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

by Dillon, Richard

  After the murder Sergeant Burke immediately set Crowley’s get-tough policy in motion again. Highbinders were hauled in for vagrancy, the highest bail was demanded, and no bonds allowed unless approved by the Consul General. The squad raided a house of ill fame and seized seven girls. The owner was taken aback when the desk sergeant answered his usual question “How much bailee?” with “Just two hundred and fifty dollars each.” The small businessman choked and asked, “How so much?” “Well,” said the sergeant, “there’s two hundred each for visiting a house of ill fame and fifty each for vagrancy.” The Chinese emptied a sack of coins on the sergeant’s desk, counted out $1,750, and marched his chattels home.

  The cuffs, kicks and clubbings of the Chinatown squad seemed to be working wonders. “I never saw so few highbinders on the streets,” said Burke. “They know when to remain in their hiding places. But I would not be surprised to find more of them on the streets after darkness sets in.” Some honest Chinese were clubbed in error, although Crowley’s order was clear enough—”Be careful not to club a reputable Chinese, but show no mercy to a highbinder.”

  Sergeant Burke was impressed with the cooperation he was beginning to get from the mass of Chinese. The Six Companies put up handbills all over Chinatown. These ordered all shopkeepers who were members of tongs to quit in just thirty days or be classed as highbinders themselves and dealt with accordingly. The Consul General proved to be a staunch ally. He wrote to China for permission to confiscate the property of all known highbinders. But most surprising was the Vigilante-like attitude of the crowd which witnessed the cowardly killing of Bok Ah Chung. As Li Gun was led away they shouted “Hang him! Hang him!” Burke was amazed. “During all the years I have been in Chinatown,” he said, “I never heard such a cry before and I honestly believe that if the murderer had been handed over to them they would have lynched him.”

  The courts went along with Crowley. One man, arrested on a concealed-weapons charge, pleaded that he was a labor boss in Alaska and needed a gun for protection. Instead of being left off as he expected, he received a lecture from Judge Henry L. Joachimson who pointed out the dual roles many Chinese were playing—respectable by day, hatchet man by night. Thanks to some character witnesses, the Alaskan got off with the lowest penalty under the ordinance but it was still a $250 fine or a day in jail for every dollar.

  Sergeant Burke and his Chinatown squad now took axes to the flagpoles of the Suey Sing and Hop Sing tongs, transforming them into rooftop piles of kindling. It was Burke’s belief that the tong members would take the destruction of their flags and flagpoles as an omen of the ultimate destruction of their secret societies.

  Burke’s orders to his squad were, “Whenever and wherever a known highbinder is, club him!” A hot-tempered Irishman, it is not remarkable that now and again Burke lost control of himself. When he axed the joss room of the Hop Sing tong his patience was completely exhausted. He had his squad kick and club two highbinders all the way down the stairs to the street three stories below. Burke swung his baton at one of the men again and again, swearing, “Get out of here you heathen cutthroat! You son of a bitch of a highbinder, get out!” Later in the day he sent Officer Withers back to the wrecked Hop Sing tong. Withers found that six men had drifted back, and he went through the whole operation again, kicking them downstairs and shouting, “Get out and stay out!”

  During this period the San Francisco Grand Jury had to work overtime. On one day alone—March 15, 1893—it indicted nine hatchet men for murder.

  The Chinatown squad signified its approval by raiding and demolishing the headquarters of the Suey Ying tong after forcing the fifteen members there to run a gantlet of billy clubs. With axes, sledges and hatchets the squad reduced the furnishings of the rooms to rubble.

  At this juncture Vice-Consul Owyang reported that the merchants of the Quarter had resolved not to pay any more tribute to the tongs nor to let them have any rooms in their buildings, nor furnish them with bail or bondsmen. But the police doubted that many merchants would have the courage to go so far so fast. Nevertheless, the heads of the Six Companies solemnly announced that there would be no more tong wars in Chinatown. They reported that the Hop Sing tong was in such financial trouble that it could not pay its own salaried soldiers for their killings, and that the Suey Sings had given assurances they would make no more trouble. With a show of spunk the Six Companies told the American public that if the highbinders did not behave and go to work the respectable Chinese element would find means to convict them in court. In an editorial in one of the Chinese-language newspapers, in explaining the difficulty of eradicating them, a writer compared the tongs to lawless elements in the Caucasian American community—singling out the Ku Klux Klan and the Mafia—and then added, “I am not defending the Chinese highbinders; not a bit of it. We all wish that every highbinder on earth could be caught and hanged or beheaded.” A white merchant reported that some of his Chinese colleagues had told him that they wished the city could take all hatchet men to some vacant lot and allow them to blaze away at each other until they killed each other off. The Vice-Consul expressed his regret at tong depredations but also his pride at the increasing assistance being given the police by law-abiding Chinese He admitted that Chinatown was ready to form a committee of Vigilantes if necessary, but ridiculed the tales that all Chinatown was an armed camp. “Why, for the past two weeks a squad of only six men has been raiding Chinatown [tongs]. They were only a half-dozen men surrounded by thousands of Chinese and yet there has never been a hand raised against an officer of the law nor a complaint made by the Chinese officials although we know of scores of cases where innocent men were badly beaten. We realized that in order to reach the guilty some innocent men would have to suffer, as is nearly always the case....”

