A 
 
 n 
 
 
 
 A. V'. 
 
 
 ■^^.^>, 
 
 :V^.. ",-.vS^^' 
 
 <Sr;:>^^-^- 
 
 i-z^^. 
 
 .y'-f^. 
 
 #^ 
 
 J-'Vl 
 
 it , -s^' ^o 
 
 V >* v> 
 
 l*f ' ■.■'■iiai**«B(% 
 
 ■.■;*g^ 
 
 .^- 
 
 
 
 
 r > -3 
 
 
 *' r 
 
 % 
 
 iU: 
 
 
 W: V 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 '^-^^^. 
 
 .,:*^ 
 
 /•^ 
 
 
 'H-, 
 
 H\ 
 
 s.r-- 
 
 .*-^ 
 
 ^C"^ 

 
 
 Ai' 
 
 A
 
 Hiated, Loiulon 
 
 MAJOR WILLARD STRAIGHT
 
 WILLARD STRAIGHT IN THE ORIENT 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM HIS SKETCH-BOOKS 
 
 By 
 
 LOUIS GRAVES 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 ASIA PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 1922
 
 Reprinted from 
 
 ASIA 
 
 The American Magazine on the Orient 
 Copyright 1921, 1922
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 One who had never been in the East could hardly have presumed to attempt 
 this chronicle had it not been for the letters and diaries of Willard Straight and 
 the generous help of men and women who were with him in China and Korea 
 and Manchuria. These documents and the recollections of these friends are 
 responsible, as the reader will promptly discover from the abundant quotations, 
 for whatever of oriental atmosphere has been imparted to the narrative. The 
 book is a work not so much of authorship as of selection and arrangement. 
 
 My own acquaintance with Willard Straight began about a year before the 
 entrance of America into the world war, when I was associated with him in one 
 of the citizens' movements for preparedness. All who came in close contact 
 with him cherished for him both admiration and affection, and I was like 
 the rest. Such an attachment naturally caiTied with it a lively interest in his 
 career— a career which was known to have been charged with romance but 
 which, one felt certain, held far more of the picturesque and exciting, of large 
 vision, high idealism and tireless energy behind them, than had ever yet been 
 told. 
 
 So, when there fell to me the opportunity to go deep into the records of this 
 stirring life, I greeted that opportunity as a rare privilege. Letters, diaries 
 and memoranda yielded detailed accounts of Straight's intercourse with all 
 manner of men, high and low— mandarins, rickshaw coolies, admirals and 
 generals, Buddhist priests, artists and newspaper correspondents, princes, 
 cabinet ministers, diplomats, explorers, missionaries, engineers, railroad mag- 
 nates, financiers. Old friends of his told me of talks they had had and trips 
 they had made with him; of his negotiations with subtle Chinese officials and, 
 sometimes, perhaps, still more subtle Europeans; of his tireless energy, his 
 hopefulness and buoyancy, and his consideration for the humble and unfor- 
 tunate. Of all this volume of reminiscence the sketch that follows is only a 
 skimming. 
 
 For their aid to me in the preparation of the memoir I am particularly 
 grateful to Mrs. Straight, Maurice Casenave, J. 0. P. Bland, E. T. ^^iilianls, 
 Robert H. Patchin, E. Carleton Baker, Louis D. Froelick, R. M. Collins' 
 Mr. and Mrs. W. F. Spinney, Mr. and Mrs. T. J. N. Gattrell and Lewis Palen! 
 
 Louis Graves
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I PAGE 
 
 First Days In Peking 1 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 A Diary of Peking 10 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 War Correspondent 18 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 At the Legation in Korea 27 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 Consul-General at Mukden 36 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 Far Eastern Finance 46 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 The Chinese Currency Loan 53 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 The Revolution 61 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 Home from China 68
 
 Chapter I 
 FIRST DAYS IN PEKING 
 
 A TALL, blond youriR man with an eager mind, a 
 talent for drawing, and a lively taste for good com- 
 pany, was graduated from Cornell University in 
 the year 1901. For all his love for the passing joys of 
 life — gatherings of congenial spirits, music, plays, danc- 
 ing, sport — he was ambitious. Yet he was in the uncom- 
 fortable position of not knowing where his ambition lay. 
 Stirring within him was a restless urge, an impulse to 
 hard work combined with revolt against the common- 
 place. He wanted the kind of success that other men 
 wanted; but he was determined, without knowing how it 
 was to be brought about, that the route to the goal should 
 not lead over the monotonous plain of every day, but 
 among unexpected hills and valleys of high adventure. 
 
 At college, Willard Straight had been one of a group of 
 undergraduates who gathered fortnightly in the big 
 book-lined, smoke-filled study of Henry Morse Stephens, 
 then professor of history. Morse Stephens, who came of 
 a family of Anglo-Indians, e.xerted the strongest influence 
 upon Straight at Cornell. The two came to associate on 
 familiar terms like chums of the same age. Professor 
 Stephens was steeped in Asian lore and tradition. One 
 of his hobbies was Kipling, and they used to read Kipling 
 together and thence drift into talk of the East. 
 
 In Straight's senior year, President Schurman received 
 a letter from Sir Robert Hart, inspector-general of the 
 Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, asking him to 
 select three students for entrance into the service. He 
 passed on the request to Professor Stephens, whose first 
 choice was Straight. Much as the offer tempted him. 
 Straight hesitated, because he had planned to be an 
 architect and he feared that if he turned from that pur- 
 pose he might disappoint his foster parents, who had 
 sacrificed much for him. 
 
 Both his parents had been teachers; more than that, 
 scholars, eager for new ideas and able to pass them on to 
 others with added vitality. His father, Henry H. 
 Straight, was first a devotee of languages and a teacher 
 of Latin and Greek. But he turned to science and, as 
 a pupil of Agassiz, received the inspiration that guided 
 him through life. Willard Straight's mother was temper- 
 amentally an artist. She loved poetry, pictures — beauty 
 in all its forms — above all else, people. While she and her 
 husband were both members of the faculty of the Normal 
 School at Oswego, New York, Willard, their only son, 
 was born, on January 31, 1880. In the spring of 1887, 
 shortly after the death of his father, his mother took Wil- 
 lard and his sister to Tokyo, where she became the head 
 of a department in the Girls' Normal School. In two 
 years she returned to America, in broken health, and 
 died. The two children were taken in charge by Dr. 
 Elvire Ranier and Miss Laura R. Newkirk of Oswego, 
 who had been friends of their parents. 
 
 After consulting them about the call from the East, 
 Straight decided to go. Thus he embarked upon the 
 career that was to reveal to him the complex spirit of the 
 
 East as it has been revealed to few men. He was to see 
 at close quarters in Peking the cauldron of foreign in- 
 trigue; to have a part in the most bizarre and fascinating 
 social life to be found in any of the world's capitals; 
 to go to the Russo-Japanese War as a newspaper cor- 
 respondent and to Manchuria as the first American con- 
 sul general. And finally, he was to be distinguished as the 
 leading advocate of American activity in the East. He 
 died in France at the end of the Great War, before he was 
 forty years old. 
 
 He was twenty-nine when he was appointed represen- 
 tative of the American group of bankers associated with 
 the British, French and German groups in working out a 
 plan for loans to China. His creative imagination was 
 directed toward bringing about American participation 
 in a plan that would apply foreign capital to China and 
 at the same time make China a favored partner in her 
 own development and not a victim of foreign spheres of 
 influence. He did not live to see his vision realized, but 
 the Consortium of the United States, Great Britain, 
 France and Japan, recently concluded by Thomas W. 
 Lamont for financing and stabilizing China — and per- 
 haps thereby forestalling war in the Far East — is the 
 fulfilment of the conception he spent the best effort of 
 his life in developing. Those tedious loan negotiations of 
 1909, 1910 and 1911, in which Straight took so prominent 
 a part as the spokesman of American policy, years before 
 statesmen had talked seriously of a league of nations, 
 pointed the way to true international cooperation. 
 
 But the Willard Straight who sailed for the Far East 
 in November of 1901 foresaw none of this. He was a 
 healthy, normal American youth with healthy, normal 
 tastes — blithe, frank, companionable. And the Asia 
 whither he was bound was not that of concession hunters; 
 it was the Asia of romance. 
 
 In January, 1902, he arrived in China. The Chinese 
 Imperial Maritime Customs Service was then at the 
 height of its prestige. It had been de\'ised and developed 
 and was now ruled, to the last detail, by Sir Robert Hart, 
 who bore the title of Inspector General. A British sub- 
 ject. Sir Robert high-handedly declined to permit the 
 British Government to direct his policy. Under this 
 benevolent despot, the service was operated for and on 
 behalf of China, with an international personnel. 
 
 Straight's first duty was to learn the language at Nan- 
 king, where, in an atmosphere free from distracting 
 foreign associations, the neophytes in the Customs Serv- 
 ice — one Austrian, two Frenchmen, two Englishmen, be- 
 sides Straight — could devote themselves to mastering the 
 Chinese tongue. "The students' mess of the Chinese 
 Customs studies and rides and swears as it jolly well 
 pleases," wrote Straight. But there was a lot of hard 
 work. Every morning the native teacher came, wreathed 
 in smiles and heartily shaking his own hands. "The 
 morning work drags on — " wrote the pupil, "the teacher 
 sighing now and then when one says chan for shan or uses 
 
 1
 
 an even tone instead of a rising or a 
 falling one. He smokes innumer- 
 able cigarettes, at the expense of 
 the student, and drinks great quan- 
 tities of tea — or whiskey if the pupil 
 is at all 'easy'. He asks questions 
 about your father and mother and 
 sisters and brothers and if he can't 
 make himself understood will go to 
 the dictionary and point out the 
 characters. Any photographs of 
 pretty girls that you may happen to 
 have about as mementos of bygone 
 days, he will scan eagerly and in- 
 quire about their history, past, pres- 
 ent and future, and ask which one is 
 your wife. You in the meantime 
 are learning Chinese, or trying to." 
 
 In the afternoon another teacher 
 came; for it was a rule that each 
 student should have two instructors 
 as a precaution against any one 
 mannerism of speech. First came 
 speaking, then reading and, lastly, 
 writing, in the same order, day after 
 day. To the morning and after- 
 noon sessions under native guidance, 
 the more ambitious men added an 
 hour or two of evening study by 
 themselves. 
 
 "Were one to work eight hours a 
 day at any ordinary and respectaVile 
 language," Straight wrote in his 
 diary, "the end of six months would 
 show some appreciable progress. 
 Not so Chinese. Half a year is but 
 the thin edge of the wedge. 
 
 "The work is very hard and very / 
 confining. I am first put to learn- 
 ing the 'Radicals', a group of 219 
 characters, which are used as the 
 basis of the language. I must 
 commit them to memory. Then I 
 must practice the tones. I must 
 spend an hour or two a day in going 
 over and over a series of rising and 
 falling, stretched-out and clipped- 
 off monosyllables, which the teacher 
 drones out to be imitated as nearly 
 as possible. Anyone dropping in at 
 the Cu.stoms College would think himself in an asylum 
 of particularly hopeless lunatics, so great is the hubbub 
 and the barking of strange, unearthly noises." 
 
 Off duty, Straight began to cultivate the acquaintance 
 of Chinese priests and officials and merchants. He 
 practiced his ear and tongue in talking with them and 
 drew from them, at the .same time, their ideas on educa- 
 tion and government, their opinion of foreigners, and 
 stories of their families and their l)UKiness affairs. He 
 haunted the shops and bargained with the shopkeepers; 
 he walked in the village.s and learned the ways of the 
 farmers. Thus, here in Nanking, he was already acquiring, 
 by the most direct and sympathetic methods, an intimate 
 knowledge of the Chinese; and he was not only learning 
 to respect them but was winning their admiration at the 
 
 same time. It was through his ob- 
 vious frankness, his genuine regard 
 for them, his treatment of them as 
 equals, that he made friends of Chi- 
 nese as he made friends of Amer- 
 icans and British and French. 
 
 "The commonly accepted idea of 
 a Chinaman may be that he is a 
 phlegmatic and rather sober-sided 
 sort of person," he wrote in his diary 
 soon after his arrival. "Such, how- 
 ever, is not the case, as anyone who 
 has watched him on his holidays 
 will know. Whether the Dragon 
 Feast, the second largest festival of 
 the year, turns out to be a splendid 
 pageant or a tawdry imitation de- 
 pends entirely on the generosity of 
 the local merchants. But even if 
 the spectacle itself be small, the 
 crowds are as interested and ex- 
 cited as if it were Barnum's 
 Greatest Show on Earth. 
 
 "Through the northern part 
 of the great walled enclosure, in 
 the heart of the city proper, 
 there runs a small canal and on 
 this the dragon boats raced to 
 and fro. At the bow of an or- 
 dinary sampan a dragon's head 
 had been constructed, a dread- 
 ful thing of glaring red and 
 green, glittering with gold and 
 silver and tinsel joss paper. In 
 the bow was the cox'n, holding 
 two small red flags which he 
 waved frantically as he timed 
 the stroke of his crew, who were 
 urged on by the banging of cym- 
 bals in the stern. The men 
 were all half-naked, their queues 
 wound around their shaven 
 heads, and they wielded short 
 paddles. 
 
 "On either side, the tea-shops 
 and the verandas of private 
 houses were full of holiday folk. 
 Great strings of fire-crackers 
 hung suspended from the bal- 
 conies and banged and popped 
 and fizzled away as they dropped in the water below. 
 Save for the open course in the middle, the stream was 
 alive with craft; little boats for the poorer classes, barges, 
 lavishly decorated and carved, for the opulent — nabobs, 
 clad in purple and white and green robes, who sat fanning 
 themselves and drinking tea or gambling and gazing im- 
 pudently at the crowds of painted women in the Ijalconies 
 above. 
 
 "Opposite the Fu-tze Miao, a huge, red-walled temple, 
 the crowd was at its best. Peep-show men yelled out the 
 attraction of their evil pictures. Candy peddlers cried 
 their wares. Beneath an awning was a book-shop with 
 the Chinese counterpart of our penny-dreadful novels. 
 Crowding the literary man was a peddler, the dirty grease 
 standing in his black kettles as he concocted fritters 
 
 A MONGOL LAMA
 
 of various kinds for the passing 
 crowd. Hard by was a Taoist 
 priest telling fortunes by drawing 
 sticks from a jar farther on a ven- 
 der of cheap cigarettes in American 
 boxes. Then came the story-tel- 
 ler's booth, with the cheerful liar 
 sitting at a table, fanning himself, 
 gesticulating, winking, smiling, og- 
 ling. Fakirs are the same the 
 world over. Worldly-wise, clever, 
 brazen-faced, he yarned on and on, 
 and the gaping crowd sat around on 
 benches and listened. 
 
 "Such was the Dragon Feast, a 
 poor thing as far as the dragons 
 were concerned, but a wonderful 
 melee of humanity — merrymakers 
 all, like a circus crowd, drunk and 
 sober, strenuously pursuing the 
 wily god of pleasure, bent on catch- 
 ing him if they sweated themselves 
 to death in the effort." 
 
 Full as his hours were, Straight 
 found time for drawing and paint- 
 ing as well as for keeping the viv- 
 idly detailed journal of his daily 
 experiences. When he went 
 through the streets of Nanking or 
 visited temples or traveled up or 
 
 down the Yangtze in a native river-boat, he made pic- 
 tures of his native acquaintances as he laughed and 
 chatted with them. His water-colors and sketches even 
 of that early period are of people, not things, done with 
 the sympathetic insight he was gaining from personal 
 association. The aged and dried-up lamas whom he 
 found about temples interested him perhaps more than 
 any other characters among the Chi- 
 nese. He was extremely sensitive to 
 the atmosphere that surrounded the 
 religion of the Chinese and he de- 
 lighted in roaming through the tem- 
 ples, staring at the images and altars, 
 seeking to work out the meaning of 
 inscriptions and listening to his guides 
 tell legends of the old China that no 
 white man ever trod. With his ad- 
 miration, his reverence for aged 
 things, was always curiously mingled 
 an ultra-modern, whimsical mood. 
 In the midst of a serious account of 
 his rambles in Taoist and Buddhist 
 monasteries, for instance, he pauses 
 to describe — with evident pleasure in 
 its grotesqueness — "a gilded wooden 
 Buddha with white horse-hair beard, 
 sitting stolidly on a blue cow — a most 
 disreputable-looking cow showdng its 
 teeth in a fascinating grin and turning 
 its head as if it would like to devour 
 its lord and master." 
 
 All this time, although he was una- 
 ware of it, he was being watched by 
 the old man in the headquarters of the 
 Imperial Maritime Customs Service 
 
 RIVER COOLIE 
 
 MONGOLIAN CAMELS 
 
 in Peking. For it was part of Sir 
 Robert's creed to keep track of the 
 new men introduced into the Serv- 
 ice. Always he had his special 
 uses for exceptional talent, and his 
 subordinates sent to him regular 
 reports on the progress of the stu- 
 dents at Nanking. In the spring 
 an examination was held. In all 
 branches of the language Straight 
 stood first. As he wandered about 
 among the people, talking with 
 them in temple courtyard, mud- 
 walled village and dusty street- 
 shop, he had been acquiring facility 
 in speaking. But first rank in 
 reading and writing surprised him, 
 since he had slighted these subjects 
 for conversation with the folk of 
 street and countryside. The ex- 
 cellence of his performance w-on 
 him the distinction of a transfer to 
 Peking, the most sought-after as- 
 signment in the Service. When he 
 called at headquarters, Sir Robert 
 encouraged him to talk, all the 
 while looking him over keenly, 
 and promptly appointed him one 
 of his personal aides. 
 
 For the next two years, Willard 
 Straight was an intimate of Sir Robert's household. He 
 became an active participant in the social life of the dip- 
 lomatic circle — Sir Robert was the leader of the foreign 
 colony in Peking- -and was an interested observer of the 
 moves and counter-moves in the game of intrigue that 
 was to reach a climax in the Russo-Japanese War. 
 
 To a spirited youth with a fondness for art, no place 
 in all the world could have l^een more 
 fascinating than the Peking of the 
 first years of this century. When 
 Willard Straight came there in the 
 spring of 1902. the Boxer uprising 
 was past, and the foreign population, 
 protected by an international mili- 
 tary force, was quite safe. The siege 
 of the legations was a memory, but 
 a vivid one. There was no actual 
 danger; yet there was the zestful 
 sense of living on the perilous edge of ci\alization. 
 Two worlds mixed there. In the heart of the 
 Tartar city dwelt the foreign colony, its few 
 thousands but a handful among the multitude of 
 Chinese. It was made up of eight contingents 
 of legation guards, banking and merchant folk, 
 missionaries, holders and would-be holders of 
 concessions, newspaper correspondents, and, top- 
 ping them all, the diplomatic set and the official 
 family of the Inspector-General of the Imperial 
 Maritime Customs. 
 
 It was a brilliant, cosmopolitan circle, gay and 
 sparkling on the surface, not without its element 
 of sincerity and high endeavor, yet concealing 
 powerful currents of artifice and intrigue. Dip- 
 lomats ate and drank together, paid compli- 
 ments to one another with bows and smiles — and 
 
 {''
 
 then withdrew to their se- 
 cret chambers to receive 
 reports from spying subor- 
 dinates, and form new plans 
 for outdoing one another in 
 the game of despoiling 
 China. Already — as a few, 
 though only a few, realized 
 then — the coil was being 
 wound which was to spring 
 loose two years later and 
 set at war Japan and Russia, 
 the two chief players in this 
 deadly game. 
 
 Straight, "student inter- 
 preter", fresh from provin- 
 cial Nanking, was too intel- 
 ligent not to see that big 
 forces were at grips under- 
 neath the surface of foreign 
 life in Peking. And he never 
 let slip a chance to speculate 
 upon the meaning of the 
 hidden activity. But it 
 takes a little time, even for 
 the most engaging of men, 
 to be let in as a close ob- 
 server of the diplomatic 
 conflict. 
 
 "It was at one of the gar- 
 den parties that Sir Robert 
 Hart gave every Wednes- 
 day to the diplomatic cir- 
 cle," writes Maurice Case- 
 nave, in 1902 the French 
 charije d'affaires at Peking, 
 telling of his first meeting with Straight, "that I saw a 
 blond young man come in, very tall, very slight, and very 
 much at his ease a happy, good-looking fellow whose 
 fresh color lent a particularly attractive quality to his 
 face and distinguished him from men who had lived some 
 time in China and taken on the Chinese hue. He was 
 dressed entirely in brown, with a big brown sombrero. 
 Sir Robert introduced him to me, saying, 'This is my 
 private secretary.' 
 
 "Then I talked with him, and he told me of his studies 
 in Nanking and how he had been transferred to the capi- 
 tal to take up his new duties. Only those who know the 
 China of that period will understand how rare an honor 
 it was to have been called into such personal relations 
 with his chief. For Sir Robert was noted for being a 
 splendid judge of men, and when he had to select a private 
 secretary he combed the Service for the keenest mind and 
 the most forceful personality." 
 
 For his staff Sir Robert claimed, and to it was accorded, 
 the official and social status of a diplomatic service. In- 
 deed, the standing of the Imperial Maritime Customs 
 Service was higher, actually, if not technically, than that 
 of a legation; for its distinctive record of service, its aloof- 
 ness from international squabbles, its unique position as 
 a powerful partner of the Imperial Court, gave it a dig- 
 nity all its own. So Sir Robert's dinners and dances and 
 garden-parties were the main events of the social season. 
 Straight's comment upon him is on record in this Ijrief 
 
 THE CHEERFUL LIAR 
 
 form: "Sir Robert Hart, quaint, shy, powerful; a despot, 
 fond of children and of ladies; silent and doing unexpected 
 things. Above all, a tremendous worker." 
 
 The Customs establishment, including the Inspector 
 General's own residence, was on the side of the Legation 
 Quarter nearest the Forbidden City. Here, in what was 
 known as the Junior Mess, in an old, low-lying Chinese 
 building. Straight lived. For companions he had Kuro- 
 sawa, a Japanese; Konowalof, a Russian; Maas, a Hol- 
 lander; and Prince Rospigliosi, an Italian. This mingling 
 of nationalities endowed their intercourse with a never- 
 ending variety — each of them was to the others an un- 
 known mental and spiritual land. Not always did they 
 rub each other the right way; but, for the most part, 
 peace reigned in the Junior Mess. They went to other 
 people's parties, and they gave many a jolly party them- 
 selves. When they entertained in mild weather, the 
 table was laid in the courtyard. After dinner in the 
 balmy night air the company sat in bamboo chairs, sip- 
 ping coffee and smoking; and then they sang while 
 Straight, still wearing the light-hearted air of the college 
 student, thrummed joyously on his guitar. Then in the 
 temple terraces of the Western Hills beyond the city wall 
 of Peking — summer homes of the Americans and other 
 members of the legations — there were evenings of care- 
 free song to the music of Straight's guitar under the stars 
 of the oriental night. Often he sang songs of his own 
 composition — settings he had made for poems of Kipling. 
 He had in him something of 
 the gay spirit of the "Tramp 
 Royal", who had traveled 
 "the 'appy roads that take 
 you o'er the world", and of 
 "The Long Trail", that 
 high-hearted song of youth 
 and love and voyaging 
 through tropic seas. 
 
 There were nights at the 
 American Legation Quar- ,,» 
 ters or the Junior Customs 
 Mess, when the whole dis- 
 tinguished set of European 
 and Asian and American dip- 
 lomats sat with astonished 
 interest listening to Straight 
 and Robert Haskins and 
 other young Americans reel 
 off the close harmony and 
 "barber-shop swipes" of 
 American college quartettes 
 and coon songs that reeked 
 with the lilt and drone of 
 the South — banjo and min- 
 strel shows- things quite 
 new to the heirs of Old- 
 World culture and soon 
 amazingly popular in this 
 cosmopolitan center of the 
 Orient. Hostesses striving 
 to banish ennui from formal 
 dinner parties looked upon 
 Straight as a guest much 
 to be desired. But under- 
 neath the gaiety of these 
 Peking dinners where the a young priest
 
 SIR ROBERT HART 
 
 afTairs of every great 
 foreign office and court 
 of Europe were can- 
 vassed, Straight was ab- 
 sorbing knowledge of 
 the diplomatic game. To 
 no one were his social 
 gifts more pleasing than 
 to Sir Robert Hart. 
 For Sir Robert wanted 
 his parties to be no less 
 successful than his Cus- 
 toms. As soon as he 
 heard of the talents of 
 his new secretary, he 
 invited him to dinner. 
 The young man, a little 
 awed, was anything but 
 frolicsome. 
 
 "Now, look here, 
 Straight," said Sir Rob- 
 ert, "you're not your- 
 self, now, are you? If 
 I weren't here, shouldn't you act differently? I've heard 
 you are very amusing and I'm waiting to see it." 
 
 One can imagine with just how much humor and gaiety 
 the secretary responded to such a suggestion. It reduced 
 him to muteness. But he made a quick recovery and 
 thereafter he was rarely absent when the I. G., as they 
 all called the Inspector General, had guests. His host 
 received several shocks from the way in which the Amer- 
 ican trod precedent under foot in his entertaining. One 
 of the most famous institutions in China was the "squeeze" 
 — meaning "graft" levied by officials upon those who did 
 business with the government. Famous as it was, how- 
 ever, it was distinctly against the etiquette of the Customs 
 staff to talk of it publicly or even semi-publicly. 
 
 In one of the burnt-cork shows arranged by himself and 
 other youngsters among the Americans, Straight shame- 
 lessly coupled the names of well-known mandarins with 
 the "squeeze". Not only that, but he dared to introduce 
 lines dealing in a spirit of levity with His Imperial Maj- 
 esty, Kuang Hsu. Some who were spectators that night 
 have declared that Sir Robert's hair stood on end with 
 horror. It was fully expected in the foreign colony that 
 there would be a vacant place on the staff next day. But 
 the I. G. evidently forgave his youthful favorite every- 
 thing. 
 
 Ardently as Straight shared in the life of the foreign 
 colony, he never took his social activities too seriously. 
 He was always laughing in his sleeve a little at the busy 
 whirl and at his own part in it. 
 
 "Peking is a place of many dinners," he observed. 
 "Not the ordinary dinners that one eats daily, with a 
 clear conscience and a good digestion, but formal dinners 
 that are haunted by visions of liver and dyspepsia as one 
 goes through dish after dish and wine after wine. There 
 are diplomatic dinners, where legations try to even off 
 scores with each other; there are mess dinners given by 
 officers and by the Customs staff; then there are awful 
 affairs, given by misguided hostesses, where the guests 
 are all mixed, where no one cares for his neighbor, and 
 where, after the meal is finished, everybody adjourns to 
 the parlor and sits in a circle. 'Oh, Mr. Jones, I know 
 you play,' says the hostess, and Jones replies, 'Not at all, 
 
 not at all,' wondering all the while which of his time-worn 
 selections he will inflict upon us." 
 
 Not all dinner parties were like these. There were 
 choice gatherings of men and women who had made their 
 mark by force of will and wit and charm, where keen 
 minds collided and struck fire from one another. But, 
 of all dinners, he recalled with most satisfaction "the 
 home-like little gatherings in the American barracks, 
 where the officers' wives have a few well-selected people 
 in for dinner, and music afterwards." 
 
 At one of Sir Robert's regular Monday night dances he 
 met Lun P'ei Tzu, nephew of the Emperor, "a quiet little 
 round-faced man, plainly dressed in dark silks with never 
 a bit of embroidery or suggestion even of the gorgeous 
 raiment of the celestial court. He was modesty itself, 
 yet watched, as if he had seen them all his life, what must 
 have been to him the ludicrous gambols of the dancers. 
 None of the many strange things he saw seemed to affect 
 him in the least. He even put sugar and cream in his 
 tea like the others, which for a Chinaman must have been 
 almost a sacrilege." 
 
 The I. G. surprised Straight after dinner by abruptly 
 bidding him bring his drawings to show to the royal guest, 
 "overjoying me, of course, with the opportunity to 'show 
 off' a bit. Konowalof displayed the various drawings to 
 the Emperor's nephew and explained them to him in far 
 better Chinese than I could have hoped to summon. 
 Then Sir Robert came in, and we must go over them all 
 again. Sir Robert pointed out those he particularly 
 liked. The Prince being most genial, I asked him to do 
 me the honor to accept one 
 of my pictures, and he 
 chose a water-color of the 
 Lama Temple." 
 
 Straight did not distin- 
 guish himself in outdoor 
 sports but he was always 
 fascinated by them. The 
 enthusiasm he was to show 
 for polo in later years on 
 Long Island was already 
 in evidence in his early 
 days in China, and his en- 
 joyment of tennis and skat- 
 ing was keen. 
 
 "Over at the Club rink 
 last night to see 1902 fade 
 out," he wrote of a New 
 Year's Eve carnival. 
 "Everything gay. Lanterns 
 hanging from the shed 
 lighted the smooth ice. 
 The merrymakers, interna- 
 tional as usual, were swing- 
 ing round and round the 
 circle, with the incapables 
 shivering in the immediate 
 vicinity of the seats and 
 uprights. Music was fur- 
 nished by the German 
 band — that is, between the 
 band's drinks, which were 
 long ones. Flags of all na- 
 tions were draped around 
 the sides of the enclosure. a little country girl
 
 A CAMEL-DRIVER 
 
 Diplomats, bank folk, officers 
 and missionaries — in moderate 
 quantities — glided or pitched 
 or tumbled along, as the case 
 might be. 
 
 "The Russians were the best 
 skaters. Just before midnight 
 lanterns and bells were given to 
 everybody. Then, as midnight 
 struck, the bugle sounded a long 
 blast, the drums rattled and 
 hanged, hats came off and shouts 
 rent the air. With the waltz 
 that followed we all skated on, 
 swinging the lanterns, jingling 
 the bells, crying Happy New 
 Year to friends. 
 
 "So it went for a while, and 
 then came a supper given by 
 Lady Susan. The famous pian- 
 ist, Mademoiselle Ph — famous 
 as she is, I can't spell her name 
 — was there. There were toasts 
 in all languages, by Lady Susan 
 in Chinese and English and al- 
 most anything else, by DePlan- 
 gon in French and English, by 
 Bakroff and Campbell in Rus- 
 sian, by Rospigliosi in Italian, 
 by my.self in American. After 
 much scattered hilarity we sang 
 'Auld Lang Syne' and dispersed." 
 Now and then, as one goes out of a stuffy house 
 to get a breath of fresh air. Straight would turn his 
 back upon the cea.seless stir and hum of the city, and 
 lose himself within a deserted temple, or penetrate 
 into some grove that he had not yet e.xplored, or walk 
 out into the country beyond the walls. It was at 
 such times that the artist in him took full possession. 
 
 "The rustling of the trees overhead, the 
 droning chant of the priest" he is writing of 
 the temple, the Pi Yun Sze "the wind-borne 
 chattering and the occasional howling of a dog, 
 the clack-clack of the watchman's rattle this 
 is all. There is a great peace, a seclusion; life, 
 like the flower-scented, wine-laden air, is sweet, 
 full of portent. 
 
 "The little old priest, soft-eyed, meek, low- 
 voiced, walks to and fro with bowed head. 
 And such a rare smile he has! 
 A smile that I would give all 
 I have to be able to paint 
 a smile benignant, breathing 
 self-denial, self-control, pa- 
 tience. If I could only put 
 that on canvas, the embodi- 
 ment of the sweet faith that 
 came from India so many 
 hundred years ago! 
 
 "In the evening I sat out 
 on the slip with the old 
 prie.st, smoking and watch- 
 ing the moon, half hidden by 
 the clouds, that gave just 
 enough light to sift through a country boy 
 
 THE UBIQUITOUS OIL TIN 
 
 the leaves and throw a 
 lace-like shadow on the 
 pavement. 
 
 "The old fellow told me 
 how, when the Boxer trou- 
 ble began, the country 
 folk had come to him and 
 asked him what to do, and 
 he told them not to go, but 
 to trust to the great Bud- 
 dha and the Emperor, who 
 should know that it was 
 written to live and let live 
 and not kill men. But 
 they wouldn't listen to 
 him. Then, after the fight- 
 ing was over, his tem- 
 ple was rifled by brawling 
 soldiery, looted and defiled. 
 Afterwards the crops went 
 to waste. For there was 
 no one to till the fields and 
 the Emperor could no 
 longer aid them and there 
 v/as much suffering in the 
 temple. Then it was that 
 his hair turned gray and 
 his eyes were dimmed." 
 
 It was not long after 
 his arrival in Peking that 
 Straight's thoughts began 
 to take a more serious 
 
 turn. He did not desert his gaieties; he continued to like 
 them as much as ever. But, as the older and more expe- 
 rienced men in the Legation Quarter became aware of his 
 solid and discreet intelligence and began to accept him as 
 a friend and confidant, he developed an intense interest 
 in the eastern aspects of international relations. Inti- 
 mate association with these men kindled in him enthu- 
 siasm for American participation in the 
 development of China as the surest means 
 of converting the empty phrase, the Open 
 Door, into significant fact. 
 
 Members of the Customs Service were 
 supposed to be neutral. But, in the midst 
 of the disputes then raging, nobody, least 
 of all a person of Straight's vivid tempera- 
 ment, could live up to the rule. At that 
 time, the friends of China 
 looked upon Japan as its 
 champion. It was Japan 
 that was going to stop the 
 Czar's steam-roller and save 
 the most ancient of empires 
 from an inglorious partition. 
 Such a hope may appear hu- 
 morous now, in the light of 
 the way in which Japan has 
 since played so enterprising- 
 ly the role of Wolf to China's 
 Little Red Riding Hood; but 
 it was ch(>rish('d then by 
 wise and well-informed ob- 
 servers. Straight was one 
 of those who shared it.
 
 A BUDDHIST ACOLYTE 
 
 The American 
 colony in Peking, 
 grouped around 
 the Legation, 
 shunned the 
 scheming diplo- 
 macy by which 
 most of the other 
 nations were 
 seeking t o ma- 
 neuver them- 
 selves into a po- 
 sition of advan- 
 tage in China. 
 But Straight 
 mingled with 
 Europeans as 
 much as with 
 Americans, and 
 even a great deal 
 with the Japa- 
 nese, and soon 
 he was in the 
 very midst of the 
 hotbed of diplo- 
 matic gossip. 
 The high-handed 
 behavior of 
 many of the foreign legations in Peking and, more still, 
 the evident design to inflict further injuries upon China 
 in the future, made a deep impression upon him. 
 
 He learned, too, to see ourselves as others see us as he 
 listened to men who had known China life for years, 
 relate some of the disgraceful pages in American history 
 in the East. "Dinner with J. 0. P. Bland and Dr. 
 Morrison," he wrote. "In going over I felt like a sort 
 of a criminal, or the leader of a forlorn hope, to put it in 
 a more pleasing guise. We went out along the glacis 
 between the rows of blinking lights, past the rickshaw 
 stands where the coolies were cuddled up in the bottom 
 of their vehicles, rattling along over the dusty road to 
 the bridge over the Imperial Canal. Here we were met 
 by a man with a lantern, who guided us in behind the 
 mat-shade of the street kitchens, along the stone coping 
 to the water gate. Standing on a stone far below us, 
 surrounded on all sides by stinking water was a man with 
 a lantern and stretching up, the connecting link between 
 us, was a ladder, gaunt, spindling, a most uninviting- 
 looking mode of descent. He with the lantern went 
 down first, we followed, and the light brightened a bit of 
 the stagnant liquid about us, slime covered, black, in- 
 habited by myriads of water creatures. Then we 
 stepped charily over a little causeway of stones in between 
 the hewn bars of the water gate and through the archway 
 beyond. Once out of the tunnel we had to scramble over 
 rough ground, which the wily Oriental had used for all 
 sorts of household purposes. Up and down we went 
 until we finally reached the dust padded roadway which 
 we followed along to the alley where Dr. Morrison's house 
 was located. The court-yards were gay with lanterns, 
 which lighted the shrubbery and relieved them in sil- 
 houettes, or silvered their greenery. 
 
 "At dinner there was talk of the profession of Jezebel. 
 My heart shrivelled within me as I heard tale after tale 
 of the roguery of American officials in the East, of the 
 
 bribery, of a consul and a group of missionaries such 
 things of Americans, of the great, the proud home of the 
 Eagle! Such rotten corruption by the representatives 
 of one's own native land was enough to make me wish 
 for absolute despotism that the stable might be cleaned. 
 
 "Then on to the German Consul-General in Shanghai, 
 made famous or infamous by Stevenson in his 'P'ootnote 
 to History.' I saw the glance of race hatred glint for a 
 moment between Bland, the Englishman, and Wilzer, 
 the German. There were tales of loot and pillage, of the 
 horrors of the siege, of the excesses of the armies of 
 occupation. Bland was witty, sharp, keen, capable of 
 following his point to the bitter end, and of searing in 
 each sentence with an acidity that would make it felt. 
 Wilzer was simple, a little dull, helpless in the hands of 
 the man of the world, who, every whit as suave, had a 
 much broader knowledge of men and affairs. The 
 combat between the sheep and the leopard it was." 
 
 The dedication of the von Ketteler monument, erected 
 by the Chinese under compulsion from Berlin in atone- 
 ment for the murder of the German ambassador by a mob 
 (and, it may be noted, razed by the Chine.se during the 
 European war), occasioned one of Straight's most out- 
 spoken protests. 
 
 "China is weighed down by taxation necessary to meet 
 the enormous indemnities," he wrote. "The foreign 
 soldiers swagger about the streets with the air of con- 
 
 IN THE RICE-SHOP
 
 querors. Rapine and wholesale slaughter were loosed 
 on the populace of Peking in consequence of the murder 
 of von Ketteler, and now, to strike another blow at the 
 pride of the Chinese, this triple-arched memorial is built 
 in the heart of their city to stand as an eternal reminder 
 of the white man's mailed fist." 
 
 The dedication led to still another of those embarrass- 
 ing interviews with the I. G. For Harper's Weekly, 
 Straight wTote an article about the ceremony. Through 
 some mistake in the editorial offices, the line under the 
 title read: "By Our Correspondent, Willard Straight, In- 
 spector-General of Imperial Maritime Customs at Peking." 
 When the Weekly arrived, he opened it with the expec- 
 tant thrill of a budding author, but the first glance set 
 his knees quaking. He spent a sleepless night and next 
 morning went straight to Sir Robert with the exhibit. 
 The I. G. read the heading and looked surprised. 
 
 "Well, I wish you luck in your new position," he said 
 gravely. Straight waited, full of dread, while his chief 
 read further into the article. "Rather a good yarn," Sir 
 Robert said at last. "Better leave it with me, I'd like to 
 finish it." And he concluded as Straight started out: 
 "Don't bother your head about it. It was a foolish mis- 
 print; people will forget all about it in a week and nobody 
 will be any the worse off." 
 
 Straight was sensitively alert to the beauty and the 
 romance of the life of the Orient all about him and his 
 interest now in the Mongols and their religious practices 
 presaged an escapade of his somewhat later that brought 
 him no little fame in the community. "After dinner 
 Kornalofl took me in to see some bronzes, six pieces of 
 excellent workmanship," he wrote. "One looked re- 
 markably like McKinley. He told me of his trip to 
 Mongolia where he saw a great affair with the living 
 Buddha. This gentleman came to the great feast, 
 mounted on a white pony, surrounded by yellow robed 
 lamas and proceeded to the great temple, three men 
 carrying them, one man blowing. While the Mongol 
 princes and oflicials and high priests were feasting with 
 Mr. Buddha, little boys stripped to the waist came up 
 and after being sprinkled with holy water and blessed, 
 they mounted ponies. When they were too small their 
 legs were tied under them. They raced for fifteen miles 
 on well-trained ponies, seven and a half to go and as 
 much to come back. All the little boys were good for 
 was to beat the horses and make them go the faster. 
 Then on their return the winner was presented with a 
 silken prayer handkerchief which in Mongolia passes for 
 money and the house or clan of the winner felt assured 
 that fortune will be theirs during the months to come. 
 Then he told how he had met a Mongol crawling to Wu 
 Tai-shan. An old dervish he was, with leather trousers 
 and apron and wooden clogs in his hands. With these 
 he could reach out and then, bringing himself up, stretch 
 out again like the measuring worm. He had seen 
 Buddhist priests who had started out to collect money 
 for a certain cause, seen them walking along with a nail 
 in their noses, which they would sell — the nail not the 
 noses for a few taels. Other men stayed in little huts, 
 lived there for years with a bell hanging in front of them. 
 For so much they would ring the bell. Others sitting in 
 a nail-studded box would sell the nails for so much, the 
 purcha.ser winning virtue by having taken away the nail 
 from the poor creature's box and thus doing a kindness 
 to him." 
 
 Those who knew Straight best have often dwelt upon 
 the strife wi.thin him between the things that moved his 
 hand and brain and the things that fed his spirit. His 
 strongest impulse was for attainment for himself and for 
 the benefit of those about him, and in early years he 
 thought much of such attainment in terms of his esthetic 
 joy in life. Conscious, as he could not fail to be, of his 
 gift for affairs, abounding in energy, surrounded by tasks 
 he felt impelled to undertake, he plunged into the whirl 
 of finance. In the pressure of these new activities, as the 
 years passed, the artistic impulse was checked. But he 
 never lost his yearning to express, in some form of 
 practical and preferably public life, his interest in people 
 and art and his talent for originality of thought and 
 well-applied action. At the time of his death, he was 
 making plans to follow pursuits more readily responsive 
 to the promptings of his spirit. 
 
 In those early days at Peking there was no fitting 
 release for his energies. Hard work of some kind he had 
 to have, to be satisfied, but here he found that his chief 
 activity lay not in work at all, but in the social life of the 
 I. G.'s household. His feeling that he was wasting 
 precious time cast him into spells of "the blues", which 
 are reflected in his diary. 
 
 "Altogether I am in a bad way," he wrote one night, in 
 a low-spirited mood, "and don't know how to get out of 
 it except by healthy exercise and seeing lots of people: 
 but that means the neglect of Chinese and of art, so what 
 can a poor fool do?" 
 
 ) In one of those philosophizing moods that he liked to 
 indulge now and then — a sort of homily on success and 
 failure — he wrote: 
 
 "There are so many ways in which one can explain 
 failures. It is human nature to make mistakes, one as- 
 sures himself; the world expects a young man to be less 
 acquainted with its tricks, easier to befool, to be of less 
 value in all positions requiring not only natural ability 
 but years oi training. The man who makes mistakes, 
 errors of judgment, says: 'Others would have done the 
 same, I am only human.' Yet within himself he feels 
 that he is more clever than other men. He feels ill-used. 
 In reality he has found his level. He has played for 
 recognition as being more than an everyday man. He 
 has made a mistake. This is no reflection on him — it 
 only proves that he's an ordinary man. There are many 
 such; the highways swarm with them. 
 
