As A Chinaman Saw Us Part 7

Middle-cla.s.s Americans are fond of sport in every way, but the aristocrats lack sporting spontaneity; they like it, or pretend to like it, because it is the fas.h.i.+on, and they take up one sport after another as it becomes the fad. That this is true can be shown by comparing the Englishman and the American of the fas.h.i.+onable cla.s.s. The Englishman is fond of sport because it is in his blood; he does not like golf to-day and swimming to-morrow, but he likes them all, and always has done so.

He would never give up cricket, golf, or any of his games because they go out of fas.h.i.+on; he does not allow them to go out of fas.h.i.+on; but with the American it is different.

Hence I a.s.sume that the average American of the better cla.s.s is not imbued with the sporting spirit. He wears it like an ill-fitting coat. I find a singular feature among the Americans in connection with their sports. Thus if something is known and recognized as sport, people take to it with avidity, but if the same thing is called labor or exercise, it is considered hard work, s.h.i.+rked and avoided. This is very cleverly ill.u.s.trated by Mark Twain in one of his books, where a boy makes his companions believe that white-was.h.i.+ng a fence is sport, and so relieves himself from an arduous duty by pretending to share the great privilege with them.

No one would think of walking steadily for six days, yet once this became sport; dozens of men undertook it, and long walks became a fad.

If a man committed a crime and should be sentenced to play the modern American game of football every day for thirty days as a punishment, there are some who might prefer a death sentence and so avoid a lingering end; but under the t.i.tle of "sport" all young men play it, and a number are maimed and killed yearly.

Sport is in the blood of the common people. Children begin with tops, marbles, and kites, yet never appreciate our skill with either. I amazed a boy on the outskirts of Was.h.i.+ngton one day by asking him why he did not _irritate_ his kite and make it go through various evolutions. He had never heard of doing that, and when I took the string and began to jerk it, and finally made the kite plunge downward or swing in circles, and always restored it by suddenly slacking off the cord, he was astonished and delighted. The national game is baseball, a very clever game. It is nothing to see thousands at a game, each person having paid twenty-five or fifty cents for the privilege. In summer this game, played by experts, becomes a most profitable business. Rarely is any one hurt but the judge or umpire, who is at times hissed by the audience and mobbed, and at others beaten by either side for unfair decisions; but this is rare.

Football is dangerous, but is even more popular than the other. You might imagine by the name that the ball is kicked. On the contrary the real action of the game consists in running down, tripping up, smas.h.i.+ng into, and falling on whomever has the ball. As a consequence, men wear a soft armor. There are fas.h.i.+ons in sports which demonstrate the ephemeral quality of the American love for sport. A while ago "wheeling"

was popular, and everybody wheeled. Books were printed on the etiquette of the sport; roads were built for it and improved; but suddenly the working cla.s.s took it up and fas.h.i.+on dropped it. Then came golf, imported from Scotland. With this fad millions of dollars were expended in country clubs and greens all over the United States, as acres of land were necessary. People seized upon this with a fierceness that warmed the hearts of dealers in b.a.l.l.s and clubs. The men who edited wheel magazines now changed them to "golf monthlies." This sport began to wane as the novelty wore off, until golf is now played by comparatively few experts and lovers.

Society introduced the automobile, and we have the same thing--more magazines, the spending of millions, the building of the _garage_, and the appearance of the _chaufeur_ or driver. Then came the etiquette of the auto--a German navy cap, rubber coat, and Chinese goggles. This peculiar uniform is of course only to be worn when racing, but you see the American going out for a slow ride solemnly attired in rubber coat and goggles. The moment the auto comes within reach of the poor man it will be given up; but it is now the fad and a most expensive one, the best machines costing ten thousand dollars or more, and I have seen races where the speed exceeded a mile a minute.

All sports have their ethics and rules and their correct costuming.

Baseball men are in uniform, generally white, with various-colored stockings. The golfer wears a red coat and has a servant or valet, who carries his bag of clubs, designed for every possible expediency. To hear a group of golfers discuss the merits of these tools is one of the extraordinary experiences one has in America. I have been made fairly "giddy," as the Englishmen say, by this anemic conversation at country clubs. The "high-ball" was the saving clause--a remarkable invention this. Have I explained it? You take a very tall gla.s.s, made for the purpose, and into it pour the contents of a small cut-gla.s.s bottle or decanter of whisky, which must be Scotch, tasting of smoke. On this you pour seltzer or soda-water, filling up the gla.s.s, and if you take enough you are "high" and feel like a rolling ball. It is the thing to take a "high-ball" after every nine holes in golf. Then after the game you bathe, and sit and drink as many as your skin will hold. I got this from a professional golf-teacher in charge of the ---- links, and hence it is official.