  A Chinese vigilance committee actually was formed at this time—the Wai Leong Rung Sur—and was soon under tong fire. In April chun hungs appeared on walls, placing prices on the heads of the society’s officers—-especially Chun Ti Chu, a prime mover in its organization as well as president of the Sam Yup Company. Detective Chris Cox described Chun as a fighter and a fine pistol shot who was more than a match for any three or four highbinders. Three hundred dollars was the sum on Chun’s head, and posters denounced him for counseling the Chinese not to secure Geary Act registration certificates. (This was the blunder which cost the Six Companies so much of its prestige.) Police tore these down quickly, but they were replaced by much more insulting circulars:

  THE PRESIDENT OF THE SAM YUP COMPANY CONTAINS TWELVE STINK POTS, WHICE ARE INEXPLICABLE. HE HAS NO LITERARY TALENT. HE BOUGHT HIS POSITION WITH MONEY. HIS FATHER IS A REFORMED THIEF. HIS MOTHER’S FIRST HUSBAND WAS A FUNG AND HER SECOND A CHUNG [illegitimate]. HE SHIELDS GUILTY CRIMINALS AND TRIES TO FREE THEM. HE PROVOKED PEOPLE TO ANGER AT A MEETING AND TRIED TO ESCAPE. THEREFORE, ALL PERSONS HAD BETTER CLOSE THEIR NOSES BEFORE PASSING HIS DOOR.

  The rewards were ostensibly offered by a new secret society, the Sing Ping Kung Sur, but Vice-Consul King said no such tong existed. He labeled the broadsides a bluff on the part of the hatchet men, to cow ignorant or timorous merchants.

  Another chun hung was soon pasted up all over the Quarter. It read:

  IT IS REPORTED LATELY THAT THERE IS A VIGILANCE COMMITTEE CALLED THE LAW ABIDING PROTECTIVE SOCIETY, WAI LEONG KUNG SUR. ITS OBJECT IS TO BREAK DOWN ALL TONGS. THIS ACTION CANNOT HAVE BEEN TAKEN BY MEN OF ABILITY. ITS ACTION IS TO ENCOURAGE THE WHITE PEOPLE AND MOLEST OUR PEOPLE, MY GOOD PEOPLE, DO NOT BLAME MEMBERS OF THE LAW ABIDING PROTECTIVE SOCIETY. IF ANYONE IS MURDERED ON THE STREET THE WHITE OFFICERS CAN ARREST THEM AND WITNESS AGAINST THEM WITHOUT THE ASSISTANCE OF THE PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION. THE SOCIETY IS GOOD FOR NOTHING BUT TO INFORM THE OFFICERS AND ARREST PEOPLE FOR VISITING HOUSES OF ILL REPUTE OR HAVE THEM FINED $20 APIECE. THE ORGANIZATION OF A PROTECTIVE UNION IS THE SAME EVIL AS THE [WAVERLY PLACE] POLICE STATION IN CHINATOWN. DIFFERENT COMPANIES SUBSCRIBE MONEY FOR T
HE SOCIETY. WHY DO THEY NOT BETTER SUBSCRIBE MONEY TO SEND AGED PEOPLE TO CHINA? THERE IS A MAN NAMED GONG TYNG. [Suggested by Crowley for the task of approving bonds of arrested Chinese.] ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS WILL BE PAID FOR SHOOTING HIM DOWN AND $300 WILL BE PAID FOR INFORMATION REGARDING THE VIGILANCE COMMITTEE’S INTERPRETER AND DIRECTOR. TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS WILL BE PAID FOR KILLING THE DIRECTOR OR INTERPRETER, $4,000 FOR THE KILLING OF THE TWO, AND $50 FOR INFORMATION CONCERNING THE MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY. WE WILL GIVE $1,000 TO A MAN WHO WILL KILL AN INSPECTOR OF CHINESE BONDS. WHOEVER JOINS THIS WAI LEONG KUNG SUR PUTS HIMSELF TO DEATH AND INTO HIS GRAVE.

