Graft Trials Chinese San Francisco 1909 RARE LG Card Chee Chong - F J Heney -

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Seller: dalebooks ✉️ (8,797) 100%, Location: Rochester, New York, US, Ships to: WORLDWIDE & many other countries, Item: 266619211014 Graft Trials Chinese San Francisco 1909 RARE LG Card Chee Chong - F J Heney -.
RARE - Unusual Large Card
 
 
Graft Trials ?
Chee Chong - Waiting for Heney
Chinese Cook to F.J. Heney - Heney - Prosecutor / DA - Shot in Court 
Protest related? Politics - Chinatown related?
San Francisco, California
1909

For offer, an interesting old piece of ephemera! Fresh from a prominent estate in Upstate NY. Never offered on the market until now. Vintage, Old, Original, Antique, NOT a Reproduction - Guaranteed !!

It is unclear as to exactly what this item is and represents. At bottom it says the " this is a photograph of Chee Chong, F.J. Heney's Chinese Cook, waiting for his master on the steps of Heney's residence. 1937 Broadway Street. Chee Chong was temporarily discharged by Heney September 8, 1909, for political reasons only. Heney was a prosecutor, known for prosecuting grafters. He was shot in court in 1908. Chong was his chef, and also operated a business. Perhaps this is a  type of advertising? Not sure what it represents - if it is political, or some sort of protest related news. Probably related in some way to the Graft trials at the time. Perhaps a blotter? Small logo at bottom: Allied Printing, Trade Council - Union Label, San Francisco. Measures 9 1/4 x 4 3/8 inches. In very good condition. Faint crease to lower rh corner. Please see photos.  If you collect 20th century Americana CA, history, American / Asian, China related, printing, etc. this is a treasure you will not see again! Add this to your image or paper / ephemera collection. Important genealogy research importance too. Combine shipping on multiple bid wins! 2050

Francis Joseph Heney (March 17, 1859 – October 31, 1937) was a lawyer, judge, and politician who killed an opposing plaintiff in self defense, and who was shot in the head by a prospective juror during the San Francisco graft trials. In 1891 while an attorney in Tucson, Arizona Territory, he defended the abused wife of John C. Handy. Handy attacked Heney, and Heney shot and killed Handy. Heney later served as Attorney General of the Arizona Territory between 1893 and 1895. He was the chief prosecutor of the Oregon Land Fraud scandal from 1904 to 1910 and served as U.S. District Attorney for the District of Oregon from January 9 to December 3, 1905. He prosecuted corrupt San Francisco politicians from 1906 to 1908.

During 1906, Heney prosecuted San Francisco Mayor Eugene Schmitz and political boss Abe Ruef for bribery. Heney revealed that a prospective juror was ineligible because he was an ex-convict. The man deeply resented Heney's action and while court was in recess, walked into the courtroom and shot the attorney in the jaw. Heney survived the wound and the trial went on. He ran for the U.S. Senate from California on the Progressive Party ticket in 1914.

Personal life

Heney was born in Lima, New York to Richard Heney and Juliana Schreiber Heney. He had two younger sisters and an older brother, Ben.[1] He grew up in San Francisco where his family relocated in 1863. He worked in his father's furniture and carpet store while attending high school at night and, later, taught night school while attending the University of California during the day. After graduation, he moved to Idaho where he served as principal of a high school, but soon realized it was not his calling. He returned to San Francisco, enrolled in law school, and became a member of the bar in 1883.

In 1884, health problems prompted him to move to the Arizona Territory. During the next four years, he ran a cattle business with his brother Ben and operated the trading post at Fort Apache. In 1889 he moved to Tucson. He married Rebecca Wentworth McMullin on November 17, 1906 in San Francisco. After Rebecca died in 1911, he married Edna I. Van Winkle on February 13, 1915. Edna Van Winkle had managed Heney's campaign for the U.S. Senator from California the previous year on the Progressive ticket. He lost the election to Democrat James Phelan.[2]

Kills John Handy in self defense

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Francis Heney represented John Handy's abused wife Mary in their divorce trial and eviction proceeding despite repeated death threats from Handy. When Handy attacked him, Heney killed him in self-defense.

Dr. John Christopher Handy, a skilled and well-respected physician in Tucson, treated his patients with considerably more kindness than he did his wife. Eight years younger than her husband, Mary Ann Page Handy was a fragile woman with serious health problems. After 11 years of marriage and the birth of five children, the doctor regularly abused his wife. Privately, his wife Mary complained to her neighbor, the wife of Francis' brother Ben, that her husband abused her.[3] In December 1888, pregnant once again, she filed for divorce. Rumors circulated that Handy had threatened to kill the judge and her lawyers and she withdrew her suit within the next month.[3] Judge Sloan described Handy as "a man of strong will, aggressive, and both quarrelsome and vindictive."[4] The following year, John sent the four oldest children to his mother's home in Oakland. Over the next four years Mary developed an addiction to morphine, possibly administered to her by her husband.[4] Morphine at the time was readily available and prescribed for a variety of ailments.[3]

In July 1889 Handy filed for divorce and six months later got the court's permission to place their youngest son Spencer in hospital custody. The town gossip was that Handy wanted to marry another woman named Pansy Smith that he had been seeing for some time. Due to her husband's continual threats, Mary had difficulty finding an attorney. When C.W. Wright agreed to represent her, he asked Francis J. Heney to assist him. Heney reluctantly agreed whereupon Wright promptly withdrew from the case. Heney refused to continue on his own, and Mary went from attorney to attorney seeking representation. Heney finally agreed to reconsider her pleas for help.[3] Handy let it be known that he would kill any attorney who dared defend Mary Ann. Intimidated lawyers refused to represent Mary Ann. Francis Heney was not among them. When he agreed to become her attorney, John Handy said to a court clerk, "I will kill him! Mary Ann is a morphine fiend and a common slut. She does not deserve [representation]."[5]

Handy relayed a message to Heney: "If Frank Heney takes the case I will kill him!" Handy publicly proclaimed that any attorney foolish enough to represent her in the divorce case "would be sorry." He described his wife as "a morphine fiend and a common slut." His attempts to intimidate Heney had the opposite effect, pricking Heney's conscience. Heney told his brother Ben, who lived across the street from Handy, that "If a lawyer can't take any case he feels it is right for him to handle, then he should take down his shingle."[4] Heney and Handy had several confrontations.[3] Handy intentionally attempted to run Heney over with his buggy more than once,[3][6] and Handy called Heney a coward and a son of a bitch and tried to provoke a fight. Clerk of the Court Brewster Cameron, a friend of both men, warned Handy that his threats might negatively influence the court, and Handy desisted for a while.[3]

The divorce trial dragged on for eight months, piling up a stack of legal documentation more than 5 inches (130 mm) high of complaints, countercharges, motions and depositions from prominent Tucson citizens.[4] Despite witnesses supporting his wife's allegations of abuse, Handy prevailed and obtained custody of all five children. But the judge ordered Handy to pay her $30 a month in alimony, gave her the family home, and rejected Handy's demand for a new trial. Handy sent Spencer to live with his family in Oakland. In July 1891, Handy, acting in his mother's name, sued his ex-wife for unlawful detainer of property, trying to force her out of the house that the court had granted her.[3] His suit was dismissed but he went to a second judge and presented the deed that his wife had signed under duress two years previously. Heney represented Mary again and Handy made more death threats. Fearful for his life, Heney began carrying a pistol. Heney's brother Ben lived across the street from Handy and began accompanying his brother to and from the office. Ben reported that Handy said he would "take Frank's gun away and kill him with it."[3] Handy hired a former policeman named McCarthy as a bodyguard. On two occasions the four men confronted each other with their guns drawn.[4]

At noon on September 24, 1891, Francis Heney's brother Ben, who had been helping guard Francis, was in San Francisco attending to family business.[4] Francis Heney left his office for lunch. His secretary Lautaro Roca was to join him momentarily. Unbeknownst to him, John Handy was waiting across the street. Near the corner of Pennington and Church Streets, Handy attacked the much smaller Heney, grabbed him by the neck and pushed him up against a building.[5] The Tombstone Epitaph wrote: "A pistol cracked, the men grappled and fell to the ground. A deputy sheriff dashed [to] the spot where the two were struggling for possession of the gun. Other officers were there in almost no time. Then one of the contenders jumped to his feet and ran toward the courthouse ... for the first time we ... recognized the hurrying man as Frank Heney."[7]

During the melee, Heney broke away from Handy and removed from his coat pocket a pistol he carried for protection. Handy tried to take the weapon from Heney, and during the struggle, the gun discharged. A bullet lodged in the doctor's abdomen, and hours later, while well-known Dr. George Goodfellow operated, Handy died. Immediately following the shooting, Heney surrendered to authorities. Bail was set at $6,000, which three friends promptly paid. On September 26, a hearing was held. Cameron among others testified that Handy had repeatedly threatened to kill Heney.[7] Witnesses testified that on more than one occasion, as the lawyer walked along the street, Handy had intentionally attempted to run Heney over with his buggy.[3][6] The court determined that Heney had acted in self-defense and he was exonerated.[5]

Heney was Attorney General of the Arizona Territory between 1893 and 1895. He then returned to San Francisco where he opened a civil practice.[8]:19 Handy's sone John Handy Jr. grew up in Oakland where he lived with his paternal grandmother Roseanna Handel's and with his father's sister, Cornelia Holbrook, in San Francisco. The aunt concocted a story about Handy's death that she told John and his siblings. She said that Heney had been the one who threatened and ambushed Handy, that he had been tried for murder and acquitted only because he was the sole witness.[8]:20

Young Jack grew up hating Heney. He ran away from his aunt's home in 1896 at age 14 and went to sea on a whaling ship. Jack returned to San Francisco in 1902 and at age 19 married Beatrix Walter. They went to Tucson, where they lived with his maternal grandmother Larcena Pennington Page for about two years. They returned to San Francisco, where Jack eventually became an executive for Standard Oil. In 1906, Heney became nationally known when he successfully prosecuted timber fraud in Oregon. Heney was persuaded to investigate the crooked political system in San Francisco. Abe Ruef, the primary target of his investigation, dug up Holbrook's story that Heney had ambushed Handy. She retold the story to the San Francisco The Daily News which published it. Ruef tried to persuade Jack to file charges against Heney. Instead, Jack went to visit Heney and thanked him for the support Heney had offered his mother when she was abused by his father. Jack had heard the true story about his mother's life and Heney's actions from his grandmother in Tucson. The two men became lifelong friends, and Jack was a pallbearer at Heney's funeral in 1937.[3][9]

The Oregon land fraud trials, 1905

Heney was asked by U.S. Attorney General Philander Knox to serve as the Special Assistant to the U.S. Attorney General's office in Oregon. While there he brought to justice 33 people who had pillaged the federal lands, state school lands, and the timbered resources of the Siletz Indian Reservation in a series of trials known as the Oregon land fraud scandal. The "King of the Oregon land fraud ring", Stephen A. D. Puter, wrote in his prison cell Looters of the Public Domain (1908), a tell-all book with portraits of his co-conspirators and copies of documents confirming their criminal acts.

Heney's prosecutions cleaned out many of the personnel of the General Land Office. He twice indicted but failed to convict Binger Hermann, former Commissioner of the General Land Office in Washington, D.C.. He obtained prison sentences for U.S. Senator John H. Mitchell, Congressman John N. Williamson, and Oregon District Attorney John Hicklin Hall, though Mitchell died during his appeal, Williamson's conviction was overturned by the United States Supreme Court,[10] and Hall was later pardoned by President William Howard Taft.[11]

He served as United States District Attorney for Oregon from January 9 to December 5, 1905.[12]

The San Francisco graft prosecution

Main article: San Francisco graft trials

Political boss Abe Ruef of San Francisco on his way to San Quentin State Prison after he was convicted in the San Francisco Graft Trial of 1907-1908.

