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still in the city would be massacred in reprisal. Later I learned that the firing was a barrage which the British and American gunboats placed about a house on 'Socony Hill' where some forty-nine foreigners, including women and children and the American Consul and his family, were being besieged and fired upon by Nationalist soldiers. The bombardment, instead of sealing our death, undoubtedly effected our escape the next day and put an end to most of the looting.

IV

There was nothing now to do but to wait until dark, so I settled down to spend several of the most gloomy hours of my life. When darkness fell Mr. T————— reappeared to discuss with my host what I should do for the night. My host thought that it was dangerous for me to remain in his house that night, as several people had seen me take refuge there and he was afraid someone might inform on me. Mr. T―'s house was already full to overflowing with extra guests. Finally it was decided that I should be exchanged for three of Mr. T's guests. My host did not know, and neither did I, that the three were ex-Northern soldiers, or he might not have agreed so readily to the plan!

As there were few people on the street we made our way to Mr. T's house without exciting any attention. Passing in darkness through the house, we came to a room where four men sat. Three of them were ex-Northern soldiers and the fourth was a Seminary student whose things had all been looted. These men soon went out and Mr. T prepared me a bed on the floor, depriving, I am afraid, some of his own family of necessary bedding. I protested, but in vain. I passed a horrible night of tense nervous strain. I could not relax; I lay awake thinking of my family and listening for the bark

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water for me to bathe with and told me breakfast was waiting. I had not taken many mouthfuls before the good news came that a rescue party was at the door. With a hasty thanks and goodbye to Mr. T, who had done so much for me, I hastened out to meet one of the most welcome sights of my life. There, awaiting me in the field just south of my own home, were gathered all the Hansimen district refugees, together with Dr. Bowen, who had come over from the University with an escort of soldiers to find us. We must have made a strange sight as with choked voices and tear-filled eyes we welcomed each other. I cannot accurately describe the appearance of the party. Most of us were dressed in some kind of nondescript Chinese clothes.

Mr. W―, the police official, who had welcomed me with tears in his eyes, now gave the order to proceed, as a large crowd was gathering and there were several others to be picked up on the way to the University. We walked up past our house to the Bible School. As we passed our house I noticed that even the casings of the windows were gone. I saw Lancaster's charred house. At the Bible School we saw the remains of the old dormitory, whose walls I had heard falling in the night. The Y. W. C. A. secretaries' home and Mr. Robson's home were standing open and naked. As we passed them a shout went up and Miss Mabel Lee appeared from a neighboring house, dressed in Chinese clothes. We passed the foreign hospital, with its memories of loving service. It had not escaped the ruthless hands of the soldiers, nor indeed had

the Chinese hospital next door. And finally the home of Dr. Hutcheson, the superintendent of the hospital, had been burned. I record these acts of violence and destruction, not for the purpose of stirring up hatred and the spirit of revenge, but that a true picture may be drawn of the events of that day of horror and heroism.

We found the University buildings intact, with the exception of a few panes of glass. Credit for saving the University must be given to the students, who many times risked their lives to protect the property and lives of foreign professors. All the members of the University group and those who had been rescued from other districts were gathered on the upper floor of Bailie Hall. Now there took place here such a reunion as it is impossible to describe, for one's eyes moisten and one's throat tightens at the memory of it. Here we saw Mrs. Williams lying on a cot in one corner of the room, bearing up in a wonderful way under the shock of Dr. Williams's sudden death. In another room I found Miss Moffet, the secretary-treasurer of our mission, who with Miss Null had bravely remained behind when the women and children had been evacuated in order to protect the girl students at Ming Deh who were unable to get back to their homes. She had lain with her wounds untended for nearly twelve hours, covered up with straw in a workman's hut, and had only been brought to the University about midnight the night before. She looked wan and pale, but still kept her sense of humor and her cheerful smile. In this room was also aged Mrs. Brenton, mother of Dr. Pryor, who had been carried Wednesday night from her sick bed at the Methodist Academy to Dr. Bowen's home, and who went through some horrible experiences there at the hands of the soldiers. Here too I saw Mrs. Singleterry and Mrs. Pickens with

their newly born babies. They had been brought over from the foreign hospital, after being robbed of all their personal belongings while lying helpless in bed. Nearly everyone there had been robbed by the soldiers of all money, watches, and jewelry; and most of them had escaped with only the clothing on their backs.

