The herald., 1898-12-23
OPEN DOOR TO CHINA
READY TO HAND BY COURTESY OF
RUSSIA
A VAST MARKET NOW WAITING
Bookwalter of Ohio Speaks as One
Having Authority, Having
Both Seen and Heard
Associated Press Special Wire.

LONDON, Dec. 23.--John W. Bookwal-
ter of Ohio, who has just returned from a
three months journey through Russia, toio
| the correspondent OF the Associated fress
in an interview today that he enjoyed un'
usual facilities for observing what Is gong
in in that country He travelled 1900 miles
to tho terminus of the Transsiberian rail
road. to the end of the line reaching the
frontier of Afghanistan and to the end OF
only line penetrating China through Man
chura. All these are now practicaiiy eo'i'
| pleted.
Everywhere l found Mr.. Bookwalter
| said, 1.-THE kindest and most friendly feeling
towards America and Americans and heard
many expressions of satisfaction over
American success in our war with Spain
To this there was not single exception
Americas best open door to Central 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 manufac-
lures of all kinds and our obtaining the
virtual monopoly of this market only de-
pends on our retaining the friendship
Russia now has for U.S.
america has very little to gain by an
open door in China That country is an
industrial one and whatever we may now
be able to sell to then( thelChinese will soon
be able to make for themselves. One day,
and that day is near at hand, whatever Chi
ma buys from the rest of the world will
reach her through Russia and Central Asia.
Russia in the last three years has done more
IL. r L.,
and all the rest of the world has done in
fifty years.
81 have travelled over $1,000 miles of rail-
road which she built from the Caspian sea
to Tashkend. in Turkestan, over a branch
of this line which runs to the northern from
tier of India over a branch which goes from
Merv to the border of Afghanistan. There
are also Russian lines all along the Persian
frontier and penetrating into that country,
either completed or rapidly approaching
completion. All the work on these lines has
been done by soldiers, who, in this way are
not in Russia, as elsewhere, non-producers.
"Al this tremendous Asiatic railway sys-
TEN is owned and operated by the govern
ment All the lines are admirably built and
splendidly equipped. Why, l saw a bridge
across the Amudaria in Central Asia, at a
point where the river is three miles wide,
that cost 20,000,000 roubles, and it is tEe
greatest piece of engineering work ever ac-
complished. There is nothing like it any
where else in the world.
'The government is turning its surplus
European population into Central Asia, just
as the United States turned the surplus pop
ulaton of her Atlantic states into her great
western territories. No human power can
stay the onward march of the Slav through
Asia, which will be the feature of the
twentieth century just as the march of the
Anglo-SaXon through America has been the
feature of the nineteenth.
"The United States will be committing a
woeful mistake if she fails to retain the
friendship of this great world power of the
future"