 "His chief has been looking for the exceptional man, 
 and has found the rule. The young man is not expected 
 to outdo his seniors. If he does, he makes his name — 
 he proves his worth — he succeeds. If he doesn't, he is 
 like the other men — responsibility will not be given to 
 him; he must wait and grow into it. He is ordinary. 
 To be better than you are expected to be, to be able to 
 handle a situation by common sense in lieu of experience, 
 to be able more than to hold the position in which 
 you are placed, no matter how important it is— that 
 is success. To do le.ss means simply that you are 
 like the rest. And that, to an ambitious man, means 
 failure." 
 
 Again, he voiced his philosophy when he expressed 
 admiration for a certain official in the Customs: 
 
 "He may not be smooth or politic, but he has the 
 energy and intellect to move something. It is such men 
 with such energies, not those who sit around and watch 
 and criticize, who accomplish things in the world." 
 
 8
 
 ■■^liiM^^i it 
 
 THE STRAIGHTS' GATE-KEEPER IN PEKING 
 Water-color by Willard Straight
 
 ONE OF THE FOUR HUNDRED MILLION 
 Pastel by Willard StraiRht
 
 ^y 
 
 
 
 
 
 Va 
 
 
 
 A 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 /. ^ 
 
 ■'^ 
 
 ••'•'*^> 
 
 .^ 
 
 ' iV, 
 
 rC-^/^Y 
 
 
 ^, 
 
 y 
 
 
 
 ^ Ux.-..^-' 
 
 
 i<'^ 
 
 CJ^s? 
 
 SKETCHES FROM JAPAN AND MANCHURIA 
 
 
 ;\'
 
 Chapter II 
 A DIARY OF PEKING 
 
 A.V American Visitor in Peking — She, an American 
 girl in a wilderness of foreign bachelors. About 
 twenty-three, with an agreeable smile. The most 
 noticeable thing about her, however, is her patronizing 
 air, the obvious bestowal of her attentions on different 
 people at different times, a smile here, a kindly inquiry 
 full of doctored-up interest there, and a watchful eye for 
 the effect upon the recipient of the favors. Yes, she had 
 been in Europe, lived there and bought pictures in Ven- 
 ice. Blue went so well with gold. Sometimes the Vene- 
 tians framed 'em in black, but she liked gold. The 
 
 picture I had given Mrs. C was so nice, and oh! 
 
 the frame was so odd, you know. (Yes, I knew it- my 
 servant had made it from cardboard and Chinese joss- 
 paper.) 
 
 Two Men of the World — Dinner with Jameson and 
 Coolidge. Altogether one of the most enjoyable of my 
 Peking experiences. Such tales of men one has heard 
 about and read about, from the lips of those who knew 
 them! Jameson is charming as a man of the world, 
 as a raconteur. Coolidge 
 
 has been everywhere, done ^-^ 
 
 everything, seen every- 
 body. Newspaper corre- yT"> 
 spondents, authors, diplo- 
 matists, statesmen — all 
 passed in review before my 
 wondering eyes. Yarns of 
 Savage Landor, of Li Hung- x- 
 chang's household, of Yuan ^ 
 Shih-kai Jameson in west- 
 ern China Steever, the skull-hunter, and 
 the dinner with the Tame Sultan of Lahore. 
 Such was the conversation. 
 
 A Day in the Country -Today a riding 
 picnic to Pa Pao Shan the Hill of the 
 Eight Treasures. A beautiful, bright, sun- 
 shiny day, with the breeze of October in the 
 air, just enough to make one tingle a bit and 
 to start the joy of living surging through 
 one's body. There was a good ride out and 
 a cheerful tiffin, with perhaps somewhat too 
 much champagne. 
 
 The temple was a little red-walled affair, 
 perched on the crest of the hill and reached 
 by a flight of diabolically perpendicular 
 steps. Back of the hallway was a terrace or balcony 
 where you could walk and view the countryside for miles 
 around. To the west the great mass of hills, hazy purple 
 
 .!. :-■ 
 
 % <^ni 
 
 w 
 
 in the afternoon sunlight, with the shadows seaming 
 their bare sides, forests darkening them, and bits of 
 temples, white-walled, glistening clear and bright. 
 
 Our little hill formed part of a spur running down from 
 the main range, and we could follow this range as it 
 wound into the distance to join the parental rocks. On 
 all sides stretched the fields, lean, bare, brown after the 
 reaping, furrowed and broken by the plow — dark, fresh- 
 cultivated earth, with the roots of the gathered crops 
 clinging to the clods of dirt. Here were gray, stubble- 
 spiked plots, there rows of sprouting spring wheat, the 
 green softening the dirty red of the earth. Little villages 
 dotted the view here and there: the temples with their 
 gray roofs sharp against the dark gray-green of the foliage; 
 great clumps of white-trunked, squirmy-branched trees 
 that shaded the graves of the departed great men of 
 China who had been sleeping there for generations. All 
 through the country, winding in and out, crossing, re- 
 crossing, now in travel-worn valleys, now on the sur- 
 face in a flat plain, raced the roads — great dust-buried 
 highways, blue-covered city carts jolting along, luggage 
 
 vans rattling swiftly by 
 ,''^^;>, as the ponies and mules 
 
 trotted and jangled under 
 the driver's whip. 
 ,, ^"- Mule trains, farmer- 
 ; :^ ~i2c^ laden, brutes that plodded 
 
 \ steadily along, donkeys go- 
 
 ^~- S ing to market, droves of 
 
 sheep that spread and 
 rippled on the surface of 
 the earth like an advancing flood; and 
 here, there, everywhere, the procession of 
 camels, ugly, sodden, stolid. We stood on 
 the terrace and heard the unceasing clang- 
 clang-clang of the camel bells, the barking 
 of a dog from the nearest village, the cry 
 of a child in the still air, the braying of a 
 donkey in the court below, and the un- 
 ceasing hum of insect life as it thrived 
 and fattened in the warmth of the sun. 
 Such was the picnic as I shall remember 
 it. What the rest thought of it T don't 
 know — everybody for himself in such 
 matters! 
 
 
 IN NORTH CHINA 
 
 An International Shindy — Terrific row 
 
 in Peking's Coney Island district last 
 
 night. One Italian sailor dead, two Austrian policemen 
 
 dying, several more Italians mortally wounded. No 
 
 one knows ju.st how it hajjpened, e.xcept that, as usual, a 
 
 10
 
 woman played the principal role. 
 A grog-shop was wrecked, and 
 when the Austrian picket came up 
 to investigate, two of them were 
 shot. An Italian soldier was found 
 in the place by the picket; since it 
 was supposed he was drunk, he was 
 shuffled into a rickshaw and sent 
 to the barracks. 
 
 The doctor cursed his luck for 
 being called out to see the usual 
 sight, but in this case it was more 
 serious. "That man's not drunk!" 
 he said, "He's dead!" There was 
 a call to quarters, a roll-call. One 
 man, breathless, torn, bleeding, 
 came in late. Fell from his couch, 
 he said. Upon investigation he 
 was found to be covered with blood, 
 and in his quarters his revolver, 
 with three cartridges missing, was 
 found with his bloody mantle. 
 
 A detachment immediately went 
 to the grog-shop, accompanied by 
 the great Rospigliosi. Here every- 
 thing was broken — furniture, bar, 
 bottles, glasses — everything wreck- 
 ed, and the wretched woman in the 
 midst of it all. The whole crowd of 
 
 Greeks, Italians and Chinese in the place were arrested 
 but claimed French protection. These rows are always 
 occurring in the Hata Men district. 
 
 A Quiet Day Briefly Told — Industrial Institute with 
 Miss Carl and Mac in the morning. Painted all the after- 
 noon. Collins and McCormick dined here. We sang. 
 
 Thanksgiving Day, 1902 — Tiffin at American Students' 
 Club. University of California 
 against Cornell and West 
 Point on club courts. Tie 
 game. Great hullabaloo at the 
 Legation — sermons, chow, tre- 
 mendous musical and oratorical 
 fete. Afterwards adjourned to 
 Coolidge's and heard an ex- 
 tremely interesting interchange 
 of reminiscences by him and 
 Welbourne on Cuba and the 
 Philippines. A good Thanks- 
 giving. 
 
 A Visit to the Famous London 
 Times Correspondent — After a 
 tumble from my rickshaw I 
 managed to get out to Morri- 
 son's place through the water 
 gates. We dined together, and 
 he talked much of himself and 
 his works. Regretted that he 
 could not write — it was very 
 difficult for him. Hard for him 
 to accomplish anything, he said. 
 Showed me photographs of 
 brother and sister and father. 
 
 WAITING FOR THE EMPEROR 
 
 TEA AFTER THE LONG VIGIL 
 
 His father was head of Seeley Col- 
 lege, Victoria; his brother a great 
 athlete in Scotland; he himself a 
 doctor of Edinburgh and Madrid, 
 bui always intended to be a news- 
 paper man. Began in New Guinea, 
 where he was nearly killed by a 
 spear-thrust. Then he took his 
 degree in medicine and practised. 
 Went with the Times in '95. Made 
 the trip from Bangkok to Yunnan 
 Fu to Mengtze and back to Bang- 
 kok overland — a tremendous under- 
 taking. He turned over a number 
 of photographs to me, from which 
 1 am to make full-page drawings 
 for his book. The Experiences of a 
 Times Correspondeyit in the Far 
 East. It seems almost too good to 
 be true that I should be working 
 with such a man. The only thing 
 I fear is that one who is such a 
 a tireless worker will never have 
 time to do this outside work, and 
 for this reason the book will never 
 be written. However, we hope for 
 the best. I now have photographs 
 of the Amur and Siam on which to 
 commence work. If I can only do 
 well, my future may begin to shape itself. He, Morri- 
 son, knows China from one end to the other -has im- 
 mense political influence and a great deal of back-stairs 
 knowledge of what goes on, more than even the I. G. 
 himself. I am to have the chance of sketching him and 
 hope to do something that will be of value to him. He is 
 a most charming man to meet — in appearance, stocky, 
 with sloping shoulders and big head, though a short neck 
 supports it. His features are very pleasant indeed, 
 
 regular and clean-cut eyes, blue- 
 gray and twinkling, and a 
 strange, wondering smile play- 
 ing about the corners of his 
 mouth. His hair is never 
 brushed, or at least, if it is, 
 never looks it. He has a happy 
 faculty of getting acquainted 
 with every one, and what is 
 more to the point, finding 
 out all about them without tell- 
 ing anything about himself in 
 return. His questions are quick 
 and very much to the point. 
 He watches the speaker closely 
 and when he is pumped dry of 
 all information, the Doctor nods 
 his head and smiles. 
 
 An All Day's Walk— Today I 
 took an all day's walk with 
 
 B . Incidentally, we found 
 
 a court graveyard wherein were 
 buried the various court eu- 
 nuchs. We talked on almost 
 every conceivable subject. Cer- 
 tainly he is a most delightful 
 
 11
 
 man. He impresses on one forcibly the thought that, to 
 succeed, one must oneself learn to be quiet, not to try 
 to impress people v\ith one's own importance. 
 
 A Day in Early Wittier — First snow of the season today. 
 Called on Mrs. Gatrell with Flaherty, and found her a 
 most charming woman, absolutely natural, good Amer- 
 ican mother, no affectation, cordial and true and winsome, 
 with a brilliant pair of eyes. . . . Tiffin with Mrs. 
 Meyers, Misses Campbell and West, Baroness Romano 
 [wife of the present Italian ambassador to the United 
 States who was at that time charge d'affaires at Peking] 
 and their brothers. Because of this, late for the hockey 
 game. Sent Sir Robert a copy of Verse and Worse. 
 [This was a frivolous volume by J. O. P. Bland, with illus- 
 trations by Straight.] He refused it without opening it. 
 Not polite. Called on the Baroness Romano, and then 
 worked on a drawing of the scaffolding of the von Ketteler 
 monument. Nothing else to-day except that my Chi- 
 nese, just now, is being enthusiastically neglected and that 
 I must take a brace in the near future. 
 
 "An Evening out of Kipling" — Dinner with the Chan- 
 cery Mess. Hynd and McCormick with the "Padre", 
 
 one Mr. V , a clergyman who likes his cigar and his 
 
 whiskey and soda, and sings and plays. Is a good fellow 
 all around. The whole evening has left the impression 
 of camaraderie and manliness tinged with the color of the 
 Siege tales; for three of the men went through it all, and 
 McCormick came up shortly after the relief. Tales of 
 Russians and Germans on the march, their weird singing, 
 of trials of guilty Chinese officials by mixed courts com- 
 posed of English, German and Italian officers. The hos- 
 pitality that ran rampant between the British officers in 
 the Temple of Heaven and the Americans in the Temple 
 of Agriculture. It was an evening out of Kipling. 
 
 Chinese Wedding-Gifts — My Chinese teacher told me 
 how geese were painted red and sent as wedding-pres- 
 ents. They are sold by the recipients, and bought and 
 sent again by other people, to be sold once more, and 
 passed on again, never to be eaten. Sheep are also 
 painted red on such occasions. 
 
 The von Ketteler Monument- -The Chinese Government, 
 acting according to the terms of the Peace Protocol 
 signed in the fall of 1900, has been working steadily on 
 the monument for a year and a half. It is to be raised 
 on the spot where von Ketteler [German Minister] was 
 killed, as a perpetual warning against such outrages in 
 the future. 
 
 For many months the stone-cutters were constantly at 
 work in the rojjed-off space. In September the founda- 
 tion piles had been driven in and all was ready for the 
 superstructure. Thereupon the Chinese artisans pro- 
 ceeded to erect this mammoth scaffolding, which now 
 towers above all the neighboring buildings. It is con- 
 structed throughout of long fir poles, bound together by 
 hempen rope, the huge legs and shafts being formed by 
 bundles of these sticks, none of them more than eight 
 inches in diameter and varying from twenty to fifty feet 
 in length. In the whole structure not a nail was used. 
 It is a triumph of engineering and hard labor. More 
 than one hundred and fifty feet high, it is so immense 
 that I fear the real stone structure underneath, when 
 
 the wooden veil is thrown aside, will seem an anti-climax. 
 
 The labor is all performed by coolies whose songs rise 
 weird and shrieking all through the day from eight 
 o'clock to five. All the traflfic of this busy part of the 
 city — carts large and small, small trains, pack mules, 
 donkeys, rickshaws and wheelbarrows, not to mention 
 the ceaseless stream of humanity — must pass through 
 little dark passageways between the outside of the great 
 pillars of uprights and the low shop fronts on either side 
 of the street. 
 
 The work on the monument proper is now but half 
 finished. When the scaffolding is taken down the stone- 
 carvers will be called in to complete their work — a task 
 that will take another year and a half. The whole thing 
 is an example of Chinese economy. No rattling, no 
 clattering of hammers, merely the binding and twisting 
 with hempen rope of almost three thousand long poles 
 to build a scaffolding that will be taken apart and used 
 over and over again for years to come. 
 
 The Imperial Court's Moving-Day — Up at half past 
 six this morning, and through the misty, frozen streets 
 to the northwest city. Once on the Pingtze, Shaw and I 
 alighted from our rickshaws and went on foot to the 
 north. All was a bustle of preparation for the court's 
 moving. Officials and policemen and coolies, rattling 
 carts, camel trains — for the moment sidetracked — hustled 
 out of the way in anticipation. Riders would dash by, 
 bearing messages. Came vast baggage-vans, forerunners 
 of the court, and big, swinging, tramping lines of coolies 
 bearing round, dragon-blazoned boxes tied up in yellow 
 silk. 
 
 Near the Hsi Chih Men we met the first relays of 
 chair-bearers, men dressed in purple and red gauze-like 
 stuff, brilliantly flowered. Eight men on little shaggy 
 ponies waited beside the highway for the coming of the 
 court. In the big enclosure just outside the main gate 
 and inside the smaller one, the outworks of the defense, 
 was a group of cavalrymen waiting. We went on through 
 the gates over the little piles of earth in the archway and 
 into the street beyond. The little guard-houses were 
 brushed and swept, and the men stood about in their 
 best l)ibs and tuckers. We went on through a jumble of 
 carts until we came to the foot-bridge. Beyond that was 
 a body of infantry with large orange banners. 
 
 Squirming our way between carts and ponies and don- 
 keys, we went on around the turn to the right and down 
 to the Imperial boat-house. Just at the bridge we met 
 the vanguard of the procession, officials in furs and 
 embroidery mounted on mules and ponies came riding 
 down upon us, ordering us summarily out of the way. 
 Finally, just as the first troops came on, we were 
 hustled off to the right of the bridge, and here on a pile 
 of dirt we watched the Empress Dowager go by in her 
 yellow chair. She was a nice-looking little old lady with 
 a Roman nose, brown and neat. She looked from side 
 to side, evidently taking in everything but neither smil- 
 ing nor bowing to the crowd. After her came a muddle 
 of lancers and bowmen, the weapons of the bowmen 
 l)eing incased in splendid leather covers. 
 
 The whole affair was a confused jumble of color, of 
 drums and bugles, glistening bayonets, waving banners, 
 shouting men, red-coated chair-bearers, silk-clad officials, 
 calling, jostling, pushing this way and that. The Empress 
 went on to the boat-house, alighted, and went in for 
 
 12
 
 tiffin. We had tried to take a photograph as the proces- 
 sion passed, but an official put his head in the way as I 
 snapped the camera. 
 
 Gaiety (it the Hritinh Legation We danced at Lady 
 Susan's [Lady Susan Townley, wife of the British charge 
 d'affaires]. It was a beautiful evening, the mist silvery 
 in the moonlight. Our procession was a long one, sl.x 
 
 in green and gold; long curtains in many patterns. 
 
 At the American Minister's — We dined at the Congers' 
 and it was by all odds the most exciting evening I ever 
 passed at the Legation. After dinner everything was 
 fairly orderly for a time. The elder Miss Young played 
 the piano and her sister the violin, and they played ex- 
 tremely well. It was the best music I had heard in a 
 
 / '■: 
 
 jir\ 
 
 
 ky 
 
 J 
 
 A LAMA FROM DEEP MONGOLIA 
 
 HIGH PRIEST IN YAH-NAIR HELMET 
 
 chairs and three rickshaws, the former swinging steadily 
 along, somber in the half light, their lanterns on either 
 side and the broad-hatted coolies tramp-tramp-tramping 
 with their steady gait. 
 
 Once in the ballroom we found ourselves truly interna- 
 tional. There were Englishmen, of course, brilliant in 
 scarlet mess-jackets; Austrians; a Russian in top-boots; 
 diplomats and soldiers, with at least twenty-five ladies — a 
 most wonderful aggregation for Peking. Waltzes and pol- 
 kas, a barn dance, and two splendid Scotch reels. The Le- 
 gation is a Chinese house adapted, rich in Chinese panel- 
 ing, red and buff papers setting off the dark wood; ceilings 
 
 year or more. Brent recited several times, and McCor- 
 mick, Drolett and myself contributed coon songs. That 
 finished, we danced; then, the music giving out, Cowell 
 gave a sailor's hornpipe, everybody whistling the 
 accompaniment. Then the fair Miss Ragsdale and 
 myself executed a cake-walk, but only after a fashion, 
 for the music was too bad, and you need a rattling, bang- 
 ing ragtime to get the spirit of it. Dancing again 
 and more coon songs and Louis Fuertes' celebrated 
 gorilla story. I walked home beside the chair of the 
 younger of the two sisters and saw them safely in Sir 
 Robert's gate. 
 
 13
 
 An Imperial Adventure in the Disguise of a Lama — My 
 long-suffering servant came back at last from his trip 
 over the muddy road to the Yung Ho Kung [the famous 
 Lama temple just wthin the northern wall of Peking], 
 to find the recreant priest who had promised by all 
 his Mongol gods to come down that day and arrange 
 for my visit. My friend would wait till ten o'clock 
 in the evening for me; then the gates would close. 
 
 I collected my sketch-books and 
 pencils, cigars and cane, and piled 
 into the damp cart. We went slowly 
 along, splashing, lurching, foundering 
 in the dark; the boy and the carter 
 on the shaft cursing creation in gen- 
 eral and the mule in particular. We 
 passed a few stray carts and the 
 usual lot of policemen. Otherwise 
 all was a black, murky loneliness, 
 scarcely livened by the yellow, gleam- 
 ing street-lamps that were doing their 
 cheap best to throw streaks of 
 light over the mud river. 
 
 At the Yung Ho Kung, the 
 two lamas, my confederates, ^ 
 were waiting. The lamasery 
 was asleep. As we entered the 
 little paved court and made for the 
 candlelight that gleamed through 
 the open door at the other end, I 
 could hear peaceful and easy-con- 
 scienced snores issuing from the 
 rooms on the northern side. The 
 priest who had arranged the whole 
 business began to tell me, suggest- 
 ing all manner of direful things, 
 how much trouble it had been, 
 how much ashamed he was to come 
 and .see me because the man inside 
 wanted so much money for passing 
 me in, how, if they were ever dis- 
 covered bringing in a foreigner, 
 their heads would be forfeit. The 
 pressing need for money was 
 again brought home, with the ter- 
 rors of the Imperial bodyguard, the Pa Ta Chen, and the 
 alacrity and pleasure with which they would decapitate 
 the innocent offender. 
 
 The priest with me waxed confidential. He told me 
 of the life of the lama, the training from childhood, the 
 monthly stipend of rice — enough, but no more than enough 
 to keep the wolf from the door. He told me of Buddha, 
 the Great and Good; how he came to Mongolia many 
 centuries ago to preach faith and kindness to all manner 
 of living things and how it was their duty as his followers 
 to be silent and introspective and lead pure lives. As he 
 talked, his eyes brightened, and he was carried away by 
 his own words into that pleasant state of believing that 
 all the virtues one may be extolling are one's own per- 
 sonal attributes rather than intangible generalities. 
 
 The lama went away and I dozed over my cigar, inter- 
 rupted now and then by attendants who keijt pressing 
 food and drink on me until I had an annoying stomach- 
 ache. The night wore on. The visitors in the court- 
 yard, high priests from the Yellow Temple north of the 
 city, awakened and demanded tea, talking now in Mon- 
 
 A MANCHU WOMAN 
 
 gol, now in Chinese, bestirring themselves and preparing 
 for a long vigil before the altar. 
 
 Soon it was time to go in. Secreting my revolver 
 (why, I hardly know) in my coat pocket, I put on the 
 purple lama robe and donned the flat, cymbal-like straw 
 hat. My hair had been clipped earlier in the evening — a 
 wonderful operation, performed by a priest who knelt on 
 the brick flagging and clipped and gouged with a pair of 
 nail-scissors, while I bowed my 
 head almost into the tallow dip 
 that furnished the light for the 
 amateur barber. Shuffling along, 
 I followed my guide through the 
 passageway out into the open. 
 We walked along, jostling soldiers 
 and priests, coolies and officials. 
 
 There was no time to waste, for 
 any halt might mean detection. 
 Inside the second enclosure there 
 were fewer people. They hustled 
 me up a steep flight of stairs. 
 Climbing in between the supports 
 of the altar, I crouched in the dust 
 and watched the light flicker and 
 disappear as my friend Wang went 
 down the stairs and left me alone. 
 I sat and waited. But the air 
 became too stifling in my hiding- 
 place and I ventured out, sitting 
 on one of the praying-stools in 
 in front of the altar. In the soft 
 light of the breaking day the won- 
 ders of the room began to unfold 
 themselves before me. When I 
 had first mounted the stairs, a tiny 
 light had glimmered on the thrones 
 of four altars, but it had spluttered 
 out and left me in darkness. Now 
 I walked about the great room, 
 feeling the shadowy shapes on the 
 long rows of shelves against the 
 walls, wondering each minute 
 whether something would come 
 crashing down. Hearing steps, I 
 hurried behind a partition that screened off the altar at 
 the southern end. 
 
 As I crouched here, I saw light in the hallway, and a 
 priest appeared. Suddenly I realized that my shelter 
 was glass, and I crouched lower, afraid to stir lest a 
 rustle or creak betray me. The old man went from altar 
 to altar, arranging the skull-goblets of wine, lighting 
 candles, raising to his forehead the brazen vessels which 
 served as lamps and then replacing them before each 
 divinity. Finally, to my relief, he went away and trotted 
 downstairs. 
 
 I resumed my wandering then. Great scrolls with 
 parti-colored sacred de.signs hung, dust-covered, from 
 the roof-beams, curtaining the fronts of the altars, form- 
 ing canopies above the crowned heads of the Mongol gods. 
 I examined the altar settings, the lotus stands, the double 
 fishes, the draped flags, and the great golden idol, impas- 
 sive, forbidding in the expression of its set smile and 
 half-closed eyes, sitting enthroned againist a background 
 of silken paintings, mellowed by dust and time and 
 scarcely discernible. On either side again were other 
 
 14
 
 altars, and, between and beyond, tier on tier of small clay 
 images. 
 
 From afar I could hear the bugles of the Emperor's 
 guard. Wang Lama came to me again, this time with a 
 small boy. The guardian accompanied him, and threw 
 the big doors wide open. At the bidding of my guide I 
 went softly to a doorway, and lying flat on the floor, 
 crept along the sill, and then carefully crawled over 
 the edge of the balcony. Through a small break in the 
 carving I could see all that was going on in the court 
 below. The eunuch, who had for hours been sitting at 
 the entrance, rose and held up a long wand of incense. 
 The bugles drew nearer and nearer, and at last ceased, 
 and we knew the Emperor had come. 
 
 Soon we heard the patter of approaching footsteps. 
 Led by a high official came a double file of eight high 
 priests, red-button men in yellow lacquered hats, each 
 carrying a stick of burning incense. They advanced at 
 a rapid pace, a similar column coming from the opposite 
 side. Another official, two more priests in tall Yah-Nair 
 helmets, carrying golden censers- and then the Emperor. 
 Behind him came eight more priests and nine princes of 
 the blood. 
 
 As the Emperor made his obeisance before the altar, 
 the priests chanted in their deep tones to the usual accom- 
 paniment of drums and cymbals and trumpets. It was 
 over in a minute. The priests went on, and the Emperor 
 passed through the Hen to the next altar. The follow- 
 ers, large men carrying many parcels wrapped in yellow 
 silk — except one that seemed to be a sword sheathed in 
 yellow plush sauntered after him in a most disorderly 
 manner without ceremony of any kind. 
 
 I lay quiet for a few moments and then went downstairs, 
 where I waited until Wang Lama came back to lead me 
 into the broad daylight again. I shuffled along through 
 the courtyard, imitating as nearly as I could the pace of 
 the priests I had been watching. The Emperor's chair 
 stood in the center of the court, resplendent with golden 
 trappings and yellow shafts, the bearers in white-spotted 
 purple gowns of gauze and spiked helmets. There were 
 fat eunuchs, and offi- 
 cers in latter-day uni- 
 form, and among them 
 all, the ever-present 
 servant with tea. 
 
 At last there was a 
 stir. All eyes turned 
 to the east. The high 
 priest kneeled and the 
 idlers rose to their feet 
 in expectancy. Again 
 the priests with cen- 
 sers, the attendant 
 officials and the Em- 
 peror. He made a pe- 
 culiar impression. As 
 you saw him, wearing 
 only the ordinary hat 
 with the blood-red but- 
 ton, a dark silken sur- 
 coat that hid even his 
 dragon badge, it was 
 hard to realize that 
 this very young, very 
 delicate-looking man tien lama 
 
 V. 
 
 was the ruler, in name at 
 least, over four hundred 
 million people. A weak 
 face he had, with arching, 
 jet-black eyebrows. He 
 kept his shoulders and 
 head thrown back as he 
 walked to his chair, but his 
 eyes were on the ground. 
 The cortkje passed through 
 the side gate most unpre- 
 tentiously. 
 
 Then there was a tu- 
 multuous rush of priests 
 for the temple gate, and 
 through this melee I passed 
 almost unnoticed out into 
 the long courtyard and 
 quickly on to the little cell 
 that I had left some three 
 hours before. People 
 stared at me, it is true, 
 but no one said a word. 
 Wang Lama and I pledged 
 each other in a cup of 
 wine. Quickly bundling 
 up my own occidental 
 clothes and lighting a 
 cigar, I made for the gate- 
 way. The Chinese on the 
 street jeered a little, won- 
 dering at a lama so tall 
 and so red withal. 
 
 c 
 
 V— ""■■ 
 
 ^"2 
 
 ^' 
 
 \' 
 
 TEMPLE ATTENDANT 
 
 [The news of the affair 
 spread quickly, as all news 
 
 does in Peking, losing nothing in color and piquancy, and 
 presently came to the L G.'s ears. The private secretary 
 was summoned for a quarter of an hour's talk behind 
 closed doors, and again the know-alls of the staff predicted 
 an enforced resignation. A highly 
 favored treatment for young Customs 
 employees who incurred the chief's dis- 
 pleasure was a transfer to some desolate 
 post on the borders of Tibet or in Mon- 
 golia, and this fate was predicted for 
 Straight. The upshot of the interview- 
 was that the L G. burst unexpectedly 
 into laughter and, declaring himself 
 very busy, ordered the offender back to 
 his desk. The only misfortune that 
 resulted was the suspension of the ac- 
 commodating lama from his job for one 
 . month, and his upkeep for this period 
 
 JvV fell upon Straight's purse.] 
 
 A Twinge of Conscieiice — A walk with 
 Shaw to the Princes' Tombs, where all 
 was bleak and cold, the trees soughing 
 ■:'■■■■ in the cold south wind that came whis- 
 
 tling up over the grave-strewn plain and 
 bringing whirls of dust from the plowed 
 fields. In the evening dined with 
 Flaherty before the Shakespeare reading 
 at which we finished The Merchant of 
 
 15
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 -"*- ^ 
 
 •^:: 
 
 '.I 
 
 V%u 
 
 V"f 
 
 DOCTOR GEORGE E. MORRISON, CORRESPONDENT FOR THE LONDON "TIMES" IN PEKING 
 
 Venice. The feeling is growing on me that I ought to 
 up-stakes and dig for home, lead the strenuous life, and 
 be a man in a world of men, not a "pampered, cursing 
 fool in an Eastern clime". 
 
 Sir Robert Hart's Violin — Danced at Sir Robert's last 
 night and had a farewell to Welbourne at the club. This 
 afternoon Sir Robert had the first garden-party of the 
 season. Lady Susan, Lady Arthur Russell, and her 
 daughters, Mrs. Fischer, Miss Cholmondeley and others. 
 After most of the people had gone, leaving Count von 
 Schlippenbach, Wilzer, Richardson, Mrs. Bob Little, Mrs. 
 Carruthers and myself, Sir Robert produced a wonder- 
 ful sort of violin, a sort of gramophone with strings, 
 and proceeded to play a few notes thereon. The Count 
 then took it and played rather prettily, the L G. watch- 
 ing him, aghast all the time lest he should damage it, and 
 the minute he had finished, snatching the instrument and 
 running away with it like a child with a favorite toy. 
 
 Concerning Sir Robert Hart, the Ingpcrlor-dnirriil 
 
 I dined with Mr. Aglen [now Sir Francis Aglen, the 
 present inspector-general] tonight, and after dinner he 
 discussed the L G. at length, reviewing the old man's 
 career. In the early days Robert Hart was a consular 
 student, grinding at Chinese, later deputy commissioner 
 at Canton, then in charge of the Yangtze valley a young 
 man of twenty-four, dictating to men far older than him- 
 self and with far longer record in the service, fighting the 
 prejudice of his employers, the Chinese, on one side and 
 the hostility of the foreign mercantile community on the 
 other, steering straight and clean through the turbulent 
 waters. 
 
 He never shirked responsibility. His keen judgment 
 sorted the important from the worthless. His remarkable 
 memory stored up precedent after precedent on all cases. 
 Building up his service, pulling order out of chaos, ruling 
 with a firm hand, he yet found time for little loves, for let- 
 ters and poetry. He was at his heyday in the eighties, 
 when there were no international jealousies in China, 
 when a ininister came out to hibernate for a year or two, 
 sit tight, save money and romp on to new fields -when 
 
 16
 
 all business with the Chinese was done by having the 
 diplomats call on Sir Robert and get his advice and act 
 accordingly. 
 
 His prestige among the Chinese was unassailable then. 
 Year after year the plot thickened, but he still played his 
 game, enlarging his field of usefulness with the larger 
 needs of the Eastern question. Strong in his position, 
 with a vast knowledge of Chinese character and view- 
 point, he has been the most notable figure in Eastern 
 politics. 
 
 He is cordially hated -not for himself, perhaps, but 
 for his institutions by all provincial officials. But all 
 men appointed from the capital to provincial posts call 
 on the I. G. 
 
 A man with a tremendous brain and a rare genius for 
 organization. Yet he takes interest in every little thing, 
 knows all that goes on about him, writes notes on friend 
 ship and love to many and many a maiden. 
 
 A Collection of Buddhas — This afternoon Dr. Kor- 
 sakoff very kindly took me to see the collection of 
 Buddhas owned by Gomboieff, the Russian postmaster, 
 and a splendid sight it is. The old fellow, a Buriat, 
 grizzled and wrinkled, with a face of marked Mongolian 
 type, has been in Peking thirty years. He has charge of 
 the large mail-bags that go down each day for a rapid 
 trip across Manchuria and Siberia. 
 
 GomboiefT's brother was a lama, very high in his call- 
 ing, a living Buddha in fact, holding sway over a tre- 
 mendous lamasery in southern Mongolia. Through him 
 the postmaster had got his treasures. He told me that 
 before the siege he had more than a thousand specimens. 
 Now he is reduced to seven hundred. There are gods of 
 all sorts and sizes — bronze, wood, gold, silver — sitting, 
 standing, lying — fierce gods riding blue-faced bulls, 
 Mongol skull-devils painted and graven. 
 
 He has pictures as well, and inlaid models of pagodas. 
 His bedroom is next the hall where he has his treasures 
 arranged, tier on tier, shelf on shelf, and on the table 
 there are still other gods not yet classified. There are 
 scrolls on the walls, and books of prayer — indeed, all the 
 paraphernalia of a temple. Golden and silver lions and 
 elephants on carved-wood pedestals guard the entrance 
 to his sanctuary. I had to talk French to Dr. Korsakoff 
 and Chinese to the old Buriat, while they talked with 
 each other in Russian. I shall go again and often and 
 become steeped in the lore of the Holy Man of the East. 
 
 Home Is the Place — A talk with X on the Tertium 
 
 Quid question. As in many other things his ideas are 
 easy, kindly and altogether like himself — passive, lacking 
 in force. Whether this is due to his bad health or to some 
 peculiar moral kink I don't know. In his life, unsatis- 
 factory as it must be, he finds a certain doleful pleasure 
 in thinking, "Who am I that I should have more?" He 
 seems to feel himself cast upon the tide of life, to be car- 
 ried hither, thither, willy, nilly, satisfied if he only keeps 
 his head up and goes easily without too great a jarring by 
 hostile floods. 
 
 To me this seems cowardly. 'Tis better to have fought 
 and lost than never to have fought at all. Sometimes I 
 must try the fight, either by keeping myself headed for 
 the mark in China, forcing upon myself a life of energy 
 and endeavor, or by going home and having the necessity 
 
 of strife forced upon me by powers over which I have no 
 control. There is nothing in the life of a succe.ssful com- 
 missioner of customs to stir one's heart-strings. China 
 port life must be a dull, unsatisfactory thing at best. 
 Home is the place. Shall I start on a five years' course of 
 preparation or not? This cannot go on. Peking is bet- 
 ter than all other places in China -and Peking is unen- 
 durable. 
 
 More Good Resolutions— This dining-out business is 
 interesting, often even fascinating and largely worth- 
 less. It is not work, nor Chinese, nor politics, nor any- 
 thing. If one does not buckle down to learn things when 
 one is young, when, I'd like to know, will one ever have 
 the time to do it? Again it was brought home to me 
 what a fool I have been not to read more in Morrison's 
 library [probably the most famous library on China 
 in the world, sold by Dr. Morrison to the Japanese] and 
 keep myself better informed on the East. I must brace 
 up and become serious. 
 
 Another International Koiv - This time it's the Japanese 
 and Germans. On the Japanese side the trouble was of 
 long standing. Madame Butterfly had been more 
 thrifty than patriotic, and while her own countrymen, 
 being poorly paid, had sipped their beer unkissed by the 
 fair maids who thronged the place, Germans and Amer 
 icans and British had been in high favor. 
 
 The men of Mars from Japan resented the sordid slight 
 put upon them, and when a new draft of troops came, they 
 were heirs to the old grudge. On New Year's Day, being 
 more rather than less tight, a band of soldiers began to 
 make themselves objectionable all around the place. 
 Not content with this, they started to maul the poor 
 woman who was proprietress. She, thinking more of her 
 New Year's finery than of her person, set up a howl. 
 
 The chivalrous mailed fist from the vicinity of central 
 Europe could not stand for this; so it pulled itself to- 
 gether and went to the rescue. A fine row ensued. One 
 of the Jappies made off in the direction of the barracks 
 and yelled for help. The Germans, knowing it would 
 soon not be healthy for them in that neighborhood, 
 cleared, leaving the Japanese the field. 
 
 In a few minutes some sixty came rushing in to find 
 their sturdy foemen a minus quantity. Speeches fol- 
 lowed, and it was at last decided that the place was a blot 
 on the Hata Men Street and had never treated them 
 fairly anyway. So they broke up the furniture, smashed 
 the mirrors, broke the lamps — in short, demolished the 
 whole shop. 
 
 No international complications will follow, for it was 
 the place rather than the Germans that the Japanese 
 were bent on damaging — and they succeeded reasonably 
 well. 
 
 An Anniversary — This, January third, is the anniver- 
 sary of my arrival in Shanghai. Where will Willard be a 
 year from now? A twelvemonth holds as many pos- 
 sibilities — what will happen none but a prophet may tell, 
 and I am not that. 
 
 [In less than a month after this. Straight had resigned 
 from the Customs and was on his way to Japan as a 
 correspondent for the Associated Press and Reuter's in 
 the Russo-Japanese War.] 
 
 17
 
 
 t^t\er» 
 
 Chapter 111 
 WAR CORRESPONDENT 
 
 ON Tuesday evening the first of the mighty host of 
 rumors which are sure to set tongues wagging 
 during the next few months came in, telling of 
 the heavy firing that had been heard at Shanhai-kuan and 
 Peitai-ho, towns on the Gulf of Peichihli and about a 
 hundred miles in a straight line from Port Arthur." 
 
 Willard Straight made this entry in his diary February 
 10, 1904. It was his record of the ojjening of the Russo- 
 Japanese War. And he continued to tell of the excite- 
 ment in Peking in the days following. 
 
 "Saw Morrison at noon and he was jubilant. 'I have 
 waited six years for this war and I've ho[)ed for it and 
 prayed for it, and when the telegram came the other 
 night, I could hardly sleep, I was so excited.' He carries 
 a small sort of Brassey in his pocket with the names of 
 all cruisers in the Far East ticked off in Idue pencil most 
 methodical! 
 
 "The Japanese have been fiistributing small handl)ills 
 — yesterday, with the story of their first victories; today, 
 with the dates when war began. They have posted a 
 huge bulletin in the Chien Men arch, the busiest part of 
 the city, and a man stands pointing it out to passers-by. 
 It seems a strange move with many potentialities. It is 
 the time of year [Chinese New Year] when the most 
 gossiping is done, so that the whole city is agog. Then, 
 too, the place is full of Mongols and Russian prestige is 
 bound to suffer tremendously. For these nomads will 
 carry the story of the Muscovite defeat |the rumor of 
 Japanese torpedo-boats sliding in among the Russian 
 fleet, sinking battle-ships] back to their native plains all 
 through Central Asia. The terror with which the name 
 of the Creat White Czar fdls the wanderer's breast will 
 turn as the story of his reverses is passed from niirl to 
 yitrl. 
 
 "Sir Robert had Shanghai and Chefoo telegrams telling 
 of the annihilation of the Russian fleet off Port Arthur. 
 Mr. Aglen brought the news to the office. The staff im- 
 mediately turned itself into a council of war. Kurosawa 
 had been sent off post haste to the Japanese Minister to 
 verify, if possible, the current rumors. He came back 
 trembling with excitement. Nothing official had been 
 received, nothing but, he added, it seemed that there 
 had been a wire telling of a naval engagement. Yes, 
 something of that sort was known. It might be true; he 
 didn't know. 'Y-you know I d-don't take much interest 
 in all these rumors; I am a peace man.' And he sat down 
 with the despatch upside down in front of him. One 
 could see that he was full of information, wild with a de- 
 sire to tell, yet keeping a stiff hold until finally the strain 
 was too great and he burst forth. 
 
 "The SliKii Tim Sliih Pao, the Chino-Japanese paper 
 that has been distributing the extras, has been instructed 
 that any such course in the future will be severely dealt 
 with. This comes from the Legation. How far this 
 outward show may be sincere no one can tell. Certainly 
 the wholesale diffusion of the news of Japanese victories 
 has had a tremendous effect on the Chinese mind and the 
 city is highly excited. The common people are said to 
 believe that China is again at war with the foreign Pow- 
 ers, that the Russian losses have been inflicted by Chinese 
 men-of-war and that the troops at Shanhai-kuan will 
 soon come into collision with the Czar's forces. This 
 may lead to unpleasant develoi)ments if it be not stopped 
 at once." 
 
 The news brought (luick action from Straight. "The 
 last week has witnessed about, as complete a change in all 
 my plans as could well lie imagined. On Tuesday night 
 came a wire from Collins (Robert Moore Collins, Peking 
 
 18
 
 
 correspondent for the 
 Associated Press and 
 Reuter's], directing 
 Gatrell to send me on 
 to Nagasaki. My de- 
 light knew no bounds. 
 The time for which I 
 had been hoping for 
 nearly two months 
 past had come at last, 
 and it was time for me to 
 decide whether or not 
 the Customs could hold 
 me in its Dragon's 
 claws. On Wednesday 
 morning I saw Aglen, 
 who, at his morning's interview, told the I. G. that I 
 wanted to leave to go to the front as a war correspondent. 
 When I saw Sir Robert a little while after, he was very 
 kind indeed. 
 
