Speech #680116616

Skilled Chinese laborers were specifically among those exeluded. and all State or United States courts were denied the right to admit Chinese to citizenship. On April 4. 1882. President Arthur returned the bill. with his veto. his principal reason for refusing to sign it being that the passage of an act prohibiting immigration for 20 years was a unreasonable suspension of immigration and consequently a breach of the treaty. The features relating to registration he also claimed served no good purpose- Subsequently a modified bill was passed by Congress. and. although -containbig some of the provisions objectionable to the President. he approved it on May 6. 1882. This law provided that all immigration of Chinese laborers. silled or unskilled. should be suspended for a period of 10 years. Conditions in California and on the Pacific coast .arising from Chinese immigration had been bad before the making of the Burlingame treaty of 1868. by which the United States )ound Itself to recognize the inalienable right of such people to migrate and establish permanent homes in America. So aptly did the treatyminking power deal with the problem in that instance. Conditions in California and on the Pacific coast were then and soon afterwards so bad that. in 1872. California was pleading with Congress for the exclusion of the Chinese. that is. for the termination of the "inalienable right" of Chinese to come to America in tens. or even hundreds. of millions. A congressional committee was sent to California. where it found conditions very bad. After the making of the second immigration treaty with China In 1880Si it was soon found that that higration treaty was unwise and the United States asked Chinato agree to its "abrogation. bit China objected and delayed. until Congress passed a drastic exclusion law. from which the President withleld his approval until he became convinced that China would not enter into a new treaty abrogating tWe treaty of 1880. of which the United States was tby then -anxlous to be rid. That was the second successive failure of the treatyaking !pbwer of our Government to handle Chinese inimigration in .a manner which our own people would tolerate. Aiotber and controlling obefetion to the regulation of our immigration by treaties is that it would give to foreign powers a voice In that policy. whereas under the present system it is treated as a domestic question to be regulated byCongress in the constitutional way accordingto our own will. Even the opponents of restriction should not -favor the adoption of a policy by which we would surrender our right to deal with the snbject In our own way. That right once lost would be hard to regain. The permanent loss of it would be an irreparable calamity to America. As aleady shown. foreign countries. under the promptings of. selfinterest. must consent to the provisions of treaties. Under that system our immigration policy would . be shaped not by the representattives of our people but partly .by our treatymaking power and partly by foreign countries. If that policy should ever -be generally and permanently adopted. It would entail consequences too tragic to be stated here. The regulation of our inmigration by ag.eements made by.our Exeutive with foreign countries. without the approval of Congress. or without the consent and approval of the Senate. is a still greater and more dangerous departure from the American policy of treating this as a.purely domestic question. .President Roosevelts -agreement with Japan. made in 1908. commonly called "the gentlemens agreement." has now been recognized by both countries for some 15 years. Both Japan andthe United States have insisted that they were living up to Itsterms. The use of the word "agreements" in the -immigration acts of 1920 and 1922. both passed by the two Houses of Congress and approved by the President. was a conscious and deliberate recognition of the agreement made by President Roosevelt with Japan. regulating immigration from that country to the United States. Yet that agreemeat was made by the President regardless of the wishes of Congress and without the consent of the Senate. It was never submitted to the Senate for ratification.