The bill having been vetoed, letters of commendation and hearty approval were received from all parts of the State, from men of every shade of political opinion and in every walk of life.

THE RAILROAD COMMISSION'S CONCLUSIONS.

Subsequently to the veto of the bill an examination of the cost and earnings of the elevated railroads was undertaken by the Railroad Commissioners, of whom none reported a limitation of a five cent fare for the whole day, though one recommended a "judicious extension of the commission hours," by adding three hours, in which a five cent fare should be charged, and submitted a bill to that effect, which was introduced in the Republican Legislature of 1881, but was defeated by a Republican Senate, and never reached the Governor for action.

The report of the majority of the commission contained the conclusion that a reduction to a five cent fare throughout the day would, at the number of passengers carried in 1882, "reduce the gross income so as to prevent the roads from even paying interest on their bonded debt in full. The laboring classes of New York are carried between the hours of 5:30 and 8:30 A. M., and 4:30 and 7:30 P. M., at five cents, upon trains which run at intervals of forty five seconds. The reduction would not so much benefit them, therefore, as it would the class who are better able to pay ten cents than the laborers are to pay five."

Thus did the result show that the Governor was justified in his refusal to weaken respect for the promises of the State, and that in this as in his whole course of action concerning corporations, the Governor has been controlled by no partiality or favoritism, but only by a just regard for the rights of the State and the public and the observance of public faith.

The suggestion that his action on the Five Cent Fare Bill was taken out of deference to the capitalists controlling those roads is quite absurd, in view of the fact that all of those most prominently named in connection with them opposed him and supported the Republican candidate for the presidency.

Neither corporations nor corporators had from him any favor nor injustice. The equal administration of the laws were his aim and practice with reference both to them and to the public.

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE RESTRICTION OF CHINESE IMMIGRATION.

THE POSITION OF THE TWO PARTIES ON THIS QUESTION OF VITAL INTEREST.

Mr. Thurman and Senator Hoar as Consistent Representatives of their Respective Parties on this IssueThe Legislation Proposed, the Bayard Treaty, and What Chinese Competition Means to American Labor.

I.

THE DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEW FROM WHICH THE QUESTION WAS CONSIDERED. On September 10, 1870, Allan G. Thurman, who had then just concluded his first year of service in the United States Senate from the State of Ohio, made a speech at Cincinnati, in opening the Ohio Democratic campaign of that year. In it he indulged in the following reference to the Chinese question, then new in politics.

MR. THURMAN'S OPINIONS IN 1870.

"I do not think that a large Chinese immigration to this country is desirable. I do not think it would be a valuable acquisition. On the contrary, I think it would be a seriously disturbing element. In race, civilization, habits, education, and religion the Chinese are widely different from our people-so different as to form a very striking contrast. The European immigrants are of the same race, religion, and elvilization as ourselves, and while they add immensely to the power and wealth of the Republic, they do not seriously disturb the substantial homogeneity of our white population. Their migration, therefore, benefits the country and deserves encouragement. Not so with the Chinese. They will never become one people with us. Were they to dwell here for centuries they would probably be as distinct from the white race as are gypsies in Spain from the pure-blooded Spaniard. This immigration is in no proper sense of the word voluntary. It is a kind of Chinese slave trade. Instead of an independent, self-reliant body of freemen, it introduces a horde of quasi-slaves, working at half wages by the command of a taskmaster.

"And this leads me to notice a statement I have seen, that this country needs cheap labor; in other words, men who will work for low wages; that there is a scarcity of laborers here, and therefore, Chinese laborers should be imported to supply the deficiency. I do not concur in this view. My opinion is that we, or rather our posterity, are much more likely to suffer from a redundancy of population than from a dearth of it. In thirty years from now

we will have one hundred millions of people, without counting a Chinese immigrant, in sixty years two hundred millions, in one hundred years probably four hundred millions. We are in no danger of a scarcity of laborers.

