historiblogography

must be a time-travel portal in fresno

I've been reading through the Congressional serial set from 1898-1907, looking for reports related to colonial annexation and the management of Indian Territory; I'm hoping to draw comparisons in the use of language. One document that leapt out at me was a memorandum* to Congress from a massive Chinese exclusion convention organized in California in 1901. The conventioneers wrote to remind their representatives that whites were the inheritors of Western civilization: "It is our inheritance to keep it pure and uncontaminated, as it is our purpose and destiny to broaden and enlarge it. We are trustees for mankind."

Arguing for the significance of that trust, the convention memorandum set out a history lesson, reminding Congress that they were heirs to the civilization of the "little bands of Greeks at Marathon" who drove back "ten times their number of Asiatic invaders." Ditto the Europeans who fought Attila until his fortunate and untimely death, after which the "wave of Asiatic barbarism rolled back and civilization was again saved."

And I just found myself wondering: How did that convention get their hands on Victor Davis Hanson's work?

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(*For the Reenactment of the Chinese Exclusion Law, 57th Cong., 1st Sess., 1902, S. Doc. 191, Serial 4234.)

posted by Chris Bray @ 4:25 PM