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Yeah. Who was this man? How was it that he multiplied 300 fold? Came to rule the heart of a great city? Thistles. The boo! How doy. A hatchet man, hated and feared by Chinese and Caucasian alike. A man whose merciless crimes, when unchecked for nearly

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four decades, Yeah, mhm, Mhm. Uh huh. Among the thousands who flocked to San Francisco and finance a days, the Chinese have made some of the most lasting cultural contributions to their adopted city. San Francisco, Without its Chinese citizens, without the touch of

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Chinese art, architecture and music is unthinkable. Yet they did not plan to stay. Originally, they came to make their fortunes working in the minds on the railroads or in the vineyards, and to return to China to dyas rich men. The Chinese settled on DuPont Guy, as

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Grant Avenue was then called DuPont became the main stem of a far flung outpost of Canton in America. Gum shandy, Foul or big city of the Golden Mountains, this colorful foreign city set down smack in the center of San Francisco became a magnet for Chinese in

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America. They flocked with restaurants, it's theaters, and it's gambling dens to the unromantic Chinatown was better slum. It differed from other San Francisco slums only in that it was inhabited by Chinese. Exotic or not, it was crowded and squalid. To most reformers, it was a bit

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of iniquity. And vice. Yeah, But for all the plaints of those who wanted to improve Chinatown out of existence, the quarter never became a ghetto. At least not in the classic sense of grinding poverty, brutalization and persecution. It was never across the tracks. San Franciscans of

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every race and creed felt free to come and go, as did its inhabitants, except during the farcical quarantines that were imposed when frightened. Public health officials, terrified by a death in the quarter attributed to bubonic plague, would order cable cars to rattle through Chinatown without halting

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for fear they might become carriers of the dread disease. Okay, even when the terrible tongue war has turned the cobbles of Spofford and Waverley Street red with blood, there was no police intervention, but by a tacit, unspoken agreement by both communities, segregation was practiced. The new

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arrival from China always settled in the Oriental quarter, with his compatriots never outside, and for good reason. He was poor. He had to find shelter in a bowl of rice with little or no money to pay for them, but ignorant of American language in ways he

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was timid and he sought company where he felt at home. Okay, Not only did the new Chinese all congregate on Dupont Street and its tributaries, but they tended to band together in clubs based on the sixth District of Quang Tung province, from which 90% of them

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had come. Soon these formalized into a powerful organization called the Six Companies. The Oriental immigrants were largely left to their own devices. They were persecuted in the minds of the Sierra Nevada, but left pretty much alone in the city. In fact, they were left so much

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on their own by this laissez faire policy of the public and the city government that they had to create on the spot a system of quasi government for their quarter, basing it on Chinese tradition, law and customs. This makeshift political structure, headed by the six companies

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and the consul general of China, worked well, but the hands off attitude of City Hall and the police gratifying it first, more with it. The seeds of disaster. Yeah, growing alongside this leave alone policy was an invisible wall which separated Chinatown from the rest of the

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city. You could not see it any more than you could see the equator, but it was there. It was as really as the great Wall of China itself. What only a handful of police walked Chinatown beats, and for the most part, they did not meddle in

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the affairs of the Chinese. Everyone seemed content with live and let live philosophy. And life in Chinatown was incomparably better than life in Quang Tung. For the immigrant. Crimes of violence were all but unknown in Chinatown, and the police soon learned toe wink, but gambling, prostitution

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and opium. After all, San Francisco, during its Barbary Coast days, was an open town, a wide open town. By comparison, Chinatown was a model community for 20 years, the lazy, fair system of separate but equal rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness work. It

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worked well as long as the six companies, the family associations and the Chinese Consulate General, we're able to keep a firm rain on all Chinatown affairs, public and private. Unfortunately, however, an ill wind blew into San Francisco in the 18 seventies, bringing a depression melting pot,

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which was San Francisco, began to boil over. Chinese Gandy dancers drifted down from the Central Pacific Railroad, completed in 18, 69 Oriental miners began to abandon the played out plasters of the mother lode for city jobs as cooks, waiters, laundry men or laborers. Most of these

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men were young, restless and ruthless. They had no family ties in America. And a certain percentage of the 30 0 people who soon jam Chinatown by the law of averages alone had to be criminals. Mhm. In the city itself, the Depression spawned mobs of unemployed laborers

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who were itching to take out their frustrations on anyone. The economic slump created sand lot armies of roughnecks, led by a demagogue named Dennis Carney. He was a natural leader, and he made the Chinese into scapegoats. For all the ills afflicting the laboring man, he demanded,

