Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1913-06-23
PeacssNaking of Tongs About Last
Word in Wiping Out Interest in
Celestial District.
TONG MEN NOW WALK OUT
BOLDLY ON CITY STREETS
Chuck Connors, Late Mayor of China
town, Believed to Be Glad He Is
Dead at This Time.
By Carlton Ten Eyck.

New York, June 23.-New York s
Chinatown, once so picturesque, soon
will be only memory. Came the
tourists in the rubber-neck wagons
and commercialized the restaurants and
tea rooms, and when Elsie Siegel was
murdered the police cleaned out the
district and put the lid on the poppy.
The crowning iconoclastic act that
stripped the last vestige of glamor and
romance from Chinatown came the 9TH
er day when the mankillers of the Hip
Sing Tong and the On Leong Tong
made peace across the banquet table.
The tong war, perhaps the most fascin-
ating thing about Chinatown, is now
thing of the past, a mere tradition.
Devotees of Chatham Square aver
that "Chuck" Connors, the late Mayor
of Chinatown, who died a few months
ago, is either turning in his grave like
a spindle or else is profoundly glad to
be dead in these degenerate days of
his old-time haunts. The Yellow Tri-
angle off Chatham Square, old feud
ground of the tongs and the place Of
sudden assassinations in times past, to-
day flaunts the five-barred flag of the
new Chinese republic with conscious
rectitude and everybody smiles. More
wonderful than that, though, On LeOng
men walk openly on Pell street and
brothers of the Hip Sing tong sip
their tea in Mott street without appre-
hension. The district, formerly the
scene of all the ways that are dark
and tricks that are vain, of winch
Bret Harte wrote, hardly knows itself
under the new conditions.
The tong truce was brought about
by District Attorney Charles S. Whit
man, who broke up the police system,
now candidate for mayor and Judge
Foster, of the Court of General Ses-
sions, and the protocol of armistice
was signed at a great banquet at the
Port Arthur restaurant Ranging from
birdsnest soup and shark fins down to
lichee nuts in countless courses, the
banquet lasted for more than five
hours.
From Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago
and even as far away as St. Louis,
wherever the two tongs have chapters,
the tong men came to attend the great
"talky talk" Some of them had been
involuntary exiles from New York un-
til the district attorney recognized the
agreement to end the war and they
came with smiles on their faces. The
visiting brothers were met at Grand
Central and Pennsylvania stations by
local tong men wearing suits Of latest
cut and huge yellow badges of wei
come, and they were taken to China,
town in taxicabs, American style. No
body seemed to care a whoop how mer
rily the taximeters taxed, either.
1t was great gathering of the tong'
and the peace festival lasted all night
The only familiar faces missing were
when the Hip Sings and the On lie
Ongs gathered in the banquet room
were those of Mock Duck ant
"Chuck" Connors. Mock Duck wa
"put away" for quite spell up tn,
river and the "Mayor" passed away
before the olive branch became the EN-
blem of the municipality. -
Can Live Like Moles.
New Workers can live like moles i
they want to, never seeing the Out.of
doors. 1t takes rainy day to shov
the average man what he can do with
out ever exposing himself to tn
weather. For example, take the ma
working in one of the large offic
buildings in the financial district. H
can get into the subway without leay
ing the building. At the Grand Ger
Itral station he can emerge from tn