[45] Article in The Outlook, April 23, 1904.

Still more irritating and insulting, if that were possible, was the treatment of the Chinese exhibitors at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. Louis in 1904. Our Government formally invited China to participate, sending a special commission to Peking to urge acceptance. China accepted in good faith, and then the Treasury Department in Washington drew up a series of regulations requiring "that each exhibitor, upon arrival at any seaport in this country, should be photographed three times for purposes of identification, and should file a bond in the penal sum of $5,000, the conditions of which were that he would proceed directly and by the shortest route to St. Louis, would not leave the Exposition grounds at any time after his arrival there, and would depart for China by the first steamer sailing after the close of the Exposition. Thus a sort of Chinese rogues' gallery was to be established at each port, and the Fair grounds were to be made a prison pen for those who had come here as invited guests of the nation, whose presence and aid were needed to make the display a success. It is only just to add that, upon a most vigorous protest made against these courteous(?) regulations by the Chinese Government and a threat to cancel their acceptance or our invitation, the rules were withdrawn and others more decent substituted. But the fact that they were prepared and seriously presented to China shows to what an extent of injustice and discourtesy our mistaken attitude and action in regard to Chinese immigration has carried us.''

No right-minded American can read without poignant shame, Luella Miner's recent account[46] of the experiences of Fay Chi Ho and Kung Hsiang Hsi, two Chinese students who, after showing magnificent devotion to American missionaries during the horrors of the Boxer massacres, sought to enter the United States. They were young men of education and Christian character who wished to complete their education at Oberlin College, but they were treated by the United States officials at San Francisco and other cities with a suspicion and brutality that were "more worthy of Turkey than of free Christian America.'' Arriving at the Golden Gate, September 12, 1901, it was not until January 10, 1903, that they succeeded in reaching Oberlin, and those sixteen months were filled with indignities from which all the efforts of influential friends and of the Chinese Minister to the United States were unable to protect them. Whatever reasons there may be for excluding coolie labourers, there can be none for excluding the bright young men who come here to study. "An open door for our merchants, our railway projectors, our missionaries, we cry, and at the same time we slam the door in the faces of Chinese merchants and travellers and students—the best classes who seek our shores.''

[46] "Two Heroes of Cathay,'' p. 223 sq.

The fear that the Chinese would inundate the United States if they were permitted to come under the same conditions as Europeans is not justified by the numbers that came before the exclusion laws became so stringent, the total Chinese population of the United States up to 1880, when there was no obstacle to their coming except the general immigration law, being only 105,465—the merest handful among our scores of millions of people. The objections that they are addicted to gambling and immorality, that they come only for temporary mercenary purposes and that they do not become members of the body politic but segregate themselves in special communities, might be urged with equal justice by the Chinese against the foreign communities in the port cities of China. Segregating themselves, indeed! How can the Chinese help themselves, when they are not allowed to become naturalized and are treated with a dislike and contempt which force them back upon one another?

As for the charge that they teach the opium habit to white boys and girls, it may be safely affirmed that all the Americans who have acquired that dread habit from the Chinese are not equal to a tenth of the number of Chinese women and girls who have been given foul diseases by white men in China. Mr. Holcombe declares:—

"Our unfair treatment of China in this business will some day return to plague us. Entirely aside from the cavalier and insulting manner with which we have dealt with China, and the inevitably injurious effect upon our relations and interests there, it must be said that our action has been undignified, unworthy of any great nation, a sad criticism upon our sense of power and ability to rule our affairs with wisdom and moderation, and unbecoming our high position among the leading governments of the world. . . . We have treated Chinese immigrants—never more than a handful when compared with our population—as though we were in a frenzy of fear of them. We have forsaken our wits in this question, abandoned all self-control, and belittled our manhood by treating each incoming Chinaman as though he were the embodiment of some huge and hideous power which, once landed upon our shores, could not be dealt with or kept within bounds. Yet in point of fact he is far more easily kept in bounds and held obedient to law than some immigrants from Europe. . . . It must be admitted as beyond question that the coming of the Chinese to these shores should be held under constant supervision and strict limitations. And so should immigration from all other countries. The time has come when we ought to pick and choose with far greater care than is exercised, and to exclude large numbers who are now admitted.... It is this discrimination alone which is unjust to China, which she naturally resents, and which does us serious harm in our relations with her people.''

Commenting on the regulations promulgated by the Secretary of Commerce and Labour, July 27, 1903, regarding the admission of Chinese, the Hon. David J. Brewer, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, declared:—

"Can anything be more harsh and arbitrary? Coming into a port of the United States, as these petitioners did into the port of Malone, placed as they were in a house of detention, shut off from communication with friends and counsel, examined before an inspector with no one to advise or counsel, only such witnesses present as the inspector may designate, and upon an adverse decision compelled to give notice of appeal within two days, within three days the transcript forwarded to the Commissioner- General, and nothing to be considered by him except the testimony obtained in this star chamber proceeding. This is called due process of law to protect the rights of an American citizen, and sufficient to prevent inquiry in the courts....

"Must an American citizen, seeking to return to this his native land, be compelled to bring with him two witnesses to prove the place of his birth or else be denied his right to return, and all opportunity of establishing his citizenship in the courts of his country? No such rule is enforced against an American citizen of Anglo-Saxon descent, and if this be, as claimed, a government of laws and not of men, I do not think it should be enforced against American citizens of Chinese descent....

"Finally, let me say that the time has been when many young men from China came to our educational institutions to pursue their studies when her commerce sought our shores and her people came to build our railroads, and when China looked upon this country as her best friend. If all this be reversed and the most populous nation on earth becomes the great antagonist of this Republic, the careful student of history will recall the words of Scripture, 'they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind,' and for cause of such antagonism need look no further than the treatment accorded during the last twenty years by this country to the people of that nation.''[47]

[47] Dissenting opinion in the case of the United States, Petitioner vs. Sing Tuck or King Do and thirty-one others, April 25, 1904.

It is not surprising that while Chinese students are turning in large numbers to other lands, there are only 146 in the United States. It is a serious matter and it may have a far reaching effect upon the future of China and of mankind when the coming men of the Far East, desiring to place themselves in touch with modern conditions, are compelled to avoid the one Christian nation in all the world which boasts the most enlightened institutions and the highest development of liberty.

Meanwhile, Mr. E. H. Parker rather sarcastically remarks:—

"The United States have always been somewhat prone to pose as the good and disinterested friend of China, who does not sell opium or exercise any undue political influence. These claims to the exceptional status of all honest broker have been a little shaken by the sharp treatment of Chinese in the United States, Honolulu and Manila.''[48]

[48] "China,'' p. 105.

The Chinese Government long expostulated against the barbarity and injustice of the exclusion laws and finally, finding expostulations of no avail, the scholars and merchants of China organized in 1905 a boycott against American trade. This quickly brought public feeling in the United States to its senses. President Roosevelt sternly ordered all local officials to be humane and sensible in their enforcement of the law under pain of instant dismissal, and the press began to demand a new treaty. It is gratifying to know that in the future Chinese immigrants are likely to be more justly treated, but it is not pleasant to reflect that the American people apparently cared little about the iniquity of their anti-Chinese laws until Chinese resentment touched their pockets.



XIV

DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS—TREATIES

IN view of some of the facts presented in the two preceding chapters, it is not surprising that the efforts of foreign powers to establish diplomatic relations with the Chinese Government were rather tempestuous. A full account of the negotiations would require a separate volume. For two generations, nation after nation sought to protect its growing interests in China and to secure recognition from the Chinese Government, only to be met by opposition that was sometimes courteous and sometimes sullen, but always inflexible until it was broken down by force. Each envoy on presenting his letters was politely told in substance that the Chinese official concerned was extremely busy, that to his deep regret it would not be possible to grant an immediate conference, but that as soon as possible he would have pleasure in selecting a "felicitous day'' on which they could hold a "pleasant interview'';[49] and when the envoys, worn out by the never-ending procrastination, finally gave up in disgust and announced their intention of returning home, the typical Chinese official blandly replied, as the notorious Yeh did to United States Minister Marshall in January, 1854,—"I avail myself of the occasion to present my compliments, and trust that, of late, your blessings have been increasingly tranquil.''[50]

[49] Foster, "American Diplomacy in the Orient,'' p. 205,

[50] Foster, p. 213.



Scores of European and American diplomatic agents had substantially the same experience. United States Minister Reed, in 1858, truly said that the replies of the Chinese to the memorials and letters of the foreign envoys were characterized by "the same unmeaning profession, the same dexterous sophistry; and, what is more material, the same passive resistance; the same stolid refusal to yield any point of substance.''[51]

[51] Foster, p. 236.

