The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1930-05-05

SMALL. SPENCER & 1EV1NGe
Cncorporated)
Formerly 9: Logan Payne Co;
CHICAGO NEW YORK BOSTON
The Pacific Future Nears
Increase in both imports and exports from Pacific
ports to what DR.. julius Klein. assistant secretary Of
commerce, has designated those distant strange TO-
mantle regions that lie beyond the biggest ocean" augurs
we'll for the realization Of the vision Of more than one
American statesman and thinker thaba vaster commerce
than that across the Atlantic awaits the future OF this
country on the Pacific coast.
Since the World war, the commerce Of the western
ports has increased fve-fold. This is but . beginning.
The elements of a greater volume exist across the big
ocean, One is the vastness of the populations there.
These have been too %unwieldy, too shabbily organized to
permit even a fair realization Of their potentialiaes.
China, for instance, has been so overpopulated that the
poverty resulting therefrom has been a restraint to trade
development. With a population less thick and with nor
NAL prosperity, the Celestial republic might be a buyer
on a greater scale of our commodities and wares than
now.
The future day which is to bring into being this
commerce largely will be an outcome of the
present reorganization of China. AS that country be-
comes more western, it is bound to develop material
needs more like those Of America and to call on American
mills and shops to supply its new wants. just as reor-
ganizing Russia now is a greater customer Of American
business and industry.
This outlook. even the developments so far achieved,
are confederation Of what many a notable American has
been saying ever since Seward bought Alaska in the be-
lief that gigantic events were held in the hand Of the
future on the Pacific. In 1852, before Seward negotiated
the purchase Of Alaska from Russia in 1867, he predicted
that the Pacific ocean, its shores. its islands and the
vast regions beyond will become the chief theater of
events in the worlds great hereafter"
Tn his recent radio address. DR.. Klein covered the
prospects of a great American commerce on the Pacific.
He quoted Roosevelt and Kipling along with Seward as
prophets Of this great future. He said:
Rudyard Kiping-in that poem which is probably
the most famous one he ever wrote-glorified the
passionate yearning for the East, for Asia, for Man
dalay. the "greener. cleaner land" Of rice fields.
temple bells, great pagodas, and elephants a-pilin'
teak" the land which, to the memory-haunted Brit
ish soldier of the poem, lay somewhere east Of
6uez." The residents of our Pacific coast would
doubtless be j~ustifiably reluctant to concede that any
land could be cleaner or more attractive than their
own-yet they too Especially the business men
among them) look ever more expectantly and persist
emily toward Asia, Australasia and the islands Of
the sea. Unlike Tommy Atkins, they look west
west Of Catalina Island, west Of the Golden Gate,
west Of Puget Sound.
Any American business man, possessing an imag-
nation, who looks out toward the orient will see
not only swinging cranes and steamers holds and
ledgers and dollar marks. but also he may feel him
self the embodiment Of those hardy spirits who first
carried our flag and our wares across those wide
stretches Of water.
Vision is essential II We are to understand even
the primary factors In the economic life Of the East.
And we need to have not only the easy image-form-
ing vision Of the dreamer, but in addition-and to q
greater degree-the more difficult vision that In
wolves q comprehension Of the economic meanings Of
those deeper forces that are now stirring everywhere
in the East.
Asia today Is in transition. Its life and thought,
It's economic structure. are in q state Of flux. Power
full. imperfectly apprehended energies are at work
throughout the transpacific area-not simply among
the teeming millions Of orientals on the mainland
but In Anglo-Saxon Australasia as well.
There is an awakening-a shifting Of bases-a
stretching out toward new goals. Time-worn incrus-
tations Of custom, age-old shells Of tradition, are
being broken up. New vistas are opening. Modern
methods and modern viewpoints are penetrating an
Gent moulds. And we must remember that these
are tendencies which involve not less than two-thirds
Of the population Of the world.
It is these facts that assure for the Pacific coast
of the United States its due place in that age which
was foreseen so clearly by Theodore Roosevelt when.
In his ~oft-quoted announcement, he said that the
Pacific Era Of history. destined to be the great
est, is just at the dawn!"
And what, you may be asking. about our great ex-
port trade to those regions lying west and southwest
Of the Pacific7 As tho author of "Mandalay" has
been SO very fond Of saying, that Is another story
Our annual sales Of American merchandise to those
countries have risen from the prewar figure OF $751;
100000 to the 1929 total Of $sl7.o0oy000. The increase.
nearly matches the proportion Of advance in our i'm
ports from these lands.
This trade means much to the Pacific coast. It
means much to the entire country. It represents a
superb growth, Of which the seeds were sown In those
early days when the flashing clipper ships raced
around the Horn. out to the newly opened marts Of
Canton. We Of today are the heirs, the beneficiaries,
Of that courage, that quenchless ardor, that super
lative mercantile and navigating skill.
Monkey Wrench Again Removed
President Hoover seems to have scored again in h
fight with the senate to keep the country from adoptir
bounties as q form Of farm relief. The house again h,
voted down the debenture provision. this time slippe