SCQ 2012 94 3 304ec

Alexander Del Mar: Free Trade and the Chinese Question
Author(s): Kashia Arnold

Source: Southern California Quarterly, Vol. 94, No. 3 (Fall 2012), pp. 304-345
Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Historical Society of Southern
California
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Alexander Del Mar:

Free Trade and the
Chinese Question
By Kashia Arnold
abstract: In 1878, in the midst of anti-Chinese agitation, four letters

from an educated Chinaman, Kwang Chang Ling, in the San Francisco Argonaut argued that Chinese commerce and labor were essential
to Californias future progress. The letters, which caused a nationwide
stir, were actually written by economist and statistician Alexander Del
Mar. His arguments for free trade were prescient, and his economic
position on the Chinese Question drew from a global perspective.
Del Mars points resonate in current Sino-US relations and world economic issues.
Keywords: Alexander Del Mar, anti-Chinese agitation, free-trade economics, Kwang Chang Ling letters, Chinese immigration
The cry is here that the Chinese must go. I say that they should not go; they can not
go; that they will not go...[W]ere it conceivable that they went, your State would be
ruined; in a word, that the Chinese population of the Pacific Coast have [sic] become
indispensable to its continued prosperity...It concerns every element of the future,
social life of California.1
Kwang Chang Ling, 1878
1. Alexander Del Mar, Letters of Kwang Chang Ling. The Chinese Side of the Chinese Question, by a Chinese Literate of the First Class, Communicated to the San Francisco Argonaut of the dates of August 7th,
10th, 17th, and September 7th, 1878, [n.d.]. Special Collections, Oviatt Library, California State University, Northridge, Letter 1.
Southern California Quarterly, Vol. 94, No. 3, pp. 304345. ISSN 0038-3929, eISSN 2162-8637. 2012 by The Historical Society of
Southern California. All rights reserved. Request permission to photocopy or reproduce article content at the University
of California Presss Rights and Permissions website at http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintinfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/
scq.2012.94.3.304.
304

free trade and the chinese question
305
n 1878, Kwang Chang Ling expressed these sentiments in the San

Francisco Argonaut to warn Californians that their states economic growth depended on fostering amicable relationships with
Chinese immigrants. Kwang, who identified himself as a Chinese
Literate of the First Class, published letters in three consecutive
issues and one later issue of the Argonaut to demonstrate that historic
processes of global commerce bound California and China across
the Pacific Ocean through the conduits of immigration and trade.2
In Kwangs eyes, Chinas venerable participation in a four-hundredyear trade process starkly contrasted with Californias tenderfoot
status among the Pacific territories. Furthermore, China possessed
the capacity to become an economic giant within the world economy, a fact of great commercial significance to industrially developed nations such as the United States. However, he warned, racial
hostilities toward Chinese immigrants in California would have
regrettable consequences. Kwang proposed that Californians should
embrace trade and labor relationships built on the principles of free
trade and racial harmony, which would result in unprecedented levels of economic prosperity in both California and China.3
However, Kwangs four Argonaut letters represent a larger problem that scholars have failed to recognize for more than 130 years,
for Kwang Chang Ling was not a real person but a pseudonym
used by the economist Alexander Del Mar. Del Mar wrote the letters during his time in San Francisco, while he was investigating the
Comstock Lodes mining output. As an economist, his sophisticated
theories predated those of the twentieth century, but despite an
impressive publication record and long-standing presence and influence in American politics and on government commissions, Del
Mar remains largely excluded from the canon of American economists.4 He received little academic attention until the 1980s, when
economists George S. Tavlas and Joseph Aschheim recognized that
his remarkably advanced monetary theories paralleled discoveries
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Joseph Aschheim and George S. Tavlas, Academic Exclusion: The Case of Alexander Del Mar,
European Journal of Political Economy 20 (2004): 3160; Lawrence R. Klein, Comment on Academic
Exclusion: The Case of Alexander Del Mar, European Journal of Political Economy 20 (2004): 6971;
Robert Mundell, Comment on Academic Exclusion: The Case of Alexander Del Mar, European
Journal of Political Economy 20 (2004): 6168.


306
southern california quarterly
of leading twentieth-century economists, most notably Irving Fisher,

John Maynard Keynes, and Milton Friedman.5 Perhaps due to this
academic lacuna, historians have, with few exceptions, also overlooked Del Mars impressive array of intellectual, political, and economic contributions to the nineteenth century.6
Furthermore, because Del Mars ideas have been obscured since
the nineteenth century, his Kwang letters have been misunderstood
and mistaken as a primary-source perspective on Chinese immigration to America. Both scholars and contemporary media sources
have denied Del Mars authorship on many occasions and have
failed to question why these letters were written under a pseudonym. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) used the Kwang letters in a Bill Moyers special, Becoming American: The Chinese
Experience, stating that Kwang Chang Lings letters represented a
5. Tavlas and Aschheims overview on Del Mars contribution to monetary economic theory discerns
that Del Mars work was phenomenally advanced for his era in his use of statistics to demonstrate
moneys inherent properties as a mechanism for exchange. They compare Del Mar to famed economists Irving Fisher and John Maynard Keynes, and they also note that Del Mar was plagiarized
by Henry George in the late 1890s. George S. Tavlas and Joseph Aschheim, Alexander Del Mar,
Irving Fisher, and Monetary Economics, The Canadian Journal of Economics 18, no. 2 (May 1985):
294313;Tavlas and Aschheim, Academic Exclusion: The Case of Alexander Del Mar, 3160. Elsewhere, Tavlas and Aschheim identify Del Mar, along with Keynes and George F. Knapp, as the
progenitors of the chartalist theory of money that connected paper money and metallic currency
under the auspice of the state as both a unit of account and a medium of exchange. This theory is
important for contemporary purposes because it provides the basis for the arithmetic required for
keeping score in the economic game; without the monetary unit, the calculation of exchange ratios
among different goods, services, and financial claims would be impossible. Joseph Aschheim and
George S. Tavlas, Money as Numeraire; Doctrinal Aspects and Contemporary Relevance, Banca
Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review 59 (December 2006): 333361; reference to Del Mar and Milton
Friedmans theories are discussed in George S. Tavlas, Retroview: The Money Man, American
Interest 7, no. 2 (November/December 2011).
6. Hubert Howe Bancroft and Frances Fuller Victor, History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming,
15401888 (San Francisco: The History Company Publishers, 1890), 141; Ivan Bernstein, The New
York City Draft Riots: Their Significance for American Society and Politics in the Age of the Civil War
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 220222; Gray Brechin, Imperial San Francisco: Urban
Power, Earthly Ruin (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 43; for accurate accounts of Del
Mars academic contributions please refer to the works of Aschheim and Tavlas; L.L. Bernard and
Jessie Bernard, Origins of American Sociology: The Social Science Movement in the United States (New
York: Russell & Russell, Inc., 1965); Joseph Dorfman, The Economic Mind in American Civilization
(18651918), Vol. 3, Reprint: 1939 (New York: Augustus M. Kelley Publishers, 1963); Henry W. Spiegel,
The Rise of American Economic Thought (Philadelphia: Chilton Co., 1960). According to Tavlas and
Aschheim, Irving Fisher originally discounted Del Mars work only to reassess his opinion and
extend high praise 38 years later. Tavlas and Aschheim, Alexander Del Mar, Irving Fischer, and
Monetary Economics, 15. Earl Hicks published an article in 1940 denouncing Del Mars economic
contributions, which Tavlas and Aschheim have since refuted. Tavlas and Aschheim assert that
Hicks was relying on contemporary 1930s monetary theory and could not objectively critique Del
Mar; Earl Hicks, Alexander Del Mar, Critic of Metallism, Southern Economic Journal 6, no. 3 (January 1940): 314332.

307
Chinese response to the hatred in San Francisco that stemmed from

the anti-Chinese movement of the 1870s.7 The Library of Congress,
not recognizing Del Mars authorship, has also misread the Kwang
letters significance and presented them for classroom use as a firsthand rebuttal to anti-Chinese prejudice in America.8 In 2012, the editors of the two-volume series Voices of the Asian American and Pacific
Islander Experience published sections from the Kwang letters in their
anthology because, they explained, documents by Chinese authors
from this time were rarely written in English. The letter [sic] not only
provides insight into a Chinese American perspective but also highlights one of the ways Chinese resisted their marginalized status.9
Voices, in addition to numerous other academic publications that
discuss Chinese immigration, used the letters as a primary source
to relate an authentic Chinese immigrants expression of his
experience in America, without recognizing or crediting Del Mars
authorship.10
Yet what scholars should know about Del Mar is that he stood
apart from others within Californias pro-Chinese minority: he projected a novel kind of authority in using the Kwang Chang Ling
pseudonym to promote Californias critical importance to Sino-U.S.
trade relations and to disseminate free-trade ideas. During the 1870s,
7. http://www.pbs.org/becomingamerican/ce_witness2.html (accessed April 7, 2011); The Library of
Congress, The Chinese in California, 18501925.
8. http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/connections/chinese-cal/history5.html
(accessed April 7, 2011).
9. Sang Chi and Emily Moberg Robinson, eds., Voices of the Asian American and Pacific Islander Experience, vol. 1 (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, LLC., 2012), vivii, xviii, 9497.
10. The list of publications included here have all used the Kwang letters as a primary source to relate
ideas about the Chinese immigrant experience in America while denying authorship to Alexander
Del Mar or even acknowledging the use of a pseudonym, including: R. Scott Baxter, The Response
of Californias Chinese Population to the Anti-Chinese Movement, Historical Archaeology 42,
no. 3 (2008): 32. Sucheng Chan, This Bittersweet Soil: The Chinese in California Agriculture, 18601910
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 465; Mary Roberts Coolidge, Chinese Immigration
(New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1909), 467, 512; Rhoda Hoff, Americas Immigrants: Adventures
in Eyewitness History (New York: Henry Z. Walk, 1967), 85; Dorothy Hoobler and Thomas Hoobler,
The Chinese American Family Album (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 65; Rockwell Dennis Hunt and Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez, California and Californians, Vol. 2 (Chicago: The Lewis
Publishing Company, 1930), 364; Linda Perrin, Coming to America: Immigrants from the Far East (New
York: Delacorte Press, 1980), 38; David Scott, China and the International System, 18401949: Power,
Presence, and Perceptions in a Century of Humiliation (New York: State University of New York Press,
2008); Ronald K. Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans (New York:
Little, Brown and Company, 1998), 510. Dennis Wepman, Immigration (New York: Facts on File,
2007), 165; Xiao-huang Yin and Roger Daniels, Chinese American Literature since the 1850s (Chicago:
University of Illinois Press, 2006), 215.


