Carl Crow on Roy Anderson – The Most Interesting Man I Ever Knew

Posted: February 24th, 2011 | 10 Comments »

I promised I’d scan in a few of the previously unpublished short pieces I found in Carl Crow’s archive while researching a biography of him (A Tough Old China Hand). This short piece from the Crow archive was written sometime in the late 1930s recalling the American fixer, journalist, businessman and all round China Hand Roy Anderson (pictured below), who’s father had been involved with the foundation of Soochow University. Anderson was a larger than life character in China (literally as well as figuratively as the picture shows!) between the wars and was well known. Sadly he has rather slipped from history of late since his death in 1925 (if memory serves) which was rather overshadowed by the fact that, I think, he died on the same day (or at least very close) to the day Sun Yat-sen died – though really does deserve a biography. Below is the text of Crow’s article recalling his old friend Anderson.

He is talking about the so-called “Lincheng Outrage” in the 1920s when a large number of Chinese and a couple of hundred foreigners including Crow’s good friend the journalist JB Powell were kidnapped from a Shanghai bound train travelling through Shandong. Crow provided the Red Cross relief for the operation and Anderson handled the hostage negotiations with the war lord. To the best of my knowledge this article was never published anywhere.

THE MOST INTERESTING CHARACTER I EVER KNEW

By Carl Crow

We had lived for more than a month in second hand sleeping oars parked inside the walls of the coal mining town of Tsao-chwang in southern Shantung. Eight mil as away we could see the peak of Pau Tse Ku, on whose table top eighteen foreigners, American, British, French, Italian, and Mexican were held for ransom by a well organized bandit army of several thousand men. Every few days emissaries would come from the bandit chief to discuss terms with the Chinese officials and foreign consuls. Every few days Roy Anderson, an American who was the official representative of the Chinese government would return the call and carry on the negotiations at the bandit camp.

A formal treaty of peace was finally drawn up, duly sealed by the bandit chief and the Chinese government. It provided for the release of the captives and the payment of one hundred thousand dollars to the bandit chief by the Chinese government. Every detail of the transaction had been cleared up and the document sealed by the civil governor of the province. But at the last moment the bandits refused to accept. Roy Anderson had not signed the pact. Relays of chair coolies carried Roy to the bandit camp where he signed the treaty and in a few minutes the captives were friends

That was in 1923. For a dozen years before that and for almost a dozen years after that — up to the time of his death — he was not only the most interesting man in China but in many ways the most important. I had met him in 1911 just at the time when he slipped into his unofficial position as general handy man, advisor and diplomatic agent for every war lord and high official in China. When the Republican revolution started in October of that year provincial troops were rushed from the south to Nanking where, as was anticipated, Manchu resistance was especially strong. The commanders of these troops had one common aim, the destruction of Manchu power, but they couldn’t talk to each other. The sing song Cantonese dialect, the softly musical dialect of Soochow and the guttural northern dialects were understood only by the men who spoke them. Of course the written language in uniform, probably the most uniform of any living language. But soldiers can’t write memos to each other while a battle is in progress.

Roy had come up to Nanking to untangle some snarl for his employers, the Standard Oil company and found the Republican army tangled in this linguistic snarl. He was one of the very few men in China who could untangle it for them because he spoke all the ‘principal dialects. Born in China as the son of a distinguished American missionary he had learned to speak Chinese before he could speak English. He had gone to school in the United States and had married an American girl but he was always at heart a Chinese and thought like one. He was as familiar with the nice points of etiquette as any scholarly mandarin.

Almost before he knew it he was interpreter, spokesman and adviser in general to the whole Chinese army. Conferences of war were held in his quarters and he was, in affect, the presiding officer. The Chinese soon found that this tall, heavy bodied giant of a man not only knew their own language better than they knew it but that they could trust him with their most important secrets. They also learned that no Chinese had a deeper love for China than his.

For twenty years after that Roy was the most important man in China, his name as familiar to millions of Chinese as that of Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek later became. He was never on any official pay roll, was allied with no individual war lord but was the friend and confident of all. He was almost always on the move, traveling from one provincial capital to another negotiating deals and truces and treaties of peace between rival war lords. He always knew more about what was going on in China than anyone else. He never told a tenth of what he knew but when a newspaper man was lucky enough to hear that tenth he became at the moment the best informed newspaperman in China.

It was my good fortune to make some trips with him. His arrival on any train in China was always an event. The first train boy who saw him would shout, “An Son,” which was as nearly as they could negotiate the difficult name of Anderson. The name would be shouted from car to car, grinning boys would appear, than the cook. No matter what any of the other passengers got to eat we were always certain to get the very best meal the cook could devise. When distinguished Americans visited China Roy often escorted them on visits to high ranking Chinese officials. The only difficulty about this arrangement was that, in Chinese eyes, Roy so far outranked the distinguished visitors that it was sometimes difficult to see that the protocols* were observed. In China, wherever Roy sat, that was the head of the table.

Roy’s financial arrangements were sketchy and uncertain. In fact he had no financial arrangements at all. So far as I know, and I knew him very well, he was never on a regular payroll after he quit his first and only job with the Standard Oil Company. When he was called on for advise or assistance by one of the warlords or provincial governors he never sent them a bill for professional services nor was the matter of compensation ever discussed. When Roy left an envelope would be handed him by one of the war lords secretaries. It always contained bills of large denomination. I doubt if Roy ever counted it, ever had more than a general idea of how much money, if any, he had in the bank.

When we were hobnobbing with bandits at Tsauchwang was representing both the American Red Cross and the Chinese Red Cross. It was expensive business providing food for almost five hundred captives. One day I casually mentioned to Roy that I was about out of money and would have to send to Shanghai for more funds.

“Don’t bother to do that,” he said. “I’ll go over to the other train and dig some cash out of the Civil Governor of Shantung.

He was back in a’ few minutes and handed me a stack of bills too large to be rolled or folded. I asked him how much there was.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I just told the governor you needed a hell of a lot of money.”

The amount was seven thousand dollars.

It was the common man of Ohina who held Roy’s affections, for him that he worked in spite of the fact that his contacts were all with the war lords who were leading the common men into battles in a senseless rivalry for power. This was a period of alma at constant civil wars but there would have been a great many more of them had it not been for Roy’s skillful work.

(* = a word is missing here – I assume it to be ‘protocols’ – Paul French)

NB: anyone interested in Anderson should see more on him in my books on Carl Crow and foreign journalists in China.

the cover page of the original document typed by Crow

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