Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-09-08
BY SMEDLEY DARLINGTON
BUTLER,
Major General. II. S. M. G.

by SMEDLEY DARLINGTON
BUTLER,
Major General. u. S. M. G.
(Copyright, 1929. by North American News
paper Alliance.)
I told you how and why the COM
munity of Boxertown gave me bless
ing umbrella In 1928 I received an
other from a community of 10000 near
Tientsin, which insisted that by re-
storing its lines of communication with
Tientsin had saved it,
was required to make many trips to
Peiping to discuss questions that came
up with our Minister and his aides. /
preferred to motor rather than trust
to the trains, as one never knew when
bandits or troops would rip up the
rails and delay the train Tor hours
and even days, or when some army
would come along and take over all the
trains for troop movements.
On one motor trip to Peiping I found
that a bridge on the Tientsin-Petping
highway had been carried away by a
flood. The Chinese highway depart
ment fiddled around for a week and
did nothing about repairing 1t. To ia
cilitate our own motor trips to Popping
and to make sure that the plans Tor
our relief column would not be frus-
a company of our engineers, and they
erected modest pontoon bridge.
We used old lumber from our camp,
so it didn't cost the government a
penny The bridge was movable, and
whenever we had to cross that stream
we sent the bridge out on couple
of trucks, went over 1t, and then the
engineers would take down the bridge
and haul 1t back to camp.
NF a
the town told me they could not get
to Tientsin to buy needed supplies and
to transact other business, as their
bridge had been washed away, and they
didn't know what to do about it. Their
government had taken no action, despite
numerous complaints. The waters were
too raging to permit swimming across
the 40-foot opening. Would We lend
them our bridge, the committee nm
iShed?
I told them that if they promised
not to break it up for firewood they
could have it. After a while, when
they showed they really needed 1t, l
had the engineers build permanent
span across the stream, and the elders
as we'll as the general population were
jubilant.
In addition the engineers took out
q couple Of road drags and smoothed
of the bridge.
Butler Bridge"
Well. the elders of this town decided
to give me another blessing umbrel-
Ia" We arranged TO dedicate the
bridge and the Chinese put up brass
tablet with my name on 1t and called
the span Butler Bridge" They then
gave me the ceremonial umbrella and
fo1 Il CtNinaSn n
them, and that the tablet would stay
in its stone pierway forever.
A hundred distinguished Chinese, in
Guiding the governor OF the province,
attended the dedication luncheon under
trees near the operation, and $4,000
Chinese from the villages were grouped
about in the fields
While the gabfest was on at the
bridge dedication, one of the generals
of the ninth army of the Southerns,
who was then in control of the area
and commanding $4,000 troops, volun-
teered to give us as many men as we
required to build roads under our di-
rection.
In China they have never been very
keen on building roads, although every
thing they do build is most substantial
Before the time of Christ they built
the Great Wall of China. 1t has SUI
fered only per cent deterioration in
1000 years. In the United States we
tear our buildings down in 80 or 40
years-or they fall down.
That wall goes up IL 900 feet, right
over the highest mountain peak. We
wondered how they got the stone that
high and were informed that they had
made bricks just the size goats could
carry, and then had driven $4,000 goats
up at time carrying the bricks.
&c hat int
It that was put on 5000 years ago. and
not only is it still on, but it hasn't
changed color. And there is wood
work In China thousands of years old.
But with all this those people never
built a good road. They have built
1900 miles of walls around their
cities that have stood for 1000 or
5000 years, but they have never built
a good road. The reason was that
they didn't want the people to COM
municate with each other. They
wanted the feudal system to continue.
Even now there are ~ dialects in
China.
one day in my automobile, I was
on the road about 10 miles from Pei
ping found a man who could speak
English and asked him If he spoke
Peipingese, and I was surprised to find
that he could not speak Peipingese,
though he lived only 10 miles out I
asked him why they didn't build roads
and he told me to prevent communica-
ton. Then said to him, You say you
want the feudal system to continue, but
you have dug canals, 10000 miles of
them, and built railroads"
Suffer From Lack Of Roads.
But" he said, 'if we don't want
trouble all we do Is let the water out
of the canals, and we can fix the 10
comotives so they won't run. We
couldn't tear up road very easily"
Now they are suffering for their lack
of roads and they wanted the Marines
to teach them how to build them. Well,
things were very quiet for us and
there were no prospects of trouble, so
we said we would.
There are 10000, 900 of us starving
in the fields" the Chinese general said.
I'VE will turn as many of these people
over to you as you want if you will
boss them. We want them to work I'M
Ger our good friends, the American Ma
rines. We want you to teach us to
pulid roads and bikes to control the
water"
4 When we agreed they wanted to turn
over 10000 Chinese soldiers to us, but
Of course we couldn't handle that many.
We agreed to boss" 1000 or 1000 of
them every day. And pretty soon these
Chinese set to work. Even the gen.
erals worked with picks and shovels,
tust because 1t was an American con-
Germ bossing them. All the camps had
Chinese soldiers. They lived in our
tents and the Marines lived in their
tents. We chowed at common table.
Some of the American residents
couldn't understand what was going on
but the road was being built.
4 Our engineers built road drags, using
artillery tractors. There was great en-
thusiasm among our Marines on this
building project, and their little