Even more significant than the article was the editorial in which the editors of San Francisco Chronicle commented extensively on the Chinese. In keeping with the sentiment of the times, the editorial perceived the Chinese as the most alien of the immigrants to come to American shores. As such, the editors were unsure about the Chinese being integrated. They totally supported the popular 19th-century definition of "the American" as a White person and criticized the Chinese to be citizen. In sum, San Francisco Chronicle is an important primary source about Chinese living in America during the 19th- century. Newspapers like San Francisco Chronicle criticized the Chinese in its publications and supported the anti Chinese sentiment running through out 1880’s. For example in the article “The Chinese Question”, Republican senator John Miller of California introduced a bill in Congress to suspend immigration of Chinese laborers. He spoke for two hours on the Senate floor. Here is what he said. "The Chinese are inhabitants of another planet. Machine like. They are automatic engines of flesh and blood. Why not discriminate? Why aid in the increase and distribution over our domain of a degraded and inferior race, and the progenitors of an inferior sort of men. We ask you to secure us American Anglo-Saxon civilization without contamination or adulteration. Let us keep pure the blood, which circulates through our political system. And preserve our life from the gangrene of oriental civilization." A prestige newspaper The New York Times called Miller's speech "a mastery statement, admirable in temper and judicial in fairness". (The Committee of 100)

The Chinese Exclusion Act was basically a policy of prohibiting immigration of Chinese laborers to the United States. It was the outcome of growing numbers of Chinese immigrants to the United States. By 1867 there were some 50,000 Chinese in California, most of them manual laborers. The numbers of Chinese immigrants continued to increase after the 1868 treaty of Burlingame with China. The treaty of Burlingame guaranteed the right of Chinese immigration, but did not grant the right of naturalization. In the following years anti Chinese sentiment arose in California, mostly because the growing American labor force had to compete with cheap Chinese labor. In 1877 anti Chinese riots occurred in San Francisco. The congress passes a bill in 1879 to stop the Chinese immigration to the Unites States, however President Hayes vetoed it on the grounds that it violated the Burlingame Treaty. In 1880 another treaty was signed by China and the United States limiting the entry of Chinese labor. In 1882, however, the

Some topics in this essay:
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