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Show THE OLD WAY FROM EAST TO WEST. A recent life of Napoleon, giving the character-t character-t istics of the wonderful man when twenty years of I age, says: "In particular his mind was dazzled by I the splendors of the Orient as the only field on which an Alexander could have displayed himself, and he knew what but a few great minds have grasped, that the interchange of relations between the East and the West has been the life of the world." ' That is brought vividly to mind as one reads r of the celebration in ancient Delhi, the Mogul capi- tol, in. honor of the coronation of a King in little England. The civilization and power of the West f turned back "to interchange relations" and to found a new civilization on the spot where progress ! began in the long ago, before the first page of his-' his-' tory was written. To welcome a pale-faced Viceroy, some pale- faced princes and princesses, those who represent ed the newly-crowned King, all the splendor of Oriental magnificence was brought out, and though the English there were few, England's power was represented by that impurturbable chieftain who just closed the great war -in South Africa. His impassive im-passive face was a symbol to every bedecked Indian Prince that Great Britain does not rely upon numbers num-bers in carrying on her conquests, but upon her force, present and in reserve. That procession with pealing trumpets and trumpeting elephants must have been wonderful to see. All the more wonderful because of the thoughts it must have awakened. In times past all the great nations of Europe have dreamed of making a conquest of India. it was among the earliest of the dreams of. Napoleon.. Na-poleon.. He thought that the far East was the only spot whereon Alexander could, in the brief spac6 of his life, have wrought out his marvelous career, and the possibility of emulating him was consciously con-sciously or unconsciously taking form in his own fierce brain. While dreaming he was taking in and assimilating the generalship of Caesar, which in brief was to stretch out his lines when "on the march, and in battle, but while feinting here and there and sometimes carriyng on a furious battle all along the line, to watch and when he saw the first signs of weakening on the part of the enemy, to concentrate his great guns on that point and then converting a section of his army into a wedge drive it with irresistible valor upon that point, split the opposing army in two, knowing that after that there would be chaos for his enemy and victory vic-tory for him. It was but doing what Caesar had done twenty generations earlier, but he swept Europe and dreamed of sweeping Asia with his audacious au-dacious sword. But he failed and Great Britain with slower methods won won India as Waterloo was w.on by that stubborn tenacity that seems never to comprehend compre-hend the possibility of defeat. Well, all this is of interest to the men of the United States. From beyond the Euphrates and the Indus, the world's conquest over savagery moved west. It was generally for more territory and more loot, no matter what the pretense might be, but age after age it went on until the Atlantic stopped for a thousand years its progress. Then the Now Wond was uncovered and that same conquest con-quest began again just as be in the name of kings and of religion bu ne same purpose, for territory and loot, against tue wilderness and savage tribes until the shore of another great ocean was reached. The progress has always been the same, from east to west. But in the meantime the world has changed. The great struggle of the world's nations now is to dominate trade. In the meantime invention has given man the steam and electric motors, through which the continents have been drawn close together and the oceans reduced to ferries. Here the United States occupies such vantage ground that it will be through sheer incompetency in-competency if she fails, for all other nations must reverse the rule of the ages and go backward to succeed, while with our countrymen the old rule from east to west is hers to follow. In India Great Britain made her conquest of force by arming friendly tribes and, with British officers to lead them, subdued hostile tribes. What arms are in the conquest of kings, money is in the conquests of commerce. In Southeastern Asia are gathered on small areas one-half of the world's toilers. They lack only weapons and leaders to create such a trade as was never seen before. The United States has the directing minds, it has an abundance of the only money by which those toilers can measure their daily transactions. Why not place that weapon in their hands and continue the conquest, of the world from east to west until the spot where the first Western march was taken up is reached? The plan seems at once so necessary, so easy t6 carry out, and so magnificent in promise, that we cannot understand how the so-called statesmen of our country can fail to see It at a glance and at once proceed to put it in execution. |