Foreign News: New Order in Shanghai

Last week a storm broke upon Shanghai newsmen in a downpour of unexpected violence. First warning came like a clap of thunder in the form of an executive decree, issued by Wang Ching-wei’s Japanese-puppet Government at Nanking, ordering the arrest and deportation from China of six U. S. newsmen, one Briton for “endeavoring to undermine the Chinese [i.e., Wang] Government … by distributing rumors and improper statements endangering the Republic. …”

The seven: !— Norwood Francis Allman, chief editor of Shun Pao, China’s largest independent daily. A native of Virginia, lawyer and poloist, Allman went to China in 1916 with the U. S. Consular Service, resigned in 1923 to practice law in Shanghai. Two years ago, Shun Pao’s Chinese owners called in Lawyer Allman, asked him to take over management of the paper, see that nothing offensive to the Japanese crept into its columns. A fluent Chinese linguist, Allman reads every story that goes into Shun Pao, writes editorials, corrects editorials written by staff members. He serves without pay. Last spring Allman earned the enmity of Japanese when his name was put up for Shanghai’s Municipal Council. He made no speeches, conducted no campaign, won with 8,000 votes, highest in a field of 13 candidates.

Three Japanese candidates were beaten.

> John Benjamin Powell, Missouri-born managing editor (since 1917) of the China Weekly Review, editor of the daily China Press. A onetime instructor of journalism at the University of Missouri, Powell arrived in China during World War I, became a correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. He was one of the early backers of Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek. A bitter enemy of Japanese aggression, Editor Powell steel-plated the doors of his printing plant, organized his own postal service to distribute the Review in Japanese territory, kept it going in spite of Japanese threats and interference.

> Cornelius Vander Starr, No. 1 life insurer in the Far East, real-estate speculator, owner of the Shanghai Evening Post & Mercury and a TiMEstyle China newsmagazine. East. Ten months ago the editor of Starr’s Ta Mei Wan Pao, Chinese edition of the Evening Post & Mercury, was shot dead as he crossed the bridge over Soochow Creek. Last April Starr’s newspaper plant was bombed, killing three Chinese and an Annamese policeman.

> Randall Gould, editor of the Evening Post & Mercury, correspondent in China for the Christian Science Monitor.

> Harold (Hal) Mills, born in New Orleans, publisher of the Chinese daily Hwai Mei Chen Pao. Publisher Mills’s plant was bombed three times in February 1938, wounding nine Chinese (including a detective, who shot down one of the terrorists) and a foreign cabaret proprietor.

> Carroll Duard Alcott, extraordinary news commentator for a U. S.-owned radio station (see p. 48).

> Joseph A. E. Sanders-Bates, British director of the Shanghai Evening News.

A warning only was the Nanking decree. Neither Britain nor the U. S. speaks to Wang Ching-wei: they could not obey his order without granting tacit recognition to his Government. As long as the seven newsmen stay inside Shanghai’s International Settlement, they are safe from arrest. The six who are U. S. citizens cannot be deported anyhow without a trial before the U. S. District Court for China.

But after thunder last week came rain. Promptly at 9:30, on the morning after Wang announced his order, terrorists sprang out of a side street opening into Hankow Road and hurled four hand grenades at Shun Pao’s office. Eight Chinese were wounded.

Three days later a slim, elegant little Chinese newsman, Samuel Chang, sat down to tiffin in a German tea shop on Bubbling Well Road. Up stepped a stranger, whipped out two guns, and pumped four shots into Samuel Chang’s back. Then the assassin rushed into the street, followed by another patron. Turning, he put two bullets in his pursuer’s stomach, and fled. Newsman Chang died instantly, his champion (a Pole named Vladislav Krasson) an hour later. A graduate of Columbia University’s School of Journalism, 40-year-old Samuel Chang was a director of the Shanghai Evening Post & Mercury, and agency superintendent of Owner Starr’s Asia Life Insurance Co. (Chang’s wife, a graduate of the University of Utah, is the daughter of a Chinese doctor in Salt Lake City.) He was also a friend of New York Times Correspondent Hallett Abend.

Shortly after midnight next morning, in an apartment on the Japanese side of Soochow Creek, Timesman Abend was packing trunks, making ready to move into the International Settlement, when a fist pounded on his door. He opened it, saw two Japanese in civilian clothes with drawn revolvers. One of them struck Newsman Abend on the head, the other wrenched his arm behind his back, demanded: “Where is the anti-Japanese book you are writing?”

Abend produced the manuscript of a book about Frederick Townsend Ward, U. S. soldier-adventurer who once led a Chinese army to put down a rebellion, died 78 years ago. The Japanese took charge of the manuscript (representing nine months’ work by Author Abend), ransacked the apartment, wrenched out the telephone, gave Abend’s head another cuff, his arm another twist, departed.

Back of last week’s Japanese campaign of terror against U. S. newsmen and their Chinese friends was believed to be a 39-year-old Vice Minister of Propaganda for the puppet Government, Tang Leang-li,

28 who fancies himself a Chinese Goebbels. Born in The Netherlands Indies under the Dutch flag, educated in Britain, Austria, Germany, Puppet Tang has long admired Nazi methods.

As a follower of Wang Ching-wei, he denounced Japanese aggression until Wang deserted the Chungking Government, took up with Japan. Two months ago he started the Chinese News Agency, which hopes to absorb all domestic & foreign news channels in China. Last week Wang’s Tang, having made friends with Japan, attacked “American imperialism” in the Japanese-controlled part of China’s press.