"Trying Hard" Founder And Political Discussions

THE ENDEAVOR is a journal established by Hu Shih to discuss political and socialissues. Liberal intellectuals of modern China first raised their own proposalsconcerning Chinese politics, inviting all to criticize, discuss or express their opinionsfreely and openly in the journal. It was founded during the schisms of Warlord era, inwhich people can deliver their opinions freely around the theme of social backgroundat the time. Headed by Hu Shih, a group of intellectuals were financially independent,which ensured the journal can maintain its independence to society without beingcontrolled by other political forces.Hu Shih always had an interest in politics. He believed that the country would besaved by reconstruction of Chinese civilization. The terrible political reality at thattime together with a bunch of his liberal friends encourage him to focus on politicsagain which is against his early promise that he would not talk about politics fortwenty years. From then on, he devoted his whole life to the politics and found themagazine based on a political group named “Endeavor Society”.The core members of the journal included Hu Shih, Ding Wenjiang, Gao Yihan,Zhang Weici, Ren Hongjuan, Chen Hengzhe, etc. It printed the thoughts of literatureand arts besides the discussion about the political situation at that time and launchedfar-reaching debate in modern ideological circle which is known as the debate ofscience and metaphysics.Published in the second issue in the journal,“Our Political Proposals” is thepolitical declaration by those liberal intellectuals of modern China. Declaration of"good government" not only had a great impact on theory, but gained more attentionbecause of the forming of the government by Wang Chonghui. The proposal wentbankruptcy influenced by the ruthless political ecological environment. In fact,“goodgovernment group" was merely a pawn for military powers.THE ENDEAVOR also focused on constitutional development and the opening ofthe congress including revealing and criticizing the selfish and cheating behavior ofthose politicians. The journal discussed the cabinet system, the presidential system,commission system as well as province—joining Autonomy and professionalrepresentation and so on in the aspect of the content of the constitution. In financialaspect, THE ENDEAVOR analyzed the financial "symptoms" in the government and discussed the ways to solve the problems by way of financial disclosure and fiscalsupervision. By reviewing of the formation process of democracy in the countriessuch as Britain and the United States, it declared that we would supervise thegovernment about its fiscal problems rather than just ask it for money simply, and thegovernment should make plans about how to allot the money.Constitutionalism claimed by those intellectuals was just a tool for the warlords toachieve their personal ambition. Most of the intellectuals are more willing to live inmind and spirit in the modern age and not good at transforming political theory intoaction. Hu Shih and others decided to shut down the journal just because of the factthat the magazine failed to change the political reality which changed from bad toworse. Politics-focus showed that those intellectuals were willing to be responsible tothe society, and efforts by the journal are not so meaningless. One the one hand,more followers showed their positive role influenced by it in the form of "everygeneration of fermentation"; on the other hand, its spirit was nourishing a series ofnewspapers and journals.