George Bronson Rea, Propagandist

George Bronson Rea, Propagandist The Life and Times of a Mercenary Journalist

Leslie Eaton Clark

Fairleigh Dickinson University Press Series in American History and Culture

Series Editor: Dr. Kalman Goldstein (Professor Emeritus of History)

FAIRLEIGH DICKINSON UNIVERSITY PRESS Madison • Teaneck Published by Fairleigh Dickinson University Press Copublished by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com

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Printed in the United States of America Contents

Acknowledgments vii Introduction ix

1 Incorrigible in Brooklyn 1 2 The Herald’s Man in Havana 9 3 Marching with Generals 19 4 Facts and Fakes about Cuba 35 5 Taps 47 6 The Best Days of Their Lives 59 7 A Bittersweet Battle 75 8 Earthquake and Financial Panic 85 9 The American Group 93 10 A 10,000 Mile Dream 99 11 A Contemptible German Trick 111 12 The Allied Propagandist 121 13 The Competition 137 14 Love and Influenza 145 15 The Conference that Changed Everything 159 16 Nefarious Activities 169

v vi Contents

17 Frenemies 177 18 The Maelstrom 189 19 Hoover’s Goldmine 203 20 Raw Deals 211 21 Dejá Vu 219 22 The Case for Manchukuo 227 23 Epilogue 249

Bibliography 253 Index 261 About the Author 273 Acknowledgments

I would never have been able to begin this biography if it were not for Diane Atwood. She was indefatigable in hunting down Rea’s family ancestry and has knowledge of how to access and find her way around databases that was indispensible. I will always remember the wonderful connection we had, and the joy she gave me with every new piece of information she found. I will always be grateful to my cousin Bobbie Bevis, who I met as a result of researching and writing this biography. She gave me constant encourage- ment, friendship, and support along with family stories that enabled me to understand Rea better. I am also grateful to Patrick and Sherry Laney for Rea’s correspondence from 1884 to 1918 and for responding to numerous e-mails and queries. I know this story of Rea’s life is not the one they had hoped to read, but it was the truth I discovered. I am indebted to the late Gloria Rea Clark Tyree for keeping everything George Bronson Rea ever wrote and for giving me this rare opportunity to take an unprecedented, incredible journey into history. Much of the information I obtained on Rea came from the National Ar- chives and Records Administration in College Park, Maryland. Despite arriving before the doors opened and staying until they locked up at night day after day, I would never have gotten to the vast amount of information on Rea if it were not for the archivists there. I am grateful for their help in guiding me through a labyrinth of civilian and military records. One archivist said he worked to see, “the smile upon our faces,” and he certainly brought a smile to mine by helping me access more than a thousand files on Rea. I also thank to the staff the Missouri Historical Society in Saint Louis; Alameda County Records Management in Oakland, California; New York Department of Records and Information Services; U.C. Berkeley libraries; Hoover Institute at Stanford; Stanford University library; U.S. Department

vii viii Acknowledgments of Justice Office of Information and Privacy in Washington D.C.; and Green- Wood Cemeteries in Brooklyn, New York. I thank my editor, Lisa Kaufmann, and the research assistants who dug through numerous files to send me valuable documents. I am grateful for family and friends who edited and critiqued chapters, sent me books, web links, and most importantly, encouraged me to publish this story. Finally, I am grateful to Fairleigh Dickinson University Press for publishing the book.

Leslie E. Clark July 2017 Introduction

George Bronson Rea was deified by his descendants, but vilified by just about everyone else. As a publisher he wrote articles that were racist, xenophobic, hyperbolic, and vitriolic. He was accused of blackmail, extortion, and theft, and to top it all off, reveled in his own ignominy. And yet, by reading this book you will discover that Rea led an amazing life, interacting with world leaders, writers, and financiers whose names remain icons to this day. The fact that he was not your typical altruistic hero makes him all the more interesting as a protagonist. Rea’s assertions and insights that flew in the face of public opinion at the time—particularly regarding the sinking of the USS Maine and the rise of Japan as a military power in the 1920s and 1930s—were astute, prescient and, in hindsight, correct. Rea was one of those intrepid journalists who began his career risking his life each day to cover the Cuban revolution against Spain. He worked for iconic newspaper publishers James Bennett and Joseph Pulitzer and knew William Randolph Hearst. Rea formed friendships with writers Richard Harding Davis and Stephen Crane and with foreign correspondent Sylvester Scovel. Rea marched for nine months with Cuba’s most heroic generals, Antoneo Maceo and Maximo Gomez, and was also the only U.S. reporter to write respectfully of Spain’s General Valeriano Weyler, more commonly known as “The Butcher.” Rea subsequently covered the sinking of the USS Maine and was the only U.S. journalist to insist that Spain did not blow up the ship that led the United States to declare war in 1898—an assessment now believed to be correct. He then went on to the Philippines and then China, where he began publishing The Far Eastern Review, a magazine promoting business and commerce opportunities in the Far East. He knew U.S. presidents Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, and Herbert Hoover and financiers

ix x Introduction

J. P. Morgan, Chinese Emperor Pu Yi, and many more. Rea became an expert on China and was known as an “old China hand.” He was so well respected that Chinese revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen handpicked Rea to build and finance a national Chinese railroad. Rea then betrayed China by becoming a propagandist for the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and did everything in his power to get the world to accept the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. Rea’s life was both heroic and villainous, and his personality was one of extremes as well. He was courageous yet stubborn, generous yet avaricious, and erudite yet blinded by ambition. He was a pull-yourself-up-by-your- bootstraps, self-made American, who doggedly pursued fortune and fame as a journalist, publisher, engineer, finance negotiator, and political lobbyist. He refused to allow anyone or anything stand in his way. This book unveils the shattered dream that led Rea to switch from helping to nationalize Chinese railroads and doing all in his power to open the doors of China for international business opportunity, to ardently supporting the Japanese invasion in Manchuria and becoming the target of death threats in Shanghai. Rea became a hired boxer with words, willing to fight for the cause that paid him. After ten rounds of propaganda in his magazine, he was often willing to shake hands with his opponents after a good, dirty fight. Few of his opponents, however, were willing to forgive Rea. As a result, Rea’s journalistic career would take him from advising U.S. presidents to being investigated for treason by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Rea’s career also provides a lens on the history of journalism and on essential questions of journalistic ethics that still resonate in today’s world. At various points in his career, Rea would represent nearly every school of journalism. He went from being an objective reporter to writing pure, politically driven advocacy. He not only represented different journalistic styles, but his years of propaganda also provoked a backlash that led to the rise of a new journalistic pedagogy whereby media correspondents were taught to act as impartial witnesses to events. Early in the twenty-first century, journalists have come full circle. The latest tenet in journalism is that a reporter is inher- ently biased, and attempting to maintain a neutral tone in reporting is farcical. Increasingly the media has returned to partisan advocacy and lobbying just like Rea did with his magazine The Far Eastern Review. As a publisher, Rea made a small but definite historical mark on international relations. Communist revolutions in both Cuba and China erupted in part because of international governments seeking to exploit profits from the two countries. Rea spent his life spearheading U.S. business opportunities abroad. As both journalist and publisher, Rea consistently tried to light the match of international commerce. In so doing, he and others like him, may Introduction xi have unknowingly helped fuel revolutions—nationalistic and Communist— that would shape future international relations for more than a century. Rea was not a quintessential, selfless hero, but he was a self-made man who shaped history and journalism in the twentieth century. The task of putting his life into words has been a daunting, fascinating, and edifying challenge. The book combines years of research and access to Rea’s private correspondence, essays, newspaper clippings photos, and memorabilia. The product is this biography, which is a journey back to when the world was a much smaller place, to a time when journalists often made the news they reported. I have told the truth as I discovered it. I have tried to balance the thoughts of those who loved him for his generosity and revered him for his intelligence, tenacity, and foresight with those who thought him a fanatical lunatic who should have been shot.

Chapter One

Incorrigible in Brooklyn

In the late 1870s, Brooklyn, New York was a thriving bedroom community known for its churches and high-quality public education. In particular, there was the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, and the Polytechnic Institute for Boys. Nevertheless on any given day, one would see thousands of young boys running through the streets selling newspapers, making deliveries, shin- ing shoes, or finding other means to provide money for their families. Families who relied on their children as wage earners were outraged by the passage of a compulsory education law, which stated that all parents “shall instruct children, or cause them to be instructed in spelling, reading, writing, English grammar, geography and arithmetic for 14 weeks, eight of which had to be consecutive,” adding that “no child under fourteen shall be employed by any person to labor in any business whatever during the school hours of any school day.”1 Despite the law, boys all over the state remained supplemental family providers. That changed in 1879, when Brooklyn cracked down on truants. A journalist for Harper’s New Monthly Magazine described the new methods to force a child to go to school.

Petitions, complaints, warrants, and commitments are hurled at his devoted head, until he is thrust headlong into the Attendance School—a sort of earthly purgatory in which he may expiate the errors of his youthful way, or insure himself a rapid transit to another institution, whence he will not return until he is duly impressed with the majesty and power of the compulsory law.2

Perhaps the most effective means to get children to go to school were attendance officers in plain clothes. They walked casually around neighborhoods and nabbed a child as soon as he or she was within arm’s reach. The

1 2 Chapter One youths were then dragged—sometimes kicking and screaming—to a quaint old chapel on Pacific Street and forced to attend a public boarding school for chronic truants. Within a year, streets once teeming with boys yelling the latest newspaper headlines became as quiet as church aisles. The officers were so successful that truancy was reduced by 7,000 in one year. “I can not think of what has come over all the children in Brooklyn!,” said one reporter. “Every time I have wanted a model, this child is in school and that one is in school, another is studying at home; and there are none to be found on the streets where they were thicker than blackberries last fall.”3 Charlotte Bronson Rea lived at 438 Pacific Street, just three blocks from the new reform school. She opened the notices in 1879 informing her that her ten-year old son, George Bronson Rea, was a consistent truant, but she was powerless to compel her stubborn, obstreperous son to attend classes. The boy’s father, Joseph Rea was the son of a saddle maker named George Rea, who had been born in Ireland in 1820. George Rea, a Protestant, was an outcast in a country dominated by Catholics. He immigrated to the United States during the potato famine and set up his saddle making business in Brooklyn, New York. There he married and had four children, two boys and two girls. Joseph Rea, his eldest son, was born in 1848. George Rea’s saddle business was prosperous enough to board and pay three young employees—all from Ireland. The saddle maker also took in three lodgers: a candle maker, his wife, and child. The house must have smelled of beeswax, leather polish, and smoke from a wood stove. There were thirteen mouths to feed daily, which was made easier with the help of an illiterate, twenty-year-old servant woman. When eldest son Joseph reached the age of twenty-two, he left his father’s saddle business and secured a white-collar job working as a bank clerk. Yet Joseph was a bookkeeper who couldn’t balance his own financial accounts enough to make ends meet. When his son, George Bronson, was born on August 28, 1869, Joseph was still living with his in-laws. The boy was Joseph’s second child. His first child, Elizabeth Mathilde had been born the previous year.4 Joseph’s wife, Charlotte Bronson, descended from a pedigreed family in England that had immigrated to the United States. By the age of eighteen, she had married Joseph and given birth to Elizabeth. Her father, Dr. Charles Bronson, was a man who had profited by education and thrift. He had once worked as a printer, became a doctor, and each decade had managed to double his savings. It is likely that the frugal doctor disapproved of his son-in-law, a bank clerk who couldn’t manage his own finances, and with the couple living under his roof, Bronson could see firsthand that his daughter’s marriage was falling apart. Incorrigible in Brooklyn 3

In 1870, Joseph scraped up enough money to rent a new home. Elizabeth Mathilde stayed with her grandparents. George Bronson, nicknamed Geo, went with his parents. He was still nursing and needed his mother’s full attention. The new housing arrangements didn’t last long. On October 11, 1870, Charlotte, then twenty, with two children and no real prospects for employment, filed for divorce. Joseph left Brooklyn for upstate New York, and baby Geo grew up rarely seeing or hearing from his father. It is possible that young Geo did not want to go to school because he provided income for his mother. He could have had a job helping out at his uncles’ Bronson Brothers hardware store at 823 Myrtle Avenue. On the night of January 27, 1879, robbers targeted the store, breaking in through the cellar and getting away with a quantity of pistols, razors, scissors, and pocket knives taken from the showcase as well as “$2.00 in money from the till,” which was about two days’ wages back then.5 Perhaps Geo ran errands and stocked shelves while his uncles focused on reinforcing and securing the cellar door in freezing winter temperatures. It’s also possible that Geo was a newsboy; after all, his grandfather Charles Bronson once ran a printing press. There was a distinct subculture of boys in Brooklyn that held territorial rights and gang-like structures for selling newspapers. This network may well have attracted young Geo, who did certainly develop a ravenous appetite for reading magazines and newspapers at a young age and whose drive would have made him an excellent paperboy. In any case, whether he was selling newspapers, helping his uncles, or simply playing hooky in the park, Geo clearly felt school a waste of time and didn’t go. Like all parents of children who refused to attend school, Charlotte would have received numerous notices in the form of arrest warrants for her ten-year-old son. Soon enough, Geo was snatched in the net haul of young truants, and just before the Christmas holidays in 1879, he was sentenced to fourteen weeks of incarceration at the former church just down the street from him. If he attended all his reform school classes, performed his tasks and studied, he would earn a certificate back to a regular public school. If he did not, he’d be sent to the Truancy Inmate Home. That winter, Charlotte moved back with her father. The U.S. economy had been in a depression for six years, and the cost of renting a place on her own and feeding and clothing two young children had proven too much for the young mother. Besides, Dr. Bronson could well afford to take care of her family. It is not clear why Dr. Bronson traded in his printing press for a stethoscope, but the most likely reason was the need for doctors during the Civil War. Being a doctor in the nineteenth century did not require years of internships or resi- dency after medical school, and although medicine was neither advanced, nor 4 Chapter One lucrative, it was steady work in wartime. Dr. Bronson’s decision enabled him to provide for his wife, his sister-in-law, and a young black boy of seventeen named Lee Gurley from South Carolina also lived with the family. It was the post–Civil War “‘Reconstruction Era”‘ in the South. Angry white mourners turned into lynching mobs against their former slaves, and the boy’s family may have considered the boy safer working for Yankees up north. Dr. Bronson was happy to welcome his daughter back to the household, and he enjoyed the addition of his granddaughter Mathilda, known in childhood as Tilly. But the patriarch did not get along with his grandson. Bronson was so upset with Geo over his truancy that he refused to allow the boy home on Christmas day. The ten-year-old spent the most important Christian holiday in the former chapel-turned-attendance school. The chapel was adorned with gaily painted banners with religious mottoes. Below the banners was a platform where preachers spoke of the choice between God’s love and eternal damnation. Long windows reflected soft, cool light. Around Christmas, some fifty boys sat on narrow benches on either side of the aisle, “a few neatly dressed, well shod, but the majority ragged, barefooted and forlorn.”6 Every boy indoctrinated into the Attendance School had his hair “clipped by an instrument constructed on the same principals as a lawn mower.”7 Each boy was stripped naked, and then scrubbed with a brush from his head to his tiniest toe until he was a glowing pink. The boys were then given a uniform of dark brown jean pants, stout shoes, a shirt, and a grey felt hat. With the New Year came the announcement of even harsher truancy laws. The reporter for Harper’s New Monthly described the event:

I am now about to inform you of a proposed change in the Truancy Law, the Master bellowed. . . . The Board of Equalization, Sirs, finding that fourteen weeks incarceration in the Home has not been sufficient warning to such of you as have been within its walls, and that threats of recommitment have no power to deter you from violation of the law, or to intimidate you to the point of desistance from the evil tenor of your ways have concluded, after serious de- liberation—Do you attend Sirs?—yes after serious deliberations, have decided to extend the term of sojournment to such of you as prove delinquent from the paths of educational duty to at least one year!8

The master culminated his proclamation by slamming his rod on the pedestal. Still, Geo refused to obey the new compulsory education laws, and in June 1880, when most children were beginning summer vacation, he became the first child brought before the census taker to list himself as an inmate at the Brooklyn Truancy Home. He had failed at the Attendance School and had been sentenced to suffer as an incorrigible. Incorrigible in Brooklyn 5

Corporal punishment was the foundation of the Brooklyn Truancy Home. Boys who refused to behave were beaten to submit to authoritative will. One teacher was finally brought up on charges for abuse. At the trial, a day watch- man for the institution testified how one boy was thrown in the snow and hit repeatedly on the back with a large shovel. Another witness recalled “marks of beating upon him from the knees to the back of his neck.”9 As a result of the investigation, the teacher was dismissed, but lashings on the hands with rattan switches and whippings remained accepted and condoned practices. Geo’s obstreperous nature likely led to a fair amount of punishment, and his teenage life was grim and depressing. The year 1883 was an especially sad one for the Rea family. When Geo was fourteen, his aunt Emily Taylor gave birth to a baby, but things weren’t right. The new mother became ill and died from puerperal fever on March 27, two weeks shy of her twenty-sixth birthday. She was followed into death less than six months later, on August 17, by Geo’s uncle, George W. Rea, then thirty-six, who had been being treated at the Long Island College hospital in Brooklyn. The cause of death was listed as a “softening of the brain,” which could have been caused from anything from a thrown blood clot to syphilis. Of all his uncles, his uncle George was the closest to young Geo in age. Despite the horrors of living in a truancy home, and his grief over two deaths in his family, George did grow up surrounded by marvels. Thomas Edison patented the first commercially successful light bulb in 1879, just a few years after Alexander Graham Bell had patented his telephone. On May 24, 1883, when Geo was fourteen, the Brooklyn Bridge, the longest suspension bridge in the world, spanning 3,460-feet, opened a new link to Manhat- tan. It was an astounding engineering feat. Businesses were closed for the day as everyone was given a celebratory holiday. The grand opening was at 2:00 p.m., and a total of 150,300 people walked across the bridge on a promenade above the traffic as spacious as 5th Avenue, from where they could see views of the bay and cities, and mingle with seagulls. Each person was charged a penny. Nothing manmade in North America then matched its height. At 5:00 p.m. vehicles were permitted to cross at five cents each; 1,800 vehicles were driven across the bridge the first day.10 That night, fireworks filled the skies of both Brooklyn and Manhattan. Engineering feats of the age no doubt shaped Rea’s ambitions, but so did his mother’s economic struggles, his broken family, his longing for a fatherly presence, his stubborn determination, and his consciousness of being a poor Irish boy in an age of Irish immigration. There was one writer in Rea’s era who seemed to embody all of his struggles, one writer who emboldened a generation of youth toward rugged individualism and to embrace free market capitalism as gospel. The writer was Horatio Alger, and although Geo Rea 6 Chapter One may not have been the spitting image of Alger’s protagonists in books like A Boy’s Fortune, Bound to Rise, Facing the World, Only an Irish Boy, Slow and Sure, and Strive and Succeed, they shared in common a reckless nature, a poor, working-class life, and an all-or-nothing determination to succeed. Geo yearned for the wealthy, gentlemanly father figure who in Alger’s books popped up just in time to show the young hero the higher moral path to success. In reality, Rea’s father hardly ever showed up, and letters the boy wrote in his teenage years clearly show—in addition to a lack of good, formal education—how dearly Geo missed him. “I haven’t much say last it about the same day after day. I know I were kinder ugly I know but it made me a little [more] so as I had not heard from Papa yet,” Rea stated in a letter to his mother. Not only had Joseph moved away; he had also started a new family. His second wife, a woman named Katherine, was sixteen years his junior. Joseph fathered a girl named Florence, born in 1883, and then had another son named Frank, born in 1884. At the age of fifteen, Geo finally escaped from the Truancy Home by lying about his age and joining the Navy as a cadet. The Navy had a monumental presence in Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Harbor, located in Wallabout Bay near the newly built Brooklyn Bridge, was the Navy’s principal station in the United States, encompassing a vast 178 acres of waterfront.11 Joining the Navy was a way to get a free education in engineering, military history, and political science. Outside of instruction at the Truancy Home and private tutors, the Navy provided the only formal education Geo would ever receive.12 And after surviving life in the Truancy Home, being a Navy cadet must have felt like a reprieve. He was on the USS Jameson with the Navy on a training mission in Nor- folk, Virginia, when a lieutenant fell overboard. The “ships in the yard send out their cutter and drag the river for him, it is thought h[e] has been drowned while drunk!” Geo wrote his mother. But after days of dragging the water for a body without success, his interest in the event waned, and he was more interested in getting more reading and writing material. He asked his mother for the Golden Days and Sunday Eagle newspapers. He also sent thanks to his grandmother for sending writing paper. George Bronson Rea grew up in a reality as dark as a Dickens novel. His mother and father divorced in a time when divorce was rare. His father was absent during most of his childhood, leaving his mother to try and raise two children with limited means. Geo spent his most formative years in a truancy prison renowned for beating children. And yet, Geo’s incorrigible temper and willful drive didn’t just get him in trouble, they also helped him survive. He was like a horse that could not be broken nor harnessed. His formative years sowed the seeds of his stubborn, all-or-nothing character. Geo saw formal education and higher education in particular as a waste of time. He was not against learning per se and seemed to be an avid reader; Incorrigible in Brooklyn 7 what he opposed was having others mandate what he should learn. He no doubt accepted becoming a cadet in the military because he felt learning engineering useful as a career. He accepted learning military history because he had learned in a truancy home that fighting was a necessary part of survival. He grew up to be a young man determined never to give up, and never refuse a fight, even when the odds were stacked heavily against him. Imagine a handsome, twenty-one-year-old, Irish man, thin, seemingly taller than five ten, with strawberry blonde hair, ice blue eyes, and a mustache bud- ding on his handsome, fine-boned face, riding the train across the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan one cold winter day. He looks out the window over the water below, feels the warm sunlight from the south, and dreams of adventure and fortune. Geo had gotten his chance. He had completed his naval service and had been offered a job in Cuba, using his naval engineering training to modernize several U.S.-owned sugar refinery plantations. In New York, he boarded a train to Florida, from where he set sail for Cuba, where he would wind up in the middle of a revolutionary war and would meet his most devoted friend.

NOTES

1. “Compulsory Education in Brooklyn,” Harpers New Monthly Magazine 60 (January 1880). 2. “Compulsory Education in Brooklyn.” 3. “Compulsory Education in Brooklyn.” 4. 1860 U.S. Census, Kings County, New York, population schedule Brooklyn, p. 79, dwelling 351, family 682, Charles Bronson, June 15 1860, digital image, Ancestry .com, accessed February 20, 2006, http://ancestry.com. 5. “Hardware Store Robbed,” Union Argus, January 27, 1879, http://bklyn-gene alogy-info.stevemorse.org/Newspaper/BSU/1879.News.html. 6. “Compulsory Education in Brooklyn.” 7. “Compulsory Education in Brooklyn.” 8. “Compulsory Education in Brooklyn.” 9. “Truant Home Investigation,” Brooklyn Union Argus, June 10, 1882, http:// archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/NYBROOKLYN/2002-02/1012771619. 10. Ken Burns, “The Building of the Brooklyn Bridge,” PBS.org, Web Documen- tary, www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildingbig/wonder/structure/brooklyn.html. 11. Miriam Medina, “A Brief Sketch of Brooklyn Pre-1900,” The History Box, http://thehistorybox.com/ny_city/nycity_bklyn_sketch_article00192.htm. 12. In The Yellow Kids: Correspondents in the Heyday of Yellow Journalism (New York: Harper and Row, 1989), Joyce Milton states Rea went to college. According to the Alumni Association of the college listed in her book, it was a different George Rea. George Bronson Rea never went to college, and was self-educated according to his second wife, youngest daughter, and Who’s Who encyclopedias.

Chapter Two

The Herald’s Man in Havana

As the sun set in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, on January 12, 1896, reporter Sylvester Harry Scovel paced back and forth in a cold, dank prison cell in Morro Castle. He was hungry and anxious after days without a good meal and longed for his cushiony mattress and the $1000-a-month salary he’d drawn as manager of the Cleveland Athletic Club, where his biggest challenges had been daily jousts with instructors of fencing, wrestling, and boxing and recovering from “a good deal of riotous living.”1 It was the second time Scovel had been arrested. He had sailed to Cuba only a few years after the Ten Years’ War had ended in defeat for Cubans eager to throw off the yoke of colonial Spain. A new independence movement began in 1895, and Scovel had made the long journey from Pennsylvania to write about it for the New York Herald. On arriving in Havana, Scovel sought out an insurgent who was to lead him through the jungle to a rebel encampment. Unfortunately, the guide had left town without a forwarding address. Determined to get the story, Scovel set out one night to find the insurgents without a guide—and without horse, baggage, supplies, or an ability to speak Spanish. Police arrested him immediately at the gates of the city. Scovel pretended he was a drunken sailor from the steamship Niagara searching for his hotel, and the police bought the story and escorted him back there, taking his watch and close to $100.00 in cash on the way. Undeterred, Scovel set out again two nights later. This time he snuck successfully past the sentries. He walked for days through the underbrush, relying on the generosity of the peasants he encountered for food and on hand signals for directions. Finally early in November, feeling more dead than alive, he stumbled on an insurgent military camp. To his astonishment, soldiers brought him to meet Cuba’s most important revolutionary leaders, Maximo Gomez and Antonio Maceo.

9 10 Chapter Two

General Gomez was fluent in English, and when he met Scovel for the first time, was impressed by the young American’s determination and his apparent sympathy for the Cubans’ cause. Scovel, for his part, sensed the wisdom and power emanating from the frail, fatherly old man, who stroked his long white goatee as he spoke. Gomez also appreciated that Scovel had attended Michi- gan Military Academy and had learned there how to mount a cantering horse bare back, shoot straight from the saddle, load artillery, and handle mortars. Realizing the reporter’s value as both correspondent and potential recruit, Go- mez allowed Scovel to march westward with his band of some two thousand insurgents, who Scovel later characterized as “undrilled, unorganized, and naturally timid Cubans.”2 After spending two months with the insurgents, Scovel decided to return to Havana to check in with the home office and to collect his first paycheck. He had not seen a single copy of his newspaper, so he had no idea if the dispatches he had relayed had gotten to New York. His reports could have made the front page or the trash can. He still had his letter of introduction from the Herald stating he was their employee and was hoping it would get him safely back into the city. He was wrong. According to the Spanish patrol who arrested him and threw him into Morro Castle before he could bathe, shave, or eat a decent meal, the Herald already had a reporter in Havana. Throughout the night of January 12, Scovel slept badly. He arose the next morning with an empty stomach, his mind unable to grasp the fact that after sending countless stories of marching with Gomez and risking his life for two months, the Herald was refusing to acknowledge him as their employee. It was a slight he never forgave. The Herald’s man in Havana was George Bronson Rea. His job at the sugar plantation had ended, and he had just accepted the assignment as the Herald’s foreign correspondent in Cuba. He’d arrived in the city less than two weeks previously, and the Spanish government had welcomed him into his new position by imprisoning him in Morro Castle. The reason for Rea’s imprisonment is not known. Perhaps the Cuban police mistook Rea for Scovel. After locking Rea in a dungeon, the police threatened to hang him. Fortunately he was released quickly. Rea was not aware of the stories Scovel had been sending to the Herald; none had been published. He believed Scovel to be an imposter who had nefariously claimed Rea’s new position. Rea quickly made an appointment as the Herald’s official correspondent with the Spanish governor to iron out the confusion. For the official meeting, Rea no doubt looked dapper in a jacket, vest, collar, and bow tie, his pants and shirt crisply ironed, and his boots spit shined. By looking at picture books of Cuban historical architecture, you can trace The Herald’s Man in Havana 11 Rea’s path. He marched quickly through a park, past Moorish arches and up the marble steps of the Palace in Havana with, no doubt, youthful exuberance. At the meeting, the young correspondent certified that there was only one “Herald’s man” in Havana and that he, George Bronson Rea was that man. Then he cabled his employer in New York to find out what should be done with the impersonator. Four long days passed, when a cable arrived for him from New York. One can imagine Rea reading it over breakfast and becoming shocked sipping a morning espresso, which Rea customarily drank black without sugar. It stated that Sylvester Scovel was indeed an employee of the New York Herald. Cop- ies of Scovel’s dispatches had been sitting, unopened, on the desk of an editor who had recently been suspended. The cable instructed Rea to “Close matters with Scovel. Pay him twenty seven in full for account.”3 While Rea was getting funds to pay Scovel, William Shaw Bowen, a reporter with the World, New York’s foremost daily paper at that time, was on his way to Morro Castle to visit the prisoner. Scovel had arranged for the interview hoping that publicity might save his neck. When asked what his intentions were, Scovel replied to Bowen: “I wish to make a reputation as a war correspondent.”4 Scovel told Bowen about his two months with famed rebel General Max- imo Gomez and bitterly recounted his employer’s refusal to help him get out of prison. Bowen was impressed enough not only to hire Scovel on the spot, but also to offer him a byline. At that time, the Herald and many other papers refused most reporters credit for authorship. With a byline, Scovel could truly make a name for himself. If the Herald didn’t know their man in Havana, the World would right the affront and make Sylvester Scovel a household name in the process. Bowen left the prison cell knowing he had hired a journalist with the tenacity to get real news from the insurgents—and one with the added benefit of a true chip on his shoulder sure to inspire him to beat the media competition. When Rea met Scovel for the first time later that afternoon to deliver the paper’s measly salary along with a notification of dismissal, he took one look at the small gaunt figure and felt contrite. Scovel should have been livid at how the Herald was treating him after two months’ correspondence from the front lines. Scovel’s shoes had been reduced to mere “reminiscences” by all the marching he’d done; his body was half starved; and he’d been imprisoned and threatened with being strung up by a noose.5 Yet Scovel wasn’t upset at all. He was sitting in a dark, rat-infested prison cell grinning from ear to ear. Since being hired by the World, he was “happy as a clam at high tide.”6 Only three newspaper dailies survived the cutthroat competition in most populous city in the United States during late 1880s despite millions of residents in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The World had the highest readership, 12 Chapter Two followed by the Journal, with the Herald a distant third.7 The New York Times had been incorporated in 1886 as an alternative to the Journal and World, but New Yorkers were not quite ready for “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” and the paper was still a floundering, nascent upstart. Joseph Pulitzer published the World. He was a Hungarian immigrant born in 1847, who had first sailed to the United States on the promise of a $500 bounty the Union Army was offering for military recruits. After surviving the Civil War, he went to work for the New York Sun. He then went to St. Louis, Missouri, and finding reporting his passion, worked diligently to become owner and publisher of the profitable St. Louis Post-Dispatch.8 In 1883 Pulitzer traveled back to New York to cover the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge. Captivated by the masses gathering to celebrate the historic event, he saw an opportunity to publish a newspaper designed to speak to them. Hearing that millionaire Jay Gould had a newspaper for sale, Pulitzer weighed the cost; $346,000 was a high price considering the paper only had 15,000 readers and that Gould had lost $40,000 a year trying to keep the daily afloat. Nevertheless, Pulitzer took the risk vowing to create a

journal that is not only cheap but bright, not only bright but large, not only large but democratic—dedicated to the cause of the people rather than the purse potentates—devoted more to the New rather than the Old world—that will ex- pose the fraud and sham, fight all public evils and abuses—that will serve and battle for the people with earnest sincerity.9

The World hypnotized New Yorkers. Circulation soared into the hundreds of thousands as the newspaper went after corruption, corporate monopolies, and white slave traffic. For spice, there were tabloid-style articles rich in gossip about the famous. The paper’s recipe for success also included funding events, such as pouring the foundation for the Statue of Liberty and providing dinners for the poor on Christmas Eve. One employee on a fast track to learning Pulitzer’s methodology was William Randolph Hearst. His father was George Hearst, who had struck a financial mother lode at the Comstock Gold mines in California and subsequently became a U.S. Senator, despite barely being able to write his own name. The young Hearst desperately wanted to publish his own paper. After much pleading, he persuaded his reluctant father to turn over ownership of the San Francisco Examiner, a paper the senator had bought for political reasons and wanted to unload. The son transformed the Examiner by using Pulitzer’s methods, coupled with his family’s ability to buy whatever talent was necessary until readership skyrocketed. When young Hearst asked his doting mother for money to buy another paper and expand his media empire east to New York, she handed him a check The Herald’s Man in Havana 13 for $7,500,000.10 Hearst then heated up the media competition by printing the New York Journal. Hearst used his millions to hire many employees away from Pulitzer using cutthroat tactics that gave rise to the term “yellow journalism.” Interestingly, the phrase, which came to describe bogus reporting of the news, originated during a controversy over a cartoon. One of the greatest draws for readers of Pulitzer’s World was a daily cartoon strip called “Hogan’s Alley” drawn by the cartoonist R. F. Outcault. It was a single-boxed cartoon about the antics of a smiling tenement child with big ears and an Asian face who, in an era where color was unheard of in newspapers, was always dressed in a yellow nightgown. “The Yellow Kid” as he was called, always had sardonic, accusatory comments to make about government officials, scandals, or controversy. Readers began opening to the cartoon first, before reading the front-page stories, and the Yellow Kid became the talk of the town. Hearst made Outcault a financial offer no one could refuse to move his popular cartoon to the Journal. In response, Pulitzer decided to hire another artist to illustrate “Hogan’s Alley” for the World, and for a while there were two cartoons.11 Which was the real Yellow Kid? Debate over this question led to the phrase and the idea of “yellow journalism”: when you don’t know the real story from the fake one. Fake news stories would reach a zenith, and journalists a nadir, during the Spanish–American War in Cuba. From their posh hotel rooms in southern Florida, journalists became infamous for inventing atrocities committed by Spanish soldiers in Cuba. Rea and Scovel were notable exceptions in their profession at the time, risking their lives daily to get real stories for their respective papers. When Scovel described his new position with the World, Rea must have felt incredible relief. Scovel was happy about his new job and held no animosity against Rea personally for the misunderstanding or for the Herald’s meager severance package. A competitive, devoted, and loyal friendship began that day at Morro Castle, largely as a result of Scovel’s magnanimous and forgiving nature. It was a bonding of two bright, cunning, determined, recklessly brave soldiers of fortune with a lot in common. They were the same age with Scovel the elder by just a month. They were both from northeast cities; Scovel being raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Rea in Brooklyn. They had similar features: pale-white skin with reddish- blond hair, mustache, and blue eyes. Rea was classically more handsome; taller by about four inches, he seemed lean and lanky compared to Scovel’s shorter, more compact stature. Each was the black sheep of his family and had been harshly disci- plined in youth. Scovel had attended a military academy where, when he violated rules by smoking, officials punished him by forcing him to spend three months in solitary confinement. Although many an adolescent would 14 Chapter Two have been psychologically broken by such an experience, Scovel spent the months studying, and in his words, learning to “endure my own company.”12 Despite having much in common, the two men came from markedly different family backgrounds. Whereas Rea was the descendent of a middle-class, Irish immigrant working family, Scovel was a scion of academicians and ministers. His grandfather Sylvester Scovel, born in 1796, graduated from the Princeton Theological Seminary, became a pastor, and ultimately was chosen to be the third President of Hanover College. As minister and president, he displayed a gift for fund-raising he would pass on to his grandson. In 1849 cholera struck, and the minister was taken within two days of becoming ill with the disease. Scovel’s father, also named Sylvester, became a missionary and later became President of the University of Wooster, now called College of Wooster, in Wooster, Ohio. Sylvester Henry Scovel, raised in an atmosphere of rarified piety, broke away from his family in every way possible to become its dyed-in-the-wool black sheep. He did not want to be called Sylvester like his forefathers. He preferred to use Harry, the informal diminutive of his middle name. In adolescence, he refused to study theology at a seminary, asking to study engineering instead. This infuriated his father, who responded by sending his son to his brother’s blast furnace to haul bricks for the summer. Harry collapsed after three days in the hot sun, despite his strong physique, but he didn’t give up. He hauled brick and cut lumber with a handsaw hour after hour for the rest of the summer months and then returned the next season. After two summers of backbreaking labor, his uncle rewarded young Harry with the job of timekeeper. When it was time for college, Harry again flew in the face of generations of academicians named Scovel. He began his seventeenth year as a fresh- man at the College at Ann Arbor in Michigan, studying he said, “as little as I could.”13 He dropped out after his second year to take a job in construction. When the company he worked for folded, he went from job to job until he wound up “vigorously engaged in the most distasteful occupation of roping in all my friends into the benefits corrall [sic] of Life Insurance.”14 Although he hated selling insurance, Scovel discovered his ability to persuade people to part with money, a talent passed down from his grandfather that would serve him well at his next job. Scovel obtained work with the Cleveland Athletic Club, and when club coffers ran low, he began organizing fund-raising events. First he wrote a comic opera that was so successful it cleared $2,000 in three nights. Then he organized other events, from boxing matches to billiard competitions. Scovel soon accepted a promotion to general manager, making $1,000 a month—an The Herald’s Man in Havana 15 extraordinary income in the United States in the nineteenth century and the equivalent of $25,000 per month in today’s terms. Harry was not wise with his own money, however. He wound up drinking heavily, gambling away his outlandish monthly salary, and going significantly into debt. He was forced to quit his position as manager and return home to Pittsburgh, disgraced into selling life insurance once again. His father was completely disgusted. Sitting before a fire one night, Harry filled his pipe with tobacco, lit it, and reflected unhappily on his young life. He hated the boring daily grind of selling life insurance, didn’t really believe in the product he was selling, and was desperate to get out of a cold, gray city. For two years he had freelanced as a drama critic for various local newspapers and had developed a taste for reporting. He had not heard any decent news stories about the revolution breaking out in Cuba, and the dearth of information about this exciting event in a far-off land led him to an epiphany. He decided the small island would be the perfect place to become a war correspondent. First, he secured a position for a local paper, the Pittsburgh Dispatch. Once he learned the basics of reporting, he traveled to New York and presented himself to the Herald, promising real stories from the revolution in Cuba. Agreeing to receive a salary of $24.00 a column for his work, Scovel sailed with a second-class ticket on the steamship Niagara to the southern coast of Cuba. Rea had lived in Cuba for five years by the time Scovel first set foot on the island. After serving in the navy, Rea had obtained work as an electrical engineer and bookkeeper. His job was to modernize sugar plantations for millionaire O. B. Stillman at Stillman’s Cape Cruz company plantation in the Province of Santiago. According to Stillman, Rea took to work with “zeal and interest and an intelligence that left nothing to be desired.”15 The accounts on the plantation “were in a very badly mixed up condition; he did good to straighten them out,” said another Stillman employee.16 But in 1895, close to Christmas, Rea’s job literally went up in smoke. Fire broke out at the plantation. The fire was likely set by Cuban rebels seeking to rid the island of U.S. capitalists in league with the colonial government. The twenty-six-year-old engineer watched flames burn his newly installed electric lights, his ledgers, and field upon field of the tall green cane he was hoping would become sugar. He saw and smelled the sweet, ac- rid smoke swallow his hard work and dreams. It was after losing his job as an engineer that Rea decided to try writing about the ongoing war between Cuba and Spain and secured a trial run as a war correspondent with James Gordon Bennett’s New York Herald. 16 Chapter Two

The dignified Herald represented the conservative, wealthy business class. Owner Bennett not only refused loud, bold, sensationalist headlines—his paper had no front page headline at all! The Herald’s front page comprised long thin columns of boring classified notices and personal advertisements because Bennett believed that a client who paid by the word and in advance deserved the best space. The paper did, however, have relative to its competitors, the most complete coverage of international events as well as authoritative financial news. Unlike the Hearst and Pulitzer papers, the Herald tried to be neutral in the tone of its coverage and to separate facts from editorial stance. It sponsored no charity events. Nor did it did enjoy a large popular readership. In a city of more than three million, it only sold on average 100,000 dailies a year between 1895 and 1898. Bennett wanted his paper respected by an affluent tier of U.S. society by which he himself was barred and outcast. A copious drinker prone to fits of anger and jealousy, the publisher was the source of a good deal of scandalous gossip. At a New Year’s party hosted by his fiancé, for example, Bennett uri- nated into the fireplace and was later horsewhipped in front of a large gathering for the transgression. The incident ended his engagement and roused enough media attention that Bennett exiled himself to Paris and published the Herald from Europe. There he was influenced by European and French ideas, and the paper’s readership atrophied to an even smaller set of wealthy conservatives. Rea held conservative political beliefs that were in line with the paper. He was also against another war with Spain. The revolution that broke out in 1895 was not the first attempt by Cubans to cast off imperial Spain; another insurrection known as the Ten Years’ War for Independence had raged on the tiny island from 1868 to 1878 before sputtering out into failure. Many Cubans were exhausted by violence and instability, and many bitterly opposed another war with Spain. Rea aligned himself politically and socially with members of the Cuban gentry and government officials who either were either staunchly loyal to Spain or at least against another revolution. The Cuban gentry were deeply divided between those who supported independence and those who didn’t. Those opposed to independence were emigrants from Spain called peninsulares. They comprised a small but influential element of the Cuban population. The Herald characterized them at the time:

They are for the most part men of wealth, have obtained distinction in the learned professions or been successful in various lines of business. These “peninsulares” and indeed all the Spanish residents of Cuba are loyal to Spain and view the present insurrection with as much sorrow as the people who live in Spain.

Most peninsulares held political positions of power within a governing colonial bureaucracy infamous for corruption. The Herald’s Man in Havana 17 Those initially in favor of independence were the “Creole” class. They were people born in Cuba, many of them tobacco, coffee, and sugar planters and livestock ranchers, who owned vast hectares of land. They were well educated, wealthy, and elite. Creoles grew bitter over Spanish rule, especially when Spain increased taxes on all Cuban real estate and business income from 6 to 12 percent a year. Most Creoles would have identified with the American Revolution slogan “No taxation without Representation.” Creoles did not feel their national Cuban interests were directly represented by colonial Spain, and they developed the belief that unshackling the yoke of dependence to Spain was the only way for Cuba to truly prosper. Rea, on the other hand, concluded along with the Spanish that “if the Cu- bans were oppressed, I failed to discover in what manner for in no other country is liberty of action more enjoyed than in Cuba.”17 Rea saw the insurrection as “nothing more or less than a movement plotted and carried out by a number of discontents living in the United States.”18 After six years in Cuba, Rea’s social network included mostly peninsulares and foreigners like Stillman, who learned of the insurrectionists’ whereabouts only after they torched his sugar cane fields. His political sympathies jibed with those of the people he knew. By January 17, 1896, the Spanish government had released Scovel from prison, and the two reporters left Havana determined to catch up with the rebels. Before departing into the hills, the young correspondents likely par- took of a final feast. Gambling was a weakness Geo had in common with Harry, and while relaxing after dinner with a brandy and hand-rolled Cuban cigar, they might have wagered who would be first to find Gomez. Scovel had an advantage, as he already knew the General’s recent whereabouts. But Scovel could hardly say good morning in Spanish let alone understand directions through a jungle. Rea spoke Spanish like a native but did not know how to seek help from the underground human railroad leading to Gomez. Setting out on horseback with a servant, two hammocks, camping food for few days, tobacco, and chocolate, Rea no doubt felt confident. Scovel, with similar supplies, set out in a different direction. Both rode off into the tropical jungle searching for Cuba’s most-elusive military leader without another good meal in sight.

NOTES

1. Sylvester Scovel, Unaddressed Autobiographical Memo to Joseph Pulitzer, 1897, A1494, p. 5, Sylvester Scovel Papers, Missouri History Museum Archives, St. Louis. Hereafter cited as Scovel Papers. 2. Scovel, Memo to Joseph Pulitzer, 1897, 7. 3. Scovel, Memo to Joseph Pulitzer, 1897, 7. 18 Chapter Two

4. Scovel, Memo to Joseph Pulitzer, 1897, 8. 5. Scovel, Memo to Joseph Pulitzer, 1897, 7. 6. Scovel, Memo to Joseph Pulitzer, 1897, 8. 7. Charles Henry Brown, The Correspondents War: Journalists in the Spanish- American War (New York: Scribners, 1967). 8. Joseph E. Wisan, The Cuban Crisis as Reflected in the New York Press (1895– 1898) (New York: Columbia University Press, 1934). 9. Wisan, Cuban Crisis, 22. 10. Brown, The Correspondents War, 14. 11. Milton, The Yellow Kids. 12. Scovel, Memo to Joseph Pulitzer, 1897. 13. Scovel, Memo to Joseph Pulitzer, 1897. 14. Scovel, Memo to Joseph Pulitzer, 1897. 15. O. B. Stillman, Letter to George Bronson Rea, December 29, 1905, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 16. Chas S. Welsh, Letter to Luke E. Wright, December 29, 1905, National Ar- chives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 17. George Bronson Rea, Facts and Fakes about Cuba (New York: George Mun- ro’s Sons, 1897), 236. Unless indicated otherwise, all quotations of George Bronson Rea in this chapter are drawn from his book. 18. Rea, Facts and Fakes, 93. Chapter Three

Marching with Generals

Rea dyed his hair and darkened his skin to look less conspicuous on his quest to find General Gomez. He lay in swamps by day and crawled through Span- ish forts at night. He climbed over mountains and through barbed wire fences, always dodging and hiding from Spanish soldiers. After several days, he finally hooked up with a brigade of three hundred armed but ragged insurgent troops who also hoped to find the general. Early on the morning of January 25, 1896, Rea heard the sound of a bugle calling for assembly and the thunder of horses’ hooves in the near distance. All around him, soldiers were running to form double ranks. “Who is coming?” Rea asked. “Maximo Gomez is coming,” replied a soldier running into place. Rea brimmed with excitement and relief. He would finally have a talk “with this somewhat mysterious personage so much talked about and so seldom visible.”1 Gomez was a veteran fighter for Cuban independence. Born in the Do- minican Republic, he was a prosperous planter’s son destined to follow in his father’s footsteps until fights in his adopted country turned into a revolution. At first Gomez believed Cuba incapable of governing itself and joined the Spanish ranks as a lieutenant. But as patriotic fervor grew, he was inspired to change sides, and when revolution broke out, Gomez fought against the Spaniards he once commanded.2 Gomez envisioned a military insurgency with a kind of reverse Robin- Hood logic. Instead of stealing from the rich to give to the poor, he decided to destroy Cuba’s riches, infrastructure, and means of production so as to force wealthy Spain out. Once the colonizer was removed, Gomez believed native Cubans could rebuild and reap the fruits of their own natural resources. With this strategy, he believed that he didn’t need superior numbers to win. In fact, many attribute General Gomez with the development of guerilla warfare as a

19 20 Chapter Three military strategy. Instead of hundreds of thousands of columns of men slaugh- tering each other in concentrated, head-to-head battles as in the U.S. Civil War, fifty ragtag insurgents would shoot at a company of five hundred Span- ish soldiers and scatter into the thick jungle for safety when counterattacked. By the time Rea met up with him that January, Gomez had gathered support from the peasant class, gained firepower from U.S. filibustering expeditions, and was marching to his own orders. Many historians, and Cubans in particular, venerate Gomez as a brilliant revolutionary military strategist. Yet Rea’s first glimpse of the general that morning “completely shattered” his notion of what a great commander should be. Instead of “the martial looking old gentlemen, whose bearing conveyed the idea of a thorough soldier” he expected, Rea found

a chocolate-colored, withered old man, who gave one the idea of a resurrected Egyptian mummy, with the face lighted up by a pair of blurry, cold expression- less gray eyes, that at times glowed like two red coals of fire, especially when in a rage or passion. A thin, white pointed goatee and mustache, á la Napoleon, gave to the face that character and semblance which the Spaniards have endeavored to convey in the sobriquet ‘El Chino Viejo’ (the old Chinaman).3

To make matters worse, there, riding next to the Old Chinaman, was his competitor, Scovel. Scovel looked down from his horse and smiled upon catching sight of Rea. The World’s war correspondent had every reason to gloat. Not only had he beaten Rea in finding Gomez, but he was also riding right alongside him. When they dismounted, Scovel introduced Rea to General Gomez and to Gomez’s personal physician, Dr. Sanchez. Soldiers spread out to set up camp around a large estate nestled in the hills deep within the countryside. Gomez established quarters within the palatial residence. As the men were unpacking, Rea sought out the general, and found him taking respite in a rocking chair on the front porch of the large mansion. Gomez offered Rea a chair close by in the cool shade and then began conversation by asking frankly whether Rea thought President Grover Cleveland would ever acknowledge the revolution or the right of Cubans for independence. It was a good question by which to elicit Rea’s political stance. Rea, never bashful with his views, no doubt stated how he did not believe that the United States should intervene or go to war with a European power that had hitherto been friendly with the United States. This was the position Cleveland had taken, and Rea backed it, despite pervasive sympathy for the Cuban cause among many Americans and in Congress. In June 1895, the president had disappointed most Americans by passing a resolution of continued neutrality on the Cuban conflict, despite harsh Marching with Generals 21 criticism. Since that time, Congress and the U.S. press had only increased pressure on the president to change his mind. Cleveland averted war with Spain by stubbornly clinging to his neutral stance but paid for the decision by sinking in popularity. Rea was one of the few U.S. reporters to support the president’s neutral stance in Cuba, a position that placed him instantly at odds with Gomez. And indeed, from their first meeting, Rea and the general blended like oil and water. Rea claimed his antipathy to Gomez began over an incident with a servant. Rea and Gomez were discussing politics, and just as the discussion began to get heated, two large muscular soldiers came on to the porch dragging the young servant of a Spanish officer. The soldiers accused the boy, who was no more than fourteen, of stabbing his worn-out, lame horse. The youth pleaded for his life, professing his innocence and the injustice of the arrest. According to Rea, Gomez refused to listen and commanded, “Away with him! Bind him securely, and place him under guard in the escort, for I intend to shoot him as an example to other offenders of his class.”4 The young servant got down on his knees, begging for leniency. Rea admired the lad for not breaking into tears. Gomez responded by whipping out his machete and swinging at the youth, who jumped out of the way just in time. Gomez lashed at the boy again, and Rea leapt up from his chair thinking Gomez was going to execute the child in front of him. The guards grabbed the boy and shunted him away while Rea stood visibly horrified. Gomez turned, and seeing the look on Rea’s face, assured him: “I only intended to frighten him a little, for you see that I struck at him with the flat of my sword.” Rea, however, could see from where he stood that “the blows were delivered with the edge to the victim” and concluded that Gomez was either a two-faced liar or in his mercurial passion had made a mistake. Either way, Rea had a bad first impression of The Old Chinaman. Breakfast was another opportunity for the general to get to know the new correspondent from the Herald. There was a gathering of intelligent minds at his table that included Scovel, Rea, Dr. Sanchez, and several Cuban officers. The general took a few bites from his meal of cooked meat and sweet potatoes and then issued what seemed to be the opening move of a surprise verbal chess match with his North American audience, claiming that, as Rea recalled it:

The Western Continent has produced only one truly great general and that man is General Simon Bolivar. To my mind, he is far superior to many European generals of great renown, and altogether far in advance of any the United States or other American countries have produced. My highest ambition is to follow in his footsteps, for then, when Cuba is free, who will not concede that General Gomez has accomplished a task more difficult than that of Bolivar. Next to Bo- livar, the greatest American military genius was Juarez, the Mexican liberator. 22 Chapter Three

Rea immediately took the bait, and calmly, rhetorically asked Gomez his es- timate of the great North American generals George Washington and recent hero of the U.S. Civil War Ulysses Grant. Gomez’s response mortified Rea:

You Americans are always bragging about Washington and Grant, and believe them to be great Generals. I tell you it is a mistake. They have been greatly overestimated by their countrymen. You Americans don’t know how to fight. You never did know. You have been thrashed in every war since gaining your independence. If it hadn’t been for the French you would still be slaves of Eng- land, and Washington would be slaves of England, and Washington would only be a defeated rebel, and Grant unheard of. When did you ever do any fighting? Yes, it is true that Mexico was entered and the largest part of her territory stolen. Even the Spaniards would not have committed such a despicable action. All your great territory has been purchased. Do you hear, sir, purchased! It has not been fought for and conquered. The United States are a nation of merchants and brokers, who have no idea of fighting, and whose only ideal is money. Why, do you know that I, myself, at the head of 10,000 men could enter Florida, burn and lay waste the entire territory in less than a week, and laugh at the efforts of the awkward American militia to defeat me or drive me out! “Not so fast, General Gomez.” Rea responded. Perhaps you would find it much more difficult to elude those stupid American soldiers in their own country than you find it here to evade the Spaniards, and then you entirely ignore the fact that in all probability our navy would prevent your landing there with your conquering hosts. “A navy!” Gomez replied: A fine navy you have got, to be sure! Young man, don’t mention your navy to me. Your country has a few old hulks that would fall to pieces if a broadside was fired from the decks, and again it has been soundly defeated whenever they had a fight with the English or French.

Gomez’s accounting of U.S. Naval power was accurate. During the Civil War, the United States had commanded seven hundred vessels. Yet by 1881, barely thirty ships passed minimum standards for seaworthiness. Even Chile had a better navy than the United States, so Congress voted to build a new navy. Between 1883 and 1897, the U.S. Congress funded money for nine first-class battleships, two second-class battleships, two armored cruisers, and sixty-four smaller vessels—all newly designed. But during the summer of 1897, despite the threat of a possible war with Spain, the United States halted construction of their new naval fleet because none of the newly designed vessels had ever been thoroughly tested. Despite funding a new navy, the United States only had eight ships protecting the entire Atlantic in 1897, and not one was considered consistently reliable.5 Rea felt his pride cut to the bone. The U.S. Navy had rescued Rea from truancy prison and educated him in engineering and military history. He Marching with Generals 23 responded to Gomez’s challenge with a patriotic diatribe of battle dates and locations for the War of 1812, and then moved on to a highlighted chronology of the Civil War. In the next moves of the verbal chess match, Gomez cited numerous victories over the United States in the Mexican War. The general’s voice rose with his temper and his eyes began to glow. He shook his finger at Rea and stated: “So young man, you see that I also know something about history and what I am talking about.” The general probably felt Rea had accused him of being ignorant of U.S. naval history. Nevertheless, Gomez’s words intimated he intended to end the discussion there, invoking the wisdom of his age and military background. But Rea was unwilling to defer, either on grounds of age or rank, and was determined to have the last word. “When I cited the various incidents,” he quipped, “it was only to refresh your memory, for there is no doubt that you have carefully studied American history many years ago, as your thorough insight in our political and military system clearly indicates.” This insolent comment, from a twenty-something cub reporter dining for the first time with a famous foreign general, was shocking. It insinuated first that Gomez’s memory of military history needed refreshing, and second that he had not carefully studied current North American military history. Every- one stopped eating; some with forks in midair. Complete silence enveloped the room. Some looked at the general; he stared directly at Rea for several seconds that seemed like minutes. Then Gomez whispered some words to the man next to him, got up, and walked out of the dining room, leaving only the sound of his boots fading into the distance. After breakfast Scovel caught up with Rea outside the residence and warned: “You really put your foot in it with the General.” Scovel added that if Rea wanted to get news from the revolutionaries, he should “stand in solid with the old man.” Then he headed off to a private interview with Gomez that lasted for hours. Rea went back to camp. His servant was not available, so he arranged his own campsite, saw to his horse, and then walked around the estate feeling indignant. When he returned from his walk, he discovered that someone had taken the food he had set aside for his horse. While Rea stewed over how to feed his horse, Scovel was devoting some of his lengthy meeting with the general to an attempt to heal the rift between the two mercurial men. No doubt Scovel assured Gomez that Rea was an upright fellow, trained in the military as an engineer, who knew all about trains, even how to blow them up. Scovel’s efforts might have proven more successful if, later that night, Rea had not intruded on the General in his bedchamber. Gomez had undressed, gotten into bed in his nightgown, and was reading the newspaper when Rea 24 Chapter Three knocked on the door. He asked the general’s forgiveness for molesting him but said he needed food for his horse. Rea felt that asking the general for the feed was the appropriate thing to do. He was following protocols he had seen used with the Spanish army. Someone had taken the food for Rea’s horse. He needed to feed the horse to march with Gomez, and he needed permission to take the food because it belonged to the general. For the second time that day Gomez stared at Rea. This time the general was completely puzzled. “What do you mean?,” Gomez yelled. Rea repeated himself. Gomez sat up in bed and stared at him in disbelief and then began shouting. Dr. Sanchez came running and appeared almost instantly at the doorway. Seeing his physician, Gomez yelled, “Doctor, this man has come into my room to insult me. He is asking me—the General-in-chief of the Cuban Army—to take care of his horse for him! This is an insult sir! Get out of here!” No doubt there was an error in second-language communication, but Rea stood his ground, explaining that no disrespect was intended, but it was fruitless. Gomez continued: “You are indecent! You are ungentlemanly!” Get out of here.” He kept yelling until Rea left for his campsite. Instead of feeling contrite over his lack of protocol, Rea later was “amused at the ridiculous stand taken by the modern ‘liberator’” and his “inflated bundle of vanity.” Rea slept in his hammock and woke early the next morning to the bugle call for “boots and saddles.” Rea broke camp and saddled his hungry horse quickly. Seeing Rea, Gomez greeted him politely. The army was headed out for the Western Railroad at Seborucal, and Gomez allowed Rea to join the march. They arrived late morning just before the train from Guanajay to Ha- vana was about to arrive. Gomez ordered the railroad tracks torn apart and sent scouts to look out for Spanish soldiers. With a battalion of men pulling stakes, the tracks were quickly disassembled. Gomez then ordered his troops under cover to wait for the sound of the approaching steam engine. When the conductor of the train to Havana saw the disassembled tracks ahead, he immediately pulled his reverse lever. The sound of metal on metal was deafening. The train heaved, slowed, and finally stopped before the tracks ended. Gunfire ensued as men on horseback with rifles and machetes surrounded the train cars. The train consisted of four passenger coaches and ten boxcars filled with goods. Rebels boarded the train and ordered the passengers to off board. One terrified traveler was a Spanish major. The revolutionaries grabbed him immediately. When the major was brought before Gomez, the general looked at the Spaniard, then at the two U.S. journalists, and said, “We don’t kill prisoners. Go and tell [General] Weyler and Marin how Gomez has given you your freedom, while all our poor fellows captured by the likes of you are executed.” Marching with Generals 25

The major offered his hand in gratitude, but Gomez refused. Scovel and Rea could see behind the media ploy immediately and chuckled heartily together out of earshot of the general. Rea was shocked, however, by Gomez’s next move. The general approached Rea and asked, “Do you understand about engines and railroads?” In fact, Rea knew a great deal about trains as a result of his military education in engineering. He may have learned about railroad construction in the military as well. It also seems probable that he fostered a passion for trains from an early age because he studied them throughout his life. In time, he would become one of the world’s leading experts on trains and railroads.

“Yes sir,” Rea responded with military formality. “Can you destroy that locomotive for me?” “I might if I tried.” Rea said haughtily. “Will you?” challenged Gomez. “Yes sir,” he responded simply and confidently.

With those two words, Rea crossed the line from reporting the story to becoming the story. It makes one wonder why he would agree to aid Gomez. Journalists sometimes helped the Cuban insurgents because they believed in the cause. In so doing, they clearly crossed professional ethics of neutrality. Yet Rea was never in sympathy with the revolution and clearly disliked the general. Perhaps Rea thought about Scovel’s advice on the day before to “stand in solid with the old man,” to be privy to more news. Or, it could have been simply for an ego boost. Perhaps Rea wanted to prove to the general that he was capable and smart enough to shut down a train if he set his mind to it. The questionable ethics involved in aiding and abetting an insurgency crossed Rea’s mind. He claimed that he did not compromise his neutral stance because instead of doing the actions required himself, he directed orders to the Cubans to complete the tasks. His rationale treads on murky journalistic ethics at best. Steam engines require fire, water, and some form of piston to move the wheels of the train. Fire boils water to make steam, which is piped into the cylinder and piston causing it to move. The movement of the piston turns the wheels. A blow-off valve controls the steam pressure. On inspecting the engine room, Rea discovered that all he had to do was to get rid of compressed steam so the train could no longer run. First he ensured the fire to the boiler was out. Then Rea ordered one of the soldiers to open the blow-off valve. Steam burst from the train with an ear-piercing wail. The 26 Chapter Three general and soldiers stared transfixed until the sound tapered off at which point Rea’s mission was accomplished. Gomez was pleased. He mounted his horse, dug in his spurs, and charged off at a gallop, followed by a small group of insurgent soldiers. But the good impression Rea left on Gomez, however, was short lived. After returning to camp, Rea did not see Gomez until later in the afternoon when the general took him aside and said,

Mr. Rea, you impressed me very unfavorably last night, but your action to-day stamps you as a very energetic and resolute young man. . . . I have no one in my army who understands engineering matters, and it is necessary that one should be found. . . . I will give you a good rank as chief of my engineering corps; you will be attached to my personal staff, and receive a liberal salary, payable when we triumph. I will also place under your command 150 armed men, who will be entirely under your orders, and you will not have to recognize any superior but myself.

Rea responded by saying that, although the general’s offer was flattering, he didn’t think he could be of any further use. “There is only one condition to the proposition,” Gomez replied, “and that is: you must destroy the Batabano Railroad.” Now it was Rea’s turn to stare at Gomez in complete bewilderment. He wondered if the general was joking. The Batabano Railroad line stretched for fifteen miles along a road that was as protected as Fort Knox. A twenty-foot high electric wired fence barricaded the entire track. Armed guards patrolled from outposts and from blockhouses that had been constructed every few hundred yards to safeguard the trains and the tracks. In addition, the Span- iards stationed their largest columns of soldiers all along the route. They were determined that the insurgents not take down that vital artery of transport. The line did not pass over any bridges, culverts, or through any tunnels where one could stop the train with one major explosion. Worse, the whole stretch of terrain was level, making it impossible to hide. After asking a few more questions, Rea learned there was no dynamite, and Gomez had only 150 men with a few pickaxes and crowbars to do the job. Rea struggled to decline the offer gracefully without further damaging his relations with Gomez. The tactic failed, and Gomez left the conversation disgusted with Rea once again. While Gomez was easily irritated and upset by Rea, he seemed nonplussed by the approach of some one thousand Spanish troops on February 1, 1896. At noon a scout reported that the Spanish cavalry was searching the vicinity. Gomez merely ordered a dozen sharpshooters to distract them and continued reading his newspaper. The sharpshooters rode off and opened fire from a safe Marching with Generals 27 distance. Yet instead of going for cover to exchange fire as usual, the Spanish contingent came in pursuit of the shooters at great speed. The insurgents galloped back to camp with the Spanish cavalry on their tail. When the second scout reported Spanish soldiers in close pursuit, Gomez continued reading the newspaper. Only after a third scout came running in and the sound of exploding gunfire made everyone bolt for the door did Gomez growl, “Boots and saddles.” But the insurgents had bolted into action too late, and the Spanish bore down, firing, yelling, and firing again. As Rea later described it, “the infernal din increased as it grew nearer and nearer, and the air seemed filled with invisible Kilkenny cats “meouwing” [sic]” to each other caused by the peculiar sound of the Mauser bullet as it cuts the air.”6 Rea wanted to see a good fight but not in the middle of the firing line. Both he and Scovel dug their spurs into their horses and jumped a fence to the safety of a nearby swamp. Meanwhile the insurgents fled the onslaught of bullets by retreating through a narrow gate and down a small road, which unfortunately led to a dead end row of tall impenetrable hedges with long, sharp thorns near the swamp where Rea and Scovel were hiding. Suddenly there was the sound of horses and a flank of Spanish cavalry fanned out, cutting off the path of retreat to the east. The army charged on horseback with machetes and rifles. Rea heard the insurgents battle cry of “Al Machete!” He saw the Spanish cavalry reign their horses to a stop for just a minute in the expectation of a major assault. The moment’s break in the fighting allowed just enough time for the insurgents and two war correspondents to escape. Gomez then lured the soldiers away by galloping toward the west; the cavalry took the bait, charging into the jungle only to be eluded by the general once again. Rea and Scovel had worse luck the next day. Spanish soldiers saw them approach town to file their stories in Quivocan. A chase ensued, and both correspondents took flight once more, with bullets howling past their ears. Rea’s horse was shot dead from under him, and Scovel was thrown from his steed. They narrowly escaped by running into nearby cane fields. On February 3, 1896, Scovel left for Havana carrying special correspondence from Gomez to the U.S. government. Although he had eluded capture, he was badly wounded. Rushed by boat from Cuba to Florida and then by train to New York, Scovel lay in a hospital bed for three weeks. Pulitzer was reluctant to send his leading war correspondent back to the revolutionary front lines. Yet nothing could keep the intrepid reporter from returning to Cuba. Back in Cuba late in February 1896, four large Spanish columns pursued Gomez and his army. Rea narrowly escaped and then watched insurgents loot and burn stagecoaches and horse-driven carts. The army stopped for lunch at 28 Chapter Three another estate where, though the proprietor was away, a steward insisted that Gomez and staff could rest. Gomez ordered soldiers to cover their tracks. Servants prepared an extravagant lunch and at around 1:00 p.m., Gomez, his officers, Rea, and other correspondents took seats at a table covered with a banquet, old wines, and liquors. The alcohol was passed around freely, and Gomez’s mood softened. The general was just finishing another military adventure story when two scouts came in to say the Spanish were advancing rapidly and would arrive in an hour. Gomez responded in what Rea now recognized as his characteristically minimalist fashion, sending only six men to stop two thousand. An hour later bombs sailed overhead, landing in a nearby sugar field. Shouts of “Viva España” could be heard in the distance. To Rea’s relief, Gomez finally ordered a retreat. In the heat of late afternoon, a few of the soldiers confided to Rea that they were tired of Gomez’s tirades, risks, and punishments. They did not deserve to be insulted or beaten at whim. If Gomez had problems with his men, one said, the general should bring forth charges in a proper military forum. Un- fortunately, a loyal Gomez aide overheard the conversation, which spelled trouble for both the soldiers and for Rea. After a long evening of marching and hiding, the insurgents settled at a small farm for the night. At supper that evening, Gomez didn’t say a word. “The silence was ominous,” Rea recalled, “and the assembled officers waited for the storm to break.”7 When the meal concluded, everyone waited for Go- mez to give permission to retire from the table. But instead of dismissing the group, the general turned to Rea, who was seated next to Scovel, and said, “Mr. Rea, by what right do you sit at my table and eat?” The reporter felt as if a bomb had exploded in the room, but replied calmly, “I believe that I have partaken of supper at this table by your own special invitation, if you will please recall the fact.”

“No, no! I am aware that I invited you, but I meant to say, what right have you to be in the revolution? Who are you? Where are you from? Have you any letters for me? How do I know but that you are a Spanish spy in disguise.” “One question at a time, General. You ask me who I am. Have I not been introduced to you by Mr. Scovel as the correspondent of the ‘Herald’?”

