TONG WAR ENDS.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 18760, 26 December 1930, Page 11

TONG WAR ENDS.

AGREEMENT SIGNED IN NEW YORK. Seven Chinese tongs have recently signed an agreement in New York City to keep the peace, and a notice of this treaty has been forwarded to tong leaders in other cities in America (says an exchange). If the agreement is observed an arbitration board will supplant hatchet men in settling future controversies. Furthermore, it has been agreed that in case the board falls to reach a decision which is unanimously accepted by all parties concerned, the matter will be referred to Police Commissioner E. P. Mulrooney, of New York City, whose judgment shall be final. A threat of wholesale deportation unless tong warfare ceased was in no small way instrumental in persuading the various factions to make peace.

Although tong hostilities are frequently in the news, it is a subject regarding which the average man has a rather vague comprehension. Many persons believe that a vast majority of the Chinese in America belong to some tong, but this is as untrue as to think that all Americans are affiliated with some underworld- gang. The multiplicity of Chinese societies and associations may be responsible for the present confusion regarding the exact nature of tongs. Yet an analysis of the situation breaks up the complicated array into three distinct and easily-identified groups—the district councils, the trade guilds, and the secret societies, or tongs.

In the first group the Chung Wah Kung Sow—popularly known as the Six Companies—cracks the legislative, judicial, and executive whip. Eight powerful district councils now make up its personnel—these consolidated councils in turn representing the multitude of minor social, religious, educational, political, and financial societies. The Chong Wah Kung Sow is the Chinese Supreme Court in America, and the great majority of Chinese bow to its decrees.

The trade guilds are what the name connotes—associations for the protection of the laundry workers, tailors, shoemakers, cigarmakers, and the lesser trades. They combine many features of the American trade unions and benefit societies.

Under the third heading are listed the secret societies, or tongs. The majority of these organisations must be classed as decidedly destructive units. The tong, as we know it, does not exist in China. It is of American origin, and may be defined simply as a gang. What the notorious Whyos, Gophers, and Dead Rabbits were to New York, so are the tongs to the Chinese colonies—thugs and hoodlums with restless trigger fingers, paid killers, who ply their trade in time of tong war, and make a comfortable living by blackmail and “protection” service in time of peace. Admittedly, the most conspicuous of all Chinese organisations, the tongs are also the least understood.

The first tong appeared in Caliafornia during the early days of the Civil War. It was an offshoot of the Triad Society, a Chinese political organisation whose activities were responsible for the horrible Tai Ping rebellion, and later the Boxer uprising. Oriental silence contributes nothing to the solving of tong mysteries. Fifty Chinese may see a long sacrifice sprawl on the sidewalk with a bullet in his head. They will very likely be commenting volubly upon the event when the police patrol clangs upon the scene. But with the arrival of the law comes a complete mental and ocular lapse on the part of the spectators. A tong brother may be huddled on the concrete —perhaps a blood brother — but that knowledge will never be incorporated in the official police report.

There are three fundamental reasons why this condition exists. First, the individual Chinese, like any other normal human, has a whole-souled love of life, and prefers to make his eventual exit in a graceful—and natural—way. Second, he feels that American justice is full of strange legal loopholes of which he knows nothing. Third, he observes the code of his fathers. The matter of retaliation, he feels, is a private affair—a delicate problem to be solved by the family council. The tongs place no restrictions upon admission requirements, and consequently enjoy a larger following and are stronger financially than the more discriminating societies, and so like strong nations, they are inclined to test supremacy among themselves upon any pretext. A dispute between individuals becomes a dispute of the tongs, and because a genuine spirit of reconciliation is lacking tongs wars are the inevitable result.