Chinese

HATE CRIME NOT SO FUNNY THE 2ND TIME

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

There were two nearly identical hate crimes in 1908, where a Chinese man was attacked without cause by a white man. Were the assaults connected? As these are the only similar incidents I’ve encountered in studying 5+ years of the Santa Rosa newspapers in that era, chances of a coincidence are low. Yet the attackers were in different towns and probably did not know one another; one was a “brawny iron worker,” and the other was apparently a farmhand. Look instead for a link in what they read; the newspapers that month were salted with anti-Chinese rhetoric that invited ridicule and hate and fear.

The first unprovoked attack happened in a Sebastopol restaurant. Johnny Poggie (who we know through the census was then a 25 year-old farm worker) and Tom Mason were arrested for smashing a brick into the head of Gee Chung. The next day, the Santa Rosa Republican turned it into a humor item, starting with the racist headline, “Men Hit Chink With Brick.” After noting the injury “may be serious,” what followed was in the colorful writing style usually reserved for describing the comical mishaps of drunks. “When the Celestial opened his purse to pay for the dainties he had consumed, Mason is alleged to have struck him on the head with a brick. Chung sank to the floor, and ‘subsequent proceedings interested him no more.'” Would the newspaper have treated this unprovoked attack so flippantly if the victim had been white? Of course not (read update here).

Then less than two weeks later, the scene of Chinese restaurant violence was in Santa Rosa. This time, a “most brutal beating” by an unknown construction worker was reported by the Republican newspaper with far more restraint (although the writer slipped in that the victim’s black eyes were the color of “a deep mourning”). Did the more straightforward tone on this story reflect editorial remorse that the paper might have had some role in inciting the earlier violence?

The Santa Rosa attack could have been a copycat inspired by the Sebastopol assault, but left hanging is the larger question of why Chinese men were now suddenly at risk of being beaten – even killed – while eating at a restaurant. For that answer, you only have to read the fearmongering that was appearing in the big city papers about the tong wars.

That month saw another flareup in the seven year feud between the Hop Sing and Ping Kung gangs. Before the first restaurant attack, two men had been gunned down in Oakland’s Chinatown; another pair were killed in San Francisco’s Chinatown before the second assault at a local restaurant. All four victims died while the gangs were supposedly under a truce, a violation of honor surely not lost on Chinese-hating bigots.

The frequent newspaper stories about Chinatown murders was enough to make anyone nervous about visiting those neighborhoods, but a lurid feature article in the January 5, 1908 San Francisco Sunday Call Magazine went further to warn that no place on the West Coast was safe from the “indiscriminate shooting” of the murderous gangs. “It looks now as if every tong on the coast will take a hand…they are all flocking back. The war is on. They struck at Los Angeles the other day and where they will be next is a mystery.”

(RIGHT: The sensationalist SF Call Magazine article, “The Bloodiest Tong War Ever Waged,” was widely reprinted, including in the Washington Post)


The greatest tong war ever witnessed on the continent, a war holding sway from the rain soaked josshouses of Vancouver, B. C., to the sunlit alleys of Los Angeles, and which already includes four tongs, is in full blast. Oakland felt its effects a few days ago, when the felted feet ran silently into the street and the flash from revolver barrels lit up the darkened Chinese quarter. The dying Chinese found on Webster street a short time previously was another victim to the war, which seems to have no ending, and the crack of the highbinder’s pistol is now disturbing the police of Los Angeles. From city to city along the coast has the word gone. From the south and the east, the gunmen of the contesting tongs are flocking to Chinatown of San Francisco. All Chinatown is agog with war and rumors of war, and though the hot blood of feud times is hidden behind the calm, placid exterior of the oriental, the red, red war is on again.

The Hop Sing-Ping Kung feud, which had caused scores of deaths, actually ended a few days later, just before the start of the Chinese New Year (a celebration that the Press Democrat described with condescension and mocking humor). Key to the settlement was the threat by San Francisco’s Chief of Police, W. J. Biggy, to prohibit New Year festivities and “turn loose” a special police squad on Chinatown to expel from the city anyone considered suspicious.

Although the tong wars sometimes reached into Sonoma county, there were no reports of violence upon local Chinese people in this period. Except for the two restaurant attacks by whites, of course.

