The Globe-republican., 1908-06-11
In BATTLE OF LIFE
MATTER or DIET is MOST IMPoR.
TANT FEATURE.
N Consequences the AsIatlc, With His
Diversified Feeding, Has Manifest
Superiority Over tho White
Races Of tho Earth.

! A conspicuous factor in the bat.
tie Of life is omnivorousness or di.
versity Of feeding. That animal which
has but single plant, for instance,
which 1t can use for food, may be an
Initiated by frost Or grub or any other
cause which would remove the plant
for single season, says a writer In
the Pacific Era. That which feeds in
discriminatory on all plants will find
abundant sustenance under more ad-
verse circumstances. That whose
stomach receives vegetable Or animal
food with equal favor has still bet
ter chance for surviving; and that
which can catch the most various sort
Of prey Is more apt to have prey al
ways at Its command than that whose
powers In chase, whose courage or
whose strength can overtake or over
come only the most slow-moviag or
weakest animals. Man, the most per.
feet q animals, and the one who in the
present conditions of the earth could
survive all others, has attained to
his position of mastery largely be-
cause he is. of all animals, the most
omnivorous.
OF all the varieties of man the
Asiatic, and especially the Chinaman,
is most diverse In his food All, is
meat to him-animal or vegetable, in
the air, on the earth or in the waters
under the earth. He can gorge him.
self with joy on the abundant meat
diet of the Englishman; he can dine
comfortably and happily upon brace
Of mice, or exc out life for weeks
upon a few handfuls of rice. And all
the time he can work without ceas-
ing. He can pack more of his kind |
upon an acre Of ground than any New
York tenement life can show, and live
there In what he regards as tolerable
comfort. In this he has precisely the
same advantage over the white man
as the European had over the original
inhabitants Of this country, and as the
had over the natives Of
Australia.
1t Is really, therefore, those char
acteristics of the Asiatic which we
most despise, and which we regard as
his inferiority to ourselves
his miserable little figure, his
pinched and wretched way Of living,
MS slavish and tireless industry, his
to high and costly pleas
Tres which our habit of generations
almost makes necessities, his capacity
o live in swarms in wretched dens
where the white man would rot IL he
lid not suffocate-all these make him
most formidable rival for ultimate
arrival of the fittest.
Our ancestors emerged from the
road and roomy environment of pas
oral and savage life only few cen !
uries ago, and our DEMONSTRATING fac
lties represent what has been stored
p by heredity in the period which =
as since elapsed. The eastern .
static emerged from these condi- .
ons at period so remote that no !,
uman record or tradition can be =
'und so old as to refer to a time :
hen China and India were not too y
opulous for the conditions of savage u
fe. The accumulated experience of y
'untless ages is, therefore, stored up %
the Asiatic's food-getting and food "
wing capacity, and those ages prop :" .,
ly and fairly represent his superior :, :,
over us in the battle for the sur "
val of the fittest, II that battle Is to
fought in fair field with no favor,
open and undisturbed competition.