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

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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

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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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us go forward in the spirit of this true statesman, lend a sympathetic hand to these people of another race, follow in our practices the precepts already taught the Chinese by the missionaries of Christ. Let us deal with these people in the spirit of the Golden Rule. Let us rejoice as the Star of the Orient rises to a worthy place among the powers of the world. STEVEJVS TOIJVT THE MENACE OF CORPORATE MONOPOLY GUY E. CARLETON N the Declaration of Independence our forefathers gave to the world a new political faith—a faith that recognized the right of men to own themselves. In that document arc enshrined the principles around which has risen the structure of our government. The republic of America is a supreme act of confidence in man, a revelation of the dignity of human effort and ability. Its creation was one of the boldest acts recorded in history. Ever triumphant under the protecting folds of the emblem of liberty, the republic has grown; the infant has become the giant. Yesterday five million people were clustered along the Atlantic border, struggling to conquer nature and rear democratic institutions founded on the principles of constitutional liberty. Today behold the ceaseless tide of population which is ever rushing past us toward the setting sun, sweeping away the wilderness, waking up industry and civilization in its westward progress. Fortune has smiled most generously on America’s sons. We arc a mighty people. In the past, perils have come upon us as if in the bold resolve to put republican institutions to the most severe trial. Civil war fell to our lot; yet it was the one test needed to give to us the consciousness of our own vigor and power, and never was the republic so strong in all the elements of life, so menacing to all the foes of democracy, as when the sun of Appomattox shone upon her banner and revealed upon its azure ground the presence of the full galaxy of her stars. The war over, the problems of reconstruction settled, politics became incidental, and the whole energies of the people were centered in the material development which has placed us foremost among the nations in the great elements of national prosperity. Hand in hand with our industrial development there has evolved a distinct classification of citizens. First, the busy man, whose whole being is engrossed in the struggle for existence; secondly, the man of leisure, who succeeded in amassing a large fortune. Our government has grown so big, the problems of legislation become so difficult, and the powers of government and the duties of citizenship have grown so complex, GITCHE GUM EE PAGE THIRTEEN