Chinese immigration
Coolidge, Mary Roberts, 1860-1945
R ■s, Hh 10 ss, in in ID 1 0 S c oc , 1 \ N S <u > < ) Digitized by Microsoft® Menace of Non-Assimilation 449 It is seen that for forty years the Irish, while averag- ing less than five per cent of the male adult population, have made up fifteen per cent of the male insane and eight per cent of the criminals; the Germans, averaging three per cent of the male adult population, have made up ten per cent of the male insane and slightly more than three per cent of the criminals. During the same period, while the Chinese have averaged fourteen per cent of the adult male population they have constituted only four and two-tenths per cent of the insane and eleven per cent of the criminals, and only once have they risen to as high a percentage of criminals as their proportion to the male adult population. The population figures used as the basis of the table are taken from the Census; and, if, as has often been asserted — and as the corrected figures in Table (p. 425) seem to prove — the numbers of the Chinese were under- stated in i860 and 1870 by the census, a comparison of the Chinese insane and criminals with their whole adult male population would be still more favorable to them. As it stands the table shows that the Chinese were less liable to insanity and less criminal even, proportionately, than the English, Scotch and Welsh, to say nothing of the Irish, the Germans, the Spanish-Americans and Italians. If to these facts it be added, that of the 5,000 children in public institutions for dependents in California of whom at least two-thirds are of foreign parentage — the cost of maintenance being almost one-half million dollars annually — the Chinese have 12 ; that of the 4,140 paupers in state almshouses in 1903 they had 44 and that they are rarely if ever found in hospitals, — if all this be taken into account, the negative value of the Chinese as immigrants who can stay out of institutions is not inconsiderable to the state of California. During periods of anti-Chinese agitation, preceding elections, much has been said of the expense of the ar- Digitized by Microsoft® 450 Competition and Assimilation rest and conviction of the Chinese for offenses in the City of San Francisco. Chief of PoHce Crowley stated in 1893 that 20,000 had been arrested between 1883- 1893 of whom II per cent had been convicted and that they were " the most persistent law-breakers known to the police." =" The following table gives the number and per cent of the total arrests of whites and Chinese. ARRESTS IN SAN FRANCISCO, 1879-1903. From reports of Chief of Police. Year begin- ning July t Total Arrests Chinese Ar- rested Chin- ese per cent of total Year Total Arrests Chinese Ar- rested Chin- ese per cent of total 1879-80 1880-81 1881-82 1882-83 1883-84 1884-85 1885-86 1886-87 1887-88 1888-89 1889-90 21063 2301 1 25969 24149 25591 Si 19466 23462 23549 1774 1945 3460 3817 2S39 2734 4886 1656 1 160 1744 1455 8.4 8.4 13.0 15.0 1 0.0 n.o 18.0 8.0 6.0 1° 6.1 1890-91 1891-92 1892-93 1893-94 1894-95 1895-96 1896-97 1897-98 1898-99 1899-00 1900-01 24528 28417 25987 25824 25960 30462 29168 28013 27769 26448 27362 955 1318 1416 925 1172 2793 3762 3281 1915 2857 2893 4- 4- 5- 3- 4- 9- 12. II. 8. II. II. Average per cent 1880-1890, lo.o Average 1890-1900, 7.6 From this table it appears that from 1879-1901 the Chinese constituted 8.8 per cent of all arrests while they were not less than 14 per cent of the total adult male population of the city according to Census figures, and according to the estimates of Californians, a much higher per cent. If the offenses be analyzed and classified, it is discovered that forty per cent of all arrests were for drunkenness and that of these the Chinese were no part '' Letter of Chief Crowley, printed in Cong. Record, 53d Cong, ist ses., p. 3046, in a speech delivered by Senator George C. Perkins. Digitized by Microsoft® Menace of Non-Assimilation 451 at all. The larger part of their offenses have always been gambling, keeping opium dens and violation of fire and health ordinances, and the smaller part robbery, murder and assault to murder. From the petty offenses the city has reaped a rich harvest of fines and bail money and the police a richer harvest of graft money. In 1876, for instance, the Chinese were fined in large numbers for violation of the cubic air ordinance while other violators were not molested ; and while waiting to be brought into Court, were confined in cells in the jail which did not meet the requirements of the law.'* About one-half of all the arrests in San Francisco between 1879 and 1901 resulted in convictions. Chief Crowley himself reported that from 1883-1893 only eleven per cent of the Chinese were convicted. Dr. August Drahms, the well-known criminologist who has been chaplain of the principal State prison of Cali- fornia for many years, writes that the Chinese " are not criministically inclined in any aggressively western sense," and that outside of the Tong feuds of the High- binders, they commit chiefly commercial offenses. The Chief of Police of Los Angeles said that the chief crime of the Chinese was gambling and that aside from oc- casional tong feuds in which they cut but rarely kill each other, they are an exceptionally peaceable class of people.