The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1900-01-20
.ERoM THESE sIMM1rs. /.

From these SUBMITS forty centuries
look down upon you" said Bonaparte to
his. soldiers at the pyramids, and from
that dark continent. Of which the pyra-
mids were the index and warning, forty
centuries had already frowned upon man
kind when the Egyptian began the
civilization Of which the sphinx was the
summit; and for eight thousand years
before Bonaparte that vast land had re-
NAMED essentially the dark continent,
battling Asia and staggering Europe, and
hating all enterprise at the borders of
what may ultimately prove the richest of
the earth's surface.
But, besides Africa, there was also
ASIA hite-haired when the corner stone
OF the first pyramid was laid, Its people
drawing a good sustenance from the
surface soil-for Asia has never gone into
the earth deeper than a shallow gold
mine.
Before Asia was, I am" Dragged Afri-
ca for centuries. But it was not 80. Asiat-
ic landmarks nomenclature, racial sem
blances-strew the long coast line Of the
Western hemisphere, to psychologists
demonstrating migrations farther back
than even the dreams of the Egyptian
priesthood. How many revolutions, how
many social progresses. China has I'M
dergone, and India also, a hundred years
more Of European investigation will not
be able to suggest. But certain 1t is that
the commercial traveller Of today. when
he returns from abroad, can hang up at
his headquarters offices at st. Paul or Chi
cago the map Of China, and repeat to
his partners the metaphorical projectile
of Bonaparte at the pyramids For from
the SUBMITS of Chinese life twice forty
centuries and four hundred millions of
human beings look down upon our West
ern civilization-upon factories and mills
and mines-and bid them come into that
swarming continent, with their arms and
accouterments Of energy and the living
soul.
Bonaparte was as much merchant as
any Englishman that ever trod upon
meats leather. His European embargo
proved that. But the French people were
overcome by the dazzle Of military glory,
and could not understand the problem OF
Africa and Asia, from a commercial view.
To get the East Indian and the Egyptian
fellaheen to raise cotton for the French
and German cotton mills had not then
entered into the minds Of European mon
archs, and Napoleon found himself fifty
years in advance of all except the Eng
lish, whose statesmen were of the school
Of Birmingham and Liverpool-of facto-
ries and of ships-who could not be fooled
by his tremendous rhetoric or his artiI-
1ery.
The American has now four distinct and
peculiar markets before him. Europe for
foodstuffs, with China as a coming belly
of Unsuitable Appetite Asia, Africa and
South America, for cotton and steel and
copper goods. Europe is cid, and hungry
AOl VI CoN9lbiIS OIlly, Willie the OUnecS
are frontiers, hungry for anything that
can be produced in the mill. But South
America has the tongue of Europe and
long established trade relations, and mus
be diligently plowed and sowed and har-
rowed in close competition with England,
Germany and France. Africa is so new
that we start in there on an even plane
with them all-with all competitors-and
while England and Germany will pour
their millions of surplus peoples into that
continent without perceptible diminution
of their own populations, America will
send adventurous spirits and commercial
travellers, who will bring orders home
for railroad iron, mining machinery, cleo
trical apparatus and cotton goods All of
the peoples of Western Europe could
be thrust into Africa south of the Soudan,
and not people 1t more thickly than the
United States are now inhabited. The
market is ours, for we are ready for it,
against all corners, but 1t is slow of
growth.
But Asia and Oceanica-there is the
market made to hand. The situation is
complete The population already In the