CHINESE EXCLUSION[2]
[2] Written for and published by Success Magazine, April, 1906.
If every American could visit China, the question of Chinese
immigration would soon be settled upon a permanent basis, for no one
can become acquainted with the Chinese coolie without recognizing
the impossibility of opening the doors of our country to him without
injustice to our own laboring men, demoralization to our social
ideas, injury to China's reputation among us and danger to our
diplomatic relations with that country.
I made it a point to inquire among the Chinese whom I met, in order
to ascertain the real sentiment back of the boycott. I had heard of
students being subjected to harsh regulations at ports of entry,
of travelers humiliated by confinement in uncomfortable sheds and
of merchants treated rudely, and I supposed that these things had
aroused the resentment. I found, however, that the things complained
of were more difficult to deal with and the concessions demanded
impossible to grant.
In order to understand the boycott one must know something of
Chinese history. As China has never had representative government,
the people have been compelled to bring their complaints before
officials by petition, and where the petition has been ignored,
they have been accustomed to bring such pressure to bear as was
within their power, and the boycott has often been resorted to as
a means of compelling action upon the part of officials. They,
therefore, conceived the idea of a boycott against American goods
for the double purpose of urging their own government to favorable
action and of calling the attention of the American government to
their complaint. Our officials are doing what they can to convince
the Chinese government of the injustice and folly of the boycott,
and the Chinese officials with whom I conversed seemed anxious to
co-operate with our minister and consuls. Immediate action upon
the part of our congress, whether favorable or unfavorable to the
Chinese, will remove the excuse for a boycott and our government
should not be influenced in its action by any threats affecting
trade, for the subject is too grave a one to be determined by
commercial considerations.
The Americans who are doing business in China are naturally anxious
to cultivate friendly relations with the Chinese merchants, and just
before we reached Hong Kong the American business men residing there
cabled home a statement of the minimum changes in the exclusion act
asked for by the Chinese merchants. I had the privilege of attending
a dinner at which a number of the leading Chinese merchants of Hong
Kong presented their views, and it may be worth while to give here
an abstract of their demands as drawn out by cross-examination.
They desire--First, that the word laborer shall be clearly and
distinctly defined, "according to the highest standard English
and be limited to such class or classes of persons as originally
intended to be designated by both governments."
Second, that all regulations and legislative measures affecting
Chinese immigration shall be communicated to and approved by the
Chinese government before going into force, and that when in force,
they should not be altered without consent of the Chinese government.
Third, that American consuls stationed in China shall have full
power to grant certificates of admission to persons not included in
the prohibited classes, such certificates to be conclusive except in
cases of actual fraud.
Fourth, that the American consul in China shall without delay
issue certificates of admission to such Chinese not included in
the prohibited classes as shall obtain passports from the Chinese
government.
Fifth, that the Chinese government shall be permitted to appoint one
European medical practitioner to act in conjunction with a medical
officer appointed by the United States at the port of departure and
that no one shall be rejected as diseased unless certified to be so
by both medical officers.
Sixth, that Chinese once admitted into the United States shall enjoy
the same rights and protection accorded to the subjects of the most
favored nation, and in case of ill treatment shall be entitled to
damages from the government.
Seventh, that Chinese passing through the United States en route for
another country shall enjoy the same privileges as the subjects of
the most favored nations.
Eighth, that Chinese residing in the United States shall not be
required to register unless such registration is required of the
subjects of the most favored nation.
[Illustration: MANCHU AND CHINESE WOMEN--CHINA]
Ninth, that Chinese laborers shall be admitted into the Hawaiian
and the Philippine Islands, provided that the legislatures or local
authorities of such islands are willing. (While this proviso is
satisfactory to the Hong Kong merchants, it seems to have been
objected to by the Chinese of Amoy and Canton.)
Tenth, that any Chinese detained at an American port of entry for
purposes of inquiry shall be permitted to engage legal assistance
and furnish bond for appearance; should the decision be unfavorable,
he shall have the right to appeal to the highest court of justice,
and in case of any technical or formal error in his passport or
certificate, he shall be allowed to correct the same without
undergoing deportation.
