The Hypocrisy of the Anti-Chinese Movement
An editorial rebuke to Seattle businessmen who exploited anti-Chinese fervor for public clout while quietly retaining their labor, amid rising local tensions.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
There are instances in this city of people who discharged their Chinese employees a week or more ago in deference to public sentiment, taking to themselves great credit for their so-called patriotic action, and who have reemployed them since the arrival of the United States troops. Nothing can be more despicable than the action of such people. They now regard with contempt the sentiments which they avowed a week ago, and hasten to assert that they did only through fear that for which they were eager to obtain credit as philanthropic and public-spirited citizens.
Of course, a man has a legal right to hire such labor as he chooses and to pay such rates as the laborer will accept. Morally, however, a man is bound to so conduct himself in his business relations, as well as in his private life, that those among whom his lot is cast will share with him the benefits which he enjoys. If it was public duty to discharge your Chinese servant a week ago, it is no less public duty not to employ one now. If the motives for which you claimed credit were honest, you should not disown them now. Do you not see that you convict yourself in all eyes of cowardice, and in most cases of falsehood?
“Do you not see that you convict yourself in all eyes of cowardice, and in most cases of falsehood?”
The 1885 anti-Chinese riots and labor displacement mirror contemporary debates in Seattle regarding displacement, scapegoating of marginalized workers, and the performative nature of corporate social responsibility. Just as in 1885, economic anxiety is often funneled into exclusionary politics that vanish when labor demand reasserts itself.
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