Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American politician Denis Kearney.
Last updated on December 21, 2024.
Denis Kearney (1847–1907) was a California labor leader from Ireland who was active in the late 19th century and was known for his racist views about Chinese immigrants. 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"
They are imported by companies, controlled as serfs, worked like slaves, and at last go back to China with all their earnings. They are in every place, they seem to have no sex. Boys work, girls work; it is all alike to them.
They have seized upon the government by bribery and corruption. They have made speculation and public robbery a science. They have loaded the nation, the state, the county, and the city with debt.
As you suggested I have in the following disputed certain passages, trusting you will do me the justice either to modify the same or add a note in the new edition stating that I dispute,' etc.
There are a few Chinese smuggled in over the borders of British Columbia on the north and Mexico on the south.
We know that if gold, if fraud, if force can defeat us, they will all be used. And we have resolved that they shall not defeat us. We shall arm. We shall meet fraud and falsehood with defiance, and force with force, if need be.
Our moneyed men have ruled us for the past thirty years. Under the flag of the slaveholder they hoped to destroy our liberty.
We are men, and propose to live like men in this free land, without the contamination of slave labor, or die like men, if need be, in asserting the rights of our race, our country, and our families.
California must be all American or all Chinese. We are resolved that it shall be American, and are prepared to make it so. May we not rely upon your sympathy and assistance?
A few men own from ten thousand to two hundred thousand acres each. The poor Laborer can find no resting place, save on the barren mountain, or in the trackless desert.
Will he get a place for his oldest boy? He can not. His girl? Why, the Chinaman is in her place too!
We are with you in this work. Workingmen must form a party of their own, take charge of the government, dispose gilded fraud, and put honest toil in power.
To add to our misery and despair, a bloated aristocracy has sent to China - the greatest and oldest despotism in the world - for a cheap working slave.
They have stolen the public lands. They have grasped all to themselves, and by their unprincipled greed brought a crisis of unparalleled distress on forty millions of people, who have natural resources to feed, clothe and shelter the whole human race.
I will lead you to the City Hall, clean out the police force, hang the Prosecuting Attorney, burn every book that has a particle of law in it, then enact new laws for the workingmen.
We intend to try and vote the Chinaman out, to frighten him out. And if this won't do it, to kill him out.