The Chinese Must Go

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The Chinese Must Go Page 23

by Beth Lew-Williams


  with a fiery temper. In October 1884, he took a job teaching deaf- mute

  children at a school in Salem, Oregon. After a year there, he moved to

  Tacoma, where he became pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, joined

  Tacoma’s Protestant Ministerial Union, and founded the first school for

  deaf- mute children in Washington Territory.49

  From the pulpit, McFarland denounced anti- Chinese rabble- rousers not

  only for their immoral treatment of the Chinese but also for their insolent

  attempt to violate his right to employ whomever he chose. If he had been

  home, he declared, “I would have kicked them out into the street.” Many

  congregation members then stood up, turned on their heels, and walked out

  of the church in protest against the “pro- Chinese fanatic.” This only riled

  the preacher: “Go! Go!” McFarland yelled, “I will preach on till the benches

  are empty!” The next day the Tacoma Daily Ledger, a workingman’s news-

  paper, commented that McFarland would be “permitted to preach to

  empty benches until such time as he shall depart in peace with his yellow

  brethren— say about November 1st.” Facing expulsion and death threats,

  McFarland strapped two “big army revolvers” to his waist under his double-

  breasted coat and “went about his pastoral duties, visiting businessmen in

  their homes and taking tea with his feminine parishioners.”50

  McFarland’s stance on the Chinese Question was hardly surprising. Since

  the Chinese had first arrived in the U.S. West, many Protestant mission-

  aries preached a decidedly unpop u lar message of egalitarianism: that the

  Chinese should be brought into the folds of the nation and Christendom.

  While the vast majority of western parishioners questioned whether assimi-

  lation and conversion were pos si ble, Protestant preachers and missionaries

  had greater confidence in the ability of American civilization to enlighten

  the heathen race. While most supported Chinese migration, some Protes-

  tant missionaries publicly and repeatedly maligned the Chinese race. Mis-

  sionaries working in China wrote highly emotional and widely disseminated

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  tracts about the barbarism they found across the Pacific, hoping to generate

  support for conversion efforts. Though the intention was to support the Chi-

  nese through a familiar form of paternalism, the missionaries’ repre sen ta-

  tions of Chinese perversion, immorality, and exoticism also fed anti- Chinese

  rhe toric.51

  Amer ica’s first Chinese mission was founded in 1853 in San Francisco with

  only four members. This Presbyterian mission was joined in the 1860s and

  1870s by Methodist, Episcopal, Congregational, and Baptist counter parts.

  Along with regular church ser vices and Sunday schools, these Chinese mis-

  sions offered newly arrived Chinese mi grants lessons in reading, writing, and

  arithmetic that were interlaced with religious instruction. Reverend Otis

  Gibson, a widely published minister of the Methodist church, saw lofty goals

  for such missionary efforts. “It has been reserved for this nineteenth century

  and this Republican Government of these United States of Amer ica,” he de-

  clared, “to witness the first great experiment of aggregated paganism in

  actual contact with the best form of Christian civilization which the world

  has ever seen.” He called for American Christians to rise to the occasion and

  demonstrate the power of American society to reform the pagan Chinese.

  But Christianization efforts fell short of these bold ambitions. Although

  some mi grants welcomed the education that missionaries offered, many

  Chinese left the schools once they had acquired basic, but highly valuable,

  En glish skills. Even though most Chinese proved uninterested or resistant,

  Chinese mi grants had joined eleven denominations and participated in 271

  Sunday schools in thirty- one states by 1892. In addition to preaching to

  Chinese in Amer i ca, Protestant missionaries crossed the Pacific Ocean to

  bring the gospel to China, an effort McFarland supported through personal

  donations. American Protestant missionaries imagined their conversion

  proj ect on a transpacific scale.52

  Facing swelling anti- Chinese vio lence in Tacoma, McFarland joined with

  seven other local religious leaders to denounce anti- Chinese vio lence in a

  tract entitled “Sentiments of the Ministerial Union of Tacoma Respecting the

  Pres ent Anti- Chinese Question.” While ministers acknowledged that their

  primary task was to “preach [our] gospel,” they argued that as religious

  leaders they had a responsibility as “God’s watchmen” to weigh in on moral

  questions of the day. It was their duty to explain God’s will, especially at

  moments when “prejudice, self- interest or po liti cal ambition” caused a com-

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  munity to make “wrong” and “evil” decisions. Pastor McFarland and the

