PRIVILEGE HOLDS CHINA IN SUBJECTION
Wheeler, Burton K.
Privilege Holds China in Subjection Militarism, Grail and Profits Battle Against National Sovereignty and Democracy for Celestials; Cry of Bolshevik a Bogie. BURTON K. WHEELER (U. S. Senator from...
...China is not the best place to live...
...He then said: "You see, I employ Chinamen to work for me and they in turn buy boys to work for them...
...At Peking I 3aw the marvelous palaces, the works THE issue in China is militarism, graft and special privilege over against national sovereignty and democracy...
...I had read of their art, of their culture, and of their civilization before the days of Marco Polo...
...From time to time, scientists have reported instances of bird surgery...
...But the farmers are not making money enough to meet their increasing wants, and, even if they were, you have the cities...
...Was it the Third Internationale in Moscow with their preachings against imperialism, etc., that caused this catastrophe...
...I see the narrow streets and dark alleys with their filth...
...It isn't a question of sentiment—its a question of hard-headed business...
...Unless some group like the Nationalists can hold out some hope to these four hundred million or more peo- — pie that their condition is going to be better and ultimately actually make it better, China is bound to come under the influence, if not the absolute domination, of the Russian government...
...These birds have long sharp bills with which they can extract the shot, if near the surface, remove other foreign substances and prepare the wound, just as a surgeon might tum the trick...
...But it's different now...
...If the United States follows the advice of some of hgr pro-British citizens in the Orient she will fail...
...I see the gaunt and stunted farms of little children robbed of the joys of childhood...
...It might happen, but it isn't likely...
...But the whole movement cannot be damned by calling it "Red...
...The Russian talks to him, works with him, and spreads the gospel that the Proletariat <ran rule China and make a better job of it than the war lord or the foreigner...
...China with its misery, its poverty, and its disease, is the most fertile field in the world for the spread of Bolshevism...
...I may be termed a sentimentalist, a pink, or a whatnot, but I am unable to bring myself to believe that in the long run any race of people can be spoiled by the right kind of an education...
...They were satisfied and contented, and they retrogressed...
...Some of them felt that the Administration at Washington was not pursuing the proper course...
...Well, then, what was it...
...If China wakes up, what about India, and all the rest of her Oriental possessions...
...Wheeler, two sons and a daughter, made a trip to the Orient of whose conditions he wanted to get first hand information...
...The "solitary" bee is the one that sneaks oft into a briar patch and finding a cane with the top broken off, digs out the pith to a great depth and lays its eggs...
...I am not speaking now except in the materialistic sense—Who, besides the Chinese, I repeat, is it going to help if they become educated and their standards of living raised...
...Misery and Poverty About IT IS most difficult for the average American to obtain a correct mental picture of the misery and poverty in China today unless he goes there...
...Wu, the Nationalists' foreign minister, whom I also interviewed, was educated in the United States, was extremely friendly to our people, and wanted our aid and co-operation...
...Wu a Calm Leader THE Southern General, Chang Kai Shek, was more open, more frank, and I felt more honest, though I was impressed with the fact that he did not seem big enough for the stupendous task he had before him...
...Throughout the Orient, and particularly in the Philippines, when you speak of educating the Oriental it is not at all uncommon to hear Europeans and Americans say: "To educate them is to spoil them...
...There is no question but what the Chinese upper classes are more cruel and inhuman than Americans...
...One member of this group, not having permission to use his name I shall refrain from so doing, spoke up and said: "Chang Kai Shek is a pimp, always has been, and always will be...
...The Occidental speaks to him when he wants a favor and curses him otherwise...
...I met him by appointment at 11 o'clock p. m. at his palace in Peking...
...Some say it isn't possible because of the large class of people owning small farms...
...the joyless and hopeless faces of women stubbing along their way on bound feet...
...He had the opposition of the Foreigners, and opposition of the Communists at Hankow, and the opposition of Chang Tso Lin, besides dissension's and petty jealousies that creep into any liberal movement the moment it meets with success...
...Whom besides the Chinese is that going to help...
...They want our products and we want to sell to them...
...The Nationalist movement has been discredited in the minds of many foreigners by .excesses and crimes which have been committed...
...This led the Department of Justice to institute a vindictive suit, charging Senator Wheeler with having appeared before the Department of the Interior in violation of a federal statute...
...on the other side, students, teachers in the schools and universities, the merchants often intimidated into silence, and the Christian population of China in an overwhelming majority...
...The control of the cities meant the control of Russia...
...You prohibitionists will find ' it hard to drink the water and harder still to drink the booze and keep going in that climate...
...A French ornithologist has recently shown, beyond question, that woodcocks can dress a wound in a very thorough fashion...
