The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-09-21

| VlCCed on charge OF shipping arms
to their native land. She was the
handspring of our efforts" Lovett
says. interchangeable, resourceful
magnetic, she met every crisis with
intelligence and courage"
In 1920 the author of "Chinas
Red Army Marches" worked her
way to Germany as a stewardess
on liner. She studied six months
in the Soviet Union, returned to
Germany where she remained till
1928, and then went to China as
correspondent of the Frankfurter
zeitung. Immediately she aroused
the ire of British officials. They
schemed to deprive her of her
American passport. Compelled to
keep clear of American consulateS,
Smedley travelled through North
China. Here she learned of the
Kuomintang's butchery of the revo-
luton. Lovett quotes a personal
letter of this period;
There were times when 1
thought / would lose my sanity,
because not only workers and
peasants captured in battle were
killed like animals in the streets,
but intellectuals of overy kind in
the cities were dragged from the
universities, or from their beds at
night, tortured and beheaded in
the streets. -. Some of my own
friends were killed in this man
ner."
THE Marking government did not
like her correspondence to the
Frankfurter zeitung-it was &C
customed to the services of hired
liars. Perhaps she would like an
office job as adviser to the De-
partment Of Labor? Snedley re-
fused. And she refused when the
German consul-general demanded
that she write inspired reports on
China to encourage exports from
Germany.
Arrested in Canton by British
Secret Service police, who charged
her with representing the Commu-
mist International, Smedley was
saved by the interyention-th case
was SO raw that no other course
was open to them-of German and
American consuls. Il must say"
she wrote, that the American Con-
sui General seemed to resent this
necessary duty very much. He was
an old colonial official and regarded
my ideas about the independence
of Asiatic countries as reasonable"
When the Frankfurter Zeitung,
instructed by the German Foreign
office, fired its correspondent, she
helped Madam Sun Yat-Sen or
ganize the China League for Civil
Rights. Its object was to fight for
free speech, press and assembly and
against secret tribunals which tor
tured and killed political prisoners.
"Bolshevist principles" said the
Kuomintang. And the Leagues
General Secretary was murdered.
Madam Sun was forced to hide.
Meanwhile Agnes Smedley, her
health broken by the relentless
bounding of imperialist and Kuo-
nintang officials, had been COM
PEELED to seek refuge at Sana-
forum for heart trouble in the
Caucasus. Here she began "China's
Red Army Marches"
UER crowded life of activity on
IL behalf of the freedom of the
colonial oppressed inspired Lovett
to write in his introduction
1T seems far cry from the
frontiers of American civilization to
Indian politics, Russian social ex-
periments and Chinese revolution,
but in her revolutionary cosmo-
politanism, Miss Smedley has re-
manned true to 4 conception a.
Americanism finer than that of her
young fellow-countrymen who guide
the bombing planes of Chang Kali
Shek. In the face of the in
difference and disapproval of her
time-serving countrymen, and the
insidious and dangerous hostility of
an enemy on whose malevolence the
sun never sets, she has kept the
faith and told the truth. There is
nothing inspiring in this struggle of
a woman with no official position
or backing against an empire. 1t
is something to be proud of that
she is our countrywoman -
1T is too much to hope" Lovett
concludes, that a single-handed
struggle will be successful in de-
feating world enemy, but at least
her faithful report should aroase
public opinion in this country to
a new evaluation of social forces
in the Far East, to new appre-
citation of the system which VIC
are helping to force upon China,
system which is equally cursed by
the terror of the slave and the
shame of the robber.'