  Tacoma Ministerial Union saw the vio lence brewing in October 1885 as just

  such a moment. “A community . . . which forcibly substitutes its own will

  for the law of the land,” they warned, “covers itself with disgrace, & gives

  occasion for fear & gloom in the hearts of all friends of freedom.” Vio lence

  against the Chinese was a threat to American freedom.53

  A week before the expulsion from Tacoma, the ministers declared that

  the Chinese were already victims of “a reign of terrorism.” While govern-

  ment officials and leading citizens for “law and order” described the agitation

  in September and October as peaceful, the ministers stated the situation in

  no uncertain terms. The explicit intimidation of the Chinese, they argued,

  was a form of “impersonal vio lence,” which had already prompted men to

  flee for “their lives.” Although few Chinese had been injured in Tacoma, the

  ministers described an “or ga nized persecution of the Chinese” that could not

  be denied. “The cry is sounded, by day & by night, ‘The Chinese Must go!’ ”

  they wrote, “Stones are hurled against their houses, in many of which the

  win dows are riddled as by a hailstorm. Daily, by the time the sun has fairly

  set, they, with boarded win dows & barred doors, sit in silence & fear in

  their houses. It is well understood that it would not be altogether safe for the

  Chinese to be upon our streets in the night time.”54

  The ministers advanced an uncommonly broad definition of vio lence, but

  gained support from a few educated elites. Historians B. F. Alley and J. P.

  Munro- Fraser, who happened to be in the territory finishing up a history of

  Washington, wrote, “It does not require much ability to see, that the anti-

  Chinese movement means vio lence. It is not force merely contemplated, but

  force applied, whenever incendiary and seditious speeches and resolutions

  are uttered.” These public intellectuals insisted that Tacoma’s November 1

  deadline for the Chinese “is not leading to riot, it is riot. . . . The words used

  in delivering the cowardly message may be covert but the act is overt.” Rarely

  did Americans citizens so boldly condemn the anti- Chinese movement.55

  Tacoma’s ministers, for th
eir part, stopped short of defending the right

  of Chinese to live and work in Washington Territory. Although national

  Protestant leaders preached conversion, McFarland and others sympathized

  with their parishioners, openly conceding that the presence of Chinese in

  the city was “undesirable.” Since expulsion seemed inevitable, the ministers

  reconciled themselves to the fact that the Chinese must go, but they believed

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  it was pos si ble to tamp down the vio lence. Using teachings of the “peace-

  able religion of Christ,” they entreated agitators to re spect U.S. treaty obli-

  gations and put aside vio lence. “ There is a worse evil than the presence of

  the Chinese,” the ministers wrote, “& that is their expulsion from among

  us by lawless force.” They counseled, “If the community could rid itself of

  their presence by the enforcement of law, or by a refusal to avail itself of their

  ser vices, no occasion for complaint would exist.” The ministers’ main con-

  cern was not to save the Chinese from expulsion; it was to protect white men’s

  souls, and the society they were fighting to construct, from damnation.56

  Of course the vigilantes in Tacoma did not listen, massing early in the

  morning of November 3, 1885. Pastor McFarland watched the spectacle in

  horror with his friend Captain Albert Whyte, a recently deputized sheriff.

  “My God,” McFarland said to Whyte, “is this Amer ica? Why do we stand

  and do nothing?” Before McFarland could rush into the crowd, Whyte held

  him back. “See that man,” cautioned Whyte, “He’s the mayor, remember?

  And that, he’s a judge. And that one; he’s on the council. And that one; he’s

  the sheriff. And most of the rest of them have been deputized. . . . Don’t

  matter what you do, you can’t stop this thing. You can only make it worse.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” admitted McFarland, and he left the mob alone to

  do as they would.57

  As promised, the vigilantes drove the Chinese out of Tacoma and, it seems,

  pushed McFarland out as well. After only a year in Tacoma, he left and

  moved to the small town of Vancouver in southern Washington Territory.

  Although Reverend McFarland acquiesced to the anti- Chinese movement,

  many religious leaders on the East Coast continued to protest the treatment

  of the Chinese. In Boston, for example, Methodist and Episcopal churches

  held a meeting in March 1886, where they drafted resolutions to Congress

  decrying “grievous outrages” against Chinese in the western states and ter-

  ritories. “That the failure to keep our treaty obligations, and the inhuman

  persecutions and brutal massacres which have been perpetrated upon these

  strangers in our midst,” declared the petition, “have disgraced our country

  in the eyes of the civilized world, and subject us to the just judgments of a

  righ teous God.” Dozens of copies of the petition were circulated to eastern

  churches and hundreds of parishioners signed to show their support. Reli-

  gious leaders were not only worried about American souls, they were also

  concerned about missionaries currently working in China. The petition re-

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  minded Congress that “the safety of our citizens in China is imperiled by

  these frequent and unredressed wrongs to Chinese subjects in the United

  States.” Since the 1870 massacre of French missionaries in Tianjin, anti-

  Western vio lence in China seemed an ever- present threat. Religious leaders

  feared that American missionaries in China could suffer the same fate as the

  Chinese in Amer ica.58

  While some missionaries on the East Coast continued to support Chi-

  nese migration, western religious leaders offered up an alternative in the wake

  of the vio lence. If the Chinese were driven out of Amer ica, missionaries could

  concentrate their conversion efforts on China. In 1886, the San Francisco Eve-

  ning Post reported that notable leaders of the Presbyterian, Episcopal, and

  Baptist churches had declared their support of the anti- Chinese movement.

