Chapter 23

MR. HARRISON'S ADMINISTRATION.

The new President, of course, renounced his predecessor's policy upon the tariff, but continued it touching the navy. He advocated steamship subsidies, reform in electoral laws, and such amendment to the immigration laws as would effectively exclude undesirable foreigners.

A chief effect of the Kearney movement in California, culminating in the California constitution of 1879, was intense opposition throughout the Pacific States to any further admission of the Chinese. The constitution named forbade the employment of Chinese by the State or by any corporation doing business therein. This hostility spread eastward, and, in spite of interested capitalists and disinterested philanthropists, shaped all Subsequent Chinese legislation in Congress. The pacific spirit of the Burlingame treaty in 1868, shown also by President Hayes in vetoing the Anti-Chinese bill of 1878, died out more and more.