Gomez turned to Scovel and asked him if he could verify that in fact that Rea worked for Herald. Scovel assented, but the general interrupted in disgust. “I don’t care a damn for the ‘Herald’. The ‘Herald’ is our enemy; its owner has invested largely in Spanish bonds, and it is to his interest to favor Spain, and as you represent the Herald you are also an enemy to us.” This time, Rea got up from the table in disgust and walked out of room. Marching with Generals 29

Although Rea found Gomez intolerable, other U.S. citizens jumped at the chance to join the fight for Cuban independence. Most agreed Gomez had a volatile temper but compensated for it with a kind heart. An alternative view of General Gomez to that of Rea survives thanks to the future U.S. General Frederick Funston. Rea and Funston would meet and become friends in Cuba and cross paths several times over the next decade. Funston started his military career marching under Gomez. In fact, his first mission was volunteering to run a filibustering mission for the insurgents.8 Funston, who stood just five feet tall and weighed no more than 120 pounds, first set sail for Cuba out of a love of adventure, a desire to see fighting, and because he sympathized with the Cuban cause. His father had been an artillery officer in the Civil War, but before going to Cuba, the closest Funston had come to firing a gun was witnessing a salute fired in honor of President Rutherford B. Hayes at a Kansas county fair. His sojourn to Cuba wasn’t the first time Funston had tried to join the military. He failed the entrance exams into the U.S. Military Academy in 1884. He then enrolled in the University of Kansas but did not graduate. He worked as a reporter for a year in 1890 and after that pursued botany. But the insurrection in Cuba reignited his pursuit of military adventure. In August 1896 Funston was given just a few hours’ notice to pack his trunk and arrive at the Cortland Street Ferry at 7:00 p.m., ready to leave New York on the maiden filibustering mission, a steamer called the Dauntless. Also aboard the boat were a twelve-pound Hotchkiss, which was a type of gun intended to be carried by mules or mounted on a carriage that resembled a miniature cannon on wheels, 800 shells, 800 pounds of dynamite, 1,300 total Mauser and Remington rifles, 100 revolvers, 1,000 cavalry machetes, several hundred saddles, half a ton of medical supplies, and 460,000 rounds of bullets. Funston met with good fortune on the ocean journey and arrived alive and with guns intact on Cuban shores. Gomez and some one thousand men met the filibustering boat on the coast. Funston noted that the newspapers he brought the insurgents from New York seemed as valuable to them as the weapons. The papers were passed from hand to hand, read and reread raven- ously until the pages were limp and torn. Gomez placed Funston in charge of the guns and gave him the status of an officer, but said that Funston would not be commissioned until after “making good.” It seemed the successful filibustering mission was a mere first step in the insurgent boot camp, but Gomez clearly took interest in Funston. The general consistently inquired about his health and often asked sardonically how the American liked being, a “mambi,” the uncomplimentary term by which the Spaniards usually referred to the insurgents. Most significantly, 30 Chapter Three

Gomez eventually affectionately nicknamed Funston “Capi,” an abbreviation of the Spanish word capitan. Funston felt Gomez often had a hard exterior, but inside was likable. He also felt that the general was shrewd in his use of guerilla warfare and well worth serving under. Both Funston and Scovel would become loyal devotees of Gomez. Rea, on the other hand, felt Gomez to be a blowhard. Regardless of radically opposing views of the Cuban revolutionary, everyone agreed that Gomez was a kind, sweet old man compared to the newest Spanish General, Valeriano Weyler, better known as “the Butcher,” who sailed into Havana on February 10, 1896, to assume command. The previous Spanish General, Martínez Campos, had acquiesced to a status quo with the Cuban insurgents whereby major cities and the western provinces were protected by Spain, but the rural population was left in relative peace. But after the rebels invaded western Cuba in January 1896, the uneasy status quo ended, and General Campos was recalled to Spain. The Cuban press had had a field day over who might replace Campos, making a list of the worst possibilities. General Valeriano Weyler ranked first; his cruelty infamous from the Ten Years’ War. By making such a ranking list, Rea believed, the Cuban journalists had actually assisted the Spanish government narrow down the choices. He held them responsible for bringing about Weyler’s nomination and Cuba’s worst nightmare. When selected to lead the Spanish fight in Cuba, the Butcher warned, “I will meet warfare with the measures of war. With spies and those who aid and abet rebellion, I shall be inexorable.”9 Havana’s narrow harbor entrance was renowned both for the pungent perfume of sweet flowers often discernable by offshore vessels and for how the water glistened brightly on a warm, sunny day. The most visible building in the harbor was the fortress of Morro Castle, with its round tower and a revolving light, which could be seen by mariners thirty miles out to sea. As Weyler sailed past the castle aboard the ship Alfonso XIII, he was greeted by a thunderous artillery salute. Military troops saluted with respect when he disembarked, and nearby Cuban citizens bowed fearfully. The new Spanish general arrived with three goals: stop the Cuban peasants from aiding the insurgents; kill insurgent leaders; and finally, stop reporters from communicating with the revolutionaries. Weyler hypothesized that what was needed to stop the insurgents was to cut off their supply of food and information. His strategy would be to separate and isolate the insurgents, so he could corner and annihilate them. He planned to force the rebels into the western provinces of Cuba and then trap them by building a great defensive wall of ditches and wood scaffolding lined with barbed wire and blockhouses where soldiers patrolled as lookouts. Built by slaves and Chinese immigrant Marching with Generals 31 labor over three years, this fortified military defense wall grew to be forty miles long. The fortification system was called “The Trocha.” A week after landing on the island, Weyler announced his draconian policies. First, he decreed the death penalty for anyone found guilty of treason and disloyalty. Second, all inhabitants of every major province would have to register with the Spanish government. Registering was the first step of the policy called “la reconcentración,” whereby hundreds of thousands of Cubans were forced to abandon their homes and imprisoned into camps set up in cities. Any individual disobeying orders was pronounced a rebel and killed. The Spanish were one of the first to use concentration camps, which would later become infamous when used by Germany in World War II. A third part of Weyler’s strategy was to burn all crops; kill all the horses, cattle, pigs, and fowl; and to empty and burn all houses in the countryside. Weyler may have chosen this last strategy not only to mirror the insurgents’ success in destroying crops and infrastructure, but also because of the success of a similar military strategy employed by General William T. Sherman and the Union army during the U.S. Civil War. His Union troops marching southward had destroyed every ear of corn, every cotton plant, and every vegetable garden, killing all livestock and every man and boy they could find. This brutal approach had succeeded in finally breaking the back of the Confederacy. An onslaught of reporters tried to get a meeting with the new Span- ish general. Of all the correspondents clamoring for an audience, Weyler granted his first one-on-one interview with the press to the Herald’s George Bronson Rea. They met in the portrait gallery of the Palace on February 12, 1896. Weyler, a small man with a square jaw and closely trimmed beard and mustache, seemed to Rea to exude the stature and power of Napoleon. Rea found Weyler neither pretentious nor assuming in manner, but rather intensely energetic, with a firm, independent facileness of mind that Rea admired and responded to immediately. Rea clearly respected the Butcher far more than he did the Old Chinaman. Of the twenty-five U.S. war correspondents covering the insurrection between Cuba, Spain, and later with the United States, only Rea composed positive articles about General Weyler. The subject of Rea’s first published story following his one-on-one interview was how the new General had pardoned ten political prisoners on his inaugural day. In his article, Rea also stated that Weyler made an “excellent impression” and predicted the general “will be found more lenient than those who accused him of cruelty.”10 Rea felt that General Weyler was no worse than any other military leader in wartime; he just used “methods in vogue since the human race began to war one with another.”11 Nevertheless, the reporter did not think Weyler capable of turning back the tide of the revolution, for several reasons: Spain insisted 32 Chapter Three on using heavy infantry over light cavalry; too much Spanish manpower was spent protecting individual property; 90 percent of the Cuban residents favored the insurgents; and finally and perhaps most importantly, the ranks of the Spanish military had been thinned significantly by tropical illness. Rea’s reasons were astute, but notable as well for being incomplete. Nowhere did Rea give credit to General Gomez and his cunning use of guerrilla warfare. Rea thought Gomez a shriveled up pompous man past his prime, who abused his authority and gave in to his outrages, who lacked Spanish courtesy, and who, Rea alleged, drank far more than his medicinal prescription of brandy for arthritis. The former navy cadet thought little of guerilla strategies and even less of the straggly bunch of insurgent soldiers marching with Gomez. Although Rea clearly respected Weyler more than Gomez, he did not approve of the Spanish general’s new policy of forbidding any correspondent from contacting the insurgents. For Rea,

Weyler’s order, instead of benefiting his cause, had the opposite result; for the pro-Cuban correspondents seized on every yarn, and added to it to suit their different views of the case; and as a consequence the American public has been forced to witness the most revolting and audacious campaign of systematic mis- representations and willful lying that can be found in modern history.12

General Weyler’s new mandate did not stop Rea from leaving Havana to meet and march with General Antonio Maceo, another prominent military leader in the Cuban revolution against Spain. Maceo was the son of an Afro-Cuban mother and Venezuelan mulatto father, who had worked his way from private to general during the Ten Years’ War against Spain. Having returned from exile when the new revolution in Cuba began, he was about to embark on his most famous campaign of his short life. Of the military leaders on both sides of the fighting in Cuba, Rea came to admire Maceo the most. The reporter revered Maceo’s bravery and his determination to keep fighting, and he described him as a true war hero who never dodged a battle.

Antonio Maceo, whose handful of men had so far carried the brunt of the war, leaving the other “famous” chiefs to lay around in the hills and Camaguey and Santiago de Cuba, where, to all accounts they passed the time wrangling amongst themselves instead of trying to fight the Spaniards. On the other hand, Maceo devoted himself strictly to the campaign; he never refused a fight, and often when the enemy did not bother him for a few days, he went looking for them to remind them he was still alive. . . . Is it any wonder that my letters to the “Herald,” while he was alive, had a tendency to favor the Cuban cause?13 Marching with Generals 33

Maceo became a hero of Cuban independence and to Cuban citizens of color. Rea would follow the general known as “the Bronze Titan” more than a thousand miles in three months, riding on horseback. Each day he witnessed and survived daily skirmishes with Spanish soldiers often involving Spanish battalions of as many as eight thousand soldiers. In his stories, Rea minimized the risks he took in Cuba and how often he faced death. During one gunfire exchange, at a railroad crossing in Portela on February 29, 1896, Rea was shot twice. The bullets went completely through him; if they had not, he might not have lived.14 Rea did not write a story about the incident. There were no reports of it in the papers, nor any details of the event found in his later book on Cuba. One year later, Rea would admit to being shot in a two-sentence testimonial in response to a question before the U.S. Committee on Foreign Relations. Although stories of reporters in Cuba being shot or even killed rarely made newspaper headlines, rumors of General Maceo’s death were rampant in the yellow press throughout 1896. In one printed story, Maceo’s doctor poisoned him; in another, Maceo killed himself after being surrounded by Spanish military forces. In yet another fictitious story, Maceo committed suicide from grief. Rea skeptically acknowledged the gossip: “Maceo Again Reported Dead. The Rumor, Quoted Officially for What It Is Worth, Causes Great Excitement” ran one Saturday Herald headline on February 22, 1896. Maceo seemed to have more lives than a cat. When Spanish soldiers finally did shoot Rea’s most-heralded general in battle in December 1896, neither Rea nor Scovel believed the press reports, nor were they on the island to verify it. Even the veteran reporters could no longer discern fact from fiction in the U.S. press.

NOTES

1. Rea, Facts and Fakes about Cuba, 236. 2. Background on Gomez is drawn from Grover Flint, Marching with Gomez (London: Lamson, Wolffe and Company, 1898). 3. Rea, Facts and Fakes, 236. 4. The conversations between Maximo Gomez, George Bronson Rea, and Sylves- ter Scovel come from Rea, Facts and Fakes, 238–46. 5. Accounting of naval power is from Peggy Samuels and Harold Samuels, Re- membering the Maine (Washington, DC, and London: Smithsonian Books. Smithson- ian Institution Press, 1995), 15–17. 6. Rea, Facts and Fakes, 271. 7. Rea’s thoughts and the following conversation are taken from Rea, Facts and Fakes, 261–62. 34 Chapter Three

8. Information about Funston in this chapter and details about his experiences are drawn from his book Memories of Two Wars (London: Constable & Co, 1912). 9. “Weyler’s Coming Heralds a Regime Which Revolutionists Will Not Face,” New York Herald, January 26, 1896. 10. Wisan, The Cuban, 91. 11. Rea, Facts and Fakes, 35. 12. Rea, Facts and Fakes, 26. 13. Rea, Facts and Fakes, xvi. 14. U.S. Committee on Foreign Relations, Report of the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, Relative to Affairs in Cuba, George Bronson Rea Testimony, volume 3624 (Washington, DC, April 13, 1898), 375. Chapter Four

Facts and Fakes about Cuba

To the editors of the American press and the Members of Congress, who have been systematically and willfully imposed upon by a clique of spurious and unscrupulous citizens, aided by incompetent and malicious correspondents, this book is respectfully dedicated . . . to call attention to a campaign that has made our press and highest legislative body appear ridiculous in the eyes of the civilized world. —George Bronson Rea1

Rea returned to his hometown in September 1896 for the first time in nine months. His numerous headline stories in the press had likely turned the one- time truant into a local hero. Although the Herald didn’t allow Rea a byline until the following year, Rea’s writing was relatively easy to discern. He had become the Herald’s “special correspondent,” and his stories were often at the top of the foreign section of the paper. He wrote in the first person, often offering his thoughts on the stories he reported. Rea’s stories were also dis- tinguished by their focus on Cuba’s business class, their neutral to positive stance toward Spain, and by his propensity to bury the lead. In Rea’s defense, many journalists at the time wrote at length and digressed from the main point. There was no rubric yet codified on how to write news stories; the now- famous instruction to neophyte journalists to answer the five Ws—find out who, what where, when, why—and to “kiss” the story—“keep it simple, stupid”—had not yet become platitudes. Correspondents were literally inventing their own writing style and their roles as journalists. Their jobs, as they conceived of them, often extended beyond writing about a story to becoming part of the story just as Rea had done by destroying the train for Gomez. Scovel, for example, had two different roles by 1897: He not only wrote articles about the revolution as the World’s most-famous war correspondent, but he also

35 36 Chapter Four acted as a diplomat who negotiated on behalf of General Gomez with the U.S. government and couriered U.S. government documents and counterproposals back to Gomez. Rea was back in Brooklyn to marry a local girl. Harriet Shumard Carter, though born in St. Louis, Missouri, in July 1868, had grown up on Sixth Avenue in Brooklyn, close to the Memorial Arch Plaza and Prospect Park, just about two miles away from Rea’s childhood home. Her mother was from Maine, her father was a jewelry maker from Massachusetts, and she had three siblings. The Carters, like the Reas, attended St. Peters Episcopal Church, which is likely where Rea and Harriet met. He was good looking, intense, daring, and extraordinarily smart. Rea wooed Harriet dutifully, as one would court a childhood sweetheart who everyone in church expects you to marry, and imagined that his love for his fiancé would grow over time. For Harriet, Rea was the true love of her life, and she would remain devoted to him until her death. Harriet had small, intense, steel blue-grey eyes. She was plain, but hearty, full-bodied, full-breasted, and seemed to exude the strength necessary to bear a healthy brood of children. The two were eager to get married because Rea knew he would soon be called back to Cuba, but their wedding plans didn’t go off as hoped. First, the family minister, Pastor Parker, would not allow them to be married at St. Peter’s Church right away. The delay may have occurred because of Rea’s lack of confirmation with the Protestant church. Given Rea’s aversion to attending classes for reading and arithmetic, he may well have balked at having to attend school to learn about religion. Whatever the reason, the couple had to delay the church wedding until May. Rea, however, was never a man to be held back—not by man, minister, or God—and the two were married in a civil ceremony instead, on a cold winter day on January 11, 1897. Soon afterward, the Herald cabled, directing him to return to Cuba. A proposal for Cuban autonomy had been bruited, and the paper wanted him to beat Scovel in a race to get the reaction from General Gomez. “Send us the exact truth in regard to the situation as you find it, and remain in the field until we recall you,” were Rea’s instructions.2 Rea sailed for Havana. His new bride waited at home, and after few weeks one can imagine her ripping through to the foreign section of the Herald hoping for a news story from her new husband. In February 1896, there had been daily headlines about the Cuban revolution, but by February 1897, stories about the small island had dwindled. The media had refocused their attention on labor strikes in England, war in Egypt, and increased mob violence against immigrant Chinese at home in the United States. Despite not making headlines as often, both Rea and Scovel were back in Cuba in another race to get a story from Gomez. Spain’s General Weyler Facts and Fakes about Cuba 37 may have been aware of Scovel’s new role as negotiator and go between for Gomez and the U.S. government because he put a $10,000 price tag on Scovel’s head—dead or alive. Although the Butcher put no bounty on Rea, who docked in Havana on a regular steamship passage boat, Rea nevertheless described his escape from the city and his journey to reach Gomez as “the most difficult mission I ever undertook; for although I had the good fortune to catch up with him, it was only accomplished by riding night and day through a county infested with Spanish columns and guerillas.”3 This time Rea beat Scovel to General Gomez, but unbeknownst to Rea, Scovel carried the prize: private sensitive documents and correspondence from the highest U.S. officials. After they each got their stories, they raced off in different directions to be the first to wire them. Spanish police, eager to win the dead-or-alive bounty reward, were waiting to ambush and kill Scovel outside of the gates of Havana, but Scovel met up with a kindly AP correspondent who tipped him off before he was ambushed. His only option was to flee to the coast, hire a boat for Trinidad, and wait a few days. When Scovel thought the coast was clear, he sailed back to Havana, where he was appre- hended. Luckily he was not killed, only arrested and imprisoned for weeks in Sancti Spiritus while the U.S. State Department negotiated his release. Rea wisely chose to bypass Havana and wire his story in Cárdenas. There he ran into Richard Harding Davis, a well-known writer and reporter and editor for Harper’s Weekly. The New York Journal had commissioned Davis and illustrator Frederick Remington as special correspondents in Cuba. Rea and Davis were staying at the same hotel. Rea offered to guide Davis to Gómez, if only they could get past Spanish police and the plain-clothed spies posted to watch them at the hotel. The task seemed possible, but the next morning, one look at the front page of the New York Journal stopped the two reporters in their tracks. There was printed a photo of Richard Harding Davis and a story claiming he was already with the rebels, when in fact he was still in the hotel lobby. The story instantly placed Davis on Weyler’s most wanted list, with Harding’s employer conveniently providing a front-page mug shot. Rea had to leave Davis at the hotel and set out to get fresh news. Another fake story printed in the Journal on February 12, 1897, plagued Davis. In fact, it became one of the most infamous false stories ever written about the Cuban insurrection. The problem was actually not with what Davis wrote, but with the illustration that Remington drew to run with the story. In the drawing, Remington depicted a timid, fearful, refined, young Cuban lady on board a steamer in Havana standing naked while the hands of three Span- ish officers searched her body. Rea later castigated the story as one of “the most flagrant abuses of modern journalism.”4 38 Chapter Four

Davis defended himself in a letter written to the editor of the World. The letter was dated February 16 and reprinted by Rea in his book, Facts and Fakes about Cuba.

I am charged with having said that the woman was searched by men, when, as a matter of fact, she was searched by a woman. I never wrote that she was searched by men. My account distinctly says that the Spanish officers walked up and down the deck while this, the search, was going on in a state room supplied by the captain. Mr. Frederick Remington, who was not present, and who drew an imaginary picture of the scene, is responsible for the idea that the search was conducted by men. Had I seen the picture before it appeared, I should never have allowed it to accompany my article.5

Rea was one of the few U.S. war correspondents in Cuba not accused of writing falsehoods. Ironically, he would soon nearly be shot for trying to write the truth. He galloped through the tropical jungle day and night to reach Gomez. When he arrived, the Old Chinaman informed the Herald correspondent that Scovel had been captured and was being imprisoned in Sancti Spiritus. Gomez clearly had developed a paternal fondness for Scovel, and he asked Rea to investigate their mutual friend’s fate. An amiable young U.S. captain working under Gomez, William D. Smith, agreed to accompany Rea to find out about Scovel. The general ordered an escort of two armed men to guide Rea and Smith, but the order was either misunderstood or disobeyed, and the two Americans were met instead by “two unarmed and almost naked men, whose horses looked ready to drop from fatigue and saddle sores.”6 Smith wanted to turn back. Rea, recalling that Gomez had provided another journalist with twenty men, felt indignant:

See here, Smith; this is an outrage, and I am not going to put up with it! Now, I have been over these trails three times, and know them well. My servant is an excellent guide from the Zaca to Trinidad, and before I return to ask any favors from these people, I’ll make the trip alone. Are you with me?

As Rea recalled it, Smith responded: “Am I with you, old man? You just bet I am.”7 Smith checked his Winchester, their only firearm, and they rode off thankful that at least they had two excellent horses. The journey was through dense forest and jungle, and given the location of Weyler’s armies, they would have to travel off known trails or roads about fifty miles out of their way. The trip would take a week. Facts and Fakes about Cuba 39

They stopped to rest on their way one night relying on the hospitality and home of insurgent allies. There they drank a bottle of rum that Rea wittingly dubbed “Oh to be Joyfull [sic]”—a pun on both Eau-to-be-Joyful and Ode to be Joyful. When the effects of the alcohol eliminated almost all inhibition, both began writing letters to Scovel. Smith informed Scovel that Rea was “getting as full as a tank,” having “downed” the better part of a quart of rum, and was being a “holy terror,” by standing on a table and asking the lady of the house if she had any oysters on the half shell. According to Rea, Smith was so drunk, he couldn’t even think of how to spell “holy” and threatened to storm Sancti Spiritus alone to save his friend.8 Rea felt Gomez was making Rea into a “damned fool,” and his letter revealed growing frustration with Gomez and the insurgents.

I know he thinks the world of you and will do all he can to push you along, but I do not think he should withhold from me any information that he might have. Of course I do not hold anything against you, as a fair and honorable competition is a good thing. But I have the impression that the Cubans don’t like me and I am positive that they have not treated me fair since your arrival with Gomez. I have determined to tell the truth about this war and let them go to hell.9

As the journey continued, Rea became further irritated that no insurgents were at their posts to give assistance, that food was scarce, that there was never a fresh mount to be found, and that his saddle bags had been emptied of tobacco, sugar, and salt four times in exchange for food and shelter.10 Rea probably would have been even angrier if he knew that Gomez had taken a Spanish correspondent from The Madrid Liberal newspaper hostage in response to Weyler’s imprisonment of Scovel. The Old Chinaman had not revealed this to Rea. The two Americans found Scovel in March 1897 still in prison, but alive. One morning on the journey back to Gomez to report the news, Rea and Smith woke up from their hammocks to the distant sound of gunfire. The sound pierced the quiet town of Paredes, about a mile away. They broke camp and rode to investigate. They discovered that insurgents had attacked two large houses that served as defense posts, killing five and defeating the town in minutes. Despite the ease of victory, Rea reported that the insurgents had abandoned their own injured in the fight.

The officer in the command of the attack reported a great victory, and boasted of the number of rifles his men had captured; but he forgot to state that his wounded were abandoned, with their arms, and that the retreat of his men was entirely uncalled for, as the nearest Spanish column was at Gusasiman, nine miles away.11 40 Chapter Four

For Rea, abandoning a fellow soldier was an unpardonable offense, and he intended to tell Gomez about it. When Rea finally caught up with the general, Gomez was engrossed in yet another newspaper and did not even acknowledge Rea. Only after Rea turned to leave did Gomez lift his head to say, “Que tal Mr. Herald? Que tal el viaje?” (How are you Mr. Herald? How was your trip?)12 Gomez then got up, shook Rea’s hand, and asked about his favored reporter. Rea reported that Scovel was still imprisoned in Sancti Spiritus, but had little else to share on the subject. Rea then recounted events in Paredes and stated that he had decided to write about how the insurgents had abandoned their wounded. Gomez said nothing. He simply turned his back on Rea and walked away. For the rest of the day, Rea busied himself taking photos to send to the Her- ald’s sketch artists. Rea thought he felt tensions ease when he took Gomez’s picture. At dusk Gomez called Rea to his tent to review how the insurgents took control of Paredes. According to Rea’s account of the conversation, the general said, “I have just received the report of this officer, and he declares that it was a great victory, and that he has a large number of rifles captured from the enemy.” “Why don’t you send for the rifles and be convinced of the truth of the matter then?” Rea responded. He recalled the rest of their interaction:

“Do you know what I believe? I believe that you are lying to me, and that my subordinate has written the truth.” . . . “I beg to differ with you; it is the exact truth.” “But you mustn’t write the truth.” “That is what I was sent here to do and that is what I have done and will continue to do.” “It will hurt the Cuban cause,” replied Gomez. “I can’t help that, General Gomez, the Cuban authorities have invited American correspondents to come here for the purpose of telling the truth, and if there is anything to conceal, you should not have permitted us to enter the field.” “Have you always written the truth about what you have witnessed?” “Invariably. Though I have omitted many events that would have hurt the cause.”

Rea went on to say he tried to “get the truth of both sides, and that although many articles which appeared in the news columns might contain something unfavorable to the Cubans, the editorials should be read to ascertain the opinion of Mr. Bennett on any subject.” Gomez responded: “I don’t believe a Facts and Fakes about Cuba 41 word that you tell me. That paper is our enemy, and so are you. So be careful what you write. I am going to revenge myself on the Herald! You don’t know old Gomez and the influence he wields, and he is going to ruin the Herald!” The general went on to make the case why it was important for U.S. journalists to write stories sympathetic to the Cuban cause, reminding Rea that Weyler had created concentration camps where Cubans were starving and had imprisoned Scovel. As he spoke, he became more and more irate, until, according to Rea, Gomez stated:

I tell you I won’t have the truth known. Do you think I am going to allow any one to write what you have told me today? I don’t care if it is true. If you or any other American correspondent dares to enter my camp and write the truth concerning our condition, Carramba! I’ll shoot you. . . . I don’t care what the United States would think or do in the matter. I can’t be held responsible for my action, for we are only bandits in the eyes of the world; we are not recognized by any power, and therefore we will not have to answer for anything. So look out, young man, or I’ll shoot you, just to raise a disturbance, and if I thought you had written anything against us, I’d do it now.13

The threat would be a culminating insolence for Rea—one he never forgot or forgave. Rea turned his back on the Cuban general and walked away, disgusted. Gomez had some final words for Rea before he left with Smith the next day:

You Americans think that I am fool, don’t you? You would like us to believe that you are our friends, when you are really stabbing us in the back. You are making a great disturbance about ending this war, but you are not sincere. What do you care about the poor Cuban and his ill treatment. Nothing! You are just as bad as the Spaniards. You call them savage and barbarous for killing the natives; but they are not to be compared to the atrocities committed by the United States in their Indian wars. Your sympathy is all a farce; you care nothing for the struggling insurgents, and while your government and your people can squeeze a dollar out of us, by selling us arms and allowing expeditions to slip out of the ports, you will continue to be our friends. And when we have no more money, then your sympathy will cease.” . . . Your patriotism and courage begins and ends in your pocket.14

The words dumbfounded Rea and Smith. The latter demanded a discharge from Gomez’s army. The general responded that he would send him home within a month. Rea requested permission to leave, and Gomez was only too happy to see him go. The island was crawling with Spanish armies, and Rea’s only safe path was to flee to Trinidad. From Trinidad he sailed back to the United States. 42 Chapter Four

Although the Spanish arrested several U.S. correspondents during the Cu- ban revolution, Rea seems to be the only U.S. reporter who a Cuban general threatened to shoot. There was even a story in the press that Gomez had de- ported Rea. Rea denied the report. Yet the truth was that Rea could no longer cover stories with General Gomez and thus had become a reporter without his most vital news source. Rea made up his mind to write a book about the truth as he had found it, without fear of being shot by the man he came to call “the Dictator of the Cuban Republic.”15 The book was called Facts and Fakes about Cuba, and it took Rea six months to write. While Rea was working on the book, Scovel was released from Sancti Spiritus and set sail for the United States a hero. The reporter who wanted to make a reputation as a war correspondent must have felt proud when he met privately on Saturday, April 3, 1897 in Washington D.C. with President Wil- liam McKinley to discuss the revolution. McKinley, who had pledged to favor protective tariffs, formulate new currency standards, and place domestic affairs above foreign concerns, had just been inaugurated in March. Cuba was still a hot question in everyone’s mind, however, and McKinley was keen to hear Scovel’s views on the insurgency. After meeting with the president, Scovel boarded a train bound for St. Louis. He arrived on the cool spring evening of April 4. The first thing he did was to buy a tuxedo. Then he bought two rings. He met his fiancé Fran- ces. Then he met her father, who consented reluctantly to having a reporter who risked his life for a living and traveled to dangerous places as a son- in-law. On April 5 at noon, with “neatness and despatch [sic],” the couple married.16 There was no celebration afterward, not even a cake it seems, for by 1:00 the newlyweds were on board a train bound for New York, and the offices of the World. Scovel was ready to sail for his next assignment as one of the most famous correspondents in the United States. In just one year of reporting after his ignominious dismissal by the Herald, his name had become known by millions of readers. He had fulfilled his dream to become a first-rate war correspondent. And his reporting had beaten that of almost every reporter in the business, save that of one temperamental Irish redhead at Bennett’s Herald. The Irish redhead needed a break from Cuba. That same April, Rea, now age twenty-eight, returned to Brooklyn and moved back in with his mother and sister Mathilde at 438 Pacific Street. The living arrangements were temporary, but enabled Harriet and he time to prepare their formal church wedding. The St. Peter’s Church in Brooklyn, where Rea’s father Joseph and mother Charlotte had also been married, stood out in a city famous for churches. It had the grandeur of the Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Its Facts and Fakes about Cuba 43 walls were red brick accented with white stone; its large stained glass front window featured a Star of David. The interior was grand, with intricate carvings by the altar, arched columns traversing the walls, and a spiked ceil- ing. The wedding was no doubt an elaborate affair. Harriet had had the winter months to plan everything from invitations to the seating arrangements at the reception. Rea was reputed to be a lavishly generous party host, who even in Cuba treated friends to the best and most expensive champagne. Given his new fame, and enough money to take six months off from work, he no doubt ensured a bountiful celebration. Rea’s mother Charlotte was an official witness to the church wedding on May 12, 1897. On the wedding certificate Rea stated his profession: journalist. He was an engineer no longer. It was supposed to be a beautiful sun-filled spring day, and cherry blossoms were blooming from the trees, but dark grey, thick clouds turned into pouring showers, and the couple emerged from the church into a rainstorm. This was the first of many disappointments they would face in their married life. Rea’s sister Mathilde would be married in Saint Peter’s Church just two weeks after her younger brother, on June 1, 1897. This was the second time in five years Mathilde wore a wedding gown and said sacred vows in front of Pastor Parker. Her 1892 marriage to a decorator named Fred Court Maston had ended in a statutory divorce. This time her husband was David Parson, a thirty-year-old real estate man from Germany. She had moved up in the world, going from marrying a man who decorated houses, to marrying a man who bought and sold them. Their father, Joseph Rea, had died, and George and his grandfather, Charles Bronson, signed the marriage documents as the official witnesses. Bronson’s signature seems thin and wavering next to his grandson’s, which is rendered in a beautiful, well-practiced cursive calligraphy. As an adult, penmanship had become important to Rea, and he was proud enough of his own handwrit- ing that he would always write with expensive, gold-nibbed fountain pens on the finest paper money could buy. Rea had embarked on his youthful adventure to Cuba as an electric engineer. He returned home to his family as a highly reputed, intrepid journalist who had been shot and risked his life daily to get his story. There is often a moment in becoming an adult when you realize you are as strong or even stronger than the parental figures that once loomed over you so indomita- bly as a child. Did Rea experience such a moment, and see his grandfather changed from the stalwart stubborn doctor who had so disapproved of him, to a withered, vulnerable old man? Did Rea’s grandfather, who once ran a printing press, soften his attitude toward his once incorrigible grandson who now wrote the stories for print? Did the two family members find some way past 44 Chapter Four the feelings of disappointment, abandonment, and hate? The journalist left no record of his thoughts on the subject. Rea’s grandfather would live three more years, just long enough to witness the first spring in the new century. Rea did, however, record his thoughts about General Maximo Gomez, whom he regarded as an egotistical, ill-tempered, inebriated old man, and whose behavior he would never forgive. He sent a letter to Gomez before leaving Havana, which he reprinted in the introduction of his book.

To The Commander-1st-Chief of the Army of Liberty Maximo Gomez: Esteemed Sir,—When you receive this letter, I will be on my way to the United States, or imprisoned in some Spanish dungeon. I have decided to take this step, because, after the last interviews held with you in your encampment, I am convinced that further work in my capacity as correspondent is useless— more so, as you have prohibited me, under penalty of death, to write the truth about the actual campaign. According to your idea, I came here with the sole idea of earning a paltry salary; but I hope to be able to demonstrate to your satisfaction that there still remain a few of those “mercenary Americans” who respect the truth and the welfare of their country in preference to money. As the American people and the journal that I have the honor to represent are classified in the same category of “mercenaries” and that our only desire is to prolong the war to sell arms to the Cubans, you will hardly be surprised at my conduct. Your insults cast upon my country, the paper I represent, and upon myself, can not always remain occult, because, although I am a lover of liberty, and consequently of the Cuban cause, I am first, and above all, an American, and believe that my first duty is to tell the truth to my countrymen, before they take a step which might compromise us with the European powers. I have the honor to be Your obedient servant, Geo. Bronson Rea17

Facts and Fakes about Cuba was first published in English, but Rea also had an abridged edition translated into Spanish and published under the title Entre los rebeldes: La verdad de la guerra (Among the Rebels: The Truth about the War). The Spanish edition printed in Madrid, Spain, covered the primary battles, but eliminated most of Rea’s personal encounters. Although the author’s political sympathies are often clearly allied with the Spanish, Facts and Fakes about Cuba also decried the onslaught of yellow journalism published about the Cuban insurgency. Rea relished being the lone lion roaring against the liberal crowd. But of all the reviews of his book, there was only one which Rea kept throughout his life. It was a scurrilous write-up from a Chicago newspaper that stated: Facts and Fakes about Cuba 45

We have received and read the book, ‘Facts and Fakes about Cuba,’ by George Bronson Rea, and we note that the author describes a personal experience when as the captive of a Spanish general he was sentenced to be shot before a firing squad. After reading the book, this reviewer is forced to the conclusion that no good reason exists why this sentence was not carried out.18

Throughout his career, Rea would revel in his own ignominy.

NOTES

1. Rea, “Dedication,” in Facts and Fakes about Cuba. 2. Rea, Facts and Fakes, 314. 3. Rea, Facts and Fakes, xvii. 4. Rea, Facts and Fakes, 229. 5. Rea, Facts and Fakes, 232, letter reprinted from New York World, February 17, 1897. 6. Rea, Facts and Fakes, 315. 7. Rea, Facts and Fakes, 317. 8. William D. Smith, Letter to Sylvester Scovel, February 16, 1897, Scovel Papers. 9. George Bronson Rea, Letter to Sylvester Scovel, February 16, 1897, Scovel Papers. 10. Rea, Facts and Fakes, 325. 11. Rea, Facts and Fakes, 327. 12. Rea, Facts and Fakes, 342. 13. Rea, Facts and Fakes, 330–33. 14. Rea, Facts and Fakes, 334–35. 15. Rea, Facts and Fakes, 336. 16. Sylvester Scovel, Unaddressed autobiographical memo to Joseph Pulitzer, 1897, Scovel Papers. 17. Rea, Facts and Fakes, xix. 18. C. J. Laval, “George Bronson Rea Passes,” Far Eastern Review 32 (November 1936): 469.

Chapter Five

Taps

Standing on the deck of the USS Maine in Havana harbor, a marine picked up his bugle and began to play “Taps,” the signal for lights out, turn into quarters, and all quiet on deck. The bugler was given to artful effects and that night was giving a splendid performance. It was 9:10 in the evening on February 15, 1898. The night was cloudy and the air still. The music echoed hauntingly to the shores of the island and back to the cabin of Captain Charles Sigsbee. The captain had just finished writing a report to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt, and was about to begin an apologetic letter to his wife. As the evening was warm, Sigsbee had foregone military etiquette, eschewing his thick uniform jacket in favor of a thin civilian one. Inserting his hand in one of the pockets, he extracted a letter addressed to his wife from a mutual friend. He was dismayed to find that the date was more than ten months old and that he, “the old man,” as his men affectionately called him, had forgotten to send it. Now he had to find words of apology. His jacket had been brought to him by one of the few “colored” attendants on board, who seemed especially cheerful that evening despite the fact that the ship’s crew of 328 were forbidden shore leave to participate in the Carnival festivities taking place in Havana. A lieutenant walked the rail of the ship and found everything as usual, save that in the windless night the battleship had drifted so that its gun mounts faced the city. (See figure 5.1.) Otherwise it was so quiet that when a fellow officer came up and saw the lieutenant sitting, the officer asked in an amused tone if the lieutenant was sleeping on watch. Although most of the men were in their quarters, some officers were in their staterooms, the mess room, the upper deck, or in the officer’s smoking quarters on the port side of the ship. A private stood at his post outside the captain’s door. The ship’s chaplain, Father

47 John Chidwick, had just finished prayers, and had climbed into his bunk to read George Bronson Rea’s Facts and Fakes about Cuba. The author himself, now a famed war correspondent, was on shore, sitting in a café near the harbor with his fellow famed war correspondent Sylvester Scovel and Scovel’s wife, Frances. The correspondents were reunited once again covering stories in Cuba. Scovel was well known for his stories regarding the atrocities by the Spaniards in the Cuban insurrection and for his special relationship with Cuban general Maximo Gomez. Rea’s feelings and stories were more sympathetic toward the Spanish. But despite their opposing views and need to compete with one another for headlines, the two remained devoted friends. The evening coffee and brandy may have had to do with Scovel offering Rea a job at the World, if Rea could find a front-page headline story to prove his worthiness. The two were known as the best and most reliable U.S. correspondents in Cuba. The World was keen to have them both on its team when President McKinley finally caved into political and media pressure to go to war and help Cuba fight Spain. Looking seaward, Rea could distinguish three ships: the Spanish Alfonso XII, the U.S. steamer City of Washington, and the USS Maine. He heard the familiar melodious sound of the bugle playing “Taps.” The distinctive slow, clear notes of the bugle contrasted sharply with the energetic mood in the streets, which were filled with celebrants, many dressed in elaborate outfits, a few wearing grotesque masks, during this second day of Carnival. From the cafe, Rea could just make out the robotic movements of the ship’s sentries pacing watch on the Maine, perhaps reminding him of his days as a naval cadet on board the USS Jamestown. The ship, white paint glowing against the dark water, looked even larger than her actual size of more than three hundred feet. It is doubtful that Rea was aware that, although the Maine was purportedly in Havana on a friendly visit, she had in fact entered into the harbor with her guns fully loaded and men on combat alert. Numerous media stories promulgating war between the United States and Spain over Cuba had all three parties on edge. A week earlier, on February 9, the New York Journal had printed a personal letter written by the Spanish Minister to the United States, Henrique Depuy de Lome, leaked to the paper, in which Depuy de Lome had called U.S. Presi- dent McKinley “weak and catering to the rabble and besides, a low politician who desires to leave a door open to himself and to stand well with the jingoes of his party.”1 The newspaper headlined it as “The Worst Insult to the United States in Its History,” which escalated tensions between the United States and Spain that had been festering since mid-January, when reports broke of Figure 5.1. USS Maine in harbor in Havana, Cuba before the explosion. military action against Americans in Havana. George Bronson Rea Taps 49

John Chidwick, had just finished prayers, and had climbed into his bunk to read George Bronson Rea’s Facts and Fakes about Cuba. The author himself, now a famed war correspondent, was on shore, sitting in a café near the harbor with his fellow famed war correspondent Sylvester Scovel and Scovel’s wife, Frances. The correspondents were reunited once again covering stories in Cuba. Scovel was well known for his stories regarding the atrocities by the Spaniards in the Cuban insurrection and for his special relationship with Cuban general Maximo Gomez. Rea’s feelings and stories were more sympathetic toward the Spanish. But despite their opposing views and need to compete with one another for headlines, the two remained devoted friends. The evening coffee and brandy may have had to do with Scovel offering Rea a job at the World, if Rea could find a front-page headline story to prove his worthiness. The two were known as the best and most reliable U.S. correspondents in Cuba. The World was keen to have them both on its team when President McKinley finally caved into political and media pressure to go to war and help Cuba fight Spain. Looking seaward, Rea could distinguish three ships: the Spanish Alfonso XII, the U.S. steamer City of Washington, and the USS Maine. He heard the familiar melodious sound of the bugle playing “Taps.” The distinctive slow, clear notes of the bugle contrasted sharply with the energetic mood in the streets, which were filled with celebrants, many dressed in elaborate outfits, a few wearing grotesque masks, during this second day of Carnival. From the cafe, Rea could just make out the robotic movements of the ship’s sentries pacing watch on the Maine, perhaps reminding him of his days as a naval cadet on board the USS Jamestown. The ship, white paint glowing against the dark water, looked even larger than her actual size of more than three hundred feet. It is doubtful that Rea was aware that, although the Maine was purportedly in Havana on a friendly visit, she had in fact entered into the harbor with her guns fully loaded and men on combat alert. Numerous media stories promulgating war between the United States and Spain over Cuba had all three parties on edge. A week earlier, on February 9, the New York Journal had printed a personal letter written by the Spanish Minister to the United States, Henrique Depuy de Lome, leaked to the paper, in which Depuy de Lome had called U.S. Presi- dent McKinley “weak and catering to the rabble and besides, a low politician who desires to leave a door open to himself and to stand well with the jingoes of his party.”1 The newspaper headlined it as “The Worst Insult to the United States in Its History,” which escalated tensions between the United States and Spain that had been festering since mid-January, when reports broke of Figure 5.1. USS Maine in harbor in Havana, Cuba before the explosion. military action against Americans in Havana. George Bronson Rea 50 Chapter Five

According to the Journal, the Spanish Army had stormed four newspaper publishing houses, forcing Americans to flee to the Consulate for safety. Its headline stated boldly, “Next War with Spain.” The stories turned out to be completely fabricated, and no Americans were ever in danger. The World newspaper also falsely reported that the Maine had been sent to Havana to protect U.S. lives, but it was one of several different stories on why and how the Maine was dispatched to Cuba.2 One amazing tale was that the battleship had been sent to Havana with guns fully loaded because a cable requesting a box of pistol cartridges had been misunderstood. Journalists faced yellow fever, malaria, typhoid, and being shot daily, but nothing deterred reporters more than the Spanish cable censors, who often deleted 90 percent or more of every dispatch. The correspondents were left with two alternatives: send dispatches back via privately owned yachts or try and fool the censors by using elaborately coded messages. When Walter Scott Meriwether arrived at the Inglaterra Hotel on Febru- ary 14, 1898, as the newest Herald man in Havana, his coworker John R. Caldwell took him under his wing. Rea had left the Herald to write his book Facts and Fakes about Cuba and had returned to Cuba as a special correspondent for Harper’s Weekly. After breakfast, Caldwell brought Meriwether back to his room, pulled out a bottle, and said he would tell Meriwether a “corker” of a story if he promised to keep it secret. After drinking back a shot, Caldwell lit a cigarette, hesitated for a moment, swore Meriwether to secrecy twice more, and began his story of how he had accidentally gotten the second- largest battleship in the U.S. fleet to Havana by accident.

Things around here were getting parlous and I felt the need of sidearm artillery, which you can’t get in Havana. So I wrote to the Herald explaining this need and they shipped me a revolver. But there were no cartridges and you can’t buy cartridges in Havana. I felt the need of the cartridges. I also felt the need of them pronto. Before I left New York we had framed up a code. But there was nothing in it that could explain this lack of cartridges. So I cabled: Camera received but no plates, please rush by next steamer. To this I signed my full name, indicating the message was a cipher. I knew that Fred Burgine, handling the Havana cables and who had sent the revolver, would understand. But Burgine was off duty that night and a young assistant, turning to the code book, translated the message to read that the U.S. Consulate was being attacked. Burgine’s assistant hurried his translation to City Editor Reick. There was no way of checking up on the message, for it had been received after the cable office in Havana had closed. Reick called up the Washington Bureau of the Herald Taps 51

and told its chief, Harry Brown, about the message and directed him to at once inform government officials. There was a hurried gathering of State, War, and Navy Department heads, and soon thereafter a telegram was on its way to Rear Admiral Sicard, commanding the fleet off Tortugas, to send one of its ships post haste to Havana. Next morning a messenger from the cable office knocked at my door and handed me a cable reading: Send report Cuban cane crop. Want for main section. I recognized that as a code message, and turning to the code book translated the first sentence to read: A U.S. man-of-war has been ordered to Havana. The second sentence gave the name, the Maine. Across the hallway were the quarters of Gen. Fitzhugh Lee, U.S. Consul General. I knocked on his door, and when he opened it I told him that the battleship Maine had been ordered to Havana. “Nonsense,” said the General, “the government would never send a Navy vessel here unless I requested it—which I haven’t done.” Just then came the thud of guns. Going to the window we saw the Maine entering the harbor, with build of white smoke drifting from saluting battery. It’s a story I want to write myself, but not now, nor soon; first I want to be in some hideaway out of range of the Navy Department.3

Captain Sigsbee of the USS Maine had his own story about cables, which he later related in his book The Maine: An Account of Her Destruction in Ha- vana Harbor, published in 1899. He devised a private code between himself and the U.S. Consul-General in Havana, General Lee. The code for sending the Maine to Cuba was “Two Dollars,” and they sent telegrams daily.

“What’s the weather on the south side of Cuba?” cabled Sigsbee. “I don’t know,” replied Lee. “What’s the price of bull fight fans?” Quotation marks were the only reply, meaning the Maine was not necessary.4

Sigsbee said he received his “Two Dollars” cable between six and seven in the evening. The Department of State received their telegram that said, “Maine has been ordered. Will probably arrive in Havana some time tomor- row Tuesday. Cannot tell hour. Possibly early. Cooperate with the authorities for her friendly visit. Keep us advised with frequent telegrams.” General Lee replied to the State Department: “Ship quietly arrived, 11: A.M. to-day; no demonstrations so far.”5 As Sigsbee was putting the letter to his wife in an envelope at 9:40 p.m. that evening, the quietude of peace in his cabin was shattered when a “roar of tremendous volume, largely metallic in character” exploded within the Maine, followed almost immediately by a 52 Chapter Five

succession of heavy, ominous metallic sounds probably caused by the overturn- ing of the central superstructure and by falling debris. There was a trembling and lurching motion of the vessel, a list to port, and a movement of subsidence. The electric lights of which there were eight in the cabin where I was sitting went out. Then there was intense blackness and smoke.6

On shore the blast from the bay was of such magnitude that it imploded the windows of the café where Rea and the Scovels were gathered, tossed them out of their chairs, and lifted the café doors from their hinges. On the streets a few women in Carnival costumes fainted. The sky lit up in the bay with a multitude of rockets and flames bursting two hundred feet into the air. Rea saw soldiers tossed into the lit sky like marionettes. Some screams rang out that the Maine was attacking Havana; others that insurrectionists were riot- ing. Most of the crowd stood dazed—many behind masks—silently staring at the fireworks display being enacted over the harbor. With no thought for their own safety, Rea and Scovel knew they somehow had to get to the exploding ship. After ensuring that Frances was out of harm’s way, they hailed a carriage and ordered the unwilling driver to head in the direction of the explosion. A frightened crowd had gathered at the dock and was trying to push its way through the customhouse gates while guards held them back. Rea and Scovel pushed through the crowd and, once face to face with the guards, claimed they were officers of the USS Maine. The guards allowed them through to the harbor. They grabbed a boat along with the chief of police, who was a former colonel, and with the help of two reluctant oars- men rowed toward the Maine. “Our boatmen were paralyzed with fear and wished to turn back,” recalled Rea. The colonel beat one of them with his cane, and Rea whacked the other with a rope while proceeding through a maze of falling and floating wreckage toward the sounds of rapid fire explosions from the battleship. Scovel looked at the wreckage and pronounced: “Great God, old man, they’re all gone. This is the work of a torpedo and marks the beginning of the end.”7 Rea sat mutely, transfixed by the significance of the terrible scene. He could see “great masses of twisted and bent iron plates and beams. . . . The bow had disappeared; the foremast and smoke-stacks had fallen.”8 The mass of wreckage was still on fire and the greatest danger was another explosion. Boats from the Spanish cruiser Alfonso XII and the City of Washington darted in and out of the wreckage looking for survivors. The colonel hit the oarsman again with his cane, urging speed as their craft approached the side of the wreck. Rea and Scovel climbed on board what was left of the sinking Maine. With Scovel busy on deck, Rea disappeared below into the soaking corridors of the sinking battleship. There he entered Sigsbee’s cabin. The captain’s sword of honor in its scabbard caught his attention. He took it, wrapped it in a blanket, Taps 53 and with water rising around him, went back on deck to find Captain Sigsbee. Seeing no one left on board, he returned to his rowboat. From the rowboat, Rea saw Captain Sigsbee and his officers standing aboard the City of Washington, and after commanding his rowers toward that ship, shouted a request to board. Rea saw eight injured men being tended to by Father Chidwick, the chaplain, who had been reading Rea’s book Facts and Fakes about Cuba on the Maine just before the explosion, and by a doctor still dressed in pajamas. Reconnoitering the ship, Rea found another thirty wounded men. Many handed him cables they had written to family members, who would be frantic when they opened the next morning newspapers and begged him to send out their messages. Rea went next to see Captain Sigsbee, who, on recognizing the young correspondent, asked him to deliver two government cables: a longer one noting the main points of the disaster to John D. Long, Secretary of the Navy, and a second giving an imperative not to send war vessels to Commander Forsyth at Key West, who was to relay the message to Rear Admiral Montgomery Sicard in charge of the North Atlantic Squadron. “Tell Admiral Maine Blown up and destroyed. Send Light House landers. Many killed and wounded. Don’t send war vessels if others available. Sigs- bee.”9 Sigsbee believed the Maine had been attacked. However, given the extreme tense relations between Spain and the United States, he felt time was necessary to plan the appropriate response. As Rea was preparing to return to shore, Dr. Congisto, the Spanish Secretary-General, boarded the vessel with officers in tow. Speaking on behalf of his government, he expressed his deepest sympathy and offered assistance. Sigsbee promptly wrote an addendum to the cable for Long, stating: “Public opinion should be suspended until further report. . . . Many Spanish Officers including representing General Blanco now with me to express sympathies.”10 Advising his superiors was out of character for Sigsbee, who usually strictly observed chain-of-command protocol, diligently reporting events to superiors but never assuming to guide policy or seeking to shape public opinion. Naval rules and regulations were to Sigsbee what a Bible is to a clergyman. His request for the public to delay accusations against the Span- ish was a bold yet prudent move, considering that the captain believed, as did Scovel that the ship had been blown up by a torpedo. He chose his words carefully, stating it

the duty of my position to sustain the government during the period of excitement or indignation that was likely to follow the reception of the first report. . . . I feared the result of first impressions on the great disaster of our people, for I found it necessary to repress my own suspicions. I wished them, as a matter of national pride and duty to take time for consideration.11 54 Chapter Five

Dr. Congisto agreed to open the cable offices to send the official U.S. military dispatches. Rea was convinced that the Spanish officers were truly shocked by what had happened and were sincere in their condolences. But he realized he was likely alone in believing that Spain would never provoke a war that it could never win against the United States. Something other than a Spanish torpedo destroyed the Maine, Rea believed, and he was determined to find out what. Rea lowered himself back into his rowboat clutching two official dispatches and an additional forty unofficial cables. Hearing that the cable office was to be reopened, scores of journalists stampeded through the streets of Havana, each one bent on being first to wire the story of the explosion. Their efforts proved fruitless, however, because Congisto would never allow a story to be cabled that had not been officially cleared and stamped by the Spanish government. At first, Rea’s dispatches to the U.S. government were the only cables to cross over this censorship hurdle, until Scovel arrived to send his story to the World bearing the coveted official stamp. How he managed to obtain the stamp, which was imprinted on a blank piece of paper he had saved expressly for such an eventuality, was un- clear. He probably had wheedled it out of one of Congisto’s assistants, who, although working for the Spanish censors at the cable office, was in fact an ardent rebel sympathizer. Rea may have had government cables to send, but that was nothing compared to Scovel’s front-page story of a lifetime. From the beginning, Scovel insisted that the Maine was blown up by a Spanish torpedo. He used the passive voice in an active way, implicitly accusing Spain of having perpetrated the deed. Scovel’s story and lead stated: “The Maine was blown up,” meaning that someone or something had intended to do so. If Scovel had instead stated the facts as they were known, that is, “The Maine blew up,” an accident could have been inferred as the cause. Again, three days after the explosion, Scovel would proclaim that the Maine was exploded by an outside force such as a mine, or torpedo. Yet, when the Navy reexamined the sinking of the USS Maine in the 1970s, they confirmed that there was insufficient evidence of external force to come to such a conclusion. The cause of the explosion was more likely a flaw in the design of the boiler room, whereby a highly combustible form of coal was stored too close to the furnace rooms. It seems the Navy acknowledged the flaw because the design was changed for all battleships constructed after the sinking of the Maine. After the cable office closed, Rea hurried down to the harbor to find the courier for the World. He handed the man a tube containing a copy of the original cable addressed by Captain Sigsbee to the Secretary of the Navy. He was sending it to be reproduced and published by the World alongside Taps 55

Scovel’s front-page story; the technology for copying photos onto paper had just been invented. But Rea had not asked Captain Sigsbee, nor any other government official, permission to publish the military dispatch in the newspaper for millions to see. What made Rea send the original cable to the Secretary of the Navy to the press, and why to the World? Was Rea trying to buy time for Spain to be proven innocent? Although that is possible, Rea’s motives were probably monetary. Rea had taken almost a year off from work and was probably running low on funds. A job offer from Joseph Pulitzer probably paid more than Harper’s Weekly. The cable must have been a worthy enough prize, and the contract sufficiently sweet because following the explosion of the Maine, Rea became a reporter for the World. When Sigsbee heard that his personal message to the Naval Secretary, filled with crossed out sentences and scribbled additions, was published on the front page of New York’s most popular newspaper, he was, although publicly reserved and courteous, privately outraged. In his published book about the Maine, he thanked Rea for returning the original cablegram, stating humbly, “At the time it was written it did not occur to me that the document would be deemed worthy of preservation.”12 In a private letter to his wife, his anger and sense of betrayal knew no bounds:

Wray [sic] [Rea] . . . was the chap who took my original dispatch ashore to the telegraph office from the “City of Washington.” He transferred it to a regular form and then sent the original to the New York World where it was published in facsimile in the issue of February 25. Wray [Rea] asked for your address and said he would send you the original. Look sharp. He is not to be trusted. If he sends it by mail reply courteously but briefly, and if he calls don’t drop into any pitfalls.13

Captain Sigsbee didn’t give Rea any more cables or news stories, opting instead to feed them to Scovel, who could be found keeping vigil in a row boat around the sunken Maine waiting for deep sea divers to pop up with evidence proving his torpedo theory. He found no evidence, but did find dead bodies. (See figure 5.2.) And although Rea returned the original, longer cable to Sigs- bee, he kept the smaller message Sigsbee wrote on the back of an envelope to Commander James M. Forsyth in Key West. The envelope was framed and hung in his family’s home for two generations thereafter to see. Rea kept something else of Sigsbee’s, perhaps in response to being shut out of several headline news stories after the explosion. Rea kept the finely crafted symbol of Sigsbee’s military authority, honor and high rank—the Navy captain’s sword in its scabbord. 56 Chapter Five

Figure 5.2. Dead bodies from the USS Maine floating in the harbor after the explosion. George Bronson Rea

NOTES

1. Brown, The Correspondents’ War,113. 2. Brown, Correspondents’ War, 110. 3. Walter Scott Meriwether, “Remembering the Maine,” United States Naval Insti- tute Proceedings, May 1948, 550. 4. Charles Dwight Sigsbee, The Maine (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1899),11. 5. Sigsbee, The Maine, 23. 6. Sigsbee, The Maine, 64. 7. George Bronson Rea, “The Night of the Explosion in Havana,” Harper’s Weekly, March 4, 1898, 221–22. 8. Rea, “Night of the Explosion.” 9. Cable dispatch U.S. N.A Cat. No. 81.33, U.S. Naval Academy Museum, An- napolis, MD. Taps 57

10. “The Official Report of the Disaster, Captain Sigsbee Cables to the Depart- ment Saying the Battle Ship Is Destroyed, Many Killed—Asks for Suspension of Public Opinion Until Investigation Has Been Made,” The World, extra edition, February 16, 1898. 11. Sigsbee, The Maine, 76. 12. Sigsbee, The Maine, 79. 13. Charles Dwight Sigsbee, Letter to wife, March 8, 1898, Charles Dwight Sigsbee Papers 1858–1923, New York State Library Manuscripts and Special Col- lection SC16148.

Chapter Six

The Best Days of Their Lives

When, three days following the USS Maine disaster, Scovel claimed he had proof that Spain blew up the ship in a front-page story for the World, the paper called for war as retribution. In response, the Spanish government ordered the arrest and expulsion of many foreign correspondents, and Scovel topped their list. Rea did not believe Spain responsible for the explosion. He discovered that the USS Maine’s keel had remained intact after the explosion and that only the upper parts of the ship were blown away. (See figure 6.1.) In his engineer’s mind, this disproved Scovel’s accusation that Spain blew up the ship with a torpedo or mine from below. Rea also knew that the country known for putting the Americas on a map could no longer afford to pick a fight with the country it purportedly discovered. Spanish coffers were almost empty. Their government bonds, selling at seventy five pesetas when the revolution broke out in Cuba in 1895, dropped to twenty nine pesetas in March 1898.1 Just as General Maximo Gomez had foretold, turmoil had rendered Spain unable to reap the profits of her colonization, and it had spent all its money fighting a losing battle. Yet Rea was in the minority believing that Spain was not responsible for the Maine explosion, and Scovel the majority. The two correspondents had many heated arguments over the issue. Many historians accuse William Randolph Hearst of brokering and even causing the Spanish–American War, and a few scholars minimalize the mul- timillionaire’s role.2 The truth probably lies somewhere in between, but the media certainly seemed bent on war cries. A week after finding that an explosion destroyed the USS Maine, Hearst’s, Journal ran off one million copies of an edition solely dedicated to promoting war with Spain. Headlines in almost every other major newspaper boldly called for war as well. Rea contended that lies, calumnies, exaggerated representations, and distorted facts presented by

59 Figure 6.1. Wreckage of the USS Maine after the explosion. George Bronson Rea The Best Days of Their Lives 61 the yellow journals created antipathy to Spain. “The American people formed their idea of Spain and Cuba from the trash hashed up by Hearst and their imi- tators,”3 he said, and pessimistically predicted “most modern wars may be ultimately traced to national antipathies which have been largely created by newspaper invectives and by the gross partiality of newspaper representatives.”4 When the U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry found on March 28, 1898, despite scant evidence, that a mine blew up the USS Maine, war seemed a foregone conclusion. President McKinley said the United States should intervene in Cuba for humanitarian reasons, though he continued to refuse to recognize Cuban independence or the proposed Cuban Republic. He sent Spain a three- point plan to prevent war. Spain accepted all of the U.S. demands unconditionally, leaving the United States no cause to declare war. And the Cuban insurgents did not ask or want the United States to join the war. Horatio S. Rubens, an active member of the anti-Spanish Cuban junta, stated: “In the face of the present proposal of intervention without previous recognition of independence, it is necessary for us to go a step farther and say that we must and will regard such intervention as nothing less than a declaration of war by the United States against the Cuban revolutionists.”5 Cuban revolutionary leaders even tried to buy their island rather than have the United States intervene. The price was $100 million with two conditions: that the United States and Spain would recognize the Republic of Cuba, and that Spain withdraw her forces. McKinley agreed to guarantee the bonds for the sale, but he would still not agree to Cuban independence. Economics certainly were a factor in the U.S. decision to go to war. The U.S. government thirsted for Cuba’s wealth and trade. Following the Ten Years’ War, U.S. sugar farmers like Rea’s first civilian employer, O. B. Still- man, had bought up huge tracts of land in Cuba. By 1895, the U.S government had more than $50 million invested in Cuba, and annual trade, primarily in sugar, generated double that sum.6 The United States was not willing to part with such a profitable commodity on an island so close to its shores. With the clock ticking for the first war strikes, media mogul Joseph Pulit- zer sent Rea to spy out how the Spanish were progressing in fortifying the harbors in San Juan, Puerto Rico. For this story, the reporter had a double mission. He worked as both reporter and to gather intelligence for the U.S. military. On Rea’s arrival in the city in the first week of April 1898, three detectives followed him constantly. At one point they stopped him and took his private letters and passport. When Rea later tried to reclaim the passport, he was told it had been misplaced. He was soon issued another passport, but realized he would be unable to send reports from San Juan. He sailed for the nearby island of St. Thomas by chartering a steamer, but officials detained him again and he returned to Puerto Rico. He appeared trapped. 62 Chapter Six

Determined to get to the east coast of the island, Rea snuck out of his hotel at midnight two nights later while the detectives hired to watch him slept. He obtained a bicycle from an acquaintance and rode twenty-five miles to Caguas. There he hired a coach to take him another thirty miles to Port Huma- cao, where he obtained a horse. He rode five more miles to the coast, but the port authorities refused his clearance papers to leave. He chartered a private boat for Cuba’s Vieques Island anyway. He landed safely, but guards patrol- ling the shore prevented anyone on the island from leaving. Rea had to convince a smuggler to take him out by boat and to dock within four miles of the St. Thomas harbor for the sum of eighty dollars. A laconic cable printed in all capital letters describing his ordeals made front-page headlines in the World.

