Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1882-03-29
The Antl-Chlnese Bill.


can hardly fail TO command the respect II
not the deliberate approval Of candid and
thoughtful observers of the course Of this
remarkable agitation. The question is a
peculiar one. Its treatment and solution
will mark change in the policy hitherto
pursued by America towards the peoples of
the world. Civilization has made the cir.
cult Of the globe. In California the tide Of
emigration which has long been flowing
sturdily westward, has encountered the adj
vancing waves Of an olivehued current set
ting timidly eastward. Along the line
where these advancing tides have met,
bitter conflict of races is going on. On the
westward side there is expressed qusking
fear and apprehension that this feeble Chi
nese "invasion will end in the subversion
of the combined Caucasian forces. The
frenzied imagination of the trainers and adj
vocates of anti. Chinese measures sees mil
lions of Asiatics," "myriad hosts of Mon
golians embarking for this land in the ports
Of the howery kingdom. 1.-THE slave-pens
of China are to be emptied on our shores,
and in the terror excited by this vision, all
honor and dignity are lost. Before the ink
is hardly dry on sacred compact with
China, the national congress by an over
whelming vote adopts measure that grossly
violates the express terms Of that treaty.
That measure now awaits the action of the
president. 1t is in his hands to seal or avert
great national dishonor. The singular fea-
ture of this anti Chinese craze is that there
exists in fact very little, If indeed anything,
on which to found it, Statistics show that
as the result of thirty years immigration there
were only 100000 Chinese in the country
in 1880; that since 1876, when Asiatic i'm
migration reached its highest figures, it has
steadily declined tillin 1880 only 5000 China
men came to this country. In 1881, when the
aggregate immigration of all nationalities
was more than three-fourths of million,
but 10000 Chinese were added to the entire
number in all the country. 1t does not ap-
pear that wages have been forced down by
the coming of these few ceestials, nor have
the evils which have been prophesied as the
result Of Chinese immigration been realized
to greater extent than in the case of a
similar class of immigrants of other nation
alities. This wild outcry seems TO be one
of those unaccountable manias, largely polit-
ical in its origin, something like the know
nothing movement of thirty years ago, which
sometimes seize people but which are the
fruitful source of reproach and shamefaced-
ness when the hour of passion has passed by.
Still, in spite of the apparent unreasonable
ness of this agitation, it may be the part of
wisdom to follow the course advocated by
Senator Edmunds aud suspend Chinese i'm
migration for ten years, period that is
clearly within the spirit of the late treaty.
The country, the senator says, will thus
have "time to test what now at best seems
very doubtful, whether the immigrants al
ready here are capable of assimilating in
political form, in social development and So
cal communion with the people of the
United States; whether we
are capable of entering into such an assimi-
lation as to make a homogeneous republic
in the state of California or in whatever
other states the Chinese may come. The
The argument of homogeneity is strong
one. Our right to say what people we will
admit and what we will exclude is I'M
doubted. That we have never exercised
that right is not sufficient reason for
claiming that we shall never exercise it.
We cannot go on forever receiving the het-
erogeneous peoples of the world. There
will come time, and it may be now at hand,
when it will become our duty to assert our
right to control immigration and to say that
neither Europe nor Asia shall longer pour,
unrestricted, her ignorant poor, her de-
graded and her criminal population on our
shores. ten years suspension might not
be an entirely unreasonable concession to
the fears and apprehensions of the Pacific
states. During that time they might recover
their senses and be quite as clamorous for
the repeal of the anti-Chinese law as they
now are for its enactment. 1t is certainly
to be hoped that the president will veto the
bill as it has passed. Should he convey
TO congress an intimation that if the period
Of suspension were reasonably reduced it
would then receive his approval, the coun
try at large would doubtless accept this com
promise as a not inequitable and an entirely
question.