308
his promotion of free trade with China was a rare example of SinoU.S. free-trade propaganda that also provides an original critique
of the Chinese Question, a phrase widely used by Californians of
that period to question whether Chinese immigration was harmful
to California and what could be done to prevent additional immigration from Chinaand even to remove Chinese immigrants who
had already established residency. The phrase generally conveyed
a tone of anti-Chinese hostility. Del Mar believed that Chinese
immigrant labor was essential to Californias future progress and
that Californias geographical location was strategically important
for expanding United States trade markets.11 He argued that adherence to free trade could promote a mutually beneficial relationship
between the two Pacific nations. Del Mars Kwang letters also provide an unusual perspective on Chinese immigration by advancing
the ideology of free trade as the answer to the Chinese Question.
The Chinese Question was as much an ideological expression
about economic policies as it was a political craze fed by a racial
backlash. The subsequent Chinese Exclusion Era, from 1882 to
1943, is intrinsically connected to Californias role in the Chinese
Question, which pitted an anti-monopoly labor movement against
U.S. trade interests in China.12 Protectionist policies expanded during this period to include white laborers wages. California wage
earners wanted safeguards against the influx of Chinese immigrants
who were willing to work for significantly lower wages. The depressed
economic climate of the 1870s witnessed harsh unemployment conditions that led to demands for immediate economic solutions to both
lower- and middle-class struggles.13 While scholars such as Patricia
Limerick have asserted that most Americans refused to acknowledge
the benefits of Chinese immigration to the state of California, to the
broader United States, and to specific interests, such as the Central
11. Del Mar, Letters of Kwang Chang Ling, no. 3, The Argonaut, August 17, 1878.
12. Coolidge, 6982; Andrew Gyory, Closing the Gate: Race, Politics, and the Chinese Exclusion Act (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 6; Stuart Creighton Miller, The Unwelcome
Immigrant: The American Image of the Chinese, 17851882 (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1969), 192; Shirley Hune, Politics of Chinese Exclusion: Legislative-Executive Conflict 18761882,
Amerasia 9, no. 1 (1982): 527; Sandmeyer, Anti-Chinese Movement in California, 63; Alexander Saxton, Indispensable Enemy: Labor and the Anti-Chinese Movement in California (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1971), 258267.
13. Michael A. Bellesiles, 1877: Americas Year of Living Violently (New York: The New Press, 2010),
109113.

309
The Chinese Question (Harpers Weekly, 1871) The caption reads, ColumbiaHands off, Gentlemen! America means Fair Play for All Men. The
image depicts her as Americas moral judge protecting a lone and vulnerable
Chinaman against a horde of angry western vigilantes. In 1871, the year of a
deadly riot in Los Angeles in which 18 Chinese were killed, this national publication took the side of fair play and justice against Californias anti-Chinese
mobs enraged by racist stereotypes and the belief that Chinese immigrants
were undercutting white wages. To the question of whether Chinese immigrants should be allowed to enter the United States, their answer was No!
Courtesy of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. MTP/HW:
vol 15:149.


310
and Southern Pacific railroads and mining corporations, others

have recognized key organizations and individuals from this period
who opposed anti-Chinese activism and stressed the importance of
the China trade, including San Franciscos Friends of Humanity,
Reverend Otis Gibson, and Secretary of State William H. Seward.
Del Mars unorthodox contribution to this position should be
acknowledged.14
The United States did not relax its protectionist stance toward
China until the late twentieth century. During the latter half of the
nineteenth century, the United States had raised tariffs on most
imported raw materials and manufactured goods to prohibit lowcost imports from competing with developing U.S. domestic industries. The federal government relied primarily on tariff revenues to
meet Civil War expenses and fund government operations. Yet by
the 1870s opposition to protective tariffs increased as Americans
sought new markets for U.S. goods. David Pletcher notes that the
U.S. primarily sought reciprocity treaties within the Western hemisphere. Despite American diplomat Anson Burlingames efforts to
strengthen Sino-U.S. relations during the 1860s, Hawaii remained
the sole territory in the Pacific to participate in a reciprocity treaty
with the U.S. by 1875.15 Free trade was largely viewed as a distasteful British practice, and free trade placed in the context of Chinese
immigration was considered by some Americans to be an abomination. Harvard professor Raphael Pumpellys widely distributed 1870
work, Across America and Asia, argued that lowering the price of
labor through Chinese immigration would solve the free-trade question by enabling American producers to compete with the British in
foreign markets.16 By the late 1880s more Americans began to voice
support for liberalized markets and to discuss the potential for free
trade with China. But it was not until the end of World War II that
United States trade policies began a marked and consistent trend
toward tariff reduction due to U.S. influence in the world economy.
14. Patricia Nelson Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West (New York:
W.W. Norton & Co., 1987), 262; Otis Gibson, The Chinese in America (Cincinnati: Hitchcock &
Walden, 1877), 31, 271.
15. David Pletcher, The Diplomacy of Involvement: American Economic Expansion across the Pacific, 1784
1900 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2001), 34.
16. Raphael Pumpelly, Across America and Asia: Notes of a Five Years Journey around the World (New York:
Leypoldt & Holt, 1870), 253.

311
Finally, Del Mars moral argument for free trade was unusual for the
1870s; the U.S. did not entertain similar arguments for free trade with
China until the 1970s, when free-trade policies proved attractive as a
means of advancing Chinas economic and social conditions following the end of Mao Zedongs rule.
Del Mars background in economics and mining engineering
and his talents as a statistician had likely prepared him to view
the Chinese Question as a subject of great economic importance. He was born in New York City in 1836 to parents of Jewish,
Spanish, and English descent. His father, Jacques Del Mar, owned
several Spanish silver mines and served for a time with the United
States Treasury Department. Del Mar graduated from New York
Universitys polytechnic school.17 He received a degree in mining engineering from the prestigious Madrid School of Mines. He
also lived in England, where he received private tutelage under Sir
Arthur Helps in the classical school of economic thought upheld
by Hume, Ricardo, Thornton, and Mill. Helps was a noted correspondent of famed British economist John Stuart Mill (18061873).18
Upon his return to the U.S., Del Mar became well connected to the
publishing world and edited several prominent journals, including
the New York Social Science Review.19 His statistical talents demonstrated in the pages of the Review drew the attention of the Treasury
Department, which recruited him in 1865. He served as the first
director of the United States Bureau of Statistics from 1866 to 1869,
until his position ceased to exist within the Treasury Department
due to a conflict with the Commissioner of the Revenue, David A.
17. John W. Leonard, Whos Who in New York City and State, Containing Authentic Biographies of New Yorkers Who Are Leaders and Representatives in Various Departments of Worthy Human Achievement (New
York: L. R. Hamersly Co., 1907), 397.
18. Del Mar had an uncle in England, Don Manuel Del Mar, a scholar in his own right who published
a number of historical works on Mexico and Latin America and who also collaborated with Sir
Arthur Helps to produce the four-volume series, History of the Spanish Conquest in America: And Its
Relation to Slavery and to the Government of Colonies (18551861). Alexander Del Mar, A History of the
Precious Metals: From Earliest Times to the Present, rev. ed. (New York: Cambridge Encyclopedia Company, 1902), 503. The classical school emphasized laissez-faire practices and unrestrained individual
competition within the marketplace. This ideology is rooted in Adam Smiths Wealth of Nations,
which determined that wealth stands the best chance to grow when individuals are enabled to make
their own economic choices. L.L. Bernard and Jessie Bernard, Origins of American Sociology, 465.
Helps also served as an advisor to Queen Victoria.
19. Del Mar also edited Hunts Merchant Magazine, DeBows Review, and the Commercial and Financial
Chronicle. Dorfman, Economic Mind, 98.


312
Wells.20 Congress eliminated the office of Director of the Bureau

of Statistics from the Treasury Department, reassigning Del Mars
duties to Wellsessentially firing Del Mar.21 The press ascribed the
Bureaus unpopularity to Del Mars ridiculous assumptions and
absurd follies and claimed that he manipulated trade statistics
to further his free-trade agenda and promote his radical theories.
The Philadelphia Inquirer was glad to see him go: After the experience which we have had of Delmars [sic] eccentricities, it ought to
be agreed that the country has had quite enough of that sort of
entertainment.22
Alexander Del Mar, frontispiece to his book, The Science of Money (London:
G. Bell and Sons, 1885). Courtesy of the Young Research Library, UCLA.
20. J.R. Robertson, The Life of Hon. Alex. Del Mar, M.E., Formerly Director of the Bureau of Statistics of the
United States; Superintendent of Mining Commissioners; Mining Commissioner to the United States Monetary Commission; Member of the International Congresses at Florence, the Hague and St. Petersburg; Member of the Economic Societies of Paris, New York, San Francisco, etc. (London: E.F. Gooch & Son, Steam
Printers, 1881) 89; Chicago Tribune, March 3, 1871.
21. New York Times, September 28, 1868.
22. Ibid, February 29, 1868; New York Herald, February 13, 1869; Philadelphia Inquirer, February 15, 1869.

313
Even though Wells and Del Mar both advocated replacing existing
tariff restrictions with free-trade policies, Wells viewed Del Mars monetary theories as too radical to warrant further deliberation.23 Wells, a
highly respected economist of the time, believed that the overproduction of commodities created economic depressions, while Del Mar
argued that they stemmed from contractions in the countrys available
money supply.24 Del Mar maintained that state regulation determined
monetary value and not golds perceived market worth. His beliefs were
antithetical to those of Wells and other contemporary economists, who
upheld the importance of the gold standard. Del Mars ideas about fiat
(paper) currency and central banking would not be adopted by the U.S.
until well into the twentieth century. For Del Mar, a stable economy
required the state to closely regulate the money supply, for had money
been regulated instead of being left to commerce, chance, and political contention, the great panics of 1815, 1821, 1837, 1861, and 1870 might
have been averted.25 Del Mars advocacy for laissez-faire economics
was connected to his belief in classical liberalism, which held that the
state should play only a limited role in managing transactions between
private parties, unless the state could perform a necessary service with
greater efficacy than private institutions. To Del Mar, the states regulation of its currency was essential to the autonomy of nations and
necessary to facilitate the demands of domestic and global commerce.26
23. George S. Tavlas, Retroview: The Money Man, The American Interest 7 (November/December
2011), 67.
24. Dorfman, Economic Mind, 36.
25. Del Mar consistently advocated that the states management of its currency affected the progress
and development of society through its effects on price levels. He argued that money represented a
measure of value that required careful regulation of its supply to benefit both domestic and international exchange. He recognized the merchant classs crude efforts to manage currency as both a legal
unit of account and as a metallic commodity that suffered from market expansions and contractions. He noted, [i]f money ever ceases to be made of the precious metals, the merchants will have
fewer of these distracting indications to watch; they will be enabled to concentrate their attention
upon their own proper province, the movement of commodities, and to leave money . . . to the
custody and consideration of the State. Furthermore, Del Mar maintained that moneys inherent
value was also based on the volume of currency in circulation, known as the velocity of money,
due to moneys dynamic properties that directly impacted the availability of money at any given
time, and that merchants tacitly recognize the theory when they consult the bank clearings and
discounts, because these indicate the increase or diminution in the sum of exchanges which is to
be measured by money; they act upon the theory when their transactions are guided by shipments
or movements of gold, because as the law of money now stands, these movements rudely mark the
shrinkage or augmentation of money in the State. Alexander Del Mar, The Science of Money (New
York: Burt Franklin, 1885), 112; Aschheim and Tavlas, Academic Exclusion, 40.
26. Del Mar, The Science of Money (London: George Bell and Sons, 1885), 136.


