Lin Sen was born in Fuzhou, Fujian Province, in 1868. In 1884, Lin worked in the Telegram Bureau of Taipei, Taiwan. After Japan defeated the Qing court and acquired Taiwan in 1895, Lin engaged in local guerrilla activities resisting Japanese rule.
In the early 1900s, he moved to Hawaii and then San Francisco, where he joined Sun Yat-sen’s revolutionary movement and became an organizer for Sun’s political campaign. Following the overthrow of the Qing dynasty and the founding of the Chinese Republic in 1912, Lin became speaker of the senate in the new National Assembly.
Throughout the 1910s and 1920s, Lin remained a staunch follower of Sun Yat-sen and an opponent of the warlord regime in Beijing. After Sun’s death in 1925, Lin joined the right-wing Western Hills faction of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), advocating for the expulsion of communist elements from the party.
In 1931, when Chiang Kai-shek arrested his political rival Hu Hanmin, then the head of the legislative branch of the government, Lin and other high-ranking officials called for the Chiang’s impeachment. The Japanese invasion of Manchuria in the fall of that year, however, ultimately led to Chiang’s temporary resignation.
Lin Sen was appointed chairman of the Nationalist government on January 1, 1932, a post he held for twelve years. While Chiang Kai-shek eventually resumed full command of national affairs, Lin Sen remained a respected figure and notably brought dignity and stability to his position.
Above image: Chairman Lin Sen (middle in the front row) and Premier Wang Jingwei (third from right, front row) receive a foreign ambassador in Nanjing in the 1930s.
When Japan’s full-scale invasion of China began in 1937, Lin moved to the wartime capital of Chongqing in southwest China. Despite offers to defect and collaborate with the Tokyo-backed puppet regime in Nanjing led by Wang Jingwei, Lin remained loyal to the Republic of China.
Above images: (Left) A page of Lin Sen’s personal diary of 1939. (Right) Lin’s calligraphic work done in 1942.
Lin Sen died on August 1, 1943, at the age of 76, and a month of national mourning was declared. After his passing, the KMT elected Chiang Kai-shek to resume the chairmanship. Lin was the longest serving head of state of the Republic of China before the seat of the government moved to Taiwan in late 1949.
The collection includes Lin Sen’s painting, calligraphy, and artifacts; his last will; estate planning and administration documents during his chairmanship; his personal diary of 1939 and 1940, family correspondence, and photographs; and a biography of Lin Sen authored by his niece Lin Xiang.
The collection is a welcome addition to the Hoover Institution Library & Archive’s rich archival holdings on Nationalist China. It complements those collections relating to the top leaders of twentieth-century China, such as Chiang Kai-shek, Chiang Ching-kuo, T. V. Soong, H. H. Kung, Bai Chongxi, and Wang Jingwei.
