Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-01-19
CHINESE IMMIGRATION.
An Interesting Interview with Senator
Jones of Nevada.

Jones of Nevada.
| WASHINGTON, January 18th. = Senator
| Jones of Nevada, who has been one of the
most Jealous advocates of the prohibition
| of Chinese immigration, in conversation
with your correspondent to-day said:
- cannot conceive of any condition of
affairs that would warrant repeal of the
Exclusion Act or justify the policy of ad-
hitting any more Chinese laborers. The
sudden stoppage of the supply of these
| laborers may involve some temporary dis
arrangement in certain lines of industry
on the Pacific coast, and may even in some
| cases temporarily cause what may seem q
hardship or Injustice, but in no such case
can it in any degree be comparable to the
permanent wrong and injustice to which
| the entire community would be subjected
| by continued Chinese immigration. Even
| those who may now be put 10 some incon-
venience or distress will be rewarded later
| by the enormously increased demand for
their products which will spring up from
| the body of white immigration that will
soon pour into the Pacific States.
When it comes to be known through
out the country that white laborers are
| wanted on the Pacific, and that fair wages
prevail there, the surplus labor of the East
will gladly fill all our vacant places. Every
consideration of national progress supports
the decision to exclude the Chinese. In
| this republic labor constitutes at once the
| foundation and superstructureo of our whole
edifce. To whatever degree we advance
| the interests of our laborers, to that degree
| we will build up the enduring prosperity of
our country. If individual selishness be
| permitted now TO bring in cheap and de-
| graded class of laborers, the same selfish
ness will in time create desire to replace
| the present importations by cheaper impor-
| tations, and as the field from which to
draw is practically unlimited, we would
ultimately find larger part of our popula-
| ton to consist of the cheapest, least pro-
gressive, and least desirable class of human
| beings.
If there are industries adapted to our
| soil and climate that cannot now be car
| ried on in competition with foreign made
products of like industries, the remedy is
| not to invite here swarms of degraded
| Asiatics, but to build tariff walls high
enough to justify the payment of fair liv-
| ing wages to the people of our race who
are willing to work at these industries.
The same fallacious argument that is ad-
vanced in favor of free trade could be ad-
| vanced to support Chinese immigration
| that at given moment it might result in
an advantage TO some portion of the COM
munity. In this argument the fact is
| wholly ignored that the advantage is only
| temporary that if that policy is persisted
| in it can only result in the cheapening of
| the whole community.
"If the railroads and VINEYARDS on the
| Pacific or anywhere else can find no labor
| except Chinese labor, we can better afford
| to have neither vineyards nor railroads
| The identical arguments on which the agi-
| tation for renewed Chinese immigration is
| based could be utilized in an economic
sense, to justify slavery itself, and the ex-
| perience of the world has shown that in
the presence of slavery neither wealth,
progress nor any widespread prosperity is
! possible. The well being OF our commu-
| nifty will in the end be best subserved by
making our people more homogeneous,
rather than less so.
| Our experience with the Indians and
with tie colored people in the South ought
to be warning to the American people
not TO permit continued introduction of an
other REPRESENTATIVE race, and if the bar
| riers to immigration are once let down, we
have no assurance that we can ever get
fere with legislation, but the popular mind
| of the country is irretrievably made up on
this subject. 1t Is thoroughly understood
| by the masses of the people and by none
| better than by those whose labor is dis
placed by that of the Chinaman, and if the
popular vote were to-day taken on it,
| whether in California or throughout the
United States, any proposition to repeal the
| exclusion law would meet overwhelming
| defeat"