in association with its citizens, it must, as an incident inseparably connected with it, have the right also to determine who shall enter." I now quote from Justice Woodbury's minority opinion in the Passenger cases, 17 Curtis, 253. He says: principle was more broadly and fully enunciated. After declaring that the authority of a State is "complete, unqualified, and exclusive," in relation to those powers which refer to municipal legislation, the Court says, 11 Peters, 138: The best writers on national law, as well as our own decisions, show Every law came within this description which concerned the welthat this power of excluding emigrants exists in all States which are sov-fare of the whole people of a State, or any individual within; whether ereign. (Vattel, B. 1, C. 19, Sec. 231; 5 Howard, 525, 629; New York it related to their rights or their duties; whether it respected them as vs. Miln, 11 Peters, 142; Prigg vs. Pennsylvania, 16 Peters, 625, and men or as citizens of the State; whether in their public or private relaHolmes vs. Jennison, 14 Peters, 565.) tions; whether it related to their rights of persons or of property; or of the whole people of a State, or of any individual within ft."` Again, in the same case (New York vs. Miln, 11 Peters, 148), the Court says: “Can anything fall more directly within the police power and internal regulation of a State than that which concerns the care and management of paupers or convicts, or any other class or description of persons that may be thrown into the country, and likely to endanger its safety, or become chargeable for their maintenance?" "Those coming may be voluntary emigrants from other nations, or traveling absentees, or refugees in revolutions, party exiles, compulsory victims of power, or they may consist of cargoes of shackled slaves, or large bands of convicts, or brigands, or persons with incendiary purposes, or imbecile paupers, or those suffering from infectious diseases, or fanatics, with principles and designs more dangerous than either, or under circumstances of great ignorance, as liberated serfs, likely at once, or soon, to make them a serious burden in their support as paupers, and a contamination of public morals. There can be no doubt, on principles of natural law, of the right to prevent the entry of these, either absolutely or on such conditions as the State may deem it prudent to impose." Again he says: "And it is not a little remarkable, in proof that this power of exclusion still remains in the States rightfully, that while, as before stated, it has been exercised by various States in the Union, some as to paupers, some as to convicts, some as to slaves, and some as to free blacks, it never has been exercised by the General Government as to mere aliens, not enemies, except so far as included in what are called the Alien and Sedition Laws of seventeen hundred and ninety-eight. By the former, being 'An Act concerning aliens,' passed June fifteenth, seventeen hun-means an equivalent, and which possesses an ampler and more compredred and ninety-eight (1 Statutes at Large, 571), power was assumed by the General Government in the time of peace to remove or expel them from the country; and that Act, no less than the latter, passed about a month after (ibid. 596), was generally denounced as unconstitutional, and suffered to expire without renewal, on the ground, among others assigned for it, that if such a power existed at all, it was in the States and not in the General Government, unless under the war power, and then against alien enemies alone." The same Justice says: Considering the power to forbid as existing absolutely in a State, it is for the State, where the power resides, to decide on what is sufficient cause for it-whether municipal or economical, sickness or crime, as for example, danger of pauperism, danger to health, danger to morals, danger to property, danger to public principles by revolutions and change of government, or danger to religion. This power over the person is much less than that exercised over ships and merchandise under State quarantine laws, though the General Government regulates for duties and commerce the ships and their cargoes. If the power be clear, however, others may differ as to the expediency of the exercise of it, as to particular classes, or in a particular form; this cannot impair the power." Again he says: "The power of the State in prohibiting rests on a sovereign right to regulate who shall be her inhabitants-a right more vital than that to regulate commerce by the General Government, and which, as independent or concurrent, the latter has not disturbed, and should not disturb." I think that these authorities are clear enough. If they are sound constitutional interpretations, the proposition to exclude the Chinese, as I have undertaken to do it in my amendment, is based on an unmistakable power, not only existing in the State, but on a right which the Federal Government could not contravene without committing an act of usurpation, overriding the Constitution itself. The doctrine set forth is founded in reason. If the power of exclusion exist, it should exist in the State rather than the Federal Government. (17 Curtis, 196.) It is a discretionary power to be exercised according to the judgment of the party possessing it. The State could alone exercise this power with discretion, for it would feel and know whether any particular class or description of persons is likely to produce discontent or taint the morals of its citizens, or increase their burdens, or (as in the case of the Chinese evil) wipe out American labor and reduce the State to the condition of a Chinese province. Before leaving this branch of the subject, I desire to refer you to another opinion of Justice McLean, in which he seems to have gone even further than Chief Justice Taney in asserting for the States the right to protect themselves from the introduction of objectionable persons from abroad. I refer to the case of Groves vs. Slaughter, 15 Peters, 508, in which Justice McLean says: "Each State has a right to protect itself against the avarice and intrusion of the slave-dealer; to guard its citizens against the inconveniences and dangers of a slave population. The right to exercise this power by a State is higher and deeper than the Constitution. The evil involves the prosperity, and may endanger the existence of a State. Its power to guard against or to remedy the evil rests upon the law of self-preservation a law vital to every community, and especially to a sovereign State." It is conceded that the great bulk of the Chinese in this State come here under contracts for service for a term of years, and that they are virtually in a state of peonage, one of the most odious forms of slavery. This fact gives great appositeness to the above citation, and the doctrine which Justice McLean there judicially affirms is wide enough to give my proposition free and full admittance into the holy of holies of the sacred constitutional circle. The United States Supreme Court, in the cases of Gibbons vs. Ogden, and Brown vs. The State of Maryland, had laid down the rule that a State might do whatever was necessary to protect itself internally, its quarantine, police, pilot laws, etc., all relating to and connected with navigation and commerce. But in the case of New York vs. Miln, this The principle is maintained through all the decisions, that even the paramount authority of Congress over commerce must not be permitted to interfere with the rights of an organized community of a State to protect itself from evils arising out of a traffic which may be admittedly commercial in its nature. In New York vs. Miln, the Courts deny that persons are commerce. The contrary ground is taken in the