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Senator Hill's query was forthwith answered. Mahone was welcomed by the Republicans with open arms. President Garfield sent a bouquet of flowers to his desk, and Federal patronage in Virginia was placed at his disposal.

THE CHINESE QUESTION

A STORM of indignation from the Pacific Coast fell upon President Arthur's head when, in 1882, he vetoed a bill for restricting Chinese immigration. To understand the reason of his act and of its unpopularity, a brief review is necessary.

What originally brought the Chinaman to our shores was the discovery of gold in California. At first he was not unwelcome. Said the Alta California of May 12, 1851: "Quite a large number of Celestials have arrived among us of late, enticed hither by the golden romance which has filled the world. Scarcely a ship arrives that does not bring an increase of this worthy integer of our population." The "worthy integer" was soon engaged in an exciting though not enviable part of the "golden romance," for the next year we read that gangs of miners were "running out" Chinese settlers. This race strife on the coast was incessant both during and after the war.

Meantime, Anson Burlingame, our Minister to China, who during an intercourse of some years had come to possess the confidence of the Chinese in an unusual degree, had been entrusted by them with a mission which at first seemed as though it might lead to new relations. On his return he bore credentials constituting him China's ambassador to the United States and to Europe. He proceeded to negotiate with this country a treaty of amity, which was signed on July 4, 1868. But anti-Chinese agitation did not cease. In 1871 occurred a riot in the streets of Los Angeles, when fifteen Chinamen were hanged and six others shot, Chinamen having murdered one police officer and wounded two others. In 1879 an anti-Chinese bill passed Congress, but was vetoed by President Hayes as repugnant to the Burlingame treaty. Rage against the Celestials, to which

all forces in the Pacific States had bent, being thus baffled at Washington, grew more clamorous than ever.

On September 28, 1878, a new Chinese embassy waited upon President Hayes. The ambassador, Chen Lan Pin, wore the regulation bowl-shaped hat, adorned with the scarlet button of the second order and with a depending peacock plume, caught by jewelled fastenings. His garments were of finest silk. He had on a blouse with blue satin collar, a skirt of darker stuff, sandal-shaped shoes, and leggings of the richest kid. His letter of credence was drawn by an attendant from a cylinder of bamboo embellished with gold. In this document the Emperor expressed the hope that the embassy would "eventually unite the East and the West under an enlightened and progressive civilization." The indirect issue of this embassage was a fresh treaty, ratified in March, 1881, amending the Burlingame compact.

That compact, recognizing as inalienable the right of every man to change his abode, had permitted the free immigration of Chinamen into the United States. The new treaty of 1881 so modified this feature that immigration might be regulated, limited, or suspended by us for no specified period should it threaten to affect the interests of the United States or to endanger their good order. A bill soon followed prohibiting Chinese immigration for a period of twenty years, on the ground that the presence of the Mongolians caused disorder in certain localities. This was the bill which President Arthur vetoed as contravening the treaty, he objecting, among much else, to the system of passports and registration which the bill would impose upon resi dent Chinese. But the advocates of the exclusion policy were in earnest, wrought up by the growing hordes of Celestials pressing hither.

Only sixty-three thousand Chinese had been in the country in 1870; in 1880 there were one hundred and five thousand. Another bill was at once introduced, substituting ten for twenty years as the term of suspension, and it became a law in 1882. China sent a protest, which availed naught.

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Procession Wong Fong-the Most Representative Public Celebration Customary among the Chinese in San Francisco. Painted by Thulstrup from photographs by Taber.

KEARNEYISM

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Denis Kearney.

INTERWOVEN with the Chinese agitation, as well as with nearly all the national problems of that day and this, was the movement known as Kearneyism, which took form in California in 1877 and found expression in the State Constitution of 1879. Habits of mental unrest, engendered by speculation and the gold fever, had marked California society since 1849. tendency existed to appeal to extra legal measures for peace and justice. The golden dream had faded. Although wages were higher in California than in most parts of the country, working people there showed much discontent. no State had land grants been more lavish or the immense size of landed estates more injurious. Farming their vast tracts by improved machinery, the proprietors each season hired great throngs of laborers, who, when work was over, betook themselves to the cities and swelled the ranks of the unemployed. Worse yet, California was in the hands of a railroad monopoly which by threats or blandishments controlled nearly every State official. Politics was corrupt, and political factions, with their selfish and distracting quarrels, were numerous. The politician was hated next to the "Nob" who owned him.

