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polity which was the chief aim of the revolution. They egregiously failed; being such men, holding such views, they were bound to fail. They provoked a Conservative reaction. Balked of their millennial hopes, they resorted to congenial revolutionary methods and were in consequence, in 1913, kicked out of Peking. After setting the whole country by the ears, with the grand result of that bizarre pseudo-feudalism or tuchunism which still subsists, in 1917 they retired to Canton and set up there an independent republic to which four provinces adhered and which has since maintained a flickering existence characterized chiefly by faction-broils between the Reds and the Pinks.

After the Radicals, the Conservatives had their little whack (1913-20) at the problem of constructing a strong polity. They failed or, rather, after the death in 1916 of that great man Yuan Shih-k'ai, the first president, whose constructive efforts were brought to naught by radical agitation, they did not try. The administration ultimately fell into the hands of an ultra-conservative clique known as the Anfu Club, whose sole conception of the government was as the means to line their pokes through the loans it was able to contract. To this end they bartered away to the Japanese one valuable concession after another. Certainly no hope from that quarter. Were there hopeful signs in any quarter? Was there, after all, any such thing as genuine Chinese nationalism? Yes. Already in 1915 one Wu Pei-fu, a general of brigade in the provincial army of Chi-li Province, had published his famous program.

It contemplated, among other things: a clean new start; the scrapping of the abortive results of the revolution; the summoning of a national convention, truly representative of all the important Chinese interests, which should create a strong and genuinely representative government through a constitutional machinery really answerable to the genius of the Chinese people and to the Chinese institutions of proved and continuing virtue; and the abolition of tuchunism. This program was adopted by a group headed by certain tuchuns calling themselves the Chi-li party. More important, it was taken up by Young China; that is, the great body of Chinese who have received some tincture of education of the Western type, whether abroad or at home. (When I speak of Young China, I exclude the Kuo Min-tang gentry, though they might be termed the Left wing of Young China, and though no doubt a larger proportion of them than of Young China have been educated abroad.)

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The emergence of Young China as a political force is one of the most momentous momentous phenomena of recent times. Young China had organized itself wonderfully, with a Central Council at Shanghai coördinating the activities of almost countless associations, educational, industrial, and so on. The transactions of the Anfu Club with the Japanese had aroused in Young China intense. indignation against the government and the Japanese. Young China communicated its resentment to the nation at large, organized public opinion against the government, and immensely increased Chinese nation

alism. In 1919 popular demonstrations guided by Young China constrained the Conservative government to instruct its representatives at Versailles not to sign the treaty, because of the Shantung clauses; and in 1920 it was the moral impetus of the public opinion directed by Young China that caused the Chi-li tuchuns to attack and overthrow the Anhwei tuchuns and seize control of the central government.

The immense development of Chinese nationalism in recent years is due to the efforts of Young China; but the leadership of Young China has not countenanced anti-foreign violence. That leadership has directed itself toward two objects in chief: the establishment of a strong government of the sort indicated by Wu in his famous program; and the recovery of Chinese rights from the powers by the Confucian methods of reason and persuasion. In furtherance of the former aim, Young China's leaders backed the Chi-li party; in furtherance of the latter, Young China's representatives achieved their magnificent success (though it was not commonly so regarded, the result of their efforts was precisely that) at the Washington Conference. To be sure, the Chi-li party failed to make good in the sequel, and the Conservatives returned to Peking, but in good time the better element of Young China will securely dominate the political situation and establish their strong governmentat an equal remove from hidebound Conservatism on the one hand and intransigent Radicalism on the other.

It is singular proof of the importance of Young China that when

the delegates for the Washington Conference were to be appointed, though Chang Tso-lin was dictator at Peking in the full swing of reaction, he nevertheless did not dare to withstand the popular will, abundantly expressed, that the country should be represented before the powers by the pick of Young China.

The anti-foreign agitation now in process in China is the work, not of Young China, but of the Kuo Mintang gentry, who are taking clever advantage of a fantastic political development (the explanation of which would require a separate article), in the hope of riding back to power at Peking on a wave of antiforeign passion. A hunger for the spoils of office gnaws their bowels. Perhaps, too, they have been listening to the sweet pipings of M. Karakhan. They are turning to vicious and violent account the nationalism created by Young China with a view to beneficent use thereof. Their methods are utterly mendacious and unscrupulous. The alleged grievances against the foreign mill-owners, for example, will not bear scrutiny. Conditions in the foreign-owned mills are far better than in the native-owned mills. No doubt many of the wilder bloods of Young China have been swept into the movement; but unobtrusively the Young China leaders are moving to calm the agitation. If now the powers act sagaciously, the situation may be saved.

Action instanter to give effect to the Washington treaties and resolutions respecting China is the minimum indicated. If the developments have made it necessary for the powers to speed up the process of restoring to China the sovereign

rights filched from her, the powers may not reasonably complain. It is better for China as well as for the powers that the process should be gradual, but China's resentment for the wrongs and humiliations inflicted on her, resentment just and deep, may not be trifled with the resentment of a people who constitute one fourth of the human race and who in virility and intelligence are inferior to no other people.

