The Labor Agitator's 'Foreigner' Problem

Seattle, Sept. 28, 1885. Editor Post-Intelligencer: Will you be kind enough to answer the following questions? First. The undersigned paid out about $4,000 last year for labor performed by persons of foreign birth, not Chinamen. Now, in view of the present agitation on the labor question, did I do right? Or should I have employed none but native born citizens? Second. If it is right to drive the Chinese out, why not do it in the daytime, and not under cover of darkness and with masks on the faces? Third. It is said there are two or more millions of idle men in the United States and about one hundred and fifty thousand Chinamen. Now, if the Chinamen are all driven out, there will yet remain one million eight hundred and fifty thousand men without places. Who will next be attacked? Jews, French, Italians or Germans? For there must be places made for the two millions of unemployed men. Fourth. Has any man or set of men the right to tell me whom I may employ, or to discharge any one in my employ? And if they have such right, then where is the freedom which we boast so much about? I have never hired a Chinaman to do day's work except in the kitchen, because I can get white men to do my work at satisfactory rates, but no man shall dictate to me whom I may employ. Great stress is put on the statement that the Chinese send all or nearly all of their earnings to China. We'll admit that such is the fact. Do they not leave their labor? Whereas, the fifty or more saloons in Seattle draw their supplies from San Francisco and elsewhere, and have to send the money away from here to pay for the vile stuff which they deal out to get more money to buy more whisky, and in the end it creates drunkenness, crime, litigation, heavy taxation and misery untold. There is a great howl about the danger of the whole country being overrun and gobbled up by the hordes of Chinese that might rush into America, and nothing is said about the mighty influx of foreigners through the Eastern doors of the United States. Foreign immigration amounted to near a half million during last year. Who is it that is responsible for the greater portion of the disturbances all over the country—strikes, mobs and riots? I say who but the ignorant and lawless men of foreign birth? The question arises now, how long are the American people going to keep the doors wide open to foreigners to come in here and override law and order and human rights? I say, enforce the restriction act, and pass another for the other end of the continent, and enforce that and compel all, both foreign born and native, to behave themselves and respect the rights of others. Then will we have peace and quiet, and not before. D. T. Davis.