USA > California > A history of California: the American period > Part 35
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The principles upon which most of these discriminations were based-for example, that of the long and short haul, and the lower rates for tide water points-have since been
409
THE DISCONTENTED SEVENTIES
settled in favor of the railroads. But at that time they were an effective source of aggravation to thousands of shippers and cost the railroads heavily in public favor.
Other practices, legitimate neither then nor now, were just as freely, if not quite so openly, indulged in, to the further unpopularity of the railroad and the real harm of the public. Uniform freight rates and service prevailed only in theory, and were determined largely by the relation of the individual shipper to the road. The Central Pacific was charged with granting rebates, discriminating between shippers in the allotment of cars, manipulating service to injure or favor some particular patron or community, and otherwise abusing the tremendous power which its monopoly of the state's transportation facilities conferred upon it.
Suits brought against the railroad for real or fancied injuries seldom netted the plaintiff anything but loss.1 The most capable lawyers of the state were in the employ of the Central Pacific, and it was natural that the road should have
1 The actual record of suits lost and
won by the Southern Pacific Co., the Central Pacific and their subsidiaries
from 1867 to 1920 before the State Supreme Court, is shown in the appended table:
S. P. CO., CENTRAL PAC., S. P. R. R., S. P. LAND CO. CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT
Period
Death or Personal Injury
Damage to Real and Personal Property
Land
Eminent Domain
Taxes
Misc.
Total
R. R. R. R. Won Lost
W
L
W
L
W
L
W
L
L\
11
L
1867-1880. .
8
7
3
2
4
7
2
6
3
8
27
23
1881-1893. .
29
11
2
2
9
3
3
5
2
8
8
6
53
35
1894-1900. .
10
8
3
4
4
4
1
3
1
7
6
28
23
1901-1910. .
11
9
3
1
9
3
2
1
8
2
34
15
1911-1920. .
19
18
1
1
11
3
1
3
2
3
37
25
Totals. .
77
53
12
10
37
13
14
5
11
15
28
25
179 |121
Of the 138 cases prior to 1894, the company appealed. 96
Of the 96 so appealed, the company lost 52%.
50
Of the 162 cases since 1893, the company appealed. 113
Of the 113 so appealed, the company lost 43%. 49
410
A HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA
a tremendous advantage in dealing with an individual op- ponent. Unless the latter were gifted with unusual resources, he could scarcely survive the delays, appeals, and endless technical obstacles with which the company could obstruct his suit, even though the legal advantages were on his side. The success of the railroad in obtaining favorable decisions was not credited by the common opinion, however, entirely to the ability of its legal staff, for there was a feeling abroad in the seventies that judges, as well as legislators, could be bent to do the Central Pacific's will.
In the matter of taxes the railroad also gave offense. Owing to limitations of space this subject, like many others in the chapter, can only be touched upon. Public opinion on it was pretty well summed up, however, by Volney E. Howard before the State Constitutional Convention of 1878.
"It is said by Mr. Stanford," Howard remarked, "that the railroads pay $500,000 in taxes, and it is shown by their official documents and reports that, if they were taxed as other people are taxed, on the value of the property, that they would pay annually over $3,000,000. But they are not taxed as other people are taxed. In my county and in others, they elect the Assessor, and in my county the road that cost on an average $25,000 per mile to build, was assessed at $6,000 a mile; and land which they are selling sometimes for $10.00 per acre, which they received in subsidy from the government, they have taxed at $1.00 per acre."
For these and other reasons the Central Pacific became the object of bitter and deep rooted hostility in California, and men came to ascribe to it the responsibility for most of the hurtful economic and political conditions from which they suffered.
Another source of popular discontent in the seventies was the large land holdings which in some sections of the state reached the proportions of actual monopolies. Aside from the railroad grants, to be spoken of later, this land problem was largely a heritage from the old Spanish-Mexican period. The sparse population and limitless extent of unoccupied territory, together with the peculiar demands of a cattle
411
THE DISCONTENTED SEVENTIES
raising people, encouraged a system of princely holdings in the California of early days. The Mexican government was most liberal in its grants to individuals, and the seculariza- tion of the missions also threw enormous areas into private hands. Thus, by 1846 it was estimated that 8,000,000 acres were held by 800 grantees.
