Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers Part 13

In 1880, Mr. Berry, a member of the House of Representatives from California, made use, in a debate in the House, of the argument that "if the British authorities had not been able to prevent slavery from being practiced in Hong Kong, there would be great danger that, if an unlimited immigration of Chinese were allowed, it would be followed by the prevalence of slavery in this country."

It is perfectly true that immigration of Chinese, even though it has been greatly restricted, has been followed by the introduction of slavery into the United States, yet the premises laid down in this argument, may not pa.s.s unchallenged, for the following reasons: There was never any serious attempt to put down slavery at Hong Kong, excepting in the efforts of Sir John Smale and perhaps one or two others, whose efforts were opposed by others, and in large part defeated. The records go to show that there was at once a growth of healthy moral sentiment created among the Chinese, through Sir John Smale's endeavor, that promised much good for the future had his course of action been continued. This official planted his feet squarely upon the doctrine that all buying and selling of human beings was slavery, and that a human being cannot, in law, "become a slave, even by his own consent." And moreover this official, with Governor Hennessey's encouragement, prosecuted his cases without any tender consideration as to the demands of European libertines, who would be left with scant opportunities to be self-indulgent unless slaves were placed at their disposal. The truth is, from the foreign standpoint, the plea for brothel slavery was based upon the "necessity" of vice, and from the Chinese standpoint the plea for slavery was based upon so-called Chinese "custom." The Government was impressed that it must have consideration for the demands of libertines, and consideration for Chinese "custom." Neither of these arguments has any worth when applied to the slave conditions of California, and therefore the most serious, baffling obstacles to a removal of the evil are out of the way. Both pretexts, we maintain, were false. There is no necessity for furnis.h.i.+ng vice to libertines; there was no lawful Chinese custom to be opposed in opposing brothel slavery. But even if these were claimed to be sufficient arguments across the water, they have no force in California. There are women, alas! willing to make a trade of their virtue for _their own gain_, without forcing Chinese women to make a trade of their virtue for _the gain of masters_. As to Chinese custom: America is not setting forth inducements for the Chinese to come and live in our midst, as did Sir Charles Elliott when he promised the Chinese the privilege of practicing their own social and religious rites and customs, "pending Her Majesty's pleasure." If Chinese or any other cla.s.s of foreigners come to reside in the United States, it is with the understanding that they must conform to the laws of the country, whatever modification or radical alteration it obliges them to make in their native customs, and if they will not do this they must take the consequences.

No cla.s.s of people, taken as a whole, are possessed of a greater moral sense or can be reached more readily by moral suasion, than the Chinese. We believe that if a proper condition of public moral sentiment were maintained, by the enforcement of the laws of the United States in Chinese communities, no cla.s.s of people would be more delighted than the respectable Chinese themselves, who are now left in a state of terror for their own lives from the highbinders, and who often dare not bring over their lawful wives from China, to live in the midst of this reign of terror, at the mercy of slave-traders and women-stealers. Then Chinese criminals would seek safer shelter elsewhere, and respectable Chinese family life would take the place, in our Chinatowns, of a combination of criminal men and slave women.

And Chinese men of weak character, separated far from home influences, would not be met on every hand by temptations of the most potent sort.

Such is the real worth of the sort of Chinese character that one meets in other parts of that country from those vitiated by familiar contact with foreign profligates, that the presence of such could not but be a benefit to us, and would afford peaceable, thrifty, useful Chinese settlements in our midst, of which we would feel justly proud.

In order to see that the entrance of Chinese to our country from China is not made a cover for this dreadful slave trade, there is an urgent need of cooeperation between rescue workers of the California coast and rescue workers in all the open ports of China. Chinese men are constantly returning to China to "marry," in duly prescribed form, and then return with their wives and reenter the United States, merely to put the women into the brothels. Any man who is willing to run the risk of detection can thus get a trip home to China to see his lawful wife and family, and make it a profitable business trip besides,--with all expenses more than paid by the importation, and sale of a slave.

Chinese women are constantly returning to China to bring "daughters"

to put in the slave pens. No woman (even lawfully married to a Chinaman), should be allowed to take a ticket at Hong Kong or any of the open ports of China for the United States, whose case has not been thoroughly investigated by days of acquaintance with a woman inspector in a house of detention, if necessary, on the other side. And no Chinese woman should be allowed to enter on this side of the water, until she has pa.s.sed the second time under such surveillance in a house of detention. And such rescue workers should have the Government authority signified by a policeman's star.

