Workingmen's Party of California | |
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 | |
| Leader | Denis Kearney |
| Founded | 1877 |
| Dissolved | 1883 |
| Ideology | Anti-Chinese racism |
The Workingmen's Party of California (WPC) was an American labor organization, founded in 1877 and led by Denis Kearney, J. G. Day, and H. L. Knight. [1]
Its famous slogan was "The Chinese must go!" [2]
As a result of heavy unemployment from the 1873–1878 national depression, Sand Lot rallies erupted in San Francisco that led to the Party's formation in 1877. [3] The party won 11 seats in the State Senate and 17 in the State Assembly by 1878 and then rewrote the state's constitution, [4] denying Chinese citizens voting rights in California. The most important part of the constitution included the formation of California Railroad Commission that would oversee the activities of the Central and Pacific Railroad companies that were run by Crocker, Huntington, Hopkins and Stanford.[ failed verification ] [5]
The party took particular aim against cheap Chinese immigrant labor and the Central Pacific Railroad which employed them. [6] [7] Their goal was to "rid the country of Chinese cheap labor." [8] Kearney's attacks against the Chinese were of a particularly virulent and openly racist nature, and found considerable support among white Californians of the time. This sentiment led eventually to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
By 1883, there were no WPC members left in either the state Senate or the state Assembly.
Kearney's party should not be confused with the Workingmen's Party of the United States, which was mostly based in the Eastern United States. The branches of the Workingmen's Party of the United States that were in California were absorbed into the Workingmen's Party of California after the latter was growing at a rapid rate and had adopted similar language. [9]
Denis Kearney (1847–1907) was a California labor leader from Ireland who was active in the late 19th century and was known for his anti-Chinese activism. Called "a demagogue of extraordinary power," he frequently gave long and caustic speeches that focused on four general topics: contempt for the press, for capitalists, for politicians, and for Chinese immigrants. A leader of the Workingmen's Party of California, he is known for ending all of his speeches with the sentence "And whatever happens, the Chinese must go"
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