Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 5, 1892

Mr. Tsui to Mr. Blaine.

Chinese Legation,
Washington , October 26, 1891 . (Received October 27.)

Sir: I inclose herewith a copy of a paper which has been received at this legation signed by a number of citizens of the United States residing on Whidbey Island, in the State of Washington, representing that injustice is being done to the Chinese subjects in that locality at the hands of officials of the United States Treasury Department and the United States commissioner of that district.

This legation has no disposition to encourage any violation of the laws of the United States on the part of Chinese subjects, but it feels that it can rely upon the Federal Government of the United States to see that justice is extended to the Chinese residents who are lawfully in this country, and that the Treasury Department will be pleased to direct its officials in the locality mentioned in the accompanying paper not to violate the universally acknowledged principle of law and evidence that persons accused of crime must be proven guilty, and that said officials should not harass peaceable persons by illegal arrests.

Accept, etc.,

Tsui Kwo Yin.

[Inclosure.]

Residents of Whidbey Island to Mr. Tsui.

Seattle, Wash , August 25, 1891 .

To His Excellency Chinese Minister,
Washington, D. C.:

The undersigned white residents of Whidbey Island, in the State of Washington, desiring to see justice done to the Chinese people residing in our midst, represent to you that many Chinese are living in our midst engaged in agricultural pursuits, having leased lands for the purposes of cultivation from the owners thereof; that many of these Chinese persons are laborers, who have been engaged in railroad building and in other similar pursuits, and they have not formed any acquaintance with white people, so that white people are able to identify them; that the officers of the United States connected with the Treasury Department are in the habit of going among these Chinese people and without any warrant issued by a proper court, or without any proof other than mere suspicion, arresting them, and without any evidence whatever taking them before a United States commissioner and there requiring them to furnish satisfactory white evidence that they are lawfully in the United States, and on failure to do so the commissioner orders them deported to China. Many of these Chinese people so arrested have no means whatever to employ attorneys and they are constantly harrassed and annoyed by these unwarrantable arrests.

Believing that injustice is being done to these Chinese people, we desire by this means to call your attention to the same, that the matter may be properly laid before the President and his Cabinet, that the evil may be remedied.

Albert H. Kellogg, Win. B. Engle. Daniel Pierson. A. W. Cook, T. W. Calhoun, F. H. Le Lourd, A. H. Kolme. Geo. Paddon. H. C. Power. Robert Brown, G. W. Morse, T. F. O’Ceary, James Gillespie, John Chase, J. S. Thomas, W. H. Race, J. R. Sherwood, Sabine Abbott.