Passenger cases as to pasengers; but it is arrived at by a curious and arbitrary mode of substitution. The term "commerce," say some of the Justices, means "intercourse." The Constitution uses the word "commerce," and it requires a considerable stretch of license to strike out that word and substitute for it, or enlarge it by the addition of one which is by no hensive scope. I quote on this point from the opinion of Chief Justice Taney in the Passenger cases, 17 Curtis, 222: "The introduction of the word intercourse comes to this: if it means nothing more than the word commerce, it is merely the addition of a word without changing the argument; but if it is a word of larger meaning, it is sufficient to say that then this Court cannot substitute it for the word of more limited meaning contained in the Constitution. In either view, therefore, of the meaning to be attached to this word intercourse, it can form no foundation for an argument to support the power now claimed for the General Government." It is hardly necessary to say that if the position is maintained that a State has the right to exclude from her territory any class or description of persons who are injurious to the well-being of her people, the treaty power could not invade that right. The treaty power cannot take away any of the powers belonging to the States which have not been delegated to the Federal Government, and which have been reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. By the general power to make treaties, the Constitution manifestly intended only to comprehend those subjects which are usually regulated by treaty, and cannot otherwise be regulated. It must have meant to except out of these the rights reserved to States, for it would be absurd to suppose that the President and the Senate could do by treaty what the whole government is interdicted from doing in any way. The United States Supreme Court, in the case of Holmes vs. Jennison, 14 Peters, 369, says: "The power to make treaties is given by the Constitution in general terms, without any description of the objects intended to be embraced by it; and, consequently, it was designed to include all those subjects, which, in the ordinary intercourse of nations, had usually been made subjects of negotiation and treaty, and which are consistent with the nature of our institutions, and the distribution of powers between the General and State Governments." This is a sufficiently clear interpretation of the extent and limitation of the treaty power, and it emphasizes the proposition that a treaty is void and inoperative as soon as it invades the domain of the rights reserved by the States. I claim that under the interpretations of the Supreme Court of the United States, both when it was disposed to exalt the powers of the Federal Government over questions of this character, and when it ran to the other extreme, it has never attempted to deny the power of a State to protect itself from an evil, whether it had its origin from within, or was forced upon it from without. It only remains for us to show that in this instance we are dealing with an evil. I shall consider it in its political phase. The grand object of the founders of our government was to institute in this country a political system which would derive its force, power, and perpetuity from the people. The very essence of our system is luminously and strikingly defined in the memorable words of Abraham Lincoln: "A government of the people, for the people, and by the people." In order to carry out this grand definition, it is necessary that our people should continue to be homogeneous-that the race which founded this empire should be the permanent occupants of its territory, protected by the higher law of self-preservation from any invasion, peaceful or warlike, which might threaten its integrity, or its power to maintain itself on American soil. To solemnly proclaim that we have established a "government of the people, for the people, and by the people," and then to permit a race which possesses no political faculty in common with ourselves to seize the avenues of industry and compete our own people out of existence, is to reduce that aphorism to a horrible absurdity. Carried to its logical limit, and one which it will surely reach if we fail to interpose an effectual obstruction to the Chinese invasion, the time will come, when at least in this State, there will be no people out of whom the government is to come, or for or by whom it is to be administered. The fundamental law and its interpretations place upon the Chinese the badge of political proscription, and when they shall have overrun our country and competed out of existence our own people, what shall have become of our own system? Where will be its root and propits essence and actuality? Where shall we look for its citizens in time of peace, and for its soldiers in time of war? It will be but a hollow shell of its former self-a ghastly mockery of its former greatness-a is folding itself around the heart of our State, to shake it off, "as shakes body without a soul-the gibbering skeleton of a lost republic! What greater evil could threaten this State than the one which is now in process of realization from the uncontrolled invasion of our territory by the Chinese? An incessant wail of agony is coming up from the people. The political complexion of this Convention is a deep and significant protest against the Asiatic curse. The long suffering of our people has had form and direct expression in the election of one third of the delegates on this floor, and I assume it is a fact not susceptible of contradiction that not a single member of this Convention could have been elected on the openly avowed declaration that he favored the Mongolian influx. Let us not close our eyes to the magnitude of this question. Let us not, like the optimist ostrich, imagine there is no sirocco sweeping the desert because we have drawn our mantles around our faces and shut our eyes to a self-evident fact. Ah, no! The storm is brooding, and its terrible mutterings have been heard. The bubbles on the surface of the lake do not denote more surely the agitation at the bottom. Already gaunt want has strutted out its skeleton form in our cities. The highways of the country are alive with wanderers, houseless and homeless. The fields and the workshops are crowded with an alien and servile race, while our own people-bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh-are idle and famishing. The Chinese iron is burning into the soul of the toiling masses, who find themselves outcasts at home to make room for the conquering strangers. The evil has already passed its first stage of encroachment. It has supplanted white labor in all the humblest fields of industry. It commenced at the menial employments and has already reached the mechanical. In its insidious progress it will invade every trade and every business, and even American commerce itself may fall into the all-reaching grasp of John Comprador. American civilization cannot flourish by its side, for it will absorb and monopolize the means by which American civilization subsists. It is as impossible for our own people and the Chinese to exist together, as it is for fire to burn in the midst of water. The law of economic forces, as applied to the social system, forbids it. If the Mongolians are to have the unlimited hospitality of our territory, then, in the conflict which must ensue for existence, they will survive and our own people perish. In this conflict they are the fittest, because the cheapest. Is not a result so sweepingly destructive an evil which calls loudly for a remedy? Why, sir, the unrestricted immigration of the Chinese is the sum of all evils, for to us they are annihilation. By