Two Years in Oregon

by Wallis Nash

In the summer of 1880 there occurred an election of Senators and Representatives to the State Legislature, and also to the county offices of clerk, sheriff, assessor, coroner, surveyor, and commissioners.

The whole apparatus of caucuses and canvasses was put in operation, and the candidates nominated on both Republican and Democratic "tickets" perambulated the county, and addressed audiences in every precinct from the "stump."

The Greenbackers had the courage of their opinions and put candidates in the field. Indeed, one of the precincts in the burned-woods country, of which I have already discoursed, enjoyed the proud distinction of casting more votes for the "Greenback" candidate than for either of the two great parties.

I attended some of these meetings and listened to the stump-speeches with much interest. That which caused the current of eloquence on all hands to run fastest was the Chinese question. How vehemently have I heard denounced the yellow-faced, pig-eyed, and tailed Mongolians who were spreading like locusts over the face of the country, and ousting the poor but honest and industrious white laborer from those employments to which he is specially adapted—how they sucked the life-blood of the people in order to carry their ill-gotten gains across the seas; how their barbarous language and filthy social habits "riz the dander" of these orators, while the audience loudly applauded every strong stroke of the brush! At the torch-light processions which closed some of the evening meetings, transparencies were carried about by citizens staggering under their weight, which depicted Chinamen in various conditions of terror flying from the boot-tips of energetic Americans; or, on the opposite back, the poor but honest white man prostrate on the ground, while a fat Chinaman sat heavily on his breast.

Such an obvious current of popular opinion set an on-looker to rub his eyes, and feel if he were dreaming.

For, go into nearly every house inhabited by a family, in or near any town in the State, and you will find one or more Chinamen doing the house-service. Walk through the streets, and you will meet a blue-coated Asiatic with a big clothes-basket of clean linen on his shoulders. Here and there in the streets hangs a sign: "Hop Kee," "Sam Lin," "Lee Chung," "Ah Sin," "Washing," or "Chinese Laundry," and "Labor provided," or "Intelligence-Office," and through the steamy windows you catch a glimpse of white-shirted Chinamen, bending over their ironing, and a mixed gabble of strange "Ahs" and "Yahs" strikes the ear as you pass by.

CHINESE TRADING.I went up the Columbia River to the Dalles the other day. At the Dalles was a camp for the night of about five hundred Chinamen, being transferred by the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company from work higher up the river to some of the heavy rock-cutting and tunneling between the Dalles and the Lower Cascades. I stood and watched them at their suppers. Divided into messes of twelve or fifteen each, they had supplied themselves with beef in the town. Holes were dug in the ground, sticks lighted in them, and large pans set on to boil, and, with plenty of salt and pepper, a savory smell soon arose. Large pans of rice were boiling by the side, and before long each man's portion was ladled out into a real China basin, which he held in one hand close to his mouth, while the chop-sticks moved at a terrible rate in the fingers of the other hand. Such uncouth figures!—bronzed in tint, short and heavy in form, clad in thick blanket-coats, with knee-boots; turbans round most heads made of heavy scarlet woolen comforters, and a few old hats among the crowd; and a constant gabble of voices, nearly deafening in the aggregate. Their little tents were pitched on the river-bank close at hand, and a huge pile of their unmistakable baggage lay heaped, with their shovels and axes, on the deck of the great scow hard by. The town was full of them, buying or bargaining in every store. I marked a group of four who wanted a pair of strong scissors. They were asked fifty cents in a store. They examined the scissors and tried to cheapen them in vain, and then left. They tried four stores in turn, but found no better article, and the same price; then returned to their first love, and strove hard for a reduction in vain. Again they went the round; again they came back: on the fourth visit the patience of the Jewish gentleman behind the counter gave way, and he told them to take it or leave it, they should not see the scissors again. Most unwillingly, and after a vast amount of breathing on the blades to see how quickly the vapor disappeared, the half-dollar came forth and the scissors changed owners. They are the closest buyers in the world. The next morning by seven o'clock the tents were struck, the Chinamen on board the steamer, and in the afternoon we passed them hard at work, spread in a long line on the face of a terrible rock, which looked as if five thousand Chinamen might work at it in vain for a year to make a fit passage for the train.

But without them how would these great works get done? Later on I intend describing some of the undertakings in progress in the State. Delay in them—still worse, the stoppage of them—would be a calamity indeed. After all, the Chinamen work for about eighty or ninety cents a day, and out of this sum the contractor has to find them food. The food, save the rice, is purchased in the State; the material of the clothes they wear is manufactured and sold in the United States; the tools they work with also. So that it is only the profit on their labor's price which goes to China; and some of that goes to pay their passage in the ships which transport them to and fro. And their labor remains—its results felt by every passenger and freighter on the railroads, and every Oregonian directly or indirectly interested in increasing the population of the State.

Naturally, it is easy to have too much Chinaman. I should grieve to see them multiply so as to dominate the State. Excellent servants, but bad masters.

And by all means let us have treaties with China to enable the influx of these Mongolians to be regulated. Already we have laws forbidding the employment of Chinamen on government or municipal public works. And I do not see that there is any economy in the working or superiority in the labors on such undertakings.