Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United States, 1930, Volume II

393.1163/450

The Secretary of State to the Reverend J. J. Burke, General Secretary of the National Catholic Welfare Conference⁹

Washington, October 29, 1930.

Sir: The Department refers to correspondence conducted with you in the past in regard to the safety and welfare of American missionaries in the interior of China. The Department has availed itself of your good offices to transmit to the interested American missionary organizations with which you have contact information regarding these matters.

At the present time, great areas, particularly in central China, are without dependable agencies for the administration of justice or even the protection of life. American citizens who continue to reside in these regions cannot escape the risks incident to this disturbed state of affairs. In fact, in some instances, they seem actually to prove an incitement to lawless action, either as furnishing a supposed means for involving the constituted authorities in difficulties with foreign nations, or as a means of possible profit through demands for ransom.

The American citizens in China whose safety is most menaced by the activities of lawless elements in interior regions are, for the most part, those engaged in missionary and cultural enterprises. Information reaching the Department indicates that in many cases a great deal of liberty is allowed by the parent organizations to their representatives in China in deciding whether the missionaries concerned shall, when danger threatens, remain at their posts, or shall retire to places where they can be protected or from which they can be evacuated. In these circumstances, it has been found that members of missionary organizations are sometimes unwilling to relinquish, even temporarily, the duties entrusted to them. In response to advice from the Department’s officers in China that places of safety be sought, the reply is sometimes made that the persons warned are grateful for the solicitude of their Government but that danger exists practically everywhere in China, that it attaches especially to the missionary vocation, and that the writers feel a moral obligation to remain at their posts.

The Department’s purpose in addressing the present communication to you is to request that a suggestion be transmitted from the Department to the various missionary organizations concerned that the decision in regard to evacuation in the face of threatening danger be not left by them entirely to their representatives in the field. It would be gratuitous at this time to cite specific instances in which American citizens in the interior have, in the face of consular advice, chosen to incur serious risks, or to list the instances in which disregard of consular advice has resulted most unfortunately. It is the Department’s desire to reiterate the suggestion previously given that American missionary organizations exert such authority as may be theirs in the matter and that the decision in regard to withdrawal from danger be left in a less degree than appears to have obtained in the past to the discretion of the persons immediately concerned.

It is sincerely hoped that missionary organizations in the United States, taking account of the difficulties in the situation and of the serious complications which injuries to American citizens cause both for and among the Chinese people and Chinese authorities themselves and for and between the American and the Chinese Governments, will take the position that it is the duty of their representatives in China to adopt all reasonable precautions to avoid capture or death and in the face of danger to err, if there seems to be doubt, on the side of caution.

The Department believes that this Government’s officers in China have been and are unremitting in their efforts to provide for the safety of American citizens in their various and respective districts. These efforts will be continued.

Very truly yours,

For the Secretary of State:

Stanley K. Hornbeck

Chief, Division of Far Eastern Affairs

9. A similar letter was addressed to the Secretary of the Committee of Reference and Counsel of the International Missionary Council. In each case the reply was made that the information had been passed on to the organizations concerned.