Speech #480119045

We find it there in a social caste. A cooly in th6East isa man whose business in life it is to labor under employment. having a master or a super163*0 visor. or. as we call it in this country. a boss. who manages all of his arirs. hires bim out. receives his wages. and doles out to him apart of it after having taken out his brokerage or his commission. That systea obtains in India and in China. and through that system we were getting into this country. as they were doing also into Cuba and elsewhere. a large number of very inferior and very degraded people. people that belonged to a different class from those that possess the AngloSaxon blood. and we thought it was our duty. for the protection of our race. to legislate against the introduction of those coolies. It was not merely a labor question. it was a social question. a question of the infusion of lower blood into the social element in this country. So we pass laws to restrain the importation of coolies. We went on afterward. when we foundthat the Pacific coast was being swarmed with Chinese. a very inferior and disagreeable and repulsive class of people. and we passed law after law for their exclusion. Some of these laws were vetoed by the President of the United States on the ground that they were in conflict withthe Burlingame treaty.