance of it be inferred from the facts? Mr. Jones, of
Nevada, speaks of the colored race. But that race was brought here by force and fraud. It
is not a migratory race. So the Mongolians are not migratory. The coming of 230,000 or
240,000 Chinese in a quarter of a century, and the presence of 100,000 in the country at
the end of that time, are not the precursor of an overwhelming invasion. The bill is
founded on race hatred and panic. These are both familiar facts even in this country. It
is not a very long time since one of the most familiar objections to the antislavery
movement was that the fanatics wanted to free the "naygurs, " who would
immediately overrun the North and supplant the Irish. It was mere panic. We have always
invited everybody to come and settle among us, because the chance of bettering his
condition was fairer here than anywhere else in the world. If we now exercise our right to
select new-comers, not upon great public considerations the truth of which is
demonstrated, but because of race hatred, or of honest labor competition, or fear of local
disorder, the movement will not stop there. The native American crusade of twenty-five
years ago was another form of the same spirit. Senator George was logical in his
implication that if a whole race may be excluded from the national domain because of a
local desire, a whole enfranchised class may be excluded from the suffrage for the same
reason. Mr. Taylor said of the Chinese bill: "It revolutionizes our traditions. I
would deem the new country we will have after this bill becomes law as changed from the
old country we have to-day as our country would have been changed if the rebellion of 1861
had succeeded." The exclusion bill has passed Congress by a large majority. Public
opinion seems to favor it, as it has often favored unwise legislation. Even the amendment
to try the experiment of exclusion for ten years failed. It is not probable that there
will be a veto, and the only benefit to be anticipated is that, as we have now decided to
regulate immigration, we shall exclude every class whose coming can not be considered to
be advantageous to the national welfare. |
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Harpers
Weekly, April 1, 1882, page 194 (Editorial) |
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