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24 The American Liberty Party (1896) The Midwest was where the major parties planned to choose their candidates for the presidential election of 1896. The principal campaign issues were expected to be economic ones, including free coinage of silver and tariffs. Immigration and Chinese enfranchisement were not key topics in the national debate, though they continued to be paramount in Wong Chin Foo’s mind. He still believed, naively, that political will could be found to lift the restriction on citizenship for Chinese Americans. To this end, he brazenly set out to secure an opportunity to address the national conventions of both parties.1 The Republicans met first. Their national convention was held in St. Louis from June 16 to 18. Wong claimed to have approached them and to have been rebuffed. This is likely, because he is known to have been in St. Louis in late May assisting Chinese victims of a cyclone that killed hundreds of people and did extensive damage to the city.2 Next, he sounded out the Democrats, who were meeting in Chicago between July 7 and 11. They did give his request a hearing, although it may have been a perfunctory one. Wong recounted his reasons for making the request to a Chicago Tribune reporter during the convention, citing his usual arguments for Chinese citizenship. At the end, however, he added a not-so-veiled threat: I came here with the idea of appearing before the delegates of the convention and talking in behalf of Chinamen. There is no reason they should not be granted the privileges sought. The time is coming when they will. Thirty years ago the people would have called a man crazy who would [have] dared to have said that a negro would ever become a member of Congress. If they do not allow me to speak in this convention, I will have a convention of my own, hire a hall, and rally the humanitarians around me and make a new platform.3 242 The First Chinese American Wong quoted the figure of 400–500 naturalized Chinese whose votes would presumably go to whichever party supported his proposal,4 but this was not a persuasive figure in an election in which more than 13 million ballots would ultimately be cast. Even with the addition of sympathetic whites and blacks, there was not a substantial enough constituency for Wong’s cause to have made it worth the while of either party to give him a hearing; both probably calculated that doing so would alienate a far larger number who preferred the status quo. In the end, Chinese citizenship did not figure in either party’s platform; both called for the prevention of immigration of low-cost labor.5 Wong proved as good as his threat. If neither party would support him, he would create a new one of his own. He booked Chicago’s Columbia Theatre for the evening of July 12—the day after the Democrats adjourned—and brazenly announced that he would convene an organizational meeting for a new American Liberty Party. To drum up attendance, he printed up handbills and spoke with journalists .6 He told a reporter that he and his allies invited “all lovers of liberty” to attend this meeting. Speaking of the naturalized Chinese— they and those who wished to become citizens were now the sole constituency he claimed to represent—he managed to get no fewer than four references to the American flag into one paragraph: These men have come here to stay, have learned to love the institutions of this country, and are patriotic enough to stand by the stars and stripes, or to bear arms against their native country for the honor and welfare of this, their adopted land. We do not plead for those of our fellow countrymen who refuse to assimilate with the rest of the citizens here by refusing to adopt the dress, language and general life of the people with whom they live. We plead only for those who have, and who take, pride under the glorious stars and stripes, and say patriotically, “This is my country, and that flag over yonder is my country’s flag.”7 And he told the Boston Globe that he fully expected the new party to elect a president the following November, something he surely could not seriously have believed.8 The meeting drew a disappointing 200 attendees. For once, Wong’s public relations instincts utterly failed him. He began the evening...

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