** But even in the matter of gambling it appears that the Chinese — who are not Christians — although they gamble almost universally, gamble very mildly indeed. They play fan-tan or pie-gow as an Englishman plays a club- rubber of whist or Americans play bridge and poker. For years in San Francisco, while the Chinese gambling " dens " were periodically raided by the police, there " Between June 6 and Dec. 6, 1876 after the queue-cutting ordinance went into effect 1012 Chinese were apprehended for misdemeanor and paid $9,020 into the City Treasury in fines ; no served 5 days each in jail and lost their queues. ^ Interview. Digitized by Microsoft® 452 Competition and Assimilation were many places where poker and other games were played openly by white men in which far larger sums were lost; and in several of the principal saloons pools were sold on the races and prize-fights. While Chinese were arrested for running lotteries, the sellers of Mexi- can and Honduras lottery tickets regularly went the rounds of the business offices in the principal buildings and sold tickets without active interference from the police. San Francisco is of all places the one where gambling can be least appropriately called an " Oriental " vice since every form of it has flourished among the white population under the sufferance of municipal authority. It has been universally granted that the Chinese are the most industrious of peoples. It is, moreover, an impossibility for any race to be extremely industrious and at the same time highly immoral, intemperate and criminal. It has already been shown that opium-taking in moderation as ordinarily practised by them in this country, is no more disastrous than the use of tobacco among Americans ; ^° and that when carried to an ex- treme its eflfects are scarcely more disastrous to society than the excessive liquor drinking which is the char- acteristic Caucasian vice. Gambling, when confined to the Chinese themselves, is mild in degree and relatively harmless in results. Edmund Mitchell says truthfully: " It is only when the riff-raff of other races are allowed to take a hand and to utilize the Chinese tables, games and banks for the gratification of their own propensities, that anything like wide- spread mischief is wrought. A Chinaman in rare instances loses his all when gaming among his own countrymen ; but if this result does happen, he goes next day contentedly back to work and is not, like most ruined gamblers of European stock, permanently incapacitated for honest toil." ^ *' See Ch. i8. Jew Ah Mow said: "A good many of them smoke it who have not the habit; they very often smoke as a matter of pas- time. It is like taking a cigar with a white man and the best illustra- tion is like a white man asking another to take a drink." ^' Nineteenth Century Mag., vol. 36, p. 613. Interviews with Chinese and Americans. Digitized by Microsoft® Menace of Non-Assimilation 453 As to murder and assault, perpetrated generally in the heat of Tong feuds or as revenge by the Highbinders, the statistics of California prisons, finally prove that the Chinese are less criminal than the Caucasian immigrant. Certainly the crusade against the Chinese immigrant cannot be consistently based on their evil habits and practices while many European foreigners who make a far less creditable showing, continue to be admitted.^'' As to their effect upon the social life of San Francisco, there has never been a time when there has not been power and prejudice enough to enforce the municipal ordinances and the general laws, if the officers of the city itself had not been criminal abettors, profiting by the toleration of Chinese law-breakers. It is not to be denied, as Chester Holcombe has said, that some of the Chinese brought vicious habits from Asia and soon acquired others from association with other foreigners and with Americans, but the worst of them were not more objectionable additions to our pop- ulation than many whom we have received from Europe. So far as vice and crime are concerned the Chinese, when judged fairly by the fact rather than by extravagant and partisan generalizations, are superior to all the con- tinental European immigrants, and, it would almost ap- pear, are not worse than our English-speaking kindred. Even if there were only a few signs of assimilation in the United States instead of the many already quoted it would not be conclusive proof that they could or would not assimilate, for out in the Mid-Pacific an experiment has been made under circumstances not very different — except that they are more normal — and with quite dif- ferent results. Doremus Scudder, a scholarly and com- petent writer, has described in detail the causes of this marked difference. He says that, although the 40,000 Chinese who emigrated to Hawaii were chiefly laborers ^ Prof. J. R. Commons, Xepi. Ind. Com. 1901-2, vol. Immigration, p. 