The age-herald., 1900-12-04
PRESIDENT WILLIAM M'K|NLEYS
 MESSAGE ID THE 56TH CONGRESS

Washington, December 3.-Following Is the full text of the Presidents message to Congress today:
 To the Senate and House of Represen- tatives:
 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 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 felicita- tion that American liberty is more firmly established than ever before and that love for it and the determination to preserve 1t are more universal than at any former period of our history.
 The Republic was never so strong be- cause never so strongly intrenched in the hearts of the people as now The consti- tution with amendments, exists as 1t left the hands of its authors. The additions which have been made to it proclaim larg- CT freedom and more extended citizenship. Popular government has demonstrated in its one hundred and twenty-four years of trial here it's stability and security and its efficiency as the best instrument of nat ional development and the best safeguard to human right.
 When the Sixth Congress assembled in November, 1900, the population of the Unit ed States was 5,3S0, 4S3 It is now 6,304, ,799. Then, we had sixteen states. Now, we have forty-five. Then our territory consisted of ,050 square miles. It is now 3,S46,595 square miles, Education, religion and morality have kept pace with our advan- cement in other directions, and while ex- tending its power the government has -ad- hered to it's foundation principles and abat- ed none of them in dealing with our new peoples and possessions. A nation so pre- served and blessed gives reverent thanks to God and invoke His guidance and the continuance of his care and favor.
 Chinese Question.
 In our foreign intercourse the dominant question has been the treatment of the Chinese problem. Apart from this our re- lations 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 in the character of the Chinese race and in the tradition of their government The Tai-Ping rebellion and opening of Chd- nese ports to foreign trade and settlement disturbed alike the homogenity and the secluSion of China Meanwhile foreign tivity made itself 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 associations among primitive people which had pursued for centuries a nat ional policy of isolation. The telegraph and the railway spreading over their land, the steamers plying on their water, the merchant and the missionary penetrating year by year further to the interior be- came to the Chinese mind types of an alien invasion changing the course of their national life and fraught with vague fore boding of disaster to their beliefs and their self control.
 For several years before the present froll al ha of ion macy, backed by moral demons trations of physical force of fleets and arms, have been needed to secure due respect for the treaty rights of foreigners and ot obtaSa satisfaction from the responsible author ities for the sporadic outrages upon the Philippine Islands and property of unof- lending sojourners which from timS to time occurred at widely separated points in the northern provinces as in the case of the outbreaks in Sze-Chuan and Shan Tung. Posting of anti-foreign placards be- came daily occurance which the repeated reproduction of the imperial power failed to check or punish. These tnfiamma toyZr appeals to the ignorance and superstitution of the masses, mendacious and absurd m their accusations, end deeply hostile in their spirit could not but work cumulative harm. They aimed at no particular class of foreigners; They were impartial in at- tacking everything foreign. An outbreak in Shan Tung in which German mission aries were slain the too natural re- suit of these malevolent teachings. The posting of sedttious pacards exhorting to the utter destruction of foreigners and of every foreign thing continued unrebuked. Hostile demonstrations toward the stran- ger gained strength by organiza ton. The sect commonly styled boxers developed greatly in the provinces not of the Yang Tse and with the collision of many not able officials including some in the immed- late, councils of the throne itself became alarmingly aggressive. No foreigners life, outside of the protected treaty ports, was safe. No foreign interest was secure from spoilation. The diplomatic representatives of the powers in Pekin strove in vain to check this movement. Protest was follow ed by demand and demand by renewed protest to be met with prefunctory edicts from the palace and evasive and futile assurances from the Tsung L Yamen The circle of the boxer influance narrowed about Pekin and while nominally stigma tized as SC Adtions, it was felt that its spirit pervaded the capital itself, that the im-