Volume 033-1 - January 1979 (6 pages)

shacks and tents, and lived on such oddities as dried fish, bamboo, sweet rice and seaweed. But the amusement was short lived and the curiosity soon sated. The clothes, the foods, the strange religions observed by these foreigners became anathema to the miners and merchants who worked the mountain and river towns where gold lay thick. The white miners resented any encroachment upon the richest mining claims and soon the Chinese were left to work only the tailings. Even here they were assessed a whopping $3 a month foreign miner’s tax, (a tax levied only against the Chinese). This grew to $4, then $6, when often $6 a month was all that was realized from working over leavings that fell to the Chinese miner. Few, if any, Chinese returned to their native land enriched from their mining efforts. Poverty and unpaid passage commitments held them captive in a hostile climate where they became the butt ofjokes, target ofscorn and frequently the victims of cruel violence. Despite the unpleasant atmosphere in which they scratched out a bare existence, the Chinese built for themselves a reputation for industry and diligence. The decision makers who wielded the power recognized a tremendous asset in the working habits displayed by the Chinese and, more important, saw in them a source of cheap labor. Mining companies encouraged them to come; railroad magnates encouraged them to stay; though encouraged is scarcely the word. Where does a man go when he is penniless, without friends and in a country whose language he knows not? Does one have to encourage a squirrel to run himself silly on a wheel in a cage? When mining hit a recession, as it did in the 1860s, the construction gangs for the Central Pacific Railroad were being formed. ‘‘Hire the Chinese,” the chief superintendent of the CP instructed. But his construction supervisor, Irish to his boot tips, refused. “I’ll not boss Chinese,” he said. The workers he would boss, however, proved to be so inept and troublesome that he was forced to turn to the Chinese and by the Fall of 1865 there were 3000 on the payroll. This doubled, then tripled and eventually depleted the entire supply of local Chinese. The railroad began recruiting from the Far East, bringing in hundreds more of the people who already were being shunned and maltreated for having come in the first place. Work gangs of from 12 to 20 Chinese were formed with a cook allotted to each gang. The working hours were sunup to sun set. The pay? $1 a day. Conditions for white workers were not good. For Celestials, as they were called, they were deplorable. No allowance was made for those days when no sun came up and no sun went down. The Chinese worked right through what has been labelled as the most severe winter ever recorded. That year the Chinese tunneled through Donner Summit, living in shacks buried Commercial Street in Nevada City, which was part of the Chinese Quarter. in snow and never seeing sky. Snow slides were frequent. The Dutch Flat Enquirer reported in 1866: “‘A gang of Chinamen employed by the railroad was covered up by snow and 4 or 5 died before they could be exhumed. The snow fell to such a depth that one entire encampment was covered up during the night.” When Spring came, the Chinese were pitted against the Cornish miners in a massive effort to complete the tunnel. At the end of each week, the work of the crews was measured. Always the Chinese outmeasured the Cornish miners. But when the Chinese struck for similar wages and similar hours, “Eight hour day good for white man, all the same good for Chinese,” they received no sympathy or kindred response from other workers. The strike failed and the Chinese workers continued to be whipped when rebellious and to be denied release to look for other work. in 1869 when the last spike was driven and the Central Pacific tracks were linked in Utah with those of the Union Pacific, the oratory that rolled from the lips of the top brass steamed with praise for those who had made the event possible. Only one man, Superintendent Charlie Crocker’s brother, E.B., had a word for the Chinese: “I wish to call to your minds that the early completion of this railroad we have built has beenin large measure due to that poor, despised class of laborers called the Chinese, to the fidelity and industry they have shown.” This meager recognition did nothing to lessen the low regard in which the Chinese were held, or to improve their lot. When railroad construction no longer required their labors, the Chinese in this area eeked out a living of sorts by working on the levees and dikes that were being built in the delta region to help reclaim otherwise worthless land. Here, again, the Chinese lived under almost subhuman conditions in tent encampments along the enbankments, paid considerably less than the white workers and shunned and ridiculed at every turn. Nonetheless, the work they did increased the value of the land from $1 an acre to as much as $100 an acre. One surveyor general of the state estimated the increased value ‘‘due to Chinese labor, building railroads and reclaiming tule lands alone at $289,700,000.” Such was the tenor of the times in the 1870s however, that the remarkable work habits of the Chinese, coupled with a 25 year old history