Hatchet Men: The Story of the Tong Wars in San Francisco’s Chinatown (15 page)

“Have they any regard for justice here?”

“No, sir, not a bit.”

“How does their testimony stand in the courts?”

“They think no more of taking an oath than they do of eating rice,” stated the opinionated officer. “They have no regard for oaths at all. Their own oaths they regard as sacred and the only way you can get them to tell the truth is to cut off a rooster’s head and burn Chinese paper.”

Haymond continued the questioning. “Is it not often the case that on a preliminary examination there is testimony enough to convict a man, but when you come to the trial these same witnesses testify exactly the reverse, or else will not testify at all?”

“Yes, sir.”

Senator Pierson interjected a question. “Do you know of the existence of any Chinese opium dens?”

“Yes, sir.” The cocksure officer smiled.

“Every house is one. Ninety-nine Chinese out of one hundred smoke opium.”

“Do you know of any white people being interested in the business of Chinese prostitution—receiving any part of the profits?”

“No, sir,” answered Duffield with a straight face.

Pierson turned the questioning back to the chairman, and Haymond asked, ‘”Why are the gambling houses closed now?”

“Because the police officers made raids on them. This excitement has had a great deal to do with it. How long it will last, I can’t tell.”

“Have you had any instructions from the head of the department as to your duty in closing them up?”

“No, sir.”

“Have you had any instructions in regard to closing up houses of prostitution?”

“Since Mayor Bryant has been in office he has given me instructions. I never received any before.”

Senator Evans had another try at Duffield. “How are you special officers paid?” he asked.

“By the Chinese. We draw nothing from the city treasury. We have no regular salary but we depend on the voluntary contributions from the storekeepers.”

On April 15 another lawman was called, but this time a regular police officer, James R. Rogers. He was asked about Chinatown’s grubby alleys—“To what purpose are the alleys devoted?”

“Partly devoted to prostitution,” responded Rogers, “and there is a part which are [sic] the rendezvous of thieves—Cooper’s Alley, for instance.”

Rogers turned out to be a font of information. He was particularly knowing on gambling: “The number [of gambling dens] has decreased lately. I should judge that before this excitement, there were from one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy-five, and including lottery ticket houses, fully five hundred. They draw the lotteries twice a day—at 4 o’clock in the afternoon and at 11 o’clock at night—and are patronized by many white people. Eight hundred people would be a fair estimate of the number engaged in and about houses of prostitution. There is not a Chinaman but what gambles. I believe there are very few Chinamen but what are thieves. I know some six or eight Chinamen in this town that are reliable but they are, as a nation, thieves... In court we cannot believe their testimony. They will swear to anything. I have had them come to me to ask how many witnesses would be required to convict men. They will produce enough witnesses to either convict or acquit, as the case may be.”

Asked about secret courts in Chinatown, Rogers answered, “I do not know of my own knowledge that such a tribunal exists. I only know that when a Chinaman swears differently from what they want him to, his life is in danger. A Chinaman has just returned here after an absence of three years. A man was killed by accident and he was notified that he must pay twelve hundred dollars. His partner had a knife stuck in his back on Jackson Street, and he was told that he must pay twelve hundred dollars. He asked me what he should do and 1 said not to pay it. He said they would kill him or get Chinamen to swear him into State prison….”

After Rogers defended the Chinatown specials as fine police officers, he was asked by Pierson, “Do you know of the Chinese paying money to persons other than special policemen for the purpose of protecting themselves in their business?”

“I have been told so by Chinamen,” replied Rogers. “Chinese who collected the money told me of its payment. The Chinaman was Ah You, a keeper of a store and gambling house.”

“To whom did he pay the money?”

“Five hundred dollars, one month, to_______ _______. [The name of the party was stricken from the public record by the committee.] He said he paid it from the gambling houses to secure freedom from interruption. He said so much money was paid per month to allow gambling houses to run.”

Asked about another quasi-legal law-and-order agency in Chinatown, the system of Chinese intelligence officers or informers, Rogers said that there were eight or ten. “They are rather independent of the companies. There is one on Bush Street, kept by Sam Kee. He has been letting out a lot of thieves lately but I told him he would have to quit or find the thieves. He did find them. I took steps to have his license revoked and he then found the thieves.”

