The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1927-03-25
Americans Meet Death In China


Even blacker grow the clouds lowering over
China
AS this is being written dispatches are coming
=, frana vsrious differeat sources confirming the
fear that Americans-perhaps large NUMBER Au-
miral Williams reports-together with otner lot
lieners have been caught in the hurricane of war
and killed.
Not since the Boxer uprising in May and june
1900 has the situation between China and the tor-
eign powers been SO tense. Six more American war
ships have been ordered to Chinese waters anu IL 10
likely other nations may follow suit untli' as was
the case twentyseven years ago, the Celestial repuD-
lie is ringed around with brstling array or STEEL
But we must not forget one thing and that IS
this what is now happening in China has nothing
in common with the Boxer rebellion. True, foreign
ers were involved then and foreigners are involved
now, but in an entirely different way
In 1885, the Emperor, Kwang Hsu, came OF age
and took over the government up to that time IN
the hands of his aunt the dowager empress
Much to every ones surprise, he began series
Of radical reforms He started out to westernize or
modernize China, entirely reconstruct the country
along European and American lines
Unfortunately for the young man about this
time the very powers he proposed to copy began
scramble for concessions which threatened to END
in the very ACKNOWLEDGMENT of the empire The OLD
order had already been tremendously angered by
the Emperors western ideas, so when the western
countries themselves began to tear China TO pieces
it gave the anti-western anti-foreign movement
big boost ~
Kwang Hsu was locked up in the palace and
with his domineering old aunt back in power Things
began to happen. Encouraged by the fanat1ca en-
press and actively promoted by the reactionary
nobility about her. the secret society, known as the
Boxers was formed for the purpose OF running
all foreigners out of the country.
FOREIGNERS were slaughtered by fanatical mobs,
houses were burned and the legation quarter in
Pekn was besieged by the medieval followers OF the
bloodhirsty dowager empress. An international ex-
peditionary force which the United States Joined,
had to fight it's way from Tien-Tsn to the capital to
relieve them.
What is happening is civil war between the
more enlightened Cantonese or southern Chinese,
and the reactionary northerners. They want to do
exactly what the ill-starred Emperor Kwang Hsu
wanted to do, namely, make China upto-date
country like the United States and have her treated
as an equal by the other nations of the world.
The Cantonese are not anti-foregn in the sense
that the Boxers WERE They are only anttforeign
in that they are determined the exploitation
of China and the Chinese by outsiders who enjoy
privileges in the country which the Chinese them
selves do not have.
Americans and other foreigners must be pro-
tected in every way possible. By all means. But in
holding China to account for anything that may hap
pen we will have to take into account that this is
civil war-that China right now is in the throes of
rebirth an event of an historical Importance almost
beyond the mind of man to comprehend.