their vices they corrupt the morals and taint the blood of our youth; and by their virtues they turn our men and women into wanderers, paupers, and criminals. If there ever were a time and an occasion when the great right of self-preservation should be invoked and exercised, it surely is when a people are threatened with inevitable destruction--and this is such a time and such an occasion. Will you, gentlemen, who are deeply versed in constitutional law, tell me that this great power can be legally invoked to shut out a pauper, a convict, or a leper, but that it must lie dormant in the face of an evil to which the admission of these would be a blessing? Do you mean to tell me we can guard the State from disease but not from death? Do you tell me that we can deny one pauper the hospitalities of our soil, but that we cannot shut out an alien irruption which will create paupers by the thousand in our midst? Is it possible that we can close the Golden Gate to a single foreign convict, but that we must keep it open to a human stream which is demoralizing the very fountain of society? the sturdy forest oak its poison vine apart." The time has at last come when the people are aroused to the magnitude of the danger; and the time and the opportunity are now here when we can deal with it effectively. It is for you, gentlemen, to say whether this fair State shall be reserved as the splendid heritage of your own race-as the home of the men who are flesh of your flesh and blood of your blood; or whether it shall be given over to the unarmed but irresistible conquest of a people who are as strange to our manners and our civilization-to our progressive possibilities and our lofty aspirations-as though they had suddenly dropped upon us from another planet. On the one hand, you can make it a splendid American commonwealth, with a destiny bright and glorious beyond parallel; on the other, you can make it the mercenary Mecca of the scum of Asia-a loathsome Chinese province. You can dot our plains and valleys and mountain sides with the happy homes of our own people; or you can desecrate them by turning them over to the occupation of a servile and a despised race. May it not, Mr. Chairman, be the tristful task of some future Childe Harold, when wandering among the ruins of our young State, to point out the remnants of our fallen temples and crumbled hearths, and truthfully exclaim that "Time hath not rebuilt them; but uprear'd Barbaric dwellings on their shattered site, THE CHAIRMAN. Are there any amendments to section one? MR. O'DONNELL. Mr. President and gentlemen of the Convention: We have come at last to the consideration of the question for which this Convention was mainly called into existence. Only a few days are left to us to prepare and complete a work which, I believe, is vitally connected with our existence as a nation. When we consider the wars of races which have been waged ever since the creation with more or less bitterness, we perceive that the idea of a universal brotherhood is but the dream of a fanatic. Nature and Nature's God divides mankind into distinctive races. They are made up of antagonistic elements which will no more commingle than fire and water. Nor can they be ever educated up to the point of fraternity. The Mongol will never kneel at your altars nor worship the living God. If he does it will be with a smile of contempt for that which he regards as a weakness. All our symbols of religion, all our hopes of immortality, are a delusion and a snare. To him our civilization is a fraud. In his estimation our virtues are vices, and our charities are false pretenses. All the triumphs of Saxon and Christian religion are to him mockeries. Indeed, sir, there is nothing in which Nature permits any affinity nor any sympathy between the Christian and the Pagan, the Mongol and the Caucasian. In vain, Mr. President, have your Christian churches expended millions of money to plant the cross in heathen soil. In vain have you sent missionaries to find martyrs' graves in the soil of Asia. In vain have your poets sung and your preachers appealed. Paganism, like a black pall, still shrouds the heathen in impenetrable night, where the sun of Christianity can never penetrate. Sir, I have a section that I want to go into this Constitution. I will read it: "The right is hereby reserved to the State to protect its citizens from pestilence and plague, and, as a police regulation, to prohibit the entry of dangerous or criminal classes." You cannot, you dare not answer that in the affirmative. If you were to do so, you would belie your own sense of candor. You would falsify the plain letter of the Constitution of the United States, which Sir, this proposed amendment involves the consideration of that pro- } solemnly avers that this government was established to promote the vision of the Federal Constitution which declares that the powers not welfare of the people. You would challenge the veracity and the under-delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it standing of every Judge who has from the Supreme Bench solemnly to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” declared that the power rests in every organized community, in every That, sir, is the language of the Federal Constitution; it is our great sovereign State, to protect itself from anything that is likely to produce compact of union, and we are justly entitled to have it administered in a physical or a moral evil among its citizens. its letter and in its spirit. The section I have offered declares that cer It has been our boast, Mr. Chairman, that California is unsur-tain rights are reserved to the State-rights which are vitally essential passed in the grandeur and beauty of her scenery, in the fruitfulness of her soil, in the salubrity of her climate, and in the natural resources which she possesses to sustain a vast and prosperous population. Here, if anywhere on this broad earth, has nature invited the hand of industry to achieve that best of all rewards, a home in which neither poverty nor riches shall come to mar the even happiness of its possessor. Here, if blind avarice for inordinate wealth do not give over our fair fields and rich valleys to a servile race, we shall build up a State whose prosperity will be founded upon the even distribution of its soil among a contented and a homogeneous people. If we preserve this fair land and its industries to our own race, the future of California, measured by the progress she has made in the past, will be splendid beyond the conception of the most sanguine. Young as I am, comparatively, I have seen this State as a wilderness, and almost without a solitary American home. I have seen the turbid waters of the Sacramento when they were as clear and pellucid as those of our mountain lakes. I have crossed the site of this fair city when its houses were tents and its streets an open plain. I have seen our great commercial metropolis when canvass frames marked the places where now rise stately piles of granite, brick, and marble. Having been with the State at its American birth, grown with it from its auspicious infancy to its majestic majority, I love it with an affection as ardent and profound as the love which springs from inaternal joys, or that which is inspired by the sublime sentiment of filial devotion. During all these years I have seen the insidious approaches of a blight which has gradually spread, until now it threatens to envelop and crush the industries of the whole State. By voice and pen I gave the note of warning when the danger seemed remote. By voice and pen I labored to awaken our people to a sense of the peril as it grew in proportions. By voice and pen I have continued to appeal to the patriotism of our people to throw off