Sun Yatsen's Financing Revolution: Tiandihui/Tongmen

"KET ON SOCIETY (Location: Maunakea Street, Chinatown): On January 8, 1904, Dr. Sun Yat-sen was inaugurated as a member of the Ket On Society in Honolulu, which was one of the Hung Meng organizations in Hawaii. The Ket On Society kept the membership records in which Dr. Sun’s name and the day he joined the Society were recorded."


Also fundamental to Sun's support network was his relation-
ship to Chinese secret societies. The very nature of secret societies
precluded the detailed recording of events, but Sun's association
with one such organization—the Hung-men, formed in 1674 and
also known as the Triads—was so extensive that adequate records
do exist to reconstruct many of his dealings with them.
47

Suntreasured this association, for the Hung-men gave generously to
his party, and in 1911 it merged with the T'ung-meng-hui, creating
a united organization
48

Sun first became associated with the Hung-men in 1903, when
he joined the Ket On Society, the Hung-men organization in
Hawai'i. His motives were a bit devious, for though the Hung-
men was committed to the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty, it
also favored the restoration of the Ming dynasty. Sun opposed
this, but he joined the society in order to tap its financial
resources. Strategically, it was a sound move, for Hung-men
members were committed to aiding each other, and Sun took full
advantage of this.
49

In fact, Sun's stature was such that, after his
initiation into the organization, he was promoted to marshal, the
second highest position in the society.
50

In 1904, Sun sailed to San Francisco, the headquarters for the
Hung-men in America. Using the authority invested in him in
Honolulu, he convinced leaders of the society to let him rewrite its
constitution. Sun produced a constitution of 80 articles that over-
night converted the Hung-men into a revolutionary group with
goals mirroring those of the T'ung-meng-hui.

Needless to say, Sun attempted to extract money from Hung-
men members. Article 62b of the constitution stipulated that all
members had to reregister each year by sending $1.00 to the head
office. The potential contributions were enormous since the
organization had one hundred thousand members.
51

Sun's most lucrative contact with the Hung-men occurred in
Canada on the eve of the 1911 Chinese revolution. On four consec-
utive nights, Sun addressed audiences of more than 1,000. He
devised with local Hung-men members a scheme in which they
could harness this enthusiastic support and turn it into concrete
funds. They decided that Sun would give an exceptionally pas-
sionate speech at the Heng-men headquarters in Victoria and
leave the auditorium directly after finishing it. Playing on the
emotional high that Sun would have created, Hung-meng leaders
would suggest that they mortgage the society's building and offer
the money to Sun. This strategy paid off, as the organization
wholeheartedly supported the idea and agreed to give the money
to Sun.
52

Sun brilliantly manipulated this support and created a band-
wagon effect in the rest of Canada. Soon Hung-men societies in
Montreal and Toronto mortgaged their buildings, and a few
wealthy merchants donated generously to the cause. Much of the groundwork had been laid for Sun, but he certainly was the inspi-
ration that triggered this financial windfall. This effort enabled
Sun to send $70,000 to the T'ung-meng-hui office in Hong Kong,
and this money was primarily responsible for funding the revolt in
April 1911.
53

A few months after the Canadian venture, Sun devised yet
another fund-raising project through the Hung-men. With
$1,000,000 as his goal, Sun proposed the formation of a Chinese
Industrial Company and intended to sell 10,000 shares of stock for
$100 a share. He envisioned a company headquarters in San Fran-
cisco with offices eventually opening in other cities. His major
pitch was that the company would be given monopoly mining
rights in China for ten years, and therefore the stockholders
would directly benefit. Sun, however, could not convince the
Hung-men members, and without their support he could not
form the company.
54

Although Sun chose socialism as one of the fundamental princi-
ples of the Chinese future he envisioned, he readily employed the
capitalist tools such as mortgages, bonds, stocks, and loans in his
fund raising for the T'ung-meng-hui. While in the United States
he conceived a plan to monopolize the export of Malay tin. In let-
ters to T'ung-meng-hui leaders, Sun described the plan and
urged that all Chinese owners of tin mines form a syndicate to
control tin exports. Sun had arranged with a broker in New York
an import contract pending the guarantee that Malaya would sell
the United States at least half of its exported tin. It was a shrewd
plan, for it would take control of the price of tin away from the
British, who had previously administered its export from Malaya.
Not only would Sun gain a sizeable commission, but Chinese
exporters would increase their profits. The syndicate was never
formed, however, and the project had to be abandoned. The Chi-
nese exporters were vaguely ambivalent, and the T'ung-meng-
hui was unable to convince them of the monopoly's merits.
55

During the 16 years that Sun was collecting funds for the revo-
lution, the overseas Chinese, especially those in Southeast Asia,
were his most important resource.
56

Systematically declared per-sona non grata by Asian governments, Sun himself found it increasingly difficult to tap this source himself. Thus he entrusted fundraising among overseas Chinese in Asia to other T'ung-meng-hui
leaders while he traveled to the West. This was the background
that led to Sun's most ambitious and complex financial scheme.

