eral]

In no other country that I know of do you feel so keenly this sense of
possession, this wish to protect. The other countries belong to
themselves, absolutely. For example, Japan owns itself and directs
itself; the Japanese don't let you know much about what's going on in
their country; and you feel that it is none of your business anyway.
They are quite capable of managing their own affairs. So in Europe:
the affairs of the European peoples are their affairs, not your
concern at all. But the case is so different with poor, weak, helpless
China. China enlists all your sympathies, calls forth every decent
instinct you possess.

For these are dark, distressful days for China. At present she is
passing through a reconstruction period corresponding to our
reconstruction period after the Civil War. Just five years ago the
revolution occurred by which she rid herself of the Manchu rulers, an
alien race which had dominated her and ruled her for two hundred years.
And chaos followed that upheaval, just as political chaos followed the
close of our Civil War. We, however, were free to work our way upward
and outward from the difficulties that beset us at that time, out of the
maze of corruption and intrigue that almost overwhelmed us. We were
permitted to manage our own affairs, to bring order out of that chaos,
harmony out of strife, without having to deal with foreign predatory
powers who for their own ends were anxious to prolong the period of
internal dissension. China is not free in that respect: not only must
she set her house in order, but she must deal with those foreign powers
who do not wish her house in order, who are slily and adroitly using
their enormous, subtle influence to defeat this end. During our
reconstruction period in America we made mistakes; but after those
mistakes we did not have to hear a chorus from European nations telling
us that we were unfit to govern ourselves. Nor were we forced to have
other nations trying to corrupt every honest man we wished to put in
office, nor to have these alien nations attempting to put into power
dishonest and inefficient men as their own tools. That is China's
problem at present: not only must she contend against the inherent
weakness and dishonesty, the inefficiency and graft of her own people,
but she must contend against unseen, suave enemies, who under diplomatic
disguise are intriguing to bring the nation under foreign control.

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