When the first rush to the gold fields started, the new- comers paid little attention to these large holdings of agri- cultural and grazing lands. But before long, squatters and rival claimants began to throw the old system into utmost confusion. Title to many of the grants had not been perfected; others were fraudulently held; and in the case of nearly all, indefinite or carelessly drawn boundaries caused serious overlapping and left large areas in dispute.
As population increased and mining ceased to absorb general attention, the settlement of these perplexing agra- rian questions became vital to public interest. In 1849 and again in 1850, following investigations ordered by the government, reports were sent to Washington on the subject of California titles.2 Congress, however, could not agree on any settled policy with regard to the Califorina lands until 1851. In that year, after a deal of wrangling, the famous Land Act of March 3 was enacted. This bill created a board of Land Commissioners before whom the grantees under the old Spanish-Mexican régime were required to appear with witnesses and documents to establish owner- ship. Failure to meet this requirement within a specified time caused forfeiture of title.
As this act worked out, it was in reality a violation of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, one provision of which guaranteed that property held in the ceded Mexican territory would be " inviolably respected " by the United States. Under the bill, however, these titles were thrown into the utmost uncertainty; and endless litigation followed the attempts of the Commission to adjudicate the cases brought before it. Its decisions affected nearly 13,000,000 acres, and
2 The report of 1849 was made by Captain H. W. Halleck, that of 1850 by William Carey Jones.
412
A HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA
as appeals could be carried from the Commission to the United States courts more than thirty years went by before many of the claims were settled.
In the meanwhile, two classes of persons suffered. The native Californians, original holders of the grants, were robbed by squatters, squeezed by shrewd business men (who lent them money at two or three per cent a month with which to meet the costs of litigation and other demands for ready cash), and defrauded right and left by designing lawyers. But the native Californians were not the only sufferers. Small settlers-men who had but little capital- found land investments dangerous because titles were so insecure. Frequently those who bought small tracts in good faith were driven off by some more powerful claimant, or compelled to exhaust their last resources in the courts to retain possession, only in the end to see house, ranch and improvements pass into other hands.
Under these conditions, agricultural advancement was slow; needed improvements, such as irrigation works, could not be undertaken on a large scale; and worst of all, the land passed into the hands of speculators whose wealth enabled them to defend their holdings before the law and to keep them intact until increasing population brought enhanced values.
Large holdings were also made possible by the methods employed by the federal government in disposing of its public lands. While sound enough in theory, these lent themselves to various kinds of fraud and evasion, by which the speculator profited at the expense of the actual settler. The state, also, aided the monopolist both to its own serious loss and the hurt of the small rancher. California, like many other western states, had received princely gifts of land at various times from the federal government. These included swamp and overflowed lands within the state boundary; so-called school lands, consisting of every 16th and 35th section of the federal domain in California; and various minor grants for a state university, an agricultural college and other public purposes. All told, the state thus received
413
THE DISCONTENTED SEVENTIES
from the federal government nearly 9,000,000 acres of public land. It was intended that this land should be sold to actual settlers for a fixed price of $1.25 an acre; and while a good share of it was thus actually disposed of, far too much passed into the hands of large owners, commonly dubbed "land hogs."
First and last the government also granted to the pioneer railroads of the state some 15,000,000 acres of California land.3 Much of this was of little value; but other portions lay in the richest sections of the state. The prices on this land nominally ranged from $2.50 to $10.00 an acre. But the railroad builders were accused of keeping the most valuable land off the market entirely, selling it to specula- tors, and buying it in themselves to hold for future profit. On top of this, were innumerable disputes between the railroads and those settlers who had preempted government land along the company's right of way. The culmination of these controversies was a pitched battle between the regular officers of the law, representing the Southern Pacific, and a group of desperate ranchers at a place called Mussel Slough in Tulare County. The engagement resulted in the death of several persons and created an animosity against the railroad which a generation has scarcely effaced.4
3 The federal land grants within tem is shown in the following state- California to the Southern Pacific sys- ment.
STATEMENT MADE AS OF JUNE 30, 1916
PURSUANT TO THE INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION'S VALUATION ORDER NO. 16, DATED MARCH 30, 1915 C. and O. S. P. R. R. Grant Grant
C. P. Grant Acts of Act of 7-25-66
Acts of Total
7-1-62 and 7-2-64 (now C. P.)
