| OCR Text |
Show MustFca Camera. Ten days from now the Internationa' Revenue Bureau will eater upon Us first experience in registering sad photographing pho-tographing all Chinese residents In this country with many misgivings and doubts. Experienced officers of the department de-partment fear that the provisions of the latest exclnsion law will be found al. most impracticable of execution. Commencing Com-mencing September 1st next, every Chinese Chin-ese in the United States, except the retinue reti-nue of diplomatic corps and a few recognized recog-nized merchants, is required to make application for a residence certificate to the nearest Internal Revenue collector, describe himself, his age and occupation, occupa-tion, and proving his identity, by presenting pre-senting and filing three proof-sheet photographs of his face. His statements of facts are to be supported by affidavits of two creditable witnesses and npon approval of this application the collector la authorized to issue him a certificate of residence, otherwise between now and the fifth of May next he Is liable to de portation back to China. There are 108,000 Chinese In the United States. Over 70,000 of these are in California ands 9,000 in Oregon and there the brant of the enforcement of the exclusion act will fall. Bat there are nearly 3,000 in New York, over 1,100 in Pennsylvania and nearly 1,000 In Massachusetts besides be-sides 700 in Chicago and nearly 500 in St Louis. No slight difficulties are anticipated. an-ticipated. Internal Revenue people quote the ancient saying about the dif ferences between leading a horse to water and making him drink. They point out that the obligations of the law are discretionary with the Chinese. If they don't choose to get themselves photographed and to make their application appli-cation within the time prescribed, revenue reve-nue offibialshave.no power to compel them. The only penalty is deportation, which falls under the domain of the Attorney-General and Secretary of the Treasnry. Anticipations of difficulty entertained by Internal Revenue officials offi-cials seem to be borne out by the fact that of $200,000, appropriated )n the Snadry Civil bill to carry out the law, only 130,000 has been allotted by the Secretary of the Trsasury to the Inter national Revenue bureau to provide the necessary deputies to execute the law, while $700,000 has been retained by the Treasury department and Department of Justice to meet the cost of deporting reealcitants. |
