Hatchet Men: The Story of the Tong Wars in San Francisco’s Chinatown

by Dillon, Richard

  This particular war between the Hop Sing and Suey Sing tongs started, as usual, over a woman. She was a resident of Marysville but the feud spread to San Francisco. It is said that the valley town’s Chinese section was depopulated by 200 of its 300 inhabitants going to San Francisco to go to war. The maze of alleys and yards and rooftops of Chinatown was much more suited to guerrilla warfare than the Yuba County town. After 4 Hop Sings were killed and 4 wounded a truce was patched up. The Suey Sings were not so badly battered, but they had lost 2 men and had had another wounded. The armistice was quickly and dramatically broken by the murder of a Suey Sing by a Hop Sing determined to even up the score. A big battle was arranged. The Hop Sings, although theirs was the Tough Brick tong and their leader was the able Wong Yem Yen, were hopelessly outnumbered. Many of their fighters were in the interior, working in fruit-packing houses or in Alaska canneries. They chose to “no show.” The police were tipped too—possibly by the Hop Sings. The battle did not take place. Luckily for the Hop Sings and all Chinatown, the Chinese New Year was coming. This was not only a time of good feeling and the forgiving of quarrels; it was the busiest and most prosperous season for the Chinese section. The merchants were able to secure peace so that business as usual could be maintained. But together with the Hop Sings, the storekeepers had to buy this peace with cold cash from the Suey Sings.

  The truce was broken in 1900, and soon chun hung posters were offering rewards totaling $17,000 for various tong leaders. Some of the reward bills pasted on the blind walls of Chinatown were of a high degree of literacy, if not decency. All manner of insult was heaped upon the projected victim, much of it quite “unprintable” but not unpostable in Chinatown. The Consul General repeated his 1887 action of hiring a force of private detectives. The chief of police added twenty men to the Chinatown squad and closed all bagnios and gambling dens. Federal officers searched the Quarter for Chinese without Geary Act certificates, and managed to deport a few illegal entrants. These vigorous actions scared the thirty or more tongs into a brief period of quiet, but tong troubles soon resumed. They would continue as long as a residuum of legislative and social restrictions furnished them with a socioeconomic base and as long as strong Chinese tradition supplied them with members.

  Efforts of the Six Companies to arrange for an extradition treaty between the United States and China so that they could clean house in Chinatown and drive out the tong blackguards went down in defeat three times. Each time the victor was the American missionary lobby. These do-gooders preferred to have hatchet men fatten on the innocent San Francisco Chinese than to have these highbinders suffer the cruel punishment of the Chinese Government which would be their sure fate if they were sent home as outlaws. Probably the greater portion of the criminals (estimated to run from 500 to 3,000) among Chinatown’s more than 30,000 people would have lost their heads had they been extradited. Instead, San Francisco became a haven for the criminal classes of China, and they clung to their new home. The Six Companies could only screen, or at least keep tab on, new arrivals by steamer. But more and more Chinese were being smuggled in from British Columbia to Baja California. This traffic would eventually become as important an operation as the opium racket.

  So the tongs flourished. In Richard H. Drayton’s words, “They did not have to work, other than preying upon merchants and brothel keepers and their inmates.” And their play was a murderous game with their toys being sharp-edged hatchets and mushrooming pistol balls. As more and more tong troubles erupted, such as the annihilation of the Hip Yings in one night by the Hip Sings, the public’s attention was focused on the phenomenon by various periodicals. In an article in the Wave, for example, titled “Highbinders and Tong Wars,” a writer who used the initials W.I. and who was almost certainly Will Irwin, explained the strife in Chinatown. He blamed it on the fact that there were no nonjoiners in the Quarter:

  The difficulties which lead up to highbinder wars are infinitely complex and not easily understood by the Occidental mind. China is a fabric of close associations, for there the club idea is carried to the furthest possible extent. The poorest coolie in the Empire belongs to a labor union, a social club, a political club—all these are not merely easy associations, as among us, but close fraternities bound by the strongest oaths… Certain fraternities have lost their hold in California while certain others have grown to an importance out of all proportion to that which they had in China. To this class belong the highbinder tongs…

  Before many years they became absolutely dominant in Chinatown. It has been supposed that the Six Companies were the ruling influence among the Oriental population. On the contrary, their power is nothing beside that of this sinister association [the Chee Kong tong] and the others which followed in its path. Removed from the rigid suppression of the merciless Chinese laws, these thugs have pursued their work unmolested by our justice. No Chinaman, however wronged, ever appeals to our tribunals. It is the old law of private vengeance with them. Consequently, a number of opposition societies arose in San Francisco. Chinese who had suffered at the hands of the Chee Kongs would bind themselves into a rival tong for mutual protection and vengeance.

  Chinese secrecy, fear and fatalism were at fault. All these factors made for the rapid breeding of crime in Chinatown.

