Emperor’s Ambassador Visits Toledo – Briefly
The story begins like a film noir. A dank morning at the dingy old Union Station in downtown Toledo, which smelled of coal smoke and cigars. The weather on November 1 is typically chilly, and 1901 was probably no exception. The nation was still in mourning for President William McKinley, dead by assassination six weeks before. A couple of newsboys listlessly hawked the Blade and the News Bee. Then there was a commotion, as a “special” train slowed to a stop, belching and wheezing. A moment’s pause, and then two foreign gentlemen emerged to wait for a connecting train to Michigan.
As a few loiterers gawked, the men brushed themselves off. The older man was dressed in black silk, and introduced himself, in perfect British English, as Wu Tingfang, envoy and minister plenipotentiary to the United States from the Chinese Imperial government. The younger man was his secretary, Mun Chewchung. They were on their way from Washington to Ann Arbor, where Minister Wu was to address a student group. A one hour layover was to be spent in Toledo, while the two Imperial servants waited for their Michigan-bound train.
It was a busy hour, however. Some big names had come to meet, however briefly, the Chinese diplomats. Congressman Emmet Tompkins of Ohio was one of the first to shake hands with Mr. Wu. Then “forty or fifty” dignitaries were introduced by Congressman James Southard of Toledo, each of whom shook hands politely with the visitor. But the star of that hour was Mark Hanna, the powerful senator from Ohio and right-hand-man of the deceased President McKinley.
At that point, the scene became a little less serious. Hanna and Wu were well acquainted from previous visits. The story goes that Hanna had once thrown the ambassador into a snow bank when the pair was driving toward Hanna’s Cleveland home. During the brief Toledo stopover, the senator from Ohio greeted the Imperial visitor with a most undiplomatic cry of “Hello, Wu.” The minister smiled and replied, “Why, how do you do, Hanna?” as the two shook hands.
Minister Wu was known for his talkativeness. After he talked politics with the senator, Minister Wu was invited to spend the day, or even better to stay overnight at Hanna’s home. Perhaps remembering the snow bank incident, the ambassador replied, “No, no, no, no, I must go to Ann Arbor.” The two parted amicably and continued their respective journeys.
Mark Hanna did not have long to live after the Toledo meeting with the Chinese ambassador. He made an occasionally shaky truce with the new president, Theodore Roosevelt, and died in 1904. Wu Tingfang has a more complicated backstory. Born in 1842, Wu was educated in England, and was the first Chinese to pass the bar and become an English barrister. He served as Minister to the United States, Spain, and Peru from 1896 to 1902 and 1907 to 1909. He worked on reforming the imperial law code, and published several books. When the Emperor was overthrown in 1911, Wu cast his lot with Sun Yatsen and joined the revolutionaries. In 1912, Sun appointed him Minister of Justice, and in 1917, Wu Tingfang served as acting president of the Republic of China. Wu died in 1922.
At one time, the Emperor of China was regarded as supreme. He ruled over a huge, populous nation who regarded him as all-powerful, even godlike. The Chinese people called him the “Son of Heaven,” and his will was law. He could have anything he wanted; he was rich beyond the dreams of avarice; his commands were obeyed without question. But even the Emperor needed help exerting that power. Not surprisingly, he employed thousands of subordinates, including the intelligent and hardworking Wu Tingfang, who for one day in 1901, exercised the Emperor’s will in a Toledo train station.
[News of Minister Wu’s visit to Toledo appeared in the Toledo Blade, November 1, 1901.]
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