Workingmen's Party of California

The Workingmen's Party of California (WPC) was an American labor organization led by Denis Kearney in the 1870s.

As a result of heavy unemployment from the 1873-78 national depression, Sand Lot rally's erupted in San Francisco that led to the Party's formation in 1877. The party would win control of California's legislature in 1878 and then rewrite the state's constitution. The most important part of the constitution included the formation of California Railroad Commission that would oversee the activities of the Central and Pacific Railroad companies that were run by Crocker, Huntington, Hopkins and Stanford.

The party took particular aim against cheap Chinese immigrant labor and the Central Pacific Railroad which employed them. Their goal was to "rid the country of Chinese cheap labor." Its famous slogan was "The Chinese must go!" Kearney's attacks against the Chinese were of a particularly virulent and openly racist nature, and found considerable support among white Californians of the time. This sentiment led eventually to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

Kearney's party should not be confused with the less influential Workingmen's Party of the United States, which was based in the Eastern United States.

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