Immigration

by Henry Pratt Fairchild

The power of the Molly Maguires was used primarily to further the ends of its members in their relations with the colliery owners and bosses; whenever a dispute arose between an employee and a boss, the latter would be served with a notice, frequently decorated with rude pictures of coffins, death’s heads, and the like, warning him to desist in his course or to leave the region. If he failed to obey, he was almost sure soon after to be waylaid and cruelly beaten, as well as to suffer social ostracism. The perpetrators of the deed of violence always escaped, and thus confidence and a sense of power grew in the organization.

Soon after the breaking out of the Civil War, conditions in the anthracite region became such as to improve the situation of the miners and add to the power of the Molly Maguires. They became more and more insolent in their demands, and ambitious in their purposes. They tried to gain control of the Miners’ Union, and also, with a measure of success, sought to dominate local politics, with their eye primarily upon the township funds. They succeeded in making the lives of the small mine owners such a burden that they were glad to sell out to the large combinations; thus the growth of large units and monopolies was fostered, as they alone could deal with the Molly Maguires on anything like terms of equality. In the meantime, the methods of the society increased in harshness and barbarity. Arson and murder took the place of beating. There arose a rivalry among the Mollies as to who should gain the greatest reputation for deeds of reckless savagery. Murder after murder was committed, without a conviction. The victims were often men of the highest repute and usefulness in their respective communities. The motives for the outrages increased in variety, including almost any injury, real or fancied, or any personal grudge on the part of a member of the society, though rarely were they committed for robbery. A general reign of terror settled down over the region, and vigilance committees were being formed for purposes of reprisal.

At this juncture, in 1873, Mr. Franklin B. Gowen, president of the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company, and a man of remarkable character, enlisted the services of the Pinkerton Detective Agency in the effort to stamp out the organization. A young Irish detective, James McParlan, was chosen for the dangerous and difficult work. He was instructed to go to the anthracite region, join the Molly Maguires, and get as high in their counsels as possible, in order that he might reveal their secrets to the authorities, thereby preventing outrages when possible and securing convictions where he could not prevent. He was successful in both efforts. After many months of work and peril he finally succeeded in securing sufficient evidence to accomplish the conviction of a large number of the members of the society, breaking down completely their customary defense of an alibi. In all, nineteen Molly Maguires were hanged, and a larger number imprisoned, and the power of the organization was completely shattered.

This series of events is a remarkable illustration of the way in which customs, and habits of thought, and standards of conduct, which have grown up by a natural process, and are comprehensible if not excusable in one land, may develop most alarming and disgraceful features when transplanted to a new environment. The essential strength of the Molly Maguires lay in that deep-seated hatred of an informer which has become a pronounced feature of the Irish character, as a result of the conditions to which they have been subjected at home. Thus, while the great mass of the Irish settlers of the anthracite region abhorred the principles and deeds of the Molly Maguires, it was almost impossible to secure witnesses against criminals whose identity was a matter of general knowledge, because of the greater repugnance to the character of an informer. The traditional hatred of the Irish peasant towards the landlord was, in this country, diverted to the capitalist class in a wholly unreasonable but efficient manner.

There is here, also, a striking demonstration of the capacity of a relatively small group of turbulent and unassimilated foreigners so to conduct themselves as to bring an undeserved disrepute upon their whole group, and foster economic and social changes in society which will last on long after they are all dead.[^[98]]

While the Irish and Germans were dominating the immigration situation on the Atlantic coast, the Chinese were occupying the center of the stage in the west. The stream of Chinese immigration became considerable at about the same time that the great increase in European immigration was taking place on the other side of the continent. As to its causes, Mrs. Mary Roberts Coolidge speaks as follows: “The first effective contact of China with Western nations was through the Opium War of 1840, which resulted in an increase of Chinese taxes, a general disturbance of the laboring classes, and the penetration of some slight knowledge of European ideas into the maritime provinces. Although this prepared the way for the emigration to the West, its precipitating cause lay in ‘the Golden Romance’ that had filled the world,”—that is, the news of the discovery of gold in California. “Masters of foreign vessels afforded every facility to emigration, distributing placards, maps, and pamphlets with highly colored accounts of the Golden Hills.... But behind the opportunity afforded by foreign shipping and the enticement of the discovery of gold lay deeper causes for emigration—the poverty and ruin in which the inhabitants of Southeastern China were involved by the great Taiping rebellion which began in the summer of 1850. The terrors of war, famine, and plundering paralyzed all industry and trade, and the agricultural classes of the maritime districts especially were driven to Hong Kong and Macao.”[^[99]] By the end of 1852 there were in the neighborhood of 25,000 Chinese on the Pacific coast, almost all of them in California.

During the first few years of their coming, the Chinese in California were welcomed, and were looked upon with favor. They were industrious, tractable, and inoffensive, and were willing to undertake the hard, menial, and disagreeable forms of labor—partly work generally done by women—for which native labor was not available under existing conditions. Their strange manners and customs aroused nothing more than feelings of curiosity. But gradually a feeling of opposition to them began to grow up, fomented by the jealousy and race prejudice of the miners. Their peculiar appearance and strange customs began to make them the objects of suspicion and hatred. This feeling was intensified by the presence of a large element of southerners in California, who classed all people of dark skin—“South Americans, South Europeans, Kanakas, Malays, or Chinese”—together as colored. Wild stories of their character and habits began to circulate, and with each repetition gained strength until they passed current as facts. Among these were the assertions that the Chinese were practically all coolies, or labor slaves, that they were highly immoral and vicious, that they had secret tribunals which inflicted the death penalty without due process of law, that they displaced native labor, that they could not be Christianized, that they had no intention of remaining as permanent residents of the country and would not assimilate with the natives, that they sent money out of the country, etc. Most of these charges have been proven to be either wholly false or highly exaggerated by recent investigations, and were so recognized by the more sober and fair-minded students of the subject at the time. But for the mass of the people of the Pacific coast, and for many in other parts of the country, they acquired all the force of established dogma, and their reiteration passed for argument.

The Chinaman became the scapegoat for all the ills that afflicted the youthful community, from whatever cause they really arose, and in time an anti-Chinese declaration came to be essential for the success of any political party or candidate. In such a state of public opinion it was inevitable that their lot should be a hard one. They were robbed, beaten, murdered, and persecuted in a variety of ways. The foreign miners’ license tax was used against them in a discriminating way which amounted to quasi legal plunder.

In 1876 the California State Legislature appointed a committee to look into the matter of Chinese immigration and to make a report. This was done in 1877, and although the resulting Address and Memorial to Congress have had a large influence in forming public opinion, and in shaping legislation, it appears that it was in fact a purely political document, and that everything was arranged in advance to secure a report which should accomplish a certain definite result—the satisfaction of the workingmen of the state, and the emphasizing of the necessity of federal legislation. The need of this was strongly felt, because nearly all the acts passed by the coast states against the Chinese had been declared either unconstitutional or a violation of treaty.

In response to the repeated demands of the coast states for some federal action, Congress in 1876 appointed a special committee on Chinese immigration, which made what purported to be a thorough investigation of the matter, and reported thereupon. The report was wholly anti-Chinese. But this was inevitable, as it is apparent from a careful study of the testimony, that the committee “came to its task committed to an anti-Chinese conclusion and that it had no judicial character whatever.”[^[100]] The evidence was willfully distorted to produce the desired result.