China and the West

On June 30 1920 Bertrand Russell was back in Battersea from his tour through the Soviet Union and found the Invitation to Bertrand Russell to lecture at Beijing University. Sponsored by the Jiang xue hui [Lecture Society], sent under the name of Fu Tong, Zhang Songnian and Liang Qichao. The invitation enclosed a letter from the Government University, Beijing to John Henry Muirhead : "Fu Tong would like Muirhead to ask Bertrand Russell to come to China for a year to give some lectures. Bertrand Russell would be paid 2000 pounds and his travelling expenses".
The invitation seemed to express primary interest in Russell's theory on mathematics and logic and suggested that although the writer did not know precisely what Russell's social and political views were, he would be welcome to lecture on them as well as on his theoretical philosophy. The invitation was being sent primarily in recognition of Russell's achievement as philosopher. But it made explicit at least a secondary interest in Russell's view as a social reformer, and other Chinese connected with the invitation were clearly more concerned with social problems than with logic and epistemology. Russell required to address two different groups in China : 'social' and 'political' intellectuals, and philosophers. He had come prepared with 'purely academic lectures on psychology and the principles of physics'. Thus he was surprised to find upon his arrival in China that those who had invited him 'insisted' that he also lecture on social questions, and especially on Russia's experience with Bolshevism.
Liang Qichao was as much interested in Russell's political views as in his theoretical philosophy. He was committed to bringing men such as Russell to China to talk about politics, even though he also hoped that Russell's concept of scientific method would have a beneficial impact on China.

