The San Francisco call., 1899-09-20

ward the UnciviliZed was the sub
ject for discussion last night at the
annual meeting OF the Unitarian
Club of California 1t was dis
cussed at the Merchants Club in
the Mutual Life building after one of the
most enjoyable dinners ever given by the
organization. Fully 200 members and
guests sat at table and enjoyed the dis
cussion that followed. President Sheldon
G.. Kellogg presided, and arranged near
him were the gentlemen underlined for
addresses on the subject. Hon John Bar
rett, eX-Minister to Siam, was at his left,
and Professor Thomas Bacon of the Uni
versity of California at his right. Many
other distinguished guests We're present.
In announcing the subject for discussion
President kellogg said 1t might properly
be called 1.-The white mans burden" and
he called upon Professor Bacon to lend
the first hand to pass it along.
Professor Bacon opened with the state
ment that the question was by no means
new one Many solutions had been Of
fered in times gone by, and now a new
solution was offerable. The problem first
arose, he said, when the first discoveries
of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
laid open to the east coast of Europe a
multitude of men, alien in race and color.
for whom no provision had been made in
the medieval system of European thought.
Rudely and crudely the Europeans Of
those times set about solving the ques-
ton what to do with them.
THE first answer, continued Professor
Bacon, was direct and easy. 1t seems a
| hard answer to us. 1t seems one which
could only be suggested by the crueIest
| instincts of man, but we misjudge those
persons, who had to solve that problem
and solve it suddenly, If we suppose
that there was really In their heart no
instinct. Their theory of how the civil
lied races of the world ought to treat the
uncivilized races-how the, white man
ought to treat the man that was not
white-was very simple; the white man
ought to enslave the black man. Every
consideration of interest and religion
What arrangement could be better than
that which should give money to the
white man, in this world and eternal sal
walton to the black man in the next?
Portugal and Spain had been the ex-
ponents, of this first theory and England
and Holland of the other" continued the
should go out and seize the outlying
parts of the earth. inhabited or uninhabi-
ted, and use them for their own behoof
Very little religious ZEAL said Professor
Bacon, went into the upbuilding of the
British Empire-very little religious zeal,
indeed. few colonists on the east coast
religious sense, and founded communities
for conscience sake; but mighty little re-
ligion had that, fine old pirate, Sir Fran
the Spanish king and captured them for
himself and his queen along the Spanish
main, or troubled the. waters of the blue
Pacific with his heel
What the English and Dutch adven-
turers went for, said Professor Bacon
was gain. 1t was on this principle, he as
serted, the British Empire in India was
built up. He briefly traced the history
of English progress in the Far East, and
came again to the white mans burden.
He continued:
This doctrine has grown quietly but
steadily. 1t has permeated the whole If the
English people. but it has only come to our
notice lately when became more inter
ested in those things that have found a
philosopher in Benjamin Kidd and a poet
in Rudyard Kipling. It is known to as
the white Mans Burden. Little signii-
canoe 1t would have had for If there was
not opening out a powerful sentiment
among the people who have most to do with