| Show LATEST TRLEHRMH t CliILEESE BILL The Dcbnie in the Hense 1 < onlinntd Washington 18 There was but small attendance of members present pres-ent when the House met this morn ing for debate only on the Chinese bill Spear of Georgia was the first speaker in the contest He saidbetween the United Staes and China the former had no equal ad versary The little brown man eulogized by Joaquin Miller was born a diplomat and the United States was dealing with a renowned empire This bill was a measure of sefdefense and no other question which could be presented to the present pres-ent Congsess was of more importance import-ance Peace had its victories and the passage of this bill would be one of the victories of peace which would be hailed with the acclamation ac-clamation of an almost unanimous people When the unanimous ver dict of the people who had known the Chinese since 1860 was weighed in the scale with the eloquence of the gentleman from Massachusetts Rice or the metaphysical subtleties of the gentleman from Ohio Taylor there was no doubt as to what way the scale would turn He urged that the bill was right and in literal accordance with the treaty but even were that not so there were reasons which would induce him to vote for it and they were contained con-tained in the old maxim Salus popitU supremo est lex the safety of people is supreme law what was the strength of the numbers num-bers of the American people as compared with the strength of the Chinese whom the opponents of the bill would permit to come to this country without let or hindrance Statistics showed that if every man woman and child in the world were formed in a procession every third man woman and child would be a subject of China He took up in detail and replied to the arguments presented by Taylor of Ohio stating that he would oppose the eloquent theories of that gentleman witn the sworn testimony taken by the Morton Mor-ton investigating committee from which he made several quotations Ito I-to show that the effect of Chinese immigration was to cheapen labor and drive American laborers from the racmc coast He would contrast con-trast the statements of the gentleman gentle-man from Ohio that the Chinese were not as a class more vicious than the rest of people of the world with the declaration of that other Taylor Bayard that morally they were the most debased people on the face of the earth and with his expressions ex-pressions of disgust at the filth of Chinese cities He Speer asserted that the American laborer who had built up our coun trys prosperity in the time of peace and in the time of war on the tiers crest of battle everywhere had fought our countrys battles and achieved its victories was no more like the miserable Chinaman than Ito I-to Hercules or Hiperon to a satyr He compared the characteristics of the Chinese and colored race much to the disadvantage of the former and asserted that the entire south would never rise up agdtist the negro as a class as the west had risen up against the Chinaman In conclusion he said 1 maintain that it is the duty of the American Congress to protect the home life of the laboring men of our country they are the foundation founda-tion of our society What matters to us if we gather large stores of treasure and become as wealthy a Croesu if the mass of the people are miberabe and unhappy and ground down by competition with Chinese labor In the language of oliver lioidsmitn III fares the land to hastening ills a prey Where wealth accumulates snd men decay Princes and lords miy flouinb or may fade A breath may make tham as a breath hath made But a bold peasantry their countrys pride When once destroyed can never be sup plied Applause Deuster of Wisconsin said he would vote for the bill afcer thoroughly considering its merits from the peculiar standpoint of one himself a foreign born citizen the son of an adopted citizen This countrys marvellous nrowth its wonderful development pro eminence em-inence among the nations of modern rimes induced largely to the influx of immigration from the old world an immigration totally different from that which found its way to the Pacific Coast European emigration emi-gration akin to the population of American colonies become an in distinguishable part of our popula tion He adopted American customs American ideas and American love of personal liberty He assimilated with disappeared entirely among the native born making all that was worth preserving of American life and thonght the sacred heritage of his children Not so with the Chinese Chi-nese immigration The past present pres-ent or future Chinaman aid 10 ill quire into our liberal i Jeas as un ler lying ths American system or government gov-ernment he did not desire to be comea contr butor to the support of our public schools he had no wish t to build a home and raise a family here nor would it be desirable po litically socially or morally that he should do so The advent of the Chinese partook more of the charac ter of the peaceful possession of a conquerred territory by paid and hired armies of submissive laborers labor-ers