Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-02-03
comes biting sarcasm when the laborer
becomes a serf

Die lot. Hewers of wood and drawers of
water they have been since they had a
country, and servile laborers they will be
to the end of time. Departure from that
IeVei with them is never upward; the only
change, apparently, is from seryitude TO
crime
The pious anticipations that the infiu-
ence of Christianity upon the Chinese
would be salutary, have proved unsubstan-
tlal and vain. Among one hundred and
twenty-five thousand of them, with resi-
dence here beneath the elevating infiu-
ences OF Christian precept and example,
and with the jealous labors of earnest
Christian teachers, and the liberal expendi-
ture OF ecclesiastical revenues, we have no
evidence of single genuine conversion to
Christianity, or of q single instance of an
assimilation with our manners, or habits
OF thought or life. There are few, pain
fully few, protesting Christians among
them, but the evidence confirms us in as
serhng that with these the profession is
dependent to great extent upon its paw
ing proilt to the professor Those Chris
tlans who hailed with satisfaction the adj
vent OF the Chinese TO our shores, with the
expectation that they would thus be
brought beneath the benign influences of
Christianity, cannot fail to have discovered
that for every one of them that has pro
ANNSNtA NAiAiStidi4itN DuDUIGl Oh our own
youth, blighted by the degrading contact
OF their presence, have been swept into
destruction
Neither IS there any possibility that in
the future education, religion, or the other
influences OF our civilization can effect any
change in the condition of things. The
Chinese in California are all adults. They
are not men of families. The family rela-
ton does not exist here among them. Not
one in thousand is married and, in ad-
dllon, their habits of opium eating are
practically destructive of the power of
procreation. So that whatever improve
ment might otherwise be anticipated from
lnStlllng into the comparatively uniformed
and respective minds of a young and rising
generation the educational and religions
InaXlmS that control our own race. is thus
effectually precluded.
Above and beyond these considerations
however, we believe and the researches of
those who have most attentiyelv studied
the Chinese character, confirm us in the
consideration, that the Chinese are incapa.
bic of adaptation to our institutions. The
national intellect of China has become de-
creplt from sheer age. 1t has long since
passed its prime and is waning into seniIity.
The iron manacles Of caste which prevail
IN that empire are as cruel and unyielding
as those which chain the sudras in Hindo-
stan to hereditary state of pauperism and
slavery. As an acute thinker has sacaci-
ously observed, the Chinese seem to be
antediiuvian men renewed. Their code of
morals, their forms of worship, and their
maXims of life are those of the remotest
antiquity. In this aspect they stand a bar
rler against which the eievating tendency
OF higher civilization exerts itself in vain.
And, IN an chronological point of view.
rbnrq 10 NO ho,.a ~ hot
our people, however long continued. will
ever conform them TO our institutions. en-
able them to comprehend or appreciate our
form OF government, or to assume the duties
or discharge the functions of citizens.
During their entire settlement in Califor-
MA they have never adapted themselves to
our habits, mades of dress, or our educa
tional system, have never learned the
sanctity of an oath, never desired 10 be-
come citizens, or to perform the duties of
citizenship, never discovered the difference
between night and wrong, never ceased the
worship OF their idol gods, or advanced a
step beyond the musty traditions of their
| native hive. Impregnable to all the in
fiuences of our Anglo-Saxon life thev re-
main the same stolid Asiatics that have
fioated on the rivers and shaved in the
fields of China tor thirty centuries of time.
In view OF all this we inquire, What are
the benefits conferred upon us by this iso
lated and degraded class? The only one
ever suggested was cheap labor" But
II cheap labor means white famine it is a
fearful benefit. If cheap labor means not
only starvation for our own laborers. but a
gradual, yet certain, depletion of the re-
sources of our State for the enriching of
semi-civilized foreign country, it is a bene-
hit hitherto unknown to the science of
political economy. If cheap labor means
serylle labor, 1t is burlesque on the policy
OF emancipation. And if this cheap labor
brings in its train the decentralization con-
sequent upon the enforced idleness of our
own race, the moral degradation attendant
upon the presence in our midst of the most
disgusting RIGHTEOUSNESS, and the absolute
certainty of pestilence arising from the
crowded condition and filthy habits of life
oil those who perform this so-called cheap
labor, it We're well for all of us that i
should be abolished.
We thus find one-sixth of our entire
population composed of Chinese coolies.
not Involuntary but, by the unalterable
structure of their intellectual being, volun-
tary slaves. This alien mass. constantly
increasing by immigration, is injected into
republic of freemen. eating of its sub
stance, eXpeiling free white labor, and con-
uloutlng nothing to the support of the
government. All of the physical condi-
tions OF California are in the highest de-
gree favorable to their influx. Our climate
is essentially Asiatic in all its aspects. and
promotes the immigration. What is to be
the result? Does it require any prophetic
power TO foretel? Can American States
men project their vision forward for quar-
ter OF a century and convince themselves
that this problem will work ont for itself
wise solution In that brief period, with
the same ratio of increase, this fair State
will contain Chinese population outnum-
berng It's treemen. White labor will be
unknown, because unoblainable and then
how long period will elapse before Cali
fornia will, nay must. become essentially a
State with but two orders of society-the
master and the serf-a lesser Asia, with all
its deathly lethargy?
Or, on the other hand, NAV we not fore
see more dire result? Is it not possible
that free white labor, unable to compete
with these foreign serfs, and perceiving its
condition becoming slowly but inevitably
mere hopelessly abject, may unite in all
the horrors of riot and insurrection. and
defylng the civil power, extirpate with fire
and sword those who rob them of their
bread, yet yield no tribute to the State?
This is frightful possibility but we have
within brief period witnessed it's portents
lance of the conservative portion of our
people, we might have seen not only the
Chinese quarters, but our cities, in ashes.
and families homeless, and the prosperity
and good fame of California shattered and
disgraced.
1t is no answer that these upris1ngs are
the work OF criminal classes only-thev
have a root deep as the sense of self
preservation. Throughout the length and
breadth of California the white laborer
knows the effect of this grinding competi-
ton. He reads it not in the books, nor in
the press; he learns it from no lips; he
feels 1t IN the empty pocket, the hopeless
search for labor, and the gaunt want that
sits at his hearth.
The duty devolves upon us to suggest
remedy for the suppression of this immi-
grafton.
The Chinese now here are protected bv
our treaty obligations and laws, ard that
they Will continue TO receive that protec-
ton the people and government of this
State will irresponsible. If further immi-
frrnfT ION -