  The Chinese quasi Vigilantes did not panic. They went right ahead with their plans. They drew up fourteen resolutions which spelled out in fine detail their counter offensive against the tongs. Heads of families were to keep all kin out of the fighting tongs; merchant members of tongs were to withdraw from them, being promised protection by the society; no one was to go bail for hatchet men—if one should do so the Wai Leong Kung Sur would do some posting of its own, pasting up placards accusing the bail supplier of being a highbinder at heart; if a Caucasian should supply bail for a highbinder, a complaint would be made to the authorities. The society’s officers tried to cover everything. Anyone renting rooms to highbinders would be “published” in this fashion too. The Law-Abiding Protective Society promised to notify the police of rooms occupied by any hatchet men, to get landlords to oust known highbinders from rental rooms, and to set up rewards of $600, $400 and $200 for persons giving information leading to the arrest and conviction of tong murderers. Storekeepers were given police whistles to blow in case of attacks.

  A regular battle of chun hungs now took place. With the posters of the mysterious Sing Ping King Sur tong still up in some areas, the new Chinese Vigilantes fostered by the Six Companies pasted up one of its own all over the Quarter:

  NOTICE! BY THE SIX COMPANIES! WE, THE SIX COMPANIES HAVE ORGANIZED A VIGILANCE COMMITTEE FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROTECTING OUR INTERESTS. THE HIGHBINDERS ARE BECOMING TOO OPEN IN THEIR LAWLESSNESS. WE HAVE ALSO ISSUED AN APPEAL ASKING FOR THE GOOD CHINAMEN TO ASSIST US IN BREAKING OF THE HIGHBINDERS. IN RETURN, THEY HAVE ISSUED A PAPER DIRECTED AGAINST THE WAI LEONG SOCIETY. THEREFORE, WE GIVE NOTICE THAT WE WILL GIVE $100 TO ANY PERSON WHO WILL GIVE US INFORMATION AS TO WHO WROTE OR POSTED SAID INFLAMMATORY CIRCULAR, AND $200 WILL BE PAID FOR THE APPREHENSION OF THE AUTHOR AND INSTIGATOR OF ANY PAPER OF A LIKE CHARACTER. WE WILL ALSO GIVE $100 FOR THE ARREST OF THE PERSON WHO FORGED THE NAME OF THE SIX COMPANIES TO THE LATE PAPER.

  The next broadside to be plastered on walls bore the Consular seal. Consul General Li Wang Yu posted copies of a notice stating that he had received authority from the Chinese Minister in Washington to send highbinders home for beheading by Governor Kwong Si of Canton. Whether this was bluff or not, the chun hung which ended: YOU WILL NOT ONLY BE BEHEADED BUT YOU WILL BRING DISGRACE ON YOUR OWN FAMILY, FATHERS, BROTHERS AND SISTERS intimidated many boo how doy.

  Chief Crowley was asked about the Consul General’s chun hung. “This much I know,” said Crowley. “That the Chinese Consul General told me recently that he has communicated with the Chinese Minister at Washington with the view of getting him to obtain power from the Chinese Government to confiscate all property belonging to highbinders arrested for a crime, and (if they have no property) suggesting that the Chinese Government should behead the relatives of these highbinders so as to make an end to these murders which are disgracing the whole Chinese population in this country. Whether the Consul General has obtained this power I do not know... If the Consul General would send the highbinders to China to be beheaded, I think it would be a mighty good thing and would please me very much.”

  When the new president of the Yeong Wo Company arrived he brought with him from China a document printed by order of His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of China. It deplored the fact that “Certain classes of Chinese have persisted in maintaining societies to carry on blackmail” and ordered all Chinese to obey the laws of their new land. But it had little effect. Just before Thanksgiving Day another Chinese was murdered in the Jackson Street theatre for informing the Immigration Bureau that the girls coming to the Omaha Exposition, ostensibly for the Chinese pavilion there, were in fact en route to Chinatown whorehouses.