In

The immediate occasion of Kearney ism was the great railroad strike at the East in 1877. The California lines, having announced a reduction of wages, were threatened with a similar strike, but took alarm at the burning and fighting in Pittsburg and rescinded the notice. Nevertheless a mass-meeting was called to express sympathy with the Eastern strikers. It was held

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city for a few days. Among the pickhandle brigadiers was Denis Kearney, a man at once extreme in theories and language and singularly temperate in personal habits. Born in 1847, at Oakmount, Ireland, from eleven years of age to twenty-five he had followed the sea, but since 1872 had prospered as a drayman in San Francisco. He was short, well built, with a broad head, a light mustache, a quick but lowering blue eye, ready utterance, and a pleasant voice. He was of nervous temperament, and had the bluster and domineering way of a sailor, withal possessing remarkable shrewdness, enterprise, and initiative. For two years he had spent part of each Sunday at a lyceum for self-culture, where he had levelled denunciations at the laziness and extravagance of the working classes, at the opponents of Chinese immigration, and at anti-capitalists in general.

For some reason, whether from a change of heart, or on account of unlucky dabbling in stocks, or because rebuffed by Senator Sargent, Kearney determined to turn about and agitate against all that he had held dear. On September 12, 1877, a company of the

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Denis Kearney being drawn through the Streets of San Francisco after his release from the House of Correction. The process.on passing the Lotta Fountain in Market Street.

Painted by Howard Pyle from photographs by Taber and a description by Kearney himself.

R. C. Winthrop.

of 20,000 other workingmen. The party will then wait upon all who employ Chinese and ask for their discharge, and it will mark as public enemies those who refuse to comply with their request. This party will exhaust all peaceable means of attaining its ends, but it will not be denied justice when it has power to enforce it. It will encourage no riot or outrage, but it will not volunteer to repress or put down or arrest or prosecute the hungry and impatient who manifest their hatred of the Chinamen by a crusade against John or those who employ him. Let those who raise the storm by their selfishness suppress it themselves. If they dare raise the devil, let them meet him face to face.'

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M. Glennan, the Virginia Commissioner of the Yorktown Centennial Celebration.

unemployed in San Francisco assembled and organized "The "The Workingmen's Party of California." Its salient principles were the establishment of a State Bureau of Labor and Statistics and of a State Labor Commission, the legal regulation of the hours of labor, the abolition of poverty, along with all land and moneyed monopoly, and the ejection of the Chinese. Kearney, conspicuous among the extremists, was chosen president. His advanced ideas were incorporated into the party's creed, as follows:

"We propose to wrest the government from the hands of the rich and place it in those of the people. We propose to rid the country of cheap Chinese labor. We propose to destroy land monopoly in our State. We propose to destroy the great money power of the rich by a system of taxation that will make great wealth impossible. We propose to provide decently for the poor and unfortunate, the weak, the helpless, and especially the young, because the country is rich enough to do so, and religion, humanity, and patriotism demand that we should do so. We propose to elect none but competent workingmen and their friends to any office. The rich have ruled us till they have ruined us. We will now take our own affairs into our own hands. The republic must and shall be preserved, and only workingmen will do it. Our shoddy aristocrats want an emperor and a standing army to shoot down the people. When we have 10,000 members we shall have the sympathy and support

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Soon began the memorable sand-lot meetings, made famous by the San Francisco Chronicle, which sent its best reporters to describe them. From his new eminence the agitator returned this favor by advising his hearers to boycott the Morning Call and subscribe for its rival, the Chronicle. His speeches were directed partly against the Chinese, but chiefly against the "thieving politicians" and "blood-sucking capitalists." At one gathering he suggested that every workingman should get a gun, and that some judicious hanging of aristocrats was needed. The sand-lot audiences were largely composed of foreigners, Irishmen being the most numerous, but even the Germans caught the infection. The orator could cater to their prejudices with effect, as he did in an address before the German Club in March, 1878: "Pixley said to me that the narrow-faced Yankees in California would clean us out, but I just wish they would try it. I would drive them into the sea or die." On the other hand, in the Kearneyites' Thanksgiving-day parade, appealing to the whole people, none but United States flags were carried and none but Union

veterans carried them. The leader affected the integrity and stoicism of a Cato. As Cato concluded every oration of his with the impressive "Carthago de

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