 "I received many letters from many people: from Mr. 
 Conger [American minister at Peking] to Griseom and Al- 
 len [American ministers at Tokyo and Seoul respectively[, 
 from Sir Ernest [Sir Ernest Satow, British minister at 
 PekingI to Sir Claude Macdonald [British minister at 
 Tokyo[, Jordan [British minister at Seoul], Brinkley and 
 Young [British editors in Japan], as w-ell as Viscount Aoki, 
 formerly minister for Foreign Affairs, from Uchida [Japa- 
 nese minister at Peking] to Baron Komura [minister for 
 Foreign Affairs[ and Baron Chinda, as well as Major Gen- 
 eral Fukushima, from Mumm to Graf von Arco-Valley, as 
 well as minor ones to more mod- 
 est people. Thus equipped I 
 could say farewell to the steady 
 old service, particularly since, 
 on leaving, the I. G. had written 
 me a very nice letter and sent 
 me his photograph, telling me — 
 at least, so it seemed — through 
 Aglen, that, when I was looking 
 for something else in China, I 
 had better go to him first." 
 
 Men from all the legations, 
 from his own Customs circle 
 and from the banks and trading 
 companies, came to see Straight 
 off at the train. ''I have 
 burned my bridges" this in a 
 letter to Claude Bragdon, the 
 architect in whose office he had 
 once worked during a summer 
 vacation — "and am off to the 
 wars as a correspondent for 
 Reuter's and the A. P., with a 
 sketch-book in one hand and a 
 pad in the other and a telegraph 
 wire around my neck. I am in 
 high fettle, for I see chances for 
 much exciting e.xperience and 
 many real sketches." 
 
 At Tokyo, Straight soon dis- 
 covered that the conditions of 
 modern warfare imposed new 
 limitations upon the war cor- 
 respondent's freedom of ac- 
 
 THE KOREAN — CALM AND 
 CONTENT WITH THE WORLD 
 
 tion, and that the 
 Japanese taxed his 
 powers to the utmost. 
 "The air of the Im- 
 perial Hotel was a 
 bright blue from early 
 morn to golden sun- 
 set," he wrote. "F'a- 
 mous correspondents, 
 veterans of countless 
 campaigns, were held 
 up, bound hand and 
 foot, by the dapper lit- 
 tle Orientals whose at- 
 titude throughout has 
 been greatly wondered 
 at and most profanely admired. There was a Knight 
 of the Telegraph, who lost an arm in South Africa; 
 Melton Prior, the artist of the lUuMrated London News; 
 O. K. Davis, with Richard [Richard Harding Davis[ on 
 the road; Frederick Palmer of Collier's; Bass of the 
 Chicago Herald; Martin Egan of the Associated Press; 
 Collins for Reuter's and a host of others less notable but 
 equally discontent. The situation is unique in the 
 annals of journalism. A government holding the rabid 
 pressmen at a distance, censoring their simplest stories, 
 yet patting them on the back, dining them, wining them, 
 giving them picnics and luncheons and theatrical per- 
 formances, and trying in every way to make their stay a 
 pleasant one, but, siren-like, to deaden their sense of duty 
 and their desire to get into the field, affords a spectacle 
 
 that few have ever witnessed. 
 Yet such is the daring game 
 that the Japanese government 
 has taken upon itself to play." 
 Japan brought back to him 
 memories of his childhood days 
 in Tokyo. "The street smells 
 were old friends," he wrote at 
 Kobe on his way to the capital. 
 "I knew the rancid odor of the 
 fish-shops, the reek of the 
 pickled turnips, the scent of the 
 bean-cake; and across the chasm 
 of the years came recollections 
 of the highways I had rick- 
 shawed through in the old days 
 when Japan was not the world- 
 power she has made herself 
 today. There is a refinement 
 in the architecture, a delicacy 
 in even the wooden lattice on 
 the meanest house, that charms 
 one after the heavy rudeness of 
 the Chinese street." But the 
 encroachments of the western 
 world spoiled the picture when 
 he had seen a little more of 
 Tokyo. "To see a gray-haired 
 Oriental, in silk and in wooden 
 shoes, strangely capped with a 
 Dutch derby or something 
 equally comic, stepping from a 
 modern electric car, has in it an 
 element of unfitness. Flowered, 
 
 19
 
 well-drawn posters proclaim the merits of various kinds 
 of beer. The countryside is made hideous with great 
 white characters advertising cigarettes. One hoped that 
 the Japanese, an essentially artistic race, might have 
 retained their ancient traditions, simple, delicate, esthet- 
 ic, yet be a business people at the same time. But the 
 race for the almighty dollar has in it some insidious poison 
 that taints the purest ideals." 
 
 As a war correspondent. Straight was a speculation. 
 He was neither conversant with the tricks of the reporter's 
 trade, nor had he had occasion to discover whether he had 
 a "nose for news". It was no doubt his consuming 
 interest in the international struggle, even more than his 
 quick intelligence, that first sugg(>sted him to Collins as 
 promising material. With the imprisoned group of 
 correspondents of international reputation, under the 
 orders of two veterans, Collins and Martin Egan, his 
 first lesson in practical newspaper work began. His 
 daily task consisted in going back and forth between the 
 offices of diplomats and government officials. When the 
 newspaper men were finally let out of leash, the Japanese 
 and Russian armies confronted each other along the Yalu, 
 which forms the boundary between Korea and Man- 
 churia. Seoul, the capital of Korea, was the chief inland 
 station on the rumor line. Straight was assigned to 
 cover it. The Japanese were absolute masters of Korea 
 as .soon as war with Ru.ssia began. They usefl the t)orts 
 and shipping, government buildings and grounds as they 
 pleased. Troops were quartered and fed on the country 
 as the military operations demanded. According to 
 the new treaty, Japan guaranteed the integrity and 
 independence of Korea this sounded well but it ac- 
 tually a.ssumed a protectorate. It had a thorough con- 
 tempt for its ward and took no pains to conceal it. 
 Not only did Tokyo dictate the policy as to foreign 
 
 affairs — it virtually took over the internal administration- 
 Straight's rare gift for winning the confidence of men in 
 high place compensated for his lack of newspaper ex- 
 perience. He was soon on friendly terms with the 
 Japanese officials stationed in Seoul, the personages of 
 the native imperial court, and, more important, with 
 half a dozen or so Americans and Englishmen who had 
 lived in Korea many years, who knew the ins and outs of 
 governmental and social life, and who were prepared to 
 give invaluable hints to a stranger to whom they took a 
 liking. 
 
 "McDonnel and myself dined with Hagiwara and 
 Kuroda at a Japanese restaurant," Straight wrote in 
 May. "Geishas danced and I cannot say that I was 
 particularly impressed. Their attitudes seemed awk- 
 ward, particularly the strange heel and toe movement. 
 Hagiwara's song on the beauties of Seoul impressed me 
 more than anything else. He, the first secretary of the 
 Legation, sat there and sang of the spring flowers, the 
 tender greens of the foliage near his home, of the summer 
 scenes on the river, the silver shining moon, of the autumn 
 and the golden maple, of the snows that come with the 
 shortened days, and the whitened hills. He improvised 
 as he went along. He seemed so near to nature! It is 
 the keynote of Japanese life. The diplomat, the man 
 who with his chiefs outwitted the Russians, sang of the 
 simple woodland and its charms. We cold Westerners 
 are too fearful of raising a scornful laugh ever to show our 
 true feelings in such an open way. The soldier fighting 
 with every scientific appliance known in modern warfare, 
 understanding its mechanism, finds pleasure in admiring 
 the iris bloom or the cherry blossoms!" 
 
 But, despite the help he got from the friends he made, 
 Straight feared that he was not breaking even in the 
 news race. "Stiff competition, certainly," he wrote 
 after running back and forth between legations. "I 
 was well discouraged this afternoon after making two 
 absolutely futile visits to the Foreign Office. I've been 
 in charge two days and sent three wires, of what value I 
 know not. Time will tell. 
 
 "The more I read in the other papers, the more I am 
 
 
 ^,»l;^. 
 
 
 AN AKGUMKNT 
 
 20
 
 convinced that my lack of experience is a great handicap, 
 a difficulty that must and will be overcome. Another 
 thing — I must not say unkind things about people, nor 
 must I get too enthusiastic. Freshness must above all 
 things be avoided. What a damned fool one can be on 
 occasion! Steady at the game, always at your intel- 
 lectual best, always observant, making notes that's 
 the way to do it. Now go." 
 
 It interested him to compare the Koreans with other 
 Orientals, both in appearance and in character. 
 
 "There is more color," he wrote, "much more of a 
 pictorial quality, for some reason, than one feels in 
 a Chinese thoroughfare: the white-garbed men, their 
 flimsy hats, sometimes straight, sometimes cocked 
 rakishly over one eye, the huge umbrella under which the 
 mourner wends his way and the small flag-screen he holds 
 to hide the deep lines of sorrow that sadden his features; 
 the women Moorish they seem, almost with their 
 cloaks over their heads. Green is the prevalent color, 
 white is common, purple one seldom sees. Children run 
 about, their pigtails flapping, a gay sight in pink coats. 
 
 "The Korean seems to typify the spirit of the Orient 
 in the chrysalis —a white cocoon. In China it was the 
 Taoist priest who brought back most vividly the mind- 
 picture that fairy tales and mellowed kakemono had 
 formed when I was a small boy in Japan. About the 
 snowy-garbed Korean there is the atmosphere of a 
 Japanese print; there is a thinness of coloring, a softness, 
 that impresses itself upon me, in a sentimental way 
 entirely. So calm, so dignified he seems, so absolutely 
 self-contained, as he saunters on his way he does not 
 stroll nor stride -puffing his pipe, content with the world, 
 evidently and above all content with himself. 
 
 "And in this land so much more benighted, if you will 
 
 "t 
 
 '■ - :,'',J 
 
 <,^■L 
 
 SVrdigKt 
 
 1 9 a S^. 
 
 ,7 
 
 A WHITE-GARBED KOREAN 
 
 GENERAL KUROKI, VICTOR OF THE YALU 
 
 use the term, so much more itself and of itself than its 
 island neighbor- so much less sordid and prosaic than its 
 continental neighbor one finds the trolley-car pounding 
 through the streets, and, strangest of all, the one American 
 business house that I have seen in all the Far East that 
 lives up to its home ideals and observes the regulation 
 oflSce hours, eight to six." 
 
 The Japanese government organized a junket for 
 members of the House of Peers and the House of Com- 
 mons, officials of the Foreign Office and foreign military 
 and naval attaches. Straight was one of the newspaper 
 men who went along on the Manchuria. The plan was 
 to arrive at Port Arthur in time to see the Japanese forces, 
 land and sea, make their final attack. They did not see 
 the fall of Port Arthur — that event was to be postponed 
 for many months but they did sail up the Yalu where 
 they saw the Japanese fleet and were received by the 
 great Admiral Togo on his flag-ship. 
 
 "The little man, quiet, modest, stepped into the 
 crowded, stifling ward-room. He was simple — his face 
 browned by exposure, deep lines around his mouth. He 
 addressed us, through Captain Takarabe as interpreter, 
 and told us that he was honored by our presence. 
 
 "Frederick Villiers started to answer, but Wright, 
 who was standing directly in front of the Admiral, took 
 the words from his mouth and told him what an honor we 
 felt had been conferred upon us. Colquhoun then 
 stepped in and on behalf of the British press thanked the 
 Admiral with further protestations of an undeserved 
 honor. Then, when that had been translated, taking the 
 matter in my own hands, on behalf of the Associated 
 Press, I, too, thanked the Admiral, told him how the 
 American people had followed his every move and 
 
 21
 
 honored him above all the admirals at the present day. 
 He thanked me. The servants brought in champagne 
 and we drank to his health and future victories. It was 
 an international tribute to the Admiral. As in every 
 similar case, he was bored — bored to death." 
 
 Before the party left, Togo signed the sketch that 
 Straight had made of him during the exchange of cour- 
 tesies. 
 
 Toward the end of July, Straight was back in the whirl 
 of Tokyo. Battles had been fought. Well as the war 
 had come so far, the outcome was by no means certain. 
 Everybody was excited and anxious. Frederick Palmer 
 and others were back from the battlefields. They told of 
 the bloody struggles in which Kuroki's armies had been 
 engaged. "Palmer was one of the most interesting of 
 
 J 
 
 
 with the last rays of the closing day. Then the old man 
 arose, as one with the rheumatism, and walked toward his 
 village headquarters. The chill of evening was in the 
 kaoliang, the evening breeze bore the stench of his na- 
 tion's dead, the foul battle-dust, the sound of distant 
 firing." 
 
 "After dinner I had some talk with Donohue of the 
 London Chronicle. He was full of the Sha-ho fight. 
 With Kuroki's army he had been permitted to go every- 
 where and had had his fill of ghastliness. One clump of 
 Russian dead lay huddled in the trenches, surrounded by 
 a ring of dead in Japanese khaki. In the center of the 
 awful pile lay a drummer boy, his arm around his drum, 
 his drumsticks tightly clenched in blood-reddened hands. 
 The sheepskin of the drumheads was torn and riddled. 
 He had played till the bitter end 'the drums of the fore 
 and aft'. General Kuroki was passing by. He looked 
 silently, grimly, over the dead-strewn field. He rode 
 along the trenches and, as he saw the border of this 
 heroic little band, he dismounted, went nearer and 
 
 looked, saluted 
 and walked 
 away." 
 
 I- 
 
 W\ 
 
 ii 
 
 *^ 
 
 §: 
 
 i. M t 
 
 THE HARHDK OF NACA.SAKI 
 
 the returned heroes," Straight wrote. "The Japanese 
 artillery, he says, is not as good as the Russian. The 
 latter can shoot farther and faster. Another point is that 
 the Japanese, in his artillery work as in everything else, is a 
 textbook man. Rule and rote he can appreciate and work 
 out originality he has none. In organization the army 
 doubtless has no superior in the world, but the Japanese 
 soldier hasn't the dash and verve of the white man. 
 
 "After three days of fighting at Heiying-lai, Kuroki 
 seemed to realize that he was up against it. Palmer 
 .saw him on the hillside (previous to a great Japanese vic- 
 tory], so the story goes, sciuatting on his haunches, his 
 head in his hands, looking over the dust-shrouded valley 
 into the red sunset his bronzed faced hard, his eyes steel. 
 The old man had tried every trick and had always been 
 driven back by a leaden hell-fire. These people whom he 
 had defeated stoutly for six months were holding him at 
 last. He looked across at the Russian positions, the 
 white smoke-puffs, the yellow-brown dust, golden-red 
 
 "Davis [Rich- 
 ard Harding] 
 came back day 
 before yester- 
 day. He didn't 
 look as I had 
 imagined he 
 would; nor 
 did he talk in 
 the way. His 
 accent was de- 
 _«^ cidedly Ameri- 
 
 — . -«i; — >-. " . can, his speech 
 quick, his lips 
 firm, his eye ner- 
 vous and bright. 
 Egan says that 
 he was not up to 
 his usual form. 
 The Lady [Mrs. 
 Davis] watched 
 him and smiled contentedly. She beamed. She was 
 happy. Before, she had been lonely a good deal. We 
 had a drink or two. They told stories of the campaign in 
 Manchuria. Davis told the strange story of 'Wang', the 
 servitor and menial to George Lynch of Ireland. Trained 
 was Wang to the ways of the wily correspondent. He 
 had first been washed. He was proud of it and showed 
 his ochered skin with pride, glorying in the paleness of 
 what had formerly been but caked mud. Wang was 
 then sent through the institute, which had a faculty of 
 three. The cigarettes were always to be found under 
 Brill's bed. Davis .signed chits and all visitors were given 
 drinks upon entering the room. There was a small 
 manual in connection with the latter: 'Present!' and 
 Wang held the bottle in front of him; 'Ready!' 'Aim!' 
 'Fire!' and the whisky flowed. 'When' was the signal 
 for brakes but only that. To stop was fatal that is, on 
 the word rather than a little after. Wang had a Tansan 
 opener and corkscrew as his badges of office and was then 
 
 22
 
 A JAPANESE STUDENT 
 
 given a dollar watch. This 
 he wanted to show every- 
 one and compare other 
 people's time with his. 
 Lynch wanted to take him 
 to the front. Wang was 
 not so anxious. When the 
 'show-down' came, there 
 was much wailing and 
 shaking knees. Wang did 
 not go and Lynch trekked 
 for Newchwang without 
 the whisky soldier." 
 
 "Tonight Murata, the 
 inventor of the rifle, dined 
 with us the chief of the 
 General Staff, Yamagata's 
 aide. I came past him as 
 he was making his way 
 toward the house. One 
 of the brightest officers 
 in Japan, he had only a 
 single rickshaw. He was 
 walking up the steep hill 
 — he and his officers. Such simplicity is to be found no- 
 where else in the world. Made fun and told stories 
 about France — was free and easy and delightful. After 
 dinner I sang 'Danny Deever' and 'The British Soldier', 
 which Haraguchi is going to use for the Japanese army. 
 
 "He left early and Sato told us stories -the young 
 man who wanted the sword that he might disembowel the 
 Russians and not have to bite their throats in the hand- 
 to-hand fighting. Then the story of the samurai boy 
 who must once in his life face death make up his mind 
 that he is to die. His own case, at the age of twelve, 
 coming home from school, to find his great-uncle and his 
 mother all serious, a naked sword on a little wooden rack, 
 the house all in order; to be told that he had disgraced 
 the family — he had dishonored his father's sword and 
 killed a dog. He would be given the privilege of com- 
 mitting hara-kiri, for he was a samurai's son. His great- 
 uncle gave him an object lesson, showed him how it was 
 done and told him to proceed, wrapping the blade in 
 paper, that it might not cut his hand, and telling him 
 that he must do as he had seen his great-uncle do, in 
 earnest. The boy begged for mercy. His kinsman and 
 his mother were immovable. Was he afraid to die? 
 If so, they might help him, and the uncle put his hand on 
 his sword. The boy's tears stopped. He knew his time 
 had come and bowed. He opened his dress, rubbed his 
 abdomen three times. He put out his hand and grasped 
 the sword. He knew no more till a cry 'Mate (Stop)' 
 brought him to his senses. The reprieve at last. The 
 knife had been at his vitals. An instant more and he 
 would have been dead by his own hand. He waited, 
 dazed, in a death sweat. His courage had been tested. 
 He had faced death. This is what the Russians are 
 fighting." 
 
 " 'It is too terrible.' The Lieutenant grasped my hand 
 and ushered me into the bare room I knew so well. His 
 clean-cut face, the face of the samurai, was drawn and 
 tired. All night the wires had been coming in from 
 Manchuria. Tales of the bloodiest fight almost — in 
 
 history. 'I have buried l.TjOO,' reports Kuroki. 'There 
 were many more. I estimate the total casualties as 
 about 20,000.' 'We have buried 8,500 Ninth Russians,' 
 telegrai)h('d Marshal Oyama. 'The casualties will ex- 
 ceed 50,000.' 
 
 "The Imperial Headquarters are in a great stucco 
 building, with staring windows, yawning doors. The 
 hallways are wide and bare, cold, gloomy, matting- 
 floored. The entry is flanked with gray benches, where 
 the rickshaw men and coolies wait gleaning the latest 
 news from the messengers scurrying by. Three old men 
 sit at a low desk, their bullet heads sparsely grizzled with 
 stubbly growth, their faces seamed with years and toil 
 and worry. They were muttering and cackling to- 
 day, their blue-uniformed shoulders hunched together. 
 A fringe of sandaled, short-jacketed little boys hung about 
 them, drinking in each word, open-eyed, grave beyond 
 their years. A bell would ring, a small boy scamper off. 
 Oflicers were passing to and fro. There were no signs of 
 elation in their faces. They were appalled, staggered by 
 the horror of the news. 
 
 "I went into the little room at the right of the entry. 
 The typewriter was unhoused and the Lieutenant, the 
 mimeographed sheets before him, translated the rows of — 
 to me — meaningless Chinese characters — and the tale 
 was but half told. Such was war. No wonder that 
 Tokyo was quiet in the face of such a victory jLiao-yangl 
 — a victory that had cost thousands upon thousands of 
 lives. All credit to the Japanese for their forbearance 
 
 KOREAN IN STRAW RAIN-COAT 
 
 23
 
 and consideration, 
 tide of fortune." 
 
 They are as swept along by the flood- 
 
 "It was the Emperor's birthday. He reviewed his 
 troops — twenty-six thousand men more than had ever 
 been massed at one time on the Aoyama field. Yet this 
 was war-time. Hundreds of thousands had gone to 
 Manchuria. They were storming Port Arthur at this 
 moment. 
 
 "The red-and-gilt coach of state rolled on the field. 
 The Japanese bowed profoundly, not daring to raise their 
 eyes. From the masses of troops around the field came a 
 psean of welcome, a fanfai-e of trumpets, no call, no 
 
 remained absolutely still, leaning forward a little, watch- 
 ing his men. He was clad in simple, dark blue coat, white 
 trousers and high boots, a plain cap with a red band — 
 the general field uniform. Behind him were the Crown 
 Prince on the right, then General Katsura, then Prince 
 Arisugawa, then Marshal Yamagata. There was a 
 strangeness about it all: the Emperor, worshiped by 
 his people as more than human, a descendant of the gods, 
 one of the least-known rulers in the world, surrounded by 
 a wealth of oriental tradition, clad in a western uniform, 
 reviewing his troops in the open air. In saluting him, the 
 troops whom he reviewed turned to look on the imperial 
 face — an act which forty years before would have been 
 
 -4. 
 
 f^-lfc^-.^ ' 
 
 DISCUSSING THE SIEGE OF PORT ARTHUR 
 
 rhythm, a shrill, clear volume of sound, beating, rising, 
 falling, grim and in a way uncanny. The cortege stopped 
 in front of the imperial pavilion and his Majesty alighted. 
 
 "The Emperor mounted a coal-black horse, his equerry 
 walked by his side, watching every movement, and one 
 accompanied the Crown Prince as well, though his 
 horsemanship was better than that of the Emperor, who 
 headed the little group of cavaliers in a circling ride 
 around the field. The Body Guard Band, sixty strong, 
 marched forward. They were playing a snappy French 
 march. Then the long line of men, company front, their 
 gaitered legs striking out in their peculiarly Japanese 
 way, which is neither the German goose-step nor yet the 
 French stride. The Captain raised his sword as he passed 
 in front of the Emperor. There was no click of rifles 
 coming to the port. The troops saluted by turning their 
 heads sharply toward the War Lord, and then, as they went 
 beyond, snapping their heads back again eyes to the 
 front. 
 
 "The Mikado sat immovable on his black steed. 
 Before the last gun had wheeled into position, far away 
 on the other side of the field, the Lancers were rustling 
 along, guidons fluttering gaily. Again the horses were 
 small, furry little beasts. The little men who rode them 
 seemed ill at ease. They looked as if they might fall off 
 at any moment. 
 
 "As the seven thousand men went by, the Emperor had 
 
 punishable with death. Yet those men who saluted him 
 were ready to die for him; for to them he was a heaven- 
 born ruler still. Even the crowd, which broke out into 
 the field before he left, and cheered, having done an un- 
 heard-of thing, did not dare to look upon him as he 
 passed. 
 
 "The Emperor drove away. The crowd could no 
 longer be restrained. They rushed forward, and, as the 
 Crown Prince stepped into his carriage, cheered wildly 
 - Banzai! It was a gay crowd. There were rickshaw 
 coolies and small shopkeepers in many colors, bare- 
 armed craftsmen, round-hatted students, bare-legged 
 little boys, men from the nearby bakeshops in white 
 aprons and gauze shirts, showing the muscles of their 
 broad chests. They raised their hands to heaven and 
 shouted again and again. Never had such a thing been 
 done in Japan before. The oflScials were dumfounded. 
 The Crown Prince turned and looked at the crowding 
 faces about him. That was all. The tumult was hushed. 
 The bare heads were bowed. Then he turned again and, 
 as he passed the foreigners' pavilion, saluted. 
 
 "There was real war-worth in that ill-drilled battalion, 
 in the jolty battery, in the awkward squadron. They 
 had left the fields and shops only a few months before. 
 They were not the barrack veterans; they were raw, 
 perhaps; but they had a brilliant record before them, and 
 they were ready to live up to tradition, to fight for 
 
 24
 
 WAITING FOR NEWS 
 FROM THE FRONT 
 
 their Emperor, who 
 reviewed them thai 
 day, as they marched 
 on the sunny field, to 
 the French (julck- 
 step." 
 
 Straight's personal- 
 ity, backed by the 
 letters he had brought 
 from Peking, had won 
 him intimate relation- 
 ship with the leaders 
 of the diplomatic 
 circle and social inter- 
 course with the big 
 men of Japan. 
 
 "There was a most 
 distinguished gather- 
 ing at the Griscoms' 
 [Lloyd Griscom, 
 American minister] 
 last night," he wrote. 
 "Could the Russians 
 have bagged that large, 
 white frame house and sent it kiting to the heart of Siberia, 
 there would have been weeping and gnashing of teeth in 
 the Island Empire. Katsura, the premier, Komura, 
 minister for Foreign Affairs, Yamamoto, minister of the 
 Navy, Marquis Ito, Count Inouye, the builders of empire, 
 Chinda, vice-minister for Foreign Affairs, Ishii and 
 Mutsu (the latter just returned from Washington), 
 Kurino (who had been minister in Petersburg and con- 
 ducted all the ante-bellum negotiations), a fine-looking 
 dark man, keen and alert. The dinner was for Stevens, 
 the newly appointed 'Dictator of Korea', Japanese 
 nominee, adviser for Foreign Affairs to his Majesty the 
 Emperor of the Hermit Kingdom. There was Denison, 
 the power behind the throne in Japan, the foreign 
 adviser and the brains of the 'Department of State', 
 Ogawa and Nagasaki and others less prominent in the 
 Japanese world. Here was the Marchioness Oyama, a 
 charming woman, her face beautiful, the wife of the 
 Japanese Commander-in-Chief, talking, chatting, when 
 her heart must have been far away in the plains of Man- 
 churia where her husband was leading her country's war- 
 sons to do battle for the Rising Sun. Several other Jap- 
 anese ladies, less distinguished, all gathered about that 
 sweetest of hostesses, Mrs. Griscom, a rare lady, eerie 
 almost, gay as a girl. 
 
 "Robinson and I chatted with Marquis Ito, about 
 cigarettes mostly. I had last seen him in Korea at Mile. 
 Sontag's and the great reception. This affair was 
 different. Later we found him absorbed in reading the 
 advertisements in the Cosmopolitan. Strange pastime 
 for an Elder Statesman." 
 
 "It 's a great thing, the evening session around the table 
 at the club. One is not privileged every day to drink 
 one's evening cocktail with the man who has the foreign 
 relations of a nation in his hands. That certainly is 
 very nearly Denison's position. He was the man who 
 did all the ante-bellum correspondence and he is the man 
 who will tell the Japanese how to make peace when the 
 time comes. He has served them many years well." 
 
 "Then it was Marchioness Oyama. On Sunday after- 
 noon I went to call by appointment. Two nights before, 
 at the Wilsons', I had met her and in talking had dis- 
 covered that she it was who had known and been a 
 fricnri of my mother, and that it had been in the clothes 
 of her children that the pictures of my sister and myself 
 had been taken. It was at this same dinner that she 
 had told the story of her imprisonment as a little girl in 
 the castle of Ise, when she had to make cartridges for the 
 men on the rami)art, when the women had to put out the 
 fires kindled by the besiegers' fire, and when they all 
 went about carrying knives that they might kill them- 
 selves should the place be taken by a.ssault. Here it was 
 that they were besieged for thirty days, and, when they 
 finally surrendered, the whole countryside was cleared of 
 the farmers and all were sent north transplanted root and 
 branch and Marshal Oyama had been among the be- 
 siegers and, wounded, had been forced to return to Tokyo." 
 
 The time for peace was approaching. 
 
 "On the morning of January 2, 1905," wrote Straight in 
 Tokyo, on the fall of Port Arthur, "came the news of 
 Stoessel's offer to discuss terms. Egan had gone to the 
 General Staff. I was finishing a late breakfast when the 
 call came for me to tear off to the telegraph office to 
 deposit enough money to carry. 
 
 "As I hurried through the streets the gogai men were 
 just rushing out with their freshly printed extras, shout- 
 ing as I had never heard them shout before. Shop- 
 keepers, householders were dashing out into the road- 
 way to seize a sheet, then go mad with joy. Students, 
 soldiers, rickshaw men, passing ofllcials in their 
 holiday raiment peered over each other's shoulders, 
 raised their hands to heaven, 
 screaming with joy. The 
 foolish Japanese bands were 
 soon braying through the 
 city; processions were form- 
 ing everywhere, waving 
 flags, shouting 'Banzai'. 
 From that time to this there 
 has been no rest. All day 
 and night the people are 
 marching the streets — 
 schools, merchants, guilds, 
 the 'Nihombashi Fishmon- 
 gers', the 'Shiba Dyers' all 
 in their best clothing, 
 strangely capped with white 
 sailor hats or red-and-blue 
 jockey arrangements, pa- 
 rading here and there. At 
 night Hibiya Park is ablaze 
 with lights. It seems al- 
 most as if the first two or 
 three days' celebrations 
 were only by way of prac- 
 tice, as if the people didn't 
 realize fully that the enemy 
 had been delivered into their 
 hands. Now the organized 
 merrymaking has com- 
 menced. For ten years they 
 have waited and they have 
 a right to their triumph." 
 
 SIR ER.VEST SATOW 
 
 25
 
 But the Japanese Foreign Office raised "a frightful 
 stew" about a cable the Associated Press sent out that 
 America, France, England were being talked of as pos- 
 sible direct or indirect peace intermediaries. They sent 
 for the Associated Press man. How did he feel warranted 
 in saj-ing that Japan was prepared to make terms charac- 
 terized as reasonable? The war party in Russia would 
 appreciate such a telegram as evidence of Japanese 
 weakness. Accordingly, another telegram was sent out, 
 quoting "a certain Japanese official" as denying the 
 report. That seemed to satisfy the Foreign Office. Of 
 course, Theodore Roosevelt's letters prove that the As- 
 sociated Press was perfectly correct in its first despatch 
 and ahead of the crowd on the news, and the Associated 
 Press men were aware of the fact. 
 
 "It seems to me in the street," Straight wrote, "that, 
 should it come to a pinch, Baron Komura and his fellows 
 might be quite prepared to shake hands behind some one's 
 broad protecting back." 
 
 The war was by no means over. 
 
 "I am enjo>4ng Tokyo," wrote Straight. "But it is 
 not War and that is what I started out 'for to see'. If 
 the army goes to Vladivostok, I am hoping to form part of 
 that expedition." 
 
 After several weeks in charge of the Associated Press 
 office in Egan's absence. Straight got away to Newchwang 
 to go up to the front. 
 
 "Far away to the north the armies are waiting to spring 
 at one another's throats; Kuropatkin and Oyama bide 
 their time. Even now, while we are riding at anchor, there 
 may be a great battle on, in or near the old Manchu city." 
 
 Word had been sent on ahead from the Tokyo govern- 
 ment. The powerful Baron Komura himself had written 
 to the Japanese Consul, Segawa, to say that the young 
 American, Willard Straight, was to have courteous at- 
 tention and all possible aid. It was this impressive 
 backing, in addition to the prestige of the two great 
 news-gathering agencies he represented, that passed him 
 through to the headquarters of Marshal Oyama and 
 General Kuroki. 
 
 "Marshal Oyama entered the room, not with the sharp 
 quick-step, but with a little shuffle," wrote Straight of 
 their meeting. "'I have heard from Mr. Griscom and 
 Sir Claude about you,' he said. 'They asked me to do all 
 I could and I promised to do so.' I told him that his 
 hospitality was all that could be desired more. His 
 throat was bandaged. It was from the trip to the 
 Tombs, made the day before. It was nothing, he said, 
 but he could not smoke for the moment, that was all. 
 He was clad in a general's simple blue uniform, with 
 a line of places for orders on his breast, and his field mar- 
 shal's badge as his only decoration. If one did not know 
 who and what he was, one would never imagine that this 
 simple, friendly old gentleman was the commander of 
 4.50,000 of his countrymen. So kindly, so absolutely 
 unassuming! He did not have much to say seemed 
 pleased when I asked him when he would move his head- 
 quarters to Harbin, but did not answer. He had been 
 sixteen years minister of war. He was a soldier, not a 
 politician. It was his first visit to Mukden a conqueror, 
 not a visitor merely. He would let me come in to make 
 a quick sketch at any time, as soon as he was better. 
 He had come alone to a Chinese palace, to welcome a 
 
 humble stranger. The courts were bare, only an oc- 
 casional soldier stirring here and there, no dashing in of 
 orderlies, no clanking of generals' spurs and boots." 
 
 Straight found General Kuroki, the victor of the Yalu, 
 equally simple. 
 
 "He was very kindly. There was little said. He 
 puffed tentatively at a cigarette, laughed a great deal, 
 smiled. Later, General Fujii, the chief of Staff, came in. 
 He was much jollier, but had little to say. The General 
 did, however, give me permission to come in and sketch 
 him at any time. He wore the simple black field uniform 
 of the general and a pair of heavy felt, fur-edged Chinese 
 slippers. On one side of his room was a rough steel bed. 
 An overcoat hung on the brown wall, two or three pairs of 
 boots near by. Kuroki had just received two old Polish 
 coins from a clothing merchant in Toledo, Ohio, who asked 
 in return some small souvenir, even a bit of a Russian 
 uniform. Kuroki said that he was going to Poland as 
 soon as the war was over — so many letters had he re- 
 ceived from beautiful Polish ladies. His eyes were his 
 most striking feature, liquid brown, sparkling, the whites 
 of a yellowing brown, always smiling and laughing in a 
 friendly way. With his knife he showed how the First, 
 Third and Fourth armies had come together at Tiehling. 
 The General proposed my health in an aluminum cup of 
 Russian champagne. Later, I had a chance to sketch the 
 old gentleman, who wanted hair on the bald spots and 
 a black moustache put in the picture. He has a fine grim 
 mouth, prominent cheek bones, a hard bullet head. 
 
 "Today I finished the sketch of General Kuroki. I 
 rose to go but the General asked me to stop and talk a bit. 
 He said that in many respects this campaign had been 
 harder than his other fights, more of it and longer drawn 
 out. He thought that the Russians had been learning a 
 great deal— that they fought much better at Mukden 
 than they had ever done on the Yalu. But he thought 
 that they were discouraged and disheartened. Many 
 deserters had come in. They were tired of war. The 
 trouble with them always had been that their officers 
 were the first to run away. How could the men be 
 expected to fight? Maybe Harbin next. He asked 
 about Togo and the Manchu Maru and how she was fitted 
 up and said that he wanted to return to Japan in her 
 much more than in a battle-ship. He would like to be com- 
 fortable, but he really preferred war to peace, Manchuria 
 to Tokyo, for it was his business, his profession, soldiering. 
 
 "I picture in my mind the little tent in the hills where 
 he sits for hours and hours, looking over the hills and 
 valleys, doing nothing but smoke and think and dream! 
 
 "Only a little while and General Kuroki and General 
 Fujii were having him in constantly as a guest at their 
 mess," wrote Collins of Straight. "Incidentally, his pres- 
 ence was a tonic and delight to the only correspondents 
 then left with the army- somewhat in the position of 
 prisoners of state Frederick Palmer and myself." 
 
 Straight remained with the Japanese Army going up 
 to the front with General Pershing, who was there for the 
 United States Army until President Roosevelt's proposal 
 put an end to hostilities. Then he went back to Tokyo, 
 closed his connections with the Associated Press and 
 Reuter's, and was appointed private secretary to the 
 new American Minister to Korea, Edwin V. Morgan, 
 under the title of vice-consul. 
 
 26
 
 Chapter IV 
 
 AT THE LEGATION IN KOREA 
 
 WHEN Edwin V. Morgan went to Seoul as Min- 
 ister to Korea after the close of the Russo-Japa- 
 nese War, in 1905, Willard Straight was appointed 
 his secretary, under the official title of vice-consul-gen- 
 eral. Already, when stationed there for Reuter's and 
 the Associated Press during the war, he had had the 
 chance to witness the inner workings of one of the most 
 futile, corrupt, and withal the most comical governments 
 that the world has ever known. His position of secre- 
 tary to the American Minister gave him now a yet more 
 intimate view. 
 
 He was torn between the impulse to mourn for Korea 
 and the impulse to laugh at it. The suicide of the learned 
 and patriotic Min Yong Whan upon the surrender to 
 Japan could but evoke compassion for both this honored 
 old man and his betrayed fatherland. But the Emperor, 
 compelling his ministers to sign the surrender and then 
 denying all responsibility for it, trembling with fright 
 while he hid in a rear apartment with his favorite mis- 
 tress — here indeed was a fit subject for mockery. 
 
 First of all official ceremonies, upon the arrival of the 
 new Minister, was the audience with the Emperor. 
 Straight has left an account of it in his diary. 
 
 "I had been unpacking, so that I left for the hotel to 
 dress about half an hour before we were due at the palace. 
 My 'boy' had been ill and was not about. In conse- 
 quence, I had to start all the Korean servants on a still hunt 
 through my trunks to find white neckties and gloves and 
 the rest of the paraphernalia. The result was that I was 
 clothed but not dressed, and arrived at the Legation just 
 as the procession was getting under way. That of 
 course was very bad form. There was a Korean palace 
 official in his gold clothes walking beside the Minister's 
 chair, the buglers were tooting, and all was most impres- 
 sive while I, my tall hat over one eye, my necktie around 
 itty ears and my coat on any old way, rushed by in a 
 rickshaw. 
 
 "That upset things a little, for the palace is just ne.xt 
 door. Luckily I found my chair and, by making the 
 coolies run — a most undignified thing for the rising young 
 diplomat — I was able to bring up a very bad last. With 
 my face dripping, I bowed my way in at the Palace past 
 the Lord High Chamberlain and all the generals of the 
 
 Korean army. As it is mostly generals, there were a 
 good many. 
 
 "Dixey [Arthur Sturgis Dixey, student interpreter, 
 much admired by Straight] was the greatest thing you 
 ever saw. He was clad in the white coat and heaven- 
 blue breeks of the Boston Cadets. You might think that 
 he was a lieutenant-colonel. But he's only a high private. 
 Of course, though, he had a sword. That was borrowed 
 from the British Legation. There had been a major of 
 a Scotch regiment here, who had luckily left one of his 
 weapons behind. Paddock [United States consul-gen- 
 eral 1 and I were in evening dress. The Koreans were 
 much impressed by the fine turnout and the Baby Prince, 
 the 'Omelet', as he is called, being the son of Lady Om, 
 the Number One Concubine, could not take his eyes off 
 the brilliant Dixey, and the Marine officer was jealous. 
 
 "After much to-do we were ushered into the Imperial 
 Presence. The Emperor, the Crown Prince and the 
 Chief Eunuch had draped themselves tastefully around 
 a table at one side of the room. The Emperor (on ac- 
 count of the death of the Crown Princess) had on the 
 mourning dress of grass-cloth and was capped by one of 
 the little winged things that you see in old Chinese pic- 
 tures of Ming court scenes. He seemed very much 
 interested in everything, particularly in Dixey's uniform. 
 Mr. Morgan gave him an autograph letter from the 
 President, which I had been holding with both hands — 
 all swaddled in imperial yellow silk. Out in the hall the 
 eunuchs were holding the Baby Prince on their shoulders 
 so that he could see what his father and the foreigners 
 were doing. We could hear him asking questions in a 
 heavy stage whisper. 
 
 "The Minister's interpreter, in blue and gold and 
 pigeon's-egg trimmings, stood by with head lowered. 
 At all the nice parts of the Minister's speech about the 
 ties that bound the two nations and our great interest 
 in His Majesty's health, the Emperor smiled all around. 
 He replied in a few hackneyed words and asked us each 
 a question in turn. Then we bowed ourselves out. That 
 was all, except the sweet champagne after we went into 
 the ante-chamber. Never was place better named than 
 that ante-chamber; for it is there that all the Japanese 
 demands are presented and the poor Korean monarch 
 
 27
 
 ^t*^- 
 
 t} 
 
 
 ) 
 
 
 has to 'fork out' a good deal of his hard-squeezed wealth. 
 "The palace is right next door to the Legation, and so, 
 when we reached our own yard, we could see the Em- 
 peror on his side porch, rubbering over to see how we got 
 out of our chairs. Of course we paid no attention. 
 Later the Baby Prince was held up again by the eunuchs 
 and he too had a look at how we paid 
 off the guard of honor, ten dollars per." 
 From the friends that he made 
 among the old residents of Seoul, 
 Straight learned much of the recent 
 history of the country. For a long 
 time Korea had been, as he described 
 it, a pawn on the Far Eastern chess- 
 board. In Korea was to be found the 
 e.xtreme case of foreign exploitation. 
 An offshoot of China, it had become an 
 independent kingdom only to be 
 turned into a battleground for the con- 
 tending interests of Russia and Japan. 
 A corrupt and degenerate court made 
 the country an easy victim for the out- 
 sider with the deepest craft and the 
 longest purse. For Russia it was like 
 a great finger reaching out for the com- 
 mercial and political domination of the 
 Pacific. To Japan, it was valuable 
 for both defensive and offensive rea- 
 sons. If Russia became master, Korea 
 would be a continual threat. But if 
 Japan herself could take command, 
 Korea would become, not only a field 
 for Japanese trade and a colony for 
 settlement by an overflowing popula- 
 tion, but also a priceless base of opera- 
 tions against Russia in Manchuria. 
 At the outset of her war with Russia, 
 Japan, with overpowering force, took 
 possession of the country. 
 
 Straight's principal source of infor- 
 mation as to what had been passing in 
 Korea for a score of years was Mc- 
 Leavy Brown (since become Sir John 
 McLeavy Brown), then chief of Korean 
 customs. He was the protector of the 
 nation's finances, occupying a position 
 similar to that of Sir Robert Hart in 
 China. A genial gentleman, a trifle 
 cynical, he knew Japanese and Korean 
 character in all their twists and turns, 
 and did not hesitate to give his opinion 
 of either, gained from his pivotal position in the customs. 
 
 "Brown had the key to the Treasury," wrote Straight 
 after a dinner at which the veteran customs official had 
 related some of his experiences with the court, "and 
 whenever the Koreans came for money, he refused them 
 unless their case was a good one. Once the Russians, 
 whose policy it was to let them do all the foolishness they 
 could conceive of (and that was a good deal), told them 
 to take as much as they wanted to. This pleased the 
 Koreans. They took a hundred rickshaw coolies and 
 went away laden with one hundred cases, each containing 
 two thousand silver yen. 
 
