Pending Chinese Loan

March 18, 1913.¹

Statement regarding the Chinese Loan,

We are informed that at the request of the last administration a certain group of American bankers undertook to participate in the loan now desired by the government of China (approximately $125,000,000). Our government wished American bankers to participate along with the bankers of other nations, because it desired that the good will of the United States towards China should be exhibited in this practical way, that American capital should have access to that great country, and that the United States should be in a position to share with the other powers any political responsibilities that might be associated with the devele party to those conditions. The responsibility on its part which would be implied in requesting the bankers to undertake the loan might conceivably go the length in some unhappy contingency of forcible interference in the financial, and even the political, affairs of that great oriental State, just now awakening to the consciousness of its power and of its obligation to its people. The conditions include not only the pledging of particular taxes, some of them antiquated and burdensom, to secure the loan, but also the administration of those taxes by foreign agents. The responsibility on the part of our government implied in the encouragement of a loan thus secured and administered is plain enough and is obnoxious to the principles upon which the government of our people rests.

The government of the United States is earnestly desirous of promoting the most extended and intimate trade relationships between this country and the Chinese republic. The present administration will urge and support the legislative measures necessary to give American merchants, manufacturers, contractors, and engineers the banking and other financial facilities which they now lack, and without which they are at a serious disadvantage as compared with their industrial and commercial rivals. This is its duty. This is the main material interest of its citizens in the development of China. Our interests are those of the open door – – a door of friendship and mutual advantage. This is the only door we care to enter.

(From Letter Book No. 2, p. 21)
(Also in New York Times of March 19, 1913, p. 1. col. 1 and p. 3, col. 4.)

¹ Underlined in pencil.