5 January 1867
The immigration of Chinese into California has attracted
the attention of Congress. It appears that the Chinese
immigrants, on settling there, persist in maintaining their
allegiance to China; and under these circumstances the
Senate voted a resolution, December 19, making inquiry into
the propriety of discouraging such emigration.
14 August 1869
COOLIES.
A Coolie is a Chinese slave, bound for a longer or
shorter time, and in February, 1862, Congress very properly
forbade the importation of coolies from China. This was
done because the coolie trade was already large and
increasing; and one firm in California is understood to
have imported more than 30,000 during the last eight years.
This fact alone would go far to prove their value as
laborers, which is, however, otherwise fully attested, the
most interesting article upon the subject being one by Mr.
Pumpelly in the Galaxy for July. The Chinese
laborer, it appears by conclusive testimony, is
industrious, docile, faithful, efficient, and works for
small wages, as is to be expected of those who can live at
home upon two dollars a year. In the Flowery Kingdom of
more than 200,000,000 inhabitants, which it is supposed
might be conquered by an army of 50,000 trained European
soldiers skillfully led, there is, of course, an
exhaustless supply of such laborers; and, as Mr. Adams well
says, when we break down the Chinese wall to let ourselves
in we let them out.
A person named Koopmanschaap, a Hollander by birth and a
coolie contractor, was recently the lion of a day in New
York, having previously been the hero of the Memphis
Convention which assembled to devise means of supplying the
Southern States with labor. The sentiment of the Convention
seems to have been expressed by Mr. J. W. Clapp, who
remarked that "the South" did not wish European laborers,
as they wanted to own land, while, in his opinion, "the
South" preferred labor that could be managed "as of old."
In other words, he thought that "the South" wanted an
ignorant, brutish, servile population of laborers, instead
of intelligent, industrious, self-respecting workmen. Mr.
Koopmanschaap was evidently the right man to gratify such a
desire. In reply to the question of a reporter in New York,
the coolie contractor said that in the Southern States
"nothing but coerced labor will bring about prosperity."
Mr. Koopmanschaap had apparently overlooked the law of
which we spoke, and which forbids any citizen or foreign
resident in this country to prepare any kind of vessel for
the purpose of bringing coolies "to be disposed of, or
sold, or transferred, for any term of years or for any time
whatever, as servants or apprentices, or to be held to
service or labor." Of course the law does not forbid free
and voluntary emigration.
The inducements for honest emigration to this country are
so palpable and persuasive, the flood is always sure to be
so large, and the difficulties incident to a rapid increase
of the resident foreign population in the present
circumstances of the country are so evident, that nothing
is more imperative than the prevention of this illicit
emigration. America has an endless welcome for the
industrious laborer who comes hither to secure larger
opportunities for himself and his children, but no country
welcomes an inundation of foreign barbarism. Nothing,
indeed, can be more absurd or more characteristic than the
resolutions of the Democratic Convention in California
virtually denouncing the Chinese laborers who have been
brought here; for they are innocent, and the resolutions
merely stimulate a local hostility already enough inflamed.
Besides, the Chinese movement has begun, and will not be
stayed. The wise course is to restrain it within its
natural limits by rigidly preventing the opening of a new
slave-trade under the name of encouraging emigration.
Meanwhile any artificial and immense increase of a
population in the Southern States which, as Mr.
Koopmanschaap remarks, must supplant the colored laborers,
with the probable annexation of Cuba and a million and a
half of Spanish creoles and slaves, opens a prospect which
need dismay no one, but which is not necessarily
delightful. It is not the number of the population but its
quality that makes a great nation; nor do abundant labor
and cheap wages announce an imminent millennium. The power
of assimilation of a nation like ours is indeed immense;
and all that can be asked is that it be reasonably
treated.
23 October 1869
During the eight months from January 1, 1869, out of 21,624
immigrants to San Francisco 11,000 were Chinese. The number
of Chinese immigrants to California from 1848 to 1868,
inclusive, was 108,000.
22 January 1870
THE Mongolian invasion has begun at last in good
earnest, and the advance-guard of the peaceful army has
already crossed the Missouri River. On the 26th of December
the first detachment of Chinese laborers engaged to work on
a railroad now building in Texas, numbering 250 men,
arrived opposite Council Bluffs, Iowa. The river was
covered with a pack of broken ice sufficiently strong to
prevent the passage of boats. A plank walk was laid across
the uneven surface, on which the Celestials passed over to
the eastern side of the river, as shown in our
illustration, carrying their baggage on poles balanced over
the shoulder, in true Oriental fashion. Most of these men
were employed in the construction of the Pacific Railroad.
They are under the charge of General J. A. WALKER, who expects to return in the spring,
should this experiment prove a success, for a still larger
detachment.
