University of Wisconsin Superior - Gitche Gumee Yearbook (Superior, WI)

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Yet Confucianism has been China’s curse! One prevailing sentiment has been the banc of China, and that is ancestor worship. It has held dormant the abilities of a great people. It has frozen the stream of China’s progress. The Chinese have at length realized its destructiveness, and, with their great genius in remedying an evil, they have begun to cast it out. In many places in China, that wealth which was wont to be sacrificed to the spirits of ancestors is now given to the spirits of posterity by dedicating it to the erection of schools and churches of a modern type. “The religious change which has come over China since the Boxer Rebellion is nothing less than a revolution,” which would have been characterized in the western world by war and bloodshed. Christianity is fast taking the place of the old “ancestor worship.” The sabbath has been declared by the empress dowager a legal holiday. The Bible is being read in many of the schools of this country as a text-book. Such a revolution of religious ideas could take place only among a thoughtful, considerate, and progressive people. We often look on China as a country of crude laws, or as a country of no laws at all. She has a well-defined code of laws that has stood the test of three thousand years. She has a governmental organization under whose banners kingdoms have been conquered and tribes subdued until the banner of the Dragon floats over one-fourth of the population of the world and over an area far greater than that of the United States. This government has ruled more people, for a greater length of time, under more adverse circumstances, than any other government in the world. Picture with me the great reform in government that has taken place in China. They realize that reform is necessary to meet the existing conditions. Not too proud to learn from their neighbors, the empress sends a committee to Europe and to America to study other governments, in order more intelligently to reform her own. After three years of diligent labor the ambassadors return to their native city. The empress receives their report for a representative form of government. With the power of this government in her hands, she issues an edict delegating much of her power to the people by declaring that China shall have a representative form of government. The news spreads throughout the country. China rejoices! Bells arc rung! Guns boom! and messages of congratulation and good cheer arc sent to the empress dowager. A holiday is celebrated in honor of this great event. This revolution has no parallel in history. One-fourth of the entire population of the world offered their freedom and a voice in their government by a single edict! The freedom of the French is founded on a river of blood; our freedom is founded on a large lapse of time, struggle and conflict; this freedom was obtained by a single stroke of a patriotic and powerful pen. Search where you may on the pages of history, and you will find no event that had such a widespread influence towards peaceful reform. Could such a revolution take place among a conservative people? Could such a reform be accomplished among any people except a patriotic, altruistic, progressive people? A people who have met and solved their political problems for four thousand years have now shown themselves competent to meet every demand of modern progress. The natural resources of China make her the garden spot of the world, the promised land. Her beautiful, navigable rivers flow through valleys of inexhaustible soil. Her broad plains, stretching as far as the eye can see, need only the magic touch of the modern wand of industry to make them spring forth with useful and beautiful vegetation. Her long extent of coast line is decked with the jewels of commerce, harbors of safety for vessels. Her lofty mountains arc filled with treasures, unlimited iron supply, GITCHE GUMEE PACE ELEVEN

