Godfathers of Chicago's Chinatown: An Interview with Author Harrison Fillmore

CC_Godfathers of Chicago's Chinatown

Speakers: Benjamin Morris, Harrison, & Jim

Benjamin Morris (00:00):

Harrison, welcome to Crime Capsule, and congratulations on your new book.

Harrison (00:06):

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Benjamin Morris (00:08):

So, this is kind of a buy one, get one free episode today in that Harrison, you are joining us alongside a researcher that you have worked with on the production of this volume. Jim, you'll say hi to us.

Jim (00:25):

Hi.

Benjamin Morris (00:26):

Hey, thanks for joining us. Really a pleasure-

Benjamin Morris (00:29):

... to have both you guys on. This is a fascinating book. This is a truly compelling journey into a part of the country and a part of our country's history that is not often explored. And you guys have done an amazing job telling that story.

Benjamin Morris (00:48):

And I want to dive in in just a few minutes, but first, before we get started tell us a little bit about yourselves, Harrison. What's your background and how did you come to this book?

Harrison (00:59):

Yeah. So, we've got about 30 years working in and out of organized crime, and research, and looking at patterns of practices.

Harrison (01:09):

And everyone knows about the Saint Valentine's Day massacre. Everybody knows the name Al Capone. We just knew that there was this whole other story in Chinatown that is kind of unseen and unheard.

Harrison (01:22):

So, my background is working with Jim has been my creative partner and research partner for years. And then after a number of projects, we tackled this one.

Benjamin Morris (01:33):

So, Jim?

Harrison has been involved in professional law enforcement for a long, long time, as I have been. I am actually a criminal prosecutor and have been for — I can't do the math, 26 years or something like that.

Jim (02:01):

And part of it was for 10 years investigating organized crime in the context of organized financial groups and stuff like that.

Jim (02:12):

And in terms of the writing stuff,

Jim (02:27):

Harrison and I have been involved in numerous projects, movies. We actually were partners on a TV show together that we were partners with Harold Ramis to write a actual fictional crime show. This was like 10 or 12 years ago, Harrison, something like that.

Harrison (02:43):

Right, right.

Jim (02:44):

Yeah. And it never got made in the way it was ... that's it's own kind of Hollywood saga.

Jim (02:50):

But like so, I had a movie come out a couple years ago, and certainly Greg is somebody that helped me with the shaping of that script. Previous play of mine that ran in Chicago that was a crime story, and Greg was a big part of shaping that for me.

Jim (03:08):

And of course, right now, we're always writing at least two projects at all times. And so, this project is his project, not my project. And this is something that he just had me take a look at and just try to help put shape to it. So, most of the work on this is certainly his.

Harrison (03:29):

Now, why'd you have to go and say that? You helped.

Jim (03:32):

Because it's definitely true. All I did was just read it and act in this particular case, as just an editorial voice, because this particular project really is 99% Harrison and me just coming in and helping the shape of the narrative, really. That's all.

Benjamin Morris (03:55):

Sure. Well, let me ask you, I mean, you guys are writing under pen names, assumed names here, but are y'all both born and raised in Windy City?

Jim (04:04):

Yeah. We've actually known each other since ... I don't know-

Harrison (04:10):

We were kids. Yeah.

Jim (04:12):

16 or 17. And we were lifeguards. He was a lifeguard at a beach north of me. They were the drinking beach and we were the fighting beach. I think that was how ... right? Isn't that kind of how it was?

Harrison (04:28):

That sounds right.

Jim (04:30):

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Harrison (04:31):

No, border friend Chicago. And while I have a chance, I encourage everyone to go to Chinatown, you got to go there. You got to see it.

Harrison (04:39):

The book is ancient history. It's organized crime from years and years ago. Now, it's safe. Now, you need to go to those restaurants. You got to check out Three Happiness. Any place with a lazy Susan that serves duck. That's where you go eat.

Benjamin Morris (04:56):

You got to go old school. Absolutely.

Harrison (04:58):

Yeah, absolutely.

Benjamin Morris (05:00):

If you guys are from Chicago, I'm contractually obliged to ask the most important question of all, which is, where were y'all when the Cubbies brought it home?

Jim (05:13):

I actually was at ... yeah, go ahead, Harrison.

Harrison (05:17):

Yeah. No, I was at Waveland and Sheffield in the middle of it. And yeah, no, it was insane. It was insane.

