The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1908-11-26
From the Boston Herald.

From the Boston Herald
O long as a nation with 4S00O0,oOO
IN population remains isolated.
~ quiescent, Submissive, welded to
immemorial customs, loyal in attachment
to its own classic literature and its own
code of ethics, 1t is of comparatively lit
tie Importance to the outer world who its
dominating contemporary personalities
are. But when it awakes, stirs, admits
that 1t has slept too long and begins TO
arm its tough, enduring, teachable, multi
tudinous hosts, when it sends its youth
forth by the thousands to study in a
neighboring state and by the hundreds to
distant continents, when 1T deputies its
wisest men to visit other lands to study
their forms of government and report
upon reforms in government which are
necessary and prudent at home, when
1t announces that the rising sentiment
of nationalsm is to be encouraged by all
legitimate means, then it becomes exceed
ingly important to know who are the
men responsible for SO epoch-making an
event in human history.
Conspicuous among those who lead this
historic movement in China is Yuan Shi
Kai, whose name figures In every daily
dispatch from Pekin at this critical hour
of national history. He 1t is who bids
fair to be for China what Marquis Ito
has been for Japan. Trained by Ii Hung
Chang, recommended by the latter as his
successor in the viceroyalty of the met
ropolitan province of Pechili, he has
steadily risin In power, until he now
commands greater measure of influence
within the empire, and respect without
it, than any other individual in China.
In the first place it must be noted that
he is Chinese, not Manchu. This makes
him the incarnation of that long latent
but now fast gathering sentiment of the
people bent on forcing from the throne,
in due season, a dynasty from without
that has never been secure in popular
affection, and that has degenerated sadly
both In body and mind, as usually is the
case of usurpers whose power rests on
force. "China for the Chinese" as a
watchword for Yuan Shi Kali means some
thing that has bearing upon rulers with
in the empire as we'll as foes without it.
Not that he has pressed, or will imme-
diately press, the point, for he is too sa-
gacious, too much of an opportunist to
act before the suitable moment. But
when the hour strikes for substituting a
Chinese royal family for a Manchu, he
will aid the movement, by force or by
vile; and this the Manchus know, hence.
their hatred of him.
Ii Hung Chang taught him the secrets
of craft, and graft" of an Oriental type,
which knowledge has proved of value
both for offensive and defensive opera
tions. His primacy in enlistng armies,
training and utilizing an army of up
to-date fighters has given him the actual
and the implied power, In Pekin, on
which the Manchu dynasty has leaned
when he was willing to have it do so,
and which, it also has feared, when he
was pressing for reforms that otherwise
might never have been granted by the
late Empress Dewager. At the same time
his example in showing that the Chinese
can become soldiers has not been with
out it's far-reaching import TO other vice.
roys who have initiated his example,
and to Japan and the Occidental powers.
But, If believer in a militant China, or,
at least, a China capable of self defense,
he also is a believer in China edu-
Gated after modern models using science
for its own enrichment and it's defense,
and administered by men VINO can meet
Occidentals in diplomacy and statecraft
on their own ground and on equal terms.
Consequently he has fostered radical ed
ucational reforms. has favored thorough
study of western methods lor government
and fiscal administration, and has fos
tered industrial and commercial devei-
opment with native capital
Yuan shi Kai is an opportnn.st, as all
great constructive statesmen are who