ARRIVED PORTORICO [sic] HOT IMPOSSIBLE CABLE TRUTH SINCE YOUR FORTIFICATION MESSAGE POLICE SURVEILLANCE ELUDED VIGILANCE MIDNIGHT BICYCLE COACH HORSE SCHOONER SMUG- GLER’S BOAT HERE HOPE SATISFACTORY REA.7

Rea was not the first correspondent to try and get pictures of the Spanish fortifications in Puerto Rico. Another colleague had tried to take photographs the previous month and had been arrested and threatened with twenty-five years in prison and even death. But Rea made a second attempt to capture photographs and study the surroundings despite the risks. This time, Rea sailed incognito on a French ship, called the Rodriques that traveled between St. Thomas and Jamaica. He sailed on May 5, 1898, just ten days after the United States had declared war on Spain. He had bought a camera, which he packed carefully in his luggage. He arrived safely in St. Thomas and reported to the Spanish Consul, requesting a guarantee of safe passage to Puerto Plata because he knew the transport vessel would stop at San Juan on the way. The World had sent a dispatch boat to Puerto Plata to pick up Rea’s photos and studies. The Spanish Consul consented to allow Rea to make the journey, but only because he had set a trap for Rea. As soon as the reporter departed St. Thomas, the Consul cabled Puerto Rican authorities to arrest Rea as a spy. Authorities used Rea’s expulsion from San Juan a month earlier as evidence to warrant the arrest. Troops were on the lookout night and day not only for Rea, but also for the U.S. fleet and ships carrying guns and ammunition for the insurgents. If Rea could make it past the San Juan harbor patrols, worse dangers lay on land. Famine was spreading, and there were protests and disturbances in the streets. Stealing cattle from farmers was becoming commonplace. Govern- ment distribution of provisions helped, but laborers unable to pay the hugely inflated costs began fighting over food. The only thing missing to create major riots was a leader to organize the poor. A pale-skinned reporter with a The Best Days of Their Lives 63 camera stood out in a hungry, angry crowd like a white sheep, and with the advent of war, an American would bring money either dead or alive. The dangers were too great for Rea to go ashore at San Juan, but he was able to take photographs of the fortifications of the harbor through the port- holes of the ship. Unfortunately, Spanish authorities came aboard the vessel to make an inspection and discovered Rea. They wanted to arrest the reporter and take him away immediately, but the French captain refused to grant permission for the correspondent to be removed. Fortunately for Rea, there was another French vessel in the harbor that day. The captain threatened to attack the Spanish using both French ships in the Puerto Rican harbor, a move of dangerous brinksmanship that flirted with world war. The threat saved Rea from being arrested and no doubt shot. Rea landed safely in Puerto Plata and dispatched his photos to the World. The pictures proved extraordinarily valuable in confirming that the Spanish were moving their naval base from Havana to San Juan. Rear Admiral Wil- liam T. Sampson used the published photos, along with additional information Rea had gathered about coal production, the mining of the harbors, and the establishment of heliograph signaling devices, to plan his famous victori- ous naval bombardment of San Juan a few weeks later. Rea was extraordinarily lucky to survive his San Juan expedition, but one of his friends was not so fortunate. Former captain, now major, William D. Smith was escorting newspaper correspondents to General Gomez and was caught en route by Spanish soldiers and arrested. Since drinking “Oh to Be Joyful” with Rea on their journey to get news of Scovel in Sancti Spiritus Prison, Smith had become second in command of General Gomez’s bodyguards. Although Smith had threatened to resign from General Gomez’s army after the outburst that marked Rea’s final meeting with Gomez, the two had obviously made amends. The major was also transporting official documents from the U.S. President and Congress including new terms to liberate Cuba. Other correspondence included questions for Gomez from U.S. Admiral Sampson. Smith never saw Rea or Gomez again. After his arrest, when the Spanish determined the major’s identity, they did not bother to place him in prison and wait for a trial. They beheaded Smith immediately. The loss of a friend under such circumstances must have been a harsh reality check for Rea, but in wartime he had little time to mourn. Back home in Brooklyn, Harriet gave birth to a son on May 17, 1898. Rea named him William Carter Rea—perhaps after Rea’s fallen comrade, William D. Smith. Rea traveled to Brooklyn to see his wife and newborn, but with the war in full swing, he could not stay long. By June, he was in Tampa Bay, Florida, where he was stuck trying to get back to the tropical islands without a press pass. 64 Chapter Six

When the United States entered the war, the government annulled all press passes for U.S. war correspondents. The only way to get a viable press pass was via a U.S. military commander. The commander of the U.S. troops in Florida was a three-hundred-pound, sixty-three-year-old general named Wil- liam Rufus Shafter. Few respected the general because of his age, his obesity, and his grumpy nature, which was often exacerbated by his suffering terribly from gout. Correspondents from Hearst’s Journal pleaded for passes, but Shafter denied them all.8 Rea spent a couple of weeks with Shafter in Tampa and must have softened the general’s mood because he ultimately granted Rea permission to return to Cuba to report on the war. Despite a dearth of press passes, Cuba seemed filled to the brim with eager reporters. Stephen Crane, author of the classic novel Red Badge of Courage, had wanted to be a war correspondent in Cuba so badly, he hired on as a ship- mate to cover a steamship’s filibustering mission for the New York Press.9 It was a journey he would never forget because it was a voyage doomed from the start. Crane’s boat hit a shallow mud floor and became stuck in the mud with fifteen tons of ammunition its first night out. They got out of the mud only to get stuck again a day later. Finally out at sea, the waves grew so high and rough that the boat took in water. Crane used a bucket to bail out water from the furnace room hour after hour through the third night to no avail. The ship was sinking. The captain ordered everyone to abandon ship at 3:00 the next morning. Several men died struggling unsuccessfully to get into life rafts. Crane and other survivors boarded a raft and rowed for twelve long miles in a choppy ocean toward a lighthouse beacon. They finally crawled onshore so exhausted they were barely alive. Newspaper articles at the time reported that Crane drowned, instead of stating accurately that he was missing. The author would later fictionalize the experience in his story, “The Open Boat.” Crane faced his first serious war engagement with the Spanish army at Guantanamo Bay in the last week of June 1898. The target was the only water well within 130 miles of the seacoast. A U.S. captain sent two hundred marines and some Cubans to destroy the well. Crane jumped at the chance to cover the mission, this time for the World. Crane described the Cuban soldiers as a “hard-bitten,” “tireless,” “uncomplaining,” and “undersized lot.” They wore donated white linen army fatigues that made them look “business like” but also made them easy targets. Crane said the faces of the U.S. marines were bronzed and fearless.10 When the battle began, the “infernal din” completely overwhelmed Crane, who added, “One wanted to clap one’s hands and ears and cry out in God’s name for the noise to cease; it was past bearing.” Crane saw a Cuban get shot in the heart, red blood staining his white linen shirt, and fall instantly to the ground. Within a second another Cuban lifted the dying man over the back The Best Days of Their Lives 65 of another soldier, while a third grabbed the man’s feet. Crane said the whole procedure, “resembled a grotesque wheelbarrow.” Stephen Crane, George Bronson Rea, Sylvester Scovel, and Richard Hard- ing Davis all witnessed the famous charge of the U.S. Rough Riders at San Juan. Theodore Roosevelt led the riders wearing a blue polka dot handker- chief with the ends pointing out behind his head like a fishtail, or a guidon. Four correspondents were wounded that day, and one of them died soon after from his injuries. On his deathbed, the dedicated reporter had only one last request—to file a dispatch to his newspaper.11 After witnessing the charge up San Juan Hill, Rea chose to write a story with a different angle. He reported on the cowardice of Seventy-First New York National Guard Volunteers. Of the many infantry divisions that charged up San Juan Hill that day, the Seventy-First failed from the start to keep up with the other regiments. They separated from the battle and fell to the rear. According to one official account, the Seventy-First played no role whatso- ever in the famous and decisive battle of the Spanish–American War.12 Rea told the truth of what he saw, and Scovel followed suit. A few days later Scovel wrote that “the spirit of the men in the trenches is improving daily. It never was low, except in the case of the Seventy-First New York volunteers, whose soldiers bitterly accuse several officers of cowardice under fire.”13 The World published Rea and Scovel’s articles, but as a result, the public threatened to boycott the paper, and the World lost advertising contracts. War fever was still high, and the public would not tolerate bad press about their boys in battle. In a media ploy to get back readers and advertising, Pulitzer decided to donate $25,000 to erect a monument for both the Seventy-First New York Volunteers and the Rough Riders. Pulitzer telegraphed Rea order- ing the reporter to try and get support for the monument from both Colonels Theodore Roosevelt and Leonard Wood. Roosevelt, however, did not want his name used, so Pulitzer abandoned the idea.14 But Rea got to know Roos- evelt firsthand, and he was a man Rea idolized for life. Rea also came to admire Colonel, later General, Wood, who would help Rea get out of a difficult financial predicament when the war ended. Though many died in battle, the most likely way for a soldier or a reporter to die during the Spanish–American War was by contracting malaria or yellow fever. Medicine for both illnesses was scarce and usually obtainable only through black markets at enormous cost. Soon after witnessing the battle of Guantanamo, Crane began to feel dizzy and his back ached. Riding horseback became painfully difficult. He began taking sips from a flask of brandy to medicate the pain; soon he was practically falling off his horse. Rea and Scovel came to Crane’s rescue, taking him to a clearing to lie down. That night, at the camping area for World correspondents, Crane began 66 Chapter Six to talk, and after a few hours began to rave. His colleagues took Crane by force to a military hospital where he was diagnosed with yellow fever.15 The next day Rea saved Crane’s life by taking his colleague to the harbor and carrying him aboard the steamboat City of Washington, whereby Crane was transported to the U.S. military in Virginia for treatment. When Scovel contracted malaria, his wife Frances was determined to get into Cuba to nurse him despite warnings of the yellow fever outbreak. She found her husband in a dirt hut, too weak to leave his hammock. Frances began nursing her husband back to health. Then she volunteered to help other sick correspondents by working through the Red Cross under the charge of the organization’s founder Clara Barton. Soon enough, Frances came down with malarial fevers. A fever pandemic raged throughout the island. Rea could not help his friends because he too had succumbed. He had contracted malaria, and his fever was rising. U.S. General Charles Humphrey, coming on the Rea at the Anglo American Club in Santiago, found the reporter so weak he could barely stand. The general insisted Rea go to the clubhouse where he could receive better care. Rea sent his servant to fetch his cot and blankets, but the servant never showed up again. Rea had no choice but to sleep in the cot of the general’s clerk, who had just been shipped off to a hospital as another victim of yellow fever. The cot was still warm and damp with the clerk’s feverish sweat when Rea slumped into it. He was unable to sleep that night wondering if a combination of malaria and yellow fever would either kill him or cure him. Throughout the night his fever rose higher and higher, but by morning it broke as if by magic, and Rea believed the contaminated sweat-filled cot had helped cure him.16 Yellow fever and malaria killed far more soldiers than bullets. Yet, quarantining against yellow fever “is much like quarantining against the toothache,” as Roosevelt put it.17 Roosevelt projected that more than half the army would die if kept in Cuba during rainy season. Over four thousand soldiers had fallen ill, and not even 10 percent of the rest of the standing army were fit for duty. Like most people at the time, Roosevelt thought yellow fever was contagious the way the flu was contagious. His cure-all was to send his men for a respite up in the northeast woods, which he though would make “fighting cocks” out of them again. Just two years later, in 1900, a study by the U.S. Army Reed Commission would discover that a mosquito was the vector for the yellow fever virus, destroying the popular notion that yellow fever spread by direct contact with infected people or “contaminated” objects.18 For newspapermen, the risks of getting sick with fever were balanced by the allure of fortune. They risked their lives, but got huge salaries as compen- The Best Days of Their Lives 67 sation. One reporter in the Santiago campaign reportedly received a salary of $20,000 a year, and two others $12,000. Scovel began his career earning twenty dollars a column.19 Given that Rea and Scovel were the World’s star reporters, they probably earned at least $12,000, which would be equivalent to approximately $257,000 a year today.20 Although salaries were enormous, the cost to get the stories to their respective papers was astounding, and editors often refused to pay expenses. One New York Herald correspondent reportedly paid $6,400 in U.S. gold to publish one story. Another depleted an entire bank in Kingston to send a dispatch to the New York Journal describing the first bombardment of the defenses at Santiago. For most reporters, covering the revolution and war was the hardest job of their lives. One war correspondent for the Atlanta Constitution, Robert B. Cramer, defended the work of his fellow correspondents and the compensation they received in in an editorial.

There have been times when false reports reached the public beneath glaring headlines in the newspapers. There have been times when men, failing to get exact facts, guessed at them and paid $1.40 a word for the guess. But I could not today pick out a single correspondent whose every nerve and muscle was not strained in an honest effort to get at the truth. They swam streams to get it. They starved by day and shivered by night to get it. They endured terrible heat and more terrible storms to get it. They dodged bullets and slept with yellow-fever [sic] germs to get it. They walked hundreds of miles through mud and ran small boats through raging seas to get it. They endured more hardships in a single day than could with justice have been distributed through a lifetime.21

When the United States defeated Spain, General William Shafter insulted both the U.S. press and the Cuban Army of Liberation by forbidding their respective presence at the official ceremony of Spanish surrender in Santiago, Cuba. Not even General Gomez was allowed to attend. Shafter did hand- pick a few members of the U.S. media to cover the event, but despite bitter complaints by correspondents from the Journal over being excluded, Shafter upheld his edict. Having learned not to obey the rules, Rea and Scovel, along with a hundred other correspondents, disobeyed Shafter’s orders, and marched along a somewhat disorganized parade of U.S. troops entering the city. No one stopped them. Scovel sought to get the best view of the ceremony by climbing up a tree to get on the roof of the palace. Officers were about to raise the U.S. flag when they saw Scovel on the roof. They ordered him to get down, but Scovel refused. A group of officers then climbed up the tree, walked on the roof, surrounded Scovel, grabbed him, and brought him down by force. The officers then hauled Scovel, who was now down to a mere 130 pounds from 68 Chapter Six his recent bout with malaria, before the massive general. In what must have looked like David facing Goliath, General Shafter reprimanded the short, emaciated reporter. Scovel was angry and indignant. First, he was the reporter who had negotiated with Gomez and the U.S. president regarding the war. He had risked his life time and again carrying official U.S. correspondence to Gomez. Nevertheless, Shafter had excluded him from covering the most important story since the sinking of the USS Maine. Second, Scovel was angry because General Gomez had not been invited to the ceremony. Scovel had developed a deep respect and paternal admiration for Gomez, a man the young reporter addressed as “Papa,” and Scovel knew that excluding the Cuban general from the ceremony of Spanish surrender was both offensive and humiliating. The Cubans had fought the war against the Spanish for more than a dozen years, and now the Americans were taking all the credit, and leaders of the Cuban army were not even invited to their supposed victory celebration. Scovel and Shafter exchanged angry words until, according to all the correspondents present, including Richard Harding Davis, the obese general swung at Scovel, landing a blow. The reporter swung back but did not connect the punch. According to General Shafter’s official cabled report, however, the correspondent made the first and only swing:

Scovill [sic] was abusive and insubordinate, refusing to obey orders of one of my staff officers, to leave the roof of building, when officers were about to raise the American Flag, and had to be ejected. He then came to me and was very insolent in complaining to me of my staff officer’s actions, one word leading to another, until he struck me, but did not hit me. I could have tried him and probably had him shot if I desired, but I have preferred to fire him from the Island, a trial would have only given him the notoriety he seeks.22

Following the attempted punch, more than one hundred officers, enough men to comprise several U.S. football teams, tackled the fever-starved reporter. U.S. government officers dragged Scovel off and threw him into prison. Thus, arguably the most-famous U.S. war correspondent of the Cuban revolution and the subsequent Spanish–American War ended his journalistic career as he began it, in a Cuban jail, wondering if he would be shot or hanged. Although numerous journalists witnessed the altercation during the ceremony, not one wrote a story about it in the press. Given the ceremony and circumstance, the reporters felt mentioning the incident in poor taste. In this instance, Rea heartily agreed and remained loyal in silence to his friend and colleague. However, another Herald correspondent got wind of the story the next day. In a bizarre coincidence of fate, that man was Thomas F. Millard, a reporter who would later become Rea’s personal and professional nemesis. The Best Days of Their Lives 69

Though he had not been present at the scene, Millard wrote that Scovel landed a roundhouse punch squarely in the general’s jaw. The story spread like wildfire through the United States via the Associate Press wire service. As a result, the World fired their most widely famed and acclaimed war correspondent. The paper also refused to pay him some $4,000 in expenses.23 Rea and others wrote letters in Scovel’s defense. The paper eventually offered Scovel his job back, but the war was finished, and the thrill of reporting had literally been punched out of him. After the war, Rea’s job with the World ended. After so many years in Cuba, Rea felt more at home there than he did in the United States. His Brooklyn family ties had dwindled. His grandfather and grandmother would live to see the dawn of the twentieth century, but died a few months later, Charles Bronson in April, Elizabeth Martha Cook in August. Both were bur- ied in Brooklyn. Rea decided to move his family to Cuba to try to make a living as a farmer. The couple looked happy (see figure 6.2), but Rea did not have luck farm- ing, and moved to Havana in 1899. There, in 1900, he had a second son and named him Henry Carter Rea, nicknamed Harry, perhaps after the loyal friend and wartime colleague known to his friends not as Sylvester, but as Harry Scovel. Scovel was also living in Cuba. The World had rehired him after the

Figure 6.2. Harriet and George Bronson Rea in Cuba, 1900 70 Chapter Six war to report on Americans and Spaniards evacuating from the island. His postwar salary dropped to seventy-five dollars per week and a maximum of only five dollars a day for expenses.24 The U.S. Army also contracted him for work. Scovel then started his own business importing U.S. products and then tried selling automobiles. Frances Scovel gave birth to a son. The island was under the provisional oversight of the U.S. government that was busy implementing public improvement projects and sanitation programs. Erecting a cut stone schoolhouse in Santiago de Cuba was one of the projects. Rea needed a job, so he used his knowledge of engineering and submitted a bid for $50,000 based on government construction specifications and was awarded the contract. He deposited a $5,000 bond and rode to the other side of the island to begin construction. On arriving, Rea learned that there was no stone, nor stonemasons, in the area. The engineer sent out diggers in quarry after quarry, but came back empty-handed until he found a site six miles from the terminus of the railroad station at San Luis. After three months, Rea faced losses of almost $30,000. He had little capital despite the fortune he’d made being a World correspondent, in part because he was a spendthrift, and in part because, like other reporters, he had spent a fortune getting his stories to press. It was not feasible for him to reimburse the loan, so he decided to forfeit his bond and cut his losses without completing construction. General Leonard Wood, who had been appointed the Military Governor of Cuba, saved Rea from the humiliation of default. The U.S. general was using Cuban treasury funds to fund sanitation, education, and road projects, but then awarding contracts to Americans like Rea instead of to island natives. The Cuban media disapproved of Wood’s actions; the paper La Discusion, for example, published a cartoon depicting the Cuban people on a crucifix between two thieves, President McKinley and General Wood. Wood apparently did not support the principle of a free press because he put both the director of Cuban newspaper and the caricaturist in jail for the offensive cartoon. When General Wood rode up on horseback to inspect the schoolhouse, Rea explained his intention to stop building. Rea admitted fault for not traveling to the construction site before submitting his bid, but explained that he did not have the capital to lose more money. “Finish it my boy,” said the general. “Then come to me, and I will do what is fair and just.”25 The general then shook Rea’s hand, wishing him “Good luck,” and then mounted his horse and trotted away. Over the next few weeks, Rea cringed at the slow pace of progress and began counting down the days to the end of the U.S. government rule over Cuba. If Rea did not complete the project before the United States granted Cuba independence, he would receive no payment. He made it back to Ha- The Best Days of Their Lives 71 vana literally hours before the U.S. flag was to be hauled down forever, and rode straight to the Palace.

“How much did you lose?” the General asked. “Thirty thousand dollars.” Rea said. “Come and see me before midnight,” the General replied.

When Rea saw the general again, it was past midnight. “Your claim is just,” the General said, but told him he was not entitled to extra payment on a certain part of the job, so limited Rea’s reimbursement to $29,000.” 26 A grateful Rea received the last payment check issued by the post-war U.S. government in Cuba. After Cuba was granted provisional governance, General Wood was transferred to the Philippines as a division commander in 1902. Rea would soon follow the general to the Philippines and leave Cuba forever. After the Spanish–American War, Spain lost her colonial possessions, and the United States became an empire. With the signing of the Treaty of Paris, the United States gained total control over the Philippines for $20 million, in- definite control over Guam and Puerto Rico, and temporary control of Cuba. The war had cost the United States $250 million and three thousand lives—90 percent of them to infectious disease.27 All in all, this was considered a relatively small price to pay for the United States’s new colonial frontier. Frances Scovel did not hear from Rea for more than thirty years after the war, but in a moment of nostalgia late in life, he wrote her, and she responded. She had lost her husband and her baby. She had remarried and moved back to the United States. Despite terrible hardships, she retained many fond memories of Cuba.

I go back into that part of my life as though it were yesterday. I can see “Brian Baru” [sic]28 and “Face” argueing [sic] and squabbling. I can see you sitting at our table in Cuba 6, talking so enthusiastically[sic] that you didN’t [sic] know you were piling the food on your fork [sic] you were not looking, but Mac, the monk(ey) [sic] was sitting on the back of your chair. You were so interested that you paused with your fork suspended between your plate and your mouth for one more word and Mac reached over and took a handful of food and you never missed it. He sat there enjoying your dinner and you put the fork in your mouth and never knew what had happened. We nearly died of laughter−but silent. Did you ever know about that? I remember how you and Harry worked during the “Maine days” and at Si- bony and your funny letter after the war when you turned in your expence [sic] account at the World and Dillon asked you what Verve Cliquet meant and you said VEGETABLES and he never knew the difference.29 How devoted to you 72 Chapter Six

Harry was. He had the greatest admiration for you as a man and as a newspaper man−of your courage, and do you remember how you use [sic] to fight? How it all comes back!!!!!!!! I went to Havana the year after [Harry] died and again a little later and when I had some money I went back to get my baby’s remains. But there was nothing there. They say it is much changed. And the people have been having such a hard time.30

After the U.S. government left, Cuba turned against Rea. He had sided with Spain and with conservative, moneyed businessmen during the war. After the war, he had worked and received payment from Cuban coffers from the maligned U.S. government. Ultimately, his family was forced to flee the island with basically the shirts on their backs. According to family lore, only the presence of Rea’s youngest son Harry, gained sympathy for a safe passage for the family back to the United States. The island gave Scovel, Rea, Crane, Davis, and many others fame and fortune beyond their wildest dreams in the prime of youth. Yet for most, their fame was short-lived and covering the war in the jungles of Cuba took its toll. Stephen Crane died soon after the Spanish–American War at twenty-eight years of age, having never fully recovered from the yellow fever he contracted in Cuba. Within a few years, Scovel came down with malaria again and died at the age of thirty-five. Rea survived but would be plagued with digestive ailments that would send him to hospitals for weeks at a time for the rest of his life. Despite unimaginable hardships, all the correspondents would remember their adventures reporting from Cuba as the best days of their lives.

NOTES

1. Philip S. Foner, The Spanish-Cuban-American War and the Birth of American Imperialism, vol. 1 (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1973), 254. 2. Joseph Campbell reassessed the media’s role in promulgating the Spanish– American War, in his book Yellow Journalism: Puncturing the Myths, Defining the Legacies (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2001). Contrary to most historians, Campbell asserted that Hearst and the yellow press did not foment the war. 3. George Bronson Rea, Far Eastern Review (November 1907): 162. 4. Rea, Facts and Fakes about Cuba, iii. 5. Foner, The Spanish-Cuban-American War, 258. 6. “The World of 1898: The Spanish-American War,” Hispanic Division, Library of Congress, accessed February 11, 2017, www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/intro.html. 7. “The Pleasure of Getting the News, George Bronson Rea Describes His Trou- bles Eluding Spanish Vigilance at Porto Rico,” World, April 11, 1898. 8. William Rufus Shafter, Cablegram, Washington, DC, July 23, 1898, Folder 34, Box 4, William Rufus Shafter Papers 1835–1906, Stanford University Libraries De- partment of Special Collections and University Archives. The Best Days of Their Lives 73

9. Donna Campbell, ed., “Almanac,” The Stephen Crane Society, Washington State University, accessed February 11, 2017, http://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/ crane/almanac.htm. 10. Crane’s description of Cuban soldiers and battle from: Stephen Crane, “Special from a Staff Correspondent Guantanamo Camp June 22,” World, July 1, 1898, 3. 11. Bullard Frederic Lauriston, Famous War Correspondents (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1914), 423. 12. “General Kent’s Report: His Official Account of The Three Days’ Fighting around Santiago de Cuba,” New York Times, July 22, 1898. “Battle of San Juan Hill,” Wikipedia. 13. Sylvester Scovel, “Sampson Sending Guns Ashore,” New York World, July 11, 1898. 14. George Bronson Rea, “A Curb on Propaganda,” Far Eastern Review (Septem- ber 1935): 328. 15. Milton, The Yellow Kids, 345. 16. George Bronson Rea, Letter to Harriet Rea, 1903, Personal collection of Leslie Clark. 17. New York World, August 5, 1898, 3. 18. “Yellow Fever and the Reed Commission,” University of Virginia Health Sys- tem, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, accessed February 11, 2017, www.hsl .virginia.edu/historical/medical_history/yellow_fever. 19. Sylvester Scovel, Unaddressed autobiographical memo to Joseph Pulitzer, 1897, Scovel Papers. 20. “Measuring Worth, Purchasing Power of Money in the United States from 1774 to Present” www.measuringworth.com/ppowerus/. 21. “Newspaper Men in the War,” Literary Digest 17, no. 16 (October 15, 1898): 455–57. 22. William Rufus Shafter, Cablegram, Washington, DC, July 23, 1898. 23. Milton, The Yellow Kids, 360. 24. Bradford Merrill, Letter to Sylvester Scovel, December 23, 1898, Scovel Papers. 25. George Bronson Rea, “General Leonard Wood—a Man of Honor,” Far East- ern Review (April 1920): 196. 26. Rea, “General Leonard Wood.” 27. “The World of 1898: The Spanish-American War.” 28. The correct spelling is “Boru.” Frances misspelled it “Baru,” but she admitted she was horrible at spelling, which the letter reveals. Brian Boru was an ancient Irish King who fought long, hard-won battles against high kings of Ireland, solidifying his rule over Ireland. He was eventually killed in battle. The moniker refers to George Bronson Rea. “Face” appears to be Harry Scovel’s nickname. 29. Veuve Clicquot is a fine, expensive champagne. 30. Frances Saportas, Letter to George Bronson Rea, April 4, 1934, Personal collection of Leslie E. Clark.

Chapter Seven

A Bittersweet Battle

As the USS Sheridan broke away from the dock in San Francisco, California, in November 1903, the band struck up the opening bars of “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” a tune often played whenever a regiment left town or a man-of- war set sail. Rea, along with the entire U.S. Twenty-Second Infantry Regi- ment, was on board the military transport ship, sailing for the Philippines.

I’m lonesome since I crossed the hill, And o’er the moor and valley. Such heavy thoughts my heart do fill, Since parting with my Betsey. I seek for one as fair and gay, But find none to remind me, How sweet the hours I passed away, With the girl I left behind me.

Rea stood by the rail listening to the music and watching the soldiers as their wives and children waved their final farewells. He saw on the dock General Shafter, who he had bumped into on the way to board ship. The general remembered the former World correspondent and had greeted him pleasantly enough. The lyrics of the music compounded with the sight of so many people waving goodbye to loved ones suddenly overwhelmed Rea. He had to step back into a corner to choke back his tears. He was traveling alone, halfway around the world, far away from his wife and his two sons. Bill was five and Harry three, ages when parents revel in the unbridled affection of youth, and dream their child’s future in idyllic limelight. Rea just didn’t feel the same ganas, or longing, for this latest sojourn away from his family. It lacked adventure. His biggest challenge seemed to be bringing the right dress suit for all the official functions he would have to 75 76 Chapter Seven attend to in Manila. He hoped to go into the sugar business, like his former boss in Cuba. In the meantime, he had taken a position as a clerk to support his family. The days of racing through the jungle on horseback to be the first to deliver headline news for fame and glory seemed like a former lifetime. The six-day train journey across the continent to get to the ship had been difficult. Rea had caught a cold and had bouts of indigestion including severe gas pains. The constant motion and jerking of the train ride didn’t help. Food didn’t agree with him. He had lost weight and felt weak. Harriet was worried about her husband. It was the sea voyage that worried her most, but Rea reported in a letter to her that the first day out at sea, at least, felt refreshing. He spent a good deal of time up on deck where he saw a school of seven black coco whales. One whale came alongside the ship and let out a spray of water, which covered the deck. In response a passenger shouted, “There she blows.” That night and the next day, the sea was quite rough, and the boat tossed back and forth. Yet while most of the passengers were getting sea sick, the waves paradoxically lulled Rea’s stomach to calm quietude. The next day, and thereafter, after weeks of discomfort, he was able to enjoy three hearty meals each day, including a drink or two and a cigar, and began to put back some of the weight he had lost. Everyone noticed that Rea began to look healthier and hadn’t had to touch his “Shaker’s Roots”—medicinal herbs of high repute grown by members of the celibate Protestant community in New York state—since boarding the ship. Rea had traveled by train all the way from Brooklyn to San Francisco to board a ship to Honolulu and then Manila to take one of the few jobs that he could find. His money had run low. His book, Facts and Fakes about Cuba, was not as successful as he would have hoped. He had barely broken even with his first major contracting job as an engineer in Cuba, and he was no was longer a famed journalist for either the Herald or the World. Having to take the position of clerk under the occupying U.S. government in the Philippines was humbling. He felt keenly the lowering of his position among the officers on the ship, who had known him only a few years earlier as one of the top-ranking war correspondents in the United States. Given his lowered status, he was thankful at least to get a decent berth and to eat in the first-class cabin, although he often preferred to eat in the first-class passenger saloon where he could meet men, argue politics, and raise the stakes in the rocky seas of a good a poker game. Rea didn’t meet anyone he knew the first day on board ship and was feeling quite lonely, but not for long. The captain introduced Rea to some officers, many of whom Rea had met in Cuba, and he soon felt surrounded by warm camaraderie. If the military officers noticed Rea’s lowered professional A Bittersweet Battle 77 stature, they didn’t let on. The majors, colonels, and captains greeted him warmly, and many told tales of Rea’s generosity in Cuba. Colonel Henry Wygant, a stocky man with a youthful face but white hair, mustache, and goatee, recalled how Rea had fed him breakfast and given him several large drinks of whiskey after the he had marched all night through a Cuban downpour. Another officer recalled how, despite the scarcity of tobacco because of insurgents burning fields of it, Rea somehow always had some to give away. There was also a clerk in the crowd of officers whose face was familiar to Rea. He turned out to be the clerk whose warm, sweat- filled cot Rea had slept in after watching the lad being hauled away prostrate with yellow fever. Everyone had stories to tell of the Spanish–American War. Rea reminisced about the battle of Santiago, about Trinidad, and about almost being captured in Puerto Rico. The evening lifted his spirits, and he briefly forgot about his loneliness and physical troubles. Perhaps where one door had closed in Cuba, he thought, another was opening in the Philippines. After the United States acquired the Philippines, it was initially unsure what do with it, other than to try to provide order and security. Speaking informally to a gathering of religious leaders in November 1899, President McKinley recalled that divine intervention influenced his decision. His rationale was also:

(1) that we could not give them back to Spain—that would be a cowardly and dishonorable; (2) that we could not turn them over to France or Germany—our commercial rivals in the Orient—that would be bad business and discredit- able; (3) that we could not leave them to themselves—they were unfit for self- governments—and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain’s was; and (4) that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died.1

However, the Filipinos had been fighting a revolution of their own against Spain since 1896 and had no intention of becoming a colony of another imperialistic power. Moreover, in contrast with the war in Cuba, the war in the Philippines didn’t have the same support of the U.S. public. A group called the “Anti-Imperialist League” formed to lobby against annexation of the island. One of its most strident members was writer Samuel Clemens, whose pen name, Mark Twain, came from the calling out notification of “mark twain” for safe waters ahead on the steamships he commanded for years. At the dawn of the twentieth century, Twain wrote: 78 Chapter Seven

I thought we should act as their protector—not try to get them under our heel. We were to relieve them from Spanish tyranny to enable them to set up a government of their own, and we were to stand by and see that it got a fair trial. It was not to be a government according to our ideas, but a government that represented the feeling of the majority of the Filipinos, a government according to Filipino ideas. That would have been a worthy mission for the United States. But now—why, we have got into a mess, a quagmire from which each fresh step renders the difficulty of extrication immensely greater.2

Rea disagreed vehemently with the anti-imperialists. Unfortunately, his position was not based on any intellectual grounds, but rather consisted of taunts and a vapid threat. In response to the U.S. occupation of the Philip- pines, Rea stated:

Much has already been accomplished, but we are only at the commencement. It is too early to forecast failure. There can be no such thing as failure. It is not in the American make-up to fail. We are here and here to stay and it behooves every true American to put his shoulder to the wheel and begin to push instead of being a drag and impediment. We need good, strong, virile, strenuous, optimistic Americans out here in the Philippines. It is not enough that there are Americans in the Homeland. Here on the outpost of our frontier, in direct contact with all the nations here on earth he must be three times an American and endowed with all the sterling qualities of the race. The weakling, degenerate, pessimistic, anti- imperialist type of American has no place here. We do not want him. His place is back in the Homeland with the rest of the “aunties” and weak sisters. There he can spout and croak to his heart’s content and we know how to manage him when it becomes necessary.3

Campaigning in the Philippines, Karl Faust’s 1899 book detailing U.S. military operations in the Philippines, opens by calling the occupation “one of the most wonderful events of history.”4 The words may go down as some of the most oxymoronic in U.S. history. A Captain Elliott of the Kansas Regi- ment described what the U.S. Army had done in two towns at the outset of the Philippine War:

Caloocan was supposed to contain seventeen thousand inhabitants. The Twenti- eth Kansas swept through it, and now Caloocan contains not one living native. Of the buildings, the battered walls of the great church and dismal prison alone remain. The village of Maypaja, where our first fight occurred on the night of the fourth, had five thousand people on that day—now not one stone remains upon top of another.5

The number of casualties resulting from the Philippine–American War var- ies. The U.S. Department of State estimates 4,200 American soldiers, 20,000 A Bittersweet Battle 79

Filipino soldiers and 200,000 civilian deaths, resulting from war, starvation, and disease.6 Despite it lasting ten times longer than the Spanish–American War, with many more deaths, U.S. history students are far more likely to hear about Roosevelt’s Rough Riders than they are about the brutality of the Philippine–American War. Rea’s old Cuba companion, Fredrick Funston, was one of the first military officers to arrive in the Philippines. After several highly successful filibustering missions and marching for months with General Gomez, Funston had resigned and returned to his Kansas home for a long needed rest. But the U.S. military promoted him to colonel of the First Kansas Volunteer Regiment and then sent the unit to the Philippines to fight insurgents. Funston had begun his military career working as a revolutionary to help bring Cuba independence, but now was fighting in opposition to the principles he had once championed. It was Funston who captured Emilio Aguinaldo, the twenty-nine-year-old commander of the Filipino revolutionary forces, who had led the insurrection against Spanish rule since 1896 and was the self-proclaimed president of the country. Funston captured Aguinaldo in his mountain hideout in March 1901 after allegedly brokering a truce meeting with him and the United States. As a result of this duplicity, the U.S. Congress rewarded Funston with the stars of a Brigadier-General in the U.S. Army. A treaty officially ended the war in 1902, but for a decade thereafter guerrillas and other resistance groups continued to fight with U.S. Army forces. It was into this quagmire of unrest that Rea sailed with a blind eye to the postwar insurgency but a hawk’s eye for a business opportunity. Just two months after he landed in the Philippines, he prepared to launch an ambitious monthly magazine to be called the Far Eastern Review, a periodical focused on commerce, engineering, and finance. Rea promised a “faithful presenta- tion of the facts regarding the Industries [sic] undeveloped resources of the Philippines and Far East.” His aim was “to assemble together the vast amount of industrial and trade information of the East, so as to show at a glance the business opportunities in various lines.” Rea called his magazine, “A serious paper for serious men. . . . It has no political party or special trade clique to support. . . . We have no space for long-winded political discussions, nor for gossip, comic stories or personal anecdotes. Our news columns are not for sale at any price.”7 But while Rea claimed his magazine had no allegiance to any political party, the occupying U.S. government in the Philippines subsidized the magazine from its inception as a means to promote U.S. foreign policy objectives. Rea negotiated a deal with the U.S. government-appointed Philippine Com- mission to underwrite his Far Eastern Review by purchasing one thousand copies of each monthly issue for the first six months of printing. In June 1904, 80 Chapter Seven the yearly subscription rate was $2.50 for twelve issues, so the guaranteed sale for half a year provided sufficient seed money to open a publishing office in Manila and hire reporters. Rea chose the McCullough Building on the Plaza de Gouti. Ironically, the plaza was named after Martin de Goiti, the Spanish conquistador and explorer who captured Manila on June 6, 1570, and burned the city to the ground. McKinley had appointed the first Philippine Commission in 1899. Admiral George Dewey was one of its members. Its purpose was to investigate conditions on the island and make recommendations to the U.S. government. A year after subsidizing Rea’s Far Eastern Review magazine, the commission went one step further. It appointed Rea to investigate and collect statistics regarding the sugar industry. His particular objective was to find cause to lower or abolish the tariff on imports from the Philippine Islands into the United States. He worked as a government anti-tariff lobbyist, and his magazine became a propaganda mouthpiece for the U.S. government anti-tariff interests that also paid him $200.00 per month, plus travel expenses. The money was taken from Philippine revenues with the approval of Philippine Governor- General Luke E. Wright.8 Rea set on a course to defeat a strong sugar-beet lobbying group in Wash- ington D.C. that wanted to keep the tariff in place. He wrote opinion pieces in the Far Eastern Review and collected statistics regarding Philippine sugar production and refining. He knew the sugar industry well from his time spent as an engineer of sugar plantations in Cuba and believed sugar production might have even more potential in the Philippines. Yet he argued that sugar exports from the islands presented no threat to the U.S. farmer. U.S. sugar imports from the Philippines varied widely depending on tariffs and national production, but the trend was clear. From 1900 to 1902, the United States imported only 4 percent of its sugar from the Philippines. In 1903 sugar imports skyrocketed to 38 percent. Imported sugar from the Phil- ippines reached a new zenith of 41 percent in 1905—the year the Philippine Commission hired Rea to lobby for tariff elimination. Whereas in 1900 approximately 50,000 metric tons of Philippine sugar had been exported to the United States, in the next fifteen years that number would increase to more than 300,000 metric tons.9 Despite the statistics showing a huge increase in imported sugar to the United States, Rea claimed that Philippines exports did not threaten sugar-beet interests in the United States. He argued that sugar production in the Philip- pines was vastly different from that in the United States. The Filipinos used antiquated open-kettle milling techniques, whereas the United States used a steam-refining process, which resulted in far superior quality sugar. Therefore, Rea argued no tariffs were necessary because there was no real competition. A Bittersweet Battle 81

Regardless of the different manufacturing techniques, local U.S. sugar farmers were losing revenue from sugar imports from the Philippines and fought hard against any lowering of tariffs. Sugar refiner Henry Oxnard led the efforts to keep tariffs in place. Oxnard, the name behind the town of Ox- nard, California, was the owner of a four-company conglomerate known as the American Beet Sugar Company. He wielded great power and influence and was upset when sugar competition from the Philippines forced him to close a factory and lay off all its employees.10 Oxnard and other members of the beet sugar company began a letter-writing campaign against Rea. They accused him of being contentious, of having prior difficulties with his bosses, and finally of being an inept engineer. Anyone who read, or who knew Rea, would have agreed with the first accusation. Rea was consistently a contentious bull in a china closet. He had been incorrigible and argumentative since childhood. The second accusation was also likely valid because Rea rarely obeyed anyone in authority whom he did not fully respect. Inept, however, was not an appropriate characterization of Rea as an engineer. He had an extraordinary facile mind that understood everything from trains to sugar processing. Nevertheless, Oxnard’s letter-writing campaign succeeded in besmirching Rea’s reputation as a fledgling publisher and severely jeopardized his position as an anti-tariff lobbyist for the Philippine Commission. Governor General Wright remained confident in Rea, but asked for letters of recommendations from Rea’s former bosses. His first employer, O. B. Stillman, gave Rea a glowing job reference.

I hear with surprise that somebody has spread the report that you had trouble with the people who engaged your services. Speaking for myself and that experience I had with you for two years and a half that you were with me, I cannot recall an incident that would give occasion to such a report, and I will add that anything you did for me either in the sugar line or other branches was done by you with zeal and interest and an intelligence that left nothing to be desired, and besides, my personal relations with you were always of a pleasant and satisfactory nature.11

Despite glowing references, Rea continued fighting an uphill battle to defend his reputation. He was asked to testify before the Ways and Means Com- mittee, which included then Secretary of War Howard Taft and other Senators and Congressmen. The committee had convened in the Philippines primarily to investigate sugar and tobacco cultivation and the possible elimination of the “Dingley Tariff” on sugar. Governor General Wright, the man who had originally hired Rea to investigate sugar production, called the meeting to order in Manila on August 7, 1905. When Rea was called to testify, he began by exaggerating his years of experience in the sugar industry in Cuba. One committee member then asked what Rea’s business was in Manila. 82 Chapter Seven

“At present I am engaged in publishing an industrial and trade paper, called the Far Eastern Review. It has a wide circulation through the Orient. I am making a study of trade questions there. I went over there to go into the sugar business primarily, but conditions were not favorable, and instead I went into the newspaper business.”12 Rea spent the initial part of his testimony discrediting the two other witnesses. He called his opponents inexperienced and full of “hot air.” Rea then asked the pro-tariff lobbyists to provide an itemized sheet of their costs for sugar production. He even mockingly and contentiously offered to give them $100.00 for the information. Rea was a gambler who did his homework. He had spent more than a month studying the movements of farm laborers in plowing, cultivating, and hauling sugar to market in Pampanga province of the Philippines located in the Central Luzon region and had calculated estimates double those of the pro-tariff lobbyists. Yet regardless of Rea’s cost-of-production statistics, the sugar tariff was the single most important revenue from customs in the United States, totaling $55 million just before 1890. In a knockout blow to the new anti-tariff lobbyist, the committee recommended that the U.S. Senate and Congress retain the tariff on imported sugar from the Philippines for the benefit of the U.S. Treasury. Because the tariff made imported sugar more expensive, the recommendation also eased competition for the few refining companies selling sugar in the United States. Rea’s failure as a lobbyist hit him hard. What is more, the realities of living abroad and eventually trying to resettle his family halfway around the world fractured his marriage and family life. Rea had tried relocating his family to the island, but as of November 23, 1905, Harriet was back living at 635 Elev- enth Street in Brooklyn, NY, with both children. Rea had sunk into a lonely depression and felt his family life had become “a wreck” after moving to the Philippines. Something must have happened on the islands to cause a huge rift between the couple because when Rea returned to New York in Decem- ber, instead of going to Brooklyn to be with his family, he spent Christmas at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in Manhattan—alone. The Fifth Avenue Hotel was the most exclusive hotel in New York City. U.S. presidents stayed there, as did the Prince of Wales. Considered a Re- publican bastion, it was a gathering place for the wealthy and powerful. Jim Fisk, Jay Gould, Boss Tweed, and Commodore Vanderbilt all traded “stocks at the hotel after hours.”13 Senator Thomas C. Platt, known as the boss of the Republican Party, held weekly meetings on Sundays at the hotel for political brethren in the early 1900s. The meetings became known as “Amen Corner” because when Platt announced meeting decisions, politicians and even the reporters in the exterior hallway reportedly always voiced their agreement A Bittersweet Battle 83 with a solemn “Amen.”14 Writer Gore Vidal would forever eulogize the Fifth Avenue Hotel when he used it as the setting of his novel, 1876. On Christmas day, Rea was not only estranged from his wife and children, but he also had no idea of the whereabouts of his mother. His father had died in 1900, and without parents, wife or children, no doubt Rea felt completely desolate at a time when family is most important. He took a walk through his boyhood neighborhood in Brooklyn and passed by St. Peter’s Church, where he had married Harriet. He stopped by a neighbor’s house to wish good tidings and gave the mother of the household some ale plus ten dollars as a Christmas present for her family. He did not, however, send any Christmas presents or money to his wife or children, telling them he was running low on funds despite the fact that he was staying in one of New York’s poshest hotels. Bill, Harry, and Harriet would have little Christmas cheer that year. Not long into the new year of 1906, the couple reconciled and the family reunited. Rea’s finances also seemed to make a rapid turnaround, but it was not from income as an anti-tariff lobbyist. He had tried to renegotiate a new contract in the Philippines. He requested a salary of nine dollars per day, but the commission did not desire to renew their contract with Rea, and by March 1906 the commission terminated his appointment. However, Rea was able to convince the U.S. government to continue subsidizing his magazine. The government subscription for one thousand copies of the Far Eastern Review, supposedly set up for only six months, continued for almost a decade thereafter, as did an additional payment of $200.00 per month for advertising. His magazine was doing so well that he was soon able to open three new offices. First Rea opened new offices in Japan and China. Then he decided that his main office would be in San Francisco, and soon Harriet was packing boxes to move the family once more, this time some 3,500 miles, to Berkeley, California.15

NOTES

1. Cited in G. J. A. O’Toole, The Spanish War: An American Epic 1898 (New York: Norton, 1986), 386; originally from David Trask, The War with Spain in 1898 (New York: Macmillan, 1981), 440–42. Also in Spencer C. Tucker, The Encyclope- dia of the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars: A Political, Social and Military History, vol. 1 (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2009), 929. 2. Mark Twain, “The Greatest American Humorist Returning Home,” New York World (London), October 6, 1900, accessed February 11, 2017, www.historywiz.com/ primarysources/marktwain-imperialism.htm; also in Jim Zwick, ed., Weapons of Sat- ire: Anti-Imperialist Writings on the Philippine-American War (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1992). 84 Chapter Seven

3. Rea, Far Eastern Review (Manila) (September 4, 1904): 4. 4. Karl Irving Faust and Peter MacQueen, Campaigning in the Philippines (San Francisco: Hicks-Judd, 1899), 1. 5. Jim Zwick, “Soldier’s Letters,” Open Educational Resources (OER) Commons http://www.oercommons.org/courses/american-soldiers-in-the-philippines-write -home-about-the-war/view; and Robert Fantina, Desertion and the American Soldier, 1776–2006 (New York: Algora, 2006), 86. 6. “The Philippine–American War, 1899–1902,” Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs, U.S. Department of State, accessed February 11, 2017, https://his tory.state.gov/milestones/1899-1913/war. 7. Rea, Far Eastern Review (Manila) (June 4, 1904): 4. 8. Luke E. Wright, Governor-General letter to George Bronson Rea, November 1, 1905, File 13528, The Government of the Philippine Islands Executive Bureau Manila, Insular Bureau, War Department, National Archives and Records Administra- tion, College Park, MD. 9. John A. Larkin, Sugar and the Origins of Modern Philippine Society (Berke- ley: University of California Press, 1993). 10. “American Crystal Sugar Company Records 1883–1983,” Minnesota Histori- cal Society, accessed February 11, 2017, www.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00341.xml. 11. O. B. Stillman, Letter to George Bronson Rea (New York), December 29, 1905, Record Group 350, General Files (Entry 5), File 13528, Boxes 686–687, Ar- chives II, Stack 150, Row 56, Compartment 18, Shelf 3, Records of the Bureau of Insular Affairs, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 12. All testimony and information in this narrative from U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Ways and Means, Public Hearings on Philippine Tariff: Hearings before the Committee on Ways and Means, 59th Cong., August 1905, accessed February 11, 2017, http://archive.org/details/philippinetarif00deptgoog. 13. Fifth Avenue Hotel, https://web.archive.org/web/20070908235950/http:// home.nyc.rr.com/jkn/nysonglines/5av.htm#23st. 14. “On This Day,” Robert C. Kennedy The New York Times Company and Harp Week, (2001), http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/harp/1009.html. See also, The Tammany Times Vol. 8–9, Tammany Publishing Company New York, 1896. “Amen Corner, “https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Tammany_Times .html?id=6JM6AQAAMAAJ. 15. For more information on these topics, see F. W. Taussig, The Tariff History of the United States, part 1, 5th edition (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1910), available online via the Ludwig von Mises Institute, prepared by William Harshbarger in 2003. Chapter Eight

Earthquake and Financial Panic

On March 25, 1906, Rea boarded the train from New York to San Fran- cisco going along the Great Northern route, a beautiful train ride from the north to the south through Seattle, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. His family had just moved to Berkeley, California, into a newly constructed two-story apartment building on the edge of the University of California called the Granada. The building still stands today, carefully restored to match how it looked when constructed. The entryway, a small, sturdy, solid wood door lightly stained a walnut brown inlayed with beveled glass, opens into a lobby of thick dark wood-inlayed walls, with wide banisters leading upstairs. From their second-floor apartment on the corner of Bancroft and Telegraph, Rea could see the university to the north and, across the bay to the west, San Francisco, the city then known as the “Paris of the West,” and the gateway to U.S. business in the Far East. Sather Gate and Tower was across the street, and probably within view, because the neoclassical administrative building of Sproul Hall, on the north end of Telegraph Avenue, had not yet been constructed. Rea arrived to his new California home by April 1906. The weather was cold and rainy. The slightest breath of spring emerged on April 17, 1906, when the sun peaked through the clouds of the San Francisco bay. The Metropolitan Opera of New York was on tour, and that evening, San Franciscans reveled in a performance of Bizet’s Carmen starring the great Italian tenor Enrico Caruso. Some people walking home past livery stables after the performance or riding in carriages noticed that some of the horses seemed skittish, but no one knew why or really gave it a second thought. Just across the bay, Harriet probably would have tucked her boys into their beds and gone to sleep next to her husband. The family slept unaware that their lives were about to change.

85 86 Chapter Eight

At sunrise in the city, the bells of Saint Mary’s Church chimed the hour of five o’clock. A few workers walked the streets, stopping at every lantern to lift long-hooked poles to snuff out gaslights. Some pedestrians strode out onto the streets, the clap of closing doors resounding behind them. Yet most were in bed asleep when at 5:12 in the morning there was a harsh jolt from the earth. Beds moved. Many children stirred, but more slept on and would never wake up again. Thirty seconds later, at 5:13 a.m., one of the most powerful earthquakes in recorded history struck the city. The intense shaking lasted as longer than sixty seconds in some neighborhoods. The earth ruptured for 290 miles, snapping power lines that lay hissing dangerously in the streets, alive with electric current. South of Market Street, tenements collapsed as the ground liquefied beneath them. One wall of the Ferry Building collapsed. In less than two minutes the human death toll was more than three thousand.1 Then fires began, in buildings block after block. Survivors ran out of their homes, many in nightclothes and barefoot. Soon groups flocked together, forming a mass of bodies, headed by instinct away from the fire and toward the water. The Ferry Building was their destination. There crowds began to swell around the building’s large round tower clock, its hands stopped at 5:16. After what felt like days, ferries arrived from Oakland to take survivors to the east bay. Rea felt the earthquake, but the family awoke only slowly to the extent of the tragedy. As Washington Irving Stringham, professor of mathematics at UC Berkeley, described it:

In Berkeley we were not aware for several hours of what was happening [in San Francisco]. While we ranked the earthquake as a severe one, chiefly because of its extreme length (nearly two minutes for the whole series of shakes), our own fortunate escape from damage made us optimistic about our neighbors also. . . . We saw the black cloud of smoke hanging over S.F., and by noon we had learned by messengers that a large district of the city was on fire. Then came a few hours of confused thinking of what we should do and then the moment for action.2

Back in San Francisco, the military took action swiftly. Army troops from Fort Mason reported at the Hall of Justice at 7:00 a.m. By 8 a.m., the 10th, 29th, 38th, 66th, 67th, 70th, and 105th Companies of Coast Artillery patrolled downtown. Seventy-five soldiers from Companies C and D Engineer Corps marched to the Financial District, and another seventy-five patrolled Market, from Third Street to the City Hall at Grove and Larkin Streets. A major aftershock struck at 8:14 a.m. More buildings collapsed, and panic ensued. By noon, the Hearst Building at Third and Market streets caught fire. The building was near to Rea’s newly established office at 435 Montgomery in the heart of downtown San Francisco. Soon Rea’s new main business headquarters caught fire and went up in flames. Earthquake and Financial Panic 87

The army was under the direct orders of General Funston, Rea’s old friend from Cuba and the Philippines. Funston ordered all the mansions along Van Ness Avenue dynamited, with the rationale that he could create a firebreak by eliminating the fire’s fodder. It was a cataclysmic decision by a general who had never passed a military entrance exam. The explosions began a firestorm instead, which became known as the Great Fire. As a result, the next day, the USS Chicago supervised the rescue of twenty thousand refugees fleeing San Francisco—one of the largest evacuations by sea in world history, equal to the evacuation of Dunkirk during World War II. The fire wiped San Francisco off the face of the globe. It destroyed more than five hundred city blocks leaving some more than 200,000 people homeless and burned 28,000 buildings to the ground.3 Rea saw the conflagration, heard the numerous bombs exploding, and witnessed the mass exodus. Like everyone else, he wanted to get as far away from San Francisco as possible. He wrote to a Captain Frank McIntyre of the War Department in Washington D.C. on April 20, 1906.

My Dear Captain, Thanks to residing in Berkeley, myself and family escaped with nothing worse than a severe shaking up from the quake, but my newly established headquarters in San Francisco went with the rest of the city in flames. The suffering and sorrow is too intense and harrowing to describe, and I am more than thankful that our lives are spared and that we are all together, for so many poor souls are roaming the streets hunting for lost ones separated from the moment of the temblor. There is bound to be untold suffering here unless relief is rushed with all dispatch, but the promptness with which the rest of the country has responded, will probably diminish the danger from this source. I was over in the city all day of the 18th and yesterday, doing what I could, which of course was only a puny effort in view of the immense damage. The most striking and commendable part of the disaster, has been the manner in which the military and naval authorities have handled the policing of the city, and the lack of any great disturbance or panic is due entirely to their firm stand in forcing the crowds outside the fire lines. A number of looters were promptly shot down, and some would be ravishers, and although the great multitude are now wandering around aimlessly and without homes, there is no disorder or excitement. I should imagine that all the dynamite on the Coast has been used to blow up buildings, but without achieving the result aimed for of confining the fire to certain quarters. However, you are probably well informed of the details through the press. I was trying to get in touch with Gen. Funston yesterday, but I guess he was the busiest man in the city and could not be located for any length of time. My plans for remaining here and building up my paper, are wrecked with the disappearance of San Francisco from the map, and I will be compelled to return to Manila. As you will remember I received my transportation in cash before leaving Washington, intending to return later in the year. After the outlay 88 Chapter Eight

of getting my office fixed here, my resources are nearly exhausted, and I am going to ask if you will see the Secretary of War, and request transportation for myself and family* to Manila on the next transport, in which case I will refund the value of my transportation received, or $125.00 If it is impossible to secure passage in the next transport, could the Depart- ment send me Government transportation on the first Pacific Mail Steamship for myself and family. I will endeavor to remit the value before leaving, if I can get a cable remittance through from Manila, though I would esteem it greatly if you could issue the transportation, and arrange for me to reimburse the Insular Treasury at Manila, on my arrival there. As I receive $200.00 per month from the Philippine Government, for advertising and subscriptions to the Review, the amount is secured to them at that end. I am sorry that circumstances compel me to request the above, but I feel confident that you will see the hopelessness of my remaining here. Thanking you in advance for your courtesy, and with the assurance of my highest esteem, I beg to remain, Very Truly Yours, Geo Bronson Rea *In either case, whether the transportation be for the transport, or the Pacific Mail Steamer, the following are the names of self and family for such purposes; Geo. Bronson Rea, Mrs. Geo Bronson Rea, Master Will C. Rea age 7 yrs., Mas- ter Henry C. Rea 4 ½ yrs.4

On April 21, the Great Fire that had burned for four days, incinerating nearly five square miles of neighborhoods, was finally stopped at Twentieth and Dolores Street. The battle was won with the tireless efforts of a few firemen and three thousand resident volunteers, who fought the blaze with brooms, and by filling knapsacks with trickles of water obtained from one of the few operating fire hydrants. More than a century later, firemen still celebrate and commemorate the heroic efforts of so many to save the city each year by placing a wreath around the city’s fire hydrant at Twentieth and Church Street, which was later painted gold in tribute. Rea returned to the Philippines with his family without charge, thanks to Captain McIntyre, but he did not stay for long. Never one to give up, he determined to make New York City his next headquarters. By January 1907, Rea had established new offices on Wall Street in the heart of Manhattan’s financial district. Within three months, he opened a second office, occupying both Ninety and Ninety-Three Wall Street despite hard economic times. The country was in a deep recession, and Americans blamed immigrants. The fruit-growing state of California believed Japanese farm laborers caused the economy to falter. Anger boiled until riots erupted in the summer of 1907. The San Francisco school board ordered Japanese and Korean students into segregated schools. Although the move affected less than one hundred students, it hurt Japanese pride enough that violent anti-U.S. protests broke out in Japan. Earthquake and Financial Panic 89

Meanwhile xenophobia continued to spread throughout the U.S. northwest. White laborers broke into lumber mills in Bellingham, Washington, in September 1907 and armed themselves with two-by-fours. The mob then marched toward nearby Japanese bunkhouses and smashed their way into them, grabbing inhabitants by force, destroying their property, and stealing valuables. According to the press, in just forty-eight hours, all Asian immigrants in the area had been forcibly placed on boats, and those who went to the police for help were imprisoned for their own “protection.” Rea accused William Randolph Hearst of once again using the press to incite racial hatred. In a Far Eastern Review editorial called “Supplying a War,” Rea stated,

The same mendacious, brazen journalism which published the unfounded and purely imaginary reports of atrocities from correspondents who never set good on the soil of Cuba and inflamed the passions of the country against Spain, is again at work and the peace of two nations is threatened. . . . The labor troubles in San Francisco, Seattle, Bellingham and Vancouver have been exaggerated and worked up to meet the editorial policy of the yellow press bent on stirring up further trouble.5

Labor riots made headline news, but U.S. xenophobia was a real and growing concern, especially in the west. President Theodore Roosevelt would later state in a letter to William Howard Taft that he was at “a loss to understand the undoubted bitterness and intensity of the anti-Japanese feeling in Cali- fornia.” Not that anyone would call Roosevelt pro-immigrant. Although he did not favor an exclusion law because he thought it “pointless,” he asserted that “our interest in keeping the Japanese out of our own country is vital.” Nor did he feel that Japanese immigrants should be able to own land in the United States. He justified his opinion by stating the Japanese also did not allow foreigners to own land.6 Roosevelt attempted to avert war with Japan by forming a “gentlemen’s agreement.” The two countries agreed that California public schools would accept Japanese children, that the United States would accept existing Japa- nese immigrants, and that Japan would refuse to issue future visas for U.S. emigrants. Japanese citizens could, however, enter Hawaii to travel on to the United States with few restrictions. The agreement helped Japan save face and soothed boiling tensions in the United States. Yet the economic situation that had caused Americans to vent their frustrations on Japanese immigrants got worse. In October of 1907, a swarm of businessmen gathered on Wall Street in a financial panic over a failed attempt to corner the copper market. A subsequent run on banks led to the downfall of the stalwart Knickerbocker Trust 90 Chapter Eight

Company. Next, the stock market nose-dived. Loans were called in, and then the bond market tanked. Fear spread that the entire capital market system in the United States would collapse. Banker J. P. Morgan, who had offices on Twenty-Three Wall Street, saved the markets. He called in the richest men in the United States and told them that if they could not raise $25 million immediately, half the stock exchange houses would not open for business again the next day. Rea’s former boss, O. B. Stillman, gave $5 million, John D. Rockefeller, $10 million, and within fifteen minutes the rest of the money was raised. Stockbrokers went wild for the funds. When the markets closed that day every banker and broker in the entire city thunderously applauded and yelled cheers for J. P. Morgan. According to the New York Times, Morgan was the greatest hero in the United States.7 Although the 1906 earthquake left Rea near destitute, he rebounded quickly, and his new business offices, just three blocks from Morgan’s, survived the Wall Street Panic of 1907. His family was safe, solvent, and growing. Harriet gave birth to a third child, a girl they named Consuela. Yet Harriet and Rea became increasingly unhappy in their marriage following the birth of their third child. Perhaps Harriet developed postpartum depression or perhaps she finally confronted the realities of raising three children alone without an ever- present father figure. In any case, she began turning to alcohol for comfort.8

NOTES

1. “Earthquake 1906 Calendar of Events,” 1906 Earthquake Centennial Alliance, www.1906centennial.org. 2. Steve McConnell, “All Shook Up: Berkeley Commemorates 1906 Earthquake,” U.C. Berkeley News, March 15, 2006, accessed January 13, 2013, www.berkeley.edu/ news/media/releases/2006/03/15_quakes.html. 3. Kristi Finefield, “San Francisco Before and After the 1906 Earthquake and Fire,” Library of Congress (blog), April 18, 2012, accessed February 11, 2017, http:// blogs.loc.gov/picturethis/2012/04/san-francisco-before-and-after-the-1906-earth quake-and-fire. 4. George Bronson Rea, Letter to Captain Frank McIntyre, Record Group 350, General Files (Entry 5) File 13528-15 Boxes 686–687. Archives II, Stack 150, Row 56, Compartment 18, Shelf 3, Records of the Bureau of Insular Affairs, National Ar- chives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 5. Rea, Far Eastern Review (Shanghai) (November 1907): 162. 6. Theodore Roosevelt, Letter to Howard Taft, December 22, 1910, Microfilm Publication, M423 Rolls 2 and 4, pp. 1–7, National Archival and Record Administra- tion, College Park, MD. 7. Robert F. Bruner and Sean D. Carr, The Panic of 1907: Lessons Learned from the Market’s Perfect Storm (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2007). Earthquake and Financial Panic 91

8. For more information about these topics, see Dona Budd, “What Happened Here,” San Francisco Knowledge Cards, Pomegranate Communications Inc.; “Campus of the University of California, Berkeley,” Wikipedia., accessed Febru- ary 11, 2017, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campus_of_the_University_of_California, Berkeley; “A Great Civic Drama,” The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco, accessed February 11, 2017, www.sfmuseum.net/hist/timeline.html; and Simon Win- chester, A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earth- quake of 1906 (New York: Harper Collins, 2005).

Chapter Nine

The American Group

Rea showed little concern for his wife’s malaise because he was focused on a new quest. He had learned from J. P. Morgan that successful business ventures were often based on the ability to raise large sums of capital, so he decided to create a business financing loans in the Far East. China had become a new investment frontier for the United States. Despite imperial naysayers like Mark Twain, the U.S. government had never veered off an expansionist policy since winning the Spanish–American War. It continued pursuing political and economic opportunities with ventures and policies that set China is its crosshairs. Like other imperialistic powers, the United States held patronizing and prejudiced perceptions of the Chinese. They were oriented, or via a Western perspective, disoriented, by language, culture, religion, and physical appearance. The United States sought economic influence in China and attempted to promote trade by the most advantageous means possible. This was not easy because Britain had preceded the United States with imperialistic endeavors many years previously. Besides economic trade, religious groups from the United States and elsewhere traveled east to spread Christianity in the East where the predominant beliefs were Confucianism and Buddhism. There were few foreign newspapers or magazines to help Westerners learn about Asian politics, economics, and commerce in the early 1900s in Asia. Rea’s Far Eastern Review was the most widely read magazine on Asian commerce in its era. It was one of the few publications in English that provided detailed articles on investment opportunities and political and economic analysis in the Far East. There does not appear to be another monthly magazine that rivaled it, nor any other subsidized by the U.S. government. The primary competition to the magazine was a newspaper called the North China Daily, a British press, which was considered the most-influential foreign newspaper

93 94 Chapter Nine of its time. Despite having a government subsidized niche media market, Rea was never satisfied to being a journalist or even a magazine publisher. He was ever the soldier of fortune. In 1907, Rea tried to convince large banking groups to fund railway, public utility, and industrial enterprises in China. He succeeded in obtaining support from the stepson of William Salomon, the founder of Salomon and Company, but the company was not successful in negotiating loans because of U.S. government opposition; the government wanted financing deals to be a national, not a private, enterprise.1 Newly inaugurated President William Howard Taft and his Secretary of State, Philander Knox, formed the American Group to raise venture capital in the Far East. The goal of the group was to foster loans in China. Rea became an integral part of the group. He worked with representatives from all the major U.S. banks, including J. P. Morgan Company, Kuhn Loeb, First National Bank, and City Bank. His job was to figure out the details of loan proposals and agreements. The American Group also represented U.S. interests in an international consortium of financiers including members from England, France, and Germany. Soon, they formed a banking syndicate, a four-power consortium committed to carving out lucrative business opportunities in China. The consortium was the financial component of the U.S. “Open Door Policy”—the first official U.S. China policy. It ensured that the United States would have an equal opportunity to trade in Asia’s hottest market and that no foreign power would have an exclusive sphere of influence over China. Soon the consortium was negotiating not only railroad loans, but also proposals for currency reform and for the development of an area in the eastern part of China known as Manchuria. Foreign powers eyed Manchuria above all other areas in China because it was ripe with natural resources such as iron, coal, and contained rich soil for crops such as soybean. It was also a large territory that was sparsely populated, and therefore perfect for countries seeking imperialistic expansion. The small, import-dependent, and densely populated island of Japan was keen on expanding its interests Manchuria and expressed a desire in becoming a member of the consortium via overtures from the Yokohama Specie Bank, a bank heavily invested in Chinese trade. Major Japanese companies, including the Mitsui Group—now one of the largest corporate groups in the world—also invested heavily in developing the region. “Americans feel proud travelling in China,” claimed one U.S. government official regarding Manchurian railroad construction, but “were it not for the Mituis, perhaps they would not have such cause to be.”2 Roosevelt warned his successor Taft not to strain tenuous relations with Japan nor to tread on her vital interest in Manchuria. “I utterly disbelieve in The American Group 95 the policy of bluff, . . . or in any violation of the old frontier maxim, “Never draw unless you mean to shoot,” he told Taft.3 Although the United States was not ready to go to war with Japan, relations had remained precarious since Californians had begun their xenophobic campaign against Japanese immigrants in 1907. Japanese immigration was still a thorny political issue in 1910, despite the fact that the number of Japanese immigrants in 1909 had actually been less than zero; two thousand Japanese had entered the United States, but more than that number had left.4 Taft wanted a new treaty with Japan. His Secretary of State, Knox, was poised to smooth relations with Japan by committing the United States to remove a stipulation agreed to in the Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1907 that prevented Japanese laborers from entering the United States. Roosevelt, however, was dead set against removing the exclusion stipulation even though Japan wrote a secret memorandum “promising to continue the present arrangement” whereby the Japanese barred their own people emigrating by not issuing passports to citizens wishing to work in the United States.5 Roosevelt was against Knox’s proposal because he felt the United States should appear strong in its dealing with Japan and not give the appearance that Japan could mandate U.S. immigration policy. Japan and the United States thus remained at loggerheads over immigration into the United States and as a result, Japan revved up efforts to gain greater financial and territorial footholds in Manchuria. World powers accused Japan of violating the “Open Door” policy by militarily increasing control over areas in Manchuria. Japanese had used the pretext of protecting its foreign investments to station troops in the area. In particular Japan was interested in safeguarding its large investment in railroad construction from destruction by Chinese revolutionaries. Rea admitted that Japan may have gained “military control, by tactics open to criticism,” but added, any violation could not have altered a “simple economic law.”6 Rea’s “simple economic law” was that Japan and China shared a symbiotic import/export relationship based on propinquity and need. The quantity of product Japan imported from China and proximity of the two countries led naturally to trade development. Japan thus had a greater interest and need to invest in China. Inherent in that need was the necessity to protect investments. In an article called “Beans: The Solution of the Commercial Situation in Manchuria,” Rea rambled on a long circuitous argument about Chinese bean curd exports to make his rudimentary point. He wrote tomes instead of sentences, digressed off point numerous times, and included many straw man arguments that detracted from main point of his simple economic law. What Rea did not include in the article was the simple political and economic fact that Japan had sought political and economic control in Manchuria 96 Chapter Nine for years. Japan had secured a large sphere of interest in Manchuria as a result of the Russo-Japanese War, a war that began in February 1904, and fought largely over competing imperial ambitions in Manchuria. The world was surprised when Japan drove Russian armies out of southern Manchuria and won a complete victory in the war. Roosevelt mediated peace negotiations in August 1905 that led to the Treaty of Portsmouth. Manchuria became Japan’s imperial frontier, and it would soon become apparent that Japan would increase its political and economic domination there by any means necessary. Although Rea did not mention Japan’s intent to control Manchuria, he was keenly aware of Asia’s political landscape. For the past six years Rea had written and published volumes of articles; sometimes unbearably detailed, generally long-winded, but usually containing extraordinary insights on the Far East in his magazine. There seemed no limit to the knowledge he had amassed on Chinese commerce, politics, foreign relations, and above all— Chinese railroads. Therefore, the U.S. State Department read Rea’s ramblings on Chinese bean curd exports with avid interest. As Adolf Williamson, U.S. Vice Consult in Manchuria, noted, “The trouble with Mr. Rea’s wording of it that is deceptive is that it contains considerable truth.”7 By 1910, Rea had not only become a key player for international investment in China through his work with the American Group, he had become a go-to resource as an expert on China and on Chinese−Japanese relations for the U.S. government. Yet although he had extraordinary vision for potential investment in Chinese commerce, and in particular to the increase in potential trade by building railroads, he seemed blind to Chinese anger over international investment in China, which would reach a boiling point the following year, by which time 93 percent of all China’s railroads were owned by foreigners. On May 9, 1911, an imperial decree to nationalize main railroads set off a crisis.8 However, foreign powers refused to take no for an answer. They continued to make loan deals at locomotive speed, with another £10-million loan secured before the end of May. Subsequently tens of thousands of Chinese activists and citizens took to the streets protesting China’s loss of territory as loan collateral. In an article called “Chinese Finance Under the Republic” published by the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Rea would later admit that few loans were made without political strings attached and said he could count only two de- void of “political significance.”9 Yet stopping foreign loans seemed like stopping a locomotive headed downhill without brakes. Even when the educated classes in China called for revolution over the issue of foreign investment, the American Group and the Chinese government went ahead with preliminary agreements for yet another a $50 million loan.10 The American Group 97

Amid China’s internal unrest, international powers began to squabble over investment profits. Rea took the opportunity to join the quarrel. In August, Rea published an article titled “Violation of the Open Door by China, or The Reason Why American Manufacturers of Railway Material Cannot Secure Fair Play in the Awarding of Tenders under Present Conditions.” In the article, Rea blamed British engineers and consultants who “arrogate to themselves what should belong to the Chinese Government.”11 Rea forwarded a copy of his article to U.S. Secretary of State Knox. Given the fighting between international powers over loans in China, and the millions of Chinese infuriated by a government that acquiesced constantly to foreign demands, China was ready for a revolution against foreign investors like the American Group, and against its monarchy. Ironically, the revolution would provide Rea the financial opportunity of a lifetime.12

NOTES

1. George Bronson Rea, The Case for Manchukuo (New York: D. Appleton- Century, 1935). 2. A. Williamson, Vice-Consul in charge American Consulate, Manchuria letter to U.S. assistant secretary of state, May 13, 1910, Microfilm Publication M862, Roll 571, National Archive and Record Administration, College Park, MD. 3. Theodore Roosevelt, Letter to Howard Taft, December 22, 1910, Microfilm Publication, M423 Rolls 2 and 4, pp. 1–7, National Archive and Record Administra- tion, College Park, MD. 4. Roosevelt, Letter to Taft, December 22, 1910. 5. Roosevelt, Letter to Taft, December 22, 1910. 6. George Bronson Rea, “Beans The Solution of the Commercial Situation in Manchuria,” Far Eastern Review (Shanghai) (March 1910). 7. Williamson, Manchuria letter to U.S. assistant secretary of state, May 5, 1910, p. 11. 8. “China, 1904–1914,” accessed February 11, 2017, http://cnparm.home.texas .net/Nat/China/China03.htm. 9. George Bronson Rea, “Chinese Finance Under the Republic,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 30, no. 4 (1916): 745, accessed February 11, 2017, qje.oxford journals.org/content/30/4/738.full.pdf. 10. Rea, Far Eastern Review (September 1920): 449. 11. Rea, Far Eastern Review (August 1911): 3. 12. For more information about these topics, see “Chronology of U.S.–China Relations 1774–2000,” U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs, https://history.state.gov/countries/issues/china-us-relations (access via https://archive.org/web/); “Consortia—the First China Consortium,” Encyclo- pedia of the New American Nation, accessed February 11, 2017, www.americanforeignrelations.com/A-D/Consortia-The-first-china-consortium.html#ixzz10zLjrSws; 98 Chapter Nine

Far Eastern Review (Shanghai) (September 1920): 449; “Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1907,” Wikipedia, accessed February 11, 2017, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Gentlemen%27s_Agreement_of_1907; Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Proj- ect, “1907 Bellingham Riots,” http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/bham_intro.htm (access via https://archive.org/web/); and “The Willard Straight Papers at Cornell University Guide to a Microfilm Edition,” Cornell University Library, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, accessed February 11, 2017, http://rmc.library. cornell.edu/EAD/pdf guides/RMM01260_pub.pdf. Chapter Ten

A 10,000-Mile Dream

For the Salvation and Unification of China Build Railways! More Railways! Keep on Building Railways! —George Bronson Rea1

The banks of the Yangtze River, (now known Chang Jiang River) burst in September 1911. It is the longest river in Asia. The flooding was so great that more than 100,000 Chinese drowned, and 100,000 more would die of starvation after floodwaters formed a lake eighty- by thirty-five miles and destroyed crops.2 The impotent Manchu government did little to aid its people, and the swelling floodwaters and starvation became the final catalysts for a revolution. The city of Wuchang (one of three Chinese cities that merged into modern- day Wuhan) stood beside the swollen Yangtze River. Within a city warehouse, insurgents gathered nightly to discuss revolutionary strategy and goals. They also collected an arsenal there and made bombs in the basement. On the morning of October 10, 1911, there was still no firm date set to overthrow the government, but that afternoon, insurgents inadvertently launched a coup when one of the bombs in the warehouse basement exploded by accident. When police arrived and searched the premises, they found weapons and a list of all the important revolutionary leaders. Officers immediately executed three activists, and the hunt for the rest began. Facing imminent arrest and firing squads, the revolutionaries felt forced to begin fighting. Surprisingly, their New Army took over the city within a mere twenty-four hours as local officials fled in panic. The republican insurgents then cabled other provinces asking them to claim independence. Fifteen provinces seceded within six weeks, and a new Chinese republic was born.

