CHINESE AND JAPANESE IMMIGRATION. 117 



CHINESE AND JAPANESE IMMIGRATION. 



By Dr. ALLEN MCLAUGHLIN, 



1". S. PUBLIC HEALTH AND MARINE HOSPITAL SERVICE. 



A BOUT twenty years ago the tide of Chinese coolie laborers assumed 

 -*-^~ such proportions that the Chinese exclusion act was enacted to 

 protect the Pacific states from the horde of yellow parasites which 

 threatened their prosperity. The radical step of legislating against a 

 race was taken after due deliberation, and recognition of its urgent 

 necessity. The Chinese exclusion act has worked fairly well, and in 1901 

 was reenacted. It is not perfect, and evasions have been frequent, as 

 might be expected in a people fertile in resource and schooled in trickery 

 and deceit, as are the Mongolians, but on the whole the object aimed at 

 has been attained. It has kept out the mass of yellow coolies who would 

 otherwise have come here, and has practically confined the question of 

 Chinese coolie labor to the Pacific coast, whereas, without it, we should 

 have had the coolie labor in Illinois, Pennsylvania and every other 

 state in the Union. 



One of the many methods employed by Chinese in evading the 

 exclusion law is of particular interest because of its bearing on illegal 

 naturalization of aliens. Naturalization of Chinese is often an inci- 

 dent of a successful attempt to evade the Chinese exclusion law. A 

 Chinaman arrested in crossing the Canadian border will claim he is a 

 native of the United States and is able to produce Chinese witnesses 

 who will swear to his nativity. He is not only admitted, but is ad- 

 mitted as an American citizen — and his children born in China will 

 also be entitled to admission to the United States and undoubtedly in 

 time will also claim citizenship. An officer detailed to examine the 

 conditions existing upon the Canadian border, in his report to Hon. 

 F. P. Sargent, Commissioner-General of Immigration, makes the fol- 

 lowing statement, published in the ' Commissioner-General's Report ' 

 for 1903 : 



Hon. F. P. Sargent, 



Commissioner-General of Immigration, Washington, D. C. 



Sir: ... To acquaint myself with all that might bear on the subject, I 

 called at the Chinese bureaus at New York and Boston, conversed with the Chinese 

 inspectors and interpreters, attended tbe trial of cases at Ogdensburg, inter- 

 viewed the Chinese themselves at different points in their own language, read 

 whatever notices I saw in Chinese, called at their stores, schools, restaurants 

 and laundries, and at every opportunity gathered what information I could on 

 the subject. 



