Peiyang Women's Hospital, Tientsin, China.
Dear Miss Turner;
Your letter dated February 10th came two days ago. The same day I received a letter from Mrs. Jordan of Rome. Mrs. Joradn [sic] was the dean of women when I was at Ann Arbor. She is very fond [of] me and have [sic] always viewed my work with deep interest. These two letters gave me new courage to going on with my constructive work.
Three days ago we Chinese College women sent a cable to Miss Wooley [sic] to uphold the sanctity of peace. We are in suffering becuase [sic] of Japanese aggressive war. I am enclosing a letter which we are sending to women of other countries including Japan. We want Japanese women to know how unreasonable Japan has been to China. Japanese militaristic rule seems to dominate her people. If we are true patriots we should see faults of our country. Something must be wrong in the educational sysytem [sic] of Japanese youths.. [sic] They are so patriotic that they cannot see the difference between right and wrong.
China is to be blamed for her continued civil wars. Chinese militaristic leaders are to be blamed for their selfish motives. President Chaing is a good man but he cannot do much becuase [sic] his subordinates would not obey to his order. There is some thing decided wrong in our educational system also. People say that China lacks leaders but I say we lack followers. Our men are spoiled from their youthful days. Fathers and mothers even today pay too much attention to their boys. Our military leadres [sic] want their ways but never cast a thought to the wish of the people.. [sic] China has suffered the misrule of Manchu Dynasty and China is suffering from the same cause.
We must also change our educational system to the education of the majority rather than the minority. We have spent so much money for colleges and comparitively [sic] litle [sic] for the mass education. After all the people must be an intlligent [sic] one before there could be enough of public opinion to express our thought. The past revolution was a revolution of the intelligent class and not the people. We must start to work the other way. We must educate the mass, raise the economical standard of the mass, promote health of the mass and cultivate citizenship among the mass.
I noticed in papers that Miss Wooley and Mrs. Ashby are the two only women delegates appointed by their governments. Here in China we are very happy to learn of this honor bestowed upon her. We know of Mrs. Ashby's work but not as a personal friend. Dean Allyn seems to be a very capable woman from the little contact I had with her. We have a young student who wants to enter an American college next year. She is the oldest daughter of our minister at Washington Dr. W. W. Yen. I am trying to influence her to come to Mount Holyoke College. She has a brother at Dartmouth now and another brother coming to America this coming summer. She is a very fine substantial girl. She is a good student in her high school. I know the members of the family very well as I took care of Madame Yen when her last boy arrived four months ago.. [sic] Dr. Yen is coming home in summer and I would tell him what a good college is Mount Holyoke College. We have radio also but cannot hear so far as Geveva. [sic] We have had connections made to Europe. We can read about Disarmament Conference in papers. When I was in America the last time I did hear thru radio when the Navy Conference met in London. Indeed this is a wonderful age if we can eradicate selfishness of the human heart.
Our little maternity center is doing well and it is already a self supporting agent. We have two graduate nures [sic] with two years obstetrical training. They stay in the building and neighbourhood women we can call upon them for help any time. We also have a doctor for two hours each after noon for anything that nurses cannot do. We have had good results. So far we have had good success. Thus we started another one at another congested area of Tientsin. This one will be in full operation this summer. We have the building, a doctor and a nurse. But our nurse will finish her practical trining [sic] few months from now. Our course of study is two years and the requirement is a registered nurse of Natioanl [sic] Nurses Association.. [sic] We can only train few nurses at a time for we can only furnish about three hundred fifty cases a year. The trouble with our government institution is that the arthority [sic] is mindful of the need of the people and forgets the quality of training. I visited Peiping School for Midwives recently. The school can boast a larger number of students but certainly not the kind of training that we are trying to give. Our work is going on as usual. I have been tied down much for Dr. Chu our senior coworker has been away. Peiping Union Medical College Hospital is so near us that we can always send our cases to Peiping. Peiping Union Medical College is doing a real piece of work in China. I think the training is excellent.
My children are growing and getting to be robust girls. They are both good in thier [sic] studies. Mary Jean has more all round knowledge and Abby is a real student. Abby is poor in muscular coordination. I guess training will help. I guess that I have learned much Pediatrics thru actual care of these two children.. [sic] Their habits are regular and they are really easy to manage. I have your picture under glass on my desk. Abby often tells people that this is her big Abby in America. When weather is warmer I would take a kodak picture of her. She is going to be taller than Mary Jean. These children certainly give me much pleasure for they are so sweet in their temperament. They are quiet and play much by themselves.
