President Woodrow Wilson Appoints Samuel Sokobin An Interpreter to the American Consulate in China

A colorful man, he also played a role in many investigations and adventures in China, as well as being an author of works on the Jews in China

Samuel Sokobin was an American consular official in China from 1914-1940, as well as a collector of rare books on China. He was also in 1940-41 a U.S. consul in Japan. Sokobin had many adventures, and books have been written about them. Sokobin was himself the author of three articles on Jews in China, and numerous other works.

In one adventure, in 1918, when the explorer Frank Meyer suddenly disappeared from a ferry on the Yangtze River, Sokobin was tasked with finding the missing man. By the time Sokobin received the case, four days have passed since Meyer was last seen on the vast river. With no clues to guide his search and fearing failure in his new post as a man of rank, Sokobin headed upriver with Mr. Lin, a Chinese interpreter he’s never met. The investigation soon turns deeply personal for Sokobin, who can’t help but conflate Meyer’s fate with that of his own daring younger brother—a fighter pilot gone MIA in the world war. As Sokobin continued to search for answers, he was forced to contend with the biggest question of what do we do when the answers we most desperately seek are the very ones that elude us. Then Meyer’s body washed up near a village, and Sokobin went to retrieve it.

In another adventure, in 1938, U. S. residents of Tsingtao were sternly advised by Consul Sokobin that they must not join German, British and Russian residents who were busy recruiting a group of some 250 white vigilantes armed with clubs to protect each other’s lives and property. While the Sokobin “good neighbor policy” was pursued by U. S. citizens, the white club-wielders dashed about Tsingtao in groups of five, cracking the crown of every native they suspected of looting. Tsingtao by this time looked from a distance like one great smoking pyre of chaos, but after some 36 hours of club work, and before the Japanese conquerors arrived, cables reported the city “quiet.”

During World War II, in 1941, Sokobin was taken prisoner by the Japanese. In 1943, he became the first American in World War II patriated by the Japanese to set foot on the soil of the United States, this after two years in Japanese internment camps and a long voyage on the Swedish exchange liner Gripsholm. Sokobin had only one comment to make: “I am very happy,” he said. Carrying two suitcases and ready to make a flying visit to Washington to report to the State Department, Sokobin was the former American Consul at Kobe, Japan. It appears the Swedes arranged his release.

Document signed, Washington, August 9, 1920, naming Sokobin “Interpreter for the Consulate of the United States of America at Swatow [Shantou], China,” with all the “privileges and emoluments…during the pleasure of the President of the United States for the time being.”

A fascinating man, with a fascinating story, yet little remembered today.