St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1879-02-22
HUMAN VERMIN.
The Threatened gcourse of he Pacific
CGass.

The pioneers of California can recall
the time when the Norwegian rat was
not known on this soil. The great rush
hither from all quarters of the globe, in
the early years of the gold hunt, brought
the intolerable pest. They infested ships
and were thence landed here. They soon i
overran the country, and "rattage" was
the devouring, disastrous item in many
an account of sales of merchandise con-
signed to this port, which brought dis"
may, loss and ruin to the shipper abroad.
Still nobody needed very much the ap.
pearance of the first Norway rat seen
here. In fact, the pestiferous vermin
was regarded much as curiosity or as
reminder of the cold home" land. Quite
as the Norwegian rats have overspread
the coast, also have the Chinese. And it
is only by those who are in places where
they are most numerous that the evil of
Chinese immigration can be seen and
felt. They are as destructive and ruin
GUS to laboring interests and to the solid
prosperity of the state as the gnawing
vermin are to every perishable commod>
ity on which they tasten. lmmeasurabiy
worse will coolies become if ever ad-
mitted to citizenship. For nearly thirty
years they have focked here, to reap the
golden product for which alone they
come, and this gained, to hasten back to
enjoy there life of adiuence among
their coolie caste which here would
barely be a remove from poverty. But
to give them citizenship and suffrage
will cause them literally to swarm here.
They have hitherto come by hundreds;
they will, if admitted to naturalization,
pour here in thousands and tens of thou
sands. They will spread and march,
and devastate and devour like the YER
min and locusts of Egypt. Overland
they will push their way across the des-
erts and the plains, and thence crawl and
threng to every portion Of the union,
but mainly throughout the north and on
the Atlantic seaboard.
| Speaking no language but their own,
with just enough pigeon" English to
hold the little conversation required
with our own Fpeople; bound by their
own associations and the secret orders OF
their Chinese masters; intent only upon
the gain of gold fattening and growing
rich upon subsistence and wages on
which the white laborer can not live !;
paying no poll~tax; exempt from military
service in time of war, because of their
utter worthlessness as soldiers; scorning
our schools; scofing or despising Christi
anity OR the worship of God, and stub
born in their heathenism; practically
regardless of and defying our laws, and
governed mostly by the laws of their OWL
country as administered here by theil
acknowledged rulers; and enjoying al
these benefits of the protection OF the
constituted authorities without contri'
buting to the maintenance OF our institu
lions, the coolie hordes would prevadt
the country like a pestilence and reduce
it as q famine. Free white labor woule
be crowded from shops and fields, ane
the working-class driven to poverty, des
Leration, and the lawlessness OF raveDins
wolves. Something more terrible thar
communism would then surely rsvag'
the land. Men and women will not starv.
in the midst of plenty: and when work il
refused them, and their appeals 1or tn
means of subsistence, to earn their breat
by the sweat of their brew, are unheedee
or refused, they will by fores and violenc
,, relieve their necessities in whateve
manner they can, without ever stoppin!
to consider consequences. Conscience /
dumb in the deiirium Of wretchednes
wrought by the ferociousness of starga
ton and the agony of despair, and Grim
becomes chronic. Property would depre
ciate jim value, business would decay, in
dustries be paraIyzed, and securities be
come everywhere precarious.
To allow suffrage to the coolies woul,
be the certain downfall and destruction
of the Republic. The votes of the coo
lie gangs, the same as their services AM
their persons, would be at the dispoaa
, and under the control of their Chimes
masters, who would farm them out t
the political party or the candidate o.
E the same terms their labor is now had
to those who paid the highest price
, Thus the coolie ereeper, if allowed t
grow from the root of the tree of Amer
lean liberty, will in time become tn
! deathly parasite to exhaust and destro
the trunk on which it subsists. II th
ignorance, the superstition, the pagan
!, ism, the barely civilized despotism-
! with much of ancient barbarism 1nair
tained--of China is to have sway in thi
country, by means of the ballot. th
!, peril and war which the introduction {
: Africans as slaves in the longsgone COLI
: NAL days finally wrought, will be az
: gale in comparison. to the hurricane {
desolation which must at last come SIS
. consequence of the further and fatal o.
: tension of the suffrage the admissio
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