President Arthur by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 13, 1882

President Arthur

By Editor

It seems doubtful whether President Arthur will ever rise to great popularity; his course in various matters does not indicate such a result. Yet the course pursued toward him by some of the papers in California is not likely to redound to their credit, or benefit their cause before the whole country.

There is more than one side to the Chinese question, and our country is very large, making it difficult for one section to control all the rest. We have always believed that the presence of the Chinese, at an early day, was a blessing to this State, aiding very materially in the development of its resources. And they appear to be, to some extent, a necessity still. We are acquainted with men who, as politicians, joined in the cry, “The Chinese must go,” but as householders, were anxious to retain their Chinese house-servants. Farmers have told us that they were a curse to the country, and yet confessed that they were the most reliable hands they could get. Having traveled over the State considerably, and tried to observe closely, we are constrained to believe that considerable of the opposition to them is for other reasons than are openly avowed.

On the other hand, we incline to the belief that it would prove detrimental to the best interests of the country to have them continue to come in very large numbers. Our customs and our laws are too loose on the subject of immigration and naturalization. After centuries of exclusiveness, the Mongols must of necessity be very slow to adopt our customs. And yet, in some respects, this is to their credit.

But President Arthur has not gone beyond his constitutional rights and prerogatives in his veto of the Chinese Bill. To denounce him in terms so unmeasured as has been done, to burn him in effigy, etc., will not affect his popularity in other States, but will prejudice very many people against the citizens of this State. General Jackson was assailed for his veto of the National Bank Bill with even greater bitterness than President Arthur is now. But it only drew his friends more closely to him, and he outlived the odium put upon them.

We have been sorry to see able, conscientious, and highly-respected men in the East, denounced as unprincipled demagogues, by papers in California, because they opposed this bill. Such intemperate language will not cause their friends to withdraw their respect from them, but it will cause them to withhold their respect from the papers using it. A more mild and conciliatory course would have a far better effect. We are a traveling people, and California is yearly visited by thousands of intelligent men, not one of whom visits the typical “Chinatown” with the desire that it should be duplicated in his own eastern city.

Public opinion is turning in the direction of restricting Chinese immigration. The vote in both Houses of Congress proves this. But hints of violent dealing with the question, to obtain our “rights” outside of legal forms, will do more to hinder than to help the cause. “Let us have peace,” if possible. Yet we have no high hopes of peace for our land, for the order in James 3:17 is too extensively ignored.