These rowdies were "Hoodlums;" and it is the Hoodlums chiefly who clamor about the Chinese, and who are "ruined by Chinese cheap labor." The anti-Chinese agitation in San Francisco has led me to look a little closely into this matter, and I declare my belief that there are not a hundred decent men who work for a living in that city engaged in this crusade against the Chinese. If you could to-day assemble there all who join in this persecution, and if then you took from this assemblage all the Hoodlums, all the bar-room loafers, and all the political demagogues, I don't believe you would have a hundred men left on the ground. That is to say, the people who actually earn the bread they eat do not persecute the Chinese.
If an Eastern reader suggests that it argues a lack of public spirit in the decent part of the community to allow the roughs to rule in this matter, I take leave to remind him of the time, not very long ago, when the same combination of Hoodlum and demagogue mobbed negroes in New York, and threatened vengeance if colored people were allowed to ride in the street-cars. Here, as there then, there are unfortunately newspapers which ignorantly pander to this vile class, and help to swell the cry of persecution. And here, as in New York a few years ago, it results that the proscribed race is hardly dealt with, not only by the roughs, but sometimes in the courts, and gets scant and hard justice dealt out to it. The courageous and upright action of Mayor Alvord in vetoing the inhuman and silly acts of the city supervisors, which, by-the-way, has made him one of the most popular men in California, for the moment shamed the demagogues and silenced the rowdies; but there are means of annoying the Chinese within the law, which are still used. For instance, there is an ordinance declaring a fine for overcrowding tenement-houses, and requiring that in every room there shall be five hundred cubic feet of air for each occupant, and for violating this a fine of ten dollars is imposed. This ordinance is enforced only against the Chinese—so I am assured on the best authority, and they only are fined. But justice would seem to demand not only that the law should be enforced against all alike, but that the owner of the property should be made liable for its misuse as well as the unfortunate and ignorant occupants.
The Chinese quarter in San Francisco consists, for the most part, of a lot of decayed rookeries which would put our own Five Points to the blush. The Chinese live here very much as the Five Points' population lives in New York. And here, as there, respectable people—or people at any rate who would think themselves insulted if you called their respectability in question—own these filthy and decayed tenements; live in comfort on the rent paid them by the Chinese; perhaps go to church on Sunday, and, no doubt, thank God that they are not as other people. It is very good to fine a poor devil of a Chinaman because he lives in an overcrowded tenement; but what a stir there would be if some enterprising San Francisco journal should give a description of these holes, and the different uses they are put to, and add the names and residences of the owners.
California has, according to Cronise—a good authority—40,000,000 acres of arable land. It has, according to the last census, 560,247 people, of whom 149,473 live in San Francisco, and yet nowhere in the United States have I heard so much complaint of "nothing to do" as in San Francisco. One of the leading cries of the demagogues here is that the Chinese are crowding white men out of employment. But one of the complaints most frequently heard from men who need to get work done is that they can get nobody to do it. A hundred times and more, in my travels through the State, I have found Chinese serving not only as laborers, but holding positions where great skill and faithfulness were required; and almost every time the employer has said to me, "I would rather, of course, employ a white man, but I can not get one whom I can trust, and who will stick to his work." In some cases this was not said, but the employer spoke straight out that he had tried white men, and preferred the Chinese as more faithful and painstaking, more accurate, and less eye-servants.
A gentleman told me that he had once advertised in the San Francisco papers for one hundred laborers; his office was besieged for three days. Three hundred and fifty offered themselves, all presumably ruined by Chinese cheap labor; but all but a dozen refused to accept work when they heard that they were required to go "out of the city."
The charge that the Chinese underbid the whites in the labor market is bosh. When they first come over, and are ignorant of our language, habits, customs, and manner of work, they no doubt work cheaply; but they know very accurately the current rate of wages and the condition of the labor market, and they manage to get as much as any body, or, if they take less in some cases, it is because they can not do a full day's work. It is a fact, however, that they do a great deal of work which white men will not do out here; they do not stand idle, but take the first job that is offered them. And the result is that they are used all over the State, more and more, because they chiefly, of the laboring population, will work steadily and keep their engagements.
Moreover, the admirable organization of the Chinese labor is an irresistible convenience to the farmer, vineyardist, and other employer. "How do you arrange to get your Chinese?" I asked a man in the country who was employing more than a hundred in several gangs. He replied: "I have only to go or send to a Chinese employment office in San Francisco, and say that I need so many men for such work and at such pay. Directly up come the men, with a foreman of their own, with whom alone I have to deal. I tell only him what I want done; I settle with him alone; I complain to him, and hold him alone responsible. He understands English; and this system simplifies things amazingly. If I employed white men I should have to instruct, reprove, watch, and pay each one separately; and of a hundred, a quarter, at least, would be dropping out day after day for one cause or another. Moreover, with my Chinese comes up a cook for every twenty men, whom I pay, and provisions of their own which they buy. Thus I have nobody to feed and care for. They do it themselves."
This is the reply I have received in half a dozen instances where I made inquiry of men who employed from twenty-five to two hundred Chinese. Any one can see that, with such an organization of labor, many things can be easily done which under our different and looser system a man would not rashly undertake. So far as I have been able to learn, such a thing as a gang of Chinese leaving a piece of work they had engaged to do, unless they were cheated or ill-treated, is unknown. Then they don't drink whisky. With all this, any one can see that they need not work cheaply. To a man who wants to get a piece of work done their systematic ways are worth a good deal of money. In point of fact, they are quick enough to demand higher wages.
