405. Must the Chinese Go?

Must the Chinese Go?

Luk_10:29 : ’93Who is my neighbor.’94

A keen lawyer had Christ under the fire of cross-examination, and this was one of the questions. The answer which Christ gave, enlarged the world’92s idea of neighborhood, and that idea of neighborhood has ever since been enlarging. It seemed a figure of speech to say that people living on the other side of the world were our neighbors; but steam from Southampton to New York, and from China to San Francisco, and rail-tracks across all the continents, and cables under all the seas, have literally made the whole earth one neighborhood.

Is the Chinaman a neighbor? Does he belong to the race of which God is the Father? Is he a brute, or an immortal? Will he help us, or will he hurt us? Must he be welcomed, or driven back? These are tremendous questions which press upon the nation, and answer them we must, and answer them we will. The subject will yet be as much of an agitation on the Atlantic coast as it is on the Pacific coast. I wish that what I say on this subject might be received in silence, for though neither your approval nor disapproval would disturb me, it might disturb others.

I want you, to start right in your opinions, and therefore, I shall give you the result of one summer’92s observation in California, where the Chinese populations have become an important factor. Arriving in San Francisco Saturday afternoon, August 7th, I had been but a few moments in my hotel when the highest officers of the city called upon me in the interest of the anti-Chinese sentiment, and from morning until night, and for many days, I do not think there was half an hour in which I was not brought into the presence of this subject by committee, or letter, or document; so that if any man ever had a good opportunity of seeing the whole subject from both sides, I had that opportunity.

It is the habit to take people from the East to see the Chinese quarters, or what they call Chinatown. The newspapers say President Hayes once visited Chinatown, but that they covered up the worst parts of the place, that he might be deceived in regard to the true character of Chinatown. No such imposition was practiced upon me, for the five gentlemen with whom I went were openly and above-board always antagonistic to Chinese immigration, and it was their one desire to have me see the worst side of it.

Dr. Mears, a most obliging gentleman, the President of the Board of Health of San Francisco, went with me, and if there is a man on the continent antagonistic to Chinese immigration it is Dr. Mears. So I saw the worst, and it is bad enough and filthy enough and dreadful enough; but I tell you, as I told the people of San Francisco in their Grand Opera House, that underground New York life is fifty per cent. worse than Chinatown. The white iniquity of our Atlantic coast cities is more brazen than the yellow iniquity of San Francisco, and as to malodors, it is the difference between the malodors of whisky and the malodors of opium; and the malodors of whisky are to me a thousandfold more offensive than the malodors of opium. The crowded tenement-houses of New York are more crowded and more abominable than the crowded Chinese quarters.

I told the people of San Francisco, standing face to face, ’93If you will let your three hundred policemen be augmented by five hundred special policemen sworn in for the duty, men from your banking-houses and your churches’97if they will go out in the name of God and the strength of the law, they will in one night extirpate the last iniquity of Chinatown.’94 Do you tell me that two hundred and eighty thousand good San Franciscans cannot put down twenty thousand bad people?

From what I saw that summer in San Francisco, and from my observation in California in other years, I give it to you as my opinion, corroborated by the opinion of tens of thousands of people in California, that, of all the foreign populations which have come to the United States during the last forty years, none are more industrious, more sober, more harmless, more honest, more genial, more courteous, more obliging than the Chinese. I have in my possession affidavits from all classes of people in California, in which they present the truthfulness, the integrity, the love of order, the industry of the Chinese people. They have no equal as laundrymen; they are unrivalled as house help. I was told in many of the homes of San Francisco that one Chinese servant will do the work of three servants of any other kind.

It is objected to the Chinese that they underbid other labor, since they can live so much cheaper than other nationalities, and so they injure American labor and every other style of labor. I reply to that, in many departments the Chinese receive higher wages than any other class of persons. There are no such wages paid in Brooklyn or New York for domestic service as are paid to the Chinese in San Francisco today. Besides that, suppose they did underbid other labor, would you cast them out on that account? Then, to be consistent, you must drive out all those who work sewing-machines and reapers and hay-rakes, because these different styles of machinery are underbidding other styles of work, and injuring those who toil with the bare hand.

