Chapter 131 The outbreak of the Chinese exclusion case

In early November 1881, the Chinese Exclusion Act, which was prosecuted by Mingzhu and some conservative Republicans, had begun the first round of debate in the U.S. Congress, and the centrist Republicans represented by the new President Chester Arthur were trying to resist and prevent the disaster.

The most proud political star of the Mingzhu Party at this time is Senator Bollins Farnbi of Georgia. His excellent eloquence, good financial resources and extremely ambiguity are the basis for his smooth progress in politics. He made a big show in Congress and refuted John Sherman with almost no rebuttal.

Hu Chuyuan ignored a problem... Joseph Pulitzer is a Mingzhu party member. At least before he came into contact with Hu Chuyuan, he also discriminated against the Chinese. In his newspaper, he never said bad things about the Chinese.

Fortunately, Joseph Pulitzer is a person with a sense of justice after all. Although he is full of disdain and criticism against the corruption [***] brought about by the long-term rule of the Republican Party, especially the moderate compromiseism of former President Grant, he also realizes that the Mingzhu Party has an indisambigued and anti-black position. The responsibility to shirk.

For this reason, he chose to temporarily withdraw from the Mingzhu Party and presided over a new report with non-partisans.

When the first round of debate on the Chinese Exclusion Act in the U.S. Congress ended and successfully passed the majority vote, as everyone expected, President Chester Arthur, a moderate Republican, chose to use the veto vote and asked Congress to re-examine the bill on the grounds that it was too strict.

According to the advice provided by John Sherman, there will be at least a few months before the start of the second round of debate, because the Mingzhu Party will make full use of this opportunity to build momentum for the upcoming Senate election.

At this time, Kasef Law Firm filed an appeal to the New York City District Court on behalf of the National Chinese Association, accusing the United Pacific Railroad of abusing Chinese workers, resulting in the death and disability of 5,427 Chinese workers, and demanding a number of senior personnel, including the company's president Stanford, and 44 grassroots managers and supervisors. The workers were criminally investigated and demanded that the United Pacific Railways compensate 5,427 Chinese workers, including 73 American Chinese workers and their descendants.

The total compensation is 57.38 million US dollars.

Real big news is always without a market. Almost on the same day, newspapers in New York reported the news on the front page and affected the media throughout the United States to track it.

In the past two years, George Kathef's team has collected a large amount of evidence and, accompanied by a number of Baptist clergy, has excavated two large cemeteries and exhumed more than 2,000 Chinese corpses.

Including within the U.S. Pacific United Railroad, they also found more than 20 well-behaved employees as important witnesses to charge.

With the consent of the law firm, some shocking evidence was released, which was first reported through the New York Times and the Washington Post, the most valued news companies, the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Herald, the San Francisco Gulf, and the St. Louis Post. Followed by a report.

In a word, as long as it is real news, American newspapers will not give up.

At the same time, after discussing with Albert Russell, Hu Chuyuan labeled John Sherman as a "clumsy and kind fighter" and reported on him positively, and labeled Bolins Farn as a "cunning and ferocious politician" to be symmetrical. The report on the surname has labeled the President of the United States as a "brave man".

The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Boston Herald and the St. Louis Post took the lead in using these provocative labels and conducted in-depth critical reports on the United Railroad, reinitiating the bribery case six years ago and attacking together.

Not to Hu Chuyuan's expectation, the shares of United Pacific Railway began to fall. Before the outbreak of the work abuse case, the company was already the largest listed company in the United States, with a market value of 270 million US dollars. It is also the only listed company in the U.S. stock market with a market value of more than 100 million.

After half a month of sharp decline, its stock has fallen from $4.84 per share to $2.71 per share.

On December 7, 1881, the U.S. stock market can remember this day.

The New York Times reported that almost all Western Railway companies are charged with unforgivable crimes.

On the morning of the day the newspaper was published, the entire western railway stocks of the United States were plummeting. In the afternoon, large-scale capital began to withdraw from the stock market. The trend of sharp decline quickly spread to the entire railway stocks and expanded to steel, coal mines, iron ore and other affiliated companies. A new downturn in the U.S. stock market had broken out.

On December 8, the New York Times began to serialize the disclosure of the numbers of Chinese workers employed by various railways in the West, their related treatment, and the estimated number of deaths and disabilities.