314
Del Mar published extensively on monetary subjects, including its legal

functions, from antiquity to modern times in a wide variety of countries. His most prominent works include Money and Civilization (1867),
A History of the Precious Metals (1880), and, his most critically acclaimed,
The Science of Money (1885). In all, he published a known thirty-six books
and more than a hundred articles pertaining to financial topics and the
historical and legal functions of money.
In turn, several of Del Mars publications also examined subjects of
political economy. He was fascinated by a number of financial topics,
particularly commerce, government revenue, and monetary policy.
And he was particularly keen to uncover and determine how various currency practices impacted a nations development. He was convinced that the source of the worlds ills could be understood through
moneys tendencies to produce social inequality.27 In contrast, he consistently stressed the importance of free trade for its natural power to
equalize social and economic progress.28 He stated as his credo:
a conviction that harmonizes with every noble belief that our race
entertains; with Civil and Religious Freedom for All, regardless of race
or color; with the Harmony of Gods works; with Peace and Goodwill
to all Mankind. That conviction is this: that to make taxation the
incident of protection to special interests, and those engaged in them,
is robbery to the rest of the community, and subversive of National
Morality and National Prosperity. [He further testified:] I believe that
taxes are necessary for the support of government, I believe they
must be raised by levy, I even believe that some customs taxes may be
more practicable and economical than some internal taxes, but I am
entirely opposed to making anything the object of taxation but the
revenue required by government for its economical maintenance. I do
not espouse Free Trade because it is British as some suppose it to be ...I
espouse Free Trade because it is just, it is unselfish, it is profitable.29
Del Mars biographer, J.R. Robertson, states that as an economist

[Del Mar] leaned toward Free Trade, though not without some misgivings as to the wisdom of pursuing any commercial policy beyond
the bounds of National Expediency.30 Del Mar recognized that
27. Alexander Del Mar, Money and Civilization: Or, A History of the Monetary Laws and Systems of Various
States since the Dark Ages, and Their Influence upon Civilization (New York: B. Franklin, 1969), vxvi.
28. Ibid., xvi.
29. Emile Walter [Alexander Del Mar, pseud.], What is Free Trade? An Adaptation of Frdrick Bastiats
Sophismes conomiques (New York: G.P. Putnams Sons, 1874), viiviii.
30. Robertson, The Life of Hon. Alex. Del Mar, 27.

315
some tariffs were necessary to fund government ventures, but felt

that trade agreements to reduce or eliminate tariffs required careful
consideration on behalf of national economic interests. Even so,
there is some navet in Del Mars remarks. Many free traders in
the post-Civil War era, inspired by the British free trader Richard
Cobden, believed that free trade would lead to a world defined by
peace, stability, and moral progress by improving material conditions for all and reducing conflict between capital and labor over
wage labor rates within and between trading nations.31
Del Mars promotion of free trade with China was rooted in
Adam Smiths Wealth of Nations, which proposed that non-restricted
free trade among nations stimulated material gain when commodities were produced as cheaply as possible. Classical economist David
Ricardos Principles of Political Economy and Taxation advanced freetrade rhetoric with his comparative advantage theory. This theory
maintains that a country can produce a commodity at a lower cost and
still experience a material gain through trade with another country,
even if that country is an advanced producer of a variety of different
goods. Essentially, because the United States was a wealthy nation
that facilitated trade with undeveloped China, China would materially benefit more from the trade relationship due to the increased
volume of capital entering its economy. This trade phenomenon
would potentially raise wages and fund new industries, especially if
the balance of trade tilted in Chinas favor. Ideally, if the people of
China experienced a rise in their wealth and their standard-of-living, China would provide consumers to purchase U.S. goods. And
though extensive debate continues to be waged to the present day
about free trades merits and faults and whether or not comparative
advantage is a real occurrence, no attempt will be made here to prove
the validity or invalidity of free trades alleged benefits.32 What Del
Mar understood when he was writing in 1865 was that the countries
which are the least favored by Nature are those which profit most by
mutual exchange.33
31. Anthony Howe and Simon Morgan, Rethinking Nineteenth-Century Liberalism: Richard Cobden Bicentenary Essays (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 16.
32. Jagdish Bhagwati, Free Trade Today (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 46, 52, 68, 83;
Leland B. Yeager and David G. Tuerck, Foreign Trade and U.S. Policy: The Case for Free International
Trade (New York: Praeger, 1976), 137144.
33. Emile Walter [Alexander Del Mar, pseud.], What Is Free Trade? 28.


316
Theoretically, even if China could produce goods at a lower cost

than the United States, free-trade policies would benefit American
workers. Ricardos theory of comparative advantage holds that free
trade in practice encourages specialization in the production of raw
materials, food, goods, and services. Since China specialized in the
production of silk, tea, and salt at a lower cost than U.S. producers, the U.S. would benefit by purchasing from China. At the same
time, the United States specialization in the production of wheat,
timber, and mining products would provide a cost advantage for
China. Ideally, both nations, when taken together, would obtain
these commodities at a lower cost through trade than if each nation
relied on their domestic economies. Furthermore, this specialization
would encourage global economic growth by freeing up resources for
investment in new industries, and it would stimulate employment by
ensuring a steady demand for workers.
Del Mar conjectured in his 1865 publication What Is Free Trade?
(published under the pseudonym Emile Walter) that consumption
of goods and raw materials produced as cheaply as possible posed
a solution to improving workers material condition. Furthermore,
protectionism would not raise workers wages. Del Mar stated that:
The rate of wages depends on the proportion which the supply of labor
bears to the demand [and] on the quantity of disposable capital seeking investment. And the law which says, Such or such an article shall
be limited to home production and no longer imported from foreign
countries, can it in any degree increase this capital? Not in the least.
This law may withdraw it from one course, and transfer it to another;
but cannot increase it one penny. We here see why, since the reign of
protective tariffs, if we see more workmen in our mines and our manufacturing towns, we find also fewer vessels in our ports, fewer graziers
and fewer laborers in our fields and upon our hill-sides.34
Del Mar wanted workers to understand that they would benefit from
free trades tendency to reduce prices through free-market competition. They should realize that their standard of living was not primarily derived from wages but from their access to affordable goods.
In 1865 Del Mar helped establish the American Free Trade
League (AFTL), the United States first free-trade organization.35
34. Ibid., 9798.
35. Andrew L. Slap, The Doom of Reconstruction: The Liberal Republicans in the Civil War Era (New York:
Fordham University Press, 2010), 17.

317
The 1864 Lincoln-Morrill Tariff had fixed import taxes at rates up

to 47 percent, and the AFTL wanted to reform U.S. tariff policies.
AFTL members believed that the government was only entitled to
the tariffs, duties, and taxes necessary to fund government needs.
Moreover, AFTL members contended that the government exerted
too much control in the economy through abusive tariff measures
that harmed individual producers and promoted corporations.
The AFTLs membership included the abolitionists William Lloyd
Garrison and Ralph Waldo Emerson, and New York Post Editor
William Cullen Bryant, in addition to other prominent individuals.
The AFTL disseminated free-trade propaganda through newspapers, pamphlets, public speeches, and clubs, but the league met its
demise in 1872, alongside Horace Greeleys failed presidential candidacy for the Liberal Republican Party. It is important to note that
U.S. publications from this period, including those of the AFTL, did
not advocate free trade with China, as witnessed through a survey of
newspapers, trade journals, government publications, and free-trade
literature during the 1860s and 1870s.36
However, political economist Henry George put forth a proposal
for free trade with China in his testimony before the 1877 congressional investigation on Chinese immigration.37 George testified to
the committee through his lofty capacity as the state inspector of
gas-meters, though he also wrote prolifically on subjects of political
economy. Georges socialist views on Californias land use, his support for free trade, and his opposition to Chinese immigration were
widely received in the state and abroadand included at times in congressional discussion.38 One economic historian notes that Georges
most famous work, Progress and Poverty (1879), probably had the
greatest circulation of any nonfiction book in the English language
36. The AFTL accused the federal government of funneling an excessive amount of government funds
acquired through unnecessary tariffs to support appropriations that benefited special interests.
The League also maintained close communication with the Cobden Club, its British counterpart.
George Haven Putnam, Memoirs of a Publisher, 1865 to 1915 (1916; repr., Honolulu: University Press of
the Pacific, 2001), 40. When the League ended in 1872, the Free Trade Alliance (FTA), in later years
known as the Council for Tariff Reform, replaced the AFTL, though it is not clear whether AFTL
members joined the FTA. In addition, by 1882, a second American Free Trade League formed and
maintained its position as the largest U.S. free-trade association until its demise in 1932. Northrup
and Turney, Encyclopedia of Tariffs and Trade in U.S. History, 16.
37. Aschheim and Tavlas, Academic Exclusion, 47.
38. Henry George, Jr., The Life of Henry George (New York: Manhattan Press, 1900), 571.


318
before 1900 except for the Bible.39 In later years, Del Mar accused
George of plagiarizing his theory of interest rate determination.
According to Del Mar: His fellow-townsman, Mr. Henry George,
in his work on Progress and Poverty, has adopted the authors postulate with reference to the origin of interest, but has nowhere given
him credit for it.40 Consequently, economists George Tavlas and
Robert Aschheim have noted, several authors have assigned credit
for the theory of organic productivity to George rather than to Del
Mars earlier authorship.41 George and Del Mar both resided in San
Francisco during the 1870s, though George opposed Chinese immigration and maintained a different view on free trade, stating:
Between a Chinaman working here cheaply and a Chinaman working cheaply in China, there is a very great difference. He can work as
cheaply as he pleases in China, and, in my opinion, only benefit[s]
us if we exchange freely with him. Here he only injures us. If their
race there works cheaply and exchanges with us, it really adds to our
production.42
George explained that:

The Chinaman, by laboring in China cheaply, does not affect the
rate of wages here, that is, he does not affect the distribution of our
product, he simply affects the production. If we ship a cargo of flour
to China and get back a cargo for tea, the more tea we can get for our
flour the better we are offthe greater is the aggregate sum that we
have to divide among all classes; but when the Chinaman comes here
and works for low wages the effect is to make a great many other men
also work for low wages and to lessen the rate of wages that is given
to the working man.43
Essentially, George proposed that the United States would benefit by

exclusively exchanging for goods not produced in the U.S. However,
he did not identify the comparative cost breakdown for U.S. flour
and China tea or explain how this exchange scenario would protect
39. Jacob Oser, Henry George (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1974), 68.
40. Del Mar, Science of Money, 98.
41. Economist Robert V. Andelson also notes that Henry George was accused of plagiarism by his contemporaries J. Bleeker Mill and Arthur Crump, and his former associate James L. Sullivan. Robert
V. Andelson, Critics of Henry George: A Centenary Appraisal of Their Strictures on Progress and Poverty
(Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1979), 20; Tavlas and Aschheim, Alexander Del
Mar, Irving Fisher, and Monetary Economics, 309310.
42. Cong. Rep., 44th Cong., 2d sess., 1877, 280.
43. Ibid., 280281.

319
U.S. wage labor rates. George also assumed that China and the
United States would not be in competition with one another in the
production of the same commodities. He claimed that U.S. goods
such as cigars could be exchanged for tea inexpensively produced in
China and that this practice could be applied to a number of commodities for exchange. However, George failed to take into consideration Chinas potential to adjust to a modern capitalist system by
manufacturing products that could compete in the world market.44
In the nineteenth century, the United States relied on treaty
privileges initiated by Great Britain for trading rights with China
while jockeying against other European nations to expand the U.S.
economic sphere of influence in the Pacific. But despite U.S. ambitions, the China trade only occupied 2 percent of all U.S. foreign
trade by 1900.45 During this period the U.S. imposed high tariffs on
most Chinese imports, with rates up to 50 percent. At the same time,
the 1858 Treaty of Tientsin established a maximum tariff of 5 percent ad valorem on U.S. imports into China. However, American
merchants were often required to pay additional fees as high as 50
percent on the few goods the U.S. successfully sent to China. Efforts
to enforce treaty terms were not always successful, and by the 1870s
the balance of trade weighed heavily in Chinas favor at more than
twenty to one.46
During the late 1860s, government economic data and trade statistics were modernized by Del Mar when he served as director of the
United States Bureau of Statistics, leaving an indelible mark on the
U.S. governments economic development. He was not one to lightheartedly speculate on abstract theory without empirical evidence, a
feature of his neoclassicist leanings. He single-handedly overhauled
the governments ability to receive, interpret, and organize valuable
information on its revenue collection, a task that included reforming census information, tariff collections, commerce, navigation,
tonnage accounts, tax collection, and debt repayment.47 And he
44. Lye, Americas Asia, 267.
45. Pletcher, The Diplomacy of Involvement, 5.
46. United States Department of State, Executive Documents Printed by Order of the House of Representatives,
during the Second Session of the Fortieth Congress, 186768 (Washington: Govt. Print. Office, 18671868,
578600; United States House of Rep., Commercial Relations of the United States with Foreign Countries
(Washington: Govt. Print. Office, 18561903), 156; Pletcher, The Diplomacy of Involvement, 98.
47. Robertson, Life of Hon. Alex. Del Mar, 35, 1013.


