Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1911-02-16
DRAMATIC DECADE OF
HISTORY JUST CLOSED

to recent international events must
have a general impression that a good
deal has happened lately. A very little
meditation will bring to the mir a
happened in the first 10 years of the
goth century. One who sits down and
undertakes to tabulate those happen
ings of the decade which deserve to
take their place in history will be sur
prised at their Importance and null
tiplicity. Rarely in 10 years has the
earth witnessed greater political
changes than those hich have tran
spired since the Goth century began.
They do not equal in outward i'm
pressiveness the cataclysmic changes
of 1900 1910, when Europe was being
transformed under the han of Ma
%ooleon; yet in essential Importance not
even that historic decade can equa!
this one.
The changes which have gone on
during the 10 years past are of two
kinds: There have been wars and
treaties, the rise and fall of dynasties.
definite formal changes in the charac-
ter of governments; and secondly,
there have been certain less definite
and yet more vital alterations in ma
.ional and racial tendencies. Revolu-
tions, bloody battles. heroic sieges, i'm
trigues and coups d'etat have worked
unusually great changes in the political
map of the world, While at the same
NAAil t1s's' D SvSAASo A@N
wen more significant alterations des-
tined to affect the course of history. 1t
would have been as impossible in the
year 1900 to fOrsee in what case the
nations and races actually find them
selves today as it was impossible In
1900 to- sketch the altered map which
the Coriscan drew on the
face of Europe.
Who. 10 years ago, could have
guessed the amazing prowess of the
nyni,n draorond nf tho f16a1 of
battle that swept over Manchurian
plains. and seen mighty Russia hu-
inflated by the newly-awakened is
landers? Who would have imagined
the irony which. eight years after the
close of the war in South Africa, seated
the chief Boer general in the chair of
premier of the united British colonies
there? Who would have pictured
Abdul Hamid. that most sinister figure
on any throne, a prisoner? Who would
have thought of Russia, Turkey, China.
and Persia with parliaments? Nobody
could have foreseen Spain in conflict
with church. The tragic scenes of the
Boxer revolt, with the suspens that
hung over the legations at Peking; the
bloody business of the Servian regi-
eide: the grotesque but Gin its possi-
bilities) terrible episode of Dogger
Bank: the romantic expedition of Col
onel Younghusband into the mysterious
heart of Thibet, and the bloody mas
EdCTGS OL ava dAl0 6AoAo IA
had not get taken their places in his
tory. Ten years ago Port Arthur"
was the name of a town knoWn only
to ~geographers and mariners: today it
is a synonym for gallantry and endur-
ance such as only anne like Sevasto-
pol. Lucknow and Troy call up.
Ehrlungshan, 2O3-Metre Hill, Liaoyang,
Mukden. the Yalu River and the Sha-
no hadN not been consecrated: and
Portsmouth had not given it's name
~ <,,nn<ry nc nf 90 that nf
Client or Vienna. The bullet and the
bomb had not yet found President
Mckinley. King Humbert, King Carlos
of Portugal and his heir. King Alex
ander of servia and his queen, the
Grand Duke Sergius, Plehve, Prince Ito
and the premiers of Greece and Egypt.
Victoria was living and Edward VII,
Oscar of Sweden. King Leopold III,
Christian TX. of Denmark. Pope Leo
Kill, the Chinese Dowager Empress
Tzu-hsi and the Emperor Kuang-Su.
Premier Sagasta, Ii Hung Chang, a
Kruger and John Hay. Men We're
talking of Dreyfus and of Aguinaldo.
To count up under their classitica-
tions the principal events of the de-
cade is to make q list of impressive
proportions:
One great war-great in it's heroism.
it's surprises and it's cost (Which did
stagger humanity)-the Anglo-Boer
war. came to a close during the period;
announcer. IIlc IAuSSO-J NoA o'N
of the greatest conflicts in the history
of the world. was begun and fought
out. The war of the Allies against
China in 1900. beginning with the Taku
forts and ending with the siege and re-
lief of Picking; the British advance in
10 Tibet through battles in the snow
and in the clouds: the wars of the
French and of the Spanish against
Morocco-these We're conflicts OF con-
siderable proportions. Besides, Co
iombia and Venezuela spent the first
two wears OF the decade in a war that
cost $4,000 lives: since 1906, Peru and
Ecuador. Guatemala and Salvador, Sal
yador and Nicaragua, and Nicaragua
and Honduras have been at war.
Moreover. it has been q decade of
perpetual revolt in one part or am
other of the world. In Russia, the
internal troubles reached Well-nlsn
the proportions of a revolution. with
thousands slain at kiev, LODI, Libau.
Moscow, and with tina fantastic ma
zine melodrama, the Odessa mutiny.
In Turkish Europe, insurgency mas
been continual, with severe fighting in
1902. 1909 and 1910.
Great Britain had to fight the Mad
Mullah in Somaliland in 1908: in Ger
mar Southwest Africa, 5000 troops
had hard fighting with the Hereros
during most of the year 1904. That
same yea there was a rebellion IN
Portuguese Southwest Africa. In San
Domingo the Patriots Morales. Jim
enez. Wos-y-Gil and Caceras nave
kept up nearly continuous fighting; in
Haiti there was battling in 1902 and
1909 and again in 1907. In 1902 Men
doza. Matos and Paredos troubled the
Venezuela government, n Tribe
Tribe that Of Colombia. There were