this insidious monster, which to her existence as a member of the Federal Union. Is there anything in the Federal Constitution prohibiting this power to enact police regulations for the several States? I answer, no. There is nothing in the Federal Constitution by which, even by implication, this power is delegated to the General Government. I shall be met, sir, by the argument from the other side, that the subject of immigration and the importation of coolies is a regulation of commerce over which Congress has exclusive control. Perhaps I shall be cited to the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the celebrated case of Massachusetts, in which that State attempted to prevent the landing of Irish immigrants. It is true that the Federal Courts in that case decided that the State law was unconstitutional, upon the ground that the matter was a commercial regulation, and that the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations is confided to Congress by the Constitution. Mr. President, there is no analogy between the case of Massachusetts and California-no more analogy than nature has created between the Caucasian and the Mongolian races. They are entirely foreign, totally dissimilar, and strangers by the great law of nature and of God himself. In the case of Massachusetts, the question of sanitary necessity did not arise. I have the case here, but there is no use of reading it, you have heard it so often; in it the question of sanitary necessity was not raised. That is a question that never arose in the world before. It has been raised right here in the State of California. Consider, for a moment, a fact which is beyond denial, that there have been five hundred lepers sent here for the purpose of sowing that disease broadcast all over this fair land. That is a fact. We have found it in San Francisco, and we have found it in every town in the State of California. Even here, in Sacramento, there are over fifty cases of leprosy. I can, within sight of this hall, produce over twenty cases of leprosy, that horrible, incurable disease. No human power can relieve the leper from the unknown. MR. TULLY. It is evident that there is no quorum present. I would move that there be a call of the House. THE PRESIDENT. The gentleman from San Francisco is on the floor. MR. O'DONNELL. Well, I am going to speak on this question if there is only one man here [laughter], and I am going to take my time to it, too. [Renewed laughter and applause.] MR. KLEINE. I hope he will not be disturbed by the delegates in this Convention. MR. O'DONNELL. No man knows to-day the strength of the Chinese military establishment. All we see or know of what is going on in China is on the shore edges. It is believed that the skeleton for an army of twenty million already exists. It is believed, further, that the idea of conquest has once again taken possession of the Chinese mind, and that the great Buddhistic family of Asiatic races can be upon the Pacific Coast of the United States. Such a movement means a possible wiping out of Caucasian civilization. Modern war is now a matter of effective arms, and of a simple and reliable commissariat system. The Mongolian race is capable of great personal prowess. Being fatalists, they dare everything for the end they have in view. Their food is simple, easily supplied, and easily transported. Their endurance of fatigue is proverbial. Once organized and in motion they could swarm into Russia as irresistibly as the locusts of Egypt, and upon the Pacific Coast of this continent as numerous and destructive as grasshoppers. Once started, where would they stop? Civilization would Francisco to-day. Nobody lives in them but Chinese. Nobody else can retire before them as from a plague. Look at the plague spots in San live in them. slow torture, a lingering, living death; there is no cure for the leper. You must understand that most of the press of the State of California is owned by the Six Chinese Companies. They tell me that it is not contagious. They tell you the disease is not contagious. But they do say it is not infectious. I say it is not contagious, but I say it is infeetious. Remember, that wherever the coolie has gone, he has spread that disease. Look at the history of the Sandwich Islands. They were the purest blooded people on the face of God Almighty's world, those Kanakas, until these Mongolians came among them. What is the case now? Why, the island to-day is almost decimated from leprosy brought over there by the coolies. Go to other countries where they have gone; the same condition exists there, and I tell you that we have got to put our feet right down and put a clause in the Constitution declaring that they shall not land here, or that the people of the State of California will rise and stop their coming to this country. [Applause.] This sec-leagued for not only a wholesale raid upon Europe, but also for a descent tion must be put in the Constitution declaring that the coolies must not land on these shores in no instance. We have got to bring this question before the General Government, and the Attorney-General of the State is going to test that matter, and I will show you before I get through, why. I say, Mr. President, that this sanitary question, or necessity, did not arise in this Massachusetts case. I will also show you, before I get through, the difference between a leper and an Irishman or a German. MR. LINDOW. You had better put that in your pipe and smoke it. MR. O'DONNELL. May be you don't understand it. I will explain it to you afterwards. [Laughter.] The people of Massachusetts were not subjected to the danger of infection by contact with European immigrants. They were of the same family, the same genealogy, and were children of a common descent. In respect to disease, neither was an exceptional race of people, nor was either afflicted with any horrid form of disease to which the other was a stranger. Not so, sir, with the nations of Asia. Not so with the subjects of the Chinese Empire, who have no more affinity with the European race than the alligators of the Nile. They are like dogs, subject to types of disease which will not yield to our treatment, and which in our materia medica are totally Mr. President, it is true that the power to regulate commerce is confided to Congress, by the Constitution, but commerce and immigration are not synonymous terms. "Commerce," says Webster, "is in a general interchange or mutual change of goods, wares, productions, or property of any kind, between nations or individuals, either by barter or by purchase and sale." I am unable to see that the trade in Chinese coolies is in any sense a commercial regulation; and if it be not, then the State, and not Congress, has the right to control it, and to define the limits within which it shall be carried on. The notion that it is a commercial regulation is an error, which may not be retrieved without revolution. It may array this State in opposition to the General Government; and the attempt to plant Asiatic slavery upon the free soil of California may cost more treasure and blood than the destruction of African slavery cost the nation. I have said that the exercise by a State of the power to protect her citizens from plague and pestilence is vitally necessary to her existence as a member of the Federal Union, and this is especially the fact in the case of California. She is isolated-located at a distance of more than three thousand miles from the National Capital. Her ports of entry are the doors through which the dangerous and criminal classes of Asia are entering into our very midst. She is, in fact, by her geographical position, the receiving reservoir of the scum of Asia. Sup pose, as in the early history of California, she was this