Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-01-01
ACTION OF TRUSTEES
Recent Appropriation by the
Carnegie Institution,
AN ECONOMIC HISTORY
WORK UNDER CARROLL d.
WRIGHT's DIRECTION.
Study Of Chinese Immigration-In-
vesSsgation of the Mosquito-Re-
port on Marriage and Divorce.
BY WILLIAM f. CURTIS.

BY WILLIAM F. CURTIS
written for The Star and the Chicago Record
Herald.
The trustees of the Carnegie Institution
have appropriated 10000 for the prepara-
ton of An Economic History Of the
United States" under the direction of Presi-
dent Carroll d. Wright president of Clark
University at Worcester. Mass. 1t is pro-
posed to make great collection of ma
terials which will be available for econo-
mists. sociologists. students and historians
more comprehensive than could be under
taken with profit as a private enterprise
That is one of the purposes which the Car
negie Institution is trying to serve-to per-
form useful functions that are outside of
the ordinary jurisdiction of governments
and too expensive or Improbable for pri-
waite agencies. This economic history which
Is proposed Is only one of several important
publications already provided for Not long
ago the Institution Issued a work OF three
p Jnntico, volumes ,ihtns on purely mathe.
Importance to professional mathematic-
ians only, few of whom would have
been able to purchase 1t If it had been
printed by an ordinary publisher. Its value
cannot be measured by dollars and cents
1t is contribution to science. Therefore
the trustees of the Carnegie Institution
considered 1t profitable to invest a large
sum of money in an edition to be presented
to public libraries, schools and colleges and
sold at cost price to few mathematicians
who can afford such luxuries for their book
Shelves. Several publications of similar
value are now under way The list of books
issued by the Carnegie Institution Is
frightening out considerably since DR..
Woodward became president, and while few
of them are of popular interest all are of
IN a,11 nL,I
would have seen the light IL Mr.. Carnegie
had not provided the funds for such pur-
poses.
The Proposed History.
The economic history of the United States
will cover its ground in a thoroughly ex-
haustive way. placing the largest possible
collection of materials within reach of the
historian and the economist The scope
of the work will include an account of the
growth of our population from natural
causes and from immigration; a review of
the development Of agriculture, forestry,
irrigation, mining. manufacturing trans
portation, fisheries, internal and foreign
commerce, money, banking, insurance, the
labor movement industrial organization
education, public health, etc, etc These
topics will be placed in the hands of ex-
perts, those most competant to handle them
under the general direction of Col. Wright
and II will require several years of investi-
the press.
immigration Of the Chinese.
Another work nearly completed under the
direction of the trustees of the Carnegie
Institution has particular interest just now
n connection with the boycott of American
goods in China. 1t is entitled "A Study of
the History of Chinese Immigration to the
Pacific Coast and it is being prepared by
Mrs Mary r. Smith of San Francisco The
book when completed will be a history of
the Chinese in the United States. There
are twenty-five chapters altogether, about
10000 words, divided into four sections:
l. Free immigration, 1S4S-1SS2
z Restriction and Exclusion, 1SS2-1905.
3. Social and Economic Results.
4. Appendix and photography.
Mrs. Smith has brought together almost
all facts of Importance bearing upon her
subject, and among them some which have
never been given proper weight. For in
stance, the origin of anti-Chinese agitation
on the Pacific coast has not been properly
understood, she says, and she declared it
to be a phase of the general anti-foreign
movement which found expression in the
rise of the "know-nothing" party. 1t was
stimulated by the rush of Spanish Ameri-
can, South American and French miners to
California, and was intensified by the gen.
eral antipathy to persons of color during
the period of the civN war. Mrs. Smith
says also that another illustration of error
the DSiItI, Sllil pieNdleLl III SdliIOTHld,
that most of the Chinese in this country
were coolies under contract to serve either
foreign capitalists or the Six Companies for
a term OF years at low wages. l have
traced the origin and growth of this idea,
and have established beyond controversy
that there were at most only a few hun
dred such contract coolies brought to the
United States, and at least 9S per cent of
the Chinese were voluntary immigrants
who either paid their own passage or bor-
rowed money to pay 1t from relatives or
from passage brokers at an exorbitant
rate of interest. The original anti-Chinese
agitation and the first restriction law were
founded on this fiction
1T has been widely believed continued
Mrs. Smith, that the Chinese have never
paid taxes in proportion to other immi-
grants, but it is a fact that the license,
poll. capitaton, hospital and other taxes
which they paid in the first period actually
kept county governments from bankruptcy
and, in the mining counties, in some years
more than supported all the public fnstitu-
tons
Sentiments Of the Chinese
Mrs. Smith has attempted to discover the
motive of the Chinese in coming to this
country, their attitude toward our form of