Benjamin Morris (05:29):

Yeah. Jim, how about yourself?

Jim (05:30):

I was in my living room because all my friends, we were so overwrought that we couldn't even watch it together. We were just all on a conference call. Like we were so out of our minds that we couldn't actually be in the same room.

Benjamin Morris (05:43):

I will never forget the photos of just the entire city spilling out into the streets and just partying all night long. I mean, that really was truly historic in that moment. I'm still so happy for you guys even being a Braves fan.

Harrison (05:59):

Oh, yeah. You stole Greg Maddux from us.

Benjamin Morris (06:03):

No apologies.

Jim (06:04):

We made a note.

Harrison (06:07):

No, it was like the ‘85 Bears though back then. That's how big it was. Everybody was out. We were kids for that. That was huge.

Benjamin Morris (06:16):

Yeah. Well, we'll have to run another episode just to talk about the history of Chicago sports at some point, and I'll look forward to that with you guys.

Benjamin Morris (06:23):

But for now, let me ask you, what sparked your interest in writing about the street gangs and the triads of Chicago's Chinatown? How did you first kind of come onto this particular topic?

Harrison (06:38):

Yeah, it really was because almost everything that you could say about the mafia and the outfit has been said. And this is just one of those really interesting, the colorful characters. And it is a story that really hasn't been told.

Jim (06:56):

And, Ben, Greg would never say this, but he's probably as knowledgeable about organized crime in Chicago, both right now, and historically as there is, as that exists in the world. That's not an exaggeration in terms of the professional work that he's done.

Jim (07:12):

I think he's like an undisputed expert about certainly street gangs in Chicago. There's no question about that. So, his ability to take that knowledge and apply it in historical context makes perfect sense.

Harrison (08:41):

So, right now, might be a good time to explain that my nickname growing up as a kid was Greg, but I write under the name Harrison, just to be clear.

Benjamin Morris (08:53):

Gotcha, gotcha. Appreciate that.

Benjamin Morris (08:54):

So, let me ask you guys, this is a collaborative endeavor, and you mentioned a little bit about the process by which this manuscript kind of came to be. I guess would you say a little bit more about what each of y'all brought to the table?

Benjamin Morris (09:11):

So, I mean, Harrison, were you kind of getting the raw material and then, Jim, you were coming in and helping to shape it?

Benjamin Morris (09:19):

Or Jim, were you also, providing some of the legal expertise (you mentioned you're a prosecutor) that would sort of help to inform a case and then, Harrison, you would have the investigative aspect? How did that sort of back and forth work?

Harrison (09:34):

Yeah. So, we've worked on a number of projects together. A lot of this was hand-me-down material. It was stuff gleaned through years and years of just working organized crime.

Harrison (09:48):

There were some interviews, I know Jimmy had made some calls, talked to a couple people on the street just for a little balance. And just a better look at what's actually happening day to day and how it's considered in the Chinatown community.

Harrison (10:11):

But yeah, it was a lot of legal representation by Jimmy. A lot of legal explanations of how the court system works and stuff like that. But yeah, I did a lot of the research and he did a lot of the editing.

Jim (10:30):

Yeah. He gleaned a lot of this information. I think a lot of this information is unique to ... the great thing about this book is you're going to be reading things, I believe that have never been seen anywhere else and probably couldn't be seen anywhere else because declassified information that probably a lot of eyes haven't had the opportunity to look at at all.

Jim (10:50):

So, it's newly declassified stuff that the author was able to tap into, that it was a unique opportunity to take a look at something that hadn't been seen before, I think.

Benjamin Morris (11:04):

Yeah. Reminds me, of course, when the Stasi files in former occupied Germany, were released and suddenly you had these sort of waves of researchers heading over to Berlin to sort of learn were they being snooped on, or were their family members being snooped on, or who was doing the snooping? That sort of thing. It's fascinating.

Jim (11:27):

The answer was always yes, it turns out.

Benjamin Morris (11:28):

The answer was always, always yes.

Benjamin Morris (11:29):

Now, this does raise a kind of an interesting question, which is that you guys of course are working in a community that has an internal language.

Benjamin Morris (11:42):

And I was curious how your expertise, you have a lot of people relations that you developed over the years, but where did the language issue of reading, studying, picking up on sort of the unique Chinese dialects and sort of internal codes arrive in this book?

Harrison (12:02):

Actually most of it was from interviews talking to people in and around the community and people that were there when it was happening in real time.

