Very few of the Chinamen have brought their wives over with them, and the females who are here are nearly all prostitutes; so the men do their own cooking and washing. They are nearly all good at this, however; and I have learned that they are taught to do this in their native land. It appears that none of them come to this country with the intention of staying, but intend only to make little fortunes and then take it back to China; and it is said that the bones of every deceased one are sent home for interment. They are therefore very economical, and live almost exclusively on rice and cooked fish. The former they have shipped from China by the wholesale, and the latter they catch themselves; so that grub costs them very little.
At meal-time groups of from six to twelve gather round a large pot of rice and a great dish of cooked fish and take their meals. Each person is provided with a cup, and two little sticks, about the size of a lead-pencil, which they hold in their fingers like a bone-rattler holds his bones. The rice is dipped into the cup and the cup is placed to the lips; and as they rake the rice into their mouths with the sticks it makes an observer think of playing the jew’s-harp. Now and then they reach over and clamp a piece of fish between the sticks. And they appear to relish this food as much as though it were the richest delicacy.
At night they gather in squads and crouch together upon the floor like hogs. They have but a few blankets for beds. By living in this way their expenses are consequently very light; and the poor, laboring white man is underbidden in his labor, while the slaving washer-woman is driven from her tub by this heathen competition.
The sorrowful consequences of Chinese competition can never be realized until once observed. Some say it is right,—that what one human lives on, another should be able to. But I say shame on the person who would ask, or even wish to see his fellow-man live as do these vile, filthy, heathen competitors. We boast of our land and Government as being the pride of the world, the asylum of the oppressed, the home for the weary, where labor is fairly rewarded, and where human happiness is not all drowned by the necessary cares of life. To ask this competition is to ask our laboring brothers to live as the subjects of the most wicked tyrant on the earth, and our poor sisters as she who comes down the foreign hill-side with a great load upon her head, knitting on the way. There are about fifty thousand in the city; and every ship from China brings more to the shore. It is needless to say that the laboring classes are indignant at the outrage, and that the city is constantly in the wildest commotion. In their part of the town they have dark secret excavations in the earth, entered by trap-doors and narrow passes, and in here are their opium-dens, and gambling-hells, and prostitution apartments. No ray of sunlight ever reaches these cells; and the fumes of filth and crime ooze out of the crevices like smoke from a kiln. There are some back streets in which it is not safe to travel after dark; and the air is contaminated with the most loathsome, contagious, and dangerous diseases. Some of these low places have been broken up by the police; but they have never been able to find half of them.
There are three political parties in California—the Republican, Democratic, and the Workingmen’s Party of California (W. P. C.)—the latter led by Dennis Kearney. We were there during the campaign of 1879, and more excitement I never saw. The only issue was the Chinese question; and each candidate would hop upon a wagon or store-box every night, and cry out, “Elect me, and the Chinese with their leprosy shall be driven from the state. Vote for me, and I will make hell a paradise,” etc., etc. The W. P. C. is composed of the vile dregs of almost every nation; and decency and manhood are not to be found in its ranks. Dennis Kearney is a rash, illiterate, blood-thirsty fiend, whose regular business is draying—an occupation he is only calculated for; and to see this mob parading the streets, with Chinamen stamped upon their banners in all horrible positions, shouting, profaning, and declaring open violence to the Chinese and all persons who speak for them, is enough to disgust man with his fellow-kindred. The question is worthy of agitation; but violence is not the instrument with which to cure the evils of a civilized world. Kearney is bold, rash, and ambitious; and these are the qualities admired by such people as belong to the W. P. C. It is wonderful, the influence this man has over his followers.
Most persons know about the DeYoung-Kalloch tragedy; and the truth is as follows, for I was there and saw the shooting: DeYoung was the editor of the Chronicle (a Republican paper), and I. M. Kalloch was a minister—a smart man, but one whose religion was as transient as the morning dew, and who, wishing a political benefit, stepped from the sacred altar into the polluted ranks of Kearney’s howling mob. He was nominated for mayor of the city, and went about agitating and encouraging his party to violence in the strongest language. He abused the leaders of other parties in bitter phrases; and upon one occasion referred to DeYoung as a lousy bastard, nursed and reared in the lap of a prostitute, and whose life was poison to San Francisco. DeYoung got to hear of the infamous charges made against his poor old mother, whose body was laid in the grave, and, unable to control his temper, he hired a coupe and negro to drive him to Kalloch’s house, and sent in for him to come out, saying that a lady wished to see him. As he came near the coupe, DeYoung flung open the door and fired upon him, one ball passing into his body and another into his groins. He fell. But before DeYoung could finish his work a mob turned over the coupe and jerked him out; and but for the brave police, he would have been mangled beyond recognition in a few minutes. DeYoung was bound over in bail of twenty thousand dollars, to answer the charge of shooting with intent to kill; but before he was tried he was killed by his victim’s son. I. M. Kalloch recovered from his wounds, and, having been elected, served the city as mayor.