The evil to be combated should be met with the right remedy. "Fitches are not threshed with a thresher, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the c.u.mmin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the c.u.mmin with a rod." Much of the failure to control brothel slavery has grown out of the application of the wrong remedy, not out of a difficulty in controlling the Chinese. These cases of trading in human flesh have generally been treated in the courts as though coming under the laws against ordinary prost.i.tution. To ill.u.s.trate:

Within the past month, three Chinese girls were captured by a rescue worker. They were cooped up, with a man who had charge of them, in a tiny closet scarcely sufficient to hold the four, which had been entered by a panel door which was securely nailed up and bags of rice piled against it. The rescuer pulled away the bags, pried open the door of the secret receptacle with her hatchet, and drew out the girls, dripping with perspiration and panting for breath, in consequence of the two hours' confinement, while the brothel was being searched for them. They were conveyed to the mission home, and were very happy, and expressed their eager wish to remain. A Chinese woman came to call at the mission home, in the absence of the superintendent, and, unfortunately, was allowed to get access to an acquaintance of these girls, and she conveyed to them a promise that if they would come back, in a very little while they would all be given their liberty. After that the girls said they wished to go, and for the following reasons: They could not dwell in safety among their Chinese people, if in debt to a brothel-keeper, for he would be always on their track, and if he could not capture them and they would not return, he would certainly secure their death at the hands of high-binders. The case came up in court. The girls told there all the details of their being recently smuggled into this country; that they were bought by their present owner for $3,030 each; that they were flogged when their earnings for their owner fell below $300 a month, and other similar details,--_but_ they also declared their wish to go back to the brothel and to their owner. To be sure, they had expressed elsewhere a contrary wish, and the wish to return had been begotten in their hearts by the threats and inducements conveyed to them by the woman who came to the home. The judge was one who could not be bought nor bribed, and who sincerely wished the good of the girls, but they said they chose a life of prost.i.tution, and to that life they were returned.

We do not pretend to understand as well as that judge the laws that were available, on which he rendered his decision, but this we do say: If California has not a law that will not permit the introduction of slavery into the state, even though Chinese women _consent_ to slavery, then it needs such a law at once. _Slavery is too formidable an evil for free Americans to allow its existence on the consent of enslaved Chinese women._ Age of consent legislation, as applied to the question of social vice, is one thing, and consent as applied to the question of slavery, quite another thing. Sir John Smale, in the Supreme Court of Hong Kong, quoting from Sir R. Phillimore on International law (vol. I, p. 316), declared that it was not possible for a human being legally to "become a slave _even by his own consent_." Had the matter of consent or non-consent of slaves been consulted as to negro slavery, we have no reason for believing that the negro would ever have had his freedom. Though prost.i.tution is entangled with the conditions of servitude, under which Chinese women and girls groan in California, yet only about half the slaves are as yet prost.i.tutes, and slavery looms up so large against the western sky, as compared with the mere consent or wish of a creature brought up from babyhood in familiarity with vice, that to consult the option of such an one in determining the existence or non-existence of _slavery_ in America, is a thing that ought not to be tolerated for a moment.

We have shown how every Chinese girl who has escaped from her servitude to the city of refuge,--the mission home,--is received and welcomed. How the rescued and rescuer run the race for dear life, and the pursuers are obliged to turn back at the door. But what a state of things in this country which we call free! Should not the entire country be one great city of refuge? Do we not pretend that it is such to all who are oppressed? Why should not the pursuer be turned back at the Golden Gate, rather than at the door of an exceptional home in San Francisco? We are fond of saying that under the stars and stripes slavery cannot exist. We must make it good, or acknowledge, in dust and ashes of repentance, that we are hypocrites. Idle words will not do in place of deeds; we must make good our profession at any cost.

Everyone of these Chinese women should be removed from the brothels, wherever these exist, consent or no consent, placed in houses of detention, instructed as to the condition of liberty of the person in which she _must_ live, and then, if she _prefers_ a slave's life, he deported to China,--a land in which slavery is permitted. Every Chinese man who attempts to interfere with this radical treatment of the situation, should be imprisoned or driven from the country. These "Watch-dogs," who are perfectly known to the police, both by name and by face, should be put behind bars and in stripes, for a long time to come. This is not prost.i.tution, _merely_,--Oh, how tenderly men are inclined to deal with the male harlot! but for once the libertine has not a shadow of a shade of defense,--the patrons of _slaves_ are something worse than fornicators; they are guilty of as many offenses of criminal outrage as they are guilty of visits to the slave-pens stocked with Chinese girls, and they deserve a prison sentence for every such visit.

