The Daily Alaska empire., 1950-01-13
SCHWINN BIKES AT MADSEN'S

China
 But Chiang kai-Shek held power from 1927 to 1949 and is still fight ing. No man could succeed in such situation without great gifts and without a firm personality. No other leader developed in National ist China who could be substituted for Chiang. Many tried for power; They failed
 Chiang is extraordinarily stub born. Ningpo people are like that, but Chiang more so than anyone I have ever met. Almost fatalisti- cally, he faces death all the time. I recall an incident years ago when enc of his bodyguards was brib ed to assassinate him in bed Chiang awoke during the night; he lay quietly and said to the guard: You've been hired to kill me. Why don't you earn your pay?" The guard superstitiously trembled and collapsed, more at Chiang's calmness than cut of fear.
 The marriage between Chiang kai-Shek and Meiling Soong has been prattled about by many who could not know the facts. I knew them intimately while even the courtship was a secret. Meiling was then, as she is now, beautiful, vii vacious, fascinating. Chiang was actually out of power for a few months; but even in power, his was, at the time, dubious career in an uncertain government. Also Chiang was quite poor and always has been. Others associated with him may have become rich through his rise to power, but not Chians cn his wife. Her mother was in Japan during the courtship, as was her brother T. V. Soong, dur ing the crucial days of it.
 I can recall that once during that period, when Chiang, Meiling and I were dining with the Kungs, i asked Meiling why she wanted to marry this man, who seemed, to me, at any rate, not her kind. She replied that ' did not understand Chiang; that he was the hope Of the country. She felt that her ad- vantages would be of service 10 1 him and to China.
 To an American, this may be a i wrong reason for marrying a man. 1 Yet, there in China in those days, the reply seemed altogether reason i ahle to me. The Chinese are like that. Chiang was obviously deeply in love with Meiling. It must be remembered that, in those revolu- tionary days, it was something of ] a feather in Chiang's cap to be able to marry into such family, so closely associated with Dr. Sun yat-Sen Chiang had not yet es-
 tablished himself as the great fig ure.
 Although I had much to do with making the arrangements for the J wedding, I was not present. I was
 in the hospital having my apper- dix out-and it annoyed me no lend to miss the festivities. My wife, twas, of course, present.
 Meiling Soong's mother was a Christian lady, closely associated with church work Her father had actually returned to China from the United States to teach English and the Bible and had set up ! printing plant to publish Bibles. Madame Soong objected to Chiang because he was not Christian.
 Much that is not true has been said of Chiang's conversion. All he had agreed to do was to read the Bible So deeply impressed was he with the New Testament that he joined the Methodist Church and developed a philosophy of his own, "The New Life Movement" of al- most Cromwellian disciplines. This might have done much for China but, as always, China's hopes were shattered by war. This time by Japan's war on China in 1881