When an American VP Could Give a Chinese Diplomat a Gift that Cost Less Than a Dollar

John Nance Gardner was the rather overlooked Vice President during FDR’s three terms – with FDR such a commanding personality perhaps that’s no surprise and he argued with FDR a lot and so got rather sidelined though was often referred to as “Mr Common Sense”. In 1935 FDR sent Garner on an extended tour of the Far East with stops in the Philippines, Japan and China where he stayed in Shanghai for a time. Apparently after meeting Chinese senior officials in Shanghai he declared “Now, these are our kind of people.”

Which brings us to the dinner he had attended clearly by a senior Chinese diplomat and his wife. The diplomat’s wife admired Garner’s watch and he magnanimously gave it to her. However, so the Charleston Daily Mail reports, it only cost 98-cents. And so the question – was Garner a tight-wad who refused to pay more than a dollar for a watch or just an abstemious public official. We might also ask whether the current VeeP wears a dollar watch? I doubt it…and also perhaps what the reaction of a senior Chinese official to be presented by Joe Biden with a 98-cent watch in these days of craven grabbing of Rolexes etc would signal ?

VP Garner