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CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



resolutions of public meetings, and petitions, one of 

 which numbered over 16,000 signatures, were pre- 

 sented to the same effect and with the same result. 

 At the first session of the Forty-fourth Congress these 

 renewed appeals for relief met for the first time with 

 a favorable response. A joint resolution was intro- 

 duced and passed calling upon the President of the 

 United States to " open negotiations with the Chinese 

 Government for the purpose of modifying the provi- 

 sions of the treaty between the two countries, and re- 

 stricting the same to commercial purposes." 



Subsequently, at the same session, another joint 

 resolution was passed, requesting the President to 

 present to the Chinese Government an additional arti- 

 cle to the treaty of July 28, 1868, reserving mutually 

 to the two governments the right to regulate, restrict, 

 or prevent immigration to their respective countries. 

 These authoritative requests on the part of Congress 

 failed to secure the desired relief. In the mean while 

 the question had assumed dangerous proportions. 

 The conviction that Chinese immigration was a great 

 evil was so deep-seated and unanimous that mob vio- 

 lence was openly threatened, and in many instances 

 the arm of the law seemed powerless to protect. Kec- 

 ognizing the exigency, the Legislature of California 

 appointed a special committee, whose reportj based 

 upon the testimony of witnesses familiar with the 

 subject, ably and graphically sets forth the objections 

 to the Chinese. Subsequently to this a joint commit- 

 tee appointed by the Forty-fourth Congress collected 

 voluminous testimony upon the same subject, and by 

 a majority report urged upon the Executive Depart- 

 ment the necessity for an immediate change of the 

 Burlingame treaty, to the end that such immigration 

 might oe restricted or prevented. These reportSj to- 

 gether with other official documents upon the subject, 

 were laid before the present Congress. 



Your committee, in view of the importance and ur- 

 gency of the question, after a patient hearing of the 

 evidence and argument on both sides, at an early date 

 after its organization presented a resolution which 

 with a slight modification passed both Houses of Con- 

 gress. This resolution again called attention to the 

 obnoxious features in the Burlingame treaty, and re- 

 quested prompt action on the part of the Executive 

 Department in securing its change or abrogation. In 

 view of the almost unanimous sentiment of the peo- 

 ple of the Pacific slope as to the necessity of such ac- 

 tion, it was hoped that these successive resolutions 01 

 Congress, together with the various petitions, memo- 

 rials, and official data in the possession of the Gov- 

 ernment, would cause negotiations to be opened for 

 that purpose. Such action would have been prefer- 

 able to the direct interference by Congress, inasmuch 

 as it would have been free from all doubt as to its le- 

 gality, and would not have jeopardized the friendly 

 feelings and commercial intercouse between the two 

 countries. Moreover, when a change of the treaty 

 was first suggested by Congress, and indeed up to a 

 very recent date, it is believed that the Chinese Gov- 

 ernment would have made no serious objection, as its 

 policy was opposed to the emigration of its citizens. 

 However desirable such a result, it has thus far not 

 been accomplished. The petitions to secure remedial 

 legislation were presented within a year after the rati- 

 fication of the Burlingame treaty. These were vigor- 

 ously renewed at every subsequent session, until 

 finally in the Forty-fourth Congress the resolution 

 already referred to was passed, calling the attention 

 of the Executive Department to the necessity of a 

 change in the treaty. This resolution was again pre- 

 sented and passed in the second session of the present 

 Congress, but has not, as far as your committee is in- 

 formed, called forth any practical effort at action. So 

 long a period of non-action proves either the unwil- 

 lingness or the inability of the treaty-making power 

 to cope with the question. In either event your com- 

 mittee consider that further delay would work g_reat 

 injustice to a large portion of our country, provided 

 the evils whereof they complain are well founded. 

 That these complaints are not without cause can not, 



upon the evidence, be doubted. Your committee, in 

 a report accompanying joint resolution H. K. No. 123, 

 at the second session of this Congress, endeavored to 

 present what seemed to them some insuperable objec- 

 tions to Chinese immigration. Further examination 

 of facts only confirms the conclusions therein stated. 

 This whole question is not one of right, but of policy. 

 There is no principle upon which we are compelled to 

 receive into our midst the natives of Asia, Africa, or 

 any other part of the world. The character, source, 

 and extent of immigration should be regulated and 

 controlled with reference to our own wants and wel- 

 fare. The difficult problems, economic and political, 

 resulting from the presence of the red and black races, 

 would be renewed in a more aggravated and danger- 

 ous form by the yellow race. The Mongolian, unlike 

 the Indian, is brought in daily contact with our social 

 and political life ; and, unlike the African, does not 

 surrender any of his marked peculiarities by reason 

 of that contact. It is neither possible nor desirable 

 for two races as distinct as the Caucasian and Mongo- 

 lian to live under the same government without as- 

 similation. The degradation or slavery of one or the 

 other would be the inevitable result. Homogeneity 

 of ideas and of physical and social habits are essen- 

 tial to national harmony and progress. Equally grave 

 objections may be urged against the Chinese from an 

 industrial standpoint. Our laboring people can not 

 and ought not to be subjected to a competition which 

 involves the surrender of the sacred and elevating 

 influences of home and the sacrifice of the ordinary 

 appliances of personal civilization. The question, 

 therefore, is not one of competition, but of a substi- 

 tution of one kind of labor for another. 



No self-governing country can afford to diminish or 

 destroy the dignity, the welfare, and independence of 

 its citizens. Justice to the people of the Pacific slope, 

 the dictates of common humanity and benevolence, 

 as well as the plainest suggestions of practical states- 

 manship, all demand that the problem of Chinese 

 immigration shall be solved while it is yet within the 

 legislative control. 



Governed by these views, your committee present 

 and recommend the .passage of the bill accompanying 

 this report. 



Mr. Page of California presented the follow- 

 ing petition, and said : " As an expression of 

 the views entertained on this subject by the 

 working classes of our State, I submit a memo- 

 rial presented to Congress, and signed by seven- 

 teen thousand of the workingmen of Califor- 

 nia. I introduce this memorial further to show 

 that this movement is endorsed not by the 

 ignorant and vicious, but by the intelligent and 

 law-abiding citizens of California." 



The petition of the undersigned citizens, resident in 

 the State of California, respectfully shows : 



That your petitioners view with great alarm the sys- 

 tematic importation and immigration of Chinese labor- 

 ers into the United States, to be employed at rates of 

 waees ruinous to the free labor of our citizens. 



That the vast sums granted by Congress in bonds 

 and public lands to aid in the construction of trans- 

 continental railways are perverted to the employment 

 of this debased Asiatic labor, while thousands of our 

 own citizens in all parts of the Kepublic are destitute 

 of work. 



That your petitioners can not regard such a mis- 

 direction of the revenues collected from the industry 

 of the people but as a flagrant abuse of the objects 

 contemplated in these munificent grants of the national 

 resources. 



That in all future measures of Congressional aid 

 provision should be embodied against such abuse, and 

 that supplementary legislation to this end should be 

 provided in the exercise of existing grants. 



That our recent history shows with what devotion 

 to the great principles of freedom our citizens placed 



