In accordance with
Article 29 of the Provisional Constitution, which states that in
case the office of the Great President should be vacated for certain
reasons or when the Great President is incapacitated from doing his
duties, the Vice-President shall exercise authority and power in his
stead. I, the Great President, declare in accordance with the
Provisional Constitution that the Vice-President shall exercise in
an acting capacity, the authority and power of the Great President
of the Chung Hua Min Kuo.

The Vice-President being a man of courtesy, good nature, benevolence
and wisdom, will certainly be capable of greatly lessening the
difficulties of the day and place the country on the foundation of
peace, and so remedy the defects of me, the Great President, and
satisfy the expectations of the people of the whole country. The
civil and military officials outside of the Capital as well as the
troops, police and scholars and people should doubly keep in mind
the difficulties and perils of the nation, and endeavour to maintain
peace and order to the best of their ability, placing before
everything else the welfare of the country. The ancients once said:
"It is only when the living do try to become strong that the dead
are not dead." This is also the wish of me, the Great President.

(Signed) TUAN CHI-JUI,
Secretary of State and
Minister of War

TSAO JU-LIN,
Minister of Foreign Affairs and
Communications.

WANG YI-TANG,
Minister of Interior.

CHOW TZU-CHI,
Minister of Finance.

LIU-KUAN-HSIUNG,
Minister of Navy.

CHANG TSUNG-HSIANG,
Minister of Justice and
Agriculture and Commerce.

CHANG KUO-KAN,
Minister of Education.

6th day of the 6th month of the 5th year of Chung Hua Min Kuo.

This tragic denouement did not fail to awaken within very few days
among thinking minds a feeling of profound sympathy for the dead man
coupled with sharp disgust for the part that foreigners had played--not
all, of course--but a great number of them. Briefly, when all the facts
are properly grouped it can be said that Yuan Shih-kai was killed by his
foreign friends--by the sort of advice he has been consistently given in
Constitutional Law, in Finance, in Politics, in Diplomacy. It is easy to
trace step by step the broad road he had been tempted to travel, and to
see ho