Dewey, John. China's nightmare [ID D28479].
The world has been so satiated with extraordinary events in the last few years, that what would have been a miracle five years ago now hardly attracts attention. What a sensation would once have been created by an announcement that Russia was offering to return to China without compensation all Russian interest in the Chinese Eastern Railway, all mining and timber concessions in Manchuria or other Chinese territory; to renounce all extraterritorial rights as well as all further payments of the Boxer indemnity account! Make all the discount you wish on the ground that the offer comes from the Soviet government; and the transformation is still as extraordinary as if the Germans had without war offered France the voluntary return of Alsace-Lorraine and the return of the war indemnity of 1870. In many respects the proposal is even more sensational than that would have been; more indicative of the incredible levity of history. Twenty years ago no one doubted the intention of Russia to control the entire northern part of China and the Asiatic sea coast at least as far south as Tsingtao; and until Russia’s defeat by Japan few doubted the success of her plans.
Read almost any of the books about China written twenty years ago, and you will find that you have only to substitute Japan for Russia, in order to have a fairly accurate description of the situation of today, so far as its spirit is concerned. Geographical details vary, but the objects and general technique of exploitation are the same. Lord Beresford visited China on a commercial mission in 1898. His report is contained in his book on The Break-up of China. In it he says: 'I hardly ever made a suggestion to any prominent Chinese official which I thought might tend to the security of British trade and commerce, that I was not met with the question, ‘But what would Russia say to that? ' or words to that effect. The idea is gaining ground all over China that Great Britain is afraid of Russia.”
In the Willy-Nicky letters are found the congratulations of the Kaiser to the Tsar upon having established himself as the dominant power in Peking. In the biography of John Hay there is an account of the denials by Cassini, then Russian minister at Washington, of the report of demands made by Russia upon China which were at the expense of other nations as well as of China. The denials were positive. At the same time Hay, as Secretary of State, was in possession from three different capitals of transcripts of the demands. One might readily imagine that he was reading the diplomatic history of the Twenty-one Demands. Both the wholesale critics of Japan and the wholesale apologists for her would probably change their tone if they realized how closely copied after the Tsarism of Russia is the imperialism of Japan.
The imitative capacity of the Japanese is notorious. Is there anything surprising that Japan should have followed in the wake of Russia in that feature of foreign policy which is most vital to her—the control of China? I have not the slightest doubt that the great part of the militarists and bureaucrats who have dictated her Chinese policy sincerely believe, with the pattern of Russia always before their eyes, that they are conforming strictly to the proper models of western diplomacy. Wholesale bribery, secrecy, force and fraud were regular parts of the Oriental diplomacy of Russia. It is natural for Japanese officials to believe that the outcry from America or England against similar methods on the part of Japan, is purely hypocritical or else itself a part of the regular diplomatic game.
The more thoroughly the history of the international relations of China for the last twenty years is studied the more apparent is it that Japan has been the heir of Russian aims and methods as well as of, since the great war, Russian achievements. It was Russia that evolved the technique of conquest by railway and bank. She consolidated if she did not wholly originate the sphere of influence politics with its favoritism and its dog-in-the-manger tactics. Russia discovered the value of police boxes as a means of insinuating semi-military and semi-civil administrative control in territory over which her legitimate claims, stretched to the utmost, were purely economic. Many of the Twenty-one Demands are almost verbatim copies of prior Russian requests, such as the exclusive right to train the army, etc. Russia evolved to the uttermost the doctrine of military occupation as a means of protecting nationals. She posed as the protector of China against 'western' Powers, and prided herself (strangely enough with better reason and more success than Japan) upon understanding Chinese psychology, and knowing how to manage the Chinese. In the secret Cassini protocol made at St. Petersburg in 1896 with Li Hung Chang (the prototype of Chinese statesmen bought with foreign money) will be found the magna charta of subsequent Japanese diplomacy. It even includes a conditional provision for the Russian naval and military occupation of Kiaochou Bay.
In the earlier period of Chino-Russian-Japanese relations, that is up to the Treaty of Portsmouth in 1905, Japan could use in good faith the claim of self-defense in her dealings with China. For certainly Russia with her enormous undeveloped territory had much less excuse for aggression in Korea and northern China than had Japan. Moreover, every new aggressive step of Russia in China was followed at once by demands for compensating concessions and spheres by other Powers, especially by Great Britain and France. There is every reason for thinking that Germany's claim to Kiaochou was stimulated by Russia to give a colorable pretext to her claim for Port Arthur and Dalny, while the yielding of China in both these matters was immediately followed by demands from Great Britain in the Yangtze region and from France in the south.
This was the period which gave Beresford's book its title of Break-up though he himself was an ardent expositor of the doctrine of the Open Door. And it was this situation which enabled Japan in reasonable good faith to set herself up as the defender of the integrity and sovereignty of China against European aggression. Such feelings and claims have a remarkable historic inertia. There is nothing surprising in the fact that they still persist among the mass of the Japanese people, and supply the conditions which enable Japan to continue a policy of aggressive exploitation of China with popular support and sanction. There was a time when the Japanese had every reason to feel that their future destiny depended upon getting enough power to control China as the only sure way to keep China from falling into European hands. Times have changed; the sentiment of the Japanese people lags behind the change in facts and can still be exploited by the militarist party. And in the meantime (especially after the outbreak of the great war) Japan's own policy became less and less defensive and more and more flagrantly offensive.
If there had been in the United States an adequate knowledge of Russian diplomatic methods in their Oriental aspect and in their bearing upon Japan's fortunes and her Asiatic aims and methods, American gullibility would never have fallen an easy victim to Japan’s propaganda for western consumption. As it was, American ignorance secured almost universal approval for the Portsmouth Treaty with its 'supplementary clauses' which in spite of their innocent appearance meant that the settlement was really a truce concluded at the expense of China's rights in Manchuria. One foreign publicist in China is inclined to hold President Roosevelt responsible for China's international ills since 1905. He takes the ground that he ought to have insisted that since the war had been practically fought on Chinese territory, China should have been a party to the settlement, and that the peace conference was the one great opportunity for effective foreign protection of China against both aggressors. As a matter of fact, the actual outcome was certainly to make both Russia and Japan interested in trading with each other at China's expense. If it had not been for Great Britain's navy, it would doubtless have long ago led to a definite Russo-Japanese understanding regarding the division of northern China. But hindsight is proverbially easy, and it must be doubted whether President Roosevelt is to blame for a lack of foresight which no one else possessed at that date.
All this matter is by way of merely sketching the background of the next important epoch probable in Chinese foreign relations. It is not likely that China will accept the Soviet's offer in its present form. It is not probable the Allies will permit it even if China wanted to assume the risks of such a course. But none the less the offer symbolizes the opening of a new era. Even if the present Russian government is overthrown, any new government that takes its place will have every reason for coming to some good understanding with China. After all, their territories are contiguous for three thousand miles. Both countries are on a continental scale. Japan, when all is said and done, is an island, and the history of insular conquests on a continent afford no very good augury for Japan’s future success in Asia. The Siberian situation is still confused. But to all appearances the Japanese militarist party that favors a forward policy of adventure in Siberia is for the time being dominant. China can again chuckle about the Providence that always seems to come to her rescue when things are at the worst. The Russians are not pacifists; they are still expansive, and they have an enormous land hunger, due to the agrarian history of Russia. The deeper the Japanese get themselves involved in Siberia, the surer, in Chinese opinion, is her final checkmate, even though for some years she may get virtual possession of Eastern Siberia even up to Lake Baikal. There is much to be said for the belief that China's international future is to be decided in Siberia. The situation shifts rapidly. The idea, already broached privately, of an armed conflict between Japan on one side and Russia, Korea and China on the other, may have nothing in it. But whether Russia returns to monarchy or becomes an established republic, it seems a safe prophecy that China’s Russian relations will be the ultimate decisive factor in her international status. The diversion of Japan from China into Siberia probably marks the culmination of her influence in China. It is not improbable that the last five years will soon, as history counts years, be looked back upon as the years of China's nightmare.