Nor can it be denied that the Chinese had some ground for holding foreign nations at arms' length as long as they could, for with a few exceptions, prominent among whom were some American ministers, notably Mr. Burlingame, the foreign envoys were far from being tactful and conciliatory in their methods of approach to a proud and ancient people. Mr. Foster reminds us that in the negotiations which terminated in the treaty of 1858,

"The British were pushing demands not insisted upon by the other Powers, and they could only be obtained by coercive measures. The reports in the Blue Books and the London newspapers show that Mr. Lay, who personally conducted the negotiations for Lord Elgin, when he found the Chinese commissioners obdurate, was accustomed to raise his voice, charge them with having 'violated their pledged word,' and threaten them with Lord Elgin's displeasure and the march of the British troops to Peking. And when this failed to bring them to terms, a strong detachment of the British army was marched through Tien-tsin to strike terror into its officials and inhabitants. Lord Elgin in his diary records the climax of these demonstrations: 'I have not written for some days, but they have been busy ones. We went on fighting and bullying, and getting the poor commissioners to concede one point after another, till Friday the 25th.' The next day the treaty was signed, and he closes the record as follows: 'Though I have been forced to act almost brutally, I am China's friend in all this.' There can be no doubt that notwithstanding the seeming paradox, Lord Elgin was thoroughly sincere in this declaration, and that his entire conduct was influenced by a high sense of duty and by what he regarded as the best interests of China.''[52]

[52] "American Diplomacy in the Orient,'' pp. 241, 242.

But can we wonder that the Chinese were irritated and humiliated by the method adopted?

That treaty of 1858 gave some notable advantages to foreigners, for it conceded the rights of foreign nations to send diplomatic representatives to Peking, the rights of foreigners to travel, trade, buy, sell and reside in an increasing number of places, and on the persistent initiative of the French envoy, powerfully supported by the famous Dr. S. Wells Williams, Christianity was especially recognized, and the protection, not only of missionaries but all Chinese converts to Christianity, was specifically guaranteed. Of course, by the convenient "most favoured nation clause'' any concession obtained by one country, was immediately claimed by all other countries.

It was this treaty which included the famous Toleration Clause regarding Christian missions as follows:

"The principles of the Christian religion, as professed by the Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches, are recognized as teaching men to do good, and to do to others as they would have others do to them. Hereafter those who quietly profess and teach these doctrines shall not be harassed or persecuted on account of their faith. Any person, whether citizen of the United States or Chinese convert, who, according to these tenets, shall peaceably teach and practice the principles of Christianity shall in no case be interfered with or molested.''

The charge has been made that the toleration clauses were smuggled into the treaties without the knowledge of the Chinese, so that the claims to recognition and protection which were subsequently based upon it rest upon an unfair foundation. It is indeed possible, as Dr. S. Wells Williams, the author, frankly admits[53] "that if the Chinese had at all comprehended what was involved in these four toleration articles, they would never have signed one of them.'' But perhaps the same thing might be said of most treaties that have been signed in Asia. The fact remains, however, that the articles referred to were not placed in them without the knowledge of the Chinese. Dr. Williams explicitly states that he and the Rev. Dr. W. A. P. Martin, called upon the Chinese Commissioners and that

"some of the articles of our draft were passed without objection, those relating to toleration (of Christianity in China) and the payment of claims were copied off to show the Commissioner, those permitting and regulating visits to Peking were rejected, and others were amended, the colloquy being conducted with considerable animation and constant good humour on his part.''[54]

[53] "The Life and Letters of Samuel Wells Williams, LL. D.,'' p. 271.

[54] "The Life and Letters of Samuel Wells Williams, LL. D.,'' p. 261.

In a letter written many years afterwards and dated New Haven, September 12, 1878, Dr. Williams states that the first draft of the Toleration Clauses was rejected by the Chinese Commissioners, as he believes at the instigation of the French Legation, because the clause recognized Protestant missions. Dr. Williams then states that as soon as he could, he drew up another form of the same article and laid it before the Chinese Imperial Commissioners. He writes:—

"It was quite the same article as before, but they accepted it without any further discussion or alteration; however, the word 'whoever' in my English version was altered by Mr. Reed to 'any person, whether citizen of the United States, or Chinese convert, who'—because he wished every part of the treaty to refer to United States citizens, and cared not very much whether it had a toleration article or not. I did care, and was thankful to God that it was inserted. It is the only treaty in existence which contains the royal law.''

In Dr. Williams' Journal for June 18, 1858, the following record appears:

"I went to sleep last night with the impression that after such a reply from the Minister it would be vain to urge a new draft, but after a restless sleep I awoke to the idea of trying once more, this time saying nothing about foreign missionaries. The article was sketched as soon as I could write it and sent off by a messenger before breakfast; it was a last chance, and every hope went with it for success. At half-past nine an answer came. Permission for Christians meeting for worship and the distribution of books was erased, while the words open ports were inserted in such a connection that it was rendered illegal for any one, native or otherwise, to profess Christianity anywhere else. The design was merely to restrict missionaries to the ports, but the effect would be detrimental in the highest degree to natives. I decided at once to go to see the Viscount and try to settle the question with him personally. Chairs were called, whose bearers seemed to Martin and me an eternity in coming, but at last we reached the house where Captain Du Pont and his marines so unexpectedly turned up last Saturday. Our amendment was handed to Chang, who began to cavil at it, but he was promptly told that he must take it to the Commissioners for approval as it stood, since this was the form we were decided on. Our labour and anxiety were all repaid, and ended by his return in a few minutes announcing Kweilang's assent to the article as it now stands in the treaty.''

In order to settle this point beyond all possible doubt, I recently wrote to the Rev. Dr. W. A. P. Martin, now in China, asking him to give me his recollection of the incident. He replied as follows:—

"The charge that the toleration article was 'smuggled into the treaty of 1858' is so far from the truth that those who make it can be shown to be either superficial or uncandid. If it means that 'the Chinese did not know what they were agreeing to, I answer that they could have no excuse for ignorance. An edict granting toleration had been issued as early as 1845. This had been followed by more than ten years of missionary work at the newly opened ports—quite sufficient to make them acquainted with the character of Protestant missions. Of Roman Catholic missions prior to the edict, they had centuries of experience. Moreover, during our negotiations at Tien-tsin, they had ample time for a fresh study of the subject, the draft of our treaty being under daily discussion for more than a week before it was signed. Nor was our draft the first to bring up the question of toleration. The Russian Treaty signed on June 13th (five days in advance of ours) contained one explicit provision for the toleration of Christianity under the form of the Greek Church; but it made no reference to Protestant or Roman Catholic. Not only was the American Treaty the first to give these a legal status, it gives the Chinese a sample of Christian teaching in the Golden Rule, which Dr. Williams inserted in the article expressly to show them what they were agreeing to. Never were negotiations more open and above board. In their earlier stages I gave a copy of my book on the Evidences of Christianity to Jushon, one of the deputies, who was so much pleased with it, that he became my friend and greeted me warmly on my removal to Peking. That the Chinese Ministers had any conception of the new force they were admitting into their country, I do not assert; but I hold strongly that this spiritual force is the only thing that can raise the Chinese people out of their present state of semi-barbarism. "W. A. P. MARTIN.

"Wuchang, China, February 18, 1904.''

It was not until 1861, that legations were established in Peking. But while this gave foreign nations a solid foothold at the capital, it did not by any means give them the recognition that they demanded, for their intercourse with the court was still hedged about with innumerable exactions and indignities. The Hon. Thomas Francis Wade, British Minister at Peking, in a long note to the Chinese Minister Wen Hsiang, dated June 18, 1871, discussing the troubles that had arisen between the Chinese and foreigners, justly said:

"It is quite impossible that China should ever attain to a just appreciation of what foreign Powers expect of her, or that she should insure from foreign Powers what she conceives due to her, until she have honestly accepted the conditions of official intercourse which are the sole guarantees against international differences. The chief of these is an interchange of representatives. I do not say that it is a panacea for all evil; but it is incontestable that without it wars would be of far more frequent recurrence, and till China is represented in the West, I see no hope of our ever having done with the incessant recriminations and bickerings between the Yamen and foreign legations, by which the lives of diplomatic agents in Peking are made weary. If China is wronged, she must make herself heard; and, on the other hand, if she would abstain from giving offense, she must learn what is passing in the world beyond her.''

The Chinese Government was slow in coming to this view, but western nations steadily persisted. One by one new concessions were wrung from the reluctant Chinese. Mr. E. H. Parker[55] has tabulated as follows the treaties of foreign powers with China from 1689 to 1898:—

[55] "China,'' pp. 113-115.

{Pages 171 to 173 are these tables... They are formatted landscape-wise on the pages and should be typed in a viewable format or added as an image file.}



XV

RENEWED AGGRESSIONS

NOT content with innumerable aggressions and extorted treaty concessions, Western nations boldly discussed the dismemberment of China as certain to come, and authors and journalists disputed as to which country should possess the richest parts of the Empire whose impotence to defend itself was taken for granted. Chinese ministers in Europe and America reported these discussions to their superiors in Peking. The English papers in China republished some of the articles and added many effective ones of their own, so that speedily all the better-informed Chinese came to know that foreigners regarded China as "the carcass of the East.''

