fied, was a great advance towards opening that empire to our civilization and religion, and gave promise in the future of greater and greater practical results in the diffusion throughout that great population of our arts and industries, our manufactures, our material improvements, and the sentiments of government and religion which seem to us so important to the welfare of mankind."[1]
But within a few years after the treaty went into operation a change in public sentiment respecting it began to take place, especially on the Pacific coast, where the Chinese population was principally located. By their diligence and frugal habits they were able to successfully compete with the white laborers in the mining camps, in the fields, in the shops, as domestics, and in all common manual labor. The trades unions joined in sounding an alarm that the myriads of people from the crowded and half-starved homes of China were likely to come to the country in such numbers as to drive out entirely the white laborers. The Chinese in California and adjacent sections segregated themselves from the other inhabitants, living together in cheap, ill-constructed, and uncleanly houses, took no part in local or public affairs, did not assimilate with the mass of the people, and observed their pagan or superstitious rites. It was argued that they were an undesirable population, and that if continued to be allowed free access to the country, they would in time endanger its institutions and change entirely its distinctive characteristics.
- ↑ 6 Presidents' Messages, 690; 7 Ib. 516; U. S. For. Rel. 1870, p. 307.