day deprived of communication, except at long intervals of time, with the Central Gov;gration. We know that Christianity and Paganism cannot exist side by ernment. In those days, no man questioned the right of the State and the people to expel the dangerous classes who immigrated here from Sydney, and made California an English penal colony. There were then no questious about commercial regulation in these States; there was no question about that; but the people were under the law of selfpreservation; they acted under the law of self-preservation in early days; and I tell you they have got to act under the same laws to-day. It was then the higher law that Congress recognized; and if the people or the State should again put it into execution, we need have no fear that the United States will resist our action. Mr. Chairman, the judicial power of the United States extends to all cases affecting treaties with foreign nations. In respect to the treaty with China, now universally conceded to be infamous, which authorized Chinese immigration to the United States, I regard it as invalid because it was negotiated upon the hypothesis that Chinese subjects are eligible to American citizenship. That is the essential feature of the treaty. But the error has been exposed by the judicial power of the United States, which has decided that Mongolians are not eligible to citizenship. I ask if this decision is not conclusive of the invalidity of all that portion of the treaty which concedes the eligibility of Chinese to American citizenship; and I submit it to the consideration of the Convention, because it may suggest a remedy for the destruction of the treaty through the agency of the Federal Courts and without the intervention of Congress. History informs us that the hideous Mongol has, at intervals, migrated from his native waters into Christendom. Whenever and wherever he has appeared, our civilization has shrunk before him as before a plague. An able author and statesman asserts that: "It is believed in Europe that one of these great historic movements of the Mongolian race, that in the remote past have dispersed their peoples into less densely populated countries than their own, is now preparing. For instance, the Russians, in pressing recently upon the Asiatic borders of their empire, developed by actual reconnoissance a Chinese army, of which they were totally ignorant, two hundred and fifty thousand strong, and armed, too, with all the effective enginery of modern war, including the Krupp guns. These guns had been made by their own skilled workmen, who had been sent to Europe and secretly taught the art, and Prussian officers had drilled their armies in the use of them." Mr. Chairman, for these and many other reasons, I am opposed to the ' adoption of the report of the majority of the Committee on Chinese. I shall resist any measure which permits the emigration of Asiatics to the soil of America. During our last war with Great Britain, our government found it expedient to pass a law called the Embargo Act, which put an embargo upon all commerce between the United States and England. I am in favor of the same policy of non-intercourse with China. safety. Non-intercourse has for ages been the policy of China; and to Give us absolute non-intercourse, for in no other way can we hope for enforce it literally she built a wall around her vast empire. Referring to Europeans and Americans, the Chinese stigmatized them as outside barbarians. The same measure which China meted out to us we should mete out to her. Give her back her policy of non-intercourse. Let her have no rank or recognition among the list of nations. Let us declare, sir, in the words of Holy Writ, "The heathen is joined to his idols; let him alone." cannot make treaties with savages or lepers. Charity begins at home. This is a question with which it is not safe for us to temporize. You The first duty we owe is to our own separate humanity, as contradistinguished from the Tartar and coolie. Our own brethren have, by the higher law of nature, the first demand upon our protection. Let us legislate for them and for their widows and orphans. And if it should gloomy jungles into the sunlight of civilization, that power will in its ever be the will of heaven to find a path for the heathen out of his own good time find a Moses to lead them forth. "Let Mr. Chairman, I did not intend to occupy on this question but a very few moments in the first place. I know that there are very few members or delegates to this Convention but who are just as much opposed to these coolies as I am. That is my opinion; and my opinion is that they will put provisions in that Constitution that will check this immiside. One or the other must go to the wall. I believe that every delegate in this Convention is convinced of that fact, that Christianity and Paganism cannot exist side by side. Experience has taught us that fact, and it is the duty of this Convention to put a clause in that Constitution to forbid their ever landing on these shores. I say, Mr. Chairman, it is their duty to do it. Humanity demands it. I say humanity demands it. They say if we put a clause in that Constitution saying that they cannot or shall not be allowed to land here it will be unconstitutional. How do they know it will? We must be cruel, in this case, to be kind. Look at the condition of this country to-day. Over ten thousand people in this land to-day are starving and begging their_food. them come," you say, they can get work anywhere." I say it is a lie. You see them starting out every day trying to seek food for their children, and what is the result? Let them come to a farm-house and they will see a coolie there ahead of them, and the farmer will say, We don't want you." You will find all the manufactories throughout the State carried on by the Chinese leper. They have monopolized every trade in the State. You know that to be a fact. You also know that there are over four hundred and fifty million of these human dogs nearer to us than New York. Consider that fact. Also consider this, that they are building to-day one of the most powerful navies that ever existed in the world. They have got guns of the very largest caliber. It is a fact, and you must consider that there are four hundred million of these human dogs nearer to us than New York. But what do they live on? A white man cannot live as those lepers live. If a white man works for two dollars a day they will work for one dollar a day, and make money at that. If a white man works for one dollar per day they will work for four bits per day, and make money. If a white man works at four bits a day they will work for two bits, and keep a dozen of their country cousins on that. So it is impossible for white labor to compete with those moon-eyed lepers. Mr. Chairman, taking all these things into consideration, we have ] come to the conclusion, no matter what fanatics say, that a majority of the people of the State of California have demanded that section in the Constitution. We can never get any redress from Congress. It is impossible. Why? Such men as Colonel Bee, such men as this Gibson, Otis Gibson, went before the committee, the Senatorial committee that was sent out here to investigate that question, and they said that nine twentieths of all the people in the State of California were in favor of the coolie. I say that it is a libel upon humanity. I say it is a libel upon humanity; and for that very reason we cannot get any relief from Congress. What redress we can get is through our own vain arm. You may talk about this thing of police regulation, and if you can tax them you can take this method. I say we can do it. Let us put a clause into the Constitution so that it requires the Attorney-General of