Nationals v. Nationalists

"While corruption and bribery are openly practiced, no one dares protest. While bandits infest the land, the Government remains indifferent. The [Nationalist] party has ceased to be a party, the [Nationalist] Government has ceased to be a government, the nation has ceased to be a nation!"

The potent Chinese who thus sounded basso profundo last week was Yen Hsishan, hairy-chested "Model Governor" of Shansi province, the man who has kept his own province peaceable while civil war has festered the rest of China, the leader of this year's spring rebellion against the Nationalist Government.

"Let my countrymen stand up and work for the Chiang's overthrow," he continued, "and I, Yen Hsishan, will do my best to assist in the consummation of this task."

Despite Governor Yen, the word "Nationalist" has come to sound in Chinese ears with something of the comfortable air of establishment which Vermonters give to "Republican." To make his cause still more respectable Governor Yen announced last week that he had assumed the rank of "Commander in Chief of the National Army, Navy and Air Force." Meantime, 15,000 of his National troops were invading Shantung province. There they soon defeated a number of Nationalist soldiers near the city of Tingyuan. Worried President Chiang Kai-shek of the Nationalist Government in Nanking prepared a major counteroffensive.

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