...At Nanking I vi3-isted the tombs of the Dynasty, saw the animals carved from stone, the Great Wail surrounding the city, and was brought to the inevitable conclusion that here at one time had dwelled a great people who had builded a great nation...
...I do not believe that this would-be slave owner represents the spirit of many Amer ican business men...
...That, of course, is unfortunate, but it does not apply to the Orientals alone...
...Yes, he with his many '..ivts .s saving the world and the United States from Bolshevism, and when I told him that the sensible people of the United States were not worrying much about the Bolsheviks because our farmers had a good crop of wheat and our workers had automobiles, he didn't seem to like it particularly...
...Or if you are one of those fanatics who believes that there i» a Bolshevik behind every sage bush and that the Third Internationale at Moscow is responsible for every bit of unrest in the world, then you ought to go to China...
...The Chinese, like every other nation, is seeking to imitate the American...
...You will hear it said that all the Chinese student learns in Amer-erica is how to jazz, or that the Filipinos all want to become lawyers or doctors...
...If you do Great Britain or Japan will take them...
...I was curious to learn what reason there could be for the Nationalists so single him out and asked him how he explained it...
...Was it the foreign imperialist who ingratiated himself into their confidence and then exploited them...
...It was Senator Wheeler's unflagging interest and zeal in prosecuting the investigation of the Department of Justice that forced Attorney General Harry Daugherty to resign, together with William J. Burns, head of the secret service...
...IF YOU are one of those sentimental souls who wants to believe, and therefore does believe, that the Chinese people are like so many Americans, with the same ideals, whether high or low, and but for the interference of foreign governments they would today have a government patterned after our own, go there...
...He Vis not a Red, unless wanting to serve the cause of the mass of his people could be so considered...
...Delusions .About China 1MUST admit that I went to the Orient last March with many delusions about China and how the Chinese were being exploited by foreigners and that the foreigners had never helped but only hurt the Chinese people...
...I can hear the propagandist in Shanghai say, "I told you so—all grafters^-all alike...
...boys and girls, men and women, sleeping in the doorways and upon the docks without clothes...
...Other fowl are capable of similar feats but none have mastered the principles of surgery as splendidly as the woodcock...
...It isn't the preaching of Karl Marx, or Lenin or Debs that makes radicals—it's the short-sightedness and ignorance of those who call themselves smart among the ruling classes that permit conditions to become so deplorable that in desperation a slumbering mass of people wake up temporarily, act like wild men, kill their fellow-men, and take the reins of government into their own desperate hands...
...She digs out all the cells, eats the food and lays often eggs in the empty cylinder...
...The British don't like it and want us to join with them, thus forcing the Chinese to boycott us all...
...Now is the time to prepare, not by treating them rough and telling them nothing, but by treating them kindly and telling them everything...
...Wishing to learn what these men thought of the character of the Nationalist leaders, I inquired as to what kind of a man Chang Kai Shek was...
...On the one side are war lords with armies of hirelings, grown fat and powerful, impoverishing the people by oppression and cruelties which rival the tyrannies of the Dark Ages...
...Too niany Americans are trying that now...
...Most of you haven't cared anything about helping them from any altruistic reason, even though by so doing you were helping to build up the moral fibre "of the world...
...It will help al] of the American people individually and collectively to a greater prosperity...
...blind girls sold into a life of shame...
...You can only stop it by making conditions so much better that the majority of the articulate people don't want it...
...One Britisher said to me: "You can't give the Philippines their independence...
...What about the opium trade, etc., etc...
...They have effectively boycotted British merchandise...
...The Southern forces are encouraging the masses to become educated and are seeking to raise their standards of living...
...A Jump From Starvation THE Chinese worker is scarcely one jump from starvation...
...But make no mistake about this, every Southern General may sell out and quit, the Southern army may be forced back, but the struggle between the North and the South, between the old autocratic conservative regime and the new democratic movement, will go on, and while I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, I am willing to hazard the guess that the liberal forces in China will win...
...Our interest in China and our ideals are so far different from these countries that such a combination must of necessity prove disastrous to us if not to all concerned...
...He would have you believe that he is not fighting to save the Chinese alone, but is interested primarily in saving the United States and the rest of the World from the Bolshevik...
...Since we left China, Chang Kai Shek left Nanking, deserted the army" he was leading, and, according to the press dispatches, intends to marry a beautiful girl and-start a real war...
...I know of the illiteracy, of the ignorance and the superstition of the people...
...Then, very often, a so-called "burglar" bee comes along...
...They then dress the cut with down from their own feathers...
...Finally I realized he resembled no one person but a type — the old-time Western Frontier gambler—slick, suave, cunning, insincere...
...BIRD SURGEONS Certain birds are capable of dressing each other's injuries almost as effectively as a trained surgeon might do the job...
...They furnish them with chow and a few clothes and they, Nationalists, included these boys among my employes...
