Chapter 78 New York Apartments

On April 6, 1949, Hu Shi fled the motherland from Shanghai on the Cleveland President ship. Arrived in San Francisco on the 21st, and arrived in New York on the 27th, he lived in the apartment he had rented at No. 104, 81st Street, East City, and began his life in exile in New York. New York, the largest city in the world, is so familiar to Hu Shi, yet so strange.New York is no longer as glamorous and fascinating as when Hu Shi was studying abroad; nor does it have the special atmosphere of the war years before and after he became the ambassador, which is exciting.Today's New York is just a paradise for adventurers and a paradise for billionaires.Hu Shi escaped with no huge sums of money, but only a limited deposit; he had no ability to take risks, and was just an old and sick scholar with hard hands.In the ruthless and ungrateful capitalist society, he has no means of making a living and can't find a job for a while, can he not be in a hurry? With the collapse of the Kuomintang government, party dignitaries and defeated generals who fled to the United States can be seen everywhere on the streets of New York. The dejected looks of each made Hu Shi even more desperate and troubled.In Washington, the American friends of the Kuomintang were also filled with a sense of failure and resented the Chiang Kai-shek government endlessly.Hu Shi felt ashamed to meet people, so he canceled all appointments and continued to test his "Shui Jing Zhu" behind closed doors.

In the second year, his wife Jiang Dongxiu also came to New York, and Hu Shi's secluded life was considered a little comfort.The apartment they rented, although dilapidated, was weatherproof after all.If you can't afford to hire a "servant girl", you will take care of everything yourself.The wife cleans the kitchen, and Hu Shi cleans up the housework; the wife cooks and cooks, and Hu Shi washes the dishes and puts the chopsticks.Life is pretty rough.However, Hu Shi, who is well-known in China, stretches out his hands in ordinary clothes and opens his mouth when he eats. He has also learned various housework in New York.

In New York City where Mizhu earns money, there is no fixed income, and there is nothing to sit and eat. How can his limited savings be enough to fill the bottomless abyss of exile apartment life! Although Hu Shi is an "incurable optimist", Faced with the reality of desolation and embarrassment in his later years, he could not help but feel sad, so that he said to his young friend Tang Degang many times: "When you are young, you should pay attention to saving more savings!" His care and persuasion revealed deep sighs about his desolate evening scene. Living in an apartment in New York is not only poor, but also lacks daily security.Tang Degang wrote:

They live in an ambassador-level residential complex, but his dilapidated apartment does not have ambassador-level anti-theft equipment.In this bandit-like New York City, the two elders live in seclusion, it's really a bargain! Once Mr. Hu went out, Mrs. Hu was cooking in the kitchen alone.A burly thief broke in through the fire escape stairs through a window.Fortunately, Mrs. Hu did not learn how to scream when American women are in danger. Her old man just subconsciously walked to the door of the apartment, opened the door, turned back to the gangster, and yelled "GO!" The big black thief took a look at Mrs. Hu, and really "GO" from the door.Her old lady closed the door and went straight back to the kitchen to cook. ②

Fortunately, Ms. Jiang Dongxiu was quite masculine, bold and courageous, and she drove off the gangsters, otherwise the consequences would be unimaginable. In May 1950, Hu Shi finally got the post of administrator of the Gestalt Oriental Library at Princeton University, and he arrived in September with a two-year contract. Princeton University is located in a small town in New Jersey near New York. It is one of the Ivy League schools in the eastern United States and is quite prestigious.The library in the school is beautifully built and has a rich collection of books; the Geside Oriental Library is an independent branch of it.Based on the Chinese books collected by the founder Gest, it has gradually developed into an oriental library mainly composed of Chinese books, including Chinese, Manchu, Mongolian, Tibetan, as well as publications from Japan, North Korea, India and Thailand. There are nearly 300,000 volumes in total.Among them, the largest collection is Chinese medical books and complete series of books. ③However, when the library was first established, the general authorities had no idea of ​​the value of Gurdez's large batch of antique Chinese thread-bound books.They knew that Hu Shi was a university scholar in China, and he was living in New York for leisure, so they hired him to come to the school to manage the cleaning and management of these books.Hu Shi had nothing to do at that time, and scholars could only deal with books, so he conceded to the position of this little librarian. ④

