by Carl Crow
Not many of the fortunes Americans made out of the Russo-Japanese War were honest. There were a lot of Russian purchasing agents in Shanghai and Americans living there were unusually successful in their attempts to separate them from the Czar’s golden roubles. Crooks still talk in hushed and admiring voices of the great shoe deal that was pulled by an American who later held a rather important position in the American government. The shoes were bought, inspected and paid for in Shanghai for shipment to the Russian army at Port Arthur. But the Russian agent neglected to see that they were packed aboard the ship and also neglected to see that the marine insurance policy was endorsed over to him as the official representative of the legal owners of the cargo. Those who took part in the deal entertained him so assiduously that he had little time for work. The American who sold the shoes was equally careless for he even neglected to see that the shoes were packed in the ship that had been especially chartered for the purpose. That was just as well for the vessel sprung a leak while en route and was a total loss though the captain and the crew escaped with all their personal belongings. It was gossiped about that a sea cock had been left open. The American had been paid for the shoes, collected for their full insured value, and still had the shoes. He later sold them to the Japanese at an advance over the original price. The Japanese kept an eye on him and so got the shoes.
There was still another category of commercial adventurers who were lured by the prospect of easy money and the comforting assurance that the law enforcement officers were neither so omnipresent nor so obnoxiously officious in Shanghai as in some other parts of the world. There were always two profitable occupations open to them - the smuggling of guns and the running of opium. I never knew but one American who was a really big shot in the opium business, but there were hundreds who played a small but profitable part in the game.
My big-shot friend was ostensibly a highly respectable exporter of Chinese hides and furs, and it never occurred to anyone as a curious circumstance that all of his shipments came from the distant province of Szechuen which at that time was the world’s largest producer of illicit opium. My friend died in Shanghai without any of us suspecting that his hide and fur business was only a cloak for the smuggling of opium. The fact that his methods were never disclosed is testimony to his cleverness as a smuggler. He was so highly respected that I was appointed as the chairman of a committee which drew up a memorial expressing the regret of the American community at the passing of a fellow citizen of such flawless character. A younger partner who attempted to carry on the business was not so successful and came to grief several years later over a shipment to Hamburg of a lot of tombstones in which raw opium was concealed. The shipment was so unusual that it attracted the curiosity of the customs examiners.
Among the foreigners the big opium operators, aside from the Japanese, were Englishmen, though so far as I know no Englishman was ever connected with the heroin or morphine rackets. Some had no qualms of conscience about opium. A great many Englishmen had made fortunes out of the opium business in China at a time when it was perfectly legitimate and had the approval of the English clergy. Many of the aristocratic fortunes of Boston were also founded on opium during the clipper-ship days, but Americans got out of the business soon after world opinion turned against it. It was a group of Englishmen who financed the construction of the auxiliary sailing vessel, the Mirabella, which was specially built in a Hong Kong shipyard for the purpose of smuggling opium to Canada and thence to the United States, although the English connection with the enterprise was carefully concealed. The ship flew the flag of Panama and lay in the harbor of Macao, a Portuguese colony, where the cargo of Persian opium was picked up from Chinese junks. The personnel was of a mixed nationality. The captain was a Dutchman, the chief engineer a German, one of the mates a Canadian and the other an American. If one cargo of opium could have been successfully landed in Canada or the United States the proceeds would have paid the cost of constructing the boat and returned a good profit to the promoters. But the enterprise was too big to be obscure. The boat was finally seized and added to the fleet of Chinese customs vessels.
It was principally as suitcase carriers that foreigners picked up small sums of easy money in the opium racket. Because the individual foreigner usually protested vigorously against the search of his personal baggage, and these protests were sometimes backed up by official consular protests, the Chinese authorities rarely made such searches. The big Chinese opium operators took full advantage of this to use foreigners as their couriers. All he had to do was to carry a bag or two past the customs barrier. It was for a time a very profitable business, but with the influx of thousands of destitute Russian refugees there was soon so much competition that the wages of the couriers dropped below the subsistence level, and many a beachcomber reformed because the profit had been taken out of crime.
Greater risks were taken in smuggling narcotics into Manila, Honolulu or any port on the West Coast, and the very high rewards kept quite a few Americans profitably occupied. In Shanghai we always grew a little suspicious of people who were constantly tripping back and forth to Honolulu or San Francisco for no apparent reason but at a cost of several hundred dollars a trip. I recall one young American who, as he had once been a reporter, could not keep away from the news rooms of the Shanghai papers on his frequent visits. He appeared to be always coming to Shanghai in search of a job or going to Honolulu for the same purpose. One day the news service cables told of a big narcotics seizure in Honolulu, and we saw no more of our visitor.
It was a short and comparatively inexpensive journey to Manila, and the customs authorities there were always on the lookout for smuggled opium. The Chinese operators learned that high government officials enjoy the freedom of the port at Manila, and that provided them with a new method of smuggling. When a distinguished governmental official paid a visit to the Philippines, it was an easy matter to slip a few extra cases into his baggage and an equally easy matter to steal them again after they had passed the customs.
