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

by Dillon, Richard

  “I think not. I think they do that in secret.”

  “Has it been your experience that those secret judgments are carried into execution?”

  “Every time.”

  The committee met in Haymond’s office in Sacramento on its 15th day of hearings. For all its anti-Chinese bias and political angling, the investigation had laid bare the corruption and crime in the Chinese Quarter. Thanks to the information offered by witnesses like Wong Ben and F. L. Gordon the truth was out, and the truth—in the committee’s words—was that “the Pacific Coast has become a Botany Bay to which the criminal classes of China are brought in in large numbers.”

  The State’s investigation of Chinatown affairs was quickly followed by a Federal inquiry. Pacific Coast Congressmen had a Joint Special Committee to Investigate Chinese Immigration appointed. Through illness and withdrawal this sixman group was in a short time practically reduced to a three-man junta composed of Senator Aaron A. Sargent and Representative William A. Piper of California and Senator Henry Cooper of Tennessee. It would soon be enlarged by an ex-officio member and a rabid anti-coolie Californian, Frank M. Pixley.

  The committee heard 129 witnesses in 18 days of hearings in both San Francisco and Sacramento. Some 1,200 printed pages of testimony resulted, representing a formidable reading stint for the members, if nothing else. To” everyone’s surprise, about half of the testimony could be considered friendly to the Chinese. Even more of a shock to Sargent, Piper and Cooper were ailing Chairman Oliver P. Morton’s notes. When published they formed a veritable minority report strongly favorable to the Chinese of California. Morton suggested that the Chinese be allowed to become citizens. He also stated, “Their difference in color, dress, manners and religion have, in my judgment, more to do with this hostility than their alleged vices or any actual injury to the white people of California.”

  Thus the skeleton committee had to lean heavily on the testimony of their cadre of carefully primed witnesses plus a superwitness and aide in vociferous Frank Pixley. A pioneer California counselor and San Francisco city attorney, Pixley later became a journalist and editor of the Argonaut. In 1876, however, he set himself up as the representative of the entire city of San Francisco to the joint committee and acted more like a prosecuting attorney in collusion with a judge—in this case, Senator Sargent.

  One of Pixley’s favorite witnesses was Thomas H. King of San Francisco whom he introduced as a merchant with experience in China. According to Dr. Mary Coolidge this claim was true enough—the experience had consisted of King’s helping Consul Bailey to embezzle immigration funds at Hong Kong. Dr. Coolidge, a close if critical student of the investigation, found King’s testimony particularly fascinating, not only because of the occasional untruths which spiced the transcript, but also because of his language which was illiterate to the point of unintelligibility.

  Star witness No. 2 was Dr. Charles C. O’Donnell who solemnly stated that there were at least 150 Chinese lepers running loose in the streets of San Francisco. Dr. O’Donnell was shortly to achieve much local fame as the first great anti-coolie sand-lot orator. He was, in fact, Dennis Kearney’s mentor. O’Donnell was not new to the limelight; many remembered (and doubted the credibility of his testimony for this reason) that he had been charged with an abortion murder in February, 1871, but discharged on insufficient evidence.

  Representative Piper liked to bully witnesses when he was not contradicting them. But he could not compete with Senator Sargent. The latter had a marvelous facility for expanding what he wanted to hear and compressing (down to nothing) what he did not find to his liking.

  Although this rigged and costly legislative circus did not clear up a single disputable point, like the State investigation it did result in hundreds of pages of testimony including some startling information on Chinatown crime. Much of this was unearthed by Pixley’s determined digging away at witnesses. The document as a whole served to extend bigotry and to haze over the issues. The only real light it cast was on the subject of Chinatown crime and nascent tong troubles. Senator Morton tended to minimize the evils of gambling and opium addiction in Chinatown, and Professor S. E. W. Becker, in publishing a criticism of the committee’s report in The Catholic World, agreed with Morton. But the others involved with the investigation were not of this mind.

  At one point Pixley asked Police Clerk Alfred Clarke for his estimate of the number of Chinese criminals in the city. Clarke, by now an old hand at this sort of work, said, “There is a big number of Chinese prostitutes and gamblers, but it varies a good deal in proportion to the energy of the police in prosecuting them or breaking them up.”

  Pixley asked Chief Ellis to take the stand. Morton put the question to him, “Will you state why these dens of prostitution are not broken up?”

  “We can only break them up according to law. We cannot go into these houses and force these women out of the country, to go somewhere else… We can only abate them by convicting the persons guilty of the offense and putting them in jail. If they pay the fine there is nothing to prevent them from committing the same acts over again, except the fear of the law.”

  In regard to Chinese “bondsmen” seeking to return to the homeland, Thomas H. King had this to say: “When breaking his contract, the companies’ spies hound him to prevent his return to China, by arranging with the steamship company or through Chinese in the steam ship company’s employ to prevent his getting a ticket, and if obtained by others for him, he will be forcibly stopped on the day of sailing by a large force of the Six Companies’ highbinders who can always be seen guarding them.”

  Senator Sargent asked, “What do you mean by ‘highbinders’?”

