The weekly Butte record., 1862-02-15
0dttklp 8utte Aetoro
Anti-Chinese.

sociation OF San Francisco" 1t is the sam
old story, and looks to US like the denagogisn
of the politician towards the laboring or indus
trial portion of cur citizens. We care nothin.
for the miserable thieving class of Chinese Wit
have thrust themselves upon Us. We believ,
they are natural thieves, but do not believe
that their entire exclusion from the State
\ would prevent stealing within our borders The
fact ought to be apparent to all that, in the
mining counties, these same despised Chinese
pay heavier tax, and contribute more to the
support of the Government, than all other
classes of miners together. If we are mistaken
! in this, We should be pleased to have the
Association, or any other man." produce the
figures. As the law now stands every Chinese
engaged in mining pays tax of three dollars
per month, or thirty-six dollars per year, for
the mere privilege OF working in the mines
There IS not miner in the State, capable OF
attaining the rights of citizenship. who pays a
tenth of this amount for the same privilge. 1t
Is true that large, very large per cent. of the
amount thus collected from them, may not
find its way into the State and county treasu-
ries but that is the fault of our own laws,
not of the Chinese who buy their tax receipts.
We should ike to ask the Association, after
they have excluded the Chinese, say from
Butte County, which is but half mineral, (the
balance being agricuturaD how the twenty
four thousand dollars, the amount collected
from them last year, is to be supplied for the
support Of the Government? They constitute
l less than one-tenth of our population, and yet
\pay one fourth of the county expenses.
expulsion of the Chinese, are apt TO discard
altogether the financial view of the question.
Yet in every mining county, We think this
consideration should have little weight, with
some at least. The twenty-five or thirty
thousand dollars they now pay annually in
nearly every mining county would have to be
supplied from some other source, and might
possibly lead to the taxation of mining claims,
owned by those capable of attaining citizen
ship"-or at least. to enforcing the collection
of the poll tax. That might be very hard :;
but how are the expenses of the mining coun-
ties to be met without it? Would the four
thousand voters of the county escape by the
annual payment of less than six thousand
dollars poll tax?
1t is no cause for their expulsion to say that
their Very presence is pestilential,' or to add
that, L" morally they are deadly upas, whose
poisonous exhalations are fatal to purity of
thought etc, etc. If we have the power to
exclude them, can we not control them while
they are here We are the law makers. They
have no voice in the Government, and are not
We, the people Of California, responsible before
Heaven for the pestilential habits they practice,
and the poisonous exhalations they exude here
Is it manly for he American people to confne
their philanthropy and sympathy into a channel
that has led to civil war, until they have none
to exercise towards the poor degraded hea-
then" who has been thrown by providence, or
otherwise, on our shores? Are we doing our
whole duty as sovereign law-givers by exclu-
ding them? We ask the Association if it
would not look as though great and magpan-
| imous people were discharging their duty to
an inferior race through the little end of a
cornucopia?
Without stopping to notice the inconsisten,
cics with which the address abounds. by
first representing that they come in competi-
ton with our hboring class, ard then that
they are too eGeminate to sink our shafts,
run our tunnels, or dig our canals" we shall
close by noticing the excessively humane
manner in which the " Anti Coole Association
of San Francisco prosose to expel them from
the State. This they propose to do by tax
increasing gradually until it amounts to
prohibition of Chinese labor in California =
We are not told that this oppressive tax, under
a " summary process" of collection. would lead
to any other result than causing them to return
TO China. Would it not look like reducing
them to abject poverty, and then expecting
4 them to charter ships to return to their native
Pland Would il not be more humane to bid
ilciu ~ bEtOtC tsilS PIpCSSS 10
deprive them Of the means Of going The
passage of a simple law of exclusion, would
show our status to be that of China hundreds
of years ago when she erected her great wall,
for that was erected, not 10 entrap foreigners
and to collect taxes from them by summary
process" but to keep them out. Would not
tho civilized world retrar1 a. ,nrch moro hsr
barous, the airoeious subtlety that would first
encompass these degraded heathens." deprive
them of means by summary process, and
then expel them from our borders? Such
laws are known among civilized nations as
Tyranny and robbery; but we are assured by
the circulars Of this association that it is but
consccrating our State to "a pure ciyiliza-
ton"