Observations on the Chinese Laborer [pp. 91-99]

Observations on the Chinese Laborer.
drops into the sea. Why not? they are
merely later come members of the same
classes that founded our colonies. But the
great mass even of the respectable, law-abiding foreigners show no scruple against "capturing" the country as soon as they have
fairly settled into their new privileges, reversing our policies, regarding themselves as the
real Americans, and abusing the original
Americans as un-American; until, as Richard
Grant White neatly said, "Americanism" has
come to signify the behavior of Europeans
in America, as opposed to the behavior of the
original Anglo American stock (I believe his
phrase is, "Americanization is the product
of the Europeanization of America"). Instances of this attitude are so common that
we scarcely notice them. It is very common
to hear Germans or other foreigners on the
platform, speaking with tongues on which the
English still halts, cry, "We will not have any
Puritanism in this country," as if Puritans
had not built for them, with blood and toil,
a country, and after making everything much
pleasanter for them in it than in their own
country, invited them to come and share its
privileges without reserve. It is ludicrously
common to hear a burst of wrath follow the
appointment to office of a man of well
known pure American stock a Saltonstall,
for instance at the un-Americanism of
calling these old American families to a part
in the government. Still beyond this cheerful readiness with which the majority of our
foreign residents, accepting our invitation to
ride, reach over to take the reins out of our
hands, is the actual hostility with which the
lowest class of Europeans enters upon our
privileges. It is an old story of the Irishman
who was met at the steamer with the question what was his political party. "Which
party is forninst the government? I'll be
wid the party that's forninst the government,
whichever it is." Some come here with the
avowed intention of overthrowing our institutions. Some practically work toward that
end by slipping promptly into the pauper and
criminal class; others by creating the standing army of political corruption.
It is from this class of foreigners that all
violent resistance to the Chinese comes.
I do not say that it was these men who
began the opposition to the Chinese immigration, for I know it was not. I do
not say that they constitute all the opposition now, for that would be obvious nonsense. But I do say that they have been
the soul of the violent, lawless, and cruel
hostility to them. They are the ones who, in
Senator Sargent's words, are so easily excited
to fear and jealousy and destructive passions.
And the question I wish to emphasize is:
Is the lesson of their latest outbursts that the
objects of their wrath should be removed?
Is it not, rather, that they are people who
can never be made safe inhabitants of a free
country, and should themselves be removed?
For the Senator would not follow out the logical conclusion of his own sentences, quoted
above, and say that in St. Louis, in Pittsburg,
on the Shore Line Railroad, the people
against whom the hostility of the rioters
turned should be obliged to withdraw from
the country, or accede unconditionally to
their demands. I do not speak of the honest effort of respectable laboring men to obtain better terms from the world, but of the
lawless and brutal elements among them who
are in violence and riot always leaders, and
often the sole offenders, when I suggest that
it would be a natural inference that there
exists among us a body of men who mean
to have their passions and desires gratified,
at whatever cost; who will, if they become
strong enough, unhesitatingly set our houses
on fire, blow our bodies limb from limb with
dynamite under our street cars, boycott our
means of existence, though it leave us to
starve-and all, perhaps, in the pursuit of
some revenge which we have nothing to do
with; and that when we encourage or excuse the growing tendency of such men to
respond to any real or fancied grievance
with savage, undiscriminating violence, we are
sharpening a knife for our own throats. For
men of this kind are cowards: they have
never failed to cringe before the stern hand
of law; their uncontrollable passion proves,
after all, to be not so uncontrollable the instant that a squad of regulars enters the
1886.]
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