Hatchet Men: The Story of the Tong Wars in San Francisco’s Chinatown (13 page)

Gotham was viewing the San Francisco crisis with rapt attention. The New York
World
deplored the deterioration of the social climate in San Francisco, and in its editorial columns observed that the holy crusade against coolies was being run by brawlers, hoodlums, small politicians eager to curry favor with labor during a depression, and by newspaper sensation mongers. The
World
was sure that the overwhelming majority of Californians were against the nonsensical crusade. Perhaps the
World
was right. But it was also right when it observed that the voice of common sense could not be heard in the midst of the turmoil raised by the agitators.

If 1876 was a bad year, 1877 was even worse. Ill feeling mounted among the sand-lot crusaders as news of strikes in the East reached them. On July 23, 1877—to be known in police annals as Riot Night—a three-day reign of terror began.

A mass meeting of perhaps 10,000 was held in the sand lots fronting the city hall that night. The most rabid anti-coolie men seized control of the meeting and the mob began to march on Chinatown. Suddenly shots were fired into the crowd from nearby buildings and two men fell wounded. This attack angered the hoodlums all the more. As the first windows of Chinese establishments—outside of Chinatown—were smashed by young hoodlums 1,500 soldiers of the National Guard were put on an alert in the city’s armories. But the enormous crowd broke up and only a splinter group plunged on toward the Quarter. They were turned away from a Chinese washhouse just off Leavenworth by a courageous and defiant policeman, Officer Charles A. Blakslee, who stationed himself with drawn pistol in front of the building. Officer John Sneider, on horseback, drove them away from another washhouse at Pacific and Taylor Street, but they wrecked a Chinese laundry at Leavenworth and Turk Streets, still far from Chinatown, and then set it afire. When firemen tried to put out the blaze the young ruffians impeded them and cut their hose. A white woman upstairs in the building was almost killed by the flames.

The mob of from 500 to 600 men surged down Geary Street to Dupont. There they started up the hill to Chinatown, but at Pine Street they found their way barred by Captain William Y. Douglass and a solid line of police stretching from one side of Dupont Street to the other. The ranting rioters charged the police in an attempt to break through by swamping them with sheer force of numbers. Officer James Pugh, in arresting a hoodlum who had assaulted a Chinese, was roughly handled by the mob and had his revolver taken away from him. But the police swung and chopped with their batons, sending clubbed and bleeding ruffians staggering to the pavement. Timely police reinforcements arrived from city hall and the line held firm. Sergeant John W. Shields and Sergeant Abraham Sharp led charges which forced the rioters back. But the maddened crowd pressed its siege, shouting a monotonous but ominous “To Chinatown! To Chinatown!” An overexcited special reporter for the Sacramento
Record-Union,
flashed the word to the State Capital.

“The police hold Dupont Street at the corner of Pine,” he began, “against the main body of the mob while strong squads are posted at the intersections of cross streets west of Dupont, the main object being to keep the mob from Chinatown.” By the time the reporter had filed his third dispatch to the capital at 12:50 A.M. the police were in complete control and had even arrested the man who had fired into the crowd out of wanton mischief. No other shots were fired. The militia was not called out. It was a proud moment for the tired but only slightly battered cordon of police.

A second mob of from 500 to 600 tried to outflank the picket line of policemen and to overrun the upper end of Dupont Gai by approaching from the Broadway, or North Beach, side. But here, too, a police line held fast. The Chinese stayed off the streets and locked themselves in their homes, shuttering their windows tightly. Only one small party of attackers broke through the police lines. This handful penetrated to Washington Street, above Stockton, where they stoned the windows of the Chinese Mission before they were arrested.

The correspondent of the
Record-Union
paid the police a well-earned compliment as the mob began to melt away: “The prompt and courageous action of the police barely prevented a bloody riot, for had the mob gained the heart of the Chinese quarter, it would have been impossible to foretell the result.”

Another anti-Chinese meeting on the 24th kept the crowd’s momentum up. Again the hordes gathered in front of the city hall, as if to defy the municipal government itself. Handbills had mysteriously appeared during the day to announce a great rally. Notices had been left at newspaper offices by anonymous callers who bought space, paid in cash, and hurried out.

