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Show Russian Break With Japs May Speedjfar's End Chinese Ambassador's Wife Says Her People Are Optimistic. By Pauline Frederick When the code translator of the Chinese embassy in Washington brought Madame Wei Tao-Ming, wife of the ambassador, the first word that Russia had ended Its neutrality neu-trality pact with Japan, It was a kind of D-Day for her. "For years we pursued the hope that the whole world would one day understand the aggression of Japan," Ja-pan," she told me that same afternoon after-noon in the teak-wood furnished drawing room of the embassy at historic Twin Oaks. "Now that day Is here." "And what does It really mean?" I asked. "Victory may come quicker," she aid with spirit. "The Chinese people peo-ple are very happy today." Madame Wei had another cause for optimism. At eight o'clock that 1 : - k. : i ' - I ' - f K 'if MADAME WEI TAO-MING morning she and the ambassador had learned of the fall of the Koiso government in Tokyo. It was hard to believe that this diminutive woman in her black satin sat-in mandarin gown with a jade and diamond clip at her throat, presiding presid-ing over a dainty tea table, was, at the age of 15, carrying bombs and dynamite in suitcases for the Chinese Chi-nese revolution from Tientsin to Peking. Or that a year later, with a belt of dynamite strapped to her body, she set out. on a dangerous mission to kill a public official who was an enemy of the revolution. But the "rebellious spirit," as she calls it, that was born in her has ever been fanned into flames of action against the enemies of her country, both within and without. That's the reason she was largely responsible for China's refusal to sign the Versailles Ver-sailles treaty . . . but that comes later. Always Revolutionary. Madame " Wei has always been what she terms "revolutionary." When her feet were bound in the Chinese fashion, she removed the bandages. She drank tea with sugar sug-ar and cream in it from a cup with a handle instead of plain, out of a little bowl. She wore a hat instead of going bareheaded. When she was betrothed by her parents to a man she had. never seen, but about whom she heard things which led her to believe he would be unsuitable, she threw the strictest custom to the four winds and wrote him a note breaking the engagement. Her activities ac-tivities with the revolutionists are as exciting as fiction. She studied law at the Sorbonne where she met Dr. Wei, and they practiced together togeth-er in China. She was the first Chinese Chi-nese woman lawyer, the first Chinese lawyer of either sex to practice in the French Mixed Court in Shanghai, Shang-hai, the first woman magistrate in China, and the first woman to De president of a Chiense law college. But to her burning interest of the day: "We have been fighting for the democratic way of life since 1911," she told me with the fierce conviction convic-tion that dominates her. "Before this war we were fighting for national na-tional independence now in this war we are fighting for the same idea. China is a peace-loving nation, na-tion, but for 40 years the Japanese have been preparing to conquer us." It was this latter belief that motivated mo-tivated her activity as a delegate to the Paris peace conference. She and her student friends became alarmed at the plan of the conference to permit Japan to entrench itself on the Shantung peninsula. "We had little difficulty in persuading per-suading Dr. Koo and Dr. Wang not to sign the treaty," she said, "but Mr. Lou, the delegate from the north of China, was a different matter. The night before the treaty was to be signed we discovered his hideout in a suburb of Paris and decided to call on him. When he wouldn't see us we decided to wait outside the house anyway. When we .saw the secretary of the delegation go in with a brief case we were afraid we were being tricked. As he came out, the others frightened him and when he ran down the path I jumped out and pointed a stick from a rosebush rose-bush at him which I had up my coat sleeve. He thought it was a gun and dropped his brief case. We stayed outside the house all night and at 10 o'clock the next day were admitted. admit-ted. We succeeded in talking Mr. Lou into our point of view he didn't go to Versailles that day." An Open Conference. "What about the San Francisco conference?" I asked Madame Wei, whose husband is a delegate. "That's different," she replied with animation. "At Versailles it was a conference of diplomats behind be-hind closed doors. At San Francisco the people are behind the conference. confer-ence. We have big hope that peace for the future of mankind will be started at San Francisco." Madame Wei is not only an intellectual in-tellectual and a leader among Chinese Chi-nese women. She is also the hostess at an important diplomatic mission. But not all the cares that beset American housewives in these days of curtailed food supplies bother her. For example, she doesn't have to worry about making ration points go round. The reason "Chinese dishes," she smiled, "don't require much meat. We use many soy beans, vegetables noodles, and rice and, of course, they aren't rationed." |