It deserves therefore a conspicuous place among the new developments
in the China of the twentieth century.
Where everything is changing, the temper of the people has undergone
a change. They have become restless as the sea and fickle as a
weather-vane, The friends of yesterday are the enemies of to-day;
and a slight or petty annoyance is enough to make them transfer
man or country from one to the other category. Murderous outbreaks,
rare in the past, have now become alarmingly frequent, so much so
that the last year might be described as a year of anti-foreign
riots. The past nine months have witnessed four such outbreaks,
In four widely separated provinces, venting their fury pretty
impartially on people of four nationalities and of all professions,
they were actuated by a
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common hate and indicated a common purpose. That purpose--if they
had a purpose--was to compel a readjustment of treaty relations.
America has the distinction of being the target for the first assaults.
In treating the subject I accordingly begin with America and the
boycott, as set forth in a long extract from an address before
the Publishers' League of New York, November 8, 1905, on
AMERICAN INFLUENCE IN THE FAR EAST
"Mr. President and Gentlemen:
"If I were asked to find a _pou sto_, a fulcrum, on which
to erect a machine to move the world, I should choose this league
of publishers; and the machine would be no other than the power
press! I have accepted your invitation not merely from pleasant
recollections of your former hospitality, but because new occurrences
have taken place which appeal to the patriotism of every good citizen.
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