John Dewey : Lecture 'New trends in teaching mathematics'. = Shu yu di xin chu shi. In : Je wu ; June 30 (1920).

John Dewey returns to Shanghai.

John Dewey : Lecture 'The organization of teaching materials : delivered in Suzhou. = Jiao cai di zu zhi. Liu Boming interpreter ; Zheng Mengjia, Xu Zaizi recorder. In : Jue wu ; July 1 (1920).

John Dewey : Lecture 'Education and industry'. = Jiao yu yu shi ye. Zheng Xiaozang interpreter ; Chen Dan, Shen Bingkui recorder. In : Jue wu ; July 2 (1920).

John Dewey : Lecture 'The responsibility of educators : delivered in Soochow [Suzhou]. = Jiao yu zhe di ze ren. Zheng Xiaozang interpreter ; Jiang Shizhou, Chen Dan, Shen Bingkui recorder. In : Jue wu ; July 3 (1920).

Remer, C.F. John Dewey in China [ID D28542].
The first impression that one gets, who tries to arrive at the Chinese estimate of Dewey, is an impression that has been cleverly connected by a Chinese university professor with the second character that is used to represent Dewey's name in Chinese. The second character means 'awe-inspiring'. One who talks with many Chinese about Professor Dewey long enough to get past the first statements that 'Professor Dewey's thoughts are very deep', soon comes upon this feeling of awe. A whole number of the magazine, 'The new education' [Xin jiao yu], was devoted to the educational and philosophical ideas of Professor Dewey. The writers, who are the most capable of any Chinese in the country to so, undertake no critical analysis of Dewey's teachings. After some search no attempt is discoverable on the part of anyone to make such a critical analysis. No one has attempted to distinguish between the ideas of Professor Dewey that was useful in China today and those that are not useful. No one has raised a voice to say that they may be harmful. But it is perhaps too soon to find any further effect than the first one. The Chinese are too polite to subject the ideas of a guest to critical analysis when he is still a guest.
Professor Dewey, by means of his lectures which are interpreted as they are given, has reached thousands of Chinese. These lectures are translated into Chinese and are published in the leading magazines and newspapers of the country. These printed lectures are carefully studied by many.

John Dewey : Lecture 'Trends in elementary education'. = Xiao xue jiao yu zhi chu shi. In : Jue wu ; July 9 (1920).