...On the one side are war lords with armies of hirelings, grown fat and powerful, impoverishing the people by oppression and cruelties which rival the tyrannies of the Dark Ages...
...And then when I told him that the Nationalist leaders had told me that they, too, were seeking only to help the Chinese people and to save the world from the Bolshevik and asked him why, if it were true that all of them were fighting for the same things, he and they didn't stop fighting, disband their armies, get together around a table, iron out their petty difficulties, and use the money that it cost for their armies to build schools, build roads and endeavor to raise the standard of living 'of his own people, he was still more perturbed...
...This is repeated all the way to the top of the cane...
...Of course, if you go there and only talk with the'Northcrn Dictator, Chang Tso Lin, you would come away convinced that he with his many wives was trying to save not only China but the United States and the British Isles from Bolshevism...
...There are over four hundred million Chinese...
...The Orient will furnish the market...
...We in America should help the Chinese to help themselves...
...I asked him if he wasn't receiving the benefit of the labor of these boys...
...Difference of Ideals THOSE deluded souls who are asking us to join with Great Britain and Japan in an armed intervention of China entirely overlook the fact that even though we conceded for sake of argument that these nations would exercise only a sort of benevolent dictatorship over China and that it might be beneficial to China, it would most likely lead to a conflict between the nations themselves...
...The persecution of Senator Wheeler for the performance of his public duty is one of the serious offenses for which the Coolidge administration is plainly answerable...
...The Chinese, like every other nation, is seeking to imitate the American...
...The only other alternative is to help in every way possible a sane and liberal Chinese movement or sit idly by, see it fail, and later see that country pass absolutely under the domination of Russia...
...You see them now only in the movies...
...The Communists took charge of Leningrad and of Moscow and the revolution spread to the other cities...
...The Standard Oil Company today is selling them gasoline at around fifty cents (American money) per gallon, and also kerosene, which is a drug upon the American market...
...That statement isn't quite fair to you—you do care—you give anywhere from ten cents to ten dollars a year for the Foreign Missions, and then forget about it—so you know you care...
...S. Senator from Montana) (Reprinted by Permission of North American Newspaper Alliance) Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana, author of the article that follows, as our readers well know, is one of the most progressive and fearless fighters for the public interest of his day and generation...
...Was it any other foreign intrigue...
...He had been playing Ma Jongg all the night previously and so was unable to receive me in the daytime...
...It wifl help all of the American people individually and collectively to a greater prosperity...
...But the United States has no India...
...men stooped and staggering under loads too heavy for beasts of burden to bear...
...No, because there was no Third Internationale then...
...The Southern forces are encouraging the masses to become educated and are seeking to raise their standards of living...
...third, by the derision in favor of Senator Wheeler by the Court of the District of Columbia, where in- its determination to "get" him and if possible destroy his usefulness, the government had brought another suit on practically the same charge refuted by the U. S. Semite and the Montana jury...
...and in the features of all marks of sin, disease, suffering, despair...
...This nation is bound to develop greater industrial capacity, even surpass the fondest dream of any industrialist, providing we can find markets for our products...
...We are not as yet as dependent upon the Orient as England, but it is coming...
...Readers know how this charge was repudiated, first, by the Senate's endorsement of its investigating Committee's declaration that Senator Wheeler had at alt times observed not only the,spirit but the letter of the law...
...They felt, I gathered, that the Administration should take a firmer stand against the Nationalist...
...I cite it to you as an extreme case...
...This government should send its most trustworthy men to the Orient to make an intensive study of the political and economic conditions in the Orient...
...As fast as they become, educated they want American articles of all kinds...
...How, I asked i.iyself, is it possible for a nation that once boasted of the highest civilization to sink to the lowest depths of degradation...
...I didn't tell him that I had quite positive evidence that the oil interests had helped to finance some of the Nationalist leaders by paying their taxes considerably in advance, and that I hardly thought they would have done so if they felt that all the Southern leaders were as red as he would have me believe...
...If China becomes allied with or under the influence of Russia, watch India, watch Japan, yes, watch for another world catastrophe...
...They want our products and we want to sell to them...
...As I sat there and conversed with him I wondered whom he resembled that I had known...
...We can't afford to see the Philippines have their independence for the effect it will have upon India...
...There is no question but the foreign employers of labor treat their employes better than do the Chinese employers, furnish them with more sanitary places in which to work, pay them a little more wages, and, in most instances, work their employes shorter hours...
...You business men shouldn't send the office boy to China and hope to succeed...
...The time is at hand...
...We are not as actively interested in the Orient as is Great Britain because there is India...
...He was the candidate for vice-president on the Independent-Progressive ticket with Robert M. La Toilette in the 1924 presidential campaign, in which Senator Wheeler made a strong impression on the country by his aggressive championship of the people's cause...