320
implemented the first known statistical methods to systematically

organize the Treasury Departments economic data.48 Yet when Del
Mar released a Bureau of Statistics report to the press in 1868 that
showcased the harmful economic effects of the 1867 tariff on raw and
unfinished wool, a scandal ensued that resulted in his dismissal and
the elimination of his position within the Bureau (see page 311312).49
Del Mars biographer, J.R. Robertson, insisted that Del Mars intent
behind the report was to reduce customs tariffs and provide public transparency of the governments finances, which had upset the
Washington Ring.50 In spite of these political controversies, Del
Mar remained connected to government financial projects and traveled to the Pacific Coast in 1876 to lend his professional expertise to
the western mining boom.
The year 1876 was special for Del Mar because his government
had asked him to do what he did best: quantify the data on silver
mining for currency purposes using his statistical talents. In 1876,
Del Mar traveled to San Francisco to serve as the commissioner for
the U.S. Mining Commission. He was to contribute to a report for
the U.S. Silver Commission and U.S. Monetary Commission after
investigating the mines of Nevadas Comstock Lode, interviewing California bankers and mining officials, and providing statistical data and reports on silvers role in world affairs.51 The United
48. Ibid., 1013; Tavlas and Aschheim, 42. Archivist Meyer H. Fishbein of the National Archives and
Records Association commented on Del Mars statistical abilities: The formative statistical profession was fortunate in the first choice for a director of the Bureau of Statistics. Alexander Del Mar was
intractable, but a lesser man might have set back the bureaucratic development of statistics for years
. . . Del Mar had a dogmatic faith in the statistical or inductive method of arriving at immutable laws
of economic behavior. Meyer H. Fishbein, Early Business Statistical Operations of the Federal Government (Washington: National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration, 1973).
49. Wells was dismissed from his position as the Special Commissioner of the Revenue in 1870, and
he became the chairman of the New York State Tax Commission. Bernard and Bernard, Origins of
American Sociology, 488.
50. Robertson, Life of Hon. Alex. Del Mar, 1011.
51. Del Mar was permitted to examine California and Nevada mines, the mining companies books,
available mining equipment and technology, and the transportation methods used to extract and
carry the ore to San Francisco. Sacramento Bulletin, July 11, 1879; Daily Inter Ocean, July 11, 1879.
His appointment received a mixed reception from newspapers. The Sacramento Daily Union sarcastically mocked, Mr. Delmar, as a statistician, deservedly ranks next after the New York Worlds
famous arithmetic man, and we have no doubt that he will electrify the Commission with figures
before he has done with it. Sacramento Daily Union, October 28, 1876; The Daily Alta was much
more impressed, commenting: Mr. Delmar is peculiarly well fitted both by experience and research
for the successful performance of this duty. He is well-known throughout the country as a careful
observer, and enjoys also a professional relationship in Europe. Daily Alta, December 19, 1876.

321
States government wanted to assess silvers impact on labor, industries, and the wealth of the country.52 The commissions were also
interested in silver usage in the Asiatic trade and Chinas currency
practices.53
The three commissions findings were compiled together under
the U.S. Monetary Commissions final report in 1877.54 Del Mars
report on Chinas monetary system clarified Chinas financial vulnerabilities. He observed that:
[a]s the appreciation of the copper standard of China seems to have
followed and not preceded the gradual decline in the commercial
value of copper, zinc, &c., it is to be regretted that the facts concerning it cannot be so multiplied as to afford a sound basis of theory. If
they could, they might lead to some interesting inferences regarding
the influence of such a currency upon the welfare of the empire and
the effects of refusing it the function of legal tender in so important
However, by the time Del Mars reports came to light his ambiguous reputation evoked scorn and
contempt. He had predicted the Comstock Lode would taper off its ore supply within the next
few years, but he was discredited by the discovery of a deep-seated ore deposit in 1877. The Idaho
Avalanche, along with other newspapers, lampooned Del Mars judgment, proclaiming we dont
believe he is as smart an Alexander as he believes himself to be. Furthermore, Del Mar had triggered the derision of mining companies and stock speculators for his prediction that each pounds
worth of dor has consequently cost to the owners about five pounds in terms of the Comstock
lodes actual profits. Idaho Avalanche, November 3, 1877.
52. United States Senate, Reports of the Silver Commission of 1876, Being a Reprint of Senate Report No. 703,
44th Congress, Second Session, submitted by Senator Jones, of Nevada, for the U.S. Monetary Commission (Washington: Govt. Print. Office, 1887), 1.
53. United States Senate, Report and Accompanying Documents of the United States Monetary Commission
Organized under Joint Resolution of August 15, 1876, 1877, 145147; United States Senate, Reports of the
Silver Commission of 1876, 200202.
54. The extent of Del Mars contributions to the final report remains unclear. In reference to the Silver
Question regarding the demonetization of the silver dollar in 1873, J.R. Robertson claimed that Del
Mar projected the Silver Commission of 1876, was appointed one of its members, prepared and
edited its reports and accompanying documents, and personally took all the evidence offered to the
Commission on the subject of mining, in the Pacific States and Territories. He drafted and helped
to push through Congress the original bill remonetizing the silver dollar, and had the satisfaction
to see it substantially enacted. In a word, he was the originator and the soul of the entire movement
for the remonetization of silver; and yet so retired is his manner of working that he rarely permitted
his name to be used in connection with the movement, and except to the leading members of Congress and the Government, is scarcely known to have taken part in it. The numerous documents
signed by his name, or marked with his initials, which are printed in the Report of the Silver Commission, will, however, attest in some degree the remarkable influence, energy, and industry which
he exercised in this great movement. Robertsons commentary sheds lightand uncertaintyas
to what credit Del Mar should receive for his efforts. An examination of the U.S. Monetary Report
indicates Del Mars contribution of statistical data from the Nevada mines and minutes on the currencies of silver-receiving nations, including China. Robertson, Life of Hon. Alex. Del Mar, 15.


322
a respectmore important in China than perhaps in any other great

country.55
Del Mars experience on these commissions exposed him to

the United States expansionary market goals and the obstacles
to Chinas acceptance of its currency to facilitate trade growth. In
1873, the United States had created the Trade Dollar, a silver coin
without legal properties intended for export to Chinas port cities.
While U.S. efforts to establish the Trade Dollar as Chinas dominant
legal currency ultimately failed by 1878, the Monetary Commission
sought to examine the Trade Dollars effectiveness on behalf of silver
and the U.S. governments interests.56 Furthermore, the Monetary
Commission raised concerns about the unequal balance of trade
between the two nations, which favored China.
The Monetary Commission interviewed witnesses who commented that the U.S. imbalance of trade disproportionately benefited China.57 Congressman George Willard observed that
the balance is...against us because we import our tea and silk and only
export a few cotton goods, kerosene oil, & c. [sic] The great export
from the United States to China is silver dollars [but] [t]he export of
silver dollars from this country to China does not settle the balance
between the two countries.58
Between 1870 and 1878, the U.S.-China trade featured 158 million dollars worth of goods being imported from China to the U.S.,
while the U.S. only exported 18 million dollars worth of goods in
return.59 It is conceivable that Del Mar was aware of these trading
55. United States Senate, Report and Accompanying Documents of the United States Monetary Commission
Organized under Joint Resolution of August 15, 1876, 1877, 145147. Quotation is from: United States Senate, Reports of the Silver Commission of 1876, 107.
56. Because China lacked an effectively managed state-regulated currency supply, Chinese merchants
within Chinas port cities relied on Mexican silver dollars to facilitate commercial exchanges. The
Trade Dollar was designed to replace the Mexican silver dollar and provide a market for U.S. silver.
57. United States Senate, Report and Accompanying Documents of the United States Monetary Commission,
157158, 172174.
58. Ibid., 455.
59. Douglas A. Irwin, Exports, by Country of Destination: 17902001, Table Ee533550 in Historical
Statistics of the United States, Earliest Times to the Present: Millennial Edition, edited by Susan B. Carter,
Scott Sigmund Gartner, Michael R. Haines, Alan L. Olmstead, Richard Sutch, and Gavin Wright
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006) http://dx.doi.org.libproxy.csun.edu/10.1017/
ISBN-9780511132971.Ee362611; Douglas A. Irwin, Imports, by Country of Origin: 17902001, Table
Ee551568 in Historical Statistics of the United States, Ee362611.

323
trends due to his experience with customs and trade revenue in his
former capacity as Director of the Bureau of Statistics, in addition
to his role as the Mining Commissioner on behalf of the Monetary
Commission. The Monetary Commissions report demonstrated the
U.S. governments interest in examining the relationship between
silver and its effects on the balance of trade with China, as well as
Chinas economic importance to the U.S.60 In addition, the 1877
Report of the Joint Special Committee to Investigate Chinese Immigration
emphasized concern regarding the trade imbalance: the balance of
trade is all against us; that the [silver] money which we send there
and the goods are not compensated by any adequate return.61
Because Del Mar had, years earlier, accepted Ricardos comparative
advantage theory, and because he supported the balance of trade
theory that claimed a nations rise in wealth was connected to an
increase in the value of its exports over imports, it is plausible that
the United States gross imbalance between imports and exports
is what motivated him to write the Kwang letters.62 More directly,
Del Mar used the letters to counter arguments in the Joint Special
Committees report that claimed the Chinese were economically disadvantageous to the state, and to underscore the American Wests
economic vulnerabilities.63
During Del Mars time in San Francisco his dogmatic views were
regularly featured in San Franciscos weekly journal, The Argonaut,
which adopted Del Mars polarizing rhetoric and published his articles on mining, economic topics, and Chinese immigration during
the journals formative years.64 Newspapers during this era waxed
60. In later writings, Del Mar often commented on the Monetary Commissions findings in his discussion of the gold standard. Alexander Del Mar, A History of the Precious Metals (London: Messrs.
Geo. Bell and Sons, 1880), xiv; Del Mar, Science of Money, xxvi; Del Mar, Money and Civilization, 277;
Alexander Del Mar, The History of Monetary Systems (London: Effingham Wilson, Royal Exchange,
1895), 467.
61. U.S. Congress, Joint Special Committee to Investigate Chinese Immigration, Report of the Joint Special Committee to Investigate Chinese Immigration, 44th Cong., 2d sess., 1877, 28.
62. Walter [Del Mar, pseud.], What Is Free Trade? 2747, 5565.
64. Argonaut, June 29, 1878; Jerome Alfred Hart, In Our Second Century: From an Editors Notebook (San
Francisco: The Pioneer Press, 1931), 195. Jerome A. Hart, one of the Argonauts founding editors, commented on Del Mars literary contributions to the Argonauts early years, and he noted that Del Mar
was not well-liked among his San Francisco contemporaries. Hart observed that although a man
of ability, Del Mar was not popular. In the eighties, at an annual meeting of the Bohemian Club, a
violent debate was raging in which Del Mar took part. His side was outvoted and in a fit of petulance Del Mar rose and tendered his resignation, which was at once accepted. About ten minutes