the State to defend it. Do not allow individuals to test this case, but let the State itself test it. Suppose we had put a clause in that Constitution which says that they shall not land on these shores; what of it? What of it? It is the express wish of the people of the State, and any man who says it is not, I say he lies, and I can prove it. Mr. Chairman, half the delegates of this Convention I know were elected upon that very issue. This Convention was called upon that express proposition. There was no issue before the people so essential as this Chinese question. Why, you all know as well as I do what the will of the people is. If this exists twelve months longer I tell you the streets of San Francisco will run knee deep in blood. I know it to be a fact, and you know it to be a fact. If they stave this question off, and deny to the people an opportunity, through their delegates, to put a clause in that Constitution to check this Mongolian curse, there will be trouble. Go with me through the back alleys of San Francisco and I will give you an ocular demonstration of the misery that has been brought upon this country by these coolies. They do not come here as the white man comes to these shores. They don't come here to make a little home for themselves. They don't come here for that purpose. They don't bring their children and their families and their wives here to this country. No; they come here to get all they can get and take it home with them. How do they live there in the City of San Francisco? What has the experience of that city proven to the people of this State? It proves this: in the space-and I dare any gentleman in this house to deny the fact-between California and Pacific, and between Kearny and Stockton streets, there are seventy-nine thousand of these lepers living. I call them lepers because they are nothing else. And how do they live? They live like hogs, brought smallpox here. They can't deny it. And they brought it here the last time that it prevailed in San Francisco. Why, I tell you that this government has been run by the Six Chinese Companies for the last six years, and I defy any man to deny that fact. The Six Chinese Companies own this State to-day. Every government official in the State is in the control of the Six Chinese Companies. You can't go anywhere but what you find the Mongolian ahead of the white man. It is a fact. And, under the circumstances, I tell you, my fellow delegates of the Convention, it is your solemn duty that you owe to humanity, to Christianity, and to yourselves, to put a clause in that Constitution which will forever prevent another Mongolian from landing here. I tell you it is your duty-it is your solemn duty. You have seen the condition of your State last Winter, and you will see it in a worse condition this Winter, and all the misery that has been produced here in this golden land has been produced by the importation of these moon-eyed lepers. I tell you it is a fact, and it is a duty you owe to your God and to your families. Pay no attention to anything, but put a clause there, I tell you, my fellow delegates, to stop them. If you do not, now mark this prophecy, if you don't, the people of the State of California will rise en masse and they will march to the wharf and they will sink every vessel that lands here. I know this to be a fact. I know that there are twenty thousand to-day in this State, ready at a moment's warning, to rise and stop these Mongolians from landing here. [Applause.] My fellow workingmenmy fellow delegates-we have had something of this for the last fifteen years. I tell you patience ceases to be a virtue. We see, what? We have seen our boys driven to hoodlumism and our girls driven into the streets. We have seen diseases of the worst kind spread among us, and still we see these lepers flocking in by thousands and tens of thousands. I tell you it is in the interest of capital that they come here. It is the interest of capital who want to employ work to bring them here until they reduce you, my fellow men of the white race, to the same sphere with this leprous race, this black and tan race. I can't conceive the idea why these fanatics prefer this black and tan race to their own race. don't understand it myself. You will find every where they go that they employ this black and tan race in preference to their own race. I Not long since, I had occasion to visit a family where I discovered a small child, which was covered all over with a perfect mass of corruption. I went in and looked at the child, and I told the mother, "The sooner that child dies the better." She looked at me. Says I: "Madam, that child has got the leprosy; it cannot live; it must die." "What!" says Says I, "Yes." she. Says she," Is that leprosy?" Says I, "Yes; and you have got to be very careful or you will get it." She had never dreamed what was the matter with the child. The father was a seafaring man. He came up and visited me some days afterwards. He was running up the coast, and he had his foot bundled up; and parts of it, when I undid it, dropped off from leprosy. This was the father of the child. I took him in my office, and I immediately sent for a reporter of the Call, because I know that the Call is a just and good paper. I did condescend also to send for the reporter of that nameless sheet. They came in. I immediately placed the man in the chair, and I took off, in their presence, seven joints of the foot. Leprosy! There was a man who had a little child dying from leprosy among the white race right here in the State of California. They don't understand the disease. They say they don't see much of it around. Why? Because they don't know it when they do see it. Then you must understand that it takes six years from the time that it is innoculated into the system before it shows itself. I don't know but two thirds of this delegation here are infected with it. [Applause and laughter.] MR. FILCHER. Will the gentleman allow me to ask a question? MR. FILCHER. I would like to ask how old was that child you They live on the offal of the slaughter houses. That is the way they live, and no man can deny it. It is a fact that they can live on three and a quarter cents per day. Now, think of it. Three cents and a quarter per day they can live on! And in that small space there are seventy-nine thousand coolies living, in that space bounded by these four streets, and if they lived according to the law or ordinance that passed in San Francisco, called the "cubic air" law, there could only eleven thousand exist in that space. Now, think of that! In that very space, where seventy-nine thousand live, there could not but eleven thousand live under the law, if it was a solid block, four stories high. That, I think, I can prove by gentlemen in my presence. Then, it is not only that, but I tell you that these men were shipped for no other purpose than to spread that disease broadcast over the land. It is a fact. I took the reporters of the Call and the Chronicle, that nameless sheet (laughter), and the Avalanche, through Chinatown, and I showed them that there were over one hundred and fifty cases of leprosy, and I wanted this to be made public and have it written up. But the Six Chinese Companies got hold of the press, and it was quieted, and that was the last of it. But, to prove the fact, I got one in an express wagon and had his likeness taken, and carried him around in the street, and as soon as they saw that fellow, they came to the conclusion that he was a leper. They said, "That is a leper, there is no doubt of that." Well, what was the result? I went afterwards, and found eighteen in one house; I don't know as I should call it house; it was a hole two stories deep, one hundred and fifty feet from the sidewalk. There