 "This money was taken into the palace and there the 
 Emperor howled with joy. It is reported that he danced 
 
 
 
 l«l»^ 
 
 •S" 
 
 JAPANESE SOLDIER IN KOREA 
 
 with pleasure around the silver boxes, and I can easily 
 imagine him, with the eunuchs standing around with 
 their tongues hanging out, thinking how much of it would 
 eventually find its way into their clothes. His Majesty 
 bestowed a large fistful on the principal thief and more 
 on the others; then all the servants came forward with 
 outstretched hands, begging for their 
 share. They all had it and, when they 
 were through, no one knew what had 
 become of the money. It seems that a 
 week later Mr. Brown, out of curiosity, 
 asked them what they had done with 
 it and they answered that they did not 
 know. 
 
 "Then there is the story of a Japa- 
 nese company's transactions with the 
 government. The trouble started 
 when the Emperor awoke one day to 
 the fact that his colleagues, rulers of 
 the East, were all emperors while he at 
 that time was only a king. The im- 
 perial coronation should be the occa- 
 sion for much merrymaking. There 
 should be foreign fleets and foreign 
 representatives. 
 
 "So it was arranged. The local of- 
 ficials, always glad for a new chance at 
 graft, entered into the spirit of the 
 celebration. Certainly they were the 
 principal beneficiaries, after the Jap- 
 anese. There should be a fleet. Sev- 
 enteen admirals were appointed. For 
 300,000 yen they purchased an old 
 collier. They paid 200,000 yen and 
 claimed that the company owed them 
 the balance (for a ginseng crop). The 
 company refused to accept these terms. 
 For an additional 100,000 yen they al- 
 lowed the Koreans to hoist their flag 
 on the steamer which they painted 
 white and cleaned, raising her value 
 from the original 20,000 yen to about 
 2.5,000. 
 
 "When war broke out, the Japanese 
 seized this one Korean man-o'-war and 
 used her in their first attempt to block 
 the entrance to Port Arthur. That 
 showed how much they thought the 
 400,000-yen ship was worth. The 
 company still claims the balance of the 
 account and it will be taken from the 
 Koreans sooner or later. 
 
 "On another occaaion the Emperor decided that he 
 must have a coach. From somewhere in Tonkin or 
 Japan or from some Shanghai livery-stable a wonderful 
 old victoria was resurrected. This was gilded and the 
 wheels painted red and the insides thereof upholstered 
 in yellow. This cost the Emperor some 20,000 yen. It 
 was really a very handsome affair and made an extraor- 
 dinarily good place for the palace coolies to sleep when 
 it was finally stored in an outhouse. 
 
 "Of course fine horses had to be piircliased to draw the 
 coach. The Master of the Imperial Stud accumulated 
 somewhere a collection of w'> ii-out barbs and some artil- 
 lery horses from North China. They stayed in the 
 
 \ 
 
 28
 
 ?•'■ 
 
 Royal Stables until some 
 months later, after almost 
 starving to death, although a 
 liberal sum had been provided 
 each month for their up-keep. 
 They were finally eaten, one 
 by one, by the stable-boys. 
 
 "The latest gold brick seems 
 to be the acquisition of an an- 
 tiquated .Japanese fountain, 
 brought from some small, 
 rural park in Japan and sold to 
 the court for 150,000 yen. 
 This is supplied from a water- 
 works system erected by the 
 Japanese. They have laid a 
 line of pipes from an alleged 
 spring in the hills and, when 
 they want the fountain to 
 play, they send coolies into the 
 hills to pour water down the 
 upper end. There are no 
 
 springs in the vicinity and the pipes were never laid more 
 than half way to the source they were supposed to tap." 
 
 The Emperor had many ways of squandering money, 
 but the one he liked best was trying to get back political 
 refugees who had gone to hide in Japan. He wanted 
 them for decapitation. Almost anybody who would 
 come to him with a new scheme for bringing back the of- 
 fenders, would get a full purse with which to try out his 
 plan. In the palace there was a sort of household treas- 
 ury where the revenue from the sale of ofiices and other 
 evil sources was kept, and this was used for all manner of 
 strange things, according to the whim of the ruler. 
 
 The American firm of CoUbran and Bostwick repre- 
 sented modern enterprise and big business in Korea. 
 The electric railway in Seoul, the lighting, the telephones, 
 were only a part of their miscellaneous ventures. 
 
 "Not a week passes but the Emperor wants something 
 or other," wrote Straight. "His is a comic opera court 
 at best, and there are many comic opera wants. But this 
 wonderful firm finds means of satisfying every whim. 
 Sometimes it is expensive. On the Emperor's 
 birthday Collbran and Bostwick presented 
 to him a splendid diamond with their best 
 wishes. His Majesty was overjoyed, but his 
 pleasure was short-lived, for the Crown Prince 
 looked upon the jewel with envious eyes. 
 Being a tender, loving parent, the Emperor 
 gave it to his son. As usual in his bereave- 
 ment he bethought himself of his business 
 advisers, and sent word to them. 'We have 
 presented the diamond you gave us to our son 
 the Crown Prince.' To use the vernacular: 
 'It is up to you.' Needless to say the hint 
 was acted upon and another stone was pro- 
 cured. 
 
 "The native court's idea of reform is well 
 illustrated by the pet scheme of one Min Yong 
 Whan, late Ambassador to the Coronation of 
 the Czar, Minister to Washington and to ■^■. 
 Paris and the Lord knows what all besides. 
 After close study of Occidental conditions he 
 decided that the one thing necessary to eman- 
 cipate completely his benighted land from 
 
 ^.liiSlaSSZUlt^ 
 
 \ 
 
 i^ 
 
 'i 
 
 SIK JOHN McLEAVY BROWN 
 
 senseless reverence for the 
 past would be to import a 
 troupe of French actresses and 
 start a Seoul opera. His Maj- 
 esty, influenced by his trusted 
 henchman, had appropriated 
 100,000 yen for the project. 
 
 "A Frenchman was engaged 
 to arrange everything. The 
 Emperor was bent upon build- 
 ing a fine palace for the benefit 
 of the ladies. Then someone 
 made away with the 100,000 yen 
 and the scheme fell through. 
 But that was the plan sug- 
 gested by a man who even 
 to-day is considered one of the 
 leading lights in the political 
 world." 
 
 One of Brown's reminis- 
 cences, set down by Straight, 
 was of the murder of the 
 Queen, a decade before Straight came to Seoul. 
 
 "When the firing commenced early in the morning, the 
 foreigners immediately went to the Palace. On his way 
 to the gate Brown picked up the War Minister, who, clad 
 in his red armor, was evidently well aware that something 
 was up. With some of the foreign representatives Brown 
 went back to the King's apartment north of the Lotus 
 Pond. They asked him where the Queen was. He did 
 not know. She was even then burning about a hundred 
 feet away. When the Japanese or Koreans, whoever it 
 was that committed the deed, had rushed in, the Queen 
 had attempted to fly into another room but had been 
 seized by the Minister for Communications, one Chang 
 Ha, who held her until the others came and killed her. 
 Then they threw the body out of the window and burned 
 it. This man was a thief among thieves but had been 
 trusted by both King and Queen. 
 
 "Brown told me that it was estimated that the Queen 
 had killed or had had put to death some nine thousand 
 people, generally on the suggestion of one of the Palace 
 
 4N\ 
 
 5^ 
 
 •^ 
 
 /r^' 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 29
 
 WILLARD STRAIGHT AND THE LEGATION STAFF IN THE AMERICAN COMPOUND, SEOUL 
 
 sorcerers who wished to get hold of the property of the 
 person impeached. 
 
 "Five months after the Queen's death, fearing a like 
 fate, the King fled to the Russian Legation. The Crown 
 Prince and King both climbed into chairs and were car- 
 ried off with the palace women in front of them, at seven 
 in the morning. At the Legation the King and the Crown 
 Prince found their principal pleasure in piling wood in 
 the big Russian stove. Yi Pen Chim, afterward Minister 
 to Russia, had jumped over a wall, was a little lame, and 
 was walking with a stick. He was generally full of the 
 champagne which the Russians at this time gave free to 
 all the court. He made such a nuisance of himself around 
 the house that Mrs. Weber, to get rid of him, finally had 
 him appointed Minister to Washington. 
 
 "The Ministries were all at this time in the large draw- 
 ing-room of the Legation. A sofa, a screen, a table and a 
 couple of chairs constituted a Ministry. The Minister 
 of War alone had a separate office in the garden, where he 
 had fixed himself in a sort of summerhouse, and there he 
 held audience. One could call on all the rest of the 
 Cabinet by simply going into the one large chamber and 
 then bobbing about from screen to screen. 
 
 "Immediately the King was installed at the Legation, 
 Lady Om, who had been banished by the Queen, turned 
 up and lived in his bathroom." 
 
 The Lady Om, who then held the honor of being the 
 Emperor's favorite, was accounted the most powerful 
 person in the country. She had been ennobling her 
 family, down to the least water coolie, by putting them 
 in as governors of the city one at a time a tenure of 
 three or four days for each. Her ancestors for three 
 generations back were fitted out with suitable titles, and 
 every little while there was a celebration at the tombs of 
 
 these deceased gentlemen, with much burning of tissue 
 paper and other ceremonies prescribed for such occasions. 
 
 One of the functions of the Minister's secretary was to 
 greet distinguished visitors from America. It was the 
 visit of Miss Alice Roosevelt (Mrs. Nicholas Longworth) 
 that led to Straight's friendship in later years with 
 Theodore Roosevelt. He records vividly the enthusiasm 
 with which the Koreans greeted the "American Princess". 
 
 "Miss Roosevelt is coming here with General Corbin, 
 Admiral Train and the Lord knows how many others. 
 Seoul —the imperial portion of it — is simply atingle. 
 The Emperor is going to do great stunts here. Imperial 
 honors only for this party! He has the German lady who 
 has taken Miss Sontag's place reburnishing the palace — 
 that is, the foreign one. She is laying awful carpets made 
 in Germany. In this palace Admiral Train will sleep and 
 the Corbins also. Miss Roosevelt stays in the Legation. 
 If it rains she'll be drowned; for the place leaks badly. 
 
 "Since the Emperor is making a great play for American 
 sympathy, he has decided to let Miss Roosevelt use the 
 Ship of State. The best of all these stories in connection 
 with Miss Roosevelt's visit is the one of why the Japanese 
 Prince Fushimi on his recent visit didn't get the imperial 
 coach. When he was expected, the Emperor sent word to 
 one Tommy Koen, American, ex-oiler on a tramp steamer, 
 and now engineer to the palace, to gum the game. This 
 Tommy did. He stole the springs from the gilded coach 
 of slate and all the brass nuts from the other imperial 
 carriages. Hasegawa, commander of the Japanese forces 
 in Korea, went to have a look. Sure enough, the carriage 
 couldn't be used. Where had all these things gone? 
 'Why, damn it. General, the Koreans stole all the brass 
 in the place. You know what thieves they are!' The 
 carriage-spring meantime was in Mr. Koen's forge, being 
 
 30
 
 nicely burned and deprived of its red-and-gold paint. 
 The General saw that that too was hopeless; so he took 
 Fushimi in his own barouche. 
 
 "Ne.xt, Mr. Koen, being an American and a sailor, was 
 appointed imperial equerry and master of horse, and was 
 told off to greet the Princess at the station. Koen, hav- 
 ing spent his life on the bounding wave, knew all about 
 
 houses packed with people silhouetted against the eve- 
 ning sky. On either side of the procession ran lantern- 
 bearers, swinging their strange red-and-blue silk lights. 
 "That night there was a 'scratch' dinner with the im- 
 perial band, and afterward we went to the palace, where 
 Miss MacMillan, Miss Boardman, Senator Newlands, 
 Longworth and Gillett were staying. This time Miss 
 
 ALICE ROOSEVELT, WHOM THE KOREANS GREETED AS A PRINCESS, AND HER PARTY 
 
 horses or anything else that rocked. He went to the 
 stables and found a pair of blacks. There were only 
 three pair left. All the others had been eaten by hungry 
 stable-men. 
 
 "Mr. Koen took out the blacks and one of the Number 
 Two imperial coaches and paraded through the city, fol- 
 lowed by buglers. He wanted to get the horses into 
 shape for Miss Roosevelt's arrival. There were beautiful 
 red uniforms and liveries. Three or four men who had 
 been to Shanghai or somewhere and who thought they 
 knew something about driving were selected. But, 
 when they tried on the imiforms, it was 'no go' and so 
 other coachmen and footmen whom the liveries would fit 
 had to be found. 
 
 "The scheme was to have a squad of Korean cavalry 
 escort Miss Roosevelt. The Korean army was to be 
 lined up along the route and fire salutes. But Paddock 
 stopped that, for the Korean cavalry can only stick on by 
 hanging to the pommels of their saddles and, at any 
 function, are always sure to fall off, while their ponies 
 invariably run away. Thus are we deprived of the spe- 
 cial circus parade. It's really a shame; for it would 
 have been the greatest thing of its kind that the Emperor 
 of Korea ever perpetrated." 
 
 "Upon Miss Roosevelt's arrival in Seoul, the streets 
 were packed. The band struck up the 'Star-Spangled 
 Banner' and the Korean officials in their gladdest frock 
 coats were presented. Some of Hasegawa's stafT were 
 there, but they were left out in the presentation, and 
 Miss Roosevelt piled into an imperial yellow chair. It 
 was just dark. The air was murky and the roofs of the 
 
 Roosevelt led them a merry chase. She walked as fast 
 as she could, and it was a pretty good gait, with lanterns 
 bobbing and the bugles tooting and policemen trotting 
 beside her, the troops at attention. They were surprised, 
 I'll warrant, but not a whit embarrassed. The monarch 
 himself escorted Miss Roosevelt into the room on his 
 arm, ogling her and rather ill at ease. The Crown Prince 
 blinked. Korean officials, who, by special order of the 
 Emperor, had many of them got themselves into Euro- 
 pean clothes for the first time, certainly did look, and, 
 from their appearance, felt, like hell. 
 
 "It was strange and wonderful to see Miss Roosevelt 
 on the Emperor's arm, or, rather, him on hers, as they 
 came into the banqueting hall, which looked more like 
 a boarding-house parlor than anything else. We had a 
 Korean chow and the Senator burned his face by leaving 
 his spoon too near the charcoal heart of the soup-plate. 
 
 "The Roosevelt party came, saw and conquered. 
 There were tiffins at the East Palace. Miss Roosevelt 
 had luncheon with the palace ladies- again an innova- 
 tion — and then one night the Korean Military Band 
 came in. They made the weirdest and most awesome 
 noise I ever heard, shrieks and the tumming of tomtoms, 
 the shrill notes of the flute and the rolling of a bass horn. 
 Then in the courtyard, the gesarig, the Korean dancing- 
 girls, did their stunts, the warrior dance, etc., etc. 
 
 "Of course the most interesting phase of the \-isit was 
 the part the Japanese tried to play therein. In the first 
 place, they attempted to put every obstacle in the way 
 of Miss Roosevelt's having the imperial car. This be- 
 longed to the Emperor and they refused at first to let 
 her have it. Then they asserted that Miss Roosevelt 
 was not royalty, to which the Koreans replied that Mar- 
 
 31
 
 quis Ito wasn't either. In Chemulpo the Japanese consul 
 tried to ruin the welcome. He boarded the Ohio, which 
 brought Miss Roosevelt, before Morgan, who had crossed 
 on the Alava, had had time to get over to her. Then he 
 tried to butt in and bring the party ashore, though the 
 Koreans, who were the real hosts, had furnished their 
 Customs launch for the purpose. 
 
 "I don't think that the Japanese imagined that we 
 were making any political play. I am more inclined to 
 think that they were principally afraid of the effect that 
 the \nsit would have on the Koreans. These people are 
 looking for straws just now, and the Roosevelt trip looked 
 like a life-preserver to their jaundiced imaginations. 
 This the Japanese tried to get around by appearing to 
 be doing the entertaining themselves. Naturally they 
 couldn't work any con game of that sort, but their actions 
 were such that any feelings that I may have had before 
 are much more so. The littleness of it all — not feeling 
 strong enough even to let this poor people, whom, as 
 Baron Kaneko says, they are going to regard and treat 
 as an inferior race, have their own little party! They 
 were not content to stand by and laugh at the footless 
 
 
 COLLIER COOLIES AT CHEMULPO 
 
 things these poor devils were inclined to do, but had to 
 force themselves in everywhere and at all times." 
 
 The actions of the Koreans and Japanese so appealed 
 to Straight's sense of humor that he could not resist 
 composing some doggerel, which he confided to his diary. 
 
 TO MISS ROOSEVELT 
 
 When Alice ramc lo Pliinderland, 
 
 The Crown Prince yoiiuhl her lily hand. 
 
 The Emperor had a pipe 
 
 Dreiim that Ihix wuh where hix nalive liiv 
 
 Could xhakc the J ap.f forever and 
 
 Secure a friendship ripe 
 
 With father. 
 
 liul now there's troul)le brewing, for 
 The Emperor doth reij/n no more, 
 The .ffipanene arc out for wealth. 
 They're not in Imsinem for their health 
 
 The Koreans wail, "What can we do? 
 Our clothes is picked, our ivatches too, 
 Our country's in receivers' tiands. 
 We've neither graft nor fees. 
 Since Alice came lo Plunderland 
 We've nothing left to 'squeeze'. " 
 
 On the very eve of the doings at the Palace, William 
 J. Bryan came in. And so the great exponent of de- 
 mocracy was on hand to witness a display of autocratic 
 force that would have shocked the Middle Ages. An 
 American who then chanced to be official adviser of the 
 Japanese Government stuck even more close to Mr. 
 Bryan than did Straight, for it was his function to ward 
 off from the Commoner information of a sort that might 
 leave a bad impression of the new masters of the land. 
 
 In Seoul, Mr. Bryan's personality made him many 
 friends. He maintained the same informality of dress 
 and manner that marked him at home. At dinner in the 
 hotel he put on a golf-cap to keep his scalp warm. When 
 Straight called on him "he came down in a wonderful 
 black alpaca cap, with a netting visor rolled up at the 
 sides." But when he went to the Legation he had on 
 the conventional top hat, and he wore a swallow-tail 
 
 coat at the Emperor's audi- 
 ence. He said that he had 
 been told that "when he was 
 abroad, he'd have to wear 
 knee breeches. But he hadn't 
 brought his and thought it was 
 all nonsense about people who 
 called on a king having to wear 
 knee breeches. Might as well 
 force an Englishman to call at 
 the White House in wampum 
 and feathers." 
 
 "He told with full apprecia- 
 tion of its humor how he had 
 come up in the train with Togo, 
 who was on his way to his 
 own great reception," relates 
 Straight. "While the proces- 
 sion was forming Bryan's rick- 
 shaw man had insisted that he 
 form a part of it, and to all his 
 objections responded merely by 
 putting him one place higher 
 up. A final and desperate 
 effort brought him to the head 
 of the line, and then he went 
 on for three miles — the only 
 through crowds jammed on either side, the 
 men doffing their hats and the students cheering him, 
 stealing Togo's triumph and beating him to his reception 
 place by fifteen minutes." 
 
 But American travelers were not the only distinguished 
 foreign guests received in audience by the Empire in the 
 fall of 1905. Early in November Marquis Ito had ar- 
 rived as special envoy from the Emperor of Japan and 
 had presented a series of demands in treaty form. Japan 
 had already practically taken over Korea. Marquis Ito 
 was now to add the finishing touch. On the afternoon 
 of November 17 Straight could sec from his window at 
 the Legation the palace compound filling with Japanese 
 soldiery and police; the entrance and exit of nervous 
 statesmen, some in Korean garb, some in frock coats; 
 now and then even white-faced and shrinking royalty 
 
 ,>>-i 
 
 one in sight 
 
 32
 
 i'' y^: 
 
 t< 
 
 itself, in the person of either Emperor or Crown Prince, 
 as it pushed a curtain aside to peep out. Thus was the 
 scene laid for the drama to be enacted a few hours later, 
 the signing of the "treaty" under which Korea was to 
 acknowledge itself a vassal of Japan. 
 
 The recollection of the murder of the Queen a decade 
 before, under very similar circumstances, reduced the 
 Emperor to a palsy of fright. He 
 had installed himself behind locked 
 doors with the Lady Om and there he 
 stayed. The nation outside — that is, 
 the articulate fraction of the nation 
 — was aware of what was on foot and 
 was clamoring against the surrender. 
 The Emperor quaked with fear of his 
 people's wrath but he quaked still 
 more with fear of the wrath of the 
 Japanese. The people were distant 
 and unorganized; the Japanese were 
 present with ugly guns and pistols, 
 even cannon, and with a meaning 
 smile that emphasized rather than 
 softened the threat. What was a 
 poor man to do? He summoned his 
 ministers — and sent them away 
 again. No, he would not betray his 
 beloved country. Yes, yes, he would 
 sign — not sign himself, of course, but 
 have his ministers sign- if these un- 
 bidden guests in the yard outside 
 would only go away with their guns 
 and pistols. 
 
 The suave and astute Marquis Ito 
 had assured his Imperial Majesty of 
 Korea of Japan's undying friendship 
 if only Korea would affix its signature 
 on the dotted line. That simple act 
 was all that was necessary. General 
 Hasegawa and the Japanese Minis- 
 ter, Hayashi, seconded him with cor- 
 dial grimaces. 
 
 On the avenue leading to the pal- 
 ace a detachment of artillery, three 
 batteries with eighteen guns, ma- 
 neuvred playfully, unlimbering their 
 pieces. An infantry battalion went 
 through an open-order drill, with 
 bayonet rushes, just opposite the Ko- 
 rean barracks. Crowds of people, 
 angry but intimidated, jammed the 
 streets. Anti-Japanese posters appeared suddenly and 
 mysteriously on walls and were at once ripped off by 
 Japanese policemen. 
 
 Late in the afternoon two Korean officials, emissaries 
 from the Emperor, came hurrying over to the Legation 
 and were received by Straight. His Majesty asked ad- 
 vice of his honored friends, the Americans. What should 
 he do? The Japanese envoys were demanding an audi- 
 ence, and really he was too sick to grant them an inter- 
 view — much too sick. This was an old, familiar device 
 of the Emperor's, to avoid disagreeable conversations. 
 
 Straight reminded the emissaries that they had been 
 counseled some time before to make a direct appeal 
 to l^the^ American government. Mr. Morgan could not 
 advise the Korean government, of course, until he 
 
 M' 
 
 ^ 
 
 ■'i^* 
 
 KOREAN WATCHING A PARADE 
 
 had consulted the State Department at Washington. 
 "You have three course.^," Straight told them: "one, 
 to refuse the Japanese demands absolutely and take the 
 consequences; two, to accept conditionally and under 
 protest, reserving the right of appeal to foreign nations; 
 three, to yield and make the best conditions possible." 
 They insisted that he take their message to Mr. Mor- 
 gan and he did so; naturally enough, 
 with no result. So they went sadly 
 back to the Palace, with a parting 
 assurance that His Majesty was 
 really very sick. 
 
 "At half past ten o'clock that 
 night" — so runs Straight's diary — 
 "I went out for a stroll around the 
 compound. There was a rattling of 
 rickshaws, and I went below. On 
 looking over the wall I saw that the 
 Japanese were going away. Hase- 
 gawa's carriage had already gone. 
 I could see that the compound was 
 still full of Japanese policemen. 
 Koreans in their court dress were 
 fluttering to and fro. It seemed 
 impossible, as I stood there in the 
 moonlight behind the hedge, that the 
 fate of a nation had been sealed 
 within fifty yards of where I stood, 
 that an independent empire of 
 twelve million people had agreed to 
 subjugate itself to bullying and ex- 
 ploitation without a struggle. 
 
 "The next morning Yak, the inter- 
 preter, came in with tears in his 
 eyes and a strange and wonderful 
 cold sweat on his nose. 'They did 
 it,' he said; 'they signed.' He said 
 all the ministers except Han Kyu- 
 sul, the premier, and his friend, the 
 Minister of Agriculture, had signed. 
 All accounts agree that the Premier 
 did indeed stand out. It is said that 
 when the others gave way he pleaded 
 a headache, left the room, went into 
 His Majesty's presence and smashed 
 his official hat." 
 
 The final touch of ojtera bouffe 
 was given by the decision of the 
 Emperor to banish the prime minis- 
 ter not for any official act, but be- 
 cause that distracted statesman, in rushing out of the con- 
 ference room to seek His Majesty, took the wrong passage 
 and stumbled by mistake into the sacred room of the Lady 
 Om herself. Such sacrilege was not to be condoned. 
 
 Two events growing out of the capitulation, the suicide 
 of one of the ministers of state and the dismissal of 
 McLeavy Brown, were thus described by Straight: 
 
 "Min Yong Whan bade farewell to this crowd of offi- 
 cials. He went to the house of a retainer and, having a 
 room prepared, sat down on the floor, drove a knife into 
 his throat, ripped it forward and killed himself. He was 
 a man of almost royal blood, who could approach the 
 Emperor as no one else could do. and a cousin of the 
 murdered Queen. 
 
 "We heard of Min's suicide as we were going to the 
 
 -.i-r_ 
 
 33
 
 train to bid farewell to the British Minis- 
 ter and to old McLeavy Brown. Here 
 was the man whom the Russians and 
 French had tried to force out time and 
 again — abandoned by a government 
 whose principal asset in this country he 
 had been, who had done more for British 
 interests here than any one else, in an 
 instant ousted by the Japanese! 
 
 "With their usual damnable hypoc- 
 risy they had tried to persuade him to 
 resign so that no one would criticize 
 them. Being an old sportsman he would 
 not do this, nor would he accept the sola- 
 tium with which they tried to tempt him. 
 
 "The day before, I had been in this 
 same station to bid farewell to Ito, who 
 had done it all. Now I went back to 
 the center of the city to learn more of 
 Min's death. Here around the center 
 square there were dense crowds; orderly 
 they seemed, but muttering. Such a 
 hopeless crowd you never saw. 
 
 "To cap the climax we had arranged 
 a Thanksgiving celebration, which had 
 to go off notwithstanding the tragedy 
 which had crushed us all. Here we had 
 the missionary stories, the bitterest 
 stories, the suicide of Min's wife and of 
 Chyo, a highly respected ex-Premier. 
 The whole community is excited about 
 the withdrawal of the Legation. They 
 voice the sentiment of the Koreans when 
 they say that they have been 
 betrayed. So they have. It 
 may not be the fault of any 
 one in particular, but cer- 
 tainly because of our treaty 
 the Koreans have looked upon 
 the United States as a friend 
 to whom they could turn. 
 
 "It came as a cruel blow 
 that the United States should 
 have been the first to take such 
 
 a step. It is claimed and I believe it is true, that Min's 
 suicide was largely due to the withdrawal of this Lega- 
 tion. Poor Min, he did all that he could. He sealed his 
 testimony with his blood, and if ever man died for his 
 country it was he. 
 
 "Yet I cannot see that the Japanese could well have 
 done aught else. One would admire them more if they 
 would come out in the open and say that they wanted 
 this place and would have it, that the people did object, 
 and that they didn't care a damn, instead of trying to 
 put it before the world that the Emperor and the people 
 really appreciated the unselfishness of their aims, and 
 want them to protect and develop the country. 
 
 "Such is the East. Coming back from the scene at 
 the bell-tower, we heard the blatant tooting of a brass 
 band and, sure enough, there they were- you know 
 them a strangely uniformed aggregation, tooting and 
 braying away, the parade for a Japanese circus. Mur- 
 der, suicide, arson and a circus!" 
 
 Straight's fliary and letters show that it was always 
 the highly placed the Korean court circle never the 
 
 JAPANESE HOUSEMAID 
 
 Korean people, whom he distrusted 
 and lampooned. He was fond of the 
 people. They were simple and 
 trusting and honest. 
 
 The American whose visit to 
 Korea was to have the greatest 
 influence on Straight's career was 
 E. H. Harriman. At that time the 
 financier's imagination had been 
 fired by the thought of putting a 
 Harriman transportation belt around 
 the world. Already in con- 
 trol of the Union Pacific 
 and Southern Pacific Rail- 
 roads and the Pacific Mail 
 Steamship Company, he had 
 conceived the plan of link- 
 ing up the ocean line with a 
 railroad in Asia running 
 from the sea through Manchuria to 
 a junction with the Trans-Siberian. 
 Then he hoped to conclude such 
 agreements with the Russians as 
 would make the Trans-Siberian a part 
 of the Harriman system, complet- 
 ing the world belt-line with an At- 
 lantic steamship line to New York. 
 In connection with this heroic 
 project, and with certain financial 
 negotiations with the Japanese Gov- 
 ernment, he came to the East. In 
 the course of his journeys in Korea 
 in 190.5 he was impressed by 
 Straight's alertness and keen judg- 
 ment: and it was to be E. H. Harri- 
 man who, first among American 
 financiers, lent a sympathetic ear, 
 two or three years later, to the Man- 
 churian loan project arranged be- 
 tween Straight and the Imperial 
 representative at Mukden, Tang 
 Shao-yi. 
 
 The Korean experience marked a 
 distinct turning-point in Straight's 
 life. It was now, if one may judge from his letters and 
 diary, that he first was seized with a serious interest in 
 the economic aspects of the Far Eastern situation, in the 
 opportunities open to America for activity on a far greater 
 scale than before. 
 
 He saw that the United States was the only important 
 nation in the world that had not engaged in the scramble 
 for "spheres of influence". Being the only one whose 
 motives were not under suspicion, it alone was qualified 
 to take the leadership in realizing John Hay's ideal of the 
 Open Door. This was clear to many students of Far 
 Eastern politics, but it was to be Straight, through his 
 negotiations with the Chinese at Mukden, who was to 
 make the first practical attempt to turn the Open Door 
 from a phrase into a fact. There is no reason to suppose, 
 however, that his thoughts had approached a definite 
 plan when he was Minister Morgan's secretary. Before 
 he got so far as that, Japan's coup had caused the with- 
 drawal of all foreign envoys from Korea. Straight sailed 
 for home early in 19()() and a little while later joined Mr. 
 Morgan as his secretary in the Legation at Havana. 
 
 y4
 
 KOREA SIGNS AWAY HER FREEDOM
 
 Chapter V 
 CONSUL-GENERAL AT MUKDEN 
 
 \ 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^- 
 
 f r ' - 
 
 A 
 
 RUSSIAN TYPES IN MANCHURIA 
 
 IN 1906, a year after the close of the Russo-Japanese 
 War, Willard Straight went to Mukden as Ameri- 
 can consul-general. This city, the capital of Man- 
 churia, was then the storm-center of the Far East. 
 Russia in the north of Manchuria, and Japan in the south, 
 were in process of swallowing this rich territory, much as 
 Japan had absorbed Korea. Straight was twenty-six 
 years old, afire with enthusiasm and confidence, and de- 
 termined not to limit himself to the traditional routine of 
 a consular representative. Circumstances favored this 
 ambition; for Mukden was a fighting-ground, not only 
 for the maintenance of Chinese sovereignty, but also for 
 the protection of American rights. The difficulty of 
 quick communication with the nearest American envoy, 
 the tenseness of the international political situation and 
 the desire of the State Department to get prompt and 
 frequent information, gave the post peculiar independence 
 and importance. Officially a consul, Straight became in 
 truth a diplomatic agent. 
 
 Though surrounded by problems of the gravest nature. 
 Straight made the obtaining of quarters for the Consulate 
 the work of first importance. The United States govern- 
 ment had not provided funds for a proper l)uilding. 
 Straight knew his East too well not to realize the effect 
 an unsuitable house would have upon the oriental mind. 
 All the high-mindedness and generous purpose under the 
 sun would avail nothing if viceroys and governors and 
 their underlings, passing by, saw the American flag fly- 
 ing over a mean and ugly dwelling. 
 
 Eager to start on his real task, Straight was exasperated 
 by having to plead and argue about something that should 
 have been disposed of at once as a mere detail. And, 
 being without means, he was seriously worried by having 
 to meet official needs out of his own purse. 
 
 "If I had the money, all this would be done without 
 a whimper," he wrote a friend in Washington, "but I 
 haven't, and I tell you it sometimes well-nigh drives me 
 mad. Of course I will stick it out the work is absorb- 
 ingly interesting, and the game fascinates but sometimes 
 it looks as if the breaking point is at hand. 
 
 "I should hate to feel that I must chuck it, for it was a 
 
 tremendous stroke of luck to be sent here. On the other 
 hand, there is so much bitterness in wondering how to 
 pay the servants, how to meet one's insurance, how to pay 
 the grocer's bill, that it does not seem worth while. I 
 have cut down as much as I can. I can't let the com- 
 pounds be filthy for lack of men to clean them. Yet I 
 have to spend my funds for telegrams to Washington, for 
 a flagstaff, for repairs, for heating — all things that are for 
 the efficiency of the office, not for my personal comfort. 
 Today the three governors of the Manchurian provinces 
 meet in conference, the consular body will entertain, 
 and, as senior consul, I should give a dinner. I know I 
 ought to, I feel that I must and yet I can't aff'ord it. 
 That done, means something necessary around the Con- 
 sulate left undone. 
 
 "All this worries me so much that it interferes with 
 my efficiency, try as I will to laugh it off and tell myself 
 that better days will come. I am not afraid of work, and 
 fighting I love and I am quite prepared to sacrifice if 
 there be cause. But this is no Valley Forge, not while 
 Congress can raise its own salaries and build itself 
 private offices, and I can't help resenting it — this out- 
 posting and beggary combined." 
 
 After months of correspondence. Straight was finally 
 directed by a superior, as he jubilantly wrote to his friend, 
 "to do what I 'damn please'. And I 'damn please' to fix 
 up the temple I told you about." 
 
 Yet he came near to losing his temple after all. 
 
 "It had been given up by the Japanese commander, and 
 upon my return from Peking I made for it. When we 
 talked to Watanabe, the commander, he asked Arnell of 
 our office: 'Well, what al)out that San Francisco matter'.'' 
 Arnell told him it was all newspaper talk, fomented by 
 Germans who were anxious to profit by the estrangement 
 of two such time-honored friends. This seemed to satisfy 
 the warrior. We thereupon opened up negotiations with 
 the Chinese owners. In the meantime, one Nikitine, the 
 Russian vice-consul, appeared. Unwarily 1 told him that 
 I hoped to get a temple. He promptly went after one 
 for himself, and with characteristic disregard for meum 
 and luum attempted to inveigle the lamas into signing a 
 
 36
 
 IN FRONT OF THE RUSSIAN CONSIILATK 
 
 contract for mine. He could then have wired his Minister 
 that all was arranged and could have laughed at me. I 
 should have spanked him, driven his folks out of the 
 place, or never let them in, and told him to go to war. 
 But he weakly budged a little and told me he was afraid 
 there had been some mistake. I answered that there 
 certainly had been, and that the temple was, and would 
 continue to be, mine. So it seems settled, and, when you 
 come out for a visit this summer, you will sleep under 
 painted beams, with gilt dragons looking down at you 
 from a parti-colored ceiling." 
 
 It was at Mukden that Straight made the illustrations 
 for J. 0. P. Bland's book, Hon>;choal Dfj.?y.s in China. In 
 a letter Bland has told of a visit he paid to his collaborator 
 in the spring of 1907, soon after Straight had moved into 
 his new quarters. 
 
 "The Consulate-General was the ancestral hall of old 
 I-ko-tang-a. It was a picturesque and a very fitting 
 place for a Consul with the aspirations of a knight-errant 
 and the dreams of an artist, this Manchu's ancient home, 
 with the huge memorial tablets on their stone turtles' 
 backs, lying in the central courtyard just as the masons 
 had left them, unfinished, when the vanguard of the 
 Japanese army entered the city and their General made 
 this his headquarters. 
 
 "I arrived by night. The May moon was shining in a 
 cloudless sky. The courtyard where we sat, talking of 
 love and war, of wisdom and folly, far into the wee sma' 
 hours, was all silver splendor and mysterious shadow. 
 
 "Next morning we went to a lama temple close by to 
 see the annual festival of the Devil Dance, a solemn rite, 
 which, as the head priest e.xplained, ensures peace and 
 prosperity to the whole Empire. (Subsequent events 
 proved that there must have been some flaw in the ritual.) 
 To the American Consul-General and his guests were 
 given the seats of honor, next to the aged Chinese 
 military mandarin who presided over the proceedings. 
 Willard whiled away the time by making little sketches 
 of the performers, to the great delight of the host. 
 
 "In the afternoon we walked out to the Imperial 
 Tomb, across the plain where the great ten days' battle 
 
 had been fought between the Russians and the .lapanese 
 two years before, now a beautiful stretch of turf. Passing 
 through a lovely wood, a very paradise of birds, where 
 hawthorn and honeysuckle and lilies of the valley were 
 in full bloom, we came to the grove of firs that surrounds 
 the sacred tomb, and sipped pale tea with the old Wen 
 Tajen, the placid guardian of that peaceful resting-place, 
 a philosophical soul with whom Straight loved to talk. 
 Then home again, as the sun was setting, to dinner and 
 Willard's guitar beneath the glimpses of the moon. 
 Finally much talk of pictures he was then busy on 
 sketches for our book and of contemporary art. 
 
 "Next morning came a deputation of priests, politely 
 returning our 'call' of the day before, all in their cere- 
 monial robes, very dignified and courteous, yet filled with 
 irrepressible curiosity concerning the strange works and 
 ways of the white man's home. Straight handled them 
 with all the tactful kindness of an affectionate kinder- 
 garten teacher. That evening I took the long Siberian 
 trail for London and he came a little way with me, as the 
 oriental custom is, on the road to Mong Chia-Tun. I 
 remember that, at the railway station where he left me, 
 a Japanese policeman came up and, fussily important, 
 asked us in fairly good Chinese where we were going. 
 
 " 'To the North,' said Willard genially. Whereupon 
 the guardian of Japan's special interests glared in of- 
 fended dignity. 'Do you know my business?' he asked. 
 'I am a Japanese policeman.' 'Very glad to meet you,' 
 Willard replied, 'but this happens to be China, not Japan.' 
 Another angry glare, and the policeman said, 'Oh, no, 
 this is Manchuria.' "Tis a true word,' said Willard, 
 laughing. Before the train started, they had waxed 
 friendly, and, when I left, they were discussing the politi- 
 cal situation." 
 
 All manner of gatherings, serious and gay, were held at 
 the Consulate. On the morning the flag was first raised 
 over the building, the American residents of Mukden were 
 in\nted to attend and, when the Stars and Stripes reached 
 the top of the staff, a salute was fired with Chinese bombs. 
 An amusing delusion among the lower class of Chinese 
 was that the height of the pole — it happened by pure 
 
 37
 
 r 
 
 ^^ 
 
 J 
 
 ri^ 
 
 \ 
 
 "^^'^ 
 
 \ 
 
 
 
 .-■J'' 
 
 .'/ ■•%., 
 
 
 "> 
 
 ^<:^ 
 
 A DEVIL DANCER 
 
 chance to be fifteen feet 
 higher than any other in the 
 city — gave the American 
 Consul-General precedence 
 among all foreigners in Muk- 
 den. When they were told 
 that the height of the flag- 
 staff meant nothing, they 
 shook their heads and smiled 
 — they knew better. 
 
 One exceptionally merry 
 occasion that the inhabitants 
 of Mukden still recall was a 
 Christmas dinner. The main 
 room of the Consulate was 
 i ' ■ -^ ^_^ /■" transformed into a miniature 
 
 pine forest. Colored lanterns 
 were scattered through the 
 foliage. The floor was strewn 
 with cotton wool and pine 
 needles. Flags of all nations 
 drooped from the ceiling. 
 Cloth-and-paper rabbits and 
 bears and wolves, fashioned 
 and painted by the Consul- 
 General himself, were perched 
 on the branches of the pines. 
 All this served as a frame for 
 a table heavily loaded with 
 the best food that could be 
 collected from the surrounding countryside. At each plate 
 was laid a menu, decorated by the host with a sketch and 
 a bit of nonsense verse. The city lay deep in snow, and 
 the guests came from miles around in Peking carts some 
 of them in sleighs drawn by mules with jingling bells. 
 
 Through such hospitality — though most of 
 the parties were not so elaborate as this Christ- 
 mas dinner— the old temple became known as 
 the pleasantest of all places to visit. Not only 
 Americans loved it, but Straight's new-made 
 European and Asian friends delighted to fre- 
 quent it. The Russian and the Japanese Con- 
 sul, who, more than all others, were hostile to 
 American enterprise in Manchuria, came along 
 with the rest. 
 
 Thus Straight became as familiar a figure in 
 social life at Mukden as he had been at Peking 
 - but with a difference. 
 
 There he had been an onlooker at the play of 
 international politics and commerce; here he 
 was one of the chief actors. There the serious 
 side of the Far F^astern question had been inci- 
 dental to dinners and teas and receptions and 
 dances; here all social affairs were subservient 
 to serious business. And the unique position of 
 the United States, as the only disinterested 
 nation where China was concerned, served to 
 heighten his prestige and popularity. Not only 
 was he the confidant of the Chinese; he became 
 a trusted friend of the representatives of the 
 nations striving most actively to thwart the 
 ideal of the Open Door. 
 
 The friction between Chinese and Japanese 
 was at its hottest in those days of Straight's 
 sojourn in Mukden. His diary and letters con- 
 
 vey the atmosphere of intrigue and suspicion hovering 
 over Manchurian life. 
 
 "In the Jajwn Mail you have probably read that one 
 Hsu Shih-chang [now president of China] was likely to 
 come to Mukden. The Japanese are trying to oust Chao 
 Erh-hsun, the present viceroy. On Sunday the Japanese 
 celebrated the second anniversary of their triumphal en- 
 try into Mukden. For some reason Viceroy Chao at- 
 tended. None of us, naturally, were invited. Hagiwara, 
 the Japanese Consul-General, bitterly assailed the Rus- 
 sians and said that, while they were in Manchuria, China 
 had been a weak thing in their hands, without power 
 and without respect; that there were three classes who 
 were thankful on this anniversary — the Japanese for their 
 victory and the opening of new fields for their enterprise, 
 the Chinese, whose sovereign rights had been restored 
 through the good will of Japan, and the foreigners gener- 
 ally, who were assured of an open door in Manchuria. 
 
 "The Viceroy was very much put out and took excep- 
 tion to Hagiwara's statement, denied that China's sov- 
 ereign power had ever been sacrificed, and then, followed 
 by the entire official outfit, left the place. Hagiwara, so 
 they say, was in a frightful stew and begged the Viceroy 
 to remain. 'Not on your life,' said Mr. Chao, and 
 climbed into his chariot. The best part of the whole 
 story is that the Viceroy himself would never have had 
 the nerve to do such a thing had he not been put up 
 to it by one Tsao, a young fellow, product of a Metho- 
 dist university in the United States, and now attached 
 to the person of the Supreme One." 
 
