The Portland daily press., 1884-08-12
Labor on the Pacific Coast

letter from former resident of this
city, now 10 Portland, Oregon, gives the
following doleful picture of the labor mai ket
on the Pacific Coast
"Times are hard on this coast Just now-harder
than have experienced in the twenty five Years
and more that have been here, and it is all caused
by the spectators crowding the State with poor
people, who come Lere and arc forced to work for
low wages because 1t has taken all they had to get
here. and they cannot get away. They go so far.
when man is out of work and has to beg for
bread, that they arrest him and put him in JAIL 1
hope that immigration will stop for WHILE SO that
those who are here may get settled in business be-
fore any more crowd in. 1t is true we have a good
country, but we want men to develop it who have
money to put in circulation, SO that the poor as
we'll as the rich, may live. Railroad Spectators
want patronage for roads, 50 they tell the
people In overcrowded cities at the East that this
is the country where they can pick up Job at big
pay, while there are good men here, as good
mechanics as ever worked at a trade, who are
forced to scrub around and often driven to the
wall for money to feed their families. Many are
driven to insanity, and there is no end to the
amount of self-destruction that is going on. No
less than three cases have occurred within week;
and about every other day corpse is found floating
in the river and it is not known whether they are
accidentally drowned, self destroyed, or murdered
This is supplemented by letter from an
other old Portland resident, now in Californ-
ia, who writes that he is foreman of crew
which is constructing reservoir of 100000
gallons capacity, directing the work of a
tunnel three hundred yards long, Axe feet
capacity, bossing fifteen Chinameu, and
taking care of an eighty acre vineyard, work
ing from half past five 10 the morning till
six in the evening, Gall for one big dollar a
dayl One hundred days, one hundred dol
larsP' And this, he says, is "the going
wage here this Summer"
These letters indicate great depression
10 the labor market ia California. Whether
it is caused by recent stoppage of enter
prises employing many men, or is a normal
result Of the abundance of Chinese cheap la
Dor, we are unable to say. We had sup
posed there had been no increase of China
men there within the past two years since
tha@aw forbidding their Immigration was
passed; but rather decrease. Of course if
there is cessation of large enterprises the
competition for employment would be in
tensifed and American laborers would be at
a disadvantage in the kinds Of work that
Asiatics are capable of. This tends to pro-
mote an antagonism against foreigners not
unlike what has sometimes been known in
the Eastern States in hard times when there
was great bitterness against the Irish and
all from over sea who were willing to work
cheaper aud live less comfortably than
suited the standards of native Americans in
prosperous times. 1t is clear however from
such representations as these given above
that there is no pre- sent encouragement for
persons to go from the East to California 1T
search of profitable employment.