Read Online Hatchet Men: The Story of the Tong Wars in San Francisco’s Chinatown by Richard Dillon - Free Book Online 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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outstandingly filthy that waggish reporters dubbed it the Palace Hotel.
Other dens clustered on Waverly Place, Church Alley, Washington Alley or Fish Alley, and on Duncombe Alley. This last was a narrow cavern from Jackson Street to Pacific Street and the Barbary Coast. Its doors bore no numbers, nor were any habitations listed there, but midway along the dank and slimy passage was a hidden opium hang-out.
One of San Francisco’s great journalistic scoops was the expedition of Frank Davey, the crack photographer of the California Illustrated Magazine. He invaded the filthy dens under the guard of Officer Chris Cox and took the first flash photographs of them. His was one of the first photo-stories to appear in the San Francisco press. His pictures and those of the Department of Public Health document the degradation of the opium dens, all of which were wiped out by the quake and fire of 1906. They never made a comeback, and opium ceased to be a major problem. But it was the change in mores of the Americanizing Chinese rather than the crackdown by officials—or even the physical destruction of the dens by the holocaust—which brought an end to the opium evil. The American-Chinese abandoned opium before they jettisoned their pajama-like costume, their queues or even their concubines.
While opium was growing into a major problem for Federal agents and police the latter found their hands increasingly full with anti-Chinese hoodlumism. Trouble broke out on this new front in 1865 with the first serious anti-coolie riot. A mob of laborers drove off a party of Chinese who were at work excavating a lot south of Market Street. The crowd swelled to some three or four hundred men, marched on Tubbs & Company’s ropewalk, and drove the firm’s Chinese workers away. Only two Chinese were hospitalized, luckily, after the mob stoned the workers. The most seriously injured person was the ropewalk’s foreman who had tried to protect his Chinese workers. He was knocked down, his lip and eye cut and his chest badly bruised. Chief Patrick Crowley led his men to the scene of the riot and personally dispersed the toughs. He arrested the mob’s leaders on charges of riot.
There was nothing funny about the riot to those law-abiding Chinese concerned, but one defendant brought a bit of humor to an otherwise grim courtroom when he hired J. P. Dameron as his attorney. The latter employed all the tear-jerking tricks of the shyster in his pleading. At one point he cried out oratorically, “Did not our forefathers destroy Chinese tea in Boston Harbor? Why, Sir-r-r, these Chinamen live on rice, and, Sir-r-r-, they eat it with sticks!” This was too much even for the culprit Burke. He forfeited his $50 bail and took off.
Judge Alfred Rix handed the ringleaders stiff fines of $500 and sentences of from 90 days to 11 months in jail. This swift punishment only served to spawn another anti-coolie meeting at the American Theatre and the formation of anti-coolie clubs in each of the city’s twelve wards. Worse, after the brave show of justice presided over by Judge Rix, the rioters were liberated by a decision of California Chief Justice John Currey on writs of habeas corpus based on legal defects in the commitment judgments. Most of the press stood by the Chinese, calling the Potrero district riot “a murderous and disgraceful onslaught.” Reporters pointed out that one of the laborers, supposedly driven to riot by starvation, had no trouble digging into his levi’s and coming up with $500 when his fine was pronounced. The Alta California blamed the miscarriage of justice on the inadmissibility of Chinese testimony in court—“the laws of California are such that the most intelligent Chinamen in the community could not testify against a white assailant, even if he were the vilest cutthroat who ever disgraced San Quentin with his presence.” Ironically, shortly after the Potrero riot, Chinese testimony was finally admitted, but only in the
Other dens clustered on Waverly Place, Church Alley, Washington Alley or Fish Alley, and on Duncombe Alley. This last was a narrow cavern from Jackson Street to Pacific Street and the Barbary Coast. Its doors bore no numbers, nor were any habitations listed there, but midway along the dank and slimy passage was a hidden opium hang-out.
One of San Francisco’s great journalistic scoops was the expedition of Frank Davey, the crack photographer of the California Illustrated Magazine. He invaded the filthy dens under the guard of Officer Chris Cox and took the first flash photographs of them. His was one of the first photo-stories to appear in the San Francisco press. His pictures and those of the Department of Public Health document the degradation of the opium dens, all of which were wiped out by the quake and fire of 1906. They never made a comeback, and opium ceased to be a major problem. But it was the change in mores of the Americanizing Chinese rather than the crackdown by officials—or even the physical destruction of the dens by the holocaust—which brought an end to the opium evil. The American-Chinese abandoned opium before they jettisoned their pajama-like costume, their queues or even their concubines.
While opium was growing into a major problem for Federal agents and police the latter found their hands increasingly full with anti-Chinese hoodlumism. Trouble broke out on this new front in 1865 with the first serious anti-coolie riot. A mob of laborers drove off a party of Chinese who were at work excavating a lot south of Market Street. The crowd swelled to some three or four hundred men, marched on Tubbs & Company’s ropewalk, and drove the firm’s Chinese workers away. Only two Chinese were hospitalized, luckily, after the mob stoned the workers. The most seriously injured person was the ropewalk’s foreman who had tried to protect his Chinese workers. He was knocked down, his lip and eye cut and his chest badly bruised. Chief Patrick Crowley led his men to the scene of the riot and personally dispersed the toughs. He arrested the mob’s leaders on charges of riot.
There was nothing funny about the riot to those law-abiding Chinese concerned, but one defendant brought a bit of humor to an otherwise grim courtroom when he hired J. P. Dameron as his attorney. The latter employed all the tear-jerking tricks of the shyster in his pleading. At one point he cried out oratorically, “Did not our forefathers destroy Chinese tea in Boston Harbor? Why, Sir-r-r, these Chinamen live on rice, and, Sir-r-r-, they eat it with sticks!” This was too much even for the culprit Burke. He forfeited his $50 bail and took off.
Judge Alfred Rix handed the ringleaders stiff fines of $500 and sentences of from 90 days to 11 months in jail. This swift punishment only served to spawn another anti-coolie meeting at the American Theatre and the formation of anti-coolie clubs in each of the city’s twelve wards. Worse, after the brave show of justice presided over by Judge Rix, the rioters were liberated by a decision of California Chief Justice John Currey on writs of habeas corpus based on legal defects in the commitment judgments. Most of the press stood by the Chinese, calling the Potrero district riot “a murderous and disgraceful onslaught.” Reporters pointed out that one of the laborers, supposedly driven to riot by starvation, had no trouble digging into his levi’s and coming up with $500 when his fine was pronounced. The Alta California blamed the miscarriage of justice on the inadmissibility of Chinese testimony in court—“the laws of California are such that the most intelligent Chinamen in the community could not testify against a white assailant, even if he were the vilest cutthroat who ever disgraced San Quentin with his presence.” Ironically, shortly after the Potrero riot, Chinese testimony was finally admitted, but only in the
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