Kalloch was opposed by the board of supervisors, only one of whom belonged to his party.

During the early months of 1880, another agitation, distinct from the Kearney movement in many respects, arose among the unemployed of San Francisco. Business was exceedingly dull, and large numbers of men were out of work. Immigration from the eastern States had been encouraged by false reports in the newspapers, with the result that many people had entered the State during the latter part of 1879. On January 18, 1880, a meeting was called by the painters' union with Thomas Bates, a socialist, as chairman, for the purpose of discussing the situation. Out of this grew a movement to enforce the clause in the new constitution which prohibited corporations from employing Chinese. Theretofore it had remained unenforced. Large numbers of men marched from factory to factory demanding the discharge of the Mongolians and threatening violence in case of refusal. Several of the leaders were members of the Socialist Labor party. Finally the legislature passed a law, in conformity with the constitution, later declared invalid,13 prohibiting the employment of Chinese by corporations, and considerable numbers were discharged by several large corporations.

The agitation, however, continued and grew more violent and the speakers became more outspoken in their remarks, until the city was once more as excited as during the early days of the Kearney movement. A secret committee of safety was formed; business was brought to a standstill. The climax was reached in February when the board of health declared Chinatown a nuisance and decided that it should be abated. Now the business men in their turn threatened violence in case any attempt should be made to carry out the order. An ordinance increasing the police force was passed over the mayor's veto.

On March 11, Kearney and Gannon, a leader of the unemployed, were arrested for the use of incendiary language. Both were sentenced to six months' imprisonment but were later released by the Supreme Court on the ground that, although the city ordinance under which they had been arrested was valid, it did not cover the misdemeanor charged. The arrest and the

19 In re Tiburcio Parrott, 1 Fed. 481 (1880).

final decision helped to keep alive the Workingmen's party for a time.

But the organisation had lost the greater part of its earlier characteristics and had become a party of politicians only. In January, 1880, Kearney had attended the conference called by the greenbackers in Washington, D. C., and he came back an avowed greenbacker. But, in the meantime, the Democratic party in California had grown extremely weak and was eager to fuse and divide offices with any organisation having a chance of victory in the approaching elections. The result was that during the next few months a struggle ensued between the Democrats and the greenbackers for the control of the Workingmen's party of California.

On March 15 a convention was held by the Workingmen's party of San Francisco and fifteen freeholders were nominated, who, if elected, were to have served on the board having in charge the preparation of a new charter for the city. The list of nominees was composed largely, not of members of the party, but of a number of prominent Democrats and a few Republicans. A committee of 200 from the Citizens' Protective Union nominated a strong ticket in opposition to the workingmen's, and it received the endorsement of the Republicans. The expectation of violence at this election was not realised. The workingmen's candidates were overwhelmingly defeated, as they had been shortly before defeated in the municipal elections at Oakland, Sacramento, and San Jose. This in itself did much to break the spirit of the members of that organisation, so that the dissolution of the party was practically only a question of time.

On April 5 the executive committee met and elected delegates to the Greenback Labor convention in Chicago. This act aroused great opposition among the ward clubs and many openly affiliated with the Democratic party. The state convention met, May 17, with 100 delegates in attendance from 20 different counties. Upon the advice of Kearney, who was at that time in jail, delegates were chosen to the Greenback-Labor convention, notwithstanding the opposition coming from those supporting the Democrats. The greenback-Kearney delegates came, for the most part, from the interior counties.

The movement within the city also was split in twain as a result of the convention. Clubs were disbanded; others were reorganised. In June, Kearney went to Chicago and was made a member of the national executive committee of the Greenback party. During his absence the party moved still further on the way to disruption. The opposing faction met, deposed Kearney, and endorsed the national Democratic platform and candidates. The Workingmen's party nominated no ticket of its own, but fused throughout the State with the Democrats and greenbackers. The Workingmen's party of California was dead. During 1881-1883, Kearney spoke frequently at Sunday meetings on the sand-lots, but his remarks were cool and moderate and attracted little attention. After the campaign of 1880 he returned to his draying business, but again entered politics in 1881 as an active member of the AntiMonopoly party. In 1882 he canvassed the State for the Democratic nominee for governor. In 1884 he abandoned politics and became a real estate agent and stock broker as well as the proprietor of an employment office. From that time until his death in 1907, he took no part in public affairs.

