Hatchet Men: The Story of the Tong Wars in San Francisco’s Chinatown (14 page)

Unfortunately for Chinatown, Judge Field still represented a minority, although a steadily growing minority. The temper of the times was more accurately portrayed by a series of McCarthy-like hearings on Chinatown vice and crime conducted by self-appointed muckrakers and crusaders. These men lumped all Chinese, good or bad, into one category which bore their label of
Undesirable.
But almost accidentally in their probing of the subsurface of Chinatown these investigators performed a service for the community in that they threw light on the highly secret (so far) activities of the fighting tongs which were growing like a cancer in the midst of Chinatown.

Early in April, 1876, the resolution of State Senator Creed Haymond was adopted. It called for the appointment of a committee to investigate the problem of Chinese immigration with all its ramifications. The committee was empowered to publish its findings in a formal report. The timely creation of the highly publicized investigating committee in the midst of the anti-coolie furor and hysteria was a Democratic ploy, although Haymond—the appointed chairman—happened to be a Republican. The Democrats had an eye on the November elections. They wanted to see to it that the Chinese Question was kept alive as the one issue most likely to appeal to a voting population of whom one half were foreign born. It was sure fire; the great mass of people whom they would offend (the Chinese) were disenfranchised anyway.

The committee was weighted toward the city, with four of its members being San Franciscans, one (Haymond), a Sacramentan, and only two from the country. It was stacked in favor of the Democrats by a ratio of 5 to 2. The San Francisco quartet—Frank McCoppin, W. M. Pierson, M. J. Donovan, and George H. Rogers—were all Democrats, as was one of the pair of hinterlanders, E. J. Lewis of Tehama County. Only Chairman Haymond and George S. Evans, of San Joaquin County, were Republicans.

The end result of this probing investigating committee was a three-hundred-page document titled “Chinese Immigration; its Social, Moral and Political Effect.” Published in August, 1877, it was a modest best-seller. It was rushed to members of Congress, State governors and newspaper editors. Probably 10,000 copies were printed and distributed. Among its effects was the impressing of the Kearneyites with the idea that their voices were being heard in high places—-far from the sand lots.

Of the 42 Americans called as witnesses, 4 were clergymen and one was a lawyer. There were 5 “experts” on the Chinese, rendered so by having resided in the Middle Flowery Kingdom for varying lengths of stay. Although The committee was supposedly dealing with the problem of Chinese immigrants and labor, it actually spent much of its time on Chinese crime and collected a wealth of information. Whether this information was slanted or not, many facts came to light which otherwise would have been lost. Witnesses who detailed the inroads of crime in the Chinese community included one police judge, 5 regular police officers and 5 special Chinatown police. The remainder of the witnesses was made up of 11 public officials from San Francisco or the State Capital, 2 journalists, one farmer, 2 manufacturers, an expressman, a gentleman in the marble business, and the captain and the mate of a British ship engaged in the coolie trade.

In evaluating the testimony of the hearings it must be kept in mind that more than one half of all witnesses called were officials or public servants of one stripe or another. (One fourth were law officers.) Therefore it is obvious that at least one half of the testimony rendered was by men dependent on political favor.

Of the Chinese witnesses called, 6 were company presidents, 2 were interpreters, one was a genealogist, and 8 were workingmen. Of the 23 public officials called, all but 2 were decidedly anti-Chinese. But to the great surprise of Senator Creed Haymond, of the 19 witnesses who were not actively connected with politics, 7 were pro-Chinese, 5 could be considered as moderate in their opposition, one was noncommittal, and only 6 were vociferously “anti.”

The three-hundred-page document contained, in addition to a transcript of the testimony itself, a “Memorial” to Congress and “An Address to the People of the United States upon the Evils of Chinese Immigration.” About four pages of the latter were devoted to what was ostensibly the
raison d’etre
of the hearings—the effect of the Chinese on white labor. Seven pages were wasted on an irrelevant discussion of the failure of the Chinese to Christianize. A full fifteen pages, however, were concerned with crime in Chinatown, ten of them dealing with prostitution alone. The address stated categorically that of 100,000 to 125,000 Chinese in California, at least 3,000 were slave girls. But Gibson and historian Theodore H. Hittell bluntly disputed these figures by taking San Francisco
Evening Post
and Customhouse statistics to show that there were only 78,000 Chinese in California. If the second figure of the committee was as far off as the first, it was in grave error indeed.