The avidity with which the Americans seize upon a sport and the suddenness with which they drop it, ill.u.s.trating what I have said about the lack of a national sporting taste, is well shown by the coming of a game called "ping pong," a parlor tennis, with our battledores for rackets. What great mind invented this game, or where it came from, no one seems to know, but as a wag remarked, "When in doubt lay it to China." Some suppose it is Chinese, the name suggesting it. So extraordinary was the early demand for it that it appeared as though everybody in America was determined to own and play ping pong. The dealers could not produce it fast enough. Factories were established all over the country, and the tools were ground out by the ten thousands.

Books were written on the ethics of the game; experts came to the front; ping pong weeklies and monthlies were founded, to dumfound the ma.s.ses, and the very air vibrated with the "ping" and the "pong."

The old and young, rich and poor, feeble and herculean, all played it.

Doctors advised it, children cried for it, and a fas.h.i.+onable journal devised the correct ping-pong costume for players. Great matches were played between the experts of various sections, and this sport, a game really for small children, after the fas.h.i.+on of battledore and shuttlec.o.c.k, ran its course among young and old. Pictures of adult ping-pong champions were blazoned in the public print; even churchmen took it up. Public gardens had special ping-pong tables to relieve the stress. At last the people seized upon ping pong, and it became common.

Then it was dropped like a dead fish. If some cyclonic disturbance had swept all the ping-pong b.a.l.l.s into s.p.a.ce, the disappearance could not have been more complete. Ping pong was put out of fas.h.i.+on. All this to the alien suggests something, a want of balance, a "youngness" perhaps.

At the present time the old game of croquet is being revived under another name, and tennis is the vogue among many. Among the fas.h.i.+onable and wealthy men polo is the vogue, but among a few everything goes by fads for a few years. Every one will rush to see or play some game; but this interest soon dies out, and something new starts up. Such games as baseball and football, tennis and polo are, in a sense, in a cla.s.s by themselves, but among the pastimes of the people a wide vogue belongs to fis.h.i.+ng, and shooting wild fowl and large game. The former is universal, and the Americans are the most skilled anglers with artificial lures in the world, due to the abundance of game-fish, trout, and others, and the perfect Government care exercised to perfect the supply.

As an ill.u.s.tration, each State considers hunting and fis.h.i.+ng a valuable a.s.set to attract those who will come and spend money. I was told by a Government official that the State of Maine reckoned its game at five million dollars per annum, which means that the sport is so good that sportsmen spend that amount there every year; but I fancy the amount is overestimated. The Government has perfect fish hatcheries, constantly supplying young fish to streams, while the business in anglers' supplies is immense. There are thousands of duck-shooting clubs in the United States. Men, or a body of men, rent or buy marshes, and keep the poor man out. Rich men acquire hundreds of acres, and make preserves.

Possibly the sport of hunting wild fowl is the most characteristic of American sports. This also has its etiquette, its costumes, its club-houses, and its poker and high-b.a.l.l.s. I know of one such club in which almost all the members are millionaires. A humorous paper stated that they used "gold shot."

As a nation the Americans are fond of athletics, which are taught in the schools. There are splendid gymnasiums, and boys and girls are trained in athletic exercises. Athletics are all in vogue. It is fas.h.i.+onable to be a good "fencer." All the young dance. I believe the Americans stand high as a nation in all-around athletics; at least they are far ahead of China in this respect.

I have reserved for mention last the most popular fas.h.i.+on of the people in sport, which is prize-fighting. Here again you see a strange contradiction. The people are preeminently religious, and prize-fighting and football are the sports of brutes; yet the two are most popular. No public event attracts more attention in America than a gladiatorial fight to the finish between the champion and some aspirant.

For months the papers are filled with it, and on the day of the event the streets are thronged with people crowding about the billboards to receive the news. No national event, save the killing of a President, attracted more universal attention than the beating of Sullivan by Corbett and the beating of Corbett by Fitzsimmons, and "Fitz" in turn by Jeffries. I might add that I joined with the Americans in this, as the modern prize-fighter is a fine animal. If all boys were taught to believe that their fists are their natural weapons, there would be fewer murders and sudden deaths in America. I have seen several of these prize-fights and many private bouts, all with gloves. They are governed by rules. Such a combat is by no means as dangerous as football, where the obvious intention seems to be to break ribs and crush the opponent.