John Dewey : Lecture 'The aim of educational administration'. = Jiao yu xing zheng zhi mu di. Zheng Xiaozang interpreter. In : Jue wu ; July 9 (1920).

John Dewey : Lecture 'School and society'. = Xue xiao yu she hui. Chen Dan, Shen Bingkui recorder. In : Xue deng ; July 9 (1920).

John Dewey : Lecture 'The organization of student government'. = Xue sheng zi zhi di zu zhi. Pan Shenwen, Zheng Xiaozang interpreter ; Chen Dan, Shen Binggui recorder. In : Xue deng ; July 9 (1920).

Remer, C.F. John Dewey's responsibility for American opinion [ID D28542].
Dewey's thought [about China] is not of the apologetic sort ; it is experimental. This makes him a liberal thinker in the true sense ; there is an air of freedom and hope about him. He does not, as many do, pay lip service to liberalism while his mind is set upon the main chance and safety first. Dewey has helped the people of the United States to get a fair and honest appreciation of the activities of the Chinese and should be honored as a true servant of his country and of the people of his time.

John Dewey : Lecture 'Experimentalism' : delivered at Wuxi. = Shi yan zhu yi. In : Jue wu ; July 16 (1920).

Letter from Evelyn Dewey to Alice Chipman Dewey
Sunday, [July 18, 1920?]
Dear mamma,
Lucy is going to Peitaho to-night after all with the Cranes of course. I think dad would have liked to go along but they did not have room I guess. Rich Chinese are fleeing the city the Wagon Lits is crowded and any one in the quarter can get rich renting rooms. The North East gate is closed and every one has laid in a few extra supplies of food. But of course everything is a peaceful and quiet as can be. The trains to Kalgan are not running to-day, and soldiers and ammunition supposed to be coming from Mukden, we saw some soldiers coming in from Nan Yuan this morning, but there are not many around the streets, there is martial law and everyone is supposed to be home by mid-night. There are 150 sailors at our Legation "on a sight seeing tour". The paper says there will be fighting in Soochow and maybe Nankin, but you probably have your own batch of rumors and news there. Yesterday we went to a temple in the Western hills, but didnt see a thing, the barracks by the summer palace seemed more deserted than usual. We have given up going to Tan Che Sse, partly because the trains arent running there as the station is one of the places where they are concentrating troups, and partly because if anything is going to be here we wanted to stay and see it. It is hot and Dad seems to mind it, but I dont nearly so much as when it is damp, it is clouding up now and looks like rain again, there is some breeze in the house and we have been able to sleep, but there is no denying that it is very hot, We havs had only one short letter from you., but suppose we will hear shortly. The last letters to Kalgan have not brought any news yet. We had dinner with the Cranes Friday night and they were coming here to night.
My ticket home was gotten thru Yokahama which is why there is no record of it in Shanghai.
There was no more news from home except Freds letter which we sent you.
We are going to send word to Suh Hu to have his wife brought here if trouble should really start, and George has already asked if he can bring Susan [Wan], so we may have a maternity hospital in our own little tenement. Somehow it is quite impossible to belive that anything will happen.
Remember that Richard Smith has gone to Nanking for the summer, and Mr. Crane says a U.S. gun boat will go up the river to take people out if the trains stop or fighting begins. I only hope nithing happens to prevent your getting away when you want to.
Much love Eve

