“two-gun Cohen,” Began Life As Unwilling Clerk in Father’s Shop

The general assumption is that the Irishman alone is the soldier of fortune, the adventurer, and the Jew is the tradesman. But there are Jews in the Foreign Legion as well as gentlemen who are called O’Brien; Cohens who are officers in South and Central American regiments as well as Callahans, and in Chinese provincial armies, where the writer has met many of them, Goldsteins as well as McCarthys.

Today one of the leading generals in the Sino-Japanese conflict is a Jew. Where General Frederick Townsend Ward, “the mad Irishman from Boston” whom the Chinese sainted, once disciplined a rabble army by shooting thousands of them and then leading the rest against the maniacal Taipings, who had swept all of China in a bloodthirsty religious frenzy, General Morris Cohen now commands huge units of Chinese in a battle for the sovereignty of this ancient, celestial kingdom.

Life started in a rather commonplace way for the adventurous Cohen. His father’s drygoods business in Manchester, England, claimed the bored attentions of young Cohen during his adolescence. But while he handled cotton over the counter, he dreamed of wars and conquest and exotic women.

Some months ago as we stood at the bar of the Grand Hotel de Pekin in Peiping, Cohen told the writer about his exit from the drygoods business.

BOYHOOD HALLUCINATIONS

“I had been reading night and day about the far parts of the world. I created a dream world of intrigue and battle; and this became so realistic that my father would often find me peering around the corners of the counter, a toy gun in one hand and a wooden sword in the other.

“One day a customer entered the store when I was enthralled in one of these fanciful moods. I snatched up my toy gun, leaped over the counter, and declared, ‘Ha! At last we meet, Senor Gomez. Over the bones of my sainted mother I swore I would tear out your heart and eat it.’

“Well, when the police finished questioning my motives and after the neighbors began taunting me, my father advised me to go to London. I did. But even in London, people occasionally stopped me on the street with ‘Ah ha! Senor Gomez, over the bones of my sainted mother’—and so forth.”

Morris Cohen finally evaded Gomez by going to Canada, where he became a clothes peddler. The world war came; and Cohen went to France with a Canadian regiment.

In No Man’s Land, Cohen was put in charge of a Chinese labor group. It was here that Morris Abraham Cohen received his Chinese name, “Cohen Moisha.” To this day the arrival of the former peddler in Canton, Shanghai, Peiping, or Harbin is a signal for the publication of long columns of editorial matter in Chinese newspapers describing the adventurous background of “our-friend Cohen Moisha, the white terror.”

AN EXPERT MARKSMAN

During his service with the Chinese in France, Cohen became interested in China. During the day he would encourage the Chinese to tell him of their country and at night he would dream of the fantastic land of pagodas and war lords. Before the world war had ended, Cohen had decided that he would pursue adventure in China, once released from the war.

Cohen’s handling of a wooden pistol stood him in good stead during the war. He was recognized as one of the most expert marksmen in his division; and because of his ability with either right or left hand or both he became known throughout the outfit as “Two-Gun Cohen.” His buddies to this day may not recognize the name Morris Cohen, but once you mention “Two-Gun Cohen” the flood-gates of memory are unlocked to a torrent of entertaining reminiscence.

After the world war, Cohen joined the Chinese Nationalist League, and he became a prominent figure in China’s political turmoil. Recognizing Cohen’s ability as an economist as well as a military expert, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, father of the Chinese Republic, invited Morris to become his adviser. As such, Cohen drilled Cantonese troops in the rudiments of western military tactics and aided in promoting loans, which were succeessfully invested in efforts to place the Sun Government in power.

A BRIGADIER-GENERAL

When Sun Yat-sen died in 1925, Cohen became adviser to Sun Fo, only son of the deceased leader. During the stormy years of the Nan-king-Canton civil warfare, Morris Cohen drilled Cantonese troops and borrowed more money for the Cantonese faction. In June, 1931, his services were rewarded when he was made a Brigadier General in the Canton Council.