324
extensively on the Chinese Question in a harmonized chorus of

anti-Chinese sentiment. However, in San Francisco, newspapers
were divided over Denis Kearneys Workingmens Party.65 A charismatic rabble-rouser, Kearney had lumped railroad and mining barons together with the Chinese as the source of Californias labor
woes, raising the fears of Nob Hills elite that its political power
could shift in favor of the lower-class and unsavory Irish laborers.66
Frank Pixley, Jerome Hart, and Fred M. Somers formed the Argonaut,
an elitist political journal, in the spring of 1877 to conduct class warfare against the Irish rabble and to quash Kearneys political influence.67 The formidable Ambrose Bierce served as its editor.68 The
Argonaut boasted a reading circulation of 14,000 copies per week in
California and tailored its contents for San Franciscos middle and
upper classes.
At first glance, it seems surprising that Del Mars Kwang letters
appeared in the Argonaut. Editor Frank Pixley, Californias former
attorney general, disapproved of Chinese immigration and even
served on the 1877 congressional investigation committee aimed
at stopping the flow of further immigration from Chinaan antiChinese stance more akin to Kearneys position than to Del Mars.
Yet, Kearneys mobilization of the Irish working class impelled
Pixley to drop the immigration issue in order to target the Irish and
German laborers who banded together in San Francisco to control
its politics.69 Pixley used the Argonaut as a soapbox to denounce
Kearney in order to preserve the political power of the upper classes.70 However, Pixley relied on his associate editor, Ambrose Bierce,
later Del Mar again rose to speak, but was called to order by Walter Holmes on the ground that Del
Mar was no longer a member. The gentlemans point of order is erroneous, said Del Mar. I offered
my resignation to take effect at the end of the month. Walter Homes solemnly replied: I withdraw
my point of order. In the general joy over [Del Mars] resignation, its date was overlooked. Hart,
In Our Second Century, 195; Aschheim and Tavlas, Academic Exclusion, 3160.
65. Ira Brown Cross, A History of the Labor Movement in California (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1974), 320.
66. Roy Morris, Ambrose Bierce: Alone in Bad Company (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 156.
67. Ibid., 156; Argonaut, June 29, 1878.
68. Somers from time to time contributed columns cut out of other journals. He sold his share in the
journal to Jerome Hart in 1880. Jerome A. Hart, In Our Second Century: From an Editors Note-Book
(San Francisco: The Pioneer Press Publishers, 1931), 153.
69. Argonaut, June 29, 1878; John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 18601925
(New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2002), 31.
70. Morris, Ambrose Bierce, 156.

325
to execute the bulk of the Argonauts editorial work. Bierces biographer, Roy Morris, noted that Pixley and Bierce clashed over their
visions for the Argonauts literary purpose.71 From the journals onset,
Pixley wanted the Argonauts content to focus primarily on countering the political influence of the Workingmens Party, while Bierce,
who was more liberal-minded, wanted the Argonaut to provide quality literary content for its readers. It is plausible that Bierce, who
often promoted literary pieces of a sensational nature, collaborated
with Del Mar to publish the Kwang letters. Both men were members
of San Franciscos irreverent Bohemian Club and shared a tolerance
for Chinese immigration.72
Despite Bierces tolerance, the Argonaut still belittled San
Franciscos heathen Chinese residents. An unsigned editorial published in the same edition as the third Kwang letter addressed the
question of Chinese immigration, stating that
[t]he Chinese are the cause of our hard times, our labor difficulties, our
bankruptcies, our shrinkage of values, our pauperism, our crime....
[I]f there had been no Chinese upon this coast we should not be as rich
as now; but riches would be more equally distributed, and California
would have been the exceptional spot upon Gods footstool where
there had been no hard times, and where poverty and destitution are
forever impossible.73
Whether or not Pixley read his weekly journal in its entirety is

difficult to prove, but one suspects that he supported the publication of Del Mars controversial letters in his journal. An Argonaut
editorial published in the same edition as the fourth Kwang letter
proclaimed that
[w]e have given the series of communications of Kwang Chang Ling
because they are the best presentation of the Chinese side of the
Chinese question that we have seenbecause they are argumentative,
historical, and bristling with facts, presented in a style and language
that the American writer might well afford to imitate. We have presumed upon the generosity and intelligence of our readers that they
would desire to hear an argument from the Chinese standpoint, if
conducted in fairness, although they might altogether dissent from
the conclusions of the writer.74
71. Ibid. By 1880, Ambrose Bierce had ended his employment as the Argonauts associate editor.
72. Robert L. Gale, An Ambrose Bierce Companion (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2001), 227.
73. The Argonaut, August 17, 1878.
74. The Argonaut, September 7, 1878.


326
Del Mars Kwang letters appeared in the Argonaut on August 7,

10, 17, and September 7, 1878, and they were republished in pamphlet
form in October of 1878 and in 1881.75 They received comment and
speculation from newspapers all over the country and in places as
far as England, Germanyand even China.76 Most newspapers did
not suspect that Kwang Chang Ling was a fictitious person. A few
suspected Kwang Chang Ling to be the pen name of an American
author. The Chicago Tribunes extensive coverage praised
[t]he substance of these remarkable letters, so much information is
stowed away in every page of them, and such admirable use is made
of it in application and argument, the defense is so compact, strong,
and solid, the letters are so full of the most convincing logic as well
as of power and dignity, that they would not do discredit to the most
75. An Argonaut editor, in noting the Kwang letters unanticipated popularity among its readership,
stated: The demand for copies of the ARGONAUT containing the letters of Kwang Chang Ling
has been so great that we have been unable to supply it. We have therefore determined to issue them
in pamphlet form, and they will be on sale at our business office early. The Argonaut, September 7,
1878. See also, Daily Alta, October 7, 1878. It remains unclear when Del Mar confessed to orchestrating the letters under the Kwang Chang Ling pseudonym, but he did write them. In addition
to Del Mars citation of them as an academic source within his own publications, Argonaut editor
Jerome A. Hart acknowledged Del Mars involvement in the burning issue up to the time of the
Exclusion Act of 1880. Hart, In Our Second Century, 195. Secondly, economist Joseph Dorfman, The
Economic Mind, Vol. 3, 98, has noted Del Mars use of a variety of pseudonyms, including Emile
Walter, Atlanticus, and Kwang Chang Ling. Furthermore, Del Mars long-standing frustration
with the Crime of 73, when silver was demonetized, is visible in the third Kwang letter, where he
states that Chinese immigrants were not the source of Californians troubles, but that [p]erhaps
they [would] find it in the worlds dwindling stock of metallic moneyand in this respect one of
the planks of their platform commends itself most heartily to my mind. Del Mar, History of the
Precious Metals (1880), and Argonaut, July 29, 1878. Del Mar was a bimetallist and loud critic against
the gold standard, and a significant portion of his publications and government assignments were
directly correlated with the drive to reinstate silvers monetary properties. Lastly, by comparing the
grammatical patterns between the Kwang letters and Del Mars other publications, the similarities
in sentence structure and historical research methods employed also indicate that Del Mar is their
author. Del Mar is cited as the Kwang letters author by archives at the Oviatt Library, California
State University, Northridge; Charles Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles; and University of California, Berkeley, in addition to other university collections. Ella Sterling
Mighels, The Story of the Files: A Review of California Writers and Literature, vol. 1 (San Francisco:
Co-operative Printing Co., 1893), 248250.
76. Most newspapers were repeating similar commentary in limited detail. Additionally, while many
newspapers marveled at the Kwang Letters arguments, there was no analysis that determined the
authors agenda aside from protecting Chinese immigration. American Socialist, October 10, 1878;
Chicago Daily Tribune, October 15, 1878; Daily Constitution, October 19, 1878; Cedar Rapids Times,
October 24, 1878; Galveston Daily News, October 30, 1878; Jackson Sentinel, October 31, 1878; Decatur Daily Review, November 1, 1878; Freeport Daily Bulletin, November 10, 1878; Pall Mall Gazette,
November 12, 1878; Marion Daily Star, November 15, 1878; London and China Telegraph, November
18, 1878; Cambridge Daily Tribune, December 19, 1878; North China Herald, January 1, 1879; Daily Alta,
November 23, 1879; F. Ratzel, Die chinesische Auswanderung seit 1875, [Chinese immigration
since 1875] Globus 39 (1881): 89.

327
brilliant of American scholars. Is it possible that one of the latter class

is hiding behind a Chinese nom de plume?77
The Tribune, like most newspapers, marveled at the Kwang letters

singular position on the Chinese Question. But in California, the
San Francisco Bulletin was outraged that
[t]he Eastern Journals are now devoting themselves to the consideration
of Kwang Chang Lings letters in defense of the Chinese, which appeared
some time ago in the columns of the Argonaut. For the most part they
regard them as the production of a genuine Chinaman. But a very different view was taken when they were published here. The general opinion
was that they emanated from the pen of some mocking Bohemian . . . The
mode of expression, idioms and all were essentially American.78
The Bulletin, suspicious that Kwang Chang Ling was a fictional character, connected the Argonauts affiliation with certain Bohemian
Club members, and hinted at Bierce as the letters author, though
possibly suspecting Del Mar. Even so, the majority of journals and
gazettes did not address Del Mars free-trade message. Existing
accounts did praise the letters argument for Chinese immigration
but only focused on minor topics addressed in the writings, with the
exception of the Bulletin. Despite these varied interpretations, the
letters of a San Francisco Chinaman, whose thought-provoking
sentiments challenged the historical and economic foundation of
the Chinese Question, were a national sensation.
The Kwang letters sparked national discussion, and later editions
of the Argonaut featured San Francisco attorney Henry N. Clements
inflammatory rebuttals to Kwang Chang Ling that appeared in the
Argonauts August 24, August 31, and September 14, 1878, editions.
Clement believed Kwang Chang Ling was a mere pseudonym adopted
by some glib-penned Bohemian writing for coin, though he emphasized that the Chinese Question was a question of political economy,
and that cheap labor means low diet, few comforts, and no luxuries for the laborer, unacceptable standards for American workers.79
Clement also opposed Chinese immigration on the racist grounds that
77. Chicago Tribune, October 15, 1878.
78. San Francisco Bulletin, November 5, 1878.
79. The Argonaut, September 14, 1878. For further insight on the complexities of white labor, economic
competition, and labors racial divisions during the era of anti-Chinese sentiment, see Alexander
Saxtons The Rise and Fall of the White Republic: Class Politics and Mass Culture in Nineteenth-Century
America (London: Verso, 1990).


