People's Pilot, Volume 2, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 May 1893 — TROUBLE LOOKED FOR. [ARTICLE]

TROUBLE LOOKED FOR.

The Anti-Chinese Element on the Pacific Coast Making Threats—Secretary Gresham Takes Action Looking to the Protection of the Celestials. Washington, May 3. —As soon as Secretary of State Gresham returned here Tuesday night he gave his attention to important and somewhat startling reports from California. These reports were to the effect that an anti-Chinese outbreak was imminent in San Francisco and through the Pacific country when the Chinese exclusion act takes effect, within the next few days. The information which came to Secretary Gresham was quite specific and wholly reliar ble, and it indicated danger of violence to.the Chinese population, particularly through California. Within an hour after Judge Gresham left the presidential train bringing him back from Chicago he was framing telegrams to governors of the far western states appealing to them to maintain order and protect the Chinese against assault. One of these telegrams was to Gov. Morrow at Sacramento, Cal. It was quite lengthy, and informed the governor that the state degartment had reliable reports indicating danger of violence to the Chinese population when the Geary exclusion act takes effect. Judge Gresham added that President Cleveland earnestly hoped that the governor would employ all lawful means for the protection of the Chinese in California. The nature of the information which has reached the secretary of state cannot be ascertained, but it is evident from his telegrams to Gov. Morrow and others that he regards the subject as serious and the danger theatening. It is quite unusual for the federal authorities to appeal to the governor of a state concerning police affairs within the jurisdiction of the state. It will be recalled that when the New Orleans atrocity occurred and Italy demanded redress for the lynching of a number of her countrymen, Mr. Blaine, then secretary of state, insisted that the subject was one wholly in the jurisdiction of the governor of Louisiana, and that Vie federal government had nothing to do I with the case. Secretary Gresham’s telegram indicates a desire on the part of Mr. Cleveland and his associates to maintain order and to protect the Chinese without wasting words over a construction of the constitution as to the respective rights of the state and federal government. The anti-Chinese element of the far west has been greatly irritated at the manner in which the Chinese have ignored the provision of the Geary law. The Six companies have employed eminent counsel to fight the act and in the meantime the Chinese decline to have their photographs taken or to register in accordance with the terms of the rigid law passed by the last congress. This systematic effort of the Chinese to nullify the law has brought on the danger of an antiChinese outbreak, which Secretary Gresham is seeking to check. Orders have been issued to the treasury officers, special agents, internal revenue agents and others not to arrest unregistered Chinamen after May 5. On that date the Geary Chinese law provides that all unregistered Chinese in the United States may be arrested. As the constitutionality of the Geary act will be tested before the supreme court on May 10 it has been decided to await a decision before ordering wholesale arrests.