RACES: Irish Tong Overlord

Once gaudy showplaces, seething with harlotry and fantastic crime, the Chinatowns of San Francisco, New York City, Boston, Chicago have had their splendor wiped away by police cleanup squads during a decade. Modern Chinatowns stand revealed as parts of the surrounding slums. Down their narrow streets busloads of thrill seekers trudge, disappointedly viewing Christian missions, Presbyterian churches, sack-suited U. S. Chinese. Only in curio-shops and such tourist centres do the sightseers glimpse a tawdry replica of the surroundings in which mandarins once paraded their gorgeous costumes on Chinese festival-days, in which painted, gold-spangled girls were sold for hundreds of dollars, in which wide-sleeved, colorful hatchetmen fought slyly for the sake of their Tongs.

Natural is the Americanization of young U. S.-born Chinese. It was more difficult for their fathers to substitute suits & shirts for brilliant regalia, to adopt a new God, to learn U. S. business and banking methods. Few succeeded at all; those who did usually compromised about dress or family customs, or between the gods. One such was Lee Fook, longtime foreign-exchange official in the National City Bank, financial adviser to New York’s Chinatown. He wore horn-rimmed spectacles, occidental dress, handled and ex changed Chinatown dollars sent back to relatives in China. But not until six years ago did he adopt Christianity, to please his second wife. Last week he died, was buried. His funeral service was read by a Protestant minister, but according to Chinese custom a big portrait of him was carried through Chinatown streets lined with mourners.

Throughout the U. S. the Hip Sings and On Leongs shot and hatcheted each other in 1917, again in 1924. During the past few months similar Chinatown killings have happened sporadically in New York, Newark, N. J., Chicago. U. S. newsreaders who thought “Tong wars” carry-overs from the days of native pomp, crime, and paganism were mistaken. Tongs are not, never were, ancient Oriental groupings for feuds. They are, instead, practical busi ness protective associations formed in the U. S. after the Civil War to keep Chinese laundrymen, restaurateurs, merchants, servants, etc. from molestation by competitors or the authorities of any race. The laundry business (fast becoming a Chinese monopoly in the U. S. until the advent of steam-machinery from Troy, N. Y.) and the others still function; so do the Tongs. They assure their members (besides a sort of racketeer protection) of legal and charitable support in time of trouble, and of fraternal intercourse. There are some 60,000 Chinese in the U. S. Most of them belong to a Tong, of which there are about 15. Initiation fees, dues, give the Tongs big treasuries, tempt the leaders. Most Tong wars are caused by defection to the ranks of rival organizations, business rivalry, racketeering. Most notable Tongs are: On Leong, Hip Sing, Yan Wo, Tai Look, Tai Pang, Tong On. Over all western Tongs is the Peace Society, over all eastern Tongs, the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, both supreme arbiters in their territories of Chinatown difficulties.

The recent killings seem to have involved, besides the Hip Sings and On Leongs, traditional enemies, the four other principal Tongs, neutrals in past “wars.” Federal deportation-threats and New York City police made the Tongs accept two ineffective peace treaties. Killings continued, baffling police. Last week in Manhattan U. S. District Attorney Charles H. Tuttle decided to set up his own “Benevolent Association.” He summoned leaders from all six Tongs, got them to sign an agreement whereby each will appoint delegates to a new committee of arbitration, whose decisions they pledge to abide by. They also agreed to let New York City’s Irish-U. S. Police Commissioner, Edward Pierce Mulrooney, arbitrate any case decided by the committee to the dissatisfaction of the disputants, thus gave him supreme judicial power. The committee’s chairman will be J. S. Tow, Acting Chinese Consul General in New York, who, not so occupied with tourists & immigrants as other consuls general, may devote much time to keeping peace among the Tongs. Signer of the pact for the Hip Sing Tong was its President, Author Eng Ying (“Eddie”) Gong (TIME, June 2). When the six leaders had signed it, scribes translated the document into brushstrokes on cerise paper, sent it to every U. S. Chinatown, proclaiming Consul Tow and Commissioner Mulrooney overlords of all U. S. Chinese.