28. Digitized by Microsoft® 454 Competition and Assimilation without special inducements to identify themselves with the country, they were treated with justice and kindness, were allowed to acquire land, were subjected to no social ostracism, enjoyed the privilege of intermarriage on the same terms as other foreigners and were permitted to become citizens. Mr. Scudder thus describes the re- sults : " As a consequence, the Chinaman in Hawaii blossomed out remarkably in the role of a man of the world. ... By 1901 no less than 1,115 Chinese in the Territory were paying taxes on real estate to the assessed value of $1,320,084, while 12,926 taxpayers of this race were rated as owning property to the amount of $3,287,802. . . . During the monarchy 752 Chinese became nat- uralized in Hawaii and to-day there are more than 300 voters of this race. . . . The national Census of 1900 showed the total Chinese population of this Territory to be 25,762, living in 3,247 homes of which 393 or 12^ were owned. . . . The Chinese is the most law-abiding immigrant we have. . . . All the unsanitary crimes urged against this long-suffering people on American soil are in the last analysis chargeable to the carelessness, neglect or worse vices of our own authorities. ... In Honolulu there is no Chinatown like San Francisco though there is a part of the city where Chinese lodging houses and shops congregate. They are no more clannish than any other nationality. . . . Outside of gambling and illegal liquor selling (another offense traceable to grafting by the authorities) the Chinaman does not figure largely in the criminal courts. . . . 92^ of his children attend school and through- out the schools of the Territory they are ranked as the best pupils. In 1903 there were 16 Chinese or part-Chinese teachers in the public and 14 in the private schools of the Islands." ^ In commenting on the general misunderstanding of the Chinese by foreigners, Michie says that the repre- sentatives of the powers, notably Great Britain and the United States, have been in the habit of evolving from their own consciousness a subjective Chinaman with whom they play " dummy " ; when brought to book they find the real Chinaman entirely different from the in- , telligent automaton kept for cabinet use. Something like this has been the habit of the Californians who keep a bogy Chinaman for political purposes and who yet con- ™ Outlook, 1905, pp. 985 ff. Chinese Citizenship in Hawaii. Digitized by Microsoft® Menace of Non-Assimilation 455 cede his superior industry, patience and intelligence and often — in private life — contrast his sobriety, peaceable- ness and reliability with the defects of laborers of their own and other races. There are thousands of families in California who have counted Chinese tradesmen and employes as friends ; there are hundreds of women on lonely ranches who have been indebted to Chinamen for their safety, their comfort, even for nursing of themselves and children when no other help was to be had ; for in the country districts, the only common man with whom as a class, a woman is perfectly safe, is the Chinaman. Califor- nians will tell, most appreciatively, stories of the generos- ity, kindness, devotion and integrity of individuals whom they have known, but the moment the question of ex- clusion is broached, they insist, without apparent con- sciousness of inconsistency, that the Chinaman is a dan- gerous creature, that he will not assimilate and that therefore, he must go ! They are unaware or they ignore the fact that a few thousand Chinese have already as- similated and that the children of those who have fam- ilies here are as much Americanized as the children of other foreigners who were not born to the English tongue.'° In the face of the facts stated in this chapter it can no longer be said that the Chinese do not assimilate. Al- though the number of Chinese families is proportionately very small compared with their total number and with other foreigners, whenever they settle they assimilate somewhat slowly in the first generation and very rapidly in the second. ■ Single men who have been long in the country are often too much Americanized to be able to live in China ; but whether they assimilate more or less is of relative unimportance, since the most of them " For instance the native-born Chinese children are much superior to the native-bom Italian children in speaking English and in general intelligence. Digitized by Microsoft® 45 6 Competition and Assimilation die here without descendants or finally return to their native land. Every charge brought against the Chinaman can be brought with greater force against many of the Euro- peans who now constitute the bulk of immigration at the Atlantic ports. Indeed, Medhurst says : " If clannishness, patriotism, persistence in the habits and ideas in which one has been brought up, frugality, the desire to acquire money in order to lay it out at home, and a settled determination to lay one's bones on native soil, can be characterized as crimes, or objectionable traits, then many