reference will be made in the notes to other decisions in similar cases. § 340. Oregon statute prohibiting employment of Chinese laborers declared void. In order to prevent the employment of Chinese labor to as great an extent as possible, the State of Oregon passed a law prohibiting the employment of Chinese laborers on public works. An attempt was made under this statute to enjoin a contractor from employing Chinese labor. Judge Deady, of the United States District Court, held1 that "the United States court had jurisdiction. under the treaties between the United States and China of 1858 and 1868; that until abrogated or modified these treaties were the supreme law of the land and that the courts were bound to enforce them." In regard to the right to labor while in this country, he declared, that the right to come and reside given by the treaty necessarily implied the right to live and to labor for a living, and that so far as the State was concerned, Chinese subjects had a right to enjoy all the privileges here of the most favored nation. In regard to State interference with treaty rights, the opinion says: "So far as this court and the case before it is concerned, the treaty furnishes the law, and with that treaty no state or municipal corporation thereof can interfere. Admit the wedge of State interference ever so little, and there is nothing to prevent its being driven home and destroying the treaty and overriding the treaty-making power altogether. But it is not necessary to consider further this feature of the case, because, this demurrer must be sustained upon other grounds. 341. California's constitution of 1879; anti-Chinese provisions declared void.-In California the anti-Chinese agitators went further; the constitution adopted in 1879, among other things, prohibited corporations from employing Chinese labor and authorized the enactment of all legislation necessary to enforce the provision; statutes were accordingly passed making such employment a misdemeanor; one Tirburcio Parrott was arrested for violating one of these statutes; he sued out a writ of habeas corpus in the United § 340. U. S. Cir. Ct. 1879, 5 Sawyer, 566. 1 Baker vs. City of Portland, See p. 570, Fed. Cas. 777, DEADY, J. States courts, on the ground that the provision of the State constitution and acts passed thereunder were void, because they were in violation of the provisions of the treaty of 1868 with China; in a long and able opinion, Mr. Justice Sawyer reviewed the whole treaty-making power of the United States, holding that the laws violated treaty provisions, and he discharged the petitioner. In the course of the opinion, after citing Article VI of the Constitution of the United States, he says: "There can be no mistaking the significance, or effect of these plain, concise, emphatic provisions. The states have surrendered the treaty-making power to the general government, and vested it in the president and senate; and when duly exercised by the president and senate, the treaty resulting is the supreme law of the land, to which not only state laws, but state constitutions, are in express terms subordinated." Citing from Ware vs. Hylton, he continues: "It is the declared duty of the state judges to determine any constitution or laws of any state contrary to that treaty, or any other made under the authority of the United States, null and void. National or federal judges are bound by duty and oath to the same conduct." 1 § 342. California anti-Chinese statutes declared void.In the case of Chy Lung vs. Freeman1 the United States Supreme Court held that a statute of California ostensibly lations in Chinese treaty as discriminating against Chinese and in favor of other aliens. In United States vs. Quong Woo, U. S. Cir. Ct. Cal. 1882, 13 Fed. Rep. 229, 7 Sawyer, 526, FIELD, J., which was one of the Chinese Laundry Cases an ordinance making it unlawful to establish and carry on laundries within certain limits without having obtained the consent of the Board of Supervisors, which should only be based upon recommendations of not less than twelve citizens and taxpayers in the block in which the laundry was to be established, was held void passed to prevent lewd and debauched women from foreign countries landing in ports of the States, although apparently general in its terms, was, in reality, aimed at all Chinese women, and that it was void because it extended far beyond. the necessities of State control of commerce and thereby invaded the right of Congress to regulate commerce with foreign nations. One of the most interesting cases in this respect was the famous Queue case which involved the validity of an ordinance. of the City of San Francisco providing that every person imprisoned in the county jail upon a criminal judgment should. immediately, upon arrival at the jail, have his hair clipped to the uniform length of one inch from the scalp; as can readily be seen, this was not a regulation for care of convicts, but the action of a municipal corporation aimed directly at a particular class, although the ordinance was clothed in language which apparently veiled the actual intent.2 § 343. Justice Field's opinion in the Chinese Queue Case; 1879. The case was argued before Mr. Justice Field, sitting as Circuit Judge at San Francisco, in 1879. He decided that the ordinance was invalid and unconstitutional under the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, because it was aimed at, and applied to, a particular class of persons," thereby denying to them equal protection under the laws; he also held, that as the legislation was aimed at a class of aliens it was void because it violated the treaty