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the Chinese must go. Finally, the police had to take a stand on Chinatown, where the Chinese to be considered second or third class San Franciscans was folly to think of them as citizens for they were not. They were all aliens and intended to remain so at

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least in the 18 seventies. This was the case. The Chinese made perfect scapegoats, being in offensive, ignorant of the protection of the law. Best of all, they were without the vote. Carney decided to take action on his own. The chief of police at this juncture was

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a plane, Irish cop Theodore G. Cochran. Doubtless he thought the Chinese to be queer fellows with their pigtails in their floppy blue pajamas. He certainly had more friends among the Roughnecks and Dennis Carney's army. Then he had among the merchants of Chinatown. But cock Crow was

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a policeman, a real one. He knew his duty when he saw it, and he made his position crystal clear. So long as the Chinese air here, I shall give them the most complete protection which my official authority can control or creates. The humblest individual who treads

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are soil of whatever race descended and irrespective of the country of his birth, with the language which he speaks shall not appeal in vain for the protection of the law, which is no respecter of persons. Coco was as good as his word in his firm stand

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kept the mobs from Chinatown. But in 18 77 the tough Irishman was out of office and Carney decided to make a play against his successor. Unknown Quantity, by the name of Henry H. Ellis. July 23rd, 18 77 was critical day. It came to be known in

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police animals as riot night. A mob had the audacity to form up in an empty lot, fronting City Hall itself. Then it marched on Chinatown. Hotheads in it carried torches with which to burn down the ghetto. Ellis was ready for them. He posted a line of

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gray coated officers armed with nightsticks across DuPont at Pine Street on another Broadway. When the mob closed with the police, it was sent reeling by the officers truncheons. While donnybrook was over, the cowardly sandlot army had fled. Unfortunately, at the same time, some of the ruthless

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young men of Chinatown began to pick up ideas. Violent ideas from the example septum by Dennis Carney and his sandlot brigade, a group of young tough calling themselves Mujo doi, or hatchet men offered themselves as hired assassins. These ruthless men soon took over. The fraternal societies

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called tongs and made them instruments of terror. As the power of the fighting tongs waxed that of the six companies, Wayne on one loss of face brought another and another. By the late 18 eighties, Chinatown was firmly in the grip of the high binders, or hatchet

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man. A handful of criminals, perhaps only 300 all ruled 30 0 people in the heart of San Francisco. They fattened on day and night gambling, opium prostitution, smuggling, blackmail, the protection racket and murdered. One fine morning. City Hall awoke to find that a ruthless gang of

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criminals had seized control of Chinatown, and a special Chinatown police squad was hastily formed. Hatchet men were now brazenly killing their prey, the guilty and the innocent alike. In broad daylight on Chinatown's crowded alleys and streets, the quarter was terrorized and people began to emigrate from

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Chinatown by the hundreds. Wealthy merchant mandarins did not dare to venture out, even at midday, about being trailed by watchful bodyguards. Their own boo how doy, the law abiding Chinese, tried everything. They abandoned their suspicion of American courts and policemen sought protection. They formed a private

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police corps and even a short live Chinese vigilance committee. Thes efforts were nothing when compared with the deadly efficiency of the Tong. The city's Chinatown squad was bribed into nullity squad appeared to be more concerned with protecting gamblers and tong chiefs than the desperate, honest folk

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of Chinatown. Yeah, yeah, there were many funerals. Yeah, yeah. At some unknown point in time, the Chinese changed their minds about going home to China, home with San Francisco. They decided to stay

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on, become citizens. Perhaps it was the shock of Dennis Carney's rabble rousing bigotry and the critical riots of 18 77 perhaps the terrorizing by the tongue. But the Chinese began to realize what they had in their crowded quarter. Despite the riots and the hatchet men, there

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was a good life there, a life worth keeping worth fighting for. There was no sudden overnight about face. The symptoms were quiet and gradual, a trend toward Western dress. Speaking of English abandonment of the queue, the purchase of property, many at long last began to bring

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their families from China. Children began to make their appearance on Chinatown streets in great numbers. This'll great decision. This decision to stay here to build a future for themselves here was made more poignant by the events of the next few years. In 1994 1, Tong chief

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was virtually the king of Chinatown. He was honking, or little Pete, as he was nicknamed. Chris is rich in both rackets and legitimate business. He came to be liked by many people, for he skimmed off a pittance of his wealth for the poor. Little Pete made

