The Chinese Must Go

by Beth Lew-Williams

  Chinese neighbors. Though vigilantes primarily worked within their local

  communities, they viewed their actions in a broader frame. “It is not in the

  power of any town to drive the Asiatics out of the State,” argued the Truckee

  Republican, “but the policy of continued ‘moving on’ must ultimately in-

  duce John [Chinaman] to depart for his native shores.” The power of the

  movement would be cumulative.36

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  Unauthorized immigration, rumored to be fast increasing, helped spur

  communities to action. “As things are now shaping themselves,” declared

  The Sacramento Daily Union, “the effort to exclude the objectionable class

  of Chinese is doomed to failure.” Under the headline “How the Heathen

  Evade the Restriction Act,” the Daily Alta California agreed: “The Restric-

  tion Act appears to be a failure.”37 “If laws cannot be made that will protect

  [us] from [the Chinese] presence,” wrote the Sonora Union Demo crat, “the

  people must exert their innate right and with moral sentiment drive him

  from our shores.”38 Newspapers on the East Coast began echoing dire re-

  ports of unauthorized migration, common in the U.S. West. The Philadel-

  phia Press observed, “A trial of nearly four years of the restriction act has

  shown that it is little better than a rope of sand as a bulwark against the

  Mongolians. The frauds that can be practiced under it are numerous and

  the wily Chinese were not slow to find the loopholes and take advantage of

  them.” Even from afar, the Philadelphia Press sensed imminent danger and

  warned its readers, “The knowledge of these facts has aroused the people of

  the Pacific slope as they were never aroused before on the subject.”39

  Back in February 1885, James Beith had lauded the Eureka expulsion but

  had been deeply skeptical of the copycat incident in Arcata, which was based

  on no “real grievance.” A year later, these reports of unauthorized migration

  were beginning to change his thinking. Writing in his diary, Beith bemoaned

  the law as “restriction which does not restrain.” He was starting to suspect

  that this debacle was due to more than government ineptitude. “The public

  have come to the conclusion, that [the law’s] errors & inefficiencies were not

  from the lack of ability to realize its weakness,” observed Beith, “but were

  the result of careful study and consummate design. This idea is gaining

  strength day by day as the powerlessness of the Federal authorities is wit-

  nessed.” 40 Increasingly, it appeared to some that the federal government never

  meant to stop Chinese migration in the first place. Terence Powderly, leader

  of the Knights of Labor, endorsed this view. “The recent assault upon the

  Chinese at Rock Springs is but the outcome of a feeling caused by the indif-

  ference of our law- makers,” Powderly declared to his followers, “nothing short

  of the enactment of just laws and a full and impartial enforcement of the

  same will prevent other and far more terrible scenes of bloodshed.” 41

  Moreover, the Restriction Act itself— and not just its failure— offered a

  power ful justification for expulsion. The law clearly signaled to West Coast

  workers that the federal government supported their fight against Chinese

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  labor migration and endorsed deportation as a solution. By layering new legal

  classifications on top of old racial divisions, the law had a profound effect

  on how everyday Americans viewed racial difference. Being Chinese had be-

  come a badge of alienage and, increasingly, a marker of illegality. When

  vigilantes drove thousands of Chinese from their homes, they were reacting

  to and reinforcing new legal lines of difference. Federal law and racial vio-

  lence converged to make the Chinese into outsiders within the nation.42

  Though anti- Chinese advocates shared a common goal of ousting the

  Chinese, they were divided over expulsion tactics. Radical factions, like the

  Mechanics’ and Laborers’ Anti- Chinese League in California, pushed for

  “total expulsion of the coolie race” through white worker “rebellion.” Others

  hewed more closely to the Tacoma Method, which began with coercion and

  ended with vio lence. Echoing Tacoma’s Committee of Fifteen, the East Side

  Times of Millville, California, declared, “The Chinaman ‘must go,’ peace-

  ably if he will, forcibly if he must.”

  Newspapers often downplayed the use of such force. Even so, their brief

  descriptions summoned images of hidden terror. For example, the Sacra-

  mento Rec ord Union reported that vigilantes outside Roseville, California

  went to a Chinese camp in the dark of night, “roused” Chinese workers from

  their sleep, “escorted them to the next train,” and “told them they would be

  killed if they returned.” After this brief but disquieting description, the Union

  assured readers that “no vio lence” had been used.43

  Others disavowed all forms of force and believed that boycott was the

  nonviolent answer. James Beith, for example, recorded a poem in his diary

  that advocated for only indirect tactics. The ditty was in the style of the classic

  children’s rhyme “ Little Bo- Peep”:

  Little Ah Yip

  Has lost his grip

  And does know where to find [’]em.

  Let him alone

  And he’ll go home

  Bringing his tail behind him.

