Speech #500015971

President. assertsit is not longthat as a result of this competition. low wages prevail. preventing a civilized people from living in comfort. respec(tably rearing their families. giving -their children a proper education. maling them good citizens. and providing for themselves in old age. that this competition furthermore deprives thousands of our people of legitimate employment and robs our children of an opportunity of earning an honest living. driving many of them to crime and shame. The memorial declares that the present laws respecting the admission of Chinese are so inefficient as to not materially impede their admission. and to open wide the doors to fraudulent and corrupt practices. making the intent of the law a mere sham. Furthermore. that the class of Chinese thus admitted contrary to the intent of our existing laws. consists largely of coolies imported substantially as slavesof criminals of the most vicious and brutal kind. and of prostitutes or young women sold into slavery to become such. It is further declared that the absolute disregard which these people have for any law. oath. truth. er decency prevents our own judiciary from having any hold on them. while they maintain a system of jurisprudence of their own among us. enforcing their own illegal edicts by blackmail and murder. and resorting to every device and trickery that their low cunning is possible of devising. to frustrate and resist the successful prosecution of their criminals in our own courts. The memorial further sets out that their gambling hells. opium joints. and dens of iniquity and vice serve to entice our boys land girls. prompted by inducements too great to resist. while our laws seem powerless to suppress them. and yet the entire taxes paid by the Chinese population are insufficient to cover the cost of maintaining the Chinese prisoners of the State. The memorial further advises Congress that the resources of the Pacific coast are so great that millions may be furnished homes where now there are but thousands. but by reason of this terrible Asiatic curse our progress is retarded. our development checked. our industries dwarfed. and a healthy increase of our American population discouraged. while at the same time our very free and liberal institutions are menaced by the unwholesome and corrupt influences at work by these people. who are determined to maintain the foothold they now haye in this country. The memorial concludes with a resolve as followstwo lines: That we consider exclusion the only practical remedy. the present restriction laws having presented no bar to their entrance. I move that the memorialbe referred.to the Committee on Foreign Relations.