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

by Dillon, Richard

  Pete saved his money until he had accumulated what he needed and then borrowed a few hundred dollars more on his good name. The diligent young Sam Yup was obviously an excellent credit risk. Had he not become a broker, landing both goods and persons (including many illegal immigrants and prostitutes) in San Francisco while still only a very young man? With this capital Little Pete established himself in the shoe business with his uncle Fong Yuen, his brother Fong Shun, and some forty employees. To fool his Caucasian customers, many of whom belonged to the union-labor class, Pete gave his shoes the brand name of F. C. Peters & Company. San Franciscans who were in on the joke—F. (Fong) C. (Ching) Peters—named him Little Pete because of the Occidental pseudonym he had chosen. He built up a big wholesale business and hired a white bookkeeper and white salesmen to sell his shoes from Puget Sound to San Diego. He paid his help the highest salaries in the business. Within a very short time he was independently wealthy. But he was not content; he began to conduct several lucrative gambling dens on the side. He married Chun Li and took very good care of her and the three children she bore. Although still only a youth, Little Pete came to be looked to for legal counsel and general advice by the whole Chinese community. This was a rare honor in a society in which, traditionally, young people—even bright young people—must defer to their elders for wisdom and advice.

  According to Police Captain Thomas S. Duke, Little Pete was the founder of the new fighting tong, the Gee Sin Seer, before he was even of age. There is confusion here, too, for Pete admitted tong membership in court but stated he was a member of the rival Bo Sin Seer. In either case, the men he recruited were young toughs of the criminal class who were a world apart from their cultivated leader, with his native intelligence and dignity, but they were dedicated and dangerous. Pete’s tong machinations were soon so successful that tribute began to pour in. Hatchet men who were jealous of his success formed rival secret societies and bided their time to topple the new King of Chinatown.

  Enmity festered, particularly between the Gee Sin Seer and Bo Sin Seer tongs. Finally the headmen of the latter society decided that the only way to conquer their bitter rival was to eliminate the gentlemanly and rich leader of it. Word of the plot reached Pete’s ears, for he was close to every shoot and tendril of the Chinatown grapevine. He took immediate action. One of his precautions was to hire Lee Chuck, the deadliest boo how doy in San Francisco, as his bodyguard.

  On July 23, 1886, Detective William Glennon was tipped off that an attempt was about to be made to kill Lee Chuck in order to clear the way to Little Pete. The detective obligingly warned the highbinder to be on his guard. Lee Chuck grunted his thanks for the warning and told Pete. The latter secured an extra heavy coat of mail for them both. These bulletproof vests of steel chains weighed thirty-five pounds each. Hatchet men then stalked hatchet men for the next several months in a cat-and-mouse game. On October 28, Lee Chuck finally ran into his executioner, face to face. It was Yen Yuen of the Bo Sin Seer tong. The two pigtailed highbinders exchanged angry words preliminary to Teaching for their pistols. Little Pete had chosen well. While Yen was still tugging at the weapon in his waistband Lee Chuck was firing five rounds into his body, killing him instantly.

  Officer John B. Martin, who was later to be chief of police, rushed to the scene of the vendetta when he heard the close-spaced fusillade. Lee Chuck was already in flight, but Martin pounded after him in scalding pursuit. Suddenly Lee Chuck stopped, turned, and aimed his pistol at Martin’s chest. The officer saw the muzzle of the gun bearing down on him; he had no time to draw and aim his own weapon as he ran. There was not even time to dodge. But miraculously the gun failed to explode. The sixth cartridge, after five perfect ones, was a dud. Lee Chuck snapped the hammer twice, then Martin collided with him, grappling for his gun arm. He was about to overpower the hatchet man when he saw that with his free hand Lee Chuck had extracted a second revolver and was cocking it to fire into Martin’s side as the two men struggled. As the hatchet man’s finger squeezed the trigger Officer Maurice J. Sullivan ran up and tore the weapon from his grasp. The two policemen snapped the cuffs on Lee Chuck and hustled the armored highbinder down to headquarters.

  At this point Little Pete made the first of only two major mistakes of his career. (The second one would prove fatal.) Shortly after his bodyguard was arrested, Pete—perhaps bereft of his usual common sense and in a fit of panic because he was unprotected—approached Policemen Burr Love and Con O’Sullivan in the back room of a saloon at Clay and Stockton Streets. He offered them $400 each to help Lee Chuck. Next he hunted up Officer Martin himself and offered him $400 to perjure himself at the trial and give testimony favorable to the gunman. Pete wanted Martin to say that several men had attacked Lee Chuck and that the latter had fired in self-defense. To Pete’s surprise and consternation, Martin was indignant. Instead of quietly pocketing the graft, as Pete had been sure he would do, Martin reported the bribe attempt to the Chief. Stewart Menzies, foreman of the Grand Jury, secured a warrant for Pete’s arrest. On August 5, 1886, Little Pete was indicted by the Grand Jury for attempted bribery of officers of the police department.

