p? 
You'll notice that I have done a whole lot 
of trans-nlanting trees. T wonder hov/ this will 
be taken "by the authorities, "but -- if it. hadn't 
been for that , an active person simply would get 
craay in conditions as we have been experiencing 
here these last four months . The various military 
camps have been fighting each other at inter - 
va;l3 of days and of weeks and all sorts of atro - 
cities are b eing committed . Foreigners and 
Chi ne so alike are often for several weeks durance 
virtually prisoners of war . In fact you may 
picture us here as if we v/ere somewhere in Mexico 
or in some Central American Republic when a peri- 
odical revolution was going on.--I trust the 
authorities in charge will accept these explan- 
ations, after you have laid them before Mr. 
Pairchild. If not, the American Minister at Pe- 
king and our various Consuls in China could add 
interesting details. 
These long continued disturbances here are 
a tremendous loss to thousands of foreigners and 
millions of Chinese. How long things oan go on 
no one dares say, but — some power might step 
in any time and stop this senseless game here 
of rival generals chasing one another and destroy- 
ing all comumerce and progress. 
I am awfully sorry that Mr. Stuntz has died, 
as I saw in a paper that Mr. Doi'sett kindly sent 
me, some days ago. It surely hits oar office 
hardl- 'Ve must be getting very short of com- . 
petent helpers in the good woi-k.' 
On April ?7, IQlB, Mr. Fairchild wrote Mr. Meyer: 
It is strange to think of you as shut in 
there in Ichang and as forming one of a de- 
fense committee, but, of course, you are ac- 
customed to great changes such as are going 
on all around us here. The atrocities have 
not yet reached us, but 7/e are in touch with 
those who have experienced them and seen them, 
all the time. The unspeakable character of 
these atrocities are little short of as ter- 
rible and unbelievable as those which you 
describe there in China. 
There is one great field of investigation 
which I see coming, and I wish I could have a 
vfeek or so with you to stir you up and get you 
interested in it. It is so difficult to explain 
September PI, I91B. 