While in Oregon, he was approached by Rudolph Spreckels, president of the First National Bank, and Fremont Older, editor of the San Francisco Bulletin, who promised to put up $100,000 to finance an investigation of corrupt city officials, and asked him to come as soon as possible to San Francisco to help investigate and prosecute. Older went to Washington, D. C. and got President Roosevelt to agree to lend special federal prosecutor Heney to the San Francisco District Attorneys office. In April 1906 he was a member of Mayor Schmitz's Committee of Fifty that tried to manage the city during the crisis following the big earthquake and subsequent fire, but the earthquake delayed the graft prosecution for only a short time.

On October 24, 1906, San Francisco D.A. William H. Langdon appointed Heney Assistant D.A. The next day, Acting Mayor James L. Gallagher, who as the Chairman of the Board of Supervisors ran the city while Mayor Schmitz was traveling around Europe – suspended D.A. Langdon for "neglect of office" and appointed Abe Ruef Acting District Attorney. Ruef then wrote to Heney: "You are hereby removed from the position of Assistant District Attorney of the City and County of San Francisco." Heney said he did not recognize Ruef as D.A. At 2.a.m. the following morning, Judge Seawell signed an order temporarily restraining Ruef from installing himself as district attorney.

Heney prosecuted Mayor Eugene Schmitz and political boss Abe Ruef for bribery. While examining prospective jurors Heney had publicly revealed the fact that one man on the panel, Morris Haas, was ineligible because he had many years earlier served a term in San Quentin Prison. Heney did not need to humiliate Haas publicly in this way; he did so in anger, believing that Ruef was trying to plant the man on the jury. Haas deeply resented Heney's action and brooded over it for many weeks. While the trial was in temporary recess, Haas approached Heney in the courtroom, whipped out a revolver, and shot the attorney in the head; the bullet lodged behind the jaw muscles, where a difference of a fraction of an inch in any direction would have produced a fatal wound. Heney was carried away on a stretcher, mumbling, "I'll get him [Ruef] yet." His place was taken by a bright young assistant named Hiram Johnson, and the trial went on.

Haas was placed in a prison cell with a policeman to guard him; but in spite of these precautions he was found dead the following evening, a small pistol beside him. Those who believed Haas had been hired by Ruef to murder Heney now believed, naturally, that some other gangster in Ruef's employ had done away with Haas so that he could not talk. The chief of police William J. Biggy was deeply hurt by Heney's public criticism of him for negligence in the Haas case. Biggy later fell overboard from a police launch during a nighttime crossing of San Francisco Bay, a possible suicide.

Heney did not die from his wound, as he had been expected to, and some days later the trial was concluded. Detective Burns had given Johnson the names of four jurors who, Burns said, had been bribed, and in his summation Johnson called each of them by name, pointed a forefinger at him, and shouted: "You – you dare not acquit this man!" Nevertheless, when the jury retired for its deliberations everyone expected that it would let Ruef go, or would disagree, as had happened in almost every other case growing out of the graft prosecution.

While the jury was out Heney telephoned Older to say that he was much recovered, and proposed to come down and pay his respects to the judge. Older, with his usual flair for the dramatic, told Heney not to come until the editor gave the signal. While most of the community was by now against the prosecution, there was a minority on the side of honesty, which had organized a League of Justice pledged to help at a moment's notice. Older now hastily sent word to dozens of these men, who came and crowded into the courtroom, which was directly under the chamber in which the jury was deliberating.

Evelyn Wells, in her biography of Older, tells what happened when Heney entered the courtroom on Older's arm: "The 'minutemen' raised a shout of welcome. Older himself trumpeted like a bull elephant. The rest of the crowd joined in. … It was a cheer of welcome, but to the scared jury on the floor above it sounded like a bellowed demand for lynching. A few minutes later twelve men good and true filed hurriedly into the courtroom. They had hastily made up their minds. All were deathly white. Some trembled. A few were weeping." But their verdict was "Guilty", and Ruef was sentenced to fourteen years in prison.

Of all the sentences meted out to leading figures in the whole course of the prosecution, it was the only one that was made to stick. Another municipal election was approaching, and Langdon, the weary and battered district attorney, refused to run again. He was discouraged, with good reason: a key witness, the supervisor who had paid off his fellows on Ruef's behalf [James Gallagher], had fled the country. In desperation, Heney himself ran for district attorney, and was defeated by a football hero from Stanford University, Charles Fickert, whose liaison with the grafters was notorious. Fickert promptly and contemptuously refused to go on with any of the pending cases against the big businessmen. He pretended not to know the whereabouts of the supervisor who had fled, although everyone else knew that he was rusticating in Vancouver, British Columbia.[13] William P. Lawlor, the honest judge who had presided in several of the cases, excoriated Fickert and ordered the others to trial; but he was overruled by the court of appeals, which decided that all of the large number of remaining indictments should be quashed. The graft prosecution was over, having ended in almost total failure, with only Ruef in prison."[14]

Later life

In 1912 he was a Delegate to the Republican National Convention from California.

In 1914, he was the nominee of the Bull Moose Party in the first direct election for U.S. Senate in California, narrowly taking second place over the Republican candidate, Joseph Knowland, but losing to the Democratic candidate, James Phelan.

In 1921 he acted on behalf of B. H. DeLay during the controversy with C. E. Frey about the ownership of the DeLay Airfield.

Death

Heney died in Santa Monica, California on October 31, 1937.[15] He was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Santa Monica, California.[1]

The San Francisco graft trials were a series of attempts from 1905 to 1908 to prosecute members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, San Francisco Mayor Eugene Schmitz, attorney Abe Ruef, who were receiving bribes, and business owners who were paying the bribes. Political boss and attorney Ruef was at the center of the corruption, acting as attorney to Mayor Eugene Schmitz. He approved all contracts and received hundreds of thousands of dollars in payment from business owners, keeping a portion for himself and distributing the remainder to the Mayor and members of the Board of Supervisors.

Former mayor James Phelan along with banker Rudolph Spreckels and editor Fremont Older of the San Francisco Bulletin asked United States District Attorney Francis Heney, fresh from a successful stint as special assistant to the U.S. Attorney General's office in prosecuting the Oregon land fraud scandal, to help put an end to the corruption. Heney charged Ruef and Schmitz with numerous counts of bribery and brought them to trial. Heney rejected a juror because he was an ex-con and publicly accused Ruef of trying to plant him on the jury. During the trial, the rejected juror shot Heney in the face, but Heney survived. The juror was found dead in jail the next morning, and many suspected Ruef and his allies of complicity in his death. Some members of the public thought that Sheriff William Biggy was negligent, and when he fell off a boat late one night and drowned, some thought it may have been suicide, but others thought he may have been murdered.

Ruef's trial was eventually brought to a successful close by Assistant District Attorney Hiram Johnson and after several appeals Ruef served four years in San Quentin Prison. While there he wrote a series of tell-all columns for Older's Bulletin newspaper implicating a number of companies, executives, and public officials. Mayor Schmitz was found guilty, jailed, and then released and retried, but did not serve any time. All of the business owners and supervisors implicated received immunity for their testimony about Ruef's and Schmitz's complicity and were not arrested or charged. When new District Attorney Fisker, a former athlete, was elected, he stopped the investigations and all further prosecutions.

Background

During the first decade of the 20th Century in the United States, employers supported an open shop movement and were decidedly anti-union. They were able to obtain government support to prevent workers from organizing. California was a center of corruption at the time, indirectly influenced by the Southern Pacific Railroad which had exerted a large degree of control over California politics for many years. This is evidenced by the refusal of Stephen T. Gage, one of the directors of the Southern Pacific Railway, and Richard Chute, a salaried employee of the same company, to obey a summons from the 1891 Wallace Grand Jury until compelled by the California State Supreme Court.[1]

These companies and other well-funded interest groups and individuals used their economic power and influence to form trusts and monopolies that guaranteed them power. Many of these wealthy and powerful people lived in San Francisco, the largest port on the West Coast, and when necessary could reinforce their hold on power through corrupt politicians and city bosses.[2]

Powerful unions

Workers on the San Francisco waterfront in 1901.

In the spring of 1901, San Francisco employers made a decision to try to push back gains made by the trade unions during the previous two years. They formed a secret employers' association.[3] Its bylaws stipulated that no member could settle a strike by a union without permission from the executive committee.[4][5]

Beginning of strike

In January 1901, members of IBEW Local 6 went on strike, demanding an increase from $5.00 to $6.00 a day (about $151 to $181 in 2019). On April 1, laundry workers walked out, also seeking a wage increases and an eight-hour work day. Within the month, most San Francisco laundries accepted their demands, although laundries outside San Francisco continued to resist complying.[4]

On May 1, 6,000 of the Cooks' and Waiters' Union walked out, demanding one day off per week, a ten-hour work day, and a union shop in all city restaurants. They were joined by the Carriage Makers union and journeymen butchers, and on May 20, the International Association of Machinists announced a nationwide strike.[3]

To counter the success of the unions, the secret Employers' Association hired an attorney, M.F. Michael, who was initially their sole visible face. He announced in an interview published on May 10, 1901, that the employers were unalterably opposed to a closed shop and they would not negotiate that point. The Employers' Association received up to $500,000 in anonymous donations and used their financial muscle to threaten to cut off supplies to anyone who broke ranks.[6]

During the next two days, 500 women telephone operators and 1,500 streetcar operators also went on strike.[4] On May 7, 1907, what would later be called "Bloody Tuesday", six streetcars carrying armed guards attempted to leave the carbarn. An enraged mob threw rocks and bricks, gunfight erupts between guards and men shooting from nearby vacant lots. From inside carbarns, strikebreakers opened fire on crowd. Two dead, 20 wounded.[4]

The contract for handling the baggage for attendees of a national convention of the Epworth League in San Francisco was given to a non-union company. During the prior year, a union company was hired during another convention in San Francisco to handle the baggage, but many attendees did not receive their luggage until they were ready to leave town. Tens of thousands of attendees were projected to attend, and the Drayman's Association was hoping to avoid a similarly embarrassing episode. However, the non-union company given the contract was unable to fulfill its obligations and sought the assistance of firm controlled by the newly organized Brotherhood of Teamsters. The union refused to work on a job with non-union men.[7]:p15 In response, the Draymen's Association, under pressure from the Employers' Association, locked out the city's unionized teamsters on July 21.[8]:p287 They were hoping to break the power of the teamsters' union.[citation needed]

Fearing that the teamsters' union would be crushed, the San Francisco Labor Council directed the City Front Federation, led by its President Andrew Furuseth,[3] including the city's 14 maritime unions, the Sailor's Union of the Pacific, the longshoremen's unions to strike in support of the locked out teamsters.[8]:p288 A total of about 16,000 longshoremen, clerks, packers, and warehouse workers on both sides of San Francisco Bay joined the work stoppage, further increasing the tense situation.[8]:p288 The lockout spread to the entire waterfront, which shut down much of the Bay Area's transportation and as a result most commerce.[8]:p287

A strikebreaking teamster is escorted by a San Francisco policeman during the strike of 1901. On the side of the wagon is the name of the company, McNab & Smith.

Mayor arms strikebreakers

Both sides refused to compromise on their stance for a closed or an open shop.[3] Both accused the other of conspiracy and aggressive tactics, further aggravating tensions and confusing the public.[7]:p16 During July, regional produce was ready to be shipped, and the employers hired strikebreakers. Democratic Mayor James D. Phelan, who had served three consecutive terms, designated the employers' strikebreakers as "special deputies", allowing them to wear badges, bear arms, and carry clubs, and told the police to protect the strikebreakers. Farmers grew frustrated when their wheat stood on the docks and began to load and move their own crops. Former Army teamsters, returning from the war in the Philippines, gladly filled the available strikebreaking jobs, and university students from the University of California took jobs.

