When the American labor unions accumulated partisan power, the Chinese became a political issue. This was the greatest evil that could befall them, for now racial persecution received official sanction and passed out of the hands of mere ruffians into the custody of powerful political agitators. Under the lurid leadership of Dennis Kearney, the Workingman's party was organized for the purpose of influencing legislation and "ridding the country of Chinese cheap labor." Their goal was "Four dollars a day and roast beef"; and their battle cry, "The Chinese must go." Under the excitement of sand-lot meetings, the Chinese were driven under cover. In the riots of July, 1877, in San Francisco, twenty-five Chinese laundries were burned. "For months afterward," says Mary Roberts Coolidge, "no Chinaman was safe from personal outrage even on the main thoroughfares, and the perpetrators of the abuses were almost never interfered with so long as they did not molest white men's property."[[46]]
This anti-Chinese epidemic soon spread to other Western States. Legislatures and city councils vied with each other in passing laws and ordinances to satisfy the demands of the labor vote. All manner of ingenious devices were incorporated into tax laws in an endeavor to drive the Chinese out of certain occupations and to exclude them from the State. License and occupation taxes multiplied. The Chinaman was denied the privilege of citizenship, was excluded from the public schools, and was not allowed to give testimony in proceedings relating to white persons. Manifold ordinances were passed intended to harass and humiliate him: for instance, a San Francisco ordinance required the hair of all prisoners to be cut within three inches of the scalp. Most extreme and unreasonable discriminations against hand laundries were framed. The new California constitution of 1879 endowed the legislature and the cities with large powers in regulating the conditions under which Chinese would be tolerated. In 1880 a state law declared that all corporations operating under a state charter should be prohibited from employing Chinese under penalty of forfeiting their charter. Chinese were also excluded from employment in all public works. Nearly all these laws and ordinances, however, were ultimately declared to be unconstitutional on account of their discriminatory character or because they were illegal regulations of commerce.
The States having failed to exclude the Chinese, the only hope left was in the action of the Federal Government. The earliest treaties and trade conventions with China (1844 and 1858) had been silent upon the rights and privileges of Chinese residing or trading in the United States. In 1868, Anson Burlingame, who had served for six years as American Minister to China, but who had now entered the employ of the Chinese Imperial Government, arrived at the head of a Chinese mission sent for the purpose of negotiating a new treaty which should insure reciprocal rights to the Chinese. The journey from San Francisco to Washington was a sort of triumphal progress and everywhere the Chinese mission was received with acclaim. The treaty drawn by Secretary Seward was ratified on July 28, 1868, and was hailed even on the Pacific coast as the beginning of more fortunate relations between the two countries. The treaty acknowledged the "inherent and inalienable right of man to change his home and allegiance, and also the mutual advantage of the free migration and emigration of their citizens and subjects respectively, from the one country to the other, for purposes of curiosity, of trade or as permanent residents." It stated positively that "citizens of the United States visiting or residing in China shall enjoy the same privileges, immunities, and exemptions in respect to travel and residence as may be enjoyed by the citizens of the most favored nation. And, reciprocally, Chinese subjects visiting or residing in the United States shall enjoy the same privileges, immunities, and exemptions in respect to travel or residence." The right to naturalization was by express statement not conferred by the treaty upon the subjects of either nation dwelling in the territory of the other. But it was not in any way prohibited.
The applause which greeted this international agreement had hardly subsided before the anti-Chinese agitators discovered that the treaty was in their way and they thereupon demanded its modification or abrogation. They now raised the cry that the Chinese were a threat to the morals and health of the country, that the majority of Chinese immigrants were either coolies under contract, criminals, diseased persons, or prostitutes. As a result, in 1879 a representative from Nevada, one of the States particularly interested, introduced in Congress a bill limiting to fifteen the Chinese passengers that any ship might bring to the United States on a single voyage, and requiring the captains of such vessels to register at the port of entry a list of their Chinese passengers. The Senate added an amendment requesting the President to notify the Chinese Government that the section of the Burlingame treaty insuring reciprocal interchange of citizens was abrogated. After a very brief debate the measure that so flagrantly defied an international treaty passed both houses. It was promptly vetoed, however, by President Hayes on the ground that it violated a treaty which a friendly nation had carefully observed. If the Pacific cities had cause of complaint, the President preferred to remedy the situation by the "proper course of diplomatic negotiations."[[47]]
The President accordingly appointed a commission, under the chairmanship of James B. Angell, president of the University of Michigan, to negotiate a new treaty. The commission proceeded to China and completed its task in November, 1880. The new treaty provided that, "whenever, in the opinion of the Government of the United States, the coming of Chinese laborers to the United States, or their residence therein, affects or threatens to affect the interests of that country, or to endanger the good order of the said country or of any locality within the territory thereof, the Government of China agrees that the Government of the United States may regulate, limit, or suspend such coming or residence, but may not absolutely prohibit it." Other Chinese subjects who had come to the United States, "as travelers, merchants, or for curiosity," and laborers already in the United States, were to "be allowed to go and come of their own free will," with all of the "rights, privileges, immunities, and exemptions which are accorded to the citizens of the most favored nation." The United States furthermore undertook to protect the Chinese in the United States against "ill treatment" and to "devise means for their protection."
