The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-01-21
JUST LIKE KANSAS
Trip Thru Manchuria Suggests
Kansas, Says L. H. Hall.
y. NJ. C. A. Worker Writes
Bavid G. Page of Topeka.
REPORTS INTERESTING TRIP
Police in City Of Hardin Are
All Chinese.
is of Great Importance Com
mercially and Industrially.
REPORTS INTERESTING TRIP

esting letter received recently by
David G. Page, of the Thomas Page
Milling Co, and member of the state
committee of the Y. NJ. c. A, from
l. X. Hail. boys work secretary of
the Y. NJ. C. A. in China, formerly
boys work secretary of the Y. NJ. c;
a. in Kansas. The three and one-half
acre lake at Camp Wood. Elmdale.
Kan, the state Y. NJ. c. A. camp, is
named in honor of Hall.
The letter in part reads as follows:
An Interesting Trip.
The seemingly limitless Man
churian plain that I am crossing today
suggests wheat. and no doubt that is
the reason L am writing you. This
trip that I am on has been in many
ways my most interesting experience
in China have been visiting our
Chinese Y. NJ. c. AS in Manchuria,
including the cities of Moukden,
where the Japanese won their place
IN the sun in the greatest battle of
the Russo Japanese war; kirin, the
capital of one of the provinces of
Manchuria; Antung, on the border
next to Korea and a large lumber
port; and Hardin the pivot of far
eastern affairs in more ways than one.
TO wake up on a train crossing
Manchuria in the cold gray dawn of
November day and look out at the
landscape is to give one the impress
sion of vast, slightly rolling plain,
rich, fertile, not too densely populated
but all in good cultivation. The tang
of the air, the appearance of the
ground. covered as it is now with the
stubble of wheat, corn and "kao
lang the intense blue of the sky, all
suggest eastern Kansas or Iowa or I1li-
nols It's a marvellous country agri-
cuiturally, and one cannot blame the
land-hungry Japanese for wanting 1t,
whether they are entitled to it or not
Thrilled With Hardin.
we got into Hardin just week
ago. and accustomed as 1 am to Chi
nese cities, 1 was still quite unprepared
for my experience there, and after
several days this remarkable city still
thrills me as 1 think about it. For
one thing the presence of Russians
everywhere was something new. There
were not less than 10000 of them,
of all classes and circumstances, tho
one bumps into d large number of
princes, potentates and fine ladies'
who have lost their glass slippers. Har-
bin, barring Vladivostok, which is
really japanese, is the one city of the
world where they feel, with some
right, that they belong. Even here,
the Chinese, coming in by the thou
sands, are quietly, but surely crowding
them out. The police are now all Chi
nesc, For every official in the Chi
nese Eastern railway there is a Chi
nese associate of equal rank. ready to
take full control at the proper time.
The Chinese industries are developing
rapidly and already there are over
100000 Chinese residents. And the
japanese, tho not numerous, are
enough in evidence TO make it a three
cornered problem. Tor air three of
these peoples Hardin is a frontier city.
IT seems fairly entitled to the claim of
being the wickedest city in the world.
For Hardin. once wholly Russian,
9ltho several hundred miles within the
Nanchurian frontier. has become the
focal point of the aspirations Of three
TAtons. China Is stoutly resisting the
e1croachments of all outsiders and
seeking to win for her own what she
los always claimed as hers by right.
That great artery the railway. is lit
lie by little falling into her hands.
Japan is teaching her children that
NTauchur,a is part of the empire Just
IS are Formosa and Korea. And the
old regime of Russia. without any le-
gal status but persistentlv hopeful for
"a tUrn of the wheel of fortune, clings
in despair. To these people it is 4
Russian city. To it their relatives
nd friends continue to come out to
reflects their culture and religion.
With Vladivostok. It is old Russia S
last stand.
A Great Commercial City.
Commercially and industrialy it is
Of great Importance. Seven hundred
miles to the east is Vladivostok. Har-
bin is the first great city west of it.
To the west of Hardin is a very great
binterland. There is much manufac-
turing and everything points to the
fact that the nation which wins Har-
bins future has thereby secured a
great prize.
The only American thing about
the city, aside from the consul and a
few business concerns, is the influence
of the Y. NJ. c. A. Strictly speaking
this association, which has been here
for four or five years, is Russian. All
of the members of the board of diree-
tors are Russian, and the majority of
the staff. But it continues to be
financed from funds raised in Amer
lea during the war, and the Russians
themselN es accept it in the spirit in
which it was given, as the expression
of the friendship of the American
people for them in their time of trOu-
ble. and they return the friendship.
Here in the association one finds some
astonishing things.
Y. NJ. Provides Teachers.
AS I entered the building I saw
nearly two hundred boys and girls in
the refugee school going to their
classes. Inc 4. M &. A gives them
their breakfast and provides teachers
MS well as warm rooms. At the end OF
the day they return to their homes
for the night. Most of their parents
lost everything in the revolution. II
IS a ragged lot dressed in every con
ceivable kind of odds and ends, but /
never saw happier children.
In the boys department I found
several clubs OF boys following the
Christian citizenship program, and
making success Of it. One of the
clubs had a collection of every kind
of paper currency issued in Russia
since the revolution. There is no crit
icisp or lack of appreciation among
these people.
Across the table from me in the
Y. NJ c. A. mess hall sat a real Rus
sian princess, not rich any more and
certainly not very beautiful as prin-
cesses go. but showing the proper
spirit by teaching Russian and music
for a living
'Y. NJ. c. A. work among the Chi
uese in the Chinese part of the city in