The prescient but anonymous Sacramento reporter predicted: “It is quite probable that in view of the present and possible future disturbances, efforts will be made to effect some organization among the better class of citizens looking to the maintenance of law and order.” He was right. Chief of Police Ellis, fearing that a mob might wield itself together in such numbers as to overwhelm his police force, welcomed the formation of what amounted to a third vigilance committee, although it was not so designated. William T. Coleman, the old “Lion of the Vigilantes,” came out of retirement to head up an executive committee and an informal army which grew within a day or so from 150 to 5,000 citizens. The formation was called the Committee of Public Safety, rather than a committee of vigilance, but it was soon dubbed “the Pick Handle Brigade”—for the armament it relied upon most. The committee issued a stern statement to the public, stating that it recognized there was a Chinese problem, but that “the public peace and security to life and property in this city shall be maintained and protected at all hazards.” This was followed at noon on the 29th by Mayor Bryant’s proclamation summoning
all
law-abiding people in San Francisco to assist in the preserving of peace from “a large class of desperate men and women.” All he asked them to do, however, was to remain quietly at home and not to form crowds in the streets. General H. A. Cobb suggested that military help be summoned, but Chief Ellis declined to call in the militia except as a last resort. Nevertheless, Governor Irwin asked the Secretary of the Navy for United States naval vessels from Mare Island. Wide-eyed children and adults alike saw the U.S.S.
Pensacola, Lackawanna
and
Monterey,
with a force of marines aboard, steam up to the Embarcadero in battle array. The
Pensacola
anchored within cannon range of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company docks—a prime target of the rioters because of the company’s policy of hiring Chinese to man its ships. The
Lackawanna’s
guns covered the Ferry Building. On Alcatraz two companies of troops were readied for action. Admiral Murray was prepared to land marines and blue jackets—armed with rifles and Gatling guns—from his small flotilla at a moment’s notice.

Mayor Bryant did his best to quiet a nervous city. He stated, “There is no cause for individual excitement. The city has a force of ten thousand men ready for an emergency… Any attempt to excite a riot will be crushed at the commencement… The law is supreme and shall be maintained at all hazards.”

The ranks of the Pick Handle Brigade were swollen by more and more volunteers. Whole posses of special police were sworn in. Even the grand Army of the Republic mustered for action. These veterans were still young men in 1877 and were sworn in as law officers to help sustain the peace. Four rifle companies of thirty of them—and some Confederate veterans as well—were formed np and headquartered at Dashaway Hall under Colonel James H. Withington. All gun stores in the city and all fire alarms were placed under guard. The better-class citizens—even those not accepted for active duty—laid up stores of arms and ammunition.

The mob quickly began to realize the magnitude of its plans. The Peoples’ Reform party and the Anti-Chinese party suddenly repudiated any connection with the rioters. P. J. Healy of the Workingmen’s party took exception to the speeches of the rabble rousers, and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers stated publicly that it had no sympathy with the hoodlum demonstrators. Archbishop Joseph Sadoc Alemany asked all Catholics to enforce law and order. (Firebrand Dennis Kearney, a member of the Pick Handle Brigade who later became the greatest coolie hater of them all, eventually accused His Grace of becoming a tool of the “coolie protectors.”)

“Fire! Fire on the Pacific Mail docks!” The cry swept through the crowded streets and the mob stampeded toward the Embarcadero. The word also reached the citizens’ committee, 3,000 strong, in Horticultural Hall at Stockton and Post, at 7 P.M. One hundred men, armed with the ubiquitous pick handles, were sent to the scene as an advance guard. Then another 100 marched to the waterfront. The remainder formed up into companies by city wards and tramped to city hall to await the orders of the chief of police. The chief sent 60 men to Sixth and Howard Streets to dislodge and disperse a mob there. Muskets were readied but the skirmishers moved out with only pick handles and pocket firearms. They found that the mob had stoned houses South of the Slot and had fired four lumberyards. Ships at the Pacific Mail docks were towed to safety, but the mob—awed by the cannon guarding the Embarcadero’s wharves from the bellicose ships offshore—vented its anger on the innocent lumberyard owners of the area of First and Brannan Streets. More than one hundred shots were fired either into the mob or over the rioters’ heads. Several were killed and a number wounded. The mob loosened showers of stones at the police and Coleman’s neo-Vigilantes, but many were arrested and quickly manacled to the long chain stretched in front of the Pacific Mail property. The Pick Handle Brigade closed off all streets leading to the lumberyards but a mobster sneaked through the lines and cut a fire hose at one burning yard. He was shot down in his tracks.

The anti-coolie meeting of the 25th, in keeping with the blazing piles of lumber, featured incendiary speeches, but the mob which gathered was a dwindling one. No more than 800 men congregated that day. But the tension did not let up. Threatening letters were received by prominent members of the Committee of Public Safety. William T. Coleman himself received word that both his San Francisco and San Rafael homes would be burned to the ground. As late as August 5, an arson attempt (the second) was made on his Washington and Taylor Streets home. An incendiary got inside the house and set it afire with boxes of tar but the servants put out the blaze. When the attempt was made to ring in an alarm from the nearby fire-alarm box they found that the arsonist had put it out of order. However, Coleman’s house was connected with the American district telegraph and the police were summoned by wire.

The prompt action of the police and the Pick Handle Brigade crushed the riot by the third day. On the 27th James Smith was arrested for starting the lumberyard blazes. On the 30th the Committee of Public Safety disbanded. When the crisis was over, Patrick Crowley, who would earn the title of Riot Chief for his participation in this affair as well as the Potrero riots and other mob actions, fainted. The strain and fatigue of the long days of vigilance had proved too much for even his tough system.

