Edward P. Mulrooney, the Cantonese-speaking police commissioner who had cut his teeth at Elizabeth Street and helped broker tong peace in 1930, served the department until 1933. He became the first chairman of New York State’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Board following the repeal of Prohibition. He was subsequently named state commissioner of correction and effected several improvements in New York’s penal system.
Charles S. Whitman, the magistrate who locked Mock Dock up for assault in 1905 and who, as district attorney, came down heavily on the tongs in pursuit of a truce in 1913, was bound for more important endeavors. After earning fame for exposing the corrupt relationship between the New York police and high-profile underworld figures, he went on to become governor of the state in 1915. He served until 1918, when he was defeated by Tammany Hall’s candidate, Al Smith—a friend of Tom Lee’s.
Joab H. Banton, the New York County district attorney who called in the federal government to suppress the tong wars in 1925, served in that role until 1929. In 1927, he prosecuted the actress Mae West for staging an obscene production; she was fined and jailed for ten days. The following year, he headed the prosecution of the accused murderer of the Jewish mobster Arnold “the Brain” Rothstein. Banton returned to private practice in 1929 and helped establish a law firm that bore his name. He died in 1949.
Warry Charles, head of the Boston Hip Sings who was convicted of murder, had been sentenced in 1909 to die in the electric chair. But the attorney Frank Moss interceded with Massachusetts authorities and asked for clemency. Charles was never pardoned, but his sentence was commuted to life in prison, where he died of heart trouble in 1915.
The graves of Bow Kum, Gin Gum, Charlie Boston, Eng Hing, and Lee Dock, all supposedly located at Brooklyn’s Cypress Hills Cemetery, are nowhere to be found today. It is possible that their remains were exhumed and returned to China, but the cemetery has no record of either burial or disinterment for any of them.
Mock Duck died of tuberculosis on July 23, 1941, leaving his second wife, Frances. He was interred in Cypress Hills Cemetery, where a double marker was erected over his grave. But neither Tai Yow, his first wife, nor Frances rests next to him. That honor goes to Pang Ah Woo (1876–1951), a divorced, China-born ship steward who was later an employment agent for a merchant shipping line. Pang’s relationship to Mock Sai Wing—Mock Duck’s formal name—is unclear, but the two men share a headstone and will rest together for eternity.
KEY LOCATIONS
Mott Street
2. Tom Lee’s variety store (1880)
4. Tom Lee’s cigar and tobacco shop (1880)
5. On Leongs trick Hip Sings in basement gambling raid (1904)
7–9. Port Arthur Restaurant (1897); Four Brothers member Chu Moy Yen gunned down (1910)
8. Wo Kee’s store (1883)
11. Annie Gilroy’s brothel (1890); Chu On, a Four Brothers man, killed (1910); Hip Sings fire on On Leong men (1912); On Leong president “Big Lou” nearly blown up (1912); police destroy Charlie Boston’s gambling hall (1913)
14. On Leong Tong headquarters (1897); Mon Far Low Restaurant (1905); Four Brothers laundryman Gun Kee attacks On Leong Gin Gum and is shot by gunman Lee Wah the following week (1909); Charlie Boston arrested for conspiracy to smuggle opium (1911); Hip Sings dynamite building’s Joss Hall (1912)
16. Chinatown City Hall and Joss House (1884)
17. Tuck Hop’s store and gambling hall (1883); Hip Sing Huie Fong gunned down (1905); Bow Kum brutally murdered in an outbuilding in back (1909)
18. Loon Yee Tong headquarters (1881); Ah Chung’s opium joint (1883); Gamblers’ Union (1886); Lee Toy’s gambling hall (1894); Lone Tai gambling hall (1900); Hip Sing gunmen kill Lee Kay (1912)
20. First New York home of Tom Lee and family (1878); Chin Tin’s business establishment (1891)
24. On Leong Ah Fee falls (1900); Gin Gum dies (1915)
28. On Leong fugitive Lee Toy, at large for two months, captured by police (1894)
29. Hip Sing police informer Ing Mow gunned down in full view of an assistant district attorney (1908)
34. Wo Kee’s store and headquarters of the Polong Congsee (1880)
41. On Leong Tong headquarters (1921)
Pell Street
9. Hip Sing laundryman Lung Kin, first casualty of the tong wars, assassinated (1900)
11. Jow Chuck, a Hip Sing cook and former On Leong, shot to death through kitchen window (1912)
12. Wong Get’s gambling hall (1895)
13. Headquarters of the Hip Sing Tong (1912)
16. Suspicious grease fire at Hung Far Low Restaurant kills Sin Cue, principal witness in the Ah Fee murder trial (1901)
18. Mock Duck gunned down (1904); On Leongs mount surprise attack on Huie family (1905)
19. Wo On Chinese Merchandise Shop, site of Ah Fee attack (1900)
21. Tom Wing’s fan tan hall (1905); On Leong gunmen assassinate top Hip Sing Tong officers (1912)
22. Mock Duck attempts to shake down Chu Lock’s policy shop, and a brawl ensues (1897); Four Brothers’ Society headquarters (1909)
23. Mock Duck hits innocent bystanders in attempt to kill Sin Cue (1900); gunfight between Hip Sings and On Leongs (1912)
24. Mon Lay Won (Chinese Delmonico) Restaurant (1894); Yee Toy, Hip Sing gunman, assassinated at behest of On Leongs by Jung Hing of the Kim Lan Association (1912)
30½. Two elderly Four Brothers men assassinated (1909)