Eleventh, that any Chinese residing in the United States shall have
the right to bring his parents, wife, family and minor brothers and
sisters to reside with him.
Twelfth, that Chinese lawfully admitted to the United States but
deported because of failure to register shall be readmitted on
satisfactory proof of possessing in the United States property or
_bona fide_ debt up to the required amount.
The second demand could not be complied with, without putting the
enforcement of the exclusion act so largely in the hands of the
Chinese government as to very much cripple it.
The third demand is reasonable. Our country ought to be bound by the
act of its own consuls, except in case of fraud, and those who are
to be excluded ought to be notified before incurring the expense of
a trip across the ocean.
The fourth demand should not be complied with unless the Chinese
government assumes pecuniary responsibility for any errors in the
issuing of the passport and for the subject's compliance with the
regulations provided by our government.
The fifth demand is absurd, because it virtually transfers to a
European physician appointed by the Chinese government the power
to decide on the health of the immigrant. While, according to
the language of the demand, the Chinese appointee would act in
conjunction with an American physician, a favorable report by the
Chinese appointee would admit the immigrant in spite of an adverse
report by the physician appointed by our government. It is perfectly
proper that a physician appointed by the Chinese government should
be permitted to be present at the examination, and it is only fair
that the examination should be made at the port of departure, but
it is necessary that the examination should be in the hands of
physicians appointed, and removable, by our government.
The tenth demand is for the most part reasonable. A Chinaman
detained for purposes of inquiry should be allowed to secure counsel
and furnish bond, and if the error in his certificate is technical
or formal, he should be allowed to correct it on such terms as are
equitable, but it would hardly be wise to permit appeal to the
supreme court unless some vital principle is involved.
Demands six, seven and eight are based upon the theory that Chinese
in the United States should be treated in every respect like
subjects of other nations, and this overlooks two material facts:
First, that certain classes of Chinese are prohibited from coming
to the United States; and, second, that the Chinese who do come
to the United States come for reasons different from those which
influence immigrants from Europe. (I shall consider the second
reason later.) The fact that some Chinese are excluded while others
are admitted makes it necessary to enforce rules against the
Chinese that are necessary against immigrants from other nations.
While no humiliating conditions ought to be imposed, still our
country is justified in enforcing such rules and regulations as
will prevent fraud and evasion. This cannot be considered an act
of unfriendliness because our nation adopts the same principle
in dealing with its own people. For instance, the voters in the
cities are required to register from time to time, often at
great inconvenience, while registration is not required in rural
districts, the discrimination being regarded as necessary to prevent
election frauds in the cities. In like manner, Chinese may be
required to register, even though registration may be inconvenient,
if experience shows registration to be necessary to prevent evasion
of the immigration law.
In the case of travelers it ought to be possible to provide for such
a certification of passports as to relieve Chinese tourists, whether
passing through, or visiting in, the United States from annoyance
or vexation. It goes without saying that they should be protected
as completely as tourists coming from any other country. Every
encouragement should be given to travel between countries, for an
exchange of views and ideas between nations is as wholesome and as
necessary to progress as social intercourse between individuals.
The ninth demand, while strenuously insisted upon by the Chinese,
involves questions of the first magnitude. It is a question whether
Chinese could be admitted into Hawaii and then excluded from other
states and territories, and in the case of the Philippines, our
country should be slow to establish a policy there before the
length of our occupation is determined.
It will be noticed that the purpose of the first, eleventh and
twelfth demands is to increase the number of Chinese in the United
States. The eleventh contemplates the indefinite enlargement of
the family of each resident by the addition of first, one wife;
second (possibly), two parents, not to speak of an uncertain number
of children, brothers and sisters. While to the Chinese who are
accustomed to the patriarchal system, the admission of parents,
brothers and sisters would seem a very natural demand, it would
hardly seem reasonable to Americans unless it was limited to the
classes excepted from the exclusion act.
