h came up in the spring of 1886, when
an Ambassador from China was roughly handled in San Francisco, was a
disgrace to our own instincts of liberty. A great many people did not
want them because they did not like the way they dressed. They objected
to the Chinaman's queue. George Washington wore one, so did Benjamin
Franklin and John Hancock. The Chinese dress was not worse than some
American clothes I have seen. Some may remember the crinoline
monstrosities of '65, as I do--the coal-scuttle bonnets, the silver
knee-buckles! The headgear of the fair sex has never ceased to be a
mystery and a shock during all my lifetime. I remember being asked by a
lady-reporter in Brooklyn if I thought ladies should remove their hats
in the theatre, and I told her to tell them to keep them on, because in
obstructing the stage they were accomplishing something worth while. Any
fine afternoon the spring fashions of 1886, displayed in Madison Square
between two and four o'clock, were absurdities of costume that eclipsed
anything then worn by the Chinese.

The Joss House of the Chinese was entitled to as much respect in the
United States, under the constitution, as the Roman Catholic church, or
the Quaker Meeting house, or any other religious temple. A new path was
made for the Chinese into America via Mexico, when 600,000 were to be
imported for work on Mexican territory. In the discussion it aroused it
was urged that Mexico ought to be blocked because the Chinese would not
spend their money in America. In one year, in San Francisco, the Chinese
paid $2,400,000 in rent for residences and warehouses. Our higher
civilisation was already threatened with that style of man who spends
three times more money than he makes, and yet we did not want the
thrifty unassuming religious Chinaman to counteract our mania for
extravagance. This entire agitation emanated from corrupt politics. The
Republican and Democratic parties both wanted the electoral votes of
California in the forthcoming Presidential election, and, in order to
get that vote, it was necessary to oppose the Chinese. Whenever these
Asiatic men obtain equal suffrage in America the Republican party will
fondle them, and the Democrats will try to prove that they always had a
deep affection for them, and some of the political bosses will go around
with an opium pipe sticking out of their pockets and their hair coiled
into a suggestion of a queue.

The ship of state was in an awful mess. No