Rowing is much indulged in, and yachting is a great national maritime sport, in which the Americans lead and challenge the world. In no sport is the wealth of the nation so well shown. Every seaside town has its yacht or boat club, and in this the interest is perpetual. Even in winter the yacht is rigged into an "ice-boat." I have often wondered that fas.h.i.+onable people do not take up the romantic sport of falconry, as they have the birds and every facility. I suggested this to a lady, who replied, "Ah, that is too barbaric for us." "More barbaric than c.o.c.k-fighting?" I asked, knowing that her brother owned the finest game-c.o.c.ks in the District of Columbia. Among the Americans there is a distinct love for fair play, and such sports as "bull-baiting,"

"bull-fights," "dog-fights," and "c.o.c.k-fights" have never attained any degree of popularity. There are spasmodic instances of such indulgences, but in no sense can they be included, as in England and Spain, among the national sports, which leads me to the conclusion that, aside from the many peculiarities, as taking up and dropping sports, America, all in all, is the greatest sporting nation of the world. It leads in fist-fighting, rifle-shooting, in skilful angling, in yachting, in rowing, in running, in six-day walking, in auto-racing, in trotting and running horses, and in trap-shooting, and if its champions in all fields could be lined up it would make a surprising showing. I am free to confess and quite agree with a vivacious young woman who at the country club told me that it was very nice of me to uphold my country, but that we were "not in it" with American sports.

The Presidents are often sportsmen. President Cleveland and President Harrison both have been famous, the former as a fisherman, the latter as well as the former as a duck-shooter. President McKinley has no taste for sport, but the Vice-President is a promoter of sport of each and every kind. He is at home in polo or hurdle racing, with the rifle or revolver. This calls to mind the national weapon--the revolver.

Nine-tenths of all the shooting is done with this weapon, that is carried in a special pocket on the hips, and I venture to say that a pair of "trousers" was never made without the pistol pocket. Even the clergymen have one. I asked an Episcopal clergyman why he had a pistol pocket. He replied that he carried his prayer-book there. The Southern people use a long curved knife, called a bowie, after its inventor. Many people have been cut by this weapon. The negro, for some strange reason, carries a razor, and in a fight "whips out" this awful weapon and slashes his enemy. I have asked many negroes to explain this habit or selection. One replied that it was "none of my d---- business." Nearly all the others said they did not know why they carried it.

CHAPTER XVII

THE CHINAMAN IN AMERICA

The average Irishman whom one meets in America, and he is legion, is a very different person from the polished gentleman I have met in Belfast, Dublin, and other cities in Ireland; but I never heard that the American Irishman, the product of an ignorant peasantry crowded out of Ireland, had been accepted as a type of the race. Peculiar discrimination is made in America against the Chinese. Our lower cla.s.ses, "coolies" from the Cantonese districts, have flocked to America. Americans "lump" all Chinese under this head, and can not conceive that in China there are cultivated men, just as there are cultivated men in Ireland, the antipodes of the grotesque Irish types seen in America.

I believe there are seventy-five or eighty thousand Chinamen in America.

They do not a.s.similate with the Americans. Many are common laborers, laundrymen, and small merchants. In New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and other cities there are large settlements of them. In San Francisco many have acquired wealth. The Chinese quarter is to all intents and purposes a Chinese city. None of these people, or very few, are Americanized in the sense of taking an active part in the government; Americans do not permit it. I was told that the Chinese were among the best citizens, the percentage of criminals being very small. They are honest, frugal, and industrious--too industrious, in fact, and for this very reason the ban has been placed upon them. Red-handed members of the Italian Mafia--a society of murderers--the most ignorant cla.s.s in Ireland, Wales, and England, the sc.u.m of Russia, and the human dregs of Europe generally are welcome, but the clean, hard-working Chinaman is excluded.