Englishmen, Scotchmen, Irish- men and Americans cannot afford to throw stones at the heathen Chinee." To bring the comparison nearer home: it is per- fectly well-known that the Italian quarter of San Fran- cisco is unsanitary and immoral ; that the Italians are clannish and very slow to speak English; that some of them are drunken, violent, even murderous ; that only those of the better class assimilate in the first genera- tion and that their children leave school early and are by no means always cleanly or intelligent. , It is common knowledge that the Italian has a very low standard of living, that he accepts a low wage, that he is not easily " unionized " and that he pays an infinitesimal part of the state revenue. Yet no one in California proposes that the Italian should go, for two reasons: because he is a Caucasian and because he has a useful vote. " The last immigrant is always the worst immigrant," said Mr. Ernest Bruncken, an American of German parentage; and this was the view taken fifty years ago even of our nearest of kin, the Irish immigrant. If, when the famine-stricken, penniless thousands of Ireland were pouring into the United States, Congress had passed an Irish Exclusion law on the ground that they sent all their money home, that they would become paupers and criminals, that they would underbid and supersede American laborers and debauch American poli- Digitized by Microsoft® Meiifoe of K ^n-Ar*;' v^ ^n 457 tics — it would hav. been justitn. For tae nish sent home not less than seventy-five milhu.ii of dollars be- tween 1852 and 1872 and are sending now not less than ten millions a year. In California although they have averaged only 5 to 7% of the total population, they con- stitute forty per cent of the almshouse inmates and nearly half of the arrests for drunkenness. Yet after sixty years, Irishmen are still welcome immigrants, for we know that with all their faults and vices, and even though they have superseded almost wholly native-born American labor, the better part of them can be made into good Americans. Such comparisons are doubtless odious to those who consider the color of the skin more impor- tant than character and capacity but they serve to reveal the true animus of Chinese exclusion and to strip it of all adventitious excuses. The Chinaman was and is shut out because he is yellow and because he is too indus- trious, not because he would not make a good American. Long ago the Sand-lot framed a bogy Chinaman, en- dowed him with all the vices and all the industrial vir- tues potential in his race ; stripped him of all human characters except avarice and deceit and set him up in the market-place of San Francisco. Though every Cali- fornian knows Chinamen who have no resemblance to this bogy except a queue and a yellow skin, yet for the sake of self-justification and under the obsession of the tradition, the bogy is periodically held up to the world as the real Chinaman — the menace of the Pacific Coast. Yet this same Chinaman has done a large part of the common labor on the Pacific Coast, filled the unfillable labor gaps, paid his debts and his taxes, sent his savings home and with them presents to his friends, advertising our products and promoting our trade among his country- men; and finally he is going home carrying American ideas and, it is said, even defending us with the charitable fiction, that it is the other foreigners, not the true Ameri- cans, who have abused him. Digitized by Microsoft® 45 8 Competition and Assimilation It does indeed, take two to assimilate ; and non-assimi- lation is the least convincing and most inconsistent of all the arguments against Chinese immigration, in the mouths of those who have not wished them to assimilate nor given them opportunity to do so, and who do not, even now, recognize that many of them have become intelligent and patriotic Americans. " Digitized by Microsoft® CHAPTER XXIII THE EFFECT OF UNFRIENDLY EXCLUSION UPON CHINA " Misappreciation and mismanagement have in fact been to a great extent if not altogether, the true source of all our troubles with Chinese immigrants." — W. H. Medhurst. " The American trade unionist does not object to the immigration of men of a high standard of living whether they be Turks, Russians or Chinese . . . whether they be yellow, red, brown or black. In certain cases, as in that of the Chinese, it was absolutely essential to the suc- cess of the law that it discriminate against the whole nation Re- striction, however, should be without prejudice or hatred, . . . should be democratic in character and should not exclude any man Capable of earning his livelihood in America at the standard union rate of wages. It should not be directed by racial animosity or religious prejudice." — John Mitchell, President of the United Mine Workers. " But in the effort to carry out the policy of excluding Chinese laborers, Chinese coolies, grave injustice and wrong have been done by this nation to the people of China, and therefore ultimately to this nation itself. Chinese students, business and professional men of all kinds — not only