owing allegiance solely io a foreign for-eign power regardless of the future and prospects of the beautiful terri tory temporarily occupied by them Negro slavery took precisely the same beginning The blacks were at first brought only iu small numbers num-bers It proved the greatest curse that had ever blighted this land Let us learn something from the history of the past Every maimed soldier every widow who mourned her husbands death repeated the sad lesson Let Congress stamp this threatening danger out of existence exist-ence before it could grow large enough to require more serious measures for its suppression Gunther of Wisconsin advocated the passage of the bill and drew a strong distinction between immigrants immi-grants from Germany and Ireland who came to this country to better their positions socialiy financi lly and politically and the immigration immigra-tion of Chinese who came under contract and were imported for the sole purposa underbidding American Ameri-can workingmen He would like 0 limit the time of the suspeni > to ten years but he would ut i r the bill as it stood for fear inu I other restrictive measur wouli e adopted Moore of Tennessee thought that it was his patriotic duty to vote against the mil The question of singling out by name and by discriminating dis-criminating againsi a particular nation na-tion and that nation the oldest p largest most peaceable and least meddlesome ot all nations was dn L international question far reaching in scope and consequence It was not 5 the purport of tile bill perhaps to bring up the question of races but it must have that effect and in suppert of that proposition he sent b to the clerks desk and had read extracts ex-tracts from a speech delivered in the Senate by Senator George of Mississippi Mis-sissippi when the bill was pending in the Senate and commenting upon that speech he declared that the conclusion to be deduced from it was that the reason of the senators sen-ators support of the measure was that he might at a later day ask that the friends of the Chinese bill should return quid pro quo for his vote when he should call for them to test the question of African citizenship citi-zenship in the United States In I conclusion he said he would no tallow t-allow the passionate clamor of a temporarily maddened locality to t inluence his vo e on tho hil Berry or aliforuia in ting t-ing the passage ot the bill said that the mea u e lid not fully meet the views of the Pacific Coast nor could I any legislative formalities under the treaty accmplish what the people peo-ple of that section knuw to be for the btst interests of tle country He hail iitendHil to offer an amendment providing that if any Chinaman belonging to classes privileged by the bill should become a libonr he should forfeit his rights as such and that the presence pres-ence of atich person should he deemed a violation of the treaty After eo saltation with his friends h Jiul ueeidKl not t offer the amend meat which f adopted would iecessilate the return of the bill to the Senate but h > wished to call attention to thf fact rhit it left it with Clina to say who were privi leg d persons and that there was no remedy provide in case such privileged person should after landing on our shores enter the field of labor He could not retrain from expressing the iidignation which the people of Caiforuia felt at the failure of the treaty not only to prevent the Chinese coming to this country but to open up the way by which sooner or later the country might be relieved from the presence of those who were here now He then proceeded to describe the character char-acter of Chinese immigrants contending con-tending that they were nothing but slaves it was a slave class which was being shipped to our country the lowest vilest of the millions steeped in degredation and in superstition was not that a class which should be excluded from our land and not permitted to come here with a moral contamination that meant death There was tribunals tri-bunals in California which enforced j Chinese laws and went so far as to I compel every slave faithfully to fulfill his contract if he did not he was often put to death i PageIt is not true that no Chinaman can leave California without permission oft he Six Companies Com-panies Berry He cannot in fact he is nothing but a chattel Continuing he said that the fundamental proposition propo-sition of the whole question was I that Chinese labor could be introduced intro-duced without the introduction of I the Chinese conditions and he quoted from the testimony taken by the Morton committee to show the like of degredation and debasement debase-ment led by the Mongolians it was the presence of the Chinese on the Pacific Coast which had prevented pre-vented the immigration of thousands thou-sands of laborers who have done so much to develop to the vast res urces of tnat section Had it not been for their presense instead of 900000 California would today have a population of more j than 2000000 Believing that the time would come when the American Ameri-can people would see the injustice