The old world and its ways

by William Jennings Bryan

THE CHINESE WHEELBARROW

It developed during the dinner that while the demands expressly recognized the improbability of coolies being admitted, most of the Chinese present favored the entire repeal of the restriction law. They resented any discrimination against their people as unfriendly and unwarranted. One Chinaman of prominence, in another city, went so far as to intimate that such discrimination would not be permitted if China had a large army and navy and was able to enforce her rights.

As the whole question turns on the admission of the Chinese laborer, let us consider, first, the difference between the European immigrant and the Chinese immigrant and, second, the general objections to the admission of Chinese workmen.

The Chinaman, unlike the European, regards America as only temporarily his home, preserves his national customs and peculiarities and finally returns, carrying his savings with him. He is not attracted by our institutions and brings with him no love of American ideals. To him the United States is a field to be exploited and nothing more. The European casts in his lot with us, mingles with the population and in a few generations his identity is lost in our composite race. He has neither peculiarities of thought or dress to distinguish him from those among whom he labors, and his children are soon an indistinguishable part of the community. Not so with the Chinese. They are not only distinguished by their dress, language and habits, but they remain entirely separate and apart from those among whom they dwell. This difference is not only due to the wide dissimilarity in history, tradition and habit, but also to the absence of any permanent or patriotic interest in the land in which they sojourn.

The plane of living and the rate of wages are surprisingly low in China. When we were crossing the Yellow River I noticed a number of coolies unloading stone and inquired their wages. They received one hundred and fifty cash, or about seven and a half cents gold, per day. When this compensation is compared with the wages paid in the United States for the same kind of labor, it is easy to understand why Chinese laborers are drawn to our country. In discussing the immigration question with a Chinese official, I asked him what he paid his coachman. He replied that the head coachman received what was equivalent to $10 in gold per month, while the subordinates received from $3.50 to $5. Out of these wages they must pay for their own food. There is considerable difference in the efficiency of labor, but making due allowance for that, the Chinaman could in some occupations make twice as much in America as at home and yet work for half what Americans receive.

Long experience has taught the Chinaman to economize until he has reduced living to the minimum. Our guide in one city fixed $1 (50 cents gold) as the weekly cost of living for one person, but many live upon less. In traveling from Pekin to Hankow we were compelled to provide our own meals, and the very competent cook whom we secured was regularly receiving $1 a week in gold.

A ride through the streets of a Chinese city furnishes ample evidence of the economy of the people. The small measures used, the tiny piles of edibles exposed for sale, the little bundles carried from the market—these explain why cash, running about ten to a cent, can be used as currency. Oranges are often sold without the peeling, the peeling being sold separately, and peanuts seem to be counted instead of measured. At Canton we saw one man trudging home from market with a satisfied air, carrying two pig tails tied together with a piece of grass. The well-to-do have many delicacies, like birds' nest soup and shark fins, some of which we tasted at the luncheon given by the viceroy at Nanking and at the Hong Kong dinner; and among those who can afford it, elaborate dinners are quite common, but among the masses the food is of the cheapest and coarsest kind.

In the matter of fuel the same scrupulous economy is exercised. Every dead leaf and twig is scraped from the ground and even the weeds are condemned to fiery punishment for presuming to grow upon such precious soil.

It would require generations to bring our people down to a plane upon which they could compete with the Chinese, and this would involve a large impairment in the efficiency in their work.

It is not just to the laboring men of the United States that they should be compelled to labor upon the basis of Chinese coolie labor or stand idle and allow their places to be filled by an alien race with no thought of permanent identification with our country. The American laborer not only produces the wealth of our nation in time of peace, but he is its sure defender in time of war. Who will say that his welfare and the welfare of his family shall be subordinated to the interests of those who abide with us but for a time, who, while with us, are exempt from draft or military burden, and who, on their return, drain our country of its currency? A foreign landlord system is almost universally recognized as a curse to a nation, because the rent money is sent out of the country; Chinese immigration on a large scale would give us the evil effects of foreign landlordism in addition to its other objectionable features.