SEBASTOPOL MEN HIT CHINK WITH BRICK

Tom Mason and Johnny Poggie, residents of Sebastopol, were landed in the county jail here Wednesday afternoon by City Marshal Fred R. Mathews of that city. The men are charged with an assault on Gee Chung, a Celestial of Sebastopol. The alleged offense occurred in a Chinese noodle joint in the Gold Ridge city on Tuesday evening and as a result Chung is laid up with a badly battered head. His injuries may be serious.

The two men under arrest are alleged to have gone into the restaurant to partake of noodles, and the Chinese were also feasting on the same dish. When the Celestial opened his purse to pay for the dainties he had consumed, Mason is alleged to have struck him on the head with a brick. Chung sank to the floor, and “subsequent proceedings interested him no more.”

– Santa Rosa Republican, January 15, 1908

CHINESE IS BADLY BEATEN
Tom Ling Assaulted by Burly Iron Worker

Tom Ling, a Chinese, was badly beaten Sunday evening by one of the iron workers employed on the construction of the new court house in this city. The assault occurred in a Chinese noodle joint, and the Celestial was given a most brutal beating by the brawny iron worker.

Ling swore to a warrant Monday morning for the arrest of his assailant whose name is unknown. Justice Atchinson issued a John Doe warrant for the arrest.

The Chinese had both eyes blackened, the color of each being a deep mourning, his head was severely cut and a large knot was raised on his forehead. The assault is declared to have been an unprovoked one.

– Santa Rosa Republican, January 27, 1908
DID YOU KNOW THAT IT IS NEW YEAR’S DAY?
Take “Mandarin Punch” for that Tired Feeling, and You’ll Forget All Your Other Troubles

Chinatown was busy yesterday, and later on there was a sound of revelry by night. The percussion band rendered a long list of the compositions of the Chinese Wagner, completely drowning the customary melody of Mr. Thomas Cat, who does solo work on the housetops of Chinatown.

It was the beginning of the New Year celebration; for this is New Year’s Day. The Chinaman begins his celebration the day before, and sometimes he makes it last a week. He has good reason; for it is the only holiday time he has. There is no Chinese Fourth of July; no Christmas; no Memorial Day; no Thanksgiving; no Admission Day–not even April Fool. So for several days the tintintabulation of the brass gong and the wooden drums will smite the ears, and the smell of gunpowder and punk-sticks will assail the nostrils of those who visit the Mongolian quarter.

If you have nothing to do today and time hands heavy, you might go down to Second street and see the celebration. The punch, “Manderin’s Delight,” has been brewed already, and you’ll be invited to drink. That will give you something to do and something to thing about for a long time. One man who went there and had some punch last New Year’s day sat up in a drug store all night, eating quinine with a tablespoon, trying to get the taste of the punch out of his mouth.

– Press Democrat, February 1, 1908

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GERTRUDE’S SECRETS

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

It was a story that O’Henry might have written, and the widow Higginson could have been a character from one of his tales. And not to give too much away, O’Henry’s short stories always ended with a twist. Read on.

It was just after the Fourth of July in 1907 when Gertrude met her husband-to-be, Tom. He was the chef-owner of a successful restaurant in Healdsburg that served French-American food; that summer the San Francisco Call even ran an item praising his restaurant, and particularly his way with a beefsteak. He was taking a camping vacation on the coast when he happened to meet Gertrude at a summer resort. Over tea, sparks flew. He cut his vacation short and returned to Healdsburg, where she soon joined him. Ten days later, she was sporting a diamond engagement ring and they were planning to be married as soon as possible.

Gertrude was already a widow at age thirty, and was five years younger than Tom. She was quite pretty, dressed nicely, and had some talent at piano playing. She also was well off, thanks to a savvy investment in gold mine stocks. One more thing to know about Tom and Gertrude: She was white, he was Chinese.

It was illegal for them to marry in California; the state’s anti-miscegenation law dated back to 1880, forbidding weddings between a white person and “a Negro, mulatto, or Mongolian.” Not all states had such a racist law, however, so Gertrude and Tom were soon on the train to Seattle, where they were wed. Their interracial marriage and out-of-state flight was unusual enough to make the newspapers in San Francisco and Reno.

