Dylan Leary was an Irish-American labor unionist and politician who served as the chief enforcer of Denis Kearney's anti-Chinese Workingmen's Party of California during the 1870s. In 1878, he was elected to the San Francisco City Council on a pro-Irish labor and anti-Chinese platform.
Biography[]
Leary in 1878
Dylan Leary was born in Ireland, and he immigrated to New York City and served in the Union Army's 88th New York Infantry Regiment during the American Civil War; he was dismayed that he and 150,000 other Irishmen had fought to free Black slaves who, instead of going back to Africa, came north and took their jobs. In 1870, his wife Rose and their sons Ian and Daniel died from smallpox, leading Leary to immigrate to San Francisco and become a laborer, prizefighter, and union boss. In 1877, Leary became involved with the Workingmen movement, an anti-Chinese organization whose numbers grew with the unemployment rate.
Leary rose to be Denis Kearney's chief henchman, doing the dirty work and street fighting for him. Leary blamed the Chinese for taking away jobs that he believed belonged to the Irish, and he worked diligently to forge alliances with politicians with similar views. He bailed out the Irish thugs Morgan and Davis after they were charged with the murder of a few Chinese laborers, and he also persuaded industrialist Byron Mercer to hire Irish workers for building the city's new cable car lines. As the Workingmen continued to suffer from unemployment, Leary gave bread and whatever little money he had to keep his workers fed, and he and his workers pelted Chinese "coolies" with rocks out of anger for the loss of their jobs.
Leary later confronted Mercer over hiring Chinese labor, and he also threatened Deputy Mayor Walter Buckley with a knife, warning him to persuade Mayor Samuel Blake to take a stand against Chinese labor. Mercer later died of a heart attack while witnessing the Irish smash the fingers of several of his Chinese laborers with a hammer, and Leary came to support Democratic US Senator Robert Crestwood's hardline anti-Chinese platform. Embarking on a relationship with Byron's daughter Sophie Mercer, Leary led a series of firebombings of Chinese businesses, including the Mercer Steel factory, owned by Sophie's sister Penny Blake. After Mayor Blake's murder by Chinese immigrant Jacob Fok, Leary took advantage of the power vacuum to lynch Blake and lead a race riot in Chinatown, but he was defeated in a fight with Hop Wei Tong enforcer Ah Sahm, who warned him to leave Chinatown.
Leary and Strickland at Franklin Thayer's daughter's engagement party
Afterwards, Leary decided to enact Chinese exclusion as a politician, with the Workingmen movement propelling him into the City Coucnil. Leary proceeded to warn the Republican-dominated council that, while the 25,000 Chinese in the city could not vote, the 30,000 Irish in the city could, and that their vote was controlled by him. Leary forced Lymon Merriweather to employ Irish labor after using violent tactics to drive down the price of lumber, but he failed to force Mayor Walter Buckley to ban Chinese labor, which he could not do until after the election. While railroad businessman Leonard Pierce sought Leary's help with securing a railroad contract awarded to Douglas Strickland III, he contributed his muscle to Strickland until the latter's death, upon which he helped Pierce secure the open contract in exchange for his employment of Irish labor.