THE KEARNEY AGITATION IX CALIFORNIA. 449 



political movement growing from and taking advantage of popular 

 discontent ; while the new Constitution of California, destitute as it is 

 of any shadow of reform which will lessen social inequalities or purify 

 politics, exhibits the same tendencies as the newer constitutions of 

 other States. 



That Kearney or any considerable number of his followers ever 

 seriously thought of an appeal to force, either to get rid of the Chinese 

 or for any other purpose, I have not the slightest idea. The working- 

 men's military companies, of which a few were formed, would not have 

 been at any time a flea-bite to the strong and well-appointed militia 

 of the city, and were merely an amusement a sort of set-off and imi- 

 tation of the Committee of Public Safety. And it must be remem- 

 bered that these vague suggestions of violence not only, as I have 

 before said, secured resistance which turned latent force into political 

 power, but the agitation did considerably check Chinese employment 

 and immigration, while the passage of an anti-Chinese bill by Congress 

 (though this bill was denounced at the time by Kearney), was claimed 

 as one of its results. 



And though capital has been frightened, at times seriously fright- 

 ened, by this agitation, it must not be thought that this fright has been 

 shared by all the property classes. On the contrary, the inner and 

 influential circle of Kearney's backers and supporters have been men 

 of more or less property, and large moneyed interests have sought to 

 use the movement. Neither in platforms nor candidates has there 

 been any leaning to the questioning of property rights. One Parisian 

 communist was elected to the Convention, but he exercised no influ- 

 ence, and was expelled from the party for refusing to support the new 

 Constitution. But, with this exception, the Workingmen's candidates 

 have been no more radical than the average of American politicians. 

 At the last election, for instance, their ticket was headed by a graduate 

 of the University of California, who has been prominent in the party 

 since it first assumed importance, and one of its candidates at every 

 election. He belongs to a Jewish family who do a profitable manu- 

 facturing business, and not only disclaimed anything like socialism or 

 agrarianism, but appealed to the corporation lawyers with whom he 

 served in the Convention to certify to his conservatism. And next to 

 him came a rich land-owner who has given a hundred thousand dollars 

 for the establishment of a law-school, of which he is dean. What 

 Kearney and his party have practically proposed has been merely the 

 remedy which their preachers, teachers, and influential newspapers are 

 constantly prescribing to the American people as the great cure-all 

 elect honest men to office, and have them cut down taxation ; a remedy 

 which belongs to the same category as the recipe for catching a little 

 bird by sprinkling salt on its tail ! 



Now, I do not mean to say that there has been nothing in this 

 movement to excite alarm ; that the classes whose fright has led them 

 vol. xvn. 29 



