CONCERNING CHINA AND OPPORTUNITIES

Paotingfu, China. October 3, 1920.

Editor of DARTMOUTH ALUMNI MAGAZINE:

Dear Sir:

In the July-August number of the MAGAZINE I note with much pleasure that an old classmate, Frank Meleney, now Dr. Meleney, is coming to Peking as associate physician in the Union Medical College; and his brother Ed, now Dr. Meleney, also, is coming to the same institution as associate professor of pathology. It will seem good to me to see these old Dartmouth friends out here, but I want to ask, "Why not more Dartmouth men in China?" I have been here in North China four years now and have met hundreds of American college men, but only three or four of them have been graduates of "The College on the Hill." Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Amherst and the rest are well represented out here, but Dartmouth seems to have remained at home, though, of course I know she didn't when the call came from across the Atlantic. That call pretty nearly got me, and probably would have had it not been for the threat of the Chinese language which said, "Take me now or never." I hope this scarcity of Dartmouth men out here isn't indicative of the Dartmouth spirit in this day of international expansion. I wonder if the reason isn't that Dartmouth men don't know the real situation .in China.

Of course they have read the newspaper reports of civil wars and revolutions, and perhaps they have read of floods, famines and plagues, for China has them all, but they are only the spectacular, such as newspapers relish. Old China is waking up, and making progress, too, in spite of all the spectacles. One can't visit a coast city like Tientsin without feeling that western business and industry are throbbing and growing out here in Cathay. The way new businesses and new buildings spring up would make one think he were back in a western American city. Even here in sleepy old Paotingfu a five-story flour mill has sprung up this summer and is to be provided with real American machinery. A little farther south a few months ago a large cotton mill, equipped with the best American machinery, was opened. And so it goes all over China. I have known some young men out here in the Standard Oil Company, and some have been back to the States, but they return to China, for they say there is no such opening at home as there is out here. And this is but the beginning. Stop a minute and compare the cost of labor in America with the cost of labor in China, and think of the millions of available laborers out here, and the untouched natural resources of this country, is there any question where industry is going ahead with the greatest leaps and bounds in the next generation? Young Dartmouth, if you want to feel the throb of those leaps and bounds you should be booking your passage. Here's the chance of your lifetime.

On the other hand, China needs just such level headed men as Old Dartmouth knows how to turn out. One of the few Dartmouth men I have met out here is Dr. Charles Tenney of the American Legation in Peking, who is just returning to America after a long period of service. I am enclosing an editorial which occurred in the North China Star recently telling how this son of Old Dartmouth has made good out here in China. Why not more Dartmouth records like this?

A couple of years ago I had hopes that Dartmouth could be interested in some educational work out here. Princeton is carrying on her splendid Y. M. C. A. in Peking, Yale has her educational institutions in Chang Sha, Oberlin in Shansi, Grinnell in Shantung and others in other places. I hoped Dartmouth's name could be added to the last but before this could be done the war ceased and the work which Dartmouth had started in Turkey was resumed. Everybody knows that Turkey is a needy country and I'm glad to know that the college is undertaking to help her in this way. Of course my dream of some special Dartmouth work in China has vanished but I still wish "that more of Dartmouth's sons would come out here and help bind the two great nations on opposite sides of the Pacific into a friendly union. Their sons will thank them for it and I believe China offers a fine opportunity for young Americans who want to make good. In the expansion that Dartmouth seems about to make why not let her influence be felt 'way out here in China?

By the way, if you are looking for "news," James Wesley Robinson put in his appearance at 1 o'clock this morning (I am finishing this Oct. 4), and if I understood him correctly he wants to speak for a place in Dartmouth 1942 class. He's the second one I have signed up in advance. His elder brother will precede him by about three years. He told me the other day when he goes to America he is going to get a Phi Beta Kappa pin for himself and one for me. He evidently feels rather sorry for me when he sees that his mother is the only one in the family who possesses one. I'm not worrying about whether he gets the pin or not, it's the Spirit of the old place that I hope he'll bring back.

One of the Wanderers,