merchants, but bankers, doctors, manufacturers, pro- fessors, travelers and the like — should be encouraged to come here and treated on precisely the same footing that we treat students, business men, travelers and the like of other nations. Our laws and treaties should be framed so as to put these people in the excepted classes, and to state that we will admit all Chinese, except Chinese of the coolie classes, Chinese skilled or unskilled laborers." — Theodore Roosevelt. It must not be assumed because the Chinese in Amer- ica have been like pawns at chess — submitting to all de- mands, lawful or unlawful, and yielding to the aggres- sions of the exclusion laws — that they felt no resentment. Nor, because their protests failed of effect, would it be safe to suppose that they have forgotten their injuries and will ultimately acquiesce without retaliation. Dur- ing the first twenty-five years of free immigration the Chinese had no means of making their views known ex- cept through the occasional remonstrance of some indi- vidual Chinaman or of the Six Companies in San Fran- Digitized by Microsoft® 460 Competition and Assimilation CISCO. As early as 1852 they replied to Governor Bigler's attack and in 1853 one Lo Chum Qui, after protesting against the false accusations made against them, said that the most of those who came to this country were indeed poor men, but what they said about America would nevertheless be duly remembered.^ Ten years later, Mr. Pun Chi voiced the remonstrance of the Chinese in America to Congress ; through him they appealed to religion and to justice asserting that no other immigrants to California paid so large an amount of taxes or were more submissive to the laws. They begged for legislative interference to protect them from outrage and injustice, and from the importation of abandoned women from China ; they asked to be al- lowed to take cognizance -of the minor offenses of their own people and report them to the courts, and finally that Congress would decide whether they should go or stay.' In 1873 they made an appeal to the Supervisors of San Francisco in which they protested that they were peaceable and industrious, kept no whiskey saloons, and paid their rents, taxes and debts. They proposed that all treaty relations should be repealed between the two nations and that all Chinese should leave America and all Americans leave China.^ In 1876 the Six Companies endeavored to check emigration from the port of Hong Kong by reporting the troubles in California, and in 1878 they sent a Memorial to the President of the United States in which they replied categorically to the accusa- tions against them. They particularly resented the con- ditions of prostitution and said that the only remedy lay in honest administration of the Municipal Government — if officers would refuse bribes, then unprincipled China- men could no longer purchase immunity.* But the most 1 Alta, June 23, 1853. ' Spear, T/ie Oldest Empire, pp. 584-603. ' Reprinted in Sacramento Union, Apr. 3, 1876, from a pamphlet of 1873 entitled : The Chinese Question from the Chinese Standpoint. * Mar. 26, republished in Healey and Chew's Statements, etc. Digitized by Microsoft® The Effect of Exclusion Upon China 461 interesting and characteristic of these early protests is the manifesto printed in the San Francisco papers by the Six Companies shortly before the Kearney uprising, of which only a few sentences can be reprinted here : " To the American Public : The United States has been open to Chinese emigration for more than twenty years. Many China- men have come ; few have returned. Why is this ? Because, among our Chinese people, a few in California have acquired a fortune and returned home with joy. A desire to obtain a com- petency having arisen in the heart, our people have not shrunk from toil and trouble. They have expected to come here for one or two years and make a little fortune and return. Now this honorable country is discussing the importance of prohibiting the further emigration of the Chinese. . . . But this result should be brought about in a reasonable manner. It is said that the Six Chinese Companies buy and import Chinamen into this country. How can such things be said ? Our Six Companies have, year after year, sent letters discouraging our people from coming to this country, but the people have not believed us, and have con- tinued to come. The necessary expenses of these poor newcomers is a constant drain upon the resources of those already settled here, so that the Chinese residents of this country are also opposed to this rapid Chinese emigration. But the capitalists of this honor- able country are constantly calling for Chinese cheap labor. The white laboring men of this country are very angry because the Chinese obtain employment which they claim belongs to the white men alone, and so they hate the Chinamen, sometimes throw stones at them, sometimes strike them on the street, and constantly curse them. The Chinese people cannot return such treatment in the same kind, lest other nations hearing of such things should ridicule the laws of this honorable country as of no use. It cannot be said that Chinese labor impoverishes this country, and are not the Customs paid by the Chinese a benefit to the country .' . . ." ' All of these documents without exception, were digni- fied, respectful, and reasonable in tone; they show a curiously simple confidence that whatever the common people might achieve against them, the President and Congress were still able and bound to protect them. Evi- dently, during these earlier years, they had no clear un- derstanding of the workings of politics which not in- frequently defeat the most important measures of justice. 