The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, 1909-10-14
LETTER FROM DIR. WAKEFIELD.
MIR. j. j. Barge,
Atlanta. Ga.

the afL1cle copied from CraWIOrnS-
vile paper arrived today. 1t is
great surprise to me and gives me,
/ hope, final lesson in dealing with
reporters. The quotations you
make are marvellous! What l did
say, in outline, was this:
THAT the murder of Elsie Sigel in
New York was due to a lack of
knowledge in mission work among
Orientals. That for centuries ORR
entail people had looked upon woman
as being created to satisfy their
passions and raise their children, but
IN no way the equal of themselves.
A good wife is like a good dog, and
receives like consideration.
Now, for our American girls, with
little or no knowledge of the Chinese
character, to go and work among
them as they do in this country is the
height of folly, and is so considered
by the foreign mission boards. In
China the lady missionaries never
work among the men and would never
think of doing such a thing" but
Dr. August Bach says that they do.
He says that there are Sigel cases in
China
The lady missionaries do go all
over the country working among the
women. They take pains to comply
with the Chinese laws Of propriety.
Younger ladies always take an older
Chinese woman with them-usually
the older married lady missionaries
do the same. They are treated with
respect, and l have never known or
read of any trouble of the type of
this New York affair happening in
<0f To- DIV icS
sionary being degraded by Chinese
men.
However, when a young Chinese
or Jap comes to this country-espe-
cially to our colleges-the American
girls seem often to be fairly pos
sessed' with an infatuation for them.
This would be impossible if they I'M
derstood the Oriental view of woman.
1T is unjust to judge the Chinese
by this circumstance in New York.
They have had their standard of life
for over thirty centuries. For
young American girl to place such
temptation in their way is not fair
and to judge them by such thing is
unjust, The real sin was the Tempt
ing of the Chinaman. In my mind,
their view of their women has been
the greatest OIL the Orl0uCdl weak
nesses And the Oriental is growing
to realize this and is correcting it as
rapidly as one could expect or ask.
Further, to judge all China by the
Cantonese is unjust. Over ninety
five per cent. CT the Chinese in the
United States are Cantonese. The
Cantonese are the lowest grade Chi
naman. They are considered by the
Mandarin, or Northern Chinese,
much as we consider the negro in our
own country. They are held as ma
tional disgrace and excluded from
Northern ports and cities as rigidly
as we exclude them, because of their
low standard of living.
1.-The Chinese deeply deplore the
New York murder. They feel they
have been disgraced and are apt to
be misjudged. They are changing
with great rapidity their views Of
their women. They are establishing
girls schools and treating their
wives, mothers and daughters with
greater respect. They need encour-
agement and sympathy, and above all
they should not be criticised or
blamed for other peoples folly.
snow, this is practically what /
gave in my talk. You can see the
whole spirit is opposite that of your
quotations. l can only think that
my talk was garbled' by one of