Coverage of the events by the Santa Rosa papers was fairly predictable. The Santa Rosa Republican called him a “Celestial” and a “son of Confucius,” regrettable stereotypes that were old-timey but still commonly used by even progressive newspapers in that era. But at least the Republican gave him some measure of the respect he deserved; the Press Democrat’s coverage ended with a dismissive, you’ll-never-be-as-good-as-us swipe that while he was successful, “he is a Mongolian, just the same.”

Tom Chun was certainly a man of accomplishment. Born about 1870, he emigrated at age eleven and settled in Healdsburg while still in his teens. He acclimated into American culture, spoke and wrote fluent English, and was adept at the card games that were the primary social activity of Americans in that day. That he was in turn embraced by the community is shown in the description of his wedding reception in Healdsburg, where “a large company of doctors, lawyer and others were there with their wives.”

But here’s the next twist in the story: Within three months of their marriage, Gertrude disappeared.

A notice appeared in the Healdsburg newspaper: “Gertrude May Chun (formerly Mrs. Higginson) having left my bed and board, I will not be responsible for any debts contracted by her after this date, November 13, 1907. TOM CHUN.” Tom also swore out a warrant against her, charging that she had stolen his gold watch and chain.

Was Gertrude a con artist who only married Tom with the intent of theft? This is reminiscent of the 1904 two-week marriage of wealthy hop-grower Ah Quay to a woman of Hispanic and Indian ancestry, who disappeared after having expensive dental work that included gold fillings. Maybe it’s a coincidence that there were two such similar incidents in little Sonoma County within a few years, or perhaps prosperous Chinese immigrant men were not infrequently tricked into sham marriages. Scholars. sharpen your pencils.

What happened to Gertrude is not known, except that it’s likely that she didn’t return to Tom; he’s again single in the 1910 census, and the 1920 census shows he has a new wife named Sena. But we do know this: Her name when they met was not really Gertrude May Higginson.

As it turns out, “Gertrude Higginson” happened to be a very unusual name in the U.S. at that time. There was only one Mrs. Gertrude Higginson, and she apparently spent her entire life in Rhode Island and Connecticut, married to a steam fitter. Gertrude May Higginson is absolutely unique; this was the maiden name of a woman wed to a Kansas farmer. Both women were about the same age as the woman who married Tom Chun. While it can’t be proven that one of the Gertrudes didn’t leave her husband and child, travel across the country to become a bigamist and roll the poor guy for his jewelry, then return home and spend the rest of her life in the bosom of her family, it’s, um, unlikely. The woman in question probably made all or part of the name up, or happened to know one of the real Gertrudes at some time in her life.

There are some clues, however, about this mystery woman’s past. “She hails from Goldfield, Nevada,” the Republican reported, “where she states that she has relatives and that others of her family are living at Coronado, in southern California.” Goldfield was one of the last great boomtowns in the West, and in that year it was the largest city in Nevada, boasting a 195-room hotel (which still stands), three newspapers, and a saloon with 80 bartenders on duty. Coronado is a small island just offshore from San Diego that had (and still has) a luxury resort frequented by royalty and presidents and others world famous. What they had in common was that both areas would have been well known to prostitutes in that day.

Aside from the wealthy who stayed at the resort there were few who lived on the island, most of them workers at the hotel. But about 2,000 feet across the water from Coronado Island was San Diego’s infamous Stingaree District, which at the time was a booming tenderloin near the U.S. Naval base. An excellent study found that the number of prostitutes in the area approximately tripled between 1900 and that year while the number of saloons doubled.

Anyone who lived in San Diego knew of Coronado, just as anyone who lived in Goldfield would know the supposed source of her fortune, the Mohawk mine, which produced about $5 million of gold in less than four months. The red-light district in Goldfield was even larger than San Diego’s; one contemporary source estimated that there were 500 women working there at one time, making the district virtually a “city onto itself.” A Nevada history web site offers photos of the prostitution cribs, with the names of the women painted on signs by the shack doors.