  Will Irwin felt that the crucial moment for Chinatown came in the 1890s, when the hired gunmen ran away with control of the tongs during the boycott of Sam Yup establishments. A real reign of terror resulted. Of arrested highbinders he said, “They thrived on the beans and stale bread of prison fare and were worthless as chain-gang laborers.” Irwin approved of the police-state methods of the city’s desperate authorities, especially the flying squad which periodically raided and wrecked various tong headquarters. He also approved of the rousting of groups gathered on corners. Even elders, congregating to chat over a pipe, were rudely told by police to “Move on!” These drastic measures, as Irwin pointed out, prevented more trouble, though they did not actually cure tong wars.

  Two of the more notorious rivals to the Chee Kong tong were the Gee Sin Seer and the Bo Sin Seer. The first of these two hatchet societies was the Guild of Hereditary Virtue, the other was the Guild for the Protection of Virtue. As far as the press could determine, the Bo Sin Seer was controlled by men who kept legitimate grocery stores as well as illicit fan-tan and bawdy houses, while the Gee Sin Seer was under the rule of entrepreneur Little Pete. In 1887, the Call publicly declared that the business of the latter society was murder and the fixing of trials. These two societies together were able to raise $30,000 in just one meeting, to defend Little Pete’s henchman, Lee Chuck after he murdered Yen Yuen on Washington Street. The tong men boasted he would never hang. They were right.

  During the gray ’90s the highbinder tongs were at the height of their power. Chief of Police Crowley supplied Reverend Masters with a rogue’s gallery of nine representative salaried soldiers in 1892. Number One was Leong Yuen Gun, a blackmailer and a fighter of the Wah Ting San Fong tong. When Crowley told Masters about Leong the latter was serving a ten-year sentence at San Quentin for shooting Jare Hoy on Dupont Gai. Wong Fun Kim, a Chee Kong hatchet man, was also in state prison for a murder in Humboldt County and a kidnapping in Chinatown. Another Chee Kong brother was Tarm Poi, sentenced to death for chopping Fong Hoy to death on the corner of Dupont and Jackson. Lee Chuck of the Gee Sin Seer tong was listed, of course, and the mug shot of Lee Sam could also be admired. This Chee Kong highbinder had an original way of operating. He was a vitriol thrower. He had almost blinded Fong Lin, a denizen of Sullivan’s Alley, on November 11, 1887, but was acquitted of charges in Superior Court when the terrified woman, intimidated by Chee Kong toughs, refused to identify him as her assailant. Yee Lock was a robber gunman of the Suey On tong who drew fifteen years in prison for robbing and garroting the wife of Mah You Lin. He and his accomplice Yee Hong Yuen were also in Crowley’s gallery. Fong Ah Sing of the Tak Tung tong and Bing Kong ton
g was represented, too, for having shot Toy Gam, the inmate of a Cum Cook Alley parlorhouse, to death. He was hanged at the county jail though he thought somehow that he was immune to arrest after having secured the formal incorporation of his tongs. “Now I have power,” he had mistakenly said as he sallied forth to carry out his grudge against the singsong girl. Lee Kay, the last of the chief’s beauties, was not as deadly as his gallery mates. The Chee Kong highbinder had drawn twelve years for throwing pepper in the eyes of a white woman and robbing her.

  It is difficult to say how many tongs were active during the bloody ’80s and ’90s, what with mergers and splinterings, and the perennial problem of translating their names into English. Some say there were 19; others that there were as many as 30. Among the important secret societies were the Bing Kong tong, founded by secessionist Chee Kongs; the Wah Ting San Fong tong and the On Yick tong, controlling brothels; the Kwong Duck and On Leong tongs which handled the actual trafficking in slave girls; and the Hip Sing tong which controlled much of the gambling in the Quarter.

  Police Lieutenant William Price in 1898, made a long, detailed statement to Commissioner of Immigration Hart H. North about these societies which euphemistically called themselves the Hall of Far Reaching Virtue (Kwong Duck tong), the Hall of Glorious Conscientiousness (On Leong tong), the Hall of Victorious Union (Hip Sings); the Hall of Auspicious Victory (Suey Sings), the Hall of Associated Conquerors (Hop Sings), the Hall of Realized Repose (Suey On tong), and the Hall of the Flowery Mountain Arbor (the Wah Ting San Fong tong). Price said, “If a member has anything against another man he places his case before the society and offers so much money to have the man killed. After they have settled on the man to be killed, his head is as good as gone. The societies’ rules are so binding that those who are chosen are bound to kill their victims even if there were twenty policemen standing about at the time.”

  Price thought that there were as many as 3,000 highbinders in San Francisco just before the end of the nineteenth century. More realistic was Consul General Ho Yow’s figure of only 400-500 real whatever the total membership of the tongs might be. They were both agreed that they constituted “the worst class of people on the face of the earth.” Price reminded North, “They do not molest the white people, as they fear an uprising against their race in the event that any white man was killed.” Yet some Caucasians were marked for death by the tongs. Jonathan Endicott Gardner, Chinese interpreter for the Customs House, received a letter from a Leung Tsun warning him of a price set on his head by highbinders. Leung himself had been approached to do the job for a $100 reward by bad man Lo Tsun.

