Page:Scribner's Magazine, Volume 37-0216.jpg

196 I asked how it happened that the German Emperor was so honored.

“He has had his second son taught the Magyar language,’ answered my host. “That boy may sometime wear the crown of the Magyar kings.”

And there might be stranger things.

Russia has her full share of racial difficulties, and in her conflict with Poles, Finns, and Jews has been led into injustice and barbarity of the sort that makes two enemies of the Government where there was one before.

Comparisons of the problems which beset the European governments with the difficulties that are met with in our own institutions cannot help but make us better satisfied with American citizenship.

We find there implacable racial differences, varied degrees of political development which it is vainly sought to unite into harmonious empires, relics of feudal authority, hereditary distinctions, and class prerogative quite out of line with a modern conception of representative government. There are diametrically opposed interests of agriculture and industry which can never be reconciled. We see a drawing of class lines in political life, and appeals to the passions of envy and greed, and to the prejudices of caste and ignorance. It is startling to note what enormous factors in the situation are the personalities of half a dozen hereditary sovereigns, and what significance and possibilities lie in the mere chance readjustment of a crown. We see the growing strength of the parties of protest, the vitality of the Socialist movement, the difficulties of government finance, the weight of taxes, the load of the military and naval establishments, the menace of war, the ever-living danger in close national neighbors who misunderstand motives and lack sympathy for the trials and ambitions of the others—and then, when we turn to our own political situation, we see a nation greater in numbers and vastly greater in resources than any of the nations of Europe, with a single language, and with but a single problem of race, and with a common patriotism that everyone knows is far above party differences. When the political conditions of Europe and America are so compared, the study can but make us thankful that we have such a sound foundation upon which to grow, and so few complications to intefere with our right development.

AICHENG at last! The Russians are only five miles away and they can drop shells on us, but they don’t. The attachés were taken out on a reconnaissance yesterday, and we, too, if we are very good, will be allowed to see a Japanese soldier in a real ante-mortem trench.

We left Yoka-tong this morning at seven and in three hours reached dirty, fly-ridden Ta-shi-kao. The valley has broadened as we have come North. The Chinese houses are better and the millet-fields (kow-liang) stretch away like a sea on each side of the road. Soldiers were bathing in the river that we crossed to get to the gate of Haicheng and the stretch of sand was dotted with naked men. Every grove was in color, mingled black, brown and dirty white from the carts, horses and soldiers packed under the trees. We found the Captain of Gendarmes, by accident, straightway, and we had to take tea hot, tea cold and tea with condensed milk before he would lead us to our quarters in this mud compound. Lewis, Reggie and Scull greeted us with a shout and produced beer and Tansan and a bottle of champagne cider. Heavens, what nectar each was! The rest are coming, but the button on the dragon’s tail—the Irishman on the bicycle—has come off. Nobody knows where it dropped. Reggie is newly mounted on a savage yellow beast that can