Speech #500108013

Cleveland as the President of the United States. and Mr. Bayard as his Secretary of State. have recently negotiated a new treaty. and again we have the spectacle presented of prompt and ready acquiescence on the part of the Chinese Government. If that treaty had been ratified in the Senate as it left the hands of the men who made it. the plenipotentiaries of the two Governments. it would be today the law of the land and this Administration would have the credit. as it should have. of inducing the Chinese Government to accede to an agreement by which all Chinese immigration into this country shall be excluded for a period of twenty years. but the amendments made in the Senate have given rise to delay and probably necessitated the passage of this bill. I may be permitted to say. sir. that I am credibly informed that the Chinese Government is not only willing. but that it is absolutely desirous and anxious to prevent its subjects from emigrating to the United States. It will be found. when in my speech shall be read the paragraph from the Burlingame treaty to which I have referred. that the correlative rights were embraced in that treaty of our citizens going to China and Chinese citizens coming here. and when we obtained that right it was looked on as a great achievement. It was regarded as a wonderful and memorable feat that we had induced the Chinese Empire. an empire embracing 400.000.000 of the people of this earth. nearly onehalf of the entire population of the globe. to abandon its timehonored policy.