The Lady and the Panda

by Vicki Croke

  Harkness was the darling of the media, enjoying a welcome that could not have been more boisterously positive, fevered, or widespread. “That was fame,” The New York Times observed of her high-profile entrance, and it would keep coming as she made her way east.

  The Times had already started lauding her achievement before she landed, saying that Harkness “would not accept discouragement nor defeat where many men had failed.” She had faced a rugged and alien terrain, with dangers at every corner, and emerged with what The Times described as “the rarest quadruped in the world.” It was “the most important single achievement in collecting animals in modern times,” according to the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago.

  The American public adored stories of women getting into a man's game. There were a number of dashing aviatrixes who were breaking records one after another. Beryl Markham and Jacqueline Cochran, and, of course, Amelia Earhart. The American Gertrude Caroline Ederle was the first woman to swim the English Channel in 1926. In 1932 Hattie Caraway was the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate. And, now, here was Ruth Harkness, American Explorer. She would soon appear on bestdressed lists and in an ad for Quaker Oats. Her expedition was the stuff of lusty, bright-colored comic strips.

  As grand as it all could be, in San Francisco Harkness found the American press much more unruly than the polite gang in Shanghai. She longed for the days when Dan Reib could “control publicity.” She bristled at some of the questions, such as how it was that she “happened” to find this creature. And she hated the presentation of the page-one story in the Examiner, which did not mention Quentin Young at all, and referred in its headline to the panda capture—without intending any connection to the Smith flap—as a “kidnap.”

  AFTER THE MORNING'S media assault, then some haggling with customs over the bamboo she had brought (the dirt on the roots was washed off in compromise), Harkness, Baby, and a few of their friends from the ship battled their way over to the Saint Francis Hotel. There, railroad and airline companies vied for the high-profile opportunity of transporting the world's only captive baby giant panda. A few days later, on December 22, she pulled in to a cold, wintry Chicago aboard the Overland Limited, dealing with a new throng of eager reporters. At the Palmer House hotel, Harkness conferred with Edward Bean, director of Chicago's Brookfield Zoo, sometimes called the Chicago Zoological Park. Bean made his desire explicit about “the most important and valuable animal in captivity.” He wanted Su-Lin. The Associated Press reported that the Bronx Zoo, the London Zoo, and any number of circuses were in on the bidding too.

  All the newspapers had said what Harkness herself had probably assumed—that Su-Lin would be headed for the Bronx, where Bill's other catch—the Komodo dragons—had gone. Harkness was careful, however, not to shut the door to Chicago. DON'T CLOSE NEGOTIATIONS WITH ANYONE, she had cabled Perkie. She didn't know what she'd find back in New York, and once again, her instincts would prove to be valid. She made clear to Bean that she wanted Baby in a place that could care for him properly, and that she would choose the institution that would finance her next expedition. With that, Harkness and Su-Lin were on their way, that afternoon, aboard the sleek, futuristically streamlined Commodore Vanderbilt, hurtling toward Manhattan.

  At 9:47 A.M., on December 23, 1936, a svelte Ruth Harkness, wearing a thick Chinese otter-fur coat, carrying her “baby girl,” and trailed by hordes of reporters, stepped up to the registration desk at New York City's Biltmore Hotel to secure a room that could accommodate her and the wildest media frenzy yet. “All that seemed lacking,” The New York Times would note later, “was a ticker-tape parade and a reception at City Hall.”

  Along with excited friends and relatives, Harkness had been greeted earlier at Grand Central Terminal by a wall of shouting reporters and cameramen setting off their flashes as she emerged from the train. Despite now being experienced with the media, Harkness was bewildered by the size and fury of this onslaught. The panda too grew irritated by the lights. Harkness was determined to get Su-Lin away from the railway station, which she considered too dangerously filled with babythreatening germs. It would be easier to deal with the platoon of media people in a hotel than in her own apartment, which she hadn't seen in months.

