Year: 1879

Sandlots and the Cinnamon are we to


take the side of the Sandlots ? Why


what we do in the East here is to put our


hand little roughly on the shoulder OF


both Orangeman and his opponent and


say, Peace order!' If the Mayor of


San Francisco, if the Governor of Califor-


MIA wishes to represent the sentiment


that will carry the votes of the serious


parts of this land if there is to be union


between the best politicians of California


and the best Of the country in the next


Presidential election, the thing for San


Francisco to do is to keep order, not only


in Chinatown but on the sandlots; to
seize by the nape of the neck the mob


ocracy and the hoodlum quarter of San


Francisco, and if necessary, by the nape
of the neck the Chinese quarter also, but
at any hazard to keep both in order, to
preserve the fundamental principles of


our national policy, and to make first
pure and then peaceable the Pacific Coast,
SO far as it is trod by cheap labor. Tap
plause.


The courage of Seward, of Morton, and
of Phillips has not been initiated in Con-
gress. What is the trouble with the ma
jority of the lower house at Washington?
Everybody understands or ought to, that
the Congressional and Presidential votes
Of California are prizes held up and shak-
en- in the face of politicians. These gilt
tering baubles have so confused the mind
of the msjority of the lower house that
by vote of l55 to y they have denied
the right of any American shipmaster to
bring to this country more than fifteen
Cinnamon at a time. l am not taking
ground against all limitations of Chinese
immigration. If there should ever be an
avalanche from China, or from any other
country, perhaps we might moderate it a
little, but there is no call yet for effort in
that direction, except from politicians in
search of capital. The majority in the
lower house at Washington, acting under
the party whip, is ready to violate treaty
stipulations with friendly power. The
House of Representatives holds up the
Burlingame treaty as a paper Chinese
lantern, and at the prompting of hood
lums. delivers blow through it into the
face of China. This is not action fit for
Congress. 1fapproved by the Senate and
the Executive it would bring reprisals in
China. American trade can be shut out
of Chinese ports. Great Britain is the
owner or the port of Hong Kong, and we
are likely to be brought into collision
with the British power if we put too
many restrictions upon the action of ship
masters in British waters. l suppose we
have no more right to restrict the action
of a shipmaster in Hong Kong than in
Liverpool harbor. 1t is place covered
by a British treaty with the United
States. Then, again. how silly is the idea,
several. times proclaimed in late Con-
gressional debate, that it takes only one
nation to make treaty. One nation can
make law. but it takes two nations to
make a treaty; and treaty, as we have
been taught, is a part of the supreme law
of the land


There is provision that the sixteenth
emigrant who offers himself for passage
on any American vessel shall be exclud-
ed. When the Chinese Embassy came
across the Pacific it had more than fifty
in its train, and could not have been
brought on one ship, according to the
proposed legislation. If ever the Chinese
Emperor should send another embassy,
we should be obliged to bring them on
several vessels, under this new regula-
ton. There is ludicrous inappositeness,
too, in such hasty action on the part of
the lower house, when the upper house
and lower, together with the President,
were in correspondence with China on
the topic of this treaty. There is Chi
nese Embassy too, in Washington; but,
under the spur of desire to catch Con-
gressional and Presidential votes from
the Pacific Coast, a political party has
committed itself to the Chinese policy of
building Chinese wall.


The lesser Eastern question has be-
come the greater. What is the lesser
Eastern question? ? The fate of Turkey
on the Bosphorus. What is the greater
The regeneration of Asia. The Chinese
question in California is an outlying por-
ton of the greater Eastern problem. AS
such l, for one, always look upon this
burning American topic and find in it
only the portico to the immense interna-
tional topic-a greater Eastern problem
of colossal proportions-the regeneration
Of Asia California door to Asia The
meeting of the vanguard of civilization
in its march toward the West with the
old conditions of men yet existing in the
rear guard in the East! The front rank
of the army likely to suffer somewhat,
indeed but the rear ranks urging on the
'front.' California so placed that she can
not evade commercial intimacy with
China California called on to take into
her hands the carrying trade of the Pa
cific! California compelled to educate
Cinnamon that they may educate their
own land California called on to do
Justice in America in order that ultimate
ly we may have moral foothold to pro-
cure regeneration for Asia az whole Il
That is the Chinese question as our Sum
ner saw it when the Chinese Embassy
came here. You put the represent natives
of China into Faneuil Hall. You gave
them banquet with your most honored
public men. You put at the side Of the
Chinese Ministers Mr.. Emerson, Mr..
Sumner, and Mr. Burlingame, of whom
you were then proud, but whose meas
ures are now being attacked in Congress
by fifth and tenth rate politicians as un-
wise He had opened commercial gates
of China, and you had enthusiasm in
Boston as to the possibilities of the fu
ture. Rufus Choate was once greatly
praised for saying: THE gates of the
Rocky Mountains are opening, on golden
hinges turning" You thought when
the Chinese Embassy came here, and you
put your Sumner and your Emerson at
their side to point out the signs Of the
times, that the great gates Of the Pacific
were opening, and that the day might
come which Carlyle has predicted, when
the Pacific will be to the modern world
only what the Mediterranean was to the
Roman Empire.


You send a letter around the world
now in ninety-six days. Caesar could not
drive around the Mediterranean in less
than hundred. If there were unities
of a deep political sort among the nations
in the old Roman Empire, why may
there not be unities of a deep commercial
sort, at least, among the nations sur


rounding the smaller Mediterranean
which we call the Pacific The regener-
alton of Asia! Why, it has as much prac


tical value to US in Christian and COM
mercial and political discussion as the
regeneration of any outlying province of
old Rome had to the empire in Cesar's S
day. We are as near China as Caesar was


to the Straits of Gibraltar We are as


near Japan as Cesar was to the cataracts


of the Nile. Indeed, if you measure