99 100 Chapter Ten

Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the acclaimed “father of the revolution,” was not even in China when the fighting began. He first heard of the takeover of Wuchang from a newspaper report in Denver, Colorado. Sun was in the United States drumming up financial support for his cause. It is ironic that Communists revere Sun as the father of their revolution because he initially championed a government similar to the constitution of the United States. In a series of weekly lectures he gave in China, which were later compiled into a volume called San Min Chu I: The Three Principles of the People, he argued for a stronger Chinese national spirit coupled with a Western style republic including executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government.3 One notable result of the fall of the Chinese monarchy was the demise of The Peking Gazette, the official Imperial news bulletin. It was the longest-running newspaper in history, spinning news and propaganda for 1,200 years, but the revolution finally stopped its presses. But where one media door had been shut, another opened, albeit with great difficulty. Around the time of Sun’s first revolution there was growing demand for English-language newspapers in China. In addition to an estimated eight to ten thousand British and U.S. residents, there were also Dutch, German, and French citizens living there, most of whom also read English.4 Perhaps the largest potential readership was the new generation of young Chinese intellectuals studying English in schools. One man who saw the need for a new English-language newspaper was Thomas Millard. He was the journalist who falsely reported that Cuban foreign correspondent Sylvester Scovel had roundhouse punched General Wil- liam Shafter during the victory ceremony at the close of Spanish–American War. Millard had first come to China to cover the Boxer Rebellion for the New York Herald in 1900. Five years later, he went on to cover the Russo- Japanese War. In 1911, Millard sought funding for publication of the first U.S.-run newspaper in China, to be called The China Press. The paper was financed by the new Chinese government and by U.S. investors. A Chicago manufacturer named Charles R. Crane provided funds for printing equipment but recused himself from active management of the paper after he was appointed Minister of China. Chinese bankers and future Premier Tong Shao-yi also agreed to purchase stock. Thinking he had all these financial pieces in order, Millard was surprised when he arrived in Shanghai to discover that many of his Chinese backers had rescinded their financial support. The North China Daily, the British- run newspaper from Hong Kong, was allegedly responsible for breaking the deal. The British-run press had promoted their interests in China for years and was strongly adverse to competition from the United States. Britain thwarted U.S. media competition that enhanced Chinese-American rela- A 10,000-Mile Dream 101 tions over those of Britain or the growing Chinese nationalist movement being promoted by Sun Yat-sen. The British paper used all its power to squash its new competition. Millard was determined to provide local, national, and international news affecting Shanghai, a major international port, to all those English-speaking readers. Despite initial financial setbacks, Millard began publication of the China Press in direct competition with its British rival. It soon surpassed the North China Daily in circulation. The paper became so successful that Millard would later be called “the founding father of American journalism in China,” a term Rea would have bitterly contested.5 Nevertheless, the paper’s financial difficulties persisted. Millard was not able to get enough advertising to survive, especially after The North China Daily cut its ad rate. Millard was forced to resign as editor and give up his shareholdings. A U.S. insurance and real estate company bought the newspaper. Later, in what must have seemed to Millard a further ironic twist, the paper was sold again at a profit to a Brit. Millard would eventually launch a second newspaper. This second paper would become the leading competition for the Far Eastern Review, and Millard would become Rea’s fiercest media competition and personal rival. Many foreign journalists and publishers in the foreign China media formed some connection with Sun Yat-sen. Millard, for example, became a political advisor to Sun’s fledgling Chinese Republic. Most international correspondents held Sun in the highest regard, and many would work for Sun’s revolution in some capacity. Yet, at the beginning, the revolution seemed to stop in its tracks and its victory seemed short lived. While Sun sailed to Britain a month after the original coup asking for more financial aid, the recently overthrown imperial rulers, known as the Manchu court, hired military leader Yuan Shi-kai to lead the royal Beiyang Chinese army to counter the insurgency. The Beiyang Army captured two cities alongside Wuchang with fifteen thousand men in November, and the revolutionaries capitulated when they were cornered and outnumbered almost three to one. After defeating the revolutionary army, General Yuan negotiated with Sun, who arrived at the Royal Manchu court on a bleak, grey Christmas day. Both agreed that China would now be a Republic, meaning that its government would be elected, and on New Year’s Day the independent provinces elected Sun as the First Provisional President. Yet the terms of the agreement also stipulated that Yuan would remain in charge of the powerful Beiyang Army. Without the military to back Sun’s presidency, after only forty-four days in office, Yuan forced Sun to cede the presidency of the new Republic. Yuan took control of the government and made Sun the Minister 102 Chapter Ten of Communications, demoting the father of the revolution to tasks such as building a national railroad. Sun traveled from Peking to Shanghai in 1912 to get advice on building this new railroad, and the man he came to see was none other than George Bronson Rea. This proved to be a wise choice. Rea had training in engineering, was involved with the American Group of bankers, and by 1912 his Far Eastern Review was the most-reputed information resource on Far Eastern commerce and industry. The biggest issue for Chinese trade was building railroads to move goods. After eight years of publishing, Rea may have written more in-depth articles on Chinese railroads than anyone in the world. He must have made a good impression because Sun granted Rea power of attorney to begin negotiations to obtain loans for a Chinese national railway.6 Sun also gave Rea the job title of Deputy Director General of the Chinese National Railway Corporation.7 Sun already had a national railroad design in mind, but it was a monstrous iron snake of a project, projected to be 60,000 to 100,000 miles long. Rea took one look at the unwieldy design and asked to revise it. The task was not easy, but Rea had expert understanding of the trade routes, topography, existing railways, as well as the loan agreements and territorial concessions behind each railroad tie. The problem was how to navigate through a laby- rinthine maze of international treaties to create a national railroad system in accordance with rights already ceded to other countries. Rea’s solution was to reduce the plan to a more modest ten thousand miles of rail trunk lines, to be financed and constructed over a period of ten to fifteen years. No information concerning Rea’s national railroad design was allowed to leak out to the public. Only high officials in the Peking government knew of the plan because Rea and Sun felt that all loans for the railroad must be free of political strings. Financing for construction work would be done on a cost plus percentage basis, which at the time was a novel strategy for China. The percentage basis allowed China to be a partner in its railroad project, whereas previous financing had been contingent on ceding territory, commercial rights, or military rights to other countries. The government designated Messrs. Pauling and Company as the company that would help oversee construction of the railroad.8 After months spent finalizing the design and financial plans, in February of 1913, Rea set sail for a trip to the United States and then Europe to promote preliminary loan agreements for his Chinese national railway. He began his lengthy journey with high hopes. He believed the United States would participate in the venture. Rea worked with Willard Straight, the head of the American Group, to study the loan agreements. Straight also was part of Mor- gan’s firm. Both men knew J. P. Morgan’s firm was capable of funding the A 10,000-Mile Dream 103 entire loan of $500,000,000, but to ensure funding success, Rea intended to ask for only 25 percent of the loan from the investment firm to be given over ten years and secure the rest of the funding from diverse sources, including the U.S. and European governments.9 It was a presidential election year in the United States, and after sixteen years of Republican rule including presidents McKinley, Roosevelt and Taft, Americans turned the political tide and elected Democrat Woodrow Wilson. Rea asked Wilson to back his financial venture. Rea provided details of the project in a conference with the President on March 23, 1913, in Washington D.C. Rea hoped Wilson would support his plan and pledge to protect U.S. capital invested in China. However, Wilson remained poker-faced and silent and simply asked that Rea prepare a memorandum on the situation.10 Rea followed the meeting with the president with a fifteen-page, single-spaced typed letter. First, Rea assured the new president that the loans were as free as possible from political complications:

Sun has been very careful to avoid infringing or conflicting with any rights already signed away through the medium of treaties, concessions, loan agreements, with one or two minor exceptions, the projected lines are free from any political complications. China is free to negotiate the construction of her railways in the open market.

Second, he acknowledged the new anti-Republican mood in Washington, ad- mitting “the expressed policy of your administration has led many to believe that you will refuse to support any further efforts of American financiers or manufacturers to secure their share in the great development of China’s railways and resources.” Third, Rea tried to illustrate how the international loan was strictly a “commercial” business loan divided equally between the United States, Great Britain, France, and Germany. Finally, Rea claimed that a new Chinese national standard would be the hallmark of his railroad.11 At the time, China had different types of railroad lines. Train cars that were compatible with one trunk line of railroad were not necessarily compatible with another. The system was completely illogical and inefficient for China, but foreign railway builders constructed unique lines on purpose for proprie- tary reasons. Countries like Russia and Japan were in competition for Chinese exports. Therefore, Japan, for example, would not want another country being able to transport coveted goods out of China on Japanese railroads. Trains were also the kingpins to all naval trade, because before airplanes, they were the only means to get goods to port. The result was that China had thousands of miles of railroad tracks that lay strewn and disconnected like sawed off tree branches. Rea proposed to develop one comprehensive system of railways for all of China, which would connect to other trunk lines at principal points. 104 Chapter Ten

Rea’s railroad plan therefore promised a long-lasting investment in an entire new unified railroad system that would completely open up the market of trading with China. Despite Rea’s novel approach to loan financing and his intention to set new standards for railroad construction in China, Wilson lambasted Rea’s proposal. The Republican old crowd, sometimes called the “Morgan Monopoly,” had supported American Group loans to China in the past, and Wilson was determined to change the financial players in his new administration. The new president declared that the loan terms Rea proposed “struck at the very roots of China’s independence, and a monopoly of official support to the group, was, in itself most un-American in spirit.”12 Wilson essentially tossed Rea’s railroad scheme into the trash by directing his Secretary of State to return the letter “with such comment as you may care to make.”13 Rea arrived in New York in May 1913 unaware that Wilson had already rejected his proposal. He soon discovered that Wilson had not only turned him down; he had terminated U.S. support of the American Group altogether. Rea expressed his sense of failure to a New York Times reporter:

My appointment by Dr. Sun I consider the greatest honor ever conferred on a foreigner by a Chinaman. There were many other competent Europeans, among these some high-class engineers, but I was selected because of my ten years’ residence and my special study of railway problems. . . . Imagine my chagrin and disappointment when I arrived in America and found that President Wilson had withdrawn the Government’s support of the American Group. . . . I now am in the complex position, as an American, of trying to arrange a loan in London keeping out influences antagonistic to China and at the same time keeping the door open for America to enter later.14

Rea claimed Wilson was denying China’s independent will by striking down the loan deal. Even when writing on the subject years later, he was unable to contain his anger.

Although the negotiations were a complete success and American capitalists, engineers and manufacturers participated equally with those of Great Britain, France and Germany, the state department refused to support the American participant on the grounds that the scheme constituted a monopoly of railway construction in China and was therefore a violation of treaty provisions which prohibited the creation of monopolies. China was denied the exercise of her sovereign right to organize on her own initiative a company for the development of her territory. This unwarranted interference with the affairs of China constituted one of the greatest abuses of despotic power indulged by the present autocratic Washington regime. It struck at the very roots of China’s independence; was as arbitrary as any action of Russia, denying to China A 10,000-Mile Dream 105

exercise of her right to construct railways in her own territories menaced by Russia’s strategical position. It justified the charge that President Wilson’s loudly-advertised concern for the rights of smaller and weaker nations is after all cheap political clap-trap.15

Rea was not the only one having difficulty with new presidents. Back in China, relations between Yuan and Sun deteriorated. Yuan was setting his sights on jettisoning China’s flirtation with being a Republic. He wanted a return to a monarchy by crowning himself as China’s next Emperor. Sun, on the other hand, was embracing the political ideas of the growing Chinese Socialist Party. Yuan had secured a £25 million sterling loan from Great Britain, France, Russia, and Germany, which the Chinese Parliament, 75 percent of which Sun’s party controlled, had fiercely opposed. Yuan used the money to fight and defeat Sun and his blossoming socialist revolution, ultimately forcing Sun to flee China. Though it had once backed Sun’s republican revolution, the U.S. government was firmly against Sun’s move toward socialism and was the first nation to grant Yuan’s new regime full diplomatic recognition.16 A small student study group initially founded the Chinese Socialist Party in 1911. After the new Republic formed, the group quickly grew to 400,000 members.17 One of their decrees was a revolutionary edict that abolished pigtails, and there was widespread forced cutting of men’s hair by revolutionary troops all over China. The Rea family kept one of the pigtails, perhaps that of a servant, and stored it in a trunk for generations. Yet besides the cutting of pigtails, Rea did not approve of Sun’s move toward socialism, nor the party’s increasingly left-leaning ideals. At first the party was fragmented with one core party and other smaller groups. In 1912, the groups merged and was renamed the Kuomintang or Chinese Nationalist People’s Party. Sun became its founder, and Song Jiaoren became the party’s first official leader. In March 1913, Song was shot twice while boarding a train and died two days later. Authorities arrested the gunman, but he died mysteriously in prison before revealing any information. Many accused Yuan of contracting the assassinations. Soon thereafter, every person connected to Song’s death was murdered, and thus the case was never solved in a way that could implicate Yuan. It was not the first or last time Yuan would be accused of plotting assassinations. When Yuan contacted Rea about his plan for a ten-thousand-mile national railway system, Rea had no qualms in agreeing to meet the Chinese president, despite Yuan’s growing reputation as a ruthless, power-hungry despot. Even though Rea was a magazine publisher, it seemed his real dream was to become a hugely successful railroad tycoon like U.S. financier Jay Gould. What is more, the Far Eastern Review needed an infusion of capital. President 106 Chapter Ten

Wilson had not only squashed Rea’s lucrative $500,000,000 railroad loan; he had also cancelled the U.S. government’s longstanding monthly purchase of one thousand copies of Rea’s magazine. After the loss of the government stipend, Rea closed all his offices outside of Shanghai. Yuan approved of Rea’s design for a national railway, telling him to modify it only slightly. However, perhaps to be certain that Rea’s was the best plan, Yuan then organized an international railway design competition in Decem- ber 1913. Engineers from all over the world submitted plans, which included not only construction designs, but also statistics on population, trade, revenue cost, and the commercial and strategic importance of each proposed railroad line. Rea won the international contest and walked away with a cash prize of several thousand dollars.18 On New Year’s Day 1914, Rea was back in the financial saddle with his prize-winning railroad to sell. The new Chinese Minister of Communications appointed Rea as Technical Secretary, with a new mission to obtain loans to construct his award-winning railroad. To accomplish the task, Rea was paid a sweet remuneration of one thousand dollars gold per month including all expenses whether abroad or in China.19 The minister also verbally promised Rea a permanent appointment as Technical Secretary of the Ministry with a salary of more than $15,500 a year if negotiations succeeded. Working with Rea was Chinese finance adviser and future Chinese Finance Minister Chen Chin-tao, a Kuomintang member who was considered a most able mathematician.20 He and Rea completed negotiations in Paris for the formation of an international railway construction corporation, which included Great Britain and Germany. The two negotiators, undaunted by President Wilson’s thoroughgoing rejection, left the door open for U.S. participation. Rea traveled to Great Britain on the way to the United States hoping that this time, he would be able to persuade the United States to participate. He wrote a detailed outline of his plan concerning the organization of an international construction corporation for the financing, construction, and equipment of railways in the Republic of China in an eighteen-page-long memorandum to the U.S. ambassador in London. A copy of the memorandum was forwarded to the U.S. Minister in China, Paul Reinsch.21 On June 6, 1914, Rea wrote again to President Wilson and to the State Department.22 While staying with Messrs. Pauling & Co. at Twenty-Six Victoria Street in southwest Lon- don, Rea received a short letter from J. P. Morgan, who cast a dark cloud on Rea’s prospects. You “can’t kick a dead horse,” wrote Morgan. “Everybody in this country has so many troubles of their own that they haven’t much ‘pep’ left to go out borrowing additional difficulties in order to protect their future markets in China. However, we are doing our best and can only hope that something can come of this.”23 A 10,000-Mile Dream 107

Rea’s held on tightly to the hope that something would come of his railroad plan. Yet just as Rea was getting ready to leave England for the United States, a cable from Chinese financial advisor Chen stopped Rea in his tracks. Chi- na’s government had appointed yet another Foreign Minister of Communica- tions, one Liang Tun-yen, who had accused Rea of improper correspondence.

Under present circumstances, the Ministry has determined to stop all negotiations concerned with the organization of the International Railway Co. and direct Rea to return to Peking at once. Letterheads of the Ministry have been improperly used by Rea.24

At first Rea seemed nonplussed by the news. He cabled the ministry saying that if there were no objections, he would travel to the United States first as planned because he had received word that his mother was ill. When Rea received no further communication, he set sail for the United States on July 16, 1914. Twelve days later, Austria-Hungary, backed by Germany, declared war on Serbia in response to the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne and his wife. In response, Russia began mobilizing its military and three days later Germany declared war on Russia. The accusation of improper correspondence coupled with the outbreak of the First World War sounded the death knell to Rea’s ten-thousand-mile railroad dream for a second time. Brewing over the loss of his railroad project, Rea felt angry and vindictive. He said, “Liang’s personal pique and hostility to the old crowd” had influenced Rea’s dismissal,25 adding that “Mr. Liang had no right to summarily discharge me though I had been a coolie.”26 In his magazine, Rea would later accuse Liang of being addled by opium use. As Rea’s Irish temper rose, he then became convinced that the British delegation had worked to undermine him with Liang, and turned his ire on them.

If the British Association, and the British Adviser are working to have only Britishers appointed as Advisers, it is obvious they would do all in their power to have an American removed. Aside from my personal case, in which I have already felt the force of this underhand pressure, I believe the Department should be informed of the extent of this campaign, which with the approval of the Brit- ish Foreign Office, is being carried on for the furtherance of British interests. . . . If they resort to the methods employed against me, there must be some way for us to counteract them.27

Rea was searching for a scapegoat, but he was in fact guilty of using Chinese government letterhead in his communications with high-level U.S. government officials as well as with business contractors. Rea also used the letterhead in what he called “personal” correspondence. In a letter to Chen, the former head of the Minister of Communications, Rea asserted that most 108 Chapter Ten

letters in which he used the letterhead were personal and that in the other cases his use of it was necessary to establish his credibility.

All of the above letters are in the nature of a purely private and personal and confidential correspondence, with those who I am personally acquainted with. The President had received me privately last year, and personally requested me to keep him posted on any matters vital to American interests in China, and as the Secretary of Commerce (Mr. Redfield) is an old personal friend, and in whose district I reside, I was perfectly justified in writing to him. Mr. Williams is also an old personal friend, and I have met Mr. Bryan several times and have breakfasted and dined with him. As a matter of fact my personal relations with the officials of the American Government, have always been of the most cordial type, as in an unofficial way I have worked in complete harmony with them for ten years in the advancement of American interests in the Far East. I campaigned with Col. Roosevelt in Cuba, and am also a personal friend of Mr. Taft, and many other high officials and public men in America, who are kind enough to consider my views on Far Eastern matters as worthy of serious consideration. I may say that any communication of mine on international politics in China, would probably recieve [sic] more consideration, than one from any other American private citizen. And when it is considered that I have employed my friendship for the advantage of China, it is hardly just to qualify my use of a letter head as improper, even if I had so used them. As it is inconceivable that the American authorities should have construed my letters as official, and so notified the Chinese Government, I can only surmise that the Minister has inferred that the letter heads [sic] were used improperly, from the carbon copies of letters I forwarded to Peking. Outside of those communications with the American officials which were purely private, I have not corresponded with any parties. I wrote one letter to Holzmann & Co. of which you have a copy, one letter to Gouin, also of which you have a copy, and one or two notes to Pauling & Co. all on the business of the negotiations. I have used the letter head [sic] of the Ministry in such correspondence, as I had to have some face in dealing with these firms, or we could not have got them together. As you know I have been very careful about letter writing, and have always consulted you and furnished you with copies of everything I wrote, but you will recognize that there were [sic] certain information that I had to communicate officially especially to J.G. White & Co. to get them in the combination. If I was not permitted to employ some letter head [sic], these communications would have lacked strength, and placed the whole scheme in the category of another wild cat [sic] and irresponsible proposition concerning China, and the big contractors and Banks would not have considered the scheme.28

Rea was visiting his ill mother in Fruitvale, California, when he received a telegram stating that the Chinese Ministry of Commerce would abolish his position as Technical Secretary on September 1, 1914.29 Rea’s award-winning design for a ten-thousand-mile Chinese national railroad was scrapped his A 10,000-Mile Dream 109 dream-scheme to obtain loans with which to finance its construction shattered, and he would never get over the loss of the financial opportunity of a lifetime. He became obsessed with seeking revenge and found one man to blame.30

NOTES

1. “Official Slogan and Creed for the Salvation and Unification of China,” Far Eastern Review Magazine (Shanghai) 32, no. 5 (May 1935): 31. 2. “China, 1904–1914.” 3. William Scott Morton and Charlton M. Lewis, China: Its History and Culture (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980), 410; originally from Sun Yat-sen, San Min Chu I: The Three Principles of the People, ed. L. T. Chen et al., trans. Frank W. Price, China Committee (Shanghai: China Institute of Pacific Relations, 1927), 12. 4. John B. Powell, My 25 Years in China (New York: MacMillan, 1945), accessed February 11, 2017, http://archive.org/details/mytwentyfiveyear009218mbp. 5. Mordechai Rozanski, cited in Stephen R. MacKinnon and Oris Friesen, eds., China Reporting: An Oral History of American Journalism in the 1930s and 1940s (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 23. 6. Sun, Yat-sen, Power of Attorney for George Bronson Rea, January 15, 1913, Microfilm Publication, M329 Roll 200, National Archival and Record Administra- tion, College Park, MD. See also Railway Age Gazette 53, no. 25 (December 1912). 7. Railway Age Gazette 50, no. 20 (July 1912): 915, accessed February 11, 2017, https://archive.org/details/railwayage50newy. 8. George Bronson Rea, “Dr. Sun Yat-Sen’s Railway Programme; A Defense,” Far Eastern Review (December 1914): 220–22. 9. “Seeks $500,000,000 Loan for China; G.B. Rea in London after Finding That He Could Not Raise Money Here,” New York Times, May 24, 1913, 1. 10. “Wilson Talks of Policy to China: President Not Ready to Say What Will Be Done to Protect American Capital,” San Francisco Chronicle, March 23, 1913, 51. 11. George Bronson Rea, Letter to U.S. president Woodrow Wilson, March 26, 1913, Microfilm Publication, M329 Roll 200, p. 5, National Archives and Record Administration, College Park, MD. 12. George Bronson Rea, “Peace through Prescience,” Far Eastern Review 16, no. 9 (Shanghai) (September 1920): 449. 13. Rea, Letter to U.S president Wilson, March 26, 1913. 14. “Seeks $500,000,000 Loan for China.” 15. Rea, “Peace through Prescience.” 16. Sanderson Beck, “Republican China in Turmoil 1912–1926,” Sanderson Beck, 2007, http://san.beck.org/21-3-RepublicanChina1912-26.html. 17. Beck, “Republican China in Turmoil 1912–1926.” 18. Railway Age Gazette 59, no. 20 (New York: Simmons-Boardman, 1915), 913, accessed February 11, 2017, https://archive.org/details/railwayage59newy. 19. Chow Tsz Chi, Order of Appointment from Minister of Communications Chow Tsz Chi, January 1914, 1st day of the last month of the 3rd year of the Republic 110 Chapter Ten of China, Paul S. Reinsch Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, WI. Here- after Reinsch Papers. 20. Earl Selle, Donald of China (New York: Harper & Bros., 1948). 21. Paul S. Reinsch, Letter, May 26, 1914, Reinsch Papers. 22. Assistant Secretary of State, Letter to George Bronson Rea, June 26, 1914, Reinsch Papers. 23. J. P. Morgan, Letter to George Bronson Rea, Reinsch Papers. 24. Chin Tao Chen, Financial Commission of the Republic of China, Letter to George Bronson Rea, June 29, 1914, Reinsch Papers. 25. Paul S. Reinsch, Letter, October 23, 1914, Reinsch Papers. 26. Paul S. Reinsch, Letter, October 12, 1914, Reinsch Papers. 27. Paul S. Reinsch, Letter, June 18, 1914, Reinsch Papers. 28. George Bronson Rea, Letter to Dr. Chen, June 30, 1914, Reinsch Papers. 29. Kai Fu Shah, Letter to George Bronson Rea, August 2, 1914, Reinsch Papers. 30. For more information about these topics, see 1914 British Pound Sterling (GBP) to US Dollar (USD) Currency Exchange Rates, http://gbp.fx-exchange.com/usd/1914 -exchange-rates.html; Railway Age Gazette 53, no. 25; and A. P. Winston, “Chinese Finance under the Republic,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 30, no. 4 (1916): 738–79, accessed February 11, 2017, qje.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/4/738.full.pdf. Chapter Eleven

A Contemptible German Trick

After the Chinese Ministry of Communications fired Rea as their Technical Secretary, the soldier of fortune went from negotiating a half-billion-dollar loan agreement to staring at an empty bank balance in his account. Despite his pending dismissal, Rea took out a $200 advance—in gold—on his September salary when he arrived in San Francisco on August 22, 1914. He was in a financial bind. His expenses had been higher than his $1,000 monthly salary, and he had withdrawn more than $2,000 privately to cover travel, hotels, cables, entertainment, and gifts to various officials. Six days after withdraw- ing his salary advance, he received the official cable of his termination. Rea immediately asked for more money. He felt entitled to remuneration for cable costs, which had clicked up to $500.00. He also wanted 30 days’ notice, and payment of expenses.1 Rea stated he would forgo the cable charges if he received the remainder of his $800 salary for September. The ministry, however, denied Rea’s request for more funds. In an odd turn of events, the Minister of Communications, Liang Tun-yen, also denied ever dispatching the cable to Chen Chin-tao, the man who had accused Rea of improperly using ministry letterhead. Although Rea would accuse many of being to blame for the loss of his position and for thwarting his railroad scheme, he never blamed Chen. Chen was, however, a possible culprit. He had been conscious of Rea’s written communication with the United States and had specifically warned Rea to be careful in his correspondence. Chen was aware that Rea had written on government letterhead and was the person who accused Rea via cable of using government letterhead inappropriately. There was no available evidence that Rea confronted Chen. However, Rea sought help from the U.S. Minister in Peking, Paul S. Reinsch. Rea asked Reinsch to argue for compensation and reinstatement.

111 112 Chapter Eleven

I am suggesting this to you at this time, for I believe that if you can present the matter fairly to the Chinese, and show them how unjustly they have treated me in abolishing my post and salary, while I was still in America and after the stiff fight I have made for the maintenance of the Open Door, they would the more readily assent to rectifying their attitude.2

Rea also saw that political sentiment was now clearly against the Repub- lican financiers Rea had worked with for years. Rea also was aware that the Wilson administration viewed J. P. Morgan, the banker who had gotten cheers for getting Wall Street back on its financial feet in the financial panic of 1907, as a monopolistic pariah. In his petition to Reinsch, Rea tried to separate himself from Morgan’s “old boy” financial network.

Get away from the Morgan Monopoly, and this path is cleared for the President and the State Department, to not only extend the required support, but to actually request a National syndicate to enter the field. I have every reason to believe that Morgan would welcome some opportunity to join such a syndicate to give it the required strength, but we cannot expect the old crowd to get out and organize a new syndicate for activity in a field from which they had been ousted by the present Administration. . . . If this scheme is carried through, it must be arranged so that President Wil- son, yourself and the present administration receive the credit for it. Politically speaking the President’s policy in regard to China has already caused considerable adverse criticism, and the present scheme would come as a justification of his earlier attitude, and by its importance, would over shadow any thing that the Republican administrations had heretofore attempted. . . . There is no good reason why they should refuse to continue the arrangement with me, if this scheme is taken up again.3

Rea believed Reinsch could convince the Chinese to reinstate Rea’s Tech- nical Secretary position. And although Reinsch did try to help Rea receive expenses from the ministry, he did not attempt to help him regain his old post. While he waited for help from Reinsch, Rea decided to try to win back his prestige with the Chinese by lobbying for their cause against Japan. The Japanese had been aggressively acquiring new territory in China since the outbreak of the First World War. The fledgling empire of the sun had entered the war in August 1914 as an ally of England, though Britain had been reluctant to accept the alliance precisely because of Japan’s known desire to expand influence in China. On entering the war, Japan issued Germany an ultimatum to remove all ships from the strongly fortified principal port and administrative center called Tsingtau in the province of Kiaochow. (The port is now known as the Jiaozhou Bay and is located in Qingdao, China.) A Contemptible German Trick 113

The area also had to be evacuated within thirty days. The German Kaiser had obtained a ninety-nine-year lease of the port in 1897 as an indemnity for the murder of two German missionaries, and it had become a vital hub of commerce between Japan and China. When Japan’s thirty-day ultimatum to Ger- many expired, twenty-four thousand Japanese troops landed to fight eight thousand German soldiers stationed in Tsingtau. In September, Japan bombarded Tsingtau from sea and land and then sent another forty thousand troops to finish the mission of ending German occupation.4 Fighting against impossible odds, Germany surrendered the area unconditionally on November 10, 1914. Japan promised to relinquish the coveted bay back to China after the war but then issued the infamous Twenty-One Demands clearly indicating Ja- pan’s intention to expand its Chinese holdings. Japan had been increasing its economic and political hold on Manchuria since its stunning victory in the Russo–Japanese War. With the Twenty-One Demands, Japan boldly declared its intention to increase its sphere of influence over all of China. The demands, drafted in January 1915, were the hallmark of exerting control. It expanded Japanese influence over Chinese railways; barred China from ceding any further coastal areas to any other foreign power; included the mandated appointment of Japanese advisors in Chinese government; and even exerted Japanese control over the administration of the Chinese police force. Sun Yat-sen claimed that the Twenty-One Demands were a put-up job drafted with the help of Yuan Shi-kai and that they reflected the price Yuan was willing to pay in exchange for Japan recognizing Yuan as the new Em- peror of China. And according to a confidential memorandum submitted to the U.S. State Department, Sun’s accusation had merit. The memo claimed the Japanese had been sending secret agents to foment revolution in China since 1911. Japan’s goal was not to help China form a republic but to desta- bilize the country into chronic chaos, eventually giving Japan an opening to step in to govern. In 1915, the Japanese government sent Masunosuke Odagiri, the director of the Yokohama Specie Bank in Peking and former Japanese Consul-General in Shanghai, to meet with Yuan. Odagiri was believed to be working as a secret agent of the government of Japan. He would later become Rea’s closest contact in Japan. According to the memo, Odagiri had said to Yuan, “If you will yield to Japan the twenty-one demands (originally twenty-five) Japan will back up in proclaiming yourself emperor of China.”5 Far Eastern Adviser Stanley Hornbeck felt Japan had clearly used the war as an opportunity to place China under Japanese military authority. In his 1919 book, Contemporary Politics in the Far East, Hornbeck said:

Whatever her intentions, Japan has accomplished in regard to China at least five things: she has consolidated her own position in her northern sphere of 114 Chapter Eleven

influence, Manchuria; she has driven the Germans out of their former sphere of influence, Shantung, and has constituted herself successor to Germany’s rights; she has given warning that she considers Fukien Province as exclusive sphere for Japanese influence; she has undertaken to invade the British sphere of influence; and she stands in a position to menace and to dictate to the Peking government. A glance at the map of North China will show how completely Peking is at Japan’s mercy.6

Although he would radically alter his opinion of Rea in later years, Horn- beck commended Rea’s expertise and thorough investigation into Chinese- Japanese relations. In the opening lines of the chapter called “Japan’s Mon- roe Doctrine for Asia,” Hornbeck stated, “Among the publicists who have followed the recent negotiations perhaps none has made a more searching analysis of the treaties and agreements than has Mr. George Bronson Rea.”7 Having analyzed the treaties, Rea was of the opinion that if Germany ceded to Japan rights over areas such as Shantung, (now known as Shandong) China would never regain control of the territory, because Japan was looking to revert from the operant “Open Door” policy to a “Sphere of Influence” policy. The Sphere of Influence policy was an outgrowth of the Monroe Doctrine, a policy first articulated by U.S. president James Monroe in 1823 that stated that any future attempt by Europe to colonize any part of the Americas was an aggressive act that could lead to war. The Americas and particularly Latin America were connected by geographic propinquity, and thus to be considered outside Europe’s sphere of influence. As colonialism expanded, so did the scope of the policy of Sphere of Influence to the accepted postulate that a more powerful nation could have political, military and or economic influence over another country, especially one within its geographic region. China balked at the possibility of some colonial foreign power usurping military, political, or economic control via the foreign policy of Sphere of Influence. This is why China had for years tried so hard to close its doors to most foreign trade. The United States articulated the new “Open Door” policy as an alternative to the policy of Sphere of Influence. The new standard for international relations literally and figuratively opened Chinese doors to trade. Instead of colonizing areas in China, the new U.S. policy aimed to promote equal international trade opportunities while vowing to respect China’s territorial and government integrity. Rea asserted that if foreign powers allowed Japan to successfully revert to a Sphere of Influence policy, the United States would forfeit its commercial trade relationship with China. “The revival of the ‘Spheres of Influence’ policy by Japan,” he said, “which undermine and subvert the authority of the Chinese Government, and tend to close the door to others, sounds the death knell to the Open Door doctrine.”8 A Contemptible German Trick 115

Rea’s views of the Japanese in 1915 are summed up in his assessment of Japan’s Twenty-One Demands:

China was robbed by Germany, Japan attacked the robber and acquired temporary enjoyment of the spoils, and insists on retaining ownership. Because the rightful owner remonstrated and requested restitution of the stolen property, in conformity with Japan’s promises, the latter professed to be insulted and employed this pretext to enforce recognition of her stolen goods.9

Rea became a part of a special Chinese delegation that went to Washing- ton to gain U.S. support to fight Japan’s Twenty-One Demands. He argued that Japan had abrogated China’s rights in taking Shantung, and moreover that Japan infringed on the right of the United States to trade with China. In Washington, Rea met President Wilson and Secretary of State William Jen- nings Bryan. After his delegate meeting, Rea also met privately with then State Department Legal Counselor Robert Lansing, a future Secretary of State, who confessed U.S. impotence against Japanese interests in China. His views echoed those of Theodore Roosevelt. The Open Door policy, Lansing believed, was limited by a country’s willingness and ability to fight to keep the door open. He said, “If we protest and do not have the force to support it, we are liable to be humiliated.”10 A new political party was in the White House, but the Wilson administration’s foreign policy views on Japanese– Chinese relations mirrored those of former Republican President Roosevelt. Despite the limits the United States faced in keeping an Open Door policy in China, Rea pushed hard against Japan and its Twenty-One Demands. He began writing anti-Japanese propaganda in the U.S. press and his Far Eastern Review magazine. He claimed that the Japanese press promoted war against the United States and hatred of Americans, much like the yellow press had promoted war against Spain. In a series of articles called “Ja- pan’s Place in the Sun, the Menace to America,” Rea drew attention “to the campaign of misrepresentation and calumny waged by the press of Japan to inflame the masses against this country, and to prepare them to look on us as the next enemy.” According to Rea, press propaganda in Japan was “similar to the Cuban campaign” “previous to the blowing up of the Maine,”11 and completely controlled by Japanese government authorities: “In addition to the regular press censorship exercised at all times by the police authorities, a super-censorship has been created which effectively places a muffler on all outgoing news which in any way is deemed detrimental to Japan’s foreign policy.”12 Rea also argued that although Japan claimed it wanted peace, it was preparing for war. He added, “Japan’s huge military and naval progress laid down by the late Emperor is avowedly directed against the United States of America.”13 116 Chapter Eleven

While Rea’s arguments on Japanese press propaganda and censorship were probably factual, other claims were hyperbolic, xenophobic, and racist. In one article titled “The Menace in the Pacific,” Rea claimed it a fundamental fact that “the Japanese powers of reproduction are, under normal conditions in Japan, double those of the white man, and under conditions such as exist in California, they will double their numbers in 32 years. . . I see the country being led into a position, which through lower the bars to unrestricted Japa- nese immigration, will see our Western States given over to them in the next twenty five years.”14 When he received bitter criticism for his anti-Japanese rhetoric, Rea at first defended himself by stating he was simply doing his job as a patriot: “My motives are as patriotically American as those of the Japanese publicists in America are as loyally Japanese.” 15 However, in a rare contrite moment, Rea later admitted that his propaganda work against Japan was wrong. “My work during 1915 and 16 was most unscrupulous and unethical, but I felt that the end justified the means. Theodore Roosevelt gave me the only ‘dressing down’ I ever received in my life for my ‘unprincipled’ anti-Japanese campaign. It hurt coming from him.”16 The hope behind Rea’s anti-Japanese propaganda campaign was to gain Chinese support for another try at international railroad loans. In the summer of 1916, Rea boarded a train bound for Peking to see U.S. Foreign Minister Reinsch, greatly excited about a potential new loan deal. While Rea was ebul- lient at the meeting, he also expressed his longstanding bitterness over being fired from his previous position. He felt his ideas were being taken advantage of and said he was putting his faith in Reinsch to support his latest loan plan. Months passed and Rea did not hear a word from Reinsch. He did, however, hear of a new loan in the works. In September, Chen Chin-tao, the latest Chinese Minister of Finance, who had previously worked with Rea on loans, formally requested a $50,000,000 loan. U.S., British, Russian, French and Japanese financiers comprised the loan group.17 Siems Carey was the contractor in the new loan. Given the loan amount, the financiers, and contractor, the deal seemed identical to Rea’s previous proposals. Rea had taken his ideas to Reinsch, who was the man responsible for the latest loan scheme. Yet Reinsch never once consulted Rea thereafter. Rea was livid. He accused Reinsch of absconding with his coveted ideas and of “poaching of his preserves.” He unleashed his fury against Reinsch with libel. Anti-German sentiment had been growing in the United States since the Allies had gone to war with Germany. Reinsch had been born to German American parents in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was therefore of German descent. Rea wrote to the highest U.S. government officials accusing Reinsch of sympathizing with Germany during the war. In an editorial for the Far A Contemptible German Trick 117

Eastern Review, Rea also accused Reinsch of designing a conspiracy to set the United States in conflict with China and the Allies by selecting railroad loan schemes which would conflict with the interests of the Allies, while promoting the railway of Shantung project, which conflicted with Japanese interests.18 He claimed that Reinsch, Willard Straight, who Rea had worked closely with as part of the American Group, and a Mr. Vanderlip concealed information from the U.S. State Department in signing contracts to finance and construct five railways that they knew conflicted with previous agreements with the Allies and Japan. Rea declared the only solution was for Reinsch to be removed from his ministerial position. Rea sent his editorial manuscript to his assistant, William Henry Donald who thought his boss had lost his mind. Someone, probably Donald, scribbled, “a dangerous lunatic,” in the margin of the manuscript. Rea then wrote a ten-page-long letter to President Wilson, in which he referred to Reinsch and those who worked on the contracts as “high Chinese officials of well-known pro-German tendencies.”19 Minister Reinsch claimed he was not involved in selecting which railroad lines were submitted for U.S. financing. He interpreted Rea’s accusations the result of a man who was “crazed with hatred and jealousy because he believes himself overlooked and discarded.”20 Reinsch considered suing Rea for libel for the editorial, and probably would have had he known about the letters to the U.S. government. The minister had just cause because Rea’s letter to the State Department and U.S. President accused Reinsch of being “unscrupulous,” of “grafting,” and of having “deliberately conspired” against the United States.21 While Rea conducted his private war against Reinsch, the United States joined the war on the side of the Allies in 1917. Rea was too old to fight as a soldier, so he offered his services to the Intelligence Department of the Army. Colonel Ralph Van Deman offered Rea a position as either military attaché or assistant military attaché in China. The position would have required Rea to move from Shanghai to Peking. Rea refused stating that he was unable to tolerate being so close to Reinsch. Instead he left China altogether, for a post across the globe as assistant military attaché in Spain. He negotiated a contract whereby Donald became not only manager and editor, but also part stakeholder of the Far Eastern Review. Then Rea set sail for Europe. He was still fluent in Spanish and still had many contacts in Spain from his youthful days as a correspondent during the Spanish–American War. He would forever claim that Reinsch was the reason he left China. He stated:

Reinsch carried us the brink of serious complication with the Allies and concealed the fact from the State Department until the issue had been definitely created for the Government. It was for that reason that I left China, and refused the position as attaché or assistant attaché in Peking, when it was offered me by Col. Van Deman. I held then, as I do now, that it was a contemptible German trick.22,23 118 Chapter Eleven

NOTES

1. George Bronson Rea, “Liang Tun-yen Minister of Communications Peking,” Letter to Lian Tun-yen, September 14, 1914, M329 Roll 21, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 2. George Bronson Rea, Letter to Paul S. Reinsch, American Minister of Peking, October 12, 1914, Reinsch Papers. 3. Rea, Letter to Reinsch, October 12, 1914. 4. The World Almanac and Book of Facts (New York: Facts on File Inc. Press Publishing, 1914), 706, accessed February 12, 2017, http://books.google.com/books ?id=MWY3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA706&lpg=PA706&dq=Kiaochow+decision&source =bl&ots=D4LnzLCh1G&sig=3woL5QkPy0oTiS_Eevz5u. 5. Paul S. Reinsch, Memorandum: To Secretary of State, September 9, 1919, Microfiche M341 Roll 28, 15, National Archives and Records Administration, Col- lege Park, MD. 6. Stanley K. Hornbeck, Contemporary Politics in the Far East (New York: Appleton and Company, 1919), 346. 7. George Bronson Rea, Letter to Stanley K. Hornbeck, February 13, 1934, Stanley Hornbeck Collection No. 67008, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford Uni- versity, Stanford, CA. Hereafter cited as Hornbeck Papers. 8. Hornbeck, Contemporary Politics in the Far East, 346. 9. George Bronson Rea, “Analysis of the China-Japanese Treaties: Their Bearing on American Interests” (1915), New York Open Library ID OL7243233M, accessed February 12, 2017, http://openlibrary.org/works/OL15269582W/Analysis_of_the_ China-Japanese_treaties, 7. 10. Hornbeck, Contemporary Politics in the Far East. 11. George Bronson Rea, Letter to William C. Reick, October 11, 1915, M143 Roll 2, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 12. Rea, Letter to Reick, October 11, 1915, 1. 13. Memorandum re Pro-Japanese Activities of one Geo Bronson Rea, formerly of M.I.D., U.S.A., and advisor to Chinese Mission to Peace Conference, Attention of: Division of Military Intelligence, December 18, 1919, File 1766-511, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 14. Rea, Letter to Reick, October 11, 1915, 7–8. 15. Memorandum re Pro-Japanese Activities of one Geo Bronson Rea, December 18, 1919. 16. George Bronson Rea, Letter to Stanley Hornbeck, February 13, 1934, p. 2, Hornbeck Papers. 17. “China Seeks Loan of $50,000,000 More,” New York Times, September 22, 1916, accessed February 12, 2017, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res= F0061FFF345B17738DDDAB0A94D1405B868DF1D3. 18. Paul Reinsch, Letter to E. T. Williams, Esquire, U.S. Department of State, Peking, China, November 28, 1916, Hornbeck Papers. 19. George Bronson Rea, Letter to President Woodrow Wilson, June 1, 1917, M329 Roll 16, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. A Contemptible German Trick 119

20. Paul Reinsch, Letter to Williams, November 28, 1916, p. 5, Hornbeck Papers. 21. George Bronson Rea, Letter to U.S. President Wilson, November 6, 1917, p. 7, M329 Roll 16, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 22. George Bronson Rea, Letter to M. Churchill Brigadier, October 6, 1919, pp. 1–2, file 1776-511, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 23. For more information on these topics, see Ministry of Communications, Peking, Secretary, Letter to George Bronson Rea, September 30, 1914, M329 Roll 21, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD; and George Bronson Rea, Far Eastern Review (Shanghai) (September 1920): 450.

Chapter Twelve

The Allied Propagandist

Imagine an Allied soldier sitting in a muddy ditch fecund with the smell of dank water, urine, and his own noxious sweat. He’s bored, tired, and looks to the sky with fear at the sound of an approaching plane. The whizzing mechanical sound of the world’s newest flying machine increases and then recedes in pitch, and from the sky fall hundreds of tiny white rectangle papers attached to balloons. For a full minute, the soldier feels a childlike curiosity and is mesmerized by the squares dancing slowly back and forth. Finally one paper lands. The soldier gets up and walks over to pick up a leaflet sent from the heavens to notify him in bold print: “The Americans are Coming!” With a shrug, he tosses the wet paper back to the ground, goes back to his post, and looks up to an empty grey sky. The United States’s first official war propaganda movement had begun. One of the lessons of the Spanish–American War was the power of the press to manipulate the masses. The national psyche had been led like a bri- dled horse by the “facts and fakes” printed in the papers. William Randolph Hearst did not start the war per se, but his reporters certainly helped shape public opinion by portraying the conflict as the story of villainous Spain treading upon Cuban liberty. The press did such a phenomenal job that, more than a century later, the popular image of Roosevelt’s Rough Riders is of young American men full of grit and determination charging up hill on horseback waving wide-brimmed hats to free Cuba from Spanish colonial tyranny. Rea was the only reporter on the scene that day in Santiago, Cuba, to write a relatively pro-Spanish story about the honor displayed by the imperial army as they lost a precious jewel in Spain’s colonial crown. At the outbreak of World War I, Spain was close to going to war again, not against Germany or the Allies, but with itself. The former ruler of half the entire world was still reeling from being defeated by the upstart provincial

121 122 Chapter Twelve country they had purportedly discovered. A rising Republican movement threatened to overthrow the Spanish monarchy; labor strikes erupted in most major cities; disputes abounded between political parties from left to right; and most dangerous of all, military factions were threatening a coup. In June 1917, two decades after the Spanish–American war, General Weyler, now an octogenarian, toured provincial military garrisons in the role of diplomat, attempting to calm military leaders to keep internal peace, and conveying official greetings from the Crown. The Butcher, infamous for the deaths of thousands of Cuban civilians with his reconcentrado, or concentration policy, was withered, shorter in stature, but proud as ever, just like his country. Unlike Spain, which was suffering emotionally, politically, and economically, the United States was figuring out how to get its public to back a European fight. President Woodrow Wilson won reelection in 1916 by a narrow margin with the slogan, “Wilson kept us out of war.” Yet a year later, when Germany proposed an alliance with Mexico and began sinking U.S. merchant ships, Wilson went to Congress asking for a unified declaration of war. But he realized that he had to convince young Americans to fight in a confounding conflict raging in another hemisphere. What emerged was the first government-led propaganda campaign in the United States; in which the government deliberately used the mass media to convince its populace to go to war. Now cognizant of the power of the media to create public opinion, Wilson tried turning the paradigm on its head: Instead of the government responding to the opinions of the masses molded by the media as it had in the case of the Spanish–American War, the government used the media proactively to shape public opinion. Wilson established the Committee on Public Information (CPI) on April 13, 1917, to marshal public support for sending U.S. soldiers to Europe. George Creel was given the job as head of the CPI. His task was “mobilizing the mind of the world so far as American participation in the war was concerned.”1 His campaign began with a monsoon of speaking events. Seventy-five thousand volunteer speakers gave 755,190 speeches in 5,200 communities urging men to enlist. The expositions drew huge crowds and raised $1.4 million in cash.2 The government then purchased millions of dollars of space in every U.S newspaper to promote support sending its boys overseas and into battle. Wilson then severely restricted the press with the passage of a new federal law in June. The Espionage Act of 1917 prohibited the publication of any information that could be considered harmful to the U.S. military during wartime. Wilson followed his Espionage Act a year later with the Sedi- tion Act, which prohibited disloyal language against the U.S. government, constitution, or flag. The Sedition Act also allowed the U.S. Postmaster General to refuse to deliver mail containing any speech or opinion violating The Allied Propagandist 123 the act. Those found guilty of sedition faced up to twenty years in prison and fines of $10,000. Creel acknowledged that the committee’s task was herculean. The total funding for the CPI was $6,850,000, as compared to an estimated $500,000,000 that Germany spent on propaganda.3 Pro-German presses spewed anti-U.S. propaganda in Spain that described Cuba, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico as “America’s slave nations.” In response the United States had successful recruiting results with the slogan, “Enlist for the War! Remem- ber the Maine and Spain.”4 Like the United States, Spain severely censored its press during the First World War. Its “Law of Jurisdictions” prohibited any criticism of the Span- ish army. Publishers faced court-martial and imprisonment for reporting on a riot where the army was involved in any way. The government also monitored phone calls and censored telegrams. The new Minister of State, Eduardo Dato, even forbade any public discussion of the war and Spain’s neutrality. No longer were correspondents like Rea the first ones on the scene risking their lives to report the exploding of a ship. The Spanish government was so successful in censoring their media that, more than a week after a German submarine torpedoed the Spanish steamer, Villa de Soller, on May 15, 1918, more than half of Spain’s newspapers had not written a single story about the incident. In tandem with censorship, the Spanish government also subsidized periodicals that obeyed government restrictions. The money it provided was essential to offset inflated paper costs. Rea concluded that “the Spanish Gov- ernment intentionally or otherwise, is playing the German game and is paying the press to maintain silence.”5 Yet Spain’s maintenance of a neutral position was a delicate matter because there was strong sympathy and support for Germany among the Spanish public, and from the seventy thousand German citizens residing and or working in Spain. According to Rea, Germany had also spent $5 million to elect a pro-German majority in the Spanish parliament and had gained financial control and thus editorial influence over one hundred Spanish newspapers.6 The man the CPI selected to run its campaign in Spain was a motion picture maker named Frank J. Marion. On his arrival to the Iberian Peninsula carrying armloads of large, black metal film containers, Marion learned that Spain censored films in case they affected Spanish neutrality. He did not speak Spanish and knew little of Spanish culture, but ingeniously—as he himself characterized it—found his way around the censors. Instead of showing war videos, he distributed films about U.S. agriculture and industry. While Spaniards watched a tour of a wheat farm in the great U.S. plains, they got a taste of the vastness of the natural resources of the United States. Within a 124 Chapter Twelve short movie about a new factory in Philadelphia was a subtle message of the country’s industrial strength. According to Marion, he was equally successful with the Spanish press.

Most of the leading papers in Spain were under regular subsidy from the Ger- man Embassy, and I was told by my French colleagues that space could not be secured in the Spanish press without paying for it. A very large sum was suggested as necessary to carry out the plan. However, I was convinced that truthful news items from America would be welcomed by all the progressive papers and that the system then in vogue of sending out “official” commu- niqués from the various embassies virtually compelled to treatment of the material as advertising. Looking around, I discovered the Fabra Agency, a Spanish press association doing a small business, and I laid before the managers a plan to incorporate our cable services into their daily “flimsy.” I had no difficulty in procuring complete cooperation, even to the extent of having their news editor come to my office each day so that the translations might be made under my direction. . . . The venture was a success from the start. As a matter of fact, our news service was printed in papers known to be under German subsidy.7

Rea had sailed for France on the ship Tourraine on his way to work alongside the CPI in Spain in October 1917. He was sent to Madrid as assistant to the U.S. military attaché, Major John Lang. Rea was to do intelligence gathering, but his primary directive was to write reports on the internal and international political situation in Spain, focusing specifically on Spain’s neutrality. Assigned the rank of captain, Rea worked under the War Department’s Mili- tary Intelligence staff. The publisher of the Far Eastern Review had assumed, however, that his wartime role in Spain would be on par with that of Frank Marion. Rea thought his new position was “the most important one under this Embassy, always provided that the authorities are really desirous of knowing what is going on. It is not a military job, but more in the nature of a special diplomatic or political agent’s task, or high-class political newspaper work.”8 The reason he held this belief was, in part, because the War Department’s Military Intelligence staff was the functional equivalent of what would later become the Central Intelligence Agency. Major Ralph Van Deman had conceived of a comprehensive intelligence program network whereby he recruited a range of men from different realms and positions, from company presidents to army privates, to gather information. Deman asked his informal “old boys” network, which included Rea, to collect positive and negative intelligence from countries around the world.9 Positive intelligence consisted of collecting information from and about the enemy; negative or counterintelligence consisted of denying information obtained by the enemy about one’s own forces or military strategy. Counterintelligence was an area where the The Allied Propagandist 125

United States had little experience. They had only used it once previously, during the Philippine insurrection. Reports emanating from this intelligence network were sent to Washington for investigation.10 But from the moment he arrived, Rea overestimated the importance of his role. He also believed he could run the CPI propaganda campaign in Spain far better than Marion. This may have been true; Rea was the publisher of a well- reputed international magazine, was a former star correspondent during the Spanish–American War, had over twenty years of journalistic experience, and was fluent in Spanish. Marion had no journalistic experience, did not speak a word of the language, and was primarily known as a producer of movies for entertainment. Rea, unlike Marion, knew several of the major newspaper directors and publishers in Spain because of connections he had developed during the Spanish–American War. Rea also began to read as many as thirty Spanish periodicals daily and plowed through numerous books on Spanish politics. He chewed data like peanuts. He then paid social calls on politicians and newspapermen, often entertaining them for drinks at his apartment.11 Rea did quickly and astutely amass a clear understanding of the quandary facing the Spanish government. In one his first reports he summarized the country’s volatility.

The political situation in Spain is loaded with dynamite. The country just escaped military dictatorship and general chaos last month [through] the appeal of the king, or threat to abdicate, unless the politicians formed a suitable Ministry to carry on the Government. Spain now has a Ministry composed of Party Leaders, all former Premiers or Ministers of State. All political parties are represented except the Republicans, the Socialists and the Jaimists (old Carl- ists,) It is a Coalition of National Ministry, brought together at times of great national danger to tide over the situation. It cannot last. Something is bound to arise which will bring about another Ministerial crisis, and the country cannot survive any more. The next shift looks like Weyler, with the military in the saddle and a general upheaval. The stability of the present Ministry and perhaps the fate of the dynasty, in my opinion, depends entirely on the economic situation and the yield of this year’s crops. Every city and district in Spain is seething with discontent over the scarcity and regulated prices of food, aggravated by the disorganization of the railway transportation, shortage of care and lack of coal. Strikes, lockouts, suspension of factories and other economic problems arising out of these difficulties, are of daily occurrence.12

Within two months Rea also had the political roadmap of the press laid out.

La Epoca may be expected to have good information from Sr. Dato, the leader of the Conservative party, the Diario Universal will have just as reliable information from the liberal dealers. El Pais and El Mundo will know what is 126 Chapter Twelve

happening in the republican circles, while El Socialista, and España Nueva will be able to give the inside facts of what the socialists are doing. The editor of La Mañana will be as well informed as the editor of La Epoca, as their paper is also owned by a Cabinet Minister (Fr. Garcia Prieto). The editor of La Ac- ción will have the confidence of the Prime Minister or his party leaders, while editors of España, Los Aliados and other energetic publications will have a combination of sources of information that are invaluable. I lay stress on these points to emphasize the advisability from on Intelligence standpoint to have all these sources of information at our command. The value of Sr. Vivero to us is, that he is in contact with those elements in the Government opposed to the Conservatives under the leadership of Sr. Dato. For safe information about Sr. Dato, we must rely on the Marquis of Valdeigliesias. For criticisms of Dato’s policies we must go to the editor of El Diario Universal (Sr. Daniel Lopez) and for information affecting both of these ministers and parties, El Mundo and El Pais are our best sources of information.13

The publisher surmised that disseminating large amounts of U.S. propaganda in Spanish newspapers was untenable given the plethora of periodicals, each with its own small, thin, political sliver of readership. He understood that newspapers in Spain were generally considered political organs, each with its distinctive agenda and propaganda to promote. Some were the mouthpieces of financial and commercial interests, others of the church, and several were owned outright by Germany. Rea noted that the Republicans, Socialists, Liberals, Carlists, Reformists, Catalan Nationalists, and Basques each had their respective media organs. In fact, the country was “cursed with a plague of newspapers,” he said.14 Despite the number of Spanish periodicals, Rea felt that Marion had failed to promote U.S. propaganda in any of them, and that the reason he had not succeeded was because the publishers of some of Spain’s foremost newspapers did not even know the CPI existed. One prominent paper that had not heard of Marion was El Sol. The publisher of the paper was Manuel Aznar Zubigaray. Rea asked Aznar his frank opinion of U.S. publicity methods during a meeting one autumn evening. Aznar responded that the propaganda he read “was so defective, he was loathe to give it comment.”15 Aznar also told Rea he had never seen or spoken with Marion and knew him only by hearsay. “The office of El Sol had never received any communication or information of any kind from the representatives of the Committee of Public Information.”16 After commenting on Marion and the CPI, Rea later recalled, Aznar paused in thought for a moment and recalled a bizarre incident. A boy had called to see him about a month previously, saying he had come as an assistant to Marion to request that El Sol publish an article. Aznar thought it strange that the United States would send a boy to request such a favor. The Allied Propagandist 127

The boy handed the newspaper chief a square blue envelope addressed simply to Sr. Aznar. On inspection, Aznar noticed that the envelope had been torn. He accused the boy of opening the envelope, but the boy responded that he had been given the message opened. Aznar pulled out a square piece of mimeographed paper, looked at it for a second and was about to toss the message in the trash when he realized he was staring at an accounting of military operations on the U.S. front lines. Publishing such information could be dangerous for the Americans as well the Spanish government. Aznar thought Marion’s methods of communicating were strange indeed.17 Like his colleague at El Sol, El Mundo’s Cuban born Director Augusto Vi- vero Rodriguez de Tudela had never met Marion.18 Vivero knew that Marion was the head of a U.S. publicity office in Madrid, but he had never made a common courtesy call. Such calls were considered important in Spanish business etiquette. Rea stated that “American ignoring of friendly Spanish editors, was a lack of appreciation, which hurt their finer sensibilities.”19 Meanwhile members of the German Austro-Hungarian Bank had been courting Vivero with numerous courtesy calls in an effort to take financial control of El Mundo. Marion’s ignorance of Spanish business culture and etiquette was costing the United States “simpaticas,” according to Rea. Numer- ous writers on the payroll of the CPI had approached Vivero hoping to publish articles on U.S. ideals and intervention, but the Spanish editors deemed all the writing second-rate and unprintable. The director of El Mundo believed the CPI should pay Spanish journalists a hundred pesetas an article to write stories, and Rea fully agreed. Rea said payment

would be appreciated by the editors who have written those same articles for four years without remuneration or expectation of favors. For four years these friendly editors have been ignored and slighted, their sensibilities wounded by our lack of tact and appreciation. This is now rubbed in by going over their heads and secretly pay [sic] hack writers to produce articles, that the latter have to beg editors to publish for them.20

Rea added that while subsidizing the Spanish press was not exactly ethical, it was a common practice and a practical approach to get Allied propaganda published. Rea said that Aznar

admits the force of my arguments against the United States corrupting the press of Spain by subsidies, but, like all good newspapermen, he naturally feels that there ought to be some practical way in which the Allies can show appreciation of the cordial, whole hearted espousal of their ideals by those Spanish papers, who, because of their adherence to principles, are suffering financially in competition with a highly subsidized enemy press.21 128 Chapter Twelve

Rea not only believed in paying to publish propaganda in newspapers, but he also paid to access contacts. For example, Vivero introduced Rea to numerous journalists and leaders of the Republican movement in Spain, who provided Rea with useful intelligence, and although Vivero never asked for money, Rea subtly paid for Vivero’s time.

The little money disbursed by me in this direction has been given as a personal appreciation of his great assistance in providing me with confidential information. It is not in the nature of a salary. To smooth this over, I have asked him to accept the money as payment for special articles I have asked him to personally write for me. I know that he deeply appreciates what little we have done to aug- ment his rather small salary.22

Rea readily admitted paying Spanish editors to write pro-U.S. articles and gather intelligence and did not believe that he had overstepped his boundaries. Nevertheless, he had overstepped the limits of his position as a mid-level intelligence officer whose job was to gather information from contacts and Spanish papers and write summaries of his findings in weekly reports sent to Washington D.C. Marion was solely responsible for the propaganda disseminated in Spanish newspapers, and Rea did not have permission to use military funds to hire journalists to write articles for the CPI. It wasn’t long before Rea and Marion were at loggerheads. Marion marched over to see John Lang, the military attaché in Madrid, in a greatly excited state one autumn day in 1918 after reading Rea’s weekly digest of the news. Marion was upset because the report never mentioned any of the material he had sent to the Spanish press. Lang didn’t quite understand Marion’s concern because after all, Rea was supposed to report on the pro- German side of the newspapers in Madrid and on gathering national intelligence. Lang defended Rea because he felt the U.S. military intelligence office did not want Rea to rehash pro-U.S. articles Creel obtained from his writers in Washington, which were “more or less designed to convince the Spaniards of our altruistic principles and our power.” Lang felt Marion was seeking notoriety. He told the chief of military intelligence that “I may be wrong in my opinion, but it looks to me as if Mr. Marion is more interested in getting credit for what he gives the papers than in anything else.”23 It was not easy for Major Lang to defend Rea because the assistant attaché was continually getting himself into trouble over money. In one incident, Rea was to escort two German contacts to Giron. Captain Wilson Foss, another assistant attaché, gave Rea 4,000 pesetas to cover the cost of the trip and told Rea to keep a strict accounting of his expenditures. On returning, Rea’s expenses only accounted for half the money spent, which included payments to both agents. When Foss asked Rea for the rest, Rea said he didn’t have it, The Allied Propagandist 129 but promised he would pay the two thousand pesetas back from his next paycheck. Rea wrote a personal check for one hundred pounds as prepayment. Foss put the check in the military vault. According to Foss, when Rea got his salary, he requested his personal check be returned to him, but then never remunerated the promised funds. When asked, Rea said his personal check was still in the safe. Another incident over money occurred while Foss and Lang were waiting to board a train for France. Rea had accompanied them to the station. While they were waiting, Rea asked Foss for money. Foss told Rea,

“The Exchequer is dry, but if you want me to lend you 1000 pts I should be very glad to do so.” “Never mind. I have personal funds of my own to tide me over.” Rea responded bitterly.24

Foss knew that offering Rea a personal loan was different than offering to give him money from military coffers. A personal loan was a debt of honor between gentlemen, whereas government money was often a grey mixture of salary owed and expense tallies paid. Technically, Foss was Rea’s superior because he was senior assistant to the military attaché. Foss controlled all the military funds because he was the office accountant as well as the code-breaker. Rea seemed to resent Foss’s superior standing and felt Foss was withholding money. In the latter Rea was justified. Rea had not been paid a salary in almost six weeks, and the office till was down to thirty-five cents. Rea had been forced to borrow money from a bank on his personal credit. Rea could not help but wonder how Lang and Foss managed to pay their train tickets to France. The money must be coming from somewhere, he thought, and assumed Foss was the source.25 When Lang and Foss left for Paris, Rea felt doubly insulted. First he was denied money owed him. Second, it was made clear to Rea that he was not trusted to be in charge of the office, even though the command should have transferred to him in the absence of his superiors. Yet during their absence, Lang and Foss forbade the clerks from opening any mail and coded telegrams awaited Foss’s return. Far from being given authority, Rea was basically dismissed. Lang ordered Rea to write a report about the Spanish Army, but after he was given leave to travel where he wished. Rea fumed at being left in charge of an office he could not run.

I occupy the position of being the accredited assistant to the Military Attaché here, with no authority to exercise the functions. The office of the Military At- taché in Spain ceases to function with the departure of Major Lang and Captain Foss. Aside from the personal humiliation of the remarkable condition, such an arrangement is most unbusiness-like.26 130 Chapter Twelve

What Rea didn’t know was that Foss and Lang were on their way to France to discuss the possibility of eliminating the CPI bureau in Madrid altogether, in part because Rea’s military reports were not being received well in Wash- ington D.C. According to Washington, “Rea has been forwarding some ‘queer’ reports.”27 “Queer” was an adjective that in fact understated the nature of Rea’s often ludicrous, long-winded diatribes, which in no way summarized Spanish politics on a weekly basis. One report contained pure anti-monarchal propaganda that was worse than the inflammatory yellow press Rea had attacked twenty years previously.

