of quarantine. However, the session was adjourned before any action upon the request could take place. From 1900 onwards, Gage's administration was often rocky. That year, the ship Australia laid anchor in the Port of San Francisco, unknowingly bringing to the city rats carrying the Third Pandemic of the bubonic plague. The disease soon made home in the cramped ghetto quarters of the city's Chinatown. Rumors of the plague's presence abounded in the city, quickly gaining the notice of authorities from the federal Marine Hospital Service, including the Marine Hospital Service's head in San Francisco, Joseph J. Kinyoun. Allied with powerful railroad and city business interests, Gage publicly denied that any pestilence outbreak in the city, fearing that any word of the bubonic plague's presence would deeply damage the city and state's economy. Supportive newspapers, such as the San Francisco Call, San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Bulletin, echoed Gage's denials, beginning what was to become an intense defamation campaign against Joseph Kinyoun, director of the San Francisco Quarantine Station. In response to the state's refuting of the plague's existence, U.S. Surgeon General Walter Wyman recommended to federal Treasury Secretary Lyman J. Gage to intervene. Secretary Gage agreed, creating a three-man medical commission to medically investigate the city. The commission conclusively discovered that bubonic plague was present. Like Kinyoun, the Treasury commission's findings were again immediately denounced by Governor Gage. Gage believed the federal government's growing presence in the matter was a gross intrusion of what he recognized as a state concern. In his retaliation, Gage denied the federal commission any use of the University of California, Berkeley's laboratories to further study the outbreak. The Bulletin would also attack the federal commission, branding it as a "youthful and inexperienced trio". The clash between Gage and federal authorities intensified. Surgeon General Wyman instructed Kinyoun to place Chinatown under quarantine, as well as blocking all East Asians from entering state borders. Upon hearing Kinyoun's announcement, Gage sent telegrams and spread the word to California's elected officials, party leaders, and even delegates of the National Convention. He encouraged them to speak with the President about cancelling the quarantine and removing Kinyoun from his duties. This event along with the help of San Francisco newspapers sparked the campaign to remove and discredit Kinyoun. Chinese residents, supported by Gage and local businesses, fought the quarantine through numerous federal court battles, claiming the Marine Hospital