United States v. Lee You Wing

• Decision Date: 30 April 1913
• Citation: 208 F. 166
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. LEE YOU WING.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

208 F. 166

UNITED STATES v. LEE YOU WING.

United States District Court, S.D. New York.

April 30, 1913

James A. Donegan, of New York City, for appellant.

Henry A. Wise, U.S. Atty., and Frank M. Roosa, Asst. U.S. Atty both of New York City.

HOLT District Judge.

This is an appeal from an order of deportation. The charge is that the defendant is a Chinese laborer without a certificate. The defense is that he was a merchant, and as such not required to have a laborer's certificate.

The evidence, as usual in Chinese cases, is incomplete and unsatisfactory. The evidence, upon the whole, shows, in my opinion, that the defendant was a merchant at Hong Kong; that he came to San Francisco with a merchant's certificate and was a merchant there; that his certificate was burned in the fire following the San Francisco earthquake; that he came East after the earthquake with $1,500; that in 1908 he bought an interest for $1,000 in the firm of Wah Chong Lung & Co. in Newark, N.J.; that in 1910 he applied for a certificate that he was a merchant, which would entitle him to return to this country after a contemplated visit to China; that such certificate was refused; that he then bought a laundry, where he has worked since. He was arrested in this proceeding in 1912 on the ground that he was a laborer in this country without a certificate.

His own evidence is in some respects contradictory, but in my opinion it is natural that in testifying about dates of long past events such a witness should make errors. No members of the firm of Wah Chong Lung & Co. were called in his behalf, but they may be hostile to him. He left the firm several years ago. In the examination in 1910, on the defendant's application for a certificate on the eve of his contemplated departure for China, Mr. Wiley's questions show that the defendant claimed that the firm owed him $350, and the manager claimed that the firm owed him nothing. The manager Yee Lo, had apparently said to Mr. Wiley that the defendant had been a member of the firm; that he joined before Li Lip. Mr. Wiley did not examine Yee Lo, or Mr. Tirrell, or Mr. Smith, white witnesses, who, the defendant said, would prove his membership in the firm. Mr. Wiley refused to give the defendant a merchant's certificate, but he took no steps to have him deported as a laborer until two years after.

I think the fact that the defendant applied for such a certificate is entitled to...