On December 10, the San Francisco Gulf News, the Boston Herald and the Washington Post set up columns at the same time to report on the bloody case of Chinese workers for a long time, and began to expose the general way for Chinese workers to be abducted to the United States from the San Francisco Gulf News.

On December 13, the New York Times continued to work hard. Through the information provided by the Kasef Law Firm, it disclosed the crimes of Charles Crowk, a former Missouri judge and the main head of the western section of the Pacific Railway Project. After the death of a number of Chinese workers, with his interpersonal relations in the political world, at least to The governor of Missouri and other officials bribed more than 20,000 US dollars, causing the Central Pacific Railroad to avoid the supervision of the state government agency.

This is a huge disaster.

It also exceeded Hu Chuyuan's expectations. He did guess that the shares of the United Pacific Railroad would plummet, but he didn't expect that the entire U.S. stock market would be so fragile. In just half a month, 80% of the market value of the New York Stock Exchange evaporated.

This has become a more serious financial disaster than the stock market plunge in 1873.

This situation is mainly due to three reasons. First, the shadow of the stock market in 1873, and secondly, the number of shareholders is small. The U.S. stock market looks very prosperous, but the total number of real shareholders does not exceed 800,000, and a large part is concentrated in New York; Third, New York The main investors in the stock market are still major financial institutions, especially banks.

Affected by the stock market crash in 1873, the current major pillar companies in the United States have not been listed, such as Rockefeller's Standard Oil, DuPont of the DuPont family, Carnegie's United Iron Company... None of which are listed. The main stocks in the stock market are concentrated in the railway, In terms of steel, banking, real estate and trade, these stocks are greatly affected by the railway industry. Once the railway stocks plummet, they will also plummet.

The United Pacific Railroad is formed by the merger of a number of railway companies, led by JP Morgan.

JP Morgan is of course a very smart person. He designed a plan to divest all the land assets approved by the American political axe granted to the railway builders from the United Company, listed the railway company separately, and cashed out more than 100 million US dollars of debt through the stock market, so that all investment companies recovered their capital. .

This kind of manipulation was quickly learned by others. Almost all railway companies in the United States are listed to redeem investors' principal by selling stocks.

As a way, the equity of most railway companies has become very scattered, and it is easy to sell and plummet.

This is also one of the reasons for the stock market crash.

Bank stocks are another thing. Because the vast majority of banks in the United States have the right to issue banknotes, after listing on the stock market, they use ultra-high market value to issue additional currencies, which has become a common means in the banking industry.

Especially when the Federal Reserve does not operate and the CSRC does not have reliable rules, this loophole business mode allows banks to make great profits and risks come at the same time.

With the first collapse of railway and bank stocks, the collapse of other stocks is inevitable.

If the loss in 1873 was European capital, this time the loss was Wall Street in the United States. Wall Street, which had just grown wings, was hit head-on and bleeding.

The development of things completely exceeded the expectations of Hu Chuyuan and everyone.

What should I do now?

No one knows.

It is clear that if the lawsuit continues, the United Pacific Railroad will only go bankrupt, other small railway companies will not have a good end, and the financial storm will continue.

On the day of Christmas in 1881, under the leadership of John Sherman and JP Morgan, Stanford, president of the United Pacific Railroad, took the initiative to contact Kasef Law Firm and Rong Hong to make an out-of-court settlement and was willing to compensate 14 million US dollars.

Rong Hong refused.

Hu Chuyuan also supported Rong Hong's refusal to negotiate.

Justice cannot be measured by money, and they are not short of money. He wants Stanford people to be imprisoned. If the New York City District Court does not support it, they will appeal to the New York State Superior Court, or even to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Hu Chuyuan is not short of money, so the National Chinese Association is not short of money.

The Russell family and the Wu family can't stand it. Wanqi Bank and Hanhua Bank are also trapped in the disaster of the stock market plunge. The total amount of funds they have invested in the stock market is huge, and now they are all in vain.

In these days, Hu Chuyuan stayed at the Manhattan Imperial Hotel in New York. It was only a ten-minute walk from the court. He rarely went out and sat in the room silently most of the time.

Wu Shuzhen accompanied him silently.

They have all decided to have a late justice anyway.

(to be continued)