done to the Pacific Coast by the treaty and would demand that China should recall her subjects in behalf ot the people of California She S-he asked for the passage of the bill in order that they shoud obtain even the slight relief which might t be obtained under the treaty Carpenter of Iowa declared his opposition to the bill because he be lieved it in violation of the treaty iI and entirely unnecessary He prophesied Bhhafc within hm rooro from today the very men J who 1 were advocating this measure would t be here asking for its repeal r Williams of Wisconsin said that i after a full consideration of tie e provisions t pro-visions of the bill he found it impossible im-possible to give it his support He believed that it violated the uuda mental traditions of our government govern-ment and tov do this in order to rectify a local and temporary evil was like drawing blood from the human body to c quench its thirst It violated the idea out of which the American republic re-public had sprung and from which it drew its strength its life and its i hope of perpetuity When he was reminded of the persecutions in Russia the conscription Germany and the cruel tyranny in Ireland he must not be asked on a question I of races and nations anywhere on Gods footstool to cast his vote in favor of the proscription of any t man who was honest who paidJMs taxes and who obeyed the law He 5 also opposed the bill as being in the very teeth of the treaty and trans formed it into a delusion and snare Referring to the Chinese plank h the republican platform Inquired 5 how if as the gentleman from Cali fornia Page stated the peopleof j 5 California had taken that as a pledge that the republicans would support this measure the Golden i Gate had carried out her part of the S agreement V < Page replied that she would have 1 done so had it not bsen that a few S people had believed in the authority of the Morey letter I Williams said he would leave it to the country to judge whether S California was justified in her blind i bigoted prejudice in striking down the best defenders of labor and freedom in this country on tbe mere impulse of the hour S Page Just prior to the election u of 3880 the President of the United S States had vetoed the bill intended S for the relief of the people of the Pacific Coast and they were smart Sing S-ing under what they believed to be the infliction of a wrong Williams My sentiment in regard re-gard to this bill is to express the hope that as one President vetoed j S the other so may another President S veto this bill 4 Applause on the republican re-publican side Skinner of New York argued in S 1 opposition to the measure and ridiculed S ridi-culed the idea of 50000000 Ameri L cans being tram of 100000 Chinese and building a wall on the Pacific Coa t This protection bill was unAmerican and unjust j Brumm of Pennsylvania sup S S ported tie bill interspersing his speech with a number of biblical S quot itions appropriate to this ques tion such as Give not that whichis S holy unto te dogs nor cast ye your S J pearls before swine When the L t eye offends thee pluck it out and cast it away When Chinese coma here and offend the eye pluck them out and cast them away was the manner in which Brumm applied i the last quotation This question he continued should be viewed not 1 from a sentimental but from a 5 practical standpoint Sentiment was I a glorious thing to talk about but S legislation should be founded on facts and they showed that the Chinese were a people who could not and would not assimilate with the other people of this country and and would cheapen and destroy labor In reply to a question by i White of Kentucky Brumm said that the Chinaman could live on what an ordinary baby would Ji starve upon and thereby crowd out our own laborer who had his wife S and children to support Hfe S contended that with China J men thcr3 could be no such i thirg as reciprocity or affiliation it S The gentleman opposing the measure 1 meas-ure said that it was not necessary I and had suggested that Cali j fornia herself could starve the j Chinaman out by refusing to em 1 t ploy him That was the nhilan It t tnropy which they advocated He made the point that every China man who was in this country kept out an honest German or Irishman The tide of immigration came from the Circassian races just in propor tion as the wages to be obtained here were higher than could be ob tained in their own country and would be restricted just in proportion S propor-tion as they were lowered by Mongolian Mon-golian cheap labor Opposition to the bill seemed to ba founded S on a doubt as to the meaning S of the words reasonable times in the treaty but he insisted that the S benefit of that doubt shouM be green to the people of this country instead of to Mongolians Fowler of New York prtmisin g his speech with a declaration that 5 tue passage of the bill was a foregone 1 fore-gone conclusion said tha the hofe question presented was whether uongrtss stiould afford protection to I lihnrers or whether it would be cont nt to protect capL djsts only i r S 5 r |
