The sun., 1900-12-04
PRESIDENTS EEsoo.-cE
To the Senate and House of Representa-.

To the Senate and House of Representa-
tives:
AT the outgoing of the old and the in
coming of the new century you begin the
last session Of the Fifty-siXth congress
with evidences on every hand of indi-
vidual and national prosperity and with
proof of the growing strength and in
creasing power for good of Republican
institutions. Your countrymen will join
with you in felicitation that American
liberty is more firmly established than
ever before and that love for it and the
determination to preserve it are more
universal than at any former period of
our history.
In our foreign intercourse the dominant
question has been the treatment of the
Chinese problem. Apart from this our
relations with the powers have been
happy.
The recent troubles in China spring
from the antiforeign agitation which for
the past three years has gained strength
in the northern provinces. Their origin
lies deep in the character of the Chinese
races and in the traditions of their gov
ernment. The telegraph and the railway
spreading over their land, the steamers
plying on their waterways, the merchant
and the missionary penetrating year by
year farther to the interior, became to
the Chinese mind types of an alien in
vasion, changing the course of their ma
tional life and fraught with vague fore
| b0dings of disaster to their beliefs and
their self control.
| Posting of antiforeign placards became
a daily occurrence, which the repeated
reprobation of the imperial power failed
| to check or punish. These infammatory
appeals to the Ignorance and superstition
| of the masses, mendacious and absurd in
| their accusations and deeply hostile in
| their spirit, could not but work cumula-
| tive harm. They aimed at no particular
Gloss of foreigners; they We're impartial
| in attacking everything foreign.
An outbreak in Shangtung in which
German missionaries were slain was the
| too natural result of these nialevolent
| teachings. The posting of seditious pla-
cards. exhorting to the utter destruction
of foreigners and of every foreign thing
| continued unrebuked. Hostile demonstra-
tions toward the stranger gained strength
by organization.
The Boxers.
The sect commonly styled the Boxers
developed greatly in the provinces north
| of the Iang-tse and with the collusion Of
| many notable officials including some in
| the immediate councils of the throne it.
| self, became alarmingly aggressive. No
| foreigners life outside of the protected
| treaty ports, was safe. No foreign inter
est was secure from spolation.
| The diplomatic representatives of the
powers i'll Peking strove in vain to check
this movement. Protest was followed by
demand and demand by renewed protest,
to be met with perfunctory edicts from
the palace and evasiye and futile assur-
ances from the tsung-li-yamen.
The increasing gravity of the condi-
| tions in China and the imminence of peril
to our own diversified interests in the EN-
| pire, as well as to those of all the other
| treaty governments, We're soon appreci-
ated by this government, causing it pro-
| found solicitude. The United States
| from the earliest days of foreign inter-
| course with China had followed a policy
of peace. omitting no occasions to testify
good will, to further the extension of law
full trade, TO respect the sovereignty of it's
| government and to insure by all legiti-
| mate and kindly but earnest means the
fullest measure of protection for the lives
|
! for the exercise of their beneficent call
! ings among the Chinese people.
Mindful of this, il was felt to be appro-
pirate that our purposes should be pro-
nounced in favor of such course as would
hasten united action of the powers at Pc
king to promote the administrative re-
| forms so greatly needed for strengthen
| ing the imperial government and main
| tanning the integrity of China. in which
we believed the whole western world to
| be alike concerned. To these ends
| caused to be addressed to the several
powers occupying territory and maintain
| ing spheres of influence in China the cir
cnlar proposals of 1890. inviting from
them declarations of their intentions and
views as to the deSirnbility of the adop-
| tion of measures inSuring the benefits of
| equality of treatment of all foreign trade
throughout China. 3.
With gratifying unanimity the re-
sponses coincided in this common policy,
| enabling me to see in the successful ter
mination of these negotiations proof of
the friendly spirit which animates the
various powers interested in the untram-
mcled development of commerce and in
dustly in the Chinese e+npire as a source
of vast benefit to the whole commercial
world
lii this conclusion. which l had the
qualification to announce as a completed
engagement to the interested powers on
March 20. 1900, / hopefully discerned a
potential factor for the abatemegt of the
distrust of foreign purposes which for a
year past had appeared to inspire the
policy of the imperial government and
for the effective eXertion by it of power
and authority to quell the critical anti
foreign movement in the northern PROV
inces most Immediately influenced by the
Mantchoo sentiment.
Marine Guard Withdrawn.
Seeking to testify confidence in the will
ingness and ability of the imperial ad-
ministration to redress the wrongs and
prevent the evils we suffered and feared,
the marine guard, which had been sent
to Peking in the autumn of 1899 for the
protection of the legation, was with
drawn at the earliest practicable mo-
ment, and all pending questions were re-
mitted, as far as we were concerned, to
the ordinary resorts of diplomatic inter
course.
The president continues by narrating
the growth of the Boxer movement, the