Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1886-08-27
THE CHINESE
AND TIE
CHINA QUESTION.

Secondary Evils of Chinese Competition
with American Labor-Chinese Labor
Serviie, not Free-California Injured,
not Benz fitted, by the Chinese-Com-
T'arative Insignificance of our Trade
with China-Prot;.s Inure to Chinese
Firms - Chinese Labor in California
Completes directly with the Producing
Classes.
The Cinnamon, it is claimed, and
apparently with truth, will learn any
given mechanical operation in one
third of the time required by white
workingman. He has no family; he
lives i'll the most frugal manner; he
lodges upon a wooden bench; he has
been used At home to wages that would
hardly more than sustain life. His
sole ambition is to accumulate from
two hundred to four hundred dollars,
which is to him fortune, and which
enables him to return as rich man
to his own country. He is ohcdient
and servilc. BY means of all this he
is enabled to live as no white man
could live, even if the white man were
not burdened with the support OF vile
and children. The result has been TO
prevent the immigration of strong
and healthy laboring class OF kindred
and easily affiliated race from the East
ern States and from Europe. Thus
there has been almost wholly wanting
in California, the element that con-
tributed So largely to build up the
prosperity Of the whole country east
of the Rocky Mountains.
! The evil of has been twO-fold. Not
only has the sum total of large Cau-
casian immigration been lost, but
there has been none of the natural
and legitimate increase Of population
that would have resulted therefrom.
In the Eastern States the Swedish,
Irish, or German maiden finds ready
employment in domestic service; i'll
course OF time she marries and child
rem are born, and families surrounded
by the safeguards of Christian com
munities grow up to careers of use
fulness and and often of honor. In
the second or third generation the des-
cendants of the European immigrant
are so completely merged with oul
people that no difference is percepti
BILE. In California anything of the
kind is impossible. To a certain ex
tent it existed before Chinese CHEAP
labor had become so overpowering as
it now is; but it has diminished i'll the
same ratio that the latter grew to be
the dominant feature OF the Califor
mia industrial system. California has
thus been shut off from the legitimate
elements of growth which would have
made her, in all the essentials of ma
terial and moral prosperity, tenfolt
stronger than she is to-day. Chinese
labor has operated not only to prevent
but to destroy the normal development
of the State, and to throw upon the
people unwonted burdens. In ever,
community there are many who
through adversely, are thrown sud
denly upon their own resources
children, and tender women who mus
seek sustenance in humble employ
ments. Where the access to thes'
is closed, as it is by Chinese labor, TIN
alternative is fearful and plain. TIN
women who, in California, withou
friends or money seeks to earn a liveli
hood by any of the occupations com
monty open to her class in even tn
most crowded cities OF Europe or tn
Eastern States, is met at every turI
by Chinese who will work for less thai
4 is necessary to support life and healtl
in person of Caucasian decent ant
training. There is for her the simpl
alternative of shame or starvation
The man who is dependent upon hi
handiwork for daily bread, finds hi
children dwarfed for need of mer
physical nutrition, because his income
beaten down by Chinese competition
is inadequate to their support; an
beggary and crime are the natural re
suits.
The same cause has produced al
9 other evil OF no slight social magni
tude. Where young men find tn
prospect of supporting families to b
insecure, they do not marry. FroI
= such a condition of society the pOlit
cal economist deduces with certaint
that normal increase of the population
will be slow; the student of mors
science deduces with equal positive
ness that the standard of public an
private morals will be debascd.
1t is an axiom, that where servil
> labor is brought in contact with thu
of higher social character, the latte
is brought down to the level of ii
former. 1t was an argument use
- with effect against the institution
negro slavery, that it was not the &C
10 ored man alone, but the free white la
g orer also, who bore the stigma ass
ciated with manual toll.
}. The same rule of association holt
true between the Chinese and IL
= white workingman in California. ]
the city of San Francisco, sixty thou
and of the Chinese are crowded in
six or seven blocks of buildings.
single story measuring twelve feet fro
floor to ceiling is sometimes divide
% by two intermediate floors, maxi,
" three stories in one, all occupied
Chinese. The streets in that porto
of the city are connected from Ol
side to the other 10y subterranean pa
Z sages so that the occupants OF Il
houses pass under ground from bull
ing to building. Sometimes the upp
}. stories of the structures are built OF
ward over the street until, at SOL
distance from the ground, they a
proach within two feet of each 9th,
- The district embraces among its del
zens some four or five thousand Cl
nese women, Of whom not more tn;
one in twenty is other than the vile
of the vile. When the chief labori
ne class steams and testers in such de
nc as these, labor itself must stand low
public esteem. And with such asst
l. iations and such competition, the VIC
der is, not that the white populati
is turbulent, but that it is not hu
IN dred times more revolutionary in
ideas and lawless in their expression