“For ways that are dark, and tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is [not] peculiar.”
Mr. Luttrell moved in Congress that the steamboat bills be so amended as to forbid the employment of a Chinaman in any capacity whatsoever. Congressman Shelley, of Alabama, introduced a bill providing that all Chinamen coming to the United States, except officially, be taxed $250 per capita, or serve five years in the penitentiary. The Chinese in California are made to pay more than $42,000 school taxes annually, while their children are not admitted to the public schools, neither are there other schools provided for them. Thirteen hundred Chinamen asked the California Legislature for school privileges for 3,000 of their children, seeking only such as are provided for those of African and Indian descent. Their petition was immediately laid on the table, and stigmatized as dangerous. This is only a specimen of this class legislation on the Pacific Coast. They are very ingenious there. Just as fast as one law is decided unconstitutional, they have another.
Communism crushes the Chinese. The politician says, “They sha’n’t come here if we can prevent it by oppressive legislation.” As a protest against the unreasonableness of this course of procedure, the testimony of Postmaster-General Key is of special value. In a recent conversation, he gave the following as the result of his observations during his visit to the Pacific Coast: “The politicians,” said Mr. Key, “are almost to a man against the Chinese, and antagonize them bitterly. The merchants, the manufacturers, the farmers, and nearly the entire employing class, are very fond of the Chinese, and prefer them to any other laborers. They speak in the highest terms of the Chinese; they say that they are docile, obedient, obliging, punctual, hardworking, and faithful; they are exceedingly thrifty and economical; they are temperate in their habits, do not drink liquor of any kind, eat very little meat, and live almost entirely on rice. It is wonderful to see how little a Chinaman can live on. Their economy struck me as something marvellous. Large numbers of them sleep in a single ill-ventilated room; they constantly violate the fundamental laws of health, yet they are seemingly very healthy. I was astonished to learn they had no hospital. I was shown through the Chinese Quarter of San Francisco by the Mayor, and saw everything in that locality; but there are a number of places here in Washington fully as bad, if not worse, than anything I saw in Chinatown. I also observed that the railroad companies employed a large number of Chinamen, and found them excellent workmen.” Evidently, the politicians are not competent to the settlement of the Chinese question.
The American Missionary Association takes hold of the matter in the right way. It says: Let the Chinese come and be treated as men. Let them have the gospel preached to them, and be lifted into a civilization that is level with your own. Communism has not succeeded, so far. The politician has not succeeded. The American Missionary Association has shown itself able to grapple with the question. They have got hold of the right end of the rope. If they are encouraged by the churches of America, they will solve this problem.
There appeared in the Congregationalist, some weeks ago, an editorial of great merit, in which this radical mistake was made: it was a sort of apology for the Chinese, because they were so few in numbers. It said they were decreasing instead of increasing. Why, Mr. Chairman, look across the ocean and see that great nation, covering one-tenth of the globe, and holding one-third its population. So crowded is it that millions (even more than our entire population) who never have a home upon land, are born, live and die floating upon rivers and canals. A more industrious race is not; neither can agriculture, which still ranks far above any other employment, be found anywhere else carried to such perfection of thoroughness. There is no idleness among these millions. The monstrous human ant-heap is astir. They are also an educated people, nimble in figures, as well as in all kinds of labor. There is but one written language for all the population, which has been transmitted, with even no dialectic changes, for at least 2,500 years. It is a nation industrious and frugal. We talk about the heathen Chinese, but we had better talk about the heathen Anglo-Saxon. What useful art is practised to-day that China has not had for centuries? What we count the great discoveries of modern science, may turn out not to be so modern after all. I saw a statement made within ten days, that it has been discovered that Edison’s phonograph was known in China two hundred years before Edison was born. China has a history—a record which cannot be ignored.
We do vastly ill when we talk about the “heathen Chinee.” Their religion is something against which we set our faces; but their character is worth commendation. I was talking, the other day, with a gentleman who had passed the greater part of his life in China. He said there was not an element in the Japanese character that was not in the Chinese, and of the two, he considers the Chinese the more hopeful. In dealing with the Chinese, we are not dealing with refuse material. China is a great nation. It has its place among the foremost of the earth. It is a sad thing for this great nation of ours, if it cannot endure the little leaven on the Pacific Coast. Do you suppose it will affect the great mass of Christianity unfavorably?
Over 300 of the Chinese have already been received as members of the Protestant Churches in California, and 700 are under Christian instruction, studying the doctrines of our faith, while 1,000 attend Sunday-school, and two young men are preparing for the Christian ministry. Even those who do not come under the influence of such instruction can scarcely be said to be the worst people in the land. In 1875, of the 7,643 arrests for drunkenness, not one was a Chinaman; of the 3,263 paupers admitted to the alms-house, only six were Chinamen; of 83 murderers hanged during the last year in the United States, not one was a Chinaman.
If any other race, born or naturalized, on this continent, can show a similarly good record, let them step to the front and declare it.
The truth is, Mr. President, we are only standing on the threshold of this great question. I believe if you and I live to come to these meetings ten years hence, less will be said about the blacks and more about the Chinese. We need to understand this great work now opening before us. We ought to remove one source of prejudice against the Chinese. Men say the Chinese must go, because their coming reduces their wages. I happen to have a statement of wages in California for the past year, clipped only a few months since from a San Francisco paper: Carpenters, from $3 to $3.50; bricklayers, $4 to $5; painters, $3; plasterers, $3.50; hod-carriers, $3; stone-cutters, $4; machinists, $3 to $4; common laborers, $2; house work in families, per week, $6 to $7. Can we make a show equally in favor of the wages of the workingmen on this sun-rise side of the continent, where the Chinese are insignificant as a competing power? The truth is, all this cry about their taking the bread out of our children’s mouths is simply nonsense.
But it is said there is another difficulty. The Irishman comes to this country, and is assimilated. The German, also, and is assimilated. The Chinaman comes, and he alone is not assimilated. Why not? First of all there is no provision for his naturalization, if he desires it. The sixth article of the Burlingame Treaty provides that “Chinese subjects visiting or residing in the United States, shall enjoy the same privileges, immunities and exemptions in respect to travel or residence as may be enjoyed by the citizen-subjects of the most favored nation; but nothing herein contained shall be held to confer naturalization upon the citizens of the United States in China, nor upon subjects of China in the United States.” More than this, there is a certain stress of public opinion, which is weightier than treaty provisions. The head of the Chinese Embassy in this country was confronted with this question; “Why is it that your countrymen come here alone, without any families?” He replied: “It is about as much as a Chinaman can do to keep his head on his shoulders alone, without bringing his family.” There is nothing in the nature of things to prevent the absorption of the Mongolian into American citizenship. It seems to be the peculiar office of this nation to assimilate every element. It makes no difference what our estimate of a man is; if he is a man he can, by the power of the gospel, be brought into oneness with us. Walk up and down the pavement of the mosque of St. Sophia, and here and there you brush with your steps bits of gilded and colored glass that, rude in shape and void of beauty, seem only fit to be swept into a corner; but lift your eyes to the seraphim that blaze in flaming mosaics on the ceiling, and you see how the artist’s skill has wrought just such rough fragments into forms of grandeur that awe the soul. Our American Christianity gathers the best and the worst of the race forces of the world, and is able, by God’s good help, out of them to compact a nationality with which to face the world.