7-27-66 and 3-3-71
Total area within Primary Limits (In- cluding Unsurveyed-Estimated) .. . 1,345,466.91 3,267,189.51 9,798,111.64 14,410,768.06
Lost. . ..
292,461.92 1,013,416.72 4,173,250.98 5,479,129.62
Net area obtainable within Primary- Estimated. . 1,053,004.99 2,253,772.79 5,624,860.66 8,931,638.44
Area taken as lieu under Act of 6-22-74 .
162.91 162.91
Area taken as lieu under Act of 6-22-74
and in exchange under Act of 1-21-91.
4,683.87 4,683.87
Indemnity taken for Primary losses ...
989,824.34 1,373,990.72 2,363,815.06
1,053,167.90 3,243,597. 13 7,003,535.25 11,300,300.28 Less lands erroneously patented and title revested in the U. S. by Court Decree,
or by voluntary conveyance ..
397.53 3,041.68 97,821.45 101,260.66
Net area acquired-Estimated ..
. ..
1,052,770.37 3,240,555.45 6,905,713.80 11,199,039.62
4 Frank Norris's striking novel, The Octopus, centers around this incident.
Total area granted-Estimated ..
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A HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA
The land monopoly resulting from the various factors just enumerated weighed heavily upon the people of California. Holdings covering half a million acres were not unknown, and many counties were almost swallowed up by the posses- sions of a single company. A careful writer, A. N. Young, has estimated that half the available agricultural land in the state was thus held by only one five-hundredth of the popu- lation. The popular dissatisfaction which arose from this condition was aggravated by methods of tax assessment which placed a much lower valuation per acre upon land owned in large tracts than upon that belonging to small owners, or allowed the large holdings to escape assessment altogether.
In most sections the irrigation problem was also an accute grievance of the small rancher. Without water his land was worthless. To build canals and other necessary irrigation works demanded large capital. This the settler could not command by himself, and as the formation of mutual companies was slow, the large landholders generally got control of the available water supplies and exacted high rates from the small users, or forced them to relinquish out- right whatever land they had acquired.
The evils resulting from this agrarian situation were un- doubtedly magnified by those who suffered from it. Not every large land owner had come by his property dishonestly, or enriched himself at the expense of society. Much of the land held in large tracts, particularly a goodly share of the railroad grants, as already stated, was of so little value that no one would purchase it at any price. Yet unquestionably the system was bad in itself and worked a great injustice to individuals and to the state. Not the least significant of its effects was the aggravation of the public mind and the stimulation of popular discontent.
"It is the land monopolist," said J. M. Days in the state Legisla- ture in 1875, speaking for most of his fellows, "who gathers toll everywhere and puts a blight on everything. He holds millions of acres of uncultivated land, refusing to sell except at an enormous price. He pays comparatively no taxes, shifting the burden on
415
THE DISCONTENTED SEVENTIES
industry. He drives the poor into cities to compete with one another for bread." 5
As though abuses in government, the railroad monopoly, and the land situation were not sufficient to unsettle Califor- nia politics and render public opinion impatient, a business depression set in about 1875, caused chiefly by the great panic in the east two years before and aggravated by a wild period of local speculation in mining stocks, which centered in the Nevada silver companies. The collapse of this excitement was sudden and complete, and for a long time the air was filled with the debris of broken fortunes. Drought added to the general gloom, entailing a loss of $20,000,000 to farmers and cattlemen in a single season. The distress of these years in the rural communities was greatly accentuated by unemployment and poverty in the cities. This was particularly true of conditions in San Francisco, where the industrial depression was most keenly felt. By this time the city had a population of some 200,000 persons. Among these were miners who had drifted in from mountains with the closing down of mines, and all sorts of industrial laborers thrown out of employment by the hard times. The Irish element was large; and labor unions had already begun to teach the workingmen the advantages of solidarity and the power of political action.
