On June 15, the courtroom was packed to hear arguments in the Jew Ho lawsuit. Consul Ho Yow was there, as were forty Christian missionaries and about a hundred Chinese spectators. Ng Poon Chew, the crusading editor of the Chung Sai Yat Po, took furious notes.
Jew Ho called a parade of expert medical witnesses, who gave sworn testimony that there was no plague. Physician Minnie Worley asserted that the young maid Chin Moon had died of typhoid fever. Judge Morrow listened attentively from the bench. If it were the court’s job to rule on the truth of the diagnosis, Judge Morrow said, “I think upon such testimony as that given by these physicians I should be compelled to hold that the plague did not exist and has not existed in San Francisco.”10
Though it wasn’t the court’s job to settle matters of science, Judge Morrow threw the quarantine out on legal grounds. It lumped all Chinese homes and businesses together, while exempting white-occupied buildings. It didn’t distinguish between homes of plague-infected and homes of healthy Chinese, but confined them all together, increasing risk of transmission. It forbade the Chinese from access to physicians of their choice. For all these reasons, said Judge Morrow, echoing the U.S. Supreme Court in a prior discrimination case, the San Francisco quarantine was imposed with “an evil eye and an unequal hand.”
“This quarantine,” he went on, “cannot be continued by reason of the fact that it is unreasonable, unjust, and oppressive… discriminating in its character [and] contrary to the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.”11
Within hours of Judge Morrow’s ruling, the city health board repealed the quarantine. The good news crackled through the alleyways of Chinatown like a string of New Year firecrackers. Expectant crowds sifted into the streets, swelling and pressing against the barriers near Portsmouth Square. That afternoon, a police wagon pulled up to the intersection of Kearny and Clay. A captain in civilian clothes jumped out, broke down the fences, and rolled up the barbed wire.12
Chinese poured through the lines, their lean faces awash with joy and relief. For the first time in two weeks, workers returned to their jobs—shelves were restocked, tables set, and hollow bellies filled.
During the litigation, however, the plague bacteria hadn’t slept. New victims fell sick just doors away from the celebration. Containing the plague was like trying to catch quicksilver. Stung by his legal setback and alarmed by the new cases, Kinyoun devised another scheme.
If he couldn’t quarantine Chinatown, he would broaden the surgeon general’s May 21 prohibition on Asian travel into a sweeping ban on people of any race leaving San Francisco for other places. Ships and trains were ordered to deny tickets to any person without a health certificate signed by Kinyoun. He dashed off urgent letters on June 15 to the Southern Pacific Railroad and the Pacific Coast Steamship Company.13 With a rising sense of panic, he urged the surgeon general to build detention camps to hold plague suspects at the state border, using War Department tents. “Rush answer,” he implored.14
Kinyoun also fired off warning letters to the health boards of Louisiana, Texas, Kansas, Nevada, Oregon, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Washington, urging that they stay on the lookout for any infected passengers or freight from the Golden State.15
The explosion was predictable. California’s commercial and political powers erupted in fury: At stake was a bumper crop of California fruit worth $40 million and fortunes in transportation and tourism revenues—all paralyzed by Kinyoun’s sweeping new decree. Their wrath echoed in a banner headline in the Call on June 17, 1900:
“The indignation of the people of California is beyond expression,” said the Republican State Central Committee.16 A delegation led by the Call’s publisher, John D. Spreckels, took the protest to the door of the White House.
President McKinley didn’t take long to overrule Kinyoun’s travel ban. Vindicated San Franciscans rejoiced, viewing the president’s act as not just a green light for travel, but a clean bill of health for the city.
In the wake of the president’s order, Kinyoun was charged with contempt of court. But the governor had an even more nefarious, more effective plan to bury the quarrelsome quarantine officer for good. Gage unveiled a conspiracy theory that would discredit Kinyoun, while offering a convenient way to explain the existence of plague bacteria in his state.
Gage told the press that Kinyoun had imported cultures of bubonic plague bacteria for use in his laboratory on Angel Island, then suggested that, by spilling the bacteria, Kinyoun had created the catastrophe himself.17
Kinyoun, captain of a sinking ship, was summoned to court for a hearing before Judge Morrow on the contempt charge. By turns meek and belligerent, Kinyoun gave assurances that he hadn’t intended to violate any court order. The Call called Kinyoun “insolent and dangerous” and an “injudicious meddler” in state affairs.18
Kinyoun got cold comfort from his government-appointed attorney, Frank Coombs, who told the quarantine officer he was going to have a hard time keeping him out of jail.19
Judge Morrow gave Kinyoun a week to show cause why he should not be held in contempt of court in violating the injunction handed down by the court in the Wong Wai lawsuit.
On Monday, June 25, the courtoom was packed with businessmen and members of the Chinese community. Kinyoun was called to the stand and sworn in. J. C. Campbell, an attorney for the Chinese Six Companies, interrogated him about the racial motives for his plague control.
Prickly and defensive, Kinyoun wrangled with Campbell from the witness box, insisting that he was innocent of discriminatory intent and that his earlier action and the new travel ban were “entirely separate and distinct.”20 Few in the crowd were moved by his argument.
Just as Kinyoun was trying to convince the court in San Francisco about the plague, Rupert Blue was trying to do much the same thing—convince Washington about the plague outbreak in the Mediterranean. On June 26, Blue had picked up a copy of the Italian paper Il Caffaro and was electrified by the news of plague outbreaks in Xanti, Greece, and Smyrna, Turkey. Previously, the U.S. Public Health reports had published an account of only one such case. Blue updated his superiors about a dozen new plague cases and three deaths. He predicted a major plague invasion of continental Europe from the south.21 His instinct was right; he was just a continent off target. The real plague invasion was under way in San Francisco—Blue’s next assignment.
Kinyoun’s court grilling ended on July 2. Judge Morrow promised to render his decision on the contempt charge the next day. Kinyoun’s prospects looked dire. As the rest of San Francisco bought sparklers and rockets for a July 4th holiday, the Kinyouns despaired in their cottage on Angel Island. Kinyoun encouraged his children to think of his trial as a biblical battle between the forces of good and evil—science and commercialism. His son Conrad declared California to be a land of false prophets where people worshiped the dollar.
“Judge Morrow don’t seem to know who my papa is,” Conrad said. “Judge Morrow thinks he’s the biggest man in the world, but right there he’s mistaken, he don’t know my papa like I do.” With none left to champion him, Kinyoun clung to the boy’s defense like a life raft.22