The handling of the perfectly respectable Six Companies’ presidents was bungling and embarrassing. They were naturally insulted by the preponderance of questions on prostitution and gambling. They were asked few questions on occupations, wages, or social integration of their people—supposedly the issues of greatest importance. In the published document their information occupied fewer than 10 of the 300 pages.

Obviously all of the findings of this committee must be taken with deep reservations. Nevertheless, as an opened window on the law-and-order situation in Chinatown, the document is valuable and revealing. And even Dr. Mary Coolidge, with her distaste for the drumhead board of inquiry, and to admit that “on this particular charge [Chinatown crime] the report appears to have represented the testimony accurately.”

Hittell labeled the committee’s report as strictly grist for the political mills grinding away in San Francisco’s sand lots. Dr. Coolidge, for her part, found it difficult to imagine that it was taken seriously by anyone. Yet, State Senator Frank McCoppin presented it to the subsequent United States Congressional Joint Committee on Chinese Immigration as the official opinion of the entire California State Senate.

The Senate committee’s hearings opened at 11 A.M. April 11, 1876, in the San Francisco city hall. The first person called to testify was Frederick F. Low, an old China hand and a former governor of California. He volunteered information about conditions in the Empire and in the Big City of the Golden Mountains: ‘The Chinese come here solely to make money. When they get that,” he said, “they return to China. They come under contract to repay amounts advanced just the same as Eastern [United States] people came to California in 1849, the only difference being that a Chinaman keeps his contract where a white man fails it.”

Perhaps because this was hardly the damning testimony expected of the State’s ex-chief executive, he was quizzed about the attitude of the Chinese toward the American system of justice. Low replied, ‘The guilds in China have absolute power… [Here] they don’t know the law other than as the company prescribes. It is this absolute power which governs their affairs.” This was more acceptable. Ex-Governor Low was excused.

The second witness was ex-Senator W. J. Shaw. He was one of the first to describe the tong troubles which lay ahead. He did not use the still unfamiliar word tong, but his testimony was prophetic. “Where our laws come into conflict with theirs, ours are disregarded. In Singapore, India [sic], there are 80,000 Chinese inhabiting a distant quarter of the town. They have frequent quarrels among the companies [the tongs] or sets of men, and then they rush about like Wild beasts, stabbing and killing whoever they may.”

The next day saw Reverend Gibson defending the Six Companies by making a strong rebuttal to Shaw’s testimony, although Shaw had really been criticizing the tong organizations of the Malay States. Gibson insisted that the Six Companies had no judicial or criminal power over Chinatown; their only control being the exit-ticket agreement with the Pacific Mail Steamship Company to prevent debtors fleeing from San Francisco. He acknowledged that the Chinese were great arbitrators and that the Six Companies often intervened in cases to settle a debt.

Actually, said Gibson, “The Chinese companies are for mutual protection, to see to their countrymen arriving here and leaving, to arrange business matters, and to settle differences among themselves. The Chinese companies at the present time and since I have been in this country, so far as I know, have no criminal power and do not exercise any. The Six Companies so far as the people are concerned, are arbiters. When they cannot arbitrate a case, they go into courts.”

Questioned about their reputation for criminality, Gibson said of the Chinese: “Gambling is a mere matter of buying the managers and purchasing the privilege to violate the law. Regarding the women brought here for purposes of prostitution, a percentage of the profit goes to persons other than Chinese, in order to secure freedom from interruption. A part of it goes to men around city hall. Regarding interference with justice in criminal cases, I will say that the Chinese are exceedingly clannish. When a man of one clan kills a man of another clan, his comrades do all they can to protect him from justice.”