Nor was all this talk empty boasting. China saw that France was absorbing Siam and had designs on Syria; that Britain was already lord of India and Egypt and the Straits Settlements; that Germany was pressing her claims in Asiatic Turkey; that Russia had absorbed Siberia and was striving to obtain control of Palestine, Persia and Korea; and that Italy was trying to take Abyssinia. Moreover the Chinese perceived that of the numerous islands of the world, France had the Loyalty, Society, Marquesas, New Hebrides and New Caledonia groups, and claimed the Taumotu or Low Archipelago; that Great Britain had the Fiji, Cook, Gilbert, Ellice, Phoenix, Tokelan and New Zealand groups, with northern Borneo, Tasmania, and the whole of continental Australia, besides a large assortment of miscellaneous islands scattered over the world wherever they would do the most good; that Germany possessed the Marshall group and Northeast New Guinea, and divided with England the Solomons; that Spain had the Ladrones, the 652 islands of the Carolines, the 1,725 more or less of the Philippines, beside some enormously valuable holdings in the West Indies; that the Dutch absolutely ruled Java, Sumatra, the greater part of Borneo, all of Celebes and the hundreds of islands eastward to New Guinea, half of which was under the Dutch flag; that the new world power on the American continent took the Hawaiian Islands and in two swift campaigns drove Spain out of the West Indies and the Philippines, not to return them to their inhabitants but to keep them herself; and that in the Samoan and Friendly Islands, resident foreigners owned about everything worth having and left to the native chiefs only what the foreigners did not want or could not agree upon. As for mighty Africa, the Berlin Conference of 1884 was the signal for a game of grab on so colossal a scale that to-day out of Africa's 11,980,000 square miles, France owns 3,074,000, Great Britain 2,818,000, Turkey 1,672,000, Belgium 900,000, Portugal 834,000, Germany 864,000, Italy 596,000, and Spain 263,000,—a total of 10,980,000, or ten-elevenths of the whole continent, and doubtless the Powers will take the remaining eleventh whenever they feel like it. Well does the Rev. Dr. James Stewart call this "the most stupendous and unparalleled partition of the earth's surface ever known in the world's history. . . . The vast area was partitioned, annexed, appropriated, or converted into 'spheres of influence,' or 'spheres of interest'; whatever may be the exact words we may use, the result is the same. Coast lands and hinterlands all went in this great appropriation, and mild is the term for the deed.''[56]

[56] "Dawn in the Dark Continent,'' pp. 17, 18.

"Gobbling the globe,'' this process has been forcefully if inelegantly termed. No wonder that the white race has been bitterly described as "the most arrogant and rapacious, the most exclusive and intolerant race in history.''

We can understand, therefore, the alarm of the Chinese as they saw the greedy foreigners descend upon their own shores in such ways as to justify the fear that what remained of the Celestial Empire, too, would be speedily reduced to vassalage. Germany, which was among the last of the European powers to obtain a foothold in China, but which had been growing more and more uneasy as she saw the acquisitions of her rivals, suddenly found her opportunity in the murder of two German Roman Catholic priests in the province of Shantung, December 1897, and on the 14th of that month Admiral Diedrich landed marines at Kiao-chou Bay. At that time nothing but a few straggling, poverty-stricken Chinese villages were to be seen at the foot of the barren hills bordering the bay. But the keen eye of Germany had detected the possibilities of the place and early in the following year, under the forms of an enforced ninety-nine year lease, Germany took this splendid harbour and the territory bordering it, and at Tsing-tau began to push her interests so aggressively that the whole province of Shantung was thrown into the most intense excitement and alarm.

Knowing how recently the city had been founded, I looked upon it with wonder. It was only three years and a half since the Germans had taken possession, but no boom city in the United States ever made more rapid progress in so short a period. Not a Chinese house could be seen, except a village in the distance. But along the shores rose a city of modern buildings with banks, department stores, public buildings, comfortable residences, a large church and imposing marine barracks. Landing, I found broad streets, some of them already well paved and others being paved by removing the dirt to a depth of twelve inches and then filling the excavation solid with broken rock. The gutters were wide and of stone, the sewers deep and, in some cases, cut through the solid rock.

The city was under naval control, the German Governor being a naval officer. Several war-ships were lying in the harbour. A large force of marines was on shore, and the hills commanding the city and harbour were bristling with cannon. The Germans were spending money without stint. No less than 11,000,000 marks were being expended that year for streets, sewers, water and electric light works, barracks, fortifications, wharves, a handsome hotel and public buildings, while the Government had appropriated 50,000,000 Mex. (5,000,000 a year for ten years) for deepening and enlarging the inner harbour. But in addition to these Government expenditures, many enterprising business men were undertaking large enterprises on their own account. It was apparent to the most casual observer that Germany had entered Shantung to stay and that she considered the whole vast province of Shantung as her sphere of influence. The railway, already referred to in a former chapter, was being constructed into the interior with solid road-bed, steel ties and substantial stone stations. German mining engineers were prospecting for minerals and everything indicated large plans for a permanent occupation.

The site of Tsing-tau is beautiful and exceptionally healthful. While the ports of Teng-chou and Chefoo are also in Shantung, the first is now of little importance, for it is on the northeastern part of the promontory with a mountain range behind it so that it is difficult of access from the interior. Chefoo, which was not opened as a port until later, rapidly superseded Teng-chou in importance and continues to grow with great rapidity. But it is plain that the Germans intend to make Tsing-tau, only twenty hours distant by steamer, the chief port of Shantung, and as they have the railroad, they will doubtless succeed.

From hundreds of outlying villages, the Chinese are flocking into Tsing-tau, attracted by the remunerative employment which the Germans offer, for of course, tens of thousands of labourers are necessary to carry out the extensive improvements that are planned. The thrifty Chinese are quite willing to take the foreigner's money, however much they may dislike him. Since the white man is here, we might as well get what we can out of him, the Celestials philosophically argue. And so the Germans, who had ruthlessly destroyed the old, unsani- tary Chinese villages which they had found on their arrival, laid out model Chinese villages on the outskirts of the city. The new Chinese city is about two and a half miles from the foreign city and is connected with it by a splendid macadamized road for which the Germans filled ravines, cut through the solid rock of the hillsides and made retaining walls and culverts of solid masonry. Some of the old stone houses were allowed to remain, but many of the poorer houses were demolished, streets were straightened and the whole city placed under strict sanitary supervision. The Chinese as they came in were told where and how their houses must be erected on the regularly laid out streets. The houses are numbered and many of the stores have signs in both German and Chinese. At the time of my visit, the Chinese city had a population of 8,000, the streets were crowded, and marketing, picture and theatrical exhibitions and all the forms of life, so common in Chinese cities, were to be seen on every side. Since then, the population has greatly increased, while another Chinese city has been laid out on the open ground on the other side of the foreign city. There is every indication that Tsing-tau is to become one of the great port cities of China, and the opportunities for trade, the coming of steamships and the construction of the railway are making it an attractive place to multitudes of ambitious Chinese.

The German Government owns all the land in and about Tsing-tau, and will not sell save on condition that approved buildings are erected within three years. The single tax plan has been adopted, that is, there is no tax on buildings but there is a six per cent. tax on all land that is sold. This shuts out the land speculator who has injured so many American cities. No man can buy cheap land and let it lie idle while it rises in value as the result of his neighbour's improvements and the growth of the community. The German Government will do its own speculating and reap for itself the increment of its costly and elaborate improvements. It is making a noble city. Streets, sewers, buildings, docks, sea walls, harbour-dredging, tree planting—all point to great and far-reaching plans, while under pretext of guarding the railroad, troops are being gradually pushed into the interior. The Kaomi garrison, in the hinterland eighteen miles beyond the Kiao-chou city line and sixty- four from Tsing-tau, consisted of 100 men when I was there in the spring of 1901. A few months later it was 1,000. Plainly the Germans are moving in.

The ease and dispatch with which Germany succeeded in obtaining an enormously valuable strategic point in the rich province of Shangtung aroused the cupidity of rival nations, and they threw off all pretense to decency in their scramble for further territories. Russian statesmen had long ago seen that the Pacific Ocean was to be the arena of world events of colossal significance to the race. We have noted in a former chapter how she had already extended her territory till she touched the Pacific Ocean on the far north and how, partly that she might develop it, but primarily that she might have a highway through it to the great ocean which lies beyond, she had begun the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, the late Czar, Alexander III, guaranteeing out of his own private funds 350,000,000 rubles towards the necessary expense. The most southern port of Russia on the Pacific Ocean was Vladivostok, which was therefore made the terminus of the line and rapidly and strongly fortified. But Russia was not content with a harbour which is closed by ice six months in the year. She therefore began to press her way southward through Manchuria. In November, 1894, Japan had wrested from China the peninsula terminating in Port Arthur, and the treaty of Shimonoseki, at the close of the war, had given Japan the Liao-tung peninsula, opened four Manchurian ports to foreign trade, and conceded to Japan valuable commercial rights in Manchuria, rights which gave the Japanese virtual ascendancy. Ostensibly in the interests of China, but really of her own ambition, Russia gravely said that it would never do to permit Japan to remain in Manchuria, virtuously declaring that "the integrity of China must be preserved at all costs.'' She persuaded France and Germany to join her in notifying the Japanese Government that "it would not be permitted to retain permanent possession of any portion of the mainland of Asia.'' Japan, feeling at that time unprepared to fight three European powers, was forced to relinquish the prize of victory. The solicitude of Russia for the integrity of helpless China was quite touching, but it did not prevent her from making one encroachment after another upon the coveted territory until March 8, 1898, to the rage and chagrin of Japan, she peremptorily demanded for herself and March 27th of the same year obtained Port Arthur including Ta-lien-wan and 800 square miles of adjoining territory. She speciously declared that "her occupation of Port Arthur was merely temporary and only to secure a harbour for wintering the Russian fleet.'' But grim significance was given to her action by the prompt appearance at Port Arthur of 20,000 Russian soldiers and 90,000 coolies who were set to work developing a great modern fortification almost under the eyes of the Chinese capital.

