Workingmen's Party of California

{{Short description|American labor organization (1877–1881)}} {{Redirect|The Chinese must go|the play|The Chinese Must Go: A Farce in Four Acts}} {{Infobox political party | name = Workingmen's Party of California | logo = Workingmen's Party of California Logo High Res Edit.png | logo_size = | colorcode = Red | abbreviation = WPC | leader = Denis Kearney | foundation = {{no wrap|{{start date and age|1877|10|05}}}}<ref name=kauer>{{cite journal |last1=Kauer |first1=Ralph |title=The Workingmen's Party of California |journal=Pacific Historical Review |date=September 1944 |volume=13 |issue=3 |pages=280, 282–283, 286–289 |url=https://www-jstor-org.hacc.idm.oclc.org/stable/3635954?seq=3 |access-date=29 October 2025}}</ref> | dissolved = {{circa}} {{no wrap|{{start date and age|1881|10}}}}<ref name=kauer/> | headquarters = Charter Oak Hall, San Francisco, California, U.S.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Lumea |first1=John |title=Even in Death and Wax, the Eyes of the Emperor Were on the Former HQ of Denis Kearney's Anti-Chinese Crusade |url=https://emperornortontrust.org/blog/2020/3/20/wax-museum-emperor-norton-kept-watch-over-sf-two-years-after-his-death |website=emperornortontrust.org |publisher=The Emperor Norton Trust |access-date=30 October 2025}}</ref> | newspaper = ''Daily Sand Lot''<ref name=kauer/> | membership = 15,000 (in San Francisco)<ref name=kauer/> | ideology = Anti-Chinese racism<ref>{{cite book |last1=Foner |first1=Philip S. |authorlink=Philip S. Foner |title=The Workingmen's Party of the United States: A History of the First Marxist Party in the Americas |date=1984 |publisher=MEP Publications |location=Minneapolis |page=77 |url=https://archive.org/details/HistoryWorkingmensPartyUS/page/n37/mode/1up |access-date=29 October 2025}}</ref> Anti-monopolism<ref name=kauer/><ref name=shumsky>{{cite book |last1=Shumsky |first1=Neil Larry |title=The Evolution of Political Protest and the Workingmen's Party of California |date=1991 |publisher=Ohio State University Press |location=Columbus |pages=21–29, 153–154, 202–203, 206–207 |url=https://archive.org/details/evolutionofpolit0000shum/page/202/mode/1up |access-date=29 October 2025}}</ref> '''Factions:''' Laborism<ref name=shumsky/> Socialism<ref name=shumsky/> | position = Left-wing<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mohan |first1=Hugh J. |last2=Clough |first2=E. H. |last3=Cosgrave |first3=John P. |title=Pen Pictures of Our Representative Men |date=1880 |publisher=H. A. Weaver's Valley Press |location=Sacramento |page=53 |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101078160759&seq=81 |access-date=23 October 2025}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=WASP: Bipartisan Consensus and the Rise of the Workingmen's Party of California - FoundSF |url=https://www.foundsf.org/WASP:_Bipartisan_Consensus_and_the_Rise_of_the_Workingmen's_Party_of_California |access-date=2025-03-16 |website=www.foundsf.org}}</ref> | slogan = "The Chinese must go!" | country = the United States }} The '''Workingmen's Party of California''' ('''WPC''') was an American labor organization and political party, founded in 1877 and led by Denis Kearney.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://instruct.westvalley.edu/kelly/History20_on_campus/Online%20Readings/Cross_Kearney.htm|title=Denis Kearney Organizes the Workingmen|last=Cross|first=Ira|website=West Valley College|access-date=2018-09-06}}</ref> Remembered primarily for its anti-Chinese racism, the party's famous slogan was "The Chinese must go!"<ref name="LingAustin2015">{{cite book|author1=Huping Ling|author2=Allan W. Austin|title=Asian American History and Culture: An Encyclopedia: An Encyclopedia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OvBnBwAAQBAJ&pg=PT1346|date=17 March 2015|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-1-317-47644-3|pages=1346–}}</ref>

