EXECUTIVE MANSION, _March 1, 1886_.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:
It is made the constitutional duty of the President to recommend to the
consideration of Congress from time to time such measures as he shall
judge necessary and expedient. In no matters can the necessity of this
be more evident than when the good faith of the United States under the
solemn obligation of treaties with foreign powers is concerned.
The question of the treatment of the subjects of China sojourning within
the jurisdiction of the United States presents such a matter for the
urgent and earnest consideration of the Executive and the Congress.
In my first annual message, upon the assembling of the present Congress,
I adverted to this question in the following words:
The harmony of our relations with China is fully sustained.
In the application of the acts lately passed to execute the treaty of
1880, restrictive of the immigration of Chinese laborers into the United
States, individual cases of hardship have occurred beyond the power of
the Executive to remedy, and calling for judicial determination.
The condition of the Chinese question in the Western States and
Territories is, despite this restrictive legislation, far from being
satisfactory. The recent outbreak in Wyoming Territory, where numbers
of unoffending Chinamen, indisputably within the protection of the
treaties and the law, were murdered by a mob, and the still more recent
threatened outbreak of the same character in Washington Territory, are
fresh in the minds of all, and there is apprehension lest the bitterness
of feeling against the Mongolian race on the Pacific Slope may find vent
in similar lawless demonstrations. All the power of this Government
should be exerted to maintain the amplest good faith toward China in
the treatment of these men, and the inflexible sternness of the law in
bringing the wrongdoers to justice should be insisted upon.
Every effort has been made by this Government to prevent these violent
outbreaks and to aid the representatives of China in their investigation
of these outrages; and it is but just to say that they are traceable to
the lawlessness of men not citizens of the United States engaged in
competition with Chinese laborers.
Race prejudice is the chief factor in originating these disturbances,
and it exists in a large part of our domain, jeopardizing our domestic
peace and the good relationship we strive to maintain with China.
The admitted right of a government to prevent the influx of elements
hostile to its internal peace and security may not be questioned, even
where there is no treaty stipulation on the subject. That the exclusion
of Chinese labor is demanded in other countries where like conditions
prevail is strongly evidenced in the Dominion of Canada, where Chinese
immigration is now regulated by laws more exclusive than our own. If
existing laws are inadequate to compass the end in view, I shall be
prepared to give earnest consideration to any further remedial measures,
within the treaty limits, which the wisdom of Congress may devise.
At the time I wrote this the shocking occurrences at Rock Springs, in
Wyoming Territory, were fresh in the minds of all, and had been recently
presented anew to the attention of this Government by the Chinese
minister in a note which, while not unnaturally exhibiting some
misconception of our Federal system of administration in the Territories
while they as yet are not in the exercise of the full measure of that
sovereign self-government pertaining to the States of the Union,
presents in truthful terms the main features of the cruel outrage there
perpetrated upon inoffensive subjects of China. In the investigation of
the Rock Springs outbreak and the ascertainment of the facts on which
the Chinese minister's statements rest the Chinese representatives were
aided by the agents of the United States, and the reports submitted,
having been thus framed and recounting the facts within the knowledge of
witnesses on both sides, possess an impartial truthfulness which could
not fail to give them great impressiveness.
The facts, which so far are not controverted or affected by any
exculpatory or mitigating testimony, show the murder of a number of
Chinese subjects in September last at Rock Springs, the wounding of many
others, and the spoliation of the property of all when the unhappy
survivors had been driven from their habitations. There is no allegation
that the victims by any lawless or disorderly act on their part
contributed to bring about a collision; on the contrary, it appears that
the law-abiding disposition of these people, who were sojourners in our
midst under the sanction of hospitality and express treaty obligations,
was made the pretext for an attack upon them. This outrage upon law
and treaty engagements was committed by a lawless mob. None of the
aggressors--happily for the national good fame--appear by the reports
to have been citizens of the United States. They were aliens engaged in
that remote district as mining laborers, who became excited against the
Chinese laborers, as it would seem, because of their refusal to join
them in a strike to secure higher wages. The oppression of Chinese
subjects by their rivals in the competition for labor does not differ in
violence and illegality from that applied to other classes of native or
alien labor. All are equally under the protection of law and equally
entitled to enjoy the benefits of assured public order.