The Gestalt Oriental Library was not only unknown to ordinary people in the United States at that time, but even few Chinese scholars and Chinese scholars in the United States knew about it.There are only two staff members in the museum. Besides Hu Shi, there is another assistant, Tong Shigang.After Hu Shi took office, he took pains to check and organize. In February 1952, he planned and held a special book exhibition for PUC on the theme of "Chinese Printing in the Eleventh Century".Hu Shi wrote several introductory articles and book fair catalogs himself.The exhibition lasted for two months and was quite a sensation.The collection of books in the Gestalt Oriental Library, which had been buried for many years and no one knew about it, spread like wildfire, attracting the attention of American Sinology circles and Chinese scholars at home and abroad.

Shortly after the book fair ended and the two-year contract expired, Hu Shih recommended Tong Shigang to take up the post at the museum. He himself was invited by National Taiwan University and other schools to fly back to Taiwan to give lectures at the end of the year. Living in an apartment in New York, apart from studying "Shui Jing Zhu" and managing books, Hu Shi actually had a special mission.Before leaving the mainland, on the evening of January 8, 1949, Hu Shi went to Chiang Kai-shek's official residence for dinner. Chiang Kai-shek, who was about to "retire", advised Hu Shi to go to the United States, saying: "I don't want you to be an ambassador, and I don't want you to take on any mission. For example, to fight for US aid , I don’t want you to do it. I just want you to go out and have a look.” ⑤ Having said that, in fact, Jiang had hope for Hu Shi, an “American expert”.Soon after Hu Shi left the motherland, Chiang Kai-shek wrote a secret letter to Hu Shi on May 28, clearly explaining the mission of the trip.The letter said:

What is lacking at this time and urgently needs beauty is not material, but spiritual and moral support.Therefore, the focus of current diplomacy with the United States should be to pay special attention to its top priority of not recognizing the CCP regime.As for practical assistance, it is still in the second place.As for the method of implementation, the two approaches of administration and legislation may go hand in hand, but administration is still the right path and should be the main task.Mr. Wang assisted Ambassador Shaochuan (by: Gu Weijun), and worked harder to hope. ⑥ Hu Shi was also quite loyal.He went to Washington several times to meet with American politicians, but "many friends who sympathized with China, such as Hornbeck, Bullitt, and Pros.George H.Blakeslee, felt 'at a loss'! The second time he went, he saw Wedemeyer, He is also 'incompetent'." ⑦ Afterwards, Hu Shi recalled: "I was very painful to go out this time. Because of the failure mentality of many old friends, I found it difficult to speak." So he notified the Chinese embassy in the United States, "Cancel all appointments, and do not meet any leaders of the government and Congress. .Because everyone's prejudices are too deep, I hit a wall everywhere; and because the situation is too big, it cannot be transferred by private conversation."

⑧It can be seen from this that Hu Shi did not fulfill his mission very well.Just in August of this year, the U.S. State Department published a white paper on "Relations between the United States and China", which made Hu Shi even more disappointed and frustrated, and he did not go to Washington for five months.It was not until December 8 that Hu Shi found an opportunity to go to Washington again, and gave a speech on "The Struggle for Freedom in Chinese History" at the "Washington Branch of the East-West Association", advocating that "Western countries should not rashly recognize the CCP. Liberty is incompatible." ⑨Although it has no influence, after all, it is speaking for the Chiang Kai-shek government who fled to the small island of Taiwan.However, Hu Shi’s apartment life in New York was “very depressed mentally.” After reading the “White Book” (white paper), he did not want to live in the United States for a long time, and wanted to go back to do something. ⑩

During the days when Hu Shi lived in New York and his thoughts were depressed, his friends in mainland China did not forget him.On April 29 of this year, Hu Shi's old friend, Professor Chen Yuan, the president of Fu Jen Catholic University in Peking, wrote an open letter to Hu Shi, in which he introduced the good situation of Beijing's schools and academic circles after liberation, and "sincerely" advised Hu Shi "face up to reality" , "suddenly awakened", "returned to the ranks of the new youth", and criticized "all the knowledge of the past, used to serve the broad masses of the people".This letter was first published in the People's Daily on May 11. It should be said that it reflected the CCP's intention of uniting the front against Hu Shi and other overseas intellectuals; soon, it was reprinted in Hong Kong newspapers, and an English translation was circulated in June. to everywhere.After Hu Shide read it, he posted "textual evidence addiction". After many tests, Chen Yuan "never wrote vernacular Chinese", and there were mistakes in the date of the letter in the letter, so he asserted that this letter was 100% borrowed by Chen Yuan. forged in name.So on January 9, 1950, Hu Shi wrote "Under the Rule of the Communist Party, There Will Be No Freedom——