Millions are spent yearly in keeping him out after he had been invited to come. He built many American railroads; he opened the door between the Atlantic and the Pacific; he worked in the mines; he did work that no one else would or could do, and when it was completed the American laborer, the product of this sc.u.m of all nations, demanded that the Chinaman be "thrown out" and kept out. America listened to the blatant demagogues, the "sand-lot orators," and excluded the Chinese. To-day it is almost impossible for a Chinese gentleman to send his son to America to travel or study. He will not be distinguished from laundryman "John," and is thrown back in the teeth of his countrymen; meanwhile China continues to be raided by American missionaries. The insult is rarely resented. In the treaty ratified by the United States Senate in 1868 we read:

"The United States of America and the Empire of China cordially recognize the inherent right of man to change his home and allegiance, and also the mutual advantage of the free immigration and emigration of their citizens and subjects respectively from the one country to the other for purposes of curiosity, of trade or as permanent residents."

Again we read, in the treaty ratified under the Hayes administration, that the Government of the United States, "if its labor interests are threatened by the incoming Chinese, may regulate or limit such coming, but may not _absolutely prohibit_ it." The United States Government has disregarded its solemn treaty obligations. Not only this, our people, previous to the Exclusion Act, were killed, stoned, and attacked time and again by "hoodlums." The life of a Chinaman was not safe. The labor cla.s.s in America, the lowest and almost always a foreign cla.s.s, wished to get rid of the Chinaman so that they could raise the price of labor and secure all the work. China had reason to go to war with America for her treatment of her people and for failure to observe a treaty. The Scott Exclusion Act was a gratuitous insult. I hope our people will continue to retaliate by refusing to buy anything from the Americans or sell anything to them. Let us deal with our friends.

Then came the Geary Bill, which was an outrage, our people being thrown into jail for a year and then sent back. I might quote some of the charges made against our people. Mr. Geary, I understand, is an Irish ex-congressman from the State of California, who, while in Congress, was the mouthpiece of the worst anti-Chinese faction ever organized in America. He was ultimately defeated, much to the delight of New England and many other people in the East. Mr. Geary's chief complaint against the Chinese was that they work too cheaply, are too industrious, and do not eat as much as an American. He obtained his information from Consul Bedloe, of Amoy. He says the average earnings of the Chinese adult employed as mechanic or laborer (in China) is five dollars per month, and states that this is ten per cent above the average wages prevailing throughout China.

The wages paid, according to his report, per month, to blacksmiths are $7.25; carpenters, $8.50; cabinet-makers, $9; gla.s.s-blowers, $9; plasterers, $6.25; plumbers, $6.25; machinists, $6; while other cla.s.ses of skilled labor are paid from $7.25 to $9 per month, and common laborers receive $4 per month. In European houses the average wages paid to servants are from $5 to $6 a month, without board. Clothing costs per year from 75 cents to $1.50. Out of these incomes large families are maintained. He says: "The daily fare of an Amoy working man and its cost are about as follows: 1 pounds of rice, 3 cents; 1 ounce of meat, 1 ounce of fish, 2 ounces of sh.e.l.l-fish, 1 cent; 1 pound of cabbage or other vegetable, 1 cent; fuel, salt, and oil, 1 cent; total, 6 cents.

"Here," said Mr. Geary, "is a condition deserving of attention by all friends of this country, and by all who believe in the protection of the working cla.s.ses. Is it fair to subject our laborer to a compet.i.tor who can measure his wants by an expenditure of six cents a day, and who can live on an income not exceeding five dollars a month? What will become of the boasted civilization of our country if our toilers are compelled to compete with this cla.s.s of labor, with more compet.i.tors available than twice the entire population of France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain?

"The Chinese laborer brings neither wife nor children, and his wants are limited to the immediate necessities of the individual, while the American is compelled to earn income sufficient to maintain the wife and babies. There can be but one end to this. If this immigration is permitted to continue, American labor must surely be reduced to the level of the Chinese compet.i.tor--the American's wants measured by his wants, the American's comforts be made no greater than the comforts of the Chinaman, and the American laborer, not having been educated to maintain himself according to this standard, must either meet his Chinese compet.i.tor on his own level, or else take up his pack and leave his native land. The entire trade of China, if we had it all, is not worth such a sacrifice."

Mr. Geary forgets that when Chinamen go to America they adapt themselves to prevailing conditions. Chinese cooks in the States to-day receive from $30 to $50 per month and board; Chinese laborers from $20 to $30, and some of them $2 per day. In China, where there is an enormous population, prices are lower, people are not wasteful, and the necessities of life do not cost so much. The Chinaman goes to America to obtain the benefit of _high_ wages, not to _reduce_ wages. I have never seen such poverty and wretchedness in China as I have seen in London, or such vice and poverty as can be seen in any large American city. Mr.

