The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1900-12-03
ANNUAL MESSAGE
President Mckinley Lays Before
Congress His Views
Upon the State of the Country
and Its Needs.
Document Is Largely Devoted to
Foreign Relations.
HIS CHINESE POLICY
Is Defended VigOrOusIy-AlsO
That in Philippines.
Native Tribes Are Compared to
North American Indians.
Future of the Islands Is Viewed
Most Hopefully.
A NOTE OF WARNING
Congress Is Urged to Guard
Against Extravaganza.
Trust Matter Is Touched Light
ly in Passing.
Steamship Subsidy Measure Is
Distinctly Endorsed.
NOTE OF WARNING
Congress Is Urged to Guard
Against Extravaganza.
Trust Matter Is Touched Light
ly in Passing.
Steamship Subsidy Measure Is
Distinctly Endorsed.

Washington, Dec. 3.-The annual mes
sage of President Mckinley. submitted
to congress. is as follows:
To the Senate and House of Represen-
tatives:
With the outgoing of the old and the
incoming of the new century you begin
the last session of the Fifty-sixth con-
gress with evidences on every hand Of
individual and national prosperity and
with proof of the growing strength and
increasing 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.
The republic was never so strong, be-
cause never so strongly entrenched in
the hearts of the people as now. The
constitution with few amendments, ex-
lists as it left the hands of its authors.
The additions which have been made
to it proclaim larger freedom and more
extended citizenship. Popular govern
ment has demonstrated in its one hun
dred and twenty-four years of trial
here its stability and security, and its
efficiency as the best instrument of ma
tional development and the best safe
guard to human rights.
A LOOK BACKWARD.
When the Sixth congress assembled
in November, 1900, the population of
the United States was 5,308. 4S3. 1t is
now 7S,304, ,799. Then we had sixteen
states. Now we have forty-five. Then
our territory consisted of gO9,050 square
miles. It is now 3,S46, 595 square miles.
Education, religion and morality have
kept pace with our advancement in
other directions and while extending its
power the government has adhered to
its foundation principles and abated
none of them in dealing with our new
peoples and possessions. A nation so
preserved and blessed gives reverent
thanks to God and invokes His guidance
and the continuance Of His care and
favor.
In our foreign intercourse the doni-
nant 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 anti-foreign 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 tradi-
tions of their government. The TAPPING
rebellion and the opening of Chinese
ports to foreign trade and settlement
disturbed alike the homogeneity and the
seclusion of China
Meanwhile foreign activity made it
self felt in all quarters, not alone on the
coast, but along the great river arteries
and in the remoter districts, carrying
new ideas and introducing new associa-
tfons among a primitive people which
had pursued for centuries national
policy Of isolation.
The telegraph and the railway spread
ing over their land, the steamers ply
ing 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
"a fla7r ruyn wit
bodings of disaster to their beliefs and
their self-cOntrol.
For several years before the present
troubles all the resources of for
eign diplomacy, backed by moral dem
onstrations of the physical force Of
fleets and arms, have been needed to
secure due respect for the treaty
rights of foreigners and to obtain
satisfaction from the responsible author
tiles for the sporadic outrages upon the
persons and property of unonending ad-
journers, which from time to time Oc-
CURED at widely separated points in the
provinces. as in the case of the
in Sze-Chuen and Shantung-
Posting of anti-foreign placards be-
came a daily occurrence, which the re-
peated reprObation of the imperial pow
er failed to check or punish. These in
hammatOry appeals to the ignorance
and superstition Of the masses, mem
dacious and absurd in their accusations
and deeply hostile is their spirit, could
not but work cumulative harm They
aimed at no particular class Of foreign
ers; they were impartial in attacking
everything foreign. An outbreak IN
Shantung, in which German missionar-
les were slain, was the too natural re-
suit of these malevOlent teachings. The
posting Of seditious placards, exhorting
the utter destruction of foreigners
and of every foreign thing. continued
unrebuked. Hostile demonstrations
toward the stranger gained strength by
The sect, commonly STYLED the boxers,
developed greatly in the provinces north
Of the Yangtse, and with the collusiOn
Of many notable officials, including some
IN the immediate councils of the throne
Itself. became alarmingly aggressive. No
foreigners life. outside Of the protected