Letter from Alice Chipman Dewey to Dewey family
On the train to Shanghai. | [July 19, 1920]
You see uch funny sights the crooked willows making a fringy background for the dark gren lotus fronds and the snow whie blosss[o]ms and all eflected back in the water and then a lovely ornamented moon bridge over the dragon like pon that wander round thru the rice fields after the rains and what really makes you laugh, the huge water buffalo walking on the earth at the bottom of these muddy rainpools with his back and his noe and his horns which look like the dead branches of trees sticking up and his old grey sides shine like silver when he comes out of the water unwillingly driven by the naked water colored boy on his back all the Yangste color except the lovely green which covers this part of China more than any other. and junks on the canals and it seems funny to see telephon poles set in these rice fields hen off in teh distance bald looking pagodas with all their curls dropped off from age mark the tops of little hills. The men and women are going ut the rows of rice plants with long bamboo handles on the hoes, handles longer than fishpoles and the ends shake as if the wind blew them in the hands of the hoers. The hoes are broader than any you eve saw and they work with them all day standing with thir leges in the deep water of the rice fields, half way up to their knees. There are no passengers except a few Chinese young men and they do what they always do in the heat slouch about in their underclothes with the clean linen or silk coats folded up on the seats and they sleep or eat. Mostly their underclothes are dirty in spite of th beautiful coats, It is second class so we have clean rattan instead of dirty hot plush of the first, and the mercury is somewhere between 90 and 100. All the land is used, every inch, the beans are beginning to yellow at the bottom of the stalks and the cotton is getting up high and taro is very decorative, so arre the slender strawstacks tall and straight ad every now and then the unfertile mounds of the graves put the dead in place of life, There are soe cows here mostly led by little girls between the rows of crops to browse. Pigs in China le in the corner of the vegetable gardens and eat the weeds on the oter edge, never showing wheteher they like human food or not. There are many trees even the hills being sometimes covered with small ones. I am trying to fill up with green since I am going to Peking.—if I can.
Shanghia. July 20th [1920]
Room 29 of the missionary home is up under the roof but the breeze blows thru from the long hall and I have had a good sleep. The house is full of missionaries starting home on furlough so there are swarms of children. It is interesting to get up against a bunch of people whose experiences are quite different from our own altho the same. I sat at the table with some Episcopalians, I know from the tone of voice such rolling and such charitable abuse of Wilsons admin was worth coming for. I am very anxious about getting off but I am sitting here instead of in the boat office because Mr Lee of the Y.M.CA. just called me up and insisted that Mr Sweetman had written him last night and he would do the errand for me. I feeel it is probably a mistake to allow of any intervention since no one wants me to get to Peking quite so badly as I do myself adn since Mr sweetman in particular has ideas that he ought to do all this for me 'as if I were his mother' but since I shall not have to wait very long for him I said thank you. If he upsets the whole pie because of what he thinks an old lady ought to do I shall simply have to start over again later. I can go the Consuls office and if I cant get off today there is another boat on another line on Thursday. One difficulty in Nanking was that Sweetman has not been about China as much as I have but he felt it was his duty to give very positive advice. The kindness of epople is very sincere here but it is sometimes emphatic and almost interfereing. I have been reading yesterdays paper and find the fighting is severe near Peking but the whole look of things is hopeful since the worst influences are on the lose and tho the winners are bad they will have to come a little nearer to the people.
I wish you could see the head of this place, picture of the pious spinster tall, and angular with high neck dress and a prim way of talking, one real authority. It is a pleasure to be here in no way for it is real old fashioned housekeeping calen and bare and enough simple good food, so if I have to wait a few days I shall ask to be kept here. Plenty of baths and all at a price which I understand is much less than the regular hotels. The table and the managemnet is like the old fashioned American Boardinghouse.
[Alice Chipman Dewey]

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]

John Dewey : Dinner at the Chamber of Commerce in Qingdao.

