Life — October 25, 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. OCT. 25, 1900, No, 937. 19 Wast Taixtr-Finst St., New Youre. Pubilahed ovary. ‘Thursday. $5.00 0 year in ad- matage to foreign countries in the Pretal avyenr extn. single current copies, Rack numbers, after three months from due ‘of ‘publication, Beents. 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 special arrangement with the publishers. Prompt notification should be sent by sub- soribers of any change of address, N the considerable frac- tion of the earth with which our foreign policies have to do thereare several other sore spots be- sides the one in the “=—> Philippines. One of them isin China and concerns the results of mission- ary labors. Our practice, and that of other able-bodied mis- sionary nations, bas been to compel China to receive and protect our missionaries, and also to protect their converts. ‘When the converts were ill-used their custom has been to appeal for protec- tion to the missionaries, who appealed to the nearest consul, who complained to the American Minister, who com- plained to the Chinese Government, which apologized and gave redress. The upshot of all this was that the missionaries wielded a secular power in China which conflicted with the power of the local Chinese authorities. That was an evil. It got the mis- sionaries disliked by the Chinese, and it led to abuses, for there is abundant testimony that a good many rapscallion Chinese affected to be converted in order to be protected by missionaries against the justice of their own coun- try. Tue defects of the system are apparent not only to the worldly- minded, but to some of the missiona- ries, and to persons sincerely interested in their work, Lord Salisbury in England called attention to them, and LIFE they have been fairly discussed by some of the church papers in this country. President Smyth, of Foochow College in China, says the system is a failure ; that it checks and stunts all missionary success ; that it fails to protect in times of crises, and itself brings crises on. He would withdraw all foreign protec- tion from Chinese converts and have the Western governments renounce the religious protectorate altogether. He seems to have pretty sound ideas, but the chance that they will prevail is not so good as one could wish. Our Government seems more disposed to deal fairly with China than any other government is, and it might make a new deal about missionaries, but there would still be Germany, France, and the other powers to settle with, and they are not disposed to have their’ rights of interference in Chinese mat- ters abridged, or to lose the chance of grievances which may lead to reprisals. i is is = dave. HE truth is that if China could only make up her mind to it, and only hada mind that could be made up, it would be the very making of her, politi- cally and industrially, to be converted wholesale, and imbibe the doctrines and practices of the Methodist Church, Think what good it would do her, how she would wake up, what an army she would have, how the coal and iron wouldcome out of her! Who candoubt that forty years of devotion to Metho- dist ideals and methods would qualify her to send missionaries to Paris and to back every dozen missionaries with a battle-ship. The more one thinks of the present missionary system in China the more it seems an outrage on the Chinese: the more outrageous it seems, the more indispensable it appears that China should be converted to the Gos- pel of Peace and learn to hit back to some purpose. These ideas may seem a bit contradictory, but is it not the truth that the only nations of the earth that are able nowadays to take good care of themselves and impose on other nations are the great Christian nations, and especially the Protestant nations, and more particularly the Protestant nations that most abound in Methodists? q\X-PRESIDENT HARRISON has come out for McKinley in a brief deliverance which implies by its omissions as well as by what it includes that there are large and important reservations in his approval of the policies of the present Administration. He says he does not believe that Con- gress has absolute legislative power in the territories, and he considers the bill for the government of Porto Rico ‘a grave departure from right principles.” This means that the ex- President is so halting and incomplete an imperialist, that it need not sur- prise anyone if Colonel Roosevelt finds occasion after election to pronounce him ‘ timid.” There is no doubt that General Har- rison really desires the success of the Republican candidates next month, but he is a conspicuous representative of a very large and important body that will vote for McKinley in spite of their objections to what he represents, If the President is re-elected, as seems reasonably sure, it will be by the votes of men who are opposed to his policy in the Philippines, but who are unwilling to trust Bryan to rectify it. a SL ENERAS LEW WALLACE no more believes in that policy than General Harrison does, Not long ago he criticised the President with vigor for trying to found an empire in the East. Yet recently, in declaring for the Republican ticket, he stated as one of the reasons why the election of Bryan was ‘abhorrent ”’ to him, that he held Bryan ‘directly responsible for the death of every one of the brave American soldiers slain in the Philip- pines.’’ There could not be a greater impertinence. General Wallace him- self has taken sides strongly against the Philippines policy, and if that makes a man responsible for soldiers’ deaths, he is as much responsible as Bryan is. He would have done better to imitate the forbearance of General Harrison and say nothing about the Philippines.