893.711/37
The Consul General at Shanghai (Cunningham) to the Minister in China (MacMurray)58
Sir: Referring to my telegram No. 61 of today’s date,58a in regard to the alleged demand of the Nationalist Government that Mr. George E. Sokolsky59 be requested to leave China, I have the honor to transmit herewith a copy of a letter dated April 22, 1929, addressed to this office by Mr. Sokolsky60 in which he sets forth his views concerning the reasons for such request. The press has given various reasons [Page 759] for the action of the Central Executive Committee, the most generally accepted being the articles which were transmitted to the Legation with this office’s despatch No. 5922 of April 10, 1929.60a These, however, are not referred to in the protest from the Propaganda Department of the Central Executive Committee, transmitted to the Senior Consul by the Commissioner of Foreign Affairs under date of April 19, 1929, from which it would appear that the complaint against the North China Daily News is contained in the following quotation:
“During the past few months, the Shanghai North China Daily News has been publishing articles and reports which tend recklessly to calumniate our party and the Nationalist Government and to disturb the public by creating rumors. For example: its issue of March 7, 1929, contains the report that foreign nationals were advised to leave Nanking, and many other absurd statements. Again, in its issue of March 29th, it is stated in an article headed ‘The Pity of It!’, that ‘the Third Party Congress issues a manifesto of 5,000 words…,61 which are not worth 5,000 cash.’ These statements are really insulting our party and nation.
“It is therefore requested that you will instruct the Commissioner of Foreign Affairs for Kiangsu to make representations to the Consuls at Shanghai to the end that the press may be ordered to rectify the above mentioned statements, and not to make any such remarks in the future as to meet with repression.
“A reply is expected.”
Neither of the letters referred to in the above quotation was written by Mr. Sokolsky, and no mention is made of him in the letter of the Commissioner of Foreign Affairs from which the foregoing is quoted.
The news item carrying the action of the Central Executive Committee, which was dated at Nanking April 18th and published in the North China Daily News on April 19th, reads as follows:
“At the meeting of the Standing Committee of the Central Executive Committee today, the question of the North China Daily News was brought up for discussion.
It is stated that the decision of the meeting was that the North China Daily News has been anti-Kuomintang and has deliberately attacked the Central Government in spite of the repeated protests of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
It was decided, therefore, that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs be instructed to make strong representations to the American Minister in Peking, asking him to call on Mr. George Sokolsky, a correspondent of the North-China Daily News to leave the country.
In the meantime, the circulation of the newspaper through the Post Office will be prohibited.
The Customs will also be asked to cooperate in stopping the circulation of the North-China Daily News. In previous cases, the North-China Daily News [Page 760] has used the local steamers to distribute copies of the paper by shipping them in bulk as freight. Now the Customs will be called upon to search all outgoing steamers at Shanghai to make sure that no copies of the North-China Daily News can be distributed through the same channel.”
Reuter’s News Agency, under date of Nanking April 20th, has published in the Shanghai Times (British with Japanese sympathy), under the heading “Nationalist Action Against Paper” a copy of which is enclosed,62 the reasons advanced by the Nationalist authorities for the action taken.
I have [etc.]
- Copy transmitted to the Department by the Consul General in his despatch No. 6113, April 23; received May 27, 1929.↩
- Not found in Department files.↩
- An American citizen and journalist in China, special contributor to the North China Daily News (British), Shanghai.↩
- Not printed.↩
- Not printed.↩
- Omission indicated in original despatch.↩
- Not printed.↩