Speech #530025297

This particular bill. Mr. Speaker. now pending before us is not perhaps in its terms so all embracing. and yet in its substance I think it covers the whole question of the progressive policy of the country on which we have entered of the exclusion of the lower forms of Chinese immigration from our shores. and that question involves in its general principles all that relates to the great subject of immigration from all countries. the intermingling with our population of those coming from other civilizations and. countries of the world. And if we decide. with reference to the immigratioh from China. that the policy pursued recently. or for the last ten or twelve years. shall be reversed or shall be mutilated and its vigor eviscerated. then I think we may as well assume that the tide of immigration which is flowing toward us from all the other countries of the world is to be uninterrupted in the future. Now. this proposed amendment to the Geary act provides in form for an extensionof the period of registration. seas to afford to the Chinese who have not taken advantage of the opportunity provided for them in the original act a further extension of six months in which. if entitled to remain at all. they may provide themselves with the necessary certificate which is their authority under the law to remain and enjoy in the future the privileges and rights of a residence within our borders. Our friends.on the.Pacific Slope are inclined. I assume from the tone of their speeches and the violent denunciations I have heard of the proposed measure. to vote against the pending bill. If this bill should be defeated the result on the surface would be that under the original Geary law. with the forfeiture of this right of remaining on the part of those who would be. under the existing law. entitled. to remain if they had provided themselves with the proper certificates. and had brought themselves within tne legal proof of the fact. that all of these. together with those who have come here during the last ten or twelve years in violation of all law. would be subject to immediate deportation. That. I say. Mr. Speaker. would be the situation on the face of things. and our friends from California seem to imagine that if they can dispose of this bill and deny to these people who are entitled. if they had availed themselves of the provisions of the law to remain. of the opportunity to procure in future within the limits of time fixed by the bill their certificates. then immediate deportation will be entered upon as provided in the original act. Such would be the fact on the face of the law. but I think our friends should remember the tenor of public sentiment onthe general subjectmatter. They should remember that in the course of the last few years. especially within the last year. since the enactment of the Geary law. there have been discussions in this country which have created an apparent development of sentiment in opposition to the entire law and the whole system of exclusion itself. and that without appropriations from the national purse the existing law would be absolutely nullified for want of the means of enforcement. It is my judgment. gentlemen. from what I see of the indications of public sentimentwhich I believe would be strengthened by the denial of the privilege provided in the original bill of allowing these people to remain in this country under certain conditionsthat unless this privilege is granted them I think it would be utterly impossible to obtain the necessary appropriations to go on with the administrationof the lawand enforce the deportation contemplated at all. So it comes to this: that those who are in favor and most interested to secure the exclusion of the Chinese are. by opposing this bill. defeating the very purpose they most desire to accomplish. and as a friend of the exclusion of these competing Chinese laborers. as a friend of theiiexclusion and of the policy of the Pacific Slope. which I protest is not simply for the benefit of the Pacific Slope itself. but quite as much for the benefit of the great valley and the Atlantic slope also. for the preservation of the policy thus indicated. this measure. in my judgment. should be enacted into law. I admit that there does seem to be a little reason for apprehension. on the part of those who are opposing this bill. that the supporters of it are hardly acting in absolute good faith. for I have heard scarcely a single speech made in support of this bill which was not an indignant denunciation of the general policy upon which the Geary act -and all the exclusion acts are founded. The nation seems to be charged. here on this floor. with a breach of faith.with the unjustifiable abrogation and violation of tredities. with a course of dishonor in its dealings with China. and the Geary act itselfwhich does not seem to my mind improper. believing in exclusion as I dois denounced as almost the sum of all villainies by those who on this floor advocate an extensioi of its provisions. I think it is the somewhat anomalous spirit in which the friends of this measure seem to be making their speeches in its support which has misled our friends from the Pacific coast into a real opposition to their own desires.