Were there no treaty in existence referring to the rights of Chinese
subjects; did they come hither as all other strangers who voluntarily
resort to this land of freedom, of self-government, and of laws, here
peaceably to win their bread and to live their lives, there can be no
question that they would be entitled still to the same measure of
protection from violence and the same free forum for the redress of
their grievances as any other aliens.
So far as the treaties between the United States and China stipulate for
the treatment of the Chinese subjects actually in the United States as
the citizens or subjects of "the most favored nation" are treated, they
create no new status for them; they simply recognize and confirm a
general and existing rule, applicable to all aliens alike, for none are
favored above others by domestic law, and none by foreign treaties
unless it be the Chinese themselves in some respects. For by the third
article of the treaty of November 17, 1880, between the United States
and China it is provided that--
ART. III. If Chinese laborers, or Chinese of any other class, now either
permanently or temporarily residing in the territory of the United
States, meet with ill treatment at the hands of any other persons, the
Government of the United States will exert all its power to devise
measures for their protection and to secure to them the same rights,
privileges, immunities, and exemptions as may be enjoyed by the citizens
or subjects of the most favored nation, and to which they are entitled
by treaty.
This article may be held to constitute a special privilege for Chinese
subjects in the United States, as compared with other aliens; not that
it creates any peculiar rights which others do not share, but because,
in case, of ill treatment of the Chinese in the United States, this
Government is bound to "exert all its power to devise measures for their
protection," by securing to them the rights to which equally with any
and all other foreigners they are entitled.
Whether it is now incumbent upon the United States to amend their
general laws or devise new measures in this regard I do not consider in
the present communication, but confine myself to the particular point
raised by the outrage and massacre at Rock Springs.
The note of the Chinese minister and the documents which accompany
it give, as I believe, an unexaggerated statement of the lamentable
incident, and present impressively the regrettable circumstance that
the proceedings, in the name of justice, for the ascertainment of the
crime and fixing the responsibility therefor were a ghastly mockery
of justice. So long as the Chinese minister, under his instructions,
makes this the basis of an appeal to the principles and convictions
of mankind, no exception can be taken; but when he goes further, and,
taking as his precedent the action of the Chinese Government in past
instances where the lives of American citizens and their property in
China have been endangered, argues a reciprocal obligation on the part
of the United States to indemnify the Chinese subjects who suffered at
Rock Springs, it became necessary to meet his argument and to deny most
emphatically the conclusions he seeks to draw as to the existence of
such a liability and the right of the Chinese Government to insist
upon it.
I draw the attention of the Congress to the latter part of the note of
the Secretary of State of February 18, 1886, in reply to the Chinese
minister's representations, and invite especial consideration of the
cogent reasons by which he reaches the conclusion that whilst the United
States Government is under no obligation, whether by the express terms
of its treaties with China or the principles of international law, to
indemnify these Chinese subjects for losses caused by such means and
under the admitted circumstances, yet that in view of the palpable and
discreditable failure of the authorities of Wyoming Territory to bring
to justice the guilty parties or to assure to the sufferers an impartial
forum in which to seek and obtain compensation for the losses which
those subjects have incurred by lack of police protection, and
considering further the entire absence of provocation or contribution
on the part of the victims, the Executive may be induced to bring the
matter to the benevolent consideration of the Congress, in order that
that body, in its high discretion, may direct the bounty of the
Government in aid of innocent and peaceful strangers whose maltreatment
has brought discredit upon the country, with the distinct understanding
that such action is in no wise to be held as a precedent, is wholly
gratuitous, and is resorted to in a spirit of pure generosity toward
those who are otherwise helpless.
The correspondence exchanged is herewith submitted for the information
of the Congress, and accompanies a like message to the House of
Representatives.