they were mak-refer to? ing cigars. Now, think of that. There were three lepers employed making cigars. I came to the conclusion that the only way to stop leprosy was to isolate all that portion of the city. One of the greatest medical men in this State, or in any other State, declared that inside of ten years, if we allow that Chinatown to exist as it is in San Francisco to-day, about three quarters of the population of San Francisco will have that leprosy. It is a fact, Mr. Chairman. I wish to God I could coax this delegation to go through Chinatown for two hours with me. I am satisfied they would put a clause in that Constitution that would prevent them from MR. O'DONNELL. When it got out in the papers I went to work. I landing on these shores-I know they would. They tell me that the went to the City Physician and got him to go round with me, and showed State has no right to prevent them. I say we have the right. We have him this case. He says: "I acknowledge it is leprosy, but what am I the right to prevent any dangerous or criminal classes from landing.going to do? My hands are tied." I said: "If I was in your place I Why, we have the testimony of the captains of steamers that it is only would get rid of this; I would drag it out to the light of the day." the lowest class of Chinamen that come here. I have gone to the offi- No," he says, "I have no authority to do anything with it under the cers of these steamers and I know that to be a fact. These captains statute." Then I laid it before the Board of Supervisors, and then I also say that they are imported here. That is the evidence of the cap-brought it before the Board of Health. I got the Board of Supervisors tains and the mates of these steamers that have brought them here. to go through Chinatown. "Great God," they said, "I never saw such Now, my fellow delegates, it is our duty to protect this coast from being a sight before in my life." They said they had read about such a place overrun by these pirates. I can produce the best evidence in the world, as hell, but said this was hell on earth. [Laughter.] They admitted I can produce it by the Six Chinese Companies themselves, that they are all these facts right there to everybody, but they said they were powerpirates and land sharks, the greater part of them. I can prove it by a less; they couldn't do anything about it. Then I went before the Board gentleman right here. I can prove it by Colonel Bee, if he told the of Health. They went with me, and they admitted the same fact. It truth; but you can't get the truth out of that man. [Laughter.] was a fact, but what were they going to do about it. They said: “We have got nothing in the statute to relieve us of this noxious pestilence." I then told them I expected I would come up to this Convention, and I would do my best to advocate a measure or clause in the Constitution that they could get assistance from. Mr. Chairman, I don't want to call any names. When these vessels landed here at one time, pretty near every vessel brought smallpox aboard it. I am a medical man, and, taking an interest in the people, I went down to look after it. I prefer my race to all other races. I went down aboard these ships as soon as they landed to inspect them. Before I got there, sometimes, they had commenced unloading their great cargo of human beings. What was the result? Before I got there, I discovered that there was smallpox on the ship, because I saw men passing on the street who were afflicted with it. They were the first that MR. O'DONNELL. It was about eight or nine years; between eight and nine years old. [Laughter.] Any other questions you want to ask. MR. ROLFE. Yes, I have a question. MR. O'DONNELL. Ask any you please. MR. ROLFE. Is it the two thirds out of the room or the one third in here that you refer to? [Cries of "Go on!" "Go on!"] Now, my fellow delegates, I appeal to you in the name of humanity, for the love you owe to your race and your God, not to leave this outnot to stop until you put a clause in that Constitution that will stop them from landing here. And I tell you, if you do it-if you put a clause there to prevent them landing here, you will do the greatest deed mission, and he is perfectly willing that it shall have absolute power, even to confiscate." MR. BARBOUR. I would not have troubled this Convention with this question of privilege, but for the extraordinary nature of the attack on myself and some of my associates on the Committee on Corporations, which appears to require some notice from some member of the Committee on Corporations. I profess to believe in the unfettered freedom of the press, and I profess to be a friend of reform, but when I see a masked battery being uncovered to rake my friends and those associated with me, I will spike the guns, if I can. What I take exceptions to is, the statement that the scheme of a Commission originated with the Convention will hardly believe that Messrs. Estee and Howard, and others, are the unwitting tools of the railroad company. Besides, a large majority of the Convention voted for the scheme, and yet the article makes them but a lot of hypocritical pretenders. you have ever done in your life. You will be a monument to the human race. And another thing, my fellow Workingmen-you will elect your men. That clause itself will carry this Constitution next May, safe, by an overwhelming majority. Put that one clause in the Constitution, and I tell you I would pledge you my life that you will carry the Constitution by a tremendous majority-that Constitution would be ratified by a tremendous majority. It is what the people consider the most essential section to be placed in the Constitution. I tell you this Convention was called here for that express purpose-to rid us forever of this noxious pestilence. That was the main object of calling this Convention. There are other questions before the Convention, I know the question of taxation, the libel question, and this other ques-directory of the Central Pacific Railroad Company. I take it that this tion we have just got through with. But there are none of those so important as this one, and the moment that section is put there and adopted I tell you you need not be alarmed. Put that section there and you need not be alarmed, for the United States cannot afford to fight the State of California on a question of this kind. Another thing-it will prove to the people of the United States that these men here this man, Colonel Bee, and this man by the name of Gibson-are libelers upon humanity; it will prove to the world that they are libelers upon humanity. They went before the Senatorial Committee, as I told you, and they swore, point-blank, that nineteen twentieths of the inhabitants of the State of California were in favor of these lepers that were spread broadcast all over the world; and this Black Book, or Blue Book they called it—it had a black cover, the one I saw-these lies have been cast broad over the land; and if you want to redeem yourselves, you can do it by going out like men and inserting that clause. Mr. Chairman and my fellow delegates, I thank you kindly for your attention. When I came upon the floor I did not intend to continue on this question over five minutes, because I was perfectly convinced that every one of you were in favor of putting that clause in the Constitu-ject of a Constitutional Commission, and our Chairman brought in the tion, to satisfy the people of the State of California. I knew it was your solemn duty to save the shedding of blood. It is your duty, and you know it. You, my fellow delegates, know as well as I do, if you don't put that clause in, what the result will be; and you, yourselves, will be responsible. You, my fellow delegates of this Convention, will be responsible