 "The whole question of Manchurian 
 administration is in an unsettled state. 
 Chao, the present viceroy, has long 
 been peraona non grata to the Japanese, 
 who have for months 
 libeled him in their jour- 
 nals and, if rumor be cor- 
 rect, brought great pres- 
 sure to bear at Peking to 
 secure his removal. Early 
 in February, it looked as 
 if he would go. Yuan 
 S h i h - k a i [viceroy of 
 ; Chihli Province] was 
 •' mentioned as his prob- 
 able successor, but he of 
 course would not accept 
 such a post, and Hsu 
 Shih-chang was all but 
 ordered to take over the 
 seals. Hsu was one of the 
 imperial commissioners 
 who visited Manchuria 
 last autumn and has owed 
 his rise in life to the 
 influence of Yuan Shih- 
 kai. 
 
 "Yuan has of late been 
 playing much with the 
 Japanese. He needs 
 money, and one of the 
 principal Japanese banks 
 is willing to lend, when 
 A CHINESE COMEDIAN ad visable, oti terms which 
 
 38
 
 \ 
 
 \ 
 
 
 would not appeal to the ordinary profit- 
 seeking investor. 1 happened, when in 
 Tientsin recently, to attend a luncheon given 
 Yuan by Hayashi, the Japanese minister. 
 I had come down with him on the train from 
 Peking. Why he asked me I 
 cannot say, for I was the only 
 white man present. Yuan, 
 who impressed me tremen- 
 dously, was accompanied by 
 the Customs Taotai and one 
 other official, and besides 
 Hayashi, there were the three 
 principal Yokohama Specie 
 Bank managers in North 
 China, the Japanese Consul- 
 General and a flock of in- 
 terpreters. Most of the Jap- 
 anese present were highly 
 incensed at my appearance on 
 the scene, and Hayashi rath- 
 er seemed to enjoy their dis- 
 comfort, having probably 
 brought me in as a sort of 
 political gooseberry. 
 
 "I took occasion to make 
 some inquiries as to what was 
 going on behind the Vicere- 
 gal scenery, and learned that 
 several of the governors-gen- 
 eral are in need of funds; they 
 are afraid to acknowledge 
 openly the necessity for float- 
 ing a foreign loan, and wish 
 to make their arrangements 
 quietly. The British and 
 Chinese Corporation as well 
 as the French and German 
 syndicates have been ap- 
 proached, but have not been 
 satisfied with the security 
 offered. The Japanese bank 
 rily into the breach. 
 
 "To go back to Yuan. As you doubtless know, he won 
 the enmity of the Emperor some years ago and, for his 
 position, has depended upon the Dowager. That lady 
 is not only wicked but old. Her days are numbered, and, 
 like his illustrious predecessor, Li Hung-chang, who threw 
 in his lot with the Russians to save his own skin. Yuan is 
 now looking about for external support to serve him in 
 the day of need that seems to be fast approaching. The 
 Japanese are obviously heaven-sent — and Yuan has un- 
 doubtedly thrown in his lot with them — to save his skin." 
 
 Hsu Shih-chang was appointed viceroy. With him 
 came Tang Shao-yi, to be governor of the province of 
 Shengking, in which lies Mukden. Tang was a graduate 
 of Columbia University, and well versed in world politics. 
 Shortly after the installation of these two men. Straight 
 wrote: 
 
 "At Mukden there have been great changes. Hsu and 
 Tang arrived with a flourish of trumpets and the old man 
 Chao went away, glad to be rid of the difficulties of his 
 post, I surmise, and looking forward, with a sigh of relief, 
 to the French in Szechuan. He had a fine send-off, and it 
 must have given him great satisfaction to ride to the 
 
 f^?i: 
 
 h^ 
 
 however, is stepping mer- 
 
 station in a brougham over an excellent maca- 
 damized road through lines of well-set-up and well- 
 clothed troops, preceded by an excellent squadron 
 of cavalry, and last, but not least, of all to pa.ss a 
 line of girls, trousered in light blue, who, in 
 charge of a young lady in black alpaca skirt and 
 foreign shoes, had come to bid farewell to the in- 
 augurator of feminine education in Manchuria. 
 "Hayashi, Hagiwara, Kawakami of Harbin and 
 the Newchwang men have been here 
 with their heads together doubtless 
 racking their brains for the benefit of a 
 t)ackward and untutored China! The 
 formation of the Yalu Lumber Company 
 was the principal object of Hayashi's 
 visit, though I imagine that he wished to 
 come up here on the heels 
 of the new administra- 
 tion, much as the pro- 
 '•'^■' spective owner of a 
 
 mansion would wish to 
 ,. ., supervise the installation 
 ;,(>« > of a temporary occupant 
 ,' thereof. He lunched 
 
 with me one day and 
 talked very freely, out- 
 lining what he wished 
 known as Japan's policy 
 in Manchuria and voic- 
 ing views that he ap- 
 parently wished me to 
 transmit to Washington. 
 With comments and side 
 notes this has been done 
 to his satisfaction, I 
 hope." 
 
 In the following pas- 
 sage in his diary Straight 
 acknowledges, with sat- 
 isfaction, that he had 
 erred in foretelling that 
 Hsu and Tang would be the willing tools of the Japanese. 
 "Tang and Hsu have been here now for well-nigh three 
 months and, while it is true that they have done com- 
 paratively little constructive work, they have managed 
 to balk the Japanese to a very considerable extent without 
 irritating and worrying them after the manner of Chao 
 Erh-hsun. . . . For a long time I was afraid that the new 
 administration would play into Japanese hands, par- 
 ticularly since, in addition to Yuan's alleged connections, 
 Chao Erh-hsun was undoubtedly ousted from this post by 
 Japanese intrigue and as a concession to Japanese wishes. 
 Tang and Hsu. however, while they have on all occasions 
 shown themselves anxious to adopt a most conciliatory 
 attitude, have yielded but little. They have been most 
 pleasant, have dined and wined and smoothed the Jap- 
 anese — tactics which Chao had never mastered — and 
 have steadfastly refused to give way on any of the points 
 at issue." 
 
 "Here in Mukden we have had much ado about the 
 visit of Baron Oshima, governor of Kuangtung. There 
 were numerous festivities, enlivened by rather amusing, 
 if tragic, incidents. A huge dinner given by Tang and 
 Hsu, in the hall of the new commercial exhibition building, 
 
 AN ACTOR IN THE ROLE OF GENERAL 
 
 39
 
 WILLARD STRAIGHT IN THE COURTYARD OF THE CONSULATE AT MUKDEN, 
 GEORGE D. MARVIN, VICE-CONSUL-GENERAL (RIGHT) 
 
 WITH 
 
 was as well done as anything could be. Cooks, boys, 
 service, food, wine were all brought from the Astor House 
 in Tientsin. Over a hundred people were present. The 
 Viceroy's band played e.xcellent music in the courtyard, 
 which was garnished with potted shrubs and illuminated 
 by countless parti-colored lanterns. 
 
 "Hsu made a speech, which was translated into Jap- 
 anese. Oshima made one, which was translated into 
 Chinese. Hsu laid particular stress on the international 
 character of the gathering, addressing his remarks to us 
 all in a rather marked way, and not by any means dwell- 
 ing upon the happy augury of Oshima's presence. 
 Oshima took his cue from Hsu and talked about the 
 'Open Door', and how pleased he was to meet us all. At 
 the suggestion of the Russian and the German, who re- 
 sented the fact that neither of the principal speeches had 
 been translated into a western language, I stood up and 
 addressed the multitude on behalf of my colleagues. I 
 did so particularly because I was determined that the 
 occasion should not, as the Japanese might have wished, 
 be a Chino-Japanese love-feast with the rest of us on the 
 side-lines. I put it into Chinese myself and thereby made 
 quite good particularly with the foreigners, who didn't 
 understand how bad my Chinese was." Probably no 
 other incident so well illustrates the confidence and poise 
 of Willard Straight a youth of twenty-six, speaking 
 for the western world in a setting of ancient, viceregal 
 dignity. 
 
 "At Hagiwara's there was quite a different tone. 
 Oshima proposed the health of the Emperor of China, 
 the Chinese in a rather perfunctory manner responded 
 with a toast to the Mikado, more speeches were made, 
 
 and the band played. The Japanese, as I had imagined, 
 were trying as far as possible to play up to the Chinese 
 and show to us that their interests were the greater, and 
 that in Manchuria it was China and Japan together. 
 Hsu and Tang, however, did not on this occasion warm up 
 very perceptibly." 
 
 Straight was zealous in upholding his country's pres- 
 tige, for he knew how much outward dignity counted in 
 this part of the world- knew that a failure to maintain 
 it in small things might have disastrous consequences. 
 Some rude tests were forced upon him, and he met them 
 with spirit. The news of his championing of his Chinese 
 servants against a Japanese postman who attacked them 
 leaked out and was heralded all through the East. His 
 triumph, trivial though the affair itself was, inspired 
 respect in the minds of men to whom Open Door mani- 
 festoes and such diplomatic utterances were naught but 
 meaningless words. Straight narrated the incident in a 
 letter home. 
 
 The way in which the affair was described in the 
 pre.ss flabbergasted Straight. He had narrated it in a 
 humorous and exaggerated vein, in a personal letter to a 
 friend, and the friend, over-enthusiastic, made a news- 
 paper yarn of it. It not only embarrassed Straight in his 
 relations with the Japanese Consul at Mukden, but it 
 failed to make plain that his picture of himself in the rAle 
 of a swashbuckler with pistols was a bit of the comic- 
 opera satire in which he so delighted. The letter, which 
 was meant only for his friend, was as follows: 
 
 "Mr. Japanese Postman, who was apparently new on 
 the beat, elected to come through the wrong gate to de- 
 liver letters and started to force his way in. Liu, the 
 
 40
 
 office coolie, objected and told him 
 where he should go. My attention was 
 attracted by one large noise and the 
 scene of Liu and postman mixed. I 
 rushed out, separated the doughty 
 combatants and demanded explana- 
 tions. 
 
 "The postman wished to lick Liu 
 first. Liu was equally anxious to finish 
 the postman. I dissuaded both, and, 
 having ascertained the cause of the 
 dispute, told the postman he was 
 wrong, led him peacefully out through 
 the main temple gate, then pointed 
 to where Clarence stood with an inter- 
 ested smile and told him to deliver his 
 letters there. This the postman under- 
 stood, although the conversation was 
 a strange hybrid tongue, medleyed 
 English, Chinese and his own chatter. 
 Then I told him to deliver the mail 
 that he admitted he had. He said he 
 would when he had delivered some 
 Japanese letters. Seeing that he was 
 rather piqued by his unceremonious 
 exit, particularly when he had been 
 interrupted in the midst of a scrap, I took the mail myself, 
 returning to the office. 
 
 "When I had hardly sat me down with the official 
 bunch of documents and half sorted them for perusal, 
 Clarence, pop-eyed, and Liu, disheveled and half-weep- 
 ing, rushed in and informed me that the Japanese were 
 storming the front courtyard. I rushed out. The water- 
 coolie, Chester, and one other were held pig-tail-tight by 
 one brute standing just outside the gate. Tang, his tail 
 gripped tightly by another swine, was being dragged past 
 the gate-house. Liu, who was behind, was immediately 
 seized upon. There were half a dozen Japanese black- 
 guards beating and fighting about the entry-way, the 
 postman presiding in a triumphant manner. I chucked 
 one man out, told the others to get and 
 demanded that the fellow with poor 
 Chester and Company should let go 
 his prey. He was insolent and not in- 
 clined to do so. Several Chinese police 
 were present and wholly useless. They 
 finally, however, released Chester and 
 the others. At last I threw the post- 
 man, protesting about the sanctity of 
 His Imperial Majesty's mail, into the 
 gate-house with the rest. Four nice 
 birds! 
 
 "I got a Mauser pistol, unloaded, of 
 course, and displayed it prominently, 
 and my small S. & W., which won't 
 even pull. This I put in my pocket 
 with a great flourish, while the noise 
 inside, admonished by the gent who 
 was peeking through the door, quickly 
 subsided. I had sent for Japanese 
 police, but these not putting in an ap- 
 pearance, I saddled my steed, took two 
 Chinese carts with a native policeman 
 to each one, and placed the two Japa- 
 nese inside thereof. The Chinese police 
 
 WILLARD STRAIGHT FOUND THE OLD CONSULATE AT MUK- 
 DEN UNSUITABLE HEADQUARTERS FOR A GREAT NATION 
 
 were in a frightful funk the whole time, and the whistles, 
 which, when we had our fire, brought them down like 
 flies, failed to raise a soul. Disreputable Japanese from 
 the neighborhood were flocking up all the time, however, 
 and I rather wished that my guns, exposed to such plain 
 view, were loaded. The exhibition apparently was quite 
 enough; for there was not a peep from the multitude as 
 we rode away, the Bandarchips inside crestfallen and 
 trying to throw an awful bluff to hide their loss of face. 
 
 "We went into the Japanese Consulate, and I forced 
 the faltering Chinese policeman to go into the very inner- 
 most compound with me in order to shame my captives 
 the more. Kato, consul-general, had to be hauled out of 
 bed, although it was half past twelve. He came in and I 
 
 STRAIGHT ESTABLISHED A NEW AMERICAN CONSULATE IN 
 THE ANCESTRAL HALL OF I-KO-TANG-A 
 
 41
 
 -/•^> 
 
 *i(-< 
 
 "^ 
 
 ^J^/ 
 
 
 
 i^ 
 
 rr>^- 
 
 ^.., \^:^,v-^ tilt -I m ~ -f y V • 
 
 >^-^"=js5^S^| 
 
 L" __. - 
 
 .^( l-,.Nt. l.\ A I HINESE THEATRE 
 
 told my story very politely, treating the whole affair as 
 rather a joke between us two superior beings, but insist- 
 ing naturally that trespassing upon a consulate with a 
 foreign flag flying overhead and dragging a foreign con- 
 sul's servants into the highway were no light matter. 
 Kato apparently agreed. I offered to make a written 
 statement but he said, 'Oh, no, that isn't necessary.' 
 That afternoon I received a note telling me that the story 
 of the man was very different from mine, and asking 
 me to make a written statement and submit a map of 
 the Consulate. 
 
 "Not a word of apology, not a murmur of regret. It 
 was simply a damned piece of insolence. I refused to 
 give any statement, and said that if he wanted to knoA- 
 the location of the rows, he could rUimned well send his 
 subordinates over to find out, ending up by pointing out 
 the enormity of the offense. J^anguage most diplomatic, 
 I assure you, but, my dear fellah, coldly formal. 
 
 "Result: a most cordial note from Kato, who sent his 
 man to investigate and politely inquired whether my 
 servants or myself had .seen the postman in my room, as 
 Tang assured me he had been, and as I had told Kato he 
 
 was. He also said that the postman swore that, when he 
 had been quietly passing my premises, my servants had 
 rushed out to attack him, and that three or four patriotic 
 Japanese who happened by came to the assistance of their 
 countryman in distress, etc., which was, of course, a most 
 impudent statement and an entirely untrue one. 
 
 "Kato's last word was that regarding the postman's 
 statements. I answered him that I did not believe it, 
 as that made by my servants appeared much more prob- 
 able, in that I could not otherwise account for the presence 
 of half a dozen Japanese, armed with sticks, on my 
 premises. I am now waiting and shall submit the whole 
 thing to Peking and Washington, and you may lay a 
 small wager that if Mr. Kato does not punish his people 
 he will hear about it." 
 
 Not long after, Straight briefly chronicled the outcome. 
 
 "Postman got one month; accomplice eleven days; 
 another fined; I received an apology and a promise that 
 efforts would be made to prevent a repetition." 
 
 Straight's acquaintances saw most frequently his social 
 side, but he was working with all the untiring energy 
 that was in him. He was continually lamenting his lack 
 of training in government service, and he set about 
 making up by industry for this want of technical prep- 
 aration. He pored over the records of Manchurian 
 trade and development and went out into the country to 
 learn for himself what were the possibilities in mining 
 and agriculture and railroad construction. Not content 
 with short trips, at last he decided to make a grand tour 
 of Manchuria. This covered several weeks and took him 
 to regions rarely penetrated by white men. Leaving the 
 railroad and main water routes, he traveled in carts and 
 small boats, and rode scores of miles on horseback. When 
 he returned to Mukden, he had accumulated a vast store 
 of information. 
 
 When Mr. Taft, then secretary of war, made his jour- 
 ney around the world. Straight prepared for him an ex- 
 haustive report upon conditions in Manchuria. This he 
 presented when he went to Vladivostok, under orders 
 from Washington, to meet the Secretary's party. 
 
 "Marvin and I," he writes enthusiastically, "made the 
 trip to Vladivostok together and had a most remarkable 
 experience. He wanted to see the Secretary about a 
 scheme of his to make a trip through the Philippines 
 under the auspices of the War Department, and I of 
 course was much elated at having an opportunity to lay 
 before him the chances for American activity in Man- 
 churia. ... I will not attempt to go into the superb 
 chance that we have in Manchuria at the present time, 
 for you know full well the advantageous position that the 
 history of our intercourse (barring the Exclusion and the 
 Canton-Hankow Railway incident) with China has given 
 us. You know too the dread of Japanese aggression, 
 which is very strong in the Chinese mind. But beyond 
 that, Japan's hands are tied, 1 think, for the present. 
 She is treading on thin ice. She has not by any means 
 won for herself an unassailable [losition here, and it needs 
 only a strong hand with large funds and the approval of 
 the American government, to direct the growth that the 
 Chinese are more than anxious to foster. 
 
 "I talked with Mr. Taft about Manchuria. He was 
 pleased to hear of the reception accorded the Shanghai 
 speech and asked many ((uestions about present condi- 
 tions. He repeated many remarks of the day before and 
 apparently had a pretty thorough grasp of Chinese af- 
 
 42
 
 fairs. He was glad to hear of the prohibition of opium. 
 He spoke of a certain physician in Washington who had 
 come to him from the President's doctor with a splendid 
 cure for the opium habit. Then 1 suggested Tang's loan 
 scheme. It appealed to Mr. Taft, but he didn't seem 
 very optimistic over the chance of obtaining funds at the 
 present time, nor sanguine of the ability of the Adminis- 
 tration to interest financiers. We reached Harbin at 
 four. There was a Russian guard as well as Chinese 
 troops, who tooted as we drew in. Taft drove to the 
 Grand Hotel, where Fisher had prepared a lunch. Here, 
 owing to complications between Russians and Chinese, 
 Fisher asked me to propose all toasts. There was no time 
 to make any other arrangement; so I proceeded, toa.st- 
 ing first the President, then the Empress of China, the 
 Czar, the Mikado, the President of France and the Taft 
 party. Mr. Taft asked me if we wanted him to speak, 
 and, as I replied in the affirmative, he made a few tactful 
 remarks about the railroad and the enterprise of China 
 and Russia in building the line. I put the remarks into 
 Chinese for the Taotai, who was much pleased. The 
 next morning, the Cossack Guard took the party to the 
 station and then withdrew. None of the Russians came 
 down. They were all ofifended apparently by the placing 
 of the Empresr of China's health before the Czar's. 
 As I think it over now, the whole thing might have been 
 avoided by not proposing the health of any sovereign, but 
 merely toasting Taft and the railroad." 
 
 Men who served at the Consulate, accustomed to the 
 easy hours consuls usually keep, regarded Straight's 
 habits as proof beyond all question that he was indeed 
 green in the government service. His clerk was an 
 Oriental known as Mr. Kao. One night after midnight, 
 when the mercury was at 30° below zero and a snowstorm 
 was raging, Kao suddenly waked up and remembered 
 that he had left the safe-key in the office. Shivering, he 
 climbed out of bed, put on his clothes and went to get it. 
 
 "What do you think!" Kao exclaimed to a Scandinavian 
 friend, Juul Blix, next morning. "I went to find my key, 
 which I had forgotten, and, when I stepped inside the 
 office, at half past twelve o'clock, I found the chief hitting 
 away at the typewriter, puffing his pipe and looking as 
 happy as if at a feast. It is a queer Consul, Mr. Blix, who 
 works sixteen hours every day — a very queer man!" 
 
 This same Juul Blix, who was an assistant in the Chi- 
 nese Postal Service, has related the incident of the fire at 
 the house where Straight first lived in Mukden. 
 
 "When I arrived on the scene, the Consul-General, in 
 shirt-sleeves and Russian top-boots, stood at the top of 
 a ladder, emptying the buckets as they came along. All of 
 a sudden there was a cry for help from a Manchu police- 
 man. As he sat across the main beam, the roof at his back 
 and in front of him gave way. All of us looked on in hor- 
 ror, thinking to see him disappear the next minute into 
 the fire below. Straight jumped to the ground, got a 
 second ladder, carried it up and laid it so that it reached 
 from the top of his own ladder to the beam. Then he 
 crawled along it, and led the policeman to safety. 
 
 "Early next morning -it was frightfully cold, I remem- 
 ber -I met Straight on horseback, just outside the city 
 wall. He was bandaged, and I thought he had probably 
 been to the doctor's, but later in the day I learned he had 
 ridden out to a village ten miles from Mukden, where 
 the Manchu policeman lived, to ask how he was getting 
 on. It was so through all the years I knew him : he seemed 
 
 A PASSENGER ON THE TRANS-SIBERIAX RAILWAY 
 
 always to be trying to do kindnesses for people — give 
 them things they needed, help them out of difficulties, 
 encourage them when they were homesick and depressed." 
 Straight believed that the only answer to the Chinese 
 question lay in the internationalization of foreign inter- 
 ests. This result could be attained only through Amer- 
 
 /' 
 
 \\ 
 
 1^- 
 
 \\ 
 
 \\ 
 
 A SIBERIAN PEASANT TYPE 
 
 43
 
 WILLARD STRAIGHT AND THE 
 
 INTENDANT OF THE EASTERN MARCHES" 
 
 The Real 
 
 Willard Straight Met the Chinese in the Way They Love, as Man to Man and Friend to Friend 
 Chinese Have a Decided Sense of Humor and They Met Him Halfway 
 
 ica's lead, and he saw in the unsettled state of Manchuria, 
 which called for powerful and disinterested aid, an 
 opportunity for America. Tang Shao-yi shared this 
 vision. 
 
 "Our own relations with Tang," Straight wrote, "have 
 been most cordial. He has been, in fact, noticeably friendly. 
 He has asked me to secure for him two men to direct an 
 agricultural college that he proposes to establish, and I 
 know that he is particularly desirous of interesting Amer- 
 ican capital in this region. He would welcome an oppor- 
 tunity to float the loan now contemplated for the devel- 
 opment of Manchuria in America. It seems too bad that 
 with everything in our favor here we have no one who is 
 interested enough in the situation to take the matter up. 
 The more I see of Manchurian affairs the more am I con- 
 vinced that we, the Americans, are favored above all 
 others and that ours is the opportunity to befriend China 
 in her time of need and to aid her in straightening out 
 her affairs here. And mind, once we had established 
 ourselves in Manchuria we should be in a position to 
 work through Tang and Yuan, who is now in power at 
 Peking, and do a tremendous work in furthering the 
 Chinese Renaissance. The task, not of empire-building 
 but of empire-shaping, could with proper handling 
 be ours. 
 
 "The possibilities really stagger me sometimes when I 
 grasp what they truly signify. It is a work that would 
 require a lifetime, but what a great work it might be! 
 
 "It must be admitted that Manchuria is open today as 
 it probably never would have l)een had the Russians re- 
 tained control. The Open Door could be made really to 
 exi.it, if we were willing to interest ourselves in Man- 
 churian trade and insist that there be equality of oppor- 
 
 tunity. I do not believe that the Japanese are strong 
 enough to carry on their imperialistic program in the face 
 of our opposition. There has, in fact, been a noticeable 
 change in their demeanor within the past few weeks. 
 Their former Consul, who for fifteen months employed 
 tactics that he had been wont to use in Seoul, was re- 
 cently replaced by one Kato from Tientsin, a very mild- 
 mannered person, and the different demands that the 
 former Consul was pressing so earnestly have been shelved 
 for the time being at least. The Chinese, who in many 
 cases have only their ow'n weakness, corruption and inde- 
 cision to thank for their calamities, have recently been 
 much more self-assertive, an attitude attributable in 
 part, I think, to the coming of the Pacific Fleet and Sec- 
 retary Taft's Shanghai speech, which frightened the Japa- 
 nese as much as it encouraged their continental cousins." 
 
 Cynical old-timers in diplomacy and international 
 strategy sniff at the idea of any motive but national self- 
 interest in these affairs. But Straight's interest in the 
 development of China sprang in the beginning from a 
 simple human feeling of fondness for the Chinese. Am- 
 bition for his country and himself strongly impelled him, 
 but that fondness was the beginning. He genuinely liked 
 the people. When he talked with one of them he was not 
 thinking, "I am a foreigner and you are a Chinese, let us 
 consider the differences between us"; l)ut rather, "Let's 
 talk as man to man." 
 
 The Chinese felt that he liked them and trusted them, 
 and in.stinctively they liked and trusted him in return. 
 And he was in the unicjue position of having behind him 
 a government as disinterested as he was. To say this is 
 not necessarily to attribute any great virtue to the 
 United States. Call it the result of our fortunate cir- 
 
 44
 
 WILLARD STRAIGHT AND TANG SHAO-YI, THE GOVERNOR OF SHENGKING 
 
 Others in the Group Are Minister Rockhill, Dr. George Morrison, the Famous London "Times" Correspondent, 
 Third from the Left, and George Marvin, Vice-Consul-General, Third from the Right 
 
 cumstances — an ample field for expansion at home- - 
 and let it go at that. The fact remains that America had 
 no ulterior designs on China. All it wanted was equal 
 treatment for all nations, with China reaping the benefit 
 that would come to her from honest foreign investment 
 and fair and open trading. The most enlightened 
 Chinese, recognizing this fact, were anxious that America 
 should, by becoming a direct participant, make the 
 first definite move toward true internationalization. 
 
 The crucial point in the whole Manchurian situation 
 was railroad control. The only important line in the 
 country, the Chinese Eastern, was held by the Russians 
 and the Japanese: the northern part of it, running south 
 from Harbin, by the Russians; the southern part, running 
 through Mukden (known as the South Manchurian line), 
 by the Japanese. Chinese trade was openly discrim- 
 inated against. It was plain that, until there should be 
 a railroad controlled by China or, if under foreign 
 financial control, then conducted with the Chinese in- 
 terest always paramount-Manchuria could never be 
 truly a part of China but would fall more and more under 
 Japanese domination. So it was that there grew, out 
 of the many talks between Straight and Tang, the pro- 
 posal for a new line (afterwards called the Chinchou- 
 Aigun line), which would run north from Chinchou 
 through eastern Mongolia, giving China an independent 
 connection with the Trans-Siberian and continuing on 
 across northern Manchuria to Aigun on the River Amur. 
 This plan was a gradual development, starting with the 
 plan for the short British line from Hsinmintun to 
 Fakumen in the Mukden region. At the same time they 
 discussed a scheme for a bank with American capital, 
 which should aid in developing agricultural and mining 
 wealth. 
 
 Not onlv from his studies but also from his own obser- 
 
 vation during his long trip through the interior. Straight 
 knew the agricultural resources of the country to be enor- 
 mous. He inspired Tang Shao-yi with a determination 
 to introduce modern farming methods into Manchuria. 
 Tang established an experiment station and brought to 
 it exports from an American agricultural college. The 
 project was an educational one, of course, and, as such, 
 it required years to bear fruit. In time much food 
 would have come of it; but the Revolution threw the 
 whole scheme into the discard. 
 
 At that time E. H. Harriman had already begun to 
 weave a plan for a round-the-world Harriman trans- 
 portation system. The Trans-Siberian Railway was to 
 be made a part of it, either by the purchase of control or 
 by a hard-and-fast traffic agreement, which would join 
 this road at one end with a Harriman steamship line out 
 of San Francisco. But Vladivostok was too far toward 
 the arctic for a seaport terminus. A necessary link in 
 the chain, therefore, was a railroad running south through 
 Manchuria from a junction with the Trans-Siberian to 
 an ice-free port. This Harriman might obtain in one of 
 two ways: by constructing a new line, or by buying the 
 existing Chinese Eastern from the Russians and the 
 South Manchurian from the Japanese. 
 
 From the conversations they had had when Harriman 
 visited Korea, Straight knew how keenly interested he 
 was in the idea of Manchurian development by American 
 capital. While, as Consul-General, he carried on discus- 
 sions with the Viceroy and Tang Shao-j-i, he looked to 
 Harriman for action when the hour should be ripe. 
 Later, on his return to America, Straight was to lay before 
 the financier his own expanded %-ision of America's r6le 
 in Manchuria and, as a result of the plan developed from 
 their conferences, he was to go to Peking as representa- 
 tive of American finance in the Far East. 
 
 •i.5
 
 Chapter VI 
 FAR EASTERN FINANCE 
 
 THE impression that he made upon E. H. Harriman, 
 when the railroad financier visited Korea in 1905, 
 was directly responsible for Willard Straight's 
 entrance into the financial affairs of the Far East. 
 Harriman's imagination had been seized by the vision of 
 an around-the-world Harriman transportation system, 
 with the Trans-Siberian Railway a part of it. It was 
 Harriman of all American financiers who first saw the 
 opportunity for great American development in the Far 
 East and backed his belief with hard personal work and 
 large plans. 
 
 "The working out of the Eastern question interests 
 me and there is much we can do to get it started on 
 more direct and straightforward lines than heretofore," 
 Harriman wrote Straight just before his death after four 
 years of correspondence and relation- 
 ship with Straight in Far Eastern 
 affairs. And in a letter to another he 
 thus recorded the reason for his in- 
 terest. "These financial groups are 
 very uncertain and shift and change 
 with the signs of storm or calm. The 
 development work appeals to me 
 more than anything else. After we 
 have determined what we will do, 
 then we can arrange the financing, 
 and how it shall be done and who 
 shall profit by it." ;/_' 
 
 "I understand," wrote Straight in 
 a memorandum, "that the suggestion 
 that Mr. Harriman make the journey 
 of 1905 to the Orient came from the 
 Japanese government, with whom 
 he had established close relations b> 
 virtue of the assistance rendered by 
 him and by Mr. Schiff in coi)i)eratioii 
 with Sir Ernest Cassel of London, in 
 floating the last Japanese loan in New 
 York and London. By reason of the 
 Russian defeat, he believed it might , 
 be possible to make some arrange- 
 ment for the acquisition of the Rus- 
 sian Trans-Siberian line. In July or 
 early August, 1906, assisted by Mr. 
 Lloyd Griscom, then American min- 
 ister to Japan and Mr. H. W. Denison, 
 an American attached as adviser to 
 the Foreign Office, Mr. Harriman 
 reached an understanding with Mar- 
 quis Ito and Count Katsura, then the 
 Japanese premier, under which Mr. 
 Harriman was to furnish the capital for the 
 recon.struction and operation of the South 
 Manchuria Railway and for the development 
 of various mining, timber and other enter- 
 prises along the line. These the Russians 
 had extracted from the Thinese, and the Jap- 
 
 
 V-: 
 
 COf.H.IK OF rKKIN(; 
 
 anese in turn had taken from the Russians. The Jap- 
 anese were to have a joint interest and political control 
 in this undertaking. Mr. Harriman was assured there 
 would be no hitch, but was advised that nothing definite 
 could be done pending the result of Count Komura's 
 negotiations with the Chinese government." 
 
 A year later Straight learned from Harriman that he 
 had been informed through one of the leading Japanese 
 financiers that the Chinese had not approved and the 
 Japanese had determined to deal with the problem 
 themselves. 
 
 "Mr. Harriman's project had not been definitely turned 
 down, but it was obvious that no further progress could 
 be expected," wrote Straight. "Prior to my departure 
 for Mukden, in August, 1906, Mr. Harriman asked me to 
 keep him advised as to railway devel- 
 opments in Manchuria. He was still 
 determined if possible to obtain a 
 foothold in that region to carry out 
 his scheme. Ultimately the Japanese 
 government arranged to obtain in 
 London the funds with which to 
 finance the construction of their 
 South Manchuria road. The Jap- 
 anese, much to the disappointment of 
 British interests, expended the funds 
 which they had obtained in London 
 in placing orders for railway material 
 in the United States. In doing so, as 
 I understand it, they were partly 
 influenced by a desire to make up in 
 some way for the failure to carry out 
 their agreement with Mr. Harriman." 
 This decision by Japan to hold fast 
 her claims in Manchuria marked the 
 unfolding of her imperial plan in 
 China. It also marked the beginning 
 of a long and tedious, but obdurate 
 fight, in which Straight played the 
 leading active part aimed to prevent 
 Japan and Russia from closing in on 
 Manchuria to the detriment of other 
 national interests and Chinese sov- 
 ereignty. The conclusion five years 
 later of the contract between China 
 and the Six Power Group -the United 
 States, England, France and Germany 
 with Japan and Russia admitted as 
 partners for joint loans to China, was 
 the first great result of the fight. The 
 Consortium of 1920 is the sequel. 
 The story of the fight begins in the sum- 
 mer of 1907, with Straight as consul-general 
 at Mukden. The general aim was to estab- 
 lish an American economic foothold in 
 Manchuria. The concrete aim was to build 
 a railroad which, by paralleling the South 
 
 V 
 
 1/ 
 
 'I 
 
 
 46
 
 Manchuria Railway (Japanese) and its northern exten- 
 sion to Harbin (Russian), should nullify the strategic 
 control over Manchuria held by Russia and Japan 
 through their possession of this railroad link between the 
 Trans-Siberian line and an ice-free port on the Gulf of 
 Chihli. 
 
 "At that time," Straight wrote, "Lord fTrench, repre- 
 senting Pauling and Company [British contractors], and 
 J. O. P. Bland, representing the British and Chinese 
 Corporation, came to Mukden and secured from the 
 Chinese government the right to build an extension of 
 the Chinese Imperial Railways [the line from Peking to 
 Mukden] from Hsinmintun, north to the town of 
 Fakumen, 47 miles distant, with the ultimate right to 
 extend this road to Tsitsihar [about 400 miles north] on 
 the Trans-Siberian Railway. [This would have given a 
 railroad connection from the Trans-Siberian line across 
 Manchuria to the sea, quite independent of the Russo- 
 Japanese line.] I was familiar with these negotiations. 
 They seemed to offer an opportunity for the realization 
 of Mr. Harriman's plans and for the creation of Anglo- 
 American-Russian cooperation in Man- 
 churia. This I believed to be essential, 
 for I did not feel that the United States 
 was sufficiently strong politically alone 
 to undertake to counterbalance Japanese 
 influence." 
 
 What the building of this British rail- 
 road as a parallel to the Japanese South 
 Manchuria line might have meant 
 politically may be judged from a signifi- 
 cant statement recorded by Straight: 
 
 "After lunch, Goto's aide [Baron 
 Goto, minister of Communications! 
 came in. He said Japan would, if 
 necessary, with weapons, prevent the 
 construction of the Hsinmintun-Faku- 
 men Railway." 
 
 The Japanese protested to the Brit- 
 ish, their allies, and the British Foreign 
 Office withdrew its support from the 
 scheme, which fell by the wayside. But 
 Straight adapted it later to the plan 
 he was working out, as providing the 
 means for joint American-British action 
 in Manchuria under American leader- 
 ship. 
 
 "I had several discussions with the 
 Viceroy [Hsu Shih-chang, now president 
 of China] and Governor ]Tang-Shao-yi]," 
 Straight wrote, "and as a result drew up 
 an outline of agreement, which would 
 give to American interests the contract 
 for a loan of some $20,000,000, carrying 
 with it the right to establish a Manchu- 
 rian bank to cooperate with the Man- 
 churian government. This bank would 
 be the financial agent of the Manehurian 
 government in undertaking mining, tim- 
 ber and agricultural development and 
 the construction of certain railways, 
 among others the line from Tsitsihar 
 running north to Aigun on the Amur 
 River. This scheme I sent to Mr. Har- 
 riman in September, 1907. Early in 
 
 /^v_ 
 
 A KORE.^N 
 
 October I received a cable stating that financial condi- 
 tions in New York were such, brought on by the panic, 
 that the transaction would be impossible." 
 
 This plan put up to Harriman for backing was 
 Straight's first important contribution to the .solution 
 of the Far Ea.slern problem through American action. 
 He was convinced of Harriman's intention to put through 
 a big idea and he knew that the panic of 1907 meant only 
 a temporary delay. In the field, he continued to work in 
 close contact with Tang Shao-yi and to keep the State 
 Department and .Mr. Harriman fully informed at home. 
 The relationship of the.se two men Straight, a mere 
 untried youngster of twenty-seven, out on the field, and 
 Harriman, the greatest railroad-financial genius of his 
 generation, at home, each working with independent 
 mind and vision, with .strong confidence in the other and 
 with assurance of America's ability to attain a place of 
 great influence on the Asiatic continent was a dramatic 
 one. The two stood out alone in the breadth of their 
 vision and resourcefulne.ss. All the time Straight in 
 Manchuria, in touch with actual conditions, was working 
 out plans and the diplomatic facilities 
 for carrying them out, to be put up to 
 Harriman. He was confident that, when 
 the time was ripe, Harriman had the 
 abiding interest and the nerve to put 
 his power behind them. Harriman on 
 the other hand relied with rare confi- 
 dence on the observing power, vision 
 and good judgment of Straight. So 
 great was this confidence, that a year 
 and a half later Harriman was making 
 strong representation to the Taft Admin- 
 istration that Straight, who considered 
 himself much too young for the post, 
 should be made minister to China. 
 
 In 1908, almost a year from the time 
 Straight first put up his proposition to 
 Mr. Harriman, he was suddenly sum- 
 moned by cable through the request of 
 Mr. Harriman to return to the United 
 States to discuss the Manehurian finan- 
 cing plans. Harriman had seen that 
 conditions were right financially for 
 reviving the Far Eastern loan. On the 
 night before leaving Mukden— rather, 
 at six in the morning Straight signed 
 a memorandum of agreement for a 
 .$20,000,000 loan along the lines of the 
 discussions of the year before, including 
 a Manehurian railroad. This was a 
 rough preliminary, not the detailed 
 agreement, which it required two more 
 years to get. 
 
 "I carried the agreement for nearly 
 six weeks in a small wallet tied about 
 my neck in a silk case," wrote Straight. 
 "That memorandum was the ground- 
 work upon which the American Group 
 is based." 
 
 He was made acting chief of the 
 Division of Far Eastern Affairs in the 
 State Department soon after his arrival 
 in Washington. He took up with Mr. 
 Harriman immediately plans for cora- 
 
 47
 
 pleting the loan they had discussed. 
 
 "On the third of December, 1908, 
 by Mr. Harriman's direction, I called 
 upon Mr. Otto Kahn of Kuhn, Loeb 
 & Company and took up with him the 
 question of the loan to China," he 
 wrote. "Prior to my departure from 
 Mukden it was determined that 
 China was to send Tang Shao-yi as 
 special ambassador to thank the 
 United States for the return of a por- 
 tion of the Boxer indemnity, and that 
 on his arrival in America he should 
 complete the negotiations for 
 the loan the preliminary agree- 
 ment for which I brought home 
 with me. In the meantime, ^ 
 early in November, both the 
 Empress Dowager and the / 
 Emperor Kuang Hsu died sud- / 
 denlv. At the end of Octo- /f 
 ber, moreover, Baron Taka- /ci 
 hira, who was then Japanese (j ' "* 
 ambassador to Washington, 
 had suggested to President 
 Roosevelt and Mr. Root that, 
 in order to prevent any diffi- 
 culty between Japan and the 
 
 United States in the Pacific, there should be an inter- 
 change of notes regarding the preservation of the Open 
 Door in China, stipulating that both the United States and 
 Japan should mutually respect the other's interest in the 
 Far East. 
 
 "It seemed obvious that Japan was endeavoring to 
 forestall the arrival of Tang Shao-yi and the attempt 
 which it was believed he would make to reach some 
 understanding with the United States, by making it 
 appear through the interchange of such notes 
 that there was a virtual alliance between the 
 United States and Japan. Mr. Root and 
 President Roosevelt were induced to post- 
 pone the actual signature of these notes 
 until Tang's arrival. He reached Washing- 
 ton on November 30, the notes 
 were shown him at noon that day 
 by Mr. Root and the notes them- 
 selves were signed at four o'clock 
 in the afternoon. 
 
 "Tang was very much 
 discouraged. On the death 
 of the Emperor Kuang 
 Hsu, his nephew was 
 named as his successor 
 and his brother, Prince 
 f-'hun, appointed Regent. 
 The Regent hated Yuan 
 Shih-kai and every effort 
 was made to remove him 
 from office. Yuan, how- 
 ever, was endeavoring to 
 hold his position by claim- 
 ing that, through Tang's 
 negotiations in the United 
 States, he would be able to 
 secure American support, 
 
 ^ 
 
 A FINE CHINESE TYPE 
 
 A i'ekin(;ese in wintek 
 
 which would counterbalance Japanese domina- 
 tion in Manchuria. The interchange of notes 
 with Japan was promptly used by the Japanese, 
 who were intriguing against Yuan, to prove that 
 Yuan had failed in securing American support 
 and that the United States instead of support- 
 ing China against Japan had in reality con- 
 cluded a virtual alliance with the Japanese 
 government. Yuan was driven from power 
 early in January, 1909, and Tang himself left 
 the United States for 
 London shortly after- 
 ward. He felt that any 
 further discussion of the 
 loan was useless. The 
 loan negotiations were 
 dropped for the time 
 being." 
 
 But they were dropped 
 only from the Chinese 
 end. The American ne- 
 gotiators were, if any- 
 thing, more determined 
 than ever to see things 
 through. Mr. Harriman 
 reverted to his original 
 plan of 1905-1906 for the 
 purchase of the Japa- 
 nese and Russian lines in Manchuria. But during the 
 subsequent conferences in the early part of 1909, a com- 
 plementary and alternative scheme evolved. This was 
 to secure from the Chinese a definite contract for the 
 building of another railroad in Manchuria, which could 
 be used as a lever to influence the sale of the Japa- 
 nese and Russian lines or, failing in this, could be built 
 as an alternative line. Straight tells of these develop- 
 ments as follows: 
 
 "While these events were taking place in Washing- 
 ton and China, Mr. Harriman had kept closely in 
 touch with the situation and my discussions with 
 Tang Shao-yi. In November, Mr. Schiflf, who was 
 in close touch with Mr. Gregory Wilenkin, formerly 
 the Russian financial agent in the United States and 
 then the Russian agent in Japan, had 
 been advised that there was still some 
 possibility that Russia would be willing 
 to sell the Chinese-Eastern Railway, if 
 Japan would agree to sell her Man- 
 churian line. Mr. Schiff wrote to his 
 friend. Baron Shibusawa, to ask whether 
 the Japanese would be 
 willing, in view of the 
 previous memorandum of 
 agreement with Mr. Har- 
 riman, to sell the South 
 Manchuria Railway to 
 American interests, pro- 
 vided the Russians would 
 sell the Chinese Eastern. 
 "This proi)osition the 
 Japanese turned down. 
 Early in December, I pre- 
 pared a memorandum as 
 to the basis upon which 
 these two lines might be 
 
 48
 
 acquired. The matter had been taken up with Tani; 
 Shao-yi, who had said that China would be glad and would 
 cooperate if we could organize an international syndicate 
 to purchase both lines on behalf of China, thus antici- 
 pating the provision for repurchase of the lines contained 
 in the original agreement of 1896 between China and 
 Russia. This memorandum I believe formed the basis 
 for the Knox neutralization proposals [for an interna- 
 tional syndicate to buy out the Russian and Japanese 
 railroad holdings in Manchuria]." 
 
