Speech #560146106

That lease of arbitrary and uncontrolled power in the hands of the President of the United States is what is contended for in this bill. It is the necessary effect of this bill. and the history of our dealings with Porto Rico shows that that is the purpose of this bill. We went further in that act and provided that there should be no immigration of Chinese into the Hawaiian Islands. How is it about Chinese in the Philippines? They have been pouring into those islands for three centuries. and they are in a large sense. a very large sense. the merchants of the Philippines. They work the natives. the Igorrotes. the Negritos. and even the Tagalogs on their rice farms. on their sugar plantations and banana fiejds. and in whatever else they want to work them in. They pay them and become the lords and masters of the country in a very extensive sense in all of those different islands. and particularly in Luzon. Our laws here protecting the people and the Government of the United States against a surging immigration of Chinese that threatened the overflow of this country. threatened its labor. and all thatour laws went so far in the direction of checking this Chinese immigration that it has been said time and again. and with great truth. that the Congress let the treaty with China stand. but deliberately violated some of its most important provisions in their enactments. I voted for those violations. if they are such. I must state. however. that at the time I gave. and I now give. the reasons or the excuse for that. that the Emperor of China had passed a decree forbidding his people to come to the United States or to go to any foreign country. and I voted to carry out that decree of the Emperor. which. while it did not violate the Burlingame treaty or any other treaty. was necessarily in antagonism to the principles of free immigration of Chinamen into the United States. But did we not pass laws here. and are they not yet upon the statute books. filled up with penalties and with definitions of crimes and punishments which we are now exerting against Chinese who come to this country? Are we not now earnestly engaged in using all the powers of this country. executive and judicial. for the purpose of excluding Chinese immigration to the United States? What are we going to do about it in this bill? When we passed the Hawaiian bill we put in an express provision which prevented the further immigration of Chinese into that country. except under the laws of the United States. In this bill there is no such provision. The men who can go down there under corporate charters or for private gain to establish sugar and rice and banana plantations and other important industries in that land. such as the cultivation of manila hemp. out of which mints of money have been realized by the owners of property in the Philippines. are at perfect liberty to do what Hawaii did before we interposed our power to prevent itto invite Chinese labor or Japanese labor. or contract labor from any nation in the world on terms that will suit themthey are perfectly at liberty to do soand Congress does not dare to raise its voice in this amendment to this bill for the purpose of enforcing its policy and its laws against Chinese immigration. while in the Hawaiian bill we came out expressly and made this provision: There shall be no further immigration of Chinese into the Hawaiian Islands. except upon such conditions as are now or may hereafter be allowed by the laws of the United States. and no Chinese. by reason of anything herein contained. shall be allowed to enter the United States from the Hawaiian Islands. We put that provision in that act as a necessary precaution. harmonizing perfectly with our national policy for the exclusion of Chinese immigration and hired or contract labor into the United States and also into Hawaii. We protected the United Statesas well as Hawaii by this act of annexation. and yet that is quoted as authority here to support this amendment. Mr.