6 Alta, Apr. 5, 1876. Digitized by Microsoft® 462 Competition and Assimilation The thing which puzzled them most was the discrimina- tion practised againSt them in favor of European immi- grants who seemed to them, doubtless from their limited knowledge obtained in California, such undesirable cit- izens.* While the Chinese thus put their case to the citizens of California and to the government of the United States, their home government was taking small account of them. Not even the violation of the treaty of 1880 by the restriction law and the Scott Act, could attract much attention from the Imperial Government while it was striving to hold the Empire together and save it from the rapacity of foreign powers. The immigrants in America were moreover only one four-thousandth of all her millions, for the most part poor men, and from the limited area of a few districts about Canton. As year by year a few thousands returned with gold and with tales of Western marvels, some knowledge of Amer- ica spread gradually over the whole province of Kwang Tung, but there were still millions who had never heard of the Gold Mountains. A few thousand merchants and a few officials and mandarins were aware of the unjust treatment of their countrymen but knew no way or had no power to make its importance felt, or to seek redress. Even when the Chinese government came to resent the discrimination and indignities to which their people were subjected in the United States, they could not but remember at the same time, the long standing friendship between the two nations and the several occasions on which the United States had stood between China and the other powers in such matters as the opium traffic, the indemnities and the partition of territory.' ' M A. Rev., V. 149 — TAe Chinese Must Stay, p. 477. ' S. Wells Williams to Sec'y Seward, Cong. Docs. 1867, s. n. 1364, p. 514. Nevins, China and the Chinese, (1869), p. 434. Boulger, Hist, of China, vol. 3, (1884), p. 318. Sacramento Union, Apr. 12, 1879. Colton, The Chinese, (1891), p. 189. ^ '^ Digitized by Microsoft® The Effect of Exclusion Upon China 463 Yet the Chinaman has a long memory for injury as well as kindness and as the troubles of China increased from within and without toward the end of the -nine- teenth century, she expressed in the Boxer outbreak the " concentrated wrath and hate of sixty years " because of~the policies of foreign governments — "outrageous and beyond excuse, scandalous diplomacy and unpro- voked attacks upon the rights and possessions of China." * Although the exclusion indignities perpetrated by the United States undoubtedly contributed to this accumu- lated resentment, yet still China took no direct measures toward retaliation. In the debate on the first restriction law it had been predicted that China would retaliate. After the Scott Act Minister Denby wrote Secretary Blaine that he took credit to himself for being able to settle the Chi-nan-fu troubles at all in view of the feeling of irritation exist- ing in China — yet still there was no sign of retaliation. But at last in 1889 the Chinese government did more than politely remonstrate, in refusing to receive Mr. Blair as the representative of the United States, on the ground that his share in the enactment of the exclusion laws made him unfriendly and objectionable." Yet even the Chinese newspapers — of which there were only three at this time — had still a tone of reproach and bitterness rather than of retaliation.^" Meanwhile China herself was being held to strict ac- count for every treaty stipulation. Secretary Fish wrote to Minister Low : " You will not fail to make it dis- tinctly understood that we will claim the full performance by the Chinese government of all the promises and obligations which it has assumed by treaty or conventions with the United States." " And in 1892 Minister Denby 8 Holcombe, The Outlook, 1904, p. 407. ' Cong. Docs. 1889, s, n. 2830, p. 149. 1" Pres. Harrison's Message, s. n. 2920, Dec, 1891. Yung Kiung Yen, Forum, vol. 14, p. 87-90. 11 Cong. Docs. 1869, s. n. 1445, P- 3°3- Digitized by Microsoft® 464 Competition and Assimilation wrote to Secretary Blaine : " The chart that guides the foreign representative is the treaty. He has only to see that its provisions are complied with. If those pro- visions work injury to China, he cannot help it. China must find her own methods of relief.'^ When in 1894, the Chinese Foreign Office attempted to require all American travelers to report themselves and show their passports to local Chinese officials, the United States Minister insisted on the literal construc- tion of the treaty requiring them to show passports only on demand.^^ President McKinley, while urging the ap- pointment of a commission to study commercial interests in China in order to find a market for the materials and manufactures of the United States, also urged strong measures for the protection of Americans in China and that " instant reparation " be demanded for every loss and injury suffered by them.'* 1 Moreover, while the anti-Chinese party in America was demanding and securing legislation far beyond the terms of the treaty and the American Minister was holding China to account for all her obligations, Americans in China were frequently taking advantage of their privi- leges ; using transit passes fraudulently to cover mer- chandise which they did not own ; '^ refusing to register in fulfillment of the treaty of 1894, although demanding protection ; ^^ and settling in the interior where they had no treaty right to be. The attitude of the Chinese Gov- ernment in suffering missionaries to settle in the interior outside of treaty protection and yet in not shirking the responsibility of protection and indemnity was reason- able, even generous. Chester Holcombe says: 12 Cang^. Docs. 1892, s. n. 3076, p. 92. 12 Cong. Docs. 1894, s. 11. 3292, p. 136. M Cong. Docs. 1898, s. n. 3743, Message. 15 Cong. Docs. 1884. s. n. 2276, p. loi ; (1891) s. n. 2490, p. 385-9. 18 Cong. Docs. 1896, s. n. 3477, p. 90. Minister Denby complained that without special compulsory legislation, Americans would not register ; Secretary Olney replied that such legislation would be difficult to procure and that lists- prepared by the consuls must do in fulfillment of our treaty obligations. Digitized by Microsoft® The Effect of Exclusion Upon China 465 " It has never, within the knowledge of the writer, attempted to shirk full responsibility for the lives and property of American citizens in any part of the Empire, or to claim that missionaries, in establishing themselves in the interior ran their own risks, took their lives into their own keeping, and must themselves bear any financial losses which local opposition to their presence might entail upon them. . . . Can as much be said of anti-Chinese mobs in the United States ? " " The phrase, " the awakening of China ", noW so com- mon, had scarcely been invented when the first restric- tion law was passed in the United States. It had long been an accepted theory that China was a stationary if not retrograding nation, incapable of progress and with- out national spirit. Yet during the twenty-five years since exclusion, while China has been beset by foreign foes and torn by civil uprisings, she has been at the same time making steady progress, proving that she has not only awakened but has the capacity to enter into modern life.i« Dr. Morrison says: " The ancient spirit of evasion, delay and passive obstruction characteristic of Oriental dealings, has in a marked degree given place to a franker, bolder and more aggressive spirit of deliberate and organized resistance to foreign influence," and he adds, " they are, in truth, not opposed to modern improvements but they fear and hate foreign domination, aggression and spoliation." " The exclusion of laborers and the mistreatment of the privileged classes by the United States has tended in the same direction, for it has stung them into a sense of the discrimination practiced against them even by a friendly nation. They would probably have tolerated exclusion of laborers simply, with equanimity, even though it were a race discrimination, had not the personal dignity of If The Outlook, v. 98, p. 351. For discussion of exceptional privileges of missionaries see Cong. Does. 1895-6, s. n. 3629, p. 60 ff ; 1886, s. ii. 2460, pp. 96-100. 18 Holcombe, Outlook, 1904, Feb. 13. Martin, The Chinese, pp. 228-253. Consular Repts. v. 50, no. 184, (1895). 1' Dr. G. E. Morrison, correspondent of the London Times in China, quoted by the Outlook, 1906, Jan. 20th. Yan Phou Lee, If. A. Rev., vol. 148, P- 477- Digitized by Microsoft® 466 Competition and Assimilation the exempt classes been deeply offended by a handling similar to that accorded to criminals. From the time of the Geary law the Chinese have shown an increasing sensitiveness to injustice and dis- courtesy. The discrimination was the more deeply felt be- cause of the hitherto friendly relations existing between the two nations.