BREAD!!! BREAD!!! BREAD!!! GIVE US B-R-E-A-D. The raucous voices of thundered outside the palace gates of Versailles. If they have no Bread, let them eat Cake”, was the answer of Bourbons in 1790, to the prayer of the starving French multitudes. Hearing, they hear not, and returned to their vices and pleasures. . . . BREAD!!! BREAD!!! BREAD!!! GIVE US BREAD. The cry of anguish is now being heard by nearly every district of Spain, Instead of Cake, the last reigning survivor of the House of Bourbon answers the prayer of his People with pellets and LEAD. The pleadings of the mothers and wives for the right to live, the manifestations of Hunger, the cries of the Poor, the mutterings of the Idle, are not heard in Spain by the Bourbon, and his pleasure seeking Court, dawdling away the summer at the gay seaside resorts of the Cantabrien coast. The pleas of the miserable of carried to the ears of the cold, stern merciless defenders of the Throne, the Bulwark of the Regime, the mainstay of autocracy. The Army, the Civil Guards of Spain, alone have ears to hear. The prayers of the masses are heard—and answered—with BULLETS.28

After raving against the Bourbons, Rea switched topics completely to Spanish wheat production. After wheat production, he moved on to the crisis of coal. The magazine publisher typed on and on, single-spaced for more than twenty pages. He ended as he began with more diatribes against the Bourbon Court. So went the weekly reports. Instead of three-page news digests of Spanish politics, Rea wrote tomes, as he often had done for the Far Eastern Review, with long-winded, fiery editorials followed by lengthy reports on production and commerce. And yet, often deep within the reports, there was clearly a facile mind at work. Rea pinpointed, for example, that the French were omitting key economic information that would show how vulnerable Spain was to acquiesc- ing to a German request for an alliance. He asserted that Spain’s decision to enter the war could be determined by its exports, adding, “No economic report can be accurate without the figures of export over the French border.” Rea further claimed, “If the observer sitting here in Madrid could have these figures placed before him, he could determine almost to a week when the real The Allied Propagandist 131 pinch would come in this country. These figures, however, seem to be close diplomatic secrets of the Allied Governments.”29 “Could we not tell him we want the facts in his reports and not ravings?” asked one military intelligence official.30 General Marlborough Churchill’s response to reading Rea’s reports was to reprimand Major Lang for allowing Rea to try to publish articles that could potentially incite revolution against the Spanish monarchy. He told Lang to speak with his captain about his alarmist tone, saying the reports held a “very aggressive position in propaganda matters. . . . I have read one or two of his articles which are certainly inflammatory. Spain is a Monarchy, and it is not proper for any one connected with our embassy to try and make her a Democracy.”31 Yet when Lang asked Rea to moderate the sensationalist, alarmist tone of his news reports, Rea responded by doing the opposite. He was never one to do as he was bidden, not even as a boy, and he chafed at the routine tasks Major Lang gave him to do. Rea also refused to do any of the clerical work, such as learning the codebooks so as to be able to decipher cables, and refused to work in the office at all, stating that he needed complete quiet to write. He therefore typed and entertained from his apartment that he shared with a coworker named George Dorsey just half a kilometer away from the U.S. Embassy. After Lang reprimanded him, Rea wrote to his superiors complaining bitterly about the conditions in the Madrid office. He wrote to Colonel D. E. Nolan, the Assistant Chief of Staff of the Armed Military Forces, over the lack of pay, and how Rea “was considered by Major Lang in a light most offensive.” When the letter was forwarded up the command chain, the Chief of Staff immediately felt something wasn’t right. The chief had met Lang at the War College on several occasions and saw the Major as “a straight- forward modest officer.”32 Lang was in fact a man indoctrinated into military rules and regulations, to whom Rea seemed like a bull in a china closet. He called Rea a man who “leapt before he looked.” In his response to Rea’s complaint against him, Lang reported that Rea kept no office hours at the U.S. Embassy and that he had practically refused to write the weekly digest assigned to him, stating it was beneath his dignity. What was more, Lang said, Rea neither knew nor cared for office regulations and that his response to Lang’s commands that he follow them was: “Oh to hell with regulations, I don’t know anything about them, and they don’t amount to anything in war time.”33 Lang described Rea as “a long winded talker, somewhat given to repetition,” with an irritating egoism, which Lang tolerated because Rea was “elderly.” He said Rea chafed at any routine duty. For example, Rea had complained about having to do code-work because he believed that mundane routine and dignity could never sleep together. Lang made sure Rea was not assigned code-work again.34 132 Chapter Twelve

However, after Rea filed the complaint, Lang threatened to have Rea court-martialed under the Espionage Act for not following military protocols in writing a complaint to Washington. Soon after Rea wrote his letter of complaint, Lang came up for promotion but was denied it. He blamed Rea, so in turn when Rea came up for promotion, Lang did not write the required letter of recommendation. The military attaché did, however, write a promotion for Captain Foss. Yet Foss was having his own troubles getting promoted because of a fight he had gotten into with the First Secretary of the U.S. Embassy in Spain. The fight embodied the frustrations of everyone working at the U.S. Embassy and military attachés office. It was two days after Christmas. Foss and his colleague, Dorsey, were playing cards when Dorsey asked a question regarding the Embassy secretary.

“Foss, what has Magruder got against you?” “I don’t know, why?” Foss responded. “Because he has been saying things about you which have given me a good deal of thought, and I have come to the conclusion that you ought to know them.”

According to Dorsey, Magruder had recently told Mr. Grimes of the passport office: “Foss is one of these swivel-chair soldiers any way, sitting down on a soft job behind a desk in Madrid, so as to get out of fighting at the front where he belongs. He probably has some big politicians in the States, who by a little graft or pull got him this job down here so he wouldn’t have to go to the front and fight.”35 The young assistant instantly became upset and was no calmer the next day. He stormed over to the Embassy to see the U.S. Ambassador about First Secretary Magruder, only to be told neither was in. Foss then went to see the head clerk in the passport office. When Grimes confirmed the conversation, adding that according to Magruder, it was probably Foss’s father who had pulled the strings for his son, Foss was further inflamed. He determined he would give Magruder two options: write a retraction of his oral statements or be beaten to a pulp. Amid the pervasive propaganda of the day urging citizens to enlist in the war for democracy, there was nothing worse than being called a “slacker,” who had pulled in political favors to get himself a desk job. Foss was one of the rare younger Americans in a diplomatic post in a neutral country, while others his age were dying on the front lines. At 4:30 in the afternoon, when Foss learned that Magruder had arrived in the building, he rushed directly to his office to confront him but found the door locked. One of the servants told Foss to go around through the hall to another door, which was open. Foss walked down the hall and opened the door without knocking. Magruder was dictating to a stenographer. The Allied Propagandist 133

“Leave the room.” Foss commanded the stenographer, who quickly scurried away. “Did you or did you not make such a statement?” Foss began, and repeated the conversation he had heard. “I refuse to answer.” Magruder said. “Then will you put in writing a statement to the effect that you either did say this, or take it back if you said it?” “I will not.” “Then stand up because you are going to get a licking.”

Foss commenced to hit Magruder, knocking him and a chair to the floor. He continued punching hard and as often as he could until the stenographer and several other servants pulled Foss away. Magruder came scratching back from the floor, pinching one of Foss’s fingers while trying to bite another. Cursing and yelling, Foss broke away from the men who’d held him back and attacked Magruder again, but he was hauled off by an ever-increasing number of bystanders. As the war approached its end, all the Allied propagandists in Madrid were miserable. Lang felt his promotion had been denied because of Rea’s insubordination. Rea in turn felt belittled, unappreciated, and dismissed by Lang. Foss was accused of shirking the war. Magruder was bruised and battered. In a world where millions were battling for their lives in a ghastly world war, these four created enemies from allies, which culminated in a somewhat farcical fistfight. All three asked for reassignments. Foss requested to be relieved of his duties and “be given active duty with the A.E.F. in France.”36 The military relinquished his position as assistant military attaché and ordered him to leave Spain for punching the Secretary of the Embassy. Rea requested a transfer to the general headquarters in France to cover and assist with Far Eastern matters. The U.S. government dissolved the intelligence gathering and propaganda publishing office in Madrid, and the United States’s first government- sponsored propaganda campaign for war came to an end. The CPI eventually closed its doors after eighteen months of operation in June 1919.37 Rea’s propaganda writing during the war seems that of a manic man. His weekly digests of Spanish intelligence at times went on for more than twenty pages, single-spaced on legal sized paper. Some of the information seemed more like tabloid propaganda for a revolution against the Spanish monarchy than military intelligence reports. A typical man who felt the job of writing weekly news digest reports beneath him might have sufficed to write as little as possible by reporting the facts in a concise two-page report. 134 Chapter Twelve

In fact, that is exactly what the military wanted Rea to do. Yet Rea did the complete opposite. His writing seemed a way to vent his frustration, and thus, he wrote angry, passionate tomes, instead of news digests. It leads one to question: Why? The most plausible reasons seem that Rea was still bitter over not be able to fund and build his national railroad in China. His life ambition was to become a man of wealth and influence, and he was still smarting at having lost a goldmine of an opportunity. One unforeseen result of Rea’s leaving China was his magazine business faltered, which opened the door for two men to begin a new magazine in Shanghai in direct competition to Rea’s Far Eastern Review.

NOTES

1. George Creel, How We Advertised America (New York: Harper and Broth- ers, 1920), xiii, accessed February 12, 2017, http://archive.org/stream/howweadvert ameri00creerich/howweadvertameri00creerich_djvu.txt. 2. Creel, How We Advertised America, 7. 3. Creel, How We Advertised America, 237. 4. Creel, How We Advertised America, 240. 5. George Bronson Rea, Letter to the Military Attaché, Madrid, “Personal Im- pressions on the Situation in Spain,” May 25, 1918, File 1145, Roll 2A, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 6. George Bronson Rea, Letter to Colonial D. V. Nolan, Chief Intelligence Sec- tion, A.E.F., Subject: “Inadequacy of Expenses Allowed for Political Work in Spain: Synopsis of General Situation in Spain,” April 27, 1918, File 2252, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 7. Creel, How We Advertised America, 339. 8. Rea, Letter to D. V. Nolan, April 27, 1918. 9. John Patrick Finnegan, Military Intelligence (Washington, DC: Army Lineage Series Center of Military History, U.S. Army, 1998), www.history.army.mil/books/ Lineage/mi/ch2.htm (access via https://archive.org/web/). 10. Finnegan, Military Intelligence. 11. George Bronson Rea, Memorandum re: Interview with Augusto Vivero, Octo- ber 4, 1918, Microfiche 1445, Roll 2B, National Archives and Records Administra- tion, College Park, MD. 12. Rea, Letter to D. V. Nolan, April 27, 1918. 13. Rea, Memorandum re: Interview with Augusto Vivero, October 4, 1918. 14. George Bronson Rea, Personal Impressions on the Situation in Spain, May 25, 1918, Microfiche 1445, Roll 2A, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 15. George Bronson Rea, Letter to Manuel Aznar Zubigaray, October 4, 1918, Microfiche 1445, Roll 2B, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. The Allied Propagandist 135

16. Rea, Letter to Aznar Zubigaray, October 4, 1918. 17. Rea, Letter to Aznar Zubigaray, October 4, 1918. 18. The El Mundo newspaper of 1919 was a Spanish paper begun in 1907 and published until 1933—not to be confused with the paper published in the twenty-first century with the same name. 19. Rea, Memorandum re: Interview with Augusto Vivero, October 4, 1918, p. 2. 20. Rea, Memorandum re: Interview with Augosto Vivero, October 4, 1918, p. 3. 21. Rea, Memorandum re: Interview with Augosto Vivero, October 4, 1918, p. 3. 22. Rea, Memorandum re: Interview with Augosto Vivero, October 4, 1918, p. 3. 23. John Lang, Military Attaché Madrid Spain to Chief Military Intelligence Branch, W.D.C., Memo Re: Weekly Digest of News, September 6, 1918, Microfiche 1445, Roll 2A, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 24. Wilson P. Foss, Memorandum to Major Lang, November 11, 1918, File 2256, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 25. George Bronson Rea, Letter to Colonial D. E. Nolan, Assistant Chief of Staff, G.H.Q A.E.F, August 16, 1918, Enclosed within letter from Director of Military Intel- ligence to American Military Attache, Madrid, Spain, September 23, 1918, File 2256- 32, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 26. Rea, Letter to D. E. Nolan, September 23, 1918. 27. Chief W. F. Martin, M.I.5, Note to Captain Crawford, Capt. DeWitt, Capt. Slaughter, Captain Townsend, Capt. Kenyon, Lieut. Weeley, General Churchill, Sep- tember 21, 1918, Microfiche 1445, Roll 2A, National Archives and Records Admin- istration, College Park, MD. 28. Rea, Personal Impressions on the Situation in Spain, May 25, 1918. 29. Rea, Personal Impressions on the Situation in Spain, May 25, 1918. 30. Lieutenant Wilson, Office of Chief of Staff, September 21, 1918, Microfiche 1445, Roll 2A, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 31. General M. Churchill, Memorandum for M.I.5, October 29, 1918, Microfiche 2256, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 32. Martin, M.I.5, Note to Crawford, September 21, 1918. 33. John M. Dunn, Acting Director of Military Intelligence, Re: Transfer of Major Lang, December 6, 1918, Microfiche 2256, National Archives and Records Adminis- tration, College Park, MD. 34. Dunn, Re: Transfer of Lang, December 6, 1918. 35. Wilson P. Foss, Memorandum to Major Lang, January 6, 1918, File 2256, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 36. Wilson P. Foss, Letter to Adjutant General of the Army W.D.C. re: Active service with troops, July 12, 1918, File 2256, National Archives and Records Admin- istration, College Park, MD. 37. Creel, How We Advertised America.

Chapter Thirteen

The Competition

John B. Powell recalled that it was raining when he stepped off a small cargo boat in Shanghai in early February 1917. The boat had docked near the buildings of the Bund, an area that ran alongside a noisy ship-filled, sluggish Huangpu River. A scrawny baggage handler ran up to the young reporter and, despite having small bony shoulders, lifted the large trunk with ease. Pow- ell carried his own suitcase. Two rickshaw drivers approached him offering human-pulled wheeled transport, but Powell found the idea of being carted by humans objectionable, so despite the downpour, decided to stretch his long legs and walk to the Astor House Hotel instead. In 1917, Shanghai had more than 1.5 million people, but not one paved sidewalk. The dirt streets were narrow, filled with water rivulets, broken stones, and clay.1 It is likely that while getting soaked walking down unfamiliar, muddy streets in the rain, Powell was thinking about his upcoming interview to become assistant editor for Shanghai’s newest foreign-language newspaper. Powell had graduated from the Missouri School of Journalism, established by Joseph Pulitzer in 1908, with a Bachelor’s degree. The belief behind the formation of the school was that journalists needed qualifications, professionalism, and experience to report the news. The college espoused the “Missouri Method” whereby students studied aspects of reporting and advertising in classrooms and gained hands-on experience as journalists by publishing a daily newspaper.2 Powell was a Missouri-born farm boy, who had earned money by delivering two newspaper routes daily rain or shine. He had worked his way up from delivery boy to cub reporter to college graduate, and finally became a professor at the college where he had studied. Publisher Thomas Millard had cabled the Dean of the Missouri School of Journalism seeking a qualified man to help start a new newspaper in Shanghai. The dean recommended

137 138 Chapter Thirteen their graduate-turned-faculty member, Powell. When the junior professor of journalism set foot on the docks of Shanghai for the first time, he knew only what he had read in two books, Chinese Characteristics and Village Life in China, which were the only books about China available at his local library.3 The Astor House Hotel, originally Richards’ Hotel, was the first Western hotel in Shanghai. Considered by some to be one of the most famous and luxurious hotels in the world, it is still a landmark. In 1917, the Astor House was a large grey structure of brick and four stories tall—in an era when tall- est building in the area was no more than six stories high. Its rooms, suites and apartments encompassed an entire city block and were linked together by lengthy corridors painted to resemble passageways on a cruise ship. In the center of the large building was a courtyard where live music played every evening. Dinner was formal dress. The building was located in the Interna- tional Settlement, a part of the city designated to accommodate foreign commerce by the Treaty of Nanking that had ended the first Opium War. Powell asked at the front desk where he could find Millard, a hotel resident and was told to sit and wait. In 1917, Millard was establishing his second foreign-language newspaper in Shanghai to be titled Millard’s Review. It had taken him six years to recover from having folded his first newspaper after circulation success led to it being squashed financially by British competition. Plans for Millard’s new endeavor were still preliminary. The paper was incorporated in Delaware. On February 8, Millard filed a certificate of incorporation creating the Millard Publishing Company at the Consul-General in Shanghai. Millard bought a printing press and paper and now needed staff. Powell had made the voyage from Missouri to China in hopes of being put in charge of organizing the operations of the new weekly paper and of becoming assistant editor once the paper was up and running. A short, slender Millard walked down the stairs into the Astor House Hotel lobby. Powell described Millard as weighing no more than 125 pounds and as so perfectly dressed he wondered how Millard kept his suit from wrin- kling. Powell introduced himself. Millard said he was headed for “tiffin,” the traditional Chinese afternoon social gathering and invited his prospective new employee along. Powell, who grew up in a “dry local-option” state three years before the United States’s experiment with prohibition, was surprised to discover that the Chinese version of English afternoon tea consisted mostly of dry martinis and whisky-sodas. After tiffin, Millard told Powell to rent a hotel room, seeming to imply that the Missouri School journalist had passed his interview for the job. A room was obtained in an area called “the steerage,” a name that infers the location of the smallest, cheapest rooms. The cost was sixty dollars in U.S. currency per month, which included meals, but not bathrooms or running water. Not The Competition 139 even the most expensive suite in the hotel had them. In those days, only two buildings in the International Settlement had a sewage system and plumb- ing. Both were located in the Bund, but the Astor House Hotel was not one of them. Indoor toilets were even considered unhealthy, and besides which, wasted $50,000 U.S. dollars in foreign fertilizer revenue yearly.4 A weekly paper was a novel concept in this era. Time, the first news- weekly in the United States, wasn’t founded until 1923. Millard chose titles for both of his publications that came as close as possible without violating copyrights to those of his chief competitors. The China Press, the daily he began in 1911, sounded like a shortened version of the North China Daily Press. Millard’s Review, which the publisher consistently referred to as the “Review” was a direct slap-in-the-face challenge to another Review; namely, the only U.S.-owned magazine covering commerce, economics, finance, and politics throughout Asia since 1904, Rea’s the Far Eastern Review. Millard’s Review contained similar economic and commerce data, albeit without as much detail and without pictures. Although smaller in size, it was published and read four times as frequently as Rea’s monthly periodical. Because they published weekly, Millard and Powell covered more recent current events and breaking news. Millard’s Review published editorials in complete contrast to other foreign publications in China, even going so far as to express heartfelt support for the Socialist Kuomintang party—in Powell’s words, “one of the world’s great political parties.” The newspaper also supported liberal, stridently anti-Japanese editorial opinions, which reflected more of the opinions of many in China. Millard may have been small in physical stature, but he was famous for boldly stating that he would include in his paper, “Anything we damn please.”5 Rea had sailed to New York to file for divorce when the first issue of Mil- lard’s Review came off the press and landed with a bang on June 9, 1917. Powell had met an official working for Charles S. Lobingier, the presiding U.S. Court Judge for China in the International Settlement area, who had advised Powell that if he held off publication of his first edition a week, he could get an exclusive on a monumental decision by the judge. Powell agreed, and thus Millard’s Review was the first to report on Judge Lobingier’s decision to prevent “loose incorporations” and “reckless mergers” by a commercial minded American adventurist from California named Frank Raven. Raven, a business entrepreneur, had started a real estate company to develop a new subdivision in the International Settlement area of Shanghai to be called “Columbia Circle.” He also launched a number of financial ventures, including The American-Oriental Banking Corporation, American Finance Company, and Raven Trust Company to collect money for development. Raven seduced clientele investment through clever advertising and through 140 Chapter Thirteen

“influence in local affairs, on occasion even dominating official policies of the American Consul and Minister.”6 Judge Lobingier’s decision effectively quashed Raven’s real estate scheme. Many foreigners suffered financial loss because thousands had deposited money in Raven’s venture. As a result, the judge received a lot criticism over the decision. Yet the sensational story put Millard’s Review on the media map in China. From then on, Millard’s Review continued to publish Judge Lob- ingier’s court decisions. According to Rea, the judge had given Millard’s Review exclusive rights by making the paper

the official organ of the U.S. Court in China being given the exclusion [sic] privilege of publishing the Court’s decision and judicial papers. The judge personally corrected proofs before going to press and made an arrangement to hold the type in order to print the official record. It may not have been technically an official organ, but for all practical purposes, it was, and was accepted as such by the community.7

In retaliation for Millard’s Review’s connections to Judge Lobingier, Rea threatened to publish a story linking the judge to the owner of Shanghai’s most-notorious gambling house. Rea had traced the financiers of Millard’s Review and had discovered links to gambling money. Because the judge was using Millard’s Review to publish official notifications, he was also implicated in the gambling connection. In a meeting between the two, Rea told Judge Lobingier that Millard’s Review was originally the result of the incorporation of shareholders, T. F. Millard, J. B. Powell, Thomas Jernigan, and Stirling Fessenden. The two last men were considered China’s most prominent U.S. lawyers. One of their clients was a man named Mr. Price, who was from the same town in Missouri as Millard. According to Rea, there was “sufficient evidence” that the lawyers held their principal shares of the newspaper publishing company in trust for Mr. Price, who Rea accused of being “the most notorious gambling house operator that ever came to China.”8 “Now, if Mr. Fessenden as the principal shareholder held these shares in trust for Mr. Price, the Court has been placed in a most undignified and embarrass- ing position,” Rea added.9 Rea was muckraking, not to mention blackmailing a judge, and the media war had only begun. In 1918 Millard had accused the Far Eastern Review of being a British political organ. This upset an already precarious political apple cart as the British and the United States competed for business interests in China. In a letter to General M. Churchill, Rea explained:

During my absence from my private business, some one has been doing his best to discredit The Far Eastern Review in the eyes of the Americans by circulating The Competition 141

reports that it had passed into British hands. An official report to this effect was published in one of the special Commerce Reports, which has caused me to lose considerable American business. I gather from friends that Mr. T. F. Millard who was engaged in publicity work for the C.P.I. in China is responsible for these reports sent in officially, and, after the publication of the special Commerce Report, he immediately republished it in his paper in Shanghai, without even asking us over the phone whether it was true or not.”10

William Henry Donald had been editor of the Far Eastern Review since Rea began brokering international railroad loans under Sun Yat-sen. Donald sympathized with Chinese nationalists and sided with the students in protests against Japan. The magazine’s editorials and stories reflected Donald’s nationalistic views. When Rea left for Spain to work as the assistant military attaché in 1917, he had reduced his interest in the ownership of his magazine by selling 25 percent to Donald, a native of Australia. Great Britain had colonized Australia, but only until the turn of the twentieth century, when the Commonwealth of Australia was born. The United Kingdom still represented Australia in foreign conferences, however. This was the basis for Millard’s Review’s story saying that “British financial interests” backed the Far Eastern Review. Several other papers followed suit, basically echoing Millard’s charge.11 Given the poor state of China’s relations with the British, the story lowered Rea and Donald’s standing with nationalist Chinese officials whom they interviewed and wrote about, as well as Chinese financial support. Donald had a long history as a China expert. The son of a prominent Aus- tralian building contractor, born in 1876, he had learned to be printer by trade. He had arrived in Hong Kong in 1903, just before Rea began publishing the Far Eastern Review and had worked as a reporter for the China Mail, an afternoon paper. He then worked for the Daily Telegraph for two years and then returned to the China Mail to take a position as editor. At twenty-seven years of age, Donald had never had a drink in his life and doubted he ever would. He did, however, smoke at least a dozen cigars a day, which eventually left him completely without a sense of smell. He married an Australian woman in Hong Kong in 1905 and had a daughter a few years later. However, his wife left him, taking their daughter with her, seven years later, stating that Donald “was married more to China” more than to her. Despite being devoted to China, however, during all his years in the country Donald consistently refused to eat Chinese food in any form, insisting on a steadfast diet of rare steak and boiled potatoes.12 Before the First World War, Rea and Donald held remarkably similar views on China. The two probably met while both were devotedly working for Sun. 142 Chapter Thirteen

Donald worked for the student boycott movement; Rea worked to get international financing for railroads. Both felt that China needed economic moderniza- tion and that Sun and his principles for a new Chinese republic were the best route to that end. Donald, like Rea, was capable of absorbing vast amounts of economic and political information. And both were gifted at absorbing reams of data needed to write articles on economics, trade, and commerce. Donald and Rea even resembled each other. Both were tall, thin, blue-eyed men of Anglo-Saxon heritage. Rea, however, had gone almost bald, while Donald kept a full head of hair all his life, which he confessed to tinting after an illness and high fever he’d suffered as a young man in China had turned it completely white. Both men also had an extraordinarily inflated sense of their own self- worth. Donald’s hubris abounds in his biography, Donald of China, based exclusively on interviews with Donald at the end of his life, when he was riddled with cancer. Donald considered himself bold, independent, and completely indispensable to the Chinese Republic. He claimed that Sun always insisted on having Donald sit next to him at social events to ask for advice. If you believe everything in the biography, Donald should have been named Father of the Revolution instead of Sun. Nevertheless, Donald was an influential foreign advisor, devoted morally in principle to the Chinese and to their need for revolutionary reform. Beginning with Powell’s arrival in 1917, and the ascension of Millard’s Review, there was an emerging schism in the foreign press in Shanghai, which would grow into a bitter rivalry. Donald, Millard, and Powell deeply sympathized with China’s growing anti-imperialist and nationalist movements. They became devoted Sinophiles, whereas Rea continued to appreciate China for opposing reasons, mainly for its potential for international investment opportunities. Yet by moving to Spain, Rea absented himself from China and its politics. He was not in China to see firsthand the growing strength of China’s nationalist movement. He also gave up the daily running of his periodical. This created a vacuum in the foreign press, which was quickly filled by Mil- lard’s Review. At first, Rea did not seem to care. China never held his heart. If he could have, Rea probably would have left China permanently for Spain. Something about the Spanish character had touched him since the Span- ish–American War. Perhaps he felt a kinship with their sense of pride, their passion, or an attraction to the fine European features of their people. There was one reason in particular that made Rea fond of Spain; he had fallen pas- sionately in love with a young Spanish woman—a woman he would go to extraordinary lengths to call his own. The Competition 143

NOTES

1. Powell, My 25 Years in China. 2. “Missouri School of Journalism,” Wikipedia. 3. Powell, My 25 Years in China. 4. Powell, My 25 Years in China. 5. Powell, My 25 Years in China. 6. Powell, My 25 Years in China. 7. George Bronson Rea, Letter to Cyrus Woods, American Ambassador, Tokyo, Japan, April 7, 1924, p. 4, M423 Roll 2, National Archives and Records Administra- tion, College Park, MD. 8. Rea, Letter to Cyrus Woods, April 7, 1924. 9. Rea, Letter to Cyrus Woods, April 7, 1924. 10. George Bronson Rea, Letter to General M. Churchill, Marlborough, Septem- ber 9, 1919, File 1766-511, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 11. Frederick B. Hoyt, “George Bronson Rea: From Old China Hand to Apologist for Japan,” Pacific Northwest Quarterly 69, no. 2 (April 1978). 12. Selle, Donald of China.

Chapter Fourteen

Love and Influenza

In their home on a hillside of the Sierra Nevada Mountains near Granada, Spain, Frances Ruiz-Morón and her sister Henrietta were packing their trunks to flee to France. The young women were petite in stature and could easily stand inside the open, standing trunk that were commonly used for travel at the time. They hung their dresses on brass rods and placed their toiletries and shoes in the soft, white satin-covered compartments. Passports and cash they carried hidden in travel belts within their clothes. Servants transported the trunks to the station. The family was leaving because of an increase in violence in their area. First riots had broken out in nearby towns. Then on December 1, 1917, hungry workers had stormed the farmhouse of a neighbor, looting their entire winter supply of stored acorns. The Ruiz-Morón family survived the winter, but riots began again with the spring, and the family thought it safer to spend the summer season in France. Besides, Henrietta wanted to see her boyfriend, who was working for the Red Cross in Marseille, an area considered safe from battle. The Spanish sisters were both pretty, petite young women close in age. They resembled each other so much that they could have been twins. Both were tiny in stature. Frances was just five feet tall. Her older sister was only two inches taller. Both were slim and had fair skin. Both had brown hair, though Henrietta’s was lighter. Only their eyes were different. Henrietta’s eyes were blue, whereas Frances had brown eyes. Henrietta was born on Au- gust 28, 1895. Frances was born on April 23, 1897. In 1917, Henrietta would have been twenty-two, and Frances twenty years of age. Although Henrietta was older, it seems Frances was most often the boss. The family was well-to-do: Their father, Juan Ruiz-Morón Cortes, now de- ceased, had been a lawyer by education, though it appears he hadn’t practiced

145 146 Chapter Fourteen in years. Their mother, Gertrude Frances Dayton, was an American from San Francisco, California. They had servants to clean and cook. The girls were not taught how to cook because it was considered servile, but both were schooled privately with tutors and had learned English and French. Frances was going to miss her home at the foot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The house was a long, single-story, white-washed rectangular structure with a terracotta red clay roof. The house was built like a train, with rooms added like boxcars over the years. Each room had a door opening to the outside and a window with a view of the highest mountains in Spain in the distance. Inside, the ceilings were low and held up with large exposed dark wood posts and beams which contrasted with the whitewashed walls and ceilings. The place was nicely furnished, and there was a good-size collection of reading material in different languages. Frances’s favorite reading material as a child was a complete set of leather- bound books by Charles Dickens in English. She liked to read, but she loved being outdoors more. She liked to wander outside to a nearby stream that ran alongside her house where she would lie flat on her stomach, bend her head and suck the crisp, fresh water into her mouth. No water in Spain tasted better than the water that flowed from the Sierra Nevada Mountains. She grew up playing in idyllic fields of green grass, trimmed by local goats, tended by herders who brought the animals down from the dry mountain peaks of Sierra Nevada to the verdant valley. The Ruiz-Morón family lived in wealth and comfort in one of the larger and nicer homes set on the hill. While peasants nearby went without food, the women ate chocolates like royalty. Throughout her life, Frances boasted of being a distant relative to the Spanish royal family. However, with food in short supply for commoners, monarchists and plutocrats were prey to hungry peasants, and the three women were increasingly in danger in their idyllic home. Frances was always up for a traveling adventure. She was strong willed, stubborn, and rarely felt fear. Riots surrounded the women as they traveled north. In Seville, more than ten thousand workers filled the streets when they had no coal. They stoned stores and factories and shut down tramways. The Civil Guards, the Infantry, and Cavalry were called in time and again to quell angry strikers, and demonstrations broke out like wildfires in cities and towns across the country.1 When the women arrived in Madrid, they needed visa stamps for two Spaniards and an U.S. citizen to cross the border into France. Their travel plans hinged on the cooperation of one man: George Bronson Rea, a U.S. Army Captain stationed in the city. He was the assistant to the military at- taché, and one of his jobs was dispensing visas for travel to France. Given Spain’s precarious neutral stance in the war, and with so many citizens sym- Love and Influenza 147 pathetic to Germany, civilians were prohibited from crossing from Spain into France’s militarized zone. Stamping the women’s passports would violate military regulations. The only way for the women to cross the border without direct repercussions would be if the captain omitted the women’s names and passport numbers in the official register for arrivals or departures—and this is what happened. The question is: why would the U.S. captain breach military orders for these three women? The answer requires a review of Rea family life, which had been difficult for many years. Rea felt an abiding friendship with his wife Harriet, and she had been a good choice for raising children. (See figure 14.1.) But he had never settled down to family life. He traveled throughout the world for months at a time, seeing his wife and children sometimes only twice a year. It was Christmas morning no matter the day that he’d arrive with trunk loads of presents for everyone because no one was more lavish in giving gifts than Rea. But soon after the gift-wrapping paper was tossed, the bills came, and then the marital disagreements began. Harriet had started drinking too much after the birth of their third child, a daughter named Connie in 1907, which bothered Rea.2 In her defense, for twenty years, Harriet followed Rea, from Brooklyn to Cuba, the Philippines, Shanghai, back to Brooklyn, to Berkeley, back to Manila, then New York. She finally settled down in Fruitvale, California, and

Figure 14.1. George Bronson Rea Family Photo in Shanghai 1911 148 Chapter Fourteen raised three children mostly without the presence of her husband. She listened to Rea’s grand railroad schemes that never came to fruition and felt his Irish temper when they failed. Rea had also not been faithful to his wife and had not been discreet in his liaisons. According to a secret memo from Naval Intelli- gence in Peking, “His reputation in the Far East amongst the Foreign Commu- nity is bad—while his wife and children were in the United States he travelled through the Far East with a Mrs. Turnbull, a notorious Shanghai woman.”3 Harriet was also a devoted mother. She constantly reminded her children to write to their father. She encouraged them to find healthy hobbies to occupy their time, like playing music. Of the three children, the middle child Harry had been the easiest to parent. He adored both his mother and father and was always trying to hold the family together. The eldest son, William, known as Bill, was, however, prone to depression, and as he got older, began drinking. The youngest, Connie, had a wild streak in her that led her eventually to abuse both alcohol and drugs. Nevertheless, Harriet tried her best to care for three children despite drinking a few too many glasses of sherry and even nursed Rea’s ailing mother until she died. She had grown accustomed to living separately from her husband since 1911. It was easier to raise and educate the children in the United States. Traveling around the globe, boarding one ship after another, month after month, year after year had become impossible with three young children in tow. In Fruitvale, Harriet created a permanent home that even included a family dog. She still adored her husband as the one true love of her life and tolerated his absence and infidelity while he pursued his quests for fortune. She had vowed to love her husband until death and was a mother to their children for better or worse. Harriet was thus completely shocked and emotionally devastated when she received divorce documents in the mail in June 1917. Rea had sailed to Oakland, seen a lawyer, and filed divorce papers. He accused his wife of intemperance and of not fulfilling her wifely duties. After filing for divorce, Rea sailed back to Europe, leaving no forwarding address for his wife or children in case of emergency. And there was an emergency. That summer, Rea’s eleven-year-old daughter Connie was severely attacked and mauled by a dog in the street. She was rushed to the hospital and was listed in serious condition. Harriet’s eldest son Bill, who had been honorably discharged from the Navy for a heart condition, had no idea how to contact his father. Harry was the only one who knew his father’s whereabouts, but he was on a military mission with the Navy on board the USS Roanoke sailing toward England and impossible to reach. Harriet wrote to the Chief of Staff in Washington D.C. asking for Rea’s address. Major Van Deman, the man who had given Rea his position as as- Love and Influenza 149 sistant military attaché in Spain, provided minimal assistance. The major said Harriet could write Rea in care of the Washington office, only if she provided a prepaid stamped envelope. “If necessary, and in case of serious matters arising, arrangements can be made to cable Captain Rea at your expense,” the major added.4 Perhaps Rea left for Europe without a forwarding address because his mind was preoccupied. On his way to his job, he had fallen in love with Henrietta Ruiz-Morón, the twenty-two-year-old from Alhama de Granada, Spain. At first he said he felt “paradise” during a world at war but soon realized that was not quite the case. The two had met in 1917 in France and had begun an affair. Etta, as she was nicknamed, had enjoyed their courtship and evenings out, but was not in love with the aging captain. She left Rea for a younger and richer Howard Gould, son of the leading U.S. railroad tycoon and financial mogul Jay Gould. “No man ever treated a woman kinder or with more consideration than I did her, even when I became convinced of her perfidy,” Rea recalled.5

My love for her was the obsession of my life. I adored and worshipped her. She was my Goddess and Queen and all my hopes of happiness in this life and in the Hereafter was centered in her. I always thought that it was only a Dream. It was too much happiness, too much good fortune for any poor mortal to hope for foretaste of Paradise in this world. I placed her before my God, and God has answered me and punished me for the sacrilege.6

Nevertheless when Henrietta arrived at the U.S. Embassy in Madrid to persuade Rea to give visas for her mother and sister, surprisingly, the captain complied. His decision to break military protocol occurred after he set eyes for the first time on Henrietta’s younger sister, Frances. The meeting was three weeks shy of Frances’s birthday on April 23, 1918. Soon after their first encounter, Frances contacted the captain to thank him for creating a safe passage for them. When Frances and her mother returned to Spain, Rea called on the family without invitation to invite Frances out for a day in Spain’s capital. The two spent a wonderful day in Madrid together. When they parted—Frances for Paris where she would see the ravages of the war firsthand, Rea for a short trip to Morocco on military assignment—Frances gave Rea a rose as a keepsake. Two months later, Rea was still carrying his rose. He claimed he always had Frances in mind whenever he was compelled to spend money, which was often.7 Despite the wartime scarcity of food, Rea sent Frances bonbons contained within a small box carved into a tiny Japanese house, and cherries, her favorite fruit. Though impatient by nature, Rea once waited in line for more than an hour with thirty others at the post office just to send her candy. He began writing her long letters by hand every single day, sometimes twice 150 Chapter Fourteen a day, in a beautiful flowing script on expensive, thick light blue paper. He mostly corresponded in English. She wrote back every four days or so, usually in Spanish. She was drawn to his intelligence, power, passion, and position as captain and publisher. He began to call her his “Baby” and called her Curra, a diminutive of the name Francisca, which was Spanish for Frances. She would be called Curra for the rest of her life. Meanwhile, during the Ruiz-Morón’s stay in France, Howard Gould proposed to Henrietta. Mrs. Ruiz-Morón blessed the bond, stating she considered Howard already a member of the family. Rea snidely congratulated Henri- etta’s “acquisition” of Gould.8 Curra returned to Spain and rode the train to Madrid to see Captain Rea in August 1918. The captain wined and dined her at the Ritz and Palace Hotels. The next day the couple walked through the Retiro Park where Rea proposed marriage. She accepted, and Rea swore he would never walk through the park again without her. Rea must have felt self-conscious about the difference in their ages; when he was a week shy of his forty-ninth birthday, he wrote to Curra that he felt the weight of his “forty-seven” years, adding, “I have never dared to hope that some day a dear sweet little girl would love me and be willing to marry me. I have so often longed for the happiness that may come from the love of a pure woman.”9 Rea persisted in lying about his age for the rest of his life. He even listed his birth year on his future passports as 1870, instead of 1869. Nothing was going to get in the way of Rea’s new life: not age, not his former flame, Henrietta, not Howard Gould, and not the matron of the family. Once Rea proposed and Frances accepted, he grew impatient for the return of Mrs. Ruiz-Morón to formally ask permission to wed. Gertrude Ruiz-Morón and Henrietta were supposed to have returned to Spain in July, but they had remained in Marseilles. It was not a sure bet that Gertrude would grant Rea permission to marry Frances. Spain was a stridently Catholic country, and Rea was a divorced Protestant with a son almost the same age as his fiancé. What is more, although Rea exuded wealth, he was usually desperate for money and did not have 1 percent of the millions of the Gould family. Frances, however, saw no obstacle to their marriage. She believed her mother would bless the union and assured Rea she was his forever. She cared for Rea deeply and claimed the right to choose whom to marry. She addressed him in letters as, “My love,” and indeed the letters on both sides seemed to be those of two people deeply enamored with one another. Despite assurances that no roadblocks to marriage existed, Rea began making threats to have mother and elder sister forced back to Spain. He also threatened to have Howard Gould sent to the front lines of battle instead of Love and Influenza 151 to the safety of the Red Cross if Henrietta spoke against the marriage. On the day after his forty-ninth birthday, Rea wrote a letter to his fiancé, in which he boldly asserted his ultimatums and threat of extortion:

I want mama to understand that she and your eldest sister have been permitted to remain in France simply because I have no interest whatever in their return here. For I could have had them back here at any time I wished. I may also say to you, that as the Intelligence Officer of the Embassy, one word from me will take Mr. H. back to the ranks, and he will not be permitted to escape military duty to enjoy himself in America, not if his father has all the millions in the world. I only say this to you my dear so you will understand that the Past is Dead and there is only the future and You. But I also wish to make it very plain, that if the Past interferes in any way with my future Happiness and brings any pressure to bear on your Mother against us, then I am afraid that I would be compelled to exercise my duty as an officer and have the whole family return to Spain, and prevent the escape of Mr. H. from the military duties that the sons of other men have to comply with.”10

The harsh tone of the letter may have been due in part to the fact that Rea’s superior, Military Attaché Lang, had just caught him disregarding the direct order of the Ambassador by allowing the three women into France in the first place. When in July they were supposed to have returned to Spain but had not, Rea had spoken to his colleague in Marseille to ensure the women were allowed to stay. Somehow word had gotten back to Lang that Rea had disobeyed regulations, which worsened an already rocky relationship between Lang and his assistant. But suddenly, there were far more important issues for everyone to deal with. The first outbreak of the deadly Spanish influenza occurred in the United States in Kansas. Some called it Spanish influenza because of the more noticeable and reported outbreak that occurred close to the Ruiz-Morón family home in Granada, Spain in May 1918. Others say it was named the Spanish influenza because as a neutral country, Spain alone published news about the disease. The U.S. government and the CPI refused to publish stories about how swiftly the deadly epidemic was spreading for fear of appearing weak in the eyes of the enemy during war time. The Espionage Act and Sedition Act of 1918 led to a complete gag on reporting about it. Because of this, the Span- ish influenza remains one of the most covered-up epidemics in history. CPI recruitment efforts continued to rally thousands of young men into packed halls to sign up for military service or to listen to speeches and watch propaganda movies. The crowds were a fecund breeding ground for the spread of the influenza virus, as was every boot camp, ship, submarine, and military post. More than half a billion people in the world came down with the disease, 152 Chapter Fourteen and an estimated 50 million died.11 In Spain, more and more mothers dressed in black, and fathers wore black armbands on grey coats. Families attended funerals for children in town after town. In early fall 1918, Frances was at the heart of the outbreak of the Spanish influenza in her home in Alhama. While at home one day, she was startled by the smell of smoke. She went outside her house and saw a dark grey cloud rising from her neighbor’s home. She ran toward them, but the inferno had started quickly, and by the time she reached her neighbor, the flames and thick black smoke were out of control. There were no fire crews in the area, so everyone worked closely together passing and pouring buckets of water onto the flames, but it was of no use. In the end, fire engulfed the house and her neighbors lost everything. That evening after returning home, Frances felt unusually fatigued, and her body ached. She thought it was the exertion and excitement of witnessing the fire, but that night her fever rose, and the next day got worse. Her mother and sister were still in Marseille, and Rea was traveling to northern Spain on military business with some Germans informants. Frances had servants to cook for her, but she lay in bed alone, thinking about death, wondering if it would be of any use to call the family doctor. She had seen firsthand how the sickness had taken the young adults in her town, in the prime of their life, within days. “Hay calenterras en el Pueblo tanto que es como un epidemia y estan muriendoese muchas personas de ellas,” she wrote. (There are so many fevers in the town, it is like an epidemic and many people are dying from them.)12 Frances was one of the fortunate survivors of the epidemic that was quickly spreading around the globe. While she was recovering in Spain, Harriet in California wrote to her children of neighbors and friends who were dying of the epidemic in California. The disease had spread to such an extent that Uni- versity of California at Berkeley classrooms and academic halls were emptied of students and filled with cots for the ill. Harriet was unaware that Rea had fallen in love with a woman the age of her children. In fact she seemed to be praying for reconciliation. In a letter to her son, who was still sailing aboard the USS Roanoke, she said. “Oh Harry it’s hard. I never wronged Daddy. . . . I know as he says, ‘we must take Daddy as he is, and must forgive and forget.’ You and Connie can do so much to bring him to see the mistake thats [sic] been made. I know the day will dawn—when my prayers will be answered.”13 Harriet’s prayers would never be answered. The family photo would never be complete again. (See figure 14.2.) Back in Spain, Rea was fuming once again because he had been unable to proceed with his second wedding as quickly as planned. Henrietta had finally returned to Spain in September. She Figure 14.2. Harriet, Bill, Harry and Connie Rea in Oakland, California 1915 154 Chapter Fourteen was devastated because she and Gould had broken their engagement. How- ever, “Mama” had remained in Marseille, which meant Rea’s plan to meet his future mother-in-law in Madrid to discuss his marriage to Frances would have to be postponed. Rea again threatened to “exact punishment” against Gould if his wedding plans were postponed. Rea believed Gould was shirking his military duties by working for the Red Cross in Marseille. Rea believed he had the power to get the son of the great railroad developer and financial tycoon in the United States drafted to the front lines of the war by reporting Gould to military authorities.14 In a letter to Frances he said the only reason he had not reported Gould was because she had asked him to remain silent.

You must remember darling, that I am an officer in the Intelligence Section of the Army and my oath of service obligates me to utilize every piece of information that comes to me from whatever source. It is my duty to see that this “scamp” in Marseilles does not escape his military duties and the draft. These duties I have refused to exercise because of your request. 15

In November 1918, the end of the war ended Rea’s ability to carry out his threat. At some point the union must have been approved by Frances’s mother. Nevertheless, Rea remained was disgusted with his work and military life and longed to get back to China or the United States. Rea was torn about which one; on the one hand his business needed him, but on the other hand he wanted to remain in the army to be sent to the Paris Peace Conference. He strongly believed that if he could be sent to the conference in an official capacity, he could use his knowledge and experience in Far Eastern problems in the peace negotiations and regain his position with the Chinese. This in turn would allow him to advance his magazine. He also hoped to regain his old position of negotiating loans for railroads and attending the Peace Con- ference was vital to that goal.16 Rea put in for a transfer to the military office in France to attend the conference. He wrote, “I see my Japanese friends are already placing their demands before the world, and as usual the poor Chinese have not the initiative to fight for their rights or pay anyone to fight for them. They ought to pay me a large sum just now to fight their battle for them.”17 When he received no word of approval, he assumed that either his enemies were plotting against him or that he was especially valued in Spain.

[This] delay shows me that either my enemies are too powerful for me to oppose and have placed obstacles in my being ordered to Paris, or the Army authorities in Washington recognizing my ability here in Spain desire to retain me. . . . I have reason to believe that my work here is greatly appreciated and highly valued, and that Washington knows that my companion officers are utterly incompetent to make a report on the political condition of this country.18 Love and Influenza 155

Clearly Rea was guilty of hubris given his military circumstances, but he never gave up on his dreams. “If I cannot get my transfer to Paris and so defend my position on these Chinese railway deals, then it occurs to me, if my business can permit it, that I might to try and get this railways problem of Spain into my hands.”19 Rea met with Count Romanones, the Minister of Public Instruction in Spain, to discuss the idea. The count was one of the few ministers who did not sympathize with Germany. He condemned the neutral policy of the Spanish government, believing that Spain should have declared support for the Allies.20 Yet the Spanish government was in a worse position than China to finance millions of dollars in railroad loans and did not hold the profit potential for investments that China did. Thus, another of Rea’s railroad dreams never left the proverbial station. In December, a telegram from Washington arrived disapproving Rea’s request to transfer to France because regulations did not permit the transfer of officers to the U.S. Expeditionary Force there.21 Rea’s desire to resign from his present post was approved, but he was ordered to report to Washington D.C. to the director of military intelligence. 22 Disappointed and downhearted, he accused his military superior and old nemesis, Paul Reinsch, the U.S. Min- ister in China, of preventing him from attending the Paris Peace Conference:

It looks to me that my enemies in the Embassy in Peking have used their influence to have me kept from this work, because of my violent opposition to the policy pursued by them in China. I made the mistake of telling the Chinese Minister here of my transfer to work in the Peace Conference and he telegraphed it to Peking, and of course, they could not keep it secret, and it comes to the ears of the American Minister, who I have fought tooth and nail politically. It is either that, or my fight with the Major here which has stopped my transfer, pending the arrival here of his successor.23

Rea telegraphed General Churchill asking permission to come to Paris to have a personal talk with him. Rea felt the general was his only hope of being allowed to attend the conference. Unknown to Rea, the general had already questioned Rea’s reports and knew of his insubordination to his superior officer. He refused to grant Rea’s request. Rea wanted to marry immediately, but admitted that financially it would be difficult to arrange a passage for both of them to China and then settle there.24 Discouraging news from Donald, the editor of his magazine, made matters worse. The accounts were in a bad way because of the abnormal exchange in dollars and gold and business might have to be suspended.25 With the beginning of the New Year, Rea changed his mind about marriage. Despite his lack of funds, and his business on the verge of bankruptcy, Rea bought a gold wedding ring, inscribed with the initials G. and C. for George 156 Chapter Fourteen

and Curra and the date January 8, 1919. The wedding ceremony was held at the H. B. M. Embassy chapel in Madrid, where Rea placed the gold ring on Curra’s small, youthful, feminine finger, her long fingernails no doubt painted her signature bright ruby red, in front of a British minister. He had a new bride, but just as he had with his first wife, Rea left the country soon after their marriage. Rea was determined to get into the Paris Peace Conference—a conference that would change the course of his life and his writing.26

NOTES

1. George Bronson Rea, News Digest, September 14, 1918, Microfiche 1445, Roll 2A, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 2. George Bronson Rea, Divorce documents, June 1917, Alameda County Vital Records, Oakland, CA. 3. Naval Intelligence, “George Bronson Rea; Character of and Activities in Far Eastern Affairs,” February 16, 1920, File 1766-511, Peking China, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 4. Van R. H. Deman, Letter to Mrs. George Bronson Rea, May 21, 1918, File 2256, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 5. George Bronson Rea, Letter to Frances Ruiz-Morón, December 18, 1918. All personal correspondence between George Bronson Rea and Frances Ruiz-Morón is from the personal collection of Leslie E. Clark. 6. Rea, Letter to Frances Ruiz-Morón, July 10, 1918. 7. Rea, Letter to Frances Ruiz-Morón, June 15, 1918. 8. Rea, Letter to Frances Ruiz-Morón, June 15, 1918. 9. Rea, Letter to Frances Ruiz-Morón, August 1918. 10. Rea, Letter to Frances Ruiz-Morón, August 30, 1918. 11. John M. Barry, The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History (Viking Press, 2004). 12. Frances Ruiz-Morón, Letter to George Bronson Rea, September 13, 1918, personal collection of Leslie Clark. 13. Harriet Rea, Letter to Harry Rea, October 31, 1918, personal collection of Leslie Clark. 14. Rea, Letter to Frances Ruiz-Morón, September 27, 1918. 15. Rea, Letter to Frances Ruiz-Morón, September 28, 1918. 16. Rea, Letter to Frances Ruiz-Morón, December 8, 1918. 17. Rea, Letter to Frances Ruiz-Morón, November 25, 1918. 18. Rea, Letter to Frances Ruiz-Morón, December 8, 1918. 19. Rea, Letter to Frances Ruiz-Morón, December 8, 1918. 20. New York Times, October 30, 1918. 21. John M. Dunn, War Department Office of the Chief of Staff, Washington D.C. Memorandum Re: “Relief, Captain George Bronson Rea, U.S.A. from Present Duty Love and Influenza 157 as Assistant to the Military Attaché Madrid, Spain,” December 2, 1918, File 2256, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 22. John M. Dunn, War Department Office of the Chief of Staff, Washington D.C. Memorandum Re: Change in Orders concerning Captain George Bronson Rea, U.S. Army, January 16, 1919, File 2256, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 23. Rea, Letter to Frances Ruiz-Morón, December 13, 1918. 24. Rea, Letter to Frances Ruiz-Morón, December 13, 1918. 25. Rea, Letter to Frances Ruiz-Morón, November 21, 1918. 26. For more information on these topics, see Molly Billings, “The Influenza Pan- demic of 1918,” Stanford University, June 1997, last modified February 2005, accessed February 12, 2017, https://virus.stanford.edu/uda; and Carolyn P. Boyd, Praetorian Politics in Liberal Spain, The Library of Iberian Resources Online, chapters 4 and 5.

Chapter Fifteen

The Conference that Changed Everything

After the war, boatloads of journalists descended on Paris. The Paris Peace Conference at Versailles was the most coveted assignment for every reporter around the globe. Besides journalists, any writer with credentials sought a standing-room-only glimpse of the historic negotiations. The New York Tri- bune guesstimated that there were 350 reporters aboard just one ship bound for France during the winter months of 1919.1 But for the first few weeks of the conference, what the journalists noted most were the endless cold, gray days filled with rain and snow. Some described their shock at how much Paris had changed. Parts of the city resembled San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake. Bombs had created skeletal frames of buildings, and other structures had been completely de- molished. Walking was difficult through broken bricks and cracked concrete. German tanks and stockpiles of armaments filled the Place de la Concorde. Most hotels had no heat because there was still a fuel shortage. Reporters pounded out stories on portable typewriters with numb white fingertips. Food prices were inflated, for what little food was available. Cabs were scarce, as were porters to carry trunks, and there were few train conductors to collect tickets.2 No trains or busses operated after 9:30 p.m. Once a city ringing with nightlife, Paris felt uncomfortably quiet after dark. Rea arrived in Paris amid the throng of journalists in January 1919. The U.S. military had not officially given him leave, and in fact had ordered him to go to Washington D.C. Following the refusal of a transfer to France to attend the Paris Peace Conference, Rea officially tendered his resignation from the military and booked a ticket to France. He claimed that the Chinese had engaged him as Adviser to the Technical Commission of the Chinese Delega- tion. He further claimed his job was to prepare and submit to the new financial consortium yet another loan proposal for a national system of railways

159 160 Chapter Fifteen in China. However, although Chinese officials may have sought Rea’s advice and may have asked him to broker new loan proposals, he served China in a completely nonofficial capacity. The official Chinese peace delegation went to the Paris Peace Conference with a clear list of objectives. Topping their agenda was reclaiming from Ja- pan the province of Shantung, located on China’s eastern coast. Shantung was an integral part of Chinese history. It had served as the birthplace of Confu- cianism and was once a pivotal center for Taoism and Buddhism. The region includes Mount Tai, an area of religious worship for centuries. Of much more vital strategic interest, however, was its port city of Tsingtao, a vital commercial link between Japan and China, which Japan had gained control over at the outset of the war. The delegation included Rea’s former antagonist, Paul Reinsch, the U.S. Minister in China, who had refused to help pull through Rea’s ten-thousand- mile railroad loan deal in 1916. Rea had given much thought over the years to past events involving Reinsch. He remembered keeping his secret loan plans and agreements in a vault in Peking to which only government officials had access. Rea had come to believe that Reinsch had gotten the combination, broken into the vault, and stolen the original engineering plans and loan ideas. Seeing Reinsch now in Paris, Rea felt a powerful sense of déjà vu, recalling the anger and disgust he’d felt when he had left China in 1917. Making matters worse, the delegation also included Rea’s primary competitor in media publishing, Thomas Millard, founder of Millard’s Review whose anti-Japa- nese attitude was well known. Rea called Reinsch and Millard “Sinophiles,” and he did not use word as a compliment. Rea immediately butted heads with the Chinese delegation. Reinsch and Mil- lard both strongly supported China’s demand to reclaim Shantung. Rea, who in 1915 had argued that Chinese control of Shantung was vital, and who had gone to Washington to fight against Japan taking over the area, now completely dismissed the importance of the territory. In a lengthy article Rea published privately for government officials titled “The Breakdown of American Diplomacy in the Far East,” the unofficial technical adviser claimed Shantung a “minor and insignificant phase of the general problem” that “was singled out for settlement because of its immediate bearing on the peace negotiations with Germany.”3 The solution Rea proposed seems both implausible and undiplomatic. Rea suggested that the decision be put on hold by allowing the Allies to take control of the area and have Japan serve as “trustee.”4 He concluded that

German rights in Shantung should be surrendered to the Allies in the Treaty, leaving Japan as Trustee, in such time as a special conference could take up the whole problem and definitely decide the status of China. The Allies and Japan The Conference that Changed Everything 161

would have to accept, China would have been pleased and the President would have lived up to the traditional policy of the nation.5

Rea makes it all sound simple, yet it seems doubtful that the Chinese peace delegation, whose primary mission was to regain control over Shantung, would have been pleased to surrender the territory in the trust of the Japanese government. On the other hand, Rea may simply have astutely foreseen that China was not in a position to bargain with the Allies. In an ironic and most bizarre twist of events, Rea unknowingly ended up financially supporting the very cause he was in Paris lobbying against. When the Chinese peace delegation faltered in their negotiation efforts over Shantung, a barrage of cables were sent to the Chinese delegation in France supporting their firm stand. Rea knew that his editor, William H. Donald, was probably the instigator of the cable-writing campaign. Rea recalled that this

system of what for want of a better word, may be called “massed propaganda” was introduced in China by my old editor, Mr. W. H. Donald, who, as Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s publicity director during the Revolution, wrote all his manifestos and memorandum designed for foreign consumption, and by reasons of his press connections, was able to have them broadcasted as news without costing the Chinese a cent for the cable tolls.6

What Rea did not realize was that, as publisher of the Far Eastern Review, he was personally footing the bill for the cable propaganda campaign. Donald had sent hundreds of cables to France from members of the Chinese Cham- ber of Commerce, bankers, associations, student unions, Chinese guilds, and other commercial organizations. And with full power of attorney over Rea’s finances, Donald had paid for the cables by taking money directly from Rea’s bank account. Many years later Donald proudly admitted embezzling the funds from his boss in an interview with his biographer.7 There is no evidence that the publisher of the Far Eastern Review ever discovered that he had financed hundreds of cables in support of a position he had advocated against at the Paris Peace Conference in Versailles. He likely never found out because when Donald left the Far Eastern Review, he took with him the files he produced while he was editor. However, Rea did find one file which had not been completely cleaned out and that contained some telegrams. This led him to believe that “Chinese public indignation over the Shantung Decision had been deliberately faked by Chinese propaganda directors, and in view of other information in my possession, constituted further evidence of the conspiracy that was being hatched in Peking to compel the United States to stand as the champion of China against Japan.”8 162 Chapter Fifteen

In part as a result of the cables sent by Donald, the members of the Chinese delegation not only stood firm; they increased their demands. They presented a counter-draft adding South Manchuria and Inner Mongolia to the list of territories to be repatriated. The delegation also requested that Japanese residents be subject to the jurisdiction of Chinese police, court, taxes, and duties. Finally, they asked for the unconditional surrender of the leased territory at Kiaochow and indemnification for all losses caused by Japan and Germany during the war.9 As a provision of the treaty, a tribunal of three judges from the United States, Great Britain, and France delivered a heavy blow to China by hand- ing over to Japan the province of Shantung, which Germany had previously controlled. The tribunal was biased against Chinese interests from the start because all three of its member governments had signed agreements with Japan regarding China during the war. As far back as November 1917, the United States had recognized Japan’s “special interests” to contiguous possessions in China, while maintaining China’s territorial sovereignty. Histo- rian W. Reginald Wheeler noted the problems inherent in the agreement that gave Japan special rights to Chinese territory while attempting to maintain China’s territorial integrity. “In the first place, its terms seemed to be self- contradictory; secondly, the phrase ‘special interests’ was decidedly vague; third, the principle upon which these ‘special interests’ was [sic] built, that of territorial propinquity, did not seem to be wholly valid; finally, China was not included in the negotiations.”10 Unbeknownst to the Chinese delegates, Japan had also forced China’s doors open by making secret agreements with Britain, France, and Italy for loans and territorial rights in China, deals about which the United States claimed to have no knowledge. In the Far Eastern Review, Rea said that if the deals truly were secret, the U.S State Department was incompetent. For the would-be railroad financier, the latest breakdown in negotiations regarding China in Versailles mirrored the failure of his own loan plans in 1916, and he placed the blame once again squarely on the shoulders on Reinsch and the U.S State Department:

In plain words, the Secretary of State asks the nation to believe that the Ameri- can Delegation with its shipload of books, documents, data, and experts, went to Paris blindfolded, thus furnishing the most conclusive evidence of the utter incompetency of the mission to negotiate a just settlement of the Far Eastern issues. With all the millions expended during the war on propaganda and diplomatic gum-shoe work abroad, not one diplomat or secret agent discovered the existence of these so-called secret agreements. The Allies were lined up against us, and we didn’t know it. It seems incredible, yet we have the testimony of the Secretary of State that it is so. The situation was exactly like that precipitated in The Conference that Changed Everything 163

1916 by the American railway contract with the Chinese Government, which si- multaneously raised the issue of the Open Door with the Four Allies, and, on the public confession of the State Department was concealed from its knowledge for over four months by the American Minister at Peking, or, until the issue had been definitely created. One wonders what the American diplomats and their agents in London, Paris, Rome, Tokyo and Peking were doing all this time and how they expended the millions appropriated and placed at their disposal for acquiring exact information.11

In addition to secret agreements between the Allies and Japan in August 1918, President Wilson had invited Great Britain, France, and Japan to organize a new consortium for financing international loans in China for railway and industry.12 The consortium was similar to the American Group Rea had been a part of four years previously. Given the agreements reached during the war with Japan, the United States, Great Britain, and France, it is no surprise that a tribunal comprised of judges loyal to its member states would have ruled against China and allowed Japan to continue to reign over Shantung province. Rea felt China had been set up for failure, and he was not the only one. His editor Donald agreed. Donald argued that although the U.S. government never formally recognized the Twenty-One Demands, when Wilson’s Con- sortium excluded parts of the leased territory from negotiations based on the demands, the United States tacitly supported Japan at China’s expense.13 Un- aware of the extent of agreements reached during the war between the Allies and Japan, the Chinese peace delegation was shocked with disappointment by the tribunal’s decision. Despite conceding that the Chinese delegation was railroaded at Versailles, when the Allies formed the newest consortium for Chinese railroad loans, Rea was determined to get on board. His whole purpose in going to Paris had been to construct new loan agreements for a national system of railroads in China. He was determined to realize his ten-thousand-mile railroad dream. Who better for the job, he thought, than the man Sun Yat-sen had trusted with a power of attorney to negotiate railway loans for China in 1913? Who else had won a prize for a national railroad designed for China in a worldwide competition of engineers? Who else had almost successfully completed an almost identical international loan deal in 1916? No one had more experience trying to engineer and fund a national railway for China than Rea. In an article listed under special correspondence of the Far Eastern Review titled “With All its Birthmarks” Rea laid out the similarities between the former American Group and Wilson’s newest Consortium.

Cable advices state that a complete agreement has been reached between Japan, Great Britain, France and the United States for a consortium of these powers 164 Chapter Fifteen

to finance internal improvements in China. The total amount of money to be loaned is not yet determined, but it has been agreed that groups of bankers from each of the four nations shall from time to time advance sums needed upon the terms approved by their respective governments, and that the first loan of $50,000,000 for railroad construction soon will be made. Thus that child of the Taft regime, known as [“]dollar diplomacy,” is brought back from the political orphanage and installed in the good graces of this [Wil- son] administration. . . . Its objectionable name has been lost, but it is the same child, with all its birthmarks and other identifying characteristics.14

Yet the latest Wilson-backed Consortium closed its doors once again to Rea, and after trying for years to establish U.S.-backed loans for China, Rea finally conceded defeat.

The curtain has been rung down on the long, drawn-out, dreary farce of the Open Door in China. We are out. The Door is slammed to, banged and bolted in our faces. We may still enjoy the benefits of Equal Opportunity in trade and industry, but there is no place in China where American capital may build a railway calling for a Chinese Government loan and guarantee.15

Rea concluded that China’s financial and political affairs were now unsolv- able and that the United States bore much of the blame.

[China] followed us blindly. They made no move without consulting our advice. They were specially requested by the President and the Secretary of State to employ no American advisers so as to make the task of the American delegation easier. They complied. In their minds the fight was won. It was in our hands. Up to the last minute when the decision had gone against them, their visionary American counselors in Paris were cabling Peking “To Stand Firm, Victory in sight.” We led them to the highest pinnacle of hope and then shoved them over the precipice.16

In a letter to former president William Howard Taft, Rea complained about the Chinese peace delegation and enclosed his article “The Breakdown of American Diplomacy in the Far East” for reading. Taft was acquainted with Rea and was sympathetic to Rea’s feelings. The former president called newspaper publisher Thomas Millard a “crank,” and said, “His crankisms have led him to a passionate and deep suspicion of everything Japanese, and to a certainty that China is always right and always abused.”17 Taft may have been responding to the recent publication of Millard’s book, Democracy and the Eastern Questions. Millard postulated that Japan had as a foreign policy objective the complete economic and political control of China and meant to close the “Open Door” to foreign investment entirely. He asserted that Japan’s military was ambitious; its government constructed on The Conference that Changed Everything 165 the Prussian plan; its political philosophy designed along German lines; and that Japan was a menace to peace in the world. The book was so stridently anti-Japanese, it received a cold reception even in the United States, despite a rising tide of anti-Japanese sentiment. One reviewer reduced the postulates and arguments in the book as “based on selected facts and is as one-sided as the ordinary argument of an advocate.”18 In hindsight, however, Millard’s arguments seemed a prescient warning. Howard Taft disliked Millard’s opinions, and in fact was not sympathetic to China in any way. In a private letter to Rea, Taft said, “Millard and all the rest, are doing all they can to defeat the treaty, or at least to keep [the] U.S out of the League. It would be hard to state a blinder policy.”19 Like Taft, Rea was never a Sinophile. He believed in the United States first. In almost twenty years publishing articles about China, Rea never tried to learn Mandarin. Nor did he seem to care for the Chinese as a people. He was simply looking for financial opportunity in the Far East. He folded his cards with the Chinese when after years of effort he was shut out of negotiating new loans in China. In response to being barred from Wilson’s latest consortium for Chinese loans, when Rea realized his personal Open Door for railroad loans had been closed and nailed shut, he made an about-face politically. He turned his back on China and walked over to the Japanese delegation. Rea switched allegiance with bitterness, clenching his teeth, and with the deepest conviction that he had been wronged just as he felt wronged and disregarded in 1916. In fact, Rea’s volcanic temper exploded to such a degree that when an American cursed at him regarding his reversal on China, he beat his fellow countryman so badly, the assaulted man had to be taken to hospital and Rea was dragged off to a police station for questioning.20 The publisher left Paris in 1919 as he had left China in 1916, angry, disillusioned, and disgusted at being shut out of lucrative loan deals to assist China. Paul Reinsch resigned his position because he felt the United States had betrayed China. He went back to Washington, D.C. and continued working to help China as a lawyer. Reinsch would never give up trying to save China from Japanese domination. The cause eventually cost Reinsch his mental and physical health. The Chinese government had reportedly promised him a salary of $25,000 a year after the Paris Peace Conference. Over the ensuing two years he borrowed $40,000 based on the contract. He went back to China to collect $50,000 owed him by the Chinese government. When he was not paid, he had a mental breakdown. His condition worsened, and he was taken to a General Hospital in Shanghai where he died crestfallen and debt ridden.21 China was the only country not to sign the treaty at Versailles. Follow- ing the Paris Peace Conference, on May 4, students in China held mass 166 Chapter Fifteen demonstrations denouncing both President Wilson and Japan. A boycott of Japanese goods followed, which led to more riots and the loss of 90 percent of Japanese trade with China. In the face of rising opposition against the Japanese in China, the publisher of the Far Eastern Review once again pitted himself as the lone man facing off a political maelstrom. From 1904 until 1919, Rea’s Far Eastern Review had been considered the best resource on Asian commerce, finance, industry, economics and political affairs; it contained incredibly detailed articles about engineering, crop cultivation, government leaders, and of course, everything to do with railroad design, maps, routes, agreements, and loans in China. No other magazine offered such a wealth of information on China. This vast desert of dry articles and data on Asian commerce and industry was balanced by Rea’s spirited, sometimes inflammatory, editorials. Before 1919, those editorials had been pro-Chinese. As a result of being shut out of Wilson’s new Consortium at the Paris Peace Conference, Rea did a complete 180-degree political switch of allegiance. The once vehemently pro-Chinese and anti-Japanese propagandist became a passionate promoter of Japanese intervention in China, urging Chinese cooperation with Japan’s increasingly militaristic power. Rea did more than completely switch political allegiance. He would be accused of going to extraordinary, illegal lengths to get revenge on the men who stole his dream.