  “I mean men who are employed by these companies here to hound and spy upon these Chinese and pursue them if they do not comply with their contract as they see fit to judge it.”

  “It’ is a term used to express Chinese persons who act in that capacity?”

  “I have often heard the term applied to designate bad men...”

  Piper tried again. “Are they not men who could be hired to assassinate a man?”

  “I think they are,” said King, “and that they frequently do assassinate about this town. I am told they frequently assassinate Chinese in this town…”

  “You have seen these men?” asked the persistent Piper.

  “Yes, sir. I have.”

  “Is there any distinguishing mark upon them?”

  “No, sir. Only that they are better dressed than coolies and other Chinese found in the state.”

  Alfred Clarke, the clerk of the police department, reported that Chinese had even hired whites to pose as policemen, complete with uniform and badge, and to “raid” houses of prostitution and “arrest” the girls and then carry them off to a rival house.

  The tongs were mentioned for the first time by Clarke. “Mr. Gibson made a complaint at the police office that a certain Chinaman whom he had married to a Chinawoman had been invited to appear before the Hip Yee tong and there to give an account for the purchase money or otherwise conform to the customs of his countrymen. Mr. Gibson thought that an important case, and we took means to try to bring it to light. Officers were sent to make inquiries. They did so, and 1 think watched the place. The result of it, at any rate, was that eight Chinamen were arrested in the rooms where this tribunal held their sessions. They were tried in the police court on a charge, I think, of conspiracy. But the statement which Lup Sam Yung—I think that was his name—gave was to the effect that having married this woman he was called before the Hip Yee tong and told he would have to pay the price for her.

  Sargent asked, “What do you mean by the Hip Yee tong?”

  Clarke explained, “That is the name which this tribunal, I am speaking of, had. This case was tried in the police court. This Chinaman testified that he was threatened before that tribunal and that weapons were
drawn. He was told in substance that if he did not pay for the woman he would be killed… But the result of the trial was that the parties were acquitted or discharged, because the evidence was insufficient to obtain a conviction.”

  Chairman Morton asked, “Where was this tribunal held? Where did it sit?”

  “On Jackson Street, between Dupont and Stockton, if I remember rightly. We brought down the safe, and after some difficulty got the thing open and found some books, and among the books was one which contained a list of women. I think about one hundred and fifty women, and some accounts. I cannot now state from memory, but it was understood at the time that these papers related to the transactions of this society or company called the Hip Yee tong.”

  “Were there any convictions growing out of those prosecutions?”

  “No, sir. On account of insufficient proof.”

  Mayor Bryant then asked, “Does not your knowledge lead you to believe that this organization [the Hip Yee tong] goes outside of prostitution?”

  Clarke, after some rambling—for he was confused over the several tongs and the half-dozen companies—answered, “I think they try to settle other affairs among themselves. But this Hip Yee tong we were speaking of was, I think, limited to affairs connected with prostitution.”

  Bryant persisted, “Do you think there is another tribunal to try cases where Chinamen get into difficulty or have disputes about money matters, such as have existed in this city for the last ten years?”

  “The clearest statement I can make,” began Clarke, “about that is that the police have been occasionally called to suppress riots and disorders which have occurred at assemblies of Chinamen.”

  “Secret assemblies?” asked Pixley.

  “I suppose they were. Of course, we could never find out what it was about. But sometimes there would be half-a-dozen Chinamen badly hurt, and a number would be arrested.”

  When Frederick A. Bee was allowed to testify in defense of the Chinese he was immediately put on the spot by Senator Sargent. “I wish to understand whether any member of the Chinese Six Companies has ever said to you, to your recollection, that there was a tribunal among the Chinese which settled matters, criminal or civil?”

  “No, not in such words as that. But a man would say that the thing had been arranged or settled among themselves—fixed up.”

  “Does that relate to criminal as well as civil matters, in your observation?”

  Bee conceded the point. “Yes, it is my observation that it relates to criminal matters, to some extent—to a considerable extent.”

  Triumphantly, Sargent trumpeted, “Do you know of any benevolent secret society, Masons, Odd Fellows, Sons of Temperance, among white people where they compromise the crimes committed among themselves or assume the jurisdiction of crimes committed by their members?”

  Bee could only answer, “No, I do not.”

  Chief of Police Ellis, when interrogated, revealed that he had personally seen posted assassination notices in Chinatown. Benjamin S. Brooks questioned him to show that the Barbary Coast and Tar Flat were more aggravated police problems than the Oriental Quarter. He pretty effectively destroyed the image of Chinatown as a festering sector of lawlessness.

  Brooks first asked, “How many police officers of the regular police force [150] are detailed to this quarter for these thirty thousand Chinese?”

  “We have seven or eight officers engaged in that locality.” ‘Those have charge of these thirty thousand Chinese?” “We have a lot of special police for the Chinese.” “These are all the regular officers for that people?” asked Brooks, tapping home his point. “Yes, sir.”

  “And sometimes, you say, the number of Chinese rises as high as sixty thousand in the wet season?” “I think so.”