  The hatchet man wrote Gardner: “You have done me no harm. How could I bring harm to you? What I am afraid of now is that, with me not willing to injure you, he would find someone else who would be willing. I shall just appear willing; in point of fact, I shall do nothing. I send you word early so that you may be cautious as you go in or out, in order that others may not harm you in some unexpected way. I have long known of your doing good all the time. That is the reason why I am so bold in speaking of this matter as I do. Be sure not to let this go out for fear Lo Tsun should have a design on me for it. It is hard to describe his wicked ways. Be careful; that is all.”

  In May, 1900, a number of prominent Chinese came to the hotel room of Thomas Turner, investigating the tongs for the United States Industrial Commission. They were fearful of tong reprisal but corroborated what Price and Gardner had said about the immigration frauds committed by the tongs. Price had said, “One of the by-laws in all the highbinder societies is to the effect that every highbinder is obliged to aid in the landing of cooly [sic] laborers and Chinese slave girls.” Jonathan Endicott Gardner said about the same thing—”Fully seventy-five percent of all the frauds committed at the present time against the exclusion law can be traced directly to the highbinder organizations.”

  Asked for details on the organized smuggling of “slots” or illegal Chinese entrants, he said, “I know of some who are banded together for the purpose of aiding Chinese in illegal entrance into the United States. I know that they make that their business. These men are well known to the Chinese community, so well known, and their business so well known, that they actually had a word coined for themselves, which is Bahn Gar, which means a Chinaman, or Chinese, in the business of importing coolies or Chinese slaves—”

  Before Gardner could continue he was interrupted by his questioner. “What part, if any, do the highbinders take in promoting this evil immigration?”

  Gardner answered matter of factly, “They furnish false witnesses and frighten off anyone who might feel justified in coming forth and telling the truth.”

  “What do you know in a general way about the highbinders, their organization and so forth?” Gardner was asked.

  “In general,” he replied, “they are organized societies for the purpose of committing crime. They exist on blackmail, on pay for protecting gambling houses and disreputable places in general. I know that they take it upon themselves to try cases, to review judgments of our courts with utter disregard for our laws. I know that they nullify our decisions. For instance, if an American court had rendered a decision, they would intimidate the witnesses so that when the cases go into a higher court everything would be changed. They defy our courts by ways and means of their own. I know that they impose their own sentences upon offenders from their own standpoint. They levy fines in some cases and death in others. I know they have in their service paid men to do their killing, and so long have they had this service that the men have a particular name; they are called ‘hatchet men.’ I know they control our judicial oaths. That they can say an oath shall or shall not be taken. I know them as organized societies of crime. They distribute revolvers to their members and send them out—”

  Again Professor Gardner was interrupted. “It is a fact, Doctor, is it not, that your life has been threatened by these highbinders?”

  Without emotion Gardner replied, “Yes.”

  After a pause he continued. “I know, too, they use our courts, if necessary, to enforce their decisions.”

  “In what manner?”

  “By laying a charge against a certain Chinaman and having our judge pronounce the sentence. I know that these highbinders furnish witnesses for anything wanted, at so much a head. I have had cases in which men have come forward to testify and when the time came, they were spirited away...”

  “Do you think deportation is practically the only remedy?” Gardner was asked.

  “Yes.”

  “In a general way, will you state why the Federal and municipal authorities are unable to break up these organizations or to detect the offenders when a crime is committed?”

  “Because the highbinders furnish witnesses and terrify witnesses that the State may rely upon.”

  “What would be the result if some honest Chinaman would take the stand and give testimony against them?”

  “He would be liable to forfeit his life.”

  Thomas F. Turner therefore asked Congress to employ the strongest measures against the hatchet men. He reminded the legislators that 95 percent of them were either aliens or criminals of the worst type. According to Gardner, these 1,500 to 2,000 men constituted the entire criminal population of Chinatown and were responsible for at least 75 percent of all frauds against the Exclusion Act in addition to a whole catalogue of other crimes. “The thing which they fear above all others, holding it in greater dread than all of our laws, our courts and jails,” said Turner, “is deportation to China. The purpose of the highbinder, of the highbinder organizations, is vicious and criminal. Therefore,” he concluded, “they should be suppressed by law of Congress, and membership therein or in any society having for its purpose the commission of crime or the violation of our laws on the part of aliens residing in this country should render such aliens liable to deportation.”

  While
Turner urged these strong measures to put an end to the fighting tongs he was not sanguine of success. “The power of the highbinder tongs among the Chinese population is almost absolute,” he warned. “So great is the dread inspired among the Chinese by these societies that few have the courage to resist their criminal demands. The State and municipal authorities have been powerless to suppress the crimes of the highbinders for the reason that no Chinese witness has the courage to appear and give testimony against a highbinder. Every witness who should so appear and testify would be marked for death.”