The clerk of the police department, Alfred Clarke, was heard on the 17th of April, and produced a bill of sale for a Chinese trollop, Ah Ho, and testified about the singsong girls. Clarke was followed by President Leung Cook of the Ning Yeung Company, who testified through interpreter Charles Jamison. He elicited laughter from his audience when he was asked “Do you know that there are Chinese prostitutes in this city?” His answer was, “There are Chinese prostitutes here. How many I don’t know because I am not in that line of business. You can find that out by inquiring of the officers on the beat.”

Clarke, recalled, was asked, “Have you heard of the bribery of officers by the Chinese?”

“I have heard of such things, but investigation always has failed to fasten the crime on anybody. The special-police system has its evils, but it does much good. It would be impossible to keep down crime and secure the partial administration of justice in the Chinese quarter if we had to depend upon our regular force… The specials make a great many arrests, but our best reliance would be on regulars if we could spare them from other parts of the city…” He finished by saying, “The effect of this large criminal population is very injurious to the morals of the community. There is ten percent of the Chinese population that makes up the gamblers, prostitutes and thieves.”

President Lee Ming Hown of the Sam Yup Company was asked by Frank McCoppin, “What does the Sam Yup Company do with one of its members that commits a crime?”

“If they found it out, they would deliver him to the authorities at the city hall. We don’t deliver him up ourselves, but get an officer to take possession of him.”

McCoppin followed up with another question, “If one of that company steals from another, or whips another, don’t they settle it with money—make him pay for the injury?”

“No, sir.”

“Do any gamblers belong to your company?”

“I don’t know. Very likely there may be some.”

“Do you know of Chinamen paying anything to Americans to be allowed to gamble?”

“I don’t know. That kind of gambling business the people don’t dare to let the company know anything about. They belong to the inferior classes and will not let the company know. If they told us, we would advise them to discontinue.”

When Ah You was called, he—like Lee Ming Hown—made use of Jamison’s interpretation. McCoppin quizzed him closely on Rogers’ claim that he made payoffs. “Did you tell Rogers that you paid ______ five hundred dollars a month?” (The name was again deleted.)

“No, sir. I told Mr. Rogers that if I had any trouble I would get Mr_________to attend to it.”

Haymond took over. “What did you expect to have trouble about?”

“Gambling houses.”

“What would the Sam Yup Company do if they found a Sam Yup man conducting gambling?”

“Tell him to quit.”

“Suppose that he wouldn’t quit?”

“The company has no power to stop it. But the company has posted notices on the street, telling gamblers to stop, and it was stopped.”

Creed Haymond returned to the matter of bribes. “Did you ever tell Officer [Thomas] Kennedy that you were paying Officer Duffield money for guarding his house and could not pay him any?”

“No, sir.”

“You never told Officer Rogers that you paid somebody five hundred dollars, or any amount of money, to protect gambling houses?”

“No, sir. Sometimes Mr. Rogers was collecting money for this kind of business, but he was not going to attend to it. Some parties paid him three hundred dollars. Three Chinese persons gave it to him. Two gave it and three were present—Ah Hung, Ah Chune and myself... It was given to him in the rear of Gum Wo’s store. I was not there as owner of gambling houses or whorehouses, but as a witness to see that money paid. Mr. Rogers himself came to me and wanted me to be a witness that the money was paid. He told me to tell the Chinamen to subscribe a few dollars for his benefit and he would stop arresting.”

The committee had inadvertently cracked the shell of Chinatown, in asking the Chinese about the protection racket which the specials as well as the highbinders had organized. The festering rottenness below the surface was beginning to show.

Senator Donovan asked Ah You, “Do you know Mr. ________?”

“Yes, he is my counsel.” “Did you ever give him five hundred dollars?” “Yes, to work up murder cases for the Yu Chuy Lung. They employed him to convict the murderers. Four men are under arrest for murdering one man, and these men are the ones they want convicted. Deceased belonged to the Kwo Yee tong, or shoemakers. Three of the murderers are .bailed out on fifteen thousand dollars, but one is in jail.”

Special Thomas Kennedy was next sworn in. “Do you know the Chinaman who last testified?” he was asked.

“Yes, sir. I always took him to be the boss of a house of prostitution… There was a small house of prostitution started on the north side of the Globe Hotel. I went there to secure my pay and met this man. He told me he paid George Duffield and could not pay me. He claimed to be the proprietor of this house. He was always around there. There were three women in that house.”

