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The Impact of the Racialized Construction of Vancouver's Reverberations of Moral Reform: The Impact of the Racialized Construction of Vancouver’s Chinatown on the Vancouver Police Department, 1886-1907 by Joshua Lee Pry B.A., Missouri State University, 2014 Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Department of History Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences © Joshua Lee Pry 2017 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY Spring 2017 Approval Name: Joshua Lee Pry Degree: Master of Arts (History) Title: Reverberations of Moral Reform: The Impact of the Racialized Construction of Vancouver’s Chinatown on the Vancouver Police Department, 1886-1907 Examining Committee: Chair: Joseph Taylor Professor Andrea Geiger Senior Supervisor Associate Professor Jennifer Spear Supervisor Associate Professor Patricia Roy External Examiner Professor Emerita Department of History University of Victoria Date Defended/Approved: December 15, 2016 ii Abstract The quick succession of Vancouver’s first seven police chiefs between 1886-1907 is a unique example of how the construction of Vancouver’s Chinatown as a racial place had an effect on the Vancouver Police Department. Although claims of a purportedly vice ridden Chinatown were central to the turn of the twentieth century politicians and moral reformers’ desires to prevent inter-racial socialization, these claims had no immediate effect on Vancouver. Not until the reformers alleged the police department was corrupt and responsible for the apparently rampant gambling in Chinatown did they influence the department’s operation in Chinatown. This thesis looks at the process by which this rhetoric reinforced ideas about gambling in Chinatown and influenced the police department’s response to this problem. This process allowed moral reformers on Vancouver’s city council to consolidate their power over the VPD and force the VPD to rigorously police Chinatown. Although the reformers' influence on the VPD’s operations in Chinatown was not permanent, their efforts to characterize gambling as a distinctively "Chinese" vice facilitated their efforts to police social interaction between Chinese and non-Chinese people, and aided in the construction of Chinatown as a racialized space. Keywords: Vancouver; Police; Chinatown; Gambling; Chinese; Moral Reform; Ethnicity iii Dedication Dedicated to my loved ones who have helped me finish my degree with my sanity still intact: Matthew Montgomery, Connie, Jonathan and Jean Pry. iv Acknowledgements I want to thank Ruth Anderson for answering my endless questions about process and procedure these past two and a half years. I want to thank Dr. Patricia Roy for becoming part of this project in its final phases, and truly appreciate the time that she has given of herself to this project by participating in the defence. I want to thank Jennifer Spear for being part of my committee and helping me to sharpen and clarify particular ideas. Andrea Geiger, I want to thank you for accepting me as your student and making this thesis possible. Thank you for helping to shape me as a historian by always asking another question of me, and helping me to overcome some of the difficulties I have in writing down what I can articulate more clearly. As in any other long-term endeavour, this thesis has had its ups and downs and you have always encouraged me to work through the downs and appreciate the ups. Matthew Montgomery, you drastically reduced the number of coffee stains, endless and sleepless nights, and tears that would have gone into completing this without you in my life. Lori and Darcy Montgomery, thank you for all the amazing support you have given me and for making sure that I never starved on Sunday nights. I want to thank my parents, who kept high standards for me, and have always encouraged me to pick myself up and go one step further. I would also like to thank the Simon Fraser University history graduate students. I consider many of you my friends and many of you have been essential to the development of this thesis by listening to or reading snippets and always providing constructive feedback. David Chokroun, I want to thank you for your help in formatting this thesis and helping me get it ready for submission. v Table of Contents Approval ............................................................................................................................. ii Abstract ............................................................................................................................. iii Dedication ......................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ v Table of Contents .............................................................................................................. vi List of Figures .................................................................................................................. vii List of Acronyms ............................................................................................................. viii Glossary ............................................................................................................................ ix Map of Chinatown, 1910 .................................................................................................... x Chapter 1. Introduction ............................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2. Creating Collusion: Initial Conflict between the VPD and the City Council Over Gambling in Chinatown .......................................... 14 Chapter 3. The Incompetence of Two Chiefs: the Changing Tactics of the Vancouver Police Commission in Response to Chinese Gambling ................................................................................................. 47 Chapter 4. Epilogue ................................................................................................... 77 References .................................................................................................................. 88 Appendix A. Tables .................................................................................................... 95 vi List of Figures Figure 1 Echo Chamber Cycle ...................................................................................... 5 Figure 2 Advertisement for Robert G. Mackay ............................................................ 19 Figure 3 Police Charge Book ....................................................................................... 36 Figure 4 Prisoners' Record Book ................................................................................. 40 Figure 5 Vancouver Police Department Head Quarters 1901 ..................................... 51 vii List of Acronyms VPD Vancouver Police Department viii Glossary Police Investigation For the purpose of this thesis a police investigation refers to an official inquiry into the conduct of the police held by Vancouver’s police commission, and does not mean an investigation by the police into criminal wrongdoing. Restricted District An informally or sometimes formally recognized area in which police do not enforce prohibitions against certain crimes such as gambling, prostitution, drug use, etc. as long as the criminal activity stays within that recognized area of the city. This method was/ is used by law enforcement and city councils to restrict the spread of certain crimes. Echo Chamber A model that describes how information, factual or not, is passed, amplified, and reinforced by repetition until it achieves credibility. ix Map of Chinatown, 1910 x Previous page: Vancouver's Chinatown in the Early Twentieth Century Source: The map is Charles E. Goad Company, Goad’s Fire Insurance Map 1912 (georectified), City of Vancouver Archives, City of Vancouver, accessed November, 15, 2016, http://data.vancouver.ca/datacatalogue/goadsFireInsuranceMap1912.htm. The places of purported gambling are based on articles form Vancouver Daily World, 1886-1910, and the VPD Police Charge Book. Vancouver Daily World, 1886-1910; Textual record, Police Court Charge Book, 1897-1900, Series VPD-S193, Vancouver Police Department Fonds, City of Vancouver Archives. Places of Chinese residential, commercial or associational use are based on Henderson’s British Columbia Directory 1910, as adopted by Kay J Anderson, Vancouver’s Chinatown: Racial Discourse in Canada, 1875-1990, (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1991). xi Chapter 1. Introduction In 1907, James Ramsay, a manufacturer of biscuits, candy, and syrup, as well as a moral reformer who had just been elected to the City Council, gave a harrowing report of his recent visit to Shanghai Alley, Canton Street, and Carrall Street, more commonly referred to as Chinatown because of its Chinese population. He called the place “a seething hell of immorality.” At City Council on February 18, 1907, Ramsay that if the current police chief: Was in sympathy with the law he was certainly not showing it… They [the city] paid the policemen well and they expected them to do their duty. If Chief Chisholm could not see that duty was done they should get someone who would.1 Ramsay, and other reformers in turn of the twentieth century Vancouver, wanted to cleanse the city of various behaviours they perceived as immoral such as gambling, drinking, prostitution, and opium smoking. However, Vancouver reformers found it
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