  Crowley kept his own “hatchet men” busy. The keen blades wielded by the Chinatown squad sent six more tong flagpoles crashing, including those of two new rising stars among the tongs—the Gee Sin Seer and the Bo Sin Seer. Sergeant Burke said, “The work will be continued till not a single flagpole, surmounting a place where highbinders have been in the habit of meeting, is left standing.” A quixotic campaign perhaps, but it appeared to have a calming effect on the tongs. Rumors of peace began to waft about the Quarter. A Chinatown police officer was not sanguine, however, of peace between the quarreling Hop Sing and Suey Sing tongs. The officer said: “I believe it is only a temporary truce forced upon the highbinders by the vigorous actions of Chief Crowley. They will wait till the present excitement blows over and will break out shortly, worse than ever. The clubbing by police and the destruction of their headquarters have had the effect of driving a number of the highbinders out of the city. But, as soon as things quiet down again, they will return and will be found in new headquarters, ready for offensive operations. In fact,” he added, “I have heard it rumored that a new highbinder society has been formed, even more powerful than any one of those known to the police.”

  Proof that the highbinders had not gone underground was shortly supplied Crowley. Mrs. Annie Leonard complained to authorities of tong bribery attempts. Murder witness Annie told the court, “Last night two Chinese called at my residence and asked to speak to me. I asked them what they wanted. They said they had come to see me about Lee Sing who was on trial for murder. They said they knew that I was going to testify against him. Then one of them told me that Lee Sing was not a member of the highbinder society and had no authority from the society to kill the man, that he did it for private reasons and could expect no aid from the society-but that his friends had undertaken his defense. They then offered me a sum of money if I would leave the state and not testify here today. Of course, I showed them the door at once.”

  As if the position of the Six Companies was not insecure enough after the Geary Act loss of face, in 1894 it split right down the middle when a See Yup was arrested for murder. He was acquitted by the jury, and the Sam Yups—who had not only refused to help his case financially but who had indicated that they thought him guilty—were ridiculed unmercifully by the other company. The result was a war of sorts between Sam Yups and See Yups: a lack of confidence in American law and justice on the part of the former; and a long-drawn-out boycott on Sam Yup stores by the much more numerous members of the See Yup Company. The on-again, off-again boycott did not end for four years. Stores went bankrupt; commercial stagnation added its woes to the political anarchy of the Quarter. The fighting tongs were delighted as the pressure was shifted from them after the Chinese vigilance committee had all but frightened them out of their coats of mail.

  Hatchet men hired out to either or both sides and were generally quick to stir up what trouble they could. They mixed into Chinese “union” (guild) squabbles at this time, too, indulging their talent for arson in attempts to burn down two factories. They also bullied Chinese capitalists, but in one case picked a tartar. When Chun Mon, overall factory owner, learned that the factory workers’ guild had put a $1,000 price on his head after he had fired his whole labor force and substituted the Chinatown equivalent of scabs, he armed himself and marched into the guild’s headquarters. He saw that his executioner, hired from a tong, was there. He coolly walked up to him and said, “Well, here I am. Why don’t you earn your money? One thousand dollars does not grow on bushes to be picked so easily every day.” While the highbinder was slinking away Chun notified the Six Companies. Pressure was brought to bear and the hatchet man left on the next
steamer for the Old Country.

  More and more people fled Chinatown. The Chinese Government tried to stablilize the situation through the Consulate General. A succession of consuls and vice-consuls was tried. Each failed to end the boycott and was recalled. Finally Wu Ting Fang, Chinese Minister in Washington, sent his brother-in-law Ho Yow to San Francisco as Vice-Consul. He got the two companies to come to terms with one another and to jury rig a peace of a kind. As a tribute to his success, the Emperor made him Consul General. But his labors in this area had to go on for months to preserve even the shakiest peace.

  Ho Yow also had a radical plan for exorcising the tongs. He put his plan to city authorities. By it he would have a say in determining which officers, Chinese or others, should be detailed to the Chinatown squad. He would coordinate police judges’ jurisdiction over Chinatown. Ho Yow urged the abolition of jury trials of arrested Chinese, in order to stop bribery. He asked for the deportation of convicted Chinese felons rather than their imprisonment in California. “In this manner,” he said, “the United States would be rid rapidly of the Chinese criminal class and the sources of the disturbing tong wars removed.” Inspector Frank Schuyler of the Chinese Bureau of the Customs House went further. He urged that the Chinese Consul General be made head of a court to deport aliens found “guilty” of membership in any of the fighting tongs.