893.001/178a: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Chargé in China (Atcheson)
1012. Please deliver as from the President to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek a message as follows: [Page 300]
“I desire to convey to Your Excellency and to the people of China an expression of the deep sorrow felt by the Government and people of the United States over the passing away of President Lin Sen. His life spanned the period of the courageous and successful struggle which the Chinese people made to achieve freedom and enduring unity; his zeal in this great labor has made an inestimable contribution to the founding of the Chinese Republic, as have his wise counsel and his eminent scholarship to the progress of the Republic through the three decades of its life. He died while the nation he loved was still engaged in a mortal conflict with Japan, whose armies had invaded and laid waste much of his homeland; although he did not live to see the final victory, he yet died in the full assurance that victory was certain, and that through it the Chinese people would march on to a happy and prosperous future.
Please convey to President Lin Sen’s family my deep personal sympathy in their sorrow and bereavement. Franklin D. Roosevelt.”
[For text of the Secretary of State’s public statement and message to the Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs, see Department of State Bulletin, August 7, 1943, page 85.]