The Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1???-1928, 1908-05-06
WI TING FANG
TELLS OF CHINA
"SLEEPiNG LION" AROUSED ANC
WILL TAKE PLACE AMONG
NATIONS OF EARTH.
MARTIAL PREPARATION
In Line With Other Great Advances
Mark the Last Decade OF
Chinese Empire--All
For Peace.

New York, May 5.-TIis Excellency
DR.. WI Ting-fang minister of China
to the United States, addressed The
Civic Forum at its tenth meeting
tonight, in Carnegie Hall, Ne"
York. His subject was THE Awaken
ing of China" General Stewart l.
Woodford formerly minister OF tht
United States at the Court OF Spain
presided at the meeting and intro
duced Minister Wa, who spoke as fol
lows:
The mere mont aiming of this sub
ject-"The Awakening of China'-is
sufficient TO make my cOuntrymen
thrill with pleasure and flush with
pride. China. the country which mad E
the dying missionary the famous
Xavier. exclaim in 1852 20 Rock,
Rock when wilt thon open?" is at last
indeed, opened, and changes are TAX
ing place in that hoary Empire, which
bid fair to constitute the miracle of
the Twentieth Century.
China has been dubbed THE Sick
Man of the Far East, THE Sleeping
Lion" The Tottering Empire" and
other names more or less picturesque
and complimentary have been betsow-
ed upon her With some people it is
the conviction that China has only q
historical interest, that her glory Is
of the past, that the leopard may
change it's spots, but China remains
forever in her ruts, the same yester
day. today and tomorrow
But while this gloomy picture of
the state OF affairs might have been
partly true or China OF a few decades
ago. 1t is no longer true now. The
sick Man" is rapidly canvalescing,
the sleeping Lion" is awake, and the
hoary and tottering Empire has had
new blood injected into her system
China is moving, and had new blood
Injected into her system. China h
moving, and she is moving with a
rapidlty difficult for one who has not
personally witnessed the wonderful
changes to understand and realize.
Martial Progress.
BY the nature and choice a peace
able nation, taught from our infancy
to abhor violence and to reverend e
reason and right, we have been led to
worship literary pursits and TO neglect
and despise martial life. We had a
nominal land army of from 400 900 To
100000 strong, but in reality, there
were never at any one time more than
200. 600 men, who constituted not so
much a national army as local con
stabulary force for maintaining peace
and order throughout the province
pies prominent place on our program
of reform. and the excellent showing
made by the troops of Vieeroys Yuan
and Chang at the maneuvers of the
past two years which were witnessed
by correspondents and military Off
GERS of different nations proves that
there is good material in cur people
for the making of soldiers. An imper-
ial decree of seven years ago com
manded the reorganization fthe mill
tary forces Of the whole empire. Tarin-
ing schools from the preparatory to
the college grade were ordered to me
established for officers of the land
forces. the High Academy, modelled
somewhat after your Military Acad
emy at West Point. to be situated In
Peking 1t was also decided to or.
ganize twenty army corps. each corps
TO comprise twenty-five thousand men,
aggregating a total effective force of
half a million men. Now these plans
and figures may appear very formid-
able to you and may lead you to think
again of the yellow peril bcgey, which
at one time swept over Europe and
America No, there need be no fear
of any yellow peril In recognizing
its army and navy, the Chinese Gov
ernment has been actuated by one
aim and that is to place them in a
state of efficiency for police aud de-
fensive purposes only. China has
never been and never will he aggres
sive in a military way-she Is too
fond of peace and realizes too fully
the horrors of war for that At the
same time, the government must pos
sess an army strong enough to nip in
the bud any local uprising and perhaps
to defend the heathstones of her peo-
pie from an outside foe. With The
large number of foreign subjects and
foreign interests i'm our Empire. every
disturbance may involve international
complications, and constant vigilance
is needed for preserving peace within
our boundaries.
Foot Binding.
A movement of striking significance
on account of the remarkable success
it has met. is that started by the
Anti Foot Binding Society. Foot bind
ing. originally only intended to check
the feet of young women from at