As it was expedient, however, to have a commercial city on the peninsula as well as a fortification, as the harbour of Port Arthur was not large enough for both naval and commercial purposes, and as the Russians did not wish anyway to make their fortified base accessible to the rest of the world, they decided to build a city forty-five miles north of Port Arthur and call it Dalny, which quite appropriately means "far away.'' Most cities grow, but this was too slow a method for the purpose of the Slav, and therefore, a metropolis was forthwith made to order as a result of an edict issued by the Czar, July 30, 1899.

The harbour of Dalny is an exceptionally fine one with over thirty feet of water at low tide so that the largest vessels can lie alongside the docks and transfer their cargoes directly to trains for Europe. Great piers were constructed; enormous warehouses and elevators erected; gas, electric light, water and street-car plants installed; wide and well-sewered streets laid out; and a thoroughly modern and handsome city planned in four sections, the first of which was administrative, the second mercantile, the third residence, and the fourth Chinese. The Russians were sparing neither labour nor expense in the construction of this ambitious city which, by January, 1904, already had a population of over 50,000, and represented a reported expenditure of about $150,000,000. April 9, 1902, Russia solemnly promised to evacuate Manchuria October 8, 1903. But when that day came, she remained, as every one knew that she would, under the unblushing pretext that Manchuria was not yet sufficiently pacified to justify her withdrawal from a region where her interests were so great. As Manchuria was at the time as quiet as some of Russia's European provinces, the reason alleged reminds one of the Arab's reply to a man who wished to borrow his rope—"I need it myself to tie up some sand with.'' "But,'' expostulated the would-be borrower, "that is a poor excuse for you cannot tie up sand with a rope.'' "I know that,'' was the calm rejoinder, "but any excuse will serve when I don't want to do a thing.'' So to the concern of China, the envy of Europe and the wrath of Japan, Manchuria practically became a Russian province until Japan, unable to restrain her exasperation longer and feeling that Russia's plans were a menace to her own safety, had developed her army and navy and begun the war which not only arrested the advance of the Slav but expelled him from most of the territory he had seized.

Not to be outdone by Germany and Russia, other nations made haste to seize what they could find. April 2, 1898, England secured the lease of Lin-kung, with all the islands and a strip ten miles wide on the mainland, thus giving the British a strong post at Wei-hai Wei. April 22d, France peremptorily demanded, and May 2d obtained, the bay of Kwangchou-wan, while Japan found her share in a concession for Foochow, Woosung, Fan-ning, Yo-chou and Chung-wan-tao. By 1899, in all China's 3,000 miles of coast line, there was not a harbour in which she could mobilize her own ships without the consent of the hated foreigner.

A clever Chinese artist in Hongkong grimly drew a cartoon of the situation of his country as he and his countrymen saw it. The Russian Bear, coming down from the north, his feet planted in Manchuria and northern Korea, sees the British Bulldog seated in southern China, while "The Sun Elf'' ( Japan), sitting upon its Island Kingdom, proclaims that "John Bull and I will watch the Bear.'' The German Sausage around Kiau-chou makes no sign of life, but the French Frog, jumping about in Tonquin and Annam and branded "Fashoda and Colonial Expansion,'' tries to stretch a friendly hand to the Bear over the Bulldog's head. Then, to offset this proffered assistance to the Bear, the Chinese artist, with characteristic cunning, brings in the New World power. He places the American Eagle over the Philippines, its beak extended towards the Bulldog, and writes upon it the phrase, "Blood is thicker than water.''[57]

[57] Reproduced in the Newark, N. J., Evening News, January 9, 1904

As far as Americans have any sympathy at all with European schemes for conquest in China, they naturally look with more favour on England and Germany than on France and Russia. The reason is apparent. England establishes honest and beneficent government wherever she goes and makes its advantages freely accessible to the citizens of other nations, so that an American is not only as safe but as unrestricted in all his legitimate activities as he would be in his own land. Germany, too, while not so hospitable as England, is nevertheless a Teutonic, Protestant power under whose ascendancy in Shantung our missionaries find ample freedom. But France and Russia are more narrowly and jealously national in their aims. Their possessions are openly regarded as assets to be managed for their own interests rather than for those of the na- tives or of the world. The colonial attitude of the former towards all Protestant missionary work is dictated by the Roman Catholic Church and is therefore hostile to Protestants, while the Russian Greek Church tolerates no other form of religion that it can repress. A recent traveller reports that Russia has put every possible obstruction in the way of reopening the mission stations that were abandoned during the Boxer outbreak. She has already put Manchuria under the Greek archimandrite of Peking, and has sought to limit all Christian teaching to the members of the Orthodox Greek Church. It is significant that Russia is strenuously opposing, under a variety of pretexts, the "open door'' which Secretary Hay obtained from China in Manchuria, while there is ground for suspecting that Russian influence in Constantinople is preventing, or at least delaying as long as possible, that legal recognition of American rights in Turkey which the Sultan has already granted to several other nations. As for Russian ascendancy in Manchuria, everybody knows that it is inimical to the interests of other countries and that there will be little freedom of trade if Russia can prevent it.



XVI

GROWING IRRITATION OF THE CHINESE—THE REFORM PARTY

THE effect of the operation of these commercial and political forces upon a conservative and exclusive people was of course to exasperate to a high degree. A proud people were wounded in their most sensitive place by the ruthless and arrogant way in which foreigners broke down their cherished wall of separation from the rest of the world and trampled upon their highly-prized customs and institutions.

It must be admitted that the history of the dealings of the Christian powers with China is not altogether pleasant reading. The provocation was indeed great, but the retaliation was heavy. And all the time foreign nations refused to grant to the Chinese the privileges which they forced them to grant to others. We sometimes imagine that the Golden Rule is peculiar to Christianity. It is indeed in its highest form, but its spirit was recognized by Confucius five centuries before Christ. His expression of it was negative, but it gave the Chinese some idea of the principle. They were not, therefore, pleasantly impressed when they found the alleged Christian nations violating that principle. Even Christian America has not been an exception. We have Chinese exclusion laws, but we will not allow China to exclude Americans. We sail our gunboats up her rivers, but we would not allow China to sail gunboats into ours. If a Chinese commits a crime in America, he is amenable to American law as interpreted by an American court. But if an American commits a crime in China, he can be tried only by his consul; not a Chinese court in the Empire has jurisdiction over him, and the people naturally infer from this that we have no confidence in their sense of justice or in their administration of it.

This law of extra-territoriality is one of the chief sources of irritation against foreigners, for it not only implies contempt, but it makes foreigners a privileged class. Said Minister Wen Hsiang in 1868:—"Take away your extra-territorial clause, and merchant and missionary may settle anywhere and everywhere. But retain it, and we must do our best to confine you and our trouble to the treaty ports.'' But unfortunately this is a cause of resentment that Western nations cannot prudently remove in the near future. While we can understand the resentment of the Chinese magistrates as they see their methods discredited by the foreigner, it would not do to subject Europeans and Americans to Chinese legal procedure. The language of Mr. Wade, the British Minister, to Minister Wen Hsiang in June, 1, is still applicable:—

"Experience has shown that, in many cases, the latter (law of China) will condemn a prisoner to death, where the law of England would be satisfied by a penalty far less severe, if indeed, it were possible to punish the man at all. It is to be deplored that misunderstandings should arise from a difference in our codes; but I see no remedy for this until China shall see fit to revise the process of investigation now common in her courts. So long as evidence is wrung from witnesses by torture, it is scarcely possible for the authorities of a foreign power to associate themselves with those of China in the trial of a criminal case; and unless the authorities of both nationalities are present, there will always be a suspicion of unfairness on one side or the other. This difficulty surmounted, there would be none in the way of providing a code of laws to affect mixed cases; none, certainly, on the part of England; none, in my belief, either, on the part of any other Power.''[58]

[58] Correspondence Respecting the Circular of the Chinese Government of February 9, 1871, Relating to Missionaries. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty, 1872.

Meantime, as the Hon. Frederick F. Low, United States Minister at Peking, wrote to the State Department at Wash- ington, March 20, 1871:—"The dictates of humanity will not permit the renunciation of the right for all foreigners that they shall be governed and punished by their own laws.''

But the Chinese do not see the question in that light. Their methods of legal procedure are sanctioned in their eyes by immemorial custom and they fail to understand why forms that, in their judgment, are good enough for Chinese are not also good enough for despised foreigners. When we take into consideration the further fact that the typical white man, the world over, acts as if he were a lord of creation, and treats Asiatics with more or less condescension as if they were his inferiors, we can understand the very natural resentment of the Chinese, who have just as much pride of race as we have, and who indeed consider themselves the most highly civilized people in the world. The fact that foreign nations are able to thrash them does not convince them that those nations are superior, any more than a gentleman's physical defeat by a pugilist would satisfy him that the pugilist is a better man. It is not without significance that the white man is generally designated in China as "the foreign devil.''