Geary scorns the treaties between his country and China, and laughs at our commercial relations. He says, "There is nothing in the Chinese trade, or rather the loss of it, to alarm any American. We would be better off without any part or portion of it."

In answer to this I would suggest that China take him at his word, and I a.s.sure you that if every Chinaman could be recalled, if in six months or less we could take the eighty or one hundred thousand Chinamen out of the country, the region where they now live would be demoralized. The Chinese control the vegetable-garden business on the Pacific Coast; they virtually control the laundry business; and that the Americans want them, and want cheaper labor than they are getting from the Irish and Italians, is shown by the fact that they continue to patronize our people, and that in various lines Chinamen have the monopoly. Even when the "hoodlums" of San Francisco were fighting the Chinese, the American women did not withdraw their patronage, and while the men were off speaking on the sand-lots against employing our people their wives were buying vegetables from them.

Why? Because their hypocritical husbands and brothers refused to pay higher prices. America is suffering not for want of the cheapest labor, but for a laborer like the Chinese, and until they have him industries will languish. With American labor and American "union" prices it is impossible for the American farmer or rancher to make money. The vineyardist, the orange, lemon, olive, and other fruit raisers can not compete with Europe. Labor is kept up to such a high rate that the country is obliged to put on a high tariff to keep out foreign compet.i.tion, and in so doing they "cut off the nose to spite the face."

The common people are taxed by the rich. The salvation of industrial America is a cheap, but not degraded, labor. America desires house-servants at from $10 to $12 per month; this is all a mere servant is worth. She wants good cooks at $12 or $15 per month. She wants fruit-pickers at $10 to $12 per month and board. She wants vineyard men, hop-pickers, cherry, peach, apricot and berry pickers, and people to work in canneries at these prices. She wants gardeners, drivers, railroad laborers at lower rates, and, to quote an American, "wants them 'bad.'"

When in San Francisco I made a thorough investigation of the "house-servant" question, and learned that our people as cooks in private houses were receiving from $30 to $50 per month and board. A friend tells me there is continued protest against this. Housekeepers on the Pacific coast are complaining of the lack of "Chinese boys," and want more to come over so that prices shall go down. The American wants the Chinaman, but the American _foreign laborer_, the Irishman, the Italian, the Mexican, and others who dominate American politics, do not want him and will not have him. As a result of this bending to the alien vote the Americans find themselves in a most serious and laughable position in their relations to domestic labor.

I am not overstating the fact when I say that the "servant-girl"

question is going to be a political issue in the future. The man may howl against the Chinese, but his wife will demand that "John" be admitted to relieve a situation that is becoming unbearable. As the Americans are all equal, there are no servants among them. The poor are as good as the "boss," and won't be called servants. You read in the papers, "A lady desires a position as cook in a small family, no children; wages, $35." "A young lady wishes a position to take care of children; salary, $30." "A saleslady wants position." "A lady (good scrubber) will go out by the day; $2." When you meet these "ladies," in nine cases out of ten they are Irish from the peasant cla.s.s--untidy, insolent, often dissipated in the sense of drink. When they apply for a position they put the employer through a course of questions. Some want references from the last girl, I am told. Some want one thing, some another, and all must have time for pleasure. Few have the air of servants or inferiors, but are often offensive in appearance and manners. I have never been called "John" by the girls who came to the door where I called to pay a visit, but I could see that they all wished so to address me. In England, where cla.s.ses are acknowledged and a servant is hired as a servant, and is one, an entirely different state of affairs holds. They are respectful, having been educated to be servants, know that they are servants, and as a result are cared for and treated as old retainers and pensioners of the family.

The whole story of exclusion is a blot upon the American national honor, and the most mystifying part of it is that intelligent people, the best people, are not a party to it. The railroads want the Chinese laborer.

The great ranches of the West need him; people want cooks at $15 and $20 a month instead of $30 or $50. In a word, America is suffering for what she must have some time--cheap labor; yet the low elements force the issue. Congressmen are dominated by labor organizations on the Pacific slope, and there are hundreds of Dennis Kearneys to-day where there was one a few years ago. To make the case more exasperating, the Americans, in their dire necessity, have imported swarms of low Mexicans to take the place of the Chinese on the railroads, against whom there seems to be no Irish hand raised. The Irish and Mexicans are of a piece. I know from inquiry everywhere that the country at large would welcome thousands of servants and field-workers in vineyards and orchards which can not be made to pay if worked by expensive labor.

