Scope and Content Note

1. Comments made by Mr. Hawkins on his family in San Francisco and his education. (brief)

2. Comments on Shanghai as a literary capital of China's Renaissance. Comments on agriculture, density of Chinese population, the railway. The temporary weakness of the revenue service. (brief)

3. Hawkins' 1906 departure from Seattle by the Great Northern Railway and his departure by sea for Shanghai via Japan. (brief)

4. Advantages and disadvantages of being assigned to Shanghai; the contacts he made there with the Chinese; Shanghai as a port and his working quarters, its organization and functions; his first title and salary and his first assignment. (lengthy)

5. The 1911 Chinese Revolution and the changes in social custom it enforced. Memories of amusing incidents concerning queue cutting and exporting to France. (lengthy)

6. Hawkins' living quarters, diet, general living conditions. (moderately brief)

7. Hawkins' work day. (moderately lengthy)

8. Hawkins' experience as a teacher at a provincial Chinese college, Soochow (Suzhou). Comments on students and teachers; difficulties in teaching.

Scope and Content Note

1. Influence of the Revolution on the students of Soochow (Suzhou). (brief)

2. Hawkins' return to the Maritime Customs, his work on the island of Santuao. The personnel and life there. (brief)

3. The effect of the Revolution on the Customs Service, the change of its name to the Chinese Maritime Customs Service (CTCS). Comments on internal changes in the customs service made by Sir Francis Arthur Aglen. General working conditions during those financially hard times. (moderately lengthy)

4. Comments on the financing of the customs service by the Chinese government. Difficulties involved as when in the early 1890s the silver market was flooded by increased production in the U.S. and Mexico. Comments on Sir Robert Hart and his background and efforts in China. Hart compared to Aglen. (very lengthy)

5. Hawkins' return to Shanghai. Outbreak of World War I while he was there. The contrast between pre-war and wartime China. Effect on the work of the Customs Service. (moderately lengthy)

6. Internal unrest fomented in China by Japan. (brief)

7. Transfer to Customs College in Monkden (Shenyang), Manchuria for the study of Chinese. (brief)

8. Further comments on the character of the CMCS and its plans. (moderately lengthy)

9. Hawkins' sphere of work at Newchwang (Yingkou) in Manchuria. The Chinese fisher and sailing folk. Nature of the Chinese Native Customs, a branch of the larger customs service. Quote from Stanley F. Wright, senior member of the service, from his book, Origin and Development of the Customs Service. (very lengthy)

10. Continued comments on Hawkins' work and staff in Manchuria. (very brief)

Scope and Content Note

1. Comments on the atmosphere of constant change “from place to place and time to time” during Hawkins' stay in China (moderately lengthy)

2. Office conditions: the successful friendships and the maladjustments (lengthy)

3. Hawkins' impression of the Shanghai Municipal Council, its “irreproachability and its incorruptibility.” Comments on the British system of direct taxation, its effect. Comments on those who profited from the opium trade. (moderately brief)

4. Discussion of the evils of extraterritoriality. (moderately brief)

5. Changes in attitude and fashion among the occidental communities pre- and post-war. (brief)

6. Hawkins' impressions gathered in the countryside of the “old China”. Quote from Hawkins' letter to Reinsch, March 1910 from Soochow (Suzhou) during travels of Prof. Edward A. Ross of the Sociology Department of UW, his visit to the Methodist University at Soochow, the city sights and Hawkins' impression of Ross and his work. (extremely lengthy)

Scope and Content Note

1. The eve and outbreak of the Revolution of 1911. Events at Soochow (Suzhou). (brief)

2. The operation of the SECS during these times, difficulties involved. Brief comments on parallel difficulties during Communist threat of early 1920s. (moderately lengthy)

3. Hawkins' recollections of the impact of the Russian Revolution of 1917 on himself and his colleagues. Comments on the Russian invasion of Manchuria. (lengthy)

4. Sino-Russian relations, Russian behavior in China in pre-Revolution days. Mention of the Portuguese descendants in China, their character and work. (very lengthy)

5. Comments on Chinese “esprit de corps”; their scorn for the “barbarian” and their attitudes during the war and under Japanese terrorization. (very lengthy)

Scope and Content Note

1. Hawkins' later career. Rapid changes of times following World War I and during World War II. Air travel, its use in China. (very lengthy)

2. Recollections of the Communists, the early 1920s political scene in China, their abilities, activities, methods of action. Hawkins' observations of Communists in Kwangsi (Guangxi) in 1927 and his personal experiences with them, and how the Kwangsi government eventually destroyed them. (extremely lengthy)

Scope and Content Note

1. Further comments on the province of Kwangsi (Guangxi), its locale, government, and people and how progressive Kwangsi leaders overcame their difficulties. Comments on road building in the provinces. (moderately brief)

2. Further recollections of Kwangsi: experiences with German deserters from the French Foreign Legion, an Austrian Prisoner of War from Serbia and other refugees. Hawkins' experience with the French priests of the province and with communists. (extremely lengthy)

Scope and Content Note

1. Brief comments on Sino-Russian relations in early 1900s. (brief)

2. Hawkins' recollections of his way of life in Kwangsi (Guangxi) and how they fared. (lengthy)

4. The growth end advancement of Kwangsi, economic production which spurred this growth. Comments on silver, its effect on the Chinese market and on the daily wage. (brief)

5. Quote from The Great River by Gretchen Mae Fitkin describing the results of political unrest in China. (extremely lengthy)

Scope and Content Note

1. Continuation of a quote from The Great River.

2. Hawkins' experience with shipwreck and comments on the preceding quote as it related to his own experience. Recollections of traffic on the “Great River.”

3. Further quote from Miss Fitkin's The Great River.

Scope and Content Note

1. Further quote from The Great River on West China Boxerism and its origins and nature. (extremely lengthy)

2. Quote from Pearl Buck on the same subject. (brief)

3. Quote from article in a British monthly on the Boxers. (brief)

4. Conditions in West China as described in further selected quotes. Opium and the Chinese armies. (moderately lengthy)

5. Chungking (Chongqing): China's wartime capital as described by Gretchen Mae Fitkin. (lengthy)

Scope and Content Note: The beginning of a connected, consecutive summary of the Hawkins' life and career, this tape covering the period from Mr. Hawkins' boyhood in San Francisco through his education and early career in China, his first furlough home and his return to Canton (Guangzhou) to face the invasion of Kwangtung (Guangdong) by the “Iron Army” of China and its defeat. Included are comments and descriptions of Hawkins' various postings at Foochow (Fuzhou), Mukden (Shenyang), and Hankow (Hankou).

Scope and Content Note: Continuation of the summary covering the period from Hawkins' Canton posting through those at Wuchow (Wuzhou), at the Inspectorate in Shanghai, a furlough in Europe and the U.S., a posting at Wuhu, Amoy (Xiamen), Macao (Macau) and a second furlough. Comments are made on Hawkins' experience with Japanese smugglers at Amoy.

Scope and Content Note: Continuation of the summary dealing with Hawkins' career subsequent to retirement from the CMCS including his work for the U.S. government, his Foreign Economic Administration appointment to India during World War II and his return to China to serve the United Nations famine relief team. (continued on the next tape)

Scope and Content Note: Continuation of account of famine relief work in China with comments on the Communists' activities, corruption of local gentry, difficulties of administering relief. Hawkins' return to the U.S. and a brief account of his son's work in China and India.