031.11 American Museum of Natural History (4th Asiatic)/24
Memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State (Johnson)
The Chinese Minister called upon the Secretary by appointment. The Secretary stated that he was still concerned about the situation that confronted the Mongolian expedition of the Natural History Museum of New York as he had heard from Dr. Osborn recently and he wondered whether the Minister had received any reply.
The Minister stated that he had not received any reply. He said that he had been somewhat embarrassed in the matter as the Secretary would recall that he had made the suggestion to his Government that the Andrews expedition be allowed to proceed and leave the question [Page 844] of a decision with regard to the treatment of fossil remains to be settled when the new law which was under consideration by the Nationalist Government was passed. Dr. Wu said that he believed the Secretary had approved his idea. The Minister stated that about two days after this telegram went out he had been in New York and had asked Dr. Osborn to come to see him and had told him what he had done. Later Dr. Sherwood had come to Washington and had shown him a letter from Dr. Osborn from which Dr. Wu had inferred that Dr. Osborn did not agree to the suggestion made by the Minister and he said that Dr. Sherwood had returned to New York to confirm Dr. Wu’s understanding of this matter and had so telegraphed him so that he had been under the necessity of telegraphing his Government that Dr. Osborn could not accept that suggestion.
The Secretary stated that he did not recall that he had in any sense approved of the idea that the expedition should be allowed to proceed under any sense of uncertainty as to the disposition of its fossils. He said that the Natural History Museum headed by Dr. Osborn had through the means of these several expeditions accumulated a very valuable history of Mongolian fossils; that the Museum naturally felt that there was only one way to handle this fossil material and this was to bring it out from Mongolia, take it to New York where it could be properly studied with all the scientific material there and comparison made, and then decisions made as to what should be done with it. He said that he understood that the Museum was prepared to be very fair with the Chinese and would send to them duplicates of all specimens found where duplicates existed and expertly-made casts of unique material when found, so that the result would be that the Chinese would have a duplicate of the collection at the Museum. He pointed out that he sympathized with the viewpoint of the Museum in this matter, as naturally it would be very difficult if not impossible to determine in China or any place else than New York for that matter just what the specimens found represented and how they fitted into the continuity of the finds, and he said that he felt there was considerable to be said on the side of the Museum in feeling that the Chinese should settle this question before the Museum went into the field.
The Chinese Minister stated that Mr. Tchang Ki, the chairman of the committee for the Preservation of Chinese Antiquities, was a person acquainted to him and in whom he felt the greatest confidence. He felt that he was a liberal man, anxious to do the right thing in all matters. He felt that perhaps he had been wrongly advised by some of the Chinese scientists around him, that perhaps some differentiation should be made between paleontological specimens and art specimens of human manufacture. The Secretary asked the Minister [Page 845] whether he could make this suggestion to the Foreign Minister and have the Chinese Government make this decision now. The Minister stated that it was a question of the law which was to be passed and there was some difficulty about the time as he understood that the expedition had to leave by the 15th of June at the latest and he did not believe that they could work so fast in China, that they had already been delayed by the funeral of Dr. Sun25 and there had been other delays due to the commission form of Government which they had. Mr. Wu stated that having confidence in the judgment of his own authorities he had felt that he could make the suggestion which he had originally made. He realized it was his own suggestion and he felt certain that the Government would have settled the matter satisfactorily in the end.
The Secretary reminded Dr. Wu that the expedition was sent out under the instructions of Dr. Osborn who was an authority in his field and respected all over the world, that because of his position people throughout the United States had been making contributions for the support of this expedition, that they stood to lose their investment if they could not get their finds back to the Museum. Dr. Wu stated that of course it was a question of the finances and if the Government should decide against the expedition they could reimburse the Museum for the loss. The Secretary stated that that of course could be done but it wasn’t merely a question of finances; it was a question of scientific study, the question of completing a study already begun, the question of completing a work which only Dr. Osborn could do, that Dr. Osborn was a man along in years and it could not be expected that he could continue this kind of work forever. The opportunity was here now and the specimens were being collected and classified and Dr. Osborn was applying his great abilities to their classification and that more than a financial loss would be suffered by the scientific world if the expedition were to fail.
Some question was raised as to the authority of the Commission. Mr. Johnson remarked that the expeditions in the past had operated under permits issued by the Peking Government, the last being issued by the Government of Chang Tso-Lin, that when the Government of Chang Tso-Lin disappeared26 and the National Government took over affairs the Committee headed by Mr. Tchang Ki had suddenly appeared and began its work by seizing the finds of the Andrews expedition at Kalgan on their emergence from Mongolia. Mr. Johnson stated that months had passed and it remained at Kalgan because the Committee had been unwilling to authorize a permit for the export of [Page 846] a large number of cases of finds made by the expedition last year. Mr. Johnson stated that this was added reason why Mr. Andrews was unwilling to proceed on the new expedition unless he had some assurance that they could take out their finds when they got them.
The Secretary stated that he had not been aware that the expedition had been handicapped in sending out previous finds up to this time. He could see that there was reason for the expedition being unwilling to proceed with the matter undecided. He expressed the hope that the Chinese Minister could persuade his Government to find some solution to permit the finds of the expedition to leave China and that the expedition should proceed with its work, so that further finds could go to New York as hitherto arranged. Mr. Wu stated that he would again telegraph his Government and see what he could do. Before leaving, Mr. Johnson arranged with Mr. Wu for him to see Dr. Osborn in Mr. Johnson’s office on Friday morning at 10 o’clock.
- See pp. 875 ff.↩
- See Foreign Relations, 1928, vol. ii, pp. 119 ff.↩