Omaha daily bee., 1919-09-28
ROADSTERS, HAIR
NETS,BAR HARbOR
AND SHANTUNG
Chinese Province More Close
ly Allied to Life Of United
States Than People
Know.

>'SASNV SssSAss SVHtS
Know.
Washington, Sept. '27.-(Special
Tclegram.)-"My brain simply reels
with all this talk about Japan and
China and the league of nations"
pouts dainty Miss America, as she
presses her hands to her head,
where her rebellious tresses would
be falling down were it not for
net of human hair--from Shantung.
Game down here to get away
from this talk about the peace
treaty; China's long way off any,
way" growls Mr.. Business Man as
he strolls along the beach, in pom
gee suit-from Shantung.
With this introduction the Ma
tional Geographic society issues a
bulletin concerning the industries of
Shantung, which range from making
hair nets to building railways, quot
ing from a communication to the
Society by Maynard Owen Williams
as follows:
Roadsters and Nets.
z "When the speedy roadster made
hair nets a necessity the hunger
pressure in a remote province of 3d.
100000 relented little.
THE almost invisible net serves
fashion to preserve for another hour
the loneliness of a moment. But
the making of hair nets enables
whole villages of wrinkled old wo-
men of Shantung to put little more
food into ever-hungry stomachs.
"When the American male emery
ed from the wooden of former con-
vention and donned the dapper suit
Of cool pongee all the silkworms in
Shantung had to work overtime, and
their masters added a strip of pork
to the family dish. A pongee-clad
crowd at Bar Harbor means bet
terrified population in Weihaiwei.N
All From Shantung.
IAN American woman wears some
Chefoo lace, and, thanks to her and
the purchases of her friends, al
mond-eyed girls are being trained
in mission schools 5000 miles away.
"The doughboy back from the
war is also a booster for Shantung,
though perhaps he doesn't know it.
AS he tells of the ever-smiling
Chinese whom he saw making roads
in France, he testifes to the fine
qualities OF some of the worlds
best laborers.
THE Si1antung coo1ie, did his fair
share of war work. A hundred and
fifty thousand of him went out to
better living conditions and wider
outlook when the British troopships
steamed away from his peninsular
home. Hundreds of him dropped
shovel and seized gun or fought
with clubs and axes when the breach
at Chateau-Thierrv yawned.
Back With Wonder Tales.
"Now some of those Shantung
coolies are being returned to their
homes with new thoughts and
ideals, speaking Pidgin-French,
Pidgin- English, and what-not, but
with wonderful tales to tell of the
men BY whose sides they fought.
"When China wants railways
built or canals dug, here are the
boys who showed the best allied
engineers what loyal labor really
was.
"Nor will they have to wait long.
An American corporation is only
waiting for better transportation
facilities before beginning to dredge
once more the Grand Canal, which
was binding China into an empire
two centuries before the great wall
]. began to shut out the rest OF the
world, and 400 years before the
birth in a Bethlehem manger of Him
who was to affect China in de-
gree second only to Standings
.When 100000 people whose
idea of a days work is 10 hours.
are crowded into province the size
Of Iowa, there must either be IN
dustrial development in silk. lace:
and hair or periodic migrations OF
labor to less thickly settled parts
Of the world.
Shantung Coolies Everywhere.
"In summer the Shantung coolie
is north along the Amur mining
gold or harvesting soy beans in
Manchuria. | have seen him carry
ing Hardin -four aboard the Sungarl
steamers, and he laid hundreds of
miles of ties on the Trc" s-Siberian.
/ have seen him Juggling gaily-
painted sticks at the Mini Novgorod
fair, and companies of Shantung
coolies fought for the bolsheviks
beside the Kremlin and against
them near Tchita. In ruined Van
a Shantung coolie, heavily dressed
against the bitter cold of the Ar
menian plateau, rolled into town
ahead Of 20 Of his compatriots who
brought -four to that starving city.
"Soon the Japanese will be laying
the rails for their new railway con-
cession from Kaomi, near Using
tau, to Hauchowfu, whence Trans
Asiatic trunk line, which will be ia
the Trans-Siberian what the Union
Pacific is to the Canadian Pacific, is
some day to link Lanchow and
Kashgar with Peking and Russian
Turkestan. Another Japanese line
will run from Tsinan to cut the
Pcking- Canton line at Shuntehfu.
"fn building these railways the
Shantung eoolie will have his right
full place, and skill gained in France
will stand him in good stead in link
ing his home province to the cap
itals of Eurasia from Madrid tc