As to this absurd notion that is going through the country about the Chinese injuring American labor, I have to tell you this fact, that wages are higher in California, have been higher in California, than in any other State of the American Union. When we shall have in every great city, twenty or thirty or forty thousand Chinese workmen, wages will be larger than they are now, and we will have greater prosperity.

Again, it is objected to the Chinese that they do not spend all their money where they make it, but send it all back to China. False again. The Chinese pay in the city of San Francisco rent for residences and for wash-houses, and so on, yearly two million four hundred thousand dollars. Would not the people of any city think it was a grand addition to its municipal condition if it had two million four hundred thousand dollars added every year? Further, as taxes to the State government the Chinese in California pay over four million dollars a year. It all stays in California. Moreover, they pay in customs to the United States government annually nine million four hundred thousand dollars. That all stays in this country. Now, away with the falsehood that the Chinese spend none of their money in this country? Besides that, if they did send it all away, could you blame them much? How much money would you invest in a country where you were denied the rights of citizenship, and where you might any hour suffer outrage and expatriation?

The Chinese are blamed because they demand that after death their bones be sent home to China. If you and I were as badly treated as the Chinese have been treated in San Francisco, we would not want to be buried within three thousand miles of where the indignity had been enacted. We would argue, ’93If they treat us so badly while we have our arms to strike back, how will they treat us when we are powerless?’94 Besides that, it comes very poorly from us, the charge that the Chinese send home their money. There are hundreds and thousands of American and English merchants in China; where do they send their money to? Besides that, we have been applauding and complimenting for the last thirty years the German and Irish serving-maids who have been denying themselves all luxuries and sending their money back to the old folks at home. We have admired that self-denial and that generosity, and we have had no words to express our admiration for their willingness to send their money to Germany and Ireland; and I think what is good for one nation is good for another.

Besides that, O men of the Atlantic coast! do you know in what direction and for what purpose much of the money goes that is sent back to China? The parents of many of these Chinese in America are serfs, the subject of a base feudal system, and much of the money that is sent back to China is for the liberation of their parents. I have that from a mandarin high in authority. If your parents were in bondage, would not you send some money home to purchase their liberation? Would you not send all you have? Instead of caricaturing the Chinese for sending their money back to China, let us admire their self-denial’97for they love luxuries as much as we do’97let us applaud their self-denial.

But it is said they have such severe economies. Well, that is bad! That is a crime you cannot charge much upon the American people! The fact is, these people come in with a lower order of civilization, and they are industrious, and they pay all their debts and save something for a rainy day; and such a style of civilization we cannot abide in this country! We do not want our higher style of civilization interfered with’97that style which allows a man to spend four times more money than he makes, and to steal the rest! Away with this barbarism, which works all the time and pays all its debts!

Again, it is objected that the Chinese are pagans, and that they have peculiar dress. What, now, do you refer to’97the Chinese queue? George Washington wore a queue, Benjamin Franklin wore a queue, John Hancock wore a queue, your great-grandfathers wore queues; and anything that Washington and Franklin and John Hancock and your ancestry did must have been eminently respectable.

Besides that, Chinese apparel is often more than eclipsed by American apparel. Have you forgotten crinoline monstrosities of twenty years ago? the coalscuttle bonnets of your grandmothers, the silver knee-buckles of your grandfathers, and how at different times in this country there has been an elaboration and an overtopping and appalling mystery of womanly head attire that ought to make us lenient in our criticism of Mongolian conspicuities?

