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Show i ; I THE CHINESE. f That part of the President's message I which relates to the Chinese question is ofgreat importance to the West. In the !' West the Chinese question has been the most prominent of any for many years, for it is here where the Chinese have been most abundant. The President i gives the true reason for the hatred of the I j Chinese, which is race prejudice. Race prejudice may be a poor reason for hating I i a people and heaping, all sorts of indig- j nities upon them, but it is a mot potent ij i one. It was raco prejudice which caused p the governments of the Middle Ages to ' ' ' I' brand the Jews with infamy and to treat i them as worse than slaves. To race prejudice may be traced the f cruel treatment of the Jews in Austria f t and Germany, and Austria and Germany, im this respect, are no more civilized j r 's than barbaric Morocco, where the Jew I ! f: is compelled to wear a black cap as a j ' badge of inferiority, liace prejudice, I : J which is a bane to civilaziation, has beisi I ) encouraged too much throughout the ! ! , world. The attempt has been made in I Euroje, especially in Southeastern Eu- j rope, to define the geographical boun- I daries of kingdoms and principalities ac- cording to race lines. It does not succeed I ' well, for race prejudice is but clanishness. : Iut the Chinese question has assumed i such a shape in the United States that ; something must be done. Their pres- I ; i ence in any considerable num- ' - ' lers is a menace to the pub- J ; lie peace in many places, because . , of the hostility which they excite. although they themselves are 7 of a most peaceable disposition. But this is j the trouble: their very presence does j excite hostility. The question is, then, j is it better to exclude them entirely from j ' the United -States, or to permit them to come, although their coming is a continual contin-ual source of ill-feeling to large numbers of our own people," and which ill-feeling is liable to lead to 'hostilities which can only be avoided by the use of force on the part of the authorities of the Government, Govern-ment, either State or National? Much of the opposition to the Chinese of late has come from labor, organizations, and these organizations have been . as hostile to Caucasians who did not belong to their organizations as to the Mongolians. In these cases, the hostilities have been from organizations or-ganizations against individuals, and for the mere purpose of crushing such individuals. indi-viduals. The opposition of such organizations organi-zations is of the blindest and most selfish, and often injures a good cause which they may have-espoused. The question resolves itself into one of policy, and what that policy shall be is a matter for Congress to decide. The President indicates indi-cates that such legislation must be within the treaty limits, to which none can object. ob-ject. The expressions of the President on this matter show that he is willing to do anything he can to aid the people of the West in ridding themselves of the Chinese, although he did insist that the Chinese must be protected from the deadly assaults of the mobs in "Wyoming and Washington Territories. For him to have done any less than he did do in the matter would have been for him to have violated his oath. Under all the circumstances, it would perhaps be best to exclude Chinese, but those who are here now should be allowed to remain, as they are here of right and under treaty guaranties ; and they must be furnished protection at all hazards. |