Letter from Lucy Dewey to Dewey family
Peking, July 29, 1920
Dear Family
Here I am back in Pekin and a wonderful time I had getting here. I left Peitaiho Sunday night with Mr [John Earl] Baker as I knew that if I ever could get thru it would be with him. I dont know whether I told you that he got thru the only train to Tientsin in days just by talking to the railroad men. Miss Boynton came with me and a giddy journey we had. The train at the junction was three hours late so we finally got on at one thirty a.m. Along about three a poor long suffering English friend of Mr Bakers, who also works for the railroad, found one berth for the two of us, so we each got two hours sleep in that. It was enough to get us thru, tho. When we got to Tientsin the Pekin train was nearly ready to start, all packed full. The cars had been resurected from the ark, the paint was peeling off and the dirt of ages had settled on them. Mr Baker went ahead on the military train and we tried to persuade him to take us on that with him but had no luck. There were four of us in a compartment designed for two, but fortunately the other two were nice Americans and helped to pass the time very nicely. It took us seven hours to get here. The usual time is three. It was terribly hot and most unintersting. There was nothing along the road to indicate that there had been any excitement there. Even at the stations where there was the most fighting there were no signs of it. The fields werent even trampled over nor nothing. At a couple of stations near Pekin there were troops enczmped and we passed a few troop trains. The nearest approach to excitement was when they kept us waiting twenty minutes outside the city wall, but they didnt come thru the train. Fortunately Miss Boynton and I had had lunches given us in Peitaiho and we fed oursleves and three other poor wnaderers. We finally got to Pekin about four and it certainly loked good. I dont think I have ever been so hot and dirty in my life before….
Did I tell you I have a wonderful scheme for going home next year? Mr and Mrs Zucker of the Rockefeller are planning to go and I am inviting myself along. The idea is to go to Kalgan and from there on horseback with a caravan to Urga in outer Mongolia. Ive been crazy to see Urga ever since I got over here, its the capital city of Mongolia and Mongolian Lamaism, theres a living Buddha there and all sorts of things. From Urga, also on horse, to Kiakhta on the Lake of Baikal and thence by the trans-Siberian across Europe and home…
Politics continue complicated, interesting, and uncertain. The US English and French Legations have come to an open break with the Japanes over the question of the right of asylum to the Chinese political offenders. The first three have agreed no to take in any male refugees but the Japs refuse to agree. The natural inference is that they have some one there already and suspicion centers strongly on Little Hsu, the man every one in China is looking for. He disappeared mysteriously off the face of the earth about a week ago and the pass word around Peking now is, Where is Little Hsu? and the answer I wish I knew. The victorious patriots want his head and I dont wonder that he wants to keep himself under cover.
I am rapidly melting down into the chair and soon will be so thoroly melded Ill never be able to get up, so I think Ill stop before that sad fact is accomplished.
Lots of love to all. Lucy

Letter from John Dewey to Dewey family
135 Morrison St Peking Aug 1 [1920]
Dear children,
I dont know whether this will reach you before Evelyn does or not; she is packing up altho her steamer doesnt leave Yokahama till the 20th. Mrs Crane telegraphed that she has found a four room bugalow at Peitaho and we are going there as soon as we can, which hurries Ev packing. But also she has difficulty in getting a boat to Japn, I dont know whether that is ordinary travel or whether it means that political refugees from the defeated party are flocking to Japan. The a"war" seems quite over. Yesterday pictures of little Hsu and others of the Anfu leaders appeared on the streets with rewards for their captures from twenty to fifty thousand each—at the same time the school teachers havent got any pay since May April, including university profs. Two weeks ago today it was that posters—without photos—were up offering rewards for the heads of the men who are now on top, and six weeks ago they seemed entrenched as masters of China—which bears out what was said of olden time, You never can tell. The Chinese awe know are pleased but not elated. They are glad to see one gang overthrown but arent sure the next one wont be about as bad, ftho they think each overthrow brings nearer the time when the people will be sufficiently educated to get control of things. However the present victory they regard as merely negativ except in one respect, the declone of Japnese influence The Japanese trained troops couldnt and wouldnt fight, the japanese shells were duds, and the whole elaborate political structure they had built up collapesed like a childs card house. It isnt very logical to argue from these things to the weakness of the Japanese, but the officials at least had nbeen intimidated and hypmostized by the belief in the Japanese superman, and now all of a sudden that prestige disappears. This doesnt mean that may not get hold of officialdom again but I dont believe there will be the feeling of their omnsiceince and omnipotence again. The rhing crumbled too easily. As one military man told me the people were hostile to the Js on acct of Shantung, and now the generals dont believe in them any more. I still believe that we got the right impression before we left Japan that they are badly overextended economically, politiclyy and even militarily to say nothing of diplomatically, and the shrinkage to normal size is bound to come…
Love to everybody Dad