Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/342

 recipient of a Chinese immigration which has given to a part of it the aspect of a portion of the Flowery Kingdom, has been agitated by fears of complete subversion under Orientalism, and has originated new problems for political economy and international law.

After but a tithe of such violent and novel experiences any city would be glad to rest awhile. San Francisco seems entering upon a new period, and likely to do things henceforth more in the normal way. There has been a time of contemplation, and the lessons of the past have struck in. As things have slowly improved the gloom of the reaction has disappeared after the unhealthy inflation that gave it birth. The new political craze was of but short, duration. I never saw anywhere so quietly conducted an election as that of the last autumn, which dismissed the Kearney-Kalloch faction from power. A special provision prevents the approach of any person but the voter immediately engaged within one hundred feet of a polling-place. I had rather expected to see dead and maimed Chinamen lying at every corner, or fleeing before infuriated crowds. But though San Franciscans entertain beliefs of their own as to the undesirability of a great Chinese immigration, during a long stay I neither saw nor heard of an attempt to molest any individual on account of it.

The new constitution itself proved a harmless bugaboo. It is a gratifying tribute, in fact, to native common-sense and Anglo-Saxon ideas that this instrument, produced in a time of great excitement, and, as was charged, with the most subversive intentions, should not only contain so little that is dangerous, but so much in a high degree commendable. It does not harm property. Frightened capital may return with entire safety. I profess myself so far a person of incendiary opinions as to hold that an