The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-07-06

In compliance with a request from F. B. Thurber, president of the United States Export Association, for infOrma- tion as to specific cases of harsh me i thOds adopted by the Department of | Commerce and Labor, in the enforce ment of the Chinese Exclusion laws, Bax J. Kohler has written letter in which cities several eases UI ,...y,-~. l treatment of Chinamen in this coun- try. MT. KOhier may be considered as having qualified as an expert in the matter first because of his four years service as an assistant United district attorney. charged with the enforce ment of these laws, and. second of his long experience as counsel for the victims of it's unjust requirements. He writes in part:
 It is doubtless true that the chief grievance of the Chinese is embodied in our statues themselves, and not merely in their administration. Radi- cal changes in the laws are necessary, and not merely, in their administration in order to relieve them of their bru tai, outrageous, and unprecedented character, and inconsistency with treaty.
 The matter of the administration of our laws can properly be treated un- der two different headings, the treat ment of Chinese persons found in the body of the country, possibly many vars after entry into the United States and secondly, treatment of applica- tions for admission. The former class of cases is naturally much more inn portant that the latter, because it af- fleets not merely the comparatively few applying for admission every year, but 1.-the hundreds and thousands of per sons who are residents of our country. I will, accordingly, first take up the matter of treatment of Chinese per- sons found resident here.
 Under the provisions of the Geary Law, as to non-registration, no Chin ese persons found within the United States are safe from arrest and op- pressive treatment. This Geary Law, as amended in 1893, required all Chinese laborers who resided in the United States on May 5th, 1892, to register, and he time for registration expired May 3,1S94. Official contemporary let ters from the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, who had charge of his mat ter of registration, showed that sub stantially all the Chinese laborers re- quired to register did register before this statQte expired, and had done so with the active cooperation of the Chi nese diplomatic officials throughout the Unted States. (Foreign Relations of United States, for 1894, page 1861. The statutes, however, permit the ] Government, without any proof what ever in it's possession, to arrest any Chinese person found here, and require him to prove. his right to remain, fre- quently by unobtainable whit testi- mony.
 Merchants cannot be distinguished from laborers by inspection, and intact persons who are non-laborers are fre- quently proceeded against for non-re- gistration; even in the comparatively few cases in which merchants were possessed of certificates of admission, these have been illegally taken from them by unparalleled arbitrary regula- tion. Thousands of persons who are to- day Chinese laborers are, moreover, lawfully in the United States without registration certificates, under the de- sisions of the courts, either as (a) ci- tizens of the United States by birth. (b) Persons who were too young to have been manual laborers on May 5, 1892. Co Persons who were mechants at the time of registration and have since, bona ida, changed their voca- tion and become laborers. (d) Per- sons who have lawfully entered the United States since May 5, 1892, and have since, bona ida, become laborers. These classes of persons constitute the great bulk of the Chinese laborers to- day with the United States, lawfully without certificates of residence.
 Opposition By Labor Unions
 During the four years that I was in office in this city, from November 1894, to April 1, 1898, only one single case was instituted in the district in- cluding New York City, for non re- gistration. When, however, subsequent to that year, the Immigration Bureau fell into the hands of labor union lead CTS, this Geary Law was seized upon as a convenient means of oppression, and thousands of cases of proceedings fo1 non-registration have been instituted ever since then, with the result that the approximately thousand cases per an- mum for hon-registration, according to the last report of the commissioner general of immigration, one-half re- suited in defendants discharge, after they had been subject to much hard ships and expense, while the remain der were ordered deported because they were unable, under the unparall- eled burden of proof provision, to se- cure the necessary white testimony, tc establish their rights. Moreover, when the few white persons who have be- come sufficiently familiar, through . business dealings with the Chinese, to be able to testify in detail as to their
 doings day by day, are called upon a! witnesses, the Government is not slow to point out that the same witnesses are frequently called upon in suces- sive cases, asd their testimony should hence be discredited as that of "pro- fessional witnesses"
 I accordingly specifically challenge as barbarous and illegal, the unfair and improper regulation promulgated by the commissioner-genera of i'm migration, with the approval of the