  “Do you increase your number of regular”—again he stressed the departmental force, as opposed to the watchmen specials—”police officers there at that time?” “No, sir.”

  “How many police officers does that give you there on duty at a time?”

  “Five or six regular officers, and there is always a lot of special police.”

  Bee took up where Brooks left off, hounding Chief Ellis toward conceding that the hoodlums of the city were far more of a problem to law enforcement than the Chinese. Then Congressman Meade asked Ellis about the help given the police by Chinese. “You mention having received some assistance in the administration of your office from the Chinese?”

  “From the more respectable members of the Chinese companies, societies, and merchants. We have had their assistance, from time to time, in apprehending criminals and sometimes in giving evidence, and sometimes in the recovery of property. For instance, lately there was a police officer shot in Chinatown. I sent for some of the heads of the Chinese companies. Three or four of them. They came down. I told them they must get the man. They said that they would, and they did. They brought him down and delivered him up. That is the most notable case I recollect of late.”

  Meade inadvertently touched on the casual attitude of the police toward Chinatown troubles when he asked Ellis, “When these difficulties occur in Chinatown, are you in the habit of sending for these men?”

  “It has not been common to do so. In this case we did it, and in cases of importance we do it.”

  “When you call on them, are they reluctant?”

  “No. They always promise fair, and occasionally we succeed. I have not any reason to disbelieve in their good faith.”

  “It is simply a question of their ability to perform?”

  “Yes, sir,” answered the chief.

  But the hearing was placed back on Pixley’s track when Chief Ellis described a Chinese shoemakers’ riot on Dupont Gai in which hatchets and ironbars were used. When Brooks asked him, “They are generally pretty sanguinary in their fights?” he answered, “Yes, sir, they are desperate fighters.”

  Bryant, who thought tribunals no longer existed in Chinatown, at least got into the record the fact that he had been told by Six Companies officials that city hall had long thought it was a good idea for the Chinese to settle their own quarrels.

  Brooks quizzed Police Judge Louderback on crimes not usually committed by Chinese—drugging and robbing, confidence games, rolling drunks, and forgery, although the Orientals had been adept at forgery and con games as early as the ’50s.

  “Yes, sir,” answered Louderback, “but there are some robberies and forgeries and ‘rolling drunks,’ as you call it. I think we have had Chinamen up for that thing… but as a general thing that is done by white men.”

  “Is garroting done by whites?”

  “Garroting is done by whites.”

  When Brooks pointedly asked him if a great number of Chinese arrests were not the result of ordinances aimed especially at them, the judge tried to wriggle out by proclaiming the great importance of the Cubic Air Ordinance “to secure pure air and promote public health.”

  Pixley interrogated Officer Michael Smith on “filthy” Chinatown, the Globe Hotel, gambling, brothels and secret tribunals.

  “There is also a society of men here called highbinders or hatchet men,” volunteered Smith.

  “Explain that more particularly,” suggested Pixley. “That is something the commission has not heard about.”

  “They are a class of men who go around and blackmail both the Chinese merchants and the prostitutes. They go around sometimes and go into a house and demand money. If they do not get it, they will raise a fight.” “Do these highbinders blackmail gamblers too?” “They, I believe, do every kind of idle business. I suppose they are gamblers, blackmailers and thieves of all kinds...”

  “Why are they called hatchet men?”

  Officer Smith explained. “A great many of them carry a hatchet with the handle cut off. It may be about six inches long, with a handle and a hole c
ut in it. They have the handle sawed off a little, leaving just enough to keep a good hold...”

  Pixley asked Smith about police raids on the transient headquarters of the hatchet men.

  Smith described how he operated. “Very often I go up there with two or three officers and get inside of the room and search each Chinaman as he comes in, and sometimes arrest quite a number of these Chinamen for carrying concealed weapons such as hatchets, knives and pistols—”

  Pixley interrupted, “You say these people are the terror of the Chinamen?”

  “Oh yes. Business Chinese come to me very often and tell me where they [the highbinders] are. And sometimes new men get among them and point them out. They are the terror of Chinatown.”

  George Duffield was called and reported his pay came to $25 or $50 a week. He stated that six or seven other specials were on duty in Chinatown besides himself.

  Bee asked him, “If the Chinese did not support them [the special police] voluntarily, would they be there at all?” “No, sir, they would not.”

  Meade then asked him, “You collect what you please?” “Yes, sir,” answered Duffield. Then Sargent had his turn. The Senator asked Duffield, “Have you not received as high as five hundred dollars some months?”

  “No, sir, I think not.”

  At this time Chairman Morton asked, “Would it not be in the power of a [special] policeman to oppress the people? That is, to make exactions upon them by threats, and otherwise make large contributions?”

  “No, sir. I do not think it would.”

  “Is it not a position capable of being greatly abused?”

  “It might be,” Duffield finally admitted, “if the party saw fit to do it.”

  Later James R. Rogers, a regular officer, began his statement. “Some two or three years ago, we had an institution—whether it exists today, or not, I do not know—called the Hip Yee tong. We used every means and exertion to break it and tried to find out the bottom of it, but we failed... I think the same institution exists today but under another name.”