893.00/12270
The Consul General at Nanking (Peck) to the Minister in China (Johnson)77
Sir: I have the honor to report that on the morning of December 14, 1932, a mass meeting was held to welcome back to the Capital General Chiang Kai-shek, Chairman of the Military Affairs Committee, who has been engaged in the work of suppressing “Communist Bandits” in Hupeh Province since June 8, 1932. Mr. Hsi Rwen, a clerk in this office, attended the meeting and has written a Memorandum summarizing the address made by General Chiang Kai-shek. Newspaper reporters present at the meeting were strictly forbidden to publish their own accounts of what General Chiang said and were told to utilize only the account published by the Central Daily News. Consequently, some of the more interesting statements given in the enclosed Memorandum78 have not appeared in the published accounts of the speech.
General Chiang centered his remarks on the Japanese assertion that China is not an organized state. He admitted the essential accuracy of this criticism. Almost as startling as this admission, in view of present popular feeling, were General Chiang’s statements that the suppression of “Communist banditry” and the recovery of Manchuria are both of less importance in the saving of China than is the task of organizing the nation.
Press reports indicate that the Canton delegates to the present Plenary Session of the Central Executive Committee have come to Nanking insisting that the two crying needs of the moment are to suppress Communist banditry and to resist Japanese oppression, these being two points in connection with which the Nanking Government, as [Page 442] claimed by Canton, has been derelict in its duty. General Chiang rejoins by asserting that these tasks are of less importance than the unification of the country, an evident, though veiled, reference to the separatist tendency of the Canton regime.
General Chiang, to give authority to his exhortation, harked back to the “Four Principles of Morality,” often translated as “politeness, decorum, integrity and sense of shame”, which were expounded by the Chinese sages of antiquity. The English translations of these four terms inadequately convey the significance ascribed to these principles in traditional Chinese social and political philosophy. It is interesting to observe that in a speech of such earnestness and importance General Chiang ignored the modern slogans devised by the Nationalist Party, such as “Overthrow Imperialism”, “Uphold the Three Principles of the People”, etc. and reverted to the purely Chinese concepts which have molded the social and political life of the nation for centuries.
Respectfully yours,