Life — August 9, 1900 — page 4: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“ While there is Life there's Hope.” VOL. XXXVI. AUGUST 9, 1900. No, 928. 19 West Tarry-Finst St., New Youre. Pablished every Thursday, $509 year tn ad~ yan stage Lo forelan cou! tn the P.-stal 1.04 a year extra. Single current copter, Rack numbers, after three months from No contribution will be returned unless accompanied by stamped and addressed envelope. The illustrations in Live are copyrighted, and are not to be reproduced without speciat arrangement with the publishers, 0 \- soon enicaneofeures OUR stock of geographi- 2 cal terms has been 80 heavily reinforced lately by new recruits, that we are rapidly amassing a pretty full nomencla- =. > ture of the world's dwelling places. => Yet there cannot > = be said to accom- pany this increased knowledge that com- fortable feeling of sat- isfaction which goes with a sense of healthy mental development. What is going to happen in China is something which we should all like to know, and just what part our Uncle Sam is going to play in that dubious region lies very close to our hearts, There is no reasonable doubt that China is the richest country on the globe. In one province alone there is declared to be enough coal to fill a bin large enough to supply our world needs for twenty centuries to come, ‘The soil in some parts of the Empire is at least an average of fifteen feet deep, and so fertile that, although cultivated for centuries, it seems to have lost none of its productive powers. Particularly is this the case in the region of the Yellow River, and railway engineers have even doubted the practicability of building the projected railway from Tien-Tsin to Chin Kiang, because of the unstable bottom. So soft is the soil that about fifty years ago the river suddenly changed its course, and there is no telling when it may not do so again. The mineral wealth of Man- SQ “LARE ° churia is said to be almost beyond computation. China has been dubbed “A Nation of Schoolmasters,’’ because of the de- sire for study which seems to be inherent in the Chinese make-up. There are four hundred millions of people in China, and most of them are doing to-day what their ancestors did two thousand years ago. Their rev- erence for the past, their absolute disregard for life, their eye for the practical, their hatred of missionaries, and their capacity for assimilating modern methods, as shown by their ready adoption of modern arms, their desire for railroads and other improve- ments, are among their chief charao- H ITHERTO the Chinese people have ~ been thought unpatriotic, the ease with which they were vanquished in the war with Japan being held up as an example. But it always takes two nations to make two patriots, and for centuries China has existed for herself alone. To a Chinaman, China was the whole world. He was satisfied with his methods and convinced that his religion and life were the only ones worth living. He looked with a certain contempt upon what he con- sidered Western barbarians, and the advance of the Anglo-Saxon in science and the art of government, while freely admitted, was not thought to be of great consequence compared with his own superior development in the science of right living. There can be nodoubt that the Chineso people are superior to us in many ways, strange as this may seem to the self-effacing and over - modest European, There can be no doubt, also, that with their preponderance of population, their adaptive intel- tigence and the co-ordination of in- +ense patriotism which the aggressions of other nations are even now arousing in their minds, that they do not present altogether the helpless spectacle which it has been the fashion fur us to depict. { = = NS HICAGO is not a comfortable place to start a new paper, according to “Billy Hearst, who complains of the warm reception which the other Chi- cago papers have given to his new enterprise, the American. The New York papers, says Mr. Hearst, treated the Jvurnal with ‘rare. courtesy" when it first began to blossom, like a green bay tree, but the Chicago editors have not apparently that liberal and cosmopolitan spirit which Mr. Hearst infers animates the bosoms of the Sua, Tribune, World and others. When Mr. Hearst landed in Chicago, however, the case was different, and physical means were used, able-bodied men of brawn and muscle being em- ployed to thwart the efforts of his emissaries to sell the American. Fights took place, and Mr. Hearst was obliged to appeal to the courts. But he took, perhaps, a more strenuous precaution by employing fighters of his own to sell his paper, and thus held his ground. Apparently the Chicago editors have not even the incentive of acting in a righteous cause, and waging a just war against “yellow journalism,” for Mr, Hearst assures us that the American is all that could be desired by any clean American, This, however, is only Mr. Hearst’sside. What we must hope and pray for is that no Chicago editor will now take it in his head to retaliate and come to New York and start a paper. PIGHTING BOB EVANS thinks there is big trouble ahead, and does not hesitate to proclaim his con- viction that the United States ought to be supreme in the East, and should sct as the controlling power in what he -considers the most critical situation the world has seen. Ho has hurried back from Hot Springs to proclaim his ptinciples. Captain Bob is a brave sailor and an earnest patriot, but how he does love trouble! © And, like our strenuous Governor, he won't be happy till he gets it.