Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-03-05
POTENTIAL PEOPLE.
Vast Hordes That May Yet Overrun West
ern Civilization.

VAST nOrQeS 1n8t MAy 1eG Ov0rTun We8t-
ern Civilization.
Portland Oregonian.l
Raines, in his census of the population of
India, states that "the returns show an in
crease of 10000, 900 in the population in ten
years, the total being 2s5, 600 600. Add to this
number 400 900, 900, or probably more. in
China, and it looks as if these vast hordes
may yet overrun and wipe out Western CIV
ilization." The first thought with most is
to scout such an idea. And yet there are
thinkers who apprehend this very conse-
quence. 1t is not supposed, probably, that
any movement Of these vast bodies is to be
expected soon, or that in their present con-
dition they would be formidable enemies.
Numbers, without spirit, signify little. But
conditions change with changes of time.
Mems dispositions undergo transforma-
tions. Sluggish barbarians often awake,
and become enterprising and aggressive.
On the other hand there are tendencies in
high civilization toward peaceful disposi-
tions and subsection of combative propensi-
ties There is ceaseless effort among highly
civilized States to abolish war, and scientific
inventions that mako war terribly destruc-
tive cultivate and support the moral forces
that move nations to arbitrate their disputes
and dispose them toward peace. This again
tends toward suppression Of belligerent dis
position and toward effeminacy of character.
Thus, high civilization may be prepared by
forces working within it for irruption from
lower civilizations, representing the spirit
of restless adventure, guided by enterpris-
ing talents, provided with all the arms that
inventive genius has given to the world,
prudential considerations that have been
developed through the better civilization.
Historical analogies are never perfect
guide, because historical conditions are
nf1ry Hfno Go, in
irruption that covered Southern Europe a
thousand years ago had only a general
family resemblance to the great movement
Of the Northern races upon the Roman En-
pire 500 years earlier. Conditions were
changed, old forces were exhausted and new
impulses and agencies had been born. The
next vast enterprise OF world conquest may
be different from either: but whenever it
shall come, and wherever its source, it will
have this vital feature, common to all:
Fresh vigor will impel and the weakness of
sapped by sentilnentality and sunk in effem-
macy, will yield to the onrush of new-loosed
energy, stored up for generations in un-
noted interiors, who have multiplied in in
action while waiting for the impulse of
movement. This is the common history of
the overrunning of the Western Empire by
the Teutons and the overrunnig Of the East
structive force issued out of savage forests
and the other out OF the ruins of the Oldest
civilization on earth.
EanCy the mllllOnS CnaG swarm IN Asia
more than half the population OF the world
-fermenting for a century or two under the
growing impulse of that mysterious unrest
that from time to time stirs in peoples, then
stirred to a world movement such as has
swept across continents a dozen times since
history began. These races have in them all
the potency OF that primitive lvtsor and rel
ish for conquest which Western nations are
doing their best to replace with senti-
mental reliance upon arbitration and inter-
national good will. 1t is latent in languor
and decay, but it has not undergone deliber-
ate emasculation. These races feed only the
awakened fever thirst of conquest and the
inspiration of organization and leadership
to repeat the enterprise Of Genghis and
Tamerlane. Europe needs only few CEN
turies of training in the school of non-resist-
ance and international sentimentality that
substitutes arbitration for war to sink to a
state of soft effe1ninacy, wholly favorable to
the success of such an enterprise.
These things are not done in one day. To
look ahead only generation, this notion
seems absurd. To look ahead as far as the
march of Genghis lies back, it is not so
incredible. There is inlmeasurable potency
OF conquest in Russia. After disturbing the
peace of Europe for a century, she has
turned her face westward and is swiftly
overrunning Asia. Fancy her restless spirit
of adventure infused into the half billion of
human being now sunk in apathy in India
ana China, and the whole seething mass
flung westward. There would be an emer-
gency not to be met with elevated sediments
Of international good will and conrts of arbi-
tration. It is good for peoples never to for
get how to fight.