The Forrest City times., 1900-07-20
NOTES FROM WASHINGTON
Items of Information Upon Issues and Affairs of National
 Interest.
MISTAKES OF PRESENT ADMINISTRATION.
Our Presence Tn China and Its SigniH- canee-McKinley Getting Into Deep Wnter-The Tool of Great Britain Cuban Scandal Remains UnInvest.- gated.
Especial Correspondence.l


 Mckinley got the Chinese war well under way and then proceeded to his home in Canton, where he will spend the summer receiving front pore h delegations. In the intervals of cam paign work he will endeavor, by tei,- phone and telegraph, to instruct the war department how to keep the real state of affairs well hidden from the people, while at the same time he still furthers his designs of imperial ism and militarism.
 The war department carefully states, as a matter of form, that we are not in a state of war with China and that we are merely trying to keep that country from being partitioned among European powers. It is said to be our plain duty to land troops and send warshfps, eSeIi- at the risk Of !ost ing splendid battleship like the Ore gon. When pressed to explain just what business our forces have in the Chinese row, the war department doesn't exactly like to state but hints that it is best to allow the matter to develop.
 The people of the country may as we'll understand what our presence in China means. In the first place it is in plain violation of the letter and spirit of the Monroe doctrine for Unit ed States troops to be mixing up in an oriental scramble for the division of an empire.
 Again, it is in contravention of the action of The Hague peace confer ence-though nobody has ever taken that very seriously, except the admin istration when 1t wanted to use it in the republican platform.
 Granted that the lives and property of United States citizen. should be protected in foreign countries, it must be remembered that our missionaries have been murdered and despoiled of property in other countries and no such extreme action as the landing of thousands of troops has ever been contemplated, much less carried into effect And the piles of dusty claims in the state department show how ht- tie such affronts have been resented in the past.
 It should be noted, too, that the missionaries had ample notice of the Boxer insurrection and most, if not all of them, escaped to the sea coast Now comes the assurance that the foreign ministers in Peking had no- tice of the uprising and did not think it worth while to flee from that city. So the people begin to wonder what all the outcry has been apout.
 The troops were not sent in the direction where the missionaries might possibly have been in danger, because the real intent of the whole move was to use the missionaries merely as blind for other designs.
 The cold fact is that Great Britain feared that the time had come for the partitioning of China and, owing to her war in South Africa, she could not spare troops for the Chinese af- fray. So what was easier than to use Mckinley to pull her chestnuts out of the fire? With his usual prompt ness when there is any question of carrying out the Anglo-American al- liance, he put American troops and American prestige at the disposal of the British. They marched under a British admiral, and about the first thing British stupidity did was to walk into an ambuscade of Boxers and allow nearly the whole force to be annihilated.
 The Administration's Mistake.
 It is, of course, difficult to tell what the outcome may be. But the admin istration is getting into deep water. It will be remembered that it's excuse for the expense and loss of life in car rying on war of extermination against the Filipinos was that. al- though we perhaps made mistake in the beginning, yet we must now carry on the war to the finish.
 It is making just that sort of a mis- take in mixing up in the Chinese i'm broglio. And when it gets itself hope essly involved in the continental trou- ble that is likely to follow it will then plead with the tax payers to pay the bills and furnish soldiers and prate about never hauling down the fiag..
 Hiding the Facts.
 Already the administration carefully censors all Chinese news. It comes in the first place from British sources and over cables controlled by British inter- ests. but the people may rest assured that Mckinley will be in the future as he has been in the past, the willing tool of Great Britain, but that he will take every precaution to hide the true state of the case from the voters until after election.
 The Chinese trouble has distinct ad vantage too, in that it diverts atten- ton from the Philippines, Porto Rico and Cuba and also keeps the people from noticing too closely that about all the prosperity in sight is that which the trusts take unto themselves.
 The Cuban Postal Affair.
 While the administration has been soiemnly promising that the Cuban postal scandals should be probed to inc bottom promptly and the guilty par-