The natural resentment of the Chinese in such circumstances was intensified by the conduct of the foreign soldiery. Army life is not a school of virtue anywhere, particularly in Asia where a comparatively defenseless people open wide opportunities for evil practices and where Asiatic methods of opposition infuriate men. In almost every place where the soldiers of Europe landed, they pillaged and burned and raped and slaughtered like incarnate fiends. Chefoo to-day is an illustration of the effect. It is a city where foreigners have resided for forty years, where there are consuls of all nations and extensive business relations with other ports, where foreign steamers regularly touch and where war-ships frequently lie. There were five formidable cruisers there during my visit. Surely the Chinese of Chefoo should understand the situation. But during the troubles of 1860, French troops were quartered there and their conduct was so atrociously brutal and lustful that Chefoo has ever since been bitterly anti-foreign. The Presbyterian missionaries have repeatedly tried to do Christian work in the old walled city, but have never succeeded in gaining a foothold, and all their local missionary work is confined to the numerous population which has come from other parts of the province and settled around Chefoo proper. Nothing but battleships in the harbour kept that old city from attacking foreigners during the Boxer outbreak. Even to-day the cry "kill, kill'' is sometimes raised as a foreigner walks through the streets, and inflammatory placards are often posted on the walls.

With the record of foreign aggressions in China before us, can we wonder that the Chinese became restive? The New York Sun truly says: "It was while Chinese territory was thus virtually being given away that the people became uneasy and riots were started; the people felt that their land had been despoiled.'' The Hon. Chester Holcombe truly remarks:—

"Those who desire to know more particularly what the Chinese think about it, how they regard the proposed dismemberment of the Empire and the extinction of their national life, are referred to the Boxer movement as furnishing a practical exposition of their views. It contained the concentrated wrath and hate of sixty years' slow growth. And it had the hearty sympathy of many, many millions of Chinese, who took no active part in it. For, beyond a doubt, it represented to them a patriotic effort to save their country from foreign aggression and ultimate destruction.... The European Powers have only themselves to thank for the bitter hatred of the Chinese and the crash in which it culminated. Governmental policies outrageous and beyond excuse, scandalous diplomacy, and unprovoked attacks upon the rights and possessions of China, have been at the root of all the trouble.''[59]

[59] Article in The Outlook, February 13, 1904,

And shall we pretend innocent surprise that the irritation of the Chinese rapidly grew? Suppose that after the murder of the Chinese in Rock Springs, Wyoming, a Chinese fleet had been able to seize New York and Boston Harbours, and suppose our Government had been weak enough to acquiesce. Would the American people have made any protest? Would the lives of Chinese have been safe on our streets? And was it an entirely base impulse that led the men of China violently to oppose the forcible seizure of their country by aliens? The Empress Dowager declared in her now famous edict:—

"The various Powers cast upon us looks of tiger-like voracity, hustling each other in their endeavours to be first to seize upon our innermost territories. They think that China, having neither money nor troops, would never venture to go to war with them. They fail to understand, however, that there are certain things which this Empire can never consent to, and that, if hard pressed, we have no alternative but to rely upon the justice of our cause, the knowledge of which in our breasts strengthens our resolves and steels us to present a united front against our aggressors.''

That would probably be called patriotic if it had emanated from the ruler of any other people.

When with Russia in Manchuria, Germany in Shantung, England in the valleys of the Yang-tze and the Pearl, France in Tonquin and Japan in Formosa, the whole Empire appeared to be in imminent danger of absorption, the United States again showed itself the friend of China by trying to stem the tide. Our great Secretary of State, John Hay, sent to the European capitals that famous note of September, 1899, which none of them wanted to answer but which none of them dared to refuse, inviting them to join the United States in assuring the apprehensive Chinese that the Governments of Europe and America had no designs upon China's territorial integrity, but simply desired an "open door'' for commerce, and that any claims by one nation of "sphere of influence'' would "in no way interfere with any treaty port or any vested interest'' within that sphere, but that all nations should continue to enjoy equality of treatment. In response, the Russian Government, December 30, 1899, through Count Mouravieff, suavely declared:—

"The Imperial Government has already demonstrated its firm intention to follow the policy of the 'open door.' . . . As to the ports now opened or hereafter to be opened to foreign commerce by the Chinese Government, . . . the Imperial Government has no intention whatever of claiming any privileges for its own subjects to the exclusion of other foreigners.''

The other Powers also assented. But it was all in vain. Matters had already gone too far, and, beside, the Chinese knew well enough that the Powers were not to be trusted beyond the limits of self-interest.

Some of the Chinese, it is true, had the intelligence to see that changes were inevitable, and the result was the development of a Reform Party among the Chinese themselves. It was not large, but it included some influential men, though, unfortunately, their zeal was not always tempered by discretion. The war with Japan powerfully aided them. True, many of the Chinese do not yet know that there was such a war, for news travels slowly in a land whose railway and telegraph lines, newspapers and post-offices are yet few, and whose average inhabitant has never been twenty miles from the village in which he was born. But some who did know realized that Japan had won by the aid of Western methods. An eagerness to acquire those methods resulted. Missionaries were besieged by Chinese who wished to learn English. Modern books were given a wide circulation. Several of the influential advisers of the Emperor became students of Occidental science and political economy. In five years, 1893-1898, the book sales of one society—that for the Diffusion of Christian and General Knowledge Among the Chinese—leaped from $817 to $18,457, while every mission press was run to its utmost capacity to supply the new demands.

A powerful exponent of the new ideas appeared in the great Viceroy, Chang Chih-tung. He wrote a book, entitled "China's Only Hope,'' exposing the causes of China's weakness and advocating radical reforms. The book was printed by the Tsung-li Yamen, and by royal command copies were sent to the high officials of the Empire. Big yellow posters advertised it from the walls of leading cities, and in a short time a million copies were sold. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that "this book made more history in a shorter time than any other modern piece of literature, that it astonished a kingdom, convulsed an Empire and brought on a war.''

The Reform Party urged the young Emperor to use the imperial power for the advancement of his people. He yielded to the pressure and became an eager and diligent student of the Western learning and methods. In the opening months of the year 1898, he bought no less than 129 foreign books, including a Bible and several scientific works, besides maps, globes, and wind and current charts. Nor did he stop with this, but with the ardour of a new convert issued the now famous reform edicts, which, if they could have been carried into effect, would have revolutionized China and started her on the high road to national greatness. These memorable decrees have been summarized as follows:

1. Establishing a university at Peking.

2. Sending imperial clansmen to study European and American Governments.

3. Encouraging art, science and modern agriculture

4. Expressing the willingness of the Emperor to hear the objections of the conservatives to progress and reform.

5. Abolishing the literary essay as a prominent part of the Government examinations

6. Censuring those who attempted to delay the establishment of the Peking Imperial University.

7. Directing that the construction of the Lu Han railway be carried on with more vigour.

8. Advising the adoption of Western arms and drill for all the Tartar troops.

9. Ordering the establishment of agricultural schools in the provinces to teach improved methods of agriculture.

10. Ordering the introduction of patent and copyright laws.

11. Ordering the Board of War and the Foreign Office to report on the reform of the military examinations.

12. Offering special rewards to inventors and authors.

13. Ordering officials to encourage trade and assist merchants.

14. Ordering the foundation of school boards in every city in the Empire.

15. Establishing a Bureau of Mines and Railroads.

16. Encouraging journalists to write on all political subjects.

17. Establishing naval academies and training ships.

18. Summoning the ministers and provincial authorities to assist the Emperor in his work of reform.

19. Directing that schools be founded in connection with all the Chinese legations in foreign countries for the benefit of the children of Chinese in those countries.

20. Establishing commercial bureaus in Shanghai for the encouragement of trade.

21. Abolishing six useless Boards in Peking.

22. Granting the right to memorialize the Throne by sealed memorials.

23. Dismissing two presidents and four vice-presidents of the Board of Rites for disobeying the Emperor's orders that memorials should be presented to him unopened.

24. Abolishing the governorships of Hupeh, Kwang-tung and Yun-nan as a useless expense to the country.

25. Establishing schools for instruction in the preparation of tea and silk.

20, Abolishing the slow courier posts in favour of the Imperial Customs' Post.

27 Approving a system of budgets as in Western countries.

But, alas, it is disastrous to try to "hustle the East.'' The Chinese are phlegmatic and will endure much, but this was a little too much. Myriads of scholars and officials, who saw their hopes and positions jeopardized by the new tests, protested with all the virulence of the silversmiths of Ephesus, and all the conservatism of China rallied to their support.

Meantime, the Yellow River, aptly named "China's Sorrow,'' again overflowed its banks, devastating a region 100 miles long and varying from twenty-five to fifty miles wide. Three hundred villages were swept away and 1,000,000 people made homeless. Famine and pestilence speedily followed, so that the whole catastrophe assumed appalling proportions. Even American communities are apt to become reckless and riotous in time of calamity, and in China this tendency of human nature was intensified by a superstition which led the people to believe that the disaster was due to the baleful influence of the foreigners, or that it was a punishment for their failure to resist them, while in the farther north a drought led to equally superstitious fury against "the foreign devils.''