NOTES

1. Joseph R. Hayden, Negotiating in the Press: American Journalism and Diplo- macy, 1918–1919 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2010), 92. 2. Hayden, Negotiating in the Press, 96. 3. George Bronson Rea, “The Breakdown of American Diplomacy in the Far East,” pamphlet, p. 6, accessed February 12, 2017, https://archive.org/details/break downofameri00reagrich. 4. George Bronson Rea, “Shall America Fight for China or Co-operate with Ja- pan?” Far Eastern Review (Shanghai) (March 1920): 151. 5. Rea, “Shall America Fight for China or Co-operate with Japan?,” 151. 6. George Bronson Rea, Letter to Caldwell, January 8, 1928, George Sokolsky Collection, Hoover Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, CA. Hereafter cited as Sokolsky Collection. 7. Selle, Donald of China. 8. Rea, Letter to Caldwell, January 8, 1928. 9. Un Owen, “China and World War One,” The History Forum, accessed February 12, 2017, http://thehistoryforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=28443. The Conference that Changed Everything 167

10. W. Reginald Wheeler, China and the World War (New York: Macmillan, 1919), chapter 6, accessed February 12, 2017, www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/comment/ chinawwi/ChinaC6.htm. 11. Rea, “Shall America Fight for China or Co-operate with Japan?” 152. 12. Rea, “Shall America Fight for China or Co-operate with Japan?” 151. 13. George Sokolsky, Letter to Donald W. H., December 24, 1920, Box 43, Folder 43.9, Sokolsky Collection. 14. Far Eastern Review (July 1920): 323. 15. Rea, “The Breakdown of American Diplomacy in the Far East.” 16. Rea, “The Breakdown of American Diplomacy in the Far East,” 9–10. 17. William H. Taft, Letter to George Bronson Rea, October 14, 1919, personal collection of Leslie E. Clark. 18. American Journal of International Law 15, no. 1 (January 1921): 142–44, accessed February 12, 2017, www.jstor.org/pss/2187967. 19. Howard Taft, Letter to George Bronson Rea, October 14, 1919. 20. Laval, “George Bronson Rea Passes,” 471. 21. Far Eastern Review (February 1936): 60.

Chapter Sixteen

Nefarious Activities

After the Paris Peace Conference, Rea went to New York City and spent a week visiting his friend William F. Carey upstate in Hoosick Falls. Both were self-educated, self-made men. Carey, though he lacked an engineering degree, had learned by the experience working on the Panama Canal and building railroads in China and South America. In 1916 he had partnered with Chester P. Siems to form the Siems-Carey Railway and Canal Company.1 Carey noted Rea’s bitterness over the Peace Conference, and with Paul Re- insch in particular. The engineer tried to disabuse Rea of the idea that Reinsch had undermined Rea’s railway scheme and prestige. Carey understood Rea’s argument but saw it as wrong-headed:

I told Rea that I felt he was doing more by his attitude to injure himself and his prospects than anyone else by a large majority, and that in my opinion a great many of his criticisms were based largely upon imagination and possibly to some extent upon the fact that he has been keenly disappointed because things have not moved more advantageously for him in the Orient.

Carey disliked the idea of Rea using the Far Eastern Review to seek ven- geance for “imaginary” wrongs. The businessman felt Rea’s vendetta “harmful to China’s interests” and to those trying to instill confidence in the Far East.2 But Rea did not heed his friend’s advice, and as publisher made a complete political about-face in his magazine. His magazine’s new editorial position resounded in one pro-Japanese article after another with titles like: “Another View of the Shantung Issue” published in December 1919; “Democratic Dol- lar Diplomacy” and “The Inwardness of the New Consortium” published in January 1920; “America’s Far Eastern Muddle” and “China’s Negative War”

169 170 Chapter Sixteen in the February 1920 issue, as well as others like “American Trade Sacrificed to Ideals: Protest Against the Consortium Loan,” and “Shall America Fight for China, or Cooperate with Japan?” Pro-Japanese articles hit the pages in the Far Eastern Review like freshly popped popcorn. His arguments ran the gamut from everything from the United States’s lack of foreign policy, to a German foreign policy to conquer the world. In one article, Rea said that Wilson’s lack of foreign policy created enmity with Japan.

Must America Fight Japan? Such a war is unthinkable, a crime against humanity. Yet powerful forces are working to bring this about. . . . Because of the absence of a definite foreign policy, lack of direction and co-ordination in the conduct of our Far Eastern affairs in the Wilson administration, the war-makers have had their innings. We stand to-day pitted against Japan with the agents of Armageddon shouting, “Sick ’em Sam!”3

In another he fear-mongered that Japan alone was the bulwark against Ger- man colonization. In bold capital letters, Rea said,

GERMANY PLANS TO CREATE A NEW EMPIRE IN CENTRAL ASIA SAFE FROM ALLIED INTERVENTION BY COLONIZING THE ANCESTRAL HOME OF THE HUNS AND DEVELOPING THE VAST MINERAL DE- POSITS OF THE ALTAIS WHICH WILL ENABLE HER TO RESUME THE DRANG NACH OSTEN AND THE CONFLICT FOR THE WORLD EMPIRE.4

William H. Donald, the tall, lanky outspoken editor of the Far Eastern Review, resigned soon after the editorial policy shift.

The complete reversal of the policy of the FAR EASTERN REVIEW effected by its Publisher, Mr. Geo. Bronson Rea, in the course of recent months compelled its Editor—the undersigned (in the February issue)—to disclaim responsibility for views expressed by writers of signed articles. The receipt of further similar articles which the undersigned cannot endorse causes him to withdraw from his position as Editor of the FAR EASTERN REVIEW. W.H. DONALD.5

Despite what was clearly a complete reversal in editorial policy, Rea defended his steadfast friendship for China.

The Publisher of THE FAR EASTERN REVIEW has led the way in seeking a sensible solution of Chinese railway problems. He has devoted the best years of his life and sacrificed personal opportunities in legitimate efforts to advance the legitimate cause of China. Repeatedly, he has seen this good cause go down to defeat, chiefly because of the unstable, wobbling policies of the present Nefarious Activities 171

administration, and also because of evil, short-sighted advice followed to their country’s cost by Chinese officials.6

His self-defense did not stop a secret investigation and an onslaught of accusations. Following an investigation, the U.S. Naval Intelligence received a secret memo regarding Rea’s character and activities. The memo noted how Rea’s the Far Eastern Review had become “thoroughly pro-Japanese in every way.” It also claimed “positive information that Rea is actually in the pay of the Japanese government to further Japanese interests.” It recommended, “Rea’s activities in the Far East warrants that both the Departments of State and Navy be most careful as to any information they may give him.”7 Charles Hodges, Assistant Director of the Far Eastern Bureau asked: Why should Mr. Rea sell out to the Japanese? In a memo to the U.S. State Depart- ment, he suggested several reasons, and all revolved around money. The publisher had “considerable financial pressure to meet.” He had “virtually no income” from his Far Eastern Review. He had alimony payments to make resulting from his divorce. Hodges was unaware that Rea had just remarried a woman drawn to the opportunity to travel around the world first class and in high-fashion dress. Hodges said the reason was simply that the “Chinese end of the game offered offers [sic] no funds, and cannot be capitalized for Rea’s benefit; Japanese propaganda work does.”8 Rea not only completely reversed his editorial policy in his magazine, but he also came to the conclusion that, “the only way to effectively uproot this campaign against Japan is to . . . discredit those most active in persecuting it.”9 Rea targeted the Reinsch and Millard as being the most active people campaigning against Japan. Yet it was shocking just how far Rea may have been willing to go to discredit his old nemeses. Hodges accused Rea of orchestrating a theft of important correspondence from his home that could be used against Reinsch. The incident took place on Wednesday March 10, 1920. At five o’clock in the afternoon, Hodges’s wife had returned home from watching a matinee. When she reached the top of the stairs to their apartment on the third floor, she noticed a shadow move across the light in the space between her front door and the threshold. She assumed her husband had returned home early and proceeded to unlock the door. Upon entering the house, she saw a shadow moving in the bedroom. Assuming her husband was playfully hiding, she walked toward the bedroom. Then she saw the curtains in the doorway move. She found the bedroom empty, but noticed that the connecting door to the entry hallway was ajar. It was then that she began to feel frightened. She rushed around to the living room, where she found her husband’s files and papers scattered all over the room, and several books on international law pulled from the shelves. Scared but determined, 172 Chapter Sixteen she ran toward the main stairwell to see who might have gotten away and that was when she heard the front door slam. Mrs. Hodges called her husband, who came home immediately to sort through his papers. Missing was correspondence to Reinsch regarding Chinese financial matters for the Chinese delegation, as well as communication with the Chinese peace mission. Hodges phoned the military intelligence department and soon after filed a detailed report of the theft with the State Department. The documents stolen provided damning evidence against Rea’s nemeses. According to Rea, when Reinsch and Millard were unable to accomplish their objectives at the Paris Peace Conference, they deflected blame for their failure by attacking President Wilson for creating a diplomatic fiasco for China and then tried to have the treaty abrogated in the ensuing U.S. Senate hearings. One document stolen provided proof to Rea’s assertion that Reinsch and Millard cast aspersion on Wilson. Another document stolen supplied evidence for Rea’s allegation that Reinsch had deliberately selected delegates who were antagonistic to Japan. Hodges said that “the documents stolen . . . constitute a set of papers which can be used in a way affecting America’s attitude toward the Far Eastern situation and our policy.”10 Hodges named only one prime suspect in his letter to the U.S. Department of Military Intelligence. He accused George Bronson Rea of committing the crime. The theft at Hodges’s apartment coincided with the rekindling of the publishing war among Thomas Millard, John Powell and Rea. In one attack, Mil- lard republished an article from the British owned Japanese Chronicle titled “Geo Bronson Rea’s Specious Argument Exposed.” The article characterized Rea’s policy arguments and ideas as “infinite verbiage,” and accused Rea of trying to “pull the wool over the eyes” of his own countrymen. The article added that Rea was so new at the business of Japanese propaganda that, “he does it very clumsily.” “If it is Mr. Rea’s business to persuade American financial interests to put their China business in Japanese hands that is more than any other concessionaire or advance agent does.” He is doing Japanese propaganda “in the fancy dress of independent journalism that sets people against the whole business.”11 Rea may have stolen evidence against his rival, but Millard and Powell dealt Rea the heavier blow. According to Rea, his competitors sent subscribers of the Far Eastern Review pamphlets urging them to boycott the magazine. Advertisers were then urged to pull their ads. The damage was catastrophic. Within a few months, the Far Eastern Review was all but blacklisted in China. Chinese advertisers canceled their contracts within two months, and almost all subscribers within China canceled their subscriptions. U.S. advertisers followed by canceling their ads. Within a year, there were only a few remaining advertisers from Europe. Rea later stated that business support from the Japa- Nefarious Activities 173 nese was Y80,000 a year, equivalent to approximately $40,000 U.S. dollars. Funds from the Japanese seemed all that kept the magazine from folding.12 If the loss of Chinese and U.S. advertising was not enough, the Ameri- can Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, with Millard’s editor Powell as its secretary, went so far as to remove Rea from their mailing list. Rea had been a charter member and had even paid the salary for the secretary of the American Chamber of Commerce for the first two years of the chamber’s existence.13 Now he was basically outcast from all business opportunities with the United States. Many historians blame Rea for not being a more principled champion for China’s republican cause, arguing that he should have supported China’s pursuit of democracy in its initial socialist revolution rather than spend his energies advocating for a one-track goal related to his own monetary gain. Yet Rea was not alone in placing money before principles. U.S. foreign policy in China had been based in monetary principles for years. First the Open Door foreign policy sought to expand financial opportunities by ensuring the United States had equal trading rights with China. Then Taft sought further economic inroads in China by guaranteeing loans through the American Group with a policy called “Dollar Diplomacy.” Wilson’s New Consortium was basically identical to Taft’s Dollar Diplomacy—just with different financiers and negotiators. Thus, the United States and Rea had a similar vision of China. Both looked for ways to expand trade and make money. In Rea’s defense, he was acting just like his country, and at least initially, while he was working for Sun Yat-sen, he had tried to negotiate loans with as few political strings attached as possible. Rea was no altruist. He was quintessentially a businessman, an individual- ist and a capitalist looking for financial opportunity in China. He had worked for years trying to get the United States to back loans he had brokered for China. He was bitterly disappointed when his personally designed ten-thousand-mile prize winning railroad and financial negotiations for international investment in China did not bear fruit. Worse, he felt others stole his plans. Perhaps Rea’s greatest failing as a journalist and publisher was that, as a result of his bitterness over the failed loan negotiations, he made libelous accusations, which he published in his magazine without checking facts. He became vindictive and vengeful over imagined wrongdoing and was unable to control his anger, hurt, and disappointment. Rea sought revenge by publishing articles filled with specious postulates and unverifiable assumptions. He accused without proof or sources and became worse than the yellow press he exposed in the reporting of the Cuban insurrection against Spain. He also never gave China credit for having supported his magazine since 1904 with advertising and government-financed contracts. 174 Chapter Sixteen

The George Bronson Rea of 1916 could have used his own words against himself three years later.

There are Benedict Arnolds of peace as well as of war, and the Americans who intentionally or otherwise contributes to the betrayal of the nation, by obstruct- ing its plans of defense, when he has knowledge that an avowed enemy is nursing a grievance . . . is as fairly entitled to a traitor’s fate as though he betrayed the nation in time of war.14

Rea did not attack himself with his own words, but U.S. military intelligence quoted the words from the former “Old China hand” in a scathing memo regarding Rea’s new pro-Japanese activities. The U.S. government came to believe Rea became China’s Benedict Arnold at the Paris Peace Conference in Versailles, and his political about-face shocked all those who knew and respected him. It also led to tectonic shifts in alliances among his newspaper colleagues back in Shanghai.

NOTES

1. Hoosick Township Historical Society, “William F. Carey 1878–1951,” Hoosick Township Historical Society, accessed February 12, 2017, www.hoosickhistory.com/ biographies/carey.htm. 2. William F. Carey, Letter to Dr. Paul S. Reinsch, March 25, 1920, Box 8, Folder 1, Reinsch Papers. 3. George Bronson Rea, “Think Hard, America!,” Far Eastern Review supplement (April 1921). 4. The Altais (in France), Dran Nach Osten [Turn to the East]. George Bronson Rea, “The Menace from the Direction of Urga,” Far Eastern Review supplement (April 1921): 2. 5. W. H. Donald, Editorial Notice, Resignation Notification, Far Eastern Review (March 1920): 153. 6. “Publisher’s Announcement: The Far Eastern Review Supports the Consor- tium,” Far Eastern Review (September 1920): 456. 7. Naval Intelligence, “George Bronson Rea, Character of and Activities in Far Eastern Affairs, February 16, 1920, File 1766-511, Peking China, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 8. Charles Hodges, Assistant Director, Far Eastern Bureau, Memorandum re: Pro- Japanese Activities of one Geo. Bronson Rea Conference, December 18, 1919, File 1766-511, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 9. George Bronson Rea, Letter to Woods, Cyrus American Ambassador, April 7, 1924, p. 2, Microfiche, M423, Rolls 2 and 4, Tokyo, Japan, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. Nefarious Activities 175

10. Charles Hodges, Chinese Foreign Office, Public Affairs in the Far East, Memorandum on Theft of Communications from Chinese Foreign Office, American Legation from Apartment, March 12, 1920. 11. Millard’s Review 12 (April 3, 1920): 240–41. 12. George Bronson Rea, Letter to George Sokolsky, October 19, 1926, Box 98 Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 13. George Bronson Rea, “A Super-Extra-Territorial American Government in China: The Menace to Peace in the Pacific,” Far Eastern Review 20, no. 3 (March 1924): 103. 14. Hodges, Memo re: Pro-Japanese Activities of one Geo. Bronson Rea, Decem- ber 18, 1919.

Chapter Seventeen

Frenemies

After Rea’s about-face on China–Japan relations following the Paris Peace Conference, William H. Donald struggled to find other work for several months. By late fall he was made Vice Director of the Government Bureau of Economic Information. The periodical was an official Chinese government report of economic information. Donald invited a relative newcomer to China named George Sokolsky to work for him, saying Sokolsky should consider himself hired as the first of December with “some sort of salary.”1 Having Donald at the helm of this government publication took away yet another slice of Rea’s market. Sokolsky was the son of Russian-speaking Jewish immigrants from Poland. He attended Columbia University in New York and graduated from their Co- lumbia School of Journalism. His first experience as a foreign correspondent was covering the 1917 Russia Revolution. In March 1918, he boarded a train headed for China.2 He obtained a position with the Shanghai Gazette, a paper published through Sun Yat-sen’s southern government, developed for propaganda purposes with an U.S. audience in mind. Eugene Chen, who would later become a member of the Kuomintang Central Executive Committee, edited it. While at the paper, Sokolsky began to meet and correspond with Sun and soon began to write anti-Japanese propaganda. Following the May Fourth student demonstrations and anti-Japanese boycott, Sokolsky boasted that “the Student Movement and Anti-Japanese Boycott in 1919 were to a large extent my work.”3 Sokolsky was a short, self-proclaimed fat man who loved to eat. From his face protruded large jowls that more often than not supported a cigar protrud- ing from his mouth. His voluminous clothes seemed to swallow short body like a turtle shell so that what was most noticeable was an oversized jacket and a full head of thick wavy, dark brown hair. Sokolsky, or Soks as he was called, may not have been overwhelmingly physically attractive, but he was

177 178 Chapter Seventeen an astute information gatherer, a good writer, and willing and able to entertain numerous important political and business figures from Nanking to Tokyo. In the early 1920s, he scratched a living together by writing as a stringer for several newspapers including the Japan Advertiser, the North China Daily Press, and the New York Post. He often wrote under the pen name G. Gramada. Like most foreigners, he was a member of the American Club, a place where one could eat U.S. food, drink a decent single malt scotch, and socialize with fellow white businessmen and journalists. Sokolsky began to work under Donald and the Chinese Bureau of Eco- nomic Information. The paper was a publication by and for the Chinese government.4 Sun had succeeded in reestablishing himself as the legal and con- stitutional president of China. Sun was elected by Parliament and assumed office in May 1921. The government, however, lacked both true solidarity and funds to pay Donald. At this time, Rea was completely out of the political inner circle in China. Rea often said the world was against him but wrote it to imitate a U.S. southern accent. Well, the world was “agin” him again; this time not in the form of a Cuban general’s gun but in the form of a $200,000 libel suit brought by Donald and Sokolsky, who objected to comments Rea had made at a meeting of the American Chamber of Commerce at the Astor House hotel as well as in editorial comments in the Far Eastern Review.5 Rea had accused Donald of forming a conspiracy against the Far Eastern Review at a meeting of the American Chamber in Shanghai in June. Rea made the accusations in front of the Consul-General, a member of the Asian bank, and a reporter from Millard’s Review who attended the meeting as an assistant secretary at the specific request of Sokolsky to report what was said. Rea also claimed that Donald was receiving an astounding $480,000 a year from the Chinese government and that Donald was paying Sokolsky large sums from that money specifically to help him destroy the Far Eastern Review in China and promote war with Japan.6 Donald vehemently denied the charges against him, stating that there “is not one iota of truth in Rea’s statements at the Chamber of Commerce Com- mittee meeting. . . . I have stood by Rea and refrained from even legitimate action to protect myself, much less doing anything to “double-cross” him.7 “Donald was indignant, but financially broke, and did not want to pay the legal expenses of a trial. He was angry, but preferred Rea write an apology. No journalist in China in the 1920s was earning $480,000 a year, and in fact Donald was having difficult time obtaining any salary at all from the Chinese government in Peking. However, if Rea did not apologize, and the case went to court, Donald threatened to produce nine years’ worth of files on Rea’s Frenemies 179

“arguments, schemes and threats” that would provide “startling and amusing revelations as to [Rea’s] character.”8 Sokolsky, on the other hand, did not feel an apology sufficient. He was “fed up” with Rea and his “pernicious propaganda” and felt that Rea needed to be “silenced.” Sokolsky convinced Judge Ross, known as the best lawyer in Shanghai, to agree to help Donald and to only charge for legal services after they were rendered, then informed Donald and advised him to sue. Donald agreed reluctantly. He cabled Sokolsky from a hotel in Peking telling him to “Retain Ross; explain to him I am no millionaire; get evidence; give Rea a chance to withdraw, apologize in newspapers, pay all expenses. If he will do this I will not proceed with case. All I want is to discredit him.”9 Rea was no doubt greatly affected by the threat of a lawsuit because when he met with Judge Ross and Sokolsky on August 9 in the judge’s chambers in Shanghai he was quite contrite. Rea asked who had told them what he’d said at the commerce meeting because the proceedings were supposed to be confidential.10 As for the accusations regarding salary, the Peking Leader had published that the “Bureau” received $480,000 a year. However, Rea did not check the source or make a single phone call to check his facts, before he’d reprinted the information in the Far Eastern Review. In using these excuses Rea committed the journalistic malfeasance of assuming that the absence of a denial by the accused in both publications confirmed the truth of the original report.11 Rea admitted his error and offered to publish any retraction statement Sokolsky or Donald cared to provide. As for the accusation that Donald had double-crossed Rea, the publisher conceded that it too had been a misunderstanding. Rea hoped that after years of friendship, Donald would have more “confidence” in his former boss. He promised to travel to Peking to meet with Donald. He said that he had lost twenty-five pages of advertising and more than $100,000 in revenue as a result of his quarrel with his former editor, and he was willing to show his books to prove that he had not sold out to the Japanese. He said that he had nothing against Sokolsky or Donald, and that Millard was “responsible for all this trouble” and for “the major statement” Rea had made at the Chamber of Commerce.12 In September, Rea did travel to Peking, but met Donald only by chance, in the Asia Bank. Donald was still so upset that he declined to talk with Rea further.13 Rea repeated that he had not said anything at the chamber meeting against Donald and that there no cause for ill will, but Donald did not accept Rea’s assurances. Both men were staying at the Grand Hotel in Peking, and later that evening, by awkward ill fortune, Rea was seated at the table next to Donald at the hotel restaurant. You could no doubt hear Donald’s knife 180 Chapter Seventeen cutting through the rare steak to his ceramic plate, and his fork stabbing his boiled potatoes, amid the silent discord. While in Peking, Rea called on several people, but no one had made specific arrangements to meet the visiting publisher of the Far Eastern Review. According to Donald, Rea spent his time in Peking “severely alone unless he called on people.”14 Rea tried one more time to smooth things with his former editor. He bumped into Donald outside the hotel, promised to write a letter of apology to Judge Ross, and to send a copy to Donald as requested. Rea also promised to write a letter to the chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai retracting his accusations. Yet it appears Rea never wrote a letter to Judge Ross, and Donald waited for his apology, which never came.15 Donald discovered that suing Rea would be an impossible battle. First, Rea’s allegations were verbal. They were not embodied in the written minutes of the Chamber of Commerce meeting, so there was no viable suit for libel, only for slander.16 Another obstacle was that there was no U.S.-style court, where one could sue for individual libel or slander in the International Settle- ment. A further difficulty was that when Rea published scathing accusations in his magazine, he often referred to people by pronouns or indirectly through vague epithets. For example, though Rea published numerous vitriolic editorials in his magazine denouncing two people who sued him after the First World War, specifying that the first lawsuit came from within the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai—the lawsuit it is now clear that involved Donald—and railing against a second libel suit brought by British subject, who also attempted to sue Rea for libel, not once did Rea specifically state who sued him by name. The second suit for libel against the Far Eastern Review appears to have been promulgated by journalist Albert Shaw in 1921. The specifics of the suit are not clear. According to Rea, the suit severely affected his advertising, a conclusion with which Sokolsky agreed. “From all that I can hear on the subject,” Sokolsky wrote, “the sympathy of Shanghai is naturally with Shaw and the bringing of this question to the front will seriously affect British advertising in the paper.”17 But despite two lawsuits for libel, Rea’s allegations and editorials were beyond the court’s jurisdiction. Sokolsky concluded that men like Rea “take risks which they otherwise would not dare to take because they know that there can be no immediate danger to them.”18 In late 1921, the Chinese international media tossed lawsuits and personal animosities aside to focus on the Washington Naval Conference, the first disarmament conference in history, called by President Warren Harding to alleviate strained relations with China and to repair damage done at the Paris Peace Conference. Sokolsky covered the conference attended by nine nations. Restraining Japanese naval expansion was a key Western objective. At the Frenemies 181 conclusion of the Conference in February 1922, Japan withdrew troops from Shantung and restored certain railway interests to China. Representatives of Britain, the United States, Japan, France, and Italy established capital ship tonnage ratio limits for their respective nations. The Soviet Union was purposefully excluded from the conference by the United States, who had increasingly shunned the Marxist Bolshevik party led by Vladimir Lenin. The Bolsheviks had come into power during the 1917 revolution, and in 1922 formed into what became commonly referred to as the Soviet Union. Yet a few months after the conference, Sun Yat-sen shifted political alliances away from the United States by acknowledging and establishing contact with the communist Soviet Union, much to the dis- may of the United States. Sun had pursued socialist ideas in China for years and many of the revolutionary ideals pursued by the new Soviet Union attracted Sun. The gains made at the Washington Conference were not enough to dissuade Sun from forming communist alliances to keep his political and economic options open. Sun’s government needed numerous allies because his government continued to struggle financially. The Government Bureau of Economic Information run by Donald was going bankrupt because there were simply no government subsidies to keep it running. First Donald was forced to decrease his office staff by dismissing two translators and a stenographer.19 Salaries for the remaining staff in Peking were cut in half. In June, Donald was unable to pay staff altogether.20 The office in Shanghai under Sokolsky, however, remained intact, but only because Donald had borrowed money from the bank.21 Donald applied numerous times for the promised government appropriations but received no reply. He had received his last stipend in December 1921, and since then had been using his personal savings and overdrafts to publish the report, but his savings were about to run out. After asking for his stipend numerous times, he then wrote to the Chinese Finance Minister asking for $100,000 worth of bonds to continue publishing, but admitted it was “impossible to get blood out of a stone.”22 As Donald’s finances and morale were at a nadir, in the spring of 1922, Rea and his young wife had reached a new high in their lives. The Emperor of Ja- pan had invited them to a coveted select gathering at the most famous park in Tokyo. Every year in mid-April, the Emperor hosted an event to celebrate the blooming of cherry blossoms. The Minister of the Japanese Imperial House- hold Agency sent Rea a royal invitation written in gold-colored, embossed, Japanese calligraphy, along with a map of the park. The royal family honored a special group of five hundred guests, and Rea and his wife were among them. They included foreign dignitaries, government officials, those in the high echelons of Japanese society and their wives. The shipboard journey 182 Chapter Seventeen may not have been an especially pleasant one for Curra, however. She may have begun to feel nausea because she was pregnant. Back in China, in a last effort “to dodge the bullet,” Donald changed his address to “save the equipment from a voracious landlord” who wanted compensation for unpaid rent.23 Things were so bad that Donald moved in with a U.S. friend named Roy Anderson, a fellow journalist who wrote for the North China Daily News. Just when all seemed lost, the Chinese government finally came through with an infusion of capital and the Government Bureau of Economic Information got back on its financial feet. Yet Donald learned harsh lessons after months of red ink and implemented strict new accounting procedures, which led to rising tensions between him and Sokolsky. In his five years living in China, Sokolsky had gained special privilege in Chinese high society in part by marrying an accomplished Chi- nese graduate of the Royal Academy of Music in London, Rosalind Phang in October 1922. The couple gained further repute as lavish entertainers, but Sokolsky rarely kept track of how much money he spent. In the same month that Sokolsky married, and no doubt threw expensive parties to celebrate, Rea became a father. On Thursday, October 12, 1922, Frances Rea gave birth in Shanghai to a healthy baby girl. It would be her only child. She named her daughter simply Gloria Rea, abandoning the Span- ish tradition of giving a middle name, or using two sir names by providing the mother’s maiden name. Frances and Geo Rea were proud parents, and a radiantly happy couple. However, Rea no doubt noticed that he looked more like a grandfather standing beside his young new wife when a baby was in the picture; Frances was not, however, a particularly maternal woman, preferring to show off her youthful looks at social gatherings. A fourth child redoubled Rea’s vigor to fight and accuse his competitors. In a completely ironic reversal with a twist, Rea now accused Donald’s Bureau of being backed by British interests and claimed that the publication was a British propaganda organization. Donald’s reaction was complete lack of surprise and said it was a testament of Rea’s “mental feebleness.”24 In the spring of 1923, Shanghai was unbearably quiet. Sokolsky said, “Business is shot to Hell and there is no scandal or politics to stimulate interest. The community is very much like Berlin after the Armistice—a loss of interest, a sense of futility and a devotion to dancing and booze. . . . There seems to be no end to Shanghai’s lust for amusement and where the money comes from to pay for it no one seems to know.”25 With time on his hands and no money to spare, Donald decided to investigate exactly how Sokolsky was spending business money at the Shanghai office and asked his associate to hand over the Shanghai accounting books to public auditors. In what seemed practically an admission of overspending Frenemies 183 before the fact, Sokolsky asked that the books be reviewed privately first to make any corrections necessary before a public audit. “I am very sorry that the accounts were muddled but I know less about accounts than you do, and I believe you said you knew nothing.”26 The books were indeed muddled and Sokolsky was unable to provide an accurate accounting of business spending. As a result, in the ensuing months, Donald’s attitude toward him deteriorated to the point where Soks felt his boss had “lost faith” in him and his judgment.27 Donald warned Sokolsky time and again to be more “scrupulous” about finances. At first Sokolsky made an arithmetic error that caused his account to show a few hundred dollars overdrafted. Following this, Donald’s Government Bureau of Economic Information sent Sokolsky $2,500, but Sokolsky never acknowledged receipt of the money. Finally, Sokolsky asked his boss for $4,600 more. The money was given, but Donald was unable to find out why it was needed.28 When Donald confronted Sokolsky about the money issues, the Shanghai editor submitted his resignation in May, but said for the record his reason was that “some remarkable opportunities have presented themselves to me which I do not feel that I have any right to let go by.”29 During that same week in May, on a warm spring evening, Powell of Mil- lard’s Review, recently renamed the China Weekly Review, was riding first class with a few fellow newsmen on a train between Nanking and Peking. He was traveling to cover a completed reclamation project for famine relief funded by the American Red Cross. As news stories went, this one promised little opportunity for star reporting. Yet the train, named “The Blue Express,” was new and comfortable, and the first-ever steel coaches, which the Chi- nese Railway Administration had freshly purchased from the United States, gleamed. Among the numerous foreign passengers was John D. Rockefeller’s sister-in-law, as well as the daughter of Rhode Island Senator Nelson Aldrich. Powell’s compartment-mate was an English-speaking French employee of the Chinese Customs Administration. The two hit it off, and were up talking until 2:00 a.m. enjoying a soft breeze, and the distant moonlit mountains of Shantung in view from their open car window.30 Suddenly the train came grinding to a halt with such abruptness, passengers were thrown from their overnight berths. Powell heard shouting and stuck his head out the window, only to quickly duck back in at the sound of gunfire. The area was known for bandits, mostly unemployed soldiers from the provincial armies who looted towns and trains and kidnapped for ransom. Numbering what Powell described as a small army of about two hundred, they climbed in by smashing open train windows then ran down the corridors, pulling the passengers from their berths and rifling through luggage.31 184 Chapter Seventeen

When one man objected to his treatment, he was shot instantly. Powell had a pistol in his bag, as did his compartment-mate, but realizing they were completely outnumbered, they handed over their guns. Most all the passengers, including Rockefeller’s sister-in-law, were taken from the train in their nightclothes and lined up by an embankment in bare feet. In the chaos, the only other foreign reporter escaped by hiding under a seat. Two captors guarded each passenger and marched them barefoot in their nightclothes through fields and hills to the top of a mountain. At the rear of the group, bandits hauled away everything they could find, from suitcases to mattresses. When they reached the top of the mountain after a long journey, the captives were given nothing more than a raw egg and water to drink and were then marched several hours more through rain and streams to a village where they were each given a hot bowl of weak tea. Exhausted, hungry, with aching blistered feet, the hostages collapsed on dry mats in soaking wet nightclothes and slept.32 Powell awoke in the late afternoon of the next day to find that the children and all the women save one had disappeared. They had been freed. The one remaining female hostage had stayed with her husband by dressing in men’s clothing. Powell was among twenty remaining captives. For the next week and a half, his captors forced him to march over a hundred miles through steep hills and rugged mountain trails. Food was scarce. He ate dog meat passed off as veal. Finally the group reached the bandit stronghold, which consisted of an abandoned religious temple in a village near the Shantung Mountains.33 The kidnappings made headline news around the world. Powell, ever the journalist, had written every day of the long journey on scraps of paper. When the bandits were not looking, he handed the papers, addressed to the American Consul in the provincial capital, to a villager one day as he was being marched through town. The local villager helped Powell smuggle his story to the China Weekly Review, which in turn wired it to international news services. When the story broke, both the United States and Great Britain demanded Peking take immediate steps to negotiate the release of the hostages. Japanese officials, on the other hand, diplomatically shrugged their shoulders. They claimed they were unable to help because the Wash- ington Naval Conference had forced them to evacuate the province and further reminded the world that the action might have been avoided if Japan had been allowed “to maintain order.”34 The man primarily responsible for beginning negotiations to release the captives was Roy Anderson of Standard Oil, assisted by the Chinese Com- missioner on Foreign Affairs. Anderson was the Chinese-born son of Dr. D. S. Andrews, a missionary and founder of Suzhou University. He had gone Frenemies 185 to the United States for schooling and college and returned to China in 1902 able to speak eight Chinese dialects and read Chinese. Like Rea and Donald, Anderson worked with Sun and had become an important Chinese advisor. Standard Oil employed him as their Asian political and economic advisor. During his term as U.S. Minister in China, Paul Reinsch also relied heavily on Anderson. Anderson’s roots in China and his knowledge of Chinese politics, economics, and language dialects made him a unique and valuable resource. First, Anderson negotiated for food, camp cots, and mosquito netting. Meanwhile, government forces gathered eight thousand troops to attack the stronghold, but the bandits kept the army away by constantly threatening executions. A huge ransom and the demand of the abdication of high-ranking provincial officers were the key stumbling blocks in the negotiations. An entire month passed, and finally there was a “peace conference” between military chieftains over money, neutralization of territory, taxation of minerals, coal, and communication development, all centered on freeing the hostages. At last an agreement was reached, and armed personnel began hauling cart- loads of silver to the bandit stronghold. Powell and the other captives were released in exchange for ransom money, incorporating the bandit soldiers into the government army and paying them six months’ wages.35 On his release Powell discovered that Sokolsky had opposed the indemnity ransom asked for by the bandits and had written articles minimizing the kidnappings. This led to a falling out between the two formerly friendly journalists. Powell tried to prove that the Chinese government subsidized Sokolsky’s views in what the latter called a “left-handed lunge between my shoulder blades.” He hoped that Powell would “eventually return to his normal good sense.”36 There was a shift in editorial policy for the journalists as well at this time. Powell continued to write articles stating that foreigners needed to make concessions to the Chinese government and to accept Sun’s diplomatic ties with Russia. Sokolsky and Anderson on the other hand, began writing articles criticizing Sun for establishing contact with the Soviet Union in 1922. Us- ing their pen names, G. Gramada and Bruce Baxter, Sokolsky and Anderson wrote against the revolutionary they once worked for. Foreign affairs advisor Eugene Chen, who was also Sun’s personal secretary, verbally attacked the journalists for their political propaganda against Sun. When Chen discovered that Sokolsky was the author behind the pen name G. Gramada, he immediately denounced Sokolsky’s connection with the Government Bureau on Economic Information. Six months after Powell’s kidnapping, Anderson reported that the soldiers responsible for the kidnappings were relieved of their weapons and massa- cred by the government forces that had reemployed them. Many foreigners 186 Chapter Seventeen felt justice had been served. But Anderson predicted that the murders would exacerbate strained relations with foreigners living in China, particularly the missionaries, and his words proved prophetic. The death of Sun Yat-Sen, the founding father of the Chinese Revolution, proved to be the catalyst for increased turmoil in China. Sun was addressing a large political gathering in Canton in 1925 when he began to feel dizzy and fainted. He was rushed to Peking for treatment, where he was diagnosed with cancer. He died soon after on March 12, 1925. His passing opened up a vacuum of leadership and the end of hope for those who sought to form a government based on Western democratic ideals. China became further divided politically and militarily and grew financially unstable. Of all the journalists working in China, few were as devoted to Sun both during his life and after his death as Rea. What is surprising about this is that few journalists in China were as anti-socialist as Rea. The publisher stood proud and tall on the staunchly conservative ground of entrepreneurial capitalism. Nevertheless, from 1911 onward, Rea wrote in defense of Sun, even when Sun became a socialist who turned to the Soviet Union for advice. Although Rea was known to change opinions on a dime, condemning politicians one minute and applauding and defending them months later, he never wavered in his support of Sun. Rea framed the certificate of Power of Attor- ney that Sun granted him in 1911 and kept it throughout his lifetime. He even went so far as to say that if he had been young enough, and if the Soviets were not a part of the picture, he would have fought with the Kuomintang. Besides Theodore Roosevelt, and perhaps General Antonio Maceo, there was no one Rea admired more than the father of the Chinese revolution. Without Sun, China’s revolution imploded and so did the energy and hopes of the foreign correspondents. Donald had begun to feel increasingly exhausted. He had left China for London and then New York hoping the trip curative, but soon found himself unable to walk a single block. The problem ended up being a severe infection in his body that had spread from the ab- scesses of six teeth. He was lucky to be alive because his rotting teeth had been poisoning him for eight years.37 When Donald left China, he learned that the Far Eastern Review had published yet another article attacking him. Don- ald heard that Sokolsky was the author and concluded that Sokolsky was “a great talker and likes to pose about the town,” but was “a dangerous person” and one should “not trust him at all.”38 Sokolsky completely denied writing any negative article regarding Donald saying, “I have never written anything concerning him or his affairs. Any one who told him so is a liar and I should be obliged for the name of such a person.”39 In the years between 1920 and 1925 there was a reversal in journalistic alliances in China. The media competition was as cutthroat as ever, with Frenemies 187

Millard and Powell pitted against Rea. However, one journalist had flipped sides like dice in a roulette game. By 1925, Sokolsky, the man who claimed to have been the promulgating force in China’s May 4 student movement, the man who backed and promoted a boycott of Japanese goods in China, and the man who tried to convince Donald to sue Rea for libel, wound up taking a job working for his former nemesis at the Far Eastern Review.

NOTES

1. W. H. Donald, letter to George Sokolsky, December 18, 1920, Box 43.9, So- kolsky Collection. 2. Warren I. Cohen, The Chinese Connection, Roger S. Greene, Thomas W. Lamont George E. Sokolsky, and American-East Asian Relations (New York: Colum- bia University Press, 1978). 3. Charles Fox, Correspondence with Hoover Institute, Box 50.5, Sokolsky Col- lection. See also George Sokolsky, The Tinderbox of Asia (Garden City, NY: Double- day, 1932). 4. George Sokolsky, February 23, 1923, Box 43.10, Sokolsky Collection. 5. Bronson, Case for Manchukuo. 6. George Bronson Rea, August 10, 1921, Box 43.9, Sokolsky Collection. 7. W. H. Donald, letter to George Sokolsky, August 2, 1921, Box 43.9, Sokolsky Collection. 8. Donald to Sokolsky, August 2, 1921. 9. W. H. Donald letter to George Sokolsky, August 1, 1921, and cable July 29, 1921, Sokolsky Collection. 10. George Bronson Rea, August 8, 1921, Box 43.9, Sokolsky Collection. 11. Bronson Rea, August 10, 1921. 12. Bronson Rea, August 10, 1921. 13. W. H. Donald letter to George Sokolsky, September 29, 1921, Box 43.9, So- kolsky Collection,. 14. Donald to Sokolsky, September 29, 1921. 15. Donald to Sokolsky, September 29, 1921. 16. Donald to Sokolsky, September 29, 1921. 17. George Sokolsky letter to W. H. Donald, March 10, 1921, Box 43.9, Sokolsky Collection. 18. George Sokolsky letter to W. H. Donald, December 15, 1921, Box 43.9, So- kolsky Collection. 19. W. H. Donald letter to George Sokolsky, July 11, 1922, Box 43.10, Sokolsky Collection. 20. Donald to Sokolsky, July 11, 1922. 21. Donald to Sokolsky, July 11, 1922. 22. Donald to Sokolsky, July 11, 1922. 188 Chapter Seventeen

23. W. H. Donald letter to George Sokolsky, September 18, 1922, Box 43.10, Sokolsky Collection. 24. W. H. Donald letter to George Sokolsky, February 26, 1923, Box 43.10, So- kolsky Collection. 25. George Sokolsky letter to W. H. Donald, March 10, 1923, Box 43.10, Sokolsky Collection. 26. Sokolsky to Donald, March 10, 1923. 27. Sokolsky letter to W. H. Donald, May 2, 1923, Box 43.10, Sokolsky Collection. 28. W. H. Donald letter to George Sokolsky, May 7, 1923, Box 43.10, Sokolsky Collection. 29. George Sokolsky letter to W. H. Donald, May 8, 1923, Box 43.10, Sokolsky Collection. 30. Powell, My 25 Years in China. 31. Powell, My 25 Years in China. 32. Powell, My 25 Years in China. 33. Powell, My 25 Years in China. 34. Powell, My 25 Years in China. 35. Powell, My 25 Years in China. 36. George Bronson Rea, July 23, 1923, Box 43.10, Sokolsky Collection. 37. George Bronson Rea, October 8, 1924, Box 43.10, Collection. 38. Rea, October 8, 1924. 39. George Bronson Rea, February 22, 1925, Box 43.10, Sokolsky Collection. Chapter Eighteen

The Maelstrom

In the wake of Sun Yat-sen’s death, gloom engulfed the foreigners in the In- ternational Settlement in Shanghai like a bad hangover. A serious economic depression was imminent. Accounting books were in the red throughout the business community, and most periodicals in China lost advertising.1 Sokol- sky felt sure the Far Eastern Review would lose accounts, especially because the Japanese were having, “a perfect hell of a time.”2 The island was still reeling economically from a 7.9 magnitude earthquake that had struck two years before on September 1, 1923, killing 100,000 people. After the earthquake, corporate conglomerates—called Zaibatsu—struggled, and some corporations failed. Sokolsky predicted that the failure of the Suzuki Zabaitsu in particular would have political reverberations throughout Japan, where there was growing tension between business and military interests on economic policies, including staying on the gold standard and reduc- ing the military budget. Japan also faced yet another boycott by the Chinese. Sokolsky expected strikes, demonstrations, and riots in Shanghai throughout the early summer months of 1925. But despite worsening conditions, he felt sure the turning point was imminent.

For many years we have all been talking about conditions here reaching the lowest ebb, and that then there would be a turning for the better. There can be no question that the bottom has been reached. Chinese and foreigners both admit it. The turning point is about to come soon. Now when the turning point comes, the first problem that the Chinese will have to face, is not so much the building of new railroads as the rehabilitation of old ones.3

Rea and Sokolsky had similar visions on business investment in China. Both felt railroads to be one of China’s best venture capital opportunities,

189 190 Chapter Eighteen although Sokolsky believed repairing existing railroads more important to building new ones. Both were capitalist opportunists willing to swim in vastly different political waters to get money for advertising, who tacitly acknowledged that the need for advertising trumped political principles. Business was business. Both were avid lobbyists for their political and business venture backers, entertained lavishly to secure deals, and were extraordinarily knowl- edgeable about Chinese political and international affairs. They differed sharply, however, in their belief on what made a good editorial. Each agreed editorials were a principal means of lobbying for politicians, causes, investment, and advertising. Yet, whereas Sokolsky was taciturn by nature, Rea came out swinging paragraphs like a Brooklyn street boxer. He wrote long, didactic, vitriolic diatribes, usually digressing from his point numerous times. His editorials were at least ten, sometimes twenty, pages single-spaced. He felt editorials were the fundamental strength of the Far Eastern Review because only engineers or others directly interested in a business venture in the Far East would trudge through tedious pages on subjects like soybean cultivation. He told Sokolsky, “It is the editorials on the general Far Eastern situation which carries the Review and which will build up not only the magazine but your own prestige.”4 Sokolsky, on the other hand, was a pragmatist who condensed and edited his arguments down to a page-and-a-half maximum. He argued adroitly that many Japanese and Chinese read English slowly, and could not wade through lengthy editorial matter. Moreover, he knew that even U.S. and British readers often found Rea’s lengthy, digressive, and reiterative articles too much trouble to plow through. Sokolsky lacked Rea’s vitriolic temper and was more sensitive to upsetting delicate Chinese and Japanese political alliances. The new editor of the Far Eastern Review demurred to writing lengthy editorials, but showed deference to his new boss by offering that Rea could write the long editorials, and he, the short ones. While Sokolsky managed the job of publishing the magazine in Shanghai, Rea sought advertising support in England. But Rea had no success drumming up business in London owing to another Chinese boycott of British goods. Hostility between the Chinese and British began escalating anew in May 1925 when police officers opened fire on a group of student protestors in Shanghai’s International Settlement. Soon after, a Japanese foreman shot another protestor, setting off another wave of anti-imperialist demonstrations targeting primarily Japan and Great Britain.5 London newspapers were not enticed to cover the stories as they were focused mostly on a looming General Strike, which would ultimately cause unemployment in the country to skyrocket from 90,000 to almost two million. The Maelstrom 191

However, the British government was anxious enough about trade with China to begin a large and expensive propaganda campaign. Hearst’s Journal, renamed The New York American, printed a story saying the British had denied appropriating $3 million to restore British prestige in China through propaganda, but ironically the denial made the story more credible. The campaign began with a press conference called by the manager of a leading British brokerage firm, suggesting that each paper in attendance publish a special supplement exposing the communist menace and include in them articles along the lines of “How to Spot Communists at Moving Picture Shows and Other Public Gatherings.”6 The proposed article title is humor- ous to the point of being ludicrous, but many western powers saw the rise of communism as a serious threat to China and sought novel ways to combat it. According to Rea, the root of renewed strained relations between Britain and China had to do less with the growing influence of communism in China and more to do with the North China Daily News’s “vicious,” “villainous campaign” against the revered father of the Chinese republic.7 In yet another assault against his former editor Donald and an American named Rodney Gilbert, Rea accused the two of leading the calumnious attacks against Sun. To be fair, Rea should have also mentioned Roy Anderson of Standard Oil, who had strongly opposed Sun’s association with the Soviet Union. Ander- son, the foreigner who spoke eight Chinese dialects and who had negotiated freedom for fellow journalist Powell, had been in the prime of life when he died suddenly from pneumonia earlier that year. Just before he died, President Calvin Coolidge was considering appointing him minister to Peking.8 Rea should also have added his current editor Sokolsky’s to the list because he had written several articles against Sun under the pen name G. Gramada, but Rea cherry-picked whom he accused. In fact contrary to denouncing him, on August 11, 1925, Rea officially promoted Sokolsky to “act as Manager and Editor of the Far Eastern Review,” with full control over the office and the business and editorial end when Rea was not in China. Sokolsky was also given “full power to sign and endorse checks for deposit and for withdrawal. Rea told his new editor to focus his “full time and attention to the business of the Far Eastern Review, and con- tribute your best efforts to build it up, especially the advertising end.” Salary was $1,000 Mexican per month plus traveling expenses. The Mexican dollar was the standard currency of Shanghai in 1925 because the Chinese currency known as the “tael” fluctuated too greatly.9 Rea had hired Sokolsky because business as well as family troubles required him to leave China once again. The family troubles began with the arrival that summer of Rea’s eldest son 192 Chapter Eighteen

Bill and daughter Connie in Shanghai, both of whom moved in with Rea and Curra. Bill’s wife moved in, too, with a daughter from a previous marriage and was soon to announce she was pregnant. Bill tried working for his father briefly and then tried selling automobiles, but failed to make a go of it in each venture. He had a weakness for both drink and women, and when he met his father’s exceedingly attractive wife, there was a volatile chemistry between them from the start. (See figures 18.1 and 18.2.) In age, they were only one year apart. Bill was smitten by Curra’s

Figure 18.1. Bill Rea 1925 in Shanghai 1925 The Maelstrom 193

Figure 18.2. Frances Rea youthful beauty, and she in turn always enjoyed being the center of any man’s attention. Yet, they argued over household matters—like who got final say to spend $1,000 on furniture—like two cats vying for territorial dominance. Their chemistry unsettled everyone, as did evenings on the town during which Curra looked and acted more like one of Rea’s children, dancing the 194 Chapter Eighteen night away, while the aging Rea sat at the dinner table feeling weak with in- she had stopped receiving letters. Soon Curra received the worst news: Her digestion. He regretted allowing his children to stay in Shanghai. sister had fallen ill while traveling and died. She rushed home to be with Rea knew his son was attracted to Curra, that he antagonized her, and ac- her mother in Granada, Spain. Yet her mother too had become ill and grief cording to Rea, “started something” which placed everyone in an awkward compounded the sickness. Gertrude Ruiz-Morón died on Christmas day 1925, situation. The situation worsened to a point where Curra left Shanghai to take leaving Curra devastated at the loss of her two closest family members just a break from both her husband and his son. She met a man named Rafael months apart. Rea sailed immediately for Spain to comfort his wife. while traveling, which threatened both the eruption of a public scandal as The ensuing winter months were cold and gray, and something changed in well as her marriage.10 Curra following the death of her sister and mother. It took all of Rea’s power As Curra began questioning her marriage to a man more than twice her age and love to keep his wife from leaving him for good. They remained together (see figure 18.3), she also became very worried about her sister, from whom as a married couple because Rea promised to take care of her financially, but for Curra the passion was gone. She began to drink more heavily, though she was able to maintain her well-learned composure in public, save perhaps for flirting a bit too much with young men. She would spend much of the next decade apart from her husband, boarding one cruise ship after another, always traveling first class, staying in the finest hotels in the world, and attending weekly balls. By the time her daughter Gloria became a teenager, they boasted that they had traveled around the world eight times over. Business difficulties, and almost losing his wife, took a toll on Rea. He had begun to feel chronically ill and began losing weight. He felt so weak on a business trip to London that he admitted himself into a hospital. He was diagnosed with sprue, now known as celiac disease, a disorder in which the lining of the small intestine prevents the absorption of nutrients in food. The disease results from intolerance to gluten, such as any food with wheat or rye in it. Rea was put on a diet of milk and steak and spent more than a month in a nursing home. He blamed living in China for his sickness because Cauca- sian foreigners often came down with intestinal ailments from living abroad. Once out of hospital, he spent two weeks recovering in Spain. After more than a month of illness, he finally felt well enough to sail to Bombay, India, to gather data on the cotton industry for a series of articles to counter a British campaign against alleged unfair competition from the Japanese. While recovering, Rea also began to develop the seeds of a plan to get back as the paid representative for American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai. He took advantage of changing political alliances, which had been shifting like ground in an earthquake since Sun’s death. John Powell, Thomas Mil- lard, William Donald, and what Rea called the left-leaning “Peking crowd” were sinking into disfavor. Powell was no longer secretary of the American Chamber of Commerce, and Rea hoped to fill the vacuum in the chamber as a means of getting closer with Chinese business. Rea also knew that getting back in with the American Chamber of Commerce would provide opportunities to keep his Japanese banking friends apprised of any news concerning the American Consortium and any new finance negotiations. Loans for China Figure 18.3. George Bronson Rea The Maelstrom 195

she had stopped receiving letters. Soon Curra received the worst news: Her sister had fallen ill while traveling and died. She rushed home to be with her mother in Granada, Spain. Yet her mother too had become ill and grief compounded the sickness. Gertrude Ruiz-Morón died on Christmas day 1925, leaving Curra devastated at the loss of her two closest family members just months apart. Rea sailed immediately for Spain to comfort his wife. The ensuing winter months were cold and gray, and something changed in Curra following the death of her sister and mother. It took all of Rea’s power and love to keep his wife from leaving him for good. They remained together as a married couple because Rea promised to take care of her financially, but for Curra the passion was gone. She began to drink more heavily, though she was able to maintain her well-learned composure in public, save perhaps for flirting a bit too much with young men. She would spend much of the next decade apart from her husband, boarding one cruise ship after another, always traveling first class, staying in the finest hotels in the world, and attending weekly balls. By the time her daughter Gloria became a teenager, they boasted that they had traveled around the world eight times over. Business difficulties, and almost losing his wife, took a toll on Rea. He had begun to feel chronically ill and began losing weight. He felt so weak on a business trip to London that he admitted himself into a hospital. He was diagnosed with sprue, now known as celiac disease, a disorder in which the lining of the small intestine prevents the absorption of nutrients in food. The disease results from intolerance to gluten, such as any food with wheat or rye in it. Rea was put on a diet of milk and steak and spent more than a month in a nursing home. He blamed living in China for his sickness because Cauca- sian foreigners often came down with intestinal ailments from living abroad. Once out of hospital, he spent two weeks recovering in Spain. After more than a month of illness, he finally felt well enough to sail to Bombay, India, to gather data on the cotton industry for a series of articles to counter a British campaign against alleged unfair competition from the Japanese. While recovering, Rea also began to develop the seeds of a plan to get back as the paid representative for American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai. He took advantage of changing political alliances, which had been shifting like ground in an earthquake since Sun’s death. John Powell, Thomas Mil- lard, William Donald, and what Rea called the left-leaning “Peking crowd” were sinking into disfavor. Powell was no longer secretary of the American Chamber of Commerce, and Rea hoped to fill the vacuum in the chamber as a means of getting closer with Chinese business. Rea also knew that getting back in with the American Chamber of Commerce would provide opportunities to keep his Japanese banking friends apprised of any news concerning the American Consortium and any new finance negotiations. Loans for China Figure 18.3. George Bronson Rea 196 Chapter Eighteen were never far from Rea’s thoughts, and he now believed his Japanese banking contacts might help him work a new deal. Rea wanted to make sure that no one would accuse himself or Sokolsky of any conflict of interest concerning the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, so he told Sokolsky to recuse himself from any role in the chamber other than regular membership. Politically, China was in complete turmoil and rife with factionalized warlord armies fighting for regional areas to control. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek became the leader of the Kuomintang party when Sun died. In 1926 Chiang led a nationalist, military campaign with the goal to unite China and with 100,000 soldiers began what is called the Northern Expedition. No place felt safe. Thousands of foreign missionaries fled to Shanghai when many mission-run schools, churches, and foreign residences were looted and burned. Once again Rea was far away from China during a time of intense turmoil. In 1926, feeling partially recovered from his illness, he traveled with his wife to Osaka, Japan, to collect payment for advertising from Masunosuke Odagiri. Payments from the Japanese had always been a delicate matter, a subject never approached directly. Rea provided information about politics and economics not widely known in the press and wrote articles in favor of Japanese investment and trade with China. In return the Yokohama Specie Bank bought precious advertising space, including the full-page back cover of the Far Eastern Review magazine for every issue. Although Odagiri was no longer on the board of directors with the bank, he remained a powerful and influential business leader in Japan. Rea was disappointed to discover that Odagiri seemed offended in some way. Rea worried that “the usual support is lacking this year.”11 It turned out that the cause of the problem was that Sokolsky had “slipped a cog” in the highly sensitive, private understandings between Rea and the Japanese banker by having written a letter asking for payment. “You know Mr. Rea that our relationship and understanding with you is purely personal and not official. Our little group know you personally and appreciate all that you have done, but they don’t know Mr. Sokolsky yet,” Odagiri admonished. Rea advised Sokolsky to amend the error by writing occasional letters to Odagiri with “some inside dope that will interest him and his group on what is transpiring in China.”12 While in Nara, Japan, Rea’s sickness relapsed and he felt not only physically ill but emotionally also at a breaking point. Business worries, too much activity too soon, as well as family problems overwhelmed him. He wrote Sokolsky,

I feel I have lost my grip for the time being. The disappointment over business added to other mental worries has completely upset me and I simply caved for the time being. The weather has been raining and gloomy. I am way down in The Maelstrom 197

the dumps and feel rotten. . . . I feel so tired at times that I could get into a bed or a grave and stay there.”13

He felt slightly better when he received twenty-seven thousand yen in advertising payments from other business and hoped to make fifty thousand yen for the year. Yet revenue was down from the eighty thousand yen Rea had made in the early 1920s. He noted, “Business is coming on very slowly and I may lose about $20,000 this year in Japan unless it can be made up in new business.”14 Advertising from the cotton industry seemed to have the most likely business potential. Rea’s existing business was from the Japanese Cotton club, and he pinned his hopes of new advertising on the Japan Cotton Trad- ing Company and the Japanese Spinner’s Association. He hoped his research in Bombay and articles written in favor of Japanese cotton companies would ensure he was picked for future advertising deals. The articles were written in true Rea rhetorical style and caused a firestorm of editorial retorts. But improved business prospects did not improve his health, and in De- cember 1926 he had traveled back to the United States and checked into Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto, California. He had lost so much weight that his five-foot ten-inch frame was a near-skeletal 132 pounds. By the New Year he was feeling slightly on the mend and thankful not be in China. First he heard the reports that all of the industries of the Wu-Han area had been forced to close down by a mass of thousands of angry unemployed workers. Then the parades and demonstrations began, followed by more alarming reports of fighting and attacks against foreigners in Hankow. According to Rea, the stories covering attacks on foreigners in the North China Daily News created a situation of near panic among residents of the International Settlement in Shanghai, which still included two of Rea’s children. For Bill Rea, coming to Shanghai had meant being introduced to a bustling nightlife of dressing up in a tuxedo to meet at the Shanghai Club. He emu- lated his father in his youth and wanted to drink, gamble, and dance away the evening with a beautiful young woman. Bill liked liquor to a fault, and his younger sister Connie, drank and took hard drugs according to family members. In China, smoking opium was considered then like marijuana was in the 1970s. Even Rea smoked it at least once, as evidenced by a family photo, and Curra had her own personal opium pipe. Shanghai was a quintessential party town, but in the spring of 1927, although the clubs were still open, they were filled with men in uniform, which given the recent memory of the First World War, sank the heart of anyone. The streets provided no respite from the impending battles to come, as thousands of laborers with shovels noisily dug trenches and others built barbed- wire barricades and concrete blockhouses, throughout the day and night. 198 Chapter Eighteen

On April 12, 1927, Chiang marched the conservative faction of his Kuomintang military into Shanghai. Up until that day the Communists had been closely allied with the Kuomintang party. That changed that fateful day when the Chiang’s forces went door to door, rounded up all known Com- munists in Shanghai, and summarily arrested and executed them. Hundreds of bodies piled up in Shanghai streets. This triggered Chiang’s nationwide purge of Communists in which an estimated five thousand to six thousand Communists were killed or went missing. The Shanghai massacre marked the beginning of China’s Nationalist-Communist Civil War between the Kuomintang—also known as the Chinese Nationalist Party led by Chiang, and China’s Communist Party. After the Shanghai massacre, foreigners like Connie, Bill, his wife, and newborn daughter were the primary targets for both Nationalist and Commu- nist militia because all Chinese found common ground blaming foreigners for exploiting China. The situation became so volatile that forty thousand foreign troops were dispatched to Shanghai, including military from Japan, Italy, France, and Great Britain as well as U.S. marines and soldiers. However, the Fourth American Marine Corps considered going to the international port of China a plum assignment. Their role was to protect, but not to fire offensively, so the soldiers spent much of their time buying teakwood chests, silk, and carved ivory at prices that made their mouths water.15 Residents in the Shanghai International Settlement argued intensely over whether the Americans were part of a unified international force or a separate monitoring presence. Many residents saw the troops as part of an overall plan to ensure that the International Settlement in Shanghai remain a neutral zone. Powell described how “old-guard merchants and residents with vested interests in the Settlement who dominated the port and controlled most of the newspapers, believed, under the hypnotism of their own self-made propaganda, that the long-awaited day of deliverance had arrived. Plans for the creation of a vast ‘free, city’ area at the mouth of the Yangtze were pulled out of pigeonholes, dusted off, and revised for immediate use.”16 However, the sole purpose of the U.S. military was to protect Bill, his family, and others in the U.S. community against mob violence. As China began its civil war, it was important for nations to maintain neutrality lest the civil conflict become another global war. Therefore, the policy of President Coolidge was absolutely non-interventionist. The president did not consider the U.S. military presence part of any international unified command. Neither was the presence of Americans on Chinese soil intended to block China’s Nationalist movement. A statement of non-intervention was published in the China Weekly Review followed by publication of a Washington dispatch. When Americans living in the international settlement realized they would The Maelstrom 199 not truly be protected, it led to what Powell, now the editor of the China Weekly Review called, a “mass psychopathy” of exasperation. The potential use of offensive U.S. military force grew to goals beyond protecting foreigners in the minds of most expatriates living in Shanghai. It was about protecting U.S. business interests and also about whether to use the U.S. military to aid Chiang. Rea supported Chiang to the point of working under him at one point, but there was little information to discover regarding the details of Rea’s work. Rea was stridently anti-Communist and supporting Chi- ang’s Nationalists potentially hurt more radical Communists, and vice versa. Powell did not support using the U.S. military to take any action in China’s civil war and wrote editorials supporting non-intervention for the paper.17 However, there were stronger forces calling for intervention, which not surprisingly included Rea. First the Consul-General pleaded with the U.S. State Department to use offensive military force to control the Communists and to assist Chiang. Then the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai then passed a resolution written by Rea, demanding armed intervention by the U.S. forces in China. In supporting U.S. military intervention in Shanghai, Rea succeeded in getting his revenge on Powell. Shortly after the passage of this resolution, Shanghai Chamber directors called a special meeting in which they formally requested the resignation of Powell from the American Cham- ber of Commerce because of his paper’s editorial policy. The directors of the chamber said Powell was “contrary to the interests of American business in Shanghai and of foreigners generally in China.”18 Powell responded:

I realized fully the seriousness of the crisis in China, but was convinced that armed action by the Powers would only have the effect of strengthening the radical elements and their Soviet supporters who were trying to overthrow the moderate Kuomintang faction, led by General Chiang Kai-shek. I also explained that the views I had expressed editorially in the [China Weekly] Review coincided with the traditional views of the United States Government, and particularly with the views of the Administration leaders.19

U.S. missionary groups throughout China condemned the proclamations of the Chamber of Commerce, which they called “gunboat” diplomacy and contrary to U.S. and Chinese best interests alike. The chamber, however, persisted in its opposition to the U.S. government’s noninterventionist policies. Rea succeeded in his quest to replace Powell as the new representative of the American Chamber in Shanghai. He then began an attack in the Far East- ern Review against the missionaries in China. In Washington, D.C., Rea made a speech before the annual convention of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce advocating “benevolent intervention to save China from the Red influence 200 Chapter Eighteen of Moscow.”20 The speech solidified Rea’s reclamation of his former power and influence with the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce. Powell, on the other hand, was furious at having been ousted by Rea’s media campaign. Meanwhile back in Shanghai, Bill Rea dug his heels in trying to wait out the maelstrom with his wife and baby. His father had survived the Spanish– American War, and Bill was determined to stand firm like his father and tough it out in China. Bill idolized and worshipped his father. He believed the name “Rea” was something one had to live up to. Although George Bronson Rea would over time try to let bygones be bygones for most everyone with whom he had a professional argument, he was not as forgiving when it came to his family. He had a falling out with his eldest son and daughter and not even an invasion of Shanghai could get the publisher of the Far Eastern Review to ask after his eldest children. Despite prolific correspondence with Sokolsky during this period, there is no evidence that Rea ever inquired into or expressed concern about Bill, Connie, his daughter-in- law, or grandchild during the months of fighting in and around Shanghai. Bill, his wife, step-daughter, and one-year-old baby daughter narrowly escaped Shanghai on April 18, 1927. In the midst of a fierce battle to seize the belea- guered city, they boarded the USS President Jackson, leaving the family’s precious furniture, silks, and valuables behind. The elder Rea was in Redlands, California, staying with friends, weathering out a spring rainstorm at the time, and had no idea that his family had fled Shanghai. His eldest son sailed away from China, as his father had sailed away from Cuba years before, with a wife and child, and nothing more than the shirt on his back.

NOTES

1. The China Journal of Science and Arts 4, no. 1 (January 1927). 2. George Sokolsky, letter to George Bronson Rea, March 23, 1925, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 3. Sokolsky to Rea, March 23, 1925. 4. George Bronson Rea, letter to George Sokolsky, February 26, 1926, p. 5, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 5. “May Thirtieth Movement,” Wikipedia, accessed February 12, 2017, http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Thirtieth_Movement. 6. Powell, My 25 Years in China. 7. Rea to Sokolsky, February 26, 1926. 8. Powell, My 25 Years in China. 9. George Bronson Rea, Letter to George Sokolsky, August 11, 1925, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 10. Frances Rea letter, personal collection of Leslie E. Clark. The Maelstrom 201

11. George Bronson Rea, October 19, 1926, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 12. George Bronson Rea, November 2, 1926, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 13. George Bronson Rea, October 9, 1926, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 14. George Bronson Rea, October 4, 1926, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 15. “China Marines,” China Marines, accessed February 12, 2017, www.chinama rines.com/ver3/shan.htm. 16. Powell, My 25 Years in China. 17. Powell, My 25 Years in China, 164. 18. Powell, My 25 Years in China, 164. 19. Powell, My 25 Years in China, 164. 20. Powell, My 25 Years in China, 164.