"Nor do I think that low wages are a blessing to any country. In the opinion of an eminent thinker, Buckle, low wages and despotism are inseparable. It will be found, I think, that the freer the institutions of a country are, the greater will be the tendency to fair wages for labor. Low wages are mainly owing to an unequal and unfair distribution of the annual production of wealth. This annual production, which is nearly all the result of labor, is being constantly divided into four parts-rents to the landlord, interest to the money lender, profits to the business man, and wages to the laborer. Now, if the wages be low it must be because the annual product is small and all classes suffer, or because that product is unfairly distributed. In general, the latter is the cause, and when wages are very low the laborer gets but a bare subsistence, while the other classes, or some of them, accumulate enormous wealth. And thus society becomes divided into the very rich and the very poor. That this is an unfortunate condition for a country is too obvious to need remark, and that its tendency is hostile to free institutions, as well as to the material comfort of the people, is undoubtedly true. I have, therefore, no sympathy with the cry for cheap labor and low wages. They may give rise, it is true, to great public works and magnificent structures, but the benefit is gained at the expense of a suffering people. The Pyramids are striking monuments of the pride and ostentation of kings, but they are more striking evidences of a degraded condition of the laboring class. That country is likely to be most free and happy where the annual production of wealth being justly distributed labor obtains a fair reward."

MR. HOAR STATES THE REPUBLICAN POSITION.

On April 25, 1882, during the discussion of the twenty-year Chinese Restriction Bill in the Senate of the United States, Mr. Hoar, of Massachusetts, laid down the following principle:

I will not deny to the Chinaman any more than I will to the negro, or the Irishman, or Caucasian, the right to bring his labor, bring his own property to our shores, and the right to fix such a price upon it as according to his own judgment and his own interest may seem to him best. I denounce this legislation not only as a violation of the ancient policy of the American Republic, not only as a violation of the rights of human nature itself, but especially as a departure from the doctrine to which the great party to which I belong is committed in its latest declaration of principles.

Even as late as July 3, 1884, after a new treaty had been made with the Chinese and additional legislation was proposed for the purpose of carrying it into execution, Mr. Hoar said in the Senate:

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"This is a bill to execute certain treaty stipulations relating to the citizens of other countries. It rests, in my judgment, upon sheer barbarism. wish to re-affirm my disapprobation of this legislation and the principle upon which it depends, and to state that in my judgment, the American people will repent in sack-cloth and ashes one day the policy they are inaugurating.

During the debate on the same bill in the House, the late Godlove S. Orth, then a Republican Representative from the State of Indiana, and second in rank on the Foreign Affairs Committee, maintained the same doctrine in this language:

He takes no interest in our Government! Do you mean by this that he does not immediately on his arrival, repair to the "sand lots" of San Francisco and harangue the boisterous multitude upon their special duty on election days? This objection comes with a poor grace when it is known that we refuse to give him an interest in our Government or permit him to assume the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. We deny to him the rights which we cheerfully accord to every other immigrant, and, as if to emphasize this denial, the fifteenth section of this bill provides that hereafter no State court or court of the United States shall admit Chinese to citizenship, and all laws in conflict with this act are hereby repealed.

II.

RESTRICTING IMPORTATION OF CHINESE.

HISTORY OF THE ATTITUDES OF PARTIES ON THE QUESTION SHOWN BY DISCUSSION AND VOTES.

These different declarations, coming from representative men in the Democratic and Republican parties respectively, are indicative of the prevailing opinions on the question of Chinese immigration held by the majority of public men in the two parties-one representing that care for the interest of the American laboring man, which has been the distinguishing feature, not only of Mr. Thurman himself, but of his party as well, and the others representing the sentiments, impulses and opinions of the majority of their party.

CHINESE COOLIES TOOK THE PLACE OF SOLDIERS.

The immigration of Chinese to this country began during the civil war. The number who had come before the enactment of the Contract Labor Law, in 1864, was small, but taking advantage of this act, and the absence of those of the laboring population with the Union armies in the field, the protected manufacturers of the country were swift to exercise the new-given right thus given them to import Coolie labor from China. Large numbers of these found employment upon the Central Pacific Railroad, and many of the large fortunes made by men on the Pacific coast, who have since betaken themselves either to New York or to Europe, to live in luxury, are the result of this employment of servile labor, and the displacement of more than the equivalent number of American working men. Among these is D. Ogden Mills, owner of the New York Tribune, who has recently become extremely solicitous about American labor.

