For a Clear Picture of World Events Read the Shanghai Evening Post and Mercury
China this year is passing through one of the most vital stages of her long history. Never before has it been so important that residents in China keep abreast of world events, because day by day this great country is coming into closer contact with all the nations of the world. No better medium than the Shanghai Evening Post and Mercury can be obtained through which to keep pace with the world developments which are exerting such tremendous influence upon the China of today and the China of tomorrow.
Through its special United Press cable service from America and the three great European news services, this paper is able to present a daily picture of happenings throughout the world, much of it 15 hours ahead of any other Shanghai newspaper.1
In 1929, the Shanghai Evening Post was established by Cornelius Van Starr, the founder of the American International Group.2 Its predecessor was the Shanghai Gazette, which was started in 1918 by Eugene Chen, the Minister for Foreign Affairs in the Nationalist Government. After changing ownership several times between American and Chinese owners, it was renamed the Shanghai Evening News.3
The American Newspaper Company purchased the paper for $2500 and renamed it the
Shanghai Evening Post. 4 The first edition was published in April 1929 with the company making the paper’s purpose clear:
A company organised for the purpose of acquiring the newspaper and
1 This is an advertisement of the Shanghai Evening Post and Mercury. See James L. Huskey, “Americans in Shanghai: Community Formation and Response to Revolution, 1919 – 1928,” ” (PhD diss., University of North Carolina, 1985). 2 Ronald Kent Shelp and Al Ehrbar, Fallen Giant : The Amazing Story of Hank Greenberg and the History of AIG (Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley, 2009), 40.
3 Shelp and Ehrbar, Fallen Giant, 40
4 The start of the Shanghai Evening Post is generally regarded in April 1929. See Wang Xin, “Yifen Poju Yingxiang De Waishang Huawen Wanbao [An Influential Foreigners-run Chinese Evening Paper: The Shanghai Evening Post and Mercury),” Xinwen Yu Chuanbo Yanjiu 1993, no. 3: 145; Paul French, Carl Crow - A Tough Old China Hand: The Life, Times, and Adventures of an American in Shanghai (Hong Kong: University Press, 2006), 171; Yu Maochun,
The Dragon’s War: Allied Operations and the Fate of China, 1937-1947 (Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2006), 160. Although Thomas Chao, in his book, proposed that American Newspaper Company brought it in April 1928, the earliest newspaper that the author can find was published in November 1929. As no archival document or memoir that shows the exact day has been located, the author accepts April 1929 as the establishment of SEPM in this thesis.
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establishing it as an independent journal, with no special purpose of propaganda or policy to serve except that of giving correct, unbiased information and confining its expressions of opinion to the editorial page.5
In the practical management of the newspaper, C. V. Starr, the owner of the American Newspaper Company, respected the position of the profession of journalism. He remained detached from the ShanghaiEvening Postand handed over responsibility to the editor, Theodore Olin (T. O. or Ted) Thackrey.6 It could speculate that C. V. Starr appreciated the social cachet of being a newspaper proprietor. It has been said:
As Starr expanded his publishing activities, he began to cut quite a swath through Shanghai society. The January 1935 issue of Fortune magazine, founded five years earlier by Luce, features an article titled “Men of Shanghai,” with brief profiles of six expatriates and Chinese movers and shakers. Luce’s friend got great treatment—Starr’s is the first profile in the package, and the longest.7
Thackrey was an experienced editor with Scripps-Howard newspapers in the United States and a youthful newcomer to Shanghai. He was known for his open-mindedness and applied this to the Open Letter section of the newspaper.8 This interesting character went on to work for the New York Post, where he married the owner. He later characterised his political views as "non-communist Left".9 Even after leaving the post of editor, he contributed articles to the paper. Thackrey described the paper thus:
Its viewpoint is to be tolerant, kindly, but firm on matters involving Sino-American relations; seeking for the ultimate abolition of any false and unnatural barriers toward the friendly intercourse between the two nations; to print the truth as it sees the truth, without fear or favour, and without intolerance for any viewpoint which may be totally at variance with its own.
Its columns are to be open at all times to the intelligent presentation of opinion, both in agreement with and at total variance with its own expressed view upon any given problem, or every problem affecting the welfare of the community in which it is published.
It recognises its position as a guest in China, and conducts itself as a guest; not deviating in any matter of principle; but not nagging, or indulging in petty scolding.”10
5 Thomas Ming-Heng Chao, The Foreign Press in China (Shanghai: China Institute of Pacific Relations, 1931), 65. 6 Chao, Foreign Press in China, 65.
