Speech #450112095

At all events we are not asked to pause or hesitate in the adoption of the measure presented in this bill. and I infer from the reticence of the Department of State that it has wittingly and sedately relegated to Congress the solution of a question that the Government linds itself otherwise unable to manage. I take it for granted that we are left to deal with this matter with reference to its influence upon onr own country and our own people. and that we are tacitly excused by the Government from givingto its foreign aspect any attention whatever. So far as I am concerned personally I shall attempt nothing further than to determine for myself the only matter that is left open for my investigation. as I conceive: whether this bill is a necessary measure for the protection of society in the United States against the influx of a large mass of people of an inferior race who are now being drawn to our shores by a tide of immigration that moves like the waters of the Gulf Stream upon the shores of Europe. Until it became a tide of immigration I felt little concern about it. but it has grown into such volume that I now consider it a danger to our country of the greatest magnitude. The gold of California and the building of the great transcontinental railway had created a very exciting inducement to this immigration. which accounts for its rapid increase. but these inducements by no means account for its permanent establishment as a movement of a race of people. nor for its steady growth. This unexampled movement of a race that has hitherto locked itself up in a selfish repugnance to foreign lands and people. has some strong motivepower that lies deeper than the mere inducement to moneymaking. That inducement exists on this side the Pacific more powerfully even than on the other. In the earlier years of Chinese immigration they all came as mere denizens. expecting to return. dead or alive. to China. And they did return in due season if they lived. and if they died their ashes were returned to their native land. Now they come to stay. to make their homes here. and oven to seek graves here.