The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-12-04
PRESIDENTS NES}A|IE:.
To the Senate and House of Representa-

AL Lllt OulSOluS Ol Jlle Olu anu lut IL
 coming of the new century you begin tn
 last session of the Fifty-sixth Congres
 with evidences on every hand of indi
 vidual and national prosperity and wit
 proof of the growing strength and in
 creasing power for good of Republican
 institutions. Your countrymen will joil
 with you in felicitation that American
 liberty is more firmly established thal
 ever before, and that love for it and tn
 determination to preserve it are more uni
 versal than Ut any former period of ou
 history.
 The Republic was never so strong, be
 cause never 80 strongly intrenched in tn,
 hearts of the people as now. The Con
 stitution, with few amendments, exists a
 it left the hands of it's authors. The ad
 ditions which have been made to it pro
 claim larger freedom and more extended
 citizenship. Popular government ha!
 demonstrated in it's one hundred anC
 twenty-four years of trial here it's sta
 bility and security, and it's efficiency as
 the best instrument of national develop
 ment and the best safeguard to humar
 rights
 When the Sixth Congress assembled ir
 November, 1900, the population of the
 United States was 5,30S,4 ,4S3 It is now
 76,3O4,799. Then we had sixteen States
 Now we have forty-fve. Then our ter
 ritory consisted of 909050 square miles
 It is now 3,S46,505 square miles. I1du-
 cation, religion, and morality have kept
 pace with our advancement in other di-
 rections, and while extending its power the Government has adhered to its foun-
 dation 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 dominant question has been the treatment of the Chinese problem. Apart from this our relations with the powers have been hap py.
 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 race and in the traditions of their Gov ernment. The Taiping rebellion and the opening of the Chinese ports to foreign trade and settlement disturbed alike the 'homogeneity and the seclusion of China.
 Meanwhile foreign activity made itself felt in all quarters, not alone on the coast, but along the great river arteries and in tie remoter districts, carrying new ideas and introducing new associations among primitive people which had pur- sued for centuries national policy of isolation.
 4n{o |, ing 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 Chi nese mind types of an alien invasion, changing the course of their national life and fraught with vague forebodings of disaster to their beliefs and their self control.
 For several years before the present troubles all the resources of foreign di- plomacy backed ~Ry moral demonstrations 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 for the sporadic outrages upon the persons and property of unoffending which from time to time oc- cured at widely separated points in the northern provinces, as ill the case of the ! outbreaks in Sze-chuen and Shan-tung.
 Posting of antiforeign placards became ] a daily occurrence, which the repeated ! 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 cumu- | latiye harm They aimed at no particu- { lar class of foreigners; they were impar- l tial in attacking everything foreign.
 An outbreak in Shan-tung, in which German missionaries were slain was the too natural result of these maleyolent The posting of seditious pla- cards, exhortng to the utter destruction of foreigners and of every foreign thing, continued unrebuked. Hostile demon strations toward the stranger gained i strength by organization.
 The sect, commonly styled the Boxers, developed greatly in the provinces north If the Yang-Tse, and with the colusion # many notable officials, including some Il the immediate councils of the Throne tself, became alarmngly aggressive. No oreigner's life, outside of the protected reaty ports, was safe. No foreign inter- st was secure from spoliation.
 The diplomatic representatives of the towers in Picking strove in vain to check his movement. Protest was followed by emand and demand by renewed protest, o be met with perfunctory edicts from the 'alace and evasive and futile assurances rom the Tsung-l Yamen. The circle of he Boxer influence narrowed about Pe- ing, and while nominally stigmatized as editions, it was felt that it's spirit per aded the capital itself, that the Impc- ial forces were imbued with it's doc rines, and that the immediate counselors f the Empress Dowager were in full { with the antiforeign move ( lent. The increasing gravity of the condi- { ons in China and the imminence of per ( to our own diversified interests in the ( mpire, as well as to those of all the l -her treaty governments, were soon ap- l reciated by this Government, causing it rofound solicitude. The United States ! 'om the earliest days of foreign inter- l ,urse with China had followed a policy | peace, emitting no occasions to testify s pod will. to further the extension of S wful trade, to respect the sovereignty q it's Government, and to insure by all V and kindly but earnest means t e fullest measure of protection for the g yes and property of our lava biding cit d