reading; and the anti-Chinese immigration question, thus started, though it continued to afford cause for occasional rioting in the mines and in some of the towns, had a rest.1

Bigler's attack upon the Chinese and Chinese immigration was considered by some of the most intelligent and liberal-minded classes of the community as very offensive and uncalled for. However objectionable the presence of the Chinese might be, it was not the place of the governor of the state to increase the prejudices and encourage the outrages that were being committed against them. There were therefore numerous answers to his message, and some of them by the Chinese themselves, in which it was supposed by many that they evinced a decided superiority to him, not only in temper but also in logic. However this may have been, Bigler found that he had not done himself any very great amount of credit by his course; and at the next session of the legislature he had nothing to say on the subject. Nor is it likely, if he had had anything to say, that it would have met with any favor. There had in fact a kind of reaction commenced in favor of Chinese immigration. Several bills, one of which proposed that "no Asiatic or person of Asiatic descent nor Chileno should be permitted to work in any of the mines of this state," had been introduced into the assembly and by that body referred to its committee on mines and mining interests; and on March 9, 1853, a majority of that committee, consisting of James H. Gardner, T. T. Cabaniss, Benjamin B. Redding, R. G. Reading and Patrick Cannay, presented a report against any act preventing or discouraging Chinese immigration.3

On the same day the same committee presented a report on the Chinese population then in the state. They said it consisted of about twenty-two thousand persons, mostly from the Canton district. They had divided themselves into four departments, representing that district. Each department had a house in San Francisco, presided over by two men, known as heads of the houses, who were elected by the Chinese of the department in this state. There was besides this a committee elected by the

1 Senate Journal, 1852, 373-378, 402, 731-737.

2 Annals of San Francisco, 381.

3

Senate Journal, 1853, 233; Appendix, Doc. 28, 3-6.

Chinese merchants of San Francisco, which acted in conjunction with the heads of the houses. Each immigrant recorded his name and contributed ten dollars to a fund for the payment of salaries and other department expenses. The heads of the houses granted passports, and allowed no person to leave the country till his debts were settled. The houses were used as hotels for boarding those who desired to go there, and also as hospitals, where the sick were attended by their own physicians. The houses also advanced money to those who were poor and unable otherwise to go to the mines or attend to other business. The heads of the houses acted as judges; enforced the collection of debts, and punished petty offenses-the more serious ones being sent to the state courts. In case of disputes between the heads of the houses, the committee heard and decided them. When a vacancy occurred in the heads of the houses, the committee and heads of other houses filled it temporarily until the votes of all the members could be collected by messengers, either to confirm the appointment or elect somebody else.

The heads of the houses, continued the report, enjoyed entire confidence and exerted a controlling influence. These gentlemen, Gee Atai and Lee Chuen of the See Yup Company, which had ninety-five hundred members; Tong K. Achick and Lum TeenKwei, of the Yaong Wo Company, which had seventy-five hundred members; Tam Sam and Chun Aching of the Canton Company, which had four thousand members, and Wong Sing and Lee Yuk Nam of the Suwon Company, which had one thousand members, had all appeared before the committee and, through Tong K. Achick as interpreter, stated their grievances. They complained that their testimony was not received in controversies with Americans and that they were taxed without being protected. They said that some of their people had been brought here under contracts to labor for employers, but that the practice had been found unprofitable and had been abandoned. Most all had come as their own masters and with their own means. Some had borrowed money and pledged their property; some had agreed to give the proceeds of their labor for a certain time, and some had pledged their children to be owned as slaves in case of non-payment. They estimated the

Chinese capital employed in this state, other than that employed in mining, at two millions of dollars.1

Cabaniss presented a separate report and went still further in favor of the Chinese. He said that one of the provisions of the proposed bills was to enable a white man to drive any Chinaman from his claim by ordering him off and paying for his ⚫ improvements. It was also proposed to exclude Chilenos, forgetting that Chili was a republic and a model republic in comparison with many others of South America whose people were not to be excluded. It was absurd to make such a provision for Chilenos only, even if any exclusion were proper or just. He then reviewed the efforts of the maritime nations to secure the trade of the East Indies-how it was obtained first by the Portuguese, then by the Dutch and then by the English. The one that held it was the holder of the commercial and maritime dominion of the East and with it was connected the rise and fall of nations. Our position and circumstances now promised us the golden prize, for which nations had so long contended. If we wish to become the first commercial power in the world, were we taking proper steps to reach that point? He believed in allowing the Chinese to remain and treating them with justice. On the other hand, John J. Hoff and Benjamin F. Myres, a minority of the committee, reported against the Chinese and recommended that miners might be given authority to adopt rules and regulations excluding foreigners, who could not become citizens, from working the mines in their districts. They talked of the degradation of white labor, the swarming in of the leprous multitudes and their condition of slavery. They pointed to the free negro race in some of the northern states as an incubus -a canker spot in society that blighted all the elements of purity and health, and warned against creating the same blight in California.2

