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The Pro-Chinese Minority of California
TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, PRESIDENT, AND CONGRESS.
REPLY TO GOVERNOR IRWIN'S CIRCULAR REGARDING THE VOTE OF CALIFORNIA AGAINST CHINESE IMMIGRATION
Governor Irwin of California has issued a memorial to the National Government and Legislature, and to the governors of each state and territory, wherein he sets forth, that, "In accordance with an act of the Legislature of California, at the general election held last September the question of Chinese immigration was submitted to the vote of the people, and resulted overwhelmingly against it, the vote being: for Chinese immigration 883; against Chinese immigration, 154,638; voters who expressed no wish on the subject, 5,884. "
Now, lest there may be an error in a matter of so great importance to the commercial interests of the nation, we deem it right and just to give the true facts, and then leave the people of the United States to draw their own conclusions.
And before all, when we consider that the total registered vote of the State of California, as officially reported, was in September last, 198,946 (S. F. Chronicle, November 13th, 1879) and that the actual vote cast against Chinese immigration was 154,638, the wonderful unanimity of popular sentiment, so much extolled by its opponents, may well be questioned.
But we contend that the vote recorded against Chinese immigration does not truly express the sentiment of the people of California on that question.
Aside from the fact that the subject of Chinese immigration was not at all discussed in the state campaign; that the pro-Chinese side had no opportunity to defend its merits, the question itself was not fairly presented to the people, nor properly expressed in their ballots. Instead of both sides of the question being presented, as required by the legislative act, only one side – the negative side – was proposed to the electors. What right had the majority to do that? A question that has but one side to it is no longer a question.
Thousands of citizens, particularly of foreign birth, who could not read the ballot, voted it without knowing its import. Thousands who favor restriction voted for absolute exclusion of Chinese, because they could not accept the other alternative of unlimited immigration.
If the report made by the Congressional Committee that took testimony on the Chinese question in San Francisco, in 1876, be consulted, it will be found that public sentiment thereon in California is divided into four classes – those who favor unlimited immigration for Chinese as well as for other nationalities, in conformity with the liberal policy pursued by the United States for one hundred years; those who demand absolute exclusion of the Chinese (most of whom are foreigners, like the Kearnyites), who have adopted the motto "The Chinese must go;" those who advise actual restriction to a number of persons, excepting, for instance, students, merchants, officials, and high-class persons; those who favor restriction, not at this time, when scarcely one hundred thousand Chinese have settled in the United States, but in the future, when the increase of their population, as compared with the white population, may afford good grounds for alarm.
Now how can a vote expressing so many different opinions be called unanimous? How can it form the basis of action by Congress? However, it has helped the anti-Chinese side to roll up a large vote, and to make a show before the American people of an overwhelming opposition in California to Chinese immigration.
Indeed, if all those who voted against Chinese immigration were unanimous in sentiment, then a very large number of them egregiously stultified themselves, since they, directly or indirectly, patronize Chinese labor, and thus encourage their immigration to this country. The Alta California some ago stated that, according to the assessor's statistics, there are 18,000 Chinamen employed in sixty-eight branches of manufacturing industry in San Francisco alone and that certainly as many more in the mining and agricultural districts of the State, besides several thousands engaged in the laundry business, and "some twenty thousand Chinese house-servants in the State, who are highly prized, because they attend to their own business and carry no takes." The employment of Chinese "On account of the cheapness of their labor and the extreme docility of their habits" [CONG. REP., p. V,] was until of late so general, that it gave rise to the main complaint for which white laborers, particularly Irish, have repeatedly sought relief from Congress. Why should then a very large portion of the people of California thus encourage Chinese immigration, if they were sincere in their declaration at the polls? The conclusion is irresistible that the vote did not express the true sentiment of the people.