The virile and resolute Empress-Dowager headed the reaction against the headlong progressiveness of the young Emperor. September 22, 1898, the world was startled by an Imperial Decree which read in part as follows:—

"Her Imperial Majesty the Empress-Dowager, Tze Hsi, since the first years of the reign of the late Emperor Tung Chih down to our present reign, has twice ably filled the regency of the Empire, and never did her Majesty fail in happily bringing to a successful issue even the most difficult problems of government. In all things we have ever placed the interests of our Empire before those of others, and, looking back at her Majesty's successful handiwork, we are now led to beseech, for a third time, for this assistance from her Imperial majesty, so that we may benefit from her wise and kindly advice in all matters of State. Having now obtained her Majesty's gracious consent, we truly consider this to be a great boon both to ourselves as well as to the people of our Empire. Hence we now command that from henceforth, commencing with this morning, the affairs of state shall be transacted in the ordinary Throne Hall, and that to-morrow (23rd) we shall, at the head of the Princes and Nobles and Ministers of our Court, attend in full dress in the Ching-cheng Throne Hall, to pay ceremonial obeisance to her Imperial Majesty the Empress- Dowager. Let the Board of Rites draw up for our perusal the ceremonies to be observed on the above occasion.''[60]

[60] Pott, "The Outbreak in China,'' pp. 56, 57.

The youthful son of Toanwong was appointed heir to the throne and the ambitious father immediately proceeded to use his enhanced prestige to set the Empire in a blaze.



XVII

THE BOXER UPRISING

THE now famous Boxers were members of two of the secret societies which have long flourished in China. To the Chinese they are known as League of United Patriots, Great Sword Society, Righteous Harmony Fists' Association and kindred names. Originally, they were hostile to the foreign Manchu dynasty. When Germany made the murder of two Roman Catholic missionaries a pretext for pushing her political ambitions, the Boxers naturally arrayed themselves against them. As the champions of the national spirit against the foreigners, the membership rapidly increased. Supernatural power was claimed. Temples were converted into meeting-places, and soon excited men were drilling in every village.

The real ruler of China at this time, as all the world knows, was the Empress Dowager, who has been characterized as "the only man in China.'' At any rate, she is a woman of extraordinary force of character. She was astute enough to encourage the Boxers, and thus turn one of the most troublesome foes of the Manchu throne against the common enemy, the foreigner. Under her influence, the depredations of the Boxers, which were at first confined to the Shantung Province, spread with the swiftness of a prairie fire, until in the spring of 1900 the most important provinces of the Empire were ablaze and the legations in Peking were closely besieged. In the heat of the conflict and under the agonizing strain of anxiety for imperilled loved ones, many hard things were said and written about the officials who allied themselves with the Boxers. But Sir Robert Hart, who personally knew them and who suffered as much as any one from their fury, candidly wrote after the siege: "These men were eminent in their own country for their learning and services, were animated by patriotism, were enraged by foreign dictation, and had the courage of their convictions. We must do them the justice of allowing that they were actuated by high motives and love of country,'' though he adds, "that does not always or necessarily mean political ability or highest wisdom.''

And so the irrepressible conflict broke out. It had to come, a conflict between conservatism and progress, between race prejudice and brotherhood, between superstition and Christianity, the tremendous conflict of ages which every nation has had to fight, and which in China was not different in kind, but only on a more colossal scale because there it involved half the human race at once. Of course it was impossible for so vast a nation permanently to segregate itself. The river of progress cannot be permanently stayed. It will gather force behind an obstacle until it is able to sweep it away. The Boxer uprising was the breaking up of this fossilized conservatism. It was such a tumultuous upheaval as the crusades caused in breaking up the stagnation of mediaeval Europe. As France opposed the new ideas, which in England were quietly accepted, only to have them surge over her in the frightful flood of the revolution, so China entered with the violence always inseparable from resistance the transition which Japan welcomed with a more open mind.

Though missionaries were not the real cause of the Boxer uprising, its horrors fell most heavily upon them. This was partly because many of them were living at exposed points in the interior while most other foreigners were assembled in the treaty ports where they were better protected; partly because the movement developed such hysterical frenzy that it attacked with blind, unreasoning fury every available foreigner, and partly because in most places the actual killing and pillaging were not done by the people who best knew the missionaries but by mobs from the slums, ruffians from other villages, or, as in Paoting-fu and Shan-si, in obedience to the direct orders of bigoted officials.

And so it came to pass that the innocent suffered more than the guilty. Dr. A. H. Smith[61] concluded after careful inquiry that "the devastating Boxer cyclone cost the lives of 135 adult Protestant missionaries and fifty-three children and of thirty- five Roman Catholic Fathers and nine Sisters. The Protestants were in connection with ten different missions, one being unconnected. They were murdered in four provinces and in Mongolia, and belonged to Great Britain, the United States and Sweden. No such outbreak against Christianity has been seen in modern times. The destruction of property was on the same continental scale. Generally speaking, all mission stations north of the Yellow River, with all their dwelling-houses, chapels, hospitals, dispensaries, schools, and buildings of every description were totally destroyed, though there were occasional exceptions, of which the village where these pages are written was one. The central and southern portions of the Empire were only partially affected by the anti-foreign madness, not because they were under different conditions, but mainly through the strong repressive measures of four men, Liu Kun Yi and Chang Chih-tung, Governors-General of the four great provinces in the Yang-tse Valley; Yuan Shih Kai in Shantung, and a Manchu, Tuan Fang, in Shen-si. The jurisdiction of this quartette made an impassable barrier across which the movement was unable to project itself in force, but much mischief in an isolated way was wrought in nearly every part of China not rigorously controlled.''

[61] "Rex Christus,'' p. 210.

So many volumes have been written about the Boxer Uprising that it is not necessary to double the size of this book in order to recount the details. For the full narrative, the reader is referred to the books mentioned below.[62] But I cannot for- bear some description of the scenes of massacre that I personally visited. I was unable to go to the remoter province of Shan-si where so many devoted men and women laid down their lives and where many who escaped death endured indescribable hardships. But in the province of Shantung, where the Boxer Uprising originated, I was witness to the ruin that was wrought in many places, though the iron hand of the great Governor, Yuan Shih Kai, prevented much bloodshed. Then I turned to the northern province of Chih-li where official hands, instead of restraining, actually guided and goaded the maddened rioters.

[62] "China in Convulsion,'' Arthur H. Smith; "The Outbreak in China,'' F. L. Hawks Pott; "The World Crisis in China, 1900,'' Allen S. Will; "Siege Days,'' A. H. Mateer; "The Siege of Peking,'' Wm. A. P. Martin; "The Providence of God in the Siege of Peking,'' C. H. Fenn; "The Tragedy of Paoting-fu,'' Isaac C. Ketler; "The China Martyrs of 1900,'' Robert C. Forsythe; "China,'' James H. Wilson, "China's Book of Martyrs,'' Luella Miner; "Two Heroes of Cathay,'' Luella Miner; "Through Fire and Sword in Shan-si,'' E. H. Edwards; "Chinese Heroes,'' I. T. Headland; "Martyred Missionaries of the C. I. M.,'' Broomhall; "The Crisis in China,'' G. B. Smith and others.

After a delightful voyage of eighteen hours from Chefoo over a smooth sea, we anchored outside the bar, nine miles from shore, the tide not permitting our steamer to cross with its heavy load. A tug took us off and entering the Pei-ho River, we passed the famous Taku forts to the railway wharf at Tong-ku. It was significant to find foreign flags flying over the Taku forts and also over the mud-walled villages near by. Scores of merchant steamers, transports and war vessels were lying off Taku as well as hundreds of junks. The river was full of smaller craft among which were several Japanese and American gunboats. The railroad station presented a motley appearance. A regiment of Japanese had just arrived and while we were waiting, three train-loads of British Sikhs and several cars of Austrian marines and British "Tommy Atkins'' came in. The platform was thronged with officers and soldiers of various nationalities, including a few Russians.

Nothing could be more dreary than the mud flats that the traveller to the imperial city first sees. The greater part of the way from Taku to Peking, the soil is poor and little cultivated. But as we advanced, kao-liang fields were more frequent, though the growth was far behind that in Shantung at the same season. Small trees were numerous during the latter half of the trip. The soil being too thin for good crops, the people grow more fuel and fruit.

Evidences of the great catastrophe were seen long before reaching the capital. Burned villages and battered buildings lined the route. At Tien-tsin several of the foreign buildings had shell holes. One corrugated iron building near the railway station was pierced like a sieve and thousands of native houses were in ruins. The city wall had been razed to the ground and a highway made where it had stood—an unspeakable humiliation to the proud commercial metropolis. The Japanese soldiers teased the citizens by telling them that "a city without a wall is like a woman without clothes,'' and the people keenly felt the shame implied in the taunt.

In Peking, the very fact that the railroad train on which we travelled rushed noisily through a ragged chasm in the wall of the Chinese city, and stopped at the entrance of the Temple of Heaven, was suggestive of the consequences of war. The city, as a whole, was not as badly injured as I had expected to find it, but the ravages of war were evident enough. Wrecked shops, crumbled houses, shot-torn walls were on every side, while the most sacred places to a Chinese and a Manchu had been profaned. At other times the Purple Forbidden City, the Winter and Summer Palaces, the Temple of Heaven and kindred imperial enclosures are inaccessible to the foreigner. But a pass from the military authorities opened to us every door. We walked freely through the extensive grounds and into all the famous buildings—including the throne rooms which the highest Chinese official can approach only upon his knees and with his face abjectly on the stone pavement—and the private apartments of the Emperor and the Empress Dowager. I was impressed by the vastness of the Palace buildings and grounds, the carvings of stone and wood, and the number of articles of foreign manufacture. But thousands of Americans in moderate circumstances have more spacious and comfortable bedrooms than those of the Emperor and Empress Dowager of China. All the living apartments looked cheerless. The floors were of artificial stone or brick in squares of about 20 x 20 inches and of course everything was covered with dust. The far-famed Temple of Heaven is the most artistic building in China, a dream of beauty, colour and grace. For a generation before the siege of Peking, no foreigner except General Grant had entered that sacred enclosure, and the Chinese raised a furore because Li Hung Chang admitted even the distinguished American. As I freely walked about the place, photographed the Temple and stood on the circular altar that is supposed to be the centre of the earth and where the Emperor worships alone at the winter solstice, British Sikhs lounged under the trees, army mules munched the luxuriant grass and quartermasters' wagons stood in long rows near the sacred spot where a Chinese would prostrate himself in reverence and fear.

