Speech #570051147

Mr. Speaker. the House is so familiar with the question of Chinese exclusion and all that related to it in the details of the House bill so long debated on this floor that I will not detain members in explanations. except to say that the Senate amendment or substitute endeavored to do in brief what the House had labored to accomplish by a very long billto continue and reenact the various existing laws excluding Chinese laborers. In the numerous discussions in conference over this disagreement between the two Houses we who were House conferees objected to a condition which the Senate had inserted. limiting the time to which these laws should be extended and in force to the year 1904. the date of the termination of the existing treaty. or to 1914. the time to which that treaty might be extended. and we also objected to other minor provisions. which I will not go over. That time limit was unsatisfactory. especially to the gentlemen on this floor representing those western parts of the United States. where the Chinese laborers are found in great numbers. Your conferees have steadfastly resisted the incorporation of those words into this law. and today the Senate conferees. after many conferences day after day. yielded. so that the only words left of this limitation. after the declaration of the continuance of the existing laws. are that they shall extend so far as is not inconsistent with treaty obligation until otherwise provided by law. This measure further prohibits immigration of Chinese laborers into our insular possessions. and the passage of the Chinese from the islands. to our mainland is forbidden. The provision in the Senate bill requiring Chinese laborers in the Philippines to procure certificates through a system of United States officers delegated and appointed from Washington is stricken out and the provision in the House bill is adopted. that all this should be done by those appointed by the Philippine Commission. already on the ground. This. in brief. is the short Chineseexclusion bill on which we have agreed and which I think all gentlemen who have kept pace with this long discussion will agree is the essence of all that was desired and needed and substantially that for which the House contended.