We see in this (for their dress is a part of their religion) and in other things that a man’92s religious belief is not to be interfered with. Do you think the Huguenots and the Pilgrim Fathers and the patriots of the Revolution would have contended as they did for civil and religious liberty in this country, if they had known that their descendants would make religious belief a test of residence and citizenship? If this government continues to stand, it will be because alike defended are the joss-houses of the Chinese, the cathedrals of the Roman Catholics, the meeting-houses of the Quakers, and the churches of the Presbyterians.

Do you want me to make a choice between a religion which insults and stones a man because of the color of his skin or the length of his hair or the economy of his habits, on the one hand, and a paganism which patiently endures all this, working right on until death comes’97if you want to have me make a choice between such a religion and such a paganism, I say, ’93Give me paganism.’94 If you have a superior civilization, a superior Christianity, present them to these people in a courteous and Christian way. And this brings me to say that the first Sabbath forenoon I spent in a Chinese church in San Francisco, and I had the privilege, through an interpreter, of telling those Mongolians of that Christ who was not an American Christ, nor a Chinese Christ, nor a German Christ, nor an Italian Christ, nor a Spanish Christ, but the round world’92s Christ; and I think it was the greatest joy of the summer to me that I heard afterward that through the services salvation was brought to some of their souls. There they are today, renowned in heaven and little appreciated on earth, the Presbyterian mission under Dr. Loomis, the Methodist mission on Washington street, the Congregational mission near the park, the Episcopalian mission and other great charities, and while I stood in their Grand Opera House, face to face with the San Franciscans, I said: ’93The man that gives one penny for the support of these Christian missions does more for the settlement of the Chinese question than could be accomplished by ten thousand orators haranguing for ten thousand years about the evils of Chinatown.’94

These Chinese make grand Christians; and there are going to be more of them’97five hundred millions of them’97if the Bible be true when it says the land of Sinim is to surrender to God. Oh, how insignificant and contemptible will seem many of the Christians of this generation when in the future it shall be demonstrated that these Chinese were brought to our country, not so much by the stigmatized Six Emigration Companies, but by the God of the Bible, to have them Christianized, and multitudes of them sent home again for the redemption of China.

Now, my friends, these Chinese are either inferior, or they are our equals, or they are our superiors. If they are our inferiors, flat skulls will never dominate high foreheads; stupidity will never overcome large brain. If they are inferior, you have nothing to dread. If they are your equals, does not your sense of justice say then they ought to have equal rights? If they are our superiors, then we cannot afford to maltreat them. Who are these men? Some of them were descended from men who have forgotten more than we ever knew. Education is more widely spread in China than in America. You cannot find a Chinese who cannot read and write. You can find hundreds of thousands of Americans who, when they are compelled to put their names to a legal document, sign it, ’93his mark.’94 This Chinese nation invented the art of printing, invented the mariner’92s compass, invented the manufacture of porcelain, invented paper-making, and other important things ages before any other nation could even guess them out. Five hundred years before Christ came, Confucius, a Chinaman, anticipated the Golden Rule, and when some one asked him to compress into one sentence a directory for human life, he answered, ’93Do not do to others what you would not have them to do you.’94 I think the Chinese are God’92s favored nation from the fact that he has made more of that nation than any other nation on earth’97a vast multitude of them.

China is the richest country in all the earth. Think of the ruby, and the amethyst, and the porphyry, and the agate, and the lapis lazuli, and the turquoise, and the emerald, and the crystal’97enough precious stones to build the four walls of heaven! Think of the gold, and the silver, and the iron, and the lead, and the copper waiting for the cellar-door of her mountains to be thrown open! Think of the rosewood, and the camphor, and the cedar, and the cypress, and the varnish trees, and the ebony, and the ivory’97enough to make the cabinet-ware of all nations. Think of the wheat, and the barley, and the mango, and the pineapple, and the persimmon, and the cocoanut, and the rice’97enough to make puddings for all the earth, and tea enough to refresh all nations!

