No good
purpose is served in requiring them to register.
My attention has been called by the Chinese minister to the fact that
the bill as it stands makes no provision for the transit across the
United States of Chinese subjects now residing in foreign countries.
I think that this point may well claim the attention of Congress in
legislating on this subject.
I have said that good faith requires us to suspend the immigration of
Chinese laborers for a less period than twenty years; I now add that
good policy points in the same direction.
Our intercourse with China is of recent date. Our first treaty with
that power is not yet forty years old. It is only since we acquired
California and established a great seat of commerce on the Pacific that
we may be said to have broken down the barriers which fenced in that
ancient Monarchy. The Burlingame treaty naturally followed. Under the
spirit which inspired it many thousand Chinese laborers came to the
United States. No one can say that the country has not profited by their
work. They were largely instrumental in constructing the railways which
connect the Atlantic with the Pacific.
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