Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1886-08-20

from the use of labor secured at the
lowest possible remuneration, regard
less Of its effects on the laboring
classes. This labor was found in the
Chinese immigration who, without
families, and used in their own coun-
try to the smallest wages, could be OBJ
tanned in unlimited number at rates
lower than those necessary for the
bare sustenance Of white wofkingnnen.
The conflict between these two forms
of civilization began early. 1t has
extended to every branch of industry,
and the results thus far have been det-
rimental in the extreme to that which
we are accustomed to consider as the
highest form of Caucasian society.
The Chinese have invaded every de-
partment of industry, and Chinese ex-
ecutive ability has marshalled that la
Dor into the most effective opposition
to the industrial classes of the whites.
Everywhere, except among the wealthy,
the white man has gone to the wall in
the competition with the Asiatic.
This is the most conveniently illus
trated by reference to the various
branches of industry, on the Pacific
Coast; for the manufacturing inter
ests that, with a normal development
of society, would have been built up
white labor, have virtually passed into
the hands of the Chinese. The result
is, not only that laboring men as such
are thrown out of employment, or re-
duced to wages insufficient for COM
Portable maintenance, but all those
occupations which, even in the most
crowded Caucasian communities,
afforded frugal sustenance to women
and children, are monopolized by the
Chinese. For example, in some por-
tions of the Eastern States, as also in
England, the reason of picking hops is
one as festive in character as the vim
tage of France or Italy, because it
affords unusually high wages during
three or four weeks to women and
children whose labor at other seasons
has little money value. Wherever,
east Of the Rocky Mountains, hops
are grown, the hop-picking season il
looked forward to by thousands Of
young girls and by needy families as
offering means Of ready money, the
use of which is often extended through
| out the remainder of the year. In
California the hop-picking is done by
the Chinese to the exclusion of all
others. So also, in many portions Of
the Eastern States, the season of
berry-picking affords an opportunity
for the earning of money, which to
the poor softens the haadships
of other and more scsnty seasons. In
California, berry-picking, which at
one time was availed of by women and
children, has been entirely absorbed by
Chinese. The weaving, which former
ly was done almost entirely by women,
is now done by Chinese. In the max
ing of underclothing, Chinese do the
work which in this country and Eu-
rope is performed by seamstresses.
The laundry work, the dress-making
and millinery-work have been passed
to the Chinese. The manufacture of
shoes for woman and children is en-
tirely in their hands. The gathering
of fruit, the digging of potatoes, the
care of gardens is for the most part
done by them. The handling of the
immense crops Of the coast calls for
the use of many tens of thousands of
grain-bags, which are all sewed by
Chinese. In the large dairies, some
of them having from a thousand to
thirteen hundred COWS, the milking
and other dairy work is performed by
Chinese. The seating of cane chairs,
which forms the last resource for
poor women in Eastern cities, is in
California given over to Cinnamon.
When white labor il thus crowded
away from the minor and poorer in
dustries, it follows as q matter Of
course that other and more remun-
erative occupations are filed in the
same way. The Chinese are employed.
in the woolen mills; in the tanneries; /;
in fisheries; in the canning of fruits,
etc.; in the vanishing Of furniture
and the like; in the building of en-
bankments for the redemption Of
overflowed lands; in railway work,
the making Of road-cuttings, and the
digging Of tunnels. There is scarcely
a manufacture in which they do not
constitute the whole or the great ma
jority Of the operatives. In one estab-
lishment in San Francisco (the Mis-
sion Woolen Mills), five hundred and
fifty Chinese have been employed at
one time. In u neighboring spring
mattress factory, not q single white
man found work, and, near by, the
oakum factory in the city was also
Chinese throughout. In placer min
ing there were four thousand in one
neighborhood, near Oroville; and in
many localities they have entirely
exhausted mines which although In
capable of profit with the wasteiul
methods in vogue twenty years ago
would have provided by this time
sources of revenue to the whites
There are in San Francisco fifteen
thousand boys and girls: between. ths
ages Of fourteen and twenty, who, in