7 Shelp and Ehrbar, Fallen Giant, 42. 8 Chao, Foreign Press in China, 67-69.
9 NY Daily Compass: Millionairess to Start Paper, The Sydney Morning Herald, 4 May, 1949. 10 Chao, Foreign Press in China, 66.
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In 1930, the Shanghai Evening Post purchased the rival British-owned Mercury for $10 000, and the paper’s name was changed to the Shanghai Evening Post and Mercury
(SEPM).11
C. V. Starr “had to promise the Mercury’s editor H. G. W. (Henry George Wandesforde) Woodhead to create a column for him, called ‘As a Briton Sees It’.”12 Woodhead, a British journalist who once worked for the North China Daily News, made the decision to move to Shanghai from Tianjin in the hope of finding a more lucrative post as his financial situation had deteriorated and the economy had fluctuated so the cost of living was not viable in Tientsin. When he arrived in Shanghai, the Shanghai Evening Post
was in the process of merging with Shanghai Mercury. He accepted C. V. Starr’s offer
to write a daily column, which attracted a high salary and freedom to express his views.13 Soon after, Woodhead was given a title of “diehard” and created a sensation by reporting Chinese opium activities in Shanghai and exposing suppliers in his column of the SEPM. He even displayed hundreds of packets of opium to prove its availability. For this, he was disliked by many Chinese readers, who reacted by withdrawing their advertisements in the newspaper for fear of being connected to a foreign anti-Chinese journalist.14 Wang Boheng, in an article published in 1930, specifically expressed his resentment and detestation of the British journalist. He described Woodhead as a crazy and stupid person who was inherently anti-China.15
The founding editor of the newly formed the SEPM was Carl Crow, a Missouri-born newspaper man and ad-man, who started his newspaper career as night editor of the China Press – China’s first American newspaper.16 Crow had originally gone to Shanghai as an agent for the U.S. wartime propaganda agency, the Committee on Public Information, and went on to work in advertising. As a journalist, Crow experienced some
11 Shelp and Ehrbar, Fallen Giant, 40.
12 Volz, Yong Z., and Lee Chin-Chuan. “Semi-Colonialism and Journalistic Sphere of Influence.” Journalism Studies 12, no. 5 (2011): 565.
13 H. G. W. Woodhead, A journalist in China (London, Hurst & Blackett, Led., 1934), 242. 14 Chao, Foreign Press in China, 66-67.
15 Wang Bohen, “Zhongguo Zhi Xizibao [Western Languages Newspapers in China],” in Xinwenxuekan Quanji, ed. Huang Tianpeng, 1930, cited in Yong Z. Volz, “Yi ‘Zhenxiang’ De Mingyi: Liuxue Zhishi Fenzi Dui Xifang Baodao De Pipan Jidui Xinwen Jiancha De Xuandao [By the Excuses of the ‘Truth’: criticism towards Western media report and defence for Chinese censorship by Chinese intellectuals who had oversea study experience],” in Baoren Baoguo: Zhongguo Xinwenshi De Lingyizhong Dufa [To Serve the Nation: Journalists as Prisms of Chinese Press History], ed. Lee Chin-Chuan ( Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2013), 296.
16 James McGregor, “Review of Carl Crow - A Tough Old China Hand: The Life, Times, and Adventures of an American in Shanghai,” Far Eastern Economic Review 170, no, 1: 66-68.
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conflict with the English journalists who were dominant in Shanghai at the time. He ‘and his fellow Missourian were soon dubbed "cowboy correspondents" because of their hayseed origins and penchant for chasing real news.’17 This colourful character was of some renown before becoming editor – including his role in negotiating the release of foreign hostages of a warlord who derailed a new Shanghai-Beijing express train near the Jiangsu-Shandong border.