stipulations with China. In deciding this point the learned Justice said: "We are aware of the general feeling-amounting to positive hostility-prevailing in California against the Chinese, which would prevent their further immigration hither and expel from the state those already here. Their dissimilarity in physical characteristics, in language, manners and religion would seem, from past experience, to prevent the possibility and improper as repugnant to the ground that the matters involved provisions with the treaty with are within the police power of the China. State. But see § 344 and also cases collated under §§ 356-357, post, of this chapter, in which laws and ordinances have been sustained on the 2 Ho Ah Kow v. Nunan, U. S. Cir. Ct. Cala., 1879, 5 Sawyer, 552, FIELD, J. See next section for extract from opinion. of their assimilation with our people. And thoughtful persons, looking at the millions which crowd the opposite shores of the Pacific, and the possibility at no distant day of their pouring over in vast hordes among us, giving rise to fierce antagonisin of race, hope that some way may be devised to prevent their further immigration. We feel the force and importance of these considerations; but the remedy for the apprehended evil is to be sought from the general government, where, except in certain special cases, all power over the subject lies. To that government belong exclusively the treaty-making power and the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, which includes intercourse as well as traffic, and, with the exceptions presently mentioned, the power to prescribe the conditions of immigration or importation of persons. The state in these particulars, with those exceptions, is powerless, and nothing is gained by the attempted assertion of a control which can never be admitted. The state may exclude from its limits paupers and convicts of other countries, persons incurably diseased, and others likely to become a burden upon its resources. It may perhaps also exclude persons whose presence would be dangerous to its established institutions. But there its power ends. Whatever is done by way of exclusion beyond this must come from the general government. That government alone can determine what aliens shall be permitted to land within the United States and upon what conditions they shall be permitted to remain; whether they shall be restricted in business transactions to such as appertain to foreign commerce, as is practically the case with our people in China, or whether they shall be allowed to engage in all pursuits equally with citizens. For restrictions necessary or desirable in these matters, the appeal must be made to the general government; and it is not believed that the appeal will ultimately be disregarded. Be that as it may, nothing can be accomplished in that direction by hostile and spiteful legislation on the part of the state, or its municipal bodies, like the ordinance in question-legislation which is unworthy of a brave and manly people. Against such legislation it will always 30 be the duty of the judiciary to declare and enforce the paramount law of the nation."1 § 344. State statutes upheld; Chinese Laundry Cases.— It must not be presumed, however, that the Federal Courts have always interfered to prevent State action in regard to matters which are wholly under their control, and that they have used the treaty-making power as an excuse for interfering in their internal affairs; in 1885 the same learned Justice of the Supreme Court who had declared the San Francisco queue ordinance invalid, sustained a municipal ordinance of San Francisco imposing certain regulations and restrictions upon laundries, and which was as undoubtedly aimed directly at the Chinese as the queue ordinance had been; the Supreme Court held, however, that the regulation of laundries was a matter which came within the right of the municipality, and that treaty stipulations as to rights to live and labor should not be used to prevent the proper enforcement of municipal regulations.1 § 343. 15 Sawyer p. 563-564. § 344. business within certain hours, that it permits other and different kinds of business to be done within those hours. "Municipal restrictions imposed upon one class of persons engaged in a particular business, which are not imposed upon others engaged in the same business and under 1 Soon Hing vs. Crowley, 113 U. S. 703, U. S. Sup. Ct. 1885, FIELD, J. In this case the San Francisco municipal ordinance in regard to laundries was under consideration and the question of whether or not it was aimed expressly at the Chi-like conditions impair the equal nese was involved. right which all can claim in the en The points decided are stated in forcement of the laws. the syllabus as follows: "The decision in Barbier vs. Connolly, U. S. Sup. Ct. 1885, FIELD, J., 113 U. S. 27,-that a municipal ordinance prohibiting from washing and ironing in public laundries and wash-houses within defined territorial limits, from ten o'clock at night, to six in the morning, is a police regulation within the competency of a municipality possessed of ordinary powers-affirmed. "It is no objection to a municipal ordinance prohibiting one kind of "When the general security and welfare require that a particular kind of work should be done at certain times or hours, and an ordinance is made to that effect, a person engaged in performing that sort of work has no inherent right to pursue his occupation during the prohibited time. "This court cannot inquire into the motives of legislators in enacting laws, except as they may be disclosed on the face of the acts, or be inferable from their operation, |