Speech #470033490

I wish to remind my friend from Delaware that the penalties of this act are not inscribed against any subject of China who undertakes to come to the United States. It is merely like a great number of the other laws of the United States. applied to the owners and masters of vessels. The Chinese subject. the emigrant. the laborer. is under no penalty whatever anywhere in the bill. that I remember but it is only a prohibition analogous to the cooly prohibition and ever so many prohibitions in the laws of the United States against the owners and masters of vessels. As a fact. therefore. I think we must all believe (I will not say know) that every master and every owner of a vessel trading between the ports of China and the United States will as a fact know of the passage of this act within twentyfour hours after it receives the Presidents approval. The penalties are denounced against the shipmaster in whose ships from any Chinese port are brought within the jurisdiction of the United States this particular class of persons. The committees information was perhaps it was wrong. that this class of incoming persons (I will not say immigrants. because I do not think it is a true term) into the United States. is not a person who. like the Irishman. or the German. or the Frenchman. or whatever. who intelligently considers the evils and difficulties of the government he lives under and the want of capacity to own land. &c.. goes out bravely for his liberty and his welfare to find some other country where he can be better off. as our forefathers canie to this country. but he is a man who has no impulse of his own to go anywhere. He is hunted up by the trader. by the shipowner. by the Six Companies. by the Chinese corporations. and is employed on certain terms. which are not advantageous to him. as we should understand it. to come to the United States to work for a certain length of time. and then to go back again. and if he dies to have his body carried back. That being the case.