s a result of a series of letters and meetings, Sun was united
with four very different men. Homer Lea was a Stanford gradu-
ate, military enthusiast, and a hunchback whose personality was
as unusual as his posture. Charles Boothe was a former New York
banker forced into retirement because of ill health. W. W. Allen
was a successful Wall Street financier and childhood friend of
Boothe. Last, there was Yung Wing, a Yale graduate and elderly
reformist leader living in Connecticut. Together, these men
formed an American syndicate in March 1910 and drew up a
detailed plan to overthrow the Manchus. The whole project
involved more than $10,000,000 dollars. Sun naturally took the
office of president and commanded the whole proceeding. Lea
was the "commanding general" in charge of all military opera-
tions. Boothe became the "sole foreign agent" and was responsi-
ble for much of the overall coordination of their activities. Allen
was the essential contact with Wall Street money, and Yung acted
as the mediator between the revolutionary groups in the United
States and those in Asia
57

These five men acted out an intriguing plot to finance a revolu-
tion. Offering concessions similar to those already mentioned,
Sun and his entourage came surprisingly close to pulling off this
deal. Early on, Lea had raised more than $1,000,000 dollars in
cash and had obtained promises of another $1,000,000.
58

In February 1909, Allen was confident that he had found a group that
would lend the revolutionaries the needed cash.
59

In reality, the money never materialized. Allen did meet with J. P. Morgan,
American financier, a number of times, but Morgan could not be
convinced. A Morgan representative gave at least one reason for
not offering the loan: "I am ready to do business with any estab-
lished government on earth but I cannot . . . make a government
to do business with."
60

Sun was undeniably disappointed with the outcome. He had once even told Lea that "all our hopes are pinned on the American plan."
61

Financing Revolution: Sun Yat-sen and
the Overthrow of the Ch'ing Dynasty
Allen F. Damon

http://72.14.235.132/search?q=cache:20_w57mHWYgJ:scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10125/6572/1/JL25167.pdf+sun+yat+sen+secret+societies&cd=37&hl=en&ct=clnk

