os;t mean that there was a shortage of men in California, but a shortage of men that were willing to work on the railroads.
             Silver had been discovered in Nevada that same year which took many of the men away from California and the ones that didn't leave were in search of the gold that California had to offer. The thought of staking a claim and striking it rich like so many other successful miners was much more appealing than working long, hard hours under conditions that were anything buy favorable. In addition, the Irish railroad laborers that the railroads had come to depend on began to demand higher wages and would often strike because of their increasing knowledge that they were good workers and were indispensable.
             Another problem that the railroads had with a shortage of white workers was that many men were hired out of Sacramento for the Central Pacific and would use the 43-mile ride out to the end of the line, which was in Clipper Gap, as a partial means of free transportation. They would work for a short period of time to earn enough money to make the short journey into Nevada and would then leave for the silver mines of Nevada on foot. Unfortunately for the railroads, they had provided a very appealing jump-off point complete with food, shelter and work for many prospective miners. To put this into perspective, "out of every 1,000 white railroad workers that signed up to work, 100 stayed on the job while the other 900 left after a week" (Workers of the Central Pacific). The railroads didn't have the time or resources to deal with this kind of dereliction when an entire transcontinental railroad was to be built. Government subsidies were also at stake and the railroads would take a very long time to build if this were to continue.
             Only a few Chinese were in the Americas until the Gold Rush in California in 1848 when the news traveled to China and many Chinese saw the opportunity for a bet...