Concerning the tongs running the red-light district, Gibson had this to say: “The company [tong] collects a tax of forty cents for every prostitute imported and afterward collects two bits a week, part of which goes to the Chinese company and part to certain white men in this city. I do not know who the whites are, and I am under a pledge of secrecy not to tell the name of the person who informed me of the fact. Chinese gambling houses have paid five dollars a week to policemen to secure freedom from molestation. Last year as high as thirteen dollars was paid per month, part going to someone about the city hall.”

Charles Wolcott Brooks, ex-Minister to Japan, followed Gibson to the stand. He stated: “The Six Companies, I think, have their own code of laws, and the existence of this hostile force within the laws of the United States is bad.” He thought the Chinese already in the city were a definite asset to San Francisco business but was opposed to further immigration.

A subcommittee consisting of Lewis, Donovan and Evans made a safari through Chinatown on April 13 with the Reverend Gibson as guide and beater. They first explored filthy Spofford Alley, replete with whorehouses and some twenty gambling halls. Gibson translated the signs over the doorways of the latter—EVERY DAY AND EVERY NIGHT THE TABLE IS SPREAD and RICHS AND PEACE and so on. Most doors were shut to them, as the proprietors had long before learned, through the Chinese grapevine, of their coming. But they were able to enter one den to watch a game of fan-tan.

Next, Gibson took them to a religious meeting in his own Methodist Episcopal Church; one which he had probably staged carefully for the Senators’ benefit. After listening to a Chinese expound the gospel to two hundred apparently enthralled countrymen, the impressed legislators were led by their guide to the rookery which was the old Globe Hotel. Here the stench forced them to clasp handkerchiefs over their noses. After dropping in at one of the Chinese theatres the little band of hardy committeemen trooped into the office of the Sam Yup Company to meet some of the leaders of the “natives.” Greeting them were the chiefs of the Sam Yup, Yeung Wo, Kong Chow, Ning Yeung and Yan Wo Companies. They informed the Senators that their societies took up and arbitrated only mercantile matters and never meddled in criminal affairs. They told them that they knew of gambling payoffs but they could not (or would not) identify the city hall grafters. They insisted that they wanted the gambling houses and bagnios of the Quarter closed. But they felt that they could be suppressed only if honest police officers were appointed.

After E. J. Lewis reported on the subcommittee’s tour, George W. Duffield, a Chinatown special policeman, was called. The questions were put to him thick and fast, and information on Chinatown crime began to build up. After reporting that there were between 40 and 50 houses of prostitution, Duffield was asked by George Evans, “How many gambling houses are there?”

“Very few,” the special answered. “There used to be a great many. I don’t think I can find one now.”

“How many were there six weeks ago?” asked Evans.

“Forty, fifty or sixty.”

“As many gambling houses as houses of prostitution?” queried Evans.

“Yes, sir,” responded the officer. “They have the reputation of being gambling houses, but the police could never catch them. I have not seen a game of
tan
played in three years. In the early days there used to be tables for white men. As many white men played as Chinamen. There are no gambling houses running now.”

Donovan then took over the questioning: “The heads of the companies told us that the gambling houses had been in the habit of raising and paying money to men at the city hall to secure themselves from interference, and the same thing regarding the houses of prostitution. They said that if we could get honest American officers there would be no more gambling and prostitution in Chinatown, but until that time they will continue to exist. This was told to us by the heads of the companies, the six presidents present.”

Duffield said, “In answer to that, I will state that all those men talking to you were interested in those gambling houses—”

Senator Haymond cut in. “How is this population as to criminal propensities?”

Duffield’s answer was, “They are a nation of thieves. I have never seen one that would not steal.”

Haymond went on. “Do you know anything of the spiriting away of witnesses and compounding crimes?”

“Yes, sir. They will do it all the time—from the presidents down.”

When asked if they settled cases outside of court Duffield answered, “They all do it.”

“And they settle crimes whenever they can do so?” asked Haymond.

“Sometimes one company will prosecute another, but where they can settle for money they will do it.”