Speech #510038229

President. it strikes me as a little strange that the Census Committee. which is a committee charged. as I understand. with simply the duty of having the population of this country enumerated and charged with the duty of having a census taken. for instance. in regard to occupations. and so on. should undertake to report to the Senate a bill which has nothing to do with the question of census. but has a great deal to do with the question of not only municipal police. but of internationallaw relations and obligations. and by what is called an amendment to the census law to present for our consideration questions which have nothing whatsoever to do with the census. to provide penal statutes with reference to a certain class of people residing in the United States by reason of treaty rights. to subject them to peculiar degradation. to give what I would consider just cause of complaint by a foreign government. a government which we consider within the range of the family of nations. a civilized government with which we have entered into solemn treaties. with which nation we are engaged in important and valuable commercial relations. a nation which from our standpoint up to this time has no right to complain of what the Congress of the United States has thought proper to do with regard to this important question. but a nation which we all know has not submitted to our legislation without some feeling of resentment and some feeling of indignation. Now. for us. without any cause. without any necessity. without any provocation. to aggravate and to intensify that feeling. to cause more irritation between our Government and the Chinese Government. to reopen woundswhichhave beenhealing. by a proposition which is brought from the Census Committee. by a measure that has no possible connection with the question of enumeration or the question of census. seems to me most remarkable. While I have voted in favor of every exclusion act which has been proposed in Congress and while I have believed that that legislation. harsh and stern as it may appear to the Chinese Government. has been necessary and wise. I do not feel prepared to go beyond the point which we have reached and to offer what I consider an insult to the Chinese nation and to the Chinese Government. I for one am prepared to insult foreign governments when it is necessary to doso.whenit is necessary to maintain and preserve the dignity and the power of our Government. but why. in the absenceof any provocation whatsoever. should we provide in taking a census that this people shall wear a tag like animals. for it will be as degrading to them to receive this chromo. this engraving for their identification. as it would be to carry any badge to exhibit to the public that they are subject to the suspicions of our Government and are therefore a degraded people?