The so-called postscript "An Open Letter from Chen Yuan to Hu Shi" was published in Taipei's "Free China".Hu Shi's youngest son, Sidu, pursued progress and did not want to run away with his father, so he stayed in Peiping.After liberation, he entered the North China People's Revolutionary University, and his mental outlook was even more different. In September 1950, Sidu published an article criticizing his father and declaring that he had separated from Hu Shi's father-son relationship.Hu Shi said that knowing a son is like a father, insisting that others must have forced Sidu to write that article.Later, even his brother-in-law Jiang Zehan's letter, he also suspected that "he was persecuted, copied the draft of the letter drafted by others, and sent it to me for publicity." Obviously, the persuasion of mainland friends did not change Hu Shi. political attitude. In June 1950, the Korean War broke out.Hu Shi was quite happy when he heard the news. He believed that "the U.S. leader sent troops to sanction the Communist Party's aggression against South Korea" was a great thing, it was "a turning point in the fate of East Asia", and it was also a rare event for the entire "free world" and "free China". "Turning opportunity"; and hope that this war can "force the free world to embark on the road of aiding a free China to restore mainland China and save the 450 million Chinese people." This was exactly the fantasy of many people in Chiang Kai-shek's government back then. During July and August of this year, Hu Shi spent 40 days writing an English article entitled "China in Stalin's Grand Strategy" ("China under Stalin's Strategy"), which was published in the American "Foreign Quarterly" (Foreign Quarterly). Affairs) in the October issue.The article, with more than 30,000 words, is mainly aimed at the white paper of the US State Department. It is "a defeat after 25 years of bitter struggle"; and pointed out that President Roosevelt was deceived by Stalin in Yalta and betrayed China, so that "Northeast China, the whole of China, South Korea (though she is not mentioned here) and even The fate of the entire Asian continent has been determined, and history has been dragged back 40 years."This is a magnificent article defending the failure of Chiang Kai-shek's government, so Taipei's "Central Daily" quickly translated and serialized it, and included it in the book "Historical Facts of Our Party and the Bandit Party" compiled and published by the Kuomintang in 1951.Hu Shi finally said something "fair" to the panic-stricken Kuomintang government who fled to Taiwan, found an excuse for their failure, and vented a little bit of grievance against the US government that issued the "White Paper". From the end of 1952 to the spring of the following year, Hu Shi gave "scholar lectures" in Taiwan for one and a half months, mainly talking about "scholarly methods" and "Dewey's philosophy", and made surprise anti-communist propaganda to cheer up the Kuomintang government who fled to Taiwan. In February 1954, Hu Shi made a special trip back to Taiwan to attend the second meeting of the "National Assembly" which opened in Taipei on the 19th, helping Chiang Kai-shek's government maintain the so-called "legal rule".On the day of the meeting, as the interim chairman of the meeting, he said clearly at the beginning: The convening of the second meeting of the first National Congress today is to continue to maintain the legal order of the Constitution. According to the provisions of Article 25, Article 27, Article 28, and Article 29 of the Constitution, the second meeting of the President and Vice President will be held. election. Hu Shi's words received bursts of applause.However, this association that wants to maintain the "legal order" itself has a big problem of whether it is legal or not.During the preparatory period, people from all walks of life in Taiwan and overseas had a lot of discussions, thinking that in accordance with the "Constitution" It is stipulated that the six-year term of the first "National Congress Representative" has expired, and the qualifications of representatives have no legal basis. How can they be re-elected as the second president and vice president? Naturally, the "National Congress Representatives" who fled to Taiwan I look forward to continuing to be a representative and looking forward to the meeting, but I also have doubts.Despite the explanation of the "Chief Justice", the dark cloud of legal crisis hanging over Taiwan's political circles has not been dispelled.Under such