(RIGHT: “Dance hall girls” at Goldfield’s Jumbo Club. Photo: uncredited from Life, May 11, 1959)

Goldfield and Stingaree were two of the three largest prostitution districts in the western U.S. The last of the trio was San Francisco’s Barbary Coast, which was a short hop from the north county summer resort where Tom happened to meet “Gertrude.”

All this is conjecture, of course. Perhaps nothing was amiss; maybe they just didn’t get along. Maybe Tom Chun misplaced his valuable watch, and “Gertrude” somehow evaded mention in all official records, just as she oddly happened to be associated with every hot spot for prostitution in the West. Maybe it’s a coincidence that she said she was a waitress in Goldfield, and that San Diego study found that “waitress” was the most common profession claimed by prostitutes. Maybe it’s also irrelevant that “Gertrude” speedily married Tom at a time when the women working in the San Diego brothels were almost all younger than her, even though she still had her good looks.

We’ll probably never know if she really was one of the “soiled doves,” but even if she was, pity is in order; it’s doubtful that she ended her days living in a nice cottage in a nice little town with a nice, prosperous husband. Her fate was probably as far from all that niceness as you can imagine.

AMERICAN WOMAN TO WED A HEALDSBURG CHINESE

From Healdsburg, Monday, came a story of romance, love and betrothal. The peace and quietude of the fair city of Sotoyome vale is sadly disrupted by the proclamation of the coming event. Cupid has played a queer prank, and woven with his ribbons of love a heart of the Orient with that of the Occident.

Tom Chun, a celestial, who has lived in Healdsburg for over twenty years, is the party of the Orient, and he is to wed Mrs. Gertrude Higginson, an American by birth, and a comely widow of perhaps thirty years of this world’s life.

Tom Chun keeps a restaurant in the northery [sic] city, and during his thirty-five years of life has accumulated a goodly store of American gold. About two weeks ago, growing weary of the griddle and the flapjack, he held himself to a hunters’ camp on the coast ranges. While passing a summer resort by the way he stopped for a cup of good tea to quench his dusty throat. It was there he met his fate. It was there the comely widow became a reality in the life of this son of Confucius. He was in need of a waitress in his chowchow house and she was in search of just such a position.

Over the tea cups she promised to assist him, on his return to Healdsburg, in dispensing rice to the hungry. Right then he forgot his camping trip, forgot his cue, forgot his joss. He returned the same day to his restaurant and sent for the widow waitress. That was but ten days ago. Today on East street in Healdsburg is a cottage all new with tables of oak and chairs of cherry. Oriental rugs are on the floor and an upright piano stands ready for the touch of the bride’s deft fingers, for she is an accomplished musician.

Monday the couple left on the afternoon train for Seattle, Washington. The laws of this state forbid their marriage here, so they will travel to the northern city to become man and wife.

Personally the bride-to-be is quite a pretty widow and of seeming ordinary intelligence. She is neat and attractive in appearance. She hails from Goldfield, Nevada, where she states that she has relatives and that others of her family are living at Coronado, in southern California. She was a waitress in Goldfield and made considerable money in Mohawk stock. She now wears a brilliant diamond ring, the engagement token from the groom. On her wrist an ivory bracelet of the royal house of Tom Chun rattles.

Tom Chun is an Americanized Celestial. He speaks English fluently and can read and write with ease. At the gaming table he plays pedro with the boys and is an all around sport in games of chance.

They expect to return from the north during the later part of the week, when they will go to housekeeping in their newly furnished cottage. A wedding feast has been promised and “at home” cards will be sent out by Mr. and Mrs. Tom Chun.

– Santa Rosa Republican, August 5, 1907
LEAVE STATE TO EVADE THE LAW
White Woman Infatuated With a Healdsburg Chinaman Goes With Him to Washington to be Married

Mrs. Gertrude Higginson, a white woman who recently came from the mining town of Goldfield, Nevada, and Tom Chun, a Chinaman, started Monday together from Healdsburg to go to the State of Washington to be married.

The laws of Washington provide no such penalties for the crime of miscegenation as do those of California. There neither the parties to the contract nor the clergyman who performs the marriage rites may feel the hand of the law. After Mrs. Higginson has become Mrs. Tom Chun, she and her Mongolian spouse could return to Healdsburg to reside.