As the afternoon wore on and we were still not on our way out of the city of terror, our anxiety increased. At four o'clock, however, word came that we should be ready to move immediately. We were to be taken out of the city to the gunboats under the auspices of the Red Swastika Society, a Chinese Buddhist society patterned after the Red Cross. We were also to have a military escort. Farewells were now said to the many Chinese friends, servants, and students who had come in to see us. The real affection and sorrow shown by the Chinese Christians were most touching, but even more so perhaps were the farewells to faithful servants. Many of them had risked their lives to help us, and all during the day had been bringing in things which they had rescued from our homes-often, it is true, things of little value, yet showing their desire to help as much as possible. Soon we were all ready, for most of us had very little to pack. The sick went first; then the women with children; and lastly the men and a few women.

That march of the foreign community from the University of Nanking to the river has, I think, never been equaled in history. There were over a hundred men, women, and children in the party men and women of refinement and education, seekers after peace and good will among the people they had come to serve. The total of the years of unremitting service represented in that company service

to the Chinese people in hospital,

school, and church- cannot be calculated. It was the best that America had to give to China, and it was rejected, not by the people among whom the years had been spent, but by the soldiers of the government that had promised to protect foreign lives and property.

There were two defeated armies on the Hsiakwan road that memorable night of March 25. The one was looking back into the city - it was a part of the defeated Northern army. Thousands of weary, wretched Northern soldiers passed us on their way back to captivity. The other army was a division of the army of Christ. They were marching out that night apparently defeated. But were they really defeated? Time alone can give the final answer, but the witness of friends, students, and servants back there in Bailie Hall but a little while before makes the idea of defeat a really impossible one. The work that has been done in Nanking throughout the years; the lives that have been brought under the control of the spirit of Christ; the Christian homes built up and the churches established - all these belie the idea of defeat. A retreating army, indeed, but not a defeated one.

It was dark when we arrived at the bank of the Yangtze, and the giant searchlights of the gunboats were playing over the river and the surrounding country, making it look like a fairy land. I had hoped against hope that the report of my family's departure for Shanghai was untrue. But they had gone, and the hour of reunion with them was delayed for two days more.

The next morning at five o'clock I arose after a rather sleepless night and went on deck just in time to get a last view of Nanking as the destroyer turned down the river toward Shanghai. I shall never forget that morning view

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of Purple Mountain. Only one who has looked on the mountain every day for ten years, and who has roamed its slopes hunting for deer and other wild game, can appreciate the feeling which we Nankingites have for our mountain. That Sunday morning as I saw it silhouetted against the eastern sky, touched with the first rays of the rising sun, it aroused all the affection that it had nurtured these many years. All the feverishness of the past two days slipped away, and there came a great yearning for this city which had been our home for so many years, and which held within it the earthly remains of our little son the city to which we would gladly give the rest of our lives. For the ignorant populace who so wantonly robbed us and destroyed the home which we had slowly built up with such care, there is no bitterness, but only a great pity. For the brutal soldiery who murdered our friends and wounded, robbed, and insulted us, there is also no bitterness, but only amazement at their senseless brutality and sometimes disgust at their savagery. For them, as for the rabble, we would pray, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' But for those who inspired and planned this tragedy and who have brought such disgrace to the whole Chinese nation, and especially to that new government to which we had looked with such eager hopes, our desire is that they should be brought to justice, and that the insidious influence of Russian Communism should be removed from the land. We do not believe that what happened in Nanking on March 24 really represents the Chinese people, but would rather believe that they are more truly represented by the heroism, unselfishness, and good will which so many of our friends and neighbors displayed on that fateful day.

FARM AID

BY GLENN W. BIRKETT

IN Wisconsin we have an area at the head of Rock River known as the Horicon Marsh. A few years ago it was drained in the interest of agriculturea sort of farm aid. Now it is to be reflooded - also as farm aid. During my first years of farming, right after the war, when urban industries were contracting and accepting deflation, one of the bulletins from the College of Agriculture was captioned 'Push Back the Brush Line.' In it we were advised how to increase acreage at the expense of cut-over and forest land. But for the last few years our officials pledge themselves to reforestation as farm aid.

