The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1905-08-12

Hawaiian labor question. as it actuaii!
exists, it may be doubtful whether i
is sound policy to connect IT with any
movement on the mainland for
| change of the exclusion laws. Ihf
| larger issue will take care of itself
The necessity or expediency OF
! modification that will insure steady
labor supply for the sugar plantation
depends upon conditions that were an
ticipated when annexation took place
and that are peculiarly local. What is
! supply of Chinese laborers, for the spe-
| cial purpose of doing plantation WORK
| that cannot be done by the whites OF
by native citizens, under restrictions
eas to residence, citizenship and treat
ment that will prevent competition IN
| other branches of industry, that will
tons nor with the general policy of
exclusion, and that will not excite an
unrea sonable antagonism among labor
organizations nor among that large
class of American citizens who believe
that our government, for the present
at least, is specialized in its adapta-
ton to the Caucasian race.
There is serious misunderstanding in
some quarters of the causes which led
81, of
1t is assumed that this legislation was
entirely due to the violent opposition
to Chinese laborers by classes of wage
earners with whom they competed. But
this broad assumption is not true in
fact. It is true that a very potent
argument against the Chinese was their
cheap living, their clannishness, their
herding together, and the consequent
reduction of wages to a scale that
white citizens were unable to endure.
1t is also true that there were many
instances of violence, absolutely I'M
just and illegal, which however were
caused mainly by the obstinate deter
mination of capitalists, of the rail-
roads especially, to force servile labor
upon the American people, in order to
carry out their projects and to enhance
their profits. The sandlot movement
in San Francisco, forcible exclusion in
various parts of California and Nevada,
the atrocities perpetrated in Wyoming.
and other instances that might be
cited, are illustrations of this phase
of intense popular virulence, often
worked up and used by political
demagogueS.
THE COOLIE QUESTION.
But while no fact or series Of facts
bearing upon the question is insig-
nificant. the policy of the United
States, expressed in treaties and in
legislation, chiefly rested upon other
and more logical grounds. Long prior
to the Incorporation of exclusion into
our Federal legislation, it had been OBJ
served that Chinese coolies, who are
far below the standard of the Chinese
in Hawaii, had been carried in large
numbers in American bottoms to places
outside of our national territory, and
that American ships were thus en-
ployed in the extension of a system Of
slavery that was essentially as bad
as the African slave trade towards the
end Of the eighteenth and the begin
ming of the nineteenth centuries. When
gold was discovered in California, and
the extraordinary advancement in the
western part of the country began, the
transportation of coolies to American
soil was deliberately and systematical-
ly accomplished. The special induce
ments existing in California speedily
attracted a large mass of this servile
element of population. We had an At
rican question in the South, only set
tied by the Civil War. 1t soon became
a vital issue as to whether an Asiatic
question was to be sprung in the West.
There We're many references to this
subject in presidential messages. On
May 6, 1856, President Pierce called the
attention of the House of Representa-
tives to the transportation of Chinese
coolies in American ships to Cuba and
other countries, and transmitted a re-
port of the Secretary of state on the
wreck of the Sea WITCH owned in
New York and carrying 500 coolies, on
the coast of Cuba. On May 90, 1860,
President Buchanan sent to the House
another report on the same topic from
the Secretary of State. This was fol-
lowed, on December %, 1861, by still
another report, specially transmitted
by President Lincoln. On July 10, 1868,
President Johnson, representing, as his
predecessors had done and as his sue
cessors afterwards did, the moral and
business sentiment of the people, in
order to arrest the spreading evil, spe-
officially recommended to Congress
amendments to existing laws In his
annual message of December 6, 1869,
President Grant vigorously condemned
the coolie trade in both it's branches
and strongly urged legislation to pre-
clude ''the enslavement of the Chinese
upon our soil under the name of
coolies" On July Is. 1870, he presented
TO Congress a strong report on the sub
ject from the Secretary of State, and.
on December 1, 1873. in another mes
sage, he repeated his condemnation of
the Infamous coolie trade"
THE BROADER QUESTION.
These are a few of the many evil
dences of the fact that our national
crusade for exclusion originated in the
aversion of the American people TO