The judge of the United States Supreme Court for China once carried a heavy suitcase full of opium into Manila. The illicit drug was the property of his Chinese boy whose hands were full of the judge’s belongings and the latter innocently carried the boy’s bag himself rather than tip a porter. No Filipino customs inspector would think of searching a bag carried by so high a personage as the judge of the United States Court for China. The boy made so much money on the deal that he was able to retire and live comfortably on the income.
People came to China with all kinds of queer ideas as to how they were going to make fortunes or developed new ideas after living there for a time. A fellow passenger on my first trip to Shanghai was a Canadian about my age who had made quite a success out of a chain of cheap restaurants in Calgary. His clientele came from those who had to count their change before ordering a second cup of coffee and he, convinced himself that as China was a place where change counting is more necessary than in any other part of the world, there was an ideal country for cheap restaurants. He even had a chop suey recipe all worked out, for that was to be the bargain by which he would lure his customers and from that he would teach them the joys of hot dogs and hamburgers with or without the onion. Like many others whose experience is confined to the continent of North America he could not conceive of any food that gave more for the money than hamburgers with onions for a nickel. When he learned that Chinese do not eat chop suey and that the nickel spent for a hamburger would provide a day’s food for the poorer Chinese with all the tea he could drink included, the plans for the chain of restaurants collapsed and my shipmate stayed on and drifted into the dope-running business. Maybe that was what he had in mind all the time.
There was a Korean prince living in Shanghai who was supposed to have escaped from Seoul before the Japanese invasion, carrying with him the wealth of the Korean royal family amounting to no less than one million pounds. The idea that such a stupid fellow as this Korean appeared to be should have
undisturbed possession of all of that money was very provoking and many were the schemes that were set but none of them hatched, so far as I know. Another newspaperman told me about this prince who lived at a small French hotel and sat in the bar alone every afternoon sipping Italian vermouth. We used to drop in there when we had nothing else to do just for the thrill of idle speculations as to how he might by some honest means be induced to part with some of his money. The best project we could think of was a heavily subsidized newspaper which would employ a highly paid staff to battle for a restoration of the Korean monarchy. We would head the staff. As an alternate project we thought of getting him to employ one or both of us in an advisory capacity at princely salaries - and with expense accounts. Nothing came of it though these idle speculations did add zest to the rather flat bottled beer which had been shipped through Suez.
There were others who pursued the quest more seriously. During the hour that the Korean prince sipped his two glasses of vermouth there were always patrons in the bar and a constant coming and going of people who had no eyes for anyone but the prince. A great many spoke to him and some tried to get him into conversation, but they made little progress. He died a few years later, presumably with his fortune intact. The balance is probably still carried on the books of one of the big British banks along with other millions deposited by princes, war lords and adventurers who because of death are no longer able to write checks. A few days after the death we dropped into the bar at the usual hour and found it deserted. The hotel soon afterward failed and was closed. Its only regular patrons were people who wanted to get on intimate terms with the million pounds.
It will be a long time before Shanghai veterans forget the charming Mrs. Black and her equally charming daughter who arrived one September day and put up in a suite at the best hotel. The lady had letters of introduction and a letter of credit, and both she and her daughter wore clothing that made every woman in Shanghai envious. They lost no time presenting the letters of introduction, met the best people right and left, and in a short time were booked up for tiffins and cocktail parties and dinners for two or more weeks ahead. The lady said she lived in Washington, and the way she mentioned Cabinet members, Senators, and even the President, by their first names, convinced us that she was a very important person. The girl was so pretty that she didn’t have to be anything else to attract and keep the attention of all of the men in the room. No one knew it at the time, but a wealthy young Shanghai bachelor had traveled on the boat with them from Yokohama to Shanghai, had fallen in love with her at sight, and had worked so successfully that they were engaged before the boat sailed into the muddy waters of the Yangtze. The happy young man bought a very large and expensive diamond ring as soon as he landed.
We got rather tired seeing the same people at dinner parties all the time, and this charming pair provided a welcome relief. They were so very appreciative of the hospitality shown them, and the many favors. The favors were numerous, for both were naively helpless about all practical matters; and there was scarcely a man of their acquaintance who wasn’t called on to help them out in the matter of changing money or cashing checks or something of that sort. They were careless too about the local climate because they had spent some time in Honolulu where the thermometers might just as well be painted for all the activity they display. It was always warm when they went out to a cocktail party and still only a little less warm when they went on to dinner, but the autumn midnights in Shanghai are cool; and the hostess, rather than send her guests out to possible death from pneumonia, insisted on loaning them wraps. Any woman will know why the wraps always consisted of the best fur coats in the place.