of non violent and quiet habitation along the river banks of the gold towns, led not to a happy union with the other settlers or even to complacent acceptance. The feeling against the Chinese spread and deepened, turning more vicious each year. The angry temper of the people in the ’70s was due in large measure toa depression. Employment was not easy to find and resentment against the Chinese, who were able to work for and live on much less than the white worker, ran high. The press was happy to enlarge upon the already ugly expressions of hate. The Chinese laborer was described as “A slave reduced to the lowest term of beggarly economy, no fit competitor for an American free man..he herds in scores in small dens, where a white man and his wife could hardly breathe, and he has none of the wants of a civilized white man. His sister is a prostitute from instinct, religion, education and interest, and degrading to all around her. They defy the law, keep up the manners and customs of China and utterly disregard all the laws of health, decency and morality. The health, wealth, prosperity and happiness of our State demands their expulsion from our shores.” This was one of the opening gunsin the “The Chinese Must Go” campaign that got its start in the early ’70s and swelled to bitter and unmanageable proportions by 1879. Chinatowns in Truckee and other neighboring areas were burned down or wiped out. A crime against a Chinaman was no crime at all. Murder was overlooked or excused. If the Chinese were the victims, there rarely was a penalty. If however, they were the perpetrators, the penalty was usually disproportionately high. Some Chinese were shot to death for not paying their foreign miner’s tax. The man behind the gun was charged with nothing. On the other hand, the Chinese, noted for his love of gambling, could be sentenced toseveral months in jail if caught playing forbidden Fan Tan. Small wonder that when the gunpowder explosions that whumped in 1879 were cheered by the Occidentals, the Orientals exchanged sullen looks and buried their heads more deeply in their collarless coats. They were experts at reading the handwriting on the wall, and 1879 was not to be a good year for them. Let the nabobs on Nevada City’s seven hills ring the welkin and wait complacently to be engulfed by the promised prosperity of 1879, the Chinese would count their diminishing sm, number and bewail an income thatbarely withstood the counting. One year earlier, in 1878, there had been 328 Chinese in the rapidly expanding Mother Lode town. There had been several shops, restaurants and drug stores, and when the Chinese celebrated their own New Year, they

shacks and tents, and lived on such oddities as dried fish, bamboo, sweet rice and seaweed. But the amusement was short lived and the curiosity soon sated. The clothes, the foods, the strange religions observed by these foreigners became anathema to the miners and merchants who worked the mountain and river towns where gold lay thick. The white miners resented any encroachment upon the richest mining claims and soon the Chinese were left to work only the tailings. Even here they were assessed a whopping $3 a month foreign miner’s tax, (a tax levied only against the Chinese). This grew to $4, then $6, when often $6 a month was all that was realized from working over leavings that fell to the Chinese miner. Few, if any, Chinese returned to their native land enriched from their mining efforts. Poverty and unpaid passage commitments held them captive in a hostile climate where they became the butt ofjokes, target ofscorn and frequently the victims of cruel violence. Despite the unpleasant atmosphere in which they scratched out a bare existence, the Chinese built for themselves a reputation for industry and diligence. The decision makers who wielded the power recognized a tremendous asset in the working habits displayed by the Chinese and, more important, saw in them a source of cheap labor. Mining companies encouraged them to come; railroad magnates encouraged them to stay; though encouraged is scarcely the word. Where does a man go when he is penniless, without friends and in a country whose language he knows not? Does one have to encourage a squirrel to run himself silly on a wheel in a cage? When mining hit a recession, as it did in the 1860s, the construction gangs for the Central Pacific Railroad were being formed. ‘‘Hire the Chinese,” the chief superintendent of the CP instructed. But his construction supervisor, Irish to his boot tips, refused. “I’ll not boss Chinese,” he said. The workers he would boss, however, proved to be so inept and troublesome that he was forced to turn to the Chinese and by the Fall of 1865 there were 3000 on the payroll. This doubled, then tripled and eventually depleted the entire supply of local Chinese. The railroad began recruiting from the Far East, bringing in hundreds more of the people who already were being shunned and maltreated for having come in the first place. Work gangs of from 12 to 20 Chinese were formed with a cook allotted to each gang. The working hours were sunup to sun set. The pay? $1 a day. Conditions for white workers were not good. For Celestials, as they were called, they were deplorable. No allowance was made for those days when no sun