Do you not understand that their right to come here implies our right to go there? It will not be many years before there will be as many Americans in China as there are Chinese in America; and the question all over China will be, ’93Must the Americans go?’94 If, when a man had to ride in an emigrant-wagon six months to cross the Pacific coast, many went, do you not think New Yorkers and Long Islanders will go to China when they can go there in five weeks, when they are fully persuaded of all the treasures of that great land? It is the will of Providence that the whole world should be on wheels, and the nations are going to move north, move south, move east, and move west.

The nations will intermarry, and far down in the future men will have the blood of fifty nationalities in their arteries, and there will be in all the earth only one great nation’97one nation on five continents’97a grand homogeneous, great-hearted, all-climated, five-zoned, world-encircling Christian nation. They broke to pieces at the foot of Babel; they will come together at the foot of the Cross. Under the shadow of the one they were confounded; under the light of the other they will be harmonized; and when all nations and kingdoms and people become one empire, can you doubt who will be king? ’93Hallelujah! for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth.’94

Again, it is objected that these Chinese are merely the slaves of the six Chinese emigration companies’97that they are the slaves of the Sam Yup Company, the Kong Chow Company, the Yung Wo Company, the Wing Yung Company, the Hop Wo Company, the Yan Wo Company. Now, say the political parties, ’93We don’92t want any more slavery in this country; we had black slavery, and got rid of it; now don’92t give us any yellow slavery.’94 But what are the facts? The facts are these: That these six Chinese emigration companies pay the fare of the Chinese crossing the Pacific ocean, the Chinese contracting that they will work it out after they get here, and there is no more honorable bargain made in any American city than that. These six Chinese companies say to the Chinese, ’93You are poor; now here is clothing and here is passage-money, and here is money to get food crossing the ocean, and we will take charge of you a little while after you get there, and you will, when you get in America, by your own hands, toil to pay for this passage-money.’94 That is all there is of it. Those Chinese are no more slaves in America than you lawyers are the slaves of the clients that give you a retaining fee; no more slaves than you builders are the slaves of the capitalist who prepays you something before you begin the job. The six Chinese companies prepay the Chinese, and then the Chinese here work it out, and the two planks of the two political parties which imply the opposite are lying swindles on the American people. I tell you, men of the Atlantic coast, that this Chinese scare is the most unfounded, absurd, and unmitigated humbug that was ever enacted.

For twenty-five years, the Chinese have been coming to America and there are no more than two hundred thousand Chinese in America, whereas of other nationalities that have been coming there are millions, and millions and millions. All the Chinese immigration for the last twenty-five years, as compared with the immigration from other countries, is as a drop of rain on the summer sea; and if they increase no faster for the next hundred years than they have in the last twenty-five, the immigration will be completely insignificant as compared with those people who come from other nations. And, moreover, there are fewer Chinese in America today than last year’97fewer now than two years ago, while the whole spirit of the Chinese government is against any people going away from their borders. What a pitiable thing it is that the two political parties in order to get the electoral vote of California in the Presidential election, should put these anti-Chinese planks in their platforms! I was not surprised at the Democratic party, because they always have considered the question of color and race a reasonable question; but when I saw the Republican party, after fighting a four years’92 horrible war to establish the principle that all colors and all races are equal before God and the law; when I remembered that five hundred thousand human lives had been paid as the purchase for the establishment of that principle, and then I saw the Republican party withholding from the yellow man what they had demanded for the black man, I was amazed beyond all expression, and I wondered if the sceptre was not departing.

Now, what are the circumstances in the case? Nearly a century ago, in the year 1784, the first American flag was seen in Chinese waters. Ever since then we have been begging and coaxing the Chinese to come out and be neighborly. In 1844 the government of the United States practically said, ’93Oh, you dear Chinese, do come over and see us; come and bring your work with you; come and stay; come by hundreds and by thousands; do come.’94

In 1867 the government of the United States sent out Mr. Burlingame, a skillful ambassador, and the United States government said through him to the Chinese nation, ’93Oh, you dear Chinese, when will you come? We wait, we long, we expect; do come, do come.’94 Mr. Burlingame presented the case in so genial a way that when he died the emperor deified him, and he is one of the gods of China today.

