The Washington times., 1924-01-02

HEARD story IN Peking that cannot get out Of
my mind. We were lunching at the house Of an
American gentleman who held some position in the
Government postal service Some spoke of the Boxer
uprising, and noticed that our host dextercusly
changed the subject Afterwards he explained.
The boy who waited the table, he said, Chinese
boy had been with him for years and understood
English perfectly. i refer to the Boxer trouble
in his he continued HE was fourteen years
old at that time and lived with his parents here in Picking
He had little sister Of twelve. When his mother heard
that the Americans coming, the foreign devils she
made her husband promise that he would kill his little
daughter to save her from the brutal invaders.
so when the Americans came at last, and were seen
marching down the street. the mother cut her throat
and the father drowned the little girl in tub Of water
To believe that anyone in the world could have thought
that Americans were inhuman monsters, and nave
thought this strongly enough to commit suicide rather
than fall into their beasty clutches, Frustrated my
Imagination.
It was even greater shock than were the atrocities
committed by civilized Europeans in the great war
And it shed considerable light upon the psycho0glcal
process involved in believing evil Of foreigners In fact
it knocked about Is per cent off of most of the histories
and historical fiction upon which have been fed.
If that Chinese family could have had such horror q
and my kind then the nhumanities practlced Dy tne
Germans during the war must have been the work OF
small class and could not have been characteristic q
the German people.
Then also many of the tales of brutality Of the Eng
sh sodiery during the American Revolution should be
taken with good deal Of salt.
Then the stories of Spanish heartlessness and cruelty
with which the pages Of fiction abound especially IN tales
of the seventeenth century and thereabouts are some
what dubitable.
Then the propaganda of hate in every nation delight
ing picture every enemy nation populated b mon
sters of wckedness must be made good part Of hes
If know that Americans are decent, honorable and
humane and vet If that Chinese family could have feared
ms worse than death itself, it is at least very probable
that the people of other races and countries are az nd
as humane and altogether human as the people OF my
own country. !.
The worst part Of war is that fearful degradation OF
the human spirit that patriots assiduous TO bring
about in order to work up the proper hate sufficiently TO
make men want to fight
remember what war correspondent said to me once
IN Washington at the beginning of the last war. We
were lunchng at the Press Club and discussing war
ii am afraid" he said "that the Americans are not
going to make good soldiers. The trouble is they don't
hate enough"
And it is curious commentary upon human nature,
and it somehow links itself up in my mind with that
nicture of the Chinaman drowning his girl baby the
fnb to remember the campaign Of hatred OF Germany
and everything German that carried on IN America
during the war and the looks of indignation and sur
prise that were turned upon you whenever you dared
suggest that possibly all of the Germans were not ogres
Are not both fear and hate the products OF gnorancef
We fear what we don't know. We hate whom we don't
-' tcouyrisht by the Syndicats)