Speech #570041776

The demand for labor there and the rewards which it obtains make our comtry an Eldorado for the Chinaman. In a few years the most humble can by manual labor amass what is considered a competency in his own country. At the time the policy of Chinese exclusion was entered on in this country the immigration from there was so large and steady and continuous that but for the adoption of that policy the Asiatics would soon have outnumbered the whites on the Pacific coast. Even since the adoption of that policy and the most rigorous enforcement of stringent laws intended to carry it out. our Chinese population has continued to increase. The Treasury Department estimates that there are 300.000 Chinese laborers in the United States today. although there are only about 97.000 registered under existing laws. Such is their craft and deceit that no law except one of absolute exclusion of all classes will prove effective in entirely excluding the prohibited classes. Throw down the bars and permit the Chinese laborers to come in at will and they will come to our country in a steady and i a steadily augmenting stream. It is not necessary to take the extreme view which some careful and philosophic observers have taken and look upon such an irruption as the beginning of the Asiatic march for the dominion of the world. There is much to cause alarm in the thought of what such an enormous horde. so inured to toil and hardship. might do if trained in arms and lead by a new Attila or Tamerlane. The Christian world may at some time. and at no distant day. be compelled to put forth all the energies of which it is capable to preserve its civilization against the yellow hordes of paganism. but the struggle will not be on this continent in the first instance. nor as the result. primarily. of Chinese immigration to our shores. But the result which would certainly follow unrestricted Chinese immigration to our country are baleful enough to make us pause and -hesitate without considering the ultimate struggle between paganism and Christianity. The labor of our land would be reduced by competition to the Chinese level of reward. to the Chinese level of subsistence and existence. to the Chinese level of faith and morals. The only alternative. and it is one that would certainly be adopted. would be that the intelligent. selfrespecting labor of this country would rise in its might and drive the Chinaman into the sea. and if any government undertook to prevent. it would go down in the throes of insurrection and revolution.