The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1898-12-23
RUSSIA.
Should Retain
Friendship.
THE 0RIENT'S TRADE
Our Best "Open Door" is
Through Cars Country.

Correspondence of Associated Press
London, Dec. 13-John w. Book
walter Of Ohio, who has just returned
from a three months journey through
Russia, told the correspondent of the
Associated Press in an interview today
that he enjoyed unusual facilities for
observing what is going on in that
country
He Travelled 1900 miles to the ter
minus of the trans Siberian railway,
reaching the frontier of Afghanistan
and to the end of the one penetrating
China through Manchuria. All these
are now practically completed
Mr.. Bookwalter was allowed to go
everywhere, to see everything, and to
! take hundreds of photographs, thanks
to special permission issued to him by
the minister of the interior, on the APP
plication Of the United States ambas-
sador at St. Petersburg. During his
journey he conversed with the govern
ors of provinces and with military and
civil officials of all ranks.
Everywhere 1 found" said Mr..
Bookwalter, the kindest and most
/
Americans and heard many express
sions of satisfaction over Americas
success in the war with Spain, To this
there was not a single exception. Wher-
ever I went everything was thrown
open to me, simply because / was an
| American.
Americas best open door to Gem
trail Asia and China is through Russia.
Already all the locomotives and rolling
stock on the railways are of American
manufacture. Central Asia will in the
near future be the greatest market in
the world for manufacture of all kinds,
and our obtaining the virtual monopoly
of this market only depends on our re-
tanning the friendship Russia now has
for us. A great surprise to the world
is in preparation in that part of the
earth, and it will come, [ believe, very
soon. Not many years will elapse be-
fore the world win see Russia, England
and China combining for the partition
/ of Asia, The very force of circumstan-
ees will bring this about. England and
| Russia will never be able to agree on a
partition of China between themselves.
Still less will they allow the other
powers to share with them in the spoils
of that empire. They will be forced to
defend China, which alone is helpless,
against the rest of the world, and to
share with her the dominion Of Asia.
Lie etllle1lOG VI I(4l5 lt1itNlB INuSStsS anu
China, or two-thirds of the human race,
will be such an alliance as history has
never yet seen, and it win be one which
will give peace to the world for centu-
ries. All it's interests will make for
peace, and it will be able to dictate
terms to the rest of the world.
America has very little to gain by
an open door to China. That country
is an industrial one; and whatever we
may now be able to sell to them the
| Chinese will soon be able to make for
themselves. One day, and that day Is
near at hand, whatever China buys
from the rest of the world, will reach
her through Russia and Central Asia.
Russia in the last three years has
done more to open the doors to China
than England and all the rest of the
world has done in so years. No one
who has not seen it with his own eyes
can have the faintest conception of
what Russia has done and is still do
ing in central Asia.
II have Travelled over 1900 miles of
railway which she has built from the
Caspian sea to Tashkend, in Turkestan
over a branch of this line which runs
to the northern frontier Of India, over
another branch which goes from Merv
to the border of Afghanistan. This last
branch was not completed when l was
there, but it will be open to traffic next
week. There are also Russian lines
all along the Persian frontier. and pen
etrating into that country are either
4 completed or rapidly approaching com
pletion. All the work on these lines
has been done by soldiers, who in this
way are not in Russia as elsewhere,
nom producers.
'All this tremendous Asiatic railway
system is owned and operated by the
| government All the lines are adu1i-
iroh a1fi1f
| Why, / saw a bridge across the ANU
daria. in central Asia, at a point where
the river is three miles WIDE that cost
10000 900 roubles, and is the greatest
piece Of engineering work ever accom-
plished. There is nothing like it any
where else in the world the celebrated
Forth bridge, near Edinburgh not ex-
cepted.
Wherever [ went saw cities and
towns springing up, such as Askobad
in Turkomania, for example, which al
ready has $4,000 inhabitants Near
Merv the car is building magnificent
palace. New Bokhara, Il miles from
old Bokhara, has 10000 inhabitants.
1.-The Russian policy in central Asia. is
not to bring the new and the old into
too close a contrast, and so she builds
her railway system a few miles away
from the old centres of population.
thus forming new and entirely modern
icenlIeS.
Where do the people come from to
inhabit these towns? Why, from Eu-
Iropean Russia. The government is
turning her surplus European popula-
ton into central Asia just as the
United States turns the surplus popu-
lation of her Atlantic states into her
great western territories. What I have
just seen in central Asia is almost an
exact reproduction of what witnessed
years ago in Illinois, Indiana and Mis-
souri, when the emigrants from the
east We're pouring into the west No
human power can stay the onward
march of the Slav through Russia,
which was the feature of the 10Th CEN
fury, just as the march of the Anglo
Saxon through America has been the
feature of the 18th
Already thanks to her railways
Russia can at any time pour her
armies across the frontiers of India
by the same routes that Alexander.
i Tamerlane and Kubla Khan marched
to the conquest of eastern Asia. Rus
STA today has 25,000,000 reserves, all of
whom have served in the army from
three to five years. One-fifth of her
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