==Organizational history== {{see also|History of California before 1900#Anti-Asian Nativism}} [[File:Dennis Kearney.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.8|Denis Kearney, founder of the Workingmen's Party of California]] As a result of heavy unemployment from the Long Depression, Sand Lot rallies erupted in San Francisco that led to the Party's formation in 1877.<ref name="Secrest2004">{{cite book|author=William B. Secrest|title=California Feuds: Vengeance, Vendettas & Violence on the Old West Coast|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VDMXQvhOWJ4C&pg=PA106|date=October 2004|publisher=Quill Driver Books|isbn=978-1-884995-42-2|pages=106–}}</ref> In 1878, the party won 51 out of 152 delegates to California's Second Constitutional Convention (the most of any organized party),<ref name=kauer/> rewriting the state constitution to deny Chinese Americans voting rights in California.<ref name="Ref">{{cite web|url=http://immigrants.harpweek.com/ChineseAmericans/2KeyIssues/DenisKearneyCalifAnti.htm|title=Denis Kearney and the California Anti-Chinese Campaign|website=The Chinese Experience|publisher=HarpWeek, LLC|access-date=2017-05-05}}</ref> The most important part of the constitution included the formation of a California Railroad Commission that would oversee the activities of the Central Pacific Railroad that were run by Crocker, Huntington, Hopkins and Stanford.<ref name="Pincetl2003">{{cite book |author=Stephanie S. Pincetl |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bu7gSKsb0W4C&pg=PA23 |title=Transforming California: A Political History of Land Use and Development |date=10 March 2003 |publisher=JHU Press |isbn=978-0-8018-7312-6 |page=23}}</ref> In 1879, the party won 10 seats in the State Senate and 16 in the State Assembly.{{efn|Some sources give the number as 11 seats in the State Senate<ref name=kauer/> and 17 in the State Assembly.<ref name="Pincetl2003"/> See the lists of members and endorsees for a detailed account.}}

The party's goal was to "rid the country of Chinese cheap labor,"<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5046/|title="Our Misery and Despair": Kearney Blasts Chinese Immigration|website=History Matters, U.S. Survey Course on The Web|publisher=American Social History Productions, Inc., George Mason University & Graduate Center, CUNY|access-date=2017-05-05}}</ref> taking aim against Chinese emigrants and the railroad companies that employed them.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Santa Cruz is in the Heart|last=Dunn|first=Geoffrey|publisher=Capitola Book Company|year=1983|isbn=0932319025}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5046/|title=Appeal from California. The Chinese Invasion. Workingmen's Address|date=28 February 1878|website=historymatters.gmu.edu|publisher=Indianapolis Times|access-date=2018-09-06}}</ref> Kearney's attacks against the Chinese were of a particularly virulent and openly racist nature, and found considerable support among working-class Californians of the time. Ironically, the party's strongest supporters were immigrants themselves; a majority of party members were Irish-born, with dedicated German, French, Swiss-Italian, Scandinavian and Spanish clubs.<ref>{{cite news |title=THE WORKINGMEN |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/1233335286/?terms=Workingmen%27s&match=1 |access-date=3 November 2025 |work=The Morning Call |date=30 July 1879 |location=San Francisco}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=KEARNEY'S COMMITTEE |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/1236083106/?terms=Workingmen%27s |access-date=3 November 2025 |work=San Francisco Chronicle |date=11 May 1878 |location=San Francisco}}</ref> The party even attempted to organize the city's black community.<ref name=shumsky/>

Following the 1879 elections, the party began to decline in power and influence as its elected officials, stonewalled by their opponents and mostly inexperienced themselves, were unable to fulfill their bold campaign promises. In 1880, the party was torn apart by one faction seeking to affiliate with the Democratic Party and another seeking to affiliate with the Greenback-Labor Party. By October 1881, the Workingmen's Party had effectively ceased to exist.<ref name=kauer/> The next year, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act.

==Relation to the WPUS== Kearney's party should not be confused with the Workingmen's Party of the United States (WPUS), which was mostly based in the Eastern United States. The branches of the Workingmen's Party of the United States located in California were absorbed into the Workingmen's Party of California after "practically all members" of the former abandoned it for the latter,<ref name=shumsky/> which was growing at a rapid rate and had adopted similar language.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cross |first=Ira B. (Ira Brown) |url=https://archive.org/details/historyoflabormo00cros/page/97/mode/1up |title=A History of the Labor Movement in California |date=1974 |page=97 |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-520-02646-9}}</ref> One such member was Charles J. Beerstecher, elected to the Railroad Commission in 1879, who originally headed the German language section of the WPUS in San Francisco.<ref name=shumsky/>

