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ROOTS LAYS CHINA'S TROUBLES TO OPIUM, MILITARISM, BOLSHEVISM, AND IGNORANCE

Hankow Bishop Says Imperial Tradition Is Strong--Spirit of Inquiry Noted

"The student leaders to China have an their main aim a strong and free country," declared the Right Reverend Logan Holt Roots '91, Bishop of Hankow, in a statement to the CRIMSON yesterday.

"The student movement in China has many unjustifiable features; but while the stirring of hatred of foreigners is often accomplished by misrepresentation and falsehood, the end in view is primarily justice and freedom.

And the dislike of foreigners is natural; for in China the 'White Peril' is regarded with far more alarm than is the 'Yellow Peril' here. But the Yellow Peril is far more real now, because of the folly of the United States immigration policy which is driving the yellow races together as opponents of the white."

Bishop Roots, who has been a missionary in China for thirty years, returned to America last June and received an honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity from the University. He is returning to the Orient next month.

Bolsheviki Playing Minor Role

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He stated that from what he had seen before he left China, and from what he has seen since he has been in America, that the Bolsheviki are playing a minor part in the Communistic revolution.

"The spirit of the revolution is probably not that of Communism anyway," stated the Bishop, "For you know how much the Chinese like to use high-sounding phrases. The work Communism serves as a banner in this revolution, but I don't believe that the revolutionists intend to put into practice the Communistic principles.

"It is extremely doubtful that they could if they tried to, for the Chinese by nature are a self-complacent people, and the form of land-owning differs from that in Russia. Eighty percent of the Chinese are farmers, but they own their own fields rather than having them village owned as in Russia.

"And it has been hard enough to change the form of government to that of a republic in the first place. Even now the average Chinese government official works as though he served an Emperor. The imperial tradition is so strong in China that it will take many years to break it. Revolution Due to Militarism

"The present revolution is due to four separate factors. The first is the militarism in China. Theoretically the military class is not a recognized part of society, and the military spirit is not in evidence, but at present the military men are in control.

"Second is opium, third Bolshevik medling, and fourth the vast ignorance of most of the Chinese.

"Through the ages the people of China have looked to the class of scholars, the comparatively few educated men, as the main pillar of society. They have followed the lead of these men, and until recent years that lead has always been a conservative one. The scholars always studied alone, and absorbed the old literature and philosophy of the Empire. Naturally they became saturated with the past, and thus reactionary leaders of society.

"But now, since contact with other nations has brought a modernization into the educational system, exactly the reverse is true. The scholars are as a body radical in the extreme, and yet, through the strength of tradition, they hold their former place in the esteem of the people.

Spirit of inquiry Noted

"Many indefensible features mar their present movement. A very wicket thing is the willingness of the student leaders to excite mob feeling, and exhort them to violence, rather than lead them in the exercise of reason.

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