Hatchet Men: The Story of the Tong Wars in San Francisco’s Chinatown (35 page)

The contents of enough papers were made public to provide a journalistic blockbuster. Chris Buckley, Joe Cochrane, Jerry Driscoll and Henry Lowenthal were disclosed to be friends, at least fair-weather friends, of Pete. One communication from Little Pete to Buckley read: “Must see you on important business before Sunday at 12 o’clock. Can I come up to see you? Answer yes or no. I have some new business for you which is very important.” Other documents showed Pete’s dislike for Buckley by his use of the term the Blind White Devil. The newspapers gleefully snapped up this synonym. In one letter to a friend Pete said he was no longer going to submit to Buckley’s demands. In another to Kwan Shan he wrote:

I write this letter to let you know if you, sir, with Lowenthal, will go to see the blind white man and get him to see No. 11 Court to get the judge to set aside the sentence passed by him and not have a new trial. Get it changed to one or two years. Get the judge to give his decision to pardon this crime because this is my first wrongdoing and I will avoid doing wrong in future. In America it is thought an ordinary affair to pardon a man after sentence has been passed. If this judge is willing, it can be done and if it can be done it will be better than having a new trial. A new trial is a long business. I hear Lowenthal wants $1,000 fee to get bail and then wait a year or six months before the case conies up. This would make it too long. If you can get the blind white devil to get to the judge and get him to pardon me, then expend whatever money is needed. This will save a lot of bother. When you go to the blind devil, you take Joe Cochrane. He is better than Lowenthal, for the latter is a swindler. If the blind man will guarantee to arrange this case, all right. The money that was put ready the other day may be paid to Lowenthal, but if they can’t fix it up they must refund the $4,500....

An examination of Pete’s careful accounts by Foreman Menzies revealed that he was a “benefactor” of Dupont Street. He had made “presents” of $200 to District Attorney Edward B. Stonehill (“An unmitigated lie!” said Stonehill) and $600 to Judge Toohy (“An infamous lie!” roared the jurist), while the various shysters’ receipts were topped by the $11,000 given Lowenthal over a three months’ period. Pete’s records were so minute and meticulous that the exact cost of the armor he had bought for Lee Chuck and himself was determined—$264. He had also spent $191 for revolvers.

Although Pete had claimed in court that he was a Bo Sin Seer, a Gee Sin Seer document turned up in his papers. It did not connect him directly with that tong, since it was an appeal for a general tithe from a committee of the “United Villagers” of the tong. It might have been sent him by one of his espionage corps who was charged with keeping him posted on the activities of the (presumably) rival tong. The document read:

Suddenly calm is disturbed by a wave of adversity, and numerous foes gather together to insult and to annoy our tong. We meet together in justice to ourselves to consider what to do. All men from our locality now settled in America should help. Every man ought, as a rule, to help to the extent of subscribing half a month’s wages—if more than this sum, all the better. No matter whether merchant or laborer, all ought to help to this extent. We hope that you will remember that we are brother villagers and the course of justice should be of more importance than money. Every person should be eager and so preserve the honor of our tons and check those outsiders who insult us. You cannot excuse yourself from giving because you are in a store in which your partners belong to other tongs.

The Sam Yup Company scrutinized Pete’s records carefully and found them extremely accurate. They learned that he had spent $75,000 so far to corrupt justice in San Francisco. The businesslike attitude of the racketeer more than restored him to favor amongst his erstwhile commercial friends; it practically endeared him to them. The
Chronicle
observed that Pete was far from being ruined. It predicted that “the honest corruptionist” would be well taken care of by his associates upon his release from prison.

The third trial was as much a sensation as the disclosure of the Little Pete papers. This was due mostly to the many attempts to bribe veniremen. A Chinese first approached Juror M. M. Feder with a proposition; then Juror Abraham Mayfield was tampered with. He reported that a mysterious white man had showed him $250 which would be his if he would but “look after Pete’s interests.” Next, Juror Blanchard swore out a warrant for the arrest of J. T. Emerson, charging him with offering a bribe. (Emerson was already in trouble for testifying in behalf of witness-con Gus Williams in the prior trial.) Assistant District Attorney Joseph J. Dunne was furious at the press for the publicity given the jury-rigging attempts. He claimed that it scared off those responsible just when he was about to close the trap on them and produce what he said would have been “one of the greatest sensations in the criminal history of San Francisco.” After all the furor had died, Pete heard a verdict (August 24) of guilty after a deliberation of only thirty minutes by the jury.