== Members == thumb|right|Organization ticket

=== City officials === * Denis Kearney, Party President * John G. Day, Party Vice President * William Wellock, Party Vice President * John T. Condon, Party Vice President * H. L. Knight, Party Secretary * J. J. Flynn, Party Secretary * Thomas Donnelly, Party Treasurer * Anthony Fischer, German Workingmen's Club President, candidate for Recorder of San Francisco (1879), attempted assassin of Charles J. Beerstecher * Isaac Smith Kalloch, Mayor of San Francisco (1879–1881) * Washburne R. Andrus, Mayor of Oakland (1878–1880), candidate for Lieutenant Governor (1879) * William Jefferson Hunsaker, Mayor of San Diego (1888) * Abel Whitton, President of the Berkeley Board of Trustees (1878–1881) * John F. Godfrey, Los Angeles City Attorney (1876–1880) * John P. Dunn, Auditor of San Francisco (1879–1881), Controller of California (1883–1891) * Cayetano Apablasa, Los Angeles Common Councilman (1877–1878), candidate for State Senate (1880) * John Tracy Gaffey, Undersheriff of Santa Cruz County (1880–1883), member of the California State Board of Equalization (1887–1891)

=== State officials === {{div col}} * James J. Ayers, Delegate to the Second Constitutional Convention (1878–1879), candidate for U.S. Representative (1879), California State Printer (1883–1887) * Clitus Barbour, Delegate to the Second Constitutional Convention (1878–1879), candidate for U.S. Representative (1879) * Charles W. Cross, Delegate to the Second Constitutional Convention (1878–1879), candidate for California Attorney General (1879), California State Senator (1883–1887) (elected as a Democrat) * C. C. O'Donnell, Delegate to the Second Constitutional Convention (1878–1879), Coroner of San Francisco (1885–1887) (elected as an Independent) * William F. White, Delegate to the Second Constitutional Convention (1878–1879), candidate for Governor of California (1879), California Bank Commissioner (1879–1887) * Charles J. Beerstecher, Delegate to the Second Constitutional Convention (1878–1879), California Rail Commissioner (1880–1883) * John W. Bones, California State Senator (1878–1880) * John P. West, Delegate to the Second Constitutional Convention (1878–1879), California State Senator (1880–1883) * Warren Chase, California State Senator (1880–1883) * Robert Desty, California State Senator-elect (1880, not seated) * Charles C. Conger, California State Senator (1880–1883) * Thomas Kane, California State Senator (1880–1883) * Thorwald Klaudius Nelson, Delegate to the Second Constitutional Convention (1878–1879), California State Senator (1880–1885) * Joseph C. Gorman, Delegate to the Second Constitutional Convention (1878–1879), California State Senator (1880–1883) * Martin Kelly, California State Senator (1880–1887) * John S. Enos, California State Senator (1880–1883), Commissioner of the California Bureau of Labor Statistics (1883–1887) * Pierce H. Ryan, California State Senator (1880–1885) * J. E. Clark, California State Assemblyman (1878–1880) * Elihu Anthony, California State Assemblyman (1880–1881) * William W. Cuthbert, California State Assemblyman (1880–1881) * Stephen J. Garibaldi, California State Assemblyman (1880–1881) * William J. Sinon, California State Assemblyman (1880–1881, 1883–1885) (elected as a Democrat) * Samuel Braunhart, California State Assemblyman (1880–1881), California State Senator (1897–1900), Member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (1900–1906) (elected as a Democrat) * A. B. Maguire, California State Assemblyman (1880–1881), Member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (1900) (elected as a Democrat) * John J. McCallion, California State Assemblyman (1880–1883) * Jeremiah J. McCarthy, California State Assemblyman (1880–1881) * Garrett Pickett, California State Assemblyman (1880–1881) * John Burns, California State Assemblyman (1880–1883) * Patrick T. Gaffey, California State Assemblyman (1880–1881) * Michael Lane, California State Assemblyman (1880–1883) * John J. McDade, California State Assemblyman (1880–1881), Sheriff of San Francisco (1893–1895) * Stephen Maybell, California State Assemblyman (1880–1881) * Jeremiah Levee, California State Assemblyman (1880–1881) * Anderson M. Walker, California State Assemblyman (1880–1881) * Timothy O'Connor, California State Assemblyman (1881–1883) * Thomas J. Pinder, California State Assemblyman (1881–1883), California State Senator (1887–1891) (elected as a Democrat) * Dennis Geary, California State Assemblyman (1881–1882) * William J. Gavigan, California State Assemblyman (1881–1883) * Horace J. Jackson, California State Assemblyman (1881–1883) {{div col end}}