  The answer, suggests the poem, is boycott. If the Chinese were simply “let

  alone,” that is, denied any form of employment, they would eventually “go

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  home.” 44 For some, boycott was a “quiet” method of expulsion that avoided

  direct confrontation or force. For others, it represented a far more contro-

  versial tactic than vio lence, because it targeted white employers alongside

  their Chinese workers. In retrospect, the line between expulsion and boy-

  cott appears blurred, almost to the point of irrelevance. Some observers rec-

  ognized this at the time; the Los Angeles Times described boycotts as an

  invitation to “strife” and “anarchy,” while the Santa Barbara In de pen dent

  feared that boycotts would mean “innocent immigrants slaughtered.” 45

  As expulsions swept the U.S. West, white Americans increasingly argued

  that they had no choice but to join the movement. The Daily Transcript ar-

  gued that Nevada City in California, which had seen little agitation, must

  participate or risk becoming “an asylum for Mongolians.” In nearby Truckee,

  vigilantes had successfully driven out hundreds of Chinese, and refugees

  were pouring into Nevada City. “ Will our citizens do some of this agitating,”

  queried the editors of the Transcript, “or do they want Nevada City to be-

  come a harbor of refuge for all the Mongolians who will not be tolerated in

  other towns of the coast?” The answer came in the form of rallies, boycotts,

  and harassment. Vio lence begot more vio lence.46

  “Heroes and Genuine Men”

  As anti- Chinese vio lence became a common occurrence, it also became a

  vital expression of working- class manliness. Then, as now, manliness was not


  explic itly defined by a prescribed list of traits; instead, it was a dynamic pro-

  cess by which men claimed power based on the nature of their bodies. In

  the late nineteenth century, there were several competing images of manliness

  in Amer ica, including the middle- class ideal of the moralistic, respectable,

  civilized, “restrained” man and the working- class ideal of a rough, physical,

  sexual, “martial” man.47 Anti- Chinese agitators drew from both loose

  definitions, highlighting their bravery and pugnacity, but also their moral

  superiority and restrained methods. They defined their manliness in direct

  opposition to the servile Chinese and high- minded white elites who refused

  to participate alongside them.

  In a letter seized by the police, one workingman, J. M. Montgomery,

  offers a colorful example of the link between gender and vigilantism. On

  February 9, 1886, Montgomery participated in a planned expulsion from

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  Olympia, capital of Washington Territory. Reminiscent of the Tacoma ex-

  pulsion months earlier, events began early in the morning with the loud

  pealing of fire bells and the sight of white men marching double- file down

  Main Street. The pro cession halted in front of each Chinese dwelling to de-

  liver orders to vacate by 2 p.m. But in the territory’s capital, the vigilantes’

  efforts were for naught. The sheriff, backed by a hundred deputies, quickly

  stopped the expulsion by arresting several ringleaders, including L. L. Bales,

  J. J. Hetzel, W. Frazier, and E. Gooding. Unable to post the $2,500 bail,

  the leaders were sent to the U.S. penitentiary on McNeil’s Island.48 Two

  weeks later, Montgomery deci ded to write to the imprisoned men. His

  letter was intercepted by law enforcement and later used as evidence against

  them.

  Despite the failure in Olympia, Montgomery maintained in his letter that

  the attempted expulsion was the epitome of manliness. He believed his four

  “comrades” on McNeil’s Island should be “lauded to the sky as heroes and

  genuine Men, ” while “the fin ger of scorn is pointed at every Knight of Labor who was not found in the ‘Line of Duty.’ ” 49 Those who refused to participate were no more than “white chinamen.” “Many Knights have expressed

  their regrets that they were not in line,” Montgomery told his friends, “but

  I only gave them a good cussing and told them plainly that we wanted

  nothing more to do with them.” The capital’s elite had denounced the vio-

  lence, but this did not give Montgomery pause. “I sally out down town every

  day and some of the old stiffs look at me as though I was some highwayman,”

  he boasted, “and I throw my hat back on my head and show the Gents I am

  an American citizen.” Elites might see him as a lowly lawbreaker, but Mont-

  gomery knew his fight was on behalf of the nation.

  With disapproval, Montgomery reported that even the local Knights of

  Labor assembly had retroactively denounced the expulsion. Angered by the

  betrayal, he declared the assembly a “Chinese Ring” and pledged to main-

  tain loyalty to the anti- Chinese cause even if they “whoop me out of the

  assembly for my lip.” To Montgomery, anyone who failed to participate in

  the expulsion was a traitor to his sex and his race. He infantilized his adver-

  saries, calling the pro- Chinese “ mothers sons [ sic]” and the territorial gov-

  ernor a “government Titsucker.”50

  Now that his leaders were behind bars, Montgomery believed himself to

  be the manliest man still in Olympia. He bragged, “This town is now in the

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  worst shape you ever seen it & Every man is afraid of his own life,” with the

  notable exception of himself. He was “not afraid of ‘God, man nor Devil’

  when it comes to the Chinese question.” While other men feared arrest,

  Montgomery claimed to think little of such concerns. In fact, he wrote, “ were

  it not for my family,” he would find some way of becoming “one of your

  Honorable Body on McNeil’s Island.” While praising his friends’ imprison-

  ment as the height of manliness, Montgomery begged pardon because of his

  patriarchal responsibilities.51

  Montgomery’s preoccupation with manliness in this private letter echoes

  public rhe toric from anti- Chinese leaders. Manhood was a common trope in

  anti- Chinese speeches. “If we do not come up this [Chinese] question man-

  fully,” one spokesman declared to a crowd in Seattle, “we deserve to be slaves.”

