The Lake Charles echo. [volume] (Lake Charles, Parish of Calcasieu, La.) 1876-1898, 1879-03-08
HUMAN VERMIN.
Tbe Threatened scourse Of me Faefne
Coast.

The pioneers OF California can recall
the time when the Norwegian rat was
not known on this soil. The great rush
hisher from all quarters of the globe, ID
the early years of the gold hunt, brought
tine intolerable pest. They infested ships
and were thence landed here. They soon
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
NAV, 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 o
reminder of the ssold home" land. Quite
as the Norwegian rats have overspread
the coast, also have the Chinese. And 1t
is only byethose who are in places where
thew are most numerous that the evil OF
Chinese immigration can be seen end
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 commode
ity on which they fasten. 1mmeasurably
worse will coolies become if ever adj
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 q life of amuence among
their coolie caste which here would
barely be 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 devasrate 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
che 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 laboler can not live;
paying no poll-tax; exempt from military
service in time of war, because of their
utter worthlesaness 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 own
country as administered here by their
acknowledged rulers; and enjoying all
these benefits of the protection of the
constituted authorities without contris
buting to the maintenance of our institu-
tions, the coolie hordes would prevade
the country like pestilence and reduce
it as q famine. Free white labor would
be crowded from shops and fields, and
the working-class driven to poverty, des-
Leration, and the lawlessness of raveDing
wolves. Something more terrible than
communism would then surely ravage
the land. Men and women willnotstarye
in the midst of plenty. and when work is
refused them, and their appeals for the
means of Subsistence, to earn their bread
by the sweat of their brew, are unheeded
or refused, they will by force and violence
relieve their necessities in whatever
manner they can, without ever stopping
to consider consequences. Conscience rs
dumb in the delirium of wretchedness
wrought by the ferociousness of starva
tion and the agony of despair, and crime
becomes chronic. Property would depre.
ciate jim value, business would decay, in
dustries be paralyzed, and securities be-
come everywhere precarious.
To allow suffrage to the coolies would
be the certain downfall and destruction
OF the Republic. The votes of the COO
lie gangs, the same as their services and
their persons, would be at the disposal
and under the control of their Chinese
masters, who would farm them out to
the political party or the candidate on
the same terms their labor is now had
to those who paid the highest price.
inns the coolie creeper. If allowed 4