124 Transactions of the 



tion; hut yon cannot <i:Qt rid of the competition of cheap hihor, of 

 machinery, and the Inisy liands of your Eastern hrothers. 



I have mot and talked to hundreds of audiences ui)on the topic of 

 slavery. While I luive often found the laborinfj man not particular!}' 

 impressed with the moral aspects of the slave's condition, I always 

 found hiin attentive to all arguments illustrative of the degradation 

 of labor in the person of the slave. The workingman became at last 

 11 logician, and resolved that labor should be no longer thus degraded. 

 It seems to me that contact, constant and irritating comparison and 

 liunting up of similitudes between the white Christian, or at least 

 civilized white man, and the Chinese tends largely to lower the self- 

 respect and to degrade the cliaracter, to lessen and lower the ambi- 

 tion and standard of the white laborer, and through him the white 

 race. Our tendencies are strong enough already to lapse and decay; 

 we need no augmentation in that direction. It has further seemed 

 to me that the vast numbers of these jjcople, their indiil'erence to 

 life, their fatalism, their undoubted physical force when organized 

 and directed as it may be — a consideration recently .stated by a Euro- 

 pean statesman — deserves serious consideration. Whatever conclu- 

 sion we come to as to this or any other class of foreigners, we ought 

 at once to understand that this State can do nothing of herself, but 

 must act through the Federal (lovernment alone. A hundred 

 schemes are proposed by men who know nothing about the matter, 

 and who seem never to have heard of the adjudication of the State 

 and Federal Courts, by wdiich all these notions have been overturned. 

 In short, counsel has been darkened by mere words without knowl- 

 edge. But the present objections are not to the Chinese alone — all 

 foreigners are to be subjected to new terms and conditions. In 

 England and flsewhere an opinion exi.sted that it was dangerous to 

 allow one owing foreign allegiance to own real ])roi)erty. This class 

 of property especially was thought to give the alien an importance 

 and political weight not consistent witli jniblic safety. In this coun- 

 try this notion has been measurably adoi)ted, but in this State a more 

 favorable view has been taken. When the alien died his property 

 was liable to escheat in case his heir was a non-resident foreigner. 

 Upon arriving here in eighteen hundred and fifty-tive, I found that 

 several estates were about to be forfeited under judicial proceedings, 

 and my first connection with California legislation was to draw and 

 aid in procuring the ])assageof a bill securing the foreign heir in the 

 right to sell and withdraw the estate. This law is still in force. It 

 is now propo-scd to confine the right to own real proi)erty, to transact 

 or be interested in any business, or to do any labor when it comes in 

 conflict with the labor of a citizen, to citizens alone. 



In this day of absurdities it is not surprising that these i)ro})osi- 

 tions ari.se with our foreign element, though it is surprising that as 

 to the i)rohibition of holding realty sonn^ men of native growth con- 

 cur. There will be no possibility of attracting cajiital to this cla.ss of 

 l)roperty. No alien who desires to jiersonally observe the workings 

 of our institutions before naturalization can own the house he lives 

 in. No cai)italist from al)road, with cheaji money, can loan it upon 

 California realty, l)ecause upon foreclosure he must stand still and 

 see it sold for one-half its value, because he cannot be a purchaser. 

 The British Minister at Washington, the Consul at San r^'ranci.sco, 

 cannot own their consulate nor their ])rivate residence. Foreign 

 nations own many of their ofHcial premises and residences with us. 