  Pete quickly rounded up a number of shysters, the best in town, and was not above hiring an honest lawyer or two for prestige and for their skill. One of these was Hall MacAllister whose bronze effigy still stands facing MacAllister Street from a sidewalk pedestal opposite one wing of city hall. MacAllister was astonished at Pete’s plea. The King of Chinatown told his counselors, “Now I will tell you, gentlemen, I’m no lawyer and that’s why I retain you. But I do know that I stand alone against two policemen who will swear I offered them four hundred dollars. Therefore, I will not be believed. Now, I want you to go on the stand and confess that I not only offered them the money but that they took it.” MacAllister and the other lawyers told him such a plan was out of the question. But the clever Chinese insisted. “Gentlemen, you are not as well acquainted with the police department as I am. They have been blackmailing every Chinaman in Chinatown for years, and it is not a question of right or wrong with them, it is ‘how much money do we get?’” Pete managed to convince his attorneys. They did it his way.

  Judge Dennis J. Toohy and the jury heard the polished, slender young Chinese address them in perfect English on January 7, 1887. “Yes, gentlemen, I paid those officers a bribe but it was honestly done, as I asked them to take the money and only testify to the truth. The truth is all that I wanted of them, and I thought four hundred dollars would be enough for them to tell that, but it was not. They came back for more money, and when I refused their demands they not only convicted my friend but arrested me.” Little Pete proved himself to be an astute judge of human nature. The jury disagreed on the 18th and was dismissed, and Little Pete was released on $5,000 bail pending a new trial.

  This second trial was held on May 16. Testimony closed on the 24th and was argued before the jury on the following day. Chief Crowley, Sergeant Thomas W. Bethell, and Detective William Glennon all testified to the bad reputation Pete bore, and Crowley related that Policeman Martin had reported the bribery attempt immediately and in complete detail. Both Martin and Love denied, with some heat, that they had ever accepted any money from Pete or any other Chinese.

  Proof that Little Pete had labored long and hard in preparing for his second trial was soon evident, but it was revealed in an unexpected quarter. A prosecution subpoena brought in a surprise witness. He was Gus Williams and his temporary abode was Point San Quentin where he was resting from the strenuous life of a professional burglar. Little Pete’s emissaries had approached him while he was still “outside” and had offered him money to swear that he saw Martin taking a bribe from the defendant. He was only too willing and dutifully jotted down fictitious memos of dates and places—all furnished by Little Pete—where he had supposedly been a witness to the paying off of Martin. Unfortunately for him and for Pete, his burgling proclivities landed him in the State penitentiar
y. To say that his word was discredited would be understatement. On the other hand, Pete rounded up a number of Chinese who testified to his sterling character.

  Finally Little Pete himself appeared, testifying in his own behalf. He had little to say other than that he was twenty-three years old and had been in San Francisco for thirteen years. He was not as glib as he had been in the earlier trial, and admitted that both he and Lee Chuck were members of the Bo Sin Seer tong. Presumably this was to disavow any hatred for this tong. It was, after all, a Bo Sin Seer—Yen Yuen—who had been shot down by his bodyguard who was also a Bo Sin Seer. It was all in the family. Pete denied all allegations made against him, categorically, and swore that it was the Bo Sin Seer’s rival, the Gee Sin Seer tong, which had desired Lee Chuck’s death. This was a real tangle. Captain Duke insisted that Pete had been the founder of the Gee Sin Seer and that both he and Lee Chuck were members. Pete claimed membership in the rival tong. Thus he and his hatchet man were comrades of the murdered Yen Yuen.

  About four in the afternoon of the 27th, the jury shuffled into court, yawning, unkempt and bleary of eye. The sleepy foreman reported that they were unable to agree after more than twenty-five hours of continuous argument. No verdict was possible, he said. The jury differed on a question of fact. Nonsense, insisted Judge Toohy. He did not think it proper to discharge them yet; he sent them back to consider the case further. They were to render a sealed verdict or to remain locked up for another night. At 5:15 they were back. The foreman again announced that agreement was utterly impossible no matter how long Toohy might choose to keep them out. The judge discharged the panel and set a date for Little Pete’s third trial. He admitted Pete to $5,000 bail again and the weary jury of nine for conviction and three for acquittal trudged out.

  At this time Foreman Stewart Menzies of the Grand Jury heard that incriminating papers belonging to Pete were in the safe of a business house on Montgomery Street. Word of this had leaked out when Pete, in jail, tried to get one of his attorneys to use the documents to lever Boss Buckley into action. Pete wanted Buckley to get him off. He had paid the acknowledged boss of San Francisco $4,500 in advance for just that. Pete had little use for the blind boss, and when it appeared that Buckley might double-cross him, the keen-eyed Chinatown boss was ready and willing to drag him along to prison too. Buckley became frightened and promised to return the money. But Attorney Mowry obtained a search warrant and rounded up two detectives and a locksmith, and the latter drilled the safe open. The men were in the act of extracting the papers when one of Pete’s stable of attorneys, Henry H. Lowenthal, walked in. He demanded to know by what right they had broken into Ung Sing & Company’s safe. Lowenthal scouted out the sheriff and his deputies and got them aligned with him—and Pete—in a civil war of the law-and-order bodies of the city against the police department and the Grand Jury. The legality and propriety of the search and seizure of the documents was hotly argued for days, and accusations, counteraccusations and contempt charges were hurled back and forth in broadsides. As the papers passed through so many hands, filching was carried on and many of the prized documents disappeared forever. The Grand Jury tried to persuade the Sam Yup Company to turn over all of Little Pete’s business papers but the company refused. The officers said that they were afraid that Buckley would buy up the court and send them all to jail.

  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 j
ust 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.