"I Just Want to Go Home"

All winter long, while Communist armies moved relentlessly down from the north, U.S. businessmen had gathered at the long, polished bar of the Shanghai American Club for cocktails, a few rolls of liar's dice and endless conversation on the one question paramount in the mind of every Shanghailander: What would happen when the Communists took over? Many had thought that there might be a change for the better: the Communists would at least bring "order." By last week, most U.S. businessmen believed they had their answer. It was not so rosy as most of them had expected.

Morbid Watchers. Late one night, while most of Shanghai slept, the lights burned brightly in the offices of the American-owned Shanghai Evening Post & Mercury, whose difficulties with the Communists (TIME, July 4) had occupied the center of Shanghai's stage almost since the first days of the takeover. Inside, sleepless Editor Randall Gould and an assistant listened wearily while a delegation of workers beat out an ear-splitting cacophony with a band made up of pans, buckets and empty kerosene tins.

Before the takeover, Editor Gould's editorials had sniped consistently at the tottering Nationalist regime, babbled confidently over the prospects of Communist rule. Now, Gould's Chinese workers were demanding wages for July despite the fact that Gould had stopped publishing in June. After a three-day lock-in, Gould finally gave up; he would scrape up the money somewhere.

The rest of the U.S. business colony watched the Gould case with morbid fascination. For the first two months under the new "People's Government," one firm after another--Standard Oil, the Shanghai Telephone Co., China Electric, Caltex and even the U.S. consulate--had been subjected to similar lock-ins.

The lock-ins were just one part of the Communist strategy of harassment. Last year, one U.S. executive had hired a group of workers for a specific 35-day project. They did the work and he paid them off. Last week, 250 of the workers stormed into his office and demanded reinstatement as full-time employees. After 15 hours of negotiation, the executive got off by paying the men an additional 35 days' wages each. "Actually," he said, "I was lucky, but how do I explain that to the boys back at the home office?"

Nightmarish Question. From the north came word of new difficulties. In Tientsin, the Communists cooked up a retroactive "income tax" for the last half of 1948. The tax bore little relation to income, was based instead on a firm's "past reputation and business attitude." There was also the nightmarish question of exit visas. No one had been refused a visa to date, but as more & more businessmen gave up in disgust and prepared to go home, the Communists set up increasing complications. Samples: applicants for exit visas now had to advertise their intention of leaving China in the local press and all labor problems had to be "satisfactorily settled."

At week's end, one day after settlement of the Gould case, Shanghai's Americans had a bigger & better lock-in on their hands. A month-old labor dispute between the U.S. consulate and 800 former U.S. Navy workers (TIME, July 18) broke out afresh. More than 100 Chinese and Sikh workers infiltrated the consulate building and took over the gates. They demanded 6 1/2 months wages plus severance pay. Acting Consul General Walter P. McConaughy and two other officials were locked in. The workers threatened to bring in their entire force of 800, complete with wives & children, to camp in the consulate halls. "We will stay until we starve," they said.

When he heard of the latest lock-in, one American who had spent a lifetime in China threw up his hands. "Believe me, I'm not hysterical," he insisted nervously, "I just want to go home."

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