The record-union., 1897-06-29
VOICE OF THE PRESS.
EXTRACTS FROM EDITORIAL
EXPRESSION.
State and Coast Opinions or Sub
jects of Living and News
Interest.

The Calistogan: The California Wine
makers corporation being the nrst 10
advance and maintain the price PAID
for grapes it is no more than rlght
that it should be supported in the pres
ent struggle for supremacy over the
San Francisco wine dealers, Who have
from time to time sought to crush
down the grower to a ruinous price for
his grapes.
LAURA LEES CASE.
Los Angeles Express: Citizens of
Pittsburg expect that at least $1,000
900 will be spent in building operations
in that city this year for business
houses working establishments and
dwellings,. Let us see; wasn't it there
or thereabouts that the New York
Journal paraded in scare type as the
land OF idleness, suffering and destitu-
ton? Six millions is a tidy sum to
spend in one year in building opera
| tions alone, and it will give employ
ment to great many Workmen. There
must be a mistake somewhere, and 1T
is not likely that the building item has
gone wrong.
A MISTAKE SOMEWHERE.
Stockton Independent: Laura Lees
story as published Thursday and yes
| terday reveals a shocking condition of
| depravity that is directly traceable to
! the presence of the degrading Chinese
in this country. 1t in no way helps
the Chinese that Laura's mother was a
party to the attempt to sell, for that
woman, debased by nineteen years of
xuif Of
came nearly as much Chinese as those
born and reared in China. She must
have been degraded creature before
accepting a Chinese husband, and her
gravitation from her first position to
her present one was as easy as the
proverbial descent into the inferno. The
girls revolving is due to her associat-
| ing at school with decent children, by
which she acquired ideas that could not
have come to her through her home
| influences, which, it is evident from
| her mothers behavior, were calcu-
lated to make her regard her sale as
chattel as a matter of course. Sales of
| Chinese girls and women have become
so common that the public mind, IA
miliarized with the evil, has ceased to
look upon it with horror, and it needed
just such an incident as that of Laura
Lee to arouse the people to a realiza
tion of its horrors. Even Americans
have come to look upon Chinese women
as things rather than as human be-
ings, and that condition of mind, pro-
duced by and added to by the cunning
of the Chinese in evading the law, has
caused the people as we'll as the au-
| thoritieS to become Indifferent to the
nefarious traffic. Officers say it cannot
be suppressed because so many of the
women chattelS are willing parties to
the transactions, but if it cannot be
prevented the impossibility of it is a
strong argument for the banishment Of
the wretches whose presence in the
country has caused it. Laura Lee is
safe for the present, but what is to be-
come of the other children of the bar
barian and his equally barbarous white
wife? So far nothing has been said
about reScuing them from a fate that.
for the girls, if there are any. must
be as repulsive as that which threat
ened Laura The humane society of
San Francisco should look after them
| also that they may not become either
highbinders or slaves
JAPAN'S PROTEST.
Stockton Record: The formal protest
OF Japan and the pretended protest of
the Russian semi-official organ against
the annexation of Hawaii will serve only
to increase that very necessary class of
American patriots that are not dis
graced by being called "jingoes." The
Russian organ is probably not sincere
The chances are always that in state
craft the Russians mean almost the di-
rect opposite of what they say. The
empire that insisted on selling us Alaska
Will not mourn if we acquire Cuba as
well as Hawaii. Russia may continue
to fool the timid Powers of Europe, but
| its wishes will not carry weight with
public opinion in America.
DEBS.
| Santa Barbara Press: When Mr..
| Debs announced his cooperative COM
monweatIh, which was to take unto it
self the unemployed of the big cities,
transport them into Texas or California
| CD and give the country practical les
| son in socialism, the country in gen
eral, though of course doubling the
practicability of the undertaking, was
| willing to give Mr.. Debs every op
pCrtunity in it's power, to make straight
! his way and watch results. Now Mr..
| Debs has changed all that by the
| siiiest kinds of threat against the peace
l------------- - - -