Christian Nations’ Treatment of China
Bishop Potter, of New York, in addressing an audience of 2,000 Episcopalians in St. Paul’s Church, New Haven, January 27, said: “Our policy in China has not been a happy one. The professing Christian engineers, capitalists, merchants, and bankers there are responsible for what has happened the past year. If I were to defend any nation against the charge of unchristian outrages I would take out a brief in favor of China. Nothing could have been more brutal than the policies of Christian nations the past year in dealing with this pagan people. We have trampled underfoot everything the Chinese have held most sacred. The newly-constructed railroad could have passed around the tomb of the ancestors of the ruler; but, instead, we tore it down and went thru the spot where it stood. This is but a type of the treatment we have given the Chinese, an illustration of what they have received in the gross at our hands and in detail as well. There can be no settlement of the Chinese question as long as we go to that country in the spirit of greed and until the white man learns to respect the brown, white, and yellow man.” And many others, without condemning the many noble missionaries, feel the same way.