Workingmen's Party of California
The Workingmen's Party of California ( WPC ) was a union- oriented party in California during the Gilded Age , best known for its anti-Chinese agenda.
Against the background of railroad strikes and violent protests in San Francisco , the WPC was founded on October 5, 1877 by the self-employed truck driver and Irish American Denis Kearney . She called for the eight-hour day and public employment programs for the unemployed . The WPC became popular primarily because of its racism against Sino-Americans , as many workers feared wage dumping and job loss due to increasing Chinese immigration . The WPC soon took control of San Francisco and, at that time, smaller cities like Santa Barbara and Los Angeles , which was also due to Kearney's talent as a speaker. In March 1878, the WPC appointed the mayors of Oakland and Sacramento and said they had 15,000 members in San Francisco alone. As a result, its own newspaper was published and a party organization was built in 40 of the 52 counties of California. Most significant were the assembly elections for the revision of the California Constitution in June 1878, in which the WPC provided a third of the delegates. Here the WPC succeeded in enshrining the eight-hour day in the public service in the constitution. Furthermore, she enforced an employment ban for Chinese in the public service and in Californian licensed companies, which was overturned in court with little delay, and a control of the railway companies by the legislature .
In 1879 senior Democrat William F. White accepted the WPC nomination for governor elections , where he received 28% of the vote. The WPC won 11 seats in the California Senate that year and 17 in the California State Assembly , making it more successful than the Democrats overall. It performed particularly well in San Francisco, where it subsequently provided mayor, sheriff , district attorney and several other officials. In 1880, the WPC increasingly lost support and fell out over the Kearney party leadership, which triggered its decline. Many members now left the WPC and returned to the Democrats, maintaining their anti-monopoly and anti-Chinese views and thereby significantly influencing the direction of the Democrats in California. These were soon included as core demands in the Democrats' program.
Before the WPC subsequently disappeared into insignificance, it was able to record two political successes: on the one hand, a commission was set up by the state to regulate the overpowering Central Pacific Railroad ; on the other hand, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by the United States Congress in 1882 .
literature
- Alexander Saxton: The Indispensable Enemy: Labor and the Anti-Chinese Movement in California . University of California Press, Berkeley 1971, ISBN 0-520-01721-8
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b R. Hal Williams: The Democratic Party and California Politics, 1880-1896. Stanford University Press, Stanford 1973, ISBN 0-8047-0847-9 , p. 16
- ^ A b Michael Kazin: Trump and American Populism: Old Whine, New Bottles . Foreign Affairs , October 6, 2016, accessed November 26, 2016
- ^ R. Hal Williams: The Democratic Party and California Politics, 1880-1896. Stanford University Press, Stanford 1973, ISBN 0-8047-0847-9 , pp. 16, 17
- ^ R. Hal Williams: The Democratic Party and California Politics, 1880-1896. Stanford University Press, Stanford 1973, ISBN 0-8047-0847-9 , p. 19
- ^ R. Hal Williams: The Democratic Party and California Politics, 1880-1896. Stanford University Press, Stanford 1973, ISBN 0-8047-0847-9 , p. 20