Two years after the ratification of this treaty, a bill was introduced to prohibit the immigration of Chinese labor for twenty years. Both the great political parties had included the subject in their platforms in 1880. The Democrats had espoused exclusion and were committed to "No more Chinese immigration"; the Republicans had preferred restriction by "just, humane, and reasonable laws." The bill passed, but President Arthur vetoed it on the ground that prohibiting immigration for so long a period transcended the provisions of the treaty. A bill which was then passed shortening the period of the restriction to ten years received the President's signature, and on August 5, 1882, America shut the door in the face of Chinese labor.
The law, however, was very loosely drawn and administrative confusion arose at once. Chinese laborers leaving the United States were required to obtain a certificate from the collector of customs at the port of departure entitling them to reëntry. Other Chinese—merchants, travelers, or visitors—who desired to come to the United States were required to have a certificate from their Government declaring that they were entitled to enter under the provisions of the treaty. As time went on, identification became a joke, trading in certificates a regular pursuit, and smuggling Chinese across the Canadian border a profitable business. Moreover, in the light of the law, who was a "merchant" and who a "visitor"? In 1884 Congress attempted to remedy these defects of phraseology and administration by carefully framed definitions and stringent measures.[[48]] The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of exclusion as incident to American sovereignty.
Meanwhile in the West the popular feeling against the Chinese refused to subside. At Rock Springs, Wyoming, twenty-eight Chinese were killed and fifteen were injured by a mob which also destroyed Chinese property amounting to $148,000. At Tacoma and Seattle, also, violence descended upon the Mongolian. In San Francisco a special grand jury which investigated the operation of the exclusion laws and a committee of the Board of Supervisors which investigated the condition of Chinatown both made reports that were violently anti-Chinese. A state anti-Chinese convention soon thereafter declared that the situation "had become well-nigh intolerable." So widespread and venomous was the agitation against Chinese that President Cleveland was impelled to send to Congress two special messages on the question, detailing the facts and requesting Congress to pay the Chinese claims for indemnity which Wyoming refused to honor. The remonstrances of the Chinese Government led to the drafting of a new treaty in 1888. But while China was deliberating over this treaty, Congress summarily shut off any hope for immediate agreement by passing the Scott Act prohibiting the return of any Chinese laborer after the passage of the act, stopping the issue of any more certificates of identification, and declaring void all certificates previously issued. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this brutal political measure was passed with an eye to the Pacific electoral vote in the pending election. In the next presidential year the climax of harshness was reached in the Geary law, which required, within an unreasonably short time, the registration of all Chinese in the United States. The Chinese, under legal advice, refused to register until the Federal Supreme Court had declared the law constitutional. Subsequently the time for registration was extended.
The anti-Chinese fanaticism had now reached its highest point. While the Government maintained its policy of exclusion, it modified the drastic details of the law. In 1894 a new treaty provided for the exclusion of laborers for ten years, excepting registered laborers who had either parent, wife, or child in the United States, or who possessed property or debts to the amount of one thousand dollars. It required all resident Chinese laborers to register, and the Chinese Government was similarly entitled to require the registration of all American laborers resident in China. The treaty made optional the clause requiring merchants, travelers, and other classes privileged to come to the United States, to secure a certificate from their Government vised by the American representative at the port of departure.
In 1898 General Otis extended the exclusion acts to the Philippines by military order, owing to the fact that the country was in a state of war, and Congress extended them to the Hawaiian Islands. In 1904 China refused to continue the treaty of 1894, and Congress substantially reenacted the existing laws "in so far as not inconsistent with treaty obligations." Thus the legal status quo has been maintained, and the Chinese population in America is gradually decreasing. No new laborers are permitted to come and those now here go home as old age overtakes them. But the public has come to recognize that diplomatic circumlocution cannot conceal the crude and harsh treatment which the Chinaman has received; that the earlier laws were based upon reports that greatly exaggerated the evils and were silent upon the virtues of the Oriental; and that a policy which had its conception in frontier fears and in race prejudice was sustained by politicians and perpetuated by demagogues.