The Passing of Tzu-ch'ao

Tired, old and most beloved Lin Sen, President of the Republic of China, died this week ripe with 81 eventful years. His death came as no surprise. On May 12, while on his way to receive the credentials of Canada's first Minister to China, venerable Lin Sen suffered a stroke. Since then, while Buddhists, Mohammedans and Christians alike prayed for his recovery, the gentle greybeard had lain half-paralyzed.

A standing committee of the Kuomintang was ready. Four and a half hours after Lin Sen's death, while a midsummer cloudburst spent its strength over Chungking, the committee chose a successor. Thus, finally, Chiang Kaishek, generalissimo of all the Chinese armies, master of a dozen other titles, assumed the title most in keeping with his activities: Acting President of the National Government.

But for the Generalissimo, as for all his countrymen, it was an hour of deep sorrow. Tzu-ch'ao* was both a scholar and an artist. To his people he personified the Chinese proverb: "Great Wisdom Looks Like Stupidity." He was born in a middle-class family at Foochow in 1862. American missionaries were his first teachers. Later, at a private college, Lin Sen acquired an old-fashioned Chinese education. Later still he went to Hawaii, then to the U.S. He was living in a single barren room in San Francisco when he joined the Kuomintang, then a secret society. When the Republic was established Lin Sen returned to China and, in 1912, was elected Senator in the first parliament, a post he held until 1923.

Lin Sen's election to the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang in 1924 was the first of many unsought offices which led, in December 1931, to the Presidency. During his eleven and a half years as President he was content to remain a revered figurehead; not once did he challenge the political power of the Generalissimo.

It was Lin Sen's simplicity, his kindliness and his great sense of humor that earned him a unique place in Chinese hearts. When a group of American newsmen visited Nanking shortly after the 1932 Shanghai war, they were struck by the loveliness of an unusually large garden behind a modest home near the tomb of Sun Yatsen. Of an old man with a flowing beard, sauntering in the garden, they asked admittance. "Sure, come in," said the patriarch. The tour over, one of the newsmen slipped a dollar bill into the old man's pocket. "No thank you, gentlemen," said Lin Sen. "You are quite welcome to visit my modest home."

* The Pre-eminent One, Lin Sen's courtesy title.

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