The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 15, 1896, Page 15

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1896. 15 T il ) /W HE isolated patter of one pair of Chinese baby feet in a noisome '‘China alley” a few years ago would have caused a flutter. Almond eyes,.olive skin, jaun cap, rustling silken garments, snowy white little shoes, a braided ‘‘pigta which oscillated like 8 pendulum, long finger nails—and there was the little | pagan w' o pioneered a long array of similarly attired other little pa ans out from Chinese hovels into the sunshine and fearless freedom in the open air. A native-born citizen, the American eagle seemed not a whi tproud of him; a native son, California was ready to repudiate him. Now the patter of one pair of feet is succeeded by the sound of legions. In Chinatown’s dirty purlicus au infantile army has been reared. Two years ago the school census takers found 1500 Chinese children | of school age. There are not less than 2000 native sons and danghters in San Fran- cisco’'s Chinatown, in whose veins Chinese blood flows, and who are lawful heirs of American citizenship. A small army of Mongols is marching leisurely along the dusty highway of time toward the ultimate and sure bailot-box. This phase of the Chinese question does not appear to have been fully compre- hended. But not later than the year 1920, at the present birth rate in Chinatown and supposing average conditions regarding mortality to obtain, it is as clear as anythin : can be that something like 2500 Chinese native-born citizens, now mostly young chil- "dren, will be entitled to the ballot in San Francisco alone. Sacramento, Stockton, Los Angeles, San Jose, and in fact nearly all communities in California, have also their native-born Mongolian babies who are on their way to citizenship. Not less ! than 4000 native-born Chinese voters will be in the field of politics in 1920 in Caii- | fornis—enough with an alliance with some large political party and with a united front to carry a State election; enough to settle a Presidential election if California shonld be the pivotal State, conceding that the strength of parties should be some- what nearly divided. Surely the student of political nistory raust see something curious in this not very remote contingehcy. Less than one-quarter of one century may seedragon flags fly- ing from the roofs of Chinese josshouses, from the tops of buildings in which fan-tan ‘games abide, and from scores of bui!dings reeking with nlth and “smeliing to heaven,” in celebration of the election of the candidate of the Chinese for Governor or even for . President of the United States of America, or Congressman, or Mayor, or Supervisor. There may even come a time when bonfires will burn in Chinatown and Chinese gongs and other alleged musical instruments be sounded to catch the Mongolian vote, and wagons carry up and down the steep slopes advice to Chinese-Americans to vote for Ah Jow or Tom Lee for Sheriff or Mayor or some other equally important office. Chinese, it is well known, have strong family attachments. The head of a family directs ali the others, who obey him implicitly. TUnquestioning obedience gives the ideal conditions required for henchmen of a political boss. - Another queer feature engrafted upon the American political system in San Francisco will be the influence | of dged Chinese, who have no votes themselves, but who will have power to insure how numbers of votes will be cast. The Chinese patriarchs, with goat-like beards, will be *‘bosses” of the most approved sort, This is certain enough. The Chinese children are receiving enough education to enable them to vote when | the time comes. There are now hundreds of them who can read and write English | fiuently. 1n addition to the Chinese public school on Clay street there are mission | - schools where English is taught. The Clay-street Chinese public school has three | classes of Chinese boys and girls, with a total attendance of about eighty-five chil- dren, who are reading and writing Englisk every day. Tne Chinese mission schools and the approximate attendance at each are about as follows: Occidental Mission at 911 Stockton street, 38, of whom 29 are boys and 9 girls; Loomis Memorial School, 911 Stockton street, 40; Baptist school at the corner of YN 6 F H A ar 0 € £ @ ‘tgi “a € € 5% e Py P o N 'S v ¥ B'® P T 0 ¢ 8 oo s 7?'7\ [Nt tatd -V b | which teachers brouzht from China preside. | this sort are all located in Chinatown, being as follows: Kearny and Washington streets, 12 nupils; 765 Clay street, 16 pupils; Waverly place and Sacramento street, 30; Methodist school at 916 Washington street, between Powell and Stockton, 37. Here is the beginning and here are 220 Chinese chiidren who can alrendy read and write English. The Chinese are taking care with the education of their children as do other races. The little boys and girls who study English during the forenoon and the early afternoon occupy themselves during the later hours of the day learning to read and write Chinese at several schools, in The schools of 738 Jackson streer, 20 pupils; Brenham place and Washington street, 8 pupils; Clay and Dupont streets, 18 pu- ils; Wavery place, between Washingtpn and Clay streets, 14 pupils. There are comparatively few Chinese girls in the schools. There are two reasons for this. The leading reason is that their parents are afraid that if their girls leave home they will be kidnaped and held for ransom by other Chinese. The other reason is that Chinese consider women inferior. There are grotesque and striking possibilities in the chances of abduction. A Chinese woman of voting age is a marketable commodity. Her price varies according to her beauty. The more beautiful she is the more she is in danger of a violent and involun- tary change of abode through the agency of the highbinders. The possibility of a Chinese woman in her capacity of candi- date for member of the Board of E iucation—for the education of Chinese children wiil grow in importance in proportion 1o the increase in their political power—visiting the polis on elec- tion day and being abducted may exist. 