The weekly Butte record. [volume] (Oroville [Calif.]) 1866-1887, 1867-04-27
oRov1LLE, SATURDAY, APRIL 9th.
The Chinese Question.

To the Laboring Men of Butte County:
sELLow-CITIzESs-A crisis has arisen in the af-
fairs of this State which summons you to action,
and submits to you the alternatives of forsaking
your various avocations or of waving all other is
sues and uniting for self protection. From time
immemorial men have combined together and es-
tablished societies for preserving the respectabity
of their several pursuits and the universal acclaim
of mankind has sanctioned the wisdom Of SO doing.
Particularly has this been the case with mechanics
and professional men, and but for such combina-
TONS the price of their labor would have been re-
duced to the lowest living standard, and they CON-
PEELED to recognize as colaborers men of no moral
caste whatever. Are your avocatons less essential
to the public welfare, and you less worthy and
proud than professional men? 1t is you who deye
the earth and cause her to disclose her hidden
treasures, that man and woman may enjoy them: it
is your labors that build the railroads that trans
port the wealth of the country to market and
valleys and mountain sides to bloom like
gardens; it is your skill and industry that erect
the fine houses that adorn the land, and produce
the comforts and convenencies which render life
desirabe-and will you. whose labors have done
all this, and transformed California from its will
dcrness condition into abode for civilized men
will you, through apathy and indifference, permit a
few bloated capitalists and monopolsts to introduce
heather and degraded population among you, to
labor for a mere pittance, thus driving you away
from your homes to pursue your avocations, unless
you will adopt their cheap modes of living and la
Dor at the reduced scale of wages established by
themselves? Your action in the existing crisis will
determine whether you have within you the spirit
of men, whether you will succumb and give place
10 those libels upon the human species, the clay
colored abortions from the Chinese Empire. From
the peculiar position of California the Pacific
Coast. and our commercial relations with China,
we are subjected to an nundaon of her refuse
population, which, under the encouragement of
Railroad Companies, Capitalists and Monopolists,
aided by the monthly line of steamers that ply be-
tween San Francisco and Hong Kong, threaten to
become great and devastating the swarms OF
locusts and the myriads of frogs and lice which
the Bible tells afflicted the people of Egypt in
days long gone by.
II is hardly necessary to dlate upon the evils
which will flow from this continued emigration
unless check be placed upon it, because you
already see feel and comprehend what it is now,
aud can form correct judgment of what it will be
in few years, unless yor arise in your majesty and
your might anu say IL sUali no longer continue
Look al the Chinese Empire with its six hundred
millions of heathen population. the veriest slaves
that ever encountered the earth. They have none
Il the instincts of freemen-they know nothing of
progress, and, as emigrants undesir able in
cry sense of the word, serving to keep from
shores intelligent white men from the Atlantic
States and from the different countries of Europe,
who would add to the wealth, TO the strength, and
he supports to the social system of the State 1t is
law of population that the closer the sexes
drawn together the greater the increase of popula
ton To such an extent has this been the case in
China that we have it upon the authority of Adam
Smith, in his Wealth Of Nations, that at several
periods the Emperor issued edict, directing that
every other infant, just born from its mother. be
drowned like puppies. Another remedy adopted
bv this heathen government TO prevent excess of
population. we are told by this same author, was
TO take the ovares from every other female infant
just born Under the present facilities afforded for
the emigration to shores of this species of pop
ulation, China could easily send out 20 times the
present population of California. and find her inter
est in so doing; for all the money they acquire
among us goes TO swell the Golfers of their manda-
rims and all they consume is produced in their own
country In no sense do they stimulate produc-
ton here among us. and TO say that they would
not encourage the continued emigration of their
people to these shores when it is of such manifest
advantage for them to do so. would be to assert
that they would not be governed by selfinterest
Now, laborng of California. it becomes
your duty to consider how this influx of Chinese
among you Affects your interests as well as the in
terss.s of the State at large. In the FIRST place it
would put down the price of labor so low that You
would be unable by the closest industry and econ
omy, to support yourselves and families and edu-
cate Your children. 1t would drive from the State
its present white lahoring population them
to engage in pursuits to which they are unaccus-
toned. Already has this depletion commenced
For the last years the popular vote of the State
has decreased seven thousand at each succeeding
election while the Chinese population, for the same
periods has increased to more than third of that
number. In San Francisco, Sacramento, stockton
and other towns they employed at nearly ali the
mechanical branches and in all the avocatons at
which white men have heretofore been employed.
They are employed upou all works undertaken by
incorporated companies to the total exclusion Of
white men. because they work for third less.
The Central Pacific Railroad Company have already
contracted for ten thousand more at that price.
These lsborers are furnished 10 this Railroad Com
pany by Chinese contractors in San Francisco, snd
is vile system of slavery, under the form OF pc
onase as ever existed. Our Government was es-
;ahished by white men for the benefit of white
men, but il seems that of late years it is controlled
upon principle the reverse of this
Laboring men Of California, these are but few
Of the evils resulting from the influx of Chinese
among Ii permitted longer to continue, II will
result in your own impoverishment and degrada-
ton as surely as that cause follows effect. You
have the remedy in your own hands if you will but
apply it. You constitute a large majority of the
voting population of the State. Organize then,
upon this issue, and possess yourselves of the po-
litical power OF the State. Cease to be the dupes
and instruments of political demogogues who min
lister your preiudces that they may by your votes
be maintained in Office aud live without work.
They will shout JTnfon, Union, and "Rebsi,
Rebel" in your ears, when the Union is in no dan
ger and the Rebels have all they do to procure