Harrison (12:11):

Now, keep in mind these would be older folks or generations, removed folks as really the last case, the big case we talk about happens five years before we even get jobs. You know what I mean?

Harrison (12:31):

We weren't working on this in real time. I want to make that clear. We're not part of the investigation. This was well over 40 years ago.

Harrison (12:42):

But no, was talking to people and friends and family of other people who were there and remember it.

Benjamin Morris (12:51):

And Jim, did you have any Chinese yourself as you were looking at these? Or were you relying on translations and

Jim (12:59):

Relying on translations. I think what makes it an interesting topic and why it probably hasn't been seen before is that Chinatown's unique relationship with law enforcement that made it probably a pretty difficult story to tell as well. I don't know what you have to say about that Greg.

Harrison (13:22):

Well, yeah. I mean, it was such a tight knit community. And you talk about the outfit not cooperating with the police, well, multiply that by 10 when it came to the Chinatown community.

Harrison (13:34):

Not only the language barrier, but just some of the cultural barriers where they just did not go to law enforcement for any problems. And in a way, that's how these Tongs got so powerful. They were, in essence, their own police department, their own jurisdictions.

Jim (13:50):

And you don't really, you can't understand that until you actually handle a case that's come out of the Chinatown community and you are actually speaking to witnesses, which I had some opportunities.

Jim (14:00):

Like there was a man murdered at a card game. This is 20 plus years ago, so I don't think I'm ... and I think we eventually charged the case.

Jim (14:11):

But a guy was murdered at a card game. And this is in Chinatown, and this is residents of Chinatown that you're speaking to, and the thing just happened. And you'll ask a direct question to witnesses, and they look at you like you literally have three heads.

Jim (14:26):

They're not hostile to you, but their instinct to not answer your question goes deeper than any witnesses I've ever spoken to in my life.

Jim (14:35):

Their distrust of me was so deep seated, I had never really experienced anything like that. Because I had experienced a lot of hostility from witnesses, but never this pure, I can't say anything to anyone.

Jim (14:51):

And I always assume that comes from what it was like growing up for maybe a lot of these folks in China as well, which is so culturally different relationship with authority than we would have here. I don't know if that is true or not, but that was always just my instinct.

Harrison (15:11):

And it's quoted in the book and we've heard it before I've personally heard it before where, “We're not going to cooperate. We're going to handle this the Chinese way.” And that was common.

Benjamin Morris (15:27):

Well, one of these tensions which runs like a thread throughout the entire fabric of the book. And in some cases you have things opening up and in some cases you have things completely shutting down in those relations.

Benjamin Morris (15:38):

And to see those shifts over time is just a really compelling part of the story. And we'll get into that in just a little bit.

Benjamin Morris (15:47):

Now, the main premise, almost sort of the opening gambit of triads here is that there is an overlooked history in Chicago. I mean, you argue from the jump that this entire history has been overlooked, overshadowed by the Italian outfit, the Czech outfit, the other ethnicities that had their own organized units.

Benjamin Morris (16:15):

And so, why do you think that the Chinatown community is sort of the last to be studied?

Harrison (16:28):

Wow. I don't know if I have an answer to that. Yeah, I don't.

Jim (16:32):

Greg, do you think it's possibility because in a lot of ways, it was the hardest story to tell. You know what I mean? Because of the language and because of the-

Harrison (16:45):

It was tight knit.

Jim (16:45):

… tight sense of the community. Oh my God, yeah. By far.

Harrison (16:52):

Just such a small, tight knit in every city. From San Francisco to New York, it was just a small enclave of ethnic Chinese.

Harrison (17:04):

So, it wasn't a spread of Italian Americans throughout the whole city, even though they began in smaller neighborhoods. I mean, that could be part of it. But yeah, I don’t know if I can answer the why.

Jim (17:18):

Remember, Greg, reaching out to a person who had spent their entire career in law enforcement and had spent their entire life living in Chinatown to this day. So, he's older, and so he knew a lot of the players involved. And he said certain things about it.

Jim (17:33):

And he goes, "Would you care to be interviewed about it, like specifics about this?" And flatly, "No."

Harrison (17:39):

Yes, that's true, that's true.

Jim (17:41):

No. They would never. “Boy, I could never talk about them.”

Harrison (17:45):

One of the interviews we approached said absolutely not.