came up and no sun went down. The Chinese worked right through what has been labelled as the most severe winter ever recorded. That year the Chinese tunneled through Donner Summit, living in shacks buried Commercial Street in Nevada City, which was part of the Chinese Quarter. in snow and never seeing sky. Snow slides were frequent. The Dutch Flat Enquirer reported in 1866: “‘A gang of Chinamen employed by the railroad was covered up by snow and 4 or 5 died before they could be exhumed. The snow fell to such a depth that one entire encampment was covered up during the night.” When Spring came, the Chinese were pitted against the Cornish miners in a massive effort to complete the tunnel. At the end of each week, the work of the crews was measured. Always the Chinese outmeasured the Cornish miners. But when the Chinese struck for similar wages and similar hours, “Eight hour day good for white man, all the same good for Chinese,” they received no sympathy or kindred response from other workers. The strike failed and the Chinese workers continued to be whipped when rebellious and to be denied release to look for other work. in 1869 when the last spike was driven and the Central Pacific tracks were linked in Utah with those of the Union Pacific, the oratory that rolled from the lips of the top brass steamed with praise for those who had made the event possible. Only one man,

Superintendent Charlie Crocker’s brother, E.B., had a word for the Chinese: “I wish to call to your minds that the early completion of this railroad we have built has beenin large measure due to that poor, despised class of laborers called the Chinese, to the fidelity and industry they have shown.” This meager recognition did nothing to lessen the low regard in which the Chinese were held, or to improve their lot. When railroad construction no longer required their labors, the Chinese in this area eeked out a living of sorts by working on the levees and dikes that were being built in the delta region to help reclaim otherwise worthless land. Here, again, the Chinese lived under almost subhuman conditions in tent encampments along the enbankments, paid considerably less than the white workers and shunned and ridiculed at every turn. Nonetheless, the work they did increased the value of the land from $1 an acre to as much as $100 an acre. One surveyor general of the state estimated the increased value ‘‘due to Chinese labor, building railroads and reclaiming tule lands alone at $289,700,000.” Such was the tenor of the times in the 1870s however, that the remarkable work habits of the Chinese, coupled with a 25 year old history of non violent and quiet habitation along the river banks of the gold towns, led not to a happy union with the other settlers or even to complacent acceptance. The feeling against the Chinese spread and deepened, turning more vicious each year. The angry temper of the people in the ’70s was due in large measure toa depression. Employment was not easy to find and resentment against the Chinese, who were able to work for and live on much less than the white worker, ran high. The press was happy to enlarge upon the already ugly expressions of hate. The Chinese laborer was described as “A slave reduced to the lowest term of beggarly economy, no fit competitor for an American free man...he herds in scores in small dens, where a white man and his wife could hardly breathe, and he has none of the wants of a civilized white man. His sister is a prostitute from instinct, religion, education and interest, and degrading to all around her. They defy the law, keep up the manners and customs of China and utterly disregard all the laws of health, decency and morality. The health, wealth, prosperity and happiness of our State demands their expulsion from our shores.” This was one of the opening gunsin the “The Chinese Must Go” campaign that got its start in the early ’70s and swelled to bitter and unmanageable proportions by 1879. Chinatowns in Truckee and other neighboring areas were burned down or wiped out. A crime against a Chinaman was no crime at all. Murder was overlooked or excused. If the Chinese were the victims, there rarely was a penalty. If however, they were the perpetrators, the penalty was usually disproportionately high. Some Chinese were shot to death for not paying their foreign miner’s tax. The man behind the gun was charged with nothing. On the other hand, the Chinese, noted for his love of gambling, could be sentenced toseveral months in jail if caught playing forbidden Fan Tan. Small wonder that when the gunpowder explosions that whumped in 1879 were cheered by the Occidentals, the Orientals exchanged sullen looks and buried their heads more deeply in their collarless coats. They were experts at reading the handwriting on the wall, and 1879 was not to be a good year for them. Let the nabobs on Nevada City’s seven hills ring the welkin and wait complacently to be engulfed by the promised prosperity of 1879, the Chinese would count their diminishing sm, number and bewail an income thatbarely withstood the counting. One year earlier, in 1878, there had been 328 Chinese in the rapidly expanding Mother Lode town. There had been several shops, restaurants and drug stores, and when the Chinese celebrated their own New Year, they