Show THE CHINESE EXCLUSION BILL it has been evident enough all along that the present session of congress has been prolonged chiefly for the purpose of manufacturing political capital for use in the presidential campaign the representatives of both parties in both houses when not absent from washington making stump speeches in the country are practically doing the same thing on the floors of congress the whole business of the session has apparently patently ly been resolved into a strife for gaining some mean and petty partisan advantages this was evident enough in the proceedings on the fishery question but it was still more evident in the action of bogli houses on the chinese exclusion bill the chinese question like the fishery troubles has been dragged into the canvass by the politicians merely for the sake of having an issue to catch ignorant votes ii is in no sense a party question at all and I 1 there is no particular difference of ion in regard to it among the masses of the people but the cidna have thought it to their interest to manufacture a chinese bugaboo for use in the present campaign and ever since the canvass began great efforts have been made with it to frighten voters from one side to the other when therefore a rumor i etched this country that aliina had rejected the last exclusion treaty alie representatives of both parties in both houses maybe fairly represented as rt over each other in their haste to turn the event to party advantage they fould f not even wait to hear from our official representative in china as to the truth or the falsity of the report it was enough that some voters in california wanted legislative assurance at once that no more chinese should be allowed to enter the state A sweeping and drastic measure was drawn up and rushed through both branches of congress receiving the unanimous vote of the house and only three negative votes in the senate while the subject was being discussed in the latter house a cable dispatch was received from the american minister in china denying the report of the rejection of the treaty the senate however had worked itself up to such a heat by this time that it could not stop and it passed alie measure just the same it afterwards recovered itself so far as to vote a reconsideration of its action and the bill has therefore been withheld with held from the president sive would not lay ourselves open to the charge of being too harsh in our judgment of the actions of our represent anivea at washington in this or any other matter brought up for their consideration but it seems to us that the conduct of both houses of our national legislature on this chinese treaty question can only be fitly characterized as silly disgraceful and humiliating in the extreme the hasto exhibited in rushing the bill gli congress on the strength of a baseless rumor was thoroughly discreditable to men possessed of any dignity and self respect it was shameful and contemptible it is not necessary to call in question here the merits of the exclusion bill itself but it was a measure that should not have been passed at any time without alie most careful deliberation it is very likely that it would have received such treatment if it had come up at any other time than the present but what an exhibition is congress making of itself in the eyes of kotlier nations by its puerile and ill actions in these matters of international concern |