But while
China was deliberating over this treaty, Congress summarily shut off
any hope for immediate agreement by passing the Scott Act prohibiting
the return of any Chinese laborer after the passage of the act,
stopping the issue of any more certificates of identification, and
declaring void all certificates previously issued. It is difficult to
avoid the conclusion that this brutal political measure was passed
with an eye to the Pacific electoral vote in the pending election. In
the next presidential year the climax of harshness was reached in the
Geary law, which required, within an unreasonably short time, the
registration of all Chinese in the United States. The Chinese, under
legal advice, refused to register until the Federal Supreme Court had
declared the law constitutional. Subsequently the time for
registration was extended.
The anti-Chinese fanaticism had now reached its highest point. While
the Government maintained its policy of exclusion, it modified the
drastic details of the law. In 1894 a new treaty provided for the
exclusion of laborers for ten years, excepting registered laborers who
had either parent, wife, or child in the United States, or who
possessed property or debts to the amount of one thousand dollars. It
required all resident Chinese laborers to register, and the Chinese
Government was similarly entitled to require the registration of all
American laborers resident in China.
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