CANDID

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 28, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 22.

THE reporter who lied to the Chinese minister at Washington, Wu Ting-fang, about his salary, no doubt deluded himself with the thought—if he gave the matter a thought at all—that it was a “white lie” that would hurt nobody. But let us see the sequel:—

On the first occasion when he called to interview the minister, he was asked what salary he received. “One hundred and fifty dollars a week,” glibly replied the youth. “It is too much. It is altogether too much. It is altogether too much,” said the more candid than polite Wu Ting-fang. “You are not worth more than twenty-five dollars a week.”

The Chinese minister, it is said, learned later, through other newspaper men, that the reporter had not spoken the truth, and that, instead of one hundred and fifty dollars a week, he received but sixty. Consequently, when he again presented himself at the Chinese legation for information for his paper, he was curtly dismissed by Wu Ting-fang with these words: “You lied to me about your salary. If you will lie about such a thing as that, you will lie about anything. I do not trust you. I have nothing to say to you. I want to revise my former estimate of your value. Instead of being worth twenty-five dollars a week, you are not worth anything, sir.”—Success.