Girls are afraid to come out of Chinese brothels until they have earned their freedom. This is because powerful Chinese societies have been formed that will either kidnap such a girl or kill her. So she declares in court that she consents freely to be returned to the brothel, and an extraordinary misconstruction of the doctrine of the "liberty of the person," leaves the judge with nothing to do but to deliver the girl over to compulsory voluntariness. Again, Chinese young men do not wish to marry liberated Chinese girls, but they go, rather, to the brothel and buy a wife; and for much the same reason.

If a man marries the liberated slave of a brothel keeper, the high-binders will teach the lesson that he has stolen another man's property, by watching their chance and a.s.sa.s.sinating him. Why are not these societies broken up, root and branch? Cannot? Nonsense; the officers of the law have not made the attempt with any degree of earnestness as yet.

For years, the "Protectors" at Singapore and at Hong Kong have summoned the slaves into their offices and informed them that they were free, and asked them if they freely consented to going into a life of shame, before putting them there? But to what purpose? Let the Police Magistrate, H.E. Wodehouse, reply, as he did concerning a case of suicide: "When registering her name she said she had no pocket-mother, that her parents were both dead, and that she became a prost.i.tute of her own free will. The inspector said that that was the description of themselves that nearly all prost.i.tutes gave, and that it was very rarely that it was true." Remember that, reader, when the columns of your morning paper inform you that all the girls of Chinatown have been interrogated, and that they all said they were there of their own free will? It is "very rarely that it is true."

Referring to this case, which we describe on page 118, the Marquess of Ripon wrote to Hong Kong that the brothel-keeper who attempted to extort money from the young man before delivering up his captive to him for marriage, should have been prosecuted, and adds: "A single successful prosecution in a case of this kind would, in all probability, do more to show that the inmates of brothels are free to leave such places when they wish, than could ever be effected by the present system, under which efforts are indeed made to explain their positions to the inmates of brothels." This is a very clear statement of exactly what is needed in California. The public should refuse to be satisfied with visits of the police officials to the girls, to ascertain the girls' state of mind as to a sense of liberty, and demand to know the official's state of mind,--whether he is ready to _prove_ the freedom of the slave by hounding the slave dealers out of the community.

There was recently a war of secret societies in Oakland's Chinatown.

One of the "tongs" quarreled with another, and three or four Chinese men were shot on the streets of Oakland,--one fatally, named Lee Bock Dong, in his own house. Lee Bock Dong had a slave girl who saw the shooting, so she was taken into custody by police officers. But the Chinese got her out of jail by means of the usual writ of habeas corpus, and she was sent to Sacramento to another person, who had disputed her owners.h.i.+p with Lee Bock Dong. It seems, Lee Bock Dong had been holding the slave girl for a debt owed to him by her real owner in Sacramento, of $2,000. The Oakland _Enquirer, of_ Feb. 20th, 1907, informed its readers a few days after the affray as follows: "This girl's possession was one of the points in dispute between the two tongs, and it was this that was settled at yesterday's conference." It is interesting to note that other newspapers gave the information that police officials attended the conference of these tongs, to help settle the dispute. The report continues: "Lee Bock Dong's widow demands the return of the girl as security for the money, or the payment of the $2,000. This the Bing Gongs (one of the tongs) finally agreed to, and it was for them to determine the course they would pursue. The police say that this step is only preliminary to a settlement of the whole affair ... that peace will be declared, the complaint against the alleged murderers withdrawn, and the case dismissed ... it is now expected that within a few days the extra police force, which has been maintained in Chinatown ever since the night of the shooting affray, will be withdrawn and peace reign once more." This article is headed: "Warring Tongs Hold a Conference, and it is Agreed Chinese Maiden is to be Returned, or Equivalent in Cash."

The _Enquirer_ of March 9th reported that the "Chinese tong men have been dismissed."

"Equivalent in cash" for a Chinese maiden! Can it be possible that this is the United States of America, and the twentieth century! One actual murder, and two murderous a.s.saults on the public streets, all dismissed by an understanding entered into with the police that they could now withdraw their extra force, since the Chinese girl had been pa.s.sed over as security for a debt, until the "equivalent in cash"

is paid! Have we spent hundreds of millions of dollars, and shed the blood of thousands of young men, and widowed and orphaned tens of of thousands besides, in a civil war to put down African slavery, introduced from the Atlantic Coast, merely to turn about and welcome Chinese slavery from the Pacific Coast?

"Behold this is a people robbed and spoiled; they are all of them snared in holes, and they are hid in prison houses: they are for a prey, and none delivereth; for a spoil, and none saith, Restore.

"Who among you will give ear to this? Who will hearken and hear for the time to come?"