101 



Again, there is a certain low grade of work which white laborers will 

 not look at, and glancing over at your sister Counties of San Joaquin, 

 Sacramento, and Yolo, I find that it is the impression there that had 

 it not been for the Chinese the dykes would not have been built, and 

 reclamation would still be in its damp, swaddling clothes! 



The Chinese are objectionable in many particulars, of course ; they 

 don't go to church, and they don't support the schools; but, on the 

 other hand, they don't hang around the bar-rooms playing pedro, 

 and get drunk on tangle-brain and swipes. Now all this will, I am 

 afraid, give you the idea that I am indulging in a panegyric on the 

 Celestial; on the contrary, I would not grieve if there was not one in 

 the State. But I am speaking thus plainly for three reasons. Reason 

 the first is, that the prevailing tone of the city press is rather an 

 ungenerous one. The writers dip their pens in gall, and slash away 

 diatribes against that bugbear John Chinaman, and would have us 

 believe he is the plague of the nation. They simply argue from one 

 set of facts and ignore another set. You of Sonoma and Marin know 

 that partiality for Chinese labor, to the exclusion of white labor, is 

 not to be laid at your doors; and that the cause of so much idleness 

 is not to be laid exclusively at the door of the Chinaman's tent. City 

 knowledge and country knowledge are both good in their way, but 

 they should be driven in pair and not singly. For instance, a clever 

 editor learns that so many hundred Chinese are employed by you, 

 and that so many hundred white men hang around the employment 

 offices of San Francisco every day. He concludes that you are to 

 blame for this, and forthwith calls you unpatriotic and grinding. 

 Let this clever writer take a ride through the country and get at the 

 reasons for Chinese employment, and his virulence will melt away as 

 gently as a pound of butter in a hot sun. 



Reason the second is, that you may rest satisfied that there are 

 some who judge you as fairly as possible, and who appreciate the 

 difficulty of your position. 



Reason the third is, that at this public meeting, and through what- 

 ever aftermeans of publicity may be accorded these words, I embrace 

 the opportunity of telling the white workingman plainly that he is 

 largely responsible for the prevalence of Chinese labor, and that the 

 sooner he is willing to buckle down to a little hard work ; to toil in 

 the fields rather than loaf in the streets; to begin as a field-hand 

 rather than end as a receiver of alms; to be content with moderate 

 and steady pay rather than worry for immoderate wages and drift 

 into unsteady habits; to learn to look hopefully ahead instead of 

 grumbling to have to rise at daybreak ; so much the sooner will he 

 get back into the place which he swears Ah Sin has usurped, but 

 which has really been lost by abdication. 



It is a favorite argument with those who turn up their noses at farm 

 work — noses that are as a rule of the bibulous order — that it does not 

 lead to anything better. A most mischievous mistake ! It is almost 

 invariably the initial point of a competency, if not of a fortune. 

 But let me support assertion by facts. The Herald, of Aurora (111.), 

 recently printed a list of well-to-do farmers who commenced life as 

 farm laborers. The Herald says: 



We present for the encouragement of young men the names of a number of farmers in this 

 immediate vicinity who commenced working out at very low wages, and who have succeeded 

 in making a living, besides laying up something for a rainy day. The names are well known 