328
(1) Mongolian and Caucasian races do not assimilate. (2) That the mixing
of inferior with superior civilizations subverts and destroys the superior.
If any further evidence than that furnished by ancient and medival history is necessary to establish these propositions I need but refer to the
history . . . to prove the blighting influences of Mongolian blood and civilization upon the nations cursed with their presence.80
Opposition to the Chinese from Clement and other anti-Chinese

voices stemmed in part from their beliefs about wage competition
and racial superiority, but also reveals their efforts to define an economic ideal for white workers. Clement asked rhetorically,
If our American laborer has an ambition to get out of a lower and go
into a higher employment, is that to his discredit? Have we not always
pointed to that as one of the strongest evidences of our superiority? Is
it to the interest of our race that we should introduce a race of patient,
plodding, unambitious laborers who do not aspire?81
Clement sought to purify American labor on the basis of race, believing that the Chinese posed a threat to white labors ability to represent the ideals of the American Republic.82 Clement also called for
an end to further Chinese immigration, for Chinese immigration
means coolie labor. Coolie labor means concentration of wealth.
Concentration of wealth means aristocracy, landed estates tyranny,
and oppression of the poor.83
Furthermore, Clements views, while deeply prejudiced and calloused against the Chinese, captured the mood in San Francisco
during 1878. Clement was a lawyer from the East who had arrived
in San Francisco in 1875. Prior to his arrival, he was indifferent to
the Chinese Question; however, he soon developed a strong antiChinese stance, and his essays on the subject were included in the
1878 California Senate Special Committee on Chinese Immigration
and the Argonaut.84 Clement claimed he held no personal stake in
condemning Chinese labor, nor did he stand to gain politically by
supporting their exclusion from the state. Yet he ardently believed
that the Chinese were the source of Californias moral, social, and
80. The Argonaut, August 24, 1878.
81. H.N. Clement, The Conflict of Races in California, presented to the California State Senate
Special Committee on Chinese Immigration, Chinese Immigration; Its Social, Moral, and Political Effect
(Sacramento: State Office, F.P. Thompson Supt. State Printing, 1878), 268.
82. Ibid., 277.
83. The Argonaut, August 24, 1878
84. Clement, The Conflict of Races in California, 269271.

329
Cigar Making in Chinatown, San Francisco (The Wasp,1879). One of the

trades affected by Chinese labor competition was cigar-making. In this
cartoon, opium use, rats, disease, sleeping facilities, and dehumanizing labor
share the industrial space. But Del Mar, writing as Kwang Chang Ling, contended that No one pretends that cigars can be made upon your would-be
basis of [white] wages. Already most of the cigars consumed here, apart from
those made by Chinamen, are imported from New York. As for the yarns
about leprous Chinese cigar-makers, the finest cigars in the world, those of
Havauna [sic], are all, without exception, made by Chinamen. (Del Mar,
Letters of Kwang Chang Ling, no. 3, August 17 1878.) Courtesy of The Bancroft
Library, University of California, Berkeley. F850.w18v.3 no.134:472.
economic woes. Clement addressed the Chinese Question from a lawyers perspective, and he looked for evidence to understand why the
Chinese could not assimilate within the United States. He deduced
[t]hat the true prosperity of a nation consists in all classes of society
enjoying the comforts and luxuries of civilization [T]oward the borders of barbarism, wages become lower and still lower, and the comfort and welfare of the laboring classes are totally neglected; that as
we approach the more highly civilized and prosperous nations wages
become higher; that low wages means stagnation and decay, and high
wages, growth and progress.85
85. Ibid. Ping Chius economic study of Chinese labor in California found that a paucity of Anglo


330
Clement, like so many opposed to Chinese immigration, believed

that wages must be protected in order to protect the white American
worker.86 His beliefs stood in contrast to those of Del Mar, who
stressed that elevated wages were not the panacea to the workers
plight, and that, instead, the lowest price, or cheapness of available goods for consumption affected national prosperity, which he
discussed extensively in his publication, What Is Free Trade?87
In his fourth and final letter, Del Mar departed from his deliberation on free trade and the Chinese Question in order to dispel
Clements claims that the Chinese were racially inferior and unable
to assimilate to Western standards, and to redress Clements call for
halting Chinese immigration to protect American interests. Though
Del Mar never outright addressed Clement or incorporated quotes
from Clements writings, he did call attention to the inability of
others to recognize his intentions, stating, I am too well aware of
the inveteracy and rancor of race prejudice to expect to convince
my opponents so long as they refuse to join issue with me.88 In an
effort to prove wrong Clements position that the Chinese should
be excluded on the basis of racial inferiority, Del Mar broached the
subject of anti-Semitism as an instructive parallel. (See below, page
342.) But Clement remained obdurate, dismissing Del Mars logic and
reiterating his prejudiced views in a following letter to the Argonaut,
explaining that he was not disposed to listen with any degree of
patience to the cold-blooded arguments of the political economist
who welcomes the Chinese immigrant as a cheap laborer.89
In contrast to Clements vitriolic prose against the Chinese and
Kwang Chang Lings ghostwriter, the American Socialist Journal commented favorably on the Kwang letters. Because the question of
whether the Chinese shall be allowed to live in our country. . . is
the main issue on which the Kearneyites and other workingmen
of the Pacific coast have settled, it is well for all Socialists to have
labor encouraged the employment of the Chinese within cigar manufacturing firms and elevated
San Franciscos cigar making as a significant industry in the state. Ping Chiu, Chinese Labor in California, 18501880: An Economic Study (Madison: The State Historical Society of Wisconsin for the
Department of History, University of Washington, 1967), 122.
86. Ibid.
87. Walter [Del Mar, pseud.], What Is Free Trade? 95100.
88. Del Mar, Letters of Kwang Chang Ling, no. 4, The Argonaut, September 7, 1878.
89. The Argonaut, September 14, 1878.

331
an intelligent understanding of it.90 The American Socialist stressed

Kwang Chang Lings argument that Chinese immigration did not
pose an economic threat to the United States. Similar thoughts were
put forth by the Galveston Daily News, which reprinted an article
from the St. Louis Republican supporting Kwangs writings, noting
that the current open immigration policy of the United States
[a]ssured [all immigrants] a warm welcome, complete protection in
all their rights, and an equal chance with the natives in the struggle
for life. We cannot expel the Chinese now here, or prohibit or limit
Chinese immigration hereafter, without violating a fundamental principal of republican institutions.91
The Cedar Rapids Times also applauded the defense of the Chinese
by Kwang Chang Ling, a mandarin of San Francisco. Summarizing
Kwangs arguments, the Times concluded: His arguments have not
been answered. The hoodlums that abuse him cannot.92 The majority of newspapers that commented on the Kwang letters noted the
skillful manner in which they contradicted popular anti-Chinese
views and agreed that Chinese immigration was not as great a threat
as many had perceived it to be. And while scholars, including Stuart
Creighton Miller, Andrew Gyory, and Gwendolyn Mink, have indicated that newspapers across the nation created a negative perception of Chinese immigrants, the Kwang letters and these editorials
demonstrate an exception to this dominant narrative.93
Del Mar used the forum of the Argonaut to shift Californians
focus away from racial labor disputes and redirect them to a wider
global context, specifically the importance of the China trade. The
tone of the letters vacillated between compassion and contempt.
Kwang Chang Ling countered Kearneys infamous slogan, The
Chinese Must Go, emphatically insisting that they should not
go; that they can not go; that they will not go.94 Kwang introduced
Chinas historical relationship to the industrial world by stressing
90. Why Should the Chinese Go? The American Socialist, October 10, 1878.
91. Galveston Daily News, October 30, 1878.
92. Cedar Rapids Times, October 24, 1878.
93. Miller, The Unwelcome Immigrant, 113141; Gyory, Closing the Gate, 18; Gwendolyn Mink, Old Labor
and New Immigrants in American Political Development: Union, Party, and State, 18751920 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), 8889.


332
Chinese Immigrants at the San Francisco Custom House, (front cover,

Harpers Weekly, February 3, 1877). The custom house was a critical location
where trade and immigration intersected. Harpers Weekly, a national publication, depicts an orderly line of Chinese coming down the gangplank and waiting to be assigned to the Chinese merchants and American employers who
will send cart-loads of them off to their work places. Courtesy of The Bancroft
Library, University of California, Berkeley. MTP/HW: Vol 21:81.
Chinas critical role in the rise of the West, such as the inventions
of the mariners compass, sails for ships, rudders, gunpowder, paper,
printing, and many other useful things introduced to Europe from
China.95
95. Ibid.

333
A central theme throughout the letters is Chinas critical importance to the economies of commercially developed nations. The U.S.
Monetary Commissions report (to which Del Mar contributed his
findings on the Comstock Lodes silver output) possibly inspired Del
Mar to recognize the Wests longstanding interest in the China trade,
because:
[t]he traditional ideas of mankind have certainly always been that
it is the greater or less [sic] degree of commerce with the East which
determines the commercial position of nations. It is a familiar and
general belief that it was the control of the trade of the Orient which
aggrandized Tyre and Alexandria in ancient times, the Italian cities
of the Middle Ages, and after a change in the route to the East by the
doubling of Cape Hope, first Portugal, then Holland, and finally, and
to the present days, England.96
Throughout the Kwang letters, Del Mar blamed the United States
desire to access Asian trade markets as the mechanism that raised
the Chinese Question and argued that efforts to limit the Chinese
presence constituted harmful protectionism.
You insist upon trade with China, but you want no contact with her
people . . . Can you be gratified in both respects? Impossible. The same
God that made you, made us; the same inexorable laws of nature that
govern you, govern us . . . If you must trade with China, you must
come into contact with Chinamen.97
By emphasizing Californias geographical position, Del Mar recognized the states critical role in U.S. ambitions in the Pacific and as
the point of entry for U.S.-Asian trade.
As Kwang Chang Ling, Del Mar urged Californians to consider
the effect of their hostility toward Chinese immigrants on the states
economic interests. Scholars Gwendolyn Mink and Roseanne
Currarino have documented that the Chinese were not a real economic threat to white labor, and that the high unemployment rate
coupled with an increasing volume of white overland migration
created an oversupply of white workers who chose to blame the
Chinese for their plight.98 Yet these fears of competition were readily
96. United States Senate, Report and Accompanying Documents of the United States Monetary Commission,
109.
98. Mink, Old Labor and New Immigrants in American Political Development, 80; Rosanne Currarino,
The Labor Question in America: Economic Democracy in the Gilded Age (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 2011), 3659.


334
adopted by individuals of both the lower and middle classes due to

an overwhelming demand for improved economic conditions, which
included access to employment, affordable land, and a stable supply
of currency.99 Philip Kuhn asserts that Californias unemployment
rate hovered around an unprecedented 20 percent.100 Railroad companies, and a minority of large land owners, controlled the states
best farming acreage, reducing the opportunity for potential small
land owners while simultaneously employing Chinese labor at low
wages to work in the fields.101 Furthermore, a contraction in the
available currency supply proved devastating to the states economy.
Michael Bellesisles notes that in the United States during the late
1860s, $31.18 in currency circulated per person, yet by 1878 only $16.95
was available per head.102
In addition, the U.S. emphasis on domestic market growth during this period was colored by anti-monopolist sentiments. Railroads
and other large businesses were the main employers of Chinese
labor, which was a source of frustration for white workingmen who
engaged in deadly riots in 1877 that harmed San Franciscos Chinese
population.103 While the Daily Alta California and San Francisco
Bulletin emphasized that both white and Chinese men were killed,
it was Chinese washhouses and residences that were ransacked and
burned, Chinese-owned stores that were looted, and Chinese individuals who were beaten and forced to flee.104 The Chinese, whom
the railroads preferentially employed, became a visible scapegoat for
popular ire at the railroads corrupt practices of high rates, depot
site acquisitions, and sullied reputation in the land-grant business.105
Railroad corporations, including the Southern Pacific and the
Central Pacific, owned extensive acreage on some of Californias
99. Bellesisles, 1877: Americas Year, 112113.
100. Philip A. Kuhn, Chinese among Others: Emigration in Modern Times (Singapore: National University
of Singapore, 2008), 208.
101. Sandmeyer, Anti-Chinese Movement, 67.
102. Bellesisles, 1877: Americas Year, 7. Historian Ira Cross also discerns Californias financial vulnerabilities due to a chronic shortage of available coinage. In the 1870s, Californians refused to circulate greenback notes, preferring to rely on gold dust, and silver and gold coins as mediums for
exchange. Ira B. Cross, vol. 1 of Financing an Empire: History of Banking in California (Chicago: The
S.J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1927), 357361.
103. Gyory, Closing the Gate, 96.
104. Editorial, Daily Alta California, July 24, 1877; San Francisco Bulletin, July 26, 1877.

