Hatchet Men: The Story of the Tong Wars in San Francisco’s Chinatown by Richard Dillon Page A
Authors: Richard Dillon
Tags: Chinese Americans, chinatown, California history, Chinese history, San Francisco Chinatown, Tongs, Tong Wars, San Francisco history
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voice and leader of Chinatown it had to fight for its very life and for the populace whose de facto government it was. And it had to fight on two fronts. The tide of bigotry, “sand-lotism,” rolled in on Chinatown first in the ’70s. But shortly, within the Quarter itself, the Six Companies found a fifth column arising in the form of the lawless tongs. These were soon at the throat of the Six Companies as it tried to fend off Dennis Kearney and his sand-lot crusaders who were perennially marching—or threatening to march—on Chinatown with the avowed intention of burning it to the ground and driving the -Chinese into the sea.
The fighting tongs were able to grow rapidly while the Six Companies was distracted by the onslaughts of the sand lotters. The latter accidentally played a major role in the rise of the criminal element to power within Chinatown, and thus helped bring about the tong wars themselves.
CHAPTER FIVE Sand Lots And Pick Handles
“So long as the Chinese are here, I shall give them the most complete protection which my official authority can control or create. The humblest individual who treads our soil, of whatever race descended and irrespective of the country of his birth or the language which he speaks, shall not appeal in vain for the protection of the law, which is no respecter of persons.”
—Chief of Police Theodore G. Cockrill, 1874
ONE OF the early attempts of California boosters to seduce travelers into a visit to San Francisco was a book called The Pacific Tourist . It described the people of Chinatown aptly and accurately for such an ephemeral publication. It called them “the hated of Paddy, the target of hoodlums, the field of the missionary, the bomb for the politician to explode, and the sinew for capital.” Equally observant and accurate was San Francisco old-timer John H. Swift when he said ironically in 1876 that, “In 1852 the Chinamen were allowed to turn out and celebrate the Fourth of July and it was considered a happy time. In 1862 they would have been mobbed. In 1872 they would have been burned at the stake.”
It was during the ’70s that the Knights of Labor did their best to ignite the bomb mentioned by The Pacific Tourist. They marched about with banners which read THE CHINESE MUST GO! The demagoguery were quick to pick up this battle cry as a safe political crusade theme. After all, the target people were voteless. But not everyone was ready to join the hysterical crusade as yet. When the shoemakers of the city went militant, parading at anti-coolie rallies in uniform as the St. Crispin’s Guards, the Sacramento Union called them “shallow blatherskites” and “a convention of fools.”
But bigotry in the ’70s was speedily transformed into violence and brutality. Chinese were vilified, run out of towns in the interior, and occasionally beaten. One so-called coolie died from the effects of a stoning in San Francisco itself in May, 1871. The Chinese in California found themselves occupying the traditional position of the Jews—the scapegoats of society. This was particularly true during times of economic stress, recession, depression or whatever westerners chose to call such hard times as those of 1873. The contributions of the Chinese in building the West as the “sinews of capital” in the mines, in the fields and on the railroads were quite forgotten. Nor were there distinctions drawn between good and bad Chinese. The law-abiding Chinese were ground between the hoodlums and bigots on one side and their own criminals and tong bullies on the other.
Violence did not wait for the depression of 1873. During February of 1870, a gang of boys attacked a Chinese washhouse on Mission Street. They broke all the building’s windows and beat the workmen as they fled. Police Officer David Supple attempted to arrest the ringleader. They all turned on him, knocked him down, and kicked and beat him severely while a crowd of men stood around him, watching but not
The fighting tongs were able to grow rapidly while the Six Companies was distracted by the onslaughts of the sand lotters. The latter accidentally played a major role in the rise of the criminal element to power within Chinatown, and thus helped bring about the tong wars themselves.
CHAPTER FIVE Sand Lots And Pick Handles
“So long as the Chinese are here, I shall give them the most complete protection which my official authority can control or create. The humblest individual who treads our soil, of whatever race descended and irrespective of the country of his birth or the language which he speaks, shall not appeal in vain for the protection of the law, which is no respecter of persons.”
—Chief of Police Theodore G. Cockrill, 1874
ONE OF the early attempts of California boosters to seduce travelers into a visit to San Francisco was a book called The Pacific Tourist . It described the people of Chinatown aptly and accurately for such an ephemeral publication. It called them “the hated of Paddy, the target of hoodlums, the field of the missionary, the bomb for the politician to explode, and the sinew for capital.” Equally observant and accurate was San Francisco old-timer John H. Swift when he said ironically in 1876 that, “In 1852 the Chinamen were allowed to turn out and celebrate the Fourth of July and it was considered a happy time. In 1862 they would have been mobbed. In 1872 they would have been burned at the stake.”
It was during the ’70s that the Knights of Labor did their best to ignite the bomb mentioned by The Pacific Tourist. They marched about with banners which read THE CHINESE MUST GO! The demagoguery were quick to pick up this battle cry as a safe political crusade theme. After all, the target people were voteless. But not everyone was ready to join the hysterical crusade as yet. When the shoemakers of the city went militant, parading at anti-coolie rallies in uniform as the St. Crispin’s Guards, the Sacramento Union called them “shallow blatherskites” and “a convention of fools.”
But bigotry in the ’70s was speedily transformed into violence and brutality. Chinese were vilified, run out of towns in the interior, and occasionally beaten. One so-called coolie died from the effects of a stoning in San Francisco itself in May, 1871. The Chinese in California found themselves occupying the traditional position of the Jews—the scapegoats of society. This was particularly true during times of economic stress, recession, depression or whatever westerners chose to call such hard times as those of 1873. The contributions of the Chinese in building the West as the “sinews of capital” in the mines, in the fields and on the railroads were quite forgotten. Nor were there distinctions drawn between good and bad Chinese. The law-abiding Chinese were ground between the hoodlums and bigots on one side and their own criminals and tong bullies on the other.
Violence did not wait for the depression of 1873. During February of 1870, a gang of boys attacked a Chinese washhouse on Mission Street. They broke all the building’s windows and beat the workmen as they fled. Police Officer David Supple attempted to arrest the ringleader. They all turned on him, knocked him down, and kicked and beat him severely while a crowd of men stood around him, watching but not
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