 Here the situation becomes complicated by the 
 introduction of discussion of another loan to 
 enable American financial interests to take up 
 participation in the building of the Hukuang 
 Railways in South China. The State Depart- 
 ment had been fighting for the right of Amer- 
 ican finance to enter this loan with 
 the British, French and Germans. 
 There were therefore three ideas 
 moving concurrently in the minds 
 of the Americans. First and imme- 
 diately came the effort to purchase 
 the Russian railroad in Manchuria. 
 Secondly, there was the necessity for 
 immediate action to enable the 
 United States to take its place in 
 the Hukuang loan. Thirdly, there 
 was the fundamental plan in the 
 minds of Harriman and Straight to 
 obtain from the Chinese a Manchu- 
 rian railway contract to make the 
 American position secure, whether 
 the Russians or the Japanese sold 
 their railroad or not. This con- 
 tract, later secured, was known as 
 the Chinehou-Aigun plan. The 
 negotiation of the contract was to 
 be the first essential in the Amer- 
 ican position. But no contract with 
 the Chinese could be official without 
 a ratifying edict. And therefore 
 the edict for this contract, told of 
 later in the story, became the key to 
 the whole American position. It 
 was in the development of this idea 
 for the Chinchou-Aigun Railway 
 that Straight contributed his first 
 big share in the team-work with 
 Harriman and the group of Amer- 
 ican financiers now interested. 
 
 "Early in May, Kuhn, Loeb & Company decided to 
 send a representative to China to endeavor to complete 
 the loan negotiations which had been undertaken the 
 previous year," Straight wrote. "Subsequently it be- 
 came obvious that unless American financial interests 
 were willing at once to enter the field, the right to par- 
 ticipate with the British, French and German interests 
 in the construction of the Hukuang Railways would be 
 lost to the United States. At this time I was working 
 very closely with Mr. Robert Bacon of J. P. Morgan & 
 Company. That firm was also thinking of sending a 
 representative to Peking, and, in order to secure coopera- 
 tion between the American financial interests, and to 
 secure as strong representation as possible, it was agreed 
 in June to form the so-called American Group, consisting 
 
 A MANCHU WOMAN 
 
 of J. p. Morgan & Company, Kuhn, Loeb & Company, 
 the First National Bank and the National City Bank, 
 and I was designated as their representative. The 
 Group was finally organized early in June. 
 
 "Mr. Harriman sailed for Europe at the end of May 
 and I followed at the end of June. In early July we had 
 a conference in London regarding the Hukuang Rail- 
 ways without reaching any .satisfactory understanding. 
 Shortly after, I went to Bad Gastein where Mr. Harriman 
 was then taking the Cure. I stayed two days 
 with him and talked over the Far Eastern situa- 
 tion very fully. 
 
 "No one, I think, was familiar with Mr. Harri- 
 
 man's plans for his Manchurian railway and 
 
 round-the-world transportation system. I doubt 
 
 very much if Mr. Kahn knew the details and I 
 
 am quite sure that none of the other 
 
 interests of the American Group, 
 
 in which Mr. Harriman also had a 
 
 participation, were at all familiar 
 
 with his ideas. While in Paris Mr. 
 
 Harriman had arranged with Mr. 
 
 X to go to Petersburg to discuss 
 
 with the Minister of Finance the 
 possible purchase of the Chinese 
 Eastern Railway [the northern 
 Manchuria line]. I was to en- 
 deavor to secure from the Chinese 
 government the right to build a 
 line from the Gulf of Chihli to 
 run north to the Trans-Siberian 
 Railway, possibly up to the Amur. 
 "Once an agreement had been 
 reached with the Russians and the 
 right for the construction of a 
 north and south line secured from 
 China, we would have been in 
 position to negotiate with the Jap- 
 anese. If they had been willing to 
 make some arrangement regarding 
 joint operation of the South Man- 
 churia Railway, it would have been 
 unnecessary to construct another 
 north and south line. If they were 
 unwilling to make such an agree- 
 ment, the construction of another 
 north and south line operating in 
 conjunction with the Russian road 
 would have placed them in a very 
 embarrassing position in Manchuria. 
 "1 reached Peking early in September and on Octo- 
 ber 2, with Pauling and Company, signed with the Viceroy 
 of Manchuria an agreement for the construction of a 
 line from Chinchou on the Gulf, to Aigun on the Amur, 
 making the first step in Mr. Harriman's scheme. This 
 line was to be financed in America, and to be constructed 
 by Pauling and Company, who had the original conces- 
 sion from the Chinese government for the line from Hsin- 
 mintun to Fakumen. We hoped thus to have the 
 advantage of securing .\nglo-American cooperation. 
 
 "I had received word of Mr. Harriman's death on 
 September 10. Returning to Peking from Mukden, I 
 found a letter from Mr. Harriman, written on the way 
 
 from Paris to Cherbourg, in which he told me that X ■ 
 
 had come back from Petersburg, where he had arranged 
 
 49
 
 with Kokovtseff, the minister of Finance, that on his 
 return to Russia from a trip which he was about to make 
 to Vladivostok, he (Kokovtseff) would recommend the 
 sale to American interests of the Chinese Eastern Rail- 
 way. Mr. Kokovtseff in accordance with his promise 
 did on his return make this recommendation. 
 
 "The arrangement had been made with Russia, the 
 contract secured from the Chinese government, but the 
 directing genius had gone. I cabled to New York, urging 
 the group to get in touch with Mr. Harriman's secretary 
 and familiarize themselves with his plans. I had previ- 
 ously urged that a representative be sent to Petersburg in 
 order to negotiate with the Russians but this recommen- 
 dation had been turned down. No one in New York 
 knew precisely what Mr. Harriman had in mind; no 
 one was capable of carrying through his scheme. The 
 Group, I understand, advised the State Department of 
 
 the arrangement which Mr. X had made. Shortly 
 
 after, they cabled me, asking whether the Imperial Edict 
 had been issued, ratifying my preliminary agreement with 
 the Viceroy of Manchuria. 
 
 "I replied that from reliable sources I understood that 
 the edict had been issued. [As a matter of fact, it had 
 not, though a secret and vague conditional edict had.] 
 Without cabling the Legation, which at that time was 
 in charge of Fletcher [recently ambassador to Mexico], 
 without waiting for confirmation from me, the State 
 Department, on the basis of the report above mentioned, 
 launched the neutralization proposals [the invitation 
 sent to the Russian, Japanese, Chinese, British, French 
 and German governments to join in an international 
 arrangement to buy out the Russian and Japanese 
 railroad possessions in Manchuria with an alternative 
 proposition to join with the United States in building 
 the Chinchou-Aigun Railway, the potential rival of the 
 Russian-Japanese line]. 
 
 "The scene had been set, but to carry through the plan 
 it would have been necessary to conduct unofficial con- 
 versations with both Tokyo and Petersburg, to secure 
 the approval of London and Paris and possibly of Berlin, 
 and then, when all arrangements had been made, to make 
 an official proposal. It would have been wiser, probably, 
 in any case, to have left these negotiations in the hands of 
 private individuals. The scheme was all right but it 
 required delicate handling instead of blacksmith methods. 
 In Russia, M. Izwolsky, the minister of Foreign Affairs, 
 was a bitter enemy of Kokovtseff. Also he was anti- 
 American. Izwolsky desired a closer understanding with 
 Japan and Kokovtseff wished to work with American 
 capital. By handling these neutralization proposals 
 through diplomatic channels, the negotiations were 
 placed in the hands of Izwolsky and not of Kokovtseff. 
 IzwoLsky used the whole scheme and the bogy of an 
 American incited anti-Russian China, which he built upon 
 it, and the manner in which it had been presented, to 
 convince his colleagues in the government that the only 
 protection again.st American intrigue was a rapproche- 
 ment with Japan. He was successful. The proposals 
 resulted in a rebuff to the United States, the nullification 
 of all work which had been done by Mr. Harriman [in 
 endeavoring to buy or internationalize the Russian and 
 Japanese lines in Manchuria] and the signature of the 
 Ru.sso-Japanese agreement of July 4, 1910 [for mutual 
 cooperation and protection of interests in this territory], 
 which practically lost Manchuria and Mongolia to China." 
 
 Whatever declaration Russia and Japan had made in 
 treaties and conventions, what these two did not want 
 was the Open Door in Manchuria and they quickly came 
 together to defeat it. 
 
 The story here goes back to the point of Straight's 
 arrival in Peking the year before. Upon him, not yet 
 thirty years old, acting with Henry Prather Fletcher, 
 Charge at the Legation, rested the duty of representing 
 American interests in Peking in this, the greatest foreign 
 development project that Americans had ever under- 
 taken. Straight was pitted on one side against shrewd 
 Chinese court favorites and officials — many of them 
 grasping and corrupt — and on the other against European 
 financial agents, who had received a profound schooling 
 in oriental methods and European intrigues in years of 
 residence in the East. True, supposedly, he was to 
 cooperate with, not oppose, these Europeans. But they 
 were suspicious of him as one who had come to trench 
 upon their preserves. Nothing could be more eloquent 
 of Straight's quality than the way in which, without 
 yielding any American rights or advantages, he con- 
 quered their hostility — through tact and forbearance 
 and good humor, not less than through sheer ability. 
 Among the negotiators of the other group three stand 
 out as men of kindred spirit and outlook with whom 
 Straight formed a life-long friendship on terms of warm 
 affection. They were Lord ffrench, who represented the 
 British contractors, Pauling & Company, Bland, who 
 represented the British and Chinese Corporation, and 
 Casenave, who later represented the French Group, 
 and is now French High Commissioner in the United 
 States. And Straight's colleague in the union of diplo- 
 macy and finance who as Charge at the Legation fought 
 side by side with him was Fletcher, affectionately called 
 by Straight, the Elder Brother. 
 
 During the fall of 1909 and the early winter — before 
 the Knox neutralization proposals came out — there was 
 one question which ran like a dominant motif through 
 the official American community in Peking. This was, 
 "When will the edict, ratifying the Manchurian agree- 
 ment, relating to the Chinchou-Aigun Railway be issued?" 
 Rumors, encouraging assurances, postponements, eva- 
 sions, constituted an excellent specimen of Chinese gov- 
 ernmental procedure. Fear of the Japanese and Rus- 
 sians was one powerful factor behind the Chinese delay. 
 
 "It is disgusting," wrote Straight, "to see the terror 
 with which the high Chinese officials regard Japan and to 
 realize that they would rather sacrifice their richest prov- 
 inces than risk incurring Japanese displeasure." 
 
 In a letter of December 3, 1909, Straight discusses some 
 of the reasons for the Chinese delay: 
 
 "We know there is a terrific row at the palace between 
 the Regent and the widow of the late Emperor. Not 
 only this worthy lady but the erstwhile concubines of the 
 Emperor Tung Chih, defunct some forty years, are now 
 taking an important hand in the game. The Number 
 One Concul)ine wants honors as an Empress Dowager and 
 there are other bereaved ladies in the palace who wish 
 for further honorifics to be called 'Emerald Eye', I 
 suppose, instead of 'Sang de Bneuf. The spectacle of 
 these old women, sitting at the Imperial Tombs and de- 
 claring that they were so moved by the sight of their late 
 lord's resting-place, which they had not visited since he 
 was planted forty years ago, that they could not return 
 to Peking unless they were given certain honors, is one 
 
 50
 
 
 
 WILLARD STRAIGHT IN MANCHURIA 
 
 Straight Had Traveled from End to End of Manchuria During His Consulate at Mukden, Acquiring First-Hand 
 Knowledge of the Country That Later Stood Him In Good Stead 
 
 that provokes our mirth but the Chinese misery. They 
 came back the other day over a yellow road, dear things, 
 for they refused to proceed over the ordinary dust of 
 commerce. [Members of the Imperial Family could 
 travel to and from the Imperial Tombs, more than 100 
 miles away, on nothing but an imperial yellow road, 
 made so by the sprinkling of yellow dust or sand.] 
 
 "The Viceroy of Chihli, Tuan Fang, was cashiered 
 through the influence of the Dowager and against the 
 will of the Regent, and the whole place is so upset that it 
 is difficult to know when w-e may expect these people to 
 take up our matters. Tuan was dismissed ostensibly 
 because he had had cinematograph pictures taken of the 
 Empress Dowager's cortege, and had run telephone and 
 telegraph wires within the sacred enclosure at the Eastern 
 Tombs. More than that -disreputable clod that he was 
 - -he had allowed his sedan-chair to be carried across the 
 Spirit Path (the road on which the Empress Dowager's 
 funeral was to proceed to the tomb), thus holding up the 
 whole parade! The real truth is that the party of the 
 dead Empress Dowager is entirely disgusted with the 
 time-serving policy of the Regent, and has compassed 
 the downfall of Tuan to humble the Chief of State. It 
 seems now not improbable that Yuan Shih-kai may come 
 back. He will, if given a place on the Grand Council, but 
 not without it." 
 
 The Knox neutralization proposals came out early in 
 1910 and immediately threw the Russians and Japanese 
 into each other's arms. But though the Knox proposals 
 forced the Russians and Japanese to refuse definitely to 
 sell their railroad lines in Manchuria and furthermore 
 aroused their intense opposition to the building of the 
 
 Chinchou-Aigun Railway, Straight and Fletcher kept 
 fighting for it with confident hope of success. And suc- 
 cess they achieved in the final contract signed by the 
 Chinese a few months later. 
 
 "Fletcher managed to extract the Chin-Ai Edict from 
 the Chinese," wrote Straight, "on practically the same 
 day that the Knox proposals were published, and Wash- 
 ington's face for the moment was saved a little bit." 
 But the final agreement for the loan still had to be drawn. 
 
 "Our whole play is to work China's fear of Russia and 
 Japan to get our detailed agreement through," Straight 
 wrote later, "then to take Japan and Russia out of the 
 way. Had we done this first and then tried to put 
 through our detailed agreement, the Chinese would have 
 laughed at us. 
 
 "The Russians have put their foot down and the Chi- 
 nese are in a blue funk. They will not move until forced 
 into action by our government. Whether Washington 
 can do more than it has done already to help this ungrate- 
 ful, vacillating, weak-kneed lot of ofiicials, I don't know. 
 It could if they'd do even a little to help 'emselves." 
 
 "Fletcher and I threatened Korostovetz (Russian 
 minister] the other day," wrote Straight on April 17, 
 "that if he didn't get his government to allow our rail- 
 way to go through without further protest, we'd jolly 
 well have Pauling & Company and the Group open an 
 office in Teheran and Constantinople and make a little 
 trouble there. He was quite inclined to take us seriously. 
 
 "I saw that the Chinese were dilly-dallying and would 
 continue to do so indefinitely if they were let. I saw 
 that, once we had them under agreement, we could go no 
 farther until we had either squared or defied Petersburg. 
 
 51
 
 ^f'^ .it^ - u n t . 
 
 cJfi^U i- i'5i<. 
 
 MAURICE CASENAVE 
 
 The last course we could only risk as a last resort. 
 Furthermore, our only club to bring the Chinese to terms 
 was a threat to leave them to the mercies of Japan and 
 Russia. So when things were pretty well settled, I an- 
 nounced that I would leave for Russia and New York. 
 If they closed before I went, I should negotiate on their 
 behalf with the Russians; if not, I should return to New 
 York and report that they were not seriously anxious to 
 build a railway, but were only using us for political 
 purposes." Straight wrote this on April 21. 
 
 "Before I left China in April," he wrote later, "we had 
 completed our negotiation of the final agreement for the 
 Chin-Ai line. The Russians and Japanese had entered 
 protests at Peking. But we hoped to be able to reach 
 some understanding with the Russians. To this end I 
 went to Petersburg in June, 1910, and met the ministers 
 interested. I came away convinced that if we started 
 to build our line and told the Russians we would only go 
 as far as Taonanfu for the time being, we would eventu- 
 ally be able to complete the work. This proposition 
 however was turned down. 
 
 "The Chinese wished to know what the American 
 government was going to do about it all. The Russians 
 however had clearly stated that, though they couldn't 
 stop our building the line and had no treaty rights on 
 which to base their protest, they would jolly well take it 
 out of China if she tried to cross their Trans-Siberian 
 road at Tsitsihar, anrl approach the Siberian frontier. 
 We ourselves couldn't fight. The Chinese would have 
 gone ahead if we had promised to back them up, but 
 this we could not do, and, had we pushed the matter, 
 
 we should probably have gone ofT scot-free and seen 
 China lose a slice of territory or two. Our government 
 therefore sat down in front of the stone wall to the con- 
 struction of which it had so largely contributed." 
 
 This conclusion of Straight's was set down long after 
 the event but during this spring of 1910 hope of success 
 for the Chin-Ai plan ran high. This hope was strongly 
 encouraged by the belief that England, through its alli- 
 ance with Japan and the influence it could surely exert, 
 if it would, at St. Petersburg, would stand for the Open 
 Door, particularly as British interests were directly 
 involved. But instead, England herself yielded. 
 
 "It's not the Open Door but the Door Mat policy — and 
 China pays," wrote Straight. "An intimation from Sir 
 Edward Grey to Japan that interference with this project 
 would be regarded as a serious breach of Japan's treaty 
 obligations, and a hint that the London market might 
 tighten against Japan as a result, would have chastened 
 her at once. Had Downing Street firmly but politely 
 told Russia that, if she continued to oppose China's legiti- 
 mate development in Manchuria, it would be necessary 
 for Great Britain to reconsider her position all along the 
 line, Russia would have been careful. British weakness 
 has been the signal for Russian and Japanese bullying." 
 
 The Chinchou-Aigun project was therefore practically 
 dropped. But for Straight it only meant but one battle 
 in the fight and he turned to other projects — the Currency 
 loan and the Hukuang loan — to attain the same end. 
 
 Straight had come to Peking athrill at the prospect of 
 setting in motion a vast development. The Manchurian 
 loan and the Hukuang loan were matters immediately at 
 hand. But he saw them as the beginning of a new era for 
 China- the symbol and the promise of still greater things 
 to be. Not bankers' profits but the sweep and bigness of 
 the whole scheme its meaning to the future of his country 
 and to millions of men in Asia — stirred his imagination. 
 Hence the atmosphere of distrust in which he found he 
 had to work fell, at times, like a pall over his spirit. 
 
 "What bitterness there is in this China game!" he 
 wrote in one of his letters home. "It is sickening some- 
 times. It is almost impossible for you to realize the 
 pettiness and suspicion that prevail here, where every 
 one more or less is spying on every one else. It is the 
 storm center of world politics, and the foreign community 
 is very small. We see each other nearly every day — 
 there are but few outside influences and diversions — and 
 this brings out the little meannesses of human nature. 
 
 "Because one man does not invite another to dinner, 
 because A's wife doesn't call on B's, B curses A and blocks 
 his business. A invites B to dinner and pumps him dry; 
 and if B be weak or vain, the chances are that A will 
 learn things B has no right to divulge. You are up 
 against the game all the time; each party to it finds little 
 respite; for even our distraction must be shared by the 
 same fighting crowd, who carry the scrap with them to 
 the dinner-table and the polo-field." 
 
 Though Manchurian development plans were the 
 underlying feature of Straight's work in this winter of 
 1909-1910, the matter of American participation in the 
 Three Power loan for the Hukuang Railways was of con- 
 current interest. But now a new undertaking supplanted 
 both Hukuang and Chinchou-Aigun in the center of the 
 stage. This was the Currency loan, for the reorganiza- 
 tion of China's monetary system, a structure tottering 
 insecurely upon a silver foundation. 
 
 52
 
 Chapter VII 
 THE CHINESE CURRENCY LOAN 
 
 WHEN Tang Shao-yi journeyed to Washinfjton as 
 special envoy, in 1908, at the time he and Willard 
 Straight were working out the Manchurian loan, 
 one of his plans was to negotiate a loan of $;iOO,000,000. 
 Part of the proceeds was to be used in reforming China's 
 chaotic currency system. Professor Jeremiah W. Jenks, 
 summoned from America for the purpose, a number of 
 years before, had presented a scheme for thorough revi- 
 sion. In 1910, this matter of currency reform was re- 
 vived at Peking. Plentiful funds were needed. The 
 Manchu Prince, Tsai Tao, on a visit to the United States, 
 early in 1910, made a preliminary contract with the 
 American Group of bankers for a $50,000,000 loan. 
 
 Willard Straight had come home at this time for con- 
 ference, bringing with him the completed contract for 
 Manchurian development and for the building of the 
 Chinchou-Aigun Railway. When the Russian and 
 Japanese protests held this up, however, the attention of 
 the Americans was concentrated on the new Currency 
 loan. The final working out of the Hukuang loan was a 
 concomitant, though lesser, issue. 
 
 For the next year, 1910-1911, Straight, returning to 
 Peking, gave himself up to the development of this most 
 important chapter in American-Chinese finance. The 
 year saw the hardest battling in the history of the under- 
 taking. For the sole principles on the basis of which 
 America can be of service to China in her financial reor- 
 ganization were then fought out. It was Straight who 
 bore the brunt of battle. 
 
 On one side were his European associates, bent on 
 making loans that gave, in addition to fat profits, political 
 advantages in claims on China. The Currency reform 
 loan was at first anything but beloved by the British 
 and German banking folk. Currency confusion was a 
 source of considerable profit to foreign bankers in ex- 
 change. Thus some of the very men who presumably 
 favored international cooperation were unsympathetic 
 with this particular form and with Straight. On the other 
 side were the Chinese, warily anxious to escape the toils of 
 European political aggression, wanting money badly but 
 on terms that set no limit to its corrupt expenditure. There 
 were his own principals in New York -now lukewarm to 
 this expensive and wearisome Far-Eastern dickering, which 
 dragged on and on with only faint promise of immediate 
 profit, but with ever deeper enmeshment in diplomatic 
 tangle. The financial market in the United States then 
 was a very different affair from that of today. Sizable 
 foreign loans were practically unknown and unpopular 
 with the investor, who distrusted any investment not 
 under his own sight and who, besides, could get a higher 
 return on his money in stock exchange securities. Last 
 and often most irritating was the State Department at 
 Washington, which, with an air of bland innocence, 
 cabled to Peking instructions calculated to undo the 
 work of months and set the pot of intrigue boiling again. 
 
 Straight, in conjunction with WiUiam J. Calhoun, 
 American minister, Maurice Casenave, representative of 
 
 the French hankers, and Henry P. Davison, who was con- 
 fidently behind him in New York, successfully harmon- 
 ized these elements. He .supplied the energy, assurance 
 and daring in independent action that gave his chief sup- 
 porters among the bankers in New York, firm ground on 
 which they could hold the Group behind his moves on 
 the field. He achieved a working basis by virtue of un- 
 usual toil and resourcefulness, endless compromise, tact 
 and humor diplomatic talents of the highest order. 
 
 It was the year of his large achievement for American 
 Far-Eastern relations, a year notable for the formulation 
 of the two great principles on which the success of the 
 present Consortium of 1920 depends. These are the 
 principle of cooperation instead of competition among 
 the lending Powers and of foreign supervision of the ex- 
 penditure of loans to China, to prevent their dissipation 
 in Chinese official pockets. 
 
 The Currency loan contract immediately gave large 
 
 . ^k ^m 
 
 53
 
 NUMBER ONE BOY 
 
 prestige to the new position of the United States in Far 
 Eastern finance. When the Chinese recognized that this 
 country was in the mood to lend, they readily turned to 
 it, for it had no covert political ambition. The fact that 
 the Chinese came to the United States alone, asking this 
 country to negotiate alone and to sign alone, gave the 
 American group a powerful advantage over the others. 
 It is difficult to estimate the influence in international 
 finance possessed by the youthful Straight when he went 
 back to Peking, in 1910, to work out America's tactical 
 advantage over the European and oriental financiers and 
 statesmen shrewd, trained gray-heads and old hands - 
 against whom he was pitted. He did not hesitate to take 
 the lead; nor did he flaunt his advantage or lose sight of 
 the weaknesses of his position. He never used power in 
 ways that fanned the jealousy of his colleagues. Rather 
 he won their confidence in his initiative and their respect 
 for him as a business associate but more, their friendship. 
 
 The Hukuang loan was the medium through which the 
 principle of international cooperation was first definitely 
 worked out. Many years before, a railway from Hankow 
 south to Canton had been projected, and later the 
 .scheme had been expanded to include a line west from 
 Hankow up the Yangtze valley. The word Hukuang 
 was manufactured from the first syllables of the names of 
 the provinces to be traversed by the road — Hupeh, 
 Hunan and Kuangtung. In the spring of 1909 a com- 
 bination of British, German and French bankers, with 
 the diplomatic support of their governments, concluded 
 an agreement with the Chinese for the financing and con- 
 struction of the railway. The American government 
 entered a vigorous protest against being excluded. Inas- 
 much as the Chinese seemed to ignore this, President 
 Taft sent a personal cablegram to the Prince Regent of 
 China, reminding him of previous engagements that gave 
 America the right to participation. The Regent ordered 
 the agreement to be redrawn to admit American capital. 
 Thus the principle of American participation was settled. 
 
 The Hukuang negotiations had proceeded satisfac- 
 torily, considering the delays "because our British and 
 
 German friends, having been forced to agree to our entry 
 on a basis of financial equality, tried to prevent our pro- 
 tecting ourselves from discrimination against our railway 
 material"; and, when Straight was in Europe in May, 
 1910, on his way home, the representatives of the four 
 groups, American, British, French and German, signed 
 an agreement covering the terms of participation. The 
 late J. P. Morgan attended some of these conferences. 
 "It was fine, because Mr. Morgan really took an interest 
 in things — like an indulgent parent," wrote Straight with 
 enthusiasm. A preliminary understanding was also 
 arranged in Europe, in 1910, for participation by the 
 European group with the American bankers in the issu- 
 ance of the Currency loan when completed, with a reser- 
 vation by the American bankers of the right of inde- 
 pendent action if the Chinese objected to participation 
 by the others. 
 
 This understanding made the position of the American 
 Group in the Currency loan somewhat anomalous. It 
 was the apparent lender to China; yet Straight felt that 
 it would have to farm out a large part of the loan in 
 Europe. And this troubled him. On his way back to 
 Peking, in the fall of 1910, he wrote: 
 
 "History: The Chinese bring us the Currency loan 
 on the understanding that we are to be the sole nego- 
 tiators. On that basis we accept, though for some weeks 
 we have been conferring 
 with the European groups 
 about a general quadruple 
 understanding. We inform 
 the Chinese we may wish 
 to issue the Currency loan 
 in Europe, to which they 
 make no objection their 
 sole request being that we 
 negotiate and sign alone. 
 
 "Hence our position, 
 though delicate, is all right, 
 and straight. Then, liefore 
 we sign our preliminary 
 agreement with China, we 
 propose that Europe — 
 when we cannot issue in 
 the United States issue 
 for us on commission. This 
 is of course a tactical 
 error, for it shows that we 
 have no absorbing power 
 in America. But the Eu- 
 ropean banks say all right, 
 and we close up our pre- 
 liminary agreement. It is 
 published, or rather an- 
 nounced, in the press. 
 Then comes the announce- 
 ment that the American 
 government will insist up- 
 on the appointment of a 
 financial adviser. 
 
 "We engage in negotia- 
 tions for a quadruple agree- 
 ment — we show Europe 
 that we can't handle what 
 we get from China and 
 that we expect to unload 
 
 ■-->■<>,- 
 
 J^ 
 
 'XJ 
 
 m 
 
 
 
 ¥ 
 
 <^y 
 
 n 
 
 b 
 
 YOIINC; CHINA 
 
 54
 
 three-fourths, perhaps four-fourths, in London, Paris 
 and Berlin and then Europe learns that there's to be 
 an American financial adviser! Their bankers and gov- 
 ernments both say: 'Why should we lend money to 
 China to enable America to have a financial adviser? 
 Especially since the American currency system is thor- 
 oughly had?' Can you blame them?" 
 
 Straight arrived in Peking in November. "Wonderful 
 to see, the arrival at the station!" he wrote. "A horde of 
 servants and a number of Americans. A great arch of 
 fire-crackers with a placard, 'Welcome Home{!) to Mr. 
 Straight', hanging therefrom. Then, at home, the court- 
 yard decorated with plants, red lanterns at the gate, a 
 floral arch over the little gateway, and every one, foreign- 
 ers and Chinese, apparently glad to see me." 
 
 The new American Minister, William J. C'alhoun, was 
 at the Legation. "He is a corker," said Straight, "sound, 
 clear-headed and absolutely straight and fearless. And 
 he has a nice line of profanity which I greatly appreciate, 
 for I am always much handicapped when 1 cannot call 
 on my own rather elaborate vocabulary for choice ones." 
 Their friendship developed into warm affection and they 
 worked closely together. Their joint despair over the 
 State Department's offhand omniscience and sometimes 
 over what seemed to Straight its incredible naivete, was 
 reflected in Straight's letters. After weeks of trying 
 negotiation and cabling, he wrote: 
 
 "This morning a long telegram from Washington, 
 which said: 'What grounds have you for believing Russia 
 and Japan have intrigued against the Currency loan? 
 Sift these reports and report what explanations, if any, 
 are made by the Russian and the Japanese ministers!' 
 Good Heavens! Imagine going to Korostovetz and 
 Honda and saying, 'Prithee, gentle strangers, have you 
 perchance done aught to interfere with our altruistic plan 
 to reform China's currency?' 'Tush, tush,' they would 
 reply, slapping the inquirer on the wrist, 'Naughty! 
 Naughty! How could you have thought such a thing!' 
 The Department's fine! Does it think we are playing 
 kindergarten games, instead of gambling for an empire!" 
 
 "I'll bet the Banderlog (Banderlog, borrowed from Kip- 
 ling, was the nickname for the Japanese, current among 
 the Europeans and Americans in those days] was back- 
 ing Lung Yu [the Empress Dowager] and Company," 
 wrote Straight in one letter; "and it would be like 'em to 
 create such a palace rumpus that they would 'bust' our 
 loan, either as an American or an international deal; for, 
 if it ever goes through, it means a set-back for the Japa- 
 nese game of disruption and insidious corruption of the 
 Chinese body politic. The Japanese will move heaven 
 and earth to make trouble; for they realize that, if China 
 can put through her currency reform and the four na- 
 tions have strong investments here, China will be in a 
 fair way to get on her feet. And that, above all else, 
 Japan does not wish. In the meantime the Chinese play 
 ostrich and argue with us on face-saving clauses." 
 
 The Russians vied with the Japanese in maneuvers 
 against the integrity of the Chinese Empire. During 
 the winter of 1910-1911, the pneumonic plague swept 
 over Manchuria with ghastly results. It produced a 
 fearful funk in some of the nervous foreign ministers in 
 Peking, notably the German. The Russians immediately 
 took political advantage of it in a move to occupy Chi- 
 nese territory along the Siberian border. Their excuse 
 was so far-fetched as to be comical. 
 
 -*%, 
 
 LOKI) FFRENCH 
 
 "Korostovetz had stated," wrote Straight, "that the 
 plague was spreading rapidly through northern Man- 
 churia; that the Chinese were doing nothing to cope with 
 it; that Russia feared that, unless she took proper steps, 
 it might get into her Far Eastern provinces, and thence 
 through Siberia into Europe; that the Amur and Angara 
 (border streams) were frozen and that the Chinese were 
 trooping across the ice; that Russia did not have enough 
 troops to guard her frontier; and that the only alternative 
 course would be for Russia to station troops in the prin- 
 cipal Chinese centers in the north, whence the coolies 
 could be prevented from going into Russian territory. 
 He hoped that his colleagues, the other ministers, would 
 back him up in the demand that he intended to make at 
 the Foreign Office, that China should permit Russia to 
 take such steps as she saw fit. Russia's purpose, he as- 
 sured them, was humanitarian, not political in the least. 
 
 "When Calhoun told me this I howled. Then I ex- 
 plained the lay of the land along these rivers -the fact 
 that there was but one Chinese town worthy of the name, 
 that the country was practically a wilderness, save for 
 the settlements on the Russian side, and that the stories 
 about coolies crossing the ice were a pack of lies and the 
 whole argument specious. It seems that, when he made 
 the proposition, the diplomatic body looked at one 
 another aghast. Then the German suggested that, be- 
 fore any action were taken, Jordan, the dean of the 
 corps, should go with the Russian envoy to the Foreign 
 Office and see if something couldn't be done. 
 
 "I pointed out to Calhoun that this was all a move in 
 the Russian game; that I had noticed for some days 
 vague hints, in the telegrams from Europe, that Russia 
 was irritated by Chinese failure to meet Russia in a 'fair- 
 minded' way (i.e., with pockets turned inside out and 
 
 65
 
 GATHERED TO DISCUSS THE CURRENCY LOAN 
 
 In This Group Are Representatives of the Chinese Government, of the Legations of France, Germany 
 and the United States and of Foreign Banking Interests. Dr. W. W. Yen, Educated in the United 
 States, Now Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Is Seated at the Extreme Left of the Picture 
 
 hands up) in the discussion for revising certain treaties. 
 All this had clearly presaged a row. 
 
 "I then showed Calhoun how beautifully the Russians 
 had played it this afternoon- -for we knew that it was 
 being done as we were talking — how they had presented 
 their demands almost as an ultimatum, and then, know- 
 ing that the Chinese would go squealing to our Legation 
 and the others, had made the attempt to head this off by 
 stating that all the powers had acquiesced in Russian 
 plague preventive measures — i.e., the occupation of 
 Chinese territory. This is of course a political occupa- 
 tion, pressure for the treaty settlement, and the Russians, 
 playing the plague, have scored the first point by making 
 it seem as if the other legations had concurred. I'll bet 
 that the Chinese are in a funk tonight." 
 
 "Just exactly what I have feared all along had hap- 
 pened," Straight explained later. "Russia had made her 
 move. At dinner tonight, Max-Miiller [British Legation 
 secretary! agreed that, if the Chinese had closed with us 
 before on the loan contract, the Russians would probably 
 never have dared take this action. He also told me that 
 the Czar and the Kaiser had discussed China at Potsdam 
 and that Russia's present action was to a great extent 
 taken because Germany had appeared conciliatory as 
 regards Russia's policy in the Far East." 
 
 These moves by Russia and Japan fanned Straight's 
 ardor for Currency loan success. "I regret to say that 
 to fight pleases me more than anything else I know," he 
 wrote. "I've been at it hard all day and loving it. My 
 hat's off to the enemy; they're an able crowd and I ad- 
 mire Japanese and Ru.ssian diplomacy, and distrust it 
 correspondingly. We'll give 'em a run for their money. 
 
 "We have a great responsibility. My natural inclina- 
 tion — for I like the Chinese and believe in them — would 
 be to give them a chance to work out their own salvation, 
 test them by not insisting on any supervision, but I'm 
 afraid we can't. Only now the officials in charge of the 
 Ichang-Chengtu Railway (which was hailed as a to-be- 
 built-by-China road) have been impeached for pecula- 
 tion, and the very man with whom we are negotiating 
 now has just returned to office after five years' disgrace 
 for taking a bribe in connection with the Shanghai-Nan- 
 king Railway. We shall have to be severe Elder Brothers, 
 if we are to be truly friendly. 
 
 "It's a great game! If we win, it may mean that 
 China, once her currency is on the sure road to reform, 
 will abolish likin and be permitted to raise her tariff in 
 accordance with the treaties. [Likin was an unscientific 
 and unsatisfactory system of internal taxation, the source 
 of widespread waste and corruption.! This done, she 
 will he truly started toward reorganization, which alone 
 can bring the efficiency to protect her against our Little 
 Brown Brethren. So we have to play it with a long eye 
 toward the future and I am grateful for Ffrench, for 
 Calhoun and for Davison. 
 
 "It is hard to trim and pare and make compromises, 
 which, however right they may be and calculated to se- 
 cure the best results for all concerned, are not to my lik- 
 ing. All of which means prol)al)ly that the troubles of 
 the next few months will have a most salutary effect on a 
 somewhat intolerant and rampagious young person!" 
 
 "The understanding with which we took up the busi- 
 ness was that China was to appoint a financial adviser 
 [who was to have more than merely advisory powers | 
 
 56
 
 PROMINENT FIGURES IN THE CURRENCY LOAN NEGOTIATIONS 
 
 Sir John Jordan, British Minister; Na Tung, Vice-Premier; Duke Tsai Tse, Minister of Finance, and 
 W. J. Calhoun, American Minister, Appear Seated, Left to Right. Cordes, Casenave and Straight, 
 Representing German, French and American Banks, Stand in the Order Named, from Right to Left 
 
 and seriously push currency reform," Straight wrote, in 
 explaining the attitude of the Chinese. "The Chinese 
 are jibbing, and we shall have great difficulty in assuring 
 the measure of control without which we won't do busi- 
 ness. I arrived here to find everybody disgruntled with 
 the London agreement [between the four-Power bankers 
 for joint issuance of the loan]. This impression was re- 
 moved, I think. Bang! came another rock when we 
 began to talk of the financial adviser. We are dealing 
 with two men of quite different personality. Duke Tsai 
 Tse, head of the Treasury, is honest, patriotic, rather dull 
 and very narrow-minded, as obstinate as a mule and sus- 
 picious. I admire the man and think him sincere and 
 high-minded. He must be shown that it is right for 
 China. Hats off to him — would that there were more 
 like him — but that they had sense! (Sense to do what 
 we want them to!) For the rest of the lot, I have little 
 
 use. Old A is one of the most astute crooks in all the 
 
 galaxy of the mandarinate. He wants 'squeeze', while 
 the Duke wants to save China's face. Therefore neither 
 of 'em wants a foreign adviser with any power." 
 
 What China wanted was to deal directly and solely 
 with America in the Currency loan plan. For the reason 
 that the money could not all be raised in America, the 
 European groups were in a position to demand that they 
 be admitted as joint signatories. Would the Chinese 
 agree? They did not like to, but there were several per- 
 suasive factors, which Straight presented very directly. 
 
 "Then to see Mrs. Calhoun," he wrote. "Hu Wei-te 
 was with the Minister. He called me aside and told me 
 that he had been hearing that we had promised France 
 participation in the loan, that we couldn't handle it our- 
 
 selves, and that France must have joint signature. He 
 said I had better come into the room with him and the 
 Minister and explain. For two hours I gave Hu Wei-te 
 fatherly advice, pointing out the connection between the 
 Currency loan and the Chin-Ai. This nailed him hard. 
 
 "I spoke of the importance of letting the others in, in 
 order to insure the success of currency reform, and then 
 tariff revision what the joint investment of American, 
 French, British and German capital would mean for 
 China's integrity. He was gasping for breath, poor devil, 
 but I think he got it fairly straight. When I ended up 
 by saying that if China insisted that we carry the trans- 
 action through ourselves alone, China would sacrifice 
 her credit by foregoing an international quotation for her 
 bonds and would endanger the success of currency re- 
 form and tariff revision by estranging the other Powers 
 — when I got through with this, he wasn't so sure, after 
 all, that we were doing 'em down and betraying them." 
 
 "The Chinese game becomes clearer now," Straight 
 declared as negotiations proceeded. "I think we could 
 devise a satisfactory plan for control, but I am sure the 
 break would come over joint signature. The Chinese, 
 I think, want to break up our bankers' agreement, if pos- 
 sible, for they hate the thought that they cannot continue 
 to use their old tactics of playing us off one against the 
 other. This is very short-sighted on their part, for" — 
 here Straight sums up in a few words his whole Far 
 Eastern gospel — "the creation of a strong, quadruple 
 investment all through China would be the best insurance 
 against a revival of the old spheres-of-influence idea. 
 But they have no one big enough to see it. 
 
 "The Currency loan offers American diplomacy a 
 
 57
 
 splendid chance not only to assist in China's regeneration 
 but to ward off a very real and imminent danger. In the 
 joint investments that should be secured under this agree- 
 ment, American diplomacy may find the basis that will 
 enable it to secure and hold the leadership of the four 
 Powers in preserving the Open Door in China and the 
 integrity of the nation." 
 
 Always the question of a financial adviser was the rock 
 on which the negotiations threatened to split. The 
 State Department at Washington insisted that the con- 
 tract provide for the adviser and that he be an American. 
 Many high-placed Chinese regarded it as an affront that 
 their country should be required to yield to a foreigner 
 supervision of the expenditure of the borrowed money. 
 The Europeans thought that, inasmuch as they were 
 providing a large share of the loan, they too should be 
 represented by advisers. This suggestion -a board of 
 several advisers — was especially displeasing to the Chinese. 
 
 "I think some way can be found to tie the adviser to 
 the tail of the loan so that we shall have him and yet the 
 Chinese won't have an international board, or the menace 
 of him, during good behavior," Straight forecasted sev- 
 eral months before the agreement was finally reached. 
 "I have always felt that, if we only gave the pill a suffi- 
 ciently sweet coating, the Chinese would swallow it." 
 
 But the resistance of the Chinese was strong. Intrigue 
 among themselves was one of the chief reasons why their 
 government did not come promptly to an understanding. 
 One prominent Chinese in particular encouraged the 
 opposition of his government. He himself aspired to be 
 the arbiter of his country's financial policy, and, in order 
 not to have his lustre dimmed by the intrusion of an out- 
 sider, he employed all his arts to defeat the adviser plan. 
 
 "X is well educated, an expert mathematician 
 
 and can talk of exchanges, bonds, stocks, unearned incre- 
 ment, the curb market, and the history of currency," 
 Straight records of him. "This load of information sits 
 heavily on his stomach, like an unripe dumpling, and 
 makes him peevish and truculent. He himself has pre- 
 pared a scheme for currency reform. He doesn't want 
 the adviser, for, if an able and practical man came here, 
 he would probably prick some holes in X 's reputa- 
 tion. He sits by the Duke and gives all manner of argu- 
 ments why China should not bring in an outsider. 
 
