Speech #530023299

Mr. Speaker. there is one point to which I should like to refer. and that is the character of the Chinese labor. It is coolie labor. Disguise it as you will. it is the importation of the Asiatic laborer into this country to work under a contract system. and it is just as much contract labor as where the East Indian is imported by England to the Mauritius. or where the Chinaman has been sent by the Portuguese or Spaniard from Macao to work in the Island of Cuba or in Peru. The systems are essentially the same. and I call the attention of the House to the fact that Gen. Grant. as far back as 1874. said to the House of Representatives in a message. that this was a contractlabor system. that the greater proportion of Chinese immigrants do not come voluntarily. but come under contracts with headmen. who own them almost absolutely. In a worse form does this apply to Chinese women. The Chinese were always employed by headmen in all the work that has been done in California in the reclamation of the tule lands formed by the deltas of the great rivers. or in the grading of the Central Pacific road. or in manufacturing pursuits. Wherever gangs of Chinese workingmen have been employed. they have been employed invariably under a system of contract labor. They are not known by name. they are known merely by the name of the gang or clan. and they are not paid as individuals. they are paid as yellow beasts of burden through their bosses. That has been the invariable practice in every case where they have been employed.