[Speech of Edwin P. Whipple at the banquet given by the City of
Boston, August 21, 1868, to the Hon. Anson Burlingame, Envoy
Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from China, and his
associates, Chih Ta-jin and Sun Ta-jin, of the Chinese Embassy to
the United States and the European powers. Mr. Whipple responded to
the toast, "The Press."]
MR. MAYOR:--One cannot attempt to respond here for the Press,
without being reminded that the Press and the Chinese Embassy have been
on singularly good terms from the start. To record the progress, applaud
the object, extend the influence, and cordially eulogize the members of
that Embassy, have been for months no inconsiderable part of the
business of all newspapers; and if China anticipated us, by some five
hundred years, in the invention of printing, our Chinese guests will
still admit that, in the minute account we have given both of what they
have, and of what they have not, said and done, since they arrived in
the country, we have carried the invention to a perfection of which they
never dreamed--having not only invented printing, but invented a great
deal of what we print.
But, apart from the rich material they have furnished the press in the
way of news, there is something strangely alluring and inspiring to the
editorial imagination in the comprehensive purpose which has prompted
their mission to the civilized nations of the West. That purpose is
doubly peaceful, for it includes a two-fold commerce of material
products and of immaterial ideas. Probably the vastest conception which
ever entered into the mind of a conqueror was that which was profoundly
meditated, and, in its initial steps, practically carried out, by
Alexander the Great. He was engaged in a clearly defined project of
assimilating the populations of Europe and Asia, when, at the early age
of thirty-three, he was killed--I tremble to state it here--by a too
eager indulgence in an altogether too munificent public dinner!
Alexander's weapon was force, but it was at least the force of genius,
and it was exerted in the service of a magnificent idea. His successors
in modern times have but too often availed themselves of force divested
of all ideas, except the idea of bullying or outwitting the Asiatics in
a trade.
As to China, this conduct aroused an insurrection of Chinese conceit
against European conceit. The Chinese were guilty of the offence of
calling the representatives of the proudest and most supercilious of all
civilizations, "outside barbarians"; illustrating in this that too
common conservative weakness of human nature, of holding fixedly to an
opinion long after the facts which justified it have changed or passed
away. It certainly cannot be questioned that at a period which, when
compared with the long date of Chinese annals, may be called recent, we
were outside barbarians as contrasted with that highly civilized and
ingenious people. At the time when our European ancestors were squalid,
swinish, wolfish savages, digging with their hands into the earth for
roots to allay the pangs of hunger, without arts, letters, or written
speech, China rejoiced in an old, refined, complicated civilization; was
rich, populous, enlightened, cultivated, humane; was fertile in savants,
poets, moralists, metaphysicians, saints; had invented printing,
gunpowder, the mariner's compass, the Sage's Rule of Life; had, in one
of her three State religions--that of Confucius--presented a code of
morals never become obsolete; and had, in another of her State
religions--that of Buddha--solemnly professed her allegiance to that
equality of men, which Buddha taught twenty-four hundred years before
our Jefferson was born, and had at the same time vigorously grappled
with that problem of existence which our Emerson finds as insolvable now
as it was then.
Well, sir, after all this had relatively changed, after the Western
nations had made their marvellous advances in civilization, they were
too apt to exhibit to China only their barbaric side--that is, their
ravenous cupidity backed by their insolent strength. We judge, for
example, of England by the poetry of Shakespeare, the science of Newton,
the ethics of Butler, the religion of Taylor, the philanthropy of
Wilberforce; but what poetry, science, ethics, religion, or philanthropy
was she accustomed to show in her intercourse with China? Did not John
Bull, in