We rode past innumerable ruined buildings and through motley throngs of Manchus, Chinese, German, French, Italian, British and Japanese soldiers to the Presbyterian compound at Duck Lane, which, though narrow, is not so unimportant a street as its name implies. But where devoted missionaries had so long lived and toiled, we saw only shapeless heaps of broken bricks and a few tottering fragments of walls. At the Second Street compound there was even greater ruin, if that were possible. Silently we stood beside the great hole which had once been the hospital cistern and from which the Japanese soldiers, after the siege, had taken the bodies of a hundred murdered Chinese. Not all had been Christians, for in that carnival of blood, many who were merely suspected of being friendly to foreigners were killed, while foes took advantage of the tumult to pay off old scores of hate.

The first reports that had come to New York were that four- fifths of the Chinese Christians and three-fourths of the boys and girls in the boarding-schools had been killed or had died under the awful hardships of that fatal summer. But as the months passed, first one and then another and another were found. Husbands searched for wives, parents for children, brothers for sisters, until a considerable number of the missing ones had been found, though the number of the lost was still great.

About two hundred of these surviving Christians and their families were living together in native buildings adjoining the residence in which we were entertained. Their history was one of agony and bereavement. Including those who fell at Paoting-fu, 191 of their fellow Christians had received the crown of martyrdom, so that almost every survivor had lost father or mother, brother or sister or friend. The Chinese are supposed to be a phlegmatic people and not given to emotion. But never have I met a congregation more swiftly responsive than this one in Peking as I bore to them kindly messages from many friends in other lands.

The Roman Catholic Cathedral was immortalized by Bishop Favier's defense during the memorable siege. The mission buildings occupy a spacious and strongly-walled compound in the Manchu city. Hundreds of bullet and shell holes in the roofs and walls were suggestive evidences of the fury of the Boxer attack, while great pits marked the spots where mines had been exploded.

I called on the famous Bishop. He was, for he has since died, a burly, heavily-bearded Frenchman of about sixty-five apparently. He received us most cordially and readily talked of the siege. He said that of the eighty Europeans and 3,400 Christians with him in the siege, 2,700 were women and children. Four hundred were buried, of whom forty were killed by bullets, twenty-five by one explosion, eighty-one by another and one by another. Of the rest, some died of disease but the greater part of starvation. Twenty-one children were buried at one time in one grave. Beside these 400 who were killed or who died, many more were blown to pieces in explosions so that nothing could be found to bury. Fifty-one children disappeared in this way and not a fragment remained.

The first month of the siege, the food allowance was half a pound a day. The first half of the second month, it was reduced to four ounces, but for the second half only two ounces could be served and the people had to eat roots, bark and the leaves of trees and shrubs. Eighteen mules were eaten during the siege. The Bishop said that in the diocese outside of Peking, 6,000 Chinese Catholics, including three native priests, were killed by the Boxers. Only four European priests were killed, one in Peking and three outside. "Not one foreign priest left the diocese during the troubles,'' a statement that is equally true of the Presbyterian missionaries and, so far as I know, of those of other churches.

Clouds lowered as we left Peking, July 6th, on the Peking and Hankow Railway for Paoting-fu, that city of sacred and painful interest to every American Christian. Soon rain began to fall, and it steadily continued while we rode over the vast level plain, through unending fields of kao-liang, interspersed with plots of beans, peanuts, melons and cucumbers, and mud and brick-walled villages whose squalid wretchedness was hidden by the abundant foliage of the trees, which are the only beauty of Chinese cities. At almost every railway station, roofless buildings, crumbling walls and broken water tanks bore painful witness to the rage of the Boxers. At Liang-hsiang-hsien the first foreign property was destroyed, and all along the line outrages were perpetrated on the inoffensive native Christians. Nowhere else in China was the hatred of the foreigner more violent, for here hereditary pride and bigoted conservatism, unusually intense even for China, were reinforced by Boxer chiefs from the neighbouring province of Shantung, and were particularly irritated by the aggressiveness of Roman Catholic priests and by the construction of the railroad. It is only 110 miles from Peking to Paoting-fu. But the schedule was slow and the stops long, so that we were six hours in making the journey. Arriving at the large, well-built brick station, we bumped and splashed in a Chinese cart through narrow, muddy streets to the residence of a wealthy Chinese family that had deemed a hasty departure expedient when the French and British forces entered the city, and whose house had been assigned by the magistrate as temporary quarters for the Presbyterian missionaries.

Protestant mission work at Paoting-fu was begun only about thirty years ago by the American Board. The station was never a large one, the total nominal force of missionaries up to the Boxer outbreak being two ordained married men, Ewing and Pitkin, one physician, Dr. Noble, and two single women, the Misses Morrill and Gould. In the whole station field including the out-stations, there were not more than 300 Christians and those were south of a line drawn through the centre of the city of Paoting-fu. There were two boarding-schools, one for boys and one for girls, both small, and a general hospital.

The China Inland Mission had no mission work at Paoting-fu, but as the city is at the head of navigation of the Paoting-fu River from Tien-tsin and was also at that time the terminus of the Peking and Hankow Railway, the Mission made it a point of trans-shipment and of formation of cart and shendza trains for its extensive work in the Shan-si and Shen-si provinces, and kept a forwarding agent there, Mr. Benjamin Bagnall.

The Presbyterian station was not opened till 1893, and the force at the time of the outbreak consisted of three ordained men, the Revs. J. Walter Lowrie, J. A. Miller, and F. E. Simcox, two medical men, George Yardley Taylor and C. V. R. Hodge, and one single woman, Dr. Maud A. Mackay. All of the men except Lowrie and Taylor were married, and the former had his mother, Mrs. Amelia P. Lowrie, with him. With the exception of a dispensary and street chapel in rented quarters in the city, the station plant was at the compound where, on a level tract 660 feet in length by 210 feet in width, there were four residences and a hospital and chapel combined, with, of course, the usual smaller outbuildings. The only educational work, beside one out-station day-school, was a small boarding-school for girls recently started and occupying a little building originally intended for a stable.

This was the situation up to the fateful month of June, 1900. Rumours of impending trouble were numerous, but missionaries in China become accustomed to threatening placards and slanderous reports. Though it was evident that the opposition was becoming more bitter, the missionaries did not feel that they would be justified in abandoning their work. Several, however, were temporarily absent for other reasons. Of the Congregational missionaries, Dr. and Mrs. Noble and Mrs. Pitkin were on furlough in America and Mr. and Mrs. Ewing were spending a few weeks at the seaside resort, Pei-tai-ho, so that Mr. Pitkin, Miss Morrill and Miss Gould were the only ones left at the station. Of the Presbyterian missionaries Mr. and Mrs. Miller were also at Pei-tai-ho, Mrs. Lowrie had sailed for America the 26th of May, and Mr. Lowrie, who had accompanied her to Shanghai, was at Tien-tsin on his way back to Paoting-fu. The missionaries remaining at the station were thus five,—Dr. Taylor, Mr. and Mrs. Simcox and their three children, and Dr. and Mrs. Hodge. The China Inland forwarding agent, Mr. Bagnall, with his wife and little girl, was in his house south of the city wall near the American Board compound, and with him was the Rev. William Cooper, who was on his way to Shanghai after a visit to the Shan-si Mission and whose family was then at Chefoo.

It is impossible to ascertain all the details of the massacre. None of the foreigners live to tell the painful story. No other foreigners reached Paoting-fu until the arrival of the military expedition in October, three and a half months later. The Chinese who had participated in the massacre were then in hiding. Spectators were afraid to talk lest they, too, might be held guilty. Most of the Chinese Christians who had been with the missionaries were killed, while others were so panic- stricken that they could remember only the particular scenes with which they were directly connected. Moreover, in those three and a half months such battles and national commotions had occurred, including the capture of Peking and the flight of the Emperor, that the people of Paoting-fu had half forgotten the murder of a few missionaries in June.

In these circumstances, full information will probably never be obtained, though additional facts may yet turn up from time to time. But from all that can be learned, and from the piecing together of the scattered fragments of information carefully collected by Mr. Lowrie, who accompanied the expedition, it appears that Thursday, June 28th, several Chinese young men who had been studying medicine under Dr. Taylor came to him at the city dispensary, warned him of the impending danger and urged him to leave. When he refused they besought him to yield, and though several of them were not Christians, so strong was their attachment to their teacher that they shed tears.

