Southern Pacific Railroad moguls were pretty sure they had picked the right man to be in their pocket as governor of California in 1899, and Henry Gage certainly did all he could to please his sponsors.

But Gage was undone by a flea. This flea apparently had bitten a rat, which was infected by the plague that was rampaging in the Far East. The rat carrying the flea had jumped ship in San Francisco near the Chinatown sewer outlet to the bay. The rat made its way into Chinatown, and the flea began biting its inhabitants, who were very reluctant to see Caucasian doctors.

But when one Chinese death came to the attention of city health officials, they autopsied the body and sent the suspicious results to the quarantine station on Angel Island. Joseph Kinyoun, federal quarantine official, declared the sickness to be bubonic plague and called on his bosses in Washington, D.C., to quarantine the Chinese section of San Francisco.

Now this turn of events really scared Gage. A quarantine would be very bad for business in the state. So he denied there was a plague. He contended the federal government was usurping the state”s power, and the city”s two major newspapers supported him. Gage even went so far as to claim that Kinyoun had injected the plaque into the Chinese bodies.

The Chinese brought suit against the federal officials, claiming they were being persecuted because of their nationality. Gage went to see President William McKinley in Washington, D.C., and convinced him that the quarantine was not necessary and also would be a disaster economically.

McKinley called off the threat of the quarantine and appointed a commission to investigate the situation. The commission”s report supported Kinyoun and his findings. By this time, Kinyoun”s career was in shambles, and he had been transferred out of San Francisco

Gage managed to keep the report under wraps for a time, but since people kept dying, the report finally leaked out, and Gage”s political career would come to a sorry end.

Now the railroad powers had to find a new champion. They settled on a former Oakland mayor, George Pardee.

Pardee was also a doctor, and he believed the plague existed in San Francisco. So when he took office, he cooperated fully with federal, city and state health officials.

Fortunately, the man who took Kinyoun”s place was Dr. Rupert Blue, who had a less abrasive personality than his predecessor.

He took a look at Chinatown and figured out the rats were chewing on the wooden foundations to enter buildings. He managed to get enough federal and city money to hire a brigade to cut away all the woodwork and substitute concrete. In effect, he rat-proofed the entire 20 blocks of Chinatown.

By the time the plague was declared over in 1904, it had claimed 121 victims.

It turned out Pardee was a better choice for Californians than he was for the Southern Pacific. The railroad moguls managed to get rid of him after one term, but that will be another story.

Days Gone By appears on Sundays. Contact Nilda Rego at