As to the Chinese, we have made an exception, and one that fails to commend itself to many. Grant that there is much to be said in favor of the proper restriction of Chinese immigration, especially on the ground that the immigrants would come only to earn money and return home, not to become Americans; that there can be no race assimilation between Chinese and Americans; and that such bird-of-passage cheap male labor is a detriment to the best interests of the country. All the force in these arguments applies equally to a large proportion of the immigration from southeastern Europe which is admitted. The laws should be uniform. The right to shut out the Chinese coolies is not questioned; but if these be debarred, why not debar the illiterate and unskilled laboring class that comes from Ireland, Italy, and Austria-Hungary? The Chinese certainly can fill a place in our industries which the other races do not fill equally well. Their presence in the kitchen would tend to alleviate domestic conditions that are responsible in large measure for the breaking up of American home life. It is a ludicrous error to suppose that all the Chinese who come to America are laundrymen at home. Let Mrs. S. L. Baldwin, a returned missionary who labored in China for eighteen years and knows the people she pleads for, bear her witness: [Sidenote: A Missionary's Plea for the Chinese] "The Chinese are exactly the same class as the immigrants from other lands. The needy poor, with few exceptions, must ever be the immigrant class. Those who come to us across the Pacific are largely from the respectable farming class, who fall into laundry work, shoemaking, etc., because these branches of industry are chiefly open to them. I have no fear of the Chinese immigrants suffering in comparison with those who come across the Atlantic. It is not the Chinaman who is too lazy to work, and goes to the almshouse or jail. It is not he who reels through our streets, defies our Sabbath laws, deluges our country with beer, and opposes all work for temperance and the salvation of our sons from the liquor curse. It is not the man from across the Pacific who commits the fearful crimes, and who is longing to put his hand to our political wheel and rule the United States. There are no healthier immigrants coming to this country. It is with difficulty, and only under pressure of necessity they are induced to leave China, so that the bugbear of millions of coolies overrunning America is absurd." [Sidenote: Call for Fair Play]