By August 1, 1877, the worst was over. American-Chinese relations in San Francisco would never again sink so low, even in the depths of the tong wars. Of course the mob was not through yet. The turncoat Pick Handler, Dennis Kearney, would soon be the darling of the sand lotters.

Kearneyism eventually grew so strong that politicians began to court Kearney. On August 22, 1877, the Workingmen’s Trade and Labor Union was formed with Kearney as secretary. His power and influence grew until Kearneyism elected a mayor of San Francisco, and framed a California State Constitution in 1879. Crowley arrested Kearney for inciting a riot and was on the verge of arresting Mayor Isaac Kalloch himself when Chief Ellis dissuaded him. Kalloch was another philosophical turncoat like Kearney. He had led the largest Chinese Sunday school in the city, then turned on the Chinese as a violently anti-coolie politician. Earlier, when the
Chronicle
attacked him in print, he made scurrilous remarks about the mother of the De Young brothers, publishers of the
Chronicle
. Thereupon, Charles De Young shot Kalloch and wounded him badly. (Many feel it was this qualified martyrdom which won him the election.) In April 1880, Kalloch’s son shot De Young in his office, and was acquitted. Far reaching indeed were the effects of Chinatown’s troubles.

Sand-lotism hit its peak quickly, and then crumbled away as a political force. The one good result of the anti-Chinese riots was that they caused the city to increase the police force to a total of 400 men. For crime in Chinatown-- no more than in the rest of the city—had not disappeared with the emergence of Kearneyism. On the contrary the police had to look in both directions at once.

A particularly shocking incident took place on June 12, 1878. Substitute Officer John Coots was patrolling Pike Street, the narrow thoroughfare lined with houses of ill repute. He spotted two hoodlums, John Runk and Charles Wilson, the latter a jailbird, coming into the street at about 1:30 A.M. They began to abuse the inmates of the cribs by shouting obscenities and threats through the grilled windows of the girls’ quarters. Coots warned them to stop, but they laughed at him and began to abuse him too. They defied him to arrest them. This was too much as far as Coots was concerned. He placed Wilson under arrest, and as Runk followed them by a few feet marched him toward the police station in the old city hall at Merchant and Kearney streets. They reached Clay and Dupont, in the very heart of Chinatown, where Joe Kelly was stationed. “Need any help?” he asked Coots. “No,” the other patrolman answered. “This fellow thought I couldn’t take him down.”

Kelly watched Coots and his prisoner go on. He saw them reach Clay and Brenham, then heard a shot, and saw his brother officer fall. The two ruffians ran through Brenham Place, through Washington Alley and Bartlett Alley, and into the arms of Officers Tom Price and Edward R. Eaton. These two policemen had been summoned from their Barbary Coast beat on Pacific Street by Kelly’s frantic whistling. Runk still held the pistol with which he had killed Coots. He had shot the unsuspecting officer in the back of the head. There was no proof that Wilson had helped him in the murder, so he was released. Runk was tried, convicted, and hanged on November 12, 1879.

Ironically, although criminals of both races now prowled Chinatown fattening on blackmail, prostitution, murder and gambling (on July 7 one Chinese stabbed another to death in Stout’s Alley), and anti-coolie agitators circled the Quarter like cowardly coyotes, the tide slowly began to turn in favor of the Chinese.

Symptomatic of the easing off of tension was the return of a sense of humor to San Francisco. Lecturer George Francis Train, for example, found himself defending the Chinese to an audience loaded with Fenians. He harangued them with: “Twelve hundred Chinamen arrived this afternoon upon a single ship. You cannot send them back. Will you shoot them? What will you do with them?” A wag in the gallery shouted back, “Vaccinate them!”

One of the men who helped turned the civil-rights tide was Judge Stephen Field. Though not widely remembered today, he is recalled by many for his role in the shooting at Lathrop. His bodyguard killed the fiery ex-judge, Davis S. Terry, at this town in the culmination of one of San Francisco’s many feuds. It was Field who found that Ho Ah Kow had been disgraced by having his head shaved under the Queue Ordinance. His action ended the Bobtail Order for all time.

Judge Field’s opinion included some language and some thinking which were ahead of his era, but which began to clear the air in San Francisco. It would take a long time for complete civil rights to come to the American-Chinese, but Field’s decision was a milepost along the way. The judge stated: “When we take our seats on the bench we are not struck with blindness and forbidden to know as judges what we see as men. When an ordinance though general in its terms only operates upon a special race, sect or class, it being universally understood that it is to be enforced only against that sect, race or class, we must justly conclude that it was the intention of the body adopting it that it should only have such operation, and treat it accordingly… Nothing can be accomplished by hostile and spiteful legislation on the part of municipal bodies, like the ordinance in question—legislation which is unworthy of a brave and manly people.”