The Barbary Plague

1.­ Rupert Blue, Personal Letter to General Walter Wyman, September 25, 1901, National Archives and Records Administration, Records Group 90, Central File 1897–1923, Box 616, File 3 of 3.

2.­ Marlon K. Hom, Songs of Gold Mountain: Cantonese Rhymes from San Francisco Chinatown (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), p. 29.

3.­ M. J. White, Letter to the Surgeon General, September 14, 1901, NARA, Records Group 90, Central File 1897–1923, Box 625, Folder 5608, File 2 of 4.

4.­ Rupert Blue, Letter to the Surgeon General, September 23, 1901, NARA, Records Group 90, Central File 1897–1923, Box 616, File 3 of 3.

5.­ Rupert Blue, Personal Letter to Surgeon General Walter Wyman, September 25, 1901, NARA, Records Group 90, Central File 1897–1923, Box 616, File 3 of 3.

6.­ Rupert Blue, Letter to Supervising Surgeon General, October 4, 1901, NARA, Records Group 90, Central File 1897–1923, Box 616, File 3 of 3.

7.­ Henri H. Mollaret and Jacqueline Brossolet, Alexandre Yersin, ou Le vainqueur de la peste (Paris: Librairie Artheme Fayard, 1985), p. 165.

8.­ The Bubonic Plague, a monograph by Walter Wyman, surgeon general, Marine Hospital Service (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1900), pp. 25–26.

WONG CHUNG, DETECTIVE

1.­ Rupert Blue, Personal Letter to Surgeon General Wyman, September 29, 1901, National Archives and Records Administration, Records Group 90, Central File 1897–1923, Box 616, File 3 of 3.

2.­ M. J. White, Letter to Passed Assistant Surgeon Rupert Blue, September 27, 1901, NARA, Records Group 90, Central File 1897–1923, Box 616, File 3 of 3.

3.­ Rupert Blue, Personal Letter to Walter Wyman, October 18, 1901, NARA, College Park, Md., Records Group 90, Central File 1897–1923, Box 616, File 3 of 3.

4.­ The birth of the Ruef-Schmitz alliance is recounted by Walton Bean in Boss Ruef’s San Francisco (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1952), pp. 20–21. It is also treated by Charles F. Adams in The Magnificent Rogues of San Francisco (Palo Alto: Pacific Books, 1998), pp. 222–246.

5.­ “Crowds Cheer for Schmitz,” San Francisco Chronicle, November 6, 1901, p. 2.

6.­ Bean, Boss Ruef’s San Francisco, p. 29.

7.­ Mark White, Letters to the Supervising Surgeon General, on December 23, 1901, and December 30, 1901, and Telegram of January 13, 1902, NARA, Records Group 90, Central File 1897–1923, Box 625, Folders 5608, 5624, and 5608.

8.­ “Big House to See Sponge Thrown Up; Once More San Francisco Pays Dear for Witnessing an Easy Money Game,” San Francisco Chronicle, sports page, November 16, 1901.

9.­ Bess Furman, A Profile of the United States Public Health Service, 1798–1948 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1973). The late Bess Furman interviewed Surgeon General Blue’s secretary and contemporaries. Her cryptic handwritten notes on this exchange are filed at the National Library of Medicine, in Bethesda, Md. (Ms. C. 202, HMD Manuscripts, NLM012683199, Furman, Bess, 1894–1969, project materials pertaining to a history of the U.S. Public Health Service, Box 16, Chapters 12–13, steno pad).

10.­ “Chinese Go East to Lecture and Sing Against Exclusion,” San Francisco Examiner, December 5, 1901, p. 6, col. 1.

11.­ “Exclude Chinese, Build Up the Navy—Roosevelt,” San Francisco Examiner, December 4, 1901, p. 3, col. 1.

12.­ “Some Scientific Prophecies,” San Francisco Examiner, New Year’s Supplement, January 1, 1902, p. 3, col. 1.

13.­ M. J. White, Letter to the Surgeon General, April 22, 1902, NARA, College Park, Md., Records Group 90, Central File 1897–1923, Box 624, File 1 of 2.

14.­ “Mayor Schmitz Removes Four Members of Board of Health,” San Francisco Examiner, March 26, 1902, p. 1.

15.­ Affidavit of Wong Chung, May 19, 1902, and M. J. White, Letters to Supervising Surgeon General, May 20 and 21, 1901, NARA, College Park, Md., Records Group 90, Central File 1897–1923, Box 624, File 2 of 2.

16.­ M. J. White, Letter to the Surgeon General, May 22, 1902, NARA, Records Group 90, Central File 1897– 1923, Box 624, Folder 5608, File 1 of 2.

17.­ H. Brett Melendy and Benjamin F. Gilbert, The Governors of California (Georgetown, Calif.: Talisman Press, 1965), pp. 270–274.

18.­ M. J. White, Letter to Surgeon General, May 30, 1902, NARA, Records Group 90, Central File 1897–1923, Box 624, File 2 of 2.

19.­ M. J. White details the deaths of the seventeen-year-old boy and the cook Huie Chong Bow in two letters to the surgeon general, both dated September 24, 1902, NARA, College Park, Md., Records Group 90, Central File 1897–1923, Box 624, File 1 of 2.

20.­ M. J. White, Telegram to Surgeon General Wyman, October 7, 1902, NARA, College Park, Md., Records Group 90, Central File 1897–1923, Box 624, File 2 of 2.

21.­ M. J. White, Letter to the Surgeon General, October 8, 1902, NARA, Records Group 90, Central File 1897–1923, Box 624, File 2 of 2.

22.­ John Hay, Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury, October 11, 1902, NARA, Records Group 90, Central File 1897–1923, Box 624, File 2 of 2.

“SEND BLUE ASAP”

1.­ Resolutions of the State and Provincial Boards of Health of North America at the Annual Meeting held at New Haven, October 28–29, 1902, National Archives and Records Administration, Records Group 90, Central File 1897–1923, Box 636, Folder 5608, File 1 of 2.

2.­ M. J. White, Letter to Surgeon General, October 29, 1902, NARA, Records Group 90, Box 624, File 2 of 2. Caswell’s death and his intemperate habits are noted in “List of Cases of Plague” in San Francisco, Calif., from March 6, 1900, to December 11, 1902, filed at NARA, Records Group 90, Central File 1897–1923, Box 616, File 2 of 2.

3.­ A. H. Glennan, Letter to the Surgeon General, October 21, 1902, NARA, Records Group 90, Central File 1897–1923, Box 626, Folder 5608, 1902, Surgeon Glennan. Glennan recaps his audience with the governor in this letter, expressing shock at the governor’s crude eruptions, and bowdlerized his outburst as “That plague again.”

4.­ M. J. White, Letter to the Surgeon General, September 12, 1902, NARA, Records Group 90, Central File 1897–1923, Box 624, File 1 of 2.

5.­ The account of this meeting is from M. J. White’s Letter to the Surgeon General of November 4, 1902, NARA, Records Group 90, Central File 1897–1923, Box 624, File 2 of 2.

6.­ “Plague Fake Is Exposed; Dr. Glennan Says Bubonic Tales Are False,” San Francisco Call, December 12, 1902, p. 1 col. 1.

7.­ Bess Furman, A Profile of the United States Public Health Service, 1798–1948 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1973), pp. 251–252.

8.­ Walter Wyman, Letter to Edmond Souchon, January 11, 1903, NARA, Records Group 90, Central File