’93Well,’94 said the coy and shy Chinese, ’93will you treat us well if we come?’94 ’93Oh, yes,’94 we said; ’93we will not only defend you, but we will welcome you; you can wear your hair as you please; you can worship the gods you please; only do come, and we’92ll be so happy!’94 Overpersuaded, and against all the prejudices of the Chinese nation, they came.

Well, how have the Chinese been treated in this country? Brickbatted and slain; taxed before they could get ashore, for the privilege of landing; taxed for street-sweeping, when not one dollar of the money raised went for the cleansing of the Chinese quarters; taxed for the United States government, which gave them no defense; the way from the steamboat wharf to their stopping place in the Chinese quarters one long scene of blasphemy and bloodshed, and no police. In other words, the United States government broke its treaty. Eight hundred thousand dollars by the Chinese government cheerfully paid as indemnity for Americans that had been abused in China. The United States government refuses to pay for the wrongs done the Chinese in America. In the name of Almighty God, the Maker of nations, He who hath made of one blood all people, I impeach the United States government for its perfidy toward the Chinese.

Now, I do not want you to join in this crusade against the Chinese. There have been outrages already committed in New York. I understand some have been committed in Brooklyn. When you greet those from European nations who come through the Barge office, and pray for them all prosperity, use the same supplication for the children of Asia, who by the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railways are handed over the mountains. There is no Gospel in brickbats. No room in this land for violence. The meanest and most insignificant and leprous Chinese that ever lay in a hospital will live as long as God lives. That foreigner is immortal’97immortal. And that nation is to be evangelized; whether her people are trans-Pacific or cis-Pacific, they are to be evangelized, and in the millennial glory side by side will stand Europe and Africa, America and Asia, and the Sierra Nevadas and the Himalayas will answer each other, with salvation echo and re-echo.

I rejoice to know that this whole question of Chinese immigration and every other style of immigration God is going to settle. Every little while in this country we get in great excitement, and fly around as though everything is going to pieces; but God never gets excited. What a time we had with the slavery question. For half a century the North proposed one thing and the South proposed another thing. Matters grew worse and worse. Then God rose up. He said, ’93Here is a question higher than human wisdom, and I will settle it;’94 and He settled it at Shiloh, at South Mountain, and Atlanta, and Gettysburg’97settled it by the graves of a million Northern and Southern people. So, this Chinese question is complicate and tremendous. It is a question higher than your city halls, higher than the heathen goddess on the top of your Capitol at Washington, higher than your highest church steeples. It is a question so high that it is on a level with the throne of God, and the same great power that decides the tides of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, swinging them this way or that, will decide these tides of human migration whichever way He will. If He says ’93Come,’94 they will come. If He says ’93Go,’94 they will go.

Do not in your nervousness try to build up a high, stout wall to keep the Chinese out while you let others in. Such a wall as that, God’92s earthquakes would shake from beneath, and God’92s thunderbolts of wrath would smite from above, and that wall would heave and rock and fall on the demagogues who built it, and on the nation who favors it, and on the Christianity that is too cowardly to denounce it. God will say, ’93That American temple I built for civil and religious liberty, and for a Gospel that would have all men saved; I founded that temple in the blood of the Revolutionary fathers. The arches of that temple went up on the shoulders of men who died for their principles; the baptismal fonts of that temple were filled with the tears of exiled nations who came here for refuge; the sword of your patriot ancestry was the trowel that mortared the foundation; and lo! on these sacred altars you have sacrificed the swine of passion and hate, and these columns have been defiled with unholy hands; now let the temple perish. Down it must come’97column and capital, arch and dome’97and I will in some other land and among a more generous people, and in a brighter age of the world, demonstrate before earth and heaven how that I would have all men equal and free!’94

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage