Litchfield enquirer., 1877-03-01

-is in danger of corruption from the Chinese element is too childish to deserve . thought. San Francisco. like all great especially like all cities filled with life, energy, and speculation-has large criminal class which its pure and honest citizens must control by stringent laws, vigorously executed. This applies as we'll to the small Chinese element of the criminal class as to the large elements that other sources may contribute. To hold a meeting and seek the interference of the Federal Government because a class of immigrants Twill not conform in their habits of life to our sanitary and police regulations" is somewhat puerile Attitude, to our American thinking, for the metropolis of the Pacific coast to as- sume before the nation. .
 But the California Chinese themselves have had something to say upon their moral relations to the community they live in; and even beside the eloquence oi the mass-meeting, their statement may be found to have a scertain force and digui- ty. In memorial addressed to the Pres Chinese of San Francisco, the following passages occur:
 ssThe Chinese have neither attempted nor desired to interfere with the estab- lished order of things in this country, either of politics or religion. They have opened no whisky saloons, for the pur- pose of dealing out poison and degrading their fellow-men.. They have promptly paid their duties, their taxes, their rents, and their debts"
 And again, concerning one of the ele- ments complained of:
 GA few years ago our Chinese mer- hack to China, and succeeded in getting a large number on board the outgoing steamer;but a certain lawyer of your hon. bearer of these resolutions against, our Chinamen, procured writ of h06e0s cor 1us, and brought all those women on shore again, and the courts decided that they had a right to stay in this country if they so desired. Those women are still here, and the only remedy for this evil, and also for the evil of Chinese
 
 honest and impartial administration of the municipal government in all it's de- tails, even including the police depart ment. If officers would refuse bribes, then unprincipled Chinamen could no longer purchase immunity from the pun. ishment of their crimes"
 ''The burdened city of the West looks Loyalty to the Congress of the nation for helping action, says Mir. Vivian, "and is wiling to wait awhile for relief, proyid- ed that sction is not gpersistently delay ed. Shall we, then, abrogate national treaty and make precedent in utter con- trast to all our previous course and the spirit of our laws, in order that city. however great, may be saved the trouble of seeing its regulations enforced-nay be saved this trouble by the easy. though somewhat medieval, method of shutting itself up in an exclusive policy which the Chinese themselves have abandoned? To save it this trouble. shall we discriminate still further against people whom State laws yet exclude from the witness-box, and against whom exactions and outrages are tolerated which we should not permit to be practiced against any other race?
 MT. Anson Burlingame (and of his opin- ions the writer does not speak without full knowledge) was no sentimentalist in this matter. He did not idealize the Chi nese; and he knew their faults. ignorances and weaknesses as we'll as any of the men to whom 1t now seems so easy to magni- fy this side of the Chinese character. It was no part of his wish to foist the Chi naman into position with regard to this country which he neither sought nor could ever fill. The treaty which Mir. Burlingame negotiated places no facti- tious aids within the reach of the Chinese immigrant into America; clause of It iypressly declares that it's provisions shall not be construed as etfecting the naturali- zation of any Chinaman; thns creating the same probabilftay that the Chinese will not secure the suffrage till they are able to fully appreciate, ask and use it., that exists in the case of any other for eigner. MT. Burlingame knew them too we'll to fear that they could ever form a massed and easily led ignorant vote.
 He looked upon this whole subject through no deceptive atmosphere. But what he sought to gain for the Chinese what the California committees now wish to take away from them-was ''the inspi- ration of fair opportunity" the right to take what place they foun.l themselves fitted to hold without factitious aid, both among this and other peoples He de- sired for tn .m the international justice which had already been shown by us to every other known country He knew that the status of a race is made by eter- nal laws to depend on what race can do for itself and by itself, and he desired not to uphold the Chinese contrary to such laws. but simply to give them fail play, knowing that no agency could go farther. Should his treaty be abrogated, those laws will not cease; should it be sustained, they will still be in force.
 1nthe same spirit this article is written. It is in no sense meant for finished argument its space is too short for the writer to do anything but choose a few facts from a great number. But it ,ls meant as the expression of an earnest be. lief that there is another side to the com. plaints from the Pacific coast-as the ex. pression of an earnest hope that Congress will think we'll before it takes away from one nation the justice which it accords to every other