From the outset the SEPM “was strongly pro-Chinese though it looked thoroughly American and included ‘agony aunt’ advice column Dorothy Dix, crossword puzzles, Ripley’s “Believe It or Not” and columns from half a dozen news syndicates.”18
After a brief stint as editor, Crow recruited his old friend Randall Gould as editor who later became the editor in chief of the newspaper and held a significant role in Chinese journalism history:
He got to know Gould when the bulky Minnesotan had arrived in Beijing as a UP correspondent, Gould was a friend of many of the Missouri News Colony. He had worked as a news editor on the Japan Times in Tokyo in 1923–24 before becoming UP’s roving bureau manager in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Manila in the late 1920s, as well as news editor of the Peking Daily News. Gould was hired in 1931 and stayed as editor of the paper for a decade as well as being a China correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor.19
Gould was an eccentric with liberal views in his writing and was friendly with some of the Nationalist leaders such as Eugene Chen, and Kung Hsiang-Hsi (H. H. Kung). During his work for the United Press his strong views caused controversy with the American officials; his transfer to Manila ceased and he returned to China in 1929 upon the newly appointed American Minister to China.20
Starr characterised Crow as a brilliant and capable individual, but a “rather poor businessman” so replaced him as manager after only a short stint. “Starr believed Crow was an excellent choice to establish the newspaper but wasn’t best suited to the longer term management of the business.”21 However, Crow continued to contribute articles to
17 McGregor, “Review of Carl Crow,” 66-68. 18 French, Carl Crow,172.
19 French, Carl Crow, 172.
20 Chao, Foreign Press in China, 83-84. 21 French, Carl Crow, 174.
79 the SEPM.
Figure 4: C. V. Starr (left) and Randall Gould (right)
The growth and popularity of the SEPM increased rapidly since it was established. Beginning with a daily circulation of 300, after two years this figure had grown to a net paid daily circulation of 4000 and had reached 4800 in 1931. By around 1935, they had a daily circulation of 7000 copies.22 Around 2000 of these were destined for overseas customers.23
Three key readership groups of English-language newspapers during this time were: foreign residents of very diverse backgrounds; the Chinese elite; and foreign audiences outside China.24 The SEPM was the only English language evening newspaper in Shanghai and prior to that up until the 1930s it had been the second largest foreign
22 Ma Liang, ‘‘A Survey of the Foreign Press in Shanghai by the 2nd Department of the General Staff Headquarters’’, in An Archival Collection on the History of the Republic of China, ed. China’s No. 2 Archive Institute (Nanjing:
Jiangsu Guji), 5:131-49, cited in Volz and Lee, “Semi-Colonialism and Journalistic Sphere,” 562.
23 Chen Tzu-Hsiang The English Language Daily Press in China (Peking: The Synodal Collectanea Commission, 1937), cited in Volz and Lee, “Semi-Colonialism and Journalistic Sphere,” 563.
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newspaper.25 The majority of the SEPM readers (90%) came from the Shanghai area including the International Settlement, the French Concession and Greater Shanghai. The paper also had readers in Nanking and reached as far south as Hong Kong and as far north as Mukden.26
The SEPM drew on a proud American heritage. The American press expanded within China in this period, in large part as a reaction to the British dominance.
It was observed that American news in the local Chinese-language newspapers was mainly translated from European news agencies, particularly Reuters. ‘‘This Europeanized American news was confined largely to the seamy side of American life,’’ Norwood Allman (1943, p. 250), a prominent American lawyer in Shanghai, argued, “as most of the agencies had national axes and were only too happy to blackguard and belittle Americans”.27
The SEPM managing editor, Carl Crow, stated: ‘‘It was rather irritating and puzzling to us expatriate Americans to see all news from home published as London date line, even the returns of American elections.’’28 The news editor, Gould, was irritated by Woodhead’s British presence at the SEPM, saying ‘I conscientiously altered his British
spellings… I felt a bit grumpy as the Post suddenly picked up popularity with the Shanghai British community’.”29 A second reason for this American expansion was “the
rapid expansion of the American community both in number and power in Chinese major treaty port cities, which provided a broader social context for the growth of the American press. According to the China Year Book (1913, p. 594; 1927, p. 30), the American population in China multiplied from 3470 in 1911 to 8817 by 1924”.30
The expanding American press was also part of America’s shift from “noninterventionism to a new political ideology of America as Empire.”31 However, “altruistically and morally intended, the Progressive ideology promoted the doctrines of
25 Chao, Foreign Press in China, 69. 26 Chao, Foreign Press in China, 67.
27 Volz and Lee, “Semi-Colonialism and Journalistic Sphere,” 564.
28 Carl Crow, China Takes Her Place (New York: Harper & Brothers), 5, cited in Volz and Lee, “Semi-Colonialism and Journalistic Sphere,” 564.
29 Randall Gould, ‘‘Three p.m. Shanghai Time: a memoir in three parts’’, unpublished manuscript in Sinologisch Instituut, Universiteit Leiden, Netherlands, cited in Volz and Lee, “Semi-Colonialism and Journalistic Sphere,” 565. 30 Volz and Lee, “Semi-Colonialism and Journalistic,” 564.
