Life — August 11, 1904 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

~LIFE- Manchuria and Morals. N&Xt to that supreme test ot race superiority, sand- bagging a discolored and archaically-armed heathen, there is no pleasure so grateful to the soul of the sturdy and chivalrous Anglo-Saxon as the sight of two political and com- mercial rivals shooting each other into bankruptcy, what time he lingers around in prayer, waiting to pick up the unconsidered trifles of trade and territory the foolish fight- ers are too feeble to defend. Our jocund Anglo-Saxon brethren of Merrie England are enjoying both these exqui- site pleasures simultancously just now ; for while those altru- ists of Asia, the obstacles to British missionary enterprise in the East, the Russians and Japs, are joyously disembow- eling each other, the Briton is gaily gouging and gashing the gingal-shooting Buddhists of Thibet. It is an ideal situation, and as the newest member of the Grab-and-Gos- pel Association we are generously cheering on the prompt and predatory Briton. We may perhaps pick up some un- earned increment from the scrap ourselves; unless some dull Democrat of the Declaration of Independence cult should incontinently unhorse the fiery Theodore and basely betray the glorious cause of international assault and bat- tery, by insisting that American taxes shall be spent on mere American citizens only. The Japs and Russians are earnestly and industriously establishing graveyards in the Cape Cod of Manchuria, with an altruistic view of securing the right to educate, elevate and exploit the unsoaped heathen of Korea, a sin- ful and guileful fan, who abhors labor, flouts the mis- sionary, obstructs civilization and impedes the White Man's Burden, As between the ignorant Christian Russian, whose two hundred holidays fer annum bring him into industrial contempt, and the enlightened Pagan Jap who squeezes eighteen hours fer déem out ot his brother, our progressive, uplifting, sweat-sbop civilization has no hesitation in back- ing the shaven Pagan against the whiskered Christian. In this moral Land of the Lyncher we cannot forget Kish- ineff ; and when we recall the flood of hopeless, soapless, tactful altruists 1t started towards our shores to rally round the Theatre Trust, we cannot forgive Kishineff. Later on, when the modest little Brown Man unites with the astute and toilsome Yellow Man, and not only pushes us but under- sells us, it is possible our views may undergo review and revision. The pride of our superior race and the interests of our alcoholic civilization may impel us to impress upon the discolored races the unchangeable law of the Anglo- Saxon—the White Man sells, the other man buys—and if it becomes necessary to enforce this code, which is the law and the profits, we may do a little Kishineffing and Trans- vaaling on our own hook. Meantime the Muscovite is attending experience meet- ings. Every week twenty battleships out of a possible five are sunk on him ; his forts are stormed and his armies bayo- neted and dispersed every Tuesday ; his empire is devas- tated daily by cholera, conspiracy, cyclones and boll- weevils; and he is compelled to fight The Associated Press, The London Times, the British Veteran Experts of the Boer War, the Chefoo Munchausen Club, the Sons of Zion, the Ghetto and Get-there Company, and the Tokio Censor. These are terrible odds; and if the Russ did not havea tough constitution and wasn’t something of a conversa- tional expansionist and liar himself, he would have been sponged off the map of Asia long ago. The Jap is much admired since he learned how to use a sandbag with neatness and dispatch; and as he has annexed some useful if glittering scraps of our civilization, he is able to compete successfully with our most admired distributors of hot air and gold bricks. The Jap blushingly admits he is an altruist ; his sole interest in Koreais to introduce morals, cotton goods, trading stamps, and high ideals there; he wants an open door in China for his American friends ; he doesn't need it, as he is an artist in breaking and entering, ‘The Jap has studied his friend, the Briton, and has acquired his curves; and the man who questions the purity of the Jap’s motives in Manchuria would suspect an Anglo-Saxon in Africa and doubt the disinterestedness of a Pennsylvania coal operator. Some day when a free and unterrified press gets religion, when the Russ and Jap censors are doped, when Chefoo is reformed and The London Times passes out of the hands of the Scotch, we may find out what is going on in the Whang-Bang-Fang Peninsula and learn who lost and won. By that time we won't care even about the orthography of the war, for our Presidential election will be on, and we will be too interested abusing our neighbors and maligning our candidates to worry about a lot of off-color foreigners, or even to notice our amiable Christian friend, Johannes Taurus, digesting Thibet and advising us how to run an army and navy. We may sit up and take notice if a sug- gestion comes from John that pending the recovery of Russ and Jap the Anglo-Saxon might be appointed receiver for the goods, chattels and spoils of the combatants ; otherwise we must stop expanding anything but our heads and chests until after election. Joseph Smith. He Knew. UNDAY-SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT: So you are the little man that won the prize books, The Lives of the Saints, for good behavior. Now, what are you going to do with the books, my little man? Jounny Miccs: Gunner change ‘em, sir, fer Billy der Black Pirate and How Jimmy Raised der Ranch! RIGGS: My stomach has bothered me ever since I came from New England. Griccs: What's the matter with it? “Well, it’s in apple-pie order.” se [° says here in the paper that one-third of what a man eats enables him to live." “I suppose the other two-thirds enables his doctor to live.” comicbooks.com