Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1886-03-05
ANOTHER MESSAGE.
This Time the President Pays Attention
te the Chinese Question,

WASHINGTON, March 2-The president
sent the following message to congress to-
dan:
EXECUTIVE MANSION, }
WASHINGTON, D. c., March 1, 1886.
To the Senate and House of Representa-
tiveS:
1t is made the constitutional duty of the
president to recommend to the cOnsidera-
ton of the congress, from time to time, such
measures as he shall judge necessary and
expedient. In no matters can the necessity
faith of the United States, under the SOL
emn obligation of treaties with
foreign powers, is concerned. The
question of the treatment of the
subjects of China, sojourning within the
jurisdiction of the United States. presents
such a matter, for the urgent and earnest
consideration of the executive and the con-
the assembling of the present congress, l
adverted to this question. The president
here quotes the passage from his message
upon the Chinese question: At the time
| wrote this, the shocking occurrence at
Rock Springs, in Wyoming, were fresh in
the minds of all and had been recently
presented anew to the attention OF this
government by the Chinese minister, in a
note which-While, not unnaturally, eXhib-
iting some misconception of our federal
system of administration in the territories,
while they as yet are not in the exercise of
the full measure of that sovereign self gov
ernment pertaining to the states of the
Union-presents in truthful terms the
main features of the cruel outrage there
perpetrated upon inoffensive subjects of
China. In the investigation of the Rock
Spring out break and ascertainment Of the
facts on which the Chinese minister's state
mentS rest, the Chinese representatives
were aided by the agents of the United
States and the reports submitted,
having been thus framed, and recounting
facts within the knowledge of witnesses
upon both sides, possess an impartial truth
fulness which could not fail to give them
great impressiveness. This outrage upon
law and treaty engagements was commit
ted by laWless mobs. None of the aggres-
sors, happily for the national good fame,
appear, by the reports, to have been citizens
OF the United States. They were aliens,
engaged in that remote district as mining
laborers, who became excited against Chi
nese laborers, as it would seem, because of
their refusal to join them in strike to Sc
cure higher wages. The oppression of
Chinese subjects by their rivals in the
competition for labor does not differ in vio-
lence and illegality from that applied to
other classes Of native or alien labor. All
are equally under the protection of law and
equally entitled to enjoy the benefits Of as
sured public order.
BY the third article Of the treaty of No
vember II, 1880, between the United States
and China it is provided that:
Article III. If Chinese laborers, or Chi
nese of any other class, now either perma-
nently or temporarily residing in the terri
tory of the United States, meet with ill
treatment at the hands of any other per-
sons the government Of the United States
will exert its power to devise measures for
their protection ard to secure to them
the same rights enjoyed by citizens of the
most favored nation, and to which they are
entitled by treaty.
In view of the palpable failure of the
authorities of Wyoming to bring the guilty
parties to justice, or to assure the suffer
ers an impartial forum in which to seek
and obtain compensation for the losses
which these subjects have incurred by the
lack of police protection, and considering
further the entire absence of provocation
or contribution on the part of the victims,
the executive may be induced to bring the
matter to the benevolent consideration
of the congress, in order that that
body, in it's high discretion, may
direct the bounty of the government in aid
of innocent and peaceful strangers, whose
maltreatment has brought discredit upon
the country, with the distinct understand
ing that such action is in nowise to be held
as a precedent, is wholly gratuitous. and is
taken in a spirit of pure generosity toward
those who are otherwise helpless The
correspondence exchanged, is herewith
submitted for the information of the con-
greSS, GROVER CLEVELAND