The Lawrence Daily Journal, Lawrence KS

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A gloomy picture of California 1877

In this third letter from California to the editor to in The Osage County Chronicle, Riley laments moving to California: "I have been repeatedly asked "How do poor men make a living in California?"- Answer: "They don't live at all--they just breathe a little. Boarding costs $5 per week, a good pair of boots $16, womens' fine shoes $12 per pair, at the shoe shops. Most all labor on the roads, in the woods, in the fields, in the hotels, wash-houses, cooks and servants of all kinds, is performed by Chinese and Digger Indians, as these can be hired at about half the wages necessary to keep a white man or woman alive. The Chinese pervade all parts of the coast, and they virtually constitute a system of slavery about equal to that in the Southern States. I am now fully prepared to say to every well-to-do man or woman in Kansas, stay where you are, unless you want a whistle; if you do, it's here for you, and a very dear one at that. ....Thousands of the citizens of California would gladly return east if they could get the means to do so Men are dally passing through Cloverdale begging for work and food, having been brought here by false friends and lying periodicals." One can argue that Riley's initial glowing letters from California to his friends in Kansas are "lying periodicals." Riley and Martha left California for the Washington Territory roughly a months after this letter was written.

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