Tom Chun has lived in Healdsburg twenty years and runs a restaurant. He long ago cut off his pigtail, and he wears American clothes. But he is a Mongolian, just the same.

– Press Democrat, August 7, 1907

CHINESE IS DULY WEDDED
Tom Chun Marries Mrs. Gertrude Higginson

A telegram from Seeattle announces that Tom Chun, the Healdsburg Celestial, and Mrs. Gertrude Higginson, also of that city, were married Wednesday by Justice of the Peace R. R. George. The Rev. J. P. Lloyd, rector of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, refused to marry the couple, declaring the laws of the state did not permit the ceremony between the white woman and the Celestial. The bride broken [sic] down and cried at the refusal of the minister, but was smiling and happy when the justice spoke the words which made the couple husband and wife. The bride declared she was a music teacher and missionary.

– Santa Rosa Republican, August 8, 1907
TOM CHUN BRINGS HIS BRIDE HOME

Tom Chun, the Healdsburg Chinaman, who recently went to Seattle to marry a Caucasian woman, Gertrude Higginson, after only a three weeks’ acquaintance, arrived home from the north a few nights ago. The bridal party stopped off of the evening train in Santa Rosa and from here took a carriage to Healdsburg. A reception was tendered them and a large company of doctors, lawyer and others were there with their wives. “Jim,” as the Celestial is familiarly known, has furnished a neat cottage in Healdsburg for the home of himself and bride.

– Santa Rosa Republican, August 16, 1907
CHINESE WIFE LEAVES HER HOME

Tom Yun [sic], the Healdsburg Chinese restaurant man, who a few months ago went to Washington in order to marry Mrs. Gertrude May Higginson, is now looking for his fair white wife. After living with her Celestial husband for a short time, the woman has wearied of her spouse and “flew the coop.” Yun is now after her with a warrant, claiming that she took his gold watch and chain and that this was his separate property.

Soon after Mrs. Yun left her husband and home the man advertised in the Healdsburg papers that he would not be responsible for any debts contracted by her, and that she had “left his bed and board.” It is thought that should the officers find the woman and she agree[s] to return the watch, that would be the end of her prosecution.

– Santa Rosa Republican, November 19, 1907

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1906 MEDIA RACISM REPORT CARD

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

Raise a weak cheer for the Santa Rosa newspapers in 1906; their reporting on people of color was certainly better than the two previous years, but that only means the dial was turned down slightly from red-zone disgusting levels.

Start with the Great Earthquake: Four Chinese men and a Japanese man died that horrible morning, all at either the Saint Rose or Occidental hotels. Hooray that the papers didn’t refer to them as “Chinks” or “Japs,” but they were identified only by race, whereas Whites usually had their occupation and/or place of death described. (For the record, two of the Chinese men were merchants, two were cooks, and the Japanese man worked as a dishwasher at the St. Rose.) But any effects of the quake in Santa Rosa’s “Chinatown” on Second Street and non-fatal injuries of community members were ignored. Sure, perhaps there was no damage there and no one was harmed, but that’s very hard to believe, considering it was only two blocks from the worst of the fires and devastation. More likely that it was a textbook example of racism by omission.

The most contentious racial incident occurred in March, when a local bricklaying contractor misled African-American workers from Los Angeles into coming here to break a strike. A group of out-of-town masons confronted a Black man in a bar, mistakenly believing that he was part of the group from LA, and a fight broke out. The two newspapers printed quite different accounts of the incident; in the version told by the Republican, the man was attacked by a mob – but in the Press Democrat, he was a troublemaker who “ran amuck.”

Press Democrat editor Ernest L. Finley gets both the highest and lowest marks for racial coverage that year. In December, the newspaper ran a perfectly matter-of-fact report about “Charles Jefferson, a colored man” being assaulted for tipping his hat to a White woman. Yet a few months earlier, the paper had printed a ginned-up story about “a foxy Chinaman. Ah Wang” who supposedly allowed himself to be arrested to gain a free ride from Geyserville to Santa Rosa. That story, complete with pidgin dialect, read like a tale whipped up in a saloon. It was a shameful throwback to the tired, racist crap that the PD routinely published in years past.