The employers' strikebreakers were met by the unions with force and the employers called for police intervention. The strikers threw rocks at the strikebreakers and marbles under the feet of the horses pulling the carts.[9] The mayor's actions did nothing to stop the violence and inflamed the union leadership. They accused the strikebreakers of routine brutality and violence. Mayor Phelan had been elected in large measure due to the support of organized labor but now he sided with the employers. At a meeting in his office, he refused to withdraw the policemen from the waterfront. In anger, labor attendees falsely reported that Phelan told them, "If you don't want to be clubbed, get back to work."[10] His attitude further enraged the labor leadership.[3]

Strike broken

On September 29, after four months of strikes and increased violence, a bloody riot and gun battle broke out on Kearny Street in broad daylight.[5] The employers' strikebreakers attacked the union blockade. Picketing workers were clubbed, five workers were shot and killed, and 336 were injured. Hundreds more were arrested and the strike was broken.[8]:p288 On October 3, California Governor Henry T. Gage stepped in and threatened all parties with the imposition of martial law. He convened a meeting of the Drayman's Association and the Teamsters Union, eliminating the employers association. The terms of the settlement were never made public, but the result was that the employers were able to retain an open shop, though they could not exclude members of the union.[3] The employers' association, flush with success, soon disbanded.[7]

Union Labor Party formed

Anticipating defeat, on September 5, 1901, about 300 delegates representing 68 of San Francisco's unions met at a convention and established the Union Labor Party of the City and County of San Francisco.[8]:p290 The convention approved a platform including a call for the revision of the city charter to curb future intervention by the city administration in labor disputes, a demand for municipal ownership of all public utilities, building more schools, promoting teachers based on merit, and ending the poll tax.[8]:p290 The platform also contained a nativist demand that called for restricting Asian immigration and creating racially segregated schools for Asian children.[8]:p290 Some organized labor, including the State Building Trades Council led by P.H. McCarthy, refused to join the new labor party.[10]

Ruef backs mayoral candidate

Lawyer Abe Ruef was the political boss behind the graft at the center of the prosecution.

S.F. Mayor James Phelan lost his fourth contest for the office to Musician's Union President Eugene Schmitz.

Abe Ruef was a Republican for a number of years when it was generally seen as the party of the Southern Pacific Railroad and its allies. Ruef patiently built a patronage empire over several years. He methodically sought out neighborhood associations, ethnic clubs, and other civic groups, supporting them with contributions and payments, and providing services like leniency from a local judge and quick approval of a business license.[11] Ruef competed with Michael Casey, president of the Teamsters Union, for control of the union, but eventually ceded the contest, but not his influence, to Casey.[3]

Eugene Schmitz played the violin, conducted the orchestra at the Columbia Theatre on Powell Street in San Francisco, and was president of the Musician's Union. He and Ruef had been friends for 15 years.[12] When the Union Labor Party sought a candidate for mayor, Ruef contributed $16,000 (about $446,000 today) to Schmitz's campaign[10]:p14 and used his considerable influence to make sure Schmitz was selected to front for the new Union Labor Party.[2][10][11] Ruef wrote the Union Labor Party's platform and built a strong, behind-the-scenes network of supporters, including the more than 1,000 saloon keepers and another 1,000 bartenders in San Francisco, who all influenced political discussions in their saloons.[11]

Once the strike was concluded, Mayor Phelan found he had no friends and was forced to drop out of the race. The Republicans nominated Asa R. Wells and the Democrats chose Joseph A. Tobin. The local citizens supported the Union Labor Party because they felt it was more sensitive to their needs even though the elected officials were enormously corrupt, and Schmitz was narrowly elected on November 7, 1901,[13]:195 winning 21,776 of the 52,168 votes cast; the Republicans and Democrats split the remainder, allowing Schmitz to take office.[10] Although the labor party only won three of the Board of Supervisors' seats,[3] they managed to control many of the city commissions due to appointments made by the mayor.[10]:p17 With union control of the mayor's office, San Francisco became the first union-run city in the United States.[3]

Ruef controls city contracts

Schmitz was less corrupt than the mayors who preceded him,[3] but he had to deal with Ruef, who operated from his offices at California and Kearney Streets. He wrote most of the mayor's official papers and conducted an ongoing series of meetings with Mayor Schmitz, city commissioners, officials, seekers of favors or jobs, and others. Officially an unpaid attorney for the mayor's office, he was the power behind the mayor's chair.[11]

The first company to seek his advice was the Theodore Halsey, a confidential political agent for the Pacific States Telephone and Telegraph Company. He paid Ruef a retainer of $1,250 (about $38,000 in 2019) a month for "advice" on municipal issues. After the graft prosecutions, E.F. Pillsbury, General Counsel for the telephone company, revealed that he had never heard of Ruef's employment, and would have objected to Ruef receiving compensation greater than his own $1,000 per month.[10]

Many others followed suit, hiring him even when they had no need for his legal services. Company's payments to Ruef varied depending on the favor wanted, from a few thousand to hundreds of thousands of dollars.[11] If you wanted a city permit or contract, you had to go through one man, Ruef.[9]

Ruef pocketed half and passed the balance to the Mayor and his ally on the Board of Supervisors, James L. Gallagher. Gallagher then divided the amount he received among their loyal Supervisors. When a decision needed to be made, Ruef would meet with the Supervisors privately beforehand and even suggest statements they might make to give the appearance of independent action.[11] Schmitz ran for re-election in 1903 although the Union Labor Party still failed to win a majority of the Board of Supervisors.[10]

Supervisors seek payoffs

Among the cases of graft was the Pacific Gas & Electric Company, who had completed consolidating the gas, light and power companies in San Francisco and in all of central California into a single entity. Frank G. Drum, one of the new company's largest stockholders, paid Ruef a confidential retainer of $1,000 a month.[11] The Board of Supervisors, all members of the Union Labor party, had before the election called for rolling the gas rate from $1.00 per 1000 cubic feet back to 75¢. On April 2, shortly before the Supervisors were to vote on the rate change, a fire destroyed a major electrical substation at 22nd Ave. and Georgia St.[14] Ruef decided to seek an 85¢ rate, but several Supervisors wanted additional reasons to support the change. Ruef asked Drum for $20,000, which Drum delivered soon afterward in cash.[11] The Supervisors approved an 85 cent gas rate, though some voted against the proposal.

Another instance was a group of investors led by William H. Crocker, son of Big Four Charles Crocker and president of The Crocker Bank. They organized the Parkside Realty Co. in July, 1905, and assembled a 400 acres (160 ha) parcel of land on the western edge of the city, five blocks across and 20 blocks long, stretching to within a block and a half of the Pacific Ocean. Before they could begin building homes, they needed approval for a streetcar franchise. They wanted to build a mile-long streetcar line that connected to the existing United Railroad's line on the south side of Golden Gate Park. The extension would allow residents of the future subdivision to easily travel to the city center.[11]

The Parkside Realty Co. was unable to persuade the Supervisors to support their streetcar project. The Supervisors wanted their cut, and the company finally held a secret banquet, not publicly revealed until 1910, to seek the supervisors' support. Supervisor Dr. Charles Boxton asked, "How much money is in it for us?" The investors agreed to pay Ruef $30,000 for two years. The Supervisors approved the requested trolley franchise, although Ruef never passed any funds to the supervisors. The remaining payment was later halted by the graft prosecution, and only $15,000 was ever handed over.[11]

Tirey L. Ford

By about 1900, half of the streetcar lines in San Francisco had been converted to overhead trolley routes, but a great many favored placing the power lines in underground conduits which was considerably more expensive. Eastern investors led by Patrick Calhoun took over the system, inheriting a number of lines built by a variety of competing companies over many years.[15] In 1900, the system had 234 miles (377 km) of track, 56 miles (90 km) of cable, 166 miles (267 km) of overhead trolley, 4 miles (6.4 km) for horse cars, and 8 miles (13 km) of ancient steam railroad. United Railroad was dead set against paying for underground conduit.

In 1902, Tirey L. Ford, who was the Attorney General of the State of California, began making regular, secret payments for United Railroads to Abe Ruef to act as their special consulting attorney. On September 15, 1902, Ford resigned as Attorney General and accepted the position of General Counsel to United Railroads.[16] Ford was found to be innocent by a San Francisco jury and by the District Court of Appeals Judge William P. Lawlor.

Leading citizens seek help

U.S. District Attorney Francis Heney was asked by leading businessmen to help end the corruption.

The ongoing corruption began to affect the quality of public services, and citizens began to seek reform. A Grand Jury was convened, and began to take testimony about extent of the graft.[10]:p18 Former Mayor Phelan, in concert with Rudolph Spreckels, president of the San Francisco First National Bank, and Fremont Older, editor of the San Francisco Bulletin, decided to try to challenge the Labor Party's corrupt choke-hold on city politics and commerce.[3] Phelan and Spreckles were among the largest property-owners in San Francisco.[10]:p38

They approached Francis Heney, who as Special Assistant to the U.S. Attorney General's office, had just concluded a successful prosecution of corrupt government officials in the Oregon land fraud scandal. Heney came to San Francisco and in one of his first public statements, made a speech on November 5, 1905, the day before the election. He said, "If I had control of the District Attorney's office, I would indict Abe Ruef for felony and send him to the penitentiary, where he belongs, for I have personal knowledge that he is corrupt."[10]:p19 Ruef didn't sit still for Heney's allegations, and responded in the newspaper two days later. "In making the statement that you personally know that I am corrupt you lied. You cannot personally know that which does not exist. ... You show the same courage which put a bullet into the body of Dr. John C. Handy of Tucson, Ariz. in 1891, for whose killing you were indicted for murder, and upon trial were acquitted because you were the only witness to the deed."[10]:p20

1905 election

In 1905, the labor party was heavily opposed by the three local newspapers and a united Republican-Democrat combined ticket who had united to defeat the union party.[10]:p17 On November 7, Schmitz was re-elected and the union gained complete control of the Board of Supervisors.[11] Of the 80,000 registered voters, only 68,878 voted for mayor and of those, 40,191 voted for Schmitz.[10]:p20 Members of the Board of Supervisors had no prior political experience. L.A. Rea had been in the decorating business; W.W. Sanderson had been a well-placed executive in the grocery business; Samuel Davis was a drummer; Edward Walsh a foreman in a shoe factory; C.J. Harrington and Patrick McCusshin had both been saloon-keepers; Jennings Phillips, a sprinter; F.P. Nicholas, a carpenter and former Carpenter's union president; James Kelley, a piano finisher and polisher; Max Manlock, an electrician; Thomas Longergan, a baker; Charles Dexter, a dentist; Michael Coffey, a hack driver; Daniel Coleman, a clerk with a wallpaper dealer; John J. Purri, a blacksmith; and Gallagher was a lawyer.[17] Ruef had effective control over every branch and department in San Francisco.[10]:p21

After the 1905 election, Ruef conducted a private, weekly caucus on Sunday, the night before the Board of Supervisors meetings, for members of the board, Mayor Schmitz, and the board's clerk and Ruef's protege and former law clerk, George B. Keane. Ruef ran the meetings and Keane took notes as they discussed matters to come before the board. Ruef assembled a list of members to serve on the various board committees which were implemented almost without changes. Ruef directed them to meet with him first before they held any other public meetings.[10]:p25 There was only one weak link in Ruef's complete domination of the city administration, and that was the new District Attorney William H. Langdon, who had been Superintendent of Schools for three years. During the election, Langdon repeatedly promised, "The laws are on the statute books. I pledge myself to the enforcement of those laws," but few paid much attention to his statements. Ruef thought Langdon would help reach the teachers and students.[10]:p28

Older's newspaper, the Bulletin, which had been Ruef's most vociferous opponent, suffered greatly after the election. Ruef had promised to break the newspaper with libel suits, but he resorted to more crude methods. The newspaper's manager was assaulted and beaten, as were carriers and agents. The newsboys were organized into a union who promptly went out on strike. Deliveries to stores were interrupted or followed by stones through the windows. The police did nothing.[10]:p73 Older met with Heney in Washington D.C., and persuaded him to come to San Francisco and meet with Spreckels and himself.[10]:p76

In February 1906, Langdon astonished many in the labor party and city politics when he initiated a raid on gambling dens across the city. The underworld running the games expected to be raided and closed down before an election, not afterward, and the exact opposite had taken place in San Francisco. They felt they had paid protection money under false pretenses. Ruef was unable to persuade Langdon to desist.[10]:p27 A few honest citizens began to believe the Ruef's ironclad grip on city politics could be broken.[10]:p28

During the meeting in March, 1906, Spreckles and Older each promised to give $5,000 to support his efforts, and to raise another $90,000 to finance his efforts.[10]:p76 When Heney expressed interest, Older went to Washington, D. C. and persuaded President Roosevelt to loan special federal prosecutor Heney to the San Francisco District Attorneys office. Roosevelt agreed. In that meeting Heney offered to accept as his fee whatever was left out of the initial $100,000 fund, stating "But I don't there will be anything left and I will put up my time against your money."[10]:p76 In the end, Heney didn't receive any compensation for his work, and in fact gave up lucrative legal work to stay with the prosecution.[10]:p76

On March 10, the Board of Supervisors granted the Home Telegraph Company a 50-year exclusive franchise to provide phone dial service to San Francisco, an act that brought immediate condemnation from the San Francisco Examiner. They reminded the board in an editorial that their election platform had included the city acquiring its own telephone system. The Examiner wrote that the board "should clear the record of the SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES that surround the vote on the matter."[10]:p43

Railroad franchise bribery

By the time of the November, 1905 election, the United Railroad was embroiled in a bitter fight with Rudolph Spreckels and James Phelan who resisted overhead trolly lines along Sutter Street where they owned property.[18] Calhoun tried to buy their support by promising more parks and improvements along the Golden Gate Park Panhandle, where ex-Mayor Phelan owned a great deal of property, but both men continued to oppose the overhead trolley plan and insist on more expensive underground conduits.[18] They believed the overhead lines would be noisy, unsightly, and a fire hazard. He and others felt that San Francisco, like Washington D.C. and New York, merited an underground system.[10]:p33

Ford, representing Calhoun and United Railroad, upped is monthly retainer to Ruef from $500 to $1000 (about $14,000 to $28,000 in 2019) after the 1905 election, and the two sides finally agreed on a deal that called for the company to pay for ornamental street poles and the electric lights along their trolley routes.

