The Portland daily press., 1879-02-24
vuaNEcr lryDoIIuATIUN.
Senator Blaine's Answer to Will.
liam Lloyd Garrison.
A Powerful Argume mt for the Alb.
fOgatiOn Of the Treaty.

NEW YORK, Feb. % The following letter from |
Senator Blaine will be published in the Tribune to-
morrow morning:
WASHINGTON, D. c., Feb. 2lst, 1879.
10 the Editor of The New York Tribune:
The reflections Of Mr.. William Lloyd Garrison up-
on the Senators who voted for the bill restricting
Chinese inning alton are made, think without he
thorough examination which be usually brings to the
discussion of public questions Permit me, with
painness OF Speech and yet with the sincere respect
entertain for Mr.. Garrison state the grounds on
which cast my vote for the measure.
FirSt-There has not been from the ouiset
any immigration of Chinese in the sense in
which immigration comes t. US from Europe. IL
has all been "under contract" and tbrouob
agencies, and II not in every respect of the
Cody tspe the entire immigration from China
has had the worst aud most demoralzed features of
Cooiyism. The Buringame treaty specially repro
Dated any other than an entirely voluntary immi-
gration aud yet from The first Gilman an that came
in 1S4S, to the last that auded in San Francisco
it is safe to say that not in hundred came in
an ''entirely voluntary manner Up to October /,
1876, the records of the San Francisco custom house
show that 1885, 36 Chinese had arrived in this coun
try, and that 80 273 had returned to China The i'm
migration since has been quite large, and allowing
for returns and Deaths tue best statistics pro-
show that abouC 100000 are in California, and
tom 10000 10 25OJ0 in the adjacent Pacific states
and Territories.
Second-Of this large population fnlly nine-tenths
are adult males. The women have noJ in all num-
bered over seven thousand, and according all &C.
counts they impure and ewd far beyond the Anglo
Saxon conception Of impurity and lewdness. One of
the best informed Cafornians ever met, says that
not one score of decent aud pure women could ever
have been found in the whole Chinese immigr alton.
Ii is only in the imagined, rather hope the unim-
agined fecuience and foulness OF Sodom and Gomor-
rah that any parallel can be found to the atrocious
mas mess OF the Chiue,e quarter of San Francisco
L speak Of this from Astounding testimony-largely
from those who have had personal opportunity to
study the subject in its revolving details. In the en-
tire Chinese population of the Pacific coast scarcely
one family is to be found no hearthstone OF comfort,
iresde of JOYS no father nor mother, nor brother
nor sister; no child reared by parents no domestic
aud ennoblng influences; 70 lies Of affection. rbe
the females holding anu disnonoring t. at sacl I'd
lame being s0u and transferred from one man TO
another, without shame and without fear; wo.
man beng at the same time tue to several men,
Many OF these women come TO San Francisco under
written contracts Tor prostitution, openly anu shame
lie sly entered iatO have myself read the trans a.
tim Of some of these abominable documents Ii as
a nation we have light to Keep infectious dis
eases II we have Tie right to exclude The criminal
classes from Coming to US, we surely POSSESS the
right 10 exclude thai immigration which, reeks with
lmpuiity and which cannot come to US without y en-
teousy SOWING The seeds OF moral and physical dis
ease, restitution and death.
Third-Ihe Chinese immigration to California be
gan win the American immigration in 1913. The
races have been side by side for more than tbity
years, nearly an entire generation, and not one step
toward assimilation has been taken. The Chinese
occupy their own peculiar quarter in the CITY, adhere
to their own dress, speak their own language, wor-
ship IN their own heather temples, and inside the
municipal law and independent Of it, administer
code among themselves, even pronouncing the death
penalty and executing it in criminal secrecy. Ii this
were for year only or for two or five or even ten
years, it might be claimed that more time was need
edior domeslica,ion and assimilation but this has
ben going on for entire generation and the China
man today approaches no nearer to our cyinzation
than he did when the Golden Gaze first received him.
In sworn testimony before an investigating commit
tee OF Congress, DR.. Mears the health officer of San
francisco, described as "a careful and learned man,
tesed that The condition If the Chinese quai ter is
''horIible 'nconceivaoiy horrblev' He stated that
the Chinese as rule "is 10 la &c tenement hOuses
large numbers crowded inIo individual rooms WIN
out proper ventilation, with bad drainage aud
r Nun sreaf daa q NTH the odors
OF taking room ten feel high and putting flooring
halt way to the CELL G, boin floors being crowdel at
night wth sleepers. In these crowded uens cases of
small pox were concealed from the police" "They
1--we underground il Dunks. The topography OF that
portion OF Chnadom is such that you enter house
sometimes anu think that 1t is 0ne-story house ami
You will find two or three stories down below on the
side OF the hill, where they live in great filth" An
other close and accurate observer reside MT of Cali
fornIa says the only wonder is that desoating pes
tileDces have not ensued. smallpox has often been
epidemic and could always be tracei to Chinese ORR
GIN. Ihe Chinese quarter once occupied by
shops, churches, and dwellings, OF Americans. Now
these are as thoroughly MOns 0lian as any part of
Canon, All other Races flee from the contact DR..