 "X was here this afternoon. He showed his hand 
 
 by trying to bluff me. He threatened me with the new 
 Senate and all the powers of popular agitation. I told 
 him we'd rather chuck the loan altogether than let China 
 have the money without protecting China and ourselves 
 by making satisfactory provision for genuine currency 
 
 reform. The best part of dealing with a man like X 
 
 is that, although he is insolent and a shrimp, he is very 
 intelligent. He does know a great deal, so that he cannot 
 help but recognize the strength of our arguments. What 
 we ask is reasonable and in China's interest, and I think 
 that we shall be able to turn the tables on the officials who 
 wish to use the Senate against us. 
 
 "I am in the midst of an endeavor to keep New York 
 from asking too much on the one hand and China from 
 giving too little on the other. It's all very cheerful: 
 the Group and the State Department howling for more; 
 the Chinese cursing and squealing because we ask too 
 much; the Japanese trying to stab us in our metaphorical 
 backs; and the Russians, English, French and (lermans 
 knock-knock-knocking everywhere. 
 
 "We are trying to rejuvenate the Chinchou-Aigun 
 under the dust-cloud raised by the discussion of the 
 Currency loan. This game gets on my nerves a little. 
 I dream of it all the time and work out schemes and 
 counter-plays all night. It's a nuisance." 
 
 There were days of despair for Straight in those months 
 of 1911, when all effort seemed doomed to failure. 
 
 "X told Mr. Calhoun that neither Duke Tsai Tse 
 
 nor the Prince Regent would dare appoint a foreign ad- 
 viser. Calhoun said, if that was the case, we might as 
 well drop the matter at once," Straight wrote. 
 
 "It looks blacker than at any time up to date. The 
 hopelessness of it all crushes me sometimes: ignorance, 
 obstinacy, corruption here; lack of appreciation of Chi- 
 nese conditions, indifference at home; Russia and Japan 
 secretly antagonistic, insidious and far-sightedly cynical; 
 England, France and Germany nominally sympathetic 
 but actually jealous. Truly a fine situation!" 
 
 Thus Straight expressed himself to his close friends. 
 But such moods were not mirrored in his demeanor. He 
 was alert and tireless, breathing confidence. 
 
 The crisis in the negotiations came shortly after, over 
 the question of the financial adviser. "The wire [from 
 home] came in yesterday, insisting on the inclusion in the 
 agreement of a reference to the adviser, and refusing 
 flatly to discuss provision for Manchuria until an adviser 
 had been appointed — not agreed to in principle, even. 
 This seemed to me," Straight commented, "wholly 
 unreasonable and unjustifiable." 
 
 Duke Tsai Tse absolutely refused to appoint the 
 adviser under the conditions laid down by Washington 
 and New York. It looked as if the loan were finished, 
 "gone to join the Chin-Ai in cold storage". But 
 Straight and Minister Calhoun had one more card to 
 play. Acting on their own initiative, they sought to 
 persuade the Chinese to agree to the appointment of 
 an adviser, but in separate diplomatic notes, the matter 
 not to be mentioned in the loan agreement. The most 
 precious of all things to the Chinese statesmen was 
 the outward dignity and repute that goes, in the East, 
 under the name of "face"; and such a plan saved the 
 Chinese "face". The Chinese would not have to admit 
 before their people that, in order to borrow money, 
 they had to submit to a too onerous and humiliating 
 foreign control. Another part of this last resourceful plan 
 was to secure the agreement of the Europeans by relin- 
 quishing insistence on an American adviser in favor of 
 a neutral a Hollander, a Swiss or some other. Straight 
 and Calhoun set about inducing first the Chinese to 
 agree, then the Europeans and finally the State Depart- 
 ment and New York. 
 
 "Yesterday I got hold of the Viceroy's representative 
 and A 's secretary and gave them the dope (very 
 
 businesslike, this!)," Straight records of the first skirmish: 
 
 "'1. Situation in Manchuria serious — Japan and 
 Russia may make some excuse to seize the country.' 
 Admitted by Chinese with groans. 
 
 '"■>. What to do?' They didn't know. 
 
 "';}. You must call on America?' 'Yes.' 
 
 "'4. You know America won't fight?' 'Ye-es.' 
 
 "'.'i. You know America is disgusted owing to your 
 failure to appoint an adviser and put through the 
 loan.' 'Ye-es.' 
 
 "'G. If America won't light, you must then get in 
 
 58
 
 France, England and Germany these being 
 the Powers with America interested in preserv- 
 ing the integrity of China?' 'Yes yes.' " 
 
 But in order to carry the plan through, Straight 
 had to go over the heads of the authorized 
 negotiators to the powerful Prince Tsai Tao. 
 He was able to adopt this means of approach 
 because of the impress that his personality had 
 made in the most exalted circles in China. Per- 
 sonally, he laid the situation before the Prince. 
 
 "I stated that I was acting entirely unoflicially 
 and privately but felt that China was con- 
 fronted by the most serious crisis. I pointed out 
 that while the United States, England, France 
 and Germany were interested in the preservation 
 of China's integrity, both Russia and Japan 
 desired to keep China too weak to resist their 
 aggression. Owing to the panic caused by an 
 increasing death rate due to the rapid spread 
 of the plague in Manchuria, it was feared that at 
 any time there might be anti-foreign or anti- 
 Japanese riots, which would enable Russia and 
 Japan to rush troops into Manchuria and 
 strengthen their hold upon it, if not actually 
 seize it. 
 
 "The prince admitted this possibility. He 
 also admitted that, in case Russia or Japan or 
 both took such action, there would be general 
 unrest and possibly outbreaks throughout China 
 proper. He further admitted that China would 
 be unable herself to meet Russian and Japanese 
 aggression and would be obliged to turn to the 
 foreign Powers for assistance, and he agreed 
 that such assistance could best be secured if 
 the Powers, and particularly America, felt that 
 their interests were menaced by Russia and 
 Japan. 
 
 "I then pointed out that the American govern- 
 ment and the American Group were much cha- 
 grined by the failure of China, as promised, to 
 appoint an American financial adviser and conclude the 
 Currency loan; and that England, France and Germany 
 were irritated by the failure of China to settle the 
 Hukuang loan and to admit the tripartite banks to the 
 loan for currency reform. To secure the assistance of 
 these Powers against the encroachment of Russia and 
 Japan it would be necessary to give them some quid pro 
 quo. This could best be done by admitting other banks 
 to a participation in the Currency loan and immediately 
 settling this matter and the Hukuang. 
 
 "If Manchuria were seized or occupied by Russia and 
 Japan and general unrest should follow in China, it would 
 be impossible to float Chinese bonds on either American 
 or European markets. It was therefore essential that 
 immediate steps be taken by China to secure the friendly 
 interest of the four Powers by concluding these two loans. 
 "An arrangement could be made whereby the Chinese 
 government should request the American government to 
 recommend not an American but a foreign adviser. The 
 American government, before recommending such an 
 official, could consult with the governments of England, 
 France and Germany, obtain approval of the man to be 
 recommended, whether of American or other nationality, 
 and thus secure the acquiescence of these three Powers in 
 the appointment of a single adviser. 
 
 REPRESENTATIVES OF FOREIGN BANKERS 
 
 Cordes, Hillier, Casenave and Straight Brought to China the Direct 
 Support of Their Governments in the Loans of 1911 
 
 "If China acted quickly in this matter and created a 
 large joint interest by permitting the four banks to float 
 the Currency loan, she would obtain practically an inter- 
 national guarantee for her integrity, and any drastic ac- 
 tion that Russia and Japan might contemplate in Man- 
 churia might be forestalled. [Russia and Japan had already 
 demanded participalionand advisersintheCurrency loan.] 
 
 "His Highness seemed impressed with these statements 
 and promised to lay them before the Prince Regent and to 
 bring pressure upon the Duke Tsai Tse speedily to con- 
 clude the Currency loan on the basis suggested. 
 
 "He reiterated his conviction that the appointment of 
 an adviser was necessary and stated that he feared that 
 Duke Tsai Tse had not taken a broad view of the situa- 
 tion but had been influenced by the arguments of certain 
 subordinates in the Board of Revenue. His Highness 
 thought that, if the situation could be clearly presented to 
 the Duke when these subordinates were not present, the 
 Duke might be able to recognize the need for immediate 
 action and could be convinced that in appointing an ad- 
 \aser China would not run the risk of being subjected to 
 international control." 
 
 Four days after this interview came one with the Min- 
 ister actually charged with loan negotiations. Straight 
 proposed this: 
 
 59
 
 "The Chinese government to address the American 
 Legation and request the American government to recom- 
 mend a foreign financial adviser. The American govern- 
 ment to reply that it would so recommend. In order to 
 preserve the greatest secrecy, this interchange of notes 
 not to take place until the loan agreement was practically 
 ready." 
 
 His Excellency stated that he would consent to the ad- 
 mission of the tripartite banks to the loan and asked 
 whether Straight desired the negotiations to be conducted 
 by all four representatives or whether he himself would 
 negotiate. Straight replied that he preferred to conduct 
 negotiations alone. When the agreement had been prac- 
 tically settled with His Excellency. Straight was to sub- 
 mit the draft to the tripartite banks, which were to be 
 invited to sign. 
 
 The critical battle had been fought and won. But the 
 rest of the campaign, to the final signature of the loan, in 
 April, 1911, was not conducted over primrose paths. 
 "We're around the wall," said Straight, "but I can't say 
 that I feel particularly hilarious. We've merely got 
 through the mud and mire and bad weather. It now re- 
 mains to be seen whether we can win the last fight. Until 
 the agreement is signed, there's no breathing space. I'm 
 really very glad that there is not to be an American adviser. 
 Whoever comes here will have a terrible task before him. 
 Europeans are much better content to hold down posts 
 like this, for the official 'kudos' of it appeals to them tre- 
 mendously. They get decorations and all manner of 
 trophies." 
 
 Prince Tsai Tao lived up to his promise. "This after- 
 noon I saw Prince Tsai Tao again. He didn't go to the 
 Russian ball last night but went to the Regent; and, as a 
 result, we have our note tonight. It's extraordinary, the 
 Regent and the whole crowd working to keep this matter 
 out of the Foreign Office, so that it won't be blocked by 
 Japanese influence through Na Tung. Tsao Tao was 
 as pleased as a kid with a new toy today. He did it. As 
 a matter of fact he did — most of it. My connection with 
 him is about the best I've ever made in China. We get 
 along like hot cakes. It's a great game, this trick of 
 working the machinery of government through the Re- 
 gent's brother, over the heads of ministers and all!" 
 
 Maurice Casenave, representative of the French bank- 
 ers, was enthusiastic for the plan as outlined and was 
 heartily engaged in working with his own government 
 and Legation to gain support for the appointment of a 
 neutral adviser, rather than insist on the demand it had 
 made for a French adviser. He and Straight were work- 
 ing on close terms of friendship and sympathy of ideas, 
 and it was largely the French hacking of the plan, thus 
 secured by Casenave, that brought the other Europeans 
 into line. 
 
 The State Department and the American Croup ac- 
 cepted the entire program. "I've been working all even- 
 ing on about the 'steenth draft of the loan agreement," 
 wrote Straight. "It's awkward, because for the sake of 
 secrecy I don't want to show it to the other banks; so I 
 have to do it alone, hoping that when the time comes to 
 sign, if it ever does, they'll be so crazy to come in anyhow 
 that they won't raise objections to the terms. I'm fairly 
 safe, for I'm merely adopting clauses from former agree- 
 ments. . . . Meeting of the bankers this morning," he 
 wrote, next day, "and they seemed pretty well satisfied 
 with the agreement as I've drawn it. They are delighted 
 
 and I think very much surprised. I don't think they 
 thought we could pull it off. . . ." 
 
 "It's now nearly three G. M. All day with Hillier, 
 Cordes and Casenave, first — and then with the Minister 
 -I've been working on telegrams. Then home -and 
 Geare, Gatrell and I have been working up till about 
 fifteen minutes ago on our cable. I hate to think how 
 much it cost — something like $1,400 — quite a pile." 
 
 "This afternoon I walked with the old man [Minister 
 Calhoun I on the wall. There was a north wind, fresh and 
 sharp; the hills were purple and clear-cut against the sky; 
 the clouds stringy, in the wind, and burnished by the 
 last rays of the sun; and the yellow palace-roofs glistened." 
 
 But the Chinese were to make one last squirm for re- 
 lease from any real advisership. The head of the "Board 
 of Pests and Excommunications", as Straight called the 
 Board of Posts and Communications, had meanwhile 
 signed a separate loan with the Japanese for $.5,000,000. 
 And now the Chinese refused to sign the Currency loan, 
 so long as it contained the "conditional clause", gi\'ing the 
 bankers six months in which to examine the Chinese pro- 
 gram for currency reform, to determine before issuing the 
 bonds, whether it was satisfactory. 
 
 "They have no intention of doing more than making a 
 pretense of currency reform," was Straight's regretful con- 
 clusion at this point. "They know their scheme to be 
 weak and are afraid that, if they sign the agreement now, 
 we will hold them to effective currency reform. So they 
 appeal to our cupidity and hope that we, in order to make 
 our profit on the loan, will pay little attention to securing 
 reform. As a banking proposition their attitude is sound 
 enough- buyers of bonds don't care whether the Chinese 
 currency system is reformed or not — and we could un- 
 doubtedly do as they wish and make a profit. But we look 
 upon the agreement as an instrument that should enable 
 us to force China, even against the selfish, narrow-minded 
 bigotry of these officials, to adopt a scheme that will really 
 make currency reform effective. We should rather have the 
 whole thing bust than sacrifice any of the possibilities of 
 this scheme, which means so much forthefutureof China." 
 
 The difference was settled in the technical wording of the 
 translation of the final draft, under which Straight felt the 
 bankers had retained their position and the Chinese were 
 satisfied. The "Currency Reform Loan and Manchurian 
 Development Loan Agreement" was signed, without fur- 
 ther quibbling, in April, and the Hukuang loan in May. 
 
 "It is no miswriting of current history to pronounce the 
 successful negotiation of China's two great loans of 1911 a 
 'triumph for American diplomacy'," cabled the late J. K. 
 Ohl, correspondent at Peking, to his paper, the New 
 York Herald. "For China, America's 'equal voice' is of 
 greatest value. It brings strongly to her support the 
 four great nations that now have a large and direct stake 
 in her regeneration and development. 
 
 "In contributing their full part to the successful com- 
 pletion of these projects the representatives of the four 
 groups may, therefore, be said to have rendered notable 
 services not only to their principals but to China and to 
 world progress, since that which promotes the welfare of 
 one-fifth the world's population nuist necessarily greatly 
 affect the interests of all other nations as well." 
 
 Straight came home in the spring of 1911. In Septem- 
 ber, he was married to Dorothy Whitney, daughter of the 
 late William C. Whitney, and they went to Peking, ar- 
 riving just in time to see the outbreak of the Revolution. 
 
 60
 
 Chapter VIll 
 THE REVOLUTION 
 
 As the main motive force at Pekinp; for the inter- 
 national banking group, Williard Straight had, in 
 the spring of 1911, concluded written agreements 
 upon loans for Manchurian development. Currency re- 
 form and the Hukuang Railways. Fagged out by the 
 months of daily and nightly dickering, he was restless to 
 get away from the East for a while. He wanted to close 
 up the unfinished features of the loan undertakings in 
 conferences with the bankers in Europe and America. 
 But there was another reason for his eagerness to leave 
 Peking. 
 
 "In November, 1909," writes his friend, J. O. P. Bland, 
 "Miss Dorothy Whitney, Mrs. Bend and Miss Beatrice 
 Bend [afterward to become Mrs. Henry P. Fletcher! 
 came to spend a fortnight as guests at the Legation. 
 After a week of sight-seeing and picnics there came a mem- 
 orable excursion to the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs, 
 at which the die of Straight's destiny was cast. It was a 
 very successful outing. There were five of us all told 
 Miss Bend, Miss Whitney and Straight, Fletcher and 
 myself. Straight played the part of host in his usual 
 princely style. It was superb weather, of the quality 
 which North China provides in the brief days of Indian 
 summer. Many incidents of those eventful days linger 
 in my memory, but none more vividly than luncheon in 
 the half-ruined courtyard of the tomb of the Yuan Wang. 
 Bright sunshine, and an eager, nipping air like champagne 
 made the blood dance in one's veins and made one rejoice 
 in the simple fact of being alive. A little breeze from the 
 north was singing a song of the desert to the sweet-smell- 
 ing pines and softly covering the broken pavements with 
 a carpet of oak and locust leaves. All about us was the 
 gentle melancholy of man's work passing to oblivion in 
 silent, inexorable decay; marble bridges collapsing on 
 their foundations, roofs slowly subsiding beneath their 
 weight of years, even the ancestral tablets of the mighty 
 dead all in disorder and aw-ry, and in the midst of them. 
 Straight, with his guitar, singing of the Blessed Damozel. 
 I remember that the night before, after dinner at the 
 Nankou Hotel, in a roomful of sleek, foreign-garbed, 
 Cantonese railway officials, he had sung most of his 
 favorite Kipling songs, 'The wild hawk to the wind- 
 swept sky' and 'For to admire and for to see'; but from 
 that memorable fourteenth of November, his own 
 Wanderlust was all in one direction and of one purpose." 
 
 In Switzerland, in September, 1911, Straight was mar- 
 ried to Miss Whitney. In October they were in Peking, 
 where he was to w'ork out the final details of the Cur- 
 rency loan. In that same month the Revolution broke 
 out in Wuchang and spread rapidly over the Empire. 
 This upset the whole Currency reform plan. 
 
 The Revolution was by no means unexpected. Since 
 the death of the old Empress Dowager nearly three years 
 before, the politics of the Chinese Empire had been in a 
 highly nervous state. Straight had watched with keen 
 interest the growing unrest. His familiarity with Chinese 
 character, his realization of the ignorance of the masses, 
 
 was calculated to make him fearful of popular govern- 
 ment. Moreover, his eagerness to get his own work done 
 prompted him to disapprove any movement that might 
 throw the country into chaos. Yet the corruption of the 
 government so disgusted him that there were times when 
 he leaned to the view that the only salvation for the mil- 
 lions of Chinese workers lay in a sweeping change. 
 Many months before the outbreak he wrote: 
 
 "The Senate is going after the Grand Council once 
 more. If it doesn't get 'em this time, it will dissolve, and 
 then there will be an uproar all over China. No loans 
 then, I can tell you, for a long while. For the people will 
 talie over the whole show and it will be some time before 
 they can establish a stable government. I say this with 
 all reserve, for the more I hear and read of this constitu- 
 tional movement the less I hold to my attitude of skepti- 
 cism about its real efficiency and the more I believe that it 
 is China's one hope and a very good one at that. 
 
 "The whole country seems knit together behind the 
 provincial assemblies in the most remarkable manner. 
 It's all a growth of the past two years, and is due largely 
 to the spread of newspapers all over the Empire and their 
 passing from the fanatical hands of the returned students 
 to the control of a much more sober and reputable ele- 
 ment, the literati and merchants, who are of a very high 
 order of intelligence and who, though patriotic and radi- 
 cal, are still sound and in many respects conservative. 
 
 "The leading articles in some of the Chinese journals 
 are reniarkably able. One is always inclined to doubt the 
 probable effect of words in China, however. Though no 
 force is more potent, no currency in the world is more 
 debased. For in this land, above all others, the shadow 
 has for years passed for the substance, notwithstanding 
 the virile practicality of the people in material things. 
 The hope for China lies in the fact that perhaps the people 
 are now^ for the first time realizing the direct personal 
 benefit they would secure if they were to rid themselves 
 of the mandarins and set up an efficient government. 
 
 "I've met some of the senators and have been much 
 impressed with their ability and their conservative, 
 sane view. The returned students bark and holler, but 
 these older fellows are not so bad and they may yet do 
 great things." 
 
 Nevertheless, despite his instinctive sympathy with 
 the efforts to overthrow utterly the corrupt imperial 
 regime, in the first weeks of the Revolution Straight 
 favored a moderate policy — a relinquishment by the 
 Manchus of all their real power but such preservation of 
 the old form of government as would prevent demoraliza- 
 tion and assure orderly progress. He saw the answer to 
 the problem in the restoration to power of Yuan Shih-kai 
 — then in exile by a decree of the court — a %-igorous 
 administrator who alone, in Straight's opinion, was ca- 
 pable of knitting the factions together and setting up a 
 strong, yet liberal, government. Therefore he urged 
 upon the governments represented in the international 
 concert the advisability of gi\-ing Yuan such moral and 
 
 61
 
 "t~: 
 
 financial support as would 
 "enable him to conserve 
 and extend his authority, as 
 the most promising nucleus 
 for a responsible govern- 
 ment in China". He sought 
 thereby to forestall what ac- 
 tually did come about, what 
 he described as "the organi- 
 zation of a loosely knitted 
 federation of jealous and 
 mutually antagonistic prov- 
 inces destined to failure by 
 reason of its weakness and 
 dissensions". 
 
 The Manchus did indeed 
 abdicate, naming Yuan as 
 legatee of their tottering 
 estate. But the Powers did 
 not give Yuan support. 
 In consequence he could not 
 hold his control and had to 
 compromise with the revolt. 
 A republic was proclaimed, 
 and he was chosen provi- 
 sional president. TangShao- 
 yi, Straight's old-time col- 
 laborator of Mukden days, 
 always adept at alighting on 
 his feet, became premier. 
 
 In that late fall and early 
 winter, the Straights were 
 in the midst of the excite- 
 ment of the struggle be- 
 tween the imperial and the 
 republican forces. On No- 
 vember 17, Straight wrote to 
 a friend at home: 
 
 "We have had a rather 
 anxious time. Hundreds of 
 thousands have left Peking, 
 
 and for days many of the shops have been closed. It's 
 reported each afternoon that at night the liall will com- 
 mence, that the Manchus will massacre the Chinese, or 
 the Chinese the Manchus, that the police and the division 
 of troops stationed here for the protection of the court 
 have divided the city into districts for looting purposes, 
 and that, though foreigners will not be touched, we are in 
 danger from fires and stray shots. Hence we have always 
 turned in with a brace of revolvers by our side, a Krag in 
 the corner, and a couple of rockets to send up to call in a 
 promised patrol of twenty marines to bring us to the 
 Legation Quarter if there is a row. This is all highly in- 
 teresting in a diary to be read years afterward, but as a 
 honeymoon experience it's a bit thick with excitement." 
 
 In January the Straights got away for a vacation, 
 visiting Shanghai, Hongkong and Manila and returning 
 by way of Japan, Korea and Manchuria. Says Bland of 
 that trip: 
 
 "It acted on Straight like a tonic, turning his mind from 
 the slough of despond at Peking to the world of men and 
 things beyond tho.se gray walls. He was particularly 
 impres.sed and cheered by seeing what America had ac- 
 complished in the Philippines. 'Manila,' he wrote me, 
 'made an extraordinary impression ujion me. It is 
 
 J- Uti- 
 
 
 
 WANG-FO-TANG 
 
 applied Christianity and 
 nothing else. Whether it 
 will be successful or not, I 
 don't know, but it's a won- 
 derful experiment. It's al- 
 truism, pure and simple. For 
 once the American has at- 
 tempted to make perform- 
 ance conform to profession, 
 which I don't think he often 
 does, for we are, like the 
 Chinese, a nation of word- 
 worshipers. . . . It warmed 
 the cockles of my heart and 
 gave me new faith in the 
 possibility of making some 
 of our fundamental Amer- 
 ican ideas practical living 
 guides, instead of ammuni- 
 tion for the Fourth of July 
 oration of commerce.' " 
 
 In the same letter Straight 
 expressed admiration for the 
 achievements of the Japa- 
 nese, a forecast of the more 
 tolerant attitude he was to 
 assume toward them in 
 later years: 
 
 "We came up through 
 Korea. Bland, our hats 
 are off to the Japanese! It 
 may be all advertisement, 
 but it's surely an eff'ective 
 one. For they are efficient. 
 You can't get away from 
 what they are doing or do 
 aught but admire it. In 
 Korea I was tremendously 
 interested to hear that the 
 natives were better off than 
 ever before, and it was not a 
 Japanese who told me, either. They are beginning to 
 wake up from the lethargy of centuries of oppression and 
 are producing, and making and saving money and gain- 
 ing some self-respect, which in the old days was denied 
 them. Perish the thought, but one could not help think- 
 ing that we might all be better off if these people had 
 charge of China's destiny, after all. They would make 
 things hum, and the proposition would be so big that they 
 could not run in any monopoly game. And then, like the 
 Manchus, they would be so corrupt after a few genera- 
 tions and so softened by riches ride the Osaka division 
 during the war that they would be no longer a military 
 menace to the rest of us honest folk." 
 
 In February, Straight was back in Peking. Despite 
 the agreement arrived at between the two factions, the 
 government was still in a pitiful state of impotence. 
 In that month a mutiny of unpaid troops occurred. The 
 streets of the capital were scenes of riot and bloodshed. 
 Though the fighting was not directed against foreigners, 
 the missionaries in their walled compounds and the 
 Legation people in their Quarter prepared to protect 
 themselves. The Straights were among the compara- 
 tively few foreigners who were living in houses separated 
 from both gr()U|)s. They were aroused one evening by 
 
 62
 
 shooting ill the street near 
 by, and soon after left 
 their home to go to the 
 fortified Legation Quarter 
 for safety. There they 
 stayed several days, until 
 the mutiny was quelled. 
 
 "Dr. Morrison of the 
 London Timeit came in to 
 assure us there was no 
 danger," wrote Straight, in 
 relating the events of that 
 night. "He said that there 
 was looting and street fight- 
 ing but that foreigners were 
 allowed to pass unmolested. 
 That didn't sound so cheer- 
 ful, especially as more fires 
 had been started and the 
 whole sky to the north 
 seemed ablaze, while the 
 firing continued steadily. 
 The crack of rifles was 
 punctuated by the booming 
 of field-pieces in the dis- 
 tance and the crackle of 
 machine-guns near by. It 
 would have been folly to 
 try to get through the 
 soldier-filled streets without 
 a foreign guard. We there- 
 fore sat tight and dined. 
 The noise of the Catlings, 
 we afterward learned, came 
 from the Imperial Palace, 
 where the guards had blazed 
 away down the street to 
 scare ofT any venturesome 
 gentlemen after the Palace 
 treasures. 
 
 "A few minutes later there 
 voices outside our compound. 
 
 ?^ 
 
 li^^!^'> 
 
 1/ 
 
 m 
 
 r 
 
 GATE OF A VILLAGE THRESHING-FLOOR 
 
 was a babble of many 
 Then came the crashing 
 of glass, the rip-rip of the planking, the shock of rifle 
 butts on barred doors. The looters were at the silver 
 shop across the narrow alley. In a moment there was 
 pounding at our gate. I went for the gate, expecting to 
 find a mob of soldiery. Then came a voice in Chinese, 
 'Open the gate; Dr. Morrison is here.' I thought they 
 were after him. I pulled the gate open, and the whole 
 show came in on us. There was no troulile, however. 
 
 "Morrison had come, with great kindness, to say that 
 he thought Dorothy would be better off in his place, 
 where a number of foreigners were gathered. We left our 
 house and walked to Morrison's gate. The street was 
 bright with the fire-glow. Parties of from two to a dozen 
 soldiers were walking or running along, carrying their 
 bundles of loot. Every now and then they would stop to 
 smash in some shop. Some carried torches to light them 
 while they pillaged. The firing continued all about, but 
 we finally reached Morrison's unharmed. As we stood 
 in the gate, a number of shopkeepers begged asylum. 
 From the balcony we could see the street filled with 
 soldiers rushing back and forth. Across the road a large 
 bazar and a theater were burning. After an hour and a 
 half, twenty American marines came for us and we 
 
 started out for the Legation. 
 Dorothy, her maid in her 
 lap, the bags tied on behind, 
 piled into one rickshaw and 
 we started at double-time 
 down the street to the 
 .Vlenocals. They came out 
 on horseback, their rick- 
 shaw laden with bundles 
 and a coolie, carrying a blan- 
 ket into which Menocal had 
 [iilcd all his wife's dresses. 
 Ca.senave, who had come to 
 see that we were all right, 
 look part of our guard and 
 went ofT through some al- 
 leyways to get the Patchins. 
 We reached the Legation in 
 .safety and untroubled by 
 the gangs of looters." 
 
 When the troops rebelled, 
 the Manchu princes feared 
 for the money they had 
 hidden away, it appeared, 
 as much as for their lives. 
 One day Straight received 
 an urgent appeal from old 
 Prince Ching, the real power 
 in Manchu .statecraft, to 
 come and take away a hoard 
 of gold and silver coins from 
 his residence. Again Case- 
 nave was with Straight — 
 they were inseparable com- 
 panions in those days. The 
 two, with a donkey-cart 
 and a native guard hur- 
 riedly obtained, went to get 
 the treasure. They found 
 it hidden away in chimneys, 
 in the seats of sofas, under the flooring, behind the plas- 
 tering of the walls. When it was piled into boxes, they 
 started through the streets with it. The news of their 
 mission had somehow got abroad, a crowd had gathered, 
 and every minute they expected to be attacked. At last 
 they reached one of the foreign banks in the Quarter, and 
 there, with plenty of European and American soldiers 
 around, the Prince's coins were safely deposited. 
 
 Except for the brief period of the soldiers' mutiny, 
 however, foreigners were quite safe. Social life pro- 
 ceeded much as in normal times. To the home of the 
 Straights came the most engaging personalities of Peking 
 — Manchus and Chinese as well as Europeans and 
 Americans. One of Straight's creations that winter was 
 the Club of the Purple Cows. The French Minister, M. 
 de Margerie, American Minister Calhoun and Mrs. Cal- 
 houn, Major and Mrs. Russell, of the American Legation 
 Guard, Mr. and Mrs. de Menocal, M. Casenave, Lord 
 fTrench and Straight gathered once a week, at the house of 
 each member in turn, and talked (in the words of Case- 
 nave, quoting Pico della Mirandola) "de omni re scibili 
 ct de quibusdam aliis" — that is to say, of everything 
 under the sun. At times there were gay parties at which 
 elderly statesmen joined their younger companions in all 
 manner of frolicsome nonsense. 
 
 63
 
 The political chaos in that winter of 1911-1912 was 
 reflected, for a time, in a corresponding indecision in the 
 Far Eastern policy of the foreign Powers. While the out- 
 come of the revolt was in doubt, the question was to 
 which faction money should be lent. The natural 
 tendency of European diplomats was to side with the 
 Manchu dynasty. Sympathy with the revolutionists was 
 particularly strong among Americans, both in the East 
 and in America. Straight's middle-ground advice was 
 
 PORTRAIT OF A JAPANESE GENTLEMAN 
 
 not accepted, and the Powers followed a policy that, at a 
 later date, would have been called "watchful waiting". 
 
 With the hatchet once buried — the Manchus ousted 
 and the Republic proclaimed — it was again time to talk 
 of loans. But now the term "Currency loan" was laid 
 aside. For the present need was not for money in the 
 interest of any one project. Currency reform was to be 
 on the program but the sorest immediate need of the 
 Republic was for funds for the routine of administration — 
 troops, policing and the necessary public services. The 
 financial aid to be extended by the Powers was hence- 
 forth known as the Reorganization loan. 
 
 Throughout China, government was demoralized. 
 Many taxes had been abolished or suspended, and it was 
 impossible to collect most of those still in force. 
 
 "During the Revolution the republican authorities 
 had maintained themselves largely by forced levies or by 
 subscriptions received from Chinese residing abroad, 
 while the Peking officials and the army under their con- 
 trol had received nothing save the few millions of taels 
 extracted from the Palace treasure," Straight wrote. 
 "It was imperative that the coalition government obtain 
 fund.s at once. On February 26, 1912, the representa- 
 tives of the British, French, German and American 
 
 groups, who had been invited to meet the Chinese au- 
 thorities, agreed immediately to advance 2,000,000 taels 
 in Shanghai to forestall a threatened mutiny of troops 
 in Nanking. 
 
 "On this occasion Tang Shao-yi proposed that China 
 borrow from these groups $300,000,000 to be utilized 
 in general administrative reorganization. The groups 
 agreed to refer this matter to their principals. This 
 marked the beginning of the negotiations for the much 
 discussed six-Power loan." 
 
 Tang Shao-yi was not long in leaving the government, 
 whether by his own will or not. He was succeeded by a 
 man in whom the representatives of the foreign bankers 
 had more confidence. Straight and his colleagues now 
 urged upon their principals the wisdom of granting a loan. 
 Their advice prevailed. 
 
 "The British, French, German and American govern- 
 ments," wrote Straight, "recognized that a large loan 
 was necessary to put the new Chinese government on its 
 feet and enable it to establish its authority. They be- 
 lieved joint action in China would constitute the most 
 effective guarantee for the stability of the young Repub- 
 lic. The four banking groups were therefore informed 
 that their respective governments desired Russian and 
 Japanese interests to cooperate in any loan that might be 
 undertaken. President Yuan Shih-kai gave the assurance 
 that he would welcome such participation." 
 
 Just how Russia and Japan came to be admitted into 
 the international combination is thus described by one 
 who was at that time within the inner diplomatic circle 
 at Peking: 
 
 "The entry of the Americans into the Anglo-Franco- 
 German group had naturally aroused a lively interest in 
 the Russian and Japanese governments. It had, natu- 
 rally, also, frightened them. Until then the combination 
 was composed of France, ally of Russia, of England, ally 
 of Japan, and of Germany, with whom these two Powers 
 — who had a purely Asiatic policy in China — were on 
 excellent terms. Russia and Japan both knew that 
 neither France nor England nor Germany would oppose 
 their policy in Manchuria and Mongolia. America was 
 quite another factor in such a transaction as this. 
 
 "In Petersburg as in Tokyo it was known that the 
 United States was entering into the combination only 
 with a view to protecting China and maintaining the 
 s'tatus quo. If Russia and Japan had doubts on this 
 subject, the proposition for internationalizing the Man- 
 churian railways, launched late in 1909 by Secretary of 
 State Knox, was there to remove them. The best 
 means, for them, of defending what they considered 
 their special interests in the Far East was under these 
 conditions, not to try to oppose an existing combination, 
 against which they could do nothing, but to come into 
 it themselves. This was the point of view held by the 
 Russian Legation at Peking, whose ministers were suc- 
 cessively Mr. Korostovetz and Mr. B. Krupiensky, and 
 by the man who had the financial policy of Japan in 
 the Far East in charge, Mr. Odagiri, administrator of 
 the Yokohama Specie Bank and its director at Peking. 
 The latter was a former diplomat, an excellent Sinologue, 
 who had spent almost his whole career in China, and a 
 man of exceptional intelligence and tact. 
 
 "The Russian and Japanese governments had there- 
 fore taken steps in Paris and London to come into the 
 combination at Peking. Straight had had frequent con- 
 
 64
 
 versations on this subjeot with the Russian Minister 
 and Mr. Odagiri. Ol)viously neither the French nor 
 the English Kovernment could refuse the demand of 
 its allies, considering the important interests that urged 
 the latter to formulate it. But this was not the case with 
 America, which, given the ag- 
 gressive policy of these two na- 
 tions, might consider it with sus- 
 picion. But Willard Straight's 
 very sure judgment gauged the 
 situation perfectly. 
 
 "Evidently neither the Rus- 
 sians nor the Japanese could 
 assert a claim to share in either 
 thefinancing or the construction 
 of railways, or even of public 
 works, in China. As they them- 
 selves were borrowers abroad, 
 the condition of their finances 
 did not allow them to issue 
 foreign loans. And their indus- 
 try was far from being consid- 
 erable enough to allow them 
 to export railway material. 
 Nevertheless, given the impor- 
 tance of their political interests 
 in the Far East, they were jus- 
 tified in demanding participa- 
 tion in loans of a purely political 
 nature. In the latter case, they 
 would have to be allowed to 
 dispose of their financial par- 
 ticipation in the loans, in for- 
 eign markets, on a commission 
 basis to be regulated with the 
 other Powers. 
 
 "Such were the conclusions 
 that were reached, after the 
 conversations that the bankers' 
 representatives had on this sub- 
 ject with Mr. de Hoyer, who 
 had been sent as financial agent 
 of the Russian Group and of 
 Mr. Odagiri. Straight commu- 
 nicated them to Mr. Calhoun, United States minister 
 at Peking, who procured their recognition by the State 
 Department. 
 
 "At the time of the discussion of the loan for monetary 
 reform, Russia and Japan had asked to share in it, alleg- 
 ing that it was a political loan; their request had been 
 refused for the reason that China had proposed the con- 
 tract for the loan before they themselves had claimed a 
 share in our financial combinations. The loan that the 
 new Chinese republican government was requesting from 
 the Powers had, however, a definitely political character. 
 The participation of Russia and Japan was allowed in 
 this case; the understanding of the six Powers was an 
 accomplished fact and negotiations opened on this basis. 
 
 "It was a lively satisfaction to Straight, because he 
 saw' in this arrangement the complete internationalization 
 of Chinese affairs that had been the object of his desires 
 and his patient labor for six years. No one had worked 
 harder than he for this end, and it was certainly a great 
 compliment to him that the confidence that his English, 
 French and German colleagues had shown in him should 
 
 be shared by his new Russian and Japanese associates. 
 For Dr. (ialtrell and he were delegated to draw up the 
 new contract plan, just as they had been charged before 
 with drawing up the contract for the Currency loan." 
 In letters written in November and December of 1911, 
 
 n" ./. CMoun 
 
 WILLIAM J. CALHOUN AND WILLARD STRAIGHT 
 
 Photograph Taken in the American Legation Compound at Peking During Mr. 
 Calhoun's Service as American Minister to China 
 
 Straight had foreshadowed the admission of the Russians 
 and Japansee into the banking combination. 
 
 "Although the Japanese are now attacking Germany 
 and leaving us alone for the time being, the Russians are 
 still damning us. They claim that our entry into the 
 China field has been responsible for all the present dis- 
 orders. They insist that we are persistently anti-Russian; 
 that this is proved by our hooray about Morgan Shuster 
 ni Persia, by our attempts to get railway concessions in 
 Turkey, by the agitation over Jewish passports for Rus- 
 sia. Izwolsky at Paris, the officials in St. Petersburg and 
 the people here are trying to play on French and Japa- 
 nese susceptibilities, to create suspicion of our good faith 
 and the honesty of our intentions. It looks to me as if a 
 serious attempt were being made to break up the quad- 
 ruple combination, which is not looked upon with favor 
 in either Russia or Japan. I fear that in the readjustment 
 which is bound to follo\v the present row- we shall have to 
 admit to a participation in all Chinese business our Rus- 
 sian and Japanese friends." 
 
 Increasing evidence of the inclination of the French 
 
 65
 
 and British to "play in with" the Russians strengthened 
 Straight in this belief. He tells of a letter received from 
 a high official in a European government warning his 
 correspondent in Peking to "beware of being led by Wil- 
 lard Straight into any move that our ally would not like". 
 
 "Blank cusses us out quite frankly in this letter," says 
 Straight, "and seems to feel that we are to blame for all 
 his troubles. The situation would not be serious but for 
 the fact that, judging from Sir Edward Grey's recent 
 speech, England as well as France regards Russian friend- 
 ship as all-important in view of the growing menace of 
 Germany. Great Britain is letting Russia play horse in 
 Persia, and I doubt if we can find much British support 
 against either Russian or Japanese aggression in China." 
 
 His letters and diary during the period from October, 
 1911, to March, 1912, show how closely Straight was in 
 touch with all sources of information about the course of 
 political and financial affairs in China and how command- 
 ing a part he played in the negotiations between the 
 Chinese and the foreign governments on the subject of 
 loans. His friends among the Chinese were coming to 
 him at all hours of the day and night to report the ups 
 and downs of the republican movement. Through the 
 American Legation, where he was a trusted adviser, as 
 well as through his European friends, he was kept in- 
 formed of every move in the diplomatic game. The 
 warring factions, each seeking aid from abroad, sent 
 their representatives to him with pleas for transmission 
 to the international combination. One of his letters 
 describes in detail a theatrically mysterious visit paid to 
 him by General Homer Lea in company with a revolu- 
 tionary leader from the South, who had come to Peking 
 in disguise. The revolutionist was Dr. Sun Yat-sen. 
 
 "The General entered with a low black slouch hat over 
 one eye, a long cloak of the same color wrapped around 
 his person, carrying a wand like a conductor's baton, 
 made of ebony richly chased in silver. His companion, 
 the Doctor, was dressed in an affluent fur coat and a 
 pleasing smile. The General spoke of the importance of 
 his friends in both London and America, and particularly 
 emphasized Senator Root's desire to see both him and the 
 Doctor succeed. Though somewhat alarmed by the 
 General's appearance and loquacity, I thought it well 
 to talk the matter over with Addis [one of the banking 
 representatives], and we arranged to dine with the latter 
 at his house, where the newspaper reporters were not apt 
 to track the mysterious Doctor." 
 
 The object of the visitors' pilgrimage was, of course, to 
 obtain money. They wanted a million pounds to begin 
 with, of which about half was to go to pay for rifles and 
 ammunition. They were told that so soon as they con- 
 stituted themselves a responsible government the Powers 
 would be glad to extend them loans. 
 
 From the time Straight arrived in Peking in October, 
 he had looked forward to being relieved of Far Elastern 
 duty within a few months and going back to live in Amer- 
 ica. To this desire he recurred again and again in his 
 letters to the Group in New York. He said he had been 
 in the East ten years and had enough of it. "I haven't 
 got cold feet and don't want to leave as long as you think 
 it best for me to stay," he wrote to Henry P. Davison in 
 November, "but I do hope that you will tell me to come 
 home once things are clearer, for I am disgusted and sick 
 to death of this whole boiling. Really, I feel that I want 
 to get out in sheer disillusionment. This is a very per- 
 
 sonal feeling, and you will rightly say it has nothing to 
 do with the Group's desire for me to stay here and see 
 this crisis through and to pull out of it what I can. That, 
 of course, I want to do; but that done, I'd like to beat it 
 and not come back for many moons. Don't think that I 
 want to leave before you are ready to have me. I owe 
 far too much to you personally and to the Group to think 
 of such a thing. But I want to come home if you can use 
 me there or elsewhere. I like it less here each time I 
 return, for I am fed up on China and feel that Fve been 
 here long enough for the good of my soul. 
 
 "I am quite willing to play this present hand to a fin- 
 ish," he wrote just after Christmas, "but I don't want to 
 come in for each fresh deal. Special trips to the East on 
 special work would of course be expected. But I want to 
 become identified with things at home, rather than be 
 taken permanently as a Chinese and regarded as useful 
 only in this field. I want to leave Peking but I should 
 also like to continue in the game at the other end, for I 
 feel that, an establishment having been started here, a 
 more definite and tangible organization should be formed 
 both at home and in China." 
 
