"And Justice for All: Part IV": article draft by Roosevelt Fitzgerald

AND JUSTICE FOR ALL: PART IV BY ROOSEVELT FITZGERALD
Maybe it has to do with distances and, then again, it may well have had something to do with the ancient myths which permeated so much of the knowledge dating back to antiquity. It might just as easily have been the result of something as simple as our traditional relationship with the unknown. When the mind addresses the unknown it oftentimes conjures up either the most wondrous or the most monstrous. No horror creatures that I have ever seen in the movies even begin to approach those I've imagined while reading Poe or Maupussaint. Remember when you were young and the great monsters in the darkness, especially where we would sleep, that could be created out of that darkness and which chased you right off to sleep because if you remained awake you would have to deal with them? Those were the times when we discovered that it was preferable to die in one's sleep and not have to know about it. It helped by saying that prayer; "If I should die before I wake..." Sometimes I think we may have even hoped that we would. The unknown is powerful. There have been comic books and movies with titles 1Ue; FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN. The fear of the unknown has always been within us. It is difficult to conquer it and many times it is easier to just give in to it. It is especially easy when we are encouraged, by many others, to do so.
Between 1803, the year of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and the mid point of the nineteenth century, there had been relatively little activity on the part of the citizenry of the United States to carry out the mandate of "Manifest Destiny." About the midway point, Horace Greely had attempted to spur a migration from the eastern portion of the United States with his famous editorial; "GO WEST YOUNG MAN." His call was answered by a few who joined earlier explorers and expeditions and enhanced the era of the mountain
man.
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For a quarter century the western portion of what would eventually become part of the United States was inhabited by those mountainmen, Mexicans in some parts and the native inhabitants who had been there for over ten thousand years. Some acculturation took place but there was little thought about assimilation beyond that which had taken place earlier with Native."Americans and the Spanish;. There were no roads and one could go for days without seeing another living soul. It must've been great.
With the discovery of gold in California in 1848 and the subsequent gold rush of 1849, people from all over America made that place their destination and prayed for the day that they would be able to say; "Eureka, I'm worth me weight in gold."
Before many of them could cross the plains, others had crossed the oceans of the world in their desire to partake in the "doings"Vn California. From all points of the globe they came. Eitographs showing the harbors along the California coast show tall ships from the nations of the world in the ultimate gridlock; They had all been deserted by captains and crews alike-- all convinced that they would fare much better in the gold fields, mines and shafts than they would in the holds and on the riggings of such as the Star of India.
All points of the globe included the orient--the orient which had been an unknown entity for over four thousand years. Marco Polo's tales of the late 13th century of China and India did not help matters. When Chinese hopefuls arrived at the goldfields of California they were looked upon with awe. Initially they encountered only the ordinary difficulties which other prospectors encountered. This soon changed and by the mid 1850s they found that they, along with negroes, Mexicans and Native Americans were forbidden to prospect on any piece of land which had not previously been gone over by white prospectors. Of course this was not constitutional but merely miners laws and were enforced by the majority
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of the miners who were in fact white. phenomenon gave substance to Plato's observation in The Republic that justice is always in the interest of the stronger.
Denied access to direct mining activity and still needing to make a living, Chinese men were required to look elsewhere. They opened restaurants, laundries and other such businesses. Even at that they were harrassed by the general populace and found themselves without anywhere to turn for justice. Between 1861 and 1869 the Central Pacific leg of the Transcontinental Railroad was built. By the beginning of that project nearly 47,000 Chinese had come to California. Those who did not have their own small businesses worked as miners for the larger mining concerns. The railroad offered them another option. Charles Crocker of the Central Pacific hired many of them to work on the railroad and they did so, under some of the worse conditions imaginable until the line joined the Union Pacific at Promitory Point, Utah.
We rarely see pictures showing the work of Chinese labor in the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad. While there have been many films about that great project theyBinvariably have to do with the Union Pacific leg and not the Central Pacific where the majority of the workers were Chinese. While in the middle of nowhere they had only to contend with the dangers of digging tunnels through the mountains, the brutality of their foremen and the harshness of the weather. The towns on the line sprang up as they left not before their r major problems would come with the completion of the project.
Even more concealed than their involvement in the construction of the railroad is what happened with those thousands of Chinese laborers at rail's end. It Us as though they disappeared. They did not. They dispersed throughout the west into the several towns where they sought to make a living. In those places they became the butt of everyone else's jokes. Some thought it great fun to cut their queques (Hair) while others thought their language was
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jibberish and derided them because they spoke English so poorley. No thought was given to the fact that however poorly spoken, the Chinese were on the way to becoming bilingual and their detractors could speak only one language and that badly. Is the one who can communicate somewhat in two languages inferior to the one who can speak only one? I think not.
In some towns they were shot on sight, in others they were summarily hanged. Most were not lucky enough to get a job cooking on the Ponderosa. While all these atrocities occurred the law, which by then had caught up to the rapid expansion of the United States into the west did nothing but stand by silently. By the final quarter of the nineteenth century, those isolated events of. intolerance which had been tolerated by the law all seemed to come together like so many streams to form a raging torrent--a raging torrent which would have as its calling card: "YELLOW PERIL."
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