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only two missed aches in his career. The first one was in 18 87 when he tried to bribe a jury on ended Up in San Quentin, where his name was changed to number 1516 Just 10 years later, he made the second mistake in the barbershop next

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to his prosperous shoe factory. Little Pete prepared to have his forehead shape in his cue, washed and re braided. But first he thoughtlessly sent his ever present bodyguard, Ch Hunter, on an errand. As Hunter hurried away, he may have brushed against two men lounging in the

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shadows. Once he was well past them. They straightened up, pull their fedoras low over their faces and hurried to the barber shop door. Ah, one block the door and watched the street, the other extracted a revolver from his loose leave and shot little feet point blank

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in the head. The most notorious of all hatchet men was dead. The uproar caused by this killing forced the police to take decisive action. They rousted known criminals, searched the quarter question suspects and asked the cooperation of the six companies, the Chinese consul general. Family associations

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in the law abiding community were only too willing to help. The bribe takers were thrown off the Chinatown squad and was made into a fast moving, hard hitting riot force tipped off by Chinese elders. As to the headquarters of the secret societies, they swooped down on

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the tongs and gambling dens and reduce them to Qiming would with their hatchets. When the doors were reinforced with sheet iron, the Chinatown squad added pick axes and sledgehammers to its work. Kid, a new friend to the respectable Chinese and the police alike came in the

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form of a crusading woman, Donald Dina Cameron. She was devoted to the single handed destruction of the slave trade and wielded in acts like Carrie Nation, rescuing scores of singsong girls and putting their masters to route. The Chinese decision to become a real part of San

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Francisco made it a time of great upheaval in tragedy began to pay off. Now the lawless elements in Chinatown were being fought by police, Caucasians and Chinese working together. However, as the 20th century dawned, battle for Law and order in Chinatown still ebbed and flowed. Songs

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were not in retreat yet, but another female decided to take a hand in the game. Mother Nature. She dealt not only Chinatown but all San Francisco blow in 1906. That was to change the face of the entire city. By the end of the first day of

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earthquake and fire, the San Franciscans, Chinese and Fun quay alike who had squatted in Sacramento Street to watch the Holocaust were fleeing. Chinatown is the entire district went up in flames, not a single gambling. Then singsong house or tong hideout was spared. In fact, not a

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single building in all of Chinatown was left standing. Yes, the old Chinatown is gone, but none of us will quarrel with or regret the obituary pronounced over its rubble by Low Mo Donald Dina Cameron in 1906 when she said, the strange, mysterious old Chinatown is gone

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and never more will be. Heaps of sand and colored ashes mark the once densely populated, gaily painted and proverbially wicked haunts of high binders and slaves. With the leveling of Chinatown, the power of the tongs was broken forever. The hatchet men scattered. Some went home to

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China. Some went straight. A number went to Chicago, Los Angeles or New York to plague those cities with related tong wars. But these were but echoes of the guerrilla warfare, which once bloodied Chinatowns alleys. The high binders tried to make a comeback in the new China

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town. They failed miserably, 1913. They had to sue for peace with one another in the Chinese community, which was no longer willing to tolerate their excesses. A few vendettas extended into the 19 twenties. But after 1911 and Sonia sends formation of the Chinese Republic, fighting tongs

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and cues, both were doomed. In Chinatown, the changing face of Chinatown has not been possible without the erosion of some values, along with the betterment of the quarter. Yeah, Chinatown is not the same as it Waas when Charles Nol and Earnest Pessotto sketched it when Arnold

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lengthy and Louise Stillman captured it lovingly and artistically in photographs. When Wheeler, when Jack London, Frank Norris and Charles Colville Dobie painted word pictures of it, these discerning men saw beauty in its clutter and its many changing moods in its contrast of good and evil. In

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its antill activity, they saw on Dupont Street a microcosmic orient, hardly differing a bit from that of a South China coast city. They studied the ageless faces of its people by day and admired the fog softened line and shadow of its architectural face by night, mhm

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much of the color of the traditions, the atmosphere which charms artists is no longer there. It has slipped away, but nevertheless it is still qualified to claim the title awarded it 75 years ago, the most picturesque and interesting foreign settlement that ever planted itself in the

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heart of an American city. Moreover, even if it has changed city surrounding it has changed mawr. Result is that China found preserves best the old San Francisco of Legend Frontier Metropolis, which greeted the Argonauts of four winds who came to this city to make their fortunes

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and then head for home but who were Bewitched by its hills and sea fogs and sit down deep and strong roots in the sandy soil of your Valbuena e Okay, Yeah,

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yeah. Mhm.