under a second quarantine, as well as blocking all east asians from entering state borders. wyman also instructed kinyoun to inoculate all persons of asian heritage in chinatown, using an experimental vaccine developed by waldemar haffkine, one known to have severe side effects. spokesmen in chinatown protested strenuously; they did not give their permission for this kind of mass experimentation. the chinese consolidated benevolent association, also known as the six companies, filed suit on behalf of wong wai, a merchant who took a stance against what he perceived as a violation of his personal liberty. not quite a class action suit, the arguments included similar wording such as complaints that all residents of chinatown were being denied "equal protection under the law", part of the fourteenth amendment to the us constitution. federal judge william w. morrow ruled uncharacteristically in favor of the chinese, largely because the defense by the state of california was unable to prove that chinese americans were more susceptible to plague than anglo americans. the decision set a precedent for greater limits placed on public health authorities seeking to isolate diseased populations. between 1901 and 1902, the plague outbreak continued to worsen. in a 1901 address to both houses of the california state legislature, gage accused federal authorities, particularly kinyoun, of injecting plague bacteria into cadavers, falsifying evidence. in response to what he said to be massive scaremongering by the mhs, gage pushed a censorship bill to gag any media reports of plague infection. the bill failed in the california state legislature, yet laws to gag reports amongst the medical community succeeded in passage and were signed into law by the governor. in addition, $100,000 was allocated to a public campaign led by gage to deny the plague's existence. privately, however, gage sent a special commission to washington, d.c., consisting of southern pacific, newspaper and shipping lawyers to negotiate a settlement with the mhs, whereby the federal government would remove kinyoun from san francisco with the promise that the state would secretly cooperate with the mhs in stamping out the plague epidemic. in october 1900, kinyoun was the subject of a political cartoon about his being kicked out of his federal position. despite the secret agreement allowing for kinyoun's removal, gage went back on his promise of assisting federal authorities and continued to obstruct their efforts for study and quarantine. a report issued by the state board of health on september 16, 1901, bolstered gage's claims, denying the plague's outbreak. racism and discrimination lawsuit widespread racism toward chinese immigrants was socially accepted during the initial time of the chinatown plague in the early 1900s. standard social rights and privileges were often denied to the chinese people, as shown in the way landlords would refuse to maintain their own property when renting to chinese immigrants. the living conditions in the chinatown community reflected the social norms and racial inequalities during that time for chinese immigrants. housing for the majority of chinatown chinese immigrants was not fit nor adequate for human living, but with scarce housing options and landlords unwilling to provide equal and fair housing, chinese immigrants were left little option other than to live with such housing disparities. discrimination against chinese americans culminated in two acts, the quarantine of san francisco's chinatown, and the permanent extension of the chinese exclusion act of 1882. the extended quarantine of chinatown was motivated more by racist images of chinese americans as carriers of disease than by actual evidence of the presence of bubonic plague san francisco's quarantine measures were explicitly discriminatory and segregatory, allowing european americans to leave the affected area, but chinese and japanese americans required a health certificate to leave the city. residents were initially angered as those with jobs outside of san francisco were prevented from working. few chinese agreed to take the inoculation, especially after press reports on may 22, 1900, that people who did agree were experiencing severe pain from the untested vaccine. on may 24, 1900, with the help of chinese six companies, they hired the law firm of reddy, campbell, and metson. defendants included joseph j. kinyoun and all of the members of the san francisco board of health. the chinese wanted the courts to issue a provisional injunction to enforce what they argued was their constitutional right to travel outside of san francisco. on july 3, 1900, judge william w. morrow ruled that the defendants were violating the plaintiffs' fourteenth amendment rights. the ruling required that the same restrictions, if any, be applied to everyone no matter their ethnic group. the defendants did not have enough evidence to prove that the chinese were transmitting the plague. morrow agreed with the argument that if they were, the city would not have permitted them to roam the streets of san francisco. the board then "attempted to sidestep the decision by instituting a quarantine order that avoided mention of race, but which was precisely drafted so as to encompass all of the chinatown area of san francisco while excluding white-owned businesses on the periphery of that area"; this effort was also struck down, with the court noting that the boundaries of the quarantine corresponded with the ethnicity of building occupants rather than the presence of the disease. detailed history 1900 upon the death of wong chut king, the san francisco health board took immediate action to prevent the spread of plague: chinatown was quarantined. health officials, in order to prevent the propagation of the disease, made the decision of placing chinatown under quarantine, without any notice to the residents – targeting chinese residents only. white americans that were walking the streets of chinatown were allowed to leave; everybody else was forced to stay. physicians were restricted from crossing into chinatown to identify and help the sick. the health board had to approve whether or not any health official crossed into the quarantined area. due to lack of evidence that the cause of death of king was plague, the quarantine was removed the day after to avoid controversy. kinyoun's lab confirmed the disease was bubonic plague and informed the health board right away. in an attempt to avoid a second controversial