The real interest, however, centers in the first demand, viz., that
the definition of the term laborer shall be enlarged. I questioned
several of the Hong Kong merchants in regard to the matter, and
found that they desired especially the admission of clerks and
skilled laborers. They contended that a Chinese merchant could
not conduct a store in the United States without Chinese help and
that to exclude clerks was virtually to exclude merchants. When
questioned as to the number of clerks needed, they estimated that
there were about four thousand merchants in the United States and
that each merchant would need from six to ten clerks. When surprise
was expressed at the number, it was explained that some had to cook
and do housework. It was even argued that Chinese shoemakers and
tailors were also necessary to provide clothing and footwear for
the Chinese residing in the United States. There was a division of
opinion as to whether laundry men should be classed as merchants
and entitled to clerks. But excluding laundry men and counting
eight clerks to the store, this one change in definition would open
the door to about thirty-two thousand, almost a fifty per cent
increase, according to the estimate made by the Hong Kong merchants,
of seventy thousand Chinese now in the United States. Whether the
admission of clerks could be so regulated and restricted as to make
it possible to grant this demand in whole or in part is a question
which I am not prepared to answer without further information as to
the location of the merchants, the character of their business and
the sentiment of the local community.
The admission of skilled laborers is one upon which it is easier to
form an opinion. The Chinese are not only an industrious people, but
they are capable of becoming skilled artisans. They could supply
every factory in the United States with skilled workmen and still
have millions to spare. Nearly all the reasons which apply to the
exclusion of the coolie, apply to the skilled laborer, and they can,
therefore, be considered together.
[Illustration: THE CHINESE WHEELBARROW]
It developed during the dinner that while the demands expressly
recognized the improbability of coolies being admitted, most of the
Chinese present favored the entire repeal of the restriction law.
They resented any discrimination against their people as unfriendly
and unwarranted. One Chinaman of prominence, in another city,
went so far as to intimate that such discrimination would not be
permitted if China had a large army and navy and was able to enforce
her rights.
As the whole question turns on the admission of the Chinese laborer,
let us consider, first, the difference between the European
immigrant and the Chinese immigrant and, second, the general
objections to the admission of Chinese workmen.
The Chinaman, unlike the European, regards America as only
temporarily his home, preserves his national customs and
peculiarities and finally returns, carrying his savings with him. He
is not attracted by our institutions and brings with him no love of
American ideals. To him the United States is a field to be exploited
and nothing more. The European casts in his lot with us, mingles
with the population and in a few generations his identity is lost in
our composite race. He has neither peculiarities of thought or dress
to distinguish him from those among whom he labors, and his children
are soon an indistinguishable part of the community. Not so with the
Chinese. They are not only distinguished by their dress, language
and habits, but they remain entirely separate and apart from those
among whom they dwell. This difference is not only due to the wide
dissimilarity in history, tradition and habit, but also to the
absence of any permanent or patriotic interest in the land in which
they sojourn.
The plane of living and the rate of wages are surprisingly low in
China. When we were crossing the Yellow River I noticed a number of
coolies unloading stone and inquired their wages. They received one
hundred and fifty cash, or about seven and a half cents gold, per
day. When this compensation is compared with the wages paid in the
United States for the same kind of labor, it is easy to understand
why Chinese laborers are drawn to our country. In discussing the
immigration question with a Chinese official, I asked him what he
paid his coachman. He replied that the head coachman received what
was equivalent to $10 in gold per month, while the subordinates
received from $3.50 to $5. Out of these wages they must pay for
their own food. There is considerable difference in the efficiency
of labor, but making due allowance for that, the Chinaman could in
some occupations make twice as much in America as at home and yet
work for half what Americans receive.
Long experience has taught the Chinaman to economize until he has
reduced living to the minimum. Our guide in one city fixed $1 (50
cents gold) as the weekly cost of living for one person, but many
live upon less. In traveling from Pekin to Hankow we were compelled
to provide our own meals, and the very competent cook whom we
secured was regularly receiving $1 a week in gold.