31 Ralph Raico, “American Foreign Policy: the turning point, 1898 – 1919”, Freedom Daily, February - July, cited in Volz and Lee, “Semi-Colonialism and Journalistic Sphere,” 565.
81 American imperialism.”32
The SEPM also attracted American journalists and therefore fostered within its ranks professional journalistic skills and experience. Tillman Durdin was one such journalist drawn to Shanghai at that time. Arriving in the port of Shanghai as a workaway on an American ship, he landed a job with the SEPM as a real estate editor. Learning his trade in Shanghai, Durdin became the premier correspondent in for the New York Times in the mid-1940s. 33 Jack Belden, is another prominent American journalist, a war correspondent, who started his early career working for the SEPM during the 1930s. He was also present in Peking during the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937. He later went on to pen the influential book China Shakes the World.34
Political Tensions and Censorship: Challenges for the Press
The SEPM in its early period was not all plain sailing. From the beginning, the SEPM
had significant conflict with the Nationalist Government around news reporting issues. As far back as 2 November 1929, it was recognised that Shanghai local government made a decision to retain copies of the SEPM.35 Newspapers within the foreign settlements were immune for censorship within the settlements but were barred from mail outside the settlements.36
The story of the SEPM’s censorship, along with that of other papers made international news, for example, in an article in the Australian Cairns Post ‘Press Muzzled Chinese Way, Government Critics’:
Consistent with its policy of withholding postal privileges from newspapers which criticise the Government, the Tianjin branch of the Kuomintang [Nationalist Party] has banned the 'Peking and Tientsin Times', the most influential British paper in North China. The 'Times' recently attacked the Chinese Government's apathy in connection with the murders of foreign missionaries in the interior. Banning foreign newspapers from the mails has recently become a popular Governmental pastime. The 'North China Daily News,' published to Shanghai, was banned for months last year, and the Shanghai 'Evening
32 Volz and Lee, “Semi-Colonialism and Journalistic Sphere,” 566.
33 Stephen R. Mackinnon and Oris Friesen, China Reporting: An Oral History of American Journalism in the 1930s and 1940s (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 32-33.
34 Mackinnon and Friesen, China Reporting, 34.
35 Kouliu Damei Wanbao [Detain the Shanghai Evening Post and Mercury], Central Daily News, 3 November 1929. 36 Clandestine Press, Cairns Post, 11 Sepember 1930.
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Post,' the only American daily in Shanghai, has now passed the ninety- fifth day of its banishment from the mails, without any official explanation having been offered. The ban in this case is believed to have been due to criticism of the administration of the Chinese military commander at Shanghai.37
As this article published on 10 February 1930 that the paper was experiencing its 95th day of banishment, this indeed refers to the paper’s ban of November 1929. The reason for the ban was never officially explained, however the SEPM speculate that ban was because they criticised the Chinese Commissioner of Public Safety in Shanghai for not arresting “strike-breaking delivery coolies” and for arresting “several loyal employees who refused to join the strike”.38 So, there is a history of industrial discord in the earliest days of the SEPM – a theme that reappears at its close some twenty years later.
This is a very significant period for journalism, with the issuing of the 1930 Publication Law by the Nationalist Government, which made it an offence to undermine the Nationalist Party or its principles. Likewise the publication of information that destroyed public order was not allowed. To police this, publications could not be released without a permit by the Nationalist Government’s publicity office.39
Shortly after the enactment of the 1930 Publication Law, in early 1931, Implementation Regulations of the Election Laws for National Conference Representatives were created. These regulations formally recognised journalists, lawyers, doctors and accountants as “professional” entities, which was deemed the end of a chaotic understanding of the definition of ‘profession’ since its introduction in China.40 This can be regarded as a sign of progress in the professionalisation of Chinese journalism, and gave impetus to further the professionalism improvement of journalism, nonetheless progress was still limited. The core values of the professionalism ideal - such as objectivity and neutrality in news reporting in public services - were rarely discussed and recognised in the legal document. This situation, to some extent, might reflect the gap between the Chinese journalists’ expectations regarding the ideals and practical works in professionalisation, as well as
37 Press Muzzled, Evening News, 10 February 1930. 38 Clandestine Press, Cairns Post, 11 September 1930.
39 William P. Alford, To Steal A Book Is An Elegant Offense: Intellectual Property Law In Chinese Civilisation (Stanford: Stanford University Press), 51.
40 Sun Huei-min, Zhidu Yizhi: Minchu Shanghai De Zhongguo Lvshi (1912-1928) [Institutional Transplantation: The