quarantine, the health board continued with a house-to-house inspection to look for possible plague infested households – disinfecting those that were thought to be at risk of infection. participants in the house-to-house examination were mainly volunteer physicians and residents. on the contrary, other residents did not support the inspection and argued that the disinfecting plan was not being done in good faith. believing a second quarantine would be soon implemented, worried residents began to flee quietly and hide in friends' houses outside of chinatown. as days passed, more dead bodies were reported and autopsies revealed the presence of plague bacilli, indicating that a plague epidemic had hit san francisco's chinatown, but the health board still was trying to deny it. the health board attempted to keep all the information regarding the outbreak secret by implementing strict regulations of what physicians could write official death certificates. nevertheless, newspapers published the news of the presence of bubonic plague in san francisco to the entire nation, especially william randolph hearst's new york journal which published a special plague edition. the official inspection and disinfection of chinatown finally began, thanks to the monetary contributions of the supervisors of the volunteer physicians, policemen, and inspectors that participated in the actual disinfection campaign. the sanitizing of chinatown began to show results as the death toll slowly dropped throughout the month of march and the beginning of april. towards the end of april, the corpse of law an, a chinese laborer from a village near the sacramento river, was found in an alley in chinatown. the cause of death of law an was determined to be bubonic plague. after that, a few more chinese residents that died suddenly were determined to be infested with plague bacilli. the fear that the bubonic plague was spreading intensified. the controversy of the vaccination program organized by kinyoun with the help of surgeon general wyman spiked. the plan was to inoculate the chinese residents with haffkine's vaccine, a prophylactic anti-plague vaccine that was intended to provide some protection against the plague for a 6-month period. no one spoke about the side effects and that the vaccine was still not approved for humans. most chinese residents refused and demanded the vaccine to be tested in rats first. at first, representatives of the chinese community had agreed that inoculating the population with such serum could be a reasonable and safe solution, but soon after agreed with the rest of the chinese population in that it was not ethical to try the vaccine in humans first. the representatives from the chinese six companies demanded the vaccination program to be eliminated as an option, and with much pressure and insistence from the chinese community the vaccination program was halted. 1901 joseph j. kinyoun was feeling the pressure of the public to clear his reputation. he summoned the help of u.s. surgeon general walter wyman to bring someone from the outside to investigate kinyoun's procedures. in december 1900 wyman selected assistant surgeon general joseph h. white to manage the investigation surrounding all of the pacific coast stations. white wanted to focus on how food was handled while being imported from china and japan. kinyoun tried to hinder these advances because he did not want to publicly admit that there was an outbreak. white made his appearance in january 1901. white and kinyoun attended the autopsy of chun way lung who was said to have suffered from gonorrhea. wilfred kellogg and henry ryfkogel conducted the autopsy and achieved respect from white by revealing that lung had died from the bubonic plague. white concluded that kinyoun's bacteriological confirmation could no longer be credible. governor gage refused to support the diagnoses that were verified by the competent pasteurians in san francisco. kinyoun was starting to express his frustration and suggested that independent outside experts confirm that the plague was present. white agreed and passed this information to the surgeon general. kinyoun desired that his reputation be restored and that his findings were valid so that he could continue to investigate plague cases. on january 26, flexner, novy, and barker arrived in san francisco. the three scientists were appointed to an official commission to prove if the plague existed. gage reacted by sending a telegram to president william mckinley urging that the federal experts work with state health authorities. gage's request was not granted because the federal government wanted the commission to be allowed to work independently. they would relay all of their findings to the treasury department and then forwarded to gage. flexner, novy, and barker scheduled an inspection of the sick and dead on february 6. the federal investigators split up the duties. novy carried out bacteriological tests, while barker accompanied by a chinese interpreter visited the sick. by february 12, the team had studied six cases that all identified the characteristics of bubonic plague. this was confirmed by pathological and bacteriological data. flexner, novy, and barker completed their investigation on february 16. they met with governor gage the same day and informed him of their conclusion. gage was upset and accused them of being a threat to public health. over the next few weeks gage questioned the diagnoses and blocked the publication of the final report. he blamed the commission of being biased and influenced by kinyoun. finally the two senators for california proposed that gage needed to engage in friendly cooperation with federal authorities. gage sent representatives to washington to reach an agreement for federal authorities to suppress their findings concerning the plague in san francisco. the federal authorities agreed to these demands after gage's representatives verbally pledged to manage a sanitary campaign in chinatown. this would be done secretively under the guidance of an expert from the marine hospital service this deal was designed to avoid impairing the state's reputation and economy. surgeon general wyman took the majority of the blame. he was accused of violating u.s. laws and breaking international agreements that required him to notify all nations that there was an existence of contagious disease. wyman and president mckinley destroyed the credibility of the american public health in the eyes of the nation and abroad. 1902