Donovan asked, “He claimed he was not running that house; did you hear him? Is that a specimen of Chinese swearing?”

“Yes, sir. When it is to his interest a Chinaman will swear to anything.”

When Rogers was recalled, he testified under oath, “Ah You offered me three hundred dollars as he says, but I refused to accept it. I pronounce his statements an utter falsity.”

David Supple, who had been defending Chinese from hoodlums a few years earlier, proved to be anything but friendly to them on the stand. Asked, “How do the people live?” he replied, “They live in small places, more like hogs than human beings.”

“What proportion of the people belong to the criminal classes—engaged in prostitution, gambling, violating city ordinances and laws relating to health?” (Haymond was casting as big a net as he could.)

“About all of them,” said Supple. “I have never seen a decent, respectable Chinawoman in my life.”

Ex-District Attorney D. J. Murphy testified also on the 18th of April, noting that of 700 cases before the Grand Jury one year, 120 involved Chinese—usually burglaries. ‘They are very adroit thieves,” he said. “In capital cases, particularly, we were met with perjury. I have no doubt but that they act under the direction of superiors and swear as ordered. In many cases witnesses are spirited away or alibis are proven. They can produce so many witnesses as to create a doubt in the minds of jurymen and thus escape justice. In cases where I have four or five witnesses for the prosecution, they will bring in ten or fifteen on the part of the defense. They seem to think that numbers must succeed, and it very frequently so happens. It frequently occurs that before the Grand Jury, or on some preliminary examination, witnesses swear as to convict, but on the trial they turn square around and swear the other way. I have heard it said that they have secret tribunals where they settle all these things but I know nothing of that… I have had to appeal to executive clemency for pardon for Chinamen sent to the State prison by false swearing, under circumstances which led me to believe them to have been the victims of some organization of that kind.”

“Innocent men can be convinced?”

“Yes, and I have no doubt innocent men
are
convicted through the medium of perjury and ‘jobs’ fixed up on them….”

Special Officer Andrew McKenzie was interrogated by Pierson. He was a veteran of 24 years as a peace officer, including 41/2 years as a Chinatown local. “We have never entirely suppressed gambling,” he volunteered, “but generally manage to keep it under some restraint. We have driven it and prostitution to the backstreets and off the street itself.”

McKenzie was not as loud and sure in his criticism of the Chinese as his brother officers. “There is a great deal of dishonesty [among them] but I think there are some honest men. I don’t look upon them as being as honest as white persons. The Chinese look upon us as rascals and we look upon them in the same way.”

“Would you believe them under oath?”

“A great many I would not believe. That is the rule. There are exceptions, of course.”

McKenzie appeared to be a little more honest and straightforward than his mates. Asked, “You are paid by the Chinese, are you not?” he answered in the affirmative and admitted that a large part of his pay came from gamblers and prostitutes.

“Does the closing of these houses affect your salary to any great extent?”

“Yes, sir. We do not make such big collections. There is a dark hour in all kinds of business, and this is our dark hour just now.”

After Judge Davis Louderback of the police court testified to the low degree of veracity of Chinese witnesses in general and to the facility with which some of them used American law to revenge themselves on their enemies by malicious prosecutions, Yung Ty testified. He was president of the 24,000-member Hop Wo Company. He was followed to the stand by Sing How, President of the Kong Chow Company. They said pretty much the same thing through an interpreter. Their companies had neither gambling nor prostitution interests. Si Quon, President of the Yeung Wo Company, said he did not even know any gamblers. Chin Fong Chow, President of the Yan Wo Company, also testified but most of his answers were translated as “I don’t know.”

An interesting Chinese, and a lusty type in general, was called next. Wong Ben, once an interpreter in the police court and county court, opened the eighth day of testimony on April 20. He really woke up the courtroom when he was asked, “Were you a witness in the police court yesterday, where some Chinese prostitutes were tried?”

“Yes,” said Wong Ben. “Last year I had two boys with me, and we tried to break up the gambling houses and houses of prostitution. We tried to have the policemen arrest keepers, but Charley Duffield kicked the boy in the head and told him to go away. He would not let us go into the gambling houses to see who were there so that we could have them arrested.”