  Ruth shows off Su-Lin to the United States. COURTESY MARY LOBISCO

  In a large room on the eighth floor of the Biltmore, Harkness called for all windows to be opened to the fresh winter air, in order to simulate “the native Tibetan climate of the panda.” “I keep the radiators off and all the windows opened, regardless of temperature,” she would say. The chain-smoker-turned-worried-mother then requested that all cigarettes be extinguished.

  She settled herself and Baby onto the bed's nubby pink spread. A tray with pots of hot water to warm the formula was delivered, while a throng of “shivering newshawks” circled around her. As flashbulbs popped, she fed Su-Lin, answering questions she already “knew by heart.”

  There were the basics—How did it happen? Where?—but also some comical ones like, was Su-Lin housebroken?

  With Harkness's great sense of humor, they all had a few laughs. To the question of whether Su-Lin was intelligent, she responded confidently that Su-Lin was “the smartest panda that's ever been in captivity.”

  At one point in her press briefings, she would be asked about being the only woman with all those Chinese men, to which she replied, “I was accepted by those men with less comment probably than a woman who rides in a smoking car from New York to Philadelphia.”

  To questions about Smith's charges, she protested, “There's not a word of truth to it!”

  When another reporter asked, “Why does anybody want one anyway?” Harkness said, “Oh, because it's a completely new species. We want it for scientific study.”

  Would she be giving the panda to a zoo? they wanted to know. “I think we'll both wind up together in a cage in some zoo,” she responded.

  During the rapid-fire questioning and all the frivolity, the baby panda bit the nipple off his bottle, or as the papers reported, “misbehaved,” right “under the guns of the press,” spilling milk onto the bed. With affection, Harkness said that Su-Lin was “a spoiled little beggar.”

  The panda was so adorable that writers found it hard to do him justice. He was compared to a Scottish terrier and a teddy bear. The New York Herald Tribune reporter was struck by how much like a human baby the panda seemed, as he woke, yawned, stretched, and waved his arms “in an aimless fashion.”

  His eye patches were invariably called black “spectacles.” His “unearthly voice” sounded like “an off-key violin note.” The Sun said Su-Lin was “rare and priceless as a maharajah's jewel.” Time magazine called him the “Animal of the Year.” Much later, with the perspective of history, a noted zoologist would jack up the designation a hundredfold, calling Su-Lin “the most famous animal of the twentieth century.”

  All the reporters were struck by the emotional bond between Harkness and this little infant. The baby panda, The New York Times said, “seems to have a real affection for her mistress” and “to delight in the warmth of human contact” as he sucked “greedily” on the lobe of Harkness's ear. The Herald Tribune wrote that Su-Lin obviously was “something more than just an animal infant to its captor.” The Sun reported that Harkness referred to Su-Lin “merely as ‘the child.’ ”

  She would tell the press that she understood the meanings of his various yips and squawks, which, she said, indicated contentment, hunger, irritation, and fright.

  During that chaotic first day in New York, several visitors arrived at the Biltmore. Charles Appleton, a friend of Harkness's, shyly presented a poem. It celebrated Harkness's capture of “what no man has caught up to now,” and predicted another race—the one for movie rights.

  A few big guns of natural history came too—the famed Raymond Ditmars, curator of reptiles and mammals at the Bronx Zoo, and Donald Carter of the American Museum of Natural History. The sight of the little panda electrified them, especially Ditmars. Th
e Herald Tribune reported that grinning like a boy, the august scientist said, “I just want to be able to say that I touched a live panda.”

  Throughout the day, and in every meeting with the press, it was of vital importance to Harkness to credit all the Youngs. “Jack and Su-Lin Young did countless things for me,” she said, “but my biggest stroke of luck was obtaining the cooperation of Quentin. His forehand knowledge of the conditions we were to encounter, plus his keen mind, tireless energy and thorough understanding of the people with whom we had to deal in our journeys up-country really paved the way for my success. Without Quentin Young, I should have failed.”

  Of herself and her own capabilities, she said, she was a very fortunate person. “That it should be my luck to be the first human being to bring a Giant Panda—especially a baby one—out alive seems so unbelievable that there are times when I can hardly realize that it is true.”