Mears further testified and gave many revolving de-
tails i'll proof that the Chinese fare cruel anu iniit-
terent 10 tneT SICK" He described cases OF Chinese
epers at the city hopta ether feet dropped OH by
ury gaDgrene ami their hands wasted and at,
tenuateJ. Their finger mans dropped oil !" ne said
the Oninese were gtadually worHing eastward aud
conditions under which they live In San FRANCISCO
would produce il the absence OF its elm alic advan-
tages, destructive pestilences." Perhaps Chinese
quarter ia Boston with forty thousand Mongolans
located somewhere between the SOU b end and The
north end OF the city and separating two woulds
give Mr.. Garrison some new views as to the power
and sht Of nation 10 exclude moral and physical
pest1lence from It's borders In San Francisco there
Is no hot weather, the thermometer rarely rising
above IS degrees. One of the most intelligent physi-
claus In the Unltei States says that the Chinese
quarter OF san francisco transferred Saint LOUIS
Chicago, Cincinnati, o. any Eastern city would a
not summer breed plague equal to the ssbacx
DEATH that Is now alarming tue civilized world.
Wh.n Mr.. Garrison says the immigra ion English
men, Irishmen, Scotchmen, trenchmen Germaus
and ScandinaVlans must be put on the same footing
as the Chinese Coolies he conOunds all dis tincions
ami, OF course without intending it, libels almost the
entire white population whose bood is inherited
rom the races he names. ALL the immigration from
Europe today assmilates at once with It's own blood
Oh this soil, and TO place the Chinese Coolies n The
same footing to shut vnes eyes to all the instincts
OF human nature and all The teachings Of history.
Fourth-ls it not inevitable that class of men
living 10 this degraded and filthy condition. and on
the poorest of food work for less than the Amer
lean abrer is entitled to receive for his daily toll?
Put the two classes of labor side by side and the
cheap servile labor pulls down the more manly toll
to its level. The flee white laborernever could com
pete with the slave labor of the South. In the Chi.
naman the white laborer finds only another form of
servile competition-in some poets more revolving
and cnrrupting Than African slavery. Whoever con-
tends for the unrestricted immigration of Chinese
Coolies contends for that system of toll which blights
the prospects of the white aborer- booming him to
starvation wages, killing his ambition by rendering
his struggle hopeless, and ending in ploddng and
ptable poverty. Nor is it truthful answer to say
thai this danger is remote. Remote 1t may be for
Mr.. Garrison, for Boston, and for New England, but
it is Instant and pressing on the Pacific Slope. Al
ready the Chinese male adults on that coast are
wel-nigh as numerous as the white voters of Cali
forna, and it is conceded that Chinese emigrant
can be placed in San Francisco for one-hat the
amount qnirei to transport man from the Mis-
sissppi Valley 10 the Pacific coast and Tor one-hrd
what it requires for New Yorker or New Englauder
TO reach California or Oregon The late Caleb Cush-
eve since his mission to Peking in 1872, maintained
that unless resisted by the United States, The first
general famine in China would be TO lowed by an
emgra ion to California that would swamp the white
race. observe that New England newspaper-I
especially regret that such ignorance should be
shown in New Engand-says it Is only "a strip on
the Pacific that the Chinaman seeks for a home
The Chinese are already scattered in three States
and two adjacent Territories whose area is larger
than tine original thirteen colonies. California alone
is larger than New glaud, New York, Pennsylva-
Lila, and Ohio, and is capable Of maintaining vast
population of Ango-Saxon treemen il we do not
render il to Chinese Coolies.
FSfth-Before the same Committee Of Investiga-
ton from whose report have already quoted, Mr.
T. W. Jackson, man OF high character, who had
Travelled extensively in the East testified that his
strong belief was that it the Chinese felt that they
safe and had firm footing in California they
would come in enormous numbers, because the pop
ulaion of China is practically inexhaustble." Such
indeed, is the unbroken testimony OF all who
titled to express an opinion The decision of Con-
gress on this matter therefore becomes of the very
last importance. Had it been in favor of Chinese
immigration with the encouragement and protection
which that would have implied it requires no vivid
imagination to fotesee that the great slope between
the Sierras and the Pacific would become the emf
grating ground for the Chinese Empire. So that 1
do not at all exaggerate when l say that on the |
adopton or rejection of the pocy passed upon bv /