Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1882-03-11
Saturday Morning, March II. 1882.
THE ANTI-CHINEsE BILL.

The unnecessary and un-American anti
Chinese bill which passed theS Senate Thursday
by vote of 80 to Is provides that from and
after tho expiration of ninety days after the
passage of the act and until the expiration of
twenty years after its passage the coming of
Chinese laborers to the United States shall be
suspended, and prescribes a penalty of i'm
prisonment not exceeding one year and fine
of not more than $500 against the master of
any vessel who brings any Chinese to this
country during that period. 1t further pro
vides that the classes of Chinese excepted by
the treaty from such prohibition, such as
merchants, teachers, students, travellers, dl-
plomatic agents, and Chinese laborers who
were in the United States on the 18th of No
vember, 1881, shall be required, as a condi-
ton of their admission, to produce passports
from the government of China personally
identifying them and showing that they indi-
vidually belong to one of the permitted
classes, which passports must have been in
dorsed by the diplomatic representative of
the United States Consul at the port of de-
parture. 1t also provides elaborate machine
ny for carrying out the purposes of the act
and additional sections prohibit the admission
of Chinese to citizenship by any United States
or State Court, and construe the words
"Chinese laborers'' to mean both skilled and
unskilled laborers and Chinese employed in
mining.
It is creditable to New England that only
one Senator from this section of the country
(Mr. Hale of Maine) voted for the bill.
The two Senators from this State have
steadily and powerfully opposed the bill, and
have rot hesitated to base their opposition
on the solid ground that the proposed legis-
lation is un-democratic and un- Christian.
Thus, Senator Hawley just: before the bill
passed, stood up and said that to legislate
against a race this bill proposed to do
would be to abandon principles that had
challenged the admiration of the world. The
passage of the bill might effect change in
the minds of the Nations admirers: A few
words in the bill might be quoted for centu-
ries, in the same way that the Edict of Nan
ties was spoken of, or as the laws of China
and Japan were frequently referred to. 1t
would be ranked with such legislation as the
alien laws, the Missouri Compromise, or the
Fugitive Slave law. Mr.. Hawley also criti-
cised the manner of securing the modi-
fed treaty. On the same day that the Chinese
had been compelled by bombardment to
grant the Burlingame treaty the Fourteenth
amendment was adopted, and a year later
Congress had declared, in the Fifteenth
amendment, that no person should be de-
prived of the right of suffrage by reason of
race, color, or previous condition of .servi-
tude. Our radicalism was fading, and the
Senate was now asked to deny to the Chinese
the rights they were bombarded into accept
ing. In the Senator's estimation right and
power were confoufded While Congress
had the right in a shallow and technical sense
to do many things, it had in that sense the
right to do many things that were wrong to
do. He objected to basing the exclusion of
Cinnamon on sthe accident of color, and
trusted that the Senate would be patient and
not be driven to action by the fear of the ar
rival of a hundred Cinnamon or by an indig-
nation meeting.
We congratulate the good people of this
State on the manner in which their Senators
have stood by the principles upon which our
government was founded and which we still
profess to be guided by. If thisbill becomes
a law it will be national disgrace. If it
passes the House President Arthur ought to
veto it, even though by so doing he should
lose the friendship of the politicians and
people of the, Pacific coast,