Pending Chinese Loan

Title

Pending Chinese Loan

Creator

Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924

Identifier

WWP17584

Date

1913 March 18

Description

Woodrow Wilson writes his first draft of statement regarding the pending Chinese loan.

Source

Wilson Papers, Library of Congress, Library of Congress, Washington, District of Columbia

Subject

Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924--Correspondence

Text

IN RE THE CHINESE LOAN.

1We are informed that at the request of the last administration a certain group of American bankers undertook to raise in the United States one–sixth part of the loan now desired by the government of China ($125,000,000). Our government England Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and Japan, 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 empire, and that the United States should be in a position to share with the other powers contain to that might be associated with the development of the foreign relations of ChinaIt has declined to renew the request. The representatives of the bankers, declared that they would continue to seek their share of the loan under the proposed agreements only if expressly requested to do so by the government. The administration has, of course, declined to make any such request, because it did not approve the conditions of the loan or the implications of responsibility on its own part which it was plainly told would be ede not only the pledging of particular taxes, the a loan thus secured and administered is plain enough and is obnoxious to the principles upon which the government of a free people rests.
The loan, moreover, so far as the United States are concerned, would not, upon the plan proposed, be open to free subscription, but only to a single specified circle of American bankers, which would be closed against competitors.
The government of the United States is not only willing, but earnestly desirous, of aiding the great Chinese people in every way that is consistent with their untrammeled development and its own immemorial principles. The awakening of the people of China to a consciousness of their possibilities under free government is the most significant, if not the most momentous, event of our generation. With this movement and aspiration the American people are in profoundest sympathy. They certainly wish to participate, and participate very generously in opening to the Chinese and to the use of the world the almost untouched and perhaps unrivalled resources of China. The present administration, or to interfere with the freedom of our own people to deal with the Chinese, and hopes that every other government will do the same. Its interests are those of the open door. H2 It wishes the door of China to be as open for the ingress and egress of the Chinese themselves as for the entrance of foreign traders and promoters, ––

Original Format

Speech

Files

http://resources.presidentwilson.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Temp00036B.pdf

Tags

Citation

Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924, “Pending Chinese Loan,” 1913 March 18, WWP17584, First Year Wilson Papers, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum, Staunton, Virginia.