Jim (17:48):

And it's the interesting thing about it has, Ben, not fear. It's not like, "I think this, guys, it's going to back up on me. I fear for my ..." That's not what it is. It's just like, "I don't think it's my place to speak."

Jim (17:59):

That's more what I felt like from a lot of these folks. Like, "It's not my place to speak on this subject." You know what I mean? "People Would think I'm being a big shot or something, or acting like I know something or something if I were to speak to you or whatever."

Jim (18:14):

So, it wasn't a fear thing. Like we're talking about people that are long dead. It was more like, "Oh, that's not my place to say."

Harrison (18:20):

Yeah, yeah.

Jim (18:22):

Which makes it such a hard story to tell.

Benjamin Morris (18:25):

Let's look at it from a different perspective then. Let's sort of flip the coin on the other side. I mean, how was it that these Tongs arrived in the United States and in the Chicago area to begin with then? What was their actual point of entry into that area?

Harrison (18:45):

Well, I know actually, a lot of it was Chicago was safer than the streets of San Francisco. There was a lot of violence out west in the mining towns and railroad workers. And they kind of found a safe spot.

Harrison (19:00):

And I think Chicago being such a melting pot and being such an ethically diverse city in its inception, they found their own spot and they made their own way. So, we saw a lot of that.

Harrison (19:14):

I think there was a quote by one of the godfathers, the opium dog who said, "The Chicagoans found us peculiar, but they liked us. They didn't hate us and call us rat eaters and all sorts of other things that were common at the time. They thought we were interesting. But they generally welcomed us with open arms."

Jim (19:36):

And I suppose, Greg, compared on the West coast, the overt xenophobic, even laws that were passed as a reaction to the Chinese on the West coast. It's talked about in the books, the Chinese codes and stuff like that. The Midwest where they're just considered peculiar is maybe a nice change.

Harrison (19:54):

Yeah, yeah. Right.

Benjamin Morris (19:56):

You write that even before they entered this country, you can trace some of the ancestry of the Tongs to kind of around the 17th century in mainland China, that there are some records which indicate there were sort of organized the sort of groups of monks who were protecting certain areas.

Benjamin Morris (20:18):

And then maybe out of those traditions, you begin to see the emergence of codes of honor and loyalty and brotherhood and so forth, which then come to define the modern Tongs.

Benjamin Morris (20:30):

I was curious though, when you begin to look at this transition, how much of the ancient origin of the Tongs survived in the transition into the sort of 19th century American context?

Benjamin Morris (20:50):

I mean, you're sort of arguing that these Tongs arrived here in the mid to late 1800s into Chicago. So, how much did they bring with them of their old traditions?

Harrison (21:05):

So, yeah, I think it's interesting. Ceremonially, I think there were a ton of the old traditions that came over. They began as benevolent groups. It was a place for Chinese to assemble, maybe find jobs, maybe education, things like that.

Harrison (21:22):

It was almost like ... I'm going to use a lot of the mafia and outfit references, but the Unione Siciliana, where they were about getting jobs for guys. They were a political faction. I think that's the way these Tongs began.

Harrison (21:37):

Interestingly enough, their ceremonies for induction into these Tongs, to be essentially a maid member, like somebody in named Mafia, some of the traditions and ceremonies were eerily similar to what the mafia has been known to do or at least documented to do. Where the burning of the mass card and saying a pledge.

Harrison (22:03):

They were burning incense and burning yellow cards with names on them. And drawing blood in some circumstances, just like the Sicilian outfit used to do or was purported to do.

Harrison (22:16):

So, yeah, I think they brought a lot of the old school traditions. I think it began to fade as much as any of the traditions would fade as far as turning more into a criminal element than really a benevolent association.

Benjamin Morris (22:35):

Jim.

Jim (22:37):

Yeah. Greg would have a much better idea of the tracing of the history, because he did a lot more of the legwork on that. But I think that it seems to be a continuous thread to me that certainly, the old world mindset of the people was the hardest thing to get to fade.

Jim (23:02):

The attitudes that they had towards the way they would live their life seemed to really run strong generation after generation.

Benjamin Morris (23:11):

Now, I don't want to be flippant here, but as I read your account, it did kind of strike me that here you have a lot of sort of ancient adornment. You have the rituals and the incense and so forth. But if you take a sort of hard look at the actual structure of these organizations, it's also, a business, right?