A key date in Little Pete’s life was Saturday, September 7, 1887. On that day he heard Judge Toohy intone sentence upon him. From his bench Toohy lectured the archcriminal of Chinatown:

No one is more familiar with the facts and circumstances attending your case than you are and no one knows better of your guilt than you. I must say that you have displayed remarkable intellect and activity. You have taken advantage of the institutions of this country and have become acquainted with its customs and language... By reason of being master of the language you raised yourself to an exalted position and you magnified that position in the eyes of your countrymen by making them believe that you have power and could corrupt officials.

At a very early age you became prosperous and at the head of a large manufacturing house. It is very strange that you should have entered upon a course that aroused such enmity against you that it was at your instigation that Lee Chuck assumed a panoply of mail to act as your bodyguard. It is my opinion that had it not been for the fact that Lee Chuck was so armed, the killing of Yen Yuen would not have occurred.

Before Yen Yuen’s body had been removed from the morgue, before the breath had more than left his body, you began the attempt to corrupt officials. For that offense you have had three trials. I believe that either of the other juries before whom you were tried would have convicted you but for your emissaries and agents.

At the last trial you could not submit your case to your attorneys but tried to again interfere with justice. I hope, for the glory of this State, that others who are your accomplices will have to join you in the investigation brought about by the Grand Jury.

You have been the studied traducer of every official from myself down. You did this to create the impression that there was
no
justice for a man without money. If you had left gambling debts alone and had not made yourself the subagent of shysters, you would have been a prosperous businessman.

Pete bore this scathing denunciation without flinching. His face was a mask. The crafty King of Chinatown was turning new ideas over and over in his mind and seeking new ways out of his predicament. His agents used every means to attempt to circumvent the law. A request for postponement of sentence having been refused, Lowenthal next made a motion for a new trial. Toohy told him that if he could find one shred of error to warrant a new trial, he should have it. Lowenthal argued that the verdict was based on hearsay evidence. He read part of Chief Crowley’s testimony as an example. But he was overruled by the court on all points.

When the Judge asked Little Pete if he had anything to say as to why sentence should not be passed upon him, Pete answered by requesting that the court not pronounce sentence in the absence of Hall MacAllister whom he had retained to argue a motion for a new trial. He asked that MacAllister be sent for, but Judge Toohy declined to permit any further delays. Notice of appeal was given, and Little Pete was removed to the county jail to await trial for the attempted bribery of Juror Feder. On September 7, 1887, he stoically went off to Folsom Prison to begin serving a sentence of five years.

Although safely put away in Folsom, Little Pete’s power was not entirely broken. Of all the Oriental prisoners in State penal institutions he alone was allowed to keep the queue of which he was so vain and which was contrary to institutional rules. However, his being sent to prison did cause astonishment in most Chinese quarters and consternation in some. His power at fixing raps had seemed supreme.

District Attorney Stonehill complained loudly to the supervisors about the lengthiness of such trials as those of Lee Chuck and Little Pete. Both had had multiple trials up to a month each in length. Stonehill’s complaint reminded the public of Lee Chuck who had been pushed pretty much into the background by a troubled Little Pete. On August 23, 1886, Lee was held to answer before Superior Court Justice Rix. On January 23 of the next year the trial began before Judge Toohy, and on February 4 Lee Chuck was found guilty of murder. He was sentenced on March 29 to be hanged—the only hatchet-man murderer of six then in detention to be given the death penalty. For the others the sentences were life imprisonments. Lee Chuck, too, had to undergo a tongue lashing from Judge Toohy:

On the 28th of July, 1886, having with settled determination and malice aforethought first accoutred yourself in a coat of mail, two large revolvers and a brace of huge pistols... in company with other Chinamen no better than yourself, you tarried in a place of ambush on Washington Street at a point about four hundred yards from where you now stand. This was just before noon on that summer day .. . your unsuspecting victim Yen Yuen, passing from his shop to his dinner, was shot down in cold blood, without the slightest provocation by you and your dastardly accomplices. Your helpless countryman, who never did you wrong, was slain in a manner which denoted that you were endowed with more sanguinary cruelty than generally falls to the lot of ordinary assassins. As he lay, gasping in the throes of death… you and your gang of cutthroats perforated his prostrate body with bullets… you next sought safety in flight to some refuge where you might at once begin the training of false witnesses to prove your innocence of this atrocious crime… The judgment of the law and the sentence of the court is now, here in open court and in your presence, pronounced against you, which is that you, Lee Chuck, suffer the punishment of death and that you be hanged by the neck until you are dead.