Chapter Nineteen

Hoover’s Goldmine

In publishing news stories, timing is important. Rarely does a publisher wait years to print a really good story, but such was the case with information Rea dug up on Herbert Hoover. The research began when Rea presented the clerk at the Bureau of Indexes and Archives in Washington D.C. with a letter of introduction from Democratic Senator James A. Reed and requested permission to examine archived correspondence for the American Legation in China for the years 1900–1902. The clerk asked him the subject matter and purpose of the visit, but when Rea declined to state it, he told Rea that the department policy was to address such inquiries to the Secretary of State. Rea replied, “All right, I shall be glad to communicate that to the Senator” but did not turn to go. It was April 15, 1920. Rea finally admitted that he was investigating the records in connection with a contract Herbert Hoover made with a Chinese engineering company.1 He was not, he claimed, acting in his capacity as a journalist. Hoover had lived and worked in China for many years and was considered an “old China hand.” After he had graduated from Stanford University, where he studied geology and led student affairs, Hoover was hired by the British company Moreing & Co. to manage mining property in Australia. The future president of the United States was then twenty-two years of age and considered shrewd, smart, and ambitious. Two years later, on the recommendation of the same firm, Hoover was transferred and appointed mining engineer for the Chinese Empire under Chang Yen-mao. He married a former classmate at Stanford on February 10, 1899, and the next day the newlyweds boarded a ship for China.2 Hoover had the Midas touch. He opened an office in Tien- tsin and began modernizing gold mines owned by the Chinese Empire. He organized a staff who examined sites, tested ore, and summarized and translated reports. Hoover then became Director General of Mines and Railways

203 204 Chapter Nineteen throughout China, with half of his salary still paid by Bewick, Moreing & Company of London. Of all the mines in China, Kaiping was the largest and most important. It was set above a large coal reserve and produced close to 500,000 tons per year.3 Its new manager, Chang Yen-mao, was seeking British funding to thwart Russian commercial interests in the mine. Hoover began negotiations with his British bosses at Bewick, Moreing & Company but soon discovered a morass of foreign interests seeking rights to the area, including Belgium, Japan, and Germany, as well as the United States. Although international interest in exploiting Chinese resources abounded at the turn of the twentieth century, anti-foreign sentiment in China had reached a boiling point. A group of peasants in northern China formed a secret society named “Righteous and Harmonious Fists.” They became known as, “the Boxers” because they practiced the sport along with other calisthenics as part of their military training. The aim of the Boxers was to rid China of all foreigners and their influence by killing them. Fearing a government takeover by the group, the Empress Dowager supported their activities. The Boxers began massacring foreign missionaries in the countryside and then headed toward Tientsin, now known as Tianjin. Hoover and his wife braced for the Boxer uprising by building barricades, stocking up on food and water, and establishing an emergency hospital for the wounded. Mrs. Lou Henry Hoover had a reputation for being a good shot and wore her pistol at all times. When the Boxers seized the city, Chang was listed for execution, perhaps because of his close business dealings and abetting of foreigners and narrowly escaped beheading. Only the intervention of foreign armies saved everyone. Russian troops took over the Kaiping minefields, and Chang feared that either the Russians or the Japanese would take over the coveted territory permanently. Hoover was preparing to escape China as soon as possible, despite having survived the worst, but Chang and the Tientsin Commissioner of Customs approached him before he did so, proposing a deal to raise additional capital for the Kaiping mines through foreign shareholdings with the British firm Bewick, Moreing & Company. The deal would make Hoover trustee of the Kaiping property and chief shareholder to ensure it would not fall into Russian or Japanese hands. Hoover was to go to London to conduct negotiations to make Bewick, More- ing & Company stakeholders and limited partners, for which the British firm was to pay one million pounds sterling. The Chinese board was to manage the mining property, and Chang was to be named Director General. Two boards of directors, one Chinese and one British, would manage the enterprise.4 Hoover was named General Manager and Trustee of the Kaiping Mines, basically giving him legal control over the company. Hoover’s Goldmine 205

When the future president of the United States arrived in London, however, he did not fulfill his contractual agreement or uphold his position as trustee. He allowed his bosses, Bewick and Moreing, to revise the agreement. By making Hoover an agent of Bewick, Moreing, the company became the principal company trustee of the Kaiping mines instead of limited partners as per the agreement. They wrote a new contract specifying promotional fees be paid to the British firm. More importantly, the firm never paid the million pounds sterling, which was an integral part of the investment deal. Even worse, instead of injecting capital into the already financially insolvent enterprise, they added on more debt by selling bonds at six percent interest. Hoover then consolidated foreign control over the mines by reaching side agreements with Chang and electing foreigners to key positions within the mines. The Commander of the Beiyang Army, Yuan Shih-kai, controlled most of northern China at that time. He ordered Chang to reclaim the Kaip- ing mines from the foreign interests that had taken them completely out of Chinese hands. In the disputes that followed, Hoover was forced to resign as managing director. Soon after the mine went bankrupt, and bondholders lost their money. In 1905 Hoover, and Bewick, Moreing & Company defended themselves in a trial regarding the mines that caused a sensation throughout Europe and China. The trial revealed that Hoover had violated his original trust agreement and had derided and bullied the Chinese board to get his way. The judge felt there was cause for further criminal charges against Hoover. The Chinese government, however, was satisfied just to have the foreigners out of their gold mines and declined the opportunity to exact criminal punishment. Hoover did not suffer any consequences for his transgressions; on the contrary, he was elected junior partner at Bewick, Moreing & Company at a mere twenty-seven years of age.5 Hoover again caught the attention of the foreign media in China in 1921 when he was appointed Secretary of Commerce under Republican President Warren Harding. On entering politics, Hoover went to great efforts to cover up his record of violating trust agreements, bankrupting a Chinese gold mine, and being responsible for bondholders losing fortunes. But Rea was astute enough to realize that Hoover was a rising political star and had gone to the archives to do what good reporters do: dig, research, and write a good story. Rea had more than publishing a good story in mind, however. A good story can be every bit as valuable as gold if you intend to use the story for your own advantage. Rea filed his investigation into Hoover’s Kaiping mining fiasco and waited for the right moment to publish it. The right time came seven years later, during Hoover’s first campaign for President. 206 Chapter Nineteen

February 1, 1928 Dear Soks, Keep this confidential. Hoover seems to be in the lead for the Republican nomination and it looks as though he will get it at this date. Of course you know the story of how he made his first million. He went to China in 1899, I believe and was with the old Kaiping Mining Company. During the Boxer troubles, the Chinese owners either gave him a deed of trust or a power-of-attorney in order to have the property registered under a foreigner during the troubles. Hoover left Tientsin in August 1900, and went to London, and by the first of December had organized and financed the old Chinese Engineering Mining Company, Ltd. to take over and operate the Kaiping properties. The control of the property was given to British capital combined with Belgian. The British took over the administration while the Belgians got the technical end, furnishing the engineers and the machinery. Hoover made a million on the deal and was elected as a director of the company, a post that he held until 1912, when the company was reorganized as the Kailan Mining Administration. Now the Chinese insisted that Hoover had sold them out and for several years tried to regain control of the properties through the British courts. As I recall the final trial took place in 1907 or 8 before one of the highest courts in England, where the judge is [sic] giving his verdict said that while Hoover was technically correct and within the law, he had abused his trust, or, words to that effect. I recall about that time that one of the Tang family, I think he was the compra- dore for Jardine, came to me with a long story about the mines and how Hoover had sold them out and asked me to publish it. After reading it, I declined to do so after the decision of the British court. Now I have reason to believe that that document is still in my files, if it was not sequestered by Donald. If it is in the office, it will be up in an old box on the top floor mixed up with all the other old correspondence which Donald had sent up there when he left. Now I wish you would ask Wilson to take a few days after hours, and go through that old pile of correspondence for 1906, 07, 8 and 9 and see if that story it still there. Give him a little extra money for this work, as I am very anxious to have it, if it is still in our possession. Now I have nothing against Hoover. Personally I would like to see him president, but I would not like to see any man get the presidency, with this story hanging over him. The Chinese will probably not say much about it, as if Hoover gets elected, they will have a strong club over him. However, the old Kaiping mines belonged in the main to the Tang family, and perhaps you can get something out of Tang Shao-yi when you see him. At the same time go over the files of the N.C.D. [North China Daily] Herald for those years and look up and see if you can find the record of the judges [sic] decision. Something may also have been in the annual reports of the Chinese Engineering and Mining Company of those dates. Cordially, Rea 6 Hoover’s Goldmine 207

Despite a thorough search of the dusty boxes on the upper floors of the office, the infamous article in question was never found, but that did not deter Rea from researching and writing another story. He spent a week at the Library of Congress going through the back files of the London and China newspapers relating to Hoover’s mines and subsequent trial. In so doing, the journalist was insightful enough to realize that if the highest courts in London could not implicate Hoover, neither could Rea.

I have dug up all the facts in the back files of the papers in the Library of Con- gress and am still on the job in order to make a complete story that will be libel proof. I have been on it for a week and may be another week on the job digging all the ramifications of the trial in London and other facts. I have a good story that will command attention but I do not think we can put anything over Hoover. So the best thing to do is to give him as clean a sheet as possible. As a matter of fact, the Chinese case went flooey, when the Kailan Mining Administration was organized in 1912, when all claims against the old company were settled in full, including those of the Chinese Government and Chang-Yenmao [sic], who succeeded Tang Kin-son as deirector [sic] General. Hoover was to blame for it all, but after the trial in London and the Appeal to the Highest Court in England, nothing can be brought against him except that he was [a] gullible ass in some things and a remarkably keen businessman when it came to the dollars.7

Sokolsky advised letting sleeping dogs lie, and it was sage wisdom. The Far Eastern Review editor had become extremely well connected in Shang- hai’s top political, business, and financial circles. He had also become an advisor to important Chinese politicians and businessmen such as T. V. Soong. Sokolsky was enjoying the roaring twenties and felt the Hoover article potentially costly politically as well as financially. He had significant sums to lose because the one-time stringer reporter had become wealthy through investing in stocks and bonds. He was a modern-day millionaire, worth some 200,000 Tael (a currency formerly used in Shanghai), according to Rea.8 Despite Sokolsky’s advice, Rea was as determined as a bloodhound on a scent trail. The article took six weeks for Rea to complete. But once it was done, for the first time, the usual bull-in-the-China-closet seemed to balk, saying he wouldn’t publish the story one minute and threatening to publish it where it could do the most damage the next. In one letter to Sokolsky, Rea stated,

I do not know yet just what to do with it. I think I will take it to the President and send a copy direct to Hoover. I may decide to publish it, in which case I want it to be out there in Shanghai, so when I cable the work, you can put [it] in the Review. Keep it to yourself and don’t let it get around so that any one can 208 Chapter Nineteen

talk abput [sic] it. Keep it up in your own house. The damn thing worries me, as I do not want to do the man an injustice and injure his chance for the nomination, or if nominated, for election. I have purposely refrained from reviewing the financial side of the transaction, with which, he apparently had nothing to do, and have confined myself to the international political side, which is rotten enough, and which he is also ignorant of.

Later in the very same letter he completely reverses himself. “I am tempted to send it to the Chicago Tribune, who is after Hoover in the West, but I would rather use it for my own political advancement or otherwise here in Washington.”9 Rea’s story could unhinge the Republican presidential nomination of the United States, and he was not the only one who balked at publishing it. The first person besides Sokolsky to read Rea’s article on Hoover was Republican Senator Charles Curtis from Kansas, who said that although the controversial article should be published, the Senator refused to be the one to do so.10 Rea then handed the article to Republican Congressman Charles Brand of Ohio. Despite being from the same political party, according to Rea, the latter Congressman was more interested in how the article could be used to prove Hoover connected with dishonest financial dealings in a way voters would comprehend. Rea suggested instead that the article at present was

more in the nature of a confidential state document, that should be read by the Republican committee and by the President, before they permitted Hoover’s name to go up for nomination. The point is, that if Hoover is nominated, the party chiefs want to be able to support him and not defend him and it is a cinch that if he gets the nomination, they will be on the defense all the campaign and the Democrats will profit by it.11

Rea learned by telephone that Congressman Brand had done with the article what Rea suggested. Brand put Hoover’s goldmine debacle before the heads of the party in the Senate. Rea felt sure the president would be next to read the article, adding, “I feel sure that if the President reads it, Hoover will be compelled to withdraw gracefully from the campaign. I am taking a political chance. If Hoover is eliminated, it will give me considerable prestige with whoever gets the nomination. If he wins, I have only done my duty in presenting the facts in as favorable a manner to him as possible.”12 In the end, however, Rea reversed tactics again and chose not to present all the facts. Rea sent the article to Hoover, stating that it was best for the nation, the Republican Party, the candidate, and Americans in China if the truth be told. After reading the article, Hoover scheduled a private meeting with Rea. The two talked for more than an hour while Hoover explained his side of the story. Where the two disagreed most was in the international political Hoover’s Goldmine 209 ramifications. In the end, Rea did what he thought would give him the most political advantage. In a decision based on highly inappropriate journalistic ethics and standards, Rea allowed Hoover to edit the article as the future president saw fit.

His story naturally exonerates him from any improper connection with the deal other than that of intermediary for his British principals. He told me all about his fights with the Belgians and Chang Yen-mao and how the Belgian Franqui was the one who came to him in 1914 and held out his hand and asked that their old feud be forgotten and asked him to head the Belgian relief. Anyhow, I have just as good a story, eliminating the international politics that I am sending to him today as soon as the typist gives me the clean copies of the revised article. He may make a few changes in it, but I don’t think so, and we will have the credit of publishing the real story and if he is nominated and elected, it won’t do us any harm.”13

Rea published his purported “real story,” which was in fact the Hoover- edited article, with a large picture of the future president front and center in the Far Eastern Review.

NOTES

1. Roger S. Drissel, Bureau of Index and Archives Memo to Mr. Polk, Folder 116.222-227, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 2. Anne Cipriao Venson and Paul L. Miles, The United States in the First World War: An Encyclopedia (New York and London: Garland, 1995), 285. 3. “Old China Hands in the U.S. Cabinet,” Millard’s Review (Shanghai) (April 23, 1921): 399–400. 4. “Kaiping Mines: Memorandum of Agreement Between Chang Yen-Mao and Herbert Hoover,” bradford-delong.com, last modified July 27, 2007, accessed Febru- ary 12, 2017, http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2007/07/kaiping-mines-m.html. 5. “Old China Hands in the U.S. Cabinet,” 399–400. 6. George Bronson Rea, February 1, 1928, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 7. George Bronson Rea, March 9, 1928, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 8. One Tael was equivalent to approximately 1.3 ounces of silver. The U.S. Geological Survey website says the price of silver was 0.69 per troy ounce in 1925, which would have made Sokolsky’s investment holding approximately $138,000 (accessed February 12, 2017, http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/com modity/silver/880798.pdf). This would be equivalent to slightly less than $1.9 million in 2016 (accessed February 12, 2017, www.dollartimes.com/inflation/inflation .php?amount=25000&year=1925). George Bronson Rea, February 13, 1934, p. 4, File Box 63, Folder 11, Hornbeck Papers. 210 Chapter Nineteen

9. George Bronson Rea, April 10, 1928, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 10. Rea, April 10, 1928. 11. Rea, April 17, 1928, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 12. Rea, April 17, 1928. 13. George Bronson Rea, May 10, 1928, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. Chapter Twenty

Raw Deals

Not even surgery could stop the publisher of the Far Eastern Review from a fresh new media brawl with his old nemesis John Powell. Rea began New Year’s Day of 1928 pounding out letters from yet another hospital bed, this one in Washington D.C. Even in a hospital bed, his typewriter was always in front of him. He had become ill over the Christmas holidays, and no doctor had a clue as to what was going on. He was scheduled for exploratory surgery to, in his words, “go poking around again.”1 Rea chose to go poking around in Chinese finances and loan agreements again postoperatively. Yet he was not investigating a news story per se. Since he began his career as a journalist, Rea was not a reporter in the terms thought of today. During the Spanish–American War, he worked as a spy for the U.S. government by taking photos in Puerto Rico. The U.S. government in the Philippines had paid him when he researched and then lobbied to eliminate sugar tariffs. He was an international loan broker as part of the American Group and when he tried to finance his engineered railroad for China. In 1928, he was a representative of the American Chamber of Commerce in China. He had advised the U.S. State Department and presidents on Chinese politics during Republican administrations and had argued with the same departments vehemently during Democratic administrations. Over the years he had become more of a lobbyist than a journalist but so had his coworkers. Foreign correspondents in China in that era had nebulous roles. Instead of reporting what they saw, all had become an integral part of their financial and political stories on China. Rea, William H. Donald, Thomas Millard, and George Sokolsky had all worked for Sun Yat-sen’s fledgling Republic in some capacity. Both Millard and Rea assisted the Chinese Delegation that went to Paris for the Peace Conference. The Chinese government paid Don- ald to report on the country’s economic conditions. Each journalist used their

211 212 Chapter Twenty periodicals to lobby for their personally biased political and financial causes within China. Like Rea, many of the other major foreign correspondents in China contacted the U.S. State Department, advised presidents, and reported at congressional hearings. They were both lobbyists and diplomatic liaisons, who would write partisan causes to whomever they thought would listen. When lobbying, destroying your opposition becomes the goal. In an era when foreign correspondents in China became lobbyists, they allied themselves to partisan sides and became each other’s enemies. As a result, researching, observing, and reporting events was often replaced by finding ways to cast aspersions on fellow journalists. Rea was thus not just looking for news stories, but also constantly searching for ways to undermine his media rivals and vice versa. At the heart of the schism between Millard and Powell on one side, and Rea and Sokolsky on the other had to do with Japanese economic, military, and political influence over China. Millard and Powell were against Japanese encroachment. Rea and Sokolsky saw Japanese economic investment in China as a way to appease growing militaristic imperialism within the tiny islands of the rising sun. While recovering at the Wardman Park Hotel, just one week after his operation, Rea received a telegram from his editor Sokolsky saying that Powell was actively involved in protesting against loans for the Southern Manchu- rian Railroad. “When I saw those protests against the S.M.R I smelt a rat,” Rea responded, “and when I subsequently read Powell’s attack on myself as a Japanese propagandist. . . . I was certain he was at the bottom of it.”2 The Southern Manchurian Railroad was important to Japan. They had taken complete control over the railway line from Russia after the Russo- Japanese War in 1905. Gaining the railroad was a coup for Japan because it was considered by many to be the best railroad in China. Within five years 35,000 Japanese worked to keep the trains running.3 The possibility of new loans for the Southern Manchurian Railroad tapped into the partisan politics that kept Rea and Powell in their media-fighting ring. Rea was the acting representative of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, and his goal was to procure and protect business investments in China. So, he immediately wrote letters informing the State Department and Morgan & Company that Powell was trying to hinder investment opportunity in China. He told Sokolsky to pass the information on to their contacts in Japan. Rea said his goal was to “put a spoke in Powell’s wheels over these matters.”4 Like a pit bull locked down on a bite, four months later, Rea continued his attacks on Millard and Powell in an article called “American Journalism in China.” The article once again accused Millard of using illicit financing in 1917 to establish Millard’s Review. Yet this time Rea had gone too far. As Raw Deals 213 soon as Sokolsky read the article, he knew it was libelous and advised Rea not to publish it. Their lawyers agreed, so it stayed under wraps—for a while. Probably as a result of Rea’s relentless contentiousness, the Far Eastern Review lost another important account that year. Great Consolidated Elec- tric Power announced they were canceling their advertising. Rea’s letter to company secretary, Seiji Moroh illustrates the political and economic weight behind every advertising dollar:

It is true that the advertisement of your company in my magazine can bring you in no definite returns in business and that it is purely a policy investment for good-will and prestige. The Far Eastern Review had carried the fight for American-Japanese cooperation over a period of eight years, and is gratified that at this time, such cooperation is a success. I am at present in Washington as the representative and counselor of the American Chambers of Commerce of China in order to defend their interests during the present disturbed conditions in that country, but at the same time, I am using my influence and position to build up American confidence and cooperation with Japan, not only in Japan proper but in China. Your company has benefited through this cooperation and you have now some $28,000,000 in bonds held by American investors. Although the value of these bonds rest on a firm foundation, yet their popularity depends largely upon the confidence reposed by American investors in your industries and Government. The Far Eastern Review is the only publication in the Orient whose chief concern is to keep the American people and press well informed as to Japanese conditions and to work for further cooperation as the one basis of a lasting understanding that will draw the two nations together in ties that cannot be broken. . . . It is difficult for me personally to say too much about the work of The Far Eastern Review in the United States and China for the advancement of Japanese interests, but my friends in Tokyo, will I am sure, gladly endorse its work and the reasons why the Daido should extend to it some of its legitimate advertising support. I am sure that Mr. Odagiri, of the Specie Bank, Mr Yunnesuke, Inouye, Dr. Dan and Viscount Komura of the Caimusho will be glad to recommend to Mr. Fuksawa, the continued support of the Daido to our work.”5

Advertising was “legitimate” revenue to be exchanged for publishing propaganda. Advertising was and still is key to media publishing, and no one knew this better than Rea. “To succeed as a commercial enterprise a newspaper must derive legitimate advertising support from the public it caters to and whose interests it represents and defends.”6 He felt no qualms acting as a diplomatic advocate or lobbyist for a political party or government in exchange for advertising. However, in 1928, Rea considered subsidies and lump sum payments unethical. 214 Chapter Twenty

I have always rejected any lump sum subsidy or compensation from the Japa- nese, insisting always that only their legitimate support through advertising would be accepted by me. I know that the day will arrive when I will have to appear before the Foreign Relations Committee in some legislation over the Far East and a determined attempt will be made to kill my testimony by charges that I am receiving a Japanese subsidy, or in the event that I am called upon to take an active part in opposing some fool Chinese legislation, my opponents will charge that we are receiving a large slice of that $1,000,000 publicity fund alleged by Millard to have been subscribed in Shanghai to educate American opinion and influence our Government.7

Obtaining money was a constant dilemma for all periodicals, and the safest means of getting it was advertising. Perhaps in part to offset his losses in ad revenue, Rea’s continued writing at a frenetic pace into the spring of 1928. He had finished the article on Hoover but was still worried about it. He wrote an article defending American troop presence in China, which he sent to the Secretary of State as the Representative of American Chambers of Com- merce. In the article Rea defended without reservation the administration’s policy of promptly dispatching war ships and troops for the protection of U.S. lives and properties in China. He said it constituted a “powerful argument of keeping a sufficient force in that country until a stable government representative of a united China is functioning.”8 After six months of pounding his keyboard, however, by the first week of June, following his meeting with Herbert Hoover, Rea hit his breaking point. “Something went wrong with my head about two weeks ago and I am taking it easy and will try to get a rest,” he said to Sokolsky.9 It is possible that Rea’s illness was compounded by the emotional strain of a failing marriage. After nine years, his young wife Frances had declared that she wanted complete independence from her husband. She was developing a social life and friends in Washington society and seemed still to be romantically involved with the Spaniard named Rafael. But though Frances may have wanted a divorce, Rea did not want be divorced a second time, nor did he want to lose his new family. In an era when women rarely worked, Frances also needed someone to look after her and her expense accounts. Rea still adored her, so he vowed to allow her almost complete independence and to provide her with a handsome allowance if she remained his. They stayed married but lived mostly apart. On getting out of the hospital in August, Rea stayed at the Williams Inn in Williamstown, Massachusetts, while his wife remained in Washington D.C. He wrote to her devotedly.

It is too bad that we could not be together, but there is no much use of trying to hit it off, while you want your complete independence. I miss you both. I love you and love my baby, but am reconciled to going through the rest of my life Raw Deals 215

alone in order that you may be happier. My only task will be to work and make enough money to satisfy your ideas of life.10

In return for an allowance ample enough to allow her to travel around the world, Frances played the part of a dutiful wife when they were together in public and exercised more discretion in her private affairs. Raphael wanted to be more than a part-time lover, and it seems keeping him so was a tough choice for Frances because she kept a tear-smeared letter from him among her prized personal possessions for the rest of her life. While Rea was willing to finance almost anything for his young wife, the father of four did not even send a present to his eldest daughter Connie on hearing of her marriage, let alone walk her down the aisle to give her away.11 His health may have been a factor. In August, Rea was again in hospital, under treatment for a stricture of both his rectum and bladder, a condition in which one has difficulty going to the bathroom and experiences spasmodic pain in doing so. He was hoping not to have to undergo more surgery. Like a wounded soldier reviewing a difficult mission, Rea felt his work with the Japanese was complete for the time being. He claimed that “Ameri- can editorial opinion and the policy of the American government has come around by my viewpoint.” Despite being a representative and counselor of the American Chamber of Commerce of China, Rea’s showed his lack of sympathy toward the country when he added, “The Chinese have fully discredited themselves and as long as Japan adheres to her present program, public opinion in this country will not be stirred by Chinese propaganda.”12 In the summer of 1928, the Shanghai media was aflame with yet another campaign of accusations. Rea had become infamous for his pro-Japanese articles. Sokolsky made a point of trying to remain neutral in regard to Japan and backed particular Chinese leaders he felt deserving. Powell tried to get Sokolsky in hot water by accusing him falsely of penning a controversial pro-Japanese article. Sokolsky, in turn, vehemently denied having penned the article, telling Powell, “From time to time, friends of mine are good enough to pass on to me caustic and careless remarks, which you so kindly pass on to anyone who will listen to you, with regard to my personality, my activities and my method of earning a livelihood. As a rule, your comments are far from the truth and are carelessly framed.”13 While in New York City promoting Chinese business opportunities in his role as the representative and counselor of the American Chamber of Com- merce of China, Rea saw what he called the “cleverest and most audacious advertising stunt that was ever pulled off.” The Japanese Advertiser was soliciting advertising for a “special Enthronement number” as a “symbol of American Japanese cooperation and friendly relations.” It would include a “special personal letter” with “the letter head of the Prime Minister’s Office 216 Chapter Twenty and signed by [Baron] Tanaka [Giichi], Prince Tokogawa, Viscount Goto, Viscount Shibusawa, J. Inoue, Baron Shidehara, Dr. Dan and Manzo Kushia, the eight leading personages of Japan.”14 Sokolsky admitted the campaign was an advertising “coup d’état,” but addedm “I do not believe the Japanese have the idea of letting you down.” So- kolsky added, “The Japanese probably have no idea as to what the scheme is and will be considerably surprised when they find out.” The Far Eastern Re- view had not had any advertising coups, and although the magazine had been humming along for several months, it was “again in a tight order,” Sokolsky said. “I understand that we shall pass through this period in a few weeks and shall be all right again, but then probably we shall be tight in September. . . . If T.V. Soong’s economic program comes through, there will be considerable railroad building which ought to bring us some advertising.”15 Regardless advertising coup d’états, most foreign journalists had fallen far from the glory days of huge salaries and the hero-like status of correspondents during the Spanish–American War. Two days before Christmas in 1928, Rea was sailing on a steamer in China when he bumped into his old editor William Donald on board. Both were headed for the region of Man- churia. Almost a decade had passed since Donald worked as Rea’s editor for the Far Eastern Review, enough time so that they could speak to each other civilly—or perhaps Rea caught Donald in a weak moment. Donald had just resigned his position working for the Chinese in Shanghai and was on his way to Mukden (now known as Shenyang) for another job offer. When Rea told Sokolsky about the encanter, the latter showed his empathy for his predeces- sor and, insight into his own future, by telling Rea:

I am very sorry for Donald because he got a raw deal. Everybody will get a raw deal. In due course, I shall get a raw deal. I have no illusions on this subject because it is what has been happening to every man. My only point is, that we must go ahead as we can and take our chance and when we find that one way has been blocked, we must take another way.”16

The other way for Sokolsky was to support and aid Rea’s relationship with the Japanese, while keeping ties to his own Chinese allies. It was not an easy balancing act. The two traveled back and forth to Japan. (See figure 20.1.) Sokolsky followed Rea’s instructions to write infrequent, but pertinent information briefings on China to Odagiri of the Yokohama Specie Bank. After several reports, Sokolsky received a long letter from Odagiri including a general statement of Japan’s policy. Odagiri was so completely fed up, Sokolsky said, “I do not see how he will ever be able to overcome the intense feeling of distrust,” for the Chinese.17 The distrust between the Japanese and Chinese spilled over into media, into the fierce competition for advertising, and into the personal lives of each correspondent. Figure 20.1. George Bronson Rea with George Sokolsky in 1928 and signed by [Baron] Tanaka [Giichi], Prince Tokogawa, Viscount Goto, Viscount Shibusawa, J. Inoue, Baron Shidehara, Dr. Dan and Manzo Kushia, the eight leading personages of Japan.”14 Sokolsky admitted the campaign was an advertising “coup d’état,” but addedm “I do not believe the Japanese have the idea of letting you down.” So- kolsky added, “The Japanese probably have no idea as to what the scheme is and will be considerably surprised when they find out.” The Far Eastern Re- view had not had any advertising coups, and although the magazine had been humming along for several months, it was “again in a tight order,” Sokolsky said. “I understand that we shall pass through this period in a few weeks and shall be all right again, but then probably we shall be tight in September. . . . If T.V. Soong’s economic program comes through, there will be considerable railroad building which ought to bring us some advertising.”15 Regardless advertising coup d’états, most foreign journalists had fallen far from the glory days of huge salaries and the hero-like status of correspondents during the Spanish–American War. Two days before Christmas in 1928, Rea was sailing on a steamer in China when he bumped into his old editor William Donald on board. Both were headed for the region of Man- churia. Almost a decade had passed since Donald worked as Rea’s editor for the Far Eastern Review, enough time so that they could speak to each other civilly—or perhaps Rea caught Donald in a weak moment. Donald had just resigned his position working for the Chinese in Shanghai and was on his way to Mukden (now known as Shenyang) for another job offer. When Rea told Sokolsky about the encanter, the latter showed his empathy for his predeces- sor and, insight into his own future, by telling Rea:

NOTES

1. George Bronson Rea, January 1, 1928, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 2. George Bronson Rea, January 10, 1928, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 3. Alvin Coox, Nomonhan: Japan Against Russia, 1939 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990, 6. 4. George Bronson Rea, January 10, 1928. 5. George Bronson Rea, January 21, 1928, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 6. George Bronson Rea, “American Magazines in China: Discussion of Policies by the Publisher and Editor of ‘The Far Eastern Review,’” New York Herald Tribune, February 18, 1834, section 2, p. 8. 7. George Bronson Rea, March 3, 1928, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 8. George Bronson Rea, Letter to U.S. Secretary of State, May 1, 1928, M329 Roll 164, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 9. George Bronson Rea, June 7, 1928, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 10. George Bronson Rea, Letter to Frances Rea, author’s collection. 11. George Bronson Rea, February 8, 1928, p. 8, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 12. George Bronson Rea, June 7, 1928, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 13. George Sokolsky, August 23, 1928, Boxes 97.3 and 97.4, Sokolsky Collection. 14. George Bronson Rea, June 7, 1928, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 15. George Sokolsky, July 5, 1928, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 16. George Sokolsky, December 29, 1928, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 17. George Sokolsky, December 29, 1928. Chapter Twenty-One

Dejá Vu

For the Salvation and Unification of China Build Railways! More Railways! Keep on Building Railways! —George Bronson Rea

The locomotive force of Rea’s life was making money. His reasons were ambition, family, and personal. He was back from Japan and traveling in Manchuria soon after the New Year 1929 when he received a cable from his wife, signed with one of the affectionate nicknames he’d given her: “Without funds, send samples love Chirimbiki.”1 Living mostly apart in what appeared to be an open marriage seemed to agree with the couple. Sokolsky, as Rea directed, used money from the magazine accounts to pay for eleven silk shirts including material and tailoring, which Mrs. Rea purchased for a friend. Frances Rea was not the only person asking for funds. A few days later, Sokolsky sent Rea an encrypted cable: “Your friend called here worried regarding your departure she gave me a letter which I said could not reach you, but agreed to cable you asking for instructions. She is very worried.”2 In his response, Rea changed pronouns to disguise the gender of his very worried friend:

In regard to your code telegram received at Kobe. It was unpardonable for my friend to call on you at the office. I am sorry that I got away without seeing him. Apparently he has got himself in some kind of a jam and needs money. I let him have some, but he needed $1,000 and I could not go that far in the present state of my finances. It was very wrong of him to call on you and worry you about these purely private matters and ask you to cable for instructions. I have

219 220 Chapter Twenty-One

nothing at the present time, as it will take all that I have got to carry me through until things get better. I wish you would explain to him, if he calls again, that is absolutely impossible for me to help him out further at this time. I have made no Xmas presents to anyone last year, even to my sons and daughter, nor did I give the latter even a wedding present last year. I have so many obligations at present that I simply cannot do any more.3

Money was dwindling fast, but an old financial opportunity represented itself. Sun Fo, the Minister of Railways, called on Rea to approach the U.S. government regarding purchasing the Chinese Eastern Railway from foreign powers. Sun Fo was the son of Sun Yat-sen, who, like his father, became the Chinese Minister of Railways for the Nationalist Government in Nanking. Once again the Chinese government gave Rea Power of Attorney to proceed abroad to negotiate the financial agreements. Once again Rea sailed to the United States to ask the government for railroad loans. Rea must have felt a sense of dejá vu, yet this time there was a Republican in the White House who Rea felt would be more sympathetic to funding his lifelong dream. In February 1929, Rea met with President Herbert Hoover at the White House. There is little doubt the publisher hoped his prior dealings with Hoover, including Rea’s favorably tailored article regarding Hoover’s time overseeing Chinese gold mines, might help secure favor with the president. A group including Rea and J. A. L. Waddell, Consulting Engineer to the Minis- try of Railways of the National Government of China, asked Hoover to back a railway loan of $100 million in gold and to use the president’s influence with Congress for the good of the Chinese nation and to “bind its people and ours firmly in the bonds of close friendship for many years to come.”4 For the next month the publisher continued to lobby for railway loans. On the morning of March 7, Rea pulled out his Power of Attorney to show the Assistant Secretary of State, J. Ruben Clark. “Of course, the question of China’s unpaid debts must be taken into consideration,” Rea admitted, “but that fact should not prevent the consideration of the greater problem involved, namely, the problem of finding some way of supporting efforts to build up and stabilize government institutions in China.” Rea added, “the problem of China’s present railways would not be such a complicated problem provided the National Government could obtain actual control of its lines.” He also asserted that his plan would not involve controversial right of ways granted to other nations.5 Back in China, Sokolsky advised Rea not to criticize the latest financial consortium in any way in his loan negotiations because any opposition from J. P. Morgan & Co., the financial kingpin within the consortium, would kill any deal on railway agreements. Moreover, Rea needed to tread lightly in international relations because his Japanese friends would resent his latest Dejá Vu 221 shift in policy. Sokolsky advised precaution. “We must help T.V. Soong, Sun Fo but must watch our steps.”6 With some careful stepping Sokolsky was able to secure more political clout in Shanghai by becoming elected as member of the Board of Directors of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce.7 Yet in the hope of getting lucrative railroad loans, Rea was once again flipping his political allegiance. In so doing, he went so far as to proclaim his archenemies his friends. In a reversal of attitude almost impossible to comprehend, Rea was glad to see his arch rival Thomas Millard get the job as political advisor in China. Rea tried to erase years of animosity by stating that although he was sure that Millard had tried to injure Rea in the recent past, “I hold a deep personal affection for him,” and for Millard’s “long and faithful service to China.” Rea even tried to extend a hand of friendship. “Tell him to lets [sic] bury the hatchet and work together,” he wrote Sokolsky. “Only by the utmost cooperation and understanding can we do anything for China.”8 Rea’s sudden and complete reversal of opinion regarding Millard came as a complete shock to Sokolsky, who wrote:

Dear Mr. Rea: I received a letter from you today in which you hastily pen a note to me with many flattering sentences about Tom Millard and in which you suggest that I should publish an article about him with his cut. I was very much surprised to receive this note for Tom Millard is the greatest enemy you have. He stands behind the scenes while Powell does his dirty work, and gets all the blame. All the attacks which have been levied at you originate with Tom Millard and the recent attacks made on me originate from the same place and arise from my connection with you. Were I not connected with you, Tom Millard and Powell would be my friends. They are enemies because I am running your magazine. There can be no mistake about this and if you have any notions that there is any possibility of burying the hatchet [you do] not understand them. Ever since I have been connected with “The Far Eastern Review” I have tried to get them to change their attitude towards you, but they have consistently refused. Your major intellectual difficulty is that you change your opinions too suddenly and without just reason. When you switched from an extreme pro-Chinese to an extreme pro-Japanese attitude, the change was so sudden as to startle even your best friends, that the shock made explanation impossible. Your tendency at the present time to switch again will do you and your publication tremendous mischief. A clearer thought out and well planned policy can be followed without losing old friends and yet always making new ones, but it is impossible for you to desert your old friends without tremendous material loss, while at the same time you cannot be certain that you have any new friends. After all, your new relationship is with one man and if he should happen to drop out of the picture, where will you be? I caution you against this tendency of yours to get overen- thusiastic. If I were in your place, I should go on as you were last year and you 222 Chapter Twenty-One

will find that you are safe. If you follow new tactics based on an assumption that everything is alright in Nanking, you will be in a very dangerous position. Sun Fo’s sending you to America, the railway ads in the F.E.R., Soong’s friendship for me and the Chinese banking ads in the Review are responsible for all the trouble. They want to kill us, but we shall survive if we show good sense.9

Rea, however, was not showing “good sense.” He was and had always been an avid all-or-nothing gambler who gambled often and risked everything. In fact it was said that he was such a regular card player at the American Club in Shanghai that there was a framed winning poker hand inscribed with Rea’s name hanging on club wall. When it came to railroad loans, however, Rea was consistently dealt a losing hand. In April, uprisings began again in Nan- king. President Hoover read the cable from consulting engineer, J. Waddle who tried to minimize the problem:

Don’t let present minor uprisings militate against your approving suggested loan stop Nanking government now has situation controlled and expects entire country soon pacified stop needs only American goodwill and financial backing to materialize its numerous praiseworthy development projects and relieving misery and putting China in proper place among leading nations.10

But news from China just kept getting worse. In May, from a hotel in Washington D.C., Rea opened an encrypted telegram from Sokolsky. “Fight- ing spreading likely to involve whole country advise you watch your commitments closely for the present.”11 Rea felt fed up, disgusted, and bored and responded, “Is there to be no end to this Chinese turmoil? I am sitting here like a bump on a log, unable to talk railways or the Review. Isn’t it hell.”12 Despite China’s turmoil, a few months later, in September, Rea was once again in Washington D.C. trying to float a loan for the Chinese Eastern Rail- way. He met with Stanley Hornbeck, the relatively new chief of the State Department Division of Far Eastern Affairs. Though Hornbeck had held the position barely a year, he was a true expert. He was a Rhodes scholar and had written eight books, including The Situation in China and Contemporary Politics in the Far East. In private, Rea displayed his usual antipathy toward highly educated scholars, calling Hornbeck’s appointment nothing more than “another instance of a college professor butting into the service and going over the heads of those who should have been promoted,” but added, “As long as he is in power, the best thing to do is to be friends with him.”13 In April, Rea met with Hornbeck in his capacity as Representative of the Minister and Ministry of Railways of the National Government of the Repub- lic of China. Rea tried to persuade Hornbeck to back the aid of the Chinese Eastern Railway, but the meeting did not go well. Hornbeck, who in 1915 had praised Rea for his thorough analysis of China’s railroad agreements, was not Dejá Vu 223 impressed with Rea’s latest scheme. To Hornbeck, the agreement Rea had proposed was fundamentally flawed; the proposed loans did not make sense because the Chinese Eastern Railway was a Russian interest. To repurchase the Chinese Eastern Railway, it would be necessary for the Chinese to persuade the Russians to waive a clause in their 1924 agreement that prohibited China from purchasing a Russian interest.14 In other words, Hornbeck said, if the Russians had not pledged the railway for purchase, the Chinese Eastern Railway was not for sale.15 The U.S. Minister in Peking, John Von A. MacMurray, agreed stating, “We as a Government were not particularly interested in the matter as it would stir up trouble with [the] Soviets over [the] 1924 agreement.”16 Rea was disappointed but not deterred. He decided to go directly to the money source. He sought out his old business associates Thomas Lamont of the consortium and Martin Egan of J. P. Morgan & Company, who were the most likely to help him. Egan was both a journalist and a businessman, and he and Rea had travelled in the same circles for years. As a journalist, Egan had worked for the Associated Press in Tokyo, Peking, and Manila. Like Rea, Egan was a correspondent during the Spanish–American War and in the Philippines and had befriended the governors general of the Philip- pines including Leonard Wood and William Howard Taft. Egan had turned to business in 1914 when he took a job as director of public relations for J. P. Morgan & Co., in New York, a position he held for twenty years, save during the First World War when he was General John J. Pershing’s top assistant for public relations and propaganda. Part of Egan’s public relations’ duties for J. P. Morgan & Co included being the personal assistant to several senior partners, including Thomas Lamont.17 Yet Egan’s response to Rea was as negative as Hornbeck’s, if for different reasons. Rea had fallen victim to a negative propaganda campaign that was ironic, but pernicious. Egan told Rea there was no way Morgan & Stanley could back a scheme with Rea to finance any railroad because there had been “official reports” sent to the U.S. government that Rea was in the pay of the Chinese government, “as a Chinese spy.”18 Egan knew this because copies of those reports had been sent to Morgan and Company. In less than a year, Rea had gone from being seen as a probable spy for the Japanese, to a spy for the Chinese. Rea believed this new twist of negative propaganda was the work of Ad- miral Mark Lambert Bristol, who had become the commander of the Asiatic Fleet in 1927. The admiral had expected to become a high commissioner when he arrived in China just as he had been in Turkey from 1919 until 1927. Powell had backed the admiral’s appointment, but both Rea and Sokolsky strongly opposed it.19 But no matter their source, the reports eliminated any opportunity for any railroad scheme Rea proposed. 224 Chapter Twenty-One

It was a mid-September 1929. The New York Stock Exchange had just reached an all-time new high, yet Rea’s spirits were deflated. He could not secure any loans for Sun Fo. He had spent all his money and could no longer afford the hotel bills in Washington D.C. In his last attempt to make millions developing Chinese railroads, Rea calls to mind the tragic figure of Willie Loman in Arthur Miller’s play, Death of a Salesman. Rea spent years knocking on door after door trying to sell his railway dream to no avail. He had also become increasingly isolated and out of touch with the world. In 1929, Rea was an imperialist at a time of rising nationalism. He pursued chimerical international railroad deals that would never get financing. He promoted appeasement of Japan in response to its growing militarism and its determination to cement its foothold in China. Rea always swam upstream fighting impossible odds. To his credit, he never gave up. When one scheme died, Rea found another. It is doubtful Rea wanted to return to China. He blamed the country for all his stomach troubles with “sprue.” He had spent five years traveling from one grand international hotel to another and had gotten used to life abroad. When he sailed for China in October, it was out of necessity. He was once again financially strapped. During the time he crossed the ocean heading back to Shanghai, the United States become a different country. The stock market crash of October 29, 1929, was a financial earthquake that would unleash the Great Depression. And yet, even facing an international depression of epic proportions, Rea was undeterred. He finally stopped trying to sell railways, but he was about to embark on the greatest propaganda campaign of his life— lobbying for the formation of a new nation.

NOTES

1. Frances Rea, March 3, 1928, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 2. George Sokolsky, February 6, 1929, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 3. George Bronson Rea, February 8, 1929, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 4. J. A. L. Waddell, Letter to Herbert Hoover, January 29, 1929, M329 Roll 164, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 5. Assistant Secretary of State N.T.J, Conversation with George Bronson Rea, Re: Loan to China for Construction of Railways, U.S. Department of State, March 7, 1929, M329 Roll 164, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 6. George Sokolsky, May 9, 1929, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 7. George Bronson Rea, February 27, 1929, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 8. George Bronson Rea, April 12 1929, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. Dejá Vu 225

9. George Sokolsky, May 14, 1929, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 10. J. A. L. Waddell, Cable to Herbert Hoover, April 17, 1929, M329 Roll 164, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 11. George Sokolsky, May 15, 1929, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 12. George Bronson Rea, May 23, 1929, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 13. George Bronson Rea, February 29, 1928, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 14. Assistant Secretary of State N.T.J., Conversation with George Bronson Rea, Re: Loan to Enable China to Purchase the Chinese Eastern Railway, U.S. Depart- ment of State, September 14, 1929, M329 Roll 164, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 15. Stanley Hornbeck, Conversation with George Bronson Rea, Re: Chinese East- ern Railway Difficulty and Question of Loans to China, September 14, 1929, M329 Roll 164, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 16. Assistant Secretary of State N.T.J., Conversation with George Bronson Rea, Re: Loan to Enable China to Purchase the Chinese Eastern Railway, U.S. Department of State, September 3, 1929, M329 Roll 164, National Archives and Records Admin- istration, College Park, MD. 17. “Martin Egan,” The Morgan, www.themorgan.org/research/FindingAids/ar chives/ARC1222-Egan.pdf (access via https://archive.org/web/). 18. Stanley Hornbeck, Conversation with Rea, September 14, 1929. 19. Hornbeck, Conversation with Rea, September 14, 1929.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The Case for Manchukuo

For years Japan and Russia had competed with one another to develop and conquer one area above all others in China. Only one area was replete with fertile land, but not yet fully developed. Only one had the fertile soil perfect for growing the dietary staple of soy and barley. Westerners and the Japanese had coined a special name for the area rich in minerals and farmland located in both Northeast China and part of Inner Mongolia. Choosing a name they hoped would separate it from China’s dominion, they called it Manchuria. Most of the area known as Manchuria had been colonized in some form for centuries. The Manchus, a Chinese ethnic minority, called the area of Man- churia their homeland, but since the time of the Mongols, Han Chinese had conquered much of the land over many centuries from a vast array of tribes and ethnic minorities. Russia had built the coveted Chinese Eastern Railway line through Manchuria, but after the Russo–Japanese War, the Japanese had gained complete control over part of the prestigious railroad and renamed it the Southern Manchurian Railway. The Japanese therefore had some territorial rights in the area. The inner region of Manchuria had geographically been completely within of China for centuries, but historically, its extended outer boundaries had been divided between Russia and China. Manchuria was one the most coveted and cutting-edge territories in China. Sokolsky called it “the most aggressively modernizing of all parts of China, except the Shanghai hinterland.” Comprising a territory of approximately 350,000 square miles, it had some 27,000,000 inhabitants, 90 percent of whom were ethnic Chinese and the remaining 10 percent Manchu and other races. Both Japanese and the Chinese were actively immigrating to the area because railroads—including the one-thousand-mile Chinese Eastern Railway, which tracked through the north, and the seven-hundred-mile-long South Manchurian Railway—had opened the region, and trade had begun

227 228 Chapter Twenty-Two pumping through it like blood through a coronary artery, generating life, opportunity and wealth.1 Japan was expanding its strength as a military power and seeking to expand its borders. Japan needed somewhere to house a growing population and needed more land to farm crops. The small islands did not have the natural resources it needed to feed its people, and the government was too reliant on imports. China was vulnerable to Japanese conquest because the country was becoming embroiled in a civil war between Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists and the Communists. Imperialistic-minded Japan felt the weakened state of China made the timing ripe to gain more control over Manchuria, and Rea felt he had discovered a way to help his Japanese friends. Sitting down, no doubt smoking his pipe as he was in the habit of doing, Rea was reading The Russian Imperial Conspiracy 1892–1914 when, like a lawyer who finally figures out how to win a big case, he had an epiphany. The book, by retired Senator Robert Owen, postulated that Russia and France had been plotting war years before the First World War broke out in 1914. Rea felt that the conspiracy theory against Russia postulated in the book could bring about a revision of the Versailles Treaty and dredge up secret agreements made by Russia with China against Japan. He felt sure the Russian treaties could be used to Japan’s advantage in the latter’s claim to rights in Manchu- ria. Sooner or later, he said,

[The] new evidence unearthed from the secret archives of the European chancel- leries, will compel a revision of the Versailles treaty based on the certainty that the Russian French conspiracy brought about the war. If, in order to solidify European peace and understanding, they now go back to evidence in 1892, then Japan’s position [in Manchuria] must also be recognized along the same lines.2

The treaty Rea believed would allow Japan rights in Manchuria was the Lobanvov Treaty. Signed in 1896, it was a secret defensive alliance between China and Russia against Japanese attack. It allowed Russia greater presence in Manchuria for railway construction and the use of Chinese ports in wartime. Rea postulated that because China and Russia had once conspiratorially allied themselves against Japan, the latter should now be allowed to protect her investments in Manchuria militarily. A reviewer for Foreign Affairs magazine trashed Senator Owen’s book by saying:

The former senator from Oklahoma proves to his own satisfaction that Russia and France had for many years prior to 1914 been plotting against the peace of the world. . . . It may be doubted whether the book will convince many other The Case for Manchukuo 229

people. It makes up in violence of statement what it lacks in sound critical schol- arship, and will probably harm the cause of “revisionism” more than help it.3

The book, however, had the opposite impression on Rea. He believed the Lobanov defensive alliance between Russia and China could be the linchpin of Japan’s recent foreign relations, because it justified Japanese military presence in Manchuria. The publisher was so impressed with The Russian Imperial Conspiracy that he bought six copies. He sent all six copies to Ma- sunosuke Odagiri, the Director of the Yokohama Specie Bank, to distribute to his Japanese friends along with a letter, saying, “I have done and am doing everything within my power to emphasize the importance of the secret Sino- Russian treaty of alliance on Japan’s position in Manchuria, and that if the question is every reopened, the world must give heed to this new evidence.”4 Rea also informed the Japanese Foreign Minister, Kijuro Shidehara, who agreed that the secret agreements might prove useful as a postulate for self- defense, but did not see merit in rehashing the Versailles Treaty. Shidehara stated that

The Japanese Delegation cannot bring itself to the conclusion that any useful purpose will be served by research and re-examination at this Conference of all grievances which one of the nations represented here may have against another. It will be more in line with the high aim of the Conference to look forward to the future with hope and with confidence. . . . Should our Chinese friends, however, persist in opening the grave, we will have in self-defense fall back upon our position created by the secret Russo-Chinese treaty which clearly signifies aggression and hostility directed at Japan.5

Initially, Rea’s position on Manchuria was not too far afield from that of the United States. The United States had acquiesced to Japan’s interests in Manchuria for years. In fact, the U.S. policy in Manchuria had not wavered in more than twenty years. As far back as 1910, Theodore Roosevelt had said that although U.S. “interests in Manchuria are really unimportant,” the area was the “vital interest” of the Japanese: He asserted, “if the Japanese choose to follow a course of conduct to which we are adverse, we cannot stop it unless are prepared to go war.”6 The former president also believed that Russia might someday want to take back the Manchurian territory it had lost.

However friendly the superficial relations of Russia and Japan may at any given time become, both nations are accustomed to measure their foreign policy in sections of centuries; and Japan knows perfectly well that sometime in the future, if a good occasion offers, Russia will wish to play a return game of bowls for the prize she lost in their last contest.7 230 Chapter Twenty-Two

In an age of imperial expansion, colonization of Manchuria seemed a foregone conclusion. Manchuria had always been seen as a gray area in Asia because of its location northeast of China proper, its indigenous Manchu population and much of its territorial rights ceded to foreigners. It was not completely within Chinese control, yet not entirely separate. Some saw Man- churia as a buffer state between rivaling Russia and Japan. Both countries had attempted to exploit and colonize the area. Manchuria’s position as a pawn to foreign dominion had not wavered in many years. Of all the foreign powers that wanted to colonize Manchuria, the dominant three had historically been China, Russia, and Japan. Fundamentally, Rea believed that China should have full sovereignty over Manchuria. However, the area had been in the mist of political turmoil for years. In pragmatically determining which foreign power should eventually control the gray area in Asia, Rea sided with Japan. He sided with the Japa- nese imperialistic goals because he had the most to gain financially for doing so, because he knew Japan was in a more powerful military position to beat China in any confrontation over the area, and because no other power would come to China’s aid to protect its interests in Manchuria. In 1928 he stated candidly:

I am with the Chinese, in everything practically, except this Manchurian dispute, and even here, my arguments are made, for the sole purpose of clarifying the situation as a basis upon which an amicable adjustment can be made. . . . If the Chinese persist in their present attitude, some day, Japan will get tired and force the issue. China is in no position to face an issue at this time, or for a long time to come, and it will do her no good to invite a show-down with Japan, for the simple reason, that no other Power will stand by her.8

Rea knew that when it came to the crisis brewing in Manchuria, the question was not whether but when fighting would break out:

The Manchurian issue still looms in the dim distance, and sooner or later China by her fool actions will force the showdown from which she will come out the loser. It cannot be avoided, but there is not use harping on it until it breaks. Up to the present Japan has established her right to intervene in Manchuria for the protection of lives and properties and to defend her vital economic and strategic interests and no other Power will intervene or attempt or mediate. The issue is one clearly between China and Japan, and this country [the United States] will keep out of it.9

The publisher urged China not to force the issue. In a pragmatic letter to Dr. C. C. Wu, Rea stated: The Case for Manchukuo 231

Japan, apparently has no intention of contesting the status of Manchuria on historical or other grounds, but she seems to be determined to keep the peace in Manchuria and protect her investments and strategical position. Until the new Nationalist Government has demonstrated its ability to maintain law and order in China Proper and your relations with Russia are more clearly defined, it would be unwise for you to force the issue in Manchuria. . . . Personally, I am inclined to the opinion that the only solution possible to the problem is a strong China, competent to defend her neutrality against the menace of Russia. I furthermore believe that the restoration of China’s full sovereignty of Mongolia and North Manchuria can be attained only through a full and frank understanding with Japan. I believe that the best interest of world peace and of the two great Asiatic peoples lies in some reconciliation and understanding that will permit them to face and work out their problems of the future side by side.10

The Japanese had invested heavily in Manchuria, including 400 million yen in the Southern Manchurian railway and another 750 million yen in other commercial and industrial enterprises. Both Sokolsky and Rea felt this investment had been a “stabilizing force.” But Sokolsky’s opinion about how best to solve the political problems festering in Manchuria was more cognizant of China’s historical and geographical claims in the territory. He felt the best political position for Manchuria would be a formula where the area recognized Nanking as its capital, while maintaining self-government.

The peculiar international problems of Manchuria, arising from the presence of the Japanese and the Russians, make it advisable, under present circumstances, that Manchuria should be politically autonomous while recognizing the sovereignty of the National State with its capital of Nanking. This political formula has thus far been effective in keeping Manchuria out of the of fighting while, at the same time, it has served to strengthen the National Government.11

By February 1931, the tenuous peace in Manchuria was deteriorating rapidly, but the media may have galvanized tensions between the Chinese and Japanese. First a semi-official Japanese news service in North China reported that the Manchurian city then known as Mukden was quickly deteriorating politically. Second, Rea’s Far Eastern Review, once again accused of being a Japanese propaganda organ, wrote an article in January arguing that China must accept Japan’s military assistance to thwart aggression from China’s northern communist neighbor—the Soviet “Red menace.” Media reports also noted that Japan intended to settle issues regarding foreign competition over its Southern Manchurian Railway. In the February issue of the Far Eastern Review, Rea reiterated his numerous reasons to be wary of Soviet sphere of influence in Manchuria in an article titled “The ‘Japanese Plot’ against 232 Chapter Twenty-Two

China.” The China Weekly Review felt a propaganda trap was being set saying, “Seldom do diplomatic events in the Far East ‘just happen.’”12 It seems Rea’s chameleon-like political reversal to a pro-Japanese stance on Manchuria may have brought Sokolsky and Rea to their own breaking point, because by March 1931 Sokolsky was no longer listed as editor of the Far Eastern Review. Sokolsky’s departure seemed to have been sudden and not completely amicable. Additional reasons seemed an echo from the past: money and politics. Rea had once again turned politically against the Chinese by ardently backing Japanese business officials. Rea did this against Sokol- sky’s advice. What is more, Rea had no political allies left in China. Since the publisher’s return to Shanghai, his editorial position had become so pro- Japanese, and he was hated by just about every Chinese politician and all the Chinese media. Sokolsky had taken more of a middle-of-the-road approach in both his politics on China, and in his editing of the Far Eastern Review. By 1931, Sokolsky no doubt understood that Rea’s pro-Japanese stance was dangerous for them as journalists as well as for China. What is more, Sokol- sky realized that his entrepreneurial dreams in China had ended. He saw that China was a “tinderbox,” as he put it, and that Japan was holding the matches. A tightening of financial purse strings likely also hastened Sokolsky’s departure. Both Rea and Sokolsky were renowned for entertaining lavishly, but the Great Depression had put a stop to the excessive spending of the “Roar- ing 20s.” The bottom had fallen out of everyone’s finances. Rea had to leave Washington D.C. for China because he could no longer afford the expenses of living in the United States. Sokolsky was not known for frugality, and Rea, being without ample funds, decided to take back the reigns of editing and publishing his magazine. He returned to Shanghai with his second wife and youngest daughter in 1930. The passing of the pen and printing presses seemed to go smoothly. So- kolsky’s exodus as editor from the Far Eastern Review was quiet, as simple as blowing out a small match, without any of Rea’s customary vitriol in the magazine. Neither his years of service to the magazine nor his departure was noted. Sokolsky’s name simply disappeared from the front page of the magazine for good in March 1931. One article of note in that month’s Far Eastern Review was an article by M. Odagiri of the Yokohama Specie bank, which could be interpreted to represent a shifting of Japanese monetary policy toward China. The Japanese banker provided a detailed review of the history of Japanese loan agreements with China going back to their first railway loan in 1911. The article noted that by 1931, Japan held the highest percentage of China’s loans—38 percent of 2 billion dollars total. Yet perhaps most noteworthy in the article was Odagiri’s statement that Japan refused to underwrite any The Case for Manchukuo 233 more obligations for China.13 The statement indicated that Japan was about to change how it dealt with China. Japan was economically unable to underwrite more loans to China because they had suffered through a barrage of chronic economic crises and financial instability beginning with its stock market plunging after World War One, a financial panic in 1922, the economic burden of a huge earthquake in 1923, another financial crisis in 1927, and an economic depression called the Showa Depression of 1930–1931.14 Rea must have been aware of Japan’s financial troubles, but he did not let it stop him from writing Japanese propaganda. Over the next few months, Rea resumed the day-to-day running of the magazine. His living and working quarters comprised three suites at the Japanese Yokohama Specie Bank Building in the Bund area of Shanghai. Three other offices were listed: in New York, Great Britain, and Berlin, Germany. By August, Rea was in full swing, lobbying for Japanese interests once again by painting the Soviets as the villainous Red menace. He published an article called “The Communist Menace in Manchuria.” In it, he stated that the Soviets were expanding their sphere of influence into Manchuria and that treaties were useless: “No treaty of peace and commerce; no understanding between Moscow and Mukden can check the relentless march of the Soviet in these regions.” The writing style of “The Communist Menace in Manchu- ria” echoed Rea’s over-the-top melodramatic rhetoric against the Spanish monarchy in 1919. “Half the people in China are without work. Millions are homeless destitute, starving. The cry of agony, the appeals for succor from the unfortunates fall on deaf ears,” he wrote. “The common laws of humanity cannot operate in China.” He blamed an impotent China for all her problems, stating, “China’s inability to assert her authority over these distant order provinces, coupled with the graft, corruption, ineptitude and tyranny of the Chinese officials, is paving the way for the triumph of Communism.” In the article, Rea also tried to argue that China and Manchuria were completely separate countries with distinctly different populations. Rea did not admit the previous statistic, cited in his own magazine, that only 10 percent of the population of Manchuria were Manchu and that 90 percent were Han Chinese. He exaggerated the differences by stating, “There is as much difference between the Manchurian and the Cantonese, in language, customs, manner of thought and living as there is between the Norwegian and the Greek.”15 He would continue to alter the facts for years claiming, “Instead of an overwhelming Chinese majority, investigation shows that at least seventy five of the population are natives of the country.”16 Rea clearly supplied propaganda for the imminent Japanese invasion of Manchuria in the Far Eastern Review by amplifying the Soviet menace in the area; by arguing that China was unable to defend Manchuria from the Soviets; 234 Chapter Twenty-Two by opining that the Chinese must accept a Japanese military role in Manchu- ria to stabilize the area and protect it from Soviet aggression; and finally by arguing that the people of Manchuria had little in common with the people of China. Rea heightened his editorial arguments for a Japanese military presence in Manchuria before Japan’s invasion, which seems far more than coincidence. However, one can only guess whether Rea had prior knowledge of the fateful Mukden Incident that precipitated Japan’s incursion. On the night of September 18, 1931, a lieutenant knelt down close to the tracks of the Japanese-owned Southern Manchurian Railway several miles north of Mukden. Before him was a small quantity of dynamite placed by his soldiers. The lieutenant lit a match, detonated the fuse, and backed away. The explosion was, however, so weak, it only damaged thirty-one inches of railroad track. On hearing the explosion, several Chinese soldiers began to run from the area and were immediately shot down by Japanese soldiers.17 A few minutes later, the distinctive sound of a train came from the distance. Soon after, each railcar passed, wheel by wheel, successfully over the damaged tracks. The lieutenant who detonated the dynamite, was named Kawamoto Suemori. His orders to blow up the Japanese owned railroad came directly from his superior officers in the Japanese army.18 Publicly, Japan blamed Chinese dissidents for exploding the Southern Manchurian Railroad. They pointed to the dead Chinese soldiers at the scene as proof, argued that the incident was the last straw in a series of provoca- tions by China and responded with a full invasion of Manchuria.19 Perhaps the invasion was inevitable because Japan desperately needed to expand the confines of her small islands. Japan had to acquire or conquer more land with natural resources so that it could stop relying so greatly on costly imported food and goods. Given its geographic, financial, and economic problems, acquiring enough land to feed its population was out of the question. Japan also wanted to become a major political, military, and economic power and had fervent imperialistic ambitions. As one historian noted, “The pressure for expansion, domestic and international were such that they could have been controlled only by the greatest of statesmanship not merely in Japan but also China and the nations of the Western world.”20 If Rea later learned that the Japanese were behind the Mukden Incident, he never wrote about it in his magazine In fact, the secret of how Japan blew up its own railroad tracks as a pretext for invading Manchuria would remain an untold story; the truth was covered up for years. There are some interesting similarities between the Mukden Incident and the sinking of the USS Maine in Cuba. After both explosions, the culprit remained undiscovered and highly contested in the media. Both incidents led to war: the United States against Spain in Cuba, and Japan against the The Case for Manchukuo 235

Chinese in Manchuria. After both incidents, foreign powers took control of the areas. Yet, after the sinking of the USS Maine, Rea was the only foreign correspondent not willing to charge Spain with the explosion without proof. For many, how Rea reported the sinking of the USS Maine marked a zenith in his journalistic career. To this day most studies show he was right to refuse to accuse Spain of exploding the U.S. ship. Rea’s support of the “Mukden Incident” and his backing of Japan’s takeover of the newly named state of Manchukuo, on the other hand, marked his journalistic nadir. After the Japanese takeover of Manchuria, Rea was appointed adviser to the state of Manchukuo. Given the propaganda campaign he’d conducted supporting Japan before the Mukden Incident, one can reasonably speculate about a possible cause-and-effect relationship between Rea’s editorial position and his later appointment. In 1932, Powell of the China Weekly Review called Rea’s appointment, “the most interesting development” happening in Shanghai.21 Powell summed up his opinion of the situation and Rea’s role in it in a letter to Sokolsky, who was then living in downtown New York City awaiting reviews of his new book, The Tinder Box of Asia.

I am frank to admit that I cannot see any daylight ahead with regard to the Manchurian situation. The Japanese have now gone too far that they cannot stop without revolution at home, so I suppose they will keep on going ahead and ultimately have their revolution in addition. The military crowd is now almost in complete domination of the Japanese government and doubtlessly will continue in that position so long as they keep the peasant farmers on their side . . . Rea got into a hot argument at the American Club [in Shanghai] a few days prior to his recent departure for Tokyo and admitted that he has been appointed an adviser to the Tokyo Foreign Affairs office.22

Tokyo extended official recognition to Manchukuo, the supposedly independent state that had been created in Manchuria, on September 15, 1932. Rea sailed to Geneva to lobby for acceptance of the new entity by the League of Nations. The tribunal, however, refused to hear Rea’s arguments. Subse- quently, Japan withdrew from the league. Rea’s new position supplied him with sufficient funds to move back to Washington D.C., where he combined all his lobbying efforts into a book called The Case for Manchoukuo.23 The book was a pure propaganda effort, which, Rea said,

was written to reach the small-town newspapers of the United States, which today make public opinion in the country. I knew I could make no impression on the larger New York, Washington, and Chicago newspapers as their editorial policy was fixed and could not be shaken, so I resolved to go over their heads to the smaller papers. I might have written the book in a different style, and carefully weighed each work and balanced every statement, but in that 236 Chapter Twenty-Two

case no one would have read it. I tried to reach the ordinary American, the man-in-the-street, and the average editor who was not committed.24

According to Rea, the book received more than 250 reviews, which he claimed were, with only four or five exceptions, favorable. In hindsight, most every historian concurs that Manchukuo was nothing more than a Japanese puppet state that remained closed to the rest of the world. Only Germany and Italy joined Japan in granting diplomatic recognition. Pu Yi, the sole survivor of the Manchu dynasty in China, was installed as ruler. “I know of no public character more deserving of sympathy,” Rea said of Pu Yi, adding that he had watched the last Emperor of China grow from infancy to young manhood. Instead of calling Pu Yi a prisoner of the Japanese, Rea stated the contrary. He said that at “all times he has been the virtual prisoner of the ‘Chinese Republic’ that callously violated the Abdi- cation Agreements entered into in good faith on the part of the Manchus to avoid plunging the country into the horrors of Civil warfare.” Rea said the Japanese were providing Pu Yi protection with, “refuge and safety in the compound of the Japanese Legation at Peking, and after his departure from that haven, in the Japanese Concession at Tienstin.” “That young man is now free,” Rea claimed. “He escaped from his prison and now is in his own country the land of his fathers.”25 The pictures published in the Far Eastern Review of Pu Yi in the Japanese Concession in February’s 1934 do not show a young man happily repatriated into the country of his forefathers. In fact the young monarch, a boy on the cusp of manhood who was as Rea described him “never physically strong or robust,” looks truly pitiful. There was deep sadness in the almond-shaped dark eyes surrounded by large round black spectacles. Though smiling for photos was not then commonplace, his grim expression seems more pained than simply neutral. The emperor was a pawn in a greater chess game, and Rea even admitted as much when he said, “whether he is called Chief Execu- tive, Regent, King or Emperor, it is merely a symbol[ic] rallying point for nationalism.” According to Rea, the Japanese had a very positive effect on Pu Yi. The young Emperor played tennis and rode horses every day and the physical activity had, alleged Rea, “changed the ‘weakling’ into a man the world will have to reckon with.” The Japanese military in the photos sur- rounding Pu Yi at a table luncheon seemed much more a force to be reckoned with than the boy king, who was crowned as Emperor on the throne of the New State in March of 1934.26 That summer, Rea moved his wife and youngest daughter to Tokyo. He then went back to the United States to try to persuade the government to accept the new state with Pu Yi as its titular figurehead. The Case for Manchukuo 237

I am the representative of Manchoukuo in the United States, Rea declared. I am its advocate. I am partisan in its defense. I believe what it has done constitutes the one step that the people of the Far East have taken toward escape from the misery and miserable government that have been theirs. I believe that the protection Japan is extending to Manchoukuo give it its only chance of happiness. I believe that Japan’s action is to be commended.27

The new counselor for Manchoukuo Foreign Affairs was not, however, succeeding in getting the United States to back the new government. The United States announced in a policy paper called the Stimson Doctrine, which stated that the United States would not recognize any international territories annexed by force. Henry Stimson, the U.S. Secretary of State under President Herbert Hoover, wrote the document as a direct response to the Mukden Incident and subsequent seizure of Manchuria. Rea repeatedly insisted that Manchukuo was the product of a spontaneous movement for independence and therefore was not in violation of the Stimson Doctrine. Furthermore, in one of his best and most truthful arguments, Rea told an audience at the George Washington School of Law that what Japan had done in Manchuria was almost identical to what the United States had done in the Philippines. He asserted,

When we took possession of the Philippines, we said in effect to the Filipinos, ‘You are not competent to govern yourselves; you cannot set adrift to become the prey of other powers; you must remain under our tutelage until such time as, in our opinion, you have arrived at that stage where you can be safely granted your complete independence.’ Japan says to the people of Manchukuo: ‘We recognize your independence and stand ready to enter in an alliance with you to safeguard our mutual interests.’ But like the United States in the Philippines, she also says: ‘You are incapable of self-government; you have not the first concep- tion of what self-government means or the first qualification for its exercise; you must accept our assistance to establish a proper government and teach you to run it so that in due time you will develop into a strong, self-contained state, competent to discharge your of end of our mutual bargain.28

Rea claimed that Japan had aided Manchuria as the United States aided Cuba and the Philippines and in so doing safeguarded Manchuria as a buffer state from Communism. Although Rea maintained Japan fought for the freedom of the people of Manchuria—even if it had not—the United States should not castigate and penalize Japan for taking over Manchuria, when it had annexed both Cuba and the Philippines against the indigenous will of its people and government. Another policy paper issued later the same year constituted a second strike against Rea. The “Lytton Report,” published in October 1932, summarized a 238 Chapter Twenty-Two fact-finding mission regarding increased hostilities between China and Japan. Although all the commission members who wrote the Lytton Report believed Japan directly responsible for the Mukden Incident, the report made the incident a moot point.29 The paper even reiterated Japan’s position: that the Chinese had been responsible for the destruction of the railroad. The report was very careful, however, to make no comment supporting Japan’s invasion of Manchuria on the basis of self-defense, and it concluded that the presence of the Japanese army was pivotal in the formation of the new state of Manchu- kuo, and that no indigenous movement for independence had occurred in Man- churia.30 Thus, although the Lytton Report made no bold statements regarding the truth behind the Mukden Incident, it struck at the heart of Rea’s assertion that Japan helped Manchurians in their spontaneous, independent uprising. The job of adviser to Manchukuo was profitable for Rea, but it came at a severe cost to publishing his magazine. The American Consul-General in Shanghai received instructions from the Chinese legation to withdraw mailing privileges for Rea’s Far Eastern Review. The postal commissioner canceled mailing the magazine without providing any reason. Despite protesting the move, there was nothing Rea could do. Rea was thus able to write all the pro-Japanese propaganda he could type, but had no means to publish his magazine. The legation freely admitted the move was in retaliation for Rea’s championing Japan’s annexation of Manchuria.31 By representing himself as a foreign diplomat of the new Manchukuo government, Rea had put himself in an awkward double bind. As counselor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Manchukuo, Rea acted as both legal counsel and as foreign emissary. He was being paid to convince the U.S. government to accept the Japanese takeover of Manchuria, but the United States could not receive Rea as a representative of Manchukuo because to do so would be a de facto recognition of Japan’s annexation of the area. Rea decided to try using a different tactic. In a letter to the U.S. Secretary of State, he stated: “I would esteem it an honor, if in my capacity as a private American citizen, you could, at your convenience, grant me the opportunity to explain other angles to problem which to my mind are leading the Nation into conflict in the Pacific.”32 Once again, however, both the U.S. Secretary and Under Secretary were advised not to receive Rea, because by receiving him as a private citizen, the U.S. State Department would at the same time be receiving the “counselor” or representative of “Manchukuo.”33 When U.S. officials refused to meet him, the publisher used his magazine extensively to propagandize Japan’s cause. Rea was not one to stick to one strategic argument. In his lobbying efforts for Manchukuo, he used a double- barreled shotgun approach. He argued everything, from Japan’s acting in self-defense to eugenics: The Case for Manchukuo 239

The natural forces at work in Asia cannot be regulated by laws, treaties, anti-war pacts of any other Canute-like gestures.34 World disapproval can have no effect upon the procreative recklessness of a race whose religion is based on ancestor worship with the necessity of having as many male children as possible to keep up the cult. It is too late now to side-step the basic issue of the Pacific. One of these Asiatic countries must find an outlet and if not permitted to overflow into its own natural sphere, as the pressure from within mounts higher, it will follow the irrevocable law of nature and break through at the weakest point.35

The right to disagree with the government was his right as a U.S. citizen, and Rea insisted from the start that he was not member of a foreign government.

