The Old World and Its Ways. Bryan William Jennings
to exclude merchants. When questioned as to the number of clerks needed, they estimated that there were about four thousand merchants in the United States and that each merchant would need from six to ten clerks. When surprise was expressed at the number, it was explained that some had to cook and do housework. It was even argued that Chinese shoemakers and tailors were also necessary to provide clothing and footwear for the Chinese residing in the United States. There was a division of opinion as to whether laundry men should be classed as merchants and entitled to clerks. But excluding laundry men and counting eight clerks to the store, this one change in definition would open the door to about thirty-two thousand, almost a fifty per cent increase, according to the estimate made by the Hong Kong merchants, of seventy thousand Chinese now in the United States. Whether the admission of clerks could be so regulated and restricted as to make it possible to grant this demand in whole or in part is a question which I am not prepared to answer without further information as to the location of the merchants, the character of their business and the sentiment of the local community.
The admission of skilled laborers is one upon which it is easier to form an opinion. The Chinese are not only an industrious people, but they are capable of becoming skilled artisans. They could supply every factory in the United States with skilled workmen and still have millions to spare. Nearly all the reasons which apply to the exclusion of the coolie, apply to the skilled laborer, and they can, therefore, be considered together.
It developed during the dinner that while the demands expressly recognized the improbability of coolies being admitted, most of the Chinese present favored the entire repeal of the restriction law. They resented any discrimination against their people as unfriendly and unwarranted. One Chinaman of prominence, in another city, went so far as to intimate that such discrimination would not be permitted if China had a large army and navy and was able to enforce her rights.
As the whole question turns on the admission of the Chinese laborer, let us consider, first, the difference between the European immigrant and the Chinese immigrant and, second, the general objections to the admission of Chinese workmen.
The Chinaman, unlike the European, regards America as only temporarily his home, preserves his national customs and peculiarities and finally returns, carrying his savings with him. He is not attracted by our institutions and brings with him no love of American ideals. To him the United States is a field to be exploited and nothing more. The European casts in his lot with us, mingles with the population and in a few generations his identity is lost in our composite race. He has neither peculiarities of thought or dress to distinguish him from those among whom he labors, and his children are soon an indistinguishable part of the community. Not so with the Chinese. They are not only distinguished by their dress, language and habits, but they remain entirely separate and apart from those among whom they dwell. This difference is not only due to the wide dissimilarity in history, tradition and habit, but also to the absence of any permanent or patriotic interest in the land in which they sojourn.
The plane of living and the rate of wages are surprisingly low in China. When we were crossing the Yellow River I noticed a number of coolies unloading stone and inquired their wages. They received one hundred and fifty cash, or about seven and a half cents gold, per day. When this compensation is compared with the wages paid in the United States for the same kind of labor, it is easy to understand why Chinese laborers are drawn to our country. In discussing the immigration question with a Chinese official, I asked him what he paid his coachman. He replied that the head coachman received what was equivalent to $10 in gold per month, while the subordinates received from $3.50 to $5. Out of these wages they must pay for their own food. There is considerable difference in the efficiency of labor, but making due allowance for that, the Chinaman could in some occupations make twice as much in America as at home and yet work for half what Americans receive.
Long experience has taught the Chinaman to economize until he has reduced living to the minimum. Our guide in one city fixed $1 (50 cents gold) as the weekly cost of living for one person, but many live upon less. In traveling from Pekin to Hankow we were compelled to provide our own meals, and the very competent cook whom we secured was regularly receiving $1 a week in gold.
A ride through the streets of a Chinese city furnishes ample evidence of the economy of the people. The small measures used, the tiny piles of edibles exposed for sale, the little bundles carried from the market – these explain why cash, running about ten to a cent, can be used as currency. Oranges are often sold without the peeling, the peeling being sold separately, and peanuts seem to be counted instead of measured. At Canton we saw one man trudging home from market with a satisfied air, carrying two pig tails tied together with a piece of grass. The well-to-do have many delicacies, like birds' nest soup and shark fins, some of which we tasted at the luncheon given by the viceroy at Nanking and at the Hong Kong dinner; and among those who can afford it, elaborate dinners are quite common, but among the masses the food is of the cheapest and coarsest kind.
In the matter of fuel the same scrupulous economy is exercised. Every dead leaf and twig is scraped from the ground and even the weeds are condemned to fiery punishment for presuming to grow upon such precious soil.
It would require generations to bring our people down to a plane upon which they could compete with the Chinese, and this would involve a large impairment in the efficiency in their work.
It is not just to the laboring men of the United States that they should be compelled to labor upon the basis of Chinese coolie labor or stand idle and allow their places to be filled by an alien race with no thought of permanent identification with our country. The American laborer not only produces the wealth of our nation in time of peace, but he is its sure defender in time of war. Who will say that his welfare and the welfare of his family shall be subordinated to the interests of those who abide with us but for a time, who, while with us, are exempt from draft or military burden, and who, on their return, drain our country of its currency? A foreign landlord system is almost universally recognized as a curse to a nation, because the rent money is sent out of the country; Chinese immigration on a large scale would give us the evil effects of foreign landlordism in addition to its other objectionable features.
When I pointed out the fact that Chinese did not, like other immigrants, contemplate permanent residence in the United States, a Chinese official replied that they would become citizens if the law permitted it, and to the objection that they would even then remain distinct from the rest of the people, he answered by advancing arguments in favor of amalgamation. He claimed that the descendants (called Eurasians) of Chinese who had intermarried with Europeans were brighter than the average children of either race. I did not have an opportunity to test the accuracy of these conclusions, but it is evident that amalgamation has not been carried on to any great extent either in China or in the countries to which the Chinamen have gone. The instances of intermarriage are so rare that they do not affect the general problem.
The fact that the Chinese do now, and would probably if admitted to citizenship, form an unassimilated, if not an indigestible, element, separated from the remainder of our population by a race line, raises another objection to their admission as laborers. They make good servants, learning quickly and obeying conscientiously. Americans who have employed them testify to their trustworthiness and industry. If they were permitted to freely enter the United States, it is likely that they would soon solve the domestic labor problem, of which we hear so much, for as cooks, waiters and house boys they are an unqualified success. But what would be the effect upon our civilization of such a stratification of society? At present we have no racial distinction between employer and employé (except that presented by the negro problem), and one race problem is enough. If we were to admit Chinese coolies, we would find it more and more difficult to induce white people to enter into competition with them and manual labor would bear an odium which ought not to be placed upon it. We need to teach the dignity of labor and to lessen the aversion to it; a coolie class would make it difficult, if not impossible, to make progress in the work of cementing our society into one harmonious whole. If American ideals are to be realized there must be no barrier between the rich and the poor, no obstacles in the way of advancement from manual labor to intellectual work. China has suffered immeasurably because of the complete separation of her educated classes from her laborers.
A sentimental argument is sometimes advanced to the effect that we have no moral right to exclude any who seek to come among us. Whether