32. Hip Sings stage Chinese New Year ambush of On Leongs (1906)
Doyers Street
2. Tuxedo Restaurant (1907).
4. Yoshito Saito, a Japanese man, is shot in a case of mistaken identity (1910).
5–7. Chinese Theatre massacre (1905)
8–10. The Bloody Angle
10. Ha Oi, a half-Caucasian child, seized from Mock Duck’s home (1907)
11. Four Brothers man Chu Hin shot to death in underground arcade connecting to 20 Mott Street (1910)
13. Hip Sing gunman Hun Kem Yun killed (1912)
15–17. Wing Gin, an On Leong carpenter, shot by Lee Bow; last man to die in the tong wars (1933)
The Bowery
10. John Baldwin shot to death (1904)
12. Hip Sing Tong headquarters (1904)
Chatham Square
10. On Leong actor Ah Hoon murdered (1909)
12. Mike Callahan’s saloon (1901).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book was already in production when news came of the untimely death of my dear friend Dr. Raymond D. Lum (1944–2015), late of the Harvard University Library. Ray, whom I met in the course of my research, was a source of both inspiration and practical assistance in the creation not just of this book but of two of my previous works. Nor am I alone in being the fortunate beneficiary of his wisdom, scholarship, talent, and generosity; countless others have Ray to thank in the same way. Ray reviewed the manuscript for this book and offered his usual insights, comments, and criticisms, all of which helped make it a better work. Accordingly, I would like to dedicate it to his memory.
Several others also devoted a great deal of time and effort to reading and commenting on this book at various stages of its development, and I am most grateful to them for valuable criticism and also for encouragement. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Marsha Cohan, Madelyn Ross, Marc Abramson, Ben Bronson, Renqiu Yu, Ling-chi Wang, Charlotte Brooks, and Harvey Solomon. Marsha did double duty: together with Deborah Strauss, she also helped me understand the terminology and procedures in the many legal cases mentioned in the book.
Lester Lau helped me a great deal with the Chinese-language sources, translations, and names; so did Ping Liang, Charles T. Wu, Jane Leung Larson, Zhongping Chen, Nicky Yu, Ema Fu, Bell Yung, Ram Moy, and the late Dora Y. Lee.
I am grateful to Bill Trigg and Victor Chang of the Huie Kin Family Association for providing
a copy of the Reverend Huie’s memoirs; to John Jung, Chuimei Ho, Howard Spendelow, Corky Lee, Ira Belkin, Nicholas Chen, Timothy Liang, Philip Chin, and Henry Tom for helping me with various queries that came up along the way; to William L. Gao for research assistance; and to Peter Bernstein, Amy Bernstein, and Anne Thurston for expert help on the book proposal.
Works such as this generally owe a huge debt to archivists and librarians, who seldom get the recognition they richly deserve. I am especially indebted to Kenneth Cobb, assistant commissioner of the New York City Department of Records and Information Services, who cheerfully fielded my repeated requests for obscure court case files, armed only with approximate dates and the questionable spellings of names of plaintiffs and defendants willed us by long-dead reporters. I would also like to doff my hat to unsung heroes and heroines of the National Archives and Records Administration, including Marian L. Smith in Washington; Angela Tudico, Greg Plunges, and Irina Tsiklik in New York; Zina Rhone in Atlanta; Joseph Sanchez in San Bruno; and Joe Keefe in Boston.
