I believe there are seventy-five or eighty thousand Chinamen in America. They do not assimilate with the Americans. Many are common laborers, laundrymen, and small merchants. In New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and other cities there are large settlements of them. In San Francisco many have acquired wealth. The Chinese quarter is to all intents and purposes a Chinese city. None of these people, or very few, are Americanized in the sense of taking an active part in the government; Americans do not permit it. I was told that the Chinese were among the best citizens, the percentage of criminals being very small. They are honest, frugal, and industrious—too industrious, in fact, and for this very reason the ban has been placed upon them. Red-handed members of the Italian Mafia—a society of murderers—the most ignorant class in Ireland, Wales, and England, the scum of Russia, and the human dregs of Europe generally are welcome, but the clean, hard-working Chinaman is excluded.
Millions are spent yearly in keeping him out after he had been invited to come. He built many American railroads; he opened the door between the Atlantic and the Pacific; he worked in the mines; he did work that no one else would or could do, and when it was completed the American laborer, the product of this scum of all nations, demanded that the Chinaman be "thrown out" and kept out. America listened to the blatant demagogues, the "sand-lot orators," and excluded the Chinese. To-day it is almost impossible for a Chinese gentleman to send his son to America to travel or study. He will not be distinguished from laundryman "John," and is thrown back in the teeth of his countrymen; meanwhile China continues to be raided by American missionaries. The insult is rarely resented. In the treaty ratified by the United States Senate in 1868 we read:
"The United States of America and the Empire of China cordially recognize the inherent right of man to change his home and allegiance, and also the mutual advantage of the free immigration 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."
Again we read, in the treaty ratified under the Hayes administration, that the Government of the United States, "if its labor interests are threatened by the incoming Chinese, may regulate or limit such coming, but may not absolutely prohibit it." The United States Government has disregarded its solemn treaty obligations. Not only this, our people, previous to the Exclusion Act, were killed, stoned, and attacked time and again by "hoodlums." The life of a Chinaman was not safe. The labor class in America, the lowest and almost always a foreign class, wished to get rid of the Chinaman so that they could raise the price of labor and secure all the work. China had reason to go to war with America for her treatment of her people and for failure to observe a treaty. The Scott Exclusion Act was a gratuitous insult. I hope our people will continue to retaliate by refusing to buy anything from the Americans or sell anything to them. Let us deal with our friends.
Then came the Geary Bill, which was an outrage, our people being thrown into jail for a year and then sent back. I might quote some of the charges made against our people. Mr. Geary, I understand, is an Irish ex-congressman from the State of California, who, while in Congress, was the mouthpiece of the worst anti-Chinese faction ever organized in America. He was ultimately defeated, much to the delight of New England and many other people in the East. Mr. Geary's chief complaint against the Chinese was that they work too cheaply, are too industrious, and do not eat as much as an American. He obtained his information from Consul Bedloe, of Amoy. He says the average earnings of the Chinese adult employed as mechanic or laborer (in China) is five dollars per month, and states that this is ten per cent above the average wages prevailing throughout China.
The wages paid, according to his report, per month, to blacksmiths are $7.25; carpenters, $8.50; cabinet-makers, $9; glass-blowers, $9; plasterers, $6.25; plumbers, $6.25; machinists, $6; while other classes of skilled labor are paid from $7.25 to $9 per month, and common laborers receive $4 per month. In European houses the average wages paid to servants are from $5 to $6 a month, without board. Clothing costs per year from 75 cents to $1.50. Out of these incomes large families are maintained. He says: "The daily fare of an Amoy working man and its cost are about as follows: 1½ pounds of rice, 3 cents; 1 ounce of meat, 1 ounce of fish, 2 ounces of shell-fish, 1 cent; 1 pound of cabbage or other vegetable, 1 cent; fuel, salt, and oil, 1 cent; total, 6 cents.
"Here," said Mr. Geary, "is a condition deserving of attention by all friends of this country, and by all who believe in the protection of the working classes. Is it fair to subject our laborer to a competitor who can measure his wants by an expenditure of six cents a day, and who can live on an income not exceeding five dollars a month? What will become of the boasted civilization of our country if our toilers are compelled to compete with this class of labor, with more competitors available than twice the entire population of France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain?
"The Chinese laborer brings neither wife nor children, and his wants are limited to the immediate necessities of the individual, while the American is compelled to earn income sufficient to maintain the wife and babies. There can be but one end to this. If this immigration is permitted to continue, American labor must surely be reduced to the level of the Chinese competitor—the American's wants measured by his wants, the American's comforts be made no greater than the comforts of the Chinaman, and the American laborer, not having been educated to maintain himself according to this standard, must either meet his Chinese competitor on his own level, or else take up his pack and leave his native land. The entire trade of China, if we had it all, is not worth such a sacrifice."
Mr. Geary forgets that when Chinamen go to America they adapt themselves to prevailing conditions. Chinese cooks in the States to-day receive from $30 to $50 per month and board; Chinese laborers from $20 to $30, and some of them $2 per day. In China, where there is an enormous population, prices are lower, people are not wasteful, and the necessities of life do not cost so much. The Chinaman goes to America to obtain the benefit of high wages, not to reduce wages. I have never seen such poverty and wretchedness in China as I have seen in London, or such vice and poverty as can be seen in any large American city. Mr. Geary scorns the treaties between his country and China, and laughs at our commercial relations. He says, "There is nothing in the Chinese trade, or rather the loss of it, to alarm any American. We would be better off without any part or portion of it."
In answer to this I would suggest that China take him at his word, and I assure you that if every Chinaman could be recalled, if in six months or less we could take the eighty or one hundred thousand Chinamen out of the country, the region where they now live would be demoralized. The Chinese control the vegetable-garden business on the Pacific Coast; they virtually control the laundry business; and that the Americans want them, and want cheaper labor than they are getting from the Irish and Italians, is shown by the fact that they continue to patronize our people, and that in various lines Chinamen have the monopoly. Even when the "hoodlums" of San Francisco were fighting the Chinese, the American women did not withdraw their patronage, and while the men were off speaking on the sand-lots against employing our people their wives were buying vegetables from them.