Background

Gauss was born on January 12, 1887, in Washington, D. C. , the son of Herman Gauss, a government official, and Emilie Julia Eisenman.

Education

Gauss graduated from Business High School in Washington and received private tutoring.

Career

Gauss became a clerk in the law firm of John M. Thurston (1903-1906). He also worked as a stenographer for the Invalid Pensions Committee of Congress (1903-1905). On August 2, 1906, Gauss began his diplomatic career as a clerk in the Department of State with an annual salary of $900. Gauss's diplomatic service abroad began and ended in China. He was first assigned as a deputy consul general at Shanghai (1907-1909), although he could not communicate in Chinese. In 1912, after duty at the consular school in Washington and after passing his Foreign Service examinations, he returned to the consulate in Shanghai. In four years at that post he sought to protect and extend American economic interests. In 1913 Gauss earned an "excellent" rating from a State Department inspection team that found him to be a "tireless worker. " Thereafter he was stationed at Tientsin (consul, 1916), Amoy (consul, 1916-1919), Tsinan (consul, 1919-1923), Mukden (consul general, 1923-1924), Tientsin (consul general, 1924-1926, 1927-1931), and Shanghai (consul general, 1926-1927). After a two-year stint at the State Department (1931-1933), Gauss served as counselor of the legation at Peiping (1933-1935). For much of 1935 he held the post of consul general and counselor of the embassy in Paris. His next assignment, as consul general in Shanghai and counselor of the embassy in China (1935-1940), enhanced Gauss's reputation as an efficient and tough-minded diplomat. They were exhausting years, for he lived in the path of Japanese expansion. Bombs exploded perilously close to his quarters, and in 1937 he often toiled eighteen hours a day to evacuate hundreds of Americans to Manila. Gauss argued vigorously and sometimes successfully with Japanese officials who abused Americans or seized American property. He became president of the Court of Consuls and the recognized leader of Shanghai's besieged International Settlement. His appointment as the first minister to Australia was an appreciated respite (1940-1941). Hardly settled in Canberra, however, Gauss was sent as ambassador to China in February 1941. Until his controversial retirement from that position in November 1944, he struggled to keep a divided China fighting against Japan and to unite the warring factions. Lacking the college education and social standing of many of his Foreign Service colleagues, Gauss felt uneasy at social gatherings and entertained infrequently. He seemed also to have placed a wall between himself and the Chinese. Many Chinese government officials were notoriously corrupt, and paid little attention to such serious problems as land reform and inflation. Gauss did not conceal his criticism of Chiang's mismanagement, nor did he indulge in the flattery Chiang desired. He often warned Washington against Chiang's propaganda, especially his exaggerated claims of success against the Japanese. In mid-1942 Chiang issued his "Three Demands" for an increase in American military aid, hinting that he might sign a separate peace with Japan. Gauss considered this a bluff, but Washington took the matter more seriously. Against Gauss's advice, Secretary of State Cordell Hull ended America's special right of extraterritoriality in 1943. The animosity between Gauss and Chiang grew. Gauss astutely foresaw the steady disintegration of Chiang's regime and the communist assumption of power. Yet, like most Americans, he did not welcome the prospect of a communist China, which he believed might become aligned with the Soviet Union. He thus reflected the American dilemma in China: he wanted neither Chiang nor Mao. President Roosevelt helped further undermine what little influence Gauss had in Chinese-American relations. Gauss complained that Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell, Chiang's American chief of staff, frequently encroached upon his diplomatic responsibilities. Gauss resented his diminished authority and the confusion in decision making, especially when the headstrong Hurley arrived in the fall of 1944. In November Gauss submitted his resignation. It was a sour parting for this career diplomat who recognized that he had been humiliated for years. Yet, loyally, he never protested publicly. Gauss was also tired and ill; in 1943 he had to return home for medical treatment, and an eye infection blinded him for several months after he left China in 1944. Despite Gauss's appeal for another assignment early in 1945, Roosevelt offered him retirement from the Foreign Service. He retired quietly on May 31, 1945. That December, President Harry S. Truman appointed him, as a nominal Republican member, to the board of the Export-Import Bank, an important instrument of United States Cold War diplomacy. He held this post until mid-1952. During this period he testified on Sino-American affairs before congressional committees, holding firm to his anticommunist views and to his argument that Chiang must reform his government as a prerequisite for American aid. In 1950, in answer to right-wing charges, he defended Foreign Service officer John Service as a competent reporter and analyst of Chinese affairs. Gauss was not an innovator, and he left no diplomatic monuments. Gauss died on April 8, 1960.

Achievements

• Not a significant force in Chinese-American relations, Gauss is remembered as an efficient, self-effacing, intelligent functionary who mastered his assignments, and a person of energy and integrity who did not seek headlines. Gauss defended American interests in China but did not share the opinion of some that China could be elevated to great power status under Chiang. He ultimately perceived what many Americans did not: that China under Chiang was a problem the United States could not solve.

Works

More photos

• book

  • A Notarial Manual for Consular Officers

    (This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)

  • A Notarial Manual For Consular Officers, 1921 (1921)

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

Personality

Although respected for his professional skills, Gauss impressed most people as chilly. He was a formidable figure - in charge of the facts, meticulous, demanding, frank, and incorruptible - but he was sometimes cranky and never comfortable in relaxed conversation; when he spoke, he did so precisely and briefly.

Quotes from others about the person

• Among those who worked with Gauss, John Service commented on his "soldier's sense of duty, " and John Paton Davies described him as "an intense man, shoulders humped forward from years of leaning over a desk, thin mouth turned down at the corners in near sneer, eyes a prismed blur as they peered out through thick lenses. "

Connections

On February 3, 1917, Gauss married Rebecca Louise Barker; they had one son.

Father:

Herman Gauss

Mother:

Emilie Julia Eisenman

Spouse:

Rebecca Louise Barker

References

• The extraterritorial system in China: final phase.
• Dragon by the tail;: American, British, Japanese, and Russian encounters with China and one another
• Stilwell and the American Experience in China: 1911-1945