In the 1870s, a widespread economic depression depleted the job market and helped fuel anti-Chinese sentiment as unemployed and frustrated workers blamed Chinese immigrants for their woes because of race, culture, and a willingness to work for lower wages. Chinese people became targets of violent rallies, riots, and local laws that limited their rights, while national political pressure deepened intolerance when Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the first U.S. immigration law to single out a specific nationality for discriminatory treatment. In Tacoma, this hostility intensified in March 1884 when townspeople demanded that the city resolve "the Chinese Problem" and insisted that if economic conditions were to improve, "The Chinese Must Go!" In 1885, the Reverend W.D. McFarland denounced the expulsion of the Chinese from Tacoma and rebuked members of his congregation for walking out on his sermon.