I can not but
regard the expressed demand on the part of China for a reexamination and
renewed discussion of the topics so completely covered by mutual treaty
stipulations as an indefinite postponement and practical abandonment of
the objects we have in view, to which the Government of China may justly
be considered as pledged.
The facts and circumstances which I have narrated lead me, in the
performance of what seems to me to be my official duty, to join the
Congress in dealing legislatively with the question of the exclusion of
Chinese laborers, in lieu of further attempts to adjust it by
international agreement.
But while thus exercising our undoubted right in the interest of our
people and for the general welfare of our country, justice and fairness
seem to require that some provision should be made by act or joint
resolution under which such Chinese laborers as shall actually have
embarked on their return to the United States before the passage of the
law this day approved, and are now on their way, may be permitted to
land, provided they have duly and lawfully obtained and shall present
certificates heretofore issued permitting them to return in accordance
with the provisions of existing law.
Nor should our recourse to legislative measures of exclusion cause us to
retire from the offer we have made to indemnify such Chinese subjects as
have suffered damage through violence in the remote and comparatively
unsettled portions of our country at the hands of lawless men.
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