A majority of the local citizens and community improvement associations also preferred undergrounding the trolley car power lines, supported by Municipal engineers who had visited several east coast cities and concluded that an underground conduit was more favorable than overhead trolley lines.[10]:p33 The railroad resisted, publicly stating that the believed the conduits would fill with water. When Spreckels offered to pay for the cost of draining an underground conduit for a test period to prove it was feasible, Calhoun, President, and George P. Chapman, General Manager of the United Railroads, refused.[10]:p39 Calhoun even offered to pay what he estimated to be the cost difference the underground and overhead systems to the city for any purpose they desired.[10]:p41

United Railroads was actually resistant to the upfront cost for undergrounding the power lines, more than twice that of the overhead system, which would take much longer to recover from operating income. Ford offered Ruef an additional $50,000 fee that Ruef turned down, insisting on a larger payment. They ultimately agreed on a $200,000 fee to be paid when work was complete, which meant that the supervisors approved their trolly route with overhead trolly lines. To bring further pressure on Calhoun, James Phelan, George Whittell, Rudolph Spreckels, his father Claus Spreckels, and Charles S. Wheeler filed papers on April 17, 1906 to incorporate the Municipal Street Railways of San Francisco, in order to prove that underground conduits were economical and superior, and to bring pressure to bear on Calhoun to give up his resistance to undergrounding the electrical lines.[10]:p17 Their actions generated immediate public support. Calhoun finally proposed to submit the issue to a referendum vote by the people, but it turned out he meant the Board of Supervisors, whose vote Calhoun knew he could count on.[10]:p44 He wrote a letter saying that he would submit the matter "to the proper authorities of the city" was resented by the San Francisco Chronicle, who condemned it as breathing "the spirit of insolence" and containing "ill-concealed menace."[10]:p4

Earthquake slows prosecution

Main article: 1906 San Francisco earthquake

Damage from the San Francisco earthquake slowed the prosecution for a few months.

On April 18, 1906, the city was struck by a massive earthquake, and fires burned for four days, destroying 80 percent of the city. Mayor Schmitz formed an extra-legal Committee of Fifty that was tasked with managing the city during the crisis that followed, which delayed the graft prosecution for a short time. Four days later, crews from the United Railroad began stringing temporary overhead trolley wires on Market St., but did not repair the cable traction system in the street.[10]:p20

Committee of Fifty established

On the day of the earthquake, Wednesday, April 18, Mayor Schmitz invited a cross section of the city's most prominent businessmen, politicians, civic leaders, entrepreneurs, newspaper men and politicians, but none of the members of the Board of Supervisors or Abraham Ruef, to form the Committee of Fifty to help him manage the crisis.

Members of the Committee included individuals that would later be indicted for graft, including Abe Ruef and Tirey L. Ford.

The Committee was also referred to as Committee of Safety, Citizens' Committee of Fifty, or Relief and Restoration Committee of Law and Order. It first assembled the afternoon of the earthquake in the basement of the ruined Hall of Justice at 3 p.m. It was forced by the approaching fire to abandon the location and moved across Portsmouth Square to the Plaza Hotel. They had to abandon that location only two hours later. At 8 p.m. the Committee assembled at the Fairmont Hotel's ballroom, sitting along the edge of the stage and on packing cases. At this point, they set up 19 subcommittees, and shortly after 11 p.m., they dispersed.

The Fairmont Hotel burned down that night, and on Thursday, April 19, the Committee met at 6 a.m. at the North End police station. Once again, the spreading fires forced them to move, and the group reconvened at 2 p.m. at Franklin Hall, which became known as Temporary City Hall. Abe Ruef appeared At 4:30 p.m. and although he had not been called as a member, he offered his services, which Mayor Schmitz accepted. Ruef became chairman of an additional sub-committee, trying unsuccessfully to relocate the Chinese to the margins of the city.

Until the earthquake struck, San Francisco was the most prominent and prosperous city in the state. Funds cleared through San Francisco banks increased 80 percent between 1900 and 1905. The city had grown from 342,782 in 1900 to an estimated 500,000 by 1906. San Francisco was one of the most promising places for investment in all of the United States. Many companies were vying for a piece of the money to be made. The Home Telephone Company financed by investors from Southern California and Ohio was trying to wrest the telephone franchise held exclusively by Pacific States Telephone and Telegraph Company.[10]:p31 The Spring Valley Water Company, backed by Ruef, successfully blocked consideration of Hetch Hetchy as a source of water for the growing city. Ruef believed he and the city administrators stood to receive as much as $1,000,000 from the Spring Valley deal.[10]:p32

On May 14, 1906, Supervisors gave United Railroads permission to string overhead trolley wires on Market St. The next day the Examiner accused United Railroads of exploiting the disaster to push through its overhead trolley franchise. Mayor Schmitz said the approval was only temporary, but that did not prove to be true.[10]:p20 Supervisor Gallagher later testified during Ruef's trial that he told Ruef that board members would accept $4,000 as payment to approve the overhead trolley lines.[10]:p50 United Railroads proceeded to install overhead power on all of its lines, even those cable car lines that were still operational after the earthquake and fire, without paying anything to the city for its franchise.[10]:p58 The Home Telephone Company contributed $75,000 to a relief fund for the city, but asked that it be held until their franchise was approved.[10]:p51

Graft extended to the ordinary police officer on the beat. On April 24, 1907, the San Francisco Chronicle published a tally of fees illegal operations were expected to pay. Brothels paid officers on the street $5 per week, sergeants $15, captains $25, and the Police Chief $75 to $100 each week. This schedule also extended to gambling houses and saloons that offered prostitutes.

William J. Burns, a former Secret Service Agent[19] who had assisted Heney during the prosecution of the Oregon land graft scandal, was hired to assist Heney. He quietly began gathering evidence in June, 1906.[10]:p78

Heney initiates prosecution

Spreckels was so eager to remove Schmitz from office, that on May 10, 1906, he told Heney he would obtain the funds necessary to underwrite the costs of prosecuting members of the Schmitz Administration for graft. He and Older encouraged San Francisco District Attorney William H. Langdon to support their efforts to end the corruption. While the union thought that Langdon would support their cause, he held firm to his principles. On October 21, 1906, he published a statement saying he intended to convene a Grand Jury to investigate the rise in crime and the widely reported instances of corruption.[10]:p71

On October 24, 1906, Langdon appointed Heney as an assistant district attorney. The grand jury was scheduled to convene on October 26.[10]:p87 Mayor Schmitz was traveling in Europe, so the next day James L. Gallagher, chairman of the board of supervisors and acting mayor, acting at the behest of Abe Ruef, suspended Langdon for alleged "neglect of office". His motion at the board of supervisors meeting was read and adopted without debate or opposition.[10]:p88 As requested by Ruef, the primary targets of the investigation, Gallagher appointed him as acting district attorney. Ruef then attempted to fire Heney, writing him a curt note, "You are hereby removed from the position of Assistant District Attorney of the City and County of San Francisco." Heney rebuffed Ruef's action, saying he did not recognize Ruef as district attorney.

Heney filed a temporary restraining motion before Superior Court Judge Seawell to bar Ruef from acting as district attorney, who granted it at 5:00 a.m. the next morning.[10]:p89 The judge ordered a police officer and two deputy sheriffs installed in the District Attorney's office to prevent Ruef from occupying it. All three city newspapers soundly condemned Ruef's transparent attempt to scuttle the investigation and prosecution. The Examiner called their actions "the last stand of criminals hunted and driven to bay." The Bulletin headline read, "Ruef's Illegal Action is Confession of Guilt."[10]:p91 In early November, Judge Seawell ruled that the injunction prohibiting Ruef from replacing Langdon as district attorney would stand.[10]:p91

Tirey L. Ford was California State Attorney General when he began making secret payments to Abe Ruef on behalf of United Railroads.

On October 28, Tirey Ford, the general counsel for United Railroads, told the San Francisco Examiner, "Of course there was no bribery nor offer to bribe, nor was there anything done except upon clean and legitimate lines."[10]:p109 Ironically, Ford had been appointed to the State Board of Prison Directors in 1905, a position he maintained throughout the time charges were pending against him.[20]

Grand jury convenes

The grand jury was impaneled at the temporary court set up in Temple Israel, at 2:00 p.m. on October 26, 1906, as Langdon had promised, and with Langdon still officially in office. Hundreds of people tried to attend the proceedings, and the police packed the courtroom with Ruef supporters, allowing only a few supporters of the prosecution. Outside, the largest percentage of those present cheered the arrival of Langdon, Heney, and Spreckels. Ruef appeared guarded by two police officers.[10]:p08

The grand jury heard testimony about "French Restaurants" in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco that supplied both food and "private supper bedrooms" for their patrons and prostitutes.[10]:p65 When the police commission acted in January 1905 to close down all such establishments, they were advised to call on Ruef. Ruef was a nightly patron of one of the establishments, known as the "Pup," owned by Jean Loupy. The several restaurants paid Ruef a "retainer" of $8,000 (about $223,000 today), half of which he gave to Mayor Schmitz, who had advised the police commissioner to close them down in the first place. Ruef appeared before the Police Commission and proposed a method for regulating the French Restaurants, none of which affected the way they had already been operating, and his regulations were approved.[10]:p116

After only two weeks of testimony, the grand jury returned indictments on November 15 against Schmitz and Ruef on five counts each of extortion. Ruef initially refused to stand when the indictments were read, and when required to stand, insolently stood with his back to the judge.[10]:p122 Ruef publicly denounced the indictments, insisting that he had merely accepted fees in return for services. "I was simply acting in the relation of attorney to a client." Schmitz, who had been vacationing in Europe, turned around and headed home for San Francisco.[10]:p120 Both men were arraigned on December 6, and it became apparent that their strategy would start with a fight to evade or postpone trial by attacking the validity of the grand jury.[10]:p123

Court convenes

For three days the defense attorneys challenged members of the grand jury, but Judge Dunne finally swept aside all of their technical objections. The defense then tried to convince the judge that Spreckels had personal motives in paying the costs of Heney's prosecution, and then they attacked Langdon's motives for hiring Heney. This lasted until January 22, when Dunne once again set aside all of the defense's motions.[10]:p125 The defense then tried to get the case moved from Dunne's court, without success. Congressman Julius Kahn, a supporter of Schmitz, then requested that Schmitz come to Washington, D.C. immediately to discuss the issue of whether Japanese should be allowed to attend San Francisco Schools. Schmitz didn't return until March 6, delaying the trial further.[10]:p131

While Schmitz was away, Ruef was finally forced to enter a plea of not guilty, and his trial was set for March 5.[10]:p132 But the day before the trial was to begin, Ruef's attorney's succeeded in raising an issue in Judge Hebbard's court that required intervention of the federal courts. That appearance was set for May 2 in Washington before the Supreme Court. Then Ruef disappeared and failed to show up in Dunne's court the next Monday. Dunne ruled that the trial in his court would proceed, regardless of what was transpiring in Judge Hebbard's court, which he felt was a fraud. He ordered Ruef's bonds forfeited and Ruef's arrest. Ruef's attorneys then tried to appeal to the State Appellate Court, who denied the writ, unsigned by the absent defendant.[10]:p135 County Sheriff O'Neil was unable to find Ruef, and Judge Denne replaced him with the County Coroner, W.J. Walsh, as elisor, and charged him to bring Ruef into court. The coroner also failed to find Ruef, and Dunne then appointed Sheriff William J. Biggy as elisor and instructed him to arrest the fugitive. Biggy located Ruef within two hours at a roadhouse on the outskirts of San Francisco and arrested him.[10]:p135 But Biggy didn't know where to place Ruef, for both the police and sheriff's office had were under suspicion of graft, so he placed Ruef under arrest in a room in the temporary "little" Saint Francis Hotel built in the ruins of Union Square and later in a house at 2849 Fillmore Street, This arrangement lasted more than a year.

