The Chinese in America - Iris Chang [210]
60 “a sort of hydrophobia”: John Hoyt Williams, p. 98. Original citation: Pamphlet by B. S. Brooks, The Chinese in California, San Francisco, possibly 1876. Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley.
60 thirty-foot drifts: John Hoyt Williams, p. 130.
60 “Homeric winter”: John Hoyt Williams, p. 143.
60 eighty feet high: Lynne Rhodes Mayer and Kenneth E. Vose, p. 52.
Power snowplows: Tzu-Kuei Yen, p. 123.
60 Sheds: Lynne Rhodes Mayer and Kenneth E. Vose, p. 52.
60 horses broke the icy crust: John Hoyt Williams, p. 143; Original citation: George Kraus, High Road to Promontory (Palo Alto, Calif.: American West Publishing Company, 1969), p. 148.
60 Norwegian postal worker: John Hoyt Williams, p. 144.
60 carved a working city under the snow: John Hoyt Williams, pp. 143-44. Also Wesley S. Griswold, A Work of Giants (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962), pp. 191-92.
61 “a gang of Chinamen”: Dutch Flat Enquirer, December 25, 1866, as cited in Thomas W. Chinn, H. Mark Lai, and Philip P. Choy, p. 45.
61 corpses still standing erect: Ronald Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore, p. 86; Railroad Record, October 31, 1867, p. 401, as cited in John Hoyt Williams, p. 161.
61 Landslides: John Hoyt Williams, p. 115.
61 Melting snow: Tzu-Kuei Yen, p. 121.
61 plummet to 50 degrees below zero: Tzu-Kuei Yen, p. 132.
61 soar above 120: John Hoyt Williams, p. 208.
61 twelve-hour shifts: Tzu-Kuei Yen, p. 37.
61 on Sundays: Origins & Destinations: 41 Essays on Chinese America, p. 125.
61 two-thirds those of white workers: Tzu-Kuei Yen, p. 111.
61 a fourth those of white foremen: Tzu-Kuei Yen, p. 130.
61 allocation for feed for horses: Ibid., p. 130.
62 endured whippings: Ibid., p. 38; Stephen E. Ambrose, p. 241. The historical record suggests that Strobridge had difficulty viewing the Chinese as human beings. “I used to quarrel with Strobridge when I first went in,” Crocker told a biographer. “Said I, ‘Don’t talk so to the men—they are human creatures—don’t talk so roughly to them.’ Said he, ‘You have got to do it, and you will come to it; you cannot talk to them as though you were talking to gentlemen, because they are not gentlemen. They are about as near brutes as they can get.’ ” (David Haward Bain, p. 208.)
62 brink of bankruptcy: John Hoyt Williams, p. 181; Tzu-Kuei Yen, p. 28.
62 two thousand Chinese in the Sierras walked off the job: Thomas W. Chinn, H. Mark Lai, and Philip P. Choy, p. 45.
62 a list of demands: Tzu-Kuei Yen, pp. 130-31; Thomas W. Chinn, H. Mark Lai, and Philip P. Choy, p. 46. According to Chinn, Lai, and Choy, the workers demanded a raise to forty dollars a month and a reduction of work to ten hours in the open and eight hours in the tunnels.
62 circulated ... a placard: Tzu-Kuei Yen, pp. 130-31.
62 an attempt to recruit ten thousand recently freed American blacks: John Hoyt Williams, p. 181.
62 cut off the food supply: John Hoyt Williams, p. 181.
62 strike lasted only a week: Tzu-Kuei Yen, pp. 39, 130-31.
62 raise of two dollars a month: Ping Chiu, p. 47
62 “If there had been that number of whites in a strike”: Stephen E.
Ambrose, p. 242. 63 Description of Irish harassment and Chinese retaliation: Tzu-Kuei
Yen, pp. 143-44. 63 ten miles of track a day: David Haward Bain, p. 639.
63 wager $10,000: Stephen E. Ambrose, p. 348. A witness to the competition raved about the Chinese, “I never saw such organization as this; it is just like an army marching across over the grounds and leaving a track built behind them.” (Stephen E. Ambrose, p. 350.)
63 690 miles of track: “Condition of the Union Pacific Railroad.” Letter from the Secretary of the Interior, Transmitting Report of Isaac N. Morris, one of the Commissions appointed to examine the unaccepted portions of the Union Pacific Railroad. June 3, 1876, Referred to the Committee on the Pacific Railroad. June 20, 1876, Ordered to be printed. Forty-fourth Congress, 1st Session, House of Representatives, Ex. Doc. No. 180.
63 1,086 miles: Ibid.
64 one thousand Chinese railroad workers died: An estimated 1,200 Chinese