Joe's Squeeze

A Chinese in Manhattan who wants to start a laundry does what a Manhattan Irishman used to do when he wanted to open a saloon. The would-be saloonkeeper, in the old days, went first to Tammany Hall for political permission. The aspiring laundryman today trots around to No. 16 Mott Street and fixes things up with the Chinese Benevolent Association. If the place he has in mind is not too near another Chinese laundry, if he pays down his first annual fee in advance and if he is otherwise acceptable to the Association, the applicant may open his shop with the assurance that the Association will protect him in turn from invasion of territory. Thus is 98% of Chinese business in Manhattan controlled.

Like Tammany in its prime, the Chinese Benevolent Association can be benevolent. It cares for its poor (throughout Depression, Manhattan's Chinatown has had no breadline), runs an employment bureau, looks out for its sick, provides funerals. Also like Tammany, it has its hostile Press.

Harry Jee, Canton-born 27 years ago, is editor of the Chinese Journal, one of two Chinese dailies in New York City. The Chinese Nationalist Daily is conservative, regular; the Journal, militantly liberal, highly irregular. Its eight pages of Chinese text are written in longhand by Editor Jee and two assistants. Eight compositors, lightning fast at their trade, set the Chinese characters by hand at the rate of half a column per hour. The Journal is read by 6,500 Chinese.

Two years ago the Journal became exercised over the plight of local laundrymen who were required to pay fees not only to the Benevolent Association but also to the city, under a new ordinance. Editor Jee, who had taken a degree in Political Science at Haverford College, Pa., exhorted the laundrymen to Organize. They did, and soon ran afoul of the Benevolent Association. In his little Canal Street print shop, crusading Editor Jee's ink-brush splashed out pages of copy flaying the Association for "corrupt practices." Frightened advertisers pulled out of the Journal while Editor Jee raged at the Association for "sucking the blood and sweat out of the Chinese."

One day Editor Jee's brush made two rapid curlicues, and he found himself in court on the rare charge of criminal libel. Last week at his trial the curlicues were held up for a jury to see. They formed the words mpau shek. That, said the prosecution's interpreters, meant "rob" and "cheat." Nothing of the sort, retorted Editor Jee; it meant "squeeze," which was what he accused the Association of doing. If he had wanted to write "rob," Editor Jee said he would have squiggled chang gip. In 40 minutes, the jury accepted the meaning as "rob," found Crusader Jee guilty.

Stoically Editor Jee contemplated the possibility of serving a year in jail instead of receiving his master's degree in Political Science at New York University in June.

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