 His request was granted, and the bankers at home sent 
 out Frank McKnight to take over his work. Straight 
 left Peking in the early spring of 1912 and never returned. 
 
 He had come three years before, unknown in big af- 
 fairs; frowned upon as a poacher by the Europeans be- 
 cause of his mission and looked upon with some disdain 
 because of his youth. The three years had wrought a 
 vast difference in their esteem of him. The choice of him 
 as their spokesman in the most difficult negotiations bears 
 sufficient testimony to their judgment of his ability. The 
 truly remarkable demonstration of their regret at his 
 departure gave proof of their friendship. It has been 
 related, by those who lived in Peking in those days, that 
 hardened intriguers of the foreign colony could not keep 
 their eyes clear when they gathered at the railroad sta- 
 tion to bid him good-by. The charm that drew them to 
 him was the charm of his youth and vivacity and ability, 
 expressed in their own terms — gaiety, wit, keenness, 
 nerve — and based upon fundamental sincerity and 
 directness. His aims were high, but they were humanized 
 by the humor and the innate kindness of his character. 
 
 After he came back from China, Straight was connected 
 with J. P. Morgan & Company, as expert on Far Eastern 
 affairs. In Casenave's words, recalling that period, "He 
 continued to interest himself passionately in the policy 
 which he had done so much to create." He was the con- 
 stant adviser of the American Group. When he had been 
 in China, the bankers at home, for all their high ability, 
 had been of necessity somewhat in the dark in directing 
 his campaign in Peking. Now at their elbow was one 
 familiar with all the ins and outs of Chinese politics and 
 finance. When a cablegram from Peking compelled them 
 to make an important decision, the bankers found his 
 information and counsel invaluable. 
 
 Negotiations over the terms of the loan dragged on. 
 As in the case of the Currency loan, the year before, the 
 chief point of dispute was the question of control. The 
 foreign lenders were not willing to turn the vast amount 
 of money over to the Chinese without such supervision 
 as would prevent theft and waste. 
 
 The foreign banking groups insisted lliat, as a condi- 
 tion of the loan, there should be a system of audit in 
 which foreigners should be employed with executive 
 
 66
 
 powers; that the revenues pledged as security should be 
 collected by a separate service like the customs, under 
 foreign direction; and that for five years China should 
 constitute the lending groups its financial agents to assist 
 the new government in its work of reorganization. 
 
 "Many of the leading men in Peking have privately 
 recognized the wisdom of the Group's conditions," wrote 
 Straight, "and the advantages to be gained should they 
 be accepted. Officially, however, these gentlemen have 
 not dared recommend their acceptance." 
 
 One who reviews the six-Power loan project from the 
 vantage point of 1921 is struck by its basic resemblance to 
 the Consortium of 1920. Yet the effort of eight years ago 
 was loudly condemned, while the recent Consortium has 
 been received with general acclaim. "Dollar diplomacy" 
 was the term invented to give sting to the criticism of the 
 earlier enterprise. It was charged that the six-Power 
 groups were forcing China to borrow enormous sums, 
 which she did not require; that the terms demanded in- 
 terfered with her administrative independence and 
 threatened her territorial integrity; that through their 
 machinations the bankers had obliged their respective 
 governments to withhold recognition of the Chinese 
 Republic until the loan had been concluded. 
 
 It was the acceptance of this hostile view that caused 
 the incoming Democratic administration in 1913 to with- 
 draw governmental support of the loan. Secretary of 
 State William J. Bryan held a conference with the bank- 
 ers' representatives and immediately afterward Prejsident 
 Wilson declared in a public statement that his administra- 
 tion would not be a party, "even by implication", to the 
 proposed conditions of the loan. This took the Ameri- 
 cans out of the combination, and the six-Power became 
 the five-Power loan. The amount finally agreed upon 
 was $12.5,000,000. Later in the year 1913, the contract 
 putting the loan into effect was concluded between China 
 and the five Powers. On March 25, 1913, a week after 
 the new administration at Washington announced the 
 withdrawal of its support, Straight made the following 
 shrewd prophecy in writing to McKnight in Peking: "I 
 believe that the policy that we have pursued has been so 
 essentially sound that not only will it be justified by fu- 
 ture events but it will assert itself to such a degree that 
 even this administration will be forced eventually to 
 adopt more or less the methods of its predecessor." 
 Which came true to the letter! 
 
 The war, by throwing a new light on the Far Eastern 
 problem as one of world-wide importance, has obscured 
 the parallel between the undertakings of 1913 and 1920. 
 The idea of international cooperation is the foundation of 
 the one as of the other. The ideal that Willard Straight 
 cherished and that he personified was to give aid to China 
 in such a way that she would preserve her territorial sov- 
 ereignty unimpaired and would be subjected to the least 
 possible degree of interference compatible with the pro- 
 tection of foreign investors. In so far as the Consortium 
 of 1920 in the development of its plan follows that ideal, 
 will it be successful in helping solve the Far Eastern tan- 
 gle. The switch in the attitude of the public is due to the 
 fact that the public has come to understand what those 
 familiar with the East had understood long before. The 
 initiation, by the Wilson administration, of last year's 
 Consortium represented a sharp reversal of policy. The 
 "dollar diplomacy" of 1913 became the "international 
 cooperation" of 1920. 
 
 RUINS OF WAN SHOU-SHAN 
 
 Thus triumphed the Far Eastern doctrine of Willard 
 Straight a doctrine that he summed up when he advo- 
 cated, just after the new administration had repudiated 
 his scheme, "a diplomatic understanding between the 
 great Powers, under which each is bound by a self-deny- 
 ing ordinance not to seek selfish gain at the expense of 
 China or of the other Powers". 
 
 He did not live to see his vision realized. He was a dec- 
 ade ahead of time. Indeed, it is remarkable how often, 
 in the course of his connection with Far Eastern affairs, 
 fate seemed to step in and snatch the fruits of victory 
 from his hand. In 1908, after his return from Mukden, 
 when Tang Shao-yi was in the United States, the death of 
 the Empress Dowager wrecked the first big loan plan. 
 The next fall Harriman's death threw the Manchurian 
 railways scheme into confusion. A few months later, 
 the neutralization proposals gave rise to disastrous diplo- 
 matic complications. The Revolution upset the Cur- 
 rency loan for which he had cleared the way by months of 
 labor. Then, the most ambitious undertaking of all. the 
 cooperation of the great Powers in the Reorganization 
 loan, was defeated — at least, America's participation in 
 it was defeated - by the decision of the American govern- 
 ment in 1913. Thus is presented one more instance of a 
 man's work winning its reward only after his death. 
 
 67
 
 Chapter IX 
 HOME FROM CHINA 
 
 WHEN Willard Straight settled down to live in 
 New York, upon his return from the Far East, 
 in 1912, New York knew little about him. But 
 he had passed through the severest tests that modern 
 commerce had to offer, and they had prepared him to 
 face the great of Wall Street, not as an uncertainty, but 
 as a man who had justified the trust reposed in him by a 
 group of America's leading financiers. The six-Power 
 loan to China was still on the cards, and for a while his 
 attention was largely absorbed by that. But the pro- 
 nouncement of the new administration, in March, 1913, 
 abruptly taking America out of the si.\-Power combina- 
 tion, relieved him of his main task. There was plenty 
 of work for him to do in connection with the Morgan 
 firm's foreign interests, but his chief responsibility was 
 gone. It was a terrific disappointment. The bottom 
 had dropped out. The great work of his life was as 
 ashes in h's hand. Yet it was in keeping with his finely 
 generous quality that there was in his feeling no resent- 
 ment, no bitterness toward any one. And it was quite 
 characteristic that he covered the profound depth of 
 his disappointment with a spirit of humor and of buoy- 
 ancy. 
 
 "Well, anyway," he wrote his friend J. O. P. Bland, 
 "spring is in the air, the grass is good, the polo ponies 
 are champing at the bit — and between you and me I'm 
 not so damned sorry just now that there are no Chinese 
 negotiations to worry about any longer. No telegrams 
 to expect on Saturday afternoon; no loan agreements 
 which are about to be signed every Tuesday morning 
 and which are regularly violated on Thursday afternoon; 
 
 no A to rile my bottommost soul; no Russians and 
 
 Japanese to be cursing as of yore. There are these 
 compensations!" 
 
 With all the crushing effect of the blow, his interest 
 in the Far East did not diminish, and he set to work to 
 attain the end of joint international action in China 
 through other and more gradual means. The impression 
 that his personality made upon men interested in Amer- 
 ica's foreign trade enabled him to take, at the very out- 
 set of his career in New York, a position of leader- 
 ship in the movement to stimulate intercourse with the 
 Orient. 
 
 He was elected president of the American Asiatic y\sso- 
 ciation in 1913. This was a significant period in American 
 economic history. A "competitive tariff" had been enacted 
 and American business men were bidden by a new Presi- 
 dent to "whet their wits in competition with the wits of 
 the world". At the same time it had been rendered im- 
 possible for the American bankers to continue partici- 
 pation in loans to China. Industry was at a low ebb. 
 Never was the need of foreign markets so felt in order 
 that labor might be kept employed. Yet business men 
 felt that their government was not behind them in for- 
 eign enterprises. Straight was anxious that the Amer- 
 ican Asiatic Association should improve public under- 
 standing of Far Eastern questions, particularly, at the 
 
 time, those of a commercial nature. Two other organi- 
 zations were busying themselves with foreign relations — 
 the American Manufacturers Export Association and the 
 Pan-American Society of the United States, and in May 
 of 1914 they joined with the American Asiatic Association 
 in holding at Washington the First National Foreign 
 Trade Convention. Recognizing the need of a body to 
 work constantly for the development of a sound national 
 policy in support of oversea commerce, the Convention 
 created the National Foreign Trade Council, of which 
 James A. Farrell. President of the United States Steel 
 Corporation was, and is, the chairman, and in which 
 Straight was indefatigable until he went to the war. 
 The Council achieved an influential position. Its annual 
 conventions have become great business congresses. 
 
 Straight was well aware that America could never hope 
 to make her influence felt abroad unless she developed 
 a body of men trained in foreign affairs. And under the 
 term "foreign affairs" he included both government and 
 trade. 
 
 "Of course, as long as we ourselves are so young," he 
 wrote to one of his closest college friends, who had become 
 a teacher, "there are great chances at home, and the 
 best element do not go abroad. There is perhaps no 
 appeal to them in the idea of creating a foreign trade, 
 working abroad w-hen they can get almost the same pay 
 at home. Along with this attitude is a general igno- 
 rance of things foreign. 
 
 "Read the history of our diplomatic relations, which 
 is full of inconsistencies, where we have demanded full 
 recognition not only of our rights but of our privileges, 
 and failed to accord just compensation to those whom 
 we ourselves had injured or imposed upon. Time and 
 again we have demanded our share in the international 
 pie and refused or failed to furnish the fuel for cooking 
 it or to assume any responsibility for its proper digestion. 
 
 "This all sounds very pessimistic. I am not a pessi- 
 mist, however, but the contrary; I believe that we can 
 overcome these faults if they be but recognized and 
 dealt with as they should be. If we want to eradicate 
 the evil we must start far back and train the boys, pre- 
 pare them to go into the fight with their ideals clearly 
 before them. Then we can hope for better results. The 
 troulile with many, it seems to me, is that, though their 
 ideals may l)e right, they are not applied, and the ten- 
 dency is in each separate endeavor to secure success at 
 all costs. 
 
 "And it's just here that you come in. I ix'lieve that 
 you, and others like you, can turn out the sort of men 
 we need, who will help the country al)road. And I can't 
 help feeling that after all perhaps your work lies there 
 rather than in politics. 
 
 "I want you to know that 1 shall lie willing when the 
 time comes to do my part also. I don't know that it 
 would lie in teaching, for I am not a scholar, as Morse 
 told me. For the present at least we do not need to 
 create interests abroad so much as we need to play a con- 
 
 68
 
 SOME MEN OF EAST ASIA: From the 
 Original Water^ Colors by Willard Straight 
 
 A 
 
 Back of the Buddhist priest of China lie an unpJiimbed depth of tradition and 
 superstition and strange heights of philosophic contemplation. Although today 
 his garments are somewhat stained and travel worn, the past, icith its vast 
 accumulation of thought, still seems to lift him above the trivial concerns of the 
 present, and to impose upon him the dignity of priestly offlce. It was in the 
 fourth and fifth centuries that Buddhism as a religion spread throughout China, 
 influencing the moods of all men from the Emperors and statesmen doun to 
 the most miserable coolie. The great masterpieces of the T'ang and Sung dynas- 
 ties reflect the philosophic spirit of the age — the conviction that fame is but a 
 treacherous heritage and glory a transient nothingness, and that only in some 
 mountain hermitage far from the world of men are peace and wisdom to be found. 
 
 201
 
 The mule, driver, with, his padded blue coat and heavy cloth-soled shoes, is, first, 
 last and always, an inveterate gossip. He is the newspaper of China. Make an 
 excursion into the country as a recreation some pleasant spriny day. You hire a 
 jaunty little Peking cart, with a blue cloth awning and two little black gauze 
 windows in the sides, through which you may peer on the outer world. Just in 
 front of the heavy studded wheels, almost on the shafts, squats the muleteer, 
 urging on the donkey with shrill imprecations. Whenever you pass a vehicle on 
 the road, he draws up to exchange gossip, or at least calls over his shoulder to 
 ask and give answer to the inevitable question: Where arc you going, and what 
 are you going to do when you get thcref His one interest in life is to find out 
 the business of other people, and in this he succeeds admirably. 
 
 204
 
 servative hand until we have the men to direct and fur- 
 ther these interests once they are established." 
 
 Absorption in these problems led to the founding of 
 the institution that remains, in the mind of down-town 
 New York, the outstanding monument to Willard Straight 
 — India House. 
 
 On one occasion he made a visit to Salem, Massachu- 
 setts, where some of his ancestors had lived, and while 
 there he went to see the famous East India Marine Hall, 
 a relic of the bygone glories of the port of Salem. He 
 looked at the treasures that had been brought from 
 every quarter of the globe and read of the triumphs of 
 American ships and American seamen. Then there took 
 definite shape in his mind an idea that had been dimly 
 hovering there — that there should be in New York an 
 agreeable gathering-place especially for Americans inter- 
 ested in foreign trade, in an environment suggestive of 
 American enterprise upon and beyond the seas. 
 
 Mr. Farrell, who has been pronounced the foremost 
 merchant of the United States and who comes of sea- 
 faring forebears, was the man who received the suggestion 
 with most enthusiasm and assurance of support, and 
 Straight broached it before a company gathered from 
 those who had attended the National Foreign Trade Con- 
 vention in Washington. The idea instantly "took". It 
 was agreed that it ought to be carried out. 
 
 "Very well," said Straight. "The building is leased. 
 The alterations are in progress. It remains only for us 
 to organize the club." 
 
 With but few confidants, and these the right ones. 
 Straight had gone ahead. He had procured an old three- 
 story building facing Hanover Square, which had been 
 for a generation the head office of W. R. Grace & Co., 
 and which was even then being stripped of its mid-cen- 
 tury commonplaceness. Architects in sympathy with 
 the artistic side of Straight's nature were creating an 
 early American atmosphere of wide doorways, black and 
 white marble flooring, colonial blue carpets and draperies 
 and buff walls hung with old shipping prints. Later an 
 e.xceptional collection of models and paintings of Ameri- 
 can clipper-ships and, even more rare, prints of early 
 American steamships was added. Among the clippers 
 are the famous Dreadnought, the Ocean Exprei<», the Flij- 
 in(j Cloud, and the steamers include Russell and Com- 
 pany's vessels, which long ago navigated Chinese rivers 
 under the American flag, and the early liners of the 
 Pacific Mail. The collection of the Asiatic Institute 
 found a home in India House. 
 
 The comforts of the club are modern, but its atmos- 
 phere is that of the day, three score years ago and more, 
 when merchant princes sent their sailing-vessels forth, 
 prayed for favorable winds and then gathered to com- 
 pare notes upon the success of their prayers. Only one 
 name for the club was proposed. "India House" was 
 deemed appropriate not only because it recalled the days 
 when every port had its "India Wharf" or "India Street", 
 but because, at the moment when the thought of the 
 nation was swinging again to foreign commerce, there 
 was rich suggestiveness in the recollection that once "the 
 Indies" was the generic term for the objective of venture- 
 some marine enterprise. The New York India House, 
 unlike the ancient East India House in London, made 
 famous by Charles Lamb, has, in truth, as is natural 
 enough, considering that India is a British colony, less 
 connection with India than with the rest of Asia. 
 
 The club was organized in the early days of the war, 
 when men were more disposed to resign from clubs than 
 to join them. The foreign commerce that it was the 
 announced purpose of the club to encourage was stag- 
 nant. But so fired with zeal for the idea was the little 
 group, which, besides Straight and Mr. Farrell, included 
 John Foord, E. A. S. Clarke, .Joshua A. Hatfield, P. A. S. 
 Franklin and James R. Morse, that, once the doors were 
 opened and merchants, bankers, ship-owners and the 
 many others whose activities touched the sea found 
 that the foreign-flavored cuisine matched the artistic 
 atmosphere, a long waiting list was created. India House 
 immediately became an institution. 
 
 There hangs in India House a quaint bronze plaque, 
 the memorial to Willard Straight of a little group of war 
 correspondents who were thrown together at Ping Yang 
 in Korea during the Russo-Japanese War. The I^ing 
 Yannigans, they called themselves. Their appreciation 
 graven on this plaque was reminiscent of the days of 
 Straight's singing from Kipling: 
 
 "So ivrile, before I die, ' 'E liked it all!' " 
 
 Straight's work was not confined to the financial dis- 
 trict. He became interested immediately in politics and 
 civics. A Republican by tradition, but temperamentally 
 progressive, he embraced the insurgent movement of 
 1912. He had long been a friend and admirer of Roose- 
 velt, and now he proclaimed fervently his support of the 
 Colonel for President. This was not a popular stand 
 in the Wall Street of that period, for Roosevelt was re- 
 garded by the banking community as a "dangerous man", 
 and many of Straight's closest friends and associates 
 frowned upon his championship of the Progressive Party. 
 In 1916 he was a member of the Committee of One Hun- 
 dred to Support the Mayor, which was instrumental in 
 the reelection of John Purroy Mitchel as mayor of New 
 York City. Straight had become one of Mitchel's inti- 
 mates. The two had much in common — young, enthusi- 
 astic, alive with energy and high spirits. The Mayor 
 came to look upon Straight as one of his most depend- 
 able co-workers and drew him into service upon sev- 
 eral of the citizens' committees that contributed much to 
 the success of the Mitchel administration. 
 
 When the great war broke out in 1914, Straight was 
 still with J. P. Morgan and Company. Every other proj- 
 ect yielded then to the pressure of new financial problems. 
 A broad imagination and astuteness of the highest order 
 were required to lay out the course upon which J. P. 
 Morgan and Company were soon to embark. Straight, 
 who went to Europe with Henry P. Davison to confer 
 with the British and French officials and bankers, had 
 prepared a memorandum that initiated the idea through 
 which the firm became purchasing agents for the Allies. 
 This was a magnificent coup and gave the Morgans an 
 unequaled prestige in the realm of war financing. 
 
 Straight was one of the company of Americans, of 
 which Theodore Roosevelt and Leonard Wood were the 
 leading spokesmen, who believed passionately in military 
 preparedness as a national duty. He was one of the 
 original Plattsburgers of 1915. Together with many 
 of his friends, including Mayor Mitchel, he spent the 
 month of August at the camp. In the year and a half 
 that followed he never relaxed his efforts in behalf of 
 preparedness. Appointed chairman of the Mayor's Com- 
 mittee on National Defense, he directed investigations 
 into the military status of the country and used the 
 
 69
 
 resulting data as the basis 
 of a vigorous educational 
 campaign. The Mexican 
 disturbance of 1916 gave 
 him a peculiarly favorable 
 opportunity. He prepared, 
 in collaboration with his 
 associates, a report entitled 
 The Mobilization of the Na- 
 tional Guard, 1916, which 
 contained information, dis- 
 closing our military unpre- 
 paredness, such as had never 
 before been published. It 
 concluded with a recommen- 
 dation for universal military 
 training and it attracted 
 wide-spread attention. 
 
 Straight was absorbed in 
 the problem of the direction 
 of education to the cultiva- 
 tion of better citizenship 
 
 and Herbert Croly was invited to make a survey. Out 
 of this evolved the founding of The New Republic by 
 Straight and Mrs. Straight, in 1914, with Herbert Croly 
 as editor. It was to be the instrument for expression 
 of liberal opinion and for education in public affairs. 
 
 Straight did the unique thing in journalism in under- 
 talcing to finance the paper while giving an absolutely 
 free hand to its editorial staff. It 
 expressed the true liberality of his 
 mind free from dogmatism and bias 
 — for frequently, as when he vigor- 
 ously supported Hughes while The 
 New Republic was backing Wilson, 
 he was in direct disagreement with 
 the policy of the paper. 
 
 He was keenly interested in jour- 
 nalism and two years later founded 
 Asia with his eye on an unoccupied 
 journalistic field, which, before many 
 years, would arrest the attention of 
 the country. He undertook to 
 finance the entire cost of develop- 
 ing the Journal of the American 
 Asiatic Association into an author- 
 itative popular illustrated magazine 
 for interpreting the East to Amer- 
 icans. Again he gave the same free- 
 dom of editorial direction. Just as 
 the United States entered the war, 
 he was interesting himself in the 
 daily newspaper field. 
 
 The mere laying of plans, how- 
 ever, the serving as stimulator of 
 other folk, did not meet the needs 
 of Straight's nature. He required 
 action. From the day the United 
 States had been taken out of the 
 six-Power loan he had been vaguely 
 dissatisfied with his work. His per- 
 sonal relations with J. P. Morgan 
 and Company were all that could 
 be wished. But he felt that he had 
 no definitely important function to 
 
 ■^■ 
 
 PEASANT TYPES FROM A BRETON VILLAGE 
 
 SUNDAY MORNINC IN URITTANY 
 
 perform. So, in 1915, he 
 resigned. He had made up 
 his mind to study interna- 
 tional law and had entered 
 into a partnership relation 
 with J. Reuben Clark, Jr., 
 international lawyer, form- 
 erly the solicitor of the State 
 Department in the secre- 
 taryships of Root, Knox 
 and others. Straight entered 
 the School of Law, Colum- 
 bia University. Soon there- 
 after, the opportunity for 
 which he had been waiting 
 came. With Frank A. Van- 
 derhp of the National City 
 Bank as the moving spirit, 
 the American International 
 Corporation was formed, 
 and a vice-presidency was 
 offered to Straight. He ac- 
 cepted. After the abandonment of American participa- 
 tion in the six-Power loan, he had drawn up a plan for 
 just this sort of thing and presented it to his firm. But 
 the time had not then been deemed right and the idea 
 was not taken up. The A. I. C, as it came to be called, 
 was designed as a vehicle for American entrance into 
 foreign development in engineering, railroad and large 
 industrial projects and in public 
 finance. 
 
 In connection with Straight's 
 work with the A. I. C, it becomes 
 pertinent to point out the modifica- 
 tion of his previous attitude toward 
 Japan. Since the last winter spent 
 in Peking he had been conscious of 
 a gradual change in his conception 
 of Japan's position in the East. 
 Always his sympathies were pro- 
 foundly with the Chinese as a people. 
 He resented Japanese aggrandize- 
 ment at the expense of China. He 
 came, however, to appreciate more 
 clearly the difficult position of the 
 Island Empire with its overcrowded 
 population, meager natural resources 
 and abounding, aggressive energy. 
 He was opposed to the imperialistic 
 element, which was then dominant, 
 as it is now; for this element aimed, 
 not merely to find undeveloped 
 areas where Japanese emigrants 
 might settle, but to bring those 
 areas, and even China itself, under 
 the power of Tokyo. But he de- 
 cided that general development 
 plans, wherein limitations might be 
 imposed on such ambitions, should 
 not l)e met with extreme hostility. 
 As he looked about the rest of the 
 world and observed the perform- 
 ances of other nations in territorial 
 aggrandizement at the expense of 
 the weak, he inclined to the belief 
 
 70
 
 
 pi/*' . •». 
 
 
 1 ^5^ 
 
 
 SHIPS AND SAILOKS AND AN OLD WIFE OF ROSCOFF 
 
 that Japan ought not to be singled out for the r61e of 
 the ogre. 
 
 His fondness for the Chinese people never wavered. 
 But their governing class — its backing and filling, eva- 
 sions, broken promises, procrastinations and general 
 incompetence — stirred in him a growing disgust. This 
 set up, as it were, a counter current of admiration for 
 the brisk and businesslike ways of the Islanders. Even 
 before leaving China he had written to Bland: 
 
 "The whole Chinese situation seems to promise but 
 little for the moribund 'Chin-Ai'. For ffrench's sake, 
 I hope that something may come of it; likewise because 
 I hate to see a thing thus started fall through for such 
 iniquitous causes. But, as for the beaux yeux des Chi- 
 nois, my work is done. I have always advocated altruism, 
 as you know, and that, coupled with a desire to help 
 the helpless — a species of )ioblesse oblige — has spurred 
 me on, despite the many ideals that have been shattered, 
 one by one, as I have dealt more intimately with the 
 mandarin. There may be some of the old feeling left. 
 At present writing, however, I am disgusted with the 
 corruption, stupidity, obstinacy, pusillanimity, trickery 
 
 and, in short, general impossibility of the whole boiling. 
 
 "Although we seem to be nearly at a settlement, the 
 pleasure of the thing is largely lost; for, instead of being 
 able to regard the Currency loan as a great potentiality 
 in effecting the regeneration of this country, one has 
 to regard it as a loan transaction — which may benefit 
 trade, it is true — but which will be of little avail in sa\ing 
 the empire from the pirates, who will secure their ends 
 by force, if indeed they are not spared the trouble by 
 being able to get all they want through the knavery and 
 treachery of Chinese officialdom. 
 
 "It's snowing and raining and generally depressing. 
 Is it any wonder then that I've been asking myself, with 
 no answer, 'What's the use, anyway?' " 
 
 "He had long fretted," comments Bland, "under the 
 bridle of diplomatic opportunism and polite make-believe, 
 and he therefore hailed with delight the prospect of 
 tackling the problem along new and practical business 
 lines. He had come to perceive, by close contact with 
 the realities of the situation, that something more forci- 
 ble and direct than good ad\ice was needed if China 
 was to be saved from herself, and in reaching this eon- 
 
 71
 
 elusion he had come also, not unnaturally, to regard 
 the activities of the Japanese and the rapidity of their 
 'peaceful penetration' with unconcealed apprehension. 
 Later he came to reahze that the expansion of Japan 
 was a natural and inevitable phenomenon, arising out 
 of causes and forces which were not to be denied by any 
 paper conventions or diplomatic demurrers, and which 
 were by no means to be arrested except by contact 
 with causes and forces of equal elemental strength." 
 Those "forces of 
 
 ^• 
 
 / 
 
 W%xU' 
 
 A DEALER IN CURIOS 
 
 equal elemental 
 strength" were what 
 Straight hoped to see 
 set in motion through 
 such agencies as the 
 A. I. C. He was like- 
 wise interested, as a 
 director and prime 
 mover, in the expan- 
 sion of the Pacific 
 Commerical Company 
 — then doing a general 
 trading business with 
 the Philippines — into 
 China. He was active- 
 ly concerned in land 
 development schemes 
 in Manchuria. 
 
 In the course of his 
 correspondence with 
 Bland, after he had 
 come to live in New 
 York, Straight once 
 wrote, in a satirical, 
 yet half-serious strain: 
 
 "Don't think that I have become a cynic and that the 
 idealism which was wont to throb through my breast 
 has been stifled by the money-governed atmosphere of 
 Wall Street. Far from it! I still claim to be a forward- 
 looking man, as President Wilson puts it. My hopes 
 are high, my purpose pure, my aspirations hitched to 
 the proverbial star, while my poetic soul finds the world 
 frequently out of tune. Experience has taught me, how- 
 ever, that it is well to be content with the little things 
 and to endeavor to accomplish bit by bit rather than 
 to clamor for an immediate millennium." 
 
 He had not lost faith in the principles of the big idea 
 exemplified in the six-Power loan, but the "experience" 
 he referred to had taught him that it was hopeless to 
 count upon working out these principles during the next 
 four years at least. His plan for accomplishing "bit 
 by bit" was to begin from the other end: namely, the 
 construction of an actual project, a railroad, for instance. 
 Out of this, the principles would evolve. 
 
 When Carey of Siems-Carey Railway and Canal 
 Company brought from China assurances of contracts for 
 American railroad building and the rehabilitation of the 
 Grand Canal, Straight was keen for putting them through 
 as American enterpri.ses. When the Japanese objected 
 to Americans operating in Shantung and other Powers 
 in other parts of China Straight backed the idea f)f 
 partnership with the Japanese in order to get a l)ig piece 
 of development work on its way. He was convinced 
 that arre[)tance of the only practical opportunity open 
 for bringing American capital into active operation in 
 
 China was a step toward the accomplishment of his 
 ambi:ion for complete international cooperation in China. 
 This partnership with the Japanese brought down 
 upon Straight considerable criticism from some of his 
 acquaintances, who declared that he ought not thus to 
 be dealing with the enemy of China. He did not agree. 
 He had by no means accepted the Japanese plan gener- 
 ally believed to have been proposed by Baron Shibusawa, 
 that America furnish the money and Japan the direction 
 of development work in China. He 
 had carefully seen to it that the 
 Japanese, while admitted to part- 
 nership, held only a minority share 
 in the project. The Americans held 
 control and American engineers, 
 using Chinese to the largest extent 
 possible, were to do the work. It 
 came to be Straight's belief that, as 
 a matter of international policy, 
 Japan should be taken at her word 
 and admitted to equal partnership 
 in the maintenance of the Open 
 Door. The western Powers would 
 accomplish more for the good of 
 China in that way than by keeping 
 the one great eastern Power in the 
 position of antagonist. Japan would 
 be less dangerous inside than out- 
 side the concert of nations. To 
 seek to prohibit her from taking 
 part in developing the continent of 
 Asia was like trying to seal up steam 
 in a pot while the fire was burning 
 underneath. The most practical 
 course, then, was for America to go 
 ahead and herself practise "peaceful penetration": invest 
 her money in railroads and other improvements, send 
 her engineers to devise irrigation and canal and flood- 
 control schemes, install her commercial and trade emis- 
 saries in the ports and big inland towns, and withal, to 
 contribute to the upbuilding of China through the ordi- 
 nary channels of modern enterprise. 
 
 But, in this vision there was to be on America's part 
 no political activity of the sort that had marked the 
 Far Eastern rivalry of the European Powers- no reach- 
 ing out after "spheres of influence". Straight was con- 
 fident that with the growth of education among the Chi- 
 nese and the growth of liberal sentiment in other countries 
 it would be possible eventually to convert China from a 
 pirates' picnic-ground into a fair field with no favor. 
 This end was to be reached by a gradual progress. Our 
 entrance into the war and Straight's immediate enlist- 
 ment cut ofT his further participation in the working out 
 of the Far Eastern problem. During the war and since 
 the Armistice, many events in the Orient have made the 
 course before the United States much clearer. Straight's 
 foresight has been proved and what he perceived ten 
 years ago is now being recognized by thinking people 
 th(> country over. 
 
 The declaration of war against Germany took Straight 
 from the office of the American International Corpora- 
 tion in the spring of 1917. He was commissioned a 
 major in the Officers Reserve Corps. When Congress 
 passed the law providing for war risk insurance, more 
 than two hundred thousand troops had already gone to 
 
 72
 
 Europe. The insurance was purely 
 voluntary, and an intensive campaign 
 of education and persuasion was re- 
 quired to lay the offer before the men. 
 This was fairly simple in the United 
 States, but dilficult in France. Straight 
 was called from Camp Doniphan, Ok- 
 lahoma, to undertake it. He had been 
 exerting every influence to get to 
 France in any capacity for active serv- 
 ice. He sailed for Europe toward the 
 middle of December and arrived on 
 Christmas Day. 
 
 Had he followed the methods of Reg- 
 ular Army routine, he would have regu- 
 lated his movements upon a series of 
 "special orders"- all of them, of course, 
 delayed — and would have been shunted 
 from one headquarters to another 
 through a period of many months. 
 Instead, on his own responsibility, he 
 arranged with the Red Cross office in 
 Paris to lend him fifty Ford cars. He 
 obtained, through a man high in the 
 councils of the A. E. F., a detail of a 
 hundred officers and enlisted men. 
 Then the Fords and their commanders 
 went forth from Paris to the American 
 units scattered all over northern 
 France. In two months the work was 
 cleared up — the American troops were 
 insured. It was a characteristically 
 original piece of work, thoroughly 
 planned and organized and carried 
 through with a whirl that generated en- 
 thusiasm as it rolled on. Straight was 
 then free for other assignments. Feb- 
 ruary of 1918 found him in training 
 at the A. E. F. Staff College, Langres. 
 When he had finished the course in 
 May, he was appointed assistant to 
 G-3 (operations) on the Third Corps 
 Staff at Remiremont. There he served under Major- 
 General William M. Wright. These two men, the trained 
 soldier and the neophyte in arms, became close friends. 
 They discussed all manner of things. In General Wright's 
 diary appears an entry for July 4, as follows: "Straight 
 says he will have peace by November 1.5. I don't know 
 what he bases his ideas on." 
 
 Straight applied for an assignment to line duty, and 
 in July he was transferred to the infantry. But his 
 commanding officer, determined not to let him go, had 
 the order changed and held him on the staff. In the 
 latter part of July he was sent to the battle of the Aisne 
 on a special mission as observer. The Third Corps Staff 
 went with General Bullard, but Straight remained with 
 General Wright in the Fifth Corps. When the Amer- 
 ican First Army was formed in August, he was appointed 
 assistant chief of staff, G-1, First Army, and served in 
 that capacity during most of the Meuse-Argonne cam- 
 paign. Though unacquainted with military science, 
 he brought an active brain to bear on problems new 
 even to trained men, with the result that, among his 
 reports, one on liaison operations became a standard 
 in use. 
 
 MAID IN A JAPANESE INN 
 
 In October, when President Wilson 
 dispatched Colonel House to fc^urope 
 to organize a force to advise and 
 assist the American peace delegates, 
 Colonel House found Straight at- 
 tached to Marshal PVjch's head- 
 quarters and immediately enlisted 
 him as one of his helpers. 
 
 "While the terms of the Armistice 
 were under consideration," writes 
 Colonel House, "Willard Straight 
 was in almost constant communica- 
 tion with our headquarters in Paris, 
 advising us of the passing of events, 
 as reported by Marshal Foch. He 
 telephoned us of the Armistice fif- 
 teen minutes after it was signed, 
 and the news was sent on to the 
 President at Washington over a re- 
 served cable." 
 
 At the request of Colonel House, 
 Straight was detailed by General 
 Pershing to assist in the prepara- 
 tions for the Peace Conference in 
 Paris. Upon this role, which gave 
 full scope to his talent for organi- 
 zation, he entered with delight. In 
 the days immediately after the sign- 
 ing of the Armistice- before the 
 problems of peace began to weigh 
 and when the losses of the war were 
 forgotten for a little while the 
 world, and especially Paris, was in 
 high spirits. With familiar faces 
 about him, with stimulating work 
 and the prospect of soon returning to 
 home and family, Straight probably 
 had rarely spent a happier fortnight. 
 In the midst of it all he was struck 
 down with bronchial pneumonia. 
 On December 1, 1918, he died at 
 the Hotel Crillon in Paris. 
 If Straight were living today, the shaping of events in 
 the Orient, the new philosophies and principles of inter- 
 national relations set in motion by the war and the possi- 
 bilities for applying them concretely, would assuredly 
 have continued him in the public service. He had tried 
 Wall Street and knew all that it meant. It had added 
 greatly to his powers. It had given him discipline that 
 he valued tremendously. It had given him friendships 
 in the Morgan firm and others that were among his finest 
 associations. He looked upon Wall Street, together with 
 his financial experience, with warm appreciation of what 
 it had brought him. But it was not his life. And he 
 left it because his make-up laid his path in other fields. 
 
 "For me as for other friends of Willard Straight," 
 writes J. 0. P. Bland, "it was a matter for regret when 
 the stars in their courses led him into the fields of high 
 finance. Quo fata locant: to every man his appointed 
 way. But I felt when Wall Street claimed him, that its 
 atmosphere must tend in time to dull the edge of that 
 light-hearted, keen-minded nature and to stifle the aspira- 
 tions of the artist within him. . . . He gave all his ener- 
 gies to Wall Street as he did to whatever he undertook; but 
 there were often moments, I believe, when the wild hawk 
 
 \ 
 
 73
 
 in him longed for the 
 wind-swept sky, when 
 he hated the money- 
 changers and the 
 clamor of the market- 
 place and heard the 
 East a-calling, insidi- 
 ous as of old. 
 
 "The Willard that I 
 and others knew, first 
 as a junior in the Chi- 
 nese Customs Ser\-ice 
 and then as Reuter's 
 correspondent during 
 the Russo-Japanese 
 War, lingers in one's 
 memory like sunlight 
 on the distant hills. 
 In those days, when 
 all the world lay before 
 his eager feet, full of 
 the prospect of ro- 
 mance and high em- 
 prise, when the hey- 
 day was in the blood 
 and every turn of the 
 road meant fresh 
 chances of adventure. 
 Straight was an artist, 
 a knight-errant, a Bo- 
 hemian in the best 
 sense of the word, a 
 Peter-Pan embodi- 
 ment of light-hearted 
 joie de virre. He had 
 all the artist's suscep- 
 tibility to environment and atmosphere and introspective 
 melancholy. Beauty of form and color, music and the 
 moving pageant of oriental life were the very breath of 
 his nostrils. The dignified philosophy of the Chinese, 
 their elemental and picturesque simplicity, appealed to 
 him from the first and inspired him with a sympathy 
 which grew as, in later years, he realized their helplessness 
 and the strength of the material forces which were 
 steadily invading their splendid isolation." 
 
 Those who knew what was going on in Straight's inner 
 self in F'rance, saw that the war had brought a resurgence 
 of this old spirit of his first days in China. With it, 
 there was the seasoned experience of nearly a decade 
 of the battle in big affairs he had been through. He had 
 enjoyefi this battle. More than that he had won from it 
 the art of translating a vision into terms of practical 
 compromise with the day-to-day necessity of getting 
 results. 
 
 Undoubtedly the reconstruction of the State Depart- 
 ment with a personnel of men of diplomatic experi- 
 ence, under the new administration, would have carried 
 Straight into the service of this branch of the govern- 
 ment. Hi.H friend and associate in the beginnings of Amer- 
 ican concern with (Chinese finance, ITenry I'. Fletcher, is 
 now Under-Secretary of Stale. Fred M. Hearing, who suc- 
 ceeded Straight in the American International ("orpora- 
 tion, i.s first assistant secretary. It is unquestional)le 
 that Straight's broad knowledge of the field would have 
 been called into use in direct bearing upon the vigorous 
 
 THE HOUSEWIFE AND THE CARTER, PEKING 
 
 Far Eastern policy 
 indicated as under 
 way at Washington. 
 Out of the melting- 
 pot of his experiences 
 in the Far East for a 
 period of nearly twen- 
 ty years. Straight, if 
 he were alive today, 
 would have derived a 
 Far Eastern creed, his 
 friends believe, in- 
 volving a full appre- 
 ciation of Japan's dif- 
 ficulties and a warm 
 sympathy; an intensi- 
 fied hatred of the 
 ^f=7- ^^M^-^^' aggrandizing tactics 
 
 "'of the Japanese mili- 
 tarists as their hand 
 revealed itself during 
 the war; and a revivi- 
 fying of affection for 
 the Chinese, height- 
 ened by renewed 
 appreciation of the in- 
 capacity and corrup- 
 tion of their govern- 
 ment. He would have 
 developed a deepened 
 faith in the spirit of 
 the great oriental 
 peoples and in the 
 regenerative f o r c e s ■ 
 at work among them. 
 In Japan, such are 
 the influences now apparent in the slow growth of a 
 liberal feeling, which will exercise future restraint upon 
 the militarist. In China, salutary impulses are being 
 revealed in the awakening of the Chinese business man 
 to his power for control of the corrupt mandarinate, and 
 in the intellectual renaissance through which students 
 are becoming a force that governments have to reckon 
 with. By these hopeful signs. Straight would be inspired 
 to yet greater confidence in the practical efficacy of the 
 ideal of fair treatment for all, and would today be di- 
 recting his powers to the application of such plans as the 
 Consortium for speeding the effects of the beneficent 
 forces now operative in the East. 
 
 On the day of his death Willard Straight was not yet 
 forty years old. There were intense, spectacular mo- 
 ments in his life's journey, which ended that December 
 day in Paris. But there was plenty of toil along the 
 way. Straight, the eager and romantic, was a plodder 
 and digger whenever there was need, and much of the 
 time there was. Capacity for work and the love of it 
 W'ere the foundation of his success. His philosophy was 
 one of action. He had achieved much and yet he had 
 scarcely begun what undoubtedly would have been a 
 brilliant career. His friends remember him, however, 
 not for what he accomplished or promised to achieve, 
 but for what he was a man, broad-visioned, warm- 
 hearted and ever young not for what he got out of life, 
 but for what his generosity and high spirit and charm 
 put into it. 
 
 74
 
 ■\ 
 
 Si*" 
 
 ;>> 
 
 y 
 
 
 
 U, 
 
 r W-f 
 
 .^-= 
 
 4'' 
 
 r^^-.i- 
 
 /^-/r" 
 
 
 -^r'l^'
 
 
 D 000 604 322 
 
 r? A 
 
 
 '.ft 
 
 f'3£=.=,»<i^^H!^VsS». 
 
 J^.<^ 
 
 <•/*;;• 
 
 -^. 
 
 c? ^.^■ 
 
 4'- 
 
 
 ^ >M, 
 
 c?:?:^- 
 
 
 ••^" 
 
 \ ,-<^ 
 
 ■^%^ .^: 
 
 -i^^-j 
 
 
 \N:^. 
 
 ^Vsr^ 
 
 s& 
 
 :^.^> 
 
 .&^. 
 
 ^Ifci^ 
 
 
 ,?■/•>'>:• -r^' 
 
 
 KsX 
 
 
 
 
 ■ > wV 
 
 v;^'' 
 /•U. \ 
 
 \ 
 
 f ■ ?Q i) 
 
 
 c 
 
 ^^^^^ >- *V^-j(^^»C. 
 
 £^^"r 

 
 'i