After the return of the soldiers from service in the army, it soon became mani. fest that the Chinese would become a plague to the Pacific coast. It was not, however, until the year 1872 that any well defined action was taken by the Legislature of that State looking to a restriction of immigration.

EFFORTS TO RESTRICT IMMIGRATION KILLED BY REPUBLICANS.

Beginning in 1869, individual members of the Senate and the House had presented resolutions or bills, having for their object the restriction of such immigra tion. Among these may be enumerated the following:

On the 6th of December, 1869, Senator Williams, of Oregon, introduced a bill to regulate the immigration of Chinese and prohibit their importation under contract. On the 24th of February, 1870, Senator Chandler, of Michigan, a Republican from the Committee on Commerce, to which the bill had been referred, asked to be discharged from its further consideration, and moved that it be indefinitely postponed, which was done.

On the 10th of January, 1870, Mr. Johnson, of California, introduced a joint resolution to regulate and restrict Chinese immigration, which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. The committee, the majority of whom were Republicans, refused to report it back to the House.

On the 6th of June, 1870, Senator Stewart, of Nevada, introduced in the Senate a bill to prohibit contracts for servile labor, but even this measure could not meet with favor at the hands of a Republican Senate, and it was defeated.

June 7, 1870, Mr. Sargent, of California, introduced a bill to prohibit contracts for servile labor, which was referred to the Committee on Judiciary, but the influences were strong enough to prevent this measure from ever being reported back to that body.

July 9, 1870, Mr. Cake, of Pennsylvania, introduced a resolution against the importation of Chinese coolies under contract and directing the Committee on Education and Labor to investigate the subject. The resolution was referred to that committee, but was never heard of afterwards.

July 7, 1870, Mr. Mungen, of Ohio, introduced a joint resolution in regard to the protection of our laboring classes against Chinese immigration, which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, but there it remained. This was not the way to protect labor in the opinion of the Republican party, and the resolution was pigeon-holed.

On the 18th of December, 1871, Mr. Coughlan, of California, a Democrat, introduced a bill to prohibit contracts for servile labor, which was referred to the Committee on Judiciary. The reference of this bill was subsequently changed to the Committee on Education and Labor, which reported a substitute, which was recommitted to the same committee, and that was the last of it.

On the 30th of April, 1872, Senator Casserly, of California, a Democrat, having previously received a memorial on the subject from the Legislature of his State, introduced a bill to prohibit contracts for servile labor and to amend and enforce existing laws against the coolie trade. This bill, like all others of its kind, was referred to a hostile Republican committee, and was never heard of again.

As will be seen, each and every one of these resolutions was referred to a hostile committee, where it slept the long sleep.

MR. THURMAN STATES THE CASE.

The agitation, however, continued intermittently until the year 1879, when the Senators and Representatives from California, representing the aroused sentiment of the Pacific Coast, presented memorials without number and bills, looking to the restriction of immigration. The case of the Pacific Coast and the constitutional right of the United States to thus far abrogate the treaty then existing with China, known as the Burlingame Treaty, were presented by Senator Thurman on February 13, 1879, during the discussion:

Mr. President, I have a very few words to say on this bill, and scarcely anything at all upon the general question involved in it. I shall assume the arguments already made at this session and at previous sessions have convinced the Senate that a limit ought to be placed upon the emigration of Chinese to the United States, if, indeed, that migration ought not to be stopped altogether. What I shall say, therefore, will relate mainly to the mode by which a stop or limit is to be put to that migration. It has been said that it can only be done by the negotiation of a new treaty. I do not know that that proposition has been distinctly advocated upon this floor, but if it does lurk in the mind of any Senator, I beg him to listen to the very few observations that I have to make upon it. To me it seems perfectly clear that the proposition cannot for a moment be sustained, and that it would be ruinous to this country or to any other to hold that a treaty can only be put an end to by the nego