One morning a telephone call revealed the fact that the charming couple had received an urgent cable and left the hotel late the previous night. They had left no forwarding address and had not left any fur coats to be delivered to anyone. A hasty checkup revealed the fact that ten were missing - the very best in Shanghai. The men were more reticent about the checks that had been cashed because there was a slight irregularity in the letter of credit. We all felt sorry for the disillusioned bachelor, though it was some time before we got the complete story. The day before his fiancee left so suddenly, she had appeared at his office in a hysterical condition, and for a very good reason. She had lost the engagement ring. The bachelor petted her and soothed her and bought her another.
The two were caught in Ceylon but were not brought back to Shanghai for trial because they were urgently wanted elsewhere. The lady had escaped from a prison in Arkansas; and the pretty girl, who was not her daughter, was wanted for a series of offenses in California ranging from bigamy to shoplifting. Now the remarkable thing about this otherwise pointless story is the fact that the letters of introduction were not forged. They were genuine letters written by Americans who knew them only as fellow travelers.
Of the many crooks who have from time to time paid visits to Shanghai, I suppose the most brilliant and interesting was Grimes, an American who came out as an employee of the British-American Tobacco Company. The manager of that company told me that Grimes was one of the cleverest men who had ever been on the pay roll of that giant company and that if he had been honest he would soon have become one of the executives and been well on his way to a directorship. But there was nothing honest about Grimes. He had been in Shanghai but a few weeks when he began signing the names of locally prominent and highly respectable men to chits at bars and low cafes. As these were places the respectable men did not frequent, their faces were not familiar and the proprietors assumed that these pillars of local society were temporarily on the loose and asked no embarrassing questions.
One of the names he used was that of J. Harold Dollar, son of the famous Captain Robert Dollar and the leading American business man of Shanghai. Posing as the highly respectable Harold, Grimes made the rounds of the principal houses of ill fame and ran up prodigious bills. He insisted that no collectors be sent to his office and promised to mail checks, but as weeks went by and no payment was made, someone got suspicious and the game was up. Before the investigation was completed a multitude of forged checks had been disclosed. Grimes was tried and convicted and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment to be served in San Quentin.
According to the usual procedure he was taken from the American jail in Shanghai by a deputy United States marshal to be conveyed to Nagasaki and there placed on board an American army transport which would deliver him to the prison officials of San Quentin. Unfortunately for the deputy marshal there was a delay of one day before the arrival of the transport and he listened to the blandishments of Grimes. The latter painted a sad picture of the dreary period he had ahead of him and pointed out that this chance delay in Nagasaki gave him his last opportunity to enjoy the life of a normal man. He suggested that the two of them, at his expense, visit a few of the taverns of the place and possibly have a glass of beer.
The deputy marshal may have been softhearted and very probably was bored stiff with the utter dreariness of Nagasaki, but whatever the cause, he assented, and a tour of the port’s notorious waterfront dives was started. Grimes had been there before and knew his way about. The drinks must have included something stronger than beer, for during the evening Grimes brought the deputy back to their lodging so completely and soddenly drunk that he did not completely recover his senses until the next day.
Grimes left him there but took his passport and the commitment papers which set forth the terms of his imprisonment. He then started out on another tour of the waterfront and found a Swede sailor who was already half tipsy and willing to have more drinks if some one insisted on buying them. In a short time Grimes had him in the same condition as the deputy and kept watch on him until the transport arrived early in the morning. He then introduced himself to the Japanese police as the deputy marshal from Shanghai and with their aid escorted the still sodden Swede to the transport.
“You’ll have a lot of trouble with this fellow as soon as he gets cold sober,” Grimes told th
e commander of the transport. “He’s got the crazy idea that he is a Swede sailor. Don’t pay any attention to him. He’s harmless.”
The commander signed the commitment papers showing that the prisoner had been duly delivered and Grimes returned to his former lodgings and put the papers and the passport on the table beside the still sleeping deputy. In due time the latter awoke and tried to remember what had happened the night before. He had a confused picture of Japanese girls serving drinks to noisy sailors and after that everything was a blank. The one indisputable fact was that he was back in his lodgings alone and that his prisoner was gone. Then he saw the commitment papers on the table. According to this document, duly signed and sealed by the commander, Grimes was even then safely locked up in the brig of the transport which was steaming through the Inland Sea on its way to San Francisco. How all this had happened was a mystery which the deputy couldn’t solve, but according to the official record he had faithfully performed his duty, so he took a headache powder and caught the next boat back to Shanghai.
The Swede was very much surprised to find himself locked up on an American army transport, but as there was no interpreter on board he had no opportunity to tell his story. No one would have believed him anyway. A few weeks later he was still more surprised to find himself an inmate of San Quentin, sentenced to serve a term for crimes committed in Shanghai, a place he had never seen. As he learned more English he became more articulate and finally someone listened to his story and became convinced that there was something wrong. This horny-handed, sunburned Swede didn’t fit the picture of a clever American crook. An investigation was started.
In the meantime Grimes made the most of his acquaintance with the Japanese police of Nagasaki who looked on him as a colleague and extended all the professional courtesies. It was through his friendship with them that he managed to get a supply of the official cable forms which later proved so useful.