FOXY CHINK A GOOD JESTER
Gets Free Ride From Geyserville to Santa Rosa, and After Minute or Two in Jail Pays His Fine

Talk about a foxy Chinaman. Ah Wang holds the record, aided and abetted by a well known Santa Rosa lawyer, Reuben M. Swain, Esq., Referee in bankruptcy, etc.

Ah Wang was tried before the Geyserville justice on Wednesday on a charge of having attempted to induce a young girl there to enter his room. He was acquitted on this charge, as the evidence did not sustain the complaint. Then a second complaint was filed against him, and he was convicted and fined twenty-five dollars or twenty-five days in the county jail.

He was brought to jail here, and no sooner had he been given into the custody of the officer in charge of the county bastille than he set about paying his fine.

In the eyes of the law after his entry and reception in jail and the turning of the key in the lock he had served one day of his sentence and consequently in order to regain his liberty he had only to put up twenty-four dollars. He had some money and borrowed the rest from his attorney, Mr. Swain, who had been to Geyserville to defend him. He then paid his fine.

It seems that the Celestial desired to make the trip to Santa Rosa anyway, and by having the constable bring him to jail he saved the price of the face [sic] from the northern town. By going to jail for a few minutes he served a day of his sentence and thus saved another dollar.

“Me heap sabee law, you bet, I likee advice Judge Swain, you bet,” was his gleeful comment.

– Press Democrat, August 16, 1906
WHITE MAN HITS COLORED MAN
Attack Made at the Corner of Third and Main Streets on Thursday Afternoon

Charles Jefferson, a colored man, who has been employed as stableman in a stable on lower Fourth Street, was the victim of an assault on Thursday afternoon at Third and Main streets at the hands of a white man.

The colored man lifted his hat to a passing lady, whose son keeps his horse at the stable, as she was approaching a buggy at the sidewalk. The perpetrator of the assault stepped up and with the exclamation: “I’ll teach you to take off your hat to women in this country,” struck Jefferson a violent blow in the mouth and felled him to the ground, and then, according to the statement of Contractor Rushing, who says he witnessed the assault, kicked him while down.

Jefferson could make no effort catch his assailant. Contractor Rushing tried to stop him as he ran off. The injured man later swore out a John Doe warrant for his assailant’s arrest in Judge Atchinson’s court, and the warrant was given to Constable Boswell to put into execution. The lady to whom Jefferson said he doffed his cap called at the police station and said the attack on the colored man was entirely unprovoked. She did not see Jefferson’s salute, as it happened, and said it would have been all right anyway, as she had seen the man frequently when she went to the stable with her horse, and had always found his respectful. Jefferson’s face was badly cut.

– Press Democrat, December 21, 1906

A COLORED MAN IS BRUTALLY ASSAULTED

Because a colored man attempted to be polite to Mrs. Birdie Miller on Third street Thursday evening, he was brutally assaulted. He was first knocked down by a vicious blow in the mouth, and then kicked in the face while he was prostate on the ground. The man who made the assault ran away in a cowardly fashion after injuring the man he assaulted. Mrs. Miller is incensed at the treatment given the colored man who had spoken to her, and so expressed herself to Justice A. J. Atchinson and others after assault. The man works in a livery stable where Mrs. Miller’s son keeps his his horse and she drives in there frequently. It has come to a pretty pass when an inoffensive man is brutally assaulted for being polite.

Contractor W. E. Rushing witnessed the assault and he characterizes it as a piece of dastardly work. He attempted to overtake the fleeting man, but was unsuccessful, and later informed the officers where the man was employed and gave a description of him.

Charles Jefferson is the man assaulted and he bears a reputation of being peaceable. He has never been in trouble during the months he has been in Santa Rosa and he deeply regrets the unfortunate occurance. He was given no opportunity to defend himself and the savage kick he received in the face opened a large place on his forehead between the eyes from which blood flowed freely. Jefferson said later he would like to be turned loose with the man who struck him in a field so he could get a chance at him.

A warrant was sworn to by Jefferson for the arrest of his assailant and Constable Boswell made a search for the man without avail Thursday evening. The man was seen by several persons and later talked to others of what he had done and will be pointed out to the officers at the earliest possible moment and taken into custody.

– Santa Rosa Republican, December 21, 1906

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