China and the West

Letter from Alice Chipman Dewey to Frederick A. Dewey
Nanking July 19th [1920]
Dear Fred.
This is your birthday and I am wishing you many happy ones. I wonder if you are celebrating it as seriously as I am. I had hopes of getting off to Peking by the Saturday boat from Shanghai, a slow way but the only now. Co write no room leaf, So I at once sent a letter asking them when I could go and asking for room on the boat which leaves tomorrow. As yet no letter at all. Also wire sent to Peking was not rec there as I know by receiving promptly from them a wire asking for my plans, No leatter has come from them since the stoppage of trains and I have no idea whether on nt my letters have got thru to them. I could tak it all very philosophically if it were not for Evelyn coming leave. I hope they have gone up to Kalgan without me, but it may be they are waiting in an uncertainty equal to mine, Kalgan is so near to Pek I think they will go as I wrote and also wired to them to do. It is two weeks ago yesterday since they left here and if they do not go to Kalgan now Ev will be unable to stay long enough to make it pay. Tko add to my irritation here we have a servant in this house who causes a lot of trouble thru his hopeless stupidity and it was to him I gave the letters to mail last saturday. I think I shall go down to Shanghai which I do not want to see at all in any case this afternoon. It is seven or eight hours depending on the train and I should remain there till I can get place on the boat. I culld stay at the missionary home which is cheap and one gets every possible help about attending to things, A there is no danger now in Shnaghia, but all the old settlers here asay I must not attempt to go to Peking by rail even if the chance comes. Four of these devils of Tuchuns are now fighting over and around and about that road and they think almost any thing might happen to me if I tried it. Then they say go to the consul, and they know the consul would simply repeat that advice. Nankin is perfectly quiet except for the summer school and the constant moving of ammunition. The summer schoo disturbance is due to the bumptiousness of the boys who are some of them mad becase the 60 girls have been assigned to front seats in the classes and also because they are claiming that right to dictate to their profs which has been preeety common here since the students organized, It seems a kind of frontier bossism. They burdned one man out of his class and some of them ordered the girls out of the seats saying they could not stand up, the idea seemed to be if any one stood it must naturally be the women. There are 63 women and nearly 700 men. N the latest, on account of the tie up Suh Hu and his friend Mr Tao, both of Peking Govt University, have not come down to take thier classes. Su Hu [Hu Shi] is the most popular man in China and about 700 students have elected their course especially on the literary revolution. This forenoon Mr Tao the dean of Summer School here expects a delegatiion of student to call on him officially to demand the delivery of these men. Poor Mr Tao is the most active man in China one might say and devoted as active and last night he was about to send a man to Peking to take care of these two families and to drive the men down here I told him not to do that for I could accomplish as much as any such delegate and I would go up today, I mean on tomorrows boat. He has been sending special telegrams and I rather think the men may be ob the way, but on the other hand they may not be, for suh Hu at least is apt to decide things for himself in his own way. Whether they will break up this now-nice summer school in consequence remains to be seen. I do hnot think they will for I think in the end the students will give up. Shu Hu's [Hu Shi] wife is to have a baby about the first of August. He has told me several times the baby was expected in June which did seem impossible and I fancy they have just waked up to the reality of the situation, that is he has. He was not present when the first child was born, but she was at that time with her family. I cant make many guesses tho I know he does not let family affairs interfere with his business so far a I can se in any other matters. It seems that mr Tao's house has been entered by robbers already and Mr Nanking Tao [Tao Hsing-chih] thinks his young wife and baby ought to be put under foreign protection. In all these matters I could be of as much use as any other foreigner and have already written pap to take care of these epople. I fancy the situation there is tense. Tho the legations gave official warning at first that no fighting must occur within ten miles of the walls of Peking, still one can not be sur[e] that all China will not go up in the air again, tho I dont think it will, [page torn] scared and these officials are afraid both of the people and of the foreigners and I dont think they will try to drive out the foreigners again. If they should yu mgiht be sure they were helped by the Japanese but I dont think there is any hiding place big enough to conceal even the J in such an attempt, Not that they would hesitate to use the Chinese in that way as well as in others if they felt safe in doing it that they would not be discovered. The union and the sympathy between the Amercans and the Chinese can not be doubted and it will count for much in this crisis. Our news is insuffucient but keeps up all the time and is perhaps accurate. There is somehing of a check both in the foreign influence and in the fear of the Tuchuns for each other, But there is not one Tuchun in China who has yet waked up to the fact that China is a part of the world, Some of the believe it is the whole thing just as the Mnachus used to and the present Dictator Tuan Jui Jei is one of these ignorant tyrants, who smoke opium and can not think in international terms, to use mr Sweetmans favorite expression. Meantime they just juggle with their country, on money borrowed from Japn and cherish a hope of coming out on top and being made an dictator or Emperor as Yuan Shi Kai was. Thier rule would be even shorter than Yuans if by any throw of the dice they bring that about. For all this all the schools and all the industries in China and most of the 400,000,000 wait and suffer until the spectacle is incredible. If any one of the large influences could be shifted, if the Jps could bt thrown out especially, it would all change, It is easy to see how the Japs are gaining ground minute by minute on this system. China is like a ball in the air and the first one who catches is the best man in the game as it is now.
It is surely maddening to sit here as I am now, tho there has been some compensations in the expra things I have been able to do for the girls in the summer school Having them in the same yard with myself and seeing them often has set up some real connection.
[Alice Chipman Dewey]