  Though she may have downplayed her determination, she now vowed that she would dedicate the “remainder of her life to adventure.” She made clear to the press that any reputable zoo that would finance her next expedition would get Su-Lin. She felt complete happiness while abroad, telling the scribbling journalists, “I loved the Chinese people and the country and can hardly wait to get back.”

  Once the press had finally cleared, Harkness, along with her entourage, made her way to her apartment at 333 West Eighteenth Street. She would have an enormous amount of catching up to do with everybody.

  The next night, Christmas Eve, Harkness found herself alone for what would turn out to be a few surprisingly dark hours. As radio stations played jolly and wistful tunes, candles and Christmas lights burned in the windows along the New York streets, and cheerful families rushed up the sidewalks with bright packages under their arms, a wave of melancholy came over the solitary explorer. She had felt such contentment in the lonely mountains in a lost part of the world, but now in the heart of one of the most crowded cities on earth, the place she had lived for her entire adult life, she was lonely. Though not the only Christmas she had spent without Bill, it was the first since his death. The sense of homecoming she had experienced so intensely in China would leave her feeling oddly out of place here. Surrounded by the familiar, she seemed not to belong.

  Thankfully, a friend dropped in. They had cocktails, then went out, toting Baby down chilled Manhattan avenues in his wicker basket. As they indulged in a fine dinner in a favorite restaurant, Harkness declared that charging an extravagant meal on credit was always a reliable antidote to feeling broke.

  Right after Christmas everything started to hum again. There were some increasingly sour talks with the Bronx Zoo as the lofty zoological institution balked about taking the panda. Never expressed openly, it was almost certainly Harkness's demand for expedition money that put them off. Harkness wanted the same amount she had spent on her first expedition, which Time and Life magazines gauged to be twenty thousand dollars. She had said as much herself at one point, appraising her fourpound panda at five thousand dollars a pound.

  It was a whopper of an asking price, way out of line with standard invoices for zoo purchases. Monkeys could be had by the dozen at $12 each, scarlet ibises for $15, and Malayan sun bears for $250 per pair. Besides, no matter what the price, the Bronx preferred and often expected catches brought in by well-mannered gentlemen to be donated.

  That wasn't going to be the case with this woman. The director, W. Reid Blair, saw the newspaper stories in which Su-Lin was said to be worth anywhere from $10,000 to $150,000. So the zoo started its grumbling early. Blair complained to the papers that the explorer had been lax about staying in touch, asserting that “aside from a cable to the effect that Mrs. Harkness was on her way, the institution had had no word from her since she left China.” But more to the point, he said of her and the panda, “she'll probably want to sell it.” The zoo would be willing to acquire it only if the price were “reasonable.”

  Furthermore, Blair told the New York Herald Tribune that “no zoological park desires to pay from $2,000 to $10,000 for a live animal unless there is a fair chance it can live a reasonable time in captivity.” Since a sick panda could be a colossal waste of money, some zoo officials began to wonder aloud if Su-Lin's perfectly natural bowed back legs meant he was suffering from rickets.

  The Bronx, apparently, wouldn't budge above $2,000, and terms could not be agreed on. So Baby continued to live the life of a modern city panda—riding around Manhattan in taxicabs with all the windows rolled down, living in a nice flat, and attending cocktail parties.

  Oddly, no other zoo was coming forward with a check for the most sought-after animal in the world, scared off no doubt by the price tag as well as the liability of caring for such a vulnerable baby. Harkness was surprised and discouraged. She had a “heavenly” fantasy of scraping together enough money to return to her lost world with Baby in tow. She also considered the possibility of bringing Quentin Young to the States. She wondered if he had, in fact, married the girl in the red sweater.

  One sunny day in January, Harkness strolled around the streets of Manhattan, thinking of Young. As she watched the skaters at Rockefeller Plaza and looked up at the soaring skyscrapers, she decided to send her field companion his reward money, despite the fact that she still had no deal with any zoo. Her bank account was so close to empty anyway, she thought in true Harkness style, what would it matter if it drained out a little faster? She cabled Young the cash, musing about whether he would spend it on a ticket to America.