A ride through the streets of a Chinese city furnishes ample
evidence of the economy of the people. The small measures used, the
tiny piles of edibles exposed for sale, the little bundles carried
from the market--these explain why cash, running about ten to a
cent, can be used as currency. Oranges are often sold without the
peeling, the peeling being sold separately, and peanuts seem to
be counted instead of measured. At Canton we saw one man trudging
home from market with a satisfied air, carrying two pig tails tied
together with a piece of grass. The well-to-do have many delicacies,
like birds' nest soup and shark fins, some of which we tasted at
the luncheon given by the viceroy at Nanking and at the Hong Kong
dinner; and among those who can afford it, elaborate dinners are
quite common, but among the masses the food is of the cheapest and
coarsest kind.
In the matter of fuel the same scrupulous economy is exercised.
Every dead leaf and twig is scraped from the ground and even the
weeds are condemned to fiery punishment for presuming to grow upon
such precious soil.
It would require generations to bring our people down to a plane
upon which they could compete with the Chinese, and this would
involve a large impairment in the efficiency in their work.
It is not just to the laboring men of the United States that they
should be compelled to labor upon the basis of Chinese coolie labor
or stand idle and allow their places to be filled by an alien race
with no thought of permanent identification with our country. The
American laborer not only produces the wealth of our nation in time
of peace, but he is its sure defender in time of war. Who will say
that his welfare and the welfare of his family shall be subordinated
to the interests of those who abide with us but for a time, who,
while with us, are exempt from draft or military burden, and who,
on their return, drain our country of its currency? A foreign
landlord system is almost universally recognized as a curse to a
nation, because the rent money is sent out of the country; Chinese
immigration on a large scale would give us the evil effects of
foreign landlordism in addition to its other objectionable features.
When I pointed out the fact that Chinese did not, like other
immigrants, contemplate permanent residence in the United States, a
Chinese official replied that they would become citizens if the law
permitted it, and to the objection that they would even then remain
distinct from the rest of the people, he answered by advancing
arguments in favor of amalgamation. He claimed that the descendants
(called Eurasians) of Chinese who had intermarried with Europeans
were brighter than the average children of either race. I did not
have an opportunity to test the accuracy of these conclusions, but
it is evident that amalgamation has not been carried on to any great
extent either in China or in the countries to which the Chinamen
have gone. The instances of intermarriage are so rare that they do
not affect the general problem.
The fact that the Chinese do now, and would probably if admitted
to citizenship, form an unassimilated, if not an indigestible,
element, separated from the remainder of our population by a race
line, raises another objection to their admission as laborers. They
make good servants, learning quickly and obeying conscientiously.
Americans who have employed them testify to their trustworthiness
and industry. If they were permitted to freely enter the United
States, it is likely that they would soon solve the domestic labor
problem, of which we hear so much, for as cooks, waiters and house
boys they are an unqualified success. But what would be the effect
upon our civilization of such a stratification of society? At
present we have no racial distinction between employer and employé
(except that presented by the negro problem), and one race problem
is enough. If we were to admit Chinese coolies, we would find
it more and more difficult to induce white people to enter into
competition with them and manual labor would bear an odium which
ought not to be placed upon it. We need to teach the dignity of
labor and to lessen the aversion to it; a coolie class would make
it difficult, if not impossible, to make progress in the work of
cementing our society into one harmonious whole. If American ideals
are to be realized there must be no barrier between the rich and the
poor, no obstacles in the way of advancement from manual labor to
intellectual work. China has suffered immeasurably because of the
complete separation of her educated classes from her laborers.
A sentimental argument is sometimes advanced to the effect that we
have no moral right to exclude any who seek to come among us.
Whether this argument has any force depends, first, on the purpose
of the immigrant, and second, upon our power to assimilate. If his
coming is purely commercial and he has no ambition to improve us by
his coming or to profit morally and intellectually by contact with
us, he cannot demand admission upon moral or sentimental ground. And
even if his paramount reason for coming were a desire to learn of
us, it would still be necessary to consider how far we could go in
helping him without injury to ourselves. While visiting the sick is
most meritorious, one who gave all his time to such work, leaving no
time for sleep, would soon be a physical wreck; feeding the hungry
is most commendable, but one who gave away all of his substance,
reserving nothing for his own nourishment, could not long serve his
fellows. In like manner, our own power to help the world by the
absorption of surplus population has certain natural and necessary
limitations. We have a mission to fulfill and we cannot excuse
ourselves if we cripple our energies in a mistaken effort to carry a
burden heavier than our strength can support.
