inquiry failed to show that there was any considerable number of white people in California out of employment, except those who were willfully idle—the hoodlums and ruffians,—the most noisy in their outcry against the Chinese. That there had been many instances where Chinamen were employed in preference to whites because of their cheaper labor, was undoubtedly true, but not to an extent that could furnish just cause of complaint, requiring legislation or political action for its redress.
The testimony, he asserted, showed that the intellectual capacity of the Chinese is fully equal to that of the whites. It also established the fact that Chinese labor in California was as free as any other, and that there was no form or semblance of slavery or serfdom among them. The most of the Chinese immigrants were young, unmarried men; few families had come, and women were imported for immoral purposes. It was also true that they are peculiarly addicted to gambling, but probably not more so than the early white settlers of California when few had wives and families with them. This vice was greatly to be deplored, but it was not so peculiarly Chinese as to make it the basis of special legislation. They were not addicted to the use of intoxicating liquors, and kept no saloons. Their form of intemperance was in the use of opium; but it did not produce violence, and the number who practiced it was smaller than the number of whites who visit saloons and become intoxicated.
The senator referred to the Burlingame treaty of 1868, and especially to its articles V., VI., and VII.,
