Speech #570039374

Following the longestablished policy of avoiding all entanglements with foreign countries. which Washington recommended. the invitation was declined. In 1858. by friendly negotiations. the United States secured from China all the advantages that Great Britain and France obtained by an armed occupation of Pekin. In 1868 additional articles were agreed upon. securing greater privileges to citizens of the United States in China. recognizing the autonomy of the Empire. disavowing any intention of interferiug in its internal affairs. prohibiting the cooly contract system. guaranteeing the free and unlimited immigration of Chinese subjects into the United States. and extending to them the treatment accorded to the mostfavored nations. The opportunity to find work. accorded by the construction of the Pacific railroads. brought some hundreds of thousands of Chinese laborers to this country. They were brought under contracts made by Chinese companies. which included a provision for their return in a given number of years. if living.and a removal of their remains to China for burial. if dead. Difficulties arose between native and Chinese laborers. riots occurred in which many of the Chinese immigrants were killed. and the Government felt obliged to pay China large sums of money as damages. In 1880 a commission was dispatched to China for the purpose of negotiating a modification of the treaty of 1868 with respect to restricting the immigration of Chinese laborers. which was successful China reluctantly consenting. In 1888 another effort was made to obtain further concessions. which was unsuccessful. when Congress passed an act which violated the treaty of 1880. Nevertheless the Supreme Court held the act to be within the power of the Government. In 1894. for the fourth time. the Chinese consented to negotiate a new treaty of immigration. which took the place of the treaty of 1880. modified the act of 1888. and allowed Chinese laborers lawfully in the United States to visit China and return. under certain restrictions. That treaty. which was limited by its terms to ten years. with the act of 1892. which expires by limitation in May of this year (which regulates the coining and going of resident Chinese). are the laws now in force upon the subject of Chinese immigration. The policy of the Government from 1868 to 1894 has been modified from free immigration in 1868 to prohibition in 1894. From 1868 to 1880 there was free immigration. from 1880 to 1888. restriction. from 1888 to 1892. exclusion. and from 1892 to this time. prohibition. The question is. "Shall this policy be definitely and finally adopted and laws passed declaring it free from any time limit?" The reasons urged for the exclusion of the Chinese are that they are an undesirable class. not assimilative into the body of our people. that they can work and live under the most unfavorable conditions. subsist on an astonishingly small allowance of food. that they are not burdened with families to support. and are therefore able to underbid others who have wives and children. that they are immoral in character and fatalists in religion. that their only purpose is to earn as speedily as possible a sum of money with which to return to China. that they have no interest in building up society. supporting schools or churches. or in the success of free institutions. that no freeborn and selfrespecting laboring man can maintain himself and his family in competition with Chinese laborers. They are "aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise." The political economist urges that the laborer who can produce value to the extent of $2 per diem and who can subsist on 20 cents is not as valuable to the community as one who consumes a dollar in living. especially if the first takes his earnings out of the country to be expended elsewhere.