Benjamin Morris (23:33):

I mean, they're also, operating like corporations. You have the head guy, the CEO, you have the chief financial officer, you have an accountant. You have an HR guy, the guy who's responsible for sort of recruitment. They might have-

Harrison (23:49):

The English secretary. Yeah.

Benjamin Morris (23:51):

Yeah. Like you've got sort of ancient names which are attached to these, and the names are incredible, but the structure is actually very similar to something that we would recognize here in the west.

Benjamin Morris (24:04):

Now, what I was curious about though was you have this fascinating thread of numerology, which enters into the discussion how important the numbers for titles and positions were. Can you just say a little bit about that?

Harrison (24:27):

Yeah. So, the numerology, there's a lot of superstition going there. And even some of the extortion payments, they go by the English currency, so it's a flat 100 say to keep your business in line, a $100 a month.

Harrison (24:45):

Well, they would purposely make it $108 for good luck, because the number eight in their language rhymed with prosperity, I believe it was.

Harrison (24:57):

And so, yeah, numerology was very important to them. And every code they had, their hand signals had numbers. And then even down to their extortion payments had good luck numbers.

Benjamin Morris (25:10):

You have this incredibly compelling account of 36 oaths that initiates have to take before they can become a member of a Tong. And you actually reproduce all of these oaths in the book.

Benjamin Morris (25:25):

It honestly felt like you're sort of reading the 10 Commandments, but on steroids. It's sort of like, "If I fail to protect the widow of my brother, may I die by thousands of knives," that sort of thing.

Benjamin Morris (25:53):

It's a lot to take in. But it's also, I was curious, you have these 36 oaths. And then you have the entry level recruit that has to swear these 36 oaths is listed as a 49. That's kind of their marker number as in their hierarchy.

Benjamin Morris (26:13):

Now, this is maybe a very nerdy question to ask, but as a former math nerd back in my high school days, I couldn't help but notice 36 and 49 are both squares. It's six squared and seven squared.

Benjamin Morris (26:27):

Is there a particular significance to squared numbers or cubed numbers in the Tong numerology?

Harrison (26:38):

Wow, I don't know the answer to that. I am not a master nerd. In fact, I might be the opposite of a math nerd.

Benjamin Morris (26:44):

Oh, no.

Harrison (26:46):

Yeah, no, I really, I hadn't considered it. I just find the oaths dizzying by a certain number. And hearing the description of how they took them, it was almost like a sweat lodge.

Harrison (26:59):

And it was your second or third day of initiation that you actually get to those, and you're going through the gates and you're bathed first, and there's a certain amount of bloodletting.

Harrison (27:09):

So, I think by the time you're reciting those quotes, you're in a pretty meditative state, I would believe.

Harrison (27:20):

But yeah, as far as the numerology, I'm not aware of anything as far as square numbers.

Benjamin Morris (27:43):

Now, once an initiate got past the oath taking and so forth, at what point would someone achieve the equivalent of in the outfit, what we would've called like a maid man? How long would it take you to become sort of untouchable? Or was there ever really that point in the Chinatown community?

Harrison (28:07):

Mostly it came down to whether you were an earner or not much like the outfit. The more money you earn, the more money you got, the more businesses you extorted meant your rank within the unit, the On Leong on went up, or the Hip Sing went up.

Harrison (28:25):

Quite a few of the presidents or ranking members were very successful restaurant guys or business guys. So, they were in their own right, kind of coming up through the organization. So, really it came down to if you were earning, if you were making money for the larger organization.

Benjamin Morris (28:46):

Was there ever a point at which someone would be considered impervious? Let me ask this slightly different way. Could a member attain the status of becoming unkillable?

Harrison (29:08):

Yeah, I'm not certain if that would actually be a status. You will notice that none of the past godfathers, they all died of natural causes. They weren't whacking each other like a traditional organized crime.

Harrison (29:27):

They had these presidents and they had these so-called godfathers of Chinatown, and they were revered, they were feared as well. But yeah, I think probably the highest ranking guy was Jack Lem.

Harrison (29:45):

And he was the guy that was kind of challenging the status quo and it ended up flipping allegiances. And the book kind of explains it, but he was probably the highest ranking guy that was whacked on the streets of Chinatown.

Jim (30:01):

When you see you have instances of Young Turks sort of attacking more of the established organization. You saw it not by an attack on — like you'd see in some more traditional American organized crime, like an attack on like say when Gotti took out Castellano or something like that.