...Several woodcocks shot by this naturalist were found t> be convalescing from previous "wounds which had been carefully dressed in this manner...
...The Standard Oil Company has benefited by this boycott as have other Americans...
...The slogan of the Northern, armies, taken apparently from one of our detective agencies, is "Destroy the Reds," and the watchword for the Southern forces is "For the Cause of the People...
...The Chinese people did not progress in their religious, political or economic ideas...
...We in America should help the Chinese to help themselves...
...I am not speaking now except in the materialistic sense—whom besides the Chinese, I repeat, is it going to help if they become educated and their standards of living are raised...
...He further said that "all of the Nationalist leaders were no good," that ''when they took Shanghai they immediately called upon him and insisted he pay his men more money notwithstanding the fact that he was paying them more money than anyone else engaged in the same line of business...
...England's Policy Fails ENGLAND'S strong armed policy in the Orient has failed...
...Returning . to Montana, Senator Wheeler spent the remainder of his vacation in speaking to audiences, including high schools, over the state, giving his constituents the benefit of the personal knowledge he had gained of the part of the world he had visited...
...The Chinese hate the British...
...They tell him it can't get any worse and the Chinaman may think there is a possibility that it might get better...
...Bogie of Bolshevik CHANG TSO LIN believes the only way to help China is by helping him...
...In my judgment what they need more than anything else is education —not the kind of education that teaches them to all become doctors, lawyers or philosophers —but skilled mechanics, craftsmen, scientific farmers, etc...
...We are indebted to the North American Newspaper Alliance for the privilege of printing the following account of Senator Wheeler's olwervations and conclusions as to conditions in China.— Kditor's Note...
...I realize how they have been victimized by selfisfi and unscrupulous war lords...
...of art, and the Great Wall...
...There is one vision that haunts my sight day and night...
...Lose American Idealism THERE were present representatives of several American firms, and naturally the conversation drifted onto the Chinese situation...
...Then I ask myself how it is possible to lift these people out of this human cesspool, build a nation which shall' represent the people, raise their standards of living, and give them an education...
...Who besides the Chinese is that going to help...
...second, by the Montana jury's immediate acquittal when the government brought its case, relying on a sur-prise witness, whose testimony was manifestly perjured...
...There can be no question in the minds of any sane person that the Chinese upper classes have in the past, and are today, exploiting their own people in the most vicious manner...
...We in the United States are producing more manufactured articles than we can consume...
...In my judgment he is one of the most sensible and conscientious Chinamen with whom I came in contact...
...It was simply the selfishness and the greed of the leaders of the Chinese people who exploited their own people for their own benefit and wh« preached the doctrine so familiar to the ears of some of us in this country, that we should worship at the shrine of our ancient ancestors, believe the same things that they did...
...Every time you educate an Oriental you raise his standard of living and increase his wants...
...He is not anti-foreign in any sense, unless wanting to correct certain abuses perpetrated by foreigners could be so considered...
...He informed me that the Russians were the ones who were financing Chang Kai Shek...
...When I interviewed Chang Kai Shek I felt that he was somewhat discouraged...
...He admitted he was, but added: "They would sell these boys to the Chinamen but they wouldn't sell them to me although I would treat them better than the Chinamen...
...Take your choice—help a Chinese moderate government in China, or be forced to take a Bolshevist China...
...You can't stamp out the seeds of Bolshevism by shouting "Red," nor can you stamp it out with armies...
...It couldn't be that because there were no foreigners in China then...
...But, nevertheless, I am firmly con vinced that, unfortunately, many Ameircans wh« go to China lose their American idealism, if thef ever had any to lose, and look upon the Chines* as art inferior race of people who1 are here upon this earth lor the purpose «f acting as •erfs and slaves for those of »s who are fortunaU enough to he horn white...
...Now I saw between 400,000,000 and 500,000,-000 people—poverty-stricken, diseased, dejected and miserable, most of them living on less than ten cents a day...
...Following the adjournment of Congress last March, Senator Wheeler, accompanied by Mrs...
...Democracy Will Win THE ISSUE is militarism, graft and special privilege over against national sovereignty and democracy...
...Th6 question is, Do we really want to help" the Chinese...
...But to those of you who think that the American business man in China is there for the purpose of helping the Chinese, I wish to narrate a conversation which took place at a luncheon in Shanghai...
...American tobacco interests are selling cigarettes to the Chinese now...
...You forget that it wasn't the farmers of Russia that started the revolution...
...An egg is laid, a morsel Food is placed beside it, and the bee seals the cell with wax...
...on the other side, students, teachers in the schools and universities, the merchants often intimidated into silence, and the Christian population of China in an overwhelming majority...
...There were dissensions in his own ranks...
Vol. 19 • December 1927 • No. 12