for every ounce of blood that will be shed in the streets of San Francisco. You know it. You know the people of California have made up their minds, and the safety of this State depends upon that clause. You know it. Pay no attention to anything outside of that. I appeal to any delegate in this Convention. Don't you know that to be the fact; do not you know that the very existence of this State depends upon that? Why, my fellow delegates, I would not dare to go back to the place where I came from, after living there twentyeight years, without seeing that clause in the Constitution. They will accept nothing else. Why do you talk to me about the idea of taxing them? That will only tantalize them, and allow such men as Colonel Bee and this other preacher to spread their lies in regard to the people of California. I thank you kindly, Mr. Chairman and fellow delegates. MR. AYERS. Mr. Chairman: I move that the committee rise, report progress, and ask leave to sit again. Carried. IN CONVENTION. THE PRESIDENT. Gentlemen: The Committee of the Whole have instructed me to report that they have had under consideration the report of the Committee on Chinese, have made progress, and ask leave to sit again. RECESS. It says again: "They have made no real fight." What an infamous lot we must be! Let me state the history of this Commission scheme in the Committee on Corporations other than Municipal, as I remember it, so that this brazen lie may be seen and known of men. When our Committee on Corporations reached the subject-matter of railroad regulation, there were two propositions for a Commission before us-one by Mr. Campbell, of Alameda, and one by Mr. White, of Santa Cruz. We made no use of Mr. Campbell's proposition, so that is aside from this question. Mr. White is here and can speak for himself, but I vouch it to be a barefaced lie that he was used, directly or indirectly, by the railroad. Then an expression of opinion was taken, and there was not a dissenting voice from the proposition that fares and freights can be established and regulated by a general law. Then we had in Mr. Commissioner Tuttle, and his idea was to let the railroads alone. And then we discussed the subraw draft of a section, and I also brought in one. After discussing these a sub-committee, consisting of Messrs. White, Gregg, West, and myself, were appointed to bring in a draft of a section. We did so; and from that, and with Mr. White's plan and my plan, and from the Chairman's plan, and from suggestions by members of the committee, the section as reported was gotten up. Two of us dissented from two or three features of it, but all were in favor of a Commission. That is the plain history of the section in committee. If the Central Pacific Railroad directory ever had anything to do with getting it up I never heard of it, and I think I may safely say the same thing of every member of the committee. If the railroads were for or against it, my judgment approved it, and that was enough for me, and I think I may say the same for every other member of the committee. I do know this, that the Central Pacific Railroad Company fought the only Commission we have had in this State, and had them legislated out of office before they ever got sight of the books. One word as to the animus. I look beyond the writer of this article, to the power which controls and directs the newspapers of this coast. This is for the world outside, and the world is to be made to believe that the railroad company has played a huge practical joke on the Convention to make it take their medicine; just as my grandfather used to cheat his cattle to make them eat straw. His grain and his hay had given out and the Winter was still on, and he had nothing but a stack of straw. The cattle were too high-toned to eat straw. The old gentleman then drove the cattle away from the stack, and set his dogs on them whenever they came to it for awhile, and then they were determined to eat the straw. So this Convention seems to have been managed. By such humbugging dodges as these, sir, it is sought to bring the Commission scheme into disrepute. The railroad company never have been and never will be in MR. SCHELL. Mr. President: I move that the Convention now take favor of a Commission. The strategy, my boy, is too transparent. And a recess until seven o'clock. The Convention reassembled at seven o'clock P. M. THE SECRETARY. The Convention will please come to order and elect a temporary Chairman. MR. HUESTIS. I nominate Mr. Howard, of Los Angeles. QUESTIONS OF PRIVILEGE-MR. BARBOUR. MR. BARBOUR. Mr. President: I rise to a question of privilege. I hold in my hand a publication entitled the Daily Evening Post, a newspaper published in San Francisco on Saturday, December seventh, wherein is an article purporting to be correspondence from Sacramento, touching the proceedings of this Convention. I send up the article, and I ask to have it read, that which I have marked. THE CHAIR. The Secretary will read it. THE SECRETARY read: then anallusion is thrown in for the Workingmen's party, to which I belong. We are told that we will capture the next Legislature, and that the railroad company cannot control it. That is true, sir, but we will also elect the Commissioners, and our Legislature will be there to brace them and fortify them with power, if honest, and throw them out neck and heels, if dishonest; and our Governor will be there to appoint honest men in their places. Let no man be deceived by these subterfuges. It will be time enough to believe that the railroad company are in favor of the Commission when they shall use their influence to secure the ratification of the Constitution containing the provision, and not till then. REMARKS OF MR. WHITE. MR. WHITE. Mr. President: I wish to say a word in regard to my connection with this Commission idea. As soon as I was elected to the Convention, I undertook to read everything that was written with regard to the railroads. I spent a great deal of my time at it. I corresponded with the Secretaries of every State in the Union. Some twenty-seven of them answered. From the ideas I got, I came to the conclusion that there was only two remedies. One was to buy all the railroads out, and the other was to appoint a Commission to direct and control them, and say what the fares and freights should be. There should be nothing but absolute power. I drew a draft of a Constitution, in which I adopted the idea, before coming here at all. I will say here that I never spoke to one of the Directors, and I do not know them now. This Constitntion, which I drafted and published before I left my farm in Santa Cruz, contains this section pretty much as it now stands as finally adopted, with about the same powers. I will ask the Secretary to read three seetions from my proposed Constitution. THE SECRETARY read: "SEC. 12. The Railroad Commissioners provided for in this Constitution shall have absolute power to fix the rates of fares and freights of all railroads in this State, and shall regulate and establish them as in their judgment shall seem just and fair to the railroad owners and to the public generally. “But my alarm, as I now see, was wholly groundless. The proposition to regulate by a Commission, was not, as I then supposed, originated by the enemies of the railroad, but by the Central Pacific Railroad directory itself. And I now assert my confident belief that the railroad magnates originated the scheme. Stanford is the Tallyrand of this coast, and he knows how to circumvent even honest men and make them do his bid- "SEC. 13. Once in each year the Railroad Commissioners shall ding, even without expenditure of a single dollar. He wants a Com-readjust the rates of fares and freights of all railroads in the State, and 27 |