Speech #530009360

I know from experience and observation that Chinese laborers in this country do not regard either our laws or the obligation of an oath as administered in our courts of justice as binding upon them. When a criminal charge is made by one Chinaman against another. or a civil action is brought. it is just as likely to be done for revenge or to enforce the decrees of their secret and unlawful tribunals as otherwise. The late United States District Judge Hoffman. on January 16. 1888. writing to exSenator Felton. then a member of the House of Representatives. and recommending the passage of a law limiting the right of Chinese laborers who had departed from this country to return. and describing the embarrassments of the Federal courts in dealing with cases arising under the Chinese exclusion laws. said: It is not unreasonable that when the courts have devoted so much time and the Government has incurred so much expense in investigating the validity of these claims. and the courts have been in so many cases the victims of perjury and fraud. which it is impossible to detect. we should say that we can not longer afford to occupy the time of our tribunals in these investigations. and we have aright to notify the Chinese that if the privilege is not availed of within a short and designated period. to be fixed by law. it shall be deemed to have been waived. If you could have attended court and listened to the hearing of anyof these cases. you would have recognized how completely the court is at the mercy of Chinese testimony and how impossible it is to distinguish a genuine ease from a fraudulent one. The Chinese in this country maintain a government of their own. with secret tribunals. and enforce their decrees by violence and even by murder.