^" The United States had been the con- spicuous friend of China and as such had received privil- leges peaceably which other nations had obtained by costly wars. The outrages upon China in America for which indemnities were refused, in one instance on the ground that they occurred in territory over which the govern- ment had little control, and in another because they oc- curred in a state over which it had no control at all, oc- curred unfortunately at a time when many other causes of discontent were seething in China. Minister Denby wrote in 1892 ; " The more intelligent among her people cite as grievances the importation of opium, the im- portation of foreign manufactured goods, the introduc- tion of steamers, the loss of Burma and Annam, extra- territoriality, the presence of missionaries and many other things. The decline in the tea and silk trade aggravates the prevailing unrest and bad feeling." ^^ In proportion as the administration of the exclusion laws became more severe and unwarrantable, and the Chinese ministers resident in this country better acquainted with American politics and more indignant in their protestations, the United States was classed with other foreign powers against whom the whole of China was at last uniting. But for the liberal and just spirit in which John Hay, Secretary of State, treated China during the Boxer troubles, the relations of the two na- tions might have become seriously strained. Although thrown into the background by infinitely larger ques- ^ Cff«f. Docs. 1897, s. 11. 3629, pp. 63-3. ^^ Cong. Docs. 1892, s. 11. 3076, p. 92. Digitized by Microsoft® The Effect of Exclusion Upon China 467 tions, the sense of grievance aronsed by the mistreat- ment of the Chinese in this country became one more influence to intensify their national consciousness and to drive them to protect their rights and possessions from all foreign powers. From this time on there has appeared a stronger ten- dency to demand reciprocity of treaty privileges and obligations. Again and again in the earlier years the Chinese in America had reminded Congress that China had not desired a treaty or commercial relations^ that she had been compelled to give up her traditional policy of exclusion by war; that the presence of Americans was as hateful to a large portion of the Chinese people, and as much friction was created by the presence of foreigners in China as by the Chinese in this country. They declared that American and English steamers on the rivers of China had thrown out of business a vast fleet of junks and an army of men ; that the introduc- tion of American machinery would take away the work of thousands; that the influx of missionaries and cap- italists deranged the constitution of society in China quite as much as the presence of Chinese laborers de- ranged that of the United States. In the debates in Congress on the successive exclusion laws the advocates of such legislation were accustomed to point out the contrast between the privileges of the Chinese in the United States and of Americans in China. As a matter of fact no great discrepancy existed. Not only all the recent historians of China but the diplomats of the United States in China have repeatedly called attention to the advantage which the right of extra-terri- toriality gives to the foreigner in China. Americans in China are subject to no court but their own and since, as Minister Denby once remarked, " they are by no means perfect in their conduct in China any more than ^ Minister Denby to Secretary Bayard, Cong. Docs. 1886, s. n. 2460, p. 6. Minister Young, A'. A. Rev , 1892, v. 154, p. 601. Digitized by Microsoft® 468 Competition and Assimilation they are at home ", there was an attempt to restrict their residence to the localities where courts could be provided. But to this restriction the Americans have by no means always conformed. The Chinese have grown more and more jealous of the exercise of the right of extraterri- toriality not only because it humbled them in the eyes of foreigners but because it disgraced them in the eyes of their own people.^^ The treaty obligations and privileges of the two na- tions were, in short, sufficiently reciprocal in degree if not in kind, but since this very circumstance made evasion of responsibility easier on both sides, the Chinese have in recent years begun to demand strict reciprocity and it would seem that they are in justice entitled to the same right of regulating and limiting the entry of for- eigners into the interior of China as has been exercised by other countries with regard to the introduction of Chinese labor.^' But in spite of the many just causes of resentment against the United States for its violation of treaty stipu- lations while it was insisting that China should fulfil hers, the Imperial Government had so many greater causes of rancor against Great Britain, France, Russia and Germany that she would not perhaps for many years have attempted any kind of retaliation except that in- volved in a general anti-foreign policy, but for the fla- grant discourtesy shown at the time of the St. Louis Elxposition. The result of this amazing piece of official discourtesy was that the United States, the only one of the great powers which had not despoiled her territory and which had never assumed an attitude of hostility towards China, was the first, nevertheless, to have its people and its commerce singled out for proscription in the boycott that followed. This was due to a popular movement arising in the middle classes, led by those who had suffered from the harsh administration of the ^ Thompson, China and the Powers, p. 263. 