To the other grievances of the laboring population, which embraced the sins of capitalism in general, was added the more tangible evil of Chinese immigration. To go into a detailed discussion of the Chinese invasion of California is impossible, at this time. The celestial coolie has enjoyed more publicity than almost any other subject of California history, and if one should start to narrate his career on the Pacific Coast in anything like a comprehensive fashion, there would be no end. The salient facts of the subject,
5 Out of the dissatisfaction result- ing from the land situation, sprang Henry George's Progress and Poverty, and the Single Tax movement. The best account of this movement in California is in Arthur N. Young, The
Single Tax movement in the United States (Princeton, New Jersey, 1916). To this book the author is indebted for several quotations appearing in the chapter.
416
A HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA
however, may be briefly given. Up to 1850 a mere handful of Chinamen had come to California. By 1876, the handful had increased to 116,000, of whom perhaps 5,000 were women. There were some merchants in this number, but the overwhelming majority were common laborers, or coolies, mostly from Hong Kong or other seaport cities. These coolies were brought into California chiefly by Chinese organizations known as the Six Companies-very wealthy concerns which had their headquarters in San Francisco and combined many other activities of a mercantile nature with the business of importing coolies. The Chinamen came into California under contract to pay back to the companies the price of their passage and a certain per cent of their earnings. The companies, in turn, guaranteed to find them employ- ment in California and to send them back, living or dead, to China. From the coolies' standpoint, it is safe to say, there was nothing obnoxious in any phase of the bargain.
Once in California, the Chinese kept almost entirely to themselves, did not understand the white man, had no desire to associate with him, and refused to adopt his customs or manner of life. The Californian, on the other hand, saw in the Chinaman only an inferior being, simple in some ways but cannier than a Scot in others, who lived in squalor and stench, spoke an outlandish jargon, worked with a patience and industry beyond comprehension, worshipped strange gods, suffered from strange diseases, practised strange vices, ate strange foods, regarded China as the land of the blessed, thrived under standards of living no white man could endure, administered his own law in his own way through his own agents, without much regard for the officials and statutes of the Sovereign State of California, suffered with helpless stoicism whatever indignities were thrust upon him (partly because he had no vote), and represented but the far flung skirmish line of an army of 400,000,000 beings like unto himself. No wonder Cal- ifornia became alarmed! The state faced irreparable injury if something were not done to keep the stream of immigra- tion under control. The fault lay not in dealing with the
417
THE DISCONTENTED SEVENTIES
problem, but in seeking to meet it with agitation and passion instead of sound statesmanship and common sense.
Much legislation had already been passed before the discontented seventies to protect the whites against the Chinese. The foreign miner's tax made life a little more uncomfortable for the celestials, but did not drive any large number back to China. Exclusion bills of various sorts and under various guises either failed to meet the situation or, drastic enough to afford some actual restraint, were declared unconstitutional by the courts. The attempt to check the importations of Chinese by various forms of taxes was also tried without much avail; and municipal ordi- nances, many of them mere petty persecutions, similarly had little effect in dealing even with the local aspects of the question.
Meanwhile, the Chinaman kept coming in ever larger numbers to fill a real economic need in the state. He monopolized the laundry business, and without him most families in California would have worn dirty clothes from one week's end to another, or washed their own garments. He became the universal household servant, both in fash- ionable homes around the Bay, and in lone ranch houses where harvest crews had to be cooked for in the heat of summer over old-fashioned wood ranges. He opened cheap restaurants in every city, giving his patrons more and better prepared food than his white competitors ever dreamed of furnishing. He began to raise and peddle vegetables; to work in vineyards and orchards; to show his age-old training in building irrigation systems and reclamation canals. Finally, he was called upon by Crocker to lay the Central Pacific tracks, and from that time on did much of the un- skilled construction and maintenance work for the western railways.
In the eyes of labor, however, this last arrangement in- creased the unpopularity of both railroads and Chinamen. It became one of the chief grounds for their denunciation of the Central-Southern Pacific monopoly; and was a principal cause of much of the anti-Chinese agitation in the seventies.
