John Quincy Adams to Mr. Bee, June 12, 1879

Mr. Adams to Mr. Bee.

Sir: In reply to your letter of the 10th instant, in regard to the nature of bonds taken from cigar and tobacco manufacturers by the collectors of internal revenue of this district, in answering, I have to say—

• I have been in the internal-revenue service since June, 1869, until March, 1879, and during nearly all that time I had the supervision of all the cigar and tobacco manufacturers in the city of San Francisco.
• The nature of security of the bonds has been more of a commercial nature than otherwise, such as stock in trade and personal property.
• I am unable to say what amount has been paid by the Chinese manufacturers annually for stamps, but would estimate that they have paid for one-third of the stamps that have been sold by collectors.
• The number of Chinese manufacturers has averaged for the past five or six years about from 60 to 70, employing, I should judge, from 900 to 1,100 persons.
• The government, as far as I know, has never, during the time I have been in the service, lost anything by reason of such bonds.
• Business men considered an established Chinese merchant as good a surety on a bond as an American, whether he has realty or not.

For the past six years it has been my duty to make all bonds for cigar manufacturers in this city. Whenever they offered Chinamen or Chinese firms as sureties, I have invariably (if not known by me) examined personally the property or goods and insurance policies of the firms offered, and if, in my judgment, the property was not sufficient for the amount named in the bond I rejected them, and required them to furnish other sureties before I would pass the bond to the collector for his approval. And I believe those bonds were better than those the collector is approving now (and has been for the past two months) from these “professional bondsmen.”

Having answered your inquiries as near as I am able to do,

I remain, &c.,