But suppose we admit that the party favoring Chinese immigration in California is largely in the minority! On what grounds, pray, do you, members of the majority, expect Congress a decision in your favor? On the ground of numerical superiority? We claim it on the ground of truth, right and justice! And do you think that truth has lost any of its power on account of your large vote at the last election? Or do you believe and hope that an honest Congress will turn a deaf ear to the prayer of the minority, though backed by right and justice, in abject condescension to a clamorous multitude?
Congress cannot and will not, throw aside the testimony obtained by the Congressional Commission of Inquiry of 1876, by which your charges and allegations were utterly disproved. Men of unimpeachable character, high-standing in the community, holding positions of trust, having large interests at stake, ministers of the gospel, missionaries, judges, lawyers and merchants in large number, who have resided in California ten, twenty and thirty years, who have had intercourse with the Chinese most of their time, spoke of facts that came under their actual observation, and affirmed their truth under oath; a testimony of eye-witnesses, so emphatic, so unexceptionable is altogether invincible. The anti-Chinese testimony, on the contrary, was conspicuous for its glaring contradictions and the paucity of its high-order witnesses, few of whom could claim a long residence in the State and large commercial transactions with the Chinese. Police officers, detectives, laborers, reporters of newspapers made up in large measure, the number of those who testified against the Chinese.
It is now pertinent to ask, if as you affirm, the people of California have been and are almost unanimously opposed to the Chinese, on account of the evils which their presence has brought upon them, how was it that so few high-order witnesses were found on your side and so many on the other side, as the Congressional Report unquestionably proves? It was not certainly for lack of interest on your part, since the uninterrupted agitation of more than ten years, and the numerous petitions you sent to Congress fully controvert this assumption. It was simply because you tried your best to get as many as many unexceptionable witnesses as you could, but were unable to find them. Hence it is, that in all your subsequent petitions to Congress you never for once made allusion to Senator Morton or even to Sargent's report, notwithstanding the latter flatters your side.
But we wish to press this matter still farther. If, as you affirm, the people of California are practically a unit on this question, or, of your former testimony taken by the Congressional Committee is unassailable, what need was there of strengthening your position by holding another inquiry into the Chinese question through the friendly services of the Congressional Committee on Labor during a most exciting State canvass? And, why were you so afraid to admit the pro-Chinese testimony, that the investigation was brought to a close as soon as it sought a hearing by the Committee through the earnest solicitation of Rev. Otis Gibson? It is for you to reconcile this action with your boastful declaration that the people of California are unanimously and unalterably opposed to Chinese immigration.
We too sympathize with the white working man who suffers poverty from crushing opposition or even competition. If, therefore, it were true that the presence of the Chinese in California is a block to the prosperous advancement of our working classes, we would not raise our voice against this unchristian and unhuman crusade. But it is not. We cannot do better on this point, than to quote a paragraph of a most excellent article penned by the Hon. F. M. Pixley, (the noted counsel on the anti-Chinese side, before the Congressional Committee in 1876) in his Argonaut of December 6th, 1879, addressing an Irish agitator, he says:
"We have millions of acres of fertile lands- plains, hill-sides, and fertile valleys, wooded, watered and picturesque. We offer them to you for nothing; we make you citizens and equal, under the law, to ourselves. The conditions of soil and climate are all adapted to a speedy and easy realization of returns. A house is not indispensable to comfort till you can earn it from the soil. A vine will produce results in two years; a peach-stone will bear fruit in three; sweet potatoes in four months. An industrious and honest man can borrow seed-wheat and corn to plant; potatoes are sold for less than half a cent a pound, and any workingman can earn seven dollars in a week. Now, don't you think, Mr. Agitator, if that class of your discontented countrymen who hang around the sand-lots would go to work, as the 'Man of 49' did, that they could earn an honest living? In the winter of that year he slept under a tree; he had no tent, and worked with pick and shovel; cooked with gridiron, coffee-pot and kettle; lived upon beans and bacon, and did not beg, nor steal, nor whine, nor complain of the government, nor agitate for reform. Now, don't you think that the same courage and self-denial and industry would produce the same results?"