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A HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA
Another very definite ground of complaint during this period was the Burlingame Treaty of 1868. Under the terms of this agreement, whose interesting history cannot be told here, Chinamen were placed upon an equal footing in the United States with citizens of other nations. They were promised protection, offered the privilege of attending American schools, allowed freedom in their religious beliefs, and given the right to reside in the country at will.
The railroad use of coolie labor and this American nego- tiated treaty prepared the way for some of the most shameful incidents in California history. Anti-Chinese agitation soon took the form of violence. In Chico, San Diego, and a number of other towns, mobs from time to time destroyed Chinese laundries and restaurants. But it was chiefly in San Francisco and Los Angeles that brutality reached its climax in open murder. The worst incident of the kind was the Los Angeles massacre of 1871. The trouble originated when two police officers, seeking to break up a tong war in the Chinese quarter, were seriously wounded, and a third member of the squad killed outright by frenzied Chinamen. A mob of a thousand persons "armed with pistols, guns, knives and ropes," immediately marched into the Chinese section, seized victims without any attempt to discriminate between the innocent and guilty, overpowered the officers of the law who were seeking to disperse the crowd, and hanged at least twenty-two Chinamen before the evil business came to an end. Most of the lynchings took place on Commercial and New High Streets, in what was then the very heart of the business district; and though the mob was composed of "the scum and dregs" of the city, no serious attempt was ever made to bring the ringleaders to justice.
Though the anti-Chinese agitation never again expressed itself in quite so bloody a fashion as in the Los Angeles massacre, yet the popular outcry increased year by year. By 1875 a sort of hysteria began to sweep over the state, and the phrase "The Chinese must Go!" became the battle cry of a frenzied crusade. Merchants headed their ad- vertisements, "Our Motto, 'The Chinese Must Go!'" A
419
THE DISCONTENTED SEVENTIES
saloon keeper, speaking in the third person, exhorted his customers in the following poetic vein,
"His drinks are Al and his prices are low, His motto is always, 'The Chinese Must Go!' So call on your friends, workingmen, if you please,
Take a good solid drink and drive out the Chinese."
A member of the State Constitutional Convention, who did not believe in any waste of words, introduced a bill with the single clause, "Resolved: the Chinese Must Go." The expression became the shibboleth of every second-rate office seeker in the state and was effectively used to appeal to prejudice and the mob spirit.
This, of course, does not mean that all anti-Chinese feeling was founded on ignorance or class hate. Intelligent, sober- minded men, both among workingmen and employers, realized the seriousness of the problem and sought to deal with it on a rational basis. A congressional commission, state legislative committees, all sorts of organizations, and scores of individuals set to work to collect statics and in- formation regarding the Chinese at home and in the United States. And though much of the data thus obtained was prejudiced and unreliable, it served the purpose at least of thoroughly airing every side of the question.6
With the railroad monoply, the land monopoly, hard times, unequal taxes, a government in which the people had little faith, lack of employment, and the Chinese question disaffecting the masses of labor throughout the state, a capable man might go far in organizing the radical element for dangerous action. By 1877 the situation in San Francisco had become serious, and the labor unrest found expression in such dangerous demonstrations against the Chinese residents and the property of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, as well as in such outspoken threats against the monied classes, that the aid of a committee of safety, headed by W. T. Cole-
6 In 1882, after the Burlingame Treaty had been amended with the consent of China, the United States government closed the door to
Chinese immigration for ten years. The act was amended in 1892, and with certain changes in detail has been kept in force ever since.
420
A HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA
man of Vigilante fame, and the presence of three United States naval vessels in the harbor, were required to maintain order.
These outbreaks in San Francisco occured during July. The next month a self-elected leader appeared to take command of the hitherto poorly organized labor movement. This man was Dennis Kearney, an Irishman thirty years of age, who had been both seaman and teamster before aspiring to political leadership. At this time, huge labor meetings were held every Sunday afternoon on a vacant sand lot on Market Street, just across from the City Hall. Here Kearney showed a remarkable genius for mass leadership. As a public speaker he sensed the taste of his audience perfectly; and his harangues combined enough coarse humor with vigorous denunciations of capitalism in general and violent abuse of prominent business leaders in particular to make him at once a recognized favorite.
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