Yan Phou Lee’s 1887 Yale commencement address, “The Other Side of the Chinese Question.”

Excellent question — the 1887 Yale Commencement, where Yan Phou Lee delivered his address “The Other Side of the Chinese Question,” took place in Battell Chapel, on Yale’s campus in New Haven, Connecticut.

Absolutely — that’s a great question. Let’s look at the quote again in context and then unpack its rhetorical and historical resonance:

“No nation can afford to give up its high ideals, to trample upon justice and humanity, and to act contrary to its own constitution and laws. The degradation of one class of people means the degradation of the whole body politic.”

— Yan Phou Lee, “The Other Side of the Chinese Question,” Yale Commencement, 1887

Here are some contemporaneous reactions to Yan Phou Lee’s 1887 address at Yale College — showing both praise and a revealing hint of the era’s racial attitudes.