The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1882-04-05

trnetIon OF many OF our towns. That wa:
done as protection against FIRE.
Mr.. Hooker It was new sort of frt
insurance company, and that is all / have Il
say about it. Laughter.
J What became of your own law which was
passed in California, which now stands on
your statute books, and which have here
before me ? It is as follows:
Any officer, director, manager, member
stoekhoider. clerk, agent, servant, attorney, EN-
pioyee, assignee or contractor OF any corpora.
ton now ex sting or her after formed under
the laws Of this State who shall employ in any
manner or cap city upon any work or business
OF such corpora ion any Chinese or Mongoliau
Is guilty of msd meanor. and is punishable by
hae OF not IS than one hundred nor more
than one thousand dollars or BY imprisonment
IN the county Jail of not less than fifty nor
more than five hundred sys, or by both such
hne and Imprisonment: Pr0ridSd That no di-
rector OF corporation shall be deemed guilty
under this section who refuses TO assent to such
employment and has such dissent recorded in
the minutes Of the board of directors
Mr. Page. Will the gentleman allow me
for one moment?
Mr.. Hooker Certainly, to ask me ques-
ton.
Mr. Page. That is all desire.
Mr.. Ho ker. do not wish to have a
speech injected into mine.
| Mr.. Page. do not wish to inject speech
into the gentleman's.
Mr.. Hooker, Well, go on.
Mr.. Page. The other day the gentleman
| from Ohio made an attack on the people of
California because they did not employ these
| Chinese, and now, when the Legislature of
| California has passed law which since then
has been declared unconstitutional, that the
/ people should not employ them; that is,
! fhOra
| laws of the State, the gentleman from Mis-
sissippi makes an attack upon the people of
California that they are against employing
/ them.
| Mr. Hooker. Has the supreme court of
your State decided that law to be unconsti-
| tutional?
Mr. Page. 1t has.
Mr.. Hooker. Then | am glad to see your
judges are more liberal than your legislators,
| and that they are governed by principles of
justice in this matter.
Mr.. Page. | would not like to say what
Legislature passed that.
Mr.. Hooker. have only to say that no
more patient people live anywhere than
these Chinese under the circumstances.
They have assented to everything you pro-
posed. You asked them to open China to
your own merchants, and you proposed to
open the United States to the Chinese mer-
chants. They assented to it. You found,
after some experience, that it is not profta-
bic. You do not think it is to the interest
of our people to continue that policy. You
wish to exclude the Chinese. You want to
narrow the treaties instead of broadening
them. You want, in this Enlightened nine
teenth century, to establish the same policy
for the United States, which China had es-
tablished for so MANY centuries
They have opened ports of China to our
commerce, and the intelligent head OF the
Bureau of Statistics, in reply to dispatch
L sent him yesterday, has furnished me a
seriGtim account annually of the condition
of the trade with China from 1S48 down to
the present time. 1t is too long and too
tedious to read in the House, but will en-
body it in my remarks and have it printed
in the Record.
(Here follows the table which we omit for
want of space.)
That table, Mr.. Speaker, shows a most
wonderful increase in the trade and COM
merce of this country with China So
great indeed had it become that we abso-
-iuteiy coined a trade-dollar intended to be
the means of keeping up our trade with
China, and to-day there exists nearly $780,
100000 of that coin in the Empire of Chi
ma. More than that, Mr.. Speaker, China
and Japan are the great silver consuming
countries of the world. They are the great
silver using countries of the world. What
is to become of the vast product which is
taken from the mines of California Nevada,
and Oregon if we are to cut off this enor-
nous trade with the Empires of China and
Japan? The silver produced in this coun-
try now finds its ust investment there.
Inf lvr %b,f sir ht,f 3 .. ,l,,y
in this enlightened nineteenth century a
policy of legislation toward the Chinese like
that which is pending in this House to-day,
then you may look for a large decrease in-
stead of any increase in our commerce In
stead of increasing by millions, as it has
since our first treaty with China, it will
rapidly decrease until it will entirely van
ish. That vast trade absorbed by England
will desert your northern ports and your
Pacific coast and will seek its exit to the
markets of the world through the Isthmus
of Suez. You will be left, when you have
expelled these people and destroyed this
commercial intercourse, very much as the
Spanialds were left when they drove the
Moors from Spain and were left with their
country desert; or France was left when
it expelled those magnificent Huguenots.
who settled the State of South Carolina,
other European countries, gave us people
which has aided in a wonderful degree in
building US up to that great height of nation
ality and civilization we now occupy.
No, sir, it will not do for us to violate our
treaty stipulations. | would say to the
conscience and fairmindedness of every
member of this House who has vote upon
this question, let US SO act in this matter
that we shall not be held up before the
world as violating the treaty stipulations
we have ourselves sought and begged these
people to make with us. Why, sir, there
can be no time and no occasion when it |
would be more ineonvenient for US to adopt
such policy than this. We must look to
the facts of this case, not to theories. Now, |
is it the fact that the Chinese have degrad- |
ed our labor?
1t is in your memory and in that of many
members of this House, that so anxious
were the people Of this country to under
stand the condition of Chinese labor in
California that they established a committee
to go there and examine the condition of
these people. And | may be pardoned if [
ask the attention of the House for some mo-
ments to some points in the report made by
the late Senator Morton, of Indiana, the
chairman of that committee. That COM
mittee went there to investigate this very
question of Chinese labor and its influence
on other labor in California. 1t was com
posed of gentlemen from the Eastern and
the Western States, and they investigated
this whole question. When Mr. Morton
came back to the Senate of the United
States he made report from which beg
leave to read, with breyity, few passages.
He says on page of this report:
At time when those countries have adopt
ed a liberal policy, and in that respect have
yielded to western civilization, and have espe-
cally recognized the force of the example and
policy of the United States. it is proposed that
we shall take a step backward by the adoption
Of their cast-of policy Of exclusion. The ar
gunent set up here in favor Of this is precise
ly that which was 50 long used to excuse or
justify the same policy in China and Japan,
namely, that the admission Of foreigners ten
ded to interfere with their trade and the la
Dor of their people and to corrupt their NOR
ais and degrade their religion.
That was the argument Of China, made
against your earnest protest, when you de-
sired to open her ports and commerce and
schools to your missionaries and your trade.
Further he says:
The 1in7itatian of the rishf 10 hacarne nat