qualification,
does not insist upon a knowledge of a trade, nor impose a tax. In other
words, we have at present a more or less effective police regulation of
immigration, but we are not pursuing a policy of restriction or
limitation.

[Sidenote: Un-American Discrimination]

As to the Chinese, we have made an exception, and one that fails to
commend itself to many. Grant that there is much to be said in favor of
the proper restriction of Chinese immigration, especially on the ground
that the immigrants would come only to earn money and return home, not
to become Americans; that there can be no race assimilation between
Chinese and Americans; and that such bird-of-passage cheap male labor is
a detriment to the best interests of the country. All the force in these
arguments applies equally to a large proportion of the immigration from
southeastern Europe which is admitted. The laws should be uniform. The
right to shut out the Chinese coolies is not questioned; but if these be
debarred, why not debar the illiterate and unskilled laboring class that
comes from Ireland, Italy, and Austria-Hungary? The Chinese certainly
can fill a place in our industries which the other races do not fill
equally well. Their presence in the kitchen would tend to alleviate
domestic conditions that are responsible in large measure for the
breaking up of American home life. It is a ludicrous error to suppose
that all the Chinese who come to America are laundrymen at home. Let
Mrs. S. L. Baldwin, a returned missionary who labored in China for
eighteen years and knows the people she pleads for, bear her witness:

[Sidenote: A Missionary's Plea for the Chinese]

"The Chinese are exactly the same class as the immigrants from other
lands. The needy poor, with few exceptions, must ever be the immigrant
class. Those who come to us across the Pacific are largely from the
respectable farming class, who fall into laundry work, shoemaking, etc.,
because these branches of industry are chiefly open to them. I have no
fear of the Chinese immigrants suffering in comparison with those who
come across the Atlantic. It is not the Chinaman who is too lazy to
work, and goes to the almshouse or jail. It is not he who reels through
our streets, defies our Sabbath laws, deluges our country with beer,
and opposes all work for temperance and the salvation of our sons from
the liquor curse. It is not the man from across the Pacific who commits
the fearful crimes, and