Mr. Bailey to Mr. Davis.
Sir: The subject of Chinese emigration from this port to the United States has claimed my careful thought and patient investigation for the last four months, with a view to get at the facts, and to understand it in its surroundings and bearings. The whole subject is an anomaly. Rules that will do elsewhere in the world, when applied in considering questions of immigration, have no application to Chinese immigration to the United States. Immigrants to America from other parts of the world go of their own volition, free and voluntary. Emigration from China to all parts of the world is an organized business or trade, in which men of large capital, and hongs of great wealth, engage as a regular traffic, by which men are bought and sold for so much per head, precisely as a piece of merchandise is handled, at its market value. The poor laborer of Europe applies his own scanty means to get to the land of promise, or is assisted by his friends, charitable societies, or benevolent institutions, to reach a place where he hopes to have his toil properly requited, where his labor will inure to his own benefit. The cooly of China is bought by the rich trader to serve his purchaser at low wages for a series of years in a foreign country, under contract for the faithful performance of which in many instances he gives a mortgage on his wife and children, with a stipulation that at the end of his term of service he is to be brought back to China by his purchaser. This contract is sold by the dealer through his agents in the United States and elsewhere at a large advance, and is a source of great profit to capitalists who have the means to buy and sell large numbers of men. This contract, in the United States, is no doubt null and void, [Page 208] but nevertheless the cooly will comply strictly with all its terms, a copy of which in Chinese characters is always in his possession, and this he will do because his purchaser holds his household lares in the land to which he always hopes and expects to return, in pledge for the faithful performance of his bonds. The central idea of a Chinaman’s religion, if he has any religion at all, is that of the worship of the tombs of his ancestors. The superstitions of Fung-Shusy dominate him wherever he may be in the world. The subtile mysticisms of China so strangely govern all its people in their social, political, and quasi religious life, are as a hook in his nose, by which his purchaser controls him at all times and in all places; and thus this relation of master and quasi slave, no matter how many miles apart, is welded by the mystical links of religious superstitions, family ties, and rights of ancestral tombs, which control and regulate the reciprocal duties of trader and coolie in the home land.
The means of obtaining coolies are as various as the ingenuity of man can devise, and are as corrupt as the incentive to large gains can stimulate and invent. Men and boys are decoyed by all sorts of tricks, opiates, and illusory promises, info the haunts of the traders. Once in the clutches of these men-dealers, by a system of treachery and terrorism, connived at by the local Chinese authorities, whose chief business in life is to “squeeze” the people, the stupefied cooly is overawed into making a contract under such Chinese influences and surroundings as give it a sacredness of character nowhere else known in the world. From that moment he is the mere tool of the rich dealer wherever he may go. It is difficult for persons accustomed to western civilization to understand the depth and extent of this relationship, but Chinese civilization is unique, perhaps opaque, and cannot be measured by that of any other.
The above is a mere outline of the system, and is the general rule that controls Chinese emigration. Contact with American ideas and the spirit of American law has, in some measure, modified the rule as applied to Chinese emigrants going to the United States, so that there is in reality free and voluntary emigration; but it is so surrounded, mixed up, and tainted with the virus of the coolie trade, as to require the utmost vigilance and scrutiny to separate the legitimate from the illegitimate emigration.
I am charged under the law with the duty of giving to every American vessel leaving this port with Chinese emigrants, a permit or certificate, setting forth the fact that each person is a free and voluntary emigrant, but that the same shall not be given until I am first personally satisfied, by evidence produced, of the truth of the facts therein contained. I find among my consular duties, prescribed by the consular regulations of 1868, that I am—
“To repress and discourage, by all proper means, the traffic in laborers, usually called the cooly trade.” It is fully expected that they (consular officers) will carefully see that its provisions (act of February 19, 1862) are strictly observed. The Secretary of State, in his circular of January 17, 1867, says: “You are consequently directed to make use of all the authority, power, and influence at your command, towards preventing and discouraging the carrying on of the traffic referred to in any way.”
In the consular regulations of 1870, concerning the act of February 19, 1862, I find the following instructions:
Consuls will be rigid in exacting a compliance with these provisions.
I have made the above recapitulation to show the Secretary of State the stand point from which I am viewing the subject, and the lights that are guiding me in the course I am pursuing; and to ask, if I am taking too serious a view of the matter, for such further instructions as the better judgment of the Secretary may think proper and advisable.
[Page 209]In consideration of the foregoing the first question that arises is, how shall I perform the duties devolving upon me in this matter? The number of emigrants is so large as to make it impossible for me to examine each person, and in addition attend to the various and arduous duties of this consulate. I must, therefore, either abandon the execution of the law as an idle form, or I must appoint a corps of assistants, sufficient in number, in integrity and sagacity, to make the examination a rigid and faithful compliance with the letter and spirit of the law. Heretofore, I am free to say, from all I have been able to learn, the whole proceeding in this regard has been a complete farce.
I have not the means to pay for these assistants, for my salary is hardly sufficient to support me in the plainest and most economical manner possible for me to adopt. Therefore I must allow these assistants to charge a fee such as will make reasonable compensation for their services, labor, and expenses in and about the matter. I can procure men of small capacity and less integrity to undertake the task for a mere trifle; but this would make an expense without any good in return, for such an examination would be neither thorough nor reliable. The only safe rule is to put the matter in charge of first-class men, and allow them to collect such fees as shall be reasonable compensation for their services. Even this plan, which seems to me at present to be the best, is not satisfactory to my mind, for the reason that it will necessarily involve an expense that may be the subject of irritation; but I do not know what better to do than to try it, and by carefully watching reduce it, as experience may suggest, to the lowest possible cost.
While the law, my instructions, and the condition of affairs here are as at present, I deem this examination by assistants as indispensable, and the necessary expense must follow it, unless the law and the facts are to be ignored and investigation abandoned.
Perhaps it will oocur to the mind of the Secretary that a thorough investigation here as to the character of the emigrants going to the United States, and a check to prevent the now world-famed atrocities at Macao being practiced or winked at here, will largely negative the clamor of a growing public opinion in the United States hostile to the introduction of Chinese or servile labor, to compete with the great free-labor interests of our own country. Chinese emigration to the United States brings the opposite civilizations of the East and the West face to face, and it occurs to me that Congress is wise in throwing all the safeguards possible around the introduction of heathen labor, to prevent its bringing harm to our institutions. I am convinced that China is on the verge of a great cataclysm of some kind, and I believe it will result in sending immense numbers of Chinese, with the good and bad that is in them, to the United States. The facilities of ships and steamers will do it easily and cheaply, and they will go to escape unbearable evils here; whether to introduce unbearable evils there remains to be seen.
I have said that this traffic in laborers is exceedingly profitable; therefore I cannot expect that anything that will hamper it, by investigation or otherwise, will be popular with the men-dealers or with the great interests interlocked with it. It prostitutes everybody here, and thus far has prostrated every one who has stood up against it.
It will be asserted that I am putting obstacles in the way of commerce. I will endeavor to do my duty, let the consequences care for themselves. Well, so far as concerns that commerce which has for its object the buying and selling of men, I propose to put obstacles in its way. Legitimate emigration and legitimate commerce shall have my active co-operation and encouragement in every possible lawful way; but if commerce [Page 210] demands at my hands assistance in a new mode of enslaving men, differing from the African slave-trade “in little else than the employment of fraud instead of force to make its victims captive,” will not lend my aid to build up its nefarious traffic, nor bow to the behests of the great houses that are interested in forcing this great wrong.
I have the honor, &c.,