The San Francisco call., 1895-11-14
CHINESE AND THE LAW.

The very interesting question raised in
the United States District Court for this
district as to whether the fact that Chi
naman's birth in this country makes him
an American citizen and therefore entitled
10 vote cannot be properly disposed of on
technical legal grounds alone. Undoubt-
edly even this aspect OF the case gives the
court an opportunity for the exercise of
discretion, and it is in such exercise that
other considerations might properly be
weighed.
The whole spirit of our naturalization
and citizenship laws is to make it possible
for assimilable races to have the oppor-
tunity to assimiiate. 1t is essential that
these races be assimilable; that is the be-
ginning and inspiration OF every law that
has ever been enacted on this subject. 1t
would be the height of absurdity to as
sume that any other foundation for them
could have existed or that they ever con-
telnplated the taking into the body of cit
liens non-assimilable race or one whose
presence would be damaging to the happi-
ness and prosperity of the people.
The Chinese are not an assimilable race.
Those born and reared to manhood in this
country are as distinctively alien as the
rawest recruit from the cody hordes of
Canton. To the minutest detail they re-
tain the customs and habits of China. They
wear foreign dress, speak a foreign
tongue, carry on their business under for
eign rules, do not associate with the white
races to the smallest extent, either So
cially or in business; hold themselves en-
tirely separate and distinctive, practice
poJygamy, deal in female Chinese slaves,
combine and conspiTe among themselves
to defeat the operation of our laws, remain
under the control of powerful secret and
commercial societies which have no rela-
ton whatever to any American interest or
pursuit or pleasure, practice and promul-
gate vices which are ruinous to the white
races, and, on the fundamental score OF
temperament, are incurably alien anG un-
alterably non-assimilative.
Against no white race which comes to
this country can single one Of these
charges be made. Every one of them is
assimilable and every one is quickly as
simulated. The first generation born OF
them in this country is as distinctlvely
American as descendant of the Pllgrim
Fathers. They are brought up in our
schools, absorb completely our ideas of
Government, become stanch patriots, are
ready to fight for the safety of the Govern
ment, are patrons and supporters OF our
schools and bulwarks of law, order and
peace. In society, in politics and in busi-
ness they are of US intimately and in
separately. 1t was to give this tendency its
highest usefulness for the good OF the
country that naturalization and other citi-
zenship laws were framed.
Is there any so hardy as to declare that
these laws do or possibly could produce
similar result in the case Of the Chinese
race? If so there is an earnest need for
more enlightenment and broader patri-
otism. Every country has the inalienable
right to determine for itself whom it will
accept as citizens, and there Is no con-
ceivable justification for making existing
laws fit cases to which they are essentially
alien, and from which such fitting would
come subrogation OF the very principle
on which the laws are based. The inten-
ton of the fourteenth amendment is noto-
riously clear and cannot be distorted in
the interest of American-born Chinese
without doing violence to the spirit of
American institutions