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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (June 21, 1900)
' ' . 4 the Conservative * THE DECAY OF CHINA. It is little less than amusing to see the reasons recently given for a belief that China is in decline nud decay. In the first place , it is said that the Celestial empire is falling into pieces because the Chinese object to the presence of Americans and other foreigners among them. Long columns of high wisdom on this text are being written and pub lished in the United States and Ger many. To object to foreigners of a different race , coming among them to save their souls or do anything more or less material , is regarded as a reason for the immediate partition of China , or the occupancy of her territory by allies , who are allies only because they cannot trust each other. But while in this country and in Germany the writers write of this sign of decay in China , wo are casting about for more rigid means to make good and enforce our own objection to the presence here of foreigners from China. If that be a sign of decay we have been decaying for the last twenty years. "We have not only mildly forced .China into treaties to exclude her people from this country but we have passed all sorts of laws , local and federal , to the same end. In r vacation time , when we have not been I inventing and setting up legal traps and , tricks to keep out these objectionable foreigners , we have been killing them in California , Colorado and Wyoming , and in that way , by mob violence , we have killed twenty Chinese foreigners to one white foreigner killed by mobs in China. It is laughable that , with all this so recent in our history , and much of it current , contemporary and every day matter , we should be uttering wis dom on the decay of China as proved by the objection of that unenlightened people to the presence of foreigners ! The next reason given for the decay of China is the reported persecution of native Chinese for religion's sake. It is even said that our government has pro tested against this because the victims are Christians. Wo beg to respectfully submit that our government is not a protector of the Christian religion in any of its forms. Indeed , ours is not "a Christian government at all. It is a secular government and not the pro tector of any form of religion , Christian or otherwise. We are seldom without some form of religious persecution at home. Not long ago a Jew mayor of Savannah had to stand between Catho lics and A. P. A. protestauts to keep them from slitting each other's throat. Within a year Mormau missionaries have been hunted out of several Ameri can states , glad to escape the vengeance of their pursuers and in some cases clad in neat-fitting but uncomfortable suits of tar and feathers. If China is occasionally spitting a native Christian on a bamboo skewer , why is that any more a sign of her decay than our Mormon chasing is a sign of our decay ? A Christian is just as offensive to China as a Mormon is to our orthodox Christian taste. Professional hypocrisy is doing a large business in the world at this time. One of its manifestations is this outbreak of holy horror about the internal condition of China. In this country we exclude Chinese and mob Mormons , and in Ger many the weather has not washed out the tracks of the Poles , expelled and marched out by Bismnrk as objection able foreigners , and yet we are astounded and pained to learn that poor , old , broken China objects to foreigners and in her decay indulges in religious perse cution as a pastime ! The western world has made other mistakes about China and Japan. The late Marquis Tseng , in commenting on the opposition everywhere to Chinese as objectionable foreigners , said : "China voluntarily isolated herself and desired to remain isolated. She did not force herself upon the west. But the western nations used force to open China to the world , without seeming to reflect that they also opened the world to China. " A little more of the "look before you leap" statesmanship would be a good thing. The United States sent Com modore Perry to open Japan to the world , and he did it. Japan is just now returning the favor by considering that Commodore Perry's can-opener worked both ways , and opened the United States to Japan. We did not think of that forty years ago , when wo ordered Japan to open her door or we would shoot a hole through it. But we nre reminded of it now , when we find it necessary to close our own door to Japan. We were under the glamor of the great trade we hoped to get from Japan , but it is now shown to be prob able that the invasion of this country by Japanese in large numbers will take from us in five years more than all the profit on our Japanese trade from the beginning. But not many Here and in Europe seem to be impressed by the fact that China is actuated against foreigners by exactly the same motives that impel the western nations to exclude Chinese and will soon make them exclude Japanese also. It is self-preservation , and a natural feeling that the different races would better stay in the place where nature planted them. But when wo act upon that principle it is statesman ship ; when China does the same it is a sign of decay I San Francisco Call. TIIE MONROE DOCTRINE. So long as the world moves , no ex pression of human wisdom can be formulated so complete but that it may at some time become liable to amend ment. Even the Ten Commandments may , under stress of circumstances , admit of occasional exceptions. With regard to the long-accepted policy of ' this government in relation to our ' ' Central and South American neighbors , , it would seem that our future main tenance of this policy might reasonably be made dependent on the conduct of those neighbors themselves. If by the end of another hundred years , for instance , it should bo found that they were some hundred and fifty years behind the rest of the world in en lightenment , security to person and property , and so forth , would we be likely still to maintain that neither wo would nor any other nation should , take them vigorously in hand to bring them into line ? The common view that , though England's coarse with the Boer republics is unjustifiable , its results will still be good , argues a prevailing belief that the earth's surface belongs , by some elementary right , to those who can make the best use of it. And we are expressly estopped from disputing this proposition by our own action in the case of the red man. That the great plains were meant solely for the occu pation of hunters of the buffalo , in the proportion of one Indian to ten square miles of territory , was manifestly un reasonable. Therefore we dispossessed the Indian. When the Monroe doctrine was pro claimed , we were a small people and feared lest we should be eaten. Now we are a large people and a dispenser of destinies to other nations of the earth. It is fitting that the fate of other govern ments in the Western Hemisphere should lie in our hand , rather than in that of any other. But it would be neither right nor profitable for us to maintain indefinitely by force an inferior phase of civilization throughout that vast tract reaching from our Mexican border to Cape Horn. If the Latin peoples now controlling those lands can belie their blood and make themselves in time fit material for a true demo cratic republic , well and good ; none shall interfere. But if on the contrary they are found to remain stationary at their dead Mediterranean level , the fair- haired people from the old German / forests , of whom we are the forefront , i must necessarily soon or late take the ! conduct of affairs out of their hands ; : and if we stand in the way we must j inevitably get a well-deserved knock. COM. SNUFFLING HYPOCRISY. In any event , whatever Boss Oroker may say jn favor of Mr. Bryan is more apt , outside of the Tammany organi/i- tiou to do him injury than good. Mr. Orokor may not believe it , but no one outside of New York would think of looking to him for political guidance , any more than he .would look in that direction for sincerity , statesmanship , or disinterested action. The fact that Boss Orokor has concluded to lead