335
best lands, which further corroborated their image as monopolistic

entities.106 In addition, a small but powerful elite comprised of private capitalists and wheat farmers rented out small parcels to the
Chinese. The image of the wealthy capitalist colluding with railroad
corporations and Chinese labor interests to maintain an economic
stranglehold on California was likely more real to Californians than
the obscure concept of future wealth from U.S. trade with China.
In consequence, because Californians desired an immediate solution to their economic troubles, the Chinese Question provided
a target that attracted labor interests, political agendas, and countless individuals who opposed the Chinese on racist grounds.107 Del
Mar was aware of these attitudes and their effect of limiting provincial Californians understanding of larger economic issues. Del Mar,
writing as Kwang Chang Ling, stated:
You may drive us out of California, but we shall influence your social
affairs all the same. The goods we manufacture in San Francisco will
be fabricated in Canton; and, no matter how high you may raise your
tariff, you will walk in Canton shoes, wear Canton shirts, smoke
Canton cigars, and shoot each other with Canton revolvers and gunpowder; for we can make all these articles cheaper than you can.108
Del Mars warning, one of his shrewdest observations about

Chinas looming economic potential, was directed at the 1877 congressional committee that blamed the Chinese for closing down
manufacturing firms in San Francisco. The committees report,
and those of Kearneys Workingmens Party, claimed that in very
many of the trades, [the Chinese] have either driven out the white
people entirely, or they have driven their profits down to starvation
points.109 While these claims were exaggerated, popular perception,
rooted in protectionist ideals, trumped any evidence as to whether
Chinese immigrants were economically useful to the state.
Moreover, the 1877 congressional committees report reinforced
Anglo labors fears that Chinese labor posed an economic threat.
This fear was entrenched in California, spurred in part by employers
106. See William Deverells Railroad Crossing: Californians and the Railroad, 18501910 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994) for added insight on nineteenth-century perceptions regarding
railroad corporations and their effects on Californias economic development.
107. Gyory, Closing the Gate, 16.
109. Cong. Rep., 44th Cong., 2d sess., 1877, 18; Los Angeles Herald, January 31, 1878.

The Chinese Must Go, but Who

Keeps Them? A cartoon in The
Wasp, May 11, 1878, ridicules a braying ass resembling demagogue Denis
Kearney, crying, The Chinese
Must Go! But the cartoon asks,
Who Keeps Them? and mocks
the hypocrisy of Anglo workingmens consumer patronage and
dependency on cheap Chinese
labor and goods. The surrounding
scenes illustrate services and commerce performed by Chinese in San
Francisco. Del Mars Kwang Chang
Ling also critiqued Californians
dependence on Chinese immigrants
as fishermen; as makers of clothing,
shoes, and cigars; as truck-farmers
and hucksters; and as domestics
and washermen. And he questioned, What are they doing here?
In a word, they are pursuing a number of industries which, without
them, would have no existence at
all on this coast. Del Mar, Letters
of Kwang Chang Ling, no. 3, August
17, 1878. Courtesy of The Bancroft
Library, University of California,
Berkeley. F850.w18v.2no.93:648-649.

336

337
preference for the cheaply replenished coolie labor pool. Del Mars
Kwang Chang Ling argued, conversely, that Chinese labor occupied
the least desirable occupations and developed key industries within
the state. But he also called attention to the fact that
[t]he times are past when exceptionally high rates of wages can be sustained. The clothing, shoes, and slippers now made here by Chinamen
would either be made in China...or else manufactured in the East,
and in either case imported to this coast. It is entirely out of the question to imagine that these industries would be continued upon the
Californian workingmens wage-basis of $3 or $4 a day.110
White labor and politicians in California had attempted to isolate their

economic interests within the domestic landscape. Though Del Mar
did not specify the length of time for wages in China to rise at par with
those of white laborers in the U.S., he maintained that unless the United
States refused imports from developing countries such as China, overseas cheap labor would continue to create competition. Unrealistically
elevated wages led to costlier production expense and higher-cost goods
for purchase. While Del Mars ideas opposed San Franciscos workingmens advocacy for a premium white wage, his support for affordable
commodities would likely be of greater benefit to the budgets of workers,
who should recognize the need for free trade with China. Thus, regardless of whether or not the Chinese stayed in California, and because
China had the potential to become an industrialized nation, the United
States would inevitably one day compete with its Pacific neighbor.111
Nevertheless, economic instability had motivated anti-Chinese
forces in California to assign blame to Chinese immigration while
swiftly disregarding Chinese contributions to industry and infrastructure in Californias formative years. The Kwang letters identified
Chinese laborers role working in the placer mines and laying railroad track as forming the foundation of Californias early economic
development.112 Kwang further advocated that Chinas future progress
would be defined by demands for its goods and services.113 The letters
110.Del Mar, Letters of Kwang Chang Ling, no. 3, The Argonaut, August 17, 1878.
111. During the 1870s China had already begun to industrialize its commerce through the use of steamships, and the U.S., along with other European nations, attempted, with limited success, to fund
telegraph lines, postal services, railroads, and factories in China. Michael Hunt, The Making of a
Special Relationship: The United States and China to 1914 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983),
146147.
113. Ibid, no. 2, August 10, 1878.


338
also testified that trade with China conformed to the economic laws
of naturein trade, all action and reaction are reciprocal . . . [N]ature
forbids one-sided arrangements.114 Moreover, he pointed out:
unless Europe and Asia shall fall back upon a now impossible scheme
of strict non intercourse, their fortunes must go together. If, as you
believe, your civilization is superior . . . it will have to fall a little in
order that ours may rise a great deal; and this must take place whether
the few Chinese now in California shall remain or not.115
China already traded with a number of countries, including the

British Empire, and the Asian nation would likely rise in material
wealth and industry regardless of the actions of U.S. policymakers.
Kwang noted that during the last fifteen or twenty years there has
been a notable rise of wages in China: The condition of the poor
has materially improved . . . [T]his change is attributed to liberal
imperial policy, foreign intercourse, [and] . . . more rapid transportation and communication.116 Because anti-Chinese forces sought to
discredit arguments that favored Chinas economic importance, it is
plausible that the Kwang letters, with their perceived exaggerations
about Chinas potential economic might, were easily dismissed.
The United States acquisition of the North American West Coast
fulfilled a dream the U.S. had envisioned since its infancy, to secure a
gateway to the China trade, but the U.S. initially lacked the commercial capacity to realize this goal.117 The states commercial and military
operations could not effectively control trade in the Pacific without
a strong naval presence on the West Coast to protect its small number of merchant ships. Kwang called attention to the West Coasts
uneven commercial development and to the fact that the state of
California was a mere thirty years old and had yet to establish itself
as an important international trading zone due to British dominance
within the Pacific. He further emphasized the insignificance of the
U.S. merchant marine compared to that of other countries. Following
the Civil War the U.S. only occupied 10 percent of the global shipping
industry.118 Likely to instill fear, Kwang warned:
114. Ibid, no. 1, August 3, 1878, and no. 2, August 10, 1878.
115. Ibid, no. 2, August 10, 1878.
117. Miller, Unwelcome Immigrant, 19.
118. Del Mar, Letters of Kwang Chang Ling, no. 3, The Argonaut, August 17, 1878. Newspapers confirm Del
Mars allegations that a Confederate ship had disrupted U.S. trade in the Pacific during the Civil

339
The day that you become so weak and faithless as to give way to your
ignorant classes, and permit the torch and the dagger to drive us from
your shores, that day will see every resource of the Ta-Tsing empire
put forth to punish you. Your commerce will be swept from the Pacific,
perhaps forever; it may even be seriously crippled on the Atlantic;
and you may then learn, when too late, that China, although old and
apathetic, is by no means dead or powerless.119
Kwangs threats may not have been taken seriously due to the
larger perception that China remained bound in a semi-colonized status by commerce-trading nations. The U.S. Monetary Commissions
1877 discussion of Chinas economy maintained that China is not
only a large body, but a remarkably sluggish one, and there will
always be time to take precautions against the result of any movement in which she may be concerned.120 However, Kwang further
proposed that the solution to the looming economic consequences
he described could be resolved by peace in the Pacific. Wars were
expensive and disruptive, but peace through a stable trade relationship would supplant the need for costly military engagements.121
China represented a long-term economic interest to the United
States government even if this goal was downplayed by politicians
who sided with labor. Benjamin Sherman Brooks, a San Francisco
War. Captain Corbett of the steamer Sea King, also known as the Confederate Shenandoah, was
tried in London courts on January 5, 1865, for attempting to enlist British subjects into the Confederate Navy within the Pacific. The Shenandoahs exploits raised fears for its alleged piracy and
intention to burn and destroy merchant vessels, and whalers in particular. San Francisco Evening
Bulletin, May 19, 1865; New York Herald, January 1, 1865.
After the Civil War, American shipping ceased to be a significant presence and only represented
10 percent of waterborne exports. The decline had occurred because British shipping acquired U.S.
trade during the Civil War. Also, a difference in shipping technology between Britain and the U.S.
had emerged. British lines chose to build their ships out of iron due to its availability and affordability. These iron ships were technologically superior to wooden ships built in the United States.
Furthermore, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, Californias oldest and largest fleet engaged in
the trans-pacific trade, did not offer a monthly passage to China until 1867. The Pacific Mail only
assigned five ships for Pacific crossings and struggled throughout the late nineteenth century to
maintain a competitive presence in the Pacific. During the 1870s, British shipping firms transported
the bulk of Chinese goods through New York and not San Francisco. By 1877, the New York Times
observed that Congress refused to renew the Pacific Mails $500,000 subsidy due to the firms shortcomings in providing mail services. New York Times, August 27, 1877. George W. Dalzell, The Flight
From the Flag: The Continuing Effect of the Civil War upon the American Carrying Trade (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1940), 251; Ren De La Pedraja, The Rise and Decline of U.S.
Merchant Shipping in the Twentieth Century (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1992), 1415.
120. This comment was in the context that Chinas economy posed a threat if it acquired too large a
surplus of silver. U.S. Senate, United States Monetary Commission, 567.


340
lawyer who defended the Chinese in the infamous 1877 joint congressional committees report, had also warned that negative treatment
directed at this minority group was bad for California commerce.
Brooks remarked that [t]o place a restriction on Chinese immigration to this coast, and not restrict other immigration, would be a
restriction upon the commerce of California which I would consider
highly partial against California and against our best interests.122
Brooks went on to assert that California held the greatest position
for the commerce of the universe that any nation ever had, and as
is the case very frequently in such things, we try to shut the door to
the very greatness of our nation by this prejudice which has been
started and fomented by the press.123 Brooks claims were echoed by
pro-Chinese supporters including Christian missionary groups and
former consular and diplomatic officers linked to entrepreneurial
ventures and foreign trade interests.124
Indeed, historian Elmer Sandmeyer discerned that opinion in
California on the Chinese Question was divided between those
who supported capitalistic enterprises and foreign trade and those
public officials, newspapermen, and laboring men who opposed
the Chinese.125 Del Mars Kwang letters worked to bridge the gap
between the objectives of labor and those of capital by providing
an alternative solution to Californias economic woes while also
promising labor stability. The letters envisioned a new way of looking at China through the benefits of an equal alliance in which [t]
he oldest and the newest empires of the world, joined together to
the common cause of Free Trade, would furnish a spectacle whose
sublimity might form the Pharos to a new and higher civilization
for a united world.126 Del Mars advanced ideas were too controversial to warrant serious deliberation, but they caused Argonaut readers to consider, instead of arbitrarily dismissing, Chinas economic
significance.
122. Joint Committee on Immigration, Report of the Joint Special Committee to Investigate Chinese Immigration, 44th Cong., 2nd sess., February 27, 1877, 535.
123. I bid., 37.
125. Ibid.
126. D
el Mar, Letters of Kwang Chang Ling, no. 3, The Argonaut, August 17, 1878.