  Harkness may have been downhearted about the zoo situation, but she had plenty to distract her. “The world came to my door by mail, by telephone and in person,” she recounted. Among others, there were author, critic, and radio personality Alexander Woollcott, whose promotion had been instrumental in the success of Lost Horizon; the great wildlife artist Charles Knight, coming daily to sketch Su-Lin; and the daughter of the Chinese ambassador to the United States.

  Also, perhaps surprisingly, there were the men who had made names for themselves by killing pandas: the Roosevelts, Brooke Dolan, and Dean Sage.

  Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., arrived with his son Quentin and brother Kermit. The colonel was sitting with the woolly baby panda on his lap when a friend said that should something happen to Su-Lin, he could be stuffed and placed with the grouping of specimens that the Roosevelts had provided to the Field Museum. Roosevelt replied, “I'd just as soon think of stuffing Quentin and putting him in a habitat group.”

  Sage had a similar reaction. “Do you know,” he said to Harkness, “I shall never shoot another Panda!”

  “And this,” Harkness said, “from a man whose highest ambition three short years ago was to collect a Giant Panda Group in China for the American Museum of Natural History.… But I have since wondered if the American Museum would have had the wonderful Panda specimens Mr. and Mrs. Sage brought back, if Su Lin had seen the Sages first.” The baby panda's ability to convert hunters into peaceable admirers was not lost on the lady explorer. “I hope something will be done,” she wrote, “to prevent more of these rare and interesting animals from being killed. Science I believe has learned all that can be gained from dead specimens; it remains now to learn something about the live one.” As one Harvard mammalogist said of collecting specimens for museums, what was observed of an animal could be summed up by saying, “When we found it, it ran like hell, whereupon we shot it!”

  Waging her soft campaign to disarm big-game hunters, she got the chance to address a slew of them. On Saturday evening, January 16, Ruth Harkness was the first woman to attend the annual banquet of the prestigious and all-male Explorers Club. Members had included President Theodore Roosevelt, Sir Ernest Shackleton, both Frederick Cook and Robert Peary, and Richard Byrd.

  The club would not tolerate naming a woman the guest of honor— that glory went to the panda himself. But, as Harkness dryly pointed out, “They couldn't very well ask Su Lin without me.” Though they were forced to invite her, they made clear she was not being co
mmended: The New York Times reported that Su-Lin was “ceremoniously announced as the one and only guest of honor.”

  Wearing her gray Chinese otter coat over a peach gown, Harkness swept into the chandeliered lounge of the Plaza at 7:15 P.M., and parted the sea of hundreds who were milling about in formal jackets with their cocktails and cigars. Horrified by the billowing smoke, she dashed out just as quickly. Harkness, Su-Lin, a hotel employee, and a maid Harkness brought along, Frances Horn, hurried through the gathering once more, this time on their way to suite 363, rented for the evening, so windows could be opened to the fresh air for Baby. Harkness's anxiety and the brief appearance of the panda caused enough of a stir among the gentlemen for The New York Times to note it.

  During dinner, Harkness and Su-Lin were seated next to club president Walter Granger. At ten-thirty toastmaster Lowell Thomas signaled to Harkness. She wrapped Baby in a bath towel, and carried him to a microphone for a live broadcast. Granger asked a series of questions, to which Harkness responded for the panda. “What's your name?” he inquired, and Harkness answered, “Su-Lin.”

  “Where do you come from?”

  “I came from the border of Tibet.”

  Before the broadcast ended, the annoyed animal did his own talking, which, The Times said, “was exactly like a baby crying.” Although there were a number of speakers, the paper asserted, “It was Su-Lin's show”— as it would be for some time to come.

  Newspapers couldn't get enough of the panda and the panda hunter. Among others, the New York American told the tale in sizable and splashy spreads over four Sundays in February. For the series, Harkness's byline was accompanied by the legend “First woman to lead her own expedition into Chinese Tibet and the only explorer who ever caught a living specimen of the rare and elusive Giant Panda.”