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Let me end with a general observation. The question is often asked most doubtingly: are the Chinese people fitted for a representative republic? To which I would answer: At least from the T'ang days down (618 A.D.), a representative character was-except for the century of Mongol domination-not lacking to the Chinese imperial polity. The emperor, to be sure, appointed all the imperial officials down to the district magistrates, but with few exceptions he appointed them from a civilservice list, entry to which was de

termined solely by competitive examination open, absolutely without distinction, to all classes of the population; and, indeed, most of China's distinguished men have come from the "cotton-clothed masses." For five centuries (the T'ang and early Sung periods; 618-1127 A.D.) the representation was genuine and adequate, because the scope of the civilservice examinations was very broad. The curriculum of the Imperial Academy at Ch'ang-an, where most of the candidates for office prepared, in those days embraced not only the Confucian canon, polite literature, painting, calligraphy, and music, but also philosophy, ethics, history, topography, mathematics, mechanics, and athletics; the last including fencing, horsemanship, boxing, wrestling, and archery-in fine, the omne scibile, all the available knowledge. Indeed, China of the period 618-1127 A.D. is the greatest example in human annals of genuine successful democracy, of democracy as truly representative as any of our Western brands.

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THANKSGIVING:-Thanksgiving day is the characteristic American feast. It expresses our gratitude for the most necessary and at the same time the lowest form of prosperity, plenty to eat. Those New England settlers who had faced starvation could easily read in their first good harvest spiritual meanings-God's approval, a blessing on their adventure, a covenant between Heaven and their children's children. The sublime overtones have slipped into silence as time has gone on. The early Thanksgiving dinner remains, but it is now only a dinner. The turkeys and ducks and hams, the squash, pumpkin, turnips, and potatoes, the cranberries, the puddings, and the pies, were once a sort of offering on the domestic hearth, an array of first-fruits, symbols in a ritual. Now they are merely things to eat, and the sum total of them is far too much.

Το say that they once meant something spiritual is to give the Puritans the benefit of the doubt. Those great souls were heavy feeders, with a natural flair for calories and food values, and with little regard for subtleties of the palate. Good food and plenty of it was reason enough to thank God. Good drink, too, of course, and strong. After so many

years, it hardly concerns us that they risked their arteries in Gargantuan trencher-work. But we must remark that the annual proclamations of presidents and governors for the most part stick pretty close to the original grounds of rejoicing, and ask us to assemble in our places of worship to return thanks for a rather material prosperity. The question occurs, whether a country which has so long been progressing ought not by this time to have more elevated reasons for thankfulness.

This year, for example, we might give thanks for the Union, for this confederacy of States, without barriers of language, without frontiers, economic or military. The idea takes us back to Webster, to the Civil War, to Lincoln's vision of our destiny, but perhaps we can grasp the meaning of it now better than our elders could. We visit Europe, made up of great nations often no larger in territory than our States, and we observe that though each country has much to teach us in special cultures and in the general art of life, yet they are all separated by terrific walls, and neither singly nor as a whole do they enjoy the prosperity or the freedom to develop which with us seems natural. It has occurred to many a tourist that we should be in

the same boat as Europe-whether or not there had been a World Warif whenever we went to Boston or Philadelphia or Washington we had to stop and examine the baggage and the passengers at each State line. After a summer in European capitals, remembering the elaborate process of leaving a train at the terminal, having the trunks inspected, or answering questions as to what was in the basket we were carrying, we watch an express discharge its numbers at the Grand Central or the Pennsylvania Station, and we say, no wonder they are in difficulties over there, if they make life so hard for themselves. What we forget is that the Europeans did not bring about their closed-compartment sort of world through any deliberate theory, nor did we achieve our freedom of circulation by any wisdom beforehand. We just had all the luck. Except for a few men like Webster and Lincoln, never, before this present moment, have we quite known how lucky we were. This year we might very well give thanks.

Call it providence, if you prefer, instead of luck. But the danger of calling it providence is that you may give yourself the idea that God is tribal, after all, working in harmony with even the unconscious mind of America. It is safer for us to be thankful for a luck we know we did nothing to deserve. If from our fortune we can learn sound principles of prosperity, it is well not to preach them to Europe, as though we had a system in it all along, and can now qualify as experts. Wait till we believe in the principle of no barriers, no frontiers, sufficiently to try it a little further, and take down the wall

on the outer rim, between us and the rest of the world.

We might be thankful, too, for more positive blessings-not simply for the absence of barriers in the Union, but for the degree of communication we have arrived at. Here we might take a little credit to ourselves. The enormous distances in our country were no encouragement to travel, nor to an interchange of ideas. Barriers or no barriers, America might well have proved too large for a national consciousness to grasp. No doubt philosophers of a certain school will say that the very problem created the solution, as they say the landscape, clamoring to be photographed, caused the camera to be invented. But this is to say, as Coleridge suggested, that snuff is the final cause of the human nose. Other peoples have found themselves in vast areas, and their culture has fallen a victim to space. But the invention or the development of means to annihilate space is with us a conscious and characteristic preoccupation. We might be thankful now for newspapers, for the telegraph and the telephone, for the phonograph, for automobiles, for films, for the radio. We can hear each other's voice from one end of the land to the other, and soon we shall see each other's face at the same distance-if we wish to! We can carry Caruso's voice to the Rockies, and take Kreisler's violin on a raft down the Mississippi with us. We can call on our neighbors after supper, anywhere within a radius of thirty miles. The land which Europe once feared might fall in pieces, because it was too extended to cohere, now threatens to become the little spot on

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