Speech #580066348

I think the gentleman will be satisfied without much debate. The bill has been read at the Clerks desk. The provisions are so simple and clear that those who are familiar with the current discussion for twenty years in this House on Chinese exclusion. or who followed the sections of the bill as they were read. will hardly need an explanation. but I shall take up the sections and briefly explain them. The first section of the amendment. which will be section 3 of the bill. is to meet what is believed t6 be an emergency which has recently arisen. In the first section of the Chineseexclusion act of 1202. after declaring that all the then existing exclusion provisions should be reenacted. extended. and continued. were the words "so far as the same are not inconsistent with treaty obligations." * The denunciation of the treaty of 1894 recently by the Chinese Government. it is believed by some. would relegate the decision of that question of what treaty obligations are meant to the treaty obligations in the old treaty of 1880. which gives us authority not. in the words of the treaty of 1894. to "prohibit." but to "regulate and to suspend." There is another view. very strongly held by some of the ablest lawyers in this country. that the words "so far as the same are not inconsistent." etc.. being the present tense. and referring only to obligations then existing. and not to what may be the obligations after December 7. this legislation is superfluous. but it is wise on a great practical question that concerns so large a part of our country that Congress should take no chances or risks. and therefore the reenactment of the first section omits the words I have just quoted. leaving it now plainly so that its vigor will not be impaired by any declaration as to treaty obligations existing. The next or fourth section is designed to meet a construction that has been put by some judges upon the former act and to meet the case of Chinamen presenting themselves and claiming that they are entitled to come in unless it is proven that they are not so entitled. there being a class of exempt persons. to which they claim that they are to be assumed to belong. It is here explicitly declared. as our Department of Justice has long held and as many courts have held. that all Chinese. except those who by the terms of the law are given the right of ev.try. shall be excluded. that is. those persons who are citizens of the United States by reason of birth and those of Chinese descent who are specifically granted by law such privilege. and no others. may enter. The next or fifth section gives the definition of terms which have cost much litigation by their uncertaintythe words "Chinese persons" and " persons of Chinese descent." Itis for the purpose of guiding the officers who execute this law that a definition is sharply given in the proposed bill of a "Chinese person." or person of Chinese descent. as "any person descended from an ancestor of the Mongolian race. which ancestor is now or was at any time subsequent to the year 1800 a subject of the Emperor of China." That period1800was used because it seemed necessary to fix some time since which the ancestor must have been a subject of the Emperor of China. and the time stated is sufficiently remote to make the identification fairly accurate. In 1800. probably almost without exception. the ancestors of laborers intended to be excluded were subjects of the Emperor of China. If no time had been stated it might have developed that at some period in the past the ancestors of parties who are not now Chinese at all were subjects of the Emperor.