It would be a mistake to consider these lectures and Sun's lesser writings the only source of Sun Yat-sen's dogma. Since the government is in the hands of the Kuomintang, and Kuomintang seniority depends largely on closeness of association with Sun Yat-sen, Sun's personal, casual, unconsidered influence on his friends forms a vital background to state policy. Sun's American biographer wrote,
Some criticize the _San Min Chu I_, because it seems to them severe and lofty. To this I reply that there are things other than what is written in the _San Min Chu I_. The English and other nations have their laws, written and unwritten. So too do we, the partisans of Sun Yat-sen, have our laws, written and unwritten. And this unwritten law is to us the dearer, is closer to our hearts, and is more moving as the goal of our activity, than even the written commentaries. This unwritten law is for us, who, sitting at his feet, received his teaching, the highest of all laws of truth and fidelity, the law of _bona fides_.[5]
[Footnote 5: Linebarger, Paul Myron, _Mes Mémoires Abrégés sur les Révolutions de Sun Yat-sen_, Paris, 1938, p. 194. Paragraphing deleted in translation from the French.]
The continuing power of Sun Yat-sen is shown by the prestige and power of his kin. Sun Yat-sen had two families. Early in life, before his medical studies had ended, he was married to a woman of his own class who was devoted, family-loving, characteristically Chinese, untouched by the West, and undisposed to revolution. She bore him three children; the son, Dr. Sun K'ê, was reared largely in the United States and has been an important figure in Chinese politics ever since his return to China from Columbia University. Successively Mayor of Canton, Chairman of Kwangtung Province, Minister of Communications, of Finance, and of Railways, President of the Executive and of the Legislative _Yüan_, he has served with distinction. A practical and moderate man, he has always advocated a moderate, constitutional application of his father's dogma, has espoused full democratic government, stood for Party abdication, and worked for national unity. One of his sisters died young and the other married a gentleman who was later Chinese Minister to Brazil. Mrs. Sun Yat-sen, Sun K'ê's mother, lived to a ripe old age in Macao. Charitable, pious, humane, she was an enthusiastic Christian convert and a terror to sluggard officials in that European outpost of vice. She took no part in politics.