The same maneuvers which were tried in Little Pete’s case were used in Lee Chuck’s. His case was appealed to the Supreme Court and a new trial granted, but with the same result as the first. He was found guilty after six hours of deliberation by the jury. Judge Toohy refused a motion for a new trial and an insanity plea, too, but the case was again appealed and Lee Chuck was given a third chance. This time he was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. But on February 10, 1892, Lee Chuck was pronounced insane. He was committed to Agnews Asylum. There he remained until May 30, 1904, when Governor George C. Pardee agreed to pardon him on condition that he be deported. (He was now said to have recovered his mind.) The steamship companies balked at taking him aboard, however, fearing that the Chinese Government would not permit him to land. So Lee Chuck was returned
to
prison and in the spring of 1905, had to be recommitted to Agnews Asylum.

Little Pete’s long years of imprisonment did not make him repentant or honest; they only made him wary. He was more careful and more cautious, but unchastened. He made his way back to Chinatown after serving his term, and it did not take him long to regain a position of power. His name was in the news in February, 1893, when Yick Kee refused to accept a bribe of $80 from him or from one of his cohorts to swear that a slave girl who was trying to land was the wife of one of his partners. His declining led Pete to raise the offer to $80 for himself and $80 for his firm. When he again refused, Pete offered $100 and $100. He then warned the obstinate Yick Kee not to interfere and swore that he would land the woman if it cost him $5,000. But Yick Kee testified against the slave girl. As a result, at a joint meeting of the Bing On and Suey On tongs a death sentence was pronounced upon Yick and another merchant. The police refused to divulge the second man’s name in hopes of safeguarding his life, but he fatalistically made plans for his death and said that he would do all he could to help the police, since he was to be killed in any case. Hia information was that two Customs officers could be prevailed upon to land Chinese prostitutes and that certain whites and Chinese whom he knew gave false certificates in behalf of such women for $30 each.

The next year saw great preparations in the city for San Francisco’s exposition, the Midwinter Fair, in Golden Gate Park. When the
Gaelic
arrived in port she bore 103 Chinese, mostly women, for the Chinese pavilion. The press was suspicious. The girls’ chaperone turned out to be Chung Ying, a cousin of Little Pete’s. The newspapers protested the landing of these people without examinations or certificates, since they were sure they meant to desert the Fair and enjoy comfortable and illegal lives in Chinatown. The
Call
said: “The fact that Little Pete, who has been known here for years as the head and front of almost every crooked piece of work of any magnitude in which the Chinese have engaged, is engineering the importation of the Midwinter Fair Chinese is, alone, enough to make the Customs officials believe that a repetition of the [Chicago] World’s Fair business is intended. The Customs officials believe that Little Pete or his agents or his cousins in China have collected, for every one of the Chinese brought here for the Fair, a fee....”

Sam Ruddell, Deputy Surveyor of the Port, inspected the
Gaelic’s
passengers with Collector of the Port John H. Wise. “I’m satisfied, Mr. Collector,” said Ruddell, “that all of these people have come to stay.” The collector swore. “But, Sam,” he said, “what can I do? Congress has said they can come in. Even if Little Pete is bringing them over, what can we do?” Each knew the answer—nothing.

The newspapers prophesied that the illegal immigrants would comply with the McCreary Registration Act later in order to save themselves trouble, while Little Pete would grow richer day by day. In June of 1894, the Treasury Department sent Special Agent John Phoenix to the Chinese village of the fairgrounds. He found that all but 37 of the 257 Chinese had already disappeared. The papers said, in effect, “We told you so” and guessed that Pete had netted $50,000 through his female imports.

Little Pete was a fan of expositions. When a slave girl fled to the security of the Presbyterian Mission in 1895, she turned out to be an actress imported by Pete for the Atlanta Exposition. After doing business in Georgia for a brief time she had been removed to a den in Chinatown. The girl named Pete’s associates in the slave-girl traffic—an unsavory group that included Madame Choy, Chan Yeung, Charley Ah Him and Tom Hung. Charley was a knowing ex-interpreter in Los Angeles courts. Tom was a genuine
kwei chan,
or villain—an ex-convict (manslaughter) and blackmailer who lived with an elderly madame, Dan Pak Tsin, in the Church Alley den she ran for him and his brother. Hung was a braggart who claimed that he had enough money to win any court case and a quack con man who sold an opium-cure concoction as a front. Hung was an interpreter for the Bing Kong tong and a member of at least two other tongs. Trying to get the runaway girl back from the mission by means of shysters and legal trickery, he applied for a writ of
habeas corpus,
swearing that she was being unlawfully detained. Miss Williams fought the case successfully and Hung—or one of his gang—retaliated by shooting at a window of the mission.