150 RUDOLPH M. BINDER 



It was opposed by the members of the Soong family, but the courtship 

 ended in the love-match on the first of December, 1927, after the prospective 

 groom had proved his military skill and political strategy by becoming 

 president of the republic. He is a product of Chinese education and had 

 only incidental contacts with modern ideas through a term in a military 

 school in Japan and a year with the Red Army of Russia before his marriage 

 to Mei-Ling. She most willingly availed herself of the privilege of intro- 

 ducing him to Western culture; she reads to him, tells him about American 

 life, plays the piano for him, acts as his interpreter in confidential talks 

 with foreigners, and has recently brought him into the Christian fold. Her 

 charm and versatility are said to have kept several would-be betrayers of 

 China's interests in line with the National Government. But she keeps as 

 much in the background as possible and acts through her husband. 



Soong Ching-Ling, the second daughter, has been reserved for the last, 

 because she is easily the most interesting number of the family. She, too, 

 graduated from Wesleyan College, Macon, Ga., and has a sweet, gentle 

 personality which radiates warmth and kindness wherever she happens to be. 

 But behind this gentle appearance is hidden a fiery nature, capable of utter 

 devotion to a cause and willing to make any sacrifices for it. 



Her cause is the Chinese Republic, personified in Dr. Sun Yat-Sen. 

 She met him in Yokohama in 1915 on her return from America. He was in 

 exile there at the time with her father and other Chinese patriots, banished 

 by Yuan Shih-Kai. Beautiful, alert, intensely patriotic, she readily at- 

 tracted Dr. Sun's attention. She became his secretary and was thus 

 initiated into all the intrigues and glories of the still unstable republic. A 

 deep love soon developed between the two, although he was married, fifty 

 years old, and had three grown up children. He was a Christian, opposed 

 to polygamy, and their affection seemed doomed to failure. But his wife, 

 sensing the situation, gave him his freedom and they were married in 1915. 

 From that time on, her life, her energy, and all her ambitions centered in 

 him until his death in 1925. During the nearly ten years of their marriage 

 she was his "right hand," translated his great work "International Develop- 

 ment of China" into English, shared his exile and temporary poverty, and 

 always cheered him up when the gloom was thickest. 



His death produced a profound change in her. She withdrew from 

 politics until new developments, due to Russian bolshevism, brought her 

 out into the open again. She was against the Kuomintang and Kiang 

 Kai-Shek whose wedding to her sister she refused to attend, because she 

 accused him of having betrayed her husband's principles. She went to 

 Russia, but returned in 1929 to attend the state burial of her husband in the 

 magnificent mausoleum the nation had erected in his honor near Nanking. 