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G1TCHE GUM EE TLA.TTEVJLLE THE RISING STAR OF THE ORIENT JAMES R. WALLIN HE present industrial stage of the world is the Atlantic and her encircling lands. Her broad expanse of water opens to receive the commerce of the world. She is the highway of the products of industry. Her ships arc the mistresses of the sea. Her people arc the industrial geniuses of the world. But with the cvcr-onward progress of civilization toward the setting sun, transforming desolate plains and stony mountains into beautiful gardens and spacious storehouses, the broad billows of the Pacific open to receive the implements of modern industry and to bear them to a distant land and to place them in the hands of a new people—a people whose industrial genius has not found superior during all time, a people whose inventive ingenuity was the first to assert itself on the face of the earth. The world’s greatest stage of commercial activity in the future will be the Pacific ocean. The people into whose hands the implements of industry arc to be transferred arc the Chinese. The greatest transformation of the twentieth century will be the transformation of China. We of the western world often regard the Chinese as a people unworthy of our thought and consideration, as a people too conservative to progress in civilization. True, they have been conservative in the past. They were proud, and justly proud, of their achievements. They thought their civilization the highest in the world. They refused Western learning; but that learning was presented to them with an air of pride and exultation. The Chinese have at length thrown aside their prejudices, and have opened their doors for the reception of Western culture. So let us throw aside our false ideas and look the Chinese question squarely in the face, and “render unto China what is her due.” The three things on which national existence depends are religion, government, and industry. In order that any people may maintain their existence in our present day civilization, they must keep pace with the ever-changing ideas of religion, government, and industry. Will the Chinese be able to maintain their existence and to take their place in the developed East? Is China able and willing to keep pace with the ever-advancing ideals of civilization? We often regard the Chinese moral code as one founded on superstition, as a code devoid of any virtue. The fact is, they have a moral code which contains many commendable things. This code was expounded by two of the great philosophers of all time, Confucius and Mencius, men whose thoughts arc at least on a level with those of Socrates or any Greek philosopher. This code embodies the Golden Rule, the highest sentiment in our own religion. It exalts intellectual attainment above military attainment. Nowhere in the world has intellectual achievement been held on so high a plane as it is in China. PAGE TEN

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coal sufficient in one province to supply the world’s demand for several thousand years.” China can produce enough wealth to support one-half of the entire population of the world. Is the industrial ability of the Chinese sufficient to develop these resources? Their achievements in the past and their present skill in the industrial development will answer this question. China is the mother of inventions. When the implements of our forefathers were but the stones of the hillsides, these people had devised many machines—the printing-press, the mariner’s compass, gunpowder, and many things which we use today in our own civilization. A Saracen scholar once said: “Wisdom, when she came to the earth, lodged in the head of the Greek and the hand of die Chinaman.” Since they have opened their doors to Western learning, they have shown their present ability to develop their resources. Railroads, trolley-lines, automobiles, steamships, and all the modern inventions are rapidly being introduced into this country. These arc operated almost exclusively by the Chinese. China has the largest, most persevering, economic, industrious laboring class on the face of the earth. She has made more progress during the last five years than any other country on the globe. She bids fair to accomplish in a single century what the Anglo-Saxon has gained in a thousand years. China’s industrial progress during the past few years is striking. No phenomenon of such wide-spread and marvelous reform has ever before been witnessed by man. China’s prospects for the future arc the most favorable. She is indeed an awakening nation which will startle the world with the rapidity and quietness with which she will work out her reforms. She lias set free the marvelous capacities of a vast number of people to develop her resources. She is preparing herself to take her place on the great new stage of commerce and to become one of the star actors on that stage. She is carrying on within her borders one of the greatest revolutions of ideas ever carried on by a nation. She is the Rising Star of the Orient, whose lustre is growing brighter and brighter with each succeeding day. In the cycle of a century she will outshine many a nation that has won great glory in the past. China has opened her doors to the ideas of Western reform. She turns to America for counsel and help. She seeks our modern methods and improved machinery to increase her agricultural wealth. She calls for our capital to develop her mines, her manufactures, her commerce. She sends her sons to America and Europe to he educated. She pleads for our sympathy and respect. In the past America has erred. She has been as exclusive as China herself. It has been harder for a Chinese scholar to get into America than for an American laborer to enter China. In response to China’s call for equality and courtesy, we have shunned and scorned her people. Too often we have treated the Chinese with contempt. What we sow, that shall we also reap. This growing power of the East will some day be able to avenge tenfold the wrongs heaped upon her by the Western world. Our relations with China should be most sympathetic. Our interests arc mutual. In common with her, we must promote commerce on the Pacific. The gap between America and China must be bridged. Cordial relations must be established with this new power. It was an American statesman that saved China from the greedy grasp of European powers. Secretary Hay became a valiant champion of China's integrity and the open door. His sincerity and courage won simple justice for this nation. Let PACE TWELVE