DeYoung was murdered by young I. S. Kalloch as follows: One evening, a little after twilight,—after I. M. Kalloch was sound and well, and was tilling his office,—DeYoung came from his home and entered his office; but before he got behind the desk, I. S. Kalloch, who had been prowling around the building watching his opportunity, rushed through the door and fired upon his victim. His first two shots took slight effect; and DeYoung was behind his desk and had his own pistol raised when a third ball from his assailant entered his mouth and laid him dying upon the floor at the feet of his brother Michael. The murderer was seized and put in jail, and the Workingmen’s Party called a meeting at the Sand Lots and had a grand jollification over the result; and extravagant eulogiums were heaped upon young Kalloch, who was so brave and who served his party so well. He had his trial; and though clearly guilty of murder in the first degree, and deserving of blackest torture known to the law, he was acquitted on the ground of self-defense. His party was overjoyed at the result, and loading him in a carriage they pulled him by hand all over the city.
Charles DeYoung was a bitter partisan, and made use of extravagant language from the stump, but I. M. Kalloch was infinitely worse; and though the latter made a low, cowardly assault upon a poor old woman whose body was returning to the dust from whence it came, and should have been stoned from the stand, DeYoung was certainly not justified in his shooting at the time he did it, and should have been punished; but it was clearly not the part of the Kallochs, who came down out of the pulpit and placed themselves at the head of the ranks of an indecent mob, to administer it. Excitement was running high at the time DeYoung shot Kalloch, and the Chinese, knowing that they were the cause of the trouble, were daily expecting an outbreak. When the report of the pistol was heard, and people rushed to and fro, Chinatown was in a stir; and every little old back shed and kitchen-roof was covered with Chinamen with shot-guns and big rocks, fully expecting an attack, and determined to fight it out. Such jabbering one never heard. Terror reigned supreme, and mobs of indecent, beastly wretches ran through the streets crying for violence and mob-law. A meeting of the party was called to determine what to do; and in the afternoon several thousand people assembled at the Sand Lots—a couple of lots just outside the corporation, where the sand is very deep, and where the W. P. C.’s held their meetings. The assembly was addressed by several of the leaders. Whenever a man would get up and did not talk straight “hang,” he was jerked down and the mob would yell like tigers; but when a speaker would cry for blood, and pollute the very air with profanity, the hearts would beat quick and the eyes glisten. There were several guns and pistols glistening in the crowd, and for awhile things looked a little like hanging; and the party being in a majority in the city, it could have been accomplished. But about the time the resolution was to be adopted a dispatch was received from Kearney (who was away), asking them to wait until he arrived. By this time the jail was surrounded by a strong military guard, and the violence was not attempted.
Such is W. P. C., and such is the true history of the DeYoung-Kalloch troubles. I have, perhaps, dwelt longer upon this subject than I have been justified in doing; but I was so utterly disgusted with the beastly actions of these villains, and so fully impressed with the violence threatened to justice, and the danger into which a government is plunged where illiteracy takes the throne, that I could not refrain.
When it was known that the Grant party were to stop in the city, the citizens began to prepare for a grand reception. But Kearney called a meeting of his followers and denounced the Republican party in severest epithets. He called General Grant its leader, and denounced him as a tyrant who was seeking the power of the nation, and told his men not to turn out in the parade, but while they were marching through the streets they would meet at the Sand Lots and burn General Grant in effigy. The speech took great effect on the party, and it looked as though it would be hardly safe for the general to come to the city. Several of the good, resolute citizens waited upon Kearney and told him that if he ever attempted to carry out his threats his body would be pierced with a thousand bullets. The warning was sufficient; and on the arrival of the party, Kearney and his minions were quiet; and the Republican party fired thirty salutes from the Sand Lots in honor of the greatest general on earth.