Supervisors implicated

As the investigation proceeded, other indictments were forthcoming. Supervisor Fred Nicholas was charged with accepting a bribe for $26,100 for furniture purchased for the city. Witnesses were indicted for perjury. Then, on March 7, 1907, while Ruef was still in hiding, Detective Burns set up a sting and witnessed Supervisor Thomas Lonergan accept a bribe from Golden M. Roy, owner of a well-known cafe with interests in several other businesses, including a skating rink. The city was considering an ordinance regulating skating rinks and Roy purportedly wanted Lonergan's help defeating the measure. Burns repeated the deception with two more supervisors, Edward Walsh and Dr. Charles Boxton. Gallagher suspected a trap and contacted Ruef, and they both encouraged Lonergan to return the bribe, but instead Lonergan accepted another $500. Burns and two other witnesses were concealed in an adjacent room on each occasion.[10]:p141-143

Burns summoned Heney and Langdon, who after five hours coerced Lonergan and Walsh to confess about the graft operations at City Hall, exposing payoffs from Home Telephone (10 supervisors $3,500 each and seven supervisors $6,000 each (or about $97,598 and $167,311 in 2019); Bay Cities Water; Pacific Gas & Electric ($750 each); Pacific States Telephone Co. (10 supervisors $5,000 ($55,770 today))); United Railroads ($40,000 to each supervisor and $400,000 to Ruef); the Parkside Realty companies; and boxing interests ($750 to each supervisor, Ruef and Schmitz $10,000 each).[13]:254 But neither of the two men implicated Gallagher or Ruef, and the prosecution badly wanted information that would allow them to bring more charges against the two masterminds and the corporate executives who had supplied the money.[10]:p144-148 Gallagher was induced to meet with Spreckels during which a deal was worked our for Gallegher's testimony implicating Ruef and Schmitz, in exchange for immunity for himself and all of the Supervisors.[10]:p150[13]:254 Gallagher then met with all of the supervisors in a final secret caucus and offered them the immunity deal, which 16 of them accepted.[10]:p155

On March 19, Lonergan testified in front of the grand jury[21] to having received $169,350 from Ruef that was transferred to the Supervisors. He and the now-immunized Supervisors detailed the source of the more than $200,000 received by the board members,[10]:p157-174 naming the more than 20 board members of the several corporations who had contributed bribery funds,[10]:p169 who were then in turn compelled to testify. Calhoun of United Railroads was one of the few holdouts: he refused to testify and exercised his right against self-incrimination.

On March 14, Tirey L. Ford told The San Francisco Call that the grand jury's graft investigation wasn't legal and he refused to Testify.[16]

On March, 20, Ruef was charged with 65 more counts of graft. The grand jury also charged Theodore V. Halsey, the former confidential political for Pacific States Telephone and Telegraph Company, with 14 counts of graft for the bribes paid to Supervisors to deny a competitive bid for telephone service in San Francisco. The judge set bail at $10,000 per count, or $650,000 for Ruef and $100,000 for Halsey.[17]

On March 23, the grand jury revealed an indictment against A.K. Detwiller, a capitalist from Toledo, Ohio and investor in the Home Telephone Company, and nine counts against Louis Glass, formerly a vice-president of Pacific States Telephone and Telegraph Co., for bribing supervisors. The grand jury learned that 9 of the 16 supervisors paid by PT&T through Ruef and Gallagher to oppose the Home Telephone Company's bid for a franchise had also accepted payments from the Home Telephone Company to support its bid.[17]

Ruef confesses

Heney and Spreckels meanwhile met with officers of the major companies implicated in the bribery scheme and encouraged them to come forward and implicate Ruef and Schmitz. But the executives pretended that any rumors about bribery were baseless and denied any knowledge of the payoffs.[10]:p153 The prosecution's only hope to convict the executives of bribery was to prove a conspiracy, that they gave money to Ruef, a non-public official, with the intent that he pass it on to the Supervisors, who were. The Supervisors' testimony, while important, was only circumstantial. They needed Ruef's testimony to implicate the other men.[20]:p254

Heney tried to persuade Ruef to offer evidence implicating Calhoun, Ford, and of United Railroads, but Ruef demanded complete immunity for himself and Schmitz in exchange for a confession, which Heney refused.[21] California Governor James Gillett considered removing Schmitz from office but found that the City Charter didn't contain a provision allowing removal of a sitting mayor.[22]

During jury selection for the second trial, Heney found that one of the individuals impaneled, Morris Haas, had been convicted for embezzlement, although he was later pardoned. Detectives learned that Haas had boasted to his mistress that he would sell his vote for Ruef's acquittal.[23] Believing Ruef was trying to plant the man on the jury, Heney publicly exposed Haas's forgery conviction while Haas was seated in the jury box and declared he was ineligible to serve.[24]

The jury could not reach a verdict[25] and A.E.S. Blake was later convicted and sentenced for offering a bribe to juror J.M. Kelly.[23]

The prosecution reached an agreement with Ruef requiring Ruef to confess and in return he would receive immunity from most of the charges against him. On May 15, 1907, Ruef changed his plea to guilty and the next day in testimony before the grand jury he incriminated Schmitz.

On top of Ruef's confession, his trial continued for another 18 months, until December 10, 1908, on the remaining counts that he had not confessed to. The jury found him guilty and sentenced him to the maximum sentence for bribery, 14 years in San Quentin State Prison." He spent the next year at the county jail awaiting his appeal. In December 1909, he was released on bond of $600,000.[13]:256

Ford indicted

The case against Tirey Ford went ahead and he was indicted in May 1907, charged with bribing Supervisor Thomas F. Lonergan. The San Francisco Bulletin described Ford as "a man whose error was caused by a mistaken loyalty to a corrupt corporation and in whose fall many will sorrow and none will rejoice."[20]:p243 Ruef admitted that he had received a $200,000 "attorney's fee" from Ford that he had used to make payments to the Supervisors. But Ruef would not admit that his dealings with Ford were anything other legal fees to Ruef to compensate him for his legal services to United Railroad. He said the same was true of his dealings with Calhoun, that they entirely professional. All three men were experienced lawyers, and if they engaged in a conspiracy, it may have been entirely implicit. Despite encouragement from Burns and Heney, Ruef would not testify that the men intended to bribe the Supervisors.

Calhoun spared no expense in defending himself and Ford. He hired an array of detectives to help with the investigation and a battery of attorneys to defend him. The attorneys included Earl Rogers of Los Angeles, and Alexander King, Calhoun's partner in New York, who gained admittance to California Bar just for Ford's case.[20]:p243 In presenting Calhoun and Tirey's defense, Rogers argued that the prosecution had failed to make a case against the defendants, and didn't call a single witness or introduce any evidence.

Ford's first trial began on September 23, 1907. The prosecution secured testimony from Frank Leach, Superintendent of the Mint, who produced records that showed on May 22, 1906, Calhoun sent $200,000 from the east by telegraph that was deposited to the Mint. The records also showed that Ford drew $50,000 in small bills against the deposit on May 25, $50,000 on July 31, and the remainder on August 31. The dates corresponded approximately to two dates in early August and at the end of August that the Supervisors testified to having received payments from Gallagher.

The sensational case was submitted to the jury.[16] When the jury failed to reach a verdict, a mistrial was declared, and a second jury was convened. Ford was charged with bribing Supervisor Jennings Phillips and a second trial began on November 26, 1907 which also failed to reach a verdict, and a third trial began on April 4, 1908. He was charged with bribing Supervisor Daniel G. Coleman to help United Railroads secure a franchise to erect an overhead trolley system. On May 3, 1908, the jury found him not guilty.[16]

On June 20, 1909, the Calhoun jury was deadlocked, with the final jury vote at ten for acquittal and two for conviction. He was not retried.

Schmitz indicted

On May 20, 1907, Mayor Schmitz was charged on the same indictment as Ruef for extorting money from the Tenderloin district French Restaurants.[26]

Schmitz was convicted and forced out of office on June 13, 1907. But Schmitz's conviction was voided when a higher court ruled that there was a flaw in the indictment that failed to use Schmitz official title as mayor of San Francisco.[25]

On January 10, 1908, the California Appellate Court reversed Schmitz's conviction and nullified the indictments still pending against Ruef.[27]

Ruef trial begins

On April 3, 1908, the prosecution began interviewing prospective jurors and had nearly completed their selection of 12 men when Ruef began begging Heney through others to consider a deal that would allow Ruef full immunity in exchange for his testimony. Heney refused to consider full immunity, insisting that Ruef take his chances on the indictment for graft. Ruef finally accepted these terms and on May 17, 1908, told the court he was ready to change his plea to guilty and make a full confession. The prosecution had scant evidence against Schmitz and without Ruef's testimony had little chance of obtaining a conviction against him.[10]:p206

It took more than 70 days to examining prospective jurors and find 12 qualified jurors. On November 7, 1908, a jury was impaneled and sworn in for Ruef's third trial.

Bomb destroys Gallagher's home

On April 29, 1908, a powerful explosion wrecked a portion of the Gallaghers' home in Alameda, including the room upstairs in which Gallagher and his wife were located, but both escaped unhurt. Their two daughters, a son, along with guests Mr. and Mrs. Schenck, and a gentlemen calling on the ladies, were also in the home. Because their dinner was late, they were kept in a portion of the house that was not seriously damaged, and they also escaped injury.[28]

Some of the newspaper editors supporting Ghallager's prosecution insinuated that Gallagher had arranged to blow up his own house to gain public sympathy. However John and Peter Claudianes were arrested and confessed to placing the dynamite bomb under Gallagher's home.[29] Peter said he had been paid to kill Gallagher by Felix Paudivaris, a United Railroads employee and a political friend of Ruef's. Paudivaris disappeared shortly after the explosion but Claudianes and his brother were convicted and sentenced to life in prison.[28]

Heney shot in court

Morris Haas, the ex-convict that Heney had exposed during jury selection, deeply resented Heney's action and brooded over it for many weeks. Haas attended the trial and during its eleventh week, a temporary recess was called in the late afternoon of November 13, 1908. While Heney was talking with another attorney, Haas walked up to Heney and shot him at point-blank range in the head. The wound, a half-inch in front of his right ear and just below the temple, was initially pronounced fatal.[24] Heney was hospitalized, and on the operating table said, "I will live to prosecute Haas and Ruef."[19]

That night Haas was placed in a prison cell with a policeman to guard him, but despite these precautions was found dead with a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead the following morning,[30] a derringer beside him. The 1910 Oliver Grand Jury reported that two detectives had searched Haas after he shot Heney. It couldn't be determined whether Haas committed suicide, and if so, how he obtained the pistol, or whether he was murdered to prevent his testimony. Some believed that the same individuals who paid Claudianes to bomb the Gallagher residence was responsible for Haas's death. Others thought that Ruef, who they believed had hired Haas to murder Heney, had made sure Haas was silenced.[23]

Heney did not die from his gunshot wound, as he had been expected to, and the trial resumed on November 18 after Judge William P. Lawlor dismissed several defense motions.[31] The prosecutor's role was assumed by Hiram Johnson, a bright young assistant to Heney.