circumstances, Hu Shi, as a symbol of "democracy and freedom" in the eyes of Taiwanese people, was able to make a special trip from the United States to attend the meeting, which in itself gave people a lot of comfort; Algorithm,” defending the legitimacy of the meeting.As a researcher, he plausibly said: Someone once asked, can the first National Assembly elect the President and Vice President twice? We can answer without hesitation, because we are the first National Assembly with a constitution, so we can elect the President and Vice President twice .If the term of office of each National Assembly is deducted for six full years, then it seems that the second president and vice president should be elected by the first National Assembly even in a period of national peace.The first National Assembly was held on March 29, 1937.The term of office of the representatives to the National Congress begins on March 29th, 1937, and is fully deducted. The six-year term will not be completed until March 29th, 43rd year. The first president and vice president are 30 He was elected by the National Assembly on May 1, 2007, and did not take office until May 20.According to Article 29 of the Constitution, the National Assembly is convened 90 days before each term of the President expires.90 days before the end of the term of the first president, today is the six-year term of the representatives of the first National Assembly.So I think the first president's "90 days before the end of term" or "60 days before the end of term" are both within the six-year term of the first National Assembly, so the election of the second president and vice president is the first election. The tasks of the National Congress of Representatives. ...So our rally today is completely legal and fully based on the Constitution. When Hu Shi gave a speech, he sometimes raised his fists high, sometimes slapped the desk, and sometimes hit the table, feeling extremely excited.The algorithm of "deducting the full six-year term of office" has achieved unexpected results. The representatives of the National Congress thought it was more powerful than the explanation of the "chief justice", and they gave warm applause from time to time; some even burst into tears and expressed their admiration endlessly.Someone wrote several bamboo branch poems afterwards, one of which said: Democracy symbolizes a strong word, and the term of office is strictly determined. It is very difficult to endanger the rule of law, and thousands of people burst into tears. The meeting went smoothly, and Chiang Kai-shek and Chen Cheng were elected as the second "President" and "Vice President".Hu Shi also presented the "Certificate of Presidential Elect" to Chiang Kai-shek on behalf of the National Assembly. Hu Shi returned to Taipei to participate in the National Assembly this time, and finally made a great contribution to the Taiwan authorities.After returning to the United States, the Taiwan authorities hired him as the deputy director of the so-called "Design Committee for the Restoration of the Mainland".He also really helped "design" it.In his "Introduction to "Leighton Stuart's Memoirs"", Hu Shi accused the United States of not only "selling out China at Yalta" but also "stopping effective assistance to China at a critical moment", which led to the collapse of the Kuomintang government; However, the United States issued a "white paper" to shirk its responsibility.This is what Hu Shi felt most sad and dissatisfied with.He conceived for the Taiwan authorities to ask the United States not to recognize the People's Republic of China, saying: The least the United States should do in order to atone for its sins is to continue to refuse to recognize the CCP regime and continue to oppose this regime's acquisition of China's seat in the United Nations. In September 1957, Hu Shi was appointed by the Chiang Kai-shek government to attend the United Nations General Assembly and delivered an anti-communist speech entitled "The Repercussions of the Hungarian Rebellion in Mainland China". seats. Hu Shi’s various performances in New York let people see that this exiled apartment man is both pitiful and stubborn. In a desolate and foreign land, he stubbornly insists on being a lone minister of Chiang Kai-shek’s government and an opponent of the People’s China. ① See Tang Degang's "Recalling Mr. Hu Shizhi and Oral History", contained in Taipei "Biographical Literature", Volume 31, Issue 2. ② Same note as ①. ③ For details about the Gestalt Oriental Library and Hu Shi’s work in the library, please