I have planned to go to Shanghai Medical Meeting in April. On account of Japanese invation [sic] the meeting will be postponed. Doctors are busy in care of wounded soldiers. I have registered for war service also. Every nurse and every doctor at our hospital has signed for war service without renumeration. That is we would go and serve our government so we would not be added expenditure to government. Our national treasury has been drained by Japanese invation. [sic] The reason is that we just have had our flood and famine. We are not yet thru with our sorrow when the Japanese outrage came. What little culture we had as been all destroyed by Japanese air bombing. The Commercial Press, the Oriental Library, a number of Government Professional Colleges all in ruin now. We must be patient. We must cultivate the spirit of love than hate.
By the time this letter gets to you you would have attended the Physiological Conference at Philadelphia. It was so kind of you to think of my niece and my coworker. My niece is getting along very well in her college work. My coworker does not have enough English to get much out of her year in America. My niece is very anxious about Shanghai situation for our old home is there. I have written to her that nothing has happened to any of us. I have urged her to put her patriotism in study. China [is] in need of trained women. China is in need of women and men who know how to attack our problems. Many students have died during the war[.] Many students have been killed by Japanese in cold blood. I had a chance to talk to students last Sunday I told them it is easier to die than to be patient. . [sic] We must resort to passive resistance. It is so hard to keep students in schools. Many have gone to front without permission from their parents. Inf act they are only eighteen, seventeen, some even younger[.] They are not trained fighters. Naturally they die in the first battle. It is so hard to exert any influence over our youths todays [sic] for they think we are all useless invalids. After all we must live and do our patient work for our poor wounded country. I hope that my niece will not get nervous over situation here.
I close this letter with much love. If I do not write often it means that life is busy with me at times.
Yours lovingly,
Me-iung.
March 14th, 1932.
February 23, 1932
THE APPEAL OF HEROISM
By Charles James Fox, President and Editor.
While the League of Nations Commission to investigate the situation in Manchuria is steaming across the Pacific to the shores of Asia, wireless messages, no doubt, are keeping them daily informed of the horrors of Shanghai, which the whole civilized world will charge up to the discredit of Japan. It is sad but true that the terrible scenes of destruction in this unequal conflict, as far as modern weapons are concerned served but to accentuate the heroism of common Chinese soldiers, who rush up to hurl obsolete bombs against modern tanks.
Propoganda haslong [sic] been recognised as one of the weapons of modern warfare, and ever since the sudden attack upon Mukden last September, both Japanese and Chinese have used it galore. From the very beginning the Chinese have been more intelligent, and hence more effective, in putting their case before the League of Nations and even the world at large, but there was one point on which the Chinese were at a marked disadvantage. The more they emphasized the unjustified aggression and even frightfulness of Japanese attacks the more foreigners reluctantly asked themselves why the Chinese did not fight. No amount of plausible explanations could prevent the unfortunate impression created by the more or less ignominious retreats of themuch [sic] vaunted Fentien troops, first from Mukden and then from Chinchow.
The Japanese took full advantage in their propoganda campaign of the fact that their soldiers were always greatly outnumbered; and the Japanese Information Bureau, on at least one occasion, gave wide publicity, in printed form, of an alleged interview with an unnamed foreign military attache supposed to be in Tokyo, who declared that one Japanese soldier was worth one hundred Chinese. The statement was, of course, ridiculous, but the constant retreat of the Mukden forces made it almost useless to deny the claim.
But the 19th Route Army in Shanghai have changed the entire situation, and shown to the world that no matter how inferior they may be in matters of equipment, and even military training these Chinese are quite the equal of their opponents, whose courage and patriotism is recognized by the whole world.
It is an unequal fight and the symathy [sic] of the world is undoubtedly with those who are matching desperate courage against the most fiedish [sic] instruments of warlike destruction. Foreign Office statemen of the wold's great Powers are cautious, sometimes even timid, and always slow to act, but self-sacrificing heroism now being shown by the Chinese forces around Shanghai is bound to make a strong appeal to the people of the world, and growing public sentiment against Japan is certain to react on the leading public men of the world's Powers.
Recent cables from London, Washington and other capitals, indicate that the day of diplomatic notes and protests have passed. The situation calls for action and just as the Japanese attack on Shanghai finally united nearly all Chinese factions so their reckless disregard of world public sentiment is quickly uniting the world's great Powers in a determination not to let one of them defy with impunity the rules they had agreed upon, regarding the mutual relations of modern civilized States.