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hollow place, and there was a piece of road straight. All done in one day! You couldn't believe it, I mean, how could be accomplished in one day by just that--with a pan used, a pick and shovel, and the bringing up of dirt for fill and all that by these shoulder buckets. And the place simply alive with people!”
He said, “Westerners could not work that way. We couldn't work that way. We'd be in each other's way. But these men organize themselves the way ants organize themselves. You know now you see them in a tiny little area, each one bringing his little piece up, you know, and working busily. They operate like that. Westerners couldn't do it. We'd be bumping into each other. We'd impede our own progress. But they do it.”
I remember that I repeated that to the President, and he was interested, and I think we came to know that they were accomplishing miracles in some ways. There was a good deal said about their courage in moving their colleges and universities and schools: the students picking up the books of the library and the apparatus of the laboratories, and just putting these on their backs and starting to move inland. That was discussed a great deal.
No, I wouldn't say that Roosevelt had lost faith in Chiang. I think he was puzzled by him. But I think it was the same old business of the West can't understand the East.
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