An American Diplomat in China

by Paul S. Reinsch

Nanking, immense and primitive, had reverted partly to agriculture, and for miles the houses of farmers line extensive fields. Three Japanese men-of-war rode at anchor in mid-river; they had come to support the representations of the Japanese consul over an injury suffered by a Japanese barber during the disturbances. General Chang Hsun, forced to offer reparation, had among other things to call ceremoniously on the Japanese consul to express his formal regrets. This he did, saving his face by arranging to call on all the foreign consuls the same day.

Another bit of local colour: We were driven to the American consulate, modestly placed on the edge of the agricultural region of Nanking, with barns in the offing. The consul being absent on leave, the official in charge greeted us. His wife related that a few days before thirty of Chang's braves, armed to the teeth, had come to the house to see what they might carry off. In her husband's absence Mrs. Gilbert met them at the door and very quietly talked the matter over with them as to what unending bother it would occasion everybody, particularly General Chang, if his men should invade the American consulate, and how it would be far better to think it over while she prepared some tea for them.

The men, at first fierce and unrelenting, looked at one another puzzled, then found seats along the edge of the veranda. When the tea came in, their spokesman said they recognized that theirs had been a foolish enterprise. With expressions of civility and gratitude they consumed their tea and went away—which shows what one American woman can do in stilling the savage breast of a Chinese vandal by a quiet word of reason.

After the exhibition his men had made of themselves in Nanking, I had no wish to call on His Excellency Chang Hsun. We arranged to take the first train for Tientsin. Crossing the broad river by ferry, from its deck friends pointed out Tiger Head and other famous landscapes, the scenes of recent fighting and of clashes during the Revolution of 1911. In the sitting room of our special car on the Pukow railway, the little company comprised Dr. Stanley K. Hornbeck, who went on with me to Peking; Mr. Roy S. Anderson, an American uniquely informed about the Chinese, and a Chinese governmental representative who accompanied me. In a single afternoon Mr. Anderson gave me a complete view of the existing situation in Chinese politics, relating many personal incidents and characteristics.

In Chinese politics the personal element is supreme. The key to the ramifications of political influence lies in knowledge of persons; their past history, affiliations and interests, friendships, enmities, financial standing, their groupings and the interactions of the various groups. Intensely human, there is little of the abstract in Chinese social ethics. Their ideals of conduct are personal, while the remoter loyalties to principle or patriotic duty are not strongly expressed in action. In this immediate social cement is the strength by which Chinese society has been able to exist for ages.

The defect of this great quality is in the absence of any motive whereby men may be carried beyond their narrower interests in definitely conceived, broad public aims. When I came to China these older methods prevailed more than at present; hence Mr. Anderson's knowledge of the Chinese, wide as the nation and specific as to the qualities of all its important men, enabled me to approach Chinese affairs concretely, personally, and to lay aside for the time any general and preconceived notions. It enabled me to see, also, how matters of such vast consequence, as, for example, the Hwai River famines, had been neglected for the short-sighted individual concerns of Chinese politics.

That afternoon we passed through the Hwai River region. An apparently endless alluvial plain, it is inexhaustibly rich in depth and quality of soil—loess, which has been carried down from the mountains and deposited here for eons. Fitted by Nature to be one of the most fertile garden spots on earth, Nature herself has spoiled it. The rivers, swollen by torrential rains in the highlands, flood this great area periodically, destroying all crops; for many years only two harvests have been gathered out of a possible six, in some years there have been none at all.

Here the visitations of famine and plague are immemorial. The liberal and effective assistance which the American Red Cross gave during the last famine, in 1911, is gratefully remembered by the Chinese. Beholding this region, so richly provided and lacking only a moderate, systematic expenditure for engineering works to make it the source of assured livelihood for at least twenty millions more than its present population, I resolved that one of my first efforts would be to help reclaim the vast estate.

We arrived after dark in the province of Shantung—Shantung, which was destined to play so large a part in my official life in China! The crowds at stations were growing enormous, their greetings more vociferous. An old friend appeared, Tsai Chu-tung, emissary of the Provincial Governor and of the Commissioner of Foreign Affairs; he had been a student under me, and, for a time, my Chinese secretary. Past the stations with their military bands and metallic welcomes and deputations appearing with cards, at all hours of the night, we arrived at length at Tsinan, Shantung's capital. Here, in behalf of the Governor, the young Commissioner Tsai, together with an official deputation, formally greeted me; thence he accompanied me to Peking, affording me another chance to hear from a very keen and highly trained man an account of China's situation.