A More Favorable Evaluation of the Chinese

\ ftdi x THB; w CHINEE A Study of American Attitudes touard China, 1890-1905 BY ROBERT McCLELLAN $10.00 THE HEATHEN CHINEE A Study of American Attitudes toward China, 1890-1905 BY ROBERT MC CLELLAN Although visits to the Far East early in the nineteenth century by American ships, diplomats, and missionaries had brought some knowledge of the Orient and its people to the United States, it was the essential ignorance of this vast part of the world that was to permit the evolution, during the 1870s and 80s, of a particularly vicious ste reotype, identified in the popular mind by the epithet "the heathen Chinee," that came to loom large and threateningly in the Amer ican consciousness. Immigrating Chinese laborers were wel comed at first, for they came to help build the continental railroad that was to link the American East and West. But as their num bers in the labor market increased, they came to be regarded, for reasons that are complex and disquieting, with open resent ment and active hostility. In 1882, after a deplorable number of shocking incidents involving brutal and violent acts, feeling against the Chinese culminated in the first exclusion act barring their further immigra tion into the United States. By the time the debate on the legislation had ended, the anti-Chinese prejudice that had flourished on the West Coast had spread across the nation, and Americans everywhere were ter rorized by the putative dangers posed by what was regarded as an alien and malignant presence on American soil. The Chinese were thoroughly reviled in the nation's press; were publicly ridiculed by labor leaders, clergymen, and statesmen; and were variously and popularly depicted as dishonest, barbaric, subhuman, unsani tary, immoral, and heathenish. The few iso lated voices that were raised to protest this (Continued on back flap) THE HEATHEN CHINEE A Study of American Attitudes toward China, 1890-1905 Ohio State University Press THE HEATHEN CHINEE A Study of American Attitudes toward China, 1890-1905 Robert McClellan Copyright © 19J1 by the Ohio State University Press All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Catalog Card Number jo-132564 Standard Book Number 8142-0144-X Manufactured in the United States of America For Sara, Mary, Karen, Sara, and Martha A cknowledgments The fashioning of this study has created an indebtedness to friends and colleagues beyond my ability to repay. Without the continuing encouragement of Professor Paul A. Varg, whatever there is of value in these pages would never have reached its present form. I should also like to thank the anonymous readers who reviewed the manuscript for the Ohio State University Press for their helpful criticisms and suggestions, and Weldon A. Kefauver and Robert S. Demor est, director and editor of the Press, for their thoughtful as sistance. Mrs. Phyllis Pennell produced the final typewritten manuscript with such dispatch and accuracy that it relieved the author of much of the strain usually associated with that task. The staff in the manuscript room of the Library of Con gress was very helpful, particularly in making suggestions for locating letters which were uncatalogued. I am also indebted to the director of the Massachusetts Historical Society and viii | ACKNOWLEDGMENTS the fine people there for granting access to the papers of Henry Cabot Lodge, and to the staff at the Houghton Li brary, Harvard University, for help with the Rockhill Pa pers. My own family have contributed their support in many ways, not the least of which was their patience and under standing toward the many separations caused by the prepara tion of the manuscript. I am particularly indebted to my wife for her support and encouragement, the absence of which would have made the whole project a joyless and even impossible task. R. McC. June, Contents Introduction xi 1 Chinese Immigration and the Rationale for Exclusion 3 2 The Chinese in American Life and Letters 3 / 3 Americans View the Chinese in China 69 4 Useful Aliens: A More Favorable Evaluation of the Chinese 111 5 China as an Ancient Civilization 6 China: The American El Dorado 7 The Awakening Dragon 20J 8 Conclusion 245 Selected Bibliography 255 Index 265 Introduction It is the purpose of this study to explore the background of American orientation to China and to illuminate the image which was shaped at the turn of the century as a result of the confrontation between this nation and an emerging China. The impression of the Oriental acquired during those forma tive years became a part of the American attitude of later decades and still influences our understanding of the Chinese. Prior to 1894 the major point of encounter between Americans and Chinese was that of immigration. American ships and goods made their appearance in the East during the nineteenth century, and American missionaries and diplomats collected converts and defended the national in terest; but it was not until Chinese laborers appeared in Cali fornia that Americans really became aware of China. The ar rival of the Chinese was welcomed at first because a railroad needed building and the Chinese were willing to accept the xii | INTRODUCTION difficult and dangerous tasks which that job required. But later as they entered into the labor market and into Ameri can life, their presence provoked resentment, antagonism, and finally legislation to prevent any more from coming. This was the nation's first real experience with the Chinese. The second major encounter took shape after the nation wide agitation for exclusion legislation had diminished. It was in essence a three-dimensioned experience, in which the missionary played a prominent role. These were the years when ministers spoke enthusiastically to their congregations of the responsibility of Christians to carry the gospel to all corners of the globe. It was a time when laymen and profes sionals alike made decisions of commitment which resulted in years of toil in a strange land under severe hardship. Stu dents left college campuses following the tune of the evan gelist and went to China to work. The stories which filtered back, the impressions gained, the reasons given to justify the cost, all had a formative impact on American concepts of the Chinese. The second dimension of the experience with the Chinese after the immigration imbroglio concerned commercial con tacts with China. Though far less active than their religious counterparts, the evangelists of American business were equally as vocal. They bore loud and public testimony to the need for new markets and the opportunity presented by the unsophisticated wants of the Chinese. If China was an oppor tunity to win converts for Christ, it was also an opportunity to apply the tenets of the American gospel of commercial enterprise. God and commerce had become partners, and the good life had become inseparable from material success; therefore, increased trade with China would serve a doubly constructive purpose. Consequently it was out of the needs INTRODUCTION of business as well as religion that the image of China emerged. The third dimension of the experience of these years was the awakening concern as to what China's modernization might mean to the family of nations and to the United States in particular. American statesmen were speaking increas ingly of the nation's responsibility to provide leadership for the whole world, particularly for those oppressed peoples whose economic, political, and religious framework deprived them of the full fruits of the human experience. These years were a time for thinking again about first principles of na tional life and about the kinds of relationships which should be established as contact with the world expanded. The question raised by the giant stirring in the East was whether a new peril or a new opportunity for the Western world was rising on the horizon. The answer to this question, especially for the United States, rested to a large degree on the nature of the interpretation of the Chinese. During the years preceding and following 1894, at the time of the immigration controversy and in the years when religious and national interest ran high, a single attitude stood forth. Those Americans who had direct contact with the Chinese, as well as those whose interests required an as sessment of them, based their evaluation upon private needs and not upon the realities of Chinese life. Interpretations of the Chinese—by politicians interested in office, by labor leaders, businessmen, missionaries, diplomats and statesmen —derived almost without exception from individual and immediate concerns rather than from an understanding of the Chinese. Many of the things said about the Chinese were true, but in isolation they presented a false picture. Conse quently the response of Americans to the Chinese during these years can be best understood in terms of making "their China"fit their biases. THE HEATHEN CHINEE A Study of American Attitudes toward China, 1890-1905 1 Chinese Immigration and the Rationale for Exclusion ". For ways that are dark / And for tricks that are vain, / The Heathen Chinee is peculiar . ."—Bret Harte Ah Fe was his name, and he was a pagan just like all the rest of his brother Mongolians. He talked in a shrill voice, bab bling heathenish jargon which no one except another slant- eyed, pig-tailed Celestial could understand. The people in the town might bring their laundry to him, but in their view he was good for little else than to wash their dirty clothes. One sunny California day, Ah Fe was sent on

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