Federal Crackdown on Chinese Merchants
The Treasury Department orders Pacific coast ports to tighten scrutiny of certificates allowing Chinese laborers to travel, labeling many merchant claims as fraudulent.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Assistant Secretary Spaulding has written the following letter to collectors on the Pacific coast: The department is informed that the practice among Chinese laborers in this country is entrusting money to merchants which is treated as a part of the capital in the business. Chinese laborers who have made such disposition of their savings, although not actually engaged in mercantile business, claim to be merchants and thereby entitled to leave the country and return. The department desires you to closely scrutinize the certificates which may be presented at your port to returning Chinese, to require evidence of the standing of the holders as bona fide merchants actively engaged in business. In no case should Chinese be permitted to enter as merchants, unless their right to that privilege is clearly established and where it appears that the practice herein referred to is attempted, the certificates presented should be ignored, the holders arrested and the facts reported to the department.
“In no case should Chinese be permitted to enter as merchants, unless their right to that privilege is clearly established.”
This 1893 directive demonstrates the systemic federal apparatus used to enforce the Chinese Exclusion Act. By pathologizing the economic survival strategies of Chinese residents—like pooling savings into businesses—the government effectively criminalized legal reentry and dismantled community support networks.
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