Thanks also to Barbara Natanson, Jeffrey Bridgers, Amber Paranick, and Lara Szypszak of the Library of Congress; Bruce Abrams of the New York County Clerk Record Office; Jessica M. Herrick of the California State Archives; Kathleen Collins and Ellen Belcher of the City University of New York; Marci Reaven of the New-York Historical Society; Jack Cunningham of the Federal Trade Commission; Kate Cordes, Weatherly Stephan, and Tal Nadan of the New York Public Library; Shirlene Newman of the District of Columbia Public Library; and Carolina Padin of Cypress Hills Cemetery.
Last but not least, I want to express my gratitude to the folks at Viking. First, to editor Wendy Wolf, for her confidence in me, her crackerjack editing skills, and her expert counsel on how to make my first draft into a far better book. I’m also appreciative of her assistant Georgia Bodnar’s unflagging efforts to keep the trains running on time, and the beautiful design work of Francesca Belanger. And my thanks also to production editor Bruce Giffords and copy editor Ingrid Sterner for wrestling with my endnotes, smoothing out the rough passages, catching inconsistencies, and even educating this English teacher’s son on a fine grammatical point or two.
CHRONOLOGY
1878 Sent by the Six Companies of San Francisco, Tom Lee arrives in New York.
1880 The Loon Yee Tong is established. Tom Lee is appointed deputy sheriff of New York County.
1882 The Chinese Exclusion Act places a ten-year moratorium on the immigration of Chinese laborers into the United States and prohibits naturalization of Chinese.
1883 Tom Lee and others stealthily acquire Mott Street property, alarming existing tenants. Lee is indicted for extortion and keeping a gambling house.
1886 First mention in the press of the Chinese Gamblers’ Union, which eventually becomes the On Leong Tong.
1892 The Geary Act extends the Chinese Exclusion Act for ten years and requires Chinese to register under penalty of imprisonment and deportation.
The Reverend Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst begins a crusade against Tammany Hall.
1894 The Lexow Committee is established to investigate the New York police. Wong Get testifies about graft between the police and the On Leong Tong.
1895 Theodore Roosevelt is appointed New York City police commissioner and institutes reforms.
Mock Duck appears in New York.
1897 The Hip Sings clash with the Four Brothers’ Society. Mock Duck and others are wounded.
Tom Lee gives a dinner for Tammany Hall operatives in anticipation of their return to power and the consolidation of the governments of the five boroughs.
1900 The Hip Sing laundryman Lung Kin is shot to death, ushering in the First Tong War. The On Leong tailor Ah Fee is killed by Sue Sing in retaliation.
1901 Sue Sing is sentenced to life in prison, but others, including Mock Duck, are also charged with murder. Sin Cue, principal witness in the case, is killed.
1902 Mock Duck’s murder trial ends in a hung jury. A retrial ends the same way.
1904 Goaded into action by the Parkhurst Society, the police stage raids on On Leong gambling halls. Mock Duck is wounded by Lee Sing in a failed assassination attempt. On Leongs stage an attack in front of Hip Sing headquarters on the Bowery.
1905 Hip Sings put prices on the heads of On Leong officers. A Hip Sing informant is brutally murdered, and Tom Lee’s cousin is shot by a Hip Sing. Tom Lee goes into hiding until Mock Duck is taken into custody for assault.
Police stage massive Easter Sunday raid on twelve Chinatown gambling establishments. Tom Lee is arrested and charged with graft; he later engineers a Decoration Day police raid on Hip Sing gambling halls.
Hip Sing gunmen massacre On Leongs at the Chinese Theatre on Doyers Street. Mock Duck and others are arrested and charged with murder.
On Leongs stage the gruesome murder of the laundryman Hop Lee. An attempt is made on Tom Lee’s life. On Leong gunmen attack members of the Huie family.
1906 Two On Leongs are killed by Hip Sings in a Chinese New Year ambush on Pell Street.
Judge Warren W. Foster negotiates a peace treaty. Mock Duck breaks from the Hip Sings and is arrested for bribery.
The New York World launches a campaign to raze Chinatown and replace it with a public park.
1907 Six-year-old half-Caucasian Ha Oi is removed from the home of Mock Duck and his wife and put up for adoption.
Tongs clash in Philadelphia and Boston.