Jim (30:19):

But it's more like going into a restaurant that's paying extortion and really making a mess of things and making a joke out of the money that they're paying to the other organizations.

Jim (30:30):

You see plenty of that that sort of put dents in another organization, but you don't see, I don't think, as much attempts to kill the head of the organization historically.

Harrison (30:42):

True. And that's how it kind of screwed up Chinatown's organized crime in the end, was somebody from the outside, somebody from New York, Nicky Louie coming in and challenging the status quo and kind of screwed up everything for everybody at the time.

Benjamin Morris (31:00):

Those dynamics are fascinating to watch as they unfold. And what's interesting is that you begin to see these rivalries between the gangs become established.

Benjamin Morris (31:12):

And yet there's always this negotiation, even as the gangs are kind of amassing power, and amassing influence, and amassing businesses under their wing and so forth, you also see them engaging in this fairly delicate dance with the Chicago PD.

Benjamin Morris (31:27):

And I wanted to ask you a little bit about the early days of their engagement because you write that at first as sort of prominent businessmen were gaining influence in Chicago's Chinatown, relations could be okay, but then things began to sour a little bit.

Benjamin Morris (31:47):

And I was wondering why did that souring take effect? What happened to kind of poison the well of the relationships, especially in this sort of 1890s where you're writing?

Harrison (31:59):

Yeah. I think a lot of it was no harm, no foul. They're keeping it in their community. And then as soon as opium started seeping through to other neighborhoods and other clientele, that's when it became a scheduled narcotic.

Harrison (32:17):

That's when the feds started getting involved. That's when they started looking at opium as more of a crime instead of a recreational event. I think things like violence always bring attention.

Harrison (32:32):

I think there's a quote by a police captain who says, "We leave them alone. They're spending their money, but then when they start fighting with hatchets, that's when we got to get involved." Something to that effect.

Harrison (32:44):

So, yeah, I think for the most part, their relationship with law enforcement is only affected when it starts getting violent and out of control. Other than that, it was pretty quiet in Chinatown. What'd you think, Jimmy?

Jim (33:02):

Predictably, insular communities like this and their relationship with law enforcement, and this being the most insular community, they're always going to have a decent relationship as long as they stay within the blocks that are assigned to them.

Jim (33:18):

If they start to stray outside those blocks, then people like police captains find it to be a problem, I would say.

Benjamin Morris (33:26):

Well, there's also this question of turf, isn't there? Because I mean, you have this sense very early on that there's just not enough turf to go around.

Benjamin Morris (33:36):

And there's a segment on page 39 of your book, Harrison, where you actually kind of detail the moment at which the Tongs began to split into factions. You began with sort of the On Leong Tong and then a rival faction arises out of what they would argue would be necessity.

Benjamin Morris (34:00):

And it seemed like a sort of a key moment where you have this split that would then actually shape the rest of the coming century, wouldn't it?

Harrison (34:12):

Yeah. And Chicago's unique in that way that we essentially had two Chinatowns and for a short time, three Chinatowns.

Harrison (34:19):

So, when the On Leong left the downtown Chicago area and they're building at 22nd Wentworth, and it was a long stretch, and that's what everyone thinks of now when they talk about Chicago's Chinatown.

Harrison (34:34):

But originally, it was downtown, and it was just outside of Levee district in Tenderloin district, in the place they called Old Cheyenne, because it was such a violent, violent, wild west kind of shootout place.

Harrison (34:49):

And it wasn't until the '70s that a third Chinatown, thanks to Southeast Asian immigrants, and a lot of the Hip Sing organizations began moving up to the north of uptown in Argyle Street neighborhood.

Harrison (35:08):

And that became essentially the second Chinatown, or new Chinatown, or little Chinatown it was called. And finally, the last bashing of the SROs and a couple of taverns slash opium dens in that downtown Chinatown were gone.

Harrison (35:26):

Federal government took over a couple of blocks to build their MCC, their prison. And that took out quite a few of the old businesses that were left. There's a couple buildings left down there, but there's very little sign of the original Chicago Chinatown.

Harrison (35:48):

So, it's interesting that it was moved a couple times, and it's essentially split by Tongs, the little Chinatown and the real Chinatown.

Jim (35:58):

For a community that's just organically crops up as communities do, to literally just pick up and deliberately move to a different part of the city and establish a Chinatown that is very still firmly entrenched there at 22nd Wentworth, if you visit there, it's very distinctly Chinatown there.

