The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1902-01-13
FIJI WHITE NAN VS.. CooulE.

The practice OF employing ASiatics to
DO work which white men or women
can be found to undertake has had, as
We pointed out the other day. many
serious results. Not the least Of these.
one we did not discuss before, is the
contempt into which certain kinds OF
honest labor has fallen among the
whites. owing to the esteem in which il
Ia held by coolies. Everybody knows
how this has worked in California. The
kitchens OF Eastern cities are filled
with white women. but a white woman
will have to grow desperate indeed be-
fore she will seek a kitchen job in San
Francisco. At $50 a. m. in New York.
when the weather permits. every resi-
dence porch will show its scrub wo-
man; but poor as woman may be in
San Francisco. she will not scrub the
front steps. That is work for a Chi
naman," she says. The coolie in the
West has all but monopolized the laun-
dry trade and the average white work
ing woman would rather go hungry than
be caught washing clothes. In the
coast metropolis, as the Chinese ad
vance into the trades, white men grad
ually back out in disgust as if the
honor of the trade had been furnished.
And so with all minor vacations. Here
in Honolulu there ought to be, say
three hundred white walters and stew
ards: but this is field which, like do
nestle service generally, has been mo-
nopolized by the yellow races. The
suburbs of Honolulu should sustain a
goodly population OF white gardeners;
but even at the high price of vegetables
the white gardener expert though he
may be. usually holds aloof. He won't
do Chinaman's work. The vocation
of coachman. or private driver, has
ceased to be desirable from a white
standpoint and that of tegseshoer is
becoming so. Look where we may and
evidence shows itself that pursuits
which are common and popular else
where among white men are disdained
by them here. 1t is as IL the Chinese
We're to adopt hat or coat that
white men had customarily worn. At
once the whites would discard 1t. The
condition we are describing-the broad
general condition-is much like that OF
the South before the war. The negro
there abolished the white middle class.
or almost abolished IT. There were the
land-owning and trading whites, in two
upper stratas. and the poor white
traSh' but one looked almost in vain
TOT the kind of people that, make UP
the oohe ana sineW OF the north. The
neid hand; but he was the horseshoer, |
the wagon maker. the miner, the roust |
ABOUT, the deckhand, the painter and
"hltewasher, the miller. the coachman.
Sne tinker, the cobbler and so on |
Through the trades and vacations |
"A white man would not demean him !
self by competing with him II "a |
becoming the same way here. If. we
are to save Hawaii and develop II |
along American lines the cooiie. so far
as possible. must be driven back to the
rice and sugar fields. That is one rea-
son why the Advertiser, some months
aso. strongly objected to spending. pl,b-
nc money on the education of Asiat
ics-who thereby become competitors Of
the white man not only for trades. but /
clerkships-and for which IL was nofs
lily Febuked by the kept organs OF Judge
Humphreys 1t objects, as well. to hfr
Ing coolies for any service for which
white men or native Hawaiians NAV he
procured. and acting on That princinIe
II mas never accepted the work OF cbean
Asiatic printers, however well-oualified
they may have been.
" men the worlfngmen devise n rrac- !
tica4 scheme to eliminate coolies from
Inc trades and otfrer white mems yo-
cations, they win not need to ask the
fiu OF the Advertiser twice. This pa
Per DeneVes that, outside the cane and :
iice HeldS where white men and Ha-
"aians VIII not work, the coolie is a
menace 10 white civilization: and white
cINllzatlon is tha thing which Hawaii
as an American Territory must pos
sess. 20