At the next or 1854 session of the legislature, the first during Bigler's second term of office as governor, little or nothing more of a legislative character was done in reference to the Chinese than at the session of 1853. In the senate James W. Coffroth

2

Assembly Journal, 1853, 233; Appendix, Doc. 28, 7-12.

Assembly Journal, 1853, 233; Appendix, Doc. 28, 13-21.

presented a report of the committee on federal relations against Chinese immigration and said that at that time there were twenty-five thousand Asiatics in the state. On motion of Charles A. Tuttle, a futile resolution was adopted urging congress to allow California to impose a capitation tax on Asiatic immigrants to be paid by owners and masters of vessels before immigrants should be allowed to land. George W. Hook presented a report of the committee on vice and immorality to the effect that there had been a decrease of gambling, an increase of temperance, an increase of Sunday-school attendance and of refined society and an increase of anti-Chinese sentiment.' In the assembly H. B. Kellogg introduced a bill to prevent Asiatics from immigrating into or laboring in the state, and B. F. Myres a bill to prevent them from giving evidence in favor of or against any white person in a criminal case, both of which failed; and it was left for a later time and meaner legislature to place the lastmentioned disgraceful enactment upon the statute-book."

But what Myres failed to accomplish for the anti-Chinese cause in the legislature, Hugh C. Murray brought about through the enginery of the supreme court. The infamous provisions of the statutes of 1850 excluding Indians and negroes or mulattoes from giving evidence in favor of or against a white person either in civil or criminal cases were still in active force. Several attempts had been made to repeal them. At the legislature of 1852, as has been seen, Patrick Cannay presented a petition for that purpose, which was almost unanimously rejected. At the legislature of 1853 W. Meredith renewed the fight by presenting in the assembly a memorial of colored persons praying for an amendment of the civil practice act so as to allow them to testify. George Carhart moved that the memorial should be rejected by throwing the same out of the window. Patrick Cannay, who occupied the chair at the time, ruled the motion out of order but said that he would entertain a motion to reject. Carhart appealed and the chair was sustained. J. P. McFarland moved to reject. A. G. McCandless moved as an amendment that the memorial be burned. The chair decided the amendSenate Journal, 1854, 574-576, 600, 623, 624. 2 Assembly Journal, 1854, 265. 496, 498.

ment out of order, whereupon Charles A. Leake appealed; but the chair was again sustained-this time by twenty-eight ayes to twenty-three noes. It was evident, however, from the temper of the house that the time for justice to the negroes had not yet arrived. The motion to reject was adopted by fifty-three ayes, no one voting in the negative; and on motion of Elcan Heydenfeldt the clerk was directed not to file the memorial among the papers of the house.1

In the meanwhile a man, named George W. Hall, had been convicted of the crime of murder upon the testimony of Chinese witnesses. He appealed from the conviction to the supreme court. The matter came up for discussion in that tribunal in the autumn of 1854. Murray, who was chief justice, delivered the opinion, which was concurred in by Justice Solomon Heydenfeldt but dissented from by Justice Alexander Wells. Under the circumstances the decision had the force and effect of law, even stronger than if enacted directly by the legislature. Murray held that the word "Indian," as used in the statute concerning witnesses, included not only the North American Indians but the whole Mongolian race. He acknowledged that the word, as commonly used at the present day, was specific and not generic and referred only to North American Indians; but he claimed that, as in the days of Columbus all the countries washed by the Chinese waters were denominated the Indies, therefore all the Asiatics were Indians and inhibited by the statute from testifying against a white man. He attempted to bolster up this opinion by two very remarkable paragraphs, which indicate quite as well as any comment could the character of the decision. In the first place he said, "We have carefully considered all the censequences resulting from a different rule of construction and are satisfied that even in a doubtful case we would be impelled to this decision on grounds of public policy." And again, he said, "The anomalous spectacle of a distinct people-living in our community, recognizing no laws of this state except through necessity, bringing with them their prejudices and national feuds in which they indulge in open violation of law, whose mendacity is proverbial, a race of people whom nature has marked as 'Assembly Journal, 1854, 259–261.