Jim (36:17):

I don't know if that's a kind of a historical first in the United States for a group to just pick up and move to a mile away or so, and just start a new place deliberately so. But that kind of shows the power of the On Leong I think to be able to do that.

Harrison (36:35):

Yeah. And I think I mentioned it that at the time it seemed like the On Leong was tucking their tail and running, kind of leaving their neighborhood, leaving the old Chinatown, when in essence it was brilliant because they built their own things. They took over, they began tourism.

Harrison (36:54):

And so, what looked like running and losing the war ended up essentially being the most powerful Tong in Chicago, most powerful Chinese organization in this city because of that move.

Benjamin Morris (37:10):

What you're describing here as a community which is resilient, which is adaptive, which is creative, which is able to respond to the pressures that are placed upon it, both internally and externally.

Benjamin Morris (37:23):

And to my mind, no one figure represents that capacity more than somebody you write about as one of the first unofficial mayors of Chinatown, which is Sam Moy.

Benjamin Morris (37:39):

And you have a lot of colorful characters in your book, Harrison. I mean, this volume is sort of shot through, pun not intended, with so many fascinating individuals.

Benjamin Morris (37:51):

But Sam Moy, he kind of takes the cake. Now, he was a pioneer, he was an innovator. He bridged worlds very, very successfully, both the western and the ancient traditional eastern world. He was a fixer, he was a gangster, he was a chef, he was an interpreter, he was a smuggler. I mean, he kind of did it all. I mean, what a guy, right? What a guy.

Harrison (38:16):

Yeah. He was known for his flashy suits. He'd wear what they would call in the newspapers western wear. He liked the limelight. He liked being the center of attention. And meanwhile smuggling, being involved with human trafficking, and opium dens, and a lot of gambling.

Harrison (38:43):

And he was, like you said, a fixer. He would travel to nation if there were labor conflicts, or if there was a murder trial, or things of that nature. He wasn't afraid to get involved. And, yeah, colorful character alright.

Benjamin Morris (38:59):

did people try to replicate his success or did he take leadership of the Tongs in other directions?

Harrison (40:14):

Yeah. I think for a couple of reasons, he was the first one to invite Westerners into his casinos and his neighborhoods into his enclaves.

Harrison (40:26):

And then he wasn't afraid of the limelight. He was okay rubbing shoulders with politicians where leaders and community leaders before that were not. He was okay with talking to the newspapers. He loved having his picture drawn in the old newspapers, I think.

Harrison (40:45):

And just his outlandish clothes, his bright yellow suits and the things just to call attention to himself as the king of celestials. I think that's what would happen for years to come. When you become the unofficial mayor of Chinatown, you have this role to play and it's straddling organized crime and law enforcement

Jim (41:19):

And guys like him, it felt like, he had to be able to ... And you see this in guys that held similar kind of positions later, it seems like, if you want to be the man, you have to act like the man.

Jim (41:30):

When the police call you for like there's a situation in your neighborhood, you can't be afraid to be the guy to pick up the call. You have to be the guy that's willing to do that.

Jim (41:41):

You make your money the way you make your money, but if there's someone who's really in trouble in your community, you have to also be the guy that's going to step up and try to actually do something about that problem. You have to be a community leader as well.

Harrison (41:53):

Yeah. No, and he's the one that quashed two hits on two policemen. There was a contract out on two policemen that were raiding gambling houses, and Sam Moy stepped in and quashed them and made sure the detectives were safe.

Harrison (42:07):

So, yeah, there's a little bit of playing on both sides there. Meanwhile, he is collecting from the same gambling houses, but it's also-

Benjamin Morris (42:15):

Everybody's got a hustle, right? Everybody has their hustle.

Harrison (42:19):

Yeah.

Jim (42:20):

I always get the feeling he didn't find it strange at all to be wearing both of those hats. They were the same hat to him. Right?

Harrison (42:26):

Sure. Yeah, absolutely.

Benjamin Morris (42:29):

Well, when you're in the limelight like that, of course, you are bound to attract attention, both of the sort of praiseworthy kind and of the kind that leads you down some darker paths.

Benjamin Morris (42:42):

And we're going to come back to that next week as we start to look at the rivalries that emerged between the On Leong and the Hip Sing. But for now, Harrison, Jim, thank you guys for joining us, and we will see you-

Benjamin Morris (42:56):

... right back here in a week's time.

Harrison (42:58):

Great.

Jim (42:58):

Great.