and undemocratic political and social systems, the representatives of the Southern political oligarchy and aristocratic régimé were able to name the President of the United States in 1916.

This political oligarchy has always denied the right of the Federal Government to interfere in any manner with elections in Southern States; yet in 1916, it invoked and used the great power of the Federal Government to invade with investigators Northern and Western States and by suspect notices and other devices disfranchised thousands of voters of Northern States.

The white South will tolerate no discussion of its social and political systems in its territory; yet it takes advantage of the freedom of the North to spread its unjust and inhuman propaganda of race orthodoxy and race inferiority.

For the next four years this Southern oligarchy will have in its behalf, the example, the prestige and the power of the government of the United States in every Northern state and in almost every capital of the world.

The nullification of the National Constitution has been accomplished.

The spirit and ideals of the American people and institutions have been violated.

The permanent and free status of the Negro is seriously and dangerously jeopardized.

The subversion of American morality is about to be consummated.

The true principles of American democracy are on trial. Shall we have the New Slavery, founded on race and color or shall we have the New Democracy, where all men and races are in fact free and equal before the law?

What shall the answer be?

AMERICAN INTERESTS IN CHINA: THE EXACT SITUATION

By Rev. Gilbert Reid, D.D., of The International Institute of China

It is now becoming clear that the war going on in Europe affects not only all European countries, but countries the other side of the globe- countries spoken of as at "the ends of the earth," of which China is the most conspicuous member. The way all countries, particularly China, are affected will be seen to be, on careful investigation, a way to be reprehended rather than to be encouraged. The effects are bad, without any apparent good.

One further reflection on these extraordinary conditions is this: American interests in China, as well as China herself, are being affected in a way serious, but intricate and obscure. Men's views about the two groups of belligerents, or rather their personal prejudices, come in to re-shapen the whole policy of America's position in China. I will cite some expressions made in China, and some in America, all of which show that the American-Chinese question is after all an international question.

There are three American enterprises being projected in China. One the railway enterprise and Grand Canal conservation scheme of Siems and Carey of St. Paul, backed up by New York financiers. The second is an industrial loan to China from Chicago bankers. The third is the Chinese-American Products Exchange Company, initiated by ex-Mayor Rose of Milwaukee, and espoused by enterprising men in the southern states.

The big enterprise of Siems and Carey, on being made known, was at once opposed by the legations in Peking of Great Britain, Russia, France and Japan. It may here be noticed that these four nations are bound together in the Entente. The mere fact that these four nations have rail

way schemes and concessions of their own is not sufficient reason for their seeking hot-haste to obstruct an American scheme and concession. Germany has had and still has, in spite of the war, railway schemes and concessions, but at no time has she frustrated the plans of Americans. The opposition has largely died away through firm stand taken by both the United States and China, but it has shown that these four Entente nations have some very lop-sided ideas concerning the "open door" in China.

The circumstances attending the opposition to the industrial loan by Chicago bankers are very much of the same character. The bankers of the same four Entente countries were the ones to hasten to make inquiries or enter protests. The other member of the quintuple group, the German banker-not yet ejected from the group-was rather in favor of re-participation by Americans in the loan business. These four nations had no money to lend, why should they oppose an American loan? Even Japan, the most flourishing of the four, has been anxious to borrow from America to push business in China. This opposition has also died away, but it ought to be a lesson to American business men to discriminate more accurately between friends and foes.

We now come to the third American enterprise, not latest in its initiation, but latest in receiving publicity, namely, the Chinese-American Products Exchange Company. We give special attention to this enterprise, because the opposition it has received has come, not from the Entente peoples, but from fellow-Americans. It will be found, however, that this American opposition may be traced back to a decidedly strong attraction to the Entente as distinct from the Central Powers. Herein the fruitage of the war shows itself in a most peculiar fashion.

American interests in China are supposed to have the support of two so-called American papers in China. The one is The China Press, with an American editor and British staff and patronage. The other is The Far Eastern Review, with George Bronson Rea, an American, as publisher, and W. H. Donald, a Britisher, as editor.

For once The China Press has a leader of its own. More surprising, it is on American interests. Still more surprising, it contains a criticism of the Entente. The criticism, however, is only a quotation from The New York Times. This is a safe process. The leader deals with the second enterprise mentioned above, that of Chicago bankers. The criticism from the great New York paper, generally proAlly, is in the following language:

Although Great Britain, France and Russia are borrowing hundreds of millions here, and are unable to lend, their bankers have sent to China a protest against the small loan of $5,000,000 which the Chinese Government recently obtained from the Continental and Commercial Bank of Chicago. Japanese bankers join in making complaint.

The Far Eastern Review for November has separate articles on each of these three great enterprises. The one, on the first enterprise, backed by New York bankers, is commendatory. The one, on the move of Chicago financiers, treats the matter casually and even with a little dubiousness. The one, on the third enterprise, is severe in its condemnation.

Concerning the loan from Chicago bankers, it is said: "Whether it ever will be consummated remains to be seen." And this, though a telegram from home informs us, that "the loan has been three times over-subscribed in the Western States." Then why so dubious? The editor explains: "There are international strings to trip up "trespassers" in the field devoted to administrative and "industrial" loans just as there are in the field of railway loans. Some of these are now being encountered, as witness the opposition of the Consortium of Bankers at Peking, and the protest made by the Banque Industrielle with respect to the security." This is the hindrance objected to by The New York Times.

The article on the third enterprise appears under the name of George Bronson Rea. He has only contempt for the westerners and southerners and Pacific Coast men, who are striking out on a new line, free from the control of New York financiers.

The main idea in the minds of those concerned in this third enterprise is that the Southern Cotton States should get into direct business relation with China. The plan does away with so many intermediaries, whether they are in Manchester, England, or in New York. One of the objects is thus stated:

To shift the cotton trade with China from its present route via Liverpool to a direct route through the Panama Canal, cutting out the Liverpool exchange; and to shift the tea trade between China and the United States by cutting out Manchester middle men.

Another object is this:

To establish two shipping lines for the handling of the company's merchandise, one to ply between Norfolk, Va., and San Pedro, Cal., touching at Southern Atlantic and Gulf ports, and another with headquarters on the Pacific Coast to make regular sailings with the Orient.

This is very much the kind of business proposition which I advocated, when at home the last time, at the Convention of Cotton Manufacturers held in Richmond, Virginia, and in addresses at Charleston, Spartanburg and Greenville of South Carolina, in Augusta, Georgia, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and in Chicago. I urged direct business between, for instance, the port of Charleston and Shanghai, China. There should be a big corporation, I said, to sell the cotton goods at all the centres of China, in imitation of the direct methods of the Standard Oil Company and the Tobacco Trust. I found that this proposition, quite naturally, was opposed by New York firms. It is now objected to by The Far Eastern Review for the same reason, but more out of sympathy for the British in the present war. The war thus intrudes itself into this new business enterprise of "live" Americans.

Let us hear the wail that arises from George Bronson Rea, as he thinks of the possibilities of this newly-formed Corporation:

The men of Britain are today fighting and cheerfully dying in the trenches to preserve a great principle, vital to the future peace and security of America. If they fail, it will not be long