341
Del Mar, as Kwang Chang Ling, further admonished his California

readers that China was not compelled to remain within the shadow
of the United States, that China would one day rise to conquer its
foes. For it has been forgotten that nations have histories, and that
their relations toward one another are not to be determined altogether by present or local considerations.127 Kwang contended:
Your population in Europe and America . . . is fast outstripping your
productive resources, and you can not afford to dispense with any
of them that you possessleast of all with so important a one as the
Chinese trade. Abandon that, and your fate as a progressive civilization is sealed . . . [and] the Chinaman will arise to muse over your
ruined cities, and recall the ingratitude and folly that precipitated
your fall.128
Kwangs threatening portrayal of the Chinese empire someday

conquering the United States made it easier to contemplate the
lesser but more immediate possibility: Chinas potential to emerge
as an economic powerhouse and rival. Del Mar viewed China as a
once-magnificent empire whose vast resources had formed the trading foundation that supported the rise of commercially developed
nations, including Great Britain. While U.S. treaty negotiations of
1844, 1853, and 1867 demonstrated Americas persistent desire for
trade with China, Californias inability to appreciate the broader
economic picture and consequences threatened national policy and
would allow China to gain the upper hand in the negotiations.
The Kwang letters end by gently urging Californians to consider the current plight of the Chinese immigrants and not to fear
them as a threat to labor. Here he depicted the Chinese empire as
decaying, with Chinas population only 120 million, not the widely
accepted 400 million that alarmists believed to be planning to land on
Californias shores.129 It is important to note that Del Mars use of the
word decay applied exclusively to population figures. He wanted
to dispel the negative image associated with the Chinese sojourner as
a nomadic individual who extracted wealth from Californias economy; he reassured readers that, instead of [China] being obliged to
127. Del Mar, Letters of Kwang Chang Ling, no. 1, August 3, 1878.
128. Ibid., no. 3, August 17, 1878.
129. Del Mar, Letters of Kwang Chang Ling, no. 4, The Argonaut, September 7, 1878. Historian David
Pletchner confirms that Chinas population was estimated at 420 million during the 1870s. Pletchner, The Diplomacy of Involvement, 97132.


342
permit her sons to wander upon distant and inhospitable shores in

search of a scanty living, she may be able at no distant time to offer
homes, within her own domains, to foreigners.130 These arguments,
occurring in his fourth letter, served as a rebuttal to Clement and
other anti-Chinese agitators who were concerned that Chinas large
population would overwhelm Americas ability to economically support both an Anglo population and Chinese immigrants interests.
Del Mar concluded that the Chinese were not the source of labors
hard times, but perhaps white laborers would find the real source of
economic instability to be in governmental extravagance, in trade
monopolies, in the privileges accorded to corporations, in the exemption of government bonds and other property from taxationI know
not where.131
As Kwang Chang Ling, Del Mar further articulated that religious differences exacerbated racial tensions between Anglos and
Chinese.132 Chinese religious beliefs encouraged an industrious and
humble work ethic, and their religious practices were also protected
under the United States Constitution.133 Furthermore, Del Mar,
who was himself Jewish, asserted that accusations made against the
Chinese were like those
urged against the Jews. They were an alien race, unfit to mix with
Christians, whose civilization was menaced by their presence. They
were filthy and leprous . . . [T]hey lived upon refuse, and underbid the
labor of honest men. They were hated by man and accursed of God.134
Del Mar recalled how the Jewish people were once persecuted in
Europe, but that they now abjure their distinguishing religion and
customs; they change their names; and in the course of two or three
generations there is nothing left of their original characteristics, but
a trace of their highly-organized blood and ancient refinement.135
131. Ibid., no. 3, August 17, 1878.
132. Ibid., no. 2, August 10, 1878.
134. Ibid.
135. Ibid., no. 4, The Argonaut, September 7, 1878. Tavlas and Aschheim argue that a likely reason for
Del Mars academic exclusion resulted from academic prejudice against Del Mars Jewish background. However, at no point do newspapers, who were rather fond of criticizing Del Mar, distinguish whether or not Del Mar was Jewish, and it remains unclear if Del Mar was a practicing Jew.
Tavlas and Aschheims attempt to prove Del Mars outwardly religious character is based on the
testimony of his grandsons widow, who reflects: I find I have only a few things in my filessome

343
He wanted Californians to consider that the Chinese, like the Jews

before them, were capable of assimilating within American society,
despite their religious, cultural, and racial differences.
Although Del Mars arguments were both elegant and eloquent,
they failed to carry the day. Del Mars Kwang Chang Ling was but
one voice against a gargantuan labor protest comprised of individuals whose homespun views countered the sophisticated, albeit
controversial, beliefs of the economist. For Californias Chinese
Question was not only about the perceived effects of Chinese
immigration on white labor, but a question deeply embedded within
domestic economic beliefs mirrored in political agendas and racial
prejudices. Alexander Del Mar challenged these dominant views by
using his most effective tool: his ability to write and publish. Del Mar
drew on his extensive knowledge of Chinas history, his concern for
social equality, and his passion for free-trade economics to craft the
fictitious Kwang Chang Ling. While Del Mar claimed his support
for free trade was unrelated to British advocacy for it, it is difficult
to believe that he was not somewhat influenced by Great Britain
and his British training. Britain widely promoted free trade following
Richard Cobdens famous repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, and the
British Empire attributed much of its wealth to free-trade practices
in the nineteenth century. Within the same era the United States
deferred to protectionism to ensure American commodities would
not be threatened by international competition. But there were
voices in the U.S. that called for free trade, and Alexander Del Mar
was one of them.
In addition, Del Mar was an independently minded economist
who saw that many of the worlds inequalities were the result of economic conditions beyond individual control. While his ideas were
photographs. [In one photograph] Alex is wearing a Yarmulke . . . He must have been somewhat
religious once! Quoted in Aschheim and Tavlas, Academic Exclusion, 49. Del Mars Jewish identity is confirmed on his 1881 passport application that also noted his Roman Nose. U.S. Passport
Application, Description of Alexander Del Mar, No. 3837, Issued December 3, 1881. And the
California Daily Alta listed a lecture entitled Usury and the Jews, that Del Mar delivered under
the patronage of the Young Mens Hebrew Association, Daily Alta California, February 7, 1879. In
addition, there is some validity to Del Mars assumptions about Jewish assimilation into American
organizations and Anglo communities. Scholar Ava Kahn asserts that Jews formed business partnerships and chaired organizations together, and that although anti-Semitism was not unknown
in the West, Jews were readily incorporated into the ranks of the Euro-Americans. Ava Fran Kahn,
Jewish Voices of the California Gold Rush: A Documentary History, 18491880 (Detroit: Wayne University State Press, 2002), 41.


344
too far ahead of his time to be accepted by many of his contemporaries, they represent an important reminder for todays scholars
that the Chinese Question was complex then and remains open to
new interpretations now. Aside from the fact that scholars have
both misattributed and misinterpreted the Kwang letters, Del Mar
himself sought to answer the Chinese Question through a multiinterpretive framework that considered history, race, religion, foreign policy, and economics. Californias nineteenth-century Chinese
Question facilitated racial and political controversies and impacted
how class, labor, immigration, religion, and identity formed in the
U.S. West. But fundamentally the Chinese Question referred to economic issues, which coincided with an economically chaotic period
in American history. While scholars have consistently focused on
Gilded Age labor and wage disparities between Chinese and Anglos
during the 1870s, the extent to which broader global and domestic
economic trends and themes related to the anti-Chinese agitation
in California and figured in the nations Chinese exclusion policies
merits further consideration. The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act and
its extensions banned Chinese laborers from immigrating to the
United States until the end of World War II, and it marked a definitive era in U.S. immigration policy: it excluded a group of people on
the basis of race for the first time in U.S. history.
Finally, Del Mars ideas warrant attention from a broader academic audience because his foresight about Chinas economic potential denotes that he truly was an individual ahead of his time. Today,
there is no question but that U.S.-China ties [are] the most important
bilateral relationship of the 21st century.136 In addition, the AsianPacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), introduced in the 1980s,
has been based on free-trade ideology up through the present as the
dominant trade strategy of Pacific Rim economies. APECs primary
goal is that countries such as China and the United States customize
their trade agreements to create the largest free-trade zone in history. Moreover, in recent months, the Wall Street Journal has called
for negotiations for a free-trade agreement between China and the
U.S. in order to reduce friction within the current trade relationship
136. US-China Institute, news & features, Ambassador Clark Randt on The Crucial Relationship,
China.usc.edu, retrieved 20110122 and 20101202.

345
and attract Chinas investments to Americas struggling economy.137

Since the latter half of the twentieth century, China has emerged as
a dominant leader in the global marketplace, a position achieved
in part by its adherence to freer trade strategies.138 This present-day
reality is rooted in a legacy of Sino-U.S. and, significantly, SinoCalifornia relations. Ultimately, the Kwang letters serve to demonstrate why Alexander Del Mars ideas need to be included within
academic discussion, for Alexander Del Mars significance, like nineteenth-century China, is by no means dead, but only sleeping.139
137. M.R. Greenberg (January 9, 2012). Time for a China-U.S. free trade agreement. Wall Street Journal,
A.13. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/914608051?accountid=7285.
138. Razeen Sally, New Frontiers in Free Trade: Globalizations Future and Asias Rising Role (Massachusetts:
Cato Institute, 2008), 107108.


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Alexander Del Mar: Free Trade and the Chinese Question

Author(s): Kashia Arnold

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/scq.2012.94.3.304 .

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Alexander Del Mar:

abstract: In 1878, in the midst of anti-Chinese agitation, four letters

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free trade and the chinese question

n 1878, Kwang Chang Ling expressed these sentiments in the San

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southern california quarterly

of leading twentieth-century economists, most notably Irving Fisher,

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free trade and the chinese question

Chinese response to the hatred in San Francisco that stemmed from

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southern california quarterly

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free trade and the chinese question

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southern california quarterly

and Southern Pacific railroads and mining corporations, others

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free trade and the chinese question

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southern california quarterly

Wells.20 Congress eliminated the office of Director of the Bureau

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free trade and the chinese question

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southern california quarterly

Del Mar published extensively on monetary subjects, including its legal

Del Mars biographer, J.R. Robertson, states that as an economist

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free trade and the chinese question

some tariffs were necessary to fund government ventures, but felt

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southern california quarterly

Theoretically, even if China could produce goods at a lower cost

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free trade and the chinese question

The 1864 Lincoln-Morrill Tariff had fixed import taxes at rates up

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southern california quarterly

George explained that:

Essentially, George proposed that the United States would benefit by

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free trade and the chinese question

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southern california quarterly

implemented the first known statistical methods to systematically

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free trade and the chinese question

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southern california quarterly

a respectmore important in China than perhaps in any other great

Del Mars experience on these commissions exposed him to

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free trade and the chinese question

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southern california quarterly

extensively on the Chinese Question in a harmonized chorus of

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