  “It was [once] thought that the pro- Chinese view was necessarily the Chris-

  tian view,” wrote the Post. “Long experience has shown, however, that it is

  no easier to convert the Chinaman here than on his native soil.” Since “the

  presence of the Chinese means poverty, suffering and moral and religious

  blight to many of our own race,”59 religious leaders increasingly turned their

  attention abroad. When Reverend McFarland fled in response to the anti-

  Chinese vio lence, he was not alone.60

  Thomas Burke: “I Favor the American Method”

  Thomas Burke seemed unlikely to decry the expulsions, given his ethnic heri-

  tage and po liti cal leanings. Born in 1849 in upstate New York to Irish

  farmers, Burke, no doubt, would have followed the family trade, like his four

  siblings, if a childhood injury to his arm had not put manual labor out of

  the question. Earning tuition by working as a clerk, Burke attended college

  at Ypsilanti Seminary and read law in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Two years after

  passing the bar exam, at the age of twenty- five, Burke deci ded to move to

  the frontier town of Seattle to begin his career. He arrived with po liti cal am-

  bitions. He made a successful bid to become probate judge of King County

  and ran twice, without success, as a Demo cratic candidate for territorial del-

  egate to Congress in 1882 and 1884. Though he shared immigrant roots and

  Demo cratic politics with many of the vigilantes, Burke had no sympathy for

  the vio lence. In November 1885, he told a mixed crowd of vigilantes and of-

  ficials in Seattle exactly what he thought of the Tacoma expulsion. “200

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  human beings were driven out of Tacoma like dogs, and compelled to face

  a driving storm all night, during which two of their number died from ex-

  posure,” he roared. “Dumb animals are deserving of better treatment than

  that.” 61

  Burke may have hailed from a humble immigrant family, but in Seattle

  he became an elite businessman, and as his fortunes rose he developed a

  transpacific vision of Amer ica’s future. He saw the Pacific Ocean as “a great

  highway” and believed “nothing could be more natu ral than that a commerce

  should spring between” the United States and China. In the 1870s, he worked

  as a lawyer, representing railroad corporations and Chinese contractors (in-

  cluding Chin Gee Hee) who supplied their labor. His investment in China

  grew in the 1880s, when he became a railroad developer and began pro-

  moting Seattle as a gateway to Asia.62

  However, Burke’s support of Chinese labor was tenuous from the begin-

  ning. Days after the Chinese were driven from Tacoma, Seattle’s mayor,

  Henry Yesler, convened a public meeting that drew seven hundred people

  on both sides of the issue. Haller, who knew Burke well and often dined

  with him, stood in the crowd that night and recorded the event in his diary.

  The Civil War col o nel noted (with approval) that many speakers urged the

  crowd “to be loyal to our Government” and “use legal means to drive out

  the Chinaman.” Speakers
reviewed “the whole Chinese history: how England

  forced open its ports, when for ages they had been closed to Foreigners, and

  Chinese prevented from going abroad. The Burlingame Treaty opened China

  to our people and we allowed Chinaman to come here under our national

  protection.” 63 At the end of the eve ning, Burke took the stage. According to

  his biographer, he was not a commanding figure, standing “below medium

  height” at a little over five feet. Burke was heavi ly invested in Chinese labor

  and the China Trade, but by the time he spoke at Frye’s Opera House, he

  had already reconciled himself to the vigilantes’ demands. Although he de-

  cried the expulsion, Burke readily admitted to his audience that it was in

  “our interest” to see the Chinese go. “ There should be no substantial differ-

  ence of opinion among the people of this city on the Chinese question,” he

  said, “We are all agreed that the time has come when a new treaty should be

  made with China restricting Chinese immigration to this country.” 64

  Still he opposed the violent, extralegal tactics of the anti- Chinese move-

  ment. Acutely aware of the rampant prejudice against the Irish in Amer ica,

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  159

  Burke was particularly incensed that members of his ethnic community

  would invite criticism by participating in lawlessness. He spoke directly to

  the many workers in the audience who shared his Irish ancestry, arguing that

  the Irish, of all men, should “be true to American ideals of law and order.”

  Given the history of oppression of the Irish in their home country, Burke

  believed they should know better than to persecute “any of God’s creatures

  no matter how lowly he may be or the color of his skin.” Furthermore, the

  Irishman should be especially grateful for Amer ica’s hospitality toward im-

  migrants and not dare “such black ingratitude as to raise his hand in vio-

  lence against the laws” of their adopted home. Participating in the nativist

  anti- Chinese moment would not Americanize or whiten the Irish race, Burke

  believed. It would only offer fodder to its detractors. “ Shall we act as be-

  comes free, law- abiding and justice- loving Americans or as turbulent and

  lawless foreigners?” Burke’s answer to this own question was clear: “I am an

 

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