16 July 1870
THE GENTLEMAN FROM CHINA.
The Chinese question renews itself from time to
time, and upon the Pacific coast it is discussed with much
feeling. Senator Wilson, of Massachusetts, also says that
it seems as if capital had conspired to degrade labor in
this country by inundating it with foreign ignorance. Mr.
Fitch and other gentlemen in the House were anxious to
forbid the Chinese to become citizens. In New York some
representatives of the trades unions speak of opposing by
force of arms the employment of the Chinese. Meanwhile
certain facts may be wisely remembered. The country needs
labor- ers. It can wisely and profitably employ a great
multitude more than it has. The population is very largely
made up of immigrants, and, if we go back a little, we are
all foreigners. Neither the principle nor the traditions of
the government, nor the feelings of the people, would
authorize the forcible exclusion of any foreigner honestly
seeking to improve his condition by accepting the
invitation of this country, which exhorts all mankind to
come here and be happy.
It may be assumed, therefore, that the Chinese movement
will continue. The trades unions may perplex the easy
solution of the question, but they can not prohibit the
immigration. If this be true, two things are evident.
First, that the "cooly trade" -- the enterprises of
gentlemen like Mr. Koopmanschoop -- should be absolutely
prohibited. The voluntary movement can not be stayed; but
the forced movement -- the immigration by contract, which,
as we have heretofore shown, is the revival of the slave
trade -- should be strictly forbidden. Then the treatment
of those who do come should be as honorable and generous as
that which is accorded to the people of all other
countries. Any attempt to outlaw the Chinese, to draw upon
them a peculiar contumely, to treat them harshly and with
personal abuse, would certainly be resented by the
conscience and good sense of the country. The Government
will do its duty if it rigorously interferes with the
wholesale importation of these laborers. And if the whole
subject is left to the operation of natural laws, freed
from all forcing, we doubt if any honest American laborer
need fear the result.
27 August 1870
ASIA AND AMERICA.
Conspicuous politicians of both parties are every
where expressing themselves upon the Chinese question, and
it is very evident what they believe to be the general
public opinion upon the subject. Mr. Casserly, the
Democratic Senator from California, did not spare "the
pagans" on the 4th of July at Tammany Hall. General Butler,
the most radical of Republicans, delivered himself against
them on the same day in Connecticut, in the presence of the
President. Senator Wilson, in the Senate, spoke very
strongly against them. Mr. Horatio Seymour wrote a much
more pointed letter than usual against the dregs of Asiatic
civilization. General Banks pronounced against them in
Boston. And Mr. Wendell Phillips has declared against the
forced importation of coolies, while he is not opposed to
honest immigration.
Mr. Phillips and Mr. Seymour agree upon one point, and that
is, that the country does not want cheap labor, but
well-paid labor. That is true; and when we are told of the
material development which every where languishes for the
want of labor, it seems to be forgotten that moral and
spiritual development is still more essential to a nation.
If five millions of laborers could be brought into the
country to-morrow; because there is work enough for five
million more hands, it would by no means follow that it
would be an advantage to the country. The problem of
civilization is not quite so easy as that. The
considerations are many and complex. Thus the difficulty
with the free-trade argument is that the mutual control and
dependence of social and political laws are apparently
forgotten. If the advantage of buying in the cheapest and
selling in the dearest market were all that needed to be
urged upon a country, free trade would soon be universal.
The question to be answered is whether a country may not
sometimes buy a greater advantage of another kind by buying
goods in the dearer market.
Yet, in the discussion of the Chinese question, it must not
be forgotten that one of the most progressive steps in
civilization is the perception of the essential identity of
men and races. The tendency of all modern scholarship is to
reveal the unity of man, and unquestionably the true
tendency of civilization is toward "the federation of the
world." Merely to denounce Asiatics, therefore, as if to be
an Asiatic were to be a kind of monster, or to disparage
the Chinese as "pagans," as if an epithet were an argument,
is at once to perplex truth in the minds of all who know
any thing of the actual civilization and moral code of
China. Certainly we do not wish to repeat the follies of
that country, nor to suppose that, in this time and in this
land, any Chinese wall of exclusion can be built. We may
trust American sagacity to defend American civilization
from obliteration by that of Asia, without supposing it
necessary to preach hatred and horror of one of the chief
human races, as if every individual of it were a nameless
sinner. It is very evident, from the position already taken
by leading men of all parties, that no vast Chinese current
will be suffered to pour itself upon this continent. We
shall not wreck ourselves upon a bald theory. Indeed, our
Constitution already discriminates among the native
inhabitants. It excludes Indians not taxed from the
numerical basis of representation. To effect what is easily
attainable under the circumstances, let us not have
recourse to a crusade of sentiment against Asia.
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