Farm aid apparently, then, means more cultivated land and increased production; also, less cultivated land and decreased production. Like many another much-used term, it is not defined. To define it would destroy its worth politically. It is an excellent phrase to use in political platforms which promise low prices for everything bought and high prices for everything sold. By its magic the government can put a million into reclaiming an area which is worth less than a million after reclamation. By its aid appropriations are secured for stimulating production. But, not being a partisan term, it lends itself to appropriations for disposing of the results of stimulation. Its assistance gives freshly hatched graduates from the colleges of agriculture jobs showing men how to farm whose efficiency and taxes made possible the colleges.

Paint 'FARM AID' upon your white elephant and show it to the County Board, State Legislature, or Federal Government. Your painting need not be clever; few legislators or appropriators have the courage to oppose the phrase alone. It can be used for high tariff for the manufacturer, because such ensures high wages and foodpurchasing power of urban centres. But it is not incongruous to use it for low tariff, because such means cheaper goods to the farmer.

Almost everyone, save the farmer, believes in farm aid.

Land reclamation, always a major form of farm aid, implies insufficient acreage. Land resettlement, a lusty farm-aid infant, implies, in addition, insufficient man power. Agricultural welfare workers, adding to the confusion, proclaim a low standard of agrarian efficiency. However, add insufficient acreage to insufficient man power and equipment, to inefficient methods, and you have and you have a surplus.

This summer I spoke along this line to one of the efficiency raisers at the State College of Agriculture. He is a swine specialist with several degrees, so when he told me I did not see the matter clearly, what could I say? The one function which my kind must perform, inefficiently or otherwise, is to raise the taxes which keep those who insist we have too few acres, too little competition, and no efficiency.

The downfall of prices and consequent condition known as agricultural Have you something to unload? distress began in 1920. Since their

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lowest level, prices have risen considerably, although not enough to establish a parity of exchange. When farmers were being hit worst, far less was said about farm aid than is being said now. Banks took over farms and imagined themselves secure. Farmers lost their equities, but publicity about depression increased when the banks learned, in the course of several years, that the farms could not be disposed of.

It is still the fashion to blame farmers for paying inflated prices for farms and equipment. What about the bankers who imagined a value where it was not, and who now are busy presenting resettlement schemes in order to create a market for land? Land resettlement is not being asked for by farmers. The twenty-five million acres of land which have been abandoned during the last five years mean many a Hilda Rose, but any government scheme to bring back these acres would not help the frozen-out, starved-out, and taxed-out farmer occupants. Any money advanced or project furthered by the government would redound to the present owners of the abandoned lands. A lawyer said to me this summer, 'My firm represents a number of people owning land in northern Wisconsin which they have had to take over as a result of mortgages. This land we cannot sell, it yields no income, taxes are a burden, our clients need their money. What can we do?' To him the farm problem is comparatively recent. The farmers lost, the investors also must lose, as in any business which loses markets and is overexpanded.

The disappearance of land from cultivation is in itself farm aid, but, being the result of economic law, it has no merit with people whose livelihood depends upon jobs correcting uneconomic results of statute law. The use of government funds and influence to retain or return submarginal lands and

farmers is penalization of efficient farmers upon supermarginal lands.

The Milwaukee Journal of June 23, 1927, carries an item about a twentyfive-million-dollar land-financing corporation designed to thaw out frozen assets of the Northwest. "Through the employment of Eastern capital, it is purposed to market and reëstablish values of more than two hundred million dollars' worth of foreclosed land in Minnesota, North and South Dakota, and Montana.' The twentyfive million dollars spent for advertising might let out the present holders of the land. Nevertheless the economic or actual 'thawing out' of agricultural land assets can result only from a warming up of the price of wheat, wool, beef, and so forth, to a point at which the land in question yields something above management, labor, and taxes.

Some of the hard-hit regions have a great investment in schools, roads, and courthouses; but such public improvements, costing beyond the capacity of a region to support, act as a depressor of land values. Their bonds, maintenance, and officials have first claim upon the products of the land. An expensive school frequently lowers the value of farms within its district. However, a region which has been boomed into spending more than it can afford falls back upon state and federal aid, by which taxes are transferred from regions of fair economic stability to regions of no economic stability whatever. Wisconsin now has a law which aims to equalize school taxes throughout the state. Based upon the premise that all children are entitled to an equal chance for education, the law tends to keep people in regions which are not economically productive. Our educators use legislation to consolidate schools and assemble pupils at the same time they use legislation to scatter and keep scattered the parents. This is

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