These men complain of low wages in consequence of Chinese competition. But in what country are wages so high as in California? The Alta of November 20, 1879, gives the following table of the relative wages of labor paid in California and in other countries, derived, as it says, from the Free Labor Exchange in San Francisco, and from the International Review, by R. T. Porter, for November:
dollars per week
| Occupations |
Germany |
Brussels |
England |
New York |
San Francisco |
| Bricklayers |
3 1/2 |
6 |
8 |
13 1/2 |
18 |
| Masons |
4 ¼ |
6 |
8 1/4 |
15 |
18 |
| Carpenters |
4 |
5 1/2 |
8 1/4 |
10 1/2 |
15 |
| Gasfitters |
3 3/4 |
5 1/2 |
7 1/2 |
12 |
21 |
| Painters |
4 |
4 1/4 |
7 1/2 |
13 |
18 |
| Plasterers |
3 3/4 |
5 1/2 |
8 |
12 1/2 |
18 |
| Plumbers |
3 1/2 |
6 |
7 3/4 |
15 |
21 |
| Blacksmiths |
3 1/2 |
4 1/2 |
8 |
12 |
18 |
| Bakers |
3 1/2 |
4 1/2 |
6 ½ |
6 1/2 |
14 |
| Cabinetmakers |
4 |
4 3/4 |
7 3/4 |
11 |
13 1/2 |
| Harnessmakers |
3 1/2 |
4 3/4 |
6 3/4 |
13 1/2 |
26 |
| Laborers |
3 |
3 |
5 |
7 1/2 |
9 |
| Farmers |
2 3/4 |
2 3/4 |
3 |
4 |
7 1/2 |
| Housemaids |
1 1/2 |
1 1/2 |
1 3/4 |
2 1/2 |
5 |
| Mechanics' average |
3 3/4 |
5 1/2 |
7 1/2 |
12 1/2 |
18 1/2 |
The Alta concludes thus: "These are astounding figures, but we have no reason to doubt their accuracy."
Hence the assertion that Chinese labor in California has brought down wages to starvation prices is an unmitigated falsehood. Far from affecting white labor disastrously, the former opens the door to the latter. W.W. Hollister, a large land-holder and employer of Chinese and white labor, testified before the Congressional Commission, in 1876, after this manner: "The Chinaman opens two doors to labor when he closes one. There is nothing that is exhausting the fields of labor in California. If you have labor enough to do what is to be done to-day, tomorrow you want twice as much labor. It is simple folly, it seems to me, to talk about overflowing or too greatly filling the fields of labor in California. A great many of our industries would not have existed today but for the presence of the few Chinamen who have made the undertaking possible. Take the Mission and Pioneer Woolen Mills, for instance." (Cong. Rep. p. 775.)
And shall now a class of industrious immigrants, who have assisted in creating new industries, in building railroads, reclaiming swamp lands, opening new agricultural districts, be excluded from our country, driven from cities and towns, as they now propose to do in California, in conformity with Article XIX of the New Constitution, regardless of the existing treaty with China? Who are they that make this infamous demand? For the greater part they are foreigners, a large number of whom came but yesterday from a land of oppression, in abject poverty and ignorance; who have been endowed with political rights and privileges by the excessive magnanimity of the American Government. Yet, incredible as it may appear, they are so selfish, so ungrateful, so insolent, as to demand from the same beneficent government, that it shall refuse to the Chinese even a small share of that hospitality which has been liberally accorded to them; and without stopping to reflect this is a national question, on which the voice of the other States must also be heard, they insist, even under threats, that Congress shall decide it in their favor, on the vote of California alone? Can impudence and temerity go any farther? They have reached that point where patience on the part of the government ceases to be a virtue. Let the Friends of Truth, Right and Justice take notice of all this.
THE PRO-CHINESE MINORITY
San Francisco, December 26, 1879
Addenda:
November 20, 1879 Daily Alta article
Argonaut of December 6th, 1879
Governor Irwin's message to President and each member of Congress
