Menace to America's Oriental Trade.'' He justly complains
that though the exclusion law expressly exempts Chinese
merchants, students and travellers, yet as a matter of fact a
Chinese gentleman is treated on his arrival as if he were a
criminal and is ``detained in the pen on the steamship wharf
or imprisoned like a felon until the customs officials are
satisfied.''

The Hon. Chester Holcombe, formerly Secretary of the
American Legation at Peking and a member of the Chinese
Immigration Commission of 1880, cites some illlustrations of
the harshness and unreasonableness of the exclusion law.[45] A
Chinese merchant of San Francisco visited his native land and
brought back a bride, only to find that she was forbidden to
land on American soil. Another Chinese merchant and wife,
of unquestioned standing in San Francisco, made a trip to
China, and while there a child was born. On returning to
their home in America, the sapient officials could interpose no
objection to the readmission of the parents, but peremptorily
refused to admit the three-months old baby, as, never having
been in this country, it had no right to enter it! Neither of
these preposterous decisions could be charged to the stupidity
or malice of the local officials, for both were appealed to the
Secretary of the Treasury in Washington and were officially
sustained by him as in accordance with the law, though in the
latter case, the Secretary, then the Hon. Daniel Manning, in
approving the action, had the courageous good sense to write:
``Burn all this correspondence, let the poor little baby go
ashore, and don't make a fool of yourself.''