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THE CHINESE
PANIC |
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Harpers
Weekly, May 20, 1882, pages 306-307 (Editorial) |
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The
Republicans have taken the responsibility of prohibiting the
voluntary immigration of free skilled laborers into the country, and
have been the first to renounce the claim that America welcomes
every honest comer, and offers a home to the honest victim of the
oppression of kings or of cruel laws. Chinese labor has greatly
developed the Pacific coast. It is in demand and use to-day, and the
fidelity, efficiency, and integrity of the Chinese laborer are not
denied. Except for the demand, he would not come. Henceforth for ten
years any one who comes may be imprisoned for a year, and then
expelled from the country. Those who are already here must be
registered, and furnished with passports to authenticate themselves,
and justify their traveling in the country. Chinese travelers who
are not laborers nor residents will be admitted to the country only
by passports, and the national and State governments are prohibited
from naturalizing any Chinese person. Yet no offense is charged upon
these people, and they are but a handfulat most, a hundred
thousand. They are not migratory, and they come only because of the
demand for their labor. The Federal party sank under the odium of
the alien and sedition laws. But they only provided for the removal
of suspicious foreign individuals who might be plotting against the
government. The Republican party has gone further in prohibiting the
coming of a few honest and intelligent and thrifty laborers. The
idea of a Chinese invasion is merely preposterous, and whenever it
should threaten to approach, it could be easily averted. |
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(Dis-)
"Honors Are Easy"
May 20, 1882, page 317
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Having
laid down the principle of discrimination against foreign
immigration, those who are responsible for it ought not to shrink
from the just consequences. The statistics of crime and disorder in
the country and the records of corruption in our politics show that
all of them have been greatly increased and stimulated by the Irish
immigration. Dangers to the free-school system have also appeared
from the same source. Threatening complications with friendly
foreign states are due to the same element. Why not suspend the
Irish immigration for ten years, and imprison the honest Irishman
who comes of his own free will to get higher wages and to improve
his condition? Why not require all those who are already here to
obtain certificates from the collectors of ports, and to produce
passports if they wish to move about the country? Why not enact that
Irishmen who are not laborers shall be admitted to the country only
with passports, and that the words "Irish laborers" shall
be construed to mean both skilled and unskilled laborers? |
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Why not,
but that such provisions would be repugnant to the American
principle and to common-sense? Yet such an exclusion would be very
much more plausible than that of the Chinese. For it may be very
well asked whether the doubt of the practicability of popular
republican institutions does not chiefly arise from the vast
immigration of foreigners during the last sixty years. As originally
formed, this was a rural republic of a practically homogeneous race
and religious faith. Its warmest friends might have doubted had they
foreseen the vast extent of immigration and the prompt political
enfranchisement of every immigrant. But our history has vindicated
our principle, and it is mortifying that the party whose glory was
the declaration of fair play for all men should have legislated upon
Douglass assertion: "I am for the white man against the
negro, and for the negro against the alligator." The confession
that a hundred thousand peaceful Chinese endanger the welfare of
fifty millions of Americans comes strangely from the Republican
party. |
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Harpers
Weekly, May 20, 1882, pages 306-307 (Editorial) |
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