1t has been assumed, for the purpose of presenting the full strength of the futare Chinese “push” in this City, that the Chinese might vote solidly, all on one side of a given question. This does not fail o inciude knowledge and recognition of the bitter hostility between S8am Yups and See Yups and their possible outbreaks at the polls should there be opposing candi- daies, white or Chiinese, both catering to the Chinese vote. Bul lets would fly very likely in such a contingency, and that imperium 1n imperio, Chinatown, would have oid troubles in- tensified by an election. But there are questions upon which the Chinese vote may h ’Hl el be solid. Let it be borne in mind that the more Chinese there are in San Francisco the more trade there is for Chinese mer- | chants; the more blackmail money for highbinders; the more fees and importance and memters for the various companies; the greater the influence of the Chinese poliiically. Still front- ing California, on the Pacific, are millions of Chinese persons | who would like to come to the United States to earn money. The local Chinese vote, a little more than twenty years hence, may help them to come. In the Chinese public school on Clay street and in the mission schools where Chinese children are taught the books used are the California State text series. The Chinese children, according to competent testimony, learn rapidiy. Their copybooks look fully as well as those of white children in the most favored school. They sit at desks like other children. Some of them, esvecially the children of christianized Chinese parents, dress as Americans. The little girls braia their bair and tie ribbong to it like other li:tle girls. They giggle behind their books and act not one whit different from other chiidren in school. They sing songs in both English and Chinese and find no in- superable difficulty in adopting the diatonic musical scale of civilization. Nor has Chinese music deprived them of an aj« prec.ation of civilized melodies. They are just as mischievous as other children. The boys delight in climbing upon the desks and making a noise when the teacher is absent. They puli the girle' hair and tyrannize and tease. It is when recess comes and they play in their own way that the boys show their marked racial divergzences from the youthful Caucasian. They are often seen fencing with long sticks after the alieged sanguinary fashion of the actors in pre- posterons Chinese dramas. With abbreviated *‘pigtails’’ sway- ing they seek sheltered nooks to play shutile-cock, kicking the shuttle-cock into the air with their heels. Will some distant successor of Mayor-elect Phelan commend bimself 10 voters by trotting up and down Brenham place and kickin: up his heels in a erack exhibi ion of shuttie-cock playing? ¥ The coming male voters of Cninatown are different in am»l ward appearance from the Chinese chi.dren as they were ob- | served in San Francisco even so recently as ten years ago. They are not more or less gorgcous in spangies, nor more or less radi- I {y u ant as to clothes, nor longer or more abbreviated as to pigtail. The change is in their eyes and manner. The native boy Chinese resident of San Francisco has added to the habitual careful watchfulness and curiosity of all Chinese the habits of the Amer- ican boy in some degree. The developments of civilization, as manifested by cable- cars, telephones and all other modern appliances, have brightened his faculties, and contact with white children has tinged his life. Auy observer must have noticed that there has been a change mentally. The Chinese girls are known less. At 12 or 13 they may be married and mothers at 14. The feet of the poor are pinched by their parents, not for gentility, but that the girls may be got rid of easily when they have reached what the Chinese cousider the marriageable aze. There have always been comparatively few Chinese women in San Francisco, and the opportunities offered to a Chinese father to get rid of his super= fluous girls are exceptionally good in this town, and if thas girl is good-looking she brings a sum of money which makes her a source of profit. The young mothers, girls of 14 or even younger, are not seen in publie, The fact that they are married does not exempt them from the danger of beins kidnaped. Then, again, the Chinese husbands are extremely jealous and keep th: oung wives housed as much as possible. While there have been many adult Chinese who have departed for China never to return, and while, therefore, Chinatown has many unoccupied stores and dweilings which were formerly filled, it is not safe to assume that Chinatown is doomed ultimately to disappear. In fact, quite the contrary appears probable. The children who are born in San Francisco have no natural attachment for China, which they have never seen and which has less of freedom and of opportunity than the United States for them. There 1s little reason to suppose that they will seek China when their parents voluntarily have chosen San Francisco in which to rear their families. They will live in San Francisco. The rate of increase is very rapid. The babies are taking the places of the adults who have gone to China to remain. Everywhere throughout the length and breadth of Chinatown i¥ heard ihe laughter and chattering of Chinese children. They seem to spring up like mushrooms over night. Being small they do not compel their parents to enlarge their tenements, which are as small as possible under the circumstanees. Itisonlya very few vears since Chinese raised families as freely in this City and the effect of an increasing‘pop- ulation is not felt appreciably because of the extreme present juvenility of the addie tions, There are other points of interest concerning the coming Chinese voters. While they are learning to read and write they remain pagans to a great degree. “It is not right,”” said an English speaking young Chinaman t¢ » ady re- cently, “that the Chinese in San Francisco should have to obey American laws. The Chinese laws are enough.” Chinatown will have the numerical strength to cause itself to be represented in some future Board of Supervisors of the City of San Francisco; very like pervisor who shall enter the chamber of the board attired like a Chinese morchant during the Chinese New Year's festivities. Seated between two sober-sui e Ameri- can citizens, who represent Caucasian wards, he may wave his fan and rus:|» bis Ori- ental finery and legisiate. Or it may ve that Ah Sing, overcoming the national prejudices of his parents in the matter of dress, may eat rice with chopsticks a Mayor’s banquet, wearing a claw-nammer coat and white tie. Then and there may arise a din of Chinese music, so called, as a gracions : to the growing political influence and importance of Ah Sing. Perhaps roast pig may smoke, cvoked in the Chinese style, and punks may fragrantly fume, and the Chinese Supervisor, rising to respond to the toast of the evening, shall pull ont with the manu-cript of his remarks a package of Chinese prayer vapers, and so the picture become comp ete. Perhaps he will wave his fan and eat preserved g r and teach the Mayor how they kowtow in Peking. Then shall the son of the moon and the sun and the stars sit him down and think of the New Zealander on the ruins of London brid_.e of whom Macaulay wrote. by a Su- bite VOTE rDO!\ THE CHINESE S KETCHUM TWO, TLEE DOLLAR ° EBLY TIME VTR,