Although the Chinese community was relieved by this Supreme Court decision, victory in the courts did not always translate into a new respect for the Chinese community or for the Chinese in America as a people. To the contrary, by the turn of the century, a shameful series of local and federal acts reminded the Chinese that any court ruling, to have meaning, must have the support of local officials prepared to carry out its provisions.

In 1899, U.S. officials in Hawaii learned that a few people had died of plague in Hong Kong. Fearful that the disease had spread to Honolulu, they forbade the local Chinese from boarding ships headed for the continental United States. In addition, the board of health burned down a section of the city’s Chinatown. Health officials in San Francisco followed their example, shutting down all Chinese-owned businesses and ordering all Chinese who wished to leave the city to submit to inoculation first. The illegality of these measures prompted a Mr. Wong Wai to sue the department of public health, a lawsuit he won in both the local district court and the court of appeals. In May 1900, the court ordered the San Francisco public health department to cease and desist, but officials persisted in their campaign by enlisting the support of the board of supervisors. Soon, in contravention of the legal order, Chinatown was cordoned off by the police, barricaded, and completely quarantined, while city officials talked about burning and razing it to the ground. It took the combined efforts of the Chinese Six Companies, their attorneys, the Chinese ethnic media, the local Chinese consul, and China’s minister (ambassador) to the United States to break the quarantine and save the San Francisco Chinatown from total destruction. (Chang 139-140)