Dr. Taylor placed the dispensary and its contents, together with the adjacent street chapel, in charge of the district magistrate and returned to the mission compound outside the city. That very afternoon startling proof was given that foreboding was not ill-founded, for the Rev. Meng Chi Hsien, the native pastor of the Congregational Church, was seized while in the city, his hands cut off, and the next morning he was beheaded.

The missionaries then decided to leave, drew their silver from the local bank and hired carts. But an official assured them that there would be no further trouble, and they concluded to remain. It is doubtful whether they could have escaped anyway, for the very next afternoon, Saturday, June 30th, a mob left the west gate of the city, and marching northward parallel to the railroad, turned eastward through a small village near the mission compound, which has always been the resort of bad characters, and attacked the mission between five and six o'clock.

The first report that all the missionaries were together in the house of Mr. Simcox is now believed to have been erroneous. The Hodges were there, but Dr. Taylor was in his own room in the second story of Mr. Lowrie's house. Seizing a magazine rifle belonging to Mr. Lowrie, he showed it to the mob and warned them not to come nearer. But the Boxers pressed furiously on, in the superstitious belief that the foreigner's bullet could not harm them. Then, being alone, and with the traditions of a Quaker ancestry strong within him, he chose rather to die himself than to inflict death upon the people he had come to save. The Boxers set fire to the house, and the beloved physician, throwing the rifle to the floor, disappeared amid the flame and smoke. But the body was not consumed, for a Chinese living in a neighbouring village said afterwards that he saw it lying in the ruins of the house several days later, and that he gave it decent burial in a field near by. But there are hundreds of unmarked mounds in that region, and when the foreign expedition arrived in October, he was unable to indicate the particular one which he had made for Dr. Taylor's remains. Mr. Lowrie made diligent search and opened a number of graves, but found nothing that could be identified.

In the Simcox house, however, the two men were charged with the defense of women and children, and to protect them if possible from unspeakable outrage, when they realized that persuasion was vain, they felt justified as a last desperate resort in using force. The testimony of natives is to the effect that at least two Boxers were killed in the attack, one of them the Boxer chief, Chu Tu Tze, who that very day had received the rank of the gilt button from the Provincial Judge as a recognition of his anti-foreign zeal and an encouragement to continue it. He was shot through the head while vociferously urging the assault from the top of a large grave mound near the compound wall.

The story that little Paul and Francis Simcox, frightened by the heat and smoke, ran out of the house and were despatched by the crowd and their bodies thrown into a well now appears to be unfounded. All died together, Mr. and Mrs. Simcox and their three children, and Dr. and Mrs. Hodge; Mr. Simcox being last seen walking up and down holding the hand of one of his children.

It is at least some comfort that they were spared the outrages and mutilations inflicted on so many of the martyrs of that awful summer, for unless some were struck by bullets, death came by suffocation in burning houses—swiftly and mercifully. No Boxer hand touched them, living or dead, but within less than an hour from the beginning of the attack, the end came, and the flames did their work so completely that, save in the case of Dr. Taylor, nothing remained upon which fiendish hate could wreak itself. Husbands and wives died as they could have wished to die—together, and at the post of duty.

The next morning the Boxers, jubilant over their success of the night before, trooped out to the American Board compound in the south suburb. The two ladies took refuge in the chapel, while Mr. Pitkin remained outside to do what he could to keep back the mob. But he was speedily shot and then decapitated. His body, together with the bodies of several of the members of the Meng family, was thrown into a hastily-dug pit just outside the wall of the compound, but his head was borne in triumph to the Provincial Judge, who was the prime mover in the outbreak. He caused it to be fixed on the inside of the city wall, not far from the southeast corner and nearly opposite the temple in which the remaining missionaries were imprisoned. There, the Chinese say, it remained for two or three weeks, a ghastly evidence of the callous cruelty of a people many of whom must have known Mr. Pitkin and the good work done at the mission compound not far distant. When sorrowing friends arrived in October, the head could not be found, but it has since been recovered and buried with the bodies of the other martyrs.

The fate of the young women, Miss Morrill and Miss Gould, thus deprived of their only protector, was not long deferred. After the fall of Mr. Pitkin, they were seized, stripped of all their clothing except one upper and one lower garment, and led by the howling crowd along a path leading diagonally from the entrance of the compound to the road just east of it. Miss Gould did not die of fright as she was taken from the chapel, as was at first reported, but at the point where the path enters the road, a few hundred yards from the chapel, she fainted. Her ankles were then tied together, and another cord lashed her wrists in front of her body. A pole was thrust between legs and arms, and she was carried the rest of the way, while Miss Morrill walked, characteristically giving to a beggar the little money at her waist, talking to the people, and with extraordinary self- possession endeavouring to convince her persecutors of their folly. And so the procession of bloodthirsty men, exulting in the possession of two defenseless women one of them unconscious, wended its way northward to the river bank, westward to the stone bridge, over it and to a temple within the city, not far from the southeast corner of the wall.

Meantime, Mr. Cooper, Mr. and Mrs. Bagnall and their little daughter had begun the day in Mr. Bagnall's house, which was a short distance east of the American Board compound, and on the same road. Seeing the flames of the hospital, which was the first building fired by the Boxers, they fled eastward along the road to a Chinese military camp, about a quarter of a mile distant, whose commanding officer had been on friendly terms with Mr. Bagnall. But in the hour of need he arrested them, ruthlessly despoiled them of their valuables, and sent them under a guard to the arch conspirator, the Provincial Judge. It is pitiful to hear of the innocent child cling- ing in terror to her mother's dress. But there was no pity in the heart of the brutal judge, and the little party was sent to the temple where the Misses Morrill and Gould were already imprisoned.

All this was in the morning. A pretended trial was held, and about four in the afternoon of the same day, all were taken to a spot outside the southeast corner of the city wall, and there, before the graves of two Boxers, they were beheaded and their bodies thrown into a pit.

Months passed before any effort was made by the foreign armies in Peking to reach Paoting-fu. Shortly after the occupation of the capital, I wrote to the Secretary of State in Washington reminding him again of the American citizens who at last accounts were at Paoting-fu, and urging that the United States commander in Peking be instructed to send an expedition there, not to punish for I did not deem it my duty to discuss that phase of the question, but to ascertain whether any Americans were yet living and to make an investigation as to what had happened.

Secretary Hay promptly cabled Minister Conger, who soon wired back that all the Americans at Paoting-fu had been killed. The United States forces took no part in the punitive expeditions sent out by the European commanders, partly, no doubt, because our Government preferred to act on the theory that it would be wiser to give the Chinese Government an opportunity to punish the guilty, and partly because the Administration did not desire the United States to be identified with the expeditions which were reputed to equal the Boxers in the merciless barbarity of burning, pillaging, ravishing and killing.

Still, it is not pleasing to reflect that though there was an ample American force in Peking only 110 miles away, we were indebted to a British general for the opportunity to acquire any accurate information as to the fate of eleven Americans. An expedition of inquiry, at least, might have been sent. But as it was, it was not till October that three columns of Europeans (still no Americans) left for Paoting-fu. One column was French, under General Baillard. The second was British and German under Generals Campbell and Von Ketteler, both of these columns starting from Tien-tsin. The third column left Peking and was composed of British and Italians led by General Gaselee. The plan was for the three columns to unite as they approached the city. But General Baillard made forced marches and reached Paoting-fu October 15th, so that when General Gaselee arrived on the 17th, he found, to his surprise and chagrin, that the French had already taken bloodless possession of the city. The British and German columns from Tien-tsin did not arrive till the 20th and 21st. With them came the Rev. J. Walter Lowrie, who had obtained permission to accompany it as an interpreter for the British.

The allied Generals immediately made stern inquisitions into the outrages that had been committed, which, of course, included those upon Roman Catholics as well as upon Protestants. Mr. Lowrie, as the only man who could speak Chinese, and the only one, too, who personally knew the Chinese, at once came into prominence. To the people, he appeared to have the power of life and death. All examinations had to be conducted through him. All accusations and evidence had to be sifted by him. The guilty tried to shift the blame upon the innocent, and enemies sought to pay off old scores of hatred upon their foes by charging them with complicity in the massacres. It would have accorded with Chinese custom if Mr. Lowrie had availed himself to the utmost of his opportunity to punish the antagonists of the missionaries, especially as his dearest friends had been remorselessly murdered and all of his personal property destroyed. It was not in human nature to be lenient in such circumstances, and the Chinese fully expected awful vengeance.

Great was their amazement when they saw the man whom they had so grievously wronged acting not only with modera- tion and strict justice, but in a kind and forgiving spirit. Every scrap of testimony was carefully analyzed in order that no innocent man might suffer. Instead of securing the execution of hundreds of smaller officials and common people, as is customary in China in such circumstances, Mr. Lowrie counselled the Generals to try Ting Jung, who at the time of the massacre was Provincial Judge but who had since been promoted to the post of Provincial Treasurer and acting Viceroy; Kwei Heng the commander of the Manchu garrison, and Weng Chan Kwei the colonel in command of the Chinese Imperial forces who had seized the escaping Bagnall party and sent them back to their doom. The evidence plainly showed that these high officials were the direct and responsible instigators of the uprising, that they had ordered every movement, and that the crowd of smaller officials, Boxers and common people had simply obeyed their orders. The three dignitaries were found guilty and condemned to death.