Railroad magnate Crocker was not alone in seeking to curb the power of white workers and their unions by hiring Chinese laborers. When the first California miners’ union went on strike in 1869 in Grass Valley over the risk to miners’ safety posed by new explosives, the mine owners threatened to replace them with Chinese workers. However, when Chinese railroad workers went on strike in 1867, Crocker investigated replacing them with black workers before realizing it would be simpler and cheaper to starve them out. These complex issues in the background of the Chinese question would not be taken care of by banning Chinese immigration.