The treaty made optional the
clause requiring merchants, travelers, and other classes privileged to
come to the United States, to secure a certificate from their
Government vised by the American representative at the port of
departure.
In 1898 General Otis extended the exclusion acts to the Philippines by
military order, owing to the fact that the country was in a state of
war, and Congress extended them to the Hawaiian Islands. In 1904 China
refused to continue the treaty of 1894, and Congress substantially
reenacted the existing laws "in so far as not inconsistent with treaty
obligations." Thus the legal _status quo_ has been maintained, and the
Chinese population in America is gradually decreasing. No new
laborers are permitted to come and those now here go home as old age
overtakes them. But the public has come to recognize that diplomatic
circumlocution cannot conceal the crude and harsh treatment which the
Chinaman has received; that the earlier laws were based upon reports
that greatly exaggerated the evils and were silent upon the virtues of
the Oriental; and that a policy which had its conception in frontier
fears and in race prejudice was sustained by politicians and
perpetuated by demagogues.
Rather suddenly the whole drama of discrimination was re-opened by the
arrival of a considerable number of Japanese laborers in America.
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