Detective Burns had given Johnson the names of four jurors who, Burns said, had been bribed, and in his summation Johnson called each of them by name, pointed a forefinger at him, and shouted: "You – you dare not acquit this man!" Nevertheless, when the jury retired for its deliberations everyone expected that it would let Ruef go, or would disagree, as had happened in almost every other case growing out of the graft prosecution.

Ruef convicted

While the jury was out Heney telephoned Older to say that he was much recovered, and proposed to come down and pay his respects to the judge. Older, with his usual flair for the dramatic, told Heney not to come until the editor gave the signal. While most of the community was by now against the prosecution, there was a minority on the side of honesty, which had organized a League of Justice pledged to help at a moment's notice. Older now hastily sent word to dozens of these men, who came and crowded into the courtroom, which was directly under the chamber in which the jury was deliberating.

Evelyn Wells, in her biography of Older, tells what happened when Heney entered the courtroom on Older's arm:[10]

The 'minutemen' raised a shout of welcome. Older himself trumpeted like a bull elephant. The rest of the crowd joined in ... It was a cheer of welcome, but to the scared jury on the floor above it sounded like a bellowed demand for lynching. A few minutes later twelve men good and true filed hurriedly into the courtroom. They had hastily made up their minds. All were deathly white. Some trembled. A few were weeping.

The jury's found Ruef guilty and he was sentenced to 14 years in prison. In November 1910, his conviction and sentence were finally upheld, and on March 1, 1911, he entered prison.[10]

Schmitz convicted, released

Political boss Abe Ruef of San Francisco on his way to San Quentin State Prison after he was convicted in the San Francisco Graft Trial of 1907–1908.

On June 13, 1907, Mayor E.E. Schmitz was found guilty of extortion and the office of mayor was declared vacant. He was sent to jail to await sentence. Shortly thereafter he was sentenced to five years at San Quentin State Prison, the maximum sentence the law allowed. He immediately appealed. While awaiting the outcome of the appeal, Schmitz was kept in a cell in San Francisco County Jail.[32] Dr. Edward R. Taylor, Dean of Hastings College of the Law, agreed to step in as interim mayor and was given power to appoint new supervisors to replace those who had resigned.[10]

On January 9, 1908, the District Court of Appeals nullified his conviction. Two months later, the California Supreme Court upheld the Court of Appeal's ruling, and Schmitz was released on bail, pending resolution of the outstanding bribery indictments.

He was brought to trial once more in 1912, on charges of bribery. Ruef was brought from San Quentin to testify, but refused to give evidence. The other key witness, Chief Supervisor Gallagher, had disappeared without leave to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and did not return. Schmitz was acquitted.

Schmitz ran for mayor again in 1915 and 1919, but was soundly defeated due to his past reputation. Elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1921, he remained until 1925. He was married and had two daughters.

Police Chief dies

Police Chief William Biggy may have committed suicide.

Heney and others publicly criticized Chief of Police William J. Biggy for the negligence and lax security that allowed Haas to kill himself with a hidden derringer, and Biggy was deeply hurt by Heney's allegations. Biggy had a falling out with those supporting the graft prosecution and was placed under surveillance by detectives employed by Burns.

Biggy discussed his resignation with police commissioner Hugo Keil on December 1, 1908. While returning from that meeting during a nighttime crossing of San Francisco Bay from Belvedere to San Francisco aboard a police launch, Biggy went missing, a possible suicide. His body was found two weeks later floating in the bay. Biggy was a devout Catholic and the public thought it unlikely that he would commit suicide, but the Coroner's Jury returned a verdict of accidental death.

Aftermath

Of all the sentences meted out to leading figures in the whole course of the prosecution, Ruef was the only individual who served prison time. When another municipal election approached in 1909, District Attorney Langdon refused to run again. Langdon was tired and discouraged at the lack of success in prosecuting the officials who had paid the bribes. Supervisor James Ghallager, a key witness, had fled the country for Vancouver, British Columbia.

Attorney Charles Fickert, supported by the labor ticket, beat Heney for the District Attorney's office in 1909.

In desperation, Heney ran for district attorney, but was defeated by a Union Labor loyalist, lawyer, and former football hero from Stanford University, Charles Fickert, whose liaison with the crooked politicians was well known.

Fickert promptly and contemptuously refused to proceed with any of the pending cases against the businessmen who had paid the bribes. He pretended he didn't know where Supervisor Gallagher had fled, although his location in Vancouver was common knowledge. (Fickert later gained a notorious reputation when he mishandled the 1916 Preparedness Day Bombing case and was defeated for District Attorney in 1919.)

William P. Lawlor, the honest judge who had presided in several of the cases, excoriated Fickert and ordered the others to trial, but he was overruled by the court of appeals, which decided that all of the large number of remaining indictments should be quashed. The graft prosecution was over, having ended in almost total failure, with only Ruef in prison."[33]

On August 17, 1911, Judge Lawlor dismissed all remaining indictments in the trolley bribery cases against Tirey L. Ford and other officials of the United Railroads.[16]

On November 1, 1912, Louis Glass, formerly the Vice President at Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company, was in court for a hearing. He had been accused of offering a bribe to a Supervisor to support the company's bid for the telephone franchise. Glass was the last to be prosecuted for graft, and he insisted that his rights to a speedy trial had been violated. Ludge Lawlor reluctantly agreed and dismissed the charges pending against Glass.[34]

Ruef serves four years

In 1912, Older began to have second thoughts about Ruef's conviction. He asked Ruef to write his memoirs, which were published in the San Francisco Bulletin in installments almost daily over months, finishing at the point where the graft investigation began. On August 23, 1915, having served a little more than four and a half of his fourteen-year sentence, he was released. He was the only person in the entire investigation who went to prison. He was not allowed to return to his legal practice. "Before he went to prison he had been worth over a million dollars, when he died he was bankrupt."[13]:257

The Chinatown centered on Grant Avenue and Stockton Street in San Francisco, California, (Chinese: 唐人街; pinyin: tángrénjiē; Jyutping: tong4 jan4 gaai1) is the oldest Chinatown in North America and one of the largest Chinese enclave outside Asia. It is the oldest and largest of the four notable Chinatowns within the City.[3][4][5][6] Since its establishment in 1848,[7] it has been highly important and influential in the history and culture of ethnic Chinese immigrants in North America. Chinatown is an enclave that continues to retain its own customs, languages, places of worship, social clubs, and identity. There are two hospitals, several parks and squares, numerous churches, a post office, and other infrastructure. While recent immigrants and the elderly choose to live here because of the availability of affordable housing and their familiarity with the culture,[8] the place is also a major tourist attraction, drawing more visitors annually than the Golden Gate Bridge.[9]

History

Origins: 1850s

Official Map of Chinatown (July 1885). Map is oriented with north to the right side. Dupont (now Grant) is the prominent street running north-south along the middle of the map. Full extent of map is Stockton (top/west), Kearny (bottom/east), California (left/south), and Broadway (right/north). Special attention is paid to vices: prostitution is marked in green (Chinese) and blue (white); joss houses are marked in red; opium dens are marked in bright yellow; and gambling is marked in pink.

Guangdong pioneers

San Francisco's Chinatown was the port of entry for early Chinese immigrants from the west side of the Pearl River Delta, speaking mainly Hoisanese[20] and Zhongshanese,[21] in the Guangdong province of southern China from the 1850s to the 1900s.[22] On August 28, 1850, at Portsmouth Square,[23]:9 San Francisco's first mayor, John Geary, officially welcomed 300 "China Boys" to San Francisco.[24]:34-38 By 1854, the Alta California, a local newspaper which had previously taken a supportive stance on Chinese immigrants in San Francisco, began attacking them, writing after a recent influx that "if the city continues to fill up with these people, it will be ere long become necessary to make them subject of special legislation".[24]:54-55

Sacramento St.; 唐人街: literally "Tang people street"

These early immigrant settled near Portsmouth Square and around Dupont Street (now called Grant Ave).[24]:54-55 As the settlement grew in the early 1850s, Chinese shops opened on Sacramento St, which the Guangdong pioneers called "Tang people street" (唐人街);[25][23]:13 and the settlement became known as "Tang people town" (唐人埠), which in Cantonese is Tong Yun Fow.[23]:9-40 By the 1870s, the economic center of Chinatown moved from Sacramento St to Dupont St;[26]:15-16 e.g., in 1878, out of 423 Chinese firms in Chinatown, 121 were located on Dupont St, 60 on Sacramento St, 60 on Jackson St, and the remainder elsewhere.[23]:15

The area was the one geographical region deeded by the city government and private property owners which allowed Chinese persons to inherit and inhabit dwellings within the city. The majority of these Chinese shopkeepers, restaurant owners, and hired workers in San Francisco Chinatown were predominantly Hoisanese and male.[21] For example, in 1851, the reported Chinese population in California was about 12,000 men and less than ten women.[24]:41 Some of the early immigrants worked as mine workers or independent prospectors hoping to strike it rich during the 1849 Gold Rush. Many Chinese found jobs working for large companies seeking a source of labor, most famously as part of the Central Pacific[10] on the Transcontinental Railroad, from 1865-1869.[24]:71-72

Associations and institutions

The west side of the Pearl River Delta of Guangdong, where most of the Chinese emigrated from, was subdivided into many distinct districts and some with distinct dialects. Several district associations, open to anyone emigrating from that district(s), were formed in the 1850s to act as a culture-shock absorber for newly arrived immigrants and to settle disputes among their member. Although there are some disagreement about which association formed first, by 1854, six of such district associations were formed, of various size and influence, and disputes between members of different associations became more frequent. Thus, in 1862, the six district associations (commonly called the Chinese Six Companies, even though the number of member associations varied through the years) banded together to resolve inter-district disputes. This was made formal in 1882 and incorporated in 1901 as the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (on Stockton Street) to look after the general interest of the Chinese people living in a hostile western world.[27]:1-9

Founded purportedly in 1852, the Tin How Temple (Queen of Heaven and Goddess of the Seven Seas) on Waverly Place is the oldest Chinese temple in the United States. It is dedicated to the goddess Tin How, the protector of seafarers, much honored by Chinese immigrants, especially arriving by ship, to San Francisco. The original building was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake, and it opened on the top floor of a four-story building at 125 Waverly Place in 1910. After closing in 1955, the temple reopened in 1975, due to a resurgence of interest from a new immigrant population following the 1965 immigration reform act.[28]:207-209

The Chinese Presbyterian Church on Stockton Street can trace its roots to October 1852, when Cantonese-speaking Rev. William Speer, a missionary in Canton, came to work with the Chinese immigrants in San Francisco. In November 1853 he organized the first Chinese mission in the United States, which provided much needed medical aid and conducted day and night schools that taught English to Chinese immigrants. He also published a Chinese/English newspaper, the Oriental, which staunchly defended the Chinese as anti-Chinese sentiment began to grow in the 1850s.[29] The original building was destroyed by the earthquake, and the present church building on 925 Stockton Street was built in 1907.[28]:173-174

Other Christian denominations followed, including the Methodist Church on Washington Street (founded 1870, rebuilt 1911) and the First Baptist Church (founded 1880, rebuilt 1908 on Waverly Place) as well as Catholic, Congregational, and Episcopal. The pattern these early missions followed was to first conduct English language classes and Sunday schools. In these decades, the only English classes available to Chinese immigrants were those offered by these Christian missions. Some added rescue homes (e.g., from prostitution), and social services for the sick and protection from racial discrimination. In these ways, the early Christian missions and churches in Chinatown gained widespread respect and new converts.[27]:28-34

Prostitution and ill repute

The Street of the Gamblers (Ross Alley), Arnold Genthe, 1898. The population of Chinatown was predominantly male because U.S. policies at the time made it difficult for Chinese women to enter the country.