  Expulsion, he implied, was the “manful” course of action. The Tacoma Ledger

  agreed that “no secret society, no Masonic or Odd Fellows dandy” better

  embodied “upright manhood” than did anti- Chinese agitators marching

  for the cause of free white labor. Montgomery, then, had internalized the

  movement’s gendered rhe toric. Now, in public and in private, he “lauded”

  the heroism of the vigilantes and “cussed” at the cowardice of the pro-

  Chinese, loudly dividing the city into “genuine” men and (white) Chinese.52

  Although men were the primary force behind the anti- Chinese move-

  ment, women also participated in the agitation, albeit in less power ful or

  public roles. Female agitators, like their male counter parts, saw their par-

  ticipation in gendered terms. At a time when domesticity was a pillar of

  womanhood, women adorned banquet halls and cooked for anti- Chinese

  rallies. For a mass meeting in Tacoma, Mrs. H. S. Bixler presented a “hand-

  somely decorated” cake, which read “in ornamental candied letters” the

  words of “living truth”: “The Chinese Must Go.” When agitators launched

  a boycott of Chinese businesses in Seattle, sympathetic white women vowed

  to do their own washing to avoid Chinese laundries.53

  Mary Kenworthy, who was known as “Mrs. Kenworthy” in the Seattle

  papers, was one of the few spokeswomen to emerge from the movement.

  Originally from Illinois, she moved to Seattle in the 1870s with her husband,

  who worked as a tailor. After she was widowed in 1880, she joined the

  Women’s Suffrage Association and opened her house to leaders of the Knights

  of Labor. In September 1885, Kenworthy was elected to or ga nize a committee

  of five women charged with visiting the “ladies of Seattle” to “induce” them

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  to lay off their Chinese domestic servants. By the end of October, she had

  risen to vice president of Cronin’s organ izing committee and began to speak

  publicly for the cause. At a Seattle pro cession of over twenty- five hundred

  agitators on October 24, she addressed the enormous crowd, condemning

  Chinese migration and praising white workingmen. She declared, “I shall

  always stand by the working men. Abraham Lincoln said, ‘keep near the

  working man, and you will always be right.’ ” According to Kenworthy’s rhe-

  toric, her role in the movement was as a helpmate to the men, not as an

  advocate in her own right. Following the gender norms of the day, she would

  go where the workingmen led.54

  In November 1885, the workingmen led her into an indictment for con-

  spiracy. In the wake of a failed expulsion att
empt in Seattle, Kenworthy be-

  came one of two female agitators to be arrested and indicted by a grand

  jury. Again she spoke out, this time in her own defense. “I feel a diffidence

  in standing before you this eve ning; I feel a pride in so doing, also,” she pro-

  claimed to a cheering crowd, “I stand before you as a criminal to night

  (cheers) charged with a crime, indicted by a grand jury. . . . I know that my

  heart has been at work in your interests and for those of my people and my

  country.” She likened the anti- Chinese movement to the recent fight to end

  slavery. In the 1860s, she had supported the Union over the “terrible slaver[s]”

  because she was “a loyal- hearted woman” who wanted her children “to live

  in a free country.” As a woman and a mother, Kenworthy believed it was

  her duty to save her children from the curse of competing with slaves. Now,

  she believed she was face- to- face with the reincarnation of black slavery: Chi-

  nese coolieism.55

  When the Seattle courts tried Kenworthy for conspiracy in January 1886,

  she was quickly found not guilty along with fourteen other agitators. On

  January 16, the vigilantes gathered to celebrate their legal victory. After being

  introduced as “our sister and martyr,” Kenworthy took the stage. She retold

  the story of Molly Pitcher, an apocryphal tale about a woman who fought

  in the American Revolution. According to legend, Molly Pitcher joined her

  husband at the front and supported the troops by bringing water to the men

  during battle. When her husband was shot, Molly took his place and con-

  tinued firing his cannon. A widow herself, Kenworthy vowed, like Pitcher,

  to continue “pouring hot shot into the enemy till I see you noble sons where

  you belong.” Through this analogy, she justified her public fight against the

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  Chinese and her break with traditional femininity as a necessary ser vice to

  the nation.

  Though she began with common claims against Chinese labor, Ken-

  worthy concluded her speech with a radical call for women’s rights: “The

  women are the safeguard of the Nation. When every thing else fails, come

  to the mothers for relief. Three cheers for women’s suffrage!”56 She proclaimed

  a feminism of difference, using her female moral authority to lend righ-