The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-10-26
MIR. BURLINGAME.
The Secret of His Success inI China.

Ihe Secrer oil tts SUCCESS Inl ChinHs
Mr.. BurliDgames success at Pekin will
always remain the distinguishing feature of
his remarkable career. The eminence he
achieved, the influence he exerted, and the
reputation he acquired in China are almost
without parallel Prior to Mr.. Burlingame
our country had been represented at the
Chinese Court by Ministers of superior cul-
ture and commanding talent. Away back in
John Tyler's day we had Caleb Gushing, then
in the early prime of an illustrious career.
He went to China full of learning, lin
guist of rare attainments, with diplomatic
talent of the highest order, thoroughly
learned in international law, and with an
acute intellect singularly fitted to cope with
and control the mind of the Orient. A few
years later, in Mr.. Fillmore's Presidency, we
sent Humphrey Marshall, of Kentucky, to
represent us at Pekin. Less eminent in cul-
ture than Mr.. Cushing, he is scarcely the
inferior of any mon in natural ability. To
the talent of the Marshalls, conspicuous and
brilliant through four generations, he added
the blood and the brains of the Birneys. He
went upon his mission when young with mill
tary laurels won in the Mexican war, and with
the further prestige of distinguished career
in Congress. Following Marshall, we had
William B. Reed, of Pennsylvania, sent
thither by his devoted personal friend,
President Buchanan. Mr.. Reed has long
been a leading member of the Philadel-
phia bar, learned not merely in the
law, but with generous culture outside
the limits of his profession, and regarded
by those who know him best as among the
readiest and most acute of American jurists.
Such were the men whom Mr. Burlingame
succeeded in his diplomatic career. 1t is not
stating the case too strongly to say that at no
European court did we ever have superior
talent during the service of the three gentle
men we have named. And yet the influence
of these men, with all their conceded gifts
and accomplishments, did not compare with
the influence exerted by Mr.. Burlingame.
Indeed, it was the testimony of Sir Frederick
Bruce, who was at Pekin as the representative
of England at the same time, that no foreign
minister had ever gained such ascendancy in
the councils of the Chinese as Mr.. Burlin-
game. His selection, therefore, for the
most important mission which China ever
sent to Christian nations was not matter
of accident or luck, but grew naturally
from the exalted estimate placed upon his
ability and fitness by the leading minds of
the Pekin Government. AS an example of
the influence of a single man, attained over
an alien race, whose civilization is widely
different, whose religious belief is totally
opposite, whose language he could not read
nor write nor speak, Mr.. Burlingames career
in China will always be regarded as an ex-
traordinary event, not to be accounted for
except by con eeding to him a peculiar power
of influencing those with whom he came in
contacts a power growing out of a mysterious
gift, partly intellectual, partly spiritual,
largely physical; power whose laws are un-
known, whose origin cannot be traced, and
whose limits cannot be assigned; power
which we desi gnate as magnetism.