1908 Several attempts are made to burn down Mock Duck’s home, and he leaves town.
Boston Hip Sings are convicted of first-degree murder. Philadelphia On Leong shooters are sentenced to death. A New York Hip Sing informer is killed on Mott Street.
1909 The body of the white missionary Elsie Sigel is discovered in a trunk. A manhunt is launched for her presumed killer, a member of the Four Brothers’ Society. Then the corpse of twenty-one-year-old Bow Kum, strangled and slashed to death, is found in a Mott Street outbuilding. Two Four Brothers men are charged with the murder.
The Four Brothers’ War breaks out with the On Leong Tong. The On Leong actor Ah Hoon is murdered after a Chinese Theatre performance.
1910 Hip Sings ally with the Four Brothers against the On Leong Tong.
Four Brothers defendants are acquitted in the Bow Kum murder trial.
Truce negotiations falter and killing continues, but a peace accord is finally struck, ending the Four Brothers’ War.
1911 Federal agents raid two New York opium joints, and the On Leong kingpin Charlie Boston is arrested. To avoid revealing the network of On Leong government contacts, he pleads guilty and is sentenced to eighteen months in a federal penitentiary.
An uprising in Wuchang heralds the beginning of the end of the Qing dynasty and the establishment of a republic in China.
1912 On Leong gunmen assassinate the president and the vice president of the Hip Sing Tong as the Third Tong War begins. Mock Duck is charged with running a lottery. Hip Sing gunmen kill Tom Lee’s nephew.
Mock Duck is convicted and sentenced to one to two years at Sing Sing. The Kim Lan Association gunman Jung Hing murders “Girl Face” Yee Toy, chief Hip Sing gunman, likely at the behest of the On Leongs.
Hip Sing agents attempt to blow up On Leong headquarters and a senior On Leong functionary. Louie Way, a Hip Sing gunman, is released from prison and causes a gunfight on Pell Street. Jung Hing is sentenced to die in the electric chair for the killing of Yee Toy, though the sentence is later reduced to jail time.
1913 Mock Duck remarries without benefit of divorce. He later begins serving a sentence at Sing Sing.
On Leongs, Hip Sings, and Kim Lans sign a truce. Police launch a series of raids of Chinatown gambling resorts.
1914 Relentless police raids drive many gambling halls and Chinese residents out of Chinatown.
1915 The Hip Sing gunmen Eng Hing and Lee Dock, convicted of murdering Tom Lee’
s nephew, die in the electric chair at Sing Sing prison.
1918 Tom Lee dies and after a huge funeral is buried at Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn.
1922 The Hip Sing national president, Ko Low, is gunned down on Pell Street; On Leongs are exonerated.
1924 Chin Jack Lem and others are ousted from the On Leong Tong and seek membership in the Hip Sings. On Leongs accuse him of extortion. Hip Sings vote to admit him and usher in the Fourth Tong War. A negotiated armistice lasts only a few weeks.
1925 Chin Jack Lem is convicted of extortion and sentenced to prison. A peace agreement is signed and prevails for five months. Then killings occur in Pittsburgh, Chicago, Baltimore, and Minneapolis. Police threaten to arrest tong leaders for conspiracy. A new treaty is signed, but violence continues.
The New York County district attorney issues a “final ultimatum.” Tong chiefs are arrested, but cases are thrown out. The federal government threatens to deport all undocumented Chinese. Roundups and hundreds of arrests begin. Raids, killings, and peace negotiations all continue. Tongs sign “eternal peace pact.”
1927 A new wave of killings occurs in Brooklyn, Newark, Chicago, and elsewhere. The New York district attorney, Joab H. Banton, warns that the federal government will send tong men “back to China by the shipload” if war continues. Tongs declare truce to be still in effect.
1928 Personal feuds result in a string of murders in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, and Washington. Tongs reaffirm peace.
1929 Killings resume in Chicago, Newark, Boston, and New York. To stave off immediate roundups of undocumented Chinese, leaders agree on a truce.
1930 Tongs march peacefully in Chinese New Year parade, but hostilities resume. Hip Sings are gunned down in New York and Newark. The Tung On Society is blamed. Tong leaders disavow violence but appear to be losing control.
Tung Ons, allied with Hip Sings, clash with On Leongs over a drug deal gone bad. The Chinese consulate oversees the signing of a multilateral peace treaty.
1931 Hip Sings and On Leongs hold annual meetings in New York at the same time. Violent confrontation is predicted but fails to materialize.
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