=== Other members === * Carl Browne, cartoonist * Henry George, economist * Con Mooney, orator and namesake of Mooneysville-by-the-Sea

== Endorsees ==

=== City officials === * James R. Toberman, Mayor of Los Angeles (1872–1874, 1878–1882) (elected as a Democrat) * Robert Howe, candidate for Mayor of San Francisco (1881) (ran as a Democrat)

=== State officials === {{div col}} * Robert F. Morrison, Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court (1879–1887) (elected as a Democrat) * Elisha W. McKinstry, Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court (1874–1888) (elected as a Democrat) * Erskine Mayo Ross, Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court (1880–1886) (elected as a Democrat) * Samuel B. McKee, Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court (1880–1887) (elected as a Democrat) * James D. Thornton, Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court (1880–1891) (elected as a Democrat) * John Sharpstein, Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court (1880–1892) (elected as a Democrat) * George Stoneman, California Rail Commissioner (1880–1883), Governor of California (1883–1887) (elected as a Democrat) * William J. Hill, California State Senator (1880–1883) (elected as a Republican) {{div col end}}

=== Federal officials === * John R. Glascock, candidate for U.S. Representative (1880), U.S. Representative (1883–1885) (elected as a Democrat) * James G. Maguire, California State Assemblyman (1875–1877), San Francisco County Superior Court Judge (1882–1888), U.S. Representative (1893–1899) (elected as a Democrat)

==Notes== {{Notelist}}

==References== {{Reflist}}

==Further reading==

===Books and pamphlets=== * [http://oac-upstream.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/hb8g500604/?&brand=oac4 George W. Greene, ''The Labor agitators, or, The Battle for Bread: The Party of the Future, the Workingmen's Party of California: Is Birth and Organization. Its Leaders and Its Purposes: Corruption in Our Local and State Governments. Venality of the Press.'' San Francisco: George W. Greene], n.d. [c. 1879]. * Denis Kearney, ''The Workingmen's Party of California: An Epitome of Its Rise and Progress.'' San Francisco: Bacon, 1878. * [https://archive.org/details/SpeechesOfDennisKearneyLaborChampion1878 ''Speeches of Dennis Kearney, Labor Champion.''] New York: Jesse Haney & Co., 1878. * [https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009025341 ''Chinatown Declared a Nuisance!''] San Francisco, 1880. * Neil Larry Shumsky, ''The Evolution of Political Protest and the Workingmen's Party of California.'' Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1992.

===Journal articles and dissertations=== * Frank Michael Fahey, ''Denis Kearney: A Study in Demagoguery.'' Ph.D. dissertation. Stanford University, 1956. * Roger William Hite, ''The Public Speaking of Denis Kearney, Labor Agitator.'' M.S. thesis. University of Oregon, 1967. * Helen Havens Ingalls, ''The History of the Workingmen's Party of California.'' M.A. thesis. University of California, Berkeley, 1919. * Charles Herzl Kahn, ''In-group and Out-group Responses to Radical Party Leadership: A Study of the Workingmen's Party of California.'' M.A. thesis. University of California, Berkeley, 1951. * Carole Carter Mauss, ''The San Jose Branch of the Workingmen's Party of California, 1878-1880.'' M.A. thesis, San Jose State University, 1997. * Doyce B. Nunis Jr., "The Demagogue and the Demographer: Correspondence of Denis Kearney and Lord Bryce," ''Pacific Historical Review,'' vol. 36, no. 3 (August 1967), pp. 269–288. * Mary Gabriel O'Connor, ''Denis Kearney, Sand-lot Orator: A Chronicle of California.'' M.A. thesis. Dominican College of San Rafael [CA], 1937. * Robert Dean Potter, ''Denis Kearney: A Reappraisal.'' M.A. thesis. Chico State University, 1969.

==External links== {{commons}} * [https://www.joincalifornia.com/election/1879-09-03 September 3, 1879 General Election] * [https://www.joincalifornia.com/election/1880-11-02 November 2, 1880 General Election] * [https://www.joincalifornia.com/page/11 California's Second Constitutional Convention] * [https://instruct.westvalley.edu/kelly/History20_on_campus/Online_Readings/Cross_Kearney.htm Workingmen's Party Platform]

Category:1877 establishments in California Category:Anti-immigration politics in the United States Category:Anti-Chinese sentiment in California Category:White nationalism in California Category:White nationalist parties Category:White supremacist groups in the United States Category:Left-wing organizations in the United States Category:Left-wing populism in the United States