Had the unemployed in San Francisco, with their violent leaders, been the only class opposed to Chinese immigration, the movement would hardly have had any success. Beginning, however, in the early seventies, employers had started to join forces with the wage-earners in their opposition to the Chinese. They, too, had begun to feel the effects of the Chinese in industry. They had taught the aliens to make cigars, boots and shoes, clothing, and the like, and had been perfectly satisfied with the situation as long as the Chinese had been willing to work under the conditions and for the wages fixed by the white employers. Their attitude changed, however, when the Chinese themselves began to set up in business, to hire their fellow countrymen, and to sell their goods in direct competition with those manufactured by their former employers and instructors. It was useless to attempt to meet their prices. As one paper remarked, "a Chinese manufacturer has many advantages over an American in the employment of Chinese labor. In the first place they employ for at least half the wages, and then they get twice the amount of work out of their help. Hence,

they can at any time undersell the American proprietor. In fact, in the boot and shoe trade, the white manufacturers are obliged to purchase the cheap grade of boots and shoes from the Chinese manufacturers. So that the nemesis of cheap labor is now affecting the white employers as well as the white mechanics and laborers." 14

As soon as capital had enlisted against the Chinese, the press, public opinion, and legislatures showed a marvellous change of attitude. State laws and municipal ordinances were used to remedy the evil, but they were as a rule declared unconstitutional. 15 Next an appeal was made to Congress to prohibit the importation of Chinese. In 1876 the question became an issue of national importance. In that year, each of the national parties inserted an anti-Chinese plank in its platform. In the same year Congress appointed a commission to investigate the situation upon the coast, and, after examining a large number of witnesses, a voluminous report was submitted, recommending that immediate action be taken to restrict Chinese immigration. 16

It was for this reason, namely, that it was an expression, an extreme one, to be sure, of the general sentiment in the State, that the Kearney agitation met with such singular success. Indeed, it led to far-reaching results. It served to emphasise the Chinese question as a subject of national importance and forced upon the Federal Government the necessity of abrogating the Burlingame Treaty. It was also the most active factor in the formation and adoption of the new constitution.

During the later seventies, owing to the Kearney agitation, the number of Chinese entering the United States had greatly decreased. Consequently, the opposition of the workingmen was for a time deadened. The ratification of the treaty of 1880, however, changed the situation completely. This treaty with China contained the provision that the government of the United States "may regulate, limit, or suspend" the coming

14 San Francisco Chronicle, Apr. 27, 1873.

15 In re Ah Fong, 3 Sawy. 144 (1874); Chu Lung v. Freeman, 92 U. S. 275 (1875); Ho Ah Kow v. Nunan, 5 Sawy. 552 (1879); In re Quong Woo, 13 Fed. 229 (1882); Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118

U. S. 356 (1886); In re Tie Loy, 26 Fed. 611 (1886); In re Lee Sing et Al., 43 Fed. 359 (1890).

16 Reports of Committees of the Senate, 44 Cong., 2 sess., 1876-1877, No. 689, vol. I.

of Chinese labourers, but "may not absolutely prohibit it." Every ship crossing the Pacific was filled with Chinese hastening to get into the United States before the gates should be closed against them. In the three years, 1880-1882, more than 57,000 were admitted, while in 1882 more than 39,000 arrived. Under such circumstances, it was not surprising that the anti-Chinese agitation was renewed.

But the new movement differed from the Kearney agitation. Prosperity had set in early in 1881. Unemployment fell off and labour organisations began to thrive. So it was that organised labour and not the unorganised mass of unemployed took up the agitation.

As early as March, 1878, as a result of an informal discussion by three delegates to the first state convention of the Workingmen's party of California, who also were members of the unions of their respective trades, there was organised the Representative Assembly of Trades and Labor Unions. The first meeting was attended by representatives from twelve trades. However, for the next three years, the organisation lacked vitality and leadership. It was not until July, 1881, when Frank Roney came as a delegate from the Seamen's Protective Union, that all this was changed. After he had severed connection with both the Kearney and anti-Kearney factions of the Workingmen's party, Roney became a socialist and an active trade unionist. Though not a sailor, he organised in September, 1880, the seamen's union which he represented. Under Roney's leadership, energetic action was taken to organise the unorganised trades, to bring about prison labour reform and, particularly to popularise the anti-Chinese labels of the cigar makers and shoemakers. These were the beginnings of the trade union label, which later became an important factor in the American labour movement.17

17 In 1875 a cigar makers' union in San Francisco which was unaffiliated with the International Cigar Makers' Union, became incorporated under the laws of California, and adopted a stamp which it registered as its trade-mark. The stamp was issued by the union to employers who employed exclusively white labour. Sped. den, "The Trade Union Label," in Johns Hopkins University Publications XXVIII, 9-10. This is the first known

instance of the use of the union label by cigar makers. The earliest use of the union label, as far as is known, was made also in San Francisco in 1869, by a carpenters' eight-hour league, which furnished a stamp to all planing mills running on the eight-hour plan, so that they would be able to identify the work of the tenhour mills. Lucile Eaves, A History of California Labor Legislation, 209.