"Whispers of Woe"

At Hankow, seat of the most radical Chinese faction, the editor of the People's Tribune wrote, last week: "There are whispers of woe and impending disaster in the air." Actually the "whispers" were shouts of terror. Four armies, representing the so-called "moderate" factions of China* were encircling Hankow from all directions except the Northwest. Thus the fall of Hankow, and butchery of actual as well as so-called "Reds" there, seemed last week momentarily imminent.

*The Nanking Government of General Chiang Kaishek; the Honan regime of the "Scholar War Lord," Wu Pei-fu; the Peking Government of the great Manchurian War Lord Chang Tso-lin; the independent and mobile forces of General Yang Sen.