Opposition to the Chinese began early in the territory. The legislature on January 23, 1864 passed an act imposing a per capita tax of $24 a year on each Chinaman, to be paid in quarterly payments of $6 each. This tax was reduced to $16 a year in 1866. The sheriffs were charged with the duty of collecting it, and they were authorized to exact payment by seizing and selling the goods of delinquents when necessary.
But rigorous as this tax was it did not prevent the Chinese laborers from coming to the territory in considerable numbers and the census of 1885 showed that there were 3,276 of them engaged in various occupations within its borders. There was at that time no very serious opposition to them. Work was abundant and everybody was employed who cared for employment. A few agitators and mischief-makers were protesting, but they secured little attention and few followers, until the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, threw many men out of employment, a considerable portion of whom drifted across the line to Seattle, Tacoma and other towns along the Sound.
From that time forward the agitators and mischief-makers found it easier to get the attention of the multitude than they had done. The idle always have time to listen, and are easily persuaded that somebody other than themselves is responsible for their idleness. Their passions are easily inflamed; it is particularly easy to arouse in them a hatred for, and encourage an opposition to an alien race. The opposition to the Chinese in California was well known all along the coast. Every sand-lot orator in San Francisco was as notorious in the cities of Washington and Oregon as in those of California, and some of their associates and co-workers had drifted to the Sound cities and were aspiring