In the 1850s, San Francisco "was all but submerged in Caucasian forms of gambling and prostitution and lewdness".[24]:57 During the late period of the California Gold Rush, a few Chinese female prostitutes began their sexual businesses in Chinatown. In addition, the major prostitution enterprises had been raised by criminal gang group "Tong", importing unmarried Chinese women to San Francisco.[30] During the 1870s to 1880s, the population of Chinese sex workers in Chinatown grew rapidly to more than 1,800, accounting for 70% of the total Chinese female population.[30]

In the mid-19th century, police harassment reshaped the urban geography and the social life of Chinese prostitutes. Consequently, hundreds of Chinese prostitutes were expelled to side streets and alleys hidden from public traffic.[31] From 1870 to 1874, the California legislature formally criminalized the immigrant Asian women who were transported into California. In 1875, the U.S. Congress followed California's action and passed the Page Law, which was the first major legal restriction to prohibit the immigration of Chinese, Japanese, and Mongolian women into America.[32] In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act declared that no more skilled or unskilled immigrants would be allowed to enter the country, which meant that many Chinese and Chinese Americans could not have families in America, because their wives and children were prohibited to immigrate.[33] Simultaneously, the public discourse began to accuse Chinese prostitutes of transmitting venereal diseases. Dr. Hugh Huger Toland, a member of the San Francisco Board of Health, reported that white boys and men contracted diseases when they visited "Chinese houses of prostitution" in Chinatown, in order to warn white citizens to stay away. "When these persons come to me I ask them where they got the disease, and they generally tell me that they have been with Chinawomen."[34]:12–13

 All great cities have their slums and localities where filth, disease, crime and misery abound; but in the very best aspect which "Chinatown" can be made to present, it must stand apart, conspicuous and beyond them all in the extreme degree of all these horrible attributes, the rankest outgrowth of human degradation that can be found upon this continent. Here it may truly be said that human beings exist under conditions (as regards their mode of life and the air they breathe) scarcely one degree above those under which the rats of our water-front and other vermin live, breathe and have their being. And this order of things seems inseparable from the very nature of the race, and probably must be accepted and borne with—must be endured, if it cannot be cured—restricted and looked after, so far as possible, with unceasing vigilance, so that, whatever of benefit, "of degree," even, that may be derived from such modification of the evil of their presence among us, may at least be attained, not daring to hope that there can be any radical remedy for the great, overshadowing evil which Chinese immigration has inflicted upon this people.

The Report of the Special Committee of the Board of Supervisors of San Francisco, on the Condition of the Chinese Quarter of that City (1885)[34]:5

By the end of the 19th century, Chinatown's assumed reputation as a place of vice caused it to become a tourist destination, attracting numerous working class white people, who sought the oriental mystery of Chinese culture, and sought to fulfill their expectations and fantasies about the filth and depravity. The white customers' patronization of Chinatown prostitutes was more extensive than gambling. After catering for three decades to white people as well as Chinese bachelors, Chinatown's prostitution sector developed into a powerful vested interest, favoring the vice industry.[35] As the tourist industry grew up, the visitors came to include members of the white middle class, which pushed the vice businesses to transform into an entertainment industry as a more respectable form in which to serve white customers.

Ah Toy

Main article: Ah Toy

Ah Toy (c.1828 - 1928) was a Cantonese[36] prostitute and madam in San Francisco during the California Gold Rush, and purportedly the first Chinese prostitute in San Francisco.[37] Arriving from Hong Kong in 1849,[38] she quickly became the most well-known Asian woman in the Old West.[39] She reportedly was a tall, attractive woman with bound feet.[40] When Ah Toy left China for the United States, she originally traveled with her husband, who died during the voyage. Toy became the mistress of the ship's captain, who showered gold upon her, so much so that by the time she arrived in San Francisco in the 1840s,[41] Toy had a fair bit of money. Noticing the looks she drew from the men in her new town, she figured they would pay for a closer look. Her peep shows became quite successful, and she eventually became a high-priced prostitute. In 1850, Toy opened a chain of brothels at 34 and 36 Waverly Place[41] (then called Pike Street), importing girls from China as young as eleven years old to work in them. Her neighbors on Pike Street--conveniently linked to San Francisco's business district by Commercial Street--included the elegant new "parlour house" of madame Belle Cora, and the cottage of Fanny Perrier, mistress of Judge Edward (Ned) McGowan. Towards the end of her life Ah Toy supposedly returned to China a wealthy woman to live the rest of her days in comfort,[42] but came back to California not long afterward. From 1868 until her death in 1928, she lived a quiet life in Santa Clara County, returning to public attention only upon dying three months short of her 100th birthday in San Jose.[43][44]

1870s to the 1906 earthquake

Officers of the Chinese Six Companies

The headquarters of the Chinese Six Companies on Stockton

Relations between the United States and Qing China were normalized through the Burlingame Treaty of 1868. Among other terms, the treaty promised the right of free immigration and travel within the United States for Chinese; business leaders saw China as a plentiful source of cheap labor, and celebrated the treaty's ratification.[45] But this did not last for long.

The mostly male Chinese immigrants came to the United States with the intent of sending money home to support their families; coupled with the high cost of repaying their loans for travel, they often had to take any work that was available. Fears began to arise among non-Chinese workers that they could be replaced, and resentment towards Chinese immigrants rose.[46] With extensive nationwide unemployment in the wake of the Panic of 1873, racial tensions in the city boiled over into full blown race riots. The two-day San Francisco riot of 1877 raged through Chinatown in July; four were killed and US$100,000 (equivalent to $2,350,000 in 2018) in property damage was done to Chinese-owned businesses. In response to the violence, the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, also known as the Chinese Six Companies, which evolved out of the labor recruiting organizations for different areas of Guangdong, was created to provide the community with a unified voice. The heads of these companies advocated for the Chinese community to the wider business community as a whole and to the city government.

The state legislature of California passed several measures to restrict the rights of Chinese immigrants, but these were largely superseded by the terms of the Burlingame Treaty of 1868.[46]

Chinese Exclusion Acts

In 1880, the Burlingame Treaty was renegotiated and the United States ratified the Angell Treaty, which allowed federal restrictions on Chinese immigration and temporarily suspended the immigration of unskilled laborers. Anti-immigrant sentiment became federal law once the United States Government passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882: the first immigration restriction law aimed at a single ethnic group. This law, along with other immigration restriction laws such as the Geary Act, greatly reduced the numbers of Chinese allowed into the country and the city, and in theory limited Chinese immigration to single males only. Exceptions were in fact granted to the wives and minor children of wealthy merchants; immigrants would purchase or partner in businesses to declare themselves merchants in order to bring their families to America. Alternatively, prospective immigrants could become "paper sons" by purchasing the identity of Americans whose citizenship had been established by birthright.[28]:38–39 However, the Exclusion Act was credited with reducing the population of the neighborhood to an all-time low in the 1920s.

Main immigration building on Angel Island

Many early Chinese immigrants to San Francisco and beyond were processed at Angel Island, in the San Francisco Bay, which is now a state park. Unlike Ellis Island on the east coast where prospective European immigrants might be held for up to a week, Angel Island typically detained Chinese immigrants for months while they were interrogated closely to validate their papers. The detention facility was renovated in 2005 and 2006 under a federal grant.

Tong wars

As in much of San Francisco, a period of criminality existed during the late 19th century; many tongs arose, trafficking in smuggling, gambling and prostitution. From the mid-1870s, turf battles sprang up over competing criminal enterprises. By the early 1880s, the term Tong war was being popularly used to describe these periods of violence in Chinatown. At their height in the 1880s and 1890s, twenty to thirty tongs ran highly profitable gambling houses, brothels, opium dens, and slave trade enterprises in Chinatown. Overcrowding, segregation, graft, and the lack of governmental control contributed to conditions that sustained the criminal tongs until the early 1920s.

Chinatown's isolation and compact geography intensified the criminal behavior that terrorized the community for decades despite efforts by the Six Companies and police/city officials[47] to stem the tide. The San Francisco Police Department established its so-called Chinatown Squad in the 1880s, consisting of six patrolmen led by a sergeant. However, the Squad was ineffective largely by design. An investigation published in 1901 by the California state legislature found that Mayor James D. Phelan and Police Chief William P. Sullivan, Jr. had knowingly tolerated gambling and prostitution in Chinatown in the interest of bolstering municipal revenue, calling the police department "so apathetic in putting down the horrible system of slavery existing in Chinatown as to justify your committee in believing it criminally negligent."[48] Phelan and Sullivan testified it would take between 180 to 400 policemen to enforce the laws against gambling and prostitution, which was contradicted by the ex-Chief of Police William J. Biggy, who said 30 "earnestly directed" policemen would suffice.[49]:625–630

Bubonic plague

Main article: San Francisco plague of 1900–1904

Chinatown, as it is at present, cannot be rendered sanitary except by total obliteration. It should be depopulated, its buildings leveled by fire and its tunnels and cellars laid bare. Its occupants should be colonized on some distant portion of the peninsula, where every building should be constructed under strict municipal regulation and where every violation of the sanitary laws could be at once detected. The day has passed when a progressive city like San Francisco should feel compelled to tolerate in its midst a foreign community, perpetuated in filth, for the curiosity of tourists, the cupidity of lawyers and the adoration of artists.

Dr. Williamson, Annual Report to the Board of Health (quoted in 1901)[50]

In March 1900, a Chinese-born man who was a long-time resident of Chinatown was found dead of bubonic plague. The next morning, all of Chinatown was quarantined, with policemen preventing "Asiatics" (people of Asian heritage) from either entering or leaving. The San Francisco Board of Health began looking for more cases of plague and began burning personal property and sanitizing buildings, streets and sewers within Chinatown. Chinese Americans protested and the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association threatened lawsuits.

The quarantine was lifted but the burning and fumigating continued. A federal court ruled that public health officials could not close off Chinatown without any proof that Chinese Americans were any more susceptible to plague than Anglo Americans.[51][52][53][54][55]

1906 to the 1960s

Looking east down Clay St at the Great Fire on 18 April 1906: Arnold Genthe

The Chinatown neighborhood was completely destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire that leveled most of the city. "The fire had full sway, and Chinatown, for the removal of which many a scheme has been devised, is but a memory." Oakland Tribune, April, 1906.[26]:33

Relocation Attempt

Plans to relocate Chinatown predated the earthquake several years. At the 1901 Chinese Exclusion Convention held in San Francisco, A. Sbarboro called Chinatown "synonymous with disease, dirt and unlawful deeds" that "give[s] us nothing but evil habits and noxious stenches".[50]

With Chinatown completely demolished by the Great Fire, which ended on April 21, 1906, the City seized the chance to remove the Chinese from the old downtown business district. Certain city officials and real-estate developers made more formal plans to move Chinatown to the Hunters Point neighborhood at the southern edge of the city,[56] or even further south to Daly City. Abe Ruef, the political boss widely considered to be the power behind Mayor Eugene Schmitz, invited himself to become part of the Committee of Fifty and, within a week of the end of the Great Fire, on Saturday, April 27, 1906,[26]:61-63 formed an additional Subcommittee on Relocating the Chinese, because he felt the land was too valuable for Chinese.

Opposition arose, however, from politicians who feared that the removal of the Chinese would affect San Francisco's lucrative trade with Asian countries. Moreover, the government of China was also opposed, and soon after the earthquake, Tsi Chi Chow, the first secretary of the Chinese legation in Washington, DC, arrived in San Francisco, conveying to California governor George Pardee the opposition of China's Empress Dowager Cixi to the plan.[57] The representatives, "acting unofficially", stated "the only way to remove the Chinese from the old Chinatown would be to give them a place elsewhere that would be acceptable for their purpose, when they might be willing to move."[58] The San Francisco Call reported it as "a vigorous protest" and noted that as the site of the Chinese consulate was the property of Imperial China, it could not be reassigned by the city.[59]

On May 10, 1906, the Subcommittee met with representatives from the Chinese community, the Chinese Six Companies, who said that they would either rebuild in their old Chinatown quarters or move across the bay to Oakland, where most of the Chinatown refugees had fled.[26]:65 Other community leaders pointed out that displaced residents may not stop to resettle in Hunters Point, moving further to other West Coast cities like Seattle or Los Angeles, taking the pool of cheap labor with them.[60] On July 8, 1906, after 25 committee meetings and considering various alternative sites in the City, the Subcommittee submitted a final report stating their inability to drive the Chinese from their old Chinatown quarters.[26]:66 Ironically, plans to relocate Chinatown failed in the end because restrictive housing covenants in other areas of the City prohibited Chinese from settling elsewhere.[61]:92 In any event, the ability to rebuild in their old Chinatown quarters was the first significant victory[62] for the Chinese community in Chinatown.[26]:83

Rebuilding

c.1910

2006

Looking north along Grant from the intersection of Grant and Pine. The distinctive pagoda-topped roofs of the Sing Fat and Sing Chong buildings are on the left side of each picture. The dragon street lamp (right) was installed in 1925 for the San Francisco Diamond Jubilee Festival.

