The Inscrutable Americans

"Quiet and inoffensive" was the way his commanding officer had described Corporal Frank Aldrich. Yet Aldrich stood last week before a U.S. Army court-martial charged with murdering two Chinese soldiers on his wedding eve. The story told in court began with a bachelor brawl. Aldrich and three pals wandered around Nanking in a jeep, chased a couple of Chinese girls, and then stopped on the Chungho Bridge. "Hello!" said Aldrich thickly to some Chinese youths perched on the bridge rail. Chinese Air Force Corpsmen Wong Shou-pen and Ke Fating did not seem to understand the greeting. Suddenly Corporal Aldrich cried, "Ding ho!" Seizing Wong and Ke by the legs, he dumped them backward into the deep and muddy stream below. The Americans laughed; it did not occur to them that neither Chinese could swim.

Questions for the Sages. In the auditorium of Nanking's Officers' Moral Endeavor Association last week, Chinese witnesses and the dead men's kin were doing their best to help the court-martial try Corporal Aldrich. U.S. authorities hoped the Chinese would be impressed with the fairness and exactness of American justice. But the Chinese frankly found the procedure somewhat opaque.

An onlooker marveled: "Everyone must raise his hand to swear that he is a child of God and won't tell lies!" One witness thought he knew what was wanted; he put hand to forehead and intoned: "Heaven is above and earth below. May my conscience be relied upon!" Did a witness know the difference between truth and falsehood? the court wanted to know. When phrased in literary Chinese, this seemed a question for Kant or Confucius. The witness said "No." Did he know the difference between right and wrong? "Oh, naturally," said the relieved Chinese.

Answers for the Unbright. But most baffling to the witnesses was the Anglo-Saxon labyrinth for sifting evidence. Sometimes it seemed inscrutable, sometimes not quite bright. The defense counsel appeared to be bothered, for instance, when a fisherman said he had pulled "Wong's body" out of the river--and then admitted he had not known the deceased. "Then how did you know the body was Wong's?" Retorted the fisherman: "Wong's parents told me." Any Chinese could understand that, but it was "hearsay" in Anglo-U.S. law.

Most astonishing for many Chinese present, however, was the sight of one of the judges, a lean-jawed colonel who chewed and chomped a wad of gum every day. "Perhaps," wrote one Chinese reporter, "this is typical of American judicial custom." After four days of testimony and gum-chewing, the court postponed its decision. The Chinese had not quite reached a decision either.

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