The
Great Wall of China hoax was a faked story,
published in United
States
newspapers on June 25, 1899, about bids by
American businesses to demolish the Great Wall of China and construct a road
in its place.
In 1939,
an urban legend began when Denver
songwriter
Harry Lee Wilber claimed in a magazine article that the 1899
hoax had ignited the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. Paul Harvey and Dwight Sands perpetuated the
legend. Variations have been incorporated into sermons about "the
power of the tongue," a morality tale used by preachers to
highlight the consequences of lying.
The fact,
however, is that Boxer activity intensified in response to the
German
invasion in Shandong
during March
1899 - before the hoax was invented in Denver. No Chinese
history
reference relates the hoax to the Boxer Rebellion.
Origin of the hoax
Background
The hoax was created at the height of imperialism during late 19th
Century.
In 1898, Britain
obtained a
99-year lease for the New Territories, extending the Hong Kong
colony that had been ceded in 1841. Britain
also sent a fleet into the
Gulf of Chihli
and convinced the Chinese to lease
Weihaiwei.
Germany seized the
Chinese port of Kiaochow
and used it
for a military base. The French
took the
coastal city of Kwang-Chou-Wan. Also, in the
First Sino-Japanese War, Japan
defeated China.
Xenophobia in China was
widespread.
Beginning
The hoax began with four Denver newspaper reporters, Al Stevens,
Jack Tournay, John Lewis and Hal Wilshire, who represented the four
Denver newspapers--the
Post, the
Republican, the
Times and the
Rocky Mountain News. The four met
by chance at Denver's Union Station where each were waiting in
hopes of spotting someone of prominence who could become a subject
for a news story. Seeing no celebrities and frustrated with no
story in sight and deadlines due, Stevens remarked, "I don't know
what you guys are going to do, but I'm going to fake it. It won't
hurt anybody, so what the Devil." The other three men agreed to
concoct a story and walked on 17th Street toward the Oxford Hotel
to discuss possible ideas.
Some
stories, such as New
York
detectives tracking kidnappers of a rich heiress or
the creation of a powerful company that would compete with the
equally powerful Colorado Fuel and Iron Company were ruled out, as
stories set in the United States were more likely to be checked and
verified. The reporters then began running through
countries such as Germany, Russia
and Japan
until one of
the reporters suggested China. John
Lewis grew excited and exclaimed, "That's it, the Great Wall of
China! Must be 50 years since that old pile's been in the news.
Let's build our story around it. Let's do the Chinese a real favor.
Let's tear the old pile down!"
The four reporters concocted a story in which the Chinese planned
to demolish the Great Wall, constructing a road in its place, and
were taking bids from American companies for the project. Chicago
engineer Frank C. Lewis was bidding for the job. The story
described a group of engineers in a Denver stopover on their way to
China.
Although one of the reporters worried about the consequences of
such an invented story, he was eventually overruled by the other
reporters.
Leaving the Oxford Bar, they went to the
Windsor Hotel, signed four fictitious names to the register and
told the desk clerk to say to anyone who asked that reporters had
interviewed four men before they left for California
.
The reporters swore they would stick to this story as fact as long
as any of the others were still alive. The next day, all four major
Denver newspapers, the
Times,
Post,
Republican and
Rocky Mountain News featured the
fabricated tale on the front page. On the
Times, as well
as the other three papers, this was a typical headline:
- GREAT CHINESE WALL DOOMED! PEKING
SEEKS WORLD TRADE!
Although the Denver papers dropped the story after a few days, the
story did not die. Two weeks after the Denver headlines, John Lewis
had noticed a large Eastern U.S. newspaper had picked up the story
and included information not even in the original story. This
newspaper included quotes from a Chinese
mandarin confirming the story, with
illustrations and comments about the tearing down of the wall.
Eventually the story spread to newspapers all across the country
and then into
Europe.
Although the story
underwent different versions, the essence remained: the United States was sending an expedition to tear down the Great
Wall of China.
Years later, the last surviving reporter of the hoax, Hal Wilshire,
confessed the secret.
Harry Lee Wilber's hoax
The
Museum of Hoaxes states that the Boxer
Rebellion connection originated with Denver songwriter Harry Lee
Wilber (1875–1946). Wilber embellished the original tale when he
wrote an article in 1939 for the
North American Review.
Wilber's article, "A Fake That Rocked the World," was reprinted 17
years later in
Great Hoaxes of All Time (1956), edited by
Robert Medill McBride and Neil Pritchie.
Wilber, who composed
the music for "Back to Dear Old Denver Town" (1912), was the first
manager of the Fox Fullerton Theater (Fullerton,
California
) after it was constructed in 1924-25. The
legend was also told in
More of Paul Harvey's The Rest of the
Story (1981).
There is no relevant Chinese source to prove the authenticity of
Wilber's account.
References
- McBride, Robert Medill and Pritchie, Neil, ed. Great Hoaxes
of All Time. Pages 17-24. New York: Robert M. McBride
Co., 1956.
- Wilber, Harry Lee. "A Fake That Rocked the World," North
American Review, 1939.
Sources
- Harvey, Jr., Paul. More of Paul Harvey's The Rest of the
Story. Pages 136-138. New York: William Morrow & Co.,
1980. ISBN 0-553-26074-X
- Harvey, Jr., Paul. Good Housekeeping. Serialization of
More of Paul Harvey's The Rest of the Story.
- Klein, Alexander, editor. The Fabulous Rogues. New
York: Ballantine, 1960.
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