refer to Chen Jiying’s "Hu Shi, Tong Shigang, and the Gestalt Oriental Library" (published in Taipei "Biographical Literature", Volume 27, Issues 1 and 2), And Zhuang Shen's "Records of the Exhibition of Commemorating Mr. Hu Shizhi's Works and Related Historical Materials in the Gust Oriental Library of Princeton University" (published in Taipei "Mainland Magazine" Vol. 24, No. 10). ④Regarding Hu Shi's position in Gestalt Oriental Library, researchers in mainland China and Taiwan have various opinions, such as curator, moderator, administrator and so on.Hu Shi himself made it very clear according to the engagement contract. On May 15, 1950, he wrote to Zhao Yuanren and his wife: Princeton's matter was officially published yesterday (May 14), under the name of Fellow of the University Library and Curator of the Gest Oriental Library with Rank of Full Professor. (See "Hu Shi's Letter to Zhao Yuanren", Taipei Germination Publishing House, June 1960 edition, p. 36) Accordingly, it can be translated as curator or administrator, which is equivalent to the position of full professor. ⑤ "Hu Shi's Diary" manuscript, Taipei Yuanliu Publishing Co., Ltd. 1990 edition, volume 16. (Third Edition Note) ⑥ This letter is preserved in the Hu Shi Memorial Hall in Taipei, quoted from Chen Shuyu's "Falling Leaves", which was published in Beijing's "New Literature Historical Materials" No. 4, 1991. (Third Edition Note) ⑦ Hu Shi sent a letter to Zhao Yuanren on May 22, 1949, see "Hu Shi's Letter to Zhao Yuanren", p. 25. ⑧ "Speech at the Welcome Meeting of Peking University Alumni Association", included in "Hu Shi's Speech Collection", Taipei Huaguo Publishing House, July 1953 edition, ed. ⑨ See Taipei's "Central Daily" on December 11, 1949; see "Hu Shi's Diary" manuscript volume 16 on December 8, 1949 (note to the third edition). ⑩ Hu Shi’s letter to Zhao Yuanren on August 16, 1949, see pages 29-30 of “Hu Shi’s Letter to Zhao Yuanren”. Hu Sidu's article was disclosed in Wen Wei Po on September 16, 1950, and reprinted in Hong Kong's Ta Kung Pao on September 22.After Hu Shi learned about it, he answered a reporter's interview and said: "We knew that in a communist country, there is no freedom of speech; now we know even more that there is no freedom of silence." The first draft of Mr. Chronology Long Edition", Taipei Lianjing Publishing Company, 1984 edition, volume 6, p. 2152. ) Hu Sidu was later assigned to teach at Tangshan Institute of Technology. In 1957, he was wrongly classified as a "rightist" and committed suicide. In November 1980, he was rehabilitated and rehabilitated. (See Shi Yuangao's "Gossip about Hu Shi", Anhui Education Press, June 1985, pages 53-55.) "Hu Shi's Diary" manuscript, volume 17, February 24, 1951. (Third Edition Note) See the manuscript of "Hu Shi's Diary", Volume 16, June 25, 1950; November 1952, "Questions and Answers at the Press Conference in Taipei City", "Speech at the Welcome Meeting of the National University Friendship Association", " The International Situation and China's Future" (both published in "Hu Shi's Comments Collection" Part B), and "The Destiny of East Asia" (published in Taipei "Free China" Vol. 8 No. 1). (Third Edition Note) This article was translated by "Central Daily" in Taipei, titled "China under Stalin's Strategy of Conquering the World", which was serialized from October 19 to 21, 1950; another translation by Yunzhuan and Mao Zishui was published in Taipei's "Free China" Volume 3 Issue 10. (Third Edition Note) Hu Shih's speech at the beginning of this meeting was published in various newspapers in Taiwan.This is copied from the article "Mr. Hu Shizhi's New May 4th Spirit" written by Luo Dunwei, published in the second issue of volume 9 of the bimonthly magazine "Changliu" in Taipei. Same note. Zhuzhi Ci was written by Lu Shaoqing, a total of five poems, contained in Luo Dunwei's "Mr. Hu Shizhi's New May Fourth Spirit".Quoted here is the second one.See note. The original title of this article is "Introduction to J.Leighton Stuart's Fifty Years in China" , New York, Random House, 1954. Co-translated into Chinese by Li Yipei and Pan Huankun; later included in the "Preface" volume of "Selected Works of Hu Shi". Hu Shi’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly on September 26, 1957, entitled “Repercussions of Hungavian Uprising on Mainland Chinese”, was published in Volume 24 of Vitalspeehes published in October 1957.Among Taiwan's treatises on Hu Shi, they are mostly translated as "Anti-Communist and Anti-riot Movement in Mainland China".