Even when the Subcommittee was bringing its relocation attempt to an end, the Chinese were already rebuilding, albeit with temporary wooden buildings which did not required permits. By June 10, 1906, twelve Chinese businesses were opened in Chinatown, including a couple of cafes. The actual reconstruction did not begin until October 1, 1906, when the City granted 43 building permits to Chinese businesses. By the time of the first Chinese New Year in 1907, several dozen buildings were completed, using old bricks unburnt by the fire, and Chinatown was filled with happy people. The reconstruction of Chinatown was completed more or less in 1908, a year ahead of the rest of the City.[26]:92-94

A group of Chinese merchants, including Mendocino-born Look Tin Eli, hired American architects to design in a Chinese-motif "Oriental" style in order to promote tourism in the rebuilt Chinatown.[63] The results of this design strategy[64] were the pagoda-topped buildings of the Sing Chong and Sing Fat bazaars on the west corners of Grant Ave (then Dupont St) and California St, which have become icons of San Francisco Chinatown.[28]:113-115

In November 1907, an article extolling the virtues of the "new Chinatown of San Francisco" was written, praising the new "substantial, modern, fireproof buildings of brick and stone ... following the Oriental style of architecture" and declaring "[n]o more picturesque squalor, no more gambling dens, opium joints or public haunts of vice" would be tolerated, at the command of the Chinese Six Companies. By then, 5,000 residents had returned, of the estimated 30,000 that lived in Chinatown prior to the quake.[65]

When the earthquake destroyed Chinatown's wooden tenements, it also dealt a death blow to the tongs. Criminal tongs continued on until the 1920s, but after the earthquake legitimate Chinese merchants and a more capable Chinatown Squad under Sgt. Jack Manion gained the upper hand. Manion was appointed leader of the Squad in 1921 and served for two decades. Stiffer legislation against prostitution and drugs ended the tongs.[66] The Chinatown Squad was finally disbanded in August 1955 by Police Chief George Healey, upon the request of the influential Chinese World newspaper, which had editorialized the Squad was an "affront to Americans of Chinese descent".[67]

While the Chinese merchants succeeded in rebuilding in a tourist-attractive way, they could not influence the landlords, most of which were not Chinese, to provide adequate housing for the Chinese residents. In a 1930 Community Chest Survey of 153 Chinatown families, 32 families, with an average of five persons each, lived in one room each; only 19 families had complete bath tub, kitchen, and toilet facilities; on the average, there was one kitchen for 3.1 families and one toilet for 4.6 families (or 28.3 persons). Crowded inadequate living conditions contributed to a high death rate for the Chinese. The Chinese were no longer a problem for the city; they were forgotten.[68]:61-62

Nightlife

Dragon Street Lamp on Grant Ave

The famous Sam Wo restaurant opened in 1912.

In 1925 for the celebration of the San Francisco Diamond Jubilee, the Downtown Merchants Association, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, and the San Francisco Diamond Jubilee Festival jointly raised $18,000 for 43 dragon street lamps to be cast in China and installed along Grant Avenue from Bush Street to Broadway. Designed by D’Arcy Ryan, who also designed the "Paths of Gold" streetlights on Market Street,[28]:124-125 the distinctive 2,750-lb street lamp, painted in traditional Chinese colors of red, gold and green, was composed of a cast-iron hexagonal base supporting a lotus and bamboo shaft surmounted with two cast-aluminum dragons below a pagoda lantern with bells and topped by a stylized hexagonal red roof[69] -- all in keeping with the Oriental style pioneered by Look Tin Eli (1910).[64] The new lamps made Grant Avenue one of the brightest streets in the City at night.[68]:51

Chinatown (facing north from just south of the corner of Grant and Commercial) in 1945. Prominently lit buildings on the left (west) side of Grant include the Ying On (closer to camera) and Soo Yuen (in background); the Eastern Bakery sign is lit on the right (east) side of Grant.

During the Great Depression, many nightclubs and cocktail bars were started in Chinatown.[70] The Forbidden City nightclub, located at 369 Sutter Street in Chinatown and run by Charlie Low, became one of the most famous entertainment places in San Francisco.[71] While it was doing business, from the late 1930s to the late 1950s, the Forbidden City gained an international reputation with its unique showcase of exotic oriental performance from Chinese American performers.[72] Another popular club for tourists and LGBT clients was Li Po, which, like Forbidden City, combined western entertainment with "Oriental" culture. It was advertised in a 1939 tourism guide book as a "jovial and informal Chinatown cocktail lounge" where one could find "love, passion, and nighttime".[16] As of 2018, it was still in operation at 916 Grant Avenue.[71]

The Second World War Years and Immigration reform

For the Chinese in Chinatown, the war came upon them in September 1931, when Japan attacked the Manchurian city of Mukden, and became unignorable in July 1937, when Japan launched a major offensive southward from their base in Manchuria towards the heart of China. In response, the Chinese Six Companies convened many community organizations together, from which was founded the Chinese War Relief Association, to raise funds from the Chinatown communities through out the U.S. to aid civilians trapped by the war in China. In San Francisco's Chinatown, a popular means to raise money for war relief was through the Rice Bowl parades and parties, where the appeal to fill the rice bowls of starving children victimized by the war in China resonated with the Chinatown community. One hallmark of the Rice Bowl parade was the striking scene of a large number of Chinese-American women in fashionable Chinese dress (the cheongsam) carrying one huge Chinese flag spanning the width of the street, onto which money was thrown from balconies, windows, and sidewalks. In the Rice Bowl parade and party of 1938, San Francisco Chinatown raised $55,000; the second Rice Bowl in 1940 collected $87,000; and the third in 1941 brought in $93,000 -- all for war and hunger relief of civilians in war-torn China.[73]:33-44 [74]

As Chinese Americans became more visible in the public eye during the period leading to the U.S. involvement in the war, the negative image of China and the Chinese began to erode.

 — K. Scott Wong[73]:42

Once China became an ally to the U.S. in World War II, a positive image of the Chinese began to emerge. In October 1942, Earl Warren, running for Governor of California, wrote, "Like all native born Californians, I have cherished during my entire life a warm and cordial feeling for the Chinese people." [73]:89 In her goodwill tour of the U.S. starting in February 1943, Madame Chiang Kai Shek probably did more to change the American attitude towards the Chinese people than any other single person.[28]:53-54 She was hosted by the First Lady and President Franklin D. Roosevelt; she was the second woman and the first Chinese to address the U.S. Congress. The American public embraced her with respect and kindness, which is in stark contrast to the treatment of most Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans.[73]:89-109 To the Chinese in Chinatown, she became an icon of the war years.[75]

In December 1943, in recognition of the important role of China as an ally in the war, the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed by the Magnuson Act, which allowed for naturalization but restricted Chinese immigrants to a small annual quota of 105 new entry visas. The repeal of the Exclusion Act and other immigration restriction laws, in conjunction with passage of the War Brides Act in December 1945, allowed Chinese-American veterans to bring their families outside of national quotas and led to a major population boom in the area during the 1950s. However, tight quotas on new immigration from China still applied until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 was passed.

In the 1948 landmark case of Shelley v. Kraemer, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled without dissent that enforcing racially restrictive covenants in property deeds violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and thus such covenants are unenforceable in court, which lifted the invisible walls around Chinatown,[68] permitting some Chinese Americans to move out of the Gilded Ghetto[76] into other neighborhoods of the City and gain a foothold on the middle class. Twenty years later, such racially restrictive covenants were outlawed in the 1968 Fair Housing Act.

Frank Wong dioramas

San Francisco artist Frank Wong created miniature dioramas that depict Chinatown during the 1930s and 1940s.[77] In 2004, Wong donated seven miniatures of scenes of Chinatown, titled "The Chinatown Miniatures Collection," to the Chinese Historical Society of America (CHSA).[78] The dioramas are on permanent display in CHSA’s Main Gallery.[77][78][79]

1960s–present

View north along Grant Avenue, approximately taken from the sidewalk in front of 645 Grant (1965).

In the 1960s, the shifting of underutilized national immigration quotas brought in another huge wave of immigrants, mostly from Hong Kong. This changed San Francisco Chinatown from predominantly Hlay Yip Wah (Sze Yup or Hoisan Wah)-speaking to Sam Yup Wah (standard Cantonese)-speaking. During the same decade, many stores moved from Grant Avenue to Stockton Street, drawn by lower rents and the better transportation enabled by the 30-Stockton Muni trolleybus line.[80]

The Dragon Gate at Grant and Bush, now a prominent landmark, was dedicated in 1970.

There were areas where many Chinese in Northern California living outside of San Francisco Chinatown could maintain small communities or individual businesses. Nonetheless, the historic rights of property owners to deed or sell their property to whomever they pleased was exercised enough to keep the Chinese community from spreading. However, in Shelley v. Kraemer, the Supreme Court had ruled it unconstitutional for property owners to exclude certain groups when deeding their rights. This ruling allowed the enlargement of Chinatown and an increase in the Chinese population of the city. At the same time, the declining white population of the city as a result of White Flight combined to change the demographics of the city. Neighborhoods that were once predominately white, such as Richmond District and Sunset District and in other suburbs across the San Francisco Bay Area became centers of new Chinese immigrant communities. This included new immigrant groups such as Mandarin-speaking immigrants from Taiwan who have tended to settle in suburban Millbrae, Cupertino, Milpitas, Mountain View, and even San Jose – avoiding San Francisco as well as Oakland entirely.[citation needed]

Gang violence

Imperial Palace Restaurant in 2010. The Imperial Palace replaced the Golden Dragon in the same space at 816 Washington.

With these changes came a weakening of the Tongs' traditional grip on Chinese life. Newer Chinese groups often came from areas outside of the Tongs' control, so the influence of the Tongs and criminal groups associated with them, such as the Triads, grew weaker in Chinatown and the Chinese community.[citation needed] However, the presence of the Asian gangs remained significant in the immigrant community, and in the summer of 1977, an ongoing rivalry between two street gangs, the Wah Ching and the Joe Boys, erupted in violence and bloodshed, culminating in a shooting spree at the Golden Dragon Restaurant on Washington Street (華盛頓街). Five people were killed and eleven wounded, none of whom were gang members. The incident has become infamously known as the Golden Dragon massacre. Five perpetrators, who were members of the Joe Boys gang, were convicted of murder and assault charges and were sentenced to prison.[81] The Golden Dragon closed in January 2006 because of health violations, and later reopened as the Imperial Palace Restaurant.[82]

Other notorious acts of violence have taken place in Chinatown since 1977. At 2 a.m. on May 14, 1990, San Francisco residents who had just left The Purple Onion, a nightclub located where Chinatown borders on North Beach, were shot as they entered their cars. 35-year-old Michael Bit Chen Wu was killed and six others were injured, among them a critically wounded pregnant woman.[83] In June 1998, shots were fired at Chinese Playground, wounding six teenagers, three of them critically. A 16-year-old boy was arrested for the shooting, which was believed to be gang-related.[84] On February 27, 2006, Allen Leung was shot to death in his business on Jackson Street;[85] Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, who succeeded Leung as head of the Ghee Kung Tong, was later convicted in 2016 of soliciting Leung's murder as fallout from the corruption investigation of Leland Yee,[86] and "Skinny Ray" Lei was indicted for committing the murder in 2017.[87]

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