Read Online Hatchet Men: The Story of the Tong Wars in San Francisco’s Chinatown by Richard Dillon - Free Book Online
Authors: Richard Dillon
Tags: Chinese Americans, chinatown, California history, Chinese history, San Francisco Chinatown, Tongs, Tong Wars, San Francisco history
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and dispatch. Opium was never a big problem after the 1906 earthquake and fire.
But none of the legislative maneuvers stamped out opium. Prior to 1887, the opium provision of the Burlingame Treaty was not even enforced. An immense quantity of the drug was shipped through the Golden Gate to the wharves of the Embarcadero. In late 1886, agents suddenly swooped down on a $750,000 shipment and seized it. During the following February, Congress passed an act to prohibit the importation of opium by Chinese. Surely this was one of the most healthy of the various acts promulgated to harass the Oriental minority. What this actually meant was that Chinatown’s needs would have to be met in the future by smuggling and by white firms fronting for Chinese customers. These companies placed large orders for the drug, supposedly for medicinal purposes.
The Deputy Collector of Customs estimated that between 1884 and 1892, a total of 477,550 pounds of prepared opium entered San Francisco. Despite the efforts of hard-working Customs men, half of all the opium imported entered the Golden Gate illegally. Factories in Chinatown where the crude opium was refined were raided. Smugglers were apprehended. The Government increased duties from $6 to $10 a pound on the prepared product. The result was failure. From an average of 60,000 pounds per year, the illicit traffic increased to 100,000 pounds a year by 1888. The Government struck at the trade again in 1892 by placing a $12-a-pound duty on the drug to literally price it out of existence except for legitimate medicinal purposes. But the situation showed no signs of improvement. In fact it grew worse.
The Grand Jury horrified the decent population by reporting that “white girls between the ages of thirteen and twenty are enticed into these opium dens, become regular habitués, and finally are subject wholly to the wishes of the Oriental visitors.”
An anonymous police captain confirmed the Grand Jury’s report and said darkly, “It is only we detectives who know the extent to which the opium habit has caught on amongst high-toned women in San Francisco. And the trouble is that the high-spirited and most adventurous women seem to succumb first.”
The attacks on the traffic continued. Late in 1896, a $200,000 shipment arrived on a steamer for H. R. Davidson, an accountant of the Bank of British Columbia. Two new Custom agents, completely unknown to Bay area narcotics smugglers, were sent for. They were Caleb West of Washington and Leslie Cullin of Oregon. The two men discovered not only the supplier, Rosano & Company, but tailed the shipment and found its true destination to be the firm of Kwong Fong Tai. The Collector of the Port, John H. Wise, then stepped in and ordered all opium in port—from $300,000 to $400,000 worth of it—into bonded warehouses. Even with the ubiquitous smugglers working around the clock, the price of the poppy-seed paste doubled in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Call, about this time, estimated the number of opium rooms in the city to be 300. Most were in Chinatown, bearing red signs over their doors reading in Chinese calligraphy PIPES AND LAMPS ALWAYS CONVENIENT, or similar phrases. But some were in other sections of the city. They served some 3,000 hopheads or opium fiends, as the addicts were usually called. The newspaper would have had to be the size of The New York Times just to have listed and described the innumerable holes in the wall, garrets and subterranean huts which were opium dens. The Call contented itself with the more notorious dens, especially those which catered to whites.
Blind Annie’s Cellar was one such den still frequented by Caucasians. It was a noisome sinkhole of depravity between—and below—718 and 720 Jackson Street. Ah King’s place at 730 Jackson Street was probably the most notorious of all those resorted to by white hopheads. Hop Jay’s smoking establishment was on the second floor of a tenement which was so
But none of the legislative maneuvers stamped out opium. Prior to 1887, the opium provision of the Burlingame Treaty was not even enforced. An immense quantity of the drug was shipped through the Golden Gate to the wharves of the Embarcadero. In late 1886, agents suddenly swooped down on a $750,000 shipment and seized it. During the following February, Congress passed an act to prohibit the importation of opium by Chinese. Surely this was one of the most healthy of the various acts promulgated to harass the Oriental minority. What this actually meant was that Chinatown’s needs would have to be met in the future by smuggling and by white firms fronting for Chinese customers. These companies placed large orders for the drug, supposedly for medicinal purposes.
The Deputy Collector of Customs estimated that between 1884 and 1892, a total of 477,550 pounds of prepared opium entered San Francisco. Despite the efforts of hard-working Customs men, half of all the opium imported entered the Golden Gate illegally. Factories in Chinatown where the crude opium was refined were raided. Smugglers were apprehended. The Government increased duties from $6 to $10 a pound on the prepared product. The result was failure. From an average of 60,000 pounds per year, the illicit traffic increased to 100,000 pounds a year by 1888. The Government struck at the trade again in 1892 by placing a $12-a-pound duty on the drug to literally price it out of existence except for legitimate medicinal purposes. But the situation showed no signs of improvement. In fact it grew worse.
The Grand Jury horrified the decent population by reporting that “white girls between the ages of thirteen and twenty are enticed into these opium dens, become regular habitués, and finally are subject wholly to the wishes of the Oriental visitors.”
An anonymous police captain confirmed the Grand Jury’s report and said darkly, “It is only we detectives who know the extent to which the opium habit has caught on amongst high-toned women in San Francisco. And the trouble is that the high-spirited and most adventurous women seem to succumb first.”
The attacks on the traffic continued. Late in 1896, a $200,000 shipment arrived on a steamer for H. R. Davidson, an accountant of the Bank of British Columbia. Two new Custom agents, completely unknown to Bay area narcotics smugglers, were sent for. They were Caleb West of Washington and Leslie Cullin of Oregon. The two men discovered not only the supplier, Rosano & Company, but tailed the shipment and found its true destination to be the firm of Kwong Fong Tai. The Collector of the Port, John H. Wise, then stepped in and ordered all opium in port—from $300,000 to $400,000 worth of it—into bonded warehouses. Even with the ubiquitous smugglers working around the clock, the price of the poppy-seed paste doubled in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Call, about this time, estimated the number of opium rooms in the city to be 300. Most were in Chinatown, bearing red signs over their doors reading in Chinese calligraphy PIPES AND LAMPS ALWAYS CONVENIENT, or similar phrases. But some were in other sections of the city. They served some 3,000 hopheads or opium fiends, as the addicts were usually called. The newspaper would have had to be the size of The New York Times just to have listed and described the innumerable holes in the wall, garrets and subterranean huts which were opium dens. The Call contented itself with the more notorious dens, especially those which catered to whites.
Blind Annie’s Cellar was one such den still frequented by Caucasians. It was a noisome sinkhole of depravity between—and below—718 and 720 Jackson Street. Ah King’s place at 730 Jackson Street was probably the most notorious of all those resorted to by white hopheads. Hop Jay’s smoking establishment was on the second floor of a tenement which was so
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