I am not an official of the Manchoukuo Government. I am merely retained by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of that Government as counsel to present and defend its case. I retain all my rights, privileges and duties as an American citizen. . . . The issues at stake in Manchoukuo are of such vital importance to the peace of the world and the preservation of those ideals on which our national life and human progress if founded, that a sense of public duty, not only to my own countrymen but to the people who have entrusted their case in my hands, compels me to take a stand so at variance with the policy of our Government and public opinion.36

Rea also asserted that Japan’s violation of existing treaties by entering Man- churia was merely a “point of view”: “It may be true that the League Cov- enant, the Nine Power Treaty and the Peace Pacts were violated by Japan in resorting to self-defense to protect her interests in Manchuria. That, however, remains a matter of opinion.”37 He showed no contrition for any of his arguments for Japan in a lengthy address to students of the law school of George Washington University.

I offer no apologies for defending a cause that in my humble opinion represents all those ideals and principles upon which human liberty and progress are founded. The League’s condemnation of Manchoukuo was based on technicalities while our State Department is apparently more concerned for its treaties and policies than with the fundamental. . . . I hold that treaties, conventions, covenants and other pacts which contravene the basic principles of humanity cannot endure. The basic and unswerving policy of Japan in Manchoukuo is a most scrupulous respect for the independence and sovereignty of that country. . . . The issue in Manchoukuo, as I see it, is the vindication of principles laid down in our own Declaration of Independence. The tenants of our faith have been subordinated to our Far Eastern politics.38

At times during his speech, Rea began to sound like an impassioned Baptist preacher, asserting that the invasion of Manchukuo was the result of divine intervention. 240 Chapter Twenty-Two

The military intervention of Japan in defense of her own interests which, in two days broke the power of their tyrant and dispersed his armies, came as an Act of God, and answer to the prayers of the people for deliverance. Some Western peoples feel that they alone enjoy a monopoly of Divine favor. But the lowly Chinese and Manchurian farmer also believes that Heaven guards over him. Who will be bold enough to question the ways and workings of Providence? The power of Japan broke the shackles that held the thirty million people of Manchoukuo in servitude and set them free.39

One almost expected to hear the audience respond, “Hallelujah.” The U.S. State Department was becoming increasingly frustrated with Rea’s propaganda tactics. At the Press Club in Washington D.C. on March 28, 1934, Rea was sitting around a table gloating to three news correspondents how he had “hooked the dear old Father.” Unbeknownst to Rea, one of the reporters he was talking to was an informant for the State Department. The informant said Rea made his remarks with a “Mephistophelean leer.”40 The Father Rea was referring to was Father Walsh, the Regent of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. Rea had convinced the regent clergyman to sign a circular taking responsibility for a speech Rea wrote and delivered on March 7, 1934. Father Walsh had not read the speech carefully and had taken Rea at his word concerning its content. The speech was titled, “Must America Fight Japan” and in it Rea claimed that the U.S. government had in the past, and would in the future, discriminate against Jews, Unitarians, and Catholics. Rea added that “the Far Eastern policy of this government has been and is dictated by Protestant missionaries, and that the courses of action followed by the Gov- ernment have been and are wrong.”41 The speech coupled with the report from the U.S. State Department informant was enough to get Rea into hot water. The State Department’s division of Foreign Affairs said the speech contained “fabrications” and “false statements.” The college, the media, and the U.S. government all held Father Walsh responsible. Worse, not only had Walsh signed the circular taking responsibility for the statements against the U.S. government, he had ordered six hundred copies of the address, and assisted in distributing them. A contrite Father Walsh met with Stanley Hornbeck wondering how to make amends. He was worried that “if inaccurate in statement or false in conclusion, it should be answered immediately.” Hornbeck, acting on instructions from the State Department, conveyed “surprise and regret” to Father Walsh that the School of Foreign Service was “contributing to the dissemi- nation of material from a source of that character.” Hornbeck then showed Father Walsh a copy he had received of Rea’s contract with the Japanese.42 The impact of Rea’s speech in Washington reverberated halfway around the world to Japan. A representative of the United States wrote to the U.S. The Case for Manchukuo 241

Ambassador in Tokyo asking him to call the Minister of Foreign Affairs to tell him that Rea’s “activities are highly prejudicial to the cause of improving relations between Japan and the United States.” The U.S. government spokes- person stated, “we could take action to bring them to an end, but such action would involve publicity which would be distinctly undesirable from point of view of Japanese-American relations.”43 In a letter to Hornbeck, Rea confessed that he “didn’t feel right on the other side of the fence,” but said, “Manchukuo has a good case.”44 The main merit to the case for Manchukuo may have been the salary, which is difficult to determine because he was paid in Manchukuo currency. According to his contract he was to be paid sixty thousand silver yuan issued by the Man- chukuo Central bank. In addition he would receive twenty thousand Man- chukuo silver yuan per year for his office, residence, and travel expenses.45 One Manchukuo yuan was equal to 23.91 grams of silver, which fluctuated greatly during the 1930s. According to one newspaper, Rea’s new salary from the Japanese was $25,000 a year plus an additional $1,000 per month for expenses, an exorbitant sum at the time, especially considering that the Great Depression was in full swing.46 Rea offered weak excuses on matters concerning Japanese funding. He refused to admit to receiving a salary, but admitted to receiving generous advertising support. In one editorial article in the New York Herald Tribune, Rea stated that the practice of inflating advertising prices was less wrong than what had been done by those who maligned him: “Notwithstanding [that] editors may have accepted ‘flattering adver- ships,’ they may at heart be better Americans than those who so thoughtlessly impugn their motives and question their integrity.”47 Beyond his financial motives, Rea was a U.S. patriot who knew that if the United States were to go to war with Japan, the latter had superior naval advantage, and that it would take the United States at least two years to build up its naval ratio to meet Japan’s numbers, and much more time than that to achieve an advantage. “If I thought we could even get anything out of a war with Japan, I would think different,” he said.48 Echoing the words of his hero Theodore Roosevelt, Rea said, “If we are going to back up our policies, we must have the armaments to enforce them. We cannot get anywhere by just shaking our finger at Japan.”49 Rea believed appeasing Japan’s annexation of Manchuria would keep Japan from beginning a war where it possessed a worldwide naval advantage. Rea also felt the prejudice against his propaganda for Japan unfair. To keep his magazine afloat, he needed subsidies and advertising. He was a mercenary writer for hire. If the United States or China would not provide it, he sought funding where he could get it. He admitted that his magazine had been used for propaganda, either for the U.S, China, or Japan since its inception. At 242 Chapter Twenty-Two the outset, the U.S government had supported his magazine. It had bought 1000 copies a month of the magazine from 1904 until 1913. Besides a U.S. government subsidy, Rea said the Far Eastern Review received its “main support” from U.S. steel and railway manufactures no doubt through generous amounts given for advertising. Originally, “inspiration and support to my work came from the most important and powerful interests in this country,” Rea said referring to the United States. When Rea left China for Spain from 1917 to 1920, he left his magazine in the hands of his editor William Donald, at which time Rea said the magazine became “the propaganda organ of the Chinese Government.” “The paper in those days was, as far as I could learn, receiving an indirect subsidy from the Chinese Government, paid to Donald as head of its general propaganda and publicity organization.” From 1925 until 1930, Rea handed editorial control of his magazine over to Sokolsky. “During those years,” Rea said, “my magazine was the official organ of the Nanking faction.” “As long as the Review was the propaganda medium for the Chinese,” Rea said, “it was a wonderful magazine, but the moment it refused to play their game, it was accused of having ‘sold out to the Japanese.’” In Rea’s world of newspaper publishing, money trumped political principles. “God knows I would much prefer to support our policies, whether right or wrong,” he told Hornbeck, “but it cannot be done without a substantial subsidy or advertising support from our manufactures.”50 Rea argued that history repeated itself and said that the United States and Japan had remarkably similar objectives when it came to protecting investments.

This old filibuster of an older generation can see no difference in what Japan has done in Manchuria and what Americans so proudly accomplished in several parts of Latin America and Hawaii. If after nearly a century of plotting, planning and casting covetous eyes on the Island of Cuba, Americans were justified in the “name of Humanity” or protection of their investments, in separating this last colony from the rule of Spain, under the pretext that were freeing its inhabitants from tyranny, then the Japanese with greater and more compelling reasons, are justified in freeing the Manchurians from the yoke of a brutal, merciless, blood- sucking bandit overlord, concealing his crimes behind a banner of a Republic.51

By the end of 1934, Rea’s dual role as Japanese propagandist and advisor was increasingly becoming a thorn in the side of U.S. foreign policy. The U.S. Department of State issued its Order No. 601 to curb Rea’s lobbying efforts. The order, issued on October 17, 1934, stated that a person who was a member of the press could not at the same time advise or represent another government in any claim against the United States. Title 5 Section 99 of the United States Code stated: The Case for Manchukuo 243

It shall not be lawful for any person appointed as an officer, clerk, or employee in any of the [press] departments, to act as counsel, attorney, or agent for prose- cuting any claim against the United States. . . . Any such person shall be required to make full disclosure, under oath of the circumstance of his employment52

Rea gave the order little credence. He completely sidestepped the order by stating that it did not concern him because there were no real disputes between the United States and Japan.

There are no issues between the United States and Japan that cannot be amicably adjusted if there is a will for peace on both sides. The people of the Unites States are not interested in these Far Eastern disputes. They will never consent to be dragged into a war in the Pacific unless Japan forces the issue. The rulers and people of Japan do not want to fight the United States.53

The United States was not the only country turning against Rea. He was being boxed in wherever he turned. Rea reflected on the bizarre twists of his long journalistic career in an editorial article titled “A Curb on Propaganda,” written for none other than his former newspaper, the Herald.

Many years ago, in the spring of 1897, the irascible old Generalissimo of the Cuban army, Maximo Gomez, threatened to shoot the New York Herald correspondent because the latter wrote the truth about the insurrection, and in a long-winded harangue to his assembled army declared that the policy of the Herald was anti-Cuban because its proprietor, James Gordon Bennett, had purchased a large block of Spanish bonds. There was probably not an iota of truth in this statement, but the “old Chinaman” had to find some plausible reason to support his threat to “bump off” Bennett’s representative who had to think quick and do some tall explaining to stave off the execution. It is somewhat ironical to find that same newspaper, thirty five years later editorially accusing its old correspondent of selling his opinions for a few pages of advertising and inciting the Chinese to do what Gomez left unfinished.54

In China, Rea became wanted more dead than alive. After receiving death threats, instead of slowing down and writing more circumspect articles, Rea pounded out more than thirty-eight pages worth of polemics on the need for the world to recognize Japan’s rights in Manchuria in February 1936. Yet for Japan, it was too little, too late. Japan did not renew Rea’s contract as adviser to Manchukuo. Now his only hope of income was from his magazine, the Far Eastern Review, and the ever-diminishing advertising revenue he received from Japan and Europe. Unfortunately, the magazine was not selling many copies, and his book, The Case for Manchoukuo, was officially banned in China. Rea’s publishing contract included the author purchasing three thousand copies of the book. Given the book was strictly for propaganda, Rea’s 244 Chapter Twenty-Two

Japanese associates surely reimbursed the cost. However, besides that initial purchase, the book was not a big seller.55 Rea had gambled that his Japanese business friends would continue what he termed “their regular support” of the Far Eastern Review. This included various high Japanese officials and the Bank of Japan paying “fees” amount- ing to twenty thousand yen.56 It was not as much money as it sounds. The currency fluctuated a great deal, but in the early 1930s, one hundred yen was worth about twenty-eight dollars.57 He admitted that the fees paid to his magazine had been a “delicate” issue, which had relied entirely on his friendship with Odagiri of the Yokohama Specie bank. His agreement with the Japanese banker was “purely oral and personal.” Then Odagiri died, and Rea had no legal way to press for payment from others. “I have had to accept what came along without complaint.” The payments were not enough to keep the magazine afloat. “Had it not been for the Manchuoukuo salary, Rea told his editor, I would have been compelled to suspend publication or go out of business.” Half of his salary for his Manchukuo propaganda had been used for expenses publishing the Far Eastern Review.58 In true Rea fashion, he clung to his dreams but was felled by reality. He was “shocked and disappointed” by his dismissal as counselor for Manchu- kuo. “I staked my reputation, my career, my usefulness and the future of myself and family on this fight,” he said. “I looked forward to creating a new place for myself in the Far East by championing the cause of Manchoukuo and being instrumental in a small way of bringing peace and prosperity to the people of that country.” His work had done neither. Rea’s former editor Sokolsky was not surprised to hear of Rea’s misfor- tunes. “I kept warning you that you must make new friends but out of loyalty you stuck with the old ones.” Sokolsky added that fighting for Japan was a waste of time. “This country is not interested at the present time in anything but how to get twelve million men back to work. . . . We are not even interested in war—we are not interested in anything but our own problems. If the Japanese could only understand this, they could so arrange their own attitudes that they could really win the good will of our people.”59 In April 1936, while traveling in Japan, Rea felt an irritation in his throat that would not go away. He had not felt his usual energetic self for some time and consented to go to hospital in Tokyo. He went through another series of tests and waited for the results. Given that he had been in and out of hospitals for years with countless ailments that eventually righted themselves, Rea must have been devastated to receive the news that he had esophageal cancer. Brought on in the majority of cases by a combination of too much smoking and alcohol consumption, esophageal cancer is still considered a death sentence. Rea was advised to go back to the United States to receive radium The Case for Manchukuo 245 treatments at Johns Hopkins hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. He returned to the United States and rented an apartment to be close to doctors, whom he saw every day or two. He did not know where he stood medically. He was also diagnosed with an ulcer, which did not seem to heal, which may have been brought about by bacteria, or the fact that he was worried sick over his business, which was sinking fast. Expenses were mounting, and he wondered how he would be able to pay for his medical treatments. Rea’s family seemed to understand that this time Rea’s illness was truly severe. His daughter Connie had been to see him twice, and his son Harry spent his vacation with his father at the hospital. Frances Rea and Gloria, however, did not return to be by his side until the end. They had been traveling around world and were due to arrive in the Philippines in September and were not destined to arrive in New York until October 20. During that time, the news broke that civil war had broken out in Spain. The news broke Rea’s heart. He was glad his wife was traveling around the world far away from the chaos.60 It should come as little surprise that Rea and his Spanish wife both supported fascist Franco in the war. Rea also had begun supporting German rearmament and rallied behind the boys of its fascist military. Some consider the propaganda used by the Japanese between the world wars a precursor to the more advanced propaganda techniques used by the Nazis. Both used propaganda to promote military causes and to gain acceptance for controversial military and political achievements. Both used propaganda to maintain power, enhance nationalism, and thwart foreign imperialism. Both used propaganda to bend and then win over the minds of people completely. Some might say all government propaganda promotes similar agendas. This is generically true, but both Japan and Germany would develop, advance, sharpen, and hone propaganda in ways the yellow press and William Randolph Hearst and later the CPI had never even dreamed of when they tried to rally the United States for war. In his book Mein Kampf, Hitler devoted three chapters on the importance of propaganda and how it should be disseminated. He wrote the “art of propaganda consists of precisely in being able to awaken the imagination of the public through an appeal to their feelings, in finding the appropriate psychological form that will arrest the attention and appeal to the hearts of the national masses.”61 Rea tried his best to do that for Manchukuo. Had he lived, given his nascent pro-fascist leanings, it would have been interesting to see how long or how fervently Rea would have supported Hitler’s rise to power in the years before the Second World War. On Sunday, November 22, 1936, the Far Eastern Review’s editor in Shang- hai received word of Rea’s death through telegraph news service. Rea died in Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. He was sixty-seven years old. He 246 Chapter Twenty-Two had been pounding away at his typewriter until his demise—ever the soldier of fortune, whose underlying motives were always money and power. He changed his political principles as easily as a professional lobbyist, but he did remain loyal to people he admired, such as Sun Yat-sen and Theodore Roos- evelt. His career was varied and complex, but he consistently fought battles where the odds were against him. As a young journalist, he was the lone reporter who defended Spain when it was accused of sinking the USS Maine, and according to the latest research, was correct in his assertions that Spain was innocent. Despite enormous economic hardships, he published a magazine that was considered at one point the most informative periodical on economics and industry in Asia. He designed and engineered a ten-thousand-mile railway in China. He then strived for years to finance building his railroad, sure that it would bring commerce to China and strengthen its international ties. He eruditely understood Japan’s military rise in power in the 1920s and 1930s and tried despite all odds to broker an appeasement with Japan through supporting its conquest of Manchuria. Regardless of whether you hate his actions, or faulted his politics, he was an extremely intelligent man, who led an extraordinarily fascinating life. His family, including his second wife and youngest daughter, were with him when he died.

NOTES

1. George Sokolsky, “The Key to Struggling China: A Drama of Three Zones,” Far Eastern Review (January 1931): 18. 2. George Bronson Rea, February 8, 1928, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 3. William L. Langer, Review of “The Russian Imperial Conspiracy 1892–1914,” by Robert Owen, Foreign Affairs 6, no. 1 (October 1927): 224, accessed February 12, 2017, www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/77595/robert-l-owen/the-russian-imperial- conspiracy-1892-1914. 4. George Bronson Rea, February 7, 1928, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 5. Japanese Foreign Minister, Kijuro Shidehara, December 15, 1928, File Box 98, Folder 4, Sokolsky Collection. 6. Theodore Roosevelt, Letter to Howard Taft, December 22, 1910, p. 2, Microfilm Publication, M423 Rolls 2 and 4, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. 7. Theodore Roosevelt, Letter to Howard Taft, December 22, 1910, p. 3. 8. George Bronson Rea, February 27, 1928, Box 98, Sokolsky Collection. 9. George Bronson Rea, June 7, 1928, Box 98, Sokolsky Collection. The Case for Manchukuo 247

10. George Bronson Rea, Letter to Dr. C. C. Wu, June 26, 1928, Box 98, Sokolsky Collection. 11. Sokolsky, “The Key to Struggling China,” 18. 12. China Weekly Review, February 7, 1931, reprinted in Far Eastern Review (February 1931): 72. 13. M. Odagiri, “Japanese Loans to China,” Far Eastern Review (March 1931): 141. 14. Masato Shizume, “The Japanese Economy during the Interwar Period: In- stability in the Financial System and the Impact of the World Depression,” Bank of Japan Review (May 2009), accessed February 12, 2017, www.boj.or.jp/en/research/ wps_rev/rev_2009/data/rev09e02.pdf. 15. George Bronson Rea, “The Communist Menace in Manchuria,” Far Eastern Review (August 1931): 465. 16. “Stating the Case for Japan: Tokio Aided Manchukuo as U.S. Aided Cuba in Fight for Freedom a Counsellor Points Out; Safeguading the Orient from Commu- nism with a Buffer State,” Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal, February 21, 1934. 17. Robert H. Ferrell, “The Mukden Incident: September 18–19 1931,” Journal of Modern History 27, no. 1 (March 1955): 66–72, accessed February 12, 2017, http:// wenku.baidu.com/view/3c734aea551810a6f5248678.html. 18. Peter Duus and John Whitney Hall, The Cambridge History of Japan: The Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 294. 19. Ferrell, “The Mukden Incident.” 20. Ferrell, “The Mukden Incident.” 21. John Powell, Letter to George Sokolsky, August 2, 1932, Box 97.4, Sokolsky Collection. 22. Powell, Letter to Sokolsky, August 2, 1932. 23. There are two spelling variants for the word. The more common spelling became Manchukuo. 24. Laval, “George Bronson Rea Passes,” 473. 25. George Bronson Rea, “The Independence of Manchukuo.” Paper read before the students of the law school of George Washington University, November 23, 1933; also in Far Eastern Review 30, no. 2 (February 1934): 50–61. 26. Bronson Rea, “The Independence of Manchukuo.” 27. Rea, The Case for Manchukuo, vii–viii. 28. “Stating the Case for Japan.” 29. “United States Department of State / Papers Relating to the Foreign Rela- tions of the United States, Japan: 1931–1941,” 93–94, accessed February 12, 2017, http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=turn&entity=FRUS .FRUS193141v01.p0189&id=FRUS.FRUS193141v01&isize=M. 30. “Lytton Report,” Wikipedia, last modified December 16, 2016, accessed Feb- ruary 12, 2017, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lytton_Report. 31. Hallett Abend, “American Journal Is Curbed in China,” New York Times, De- cember 23, 1932, p. 13. 32. Hornbeck Papers, February 15, 1934, Folder 13. 33. Hornbeck Papers, February 15, 1934. 34. Canute was the Danish king of England from 1017 to 1035. 248 Chapter Twenty-Two

35. Rea, “The Independence of Manchukuo.” 36. Rea, “The Independence of Manchukuo.” 37. Rea, “The Independence of Manchukuo.” 38. Rea, “The Independence of Manchukuo.” 39. Rea, “The Independence of Manchukuo.” 40. Hornbeck Papers, March 29, 1934, Folder 13. 41. Hornbeck Papers, March 7, 1934, Folder 13. 42. Hornbeck Papers, March 22, 1934, Folder 13. 43. Hornbeck Papers, March 31, 1934, Folder 13. 44. George Bronson Rea, Letter to Stanley Hornbeck, February 13, 1934, File Box 63, Folder 11, Hornbeck Papers. 45. Order of Appointment, Hsieh Chieh-Shih, Minister of Foreign Affairs, De- partment of Foreign Affairs, The State of Manchuria, August 17, 1932, File Box 63, Folder 11, Hornbeck Papers. 46. Seymour Waldman, Wall Street’s Capitol column, New York Daily Worker, February 16, 1934, p. 5, in File Box 63, Folder 11, Hornbeck Papers. 47. George Bronson Rea, “American Magazines in China,” 8. 48. George Bronson Rea, Letter to Stanley Hornbeck, February 13, 1934, p. 1, File Box 63, Folder 11, Hornbeck Papers. 49. Rea, Letter to Hornbeck, February 13, 1934, p. 5. 50. Rea, Letter to Hornbeck, February 13, 1934, p. 1, 51. George Bronson Rea, “On Smuggling,” Far Eastern Review 32, no. 2 (Shang- hai) (February 2, 1936): 53. 52. November 6, 1934, Hornbeck Papers. 53. Rea, “The Independence of Manchukuo.” 54. Rea, “A Curb on Propaganda,” 328. 55. Laval, “George Bronson Rea Passes.” 56. George Bronson Rea, Letter to Charles J. Laval, October 5, 1936, personal collection of Leslie E. Clark. 57. “Economic Relations,” University of Michigan, accessed February 12, 2017, www.umich.edu/~wewantas/economichistory.html. 58. George Bronson Rea, Letter to Laval, October 5, 1936. 59. George Sokolsky, Letter to George Bronson Rea, March 21, 1936, personal collection of Leslie E. Clark. 60. George Bronson Rea, Letter to Frances Rea, September 14, 1936, personal collection of Leslie E. Clark. 61. The Mein Kampf citation is from the Project Gutenberg–hosted 1939 English translation by James Murphy, accessed February 12, 2017, http://gutenberg.net.au/ ebooks02/0200601.txt. Chapter Twenty-Three

Epilogue

The Far Eastern Review magazine was sold after Rea’s death but continued to publish for many years after as the highly reputed Far Eastern Economic Review. Gone were Rea’s vitriolic editorials, but the in-depth economic analysis remained. Rea’s competitors and colleagues went on to lead disparate lives. George Sokolsky, once a supporter of Sun Yat-sen, did a complete political about- face. He became a militant anti-communist. He remained in the United States, where he became a powerfully influential conservative columnist for the New York Herald Tribune. He also broadcasted a weekly radio show for the National Association of Manufacturers. He became a staunch supporter of Senator Joseph McCarthy and of the communist witch-hunt of the 1950s. In his spare time, Sokolsky worked pro-bono to help blacklist Hollywood actors and artists, who were accused of communist activities or alliances. Sokolsky also remained a distant, but loyal father figure to Rea’s children Harry and Gloria, corresponding with them for almost twenty years after Rea’s death. John Powell, the editor of Millard’s Review, was captured and taken prisoner along with other foreign journalists when the Japanese overran Shanghai in December 1941. Neither the United States nor China did much to free him. He was left to starve to death and nearly did. He lost eighty-five pounds as well as one foot. His second foot had to be amputated because of gangrene that had set in while imprisoned. After six months in prison, he was set free, but would never be the same. He returned to the United States and died in 1947.1 George Bronson Rea’s immediate family lived on to idolize the publisher as a legend. In some ways they were justified. Though he never attended college, Rea became a world-famous —and at times infamous—journalist, magazine publisher, engineer, diplomat, international financial negotiator, and adviser on Far Eastern affairs. He was the quintessential self-made man, who failed in his

249 250 Chapter Twenty-Three quest to become enormously wealthy through building railroads. However, he spent lavishly and gave the appearance of one who had all the money in the world. His granddaughter remembered that when she was about ten, Rea bought her an expensive dress when he came to visit her in the United States. The same day Rea also bought his wife a tawdry hat with a feather in it for thirty-five dollars, which was equivalent to a month’s rent for a standard small apartment at the time. Rea bought whatever his wife desired and made sure she always traveled first class. Frances Rea was thus shocked when Rea died penniless with a debt-ridden magazine. And yet, despite marrying two more times, Frances later took back the name “Rea,” and never acknowledged any other marriage. Rea’s first-born son, William Rea, also idolized his father and felt a failure for not living up to his father’s standards. On the day of his daughter’s wedding, Bill dutifully walked the young bride down the aisle, but it would be the last time the newlywed ever saw her father. Seven months later, in May 1950, Bill killed himself. Connie Rea seemed to be the wildest of Rea’s children. She married several times, but the relationships did not last. Her predilection for alcohol and drugs got the better of her. One night after drinking too much, she lost control of her car and allegedly struck and killed two people while driving home. She died poor and alone. Gloria Rea’s life was forever changed after her father’s death. She grew up so pampered that according to one family story, a Chinese government official sailed across an ocean just to return a doll she had left behind. Her youth was spent on cruise ships, planning each ballroom dance she would attend and what dress she would wear. Like the rest of her family, Gloria worshipped her father. Following his death, Gloria became close to penniless. She was, however, able to go to college and joined the women’s army as a nurse during World War Two. She later became a hospital administrator in Manhattan. She married four times. She probably would like to add that she was beautiful, smart, well read, and earned a Master’s degree in English. All are true. Of all Rea’s children, his middle son Harry Rea was the child who tried to bring the family together. Harry worked for oil companies, amassing a level of wealth that had always been just beyond the reach of his father. Harry also made his mark upon the earth by achieving enormous respect and notoriety as a geolo- gist. To this day some students of geology at the University of California at Davis read essays by him and claim Henry Carter Rea’s contributions to geology are similar to Darwin’s contribution to the theory of evolution. There is a photo of Harry as a small boy in the military cadet’s uniform holding a bugle (see figure 23.1), looking like a boy who wanted to make his parents proud. George would have been proud of his son. Harry was well respected in life and after his death. George Bronson Rea will never be anyone’s quintessential, classic hero. He had many faults, but he lived an amazing and oftentimes heroic life, Figure 23.1. Harry Rea as a child 252 Chapter Twenty-Three especially during the Spanish–American War. He was the epitome of an au- todidact as a journalist, engineer, international loan negotiator, political lobbyist, propagandist, counselor on foreign affairs, and publisher. From his youth until his deathbed, he was never a man to turn down a fight, even when the entire world was against him. It is hard to say what Rea would recognize of the world today. Japan went to war with the United States as Rea predicted it would. It later became a mighty economic power replete, however, of its imperialist, expansionist goals. China, once the poorest of countries, turned to communism, as Rea feared it would. Yet China then transformed itself from a centrally planned closed economy to a manufacturing and exporting dynamo. As a result, it has become the second-largest economy in the world and will soon outdo the United States as the world’s largest economic powerhouse in terms of nomi- nal gross domestic product.2 China is the world’s next greatest superpower. We are also witnessing the birth of completely novel ways of delivering the news. Pen and paper are passé. Journalists must now sift through thousands of web feeds per minute to get information to create multimedia stories broadcast on numerous social-media platforms to millions of people almost instanta- neously. We now have up-to-the-second coverage of events that change the world from every corner of the globe. And yet, ordinary citizens often capture the most important stories by wielding smartphones or hastily thumb-typing in- stant messages. To make our future media better, one must look into the past and be aware of how journalists like Rea reported the spurious as well as the merito- rious in the news. Rea helped create our media history, just as today’s news will become the historic archives of our future. To preserve an accurate history of the world, we need to develop more credible sources for reporting news events. Rea teaches us that when intrepid journalists become propagandists, they degrade themselves into mercenary lobbyists who obfuscate the truth. We must search for and strictly adhere to journalistic ethics to describe the facts as well as our impressions or opinions about events. We must learn lessons from propagandists like Rea, as we strike our keypads, activate voice commands, and record our on-the-spot videos with cell phones. We must find ways to rebuild news credibility for those who wish to doggedly and faithfully report the news that will tell our history in the periodicals of our digital future.

NOTES

1. You Li and Betty Houchin Winfield, The Military versus the Press: Japanese Mil- itary Controls over One U.S. Journalist, John B. Powell, in Shanghai during the Sino- Japanese War 1937–1941 (master’s thesis, University of Missouri, December 2008). 2. Prableen Bajpai, “The World’s Top 10 Economies,” Investopedia, last modified February 8, 2017, accessed February 11, 2017, www.investopedia.com/articles/ investing/022415/worlds-top-10-economies.asp. Bibliography

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advertising: in The Far Eastern Review, arrest warrant, for spying, 62–63 196, 197, 213–16; in North China Asian Americans, xenophobia and, Daily, 101 88–89, 95 African Americans: lynchings of, 4; on Astor House Hotel, 137–39, 178 USS Maine, 47 Atlanta Constitution, 67 Aguinaldo, Emilio (Commander), 79 Attendance School, 4 alcohol, 15, 28, 39, 76, 77, 125; drugs Australia, 141 and, 148, 250; esophageal cancer Austria Hungary, 107 and, 244; Rea, H. S., and, 90, 147 Aznar Zubigaray, Manuel, 126–27 Aldrich, Nelson, 183 Alfonso XII (Spanish cruiser), 30, 49, 52 bandits, on railroad, 183–86 Alger, Horatio, 5–6 banks: City Bank, 94; First National American Beet Sugar Company, 81 Bank, 94; German Austro-Hungarian American Chamber of Commerce, 178; Bank, 127. See also Yokohama blacklisting by, 173; with libel suit, Specie Bank 180; representative for, 195–96, Barton, Clara, 66 211–12, 215; on U.S. military in Batabano Railroad, 26 Shanghai, 199 Beiyang Army, 101, 205 American Club, 66, 178, 222, 235 Belgium, 204, 206, 209 American Group, 94, 97, 102–3, 104, Bell, Alexander Graham, 5 117, 163 Bennett, James Gordon, ix; Cuba and, Among the Rebels: The Truth about the 243; New York Herald and, 15–16, War (Entre los rebeldes: La verdad 40, 42 de la guerra) (Rea, G. B.), 44 Berkeley, California: family life, 83, Anderson, Roy, 182, 184–85, 191 85–87, 147; University of California, Andrews, D. S., 184 152 Army, Beiyang, 101, 205 betrayal, 11; of China, x, 165, 169–71, Army, U.S., 70, 78–79 174, 177; of Sigsbee, 55 Arnold, Benedict, 174 Bewick, Moreing & Company, 204–5

261 262 Index bias, reporters with, x Chiang Kai-shek (Generalissimo): blacklisting: by American Chamber of Kuomintang and, 196, 198, 228; Commerce, 173; of The Far Eastern support for, 199 Review, 172–73, 180 Chidwick, John, 49, 53 blackmail, ix, 140 children: education laws for, 1–2, 3–4; Bolivar, Simon, 21 labor, 1 Bolsheviks, 181 China, 142, 178, 182, 252; betrayal of, Boru, Brian, 71, 73n28 x, 165, 169–71, 174, 177; Boxer Bowen, William Shaw, 11 uprising in, 204, 206; civil war, Boxer uprising, in China, 204, 206 198–99, 228, 236; economy, 96–97; Brand, Charles, 208 famine in, 183; France and, 228; Bristol, Mark Lambert, 223 Germany and, 115; Great Britain Bronson, Charles (maternal and, 93–94, 100–101, 190–91; grandfather), 2, 3–4, 43, 69 Han people, 227, 233; Hoover, H., Bronson, Charlotte. See Rea, Charlotte and, 203–6, 208–9, 220–21, 222; Bronson influence in, ix–x; Japan and, 96, Brooklyn Bridge, 5, 6, 7, 12 112–14, 160–66, 169–73, 177, 181, Brooklyn Truancy Home, 4, 5–6 204, 212, 216, 229–44; Open Door Brown, Harry, 51 policy and, 94, 112, 114–15, 163–64, Bryan, William Jennings, 115 173; opium in, 197; Paris Peace Buddhism, 93, 160 Conference and, 159–63, 174; Pu Yi Burgine, Fred, 50 and, x, 236; railroad in, x, 94, 96–97, “The Butcher.” See Weyler, Valeriano 102–9, 117, 141, 160, 162, 163, 165, 183–86, 189–90, 204, 212, 220–24, Caldwell, John R., 50–51 227–28, 238, 246; revolution in, California: Berkeley, 83, 85–87, 99–100; riots in, 166, 189; Roosevelt 147, 152; farm labor in, 88; San on, 94–95, 115; Russia and, 228–29; Francisco, 86–88, 90 Sphere of Influence policy and, Campaigning in the Philippines (Faust), 94, 113, 114; Technical Secretary 78 for, 106–8, 111–12; trade and, Campbell, Joseph, 72n2 93–94, 95–96. See also Manchuria; Campos, Martínez (General), 30 Shanghai, China cancer, esophageal, 244–46 The China Press (newspaper), with Carey, William F., 166 competition, 100–101, 139 Carter, Harriet Shumard, 36. See also China Weekly Review (newspaper), 184, Rea, Harriet Shumard 232, 235 Caruso, Enrico, 85 Chinese Eastern Railway, 220, 222–23, The Case for Manchoukuo (Rea, G. B.), 227 235–36, 243–44 Christianity, 4, 77, 93 censorship: film, 123; in newspapers, Churchill, Marlborough (General), 131, 122–23 140–41, 155 Chang Yen-mao, 203–4, 205, 207, 209 City Bank, 94 Chen, Eugene, 177, 185 City of Washington (U.S. steamboat), Chen Chin-tao, 106, 107–8, 111, 116 52, 53, 55, 66 Index 263

Civil War, U.S., 3, 4, 12, 20; Navy and, 19–27, 30–33, 61; Ten Years’ War 22–23; Sherman and strategy in, 31 and, 9, 16, 30, 32, 61 civil wars: China, 198–99, 228, 236; “A Curb on Propaganda” (Rea, G. B.), Spain, 245 243 Cleveland, Grover, 20–21 Curtis, Charles, 208 colonization: of Australia, 141; of Cuba, 19, 59; Germany with, 170; Dato, Eduardo, 123, 125–26 of Manchuria, 227, 230; Monroe Davis, Richard Harding, ix, 37–38, 68 Doctrine and, 114; of Philippines, Dayton, Gertrude Frances, 146, 150 237 Death of a Salesman (Miller), 224 Committee on Public Information death penalty, treason with, 31 (CPI), 133, 245; funding for, 123; death threats, x, 243 propaganda and, 123–26; Spanish de Goiti, Marin, 80 influenza and, 151; Wilson and, 122 Department of Military Intelligence, Communism: growth of, 198–99; U.S., 171–72, 174 influence of, x–xi; Kuomintang and, Depuy de Lome, Henrique, 49 228; Russia and, 200 Dewey, George, 80 Confucianism, 93, 160 Dickens, Charles, 146 Congisto (doctor), 53–54 La Discusion (newspaper), 70 Contemporary Politics in the Far East disease: esophageal cancer, 244–46; (Hornbeck), 113–14 malaria, 50, 66–68, 72; Spanish Cook, Elizabeth Martha (maternal influenza, 151–52; typhoid, 50; grandmother), 69 yellow fever, 50, 65–67, 72, 77 Coolidge, Calvin, 191 divorce, 139, 148, 171 corporal punishment, 5, 6 Donald, W. H., 117, 141, 155, 163; corporate conglomerates (Zaibatsu), 189 in China, 142, 177–78, 181–83, cotton: industry, India, 195; industry, 186, 216; criticism of, 191; with Japan, 197; U.S. Civil War and, 31 embezzlement, 161, 182–83; The Far counterintelligence, 124–25 Eastern Review and, 170, 242; with Court of Inquiry, U. S. Navy, 61 libel suit, 178–79, 180 cowardice, 65, 77 Donald of China (Donald), 142 CPI. See Committee on Public Dorsey, George, 131, 132 Information drugs: alcohol and, 148, 250; opium, Cramer, Robert B., 67 197 Crane, Charles, R., 100 Crane, Stephen, ix, 64–66, 72 earthquakes: Japan, 189, 233; San Creel, George, 122–23, 128 Francisco, 86–87, 90 Cuba, x, 7, 44–45, 76; Bennett and, 243; economy, 249; China and, 96–97; Cleveland and, 20–21; colonization expenses, 67, 69, 111, 122–23, 232; of, 19, 59; guerrilla warfare in, 32; Great Depression, 224, 232, 241; news reporters in, 9–11, 13, 15–17, New York Stock Exchange, 224; 19–28, 30, 32–33, 35–42, 49–55, 59, recession, 88–90, 224, 232, 233, 241; 61–70, 72, 243; railroad in, 25–26; Showa Depression of 1930–1931, revolution against Spain, ix, 9, 16, 233; Treaty of Paris and, 71. See 264 Index

also Far Eastern Economic Review; xenophobia, 89; Yokohama Specie Government Bureau of Economic Bank and, 196, 232–33, 244 Information; salaries; trade Faust, Karl, 78 Edison, Thomas, 5 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), x education: Brooklyn Truancy Home, Fessenden, Stirling, 140 5–6; laws, 1–2, 3–4; racism in, 88; film: censorship, 123; propaganda, 124 self-, 7n12; in U.S. Navy, 6–7 First National Bank, 94 Egan, Martin, 223 Fisk, Jim, 82 embezzlement, 161, 182–83 Folwell, Billy (Captain), 76 Empress Dowager, 204 Forsyth, James M. (Commander), 55 English-language newspapers, 100, 101 Foss, Wilson (Captain), 128–30, 132, Entre los rebeldes: La verdad de la 133 guerra (Among the Rebels: The Truth France: China and, 228; military, 198; about the War) (Rea, G. B.), 44 Paris Peace Conference, 154–56, esophageal cancer, 244–46 159–63, 174; Washington Naval Espionage Act of 1917, 122, 132, 151. Conference and, 181 See also spying Franco, Francisco, 245 eugenics, 238–39 funding: CPI, 123; The Far Eastern expenses: news reporters, 67, 69, Review with Japanese, 173, 196, 242, 232; Technical Secretary, 111; for 244; The Far Eastern Review with war propaganda, 122–23. See also U.S., 79–80, 83, 106, 242 economy Funston, Frederick (General), 34n8, 79; extortion, ix, 151 with Gomez, 29–30; San Francisco earthquake and, 87 Facts and Fakes about Cuba (Rea, G. B.), 38, 42, 44, 49; criticism of, 45; General Strike, in Great Britain, 36, 190 sales of, 76 “gentlemen’s agreement,” with Japan, famine: in China, 183; potato, 2; in 89 Puerto Rico, 62 Geological Survey, U.S., 209n8 Far Eastern Economic Review German Austro-Hungarian Bank, 127 (magazine), 249 Germany, 107, 112–13, 114, 204; China farm labor, 82, 88 and, 115; with colonization, 170; The Far Eastern Review (magazine), Japan and, 236; with propaganda, 102, 105–6, 124, 249; advertising 123, 124, 245; propaganda against, in, 196–97, 213–16; blacklisting of, 116–17 172–73, 180; competition for, 101, Gilbert, Rodney, 191 134, 139–42; with Japanese funding, gold, 111, 155, 205, 220 173, 196, 242, 244; libel suit against, Gomez, Maximo (General): letter to, 44; 178–79, 180; as propaganda, ix, news reporters and, 19–28, 31–32, x, 79–80, 115–17, 161–64, 166, 36–41, 63, 68, 243; reputation of, 169–71, 231–34, 241–42; readers of, 20–21, 26–27, 29–30; role of, ix, ix, 79, 93, 190; renaming of, 249; 9–10, 17, 49, 59 Sokolsky and, 232, 242; with U.S. Goto (Viscount), 216 funding, 79–80, 83, 106, 242; on Gould, Howard, 149, 150–51, 154 Index 265

Gould, Jay, 12, 82, 105, 149 intelligence. See counterintelligence; Government Bureau of Economic Department of Military Intelligence, Information (periodical), 177, 181– U.S. 82, 183, 185 Ireland, 2, 5, 73n28 Grant, Ulysses (General), 22 Italy: Japan and, 162, 236; military, 198; Great Britain, 2, 141; China and, 93–94, Washington Naval Conference and, 100–101, 190–91; General Strike in, 181 36, 190; military, 198; with North China Daily, 93–94, 100–101; at Jameson, USS, 6, 49 Paris Peace Conference, 162; Treaty Japan, 88, 252; China and, 96, 112–14, of Paris and, 71; Washington Naval 160–66, 169–73, 177, 181, 204, 212, Conference and, 181 216, 229–44; cotton industry in, 197; Great Depression, 224, 232, 241 earthquake in, 189, 233; The Far Great Fire, San Francisco, 87–88 Eastern Review with funding from, Guam, 71 173, 196, 242, 244; “gentlemen’s guerrilla warfare, 32, 79 agreement” with, 89; Germany Gurley, Lee, 4 and, 236; Italy and, 162, 236; with Manchukuo as puppet state, x; Han Chinese people, 227, 233 Manchuria and, 227–28, 230–34; Harper’s Weekly, 50, 55 military, ix, 198, 234; Open Door Hawaii, 89, 242 policy and, 95; with propaganda, Hayes, Rutherford B., 29 245; propaganda against, 115–16, Hearst, George, 12 161–64; propaganda supporting, Hearst, William Randolph, 12–13, 59, 169–71, 231–36, 239–41; Russia 61, 191; with propaganda, 121; and, 230–31, 233; Showa Depression racism and, 89 of 1930–1931 and, 233; Southern Herald. See New York Herald Manchurian Railway and, 212, Hitler, Adolf, 245 227, 231, 234; Sphere of Influence Hodges, Charles, 171–72 policy and, 113, 114; with spying, Hoover, Herbert: China and, 203–6, 113; support for, 212–13, 215–16; 208–9, 220–21, 222; research on, trade and, 94–95; with Twenty-One 203, 206–8; role of, ix, 214; Stimson Demands, 113, 115, 163; Washington Doctrine and, 237 Naval Conference and, 181, 184; Hoover, Lou Henry (Mrs.), 204 xenophobia and, 116. See also Hornbeck, Stanley: on China and Japan, Yokohama Specie Bank 113–14; Japan and, 240–41; with Japanese Advertiser (newspaper), railroads in China, 222–23 215–16 Humphrey, Charles (General), 66 Jernigan, Thomas, 140 Johns Hopkins Hospital, 245 immigration, labor and, 95 journalism: growth of, 11–13, 35–36; India, cotton industry, 195 neutrality in, 25; with pedagogy, Indian wars, and U.S., 41 new, x, 252; yellow, 13, 44, information. See Committee on Public 61, 72n2. See also newspapers; Information reporters, news Inoue, J., 216 the Journal. See New York Journal 266 Index

Kaiping Mining Company, 204–6 Lobingier, Charles S., 139–40 kidnappings, 183–86 Long, John D., 53 Knickerbocker Trust Company, 89–90 lynchings, 4 Knox, Philander, 94, 95, 97 Lytton Report, on Manchuria, 237–38 Kuhn Loeb, 94 Kuomintang: Chiang Kai-shek and, 196, Maceo, Antoneo (General), ix, 9–10, 198, 228; Communism and, 228; Sun 32–33 Yat-sen and, 105, 139, 177, 186 MacMurray, John Von A., 223 Kushia, Manzo, 216 Magruder (first secretary), 132–33 Maine, USS, 33n5; African Americans labor, 197; child, 1; farm, 82, 88; on, 47; inquiry results, 60–61; immigration and, 95; riots, 88, 89; Mukden Incident compared to, strikes, 36, 122, 190 234–35; in newspaper reports, ix, 48, Lamont, Thomas, 223 50, 54–55, 56, 235, 246; sinking of, Lang, John (Major), 124, 128, 129–30, 47–55, 56, 115; Spain and, ix, 59–61; 131–32; controversy with, 133, 151 wreckage of, 60 Lansing, Robert, 115 The Maine: An Account of Her Latin America, 114, 242 Destruction in Havana Harbor laws: education, 1–2, 3–4; military (Sigsbee), 51, 55 protected by, 122–23; spying, 122, malaria, 50; medicine for, 65; Scovel, 132, 151 F., and, 66; Scovel, S. H., and, League Covenant, 239 66–68, 72 Lee, Fitzhugh (General), 51 Manchukuo, Manchuria: adviser to, Lenin, Vladimir, 181 235, 237–44; as Japanese puppet letters: of betrayal, 55; to Chen Chin- state, x; rationale for existence of, tao, 107–8; to Churchill, 140–41; 235–36, 239–40, 243–44; U.S. State from Depuy de Lome, 49; extortion, Department and, 237, 240–43 151; to Gomez, 44; to McIntyre, Manchu people, 227, 230, 233 87–88; as Military Attaché, 129; Manchuria: colonization of, 227, 230; from Powell to Sokolsky, 235; about Japan and, 227–28, 230–34; Lytton railroad in China, 104–5; from Rea, Report on, 237–38; Mukden Incident Frances, 150, 219; to Rea, Frances, and, 234–35, 237, 238; Roosevelt 151, 154, 214–15; to Reinsch, 111– on, 229; Russia and, 227; Southern 12; from Scovel, F., 71–72; from Manchurian Railway, 212, 227, Sokolsky, 219, 221–22; to Sokolsky, 231, 234; trade in, 227–28. See also 206, 207–8, 219–20; to Taft, 164; to Manchukuo, Manchuria Wilson, 117; to Wu, 230–31 Marion, Frank J., 123–27, 128 Liang Tun-yen, 107, 111 massacres: Boxer uprising, 204, 206; libel suits, 187, 207; American Chamber Shanghai, 198–99 of Commerce with, 180; against The Maston, Fred Court, 43 Far Eastern Review, 178–79, 180; McCarthy, Joseph, 249 grounds for, 116–17, 173, 213 McIntyre, Frank (Captain), 87–88 Lobanvov Treaty, 228–29 McKinley, William: Philippines and, lobbyist: anti-tariff, 80–83, 211; goal of, 77, 80; role of, 49, 61, 70; tariffs 212; for Manchukuo, 242 and, 42 Index 267 media. See journalism; newspapers; Conference and, 180–81, 184. See reporters also Maine, USS medicine, for malaria, 65 neutrality, in journalism, 25 Mein Kampf (Hitler), 245 newspapers: censorship in, 122–23; Memories of Two Wars (Funston), 34n8 English-language, 100, 101; rise of, Meriwether, Walter Scott, 50–51 11–13; Spanish–American War in, military: Beiyang Army, 101, 205; 59, 61, 64–65, 122, 125–26; USS Japanese, ix, 198, 234; Kuomintang, Maine in, ix, 48, 50, 54–55, 56, 235, 198; laws protecting, 122–23 246. See also reporters, news military, U.S.: Army, 70, 78–79; The New York American (newspaper), attaché, 117, 128–34; intelligence 191 department, 171–72, 174; Rough New York Herald (newspaper): Bennett Riders, 65, 121; San Francisco and, 15–16, 40, 42; growth of, 12, earthquake and, 86–87; in Shanghai, 16; with news reporter expenses, 67; 198–99; spying for, 61–62, 211; on propaganda, 243; with reporters Washington Naval Conference, 180– in Cuba, 9–11, 13, 15–17, 19–28, 81, 184. See also Navy, U.S. 32–33, 36–42, 49–55 Millard, Thomas F., 68–69, 100, 101, New York Journal (newspaper), 12–13, 140, 160, 173; criticism of, 171, 49–50; Spanish–American War and, 221–22; Japan and, 212–13; in 59, 64, 67. See also The New York Shanghai, 137–38, 141; Taft and, American 165 New York Stock Exchange, 224 Millard’s Review (newspaper), 139–42, New York Sun (newspaper), 12 160, 178, 249 New York Times (newspaper), 12 Miller, Arthur, 224 New York World. See the World Milton, Joyce, 7n12 Nine Power Treaty, 239 Mitsui Group, 94 Nolan, D. E. (Colonel), 131 Monroe, James, 114 North China Daily (newspaper), 182; Monroe Doctrine, 114 advertising rates in, 101; with Morgan, J. P., ix–x, 90, 93, 103, 106, competition, 100–101; Great Britain 112 and, 93–94 Morgan & Stanley, 223 North China Daily News (newspaper), Moroh, Seiji, 213 191, 197 Mukden Incident: Manchuria and, North China Daily Press (newspaper), 234–35, 237, 238; Stimson Doctrine 139, 178 and, 237 El Mundo (newspaper), 125–26, 127, Odagiri, Masunosuke: death of, 244; 135n18 Yokohama Specie Bank and, 113, “Must America Fight Japan” (Rea, G. 196, 229, 232–33 B.), 240 Open Door policy, U.S. and: China and, 95, 112, 114–15, 163–64, 173; Japan Navy, U.S.: Civil War and, 22–23; and, 94 Court of Inquiry, 61; education in, “The Open Boat” (Crane, S.), 64 6–7; USS Roanoke, 148, 152; USS opium, 197 Sheridan, 75; Washington Naval Outcault, R. F., 13 268 Index

Owen, Robert, 228–29 Puerto Rico, 77; famine in, 62; Oxnard, Henry, 81 propaganda and, 123; San Juan, 61, 62–63, 65, 211; Treaty of Paris and, Paris. See Treaty of Paris 71 Paris Peace Conference: with Chinese Pulitzer, Joseph, ix, 27; legacy, 137; delegation, adviser to, 159–63, 174; Rough Riders and, 65; with San entry to, 154–56; new reporters at, Juan, Puerto Rico, 61; the World and, 159; Versailles Treaty, 165, 228–29 12–13, 55 Parson, David, 43 punishment. See corporal punishment The Peking Gazette (newspaper), 100 Pu Yi (Emperor of China), x, 236 Pershing, John J. (General), 223 Phang, Rosalind, 182 racism: in education, 88; eugenics, 238– Philippine–American War, 79, 88 39; lynchings and, 4; xenophobia Philippines, ix, 71, 77; colonization of, and, 88–89, 95, 116; yellow 237; sugar production in, 80–82, 211; journalism, 13, 44, 61, 72n2 U.S. Army in, 78–79 railroad: bandits on, 183–86; Batabano physical assault, 165 Railroad, 26; in China, x, 94, 96–97, Platt, Thomas C., 82–83 102–9, 117, 141, 160, 162, 163, 165, politics, 222; China and Japan, 113–14; 183–86, 189–90, 204, 212, 220–24, lobbyist and, 80–83, 212, 242; 227–28, 238, 246; Chinese Eastern propaganda influencing, x. See Railway, 220, 222–23, 227; in also Open Door policy; Sphere of Cuba, 25–26; Southern Manchurian Influence policy Railway, 212, 227, 231, 234; Sun potato famine, 2 Yat-sen and, x, 102, 103, 104, 141, Powell, John B., 137, 140, 173, 187, 220 249; Japan and, 212–13; kidnapping Raven, Frank, 139–40 of, 183–86; with letter to Sokolsky, Rea, Charlotte Bronson (mother), 2–4, 235; on Shanghai massacre, 199 6, 42–43 press: passes, 63–64; U.S., 67. See also Rea, Connie (daughter), 147, 148, 152, newspapers 250; family life, 153, 192, 215, 245; prison: news reporters in, 37–38, 39, 40, in Shanghai, 198, 200 42, 63, 68, 249; with sedition, 123 Rea, Elizabeth Mathilde “Tilly” (sister), propaganda: anti-German, 116–17; 2, 3, 4, 43 anti-Japanese, 115–16, 161–64; CPI, Rea, Florence (step-sister), 6 123–26; The Far Eastern Review Rea, Frances “Curra” (Ruiz-Morón) and, ix, x, 79–80, 115–17, 161–64, (second wife), 250; courtship, 149– 166, 169–71, 231–34, 241–42; film, 52, 154–56; early years, 145–46; 124; Germany with, 123, 124, 245; family life, 182–83, 192–95, 193, Hitler on, 245; Japan with, 245; pro- 214–15; letters from, 150, 219; Japanese, 169–71, 231–36, 239–41; letters to, 151, 154, 214–15 Puerto Rico and, 123; role of, x, Rea, Frank (step-brother), 6, 43 79–80, 243; Spain with, 123; war, Rea, George (grandfather), 2 121–28; Yokohama Specie Bank Rea, George Bronson, 69, 194. See also and, 229 Among the Rebels: The Truth about Index 269

the War; The Case for Manchoukuo; 178, 179, 191; in Shanghai, 137–42, “A Curb on Propaganda”; Facts and 177; Weyler and, 31–32; with yellow Fakes about Cuba; “Must America fever, 65–67, 72 Fight Japan”; specific topics revolution: in China, 99–100; Spain with Rea, George W. (uncle), 5 Cuban, ix, 9, 16, 19–27, 30–33, 61 Rea, Gloria (daughter), 182, 195, 250 riots, 62; with censorship in newspapers, Rea, Harriet Shumard (Carter) (wife), 123; in China, 166, 189; labor, 88, 36, 42–43, 69; alcohol and, 90, 89; in Spain, 145, 146 147; divorce, 139, 148, 171; family Roanoke, USS, 148, 152 life, 63, 76, 85, 147, 147–48, 153; Rockefeller, John D., 90, 183 marriage troubles, 82, 83, 90, 93, Roosevelt, Theodore (Colonel): on 147–49, 152 China, 94–95, 115; criticism from, Rea, Henry Carter (son), 69, 72, 249, 116; influence of, 241, 246; on 250, 251; early life, 75, 83; family Manchuria, 229; role of, ix, 47, 65, life, 153, 245 89, 108; Rough Riders and, 65, 121; Rea, Joseph (father), 2–3, 6, 42 Treaty of Portsmouth, 96 Rea, Katherine (step-mother), 6 Ross (judge), 179–80 Rea, William Carter (son), 63, 148, 250; Rough Riders, U.S., 65, 121 early life, 75, 83; family life, 152, Rubens, Horatio S., 59 153, 192, 192–93, 197; in Shanghai, Ruiz-Morón, Frances. See Rea, Frances 197–99, 200 Ruiz-Morón, Gertrude, 195 recession, 88, 89–90; Great Depression, Ruiz-Morón, Henrietta “Etta,” 145–46, 224, 232, 241; Showa Depression of 149, 150, 152, 154 1930–1931, 233 Ruiz-Morón Cortes, Juan, 145–46 Red Badge of Courage (Crane, S.), 64 Russia, 107; China and, 228–29; Red Cross, 66, 145, 151, 154, 183 Communism and, 200; Japan and, Reed, James A., 203 230–31, 233; Manchuria and, 227. Reick, William C., 50 See also Soviet Union Reinsch, Paul S., 106, 111–12, 116–17, The Russian Imperial Conspiracy 1892– 155, 185; criticism of, 162–63, 169, 1914 (Owen), 228–29 171–72; at Paris Peace Conference, 160 salaries, 177, 204; as adviser to Remembering the Maine (Samuels, P., Manchukuo, 241, 244; military and Samuels, H.), 33n5 attaché, 128–29; for news reporters, Remington, Frederick, 37, 38 67, 70, 127, 178, 179, 191; as reporters, news: with bias, x; in Cuba, Technical Secretary, 106, 111 9–11, 13, 15–17, 19–28, 30, 32–33, Salomon, William, 94 35–42, 49–55, 59, 61–70, 72, 243; Sampson, William T. (Rear Admiral), 63 expenses for, 67, 69, 232; Gomez Samuels, Harold, 33n5 and, 19–28, 31–32, 36–41, 63, Samuels, Peggy, 33n5 68, 243; kidnapping of, 183–86; Sanchez (doctor), 20, 21, 24 with neutrality, 25; at Paris Peace San Francisco, California: earthquake Conference, 159; press passes and, in, 86–87, 90; Great Fire, 87–88 63–64; in prison, 37–38, 39, 40, 42, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 61, 62–63, 65, 63, 68, 249; salaries for, 67, 70, 127, 211 270 Index

San Min Chu I: The Three Principles of Sokolsky, George, 177, 181, 186, the People (Sun Yat-sen), 100 187, 217, 249; in China, 189–91, Scovel, Frances (wife), 42, 49, 52; 196–97, 200, 207, 220–21, 232; The family life, 70; letter from, 71–72; Far Eastern Review and, 232, 242; malaria and, 66 investment holding of, 209n8; on Scovel, Sylvester (father), 14 Japan, 244; with kidnappings, 185; Scovel, Sylvester (grandfather), 14 with letter from Powell, 235; letters Scovel, Sylvester Harry, ix; in Cuba as from, 219, 221–22; letters to, 206, news reporter, 9–10, 11, 13, 15, 17, 207–8, 219–20; with libel suit, 178– 20–28, 30, 35–42, 49, 52–55, 59, 79; on Manchuria, 227, 231 63, 65, 67–70, 72; as diplomat, 36, El Sol (newspaper), 126, 127 37; early years, 13–15; as hostage, Song Jiaoren, 105 38–42; with malaria, 66–68, 72; in Soong, T. V., 207, 221, 222 prison, 37–38, 39, 40, 42, 63, 68; Southern Manchurian Railway, 212, salary for, 67, 70; USS Maine and, 227, 231, 234 52–55 Soviet Union: Bolsheviks and, 181; Sedition Act of 1918, 122–23, 151 Sphere of Influence policy and, 231, self-education, 7n12 233; Sun Yat-sen and, 181, 185, 186, Serbia, 107 191 Seventy-First New York National Guard Spain, 77–78; civil war, 245; Cuban Volunteers, 65 revolution and, ix, 9, 16, 19–27, Shafter, William Rufus (General), 64, 30–33, 61; with propaganda, 123; 67, 68, 75 riots in, 145, 146; Ten Years’ War Shanghai, China: invasion of, 197–200; and, 9, 16, 30, 32, 61; USS Maine massacre, 198–99; news reporters in, and, ix, 59–61 137–42, 177 Spanish–American War, 77; end of, Shanghai Gazette (newspaper), 177 70–71; in newspapers, 59, 61, 64–65, Shaw, Albert, 180 122, 125–26; press passes and, 64; Sheridan, USS, 75 propaganda, 121 Sherman, William T. (General), 31 Spanish influenza, 151–52 Shibusawa (Viscount), 216 Sphere of Influence policy: China and, Shidehara (Baron), 216 94, 113, 114; Japan and, 113, 114; Shidehara, Kijuro, 229 Soviet Union and, 231, 233 Showa Depression of 1930–1931, 233 spying: arrest warrant for, 62–63; Japan Sicard, Montgomery (Rear Admiral), with, 113; laws, 122, 132, 151; for 51, 53 U.S. military, 61–62, 211 Siems, Chester P., 166 State Department, U.S.: Manchukuo Sigsbee, Charles (Captain): betrayal of, and, 237, 240–43; Stimson Doctrine 55; leadership of, 53; USS Maine and, 237 and, 47, 51–55 Stillman, O. B., 15, 16, 61, 81, 90 silver, 209n8, 241 Stimson, Henry, 237 The Situation in China and Stimson Doctrine, 237 Contemporary Politics in the Far St. Louis Post-Dispatch (newspaper), 12 East (Hornbeck), 222 Straight, Willard, 102–3, 117 Smith, William D., 38–39, 41, 63 strikes, labor, 36, 122, 190 Index 271

Stringham, Washington Irving, 86 War, 3, 4, 12, 20, 22–23, 31; The sugar, 11, 39; in Cuba, 15, 17, 80, 81; Far Eastern Review with funding in Philippines, 80–82, 211; tariffs, by, 79–80, 83, 106, 242; Geological 80–83, 211; in U.S., 7, 61, 80, 81, 82 Survey, 209n8; Indian wars and, 41; Sun Fo, 220–21, 222, 224 with Open Door policy, 94, 95, 112, Sun Yat-sen: influence of, 195, 211, 114–15, 163–64, 173; at Paris Peace 246; Kuomintang and, 105, 139, Conference, 162; press, 67; Rough 177, 186; railroad and, x, 102, 103, Riders, 65, 121; State Department, 104, 141, 220; role of, 100, 101, 161, 237, 240–43; Stimson Doctrine, 237; 178, 191, 249; Shanghai Gazette sugar in, 7, 61, 80, 81, 82; Treaty of and, 177; Soviet Union and, 181, Paris and, 71. See also military, U.S.; 185, 186, 191; with Twenty-One Spanish–American War Demands, 113 University of California–Berkeley, 152 U.S. See United States Taft, William Howard: on China, 165; USS Maine. See Maine, USS letter to, 164; role of, ix, 89, 108, USS Roanoke. See Roanoke, USS 223; trade and, 94–95 USS Sheridan. See Sheridan, USS Tang Shao-yi, 206, 207 Taoism, 160 Van Deman, Ralph (Colonel), 117, 124, tariffs: McKinley and, 42; sugar, 80–83, 148–49 211 Vanderbilt, Commodore, 82 Taylor, Emily (aunt), 5 Versailles Treaty, 165, 228–29. See also Technical Secretary, for China, 106–8, Paris Peace Conference 111–12 Vidal, Gore, 83 Ten Years’ War, 9, 16, 30, 32, 61 violence: Boxer uprising, 204, 206; theft, ix, 171–72 corporal punishment, 5, 6; lynchings, The Tinder Box of Asia (Sokolsky), 235 4; massacres, 198–99, 204, 206; Tokogawa (Prince), 216 physical assault, 165; riots, 62, 88, Tong Shao-yi, 100 89, 123, 145, 146, 166, 189 trade: in China, 93–94, 95–96; Japan Vivero Rodriguez de Tudela, Augusto, and, 94–95; in Manchuria, 227–28 127, 128 treason: with death penalty, 31; FBI and, x Waddell, J. A. L., 220 treaties: Lobanvov, 228–29; Nine Waddle, J., 222 Power, 239; Versailles, 165, 228–29 Walsh, Edmund A., 240 Treaty of Paris, 71 warfare, guerrilla, 32, 79 Treaty of Portsmouth, 96 war propaganda: expenses, 122–23; in Turkey, 223 newspapers, 121–28 Twain, Mark, 77–78, 93 Washington, George (General), 22 Twenty-One Demands, Japan with, 113, Washington Naval Conference, 180–81, 115, 163 184 typhoid, 50 Weyler, Valeriano “The Butcher” (General): as diplomat, 122; news United States (U.S.): City of reporters and, 31–32; reputation, Washington, 52, 53, 55, 66; Civil 30–31; role of, ix, 36–37, 39 272 Index

Wheeler, W. Reginald, 162 xenophobia, 88–89, 95, 116 Who’s Who encyclopedias, 7n12 Williamson, Adolf, 96 yellow fever, 77; Crane, S., and, 66, 72; Wilson, Woodrow, ix, 117; China and, medicine for, 65; risk of, 50, 67 103, 104–5, 106, 115, 163, 166, 172, yellow journalism, 13, 44, 61, 72n2 173; CPI and, 122; criticism of, 170 Yellow Journalism: Puncturing the Wood, Leonard (General), 65, 70–71, 223 Myths, Defining the Legacies the World (newspaper): Crane, S., (Campbell), 72n2 reporting for, 64–66; expenses for Yokohama Specie Bank: The Far news reporters, 69; news reporter Eastern Review and, 196, 232–33, salaries at, 67, 70; Pulitzer and, 244; propaganda and, 229; role of, 12–13, 55; with reporters in Cuba, 94, 113, 216 20–28, 30, 35–42, 49, 52–55, 59, Yokohama Specie Bank Building, 233 61–70, 72; USS Maine in, 50, 54–55 Yuan Shi-kai (General), 101–2, 105, World War I, outbreak of, 121–22 106, 113 Wright, Luke E. (General), 80, 81 Wu, C. C., 230–31 Zaibatsu (corporate conglomerates), Wygant, Henry (Colonel), 77 189 About the Author

Leslie Eaton Clark is uniquely qualified to write about George Bronson Rea as she is his granddaughter and owns Rea’s collection of private papers, letters, and photographs. She is also a former radio journalist, whose coverage of the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake in San Francisco won an award for “Best On-the-Spot News Coverage.” She received her Bachelor of Arts in In- ternational Relations and a Master’s degree in Teaching English as a Second Language (ESL). She taught ESL for sixteen years for the City College of San Francisco and was also a writing professor at San Francisco State University.

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