The large number of Chinese made white workers uncomfortable. As Lee Chew, a railroad laborer, later recalled in a spasm of national pride, the Chinese were “persecuted not for their vices but for their virtues. No one would hire an Irishman, German, Englishman or Italian when he could get a Chinese, because our countrymen are so much more honest, industrious, steady, sober and painstaking.” Crocker explicitly acknowledged this work ethic. After recruiting some Cornish miners from Virginia City, Nevada, to excavate one end of a tunnel and the Chinese the other, he commented, “The Chinese, without fail, always outmeasured the Cornish miners. That is to say, they would cut more rock in a week than the Cornish miners did. And here it was hard work, steady pounding on the rock, bone-labor.” The Cornish eventually walked off the job, vowing that “they would not work with Chinamen anyhow,” and soon, Crocker recalled, “the Chinamen had possession of the whole work.”

White laborers began to feel that Chinese diligence forced everyone to work harder for less reward. Crocker recalled that one white laborer near Auburn was questioned by a gentleman about his wages. “I think we were paying $35 a month and board to white laborers, and $30 a month to Chinamen and they boarded themselves,” Crocker said. “The gentleman remarked, ‘That is pretty good wages.’ ‘Yes,’ says he, ‘but begad if it wasn’t for them damned nagurs we would get $50 and not do half the work.’ ”

Some white laborers on the Central Pacific whispered among themselves about driving the Chinese off the job, but when Charles Crocker got wind of this, he threatened to replace all the whites with Chinese. Eventually the white workers gave up, placated perhaps by being told that they alone could be promoted to the position of foreman. The more Chinese workers, the fewer whites in the labor force and the less competition for foreman positions among the whites. And foremen were paid several times the wages of a Chinese laborer. (Chang 57-58)