The Political Campaign Against Chinese Labor in 1886

In the last term that I had the honor to represent this territory in Congress, foreseeing the evils attending the unrestricted emigration of Chinese to this country and the dire competition that wage-earners were thereby subjected to, I prepared an elaborate argument in favor of a radical modification of the provisions of the treaty. I showed that they could never be citizens of the United States by naturalization, for the descriptive and qualifying word 'white' still remained in our naturalization laws.

Secondly, I showed that the wage-laboring men of this country were better housed, better fed, better clothed, better educated, and better paid than the same class in any other country. That this fortunate condition was seriously menaced by the constantly increasing number of Chinese laborers; that twenty-five Chinese laborers could find ample accommodation in a house none too large for an ordinary family. Rent per month would be a dollar per man for them, while it would all come out of the earnings of the head of a family. They needed no books, pictures, or papers, no carpets or furniture; their diet was simple and cheap, their habits temperate and sedentary. There was no successful coping with such men only by the adoption of their modes of life, which God forbid!