[Illustration: FASHIONABLE CONVEYANCE AT HONG KONG]
Students ought to be invited to our country; we can afford to make
the welcome cordial and access to our institutions easy, for there
is no better way of influencing other countries for good than
through their young men and young women who, gathering new ideas
in America, carry them back and apply them in their own country. A
small part of the money now spent in building warships to protect
us from imaginary foes would, if spent in the education of the
children of foreigners, make us friends abroad who would constantly
lessen the probability of war. The newspapers have given currency
to the report that our government contemplates returning to China
a part of the indemnity exacted because of the Boxer attack, and
the Chinese are much gratified at the rumor. It is coupled with the
statement that the return of the money would be conditioned upon
the expenditure of the money for education. I can conceive of no
greater favor that our country can bestow upon China than to make
permanent provision for schools which will give the Chinese youth
an opportunity to acquire the most modern instruction in literature
and in physical and political science. If the sum to be returned
were divided and the larger part given for the endowment of a series
of universities in China, while the smaller part endowed a college
at Washington, under the control of the Chinese embassy, it would
do more to extend our commerce, our ideals and our prestige than a
hundred times that sum expended on a military establishment or a
navy.
There is one argument against the admission of coolies which ought
to commend itself to the Chinese as well as to the Americans, viz.,
that the standing of China among us is prejudiced by the fact
that she is judged by her lowest and most ignorant classes. There
has always been an educated class in China, and while the number
belonging to it has been limited and the scope of education narrow
as compared with the scope of education in the western world, still
there have been culture and refinement. Artists have appeared from
time to time, as well as artisans skilled in porcelain, metal
working, carving, decoration, etc. There have been merchants of
standing and integrity (in fact, integrity is the rule among
Chinese merchants.) If China could be known by these or even by the
averaging of her superior and inferior classes, she would stand
higher among the nations. But she is known now, except in diplomatic
circles, by the coolies who are carried by contractors from one
place to another until local sentiment leads to their exclusion.
And, I may add, that it has led to their exclusion from Australia
and that the question of exclusion from the Transvaal has been
discussed in the English parliament.
This argument received respectful attention when presented to some
of the prominent Chinese, for they recognize the injury which has
been done to the nation's reputation by having the Chinese people
known by their worst representatives.
There is a fourth argument, the force of which was admitted at the
Hong Kong dinner by the merchants who had resided in the United
States, viz., that the admission of coolies (and it would apply
to skilled mechanics also) would involve the nations in constant
diplomatic controversy over race conflicts. If it is human for
Chinese to desire to improve their condition by immigration to the
United States, it is also human for American laborers to resent
enforced idleness when presented as an alternative to a lower scale
of living. With any large increase in the number of Chinese laborers
in the United States, it would be necessary to incur the expense of
an increased army and police force to preserve order, and even then
it would be difficult to prevent occasional violence, and violence
in the United States would lead to retaliation upon Americans
residing in China. These race riots in our country and in China
would not only strain the relations between the nations but would
nullify our attempt to create a favorable impression upon Chinese
students and embarrass the work of our missionaries in China.
[Illustration: COLOSSAL STATUE OF MING, RULER OF CHINA]
It is better to be frank and candid with the Chinese government.
There are twenty times as many Chinese in America as there are
Americans in China, and we give to China as much in trade advantage
as we receive from her, not to speak of the money which Americans
voluntarily contribute to extend education and religion in the
Celestial empire. China has no reason to complain, for we have been
generous in dealing with her. We can still be not only just, but
generous, but it would be neither kindness to her nor fairness to
our own people to invite an immigration of such a character as to
menace our own producers of wealth, endanger our social system and
disturb the cordial friendship and good will between America and
China.