The Americans try to keep us out, but they also try to convert those who get in. They have what they call Chinese missions, to which Chinamen go.

To be converted? No. To learn the language? Yes. I am told by an American friend that here and in China over fifty thousand Chinese have embraced Christianity. On the Atlantic coast I am a.s.sured that eight hundred Chinamen are Christians, and on the Pacific slope two thousand have embraced the faith of the Christians. There is a Christian Chinese evangelist working among our people in the West, Lum Foon, and I have met the pastor of a Pacific coast church who told me that nearly a third of his congregation were Chinamen, and he esteemed them highly. But the most conclusive evidence that the Americans are succeeding in their proselyting is that in one year a single denomination received as a donation from Chinamen $6,000. The Americans have a saying, "Money talks," which is much like one of our own.

On the other hand, a clergyman told me that it was discouraging work to some, so few Chinamen were "converted" compared to the great ma.s.s of them. The Chinese of California have sent $1,000 to Canton to build a Christian church, and the Chinese members of the Presbyterian Church of California sent $3,000 in one year for the same purpose. I am told that the Chinese Methodists of one church in California give yearly from $1,000 to $1,800 for the various purposes of the church. The Christians have captured some brilliant men, such as Sia Sek Ong, who is a Methodist; Chan Hon Fan, who ought to be in our army from what I hear; Rev. Tong Keet Hing, the Baptist, a noted Biblical scholar; Rev. Wong, of the Presbyterians; Rev. Ng Poon Chiv, famous as a Greek and Hebrew reader; Gee Gam and Rev. Le Tong Hay, Methodists; and there are many more, suggestive that our people are interested in Christianity, against the _moral_ teachings of which no one could seriously object.

I dined some time ago with a merchants' club, and was much pleased at the eulogy I heard on the Chinese. A merchant said, "My firm deals largely with the Chinese and j.a.panese. When I make a trade with the j.a.panese I tie them up with a written contract, but I have always found that the word of a Chinese merchant was sufficient." This I found to be the universal feeling, and yet Americans exclude us at the bidding of "hoodlums," a term applied to the lowest cla.s.s of young men on the Pacific coast. In the East he is a "tough" or "rough" or "rowdy." "Tough nut" and "hard nut" are also applied to such people, the Americans having numbers of terms like these, which may be called "nicknames," or false names. Thus a man who is noted for his dress is a "swell," a "dude," or a "sport."

The United States Government does not allow the Chinese to vote, yet tens of thousands of poor Americans, "white trash" in the South, ignorant negroes, low Irish and Italians who can not speak the tongue, are welcome and courted by both parties. It is difficult for me to overlook this insult on the part of America. There is a large settlement of Chinese in New York, but they are as isolated as if they were in China. In San Francisco there is the largest settlement, and many fine merchants live there, and also in Los Angeles.

In the latter city ---- told me that the best of feeling existed between the Chinese and Americans; and at the American Festival of the Rose the Chinese joined in the procession. The dragon was brought out, and all the Chinese merchants appeared; but these gentlemen are never consulted by the Americans, never allowed to vote or take any interest in the growth of the city, and ---- informed me that none of them had ever been asked to join a board of trade. It is the same everywhere; the only advances the Americans make is to try and "convert" us to their various religious denominations. While the Chinese are not allowed to vote or to have any part in the affairs of government, they are taxed. "Taxation without representation" was the cause of the war of the American Revolution, but that is another matter.

Yet our people have ways of influencing the whites with the "dollar,"

for which some officials will do anything, and, I regret to say, all Chinamen are not above bribing Americans. I have heard that the Chinese of San Francisco for years were blackmailed by Americans, and obliged to raise money to fight bills in the Legislature. In 1892 the Six Companies raised $200,000 to defeat the "Geary Bill." The Chinese merchants have some influence. Out of the 110,000 Chinamen in America hardly ten per cent obeyed the iniquitous law and registered. The Chinese societies contracted to defend all who refused to register.

Our people have a strong and influential members.h.i.+p in the Sam Yup, Hop Wo, Yan Wo, Kong Chow, Ning Yeong, and Yeong Wo companies. These societies practically control everything in America relating to the Chinese, and they retain American lawyers to fight their battles. I have met many of the officers of these companies, and China has produced no more brilliant minds than some, and, _sub rosa_, they have been pitted against the Americans on more than one occasion and have outwitted them.