The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1901-11-23

we have In the past, for the upbuild-
Ing OF our industrial, social and poll
tical fabric. .5G
Few Chinese migrate voluntarily st
all. but are brought here under CON
tracts made by their masters. It has
been said that IL the Six Chinese COm-
pantes of California were destroyed
immigration would cease. Formerly
debtors and criminals were exiled from
China under contracts to work out
their salvation on American soil. OF
such stuff citizens fit for a republic
cannot be made. @.4. l,~.-2=,l .s..g..
Their physical assimilation is as re-
pugnant to them as it is undesirable
for US. am informed by the police
department and by the managers OF
the Chinese missions in San Francisco
that after nearly thirty-five years Of
intercourse the number Of marriages
between. whites and Chinese do not ex-
coed twenty. and that the offspring
are invariably degenerate
The Right OF Exclusion. Z j
The right Of state to exclude an
undesirable immigration is fundanen-
tai international law. Self-protection
yields to, no higher law. Therefore
it Is supreme. The Chinese, by put
ting vastly inferior civilization in
competition with our own, tend to de-
stroy the population on whom the per-
petuity Of free government depends.
II 1t were possible for unmarried
white men to compete with Chinese,
they must remain single, by which the
state would suffer-: If families were
reared under the conditions of such a
competition. they would gravitate .ir-
resistibly and without blame to the
poorhouse and the penitentiary So
ciety must recognize this, to the white
man it is only a question of self-sup-
port or state support.
IT the Chinese are admitted, whence
are the ranks of the free population to
be recruited? Who shall preserve our
civilization and who shall fight our
battles? The Chinese may be good
laborers, but they are not good citi-
zens. They may in small numbers
benefit individual employers, but they
breed the germs Of a national disease.
which spreads as they spread, and
grows as they grow.
Material Interests Subordinate.
In this view it matters very little
whether with Chinese labor there is in
creased productiveness or not, nor
whether a. greater or smaller number
of enterprises are inaugurated. The
material interests of state must be
subordinated to the social and political
interests of the peor'e. Before cheap
ness and abundance must we consider
the status of the men who are called
upon to maintain the country's institu-
lions and contribute by their presence
to its true wealth. White men are
both producers. and large consumers,
which the Chinese are not. Coolie labor
appears to the short-sighted farmer
and manufacturer as desirable so long
as other people find employment for
the white man on whose consumption
they depend. But substitute Chinese
labor for white labor, and the home
market would disappear. What politt-
cal economy can reconcile this fact
with the good of the state? But even
political economy must condemn the
Chinese. They leave the results OF
their labor, 1T is true, but, let US repeat,
they take out Of the country the
equivalent, and, contrary to those
economic laws on whose due observ-
ance depends the; material wealth of
nations, their earnings do not circulate
nor are they reinvested. So what work
they perform is paid for doubly by the
employer and by the community.
The American people are certainly
alive today, as they were in 1882 and
1892, to the significance of this ques-
ton. But there are many good people
who, mistaking the mission and destiny
of their country, in a spirit Of brother
hood would welcome the Chinese and
every foreign race. Have we not proved
by a progressive development that we
are sufficient unto ourselves?
In spite, however, Of. the warnings
of history and the dangers which we of
the Pacific Coast have endeavored to
point out in the discussion Of this cues
ton, which is more than one Of labor
or locality, there are few men in
the East to whom we would politely
address ), ourselves, whose mistaken
sense Of duty has arrayed them against
the American policy Of Chinese ex-
clusion. Let them not merit the Op-
probrium of the poets reproach: $
The steady patriots of the world alone.
The friends Of every country but their