Friends of China

In Seattle last week, 640 leading citizens sat down to feast on mandarin chicken, pineapple chicken, Cantonese beef, steamed rice in lotus leaf, jai choy and other triumphs of Chinese cuisine. Occasion for the feast: New Year's celebration of the Chinese year 4654--the Year of the Monkey. It was also the 40th anniversary of Seattle's China Club, a remarkable example of the American penchant for voluntarily organizing for a high purpose--in this case for Sino-American friendship.

"I wish to say how grateful my countrymen and myself feel toward the club," said the guest of honor, Chinese Ambassador V. K. Wellington Koo, "for its magnificent contribution toward our common cause." And from Formosa there was a cable from Chiang Kaishek, expressing gratitude for the China Club's "continued sympathy and support for our fight against Communist aggression." Added the Generalissimo: "We treasure such friendship and support."

Reception Room. The warm praise was not lightly given, nor was it a mere anniversary charity. Looking backward, the members of the China Club could count up many solid achievements for their hands-across-the-sea movement. Items:

P:Over the years the club has greeted 15,000 students and other transient Chinese entering the U.S. through Seattle and nearby Victoria, B.C. "We saw we were running the country's reception room," says Clinton S. Harley, the owner of a Seattle cemetery. People in China saw it, too. As long ago as 1918, Dr. Hsin Yen, who had been Education Minister in the last days of the Manchu dynasty, noted that "Seattle is becoming a household word for fairness and friendliness."

P:Beginning in 1919, the club won the cooperation of Seattle's leading industries in underwriting 25 unique annual scholarships for Chinese students who would come to the city for vocational and in-plant study. Later the club prodded the state legislature into granting 50 (now 100) scholarships at the University of Washington and Washington State College for deserving students from friendly nations.

P:In 1930 the club established the Peng Yu (Friend) Club to serve the growing number of Chinese students and faculty members at the University of Washington.

P:In the late 19303 the club sounded one of the first alarms against shipment of U.S. scrap iron to Japan; in 1938 it dramatically began picketing Japanese ships loading scrap on the Seattle waterfront. Recalls Harley: "The staid gentlemen in our membership walked side by side with left-wing fringe groups who happened to be taking the same position at the time."

P:For years the club was a front-runner in the fight for repeal of the Chinese Exclusion laws. When an act of repeal was finally voted by Congress, it bore the name of the club's longtime ally in the capital, Democratic Senator Warren Magnuson. To the victory celebration in Seattle's Chinese community, Chiang Kai-shek sent another message: "All Chinese deeply appreciate your removing us from the stigma of exclusion ... It is worth 20 divisions to me in morale."

Seattle, the closest U.S. port to China, has always had a more friendly understanding of its transpacific neighbor than most West Coast communities. As long ago as 1886, when anti-Chinese riots convulsed the West, a small band of Seattle citizens stood off a mob and prevented the forcible deportation of 350 Chinese nationals. Seattle was the only Pacific Coast city where such violence was successfully halted. In 1916 the late Julean Arnold, a lifelong friend of China and onetime commercial attache in the U.S. embassy in Peking, visited Seattle and asked if there was any interest among the city's top citizens in forming an organization to promote Sino-American friendship. A group of 27 leaders from Seattle's professional and business communities responded to Arnold's challenge. The first president of the China Club was the venerable Thomas Burke, a former Chief Justice of the Washington Territory Supreme Court, who, as a private in the home guard, had helped fight off the mobs in 1886.

Dying Words. The club carried on without question of its mission until 1948, when, in the midst of the Red conquest of China's mainland, the worried members met to consider whether or not they should disband. Lew Kay, 62, an American of Chinese parentage and the first Chinese graduate of the University of Washington (1909), rose to plead for going on. "Of course many fellow Americans find it difficult to grasp what is happening in China today," he said. "All the more reason why we, who know the importance of free China, should keep up our work. To abandon it is to abandon our own conscience." He paused, clutched his chest and fell dead of a heart attack.

Kay's last words marked a rededication of the China Club. Since the Communist invasion, the members have pressed for financial help for more than 4,000 Chinese students in the U.S., and for mass relief and resettlement of refugees in Hong Kong and Formosa. Membership in the club is working with the state Grange and the congressional delegation to sponsor a trip to Formosa by a group of Washington State farmers.

At last week's dinner, the members of the China Club looked forward to the day when the Chinese people will regain their freedom and their country, and looked back on the dedicated years of their organization. Member Harry O. Mitchell recalled how a few years ago he had changed his calling cards, substituting the Chinese characters Mei Chung for the syllables of his name, Mit Chell. Later he discovered that the characters had another meaning, which fittingly symbolized the whole club. In Chinese Mr. Mei Chung means Mr. America China.

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