1 "Dr. Sun Advocates a Revolt in China," PCA, 14 Dec. 1903.
2 Henry Bond Restarick, Sun Yat-sen: Liberator of China (New Haven: Yale U P, 1931) 13-6.
3 Jen Yu-wen and Lindsay Ride, Sun Yat-sen, Liberator of China (Hong Kong: U of Hong Kong, 1970) 10.
4 Restarick, Sun Yat-sen 25.
5 Restarick, Sun Yat-sen 25.
6 Wang Gungwu, "Sun Yat-sen and Singapore," Journal of the South Seas Society, 15 (Dec. 1959): 57.
7 Jen and Ride, Sun Yat-sen 18.
8 Jen and Ride, Sun Yat-sen 14-5.
9 Harold Z. Schiffrin, Sun Yat-sen and the Origins of the Chinese Revolution (Berkeley: U of California P, 1968) 30.
10 Culture 6 (Mar. 1965): 22. Chun-tu Hsueh, "An Early Chinese Revolutionary Organization: Controversy Concerning Its Founding," Chinese Culture 6 (Mar. 1965):22.
11 C. Martin Wilbur, Sun Yat-sen: Frustrated Patriot (New York: Columbia U P, 1976) 13.
12 Loretta O. Pang, "The Chinese Revolution: Its Activities and Meaning in Hawaii," B.A. honors thesis, U of Hawaii, 1963, 20.
13 Pang, "The Chinese Revolution" 3.
14 Restarick, Sun Yat-sen 43-5.
15 Yen Ching Hwang, The Overseas Chinese and the 1911 Revolution (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford U P, 1976) 149.
16 See, for example, the statements cited in Restarick, Sun Yat-sen 53-4 and 60-1.
17 Thomas W. Ganschow, "A Study of Sun Yat-sen's Contacts with the United States Prior to 1922, " diss., Indiana U, 1971, 47.
18 T'ang Leang-Li, The Inner History of the Chinese Revolution (New York: E. P.Dutton, 1930) 46-7.
19 Ganschow, "A Study" 31.
20 Sun Yat-sen, "The True Solution to the Chinese Question," unpublished paper, New York, 1904, 11-2.
21 Pang, "The Chinese Revolution" 21; Diane M. L. Mark, Seasons of Light: The History of Chinese Christian Churches in Hawaii (Honolulu: Chinese Christian Association of Hawaii, 1989) 29-3o and 47-8. Damon had spent some time in China in the 1870s studying the language and culture. His wife was the daughter of missionaries to China and spoke Cantonese fluently.
22 Ganschow, "A Study" 9.
23 Pang, "The Chinese Revolution" 20.
24 Restarick, Sun Yat-sen 101.
25 Sun Yat-sen, letter to F. W. Damon, 8 Feb. 1912, C. F. Damon, Jr. Papers, HMCS.
26 Robert L. Worden, "K'ang Yu-Wei, Sun Yat-Sen, et al. and the Bureau of Immigration, Ch'ing-shih wen-t'i, 2, no. 6 (June 1971): 5-9. See, also, Restarick, Sun Yat-sen 6-9.
27 Wilbur, Sun Yat-sen 56.
28 Marius B. Jansen, The Japanese and Sun Yat-sen (Cambridge: Harvard U P, 1954) 68-74; Shelley, Hsien Cheng, "The T'ung-Meng-Hui: Its Organization, Leadership, and Finances, 1905-1912," diss., U of Washington, 1962, 28-9; Wilbur, Sun Yat-sen 57.
29 Cheng, "The T'ung-Meng-Hui" 29.
30 Jansen, The Japanese and Sun Yat-sen 117-8.
31 Cheng, "The T'ung-Meng-Hui" 164-5.
32 Cheng, "The T'ung-Meng-Hui" 333.
33 L. Eve Armentrout Ma, Revolutionaries, Monarchists, and Chinatowns: Chinese Politics in the Americas and the 1911 Revolution (Honolulu: U of Hawaii P, 1990) 162.
34 Wilbur, Sun Yat-sen 42.
35 Wang, "Sun Yat-sen and Singapore" 59.
36 Cheng, "The T'ung-Meng-Hui" 174.
37 Cheng, "The T'ung-Meng-Hui" 175
38 Wang, "Sun Yat-sen and Singapore" 62.
39 Ma, Revolutionaries 42-3.
40 Cheng, "The T'ung-Meng-Hui" 173-4.
41 Wang, "Sun Yat-sen and Singapore" 65.
42 Ma, Revolutionaries 154.
43 Wang, "Sun Yat-sen and Singapore" 62-3.
44 Wang, "Sun Yat-sen and Singapore" 62; Cheng, "The T'ung-Meng-Hui" 177.
45 Jansen, The Japanese and Sun Yat-sen 127 and 252-3.
46 New York Times, 14 Oct- 1911:2.
47 S. Y. Teng, "Dr. Sun Yat-sen and Chinese Secret Societies," Studies on Asia (Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1963) 84 and 86; Pang, "The Chinese Revolution" 12.
48 Cheng, "The T'ung-Meng-Hui" 196-7.
49 Pang, "The Chinese Revolution" 11-25 and 45.
50 Cheng, "The T'ung-Meng-Hui" 46.
51 Cheng, "The T'ung-Meng-Hui" 47.
52 Cheng, "The T'ung-Meng-Hui" 192-4; Ma, Revolutionaries 137-8.
53 Ma, Revolutionaries 138.
54 Cheng, "The T'ung-Meng-Hui" 196.
55 Cheng, "The T'ung-Meng-Hui" 184.
56 Cheng, "The T'ung-Meng-Hui" 163.
57 Key Ray Chong, "The Abortive American-Chinese Project for Chinese Revolution," Pacific Historical Review, 41 (Feb. 1972): 65-6; Ganschow, "A Study" 97.
58 Chong, "The Abortive American-Chinese Project" 59.
59 L. Eve Armentrout, "American Involvement in Chinese Revolutionary Activities, 1898-1913," master's thesis, California State C, Hayward, 1972, 118.
60 Chong, "The Abortive American-Chinese Project" 64 and 67.
61 Wilbur, Sun Yat-sen 71.
62 New York Times, 14 Oct - 1911:1.
63 Jansen, The Japanese and Sun Yat-sen 146 and 256.
64 Cheng, "The T'ung-Meng-Hui" 179-80.
65 Chong, "The Abortive American-Chinese Project" 68; Cheng, "The T'ung Meng-Hui" 191.
66 Cheng, "The T'ung-Meng-Hui" 15.
67 Jen and Ride, Sun Yat-sen 15.
68 Wilbur, Sun Yat-sen 40-1.
69 Cheng, "The T'ung-Meng-Hui" 189-90.
70 T'ang, The Inner History 51.
71 L. Eve Armentrout-Ma, "Chinese Politics in the Western Hemisphere 1893-1911: Rivalry between Reformers and Revolutionaries in the Americas," diss., U of California, Davis, 1977, 394.
72 Pang, "The Chinese Revolution" 21.
73 Schiffrin, Sun Yat-sen 325.
74 Wilbur. Sun Yat-sen 48.
75 New York Times, 21 July 1940:28.
76 Lyman L. Pierce, How to Raise Money (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1932) 26.
77 Pierce, How to Raise Money 29.
78 New York Times, 27 Jan. 1889:2.
79 Wilbur, Sun Yat-sen 40.
80 Pierce, How To Raise Money 108.
81 Wilbur, Sun Yat-sen 281.
82 C. Martin Wilbur, interview, Columbia U, New York, 23 Sept. 1982.
83 Wilbur, interview.
84 Sun Yat-sen, 10 Letters of Sun Yat-sen (Stanford,: Stanford U Libraries, 1942) 9.
85 Wilbur, Sun Yat-sen 289.
86 Publicity Department of the Central Executive Committee, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, His Life and Achievements (n.d., n.p.) 267; Schiffrin, Sun Yat-sen 267. Four different "dying words" have been attributed to Sun. These two sources mention these words.