493.11 Ekvall, Henry/50
The American Minister in China (Johnson) to the Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs (Lo)83
Excellency: I have the honor again to invite Your Excellency’s attention to the matter of the disappearance on July 23, 1932, from [Page 534] a spot on the main highway a few miles west from Sian, Shensi, of Mr. Henry Ekvall, an American citizen, together with three travelling companions and a motor car containing their personal effects and a large amount of gold and silver belonging chiefly to China Inland Motors, an American corporation with its chief office in Hankow. This matter has already been brought to the attention of Your Excellency in the Legation’s formal communications of August 4th, August 8th and August 18th, in its aide-mémoire of September 21st and in two informal communications addressed by the Legation’s representative in Nanking under dates of August 24th and 27th directly to Mr. Liu Shih-shun, Director of the Department of European and American Affairs in your Ministry.
In addition to addressing the above communications directly to Your Excellency, this Legation on August 6th sent its representative and special investigator, Lieutenant Robert H. Soule, to Sian to investigate the case fully on the ground. Lieutenant Soule remained in Sian from August 10th until August 25th inclusive, during which time he made a very thorough and painstaking investigation which yielded circumstantial evidence of a most convincing character that Mr. Ekvall and his three traveling companions were captured in daylight on the main highway a few miles west of the west suburb gate of Sian by Shensi soldiers, who later deliberately murdered the party of travelers and stole their property.
In view of the atrocious nature of the crime and of the fact that Chinese soldiers are directly involved in it, I urge Your Excellency to give the most careful scrutiny to the following brief summary of the results of the investigation made on behalf of this Legation by Lieutenant Soule:
[Here follow details reported by Lieutenant Soule and other sources as summarized in 18 typed pages.]
This concludes the summary of Lieutenant Soule’s report of the result of his investigation of the case at Sian and, while the evidence set forth in the report is circumstantial, it proves beyond reasonable doubt that the military authorities in and to the west of Sian were on the lookout for the Ekvall party on July 20th; that the motorcar containing Mr. Ekvall and his party was on July 23rd seized and taken by soldiers, in uniform, to the village of Tatumen and there held captive until late that evening, when the party was taken by the soldiers to a field near the village of Panchiatsun, where all four members of the party were shot and an effort was made to obliterate all traces of the crime.
From the evidence obtained it would appear probable that the chauffeur Ch’en Wei-ch’ing, who is known to have been on the most [Page 535] friendly terms with the military at Sian, actuated by a desire for revenge against Mr. Ekvall (with whom he had previously had a serious disagreement), by promises of rich loot instigated certain of the soldiery to waylay Mr. Ekvall and his party and to rob them of the large amount of gold dust, silver, and other valuables carried by them.
In regard to the establishment of the identity of the soldiers involved in the crime, Your Excellency’s attention is particularly directed to the unusual behavior of Mr. Kao Ching-ch’eng, the Militia Commander at Sanchiao, who, upon being interrogated by Lieutenant Soule in the presence of Mr. Ch’en Tzu-chien and the Magistrate of Sian, at first denied all knowledge of the incident on July 22nd (when the Reverend Mr. Watson was stopped and searched by soldiers in front of the Militia Headquarters at Sanchiao) but later, when confronted by the Reverend Mr. Watson in the city, admitted that he remembered the incident but professed a complete inability to identify the two military officers and four soldiers of the search party who, by their own admission to the Reverend Mr. Watson on July 22nd, had then been stationed in front of the Militia Headquarters for three days on the look-out for the Ekvall party. The officers of the search party later entered the Militia Headquarters, where they examined the Reverend Mr. Watson and secured his identification from the Militia Commander, who undoubtedly can identify the officers and soldiers of the search party.
From this and all other information in its possession, this Legation is of the belief that a full and strict investigation of Militia Commander Kao, of the chauffeur, Ch’en Wei-ch’ing, and of his soldier friends, together with Chiang Lao-wu, Li San-Sheng, and the other Chinese whose names appear in this communication in connection with the case, will enable the Shensi authorities to obtain information which will definitely determine the identity of those responsible for the crime and will also enable the officials to recover the remains of the four missing men and certain of their property.
I believe that General Yang Hu-ch’eng personally is sincerely interested in settling this case and in bringing the guilty to justice but, under the circumstances above described, this Legation cannot but conclude either that certain of General Yang’s subordinates in the Shensi Government have up to the present been making every effort to cover up an atrocious crime directly traceable to Shensi soldiers, or that these same authorities are callously indifferent to a crime which constitutes a dark blot on the name of Shensi Province and its Government and which, if allowed to remain unpunished, cannot but expose all foreigners in Shensi to grave danger of harm from the Shensi soldiery, who will be led to the belief that foreigners may be murdered [Page 536] and robbed with comparative impunity and with little fear of punishment at the hands of the responsible provincial authorities.
Two and one-half months have elapsed since the commission of the crime, and this Legation is quite unable to accept the preposterous claim of the Shensi authorities that, in spite of their most vigorous and searching investigations, they have not been able to obtain the slightest trace of the missing party and/or the motorcar. I accordingly emphatically urge that the Chinese Government take the most drastic measures to put an end to the policy of inaction and obstruction, which was apparently adopted by the Shensi authorities from the moment that the crime was committed and which has since been consistently carried out, presumably because of the fact that all evidence points to the Sian soldiery as the guilty parties. In view of these facts, this Legation ventures to suggest that the Central Government depute special investigators to proceed to Sian thoroughly to investigate the case and to press the matter until the guilty parties are punished.
The crime is one of the most deliberate and atrocious crimes against foreigners in China that has yet come to the attention of this Legation, which is reminded of the Thorburn and Nakamura cases, the facts of which were denied for many weeks by the Chinese authorities before they admitted the death at the hands of the Chinese military of the British subject and of the Japanese national named. My Government is most seriously concerned with the similar profession by the Shensi authorities of a complete ignorance of the facts in the Ekvall case, which case, however, contains an element of deliberate and cold blooded murder that was not to be found in either of the other cases.
I cannot too strongly impress upon Your Excellency the fact that my Government intends to continue vigorously and persistently to press this case until it has been fully cleared up and the guilty parties punished to the fullest extent of the law, the body of Mr. Ekvall recovered, restitution made for the valuable property robbed by the soldiery, and the strictest disciplinary measures taken to restrain the Shensi soldiery from further crimes against American citizens and to insure that American citizens and their property are fully protected by the constituted authorities.
In conclusion, I would urge that Your Excellency take decisive action in this matter without further delay. I am sure that I need not point out that public knowledge, at this juncture, of the deplorable inaction of the responsible Chinese authorities in a case involving the loss of foreign life and property at a point within sight of the walls of a great provincial capital cannot but reflect most seriously against the good name of the Chinese Government and its claim to [Page 537] an ability to maintain law and order and to protect foreign life and property.
I avail myself [etc.]
- Copy transmitted to the Department by the Minister in China in his despatch No. 1779, October 13; received November 5.↩