Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1869-07-14
The Chinese Labor Question.

BATEsvLLE, Pamela Co, Mss,
July II, 1869.
Messrs, Editors: / notice in the col
umns of your widely circulated and
| popular daily APPEAL, the proceed
/ ings of a meeting held at the Chamber
| of Commerce in your city on the 30th
/ uIt., to devise ways and means for the
/ importation of Chinese laborers. We
| have read with the very deepest inter
est the resolutions adopted, as well as
| the address |" to the Southern public"
put forth by the Committee selected
by this meeting. Now, Messrs. Edi-
| tors, as the press is admitted TO be the
great power employed in this age to
mould public opinion and control the
popular will, and as this engine of
power has been appealed to successful
~ by this meeting to disseminate
their views on this great question, we
now beg at your hands the same me-
dunn of communication, and trust
you will allow this privilege to be
heard, of another class of Our people,
who arrive at conclusions on this sub
ject quite as antipodal to those put
forth by this meeting as Canton in
China is geographically antipOdal to
the city of Memphis in Tennessee.
Had not such a proposition been sap
ported as this is by a list of the most
wealthy and prominent merchants
and business of your city, / should
have certainly preserved my usu-
al ~reticence, and been content
as heretofore, in making up my own
| conclusions, for no other purpose than
that of controlling my WI individual
action. But when l see an attempt
made to inaugurate a policy SO pOr-
! tentiOus of evil as this is, backed up
by the influence of such names as are
appended to the address, and sup
/ ported by that able jurist and most
1 polished orator, viz, Hon. j. w. c..
Clapp-and would that as much could
be said of the sOundness and correct
! ness of his political calculations and
conclusions, which sad experience,
however, denies US the privilege,
| Under these circumstances, the prop
OsitiOn becomes alarming in proportion
to the evil that it proposes to entail.
This, MessrS. Editors is a bold move,
and should be as boldly confronted,
which a stern sense of patriotic duty
demands. 1t Is not my purpose to
discuss this question at length at this
time, but to enter our unqualified pro-
test against this movement, made I'M
der the speciOus pTeteXt Of the cry
that the "SOuth needs and must have
more labor" when but a few years
ago the voice that was heard lOudest
and cleareSt was, the "SOuth needs
and must have more territory" I'm
der the new form of the Constitution,
under which we apprehend we shall
have to live, the success of this move
ment will, without a peradventure,
swallow u up in the South, beneath
q flood of such political elements as
the most common understanding
should perceive we could not even
hope to control. This move at this
time is like the action Of the man in
fatuated with gaming, and finding his
means of living greatly reduced
in consequence of his losses, in
his desperation, slaps down on
the dice the last remaining portion
of his inheritance, in the vain and de-
lusive hope of regaining what he had
lost, but only to see it swept OFF into
the vaults of the dealer.
The proposed action on the part of
the advocates of this labor impOrta-
ton and emigration scheme, calling
on the floods of Paganism from the
West, and the waters of infidelity
from the East, TO roll OVeF and cover
this country, very forcibly remind me
of, and are in good keeping with, al
incident related of a small, yet very
avaricious farmer living in the good
old North State, who, on seeing his
crop of tobacco, almost suddenly in
undated, in the month of August
when his prospect was most %fiattering,
from the effects of an unexpected
thunder storm, he rushed through the
overflow until reaching the bank of a
little creek, and then, after surveying
for q moment the destruction of the
foods, he stretched forth his braWny
arms, with clenched fists, his head
thrown far back, when, his mouth
opened wide, as he exclaimed with a
loud voice, leaping forth from the
great deep of his agonising soul:
"NOw, Mister God Almighty, you
have took my crop of 'baeeo, take me
too" and suiting his actions to his |
words, he leaped headforemOst into
the rushing torrent. The niger is
free and slavery IL dead, but no use
for any such antics as this. Won't
pay; and besides, such circus actions
don't look well to dispassionats spec
tators, especially when so aWkwardly
done. This emigration trade with
the idOlatrOus Chinaman for his labor,
is Just about as shrewd a business
transaction as Esau made with
his brother Jacob, when he sold
his birthright for a mess of
2 --Ak NNTIaAF GloV1 $40 A.. - I
self out our birthright, in and to the
control of the deStipies of this coun-
try, for ourselves and OuF children,
forever, for the paltry sum of the mere
doubtful profits on the labor of ten or
fifty millions Of Cinnamon, for five or
ten years? No, never! Few men IN
this region lost more than the writer
Of this, by the freeing Of the negro
never had any sympathy with the
motives of those who freed him-and
he has no taste for Radicalism in any
shape it can be presented; no, not
even if you sweeten the cup with the
golden profits of the labor of your
millions of Pagans, with the coupling
of the political results alluded to-nOt
to say anything of the social and re-
hgious influences eXerted, by the ado
ration TO Pagan Divinities given, and
these erected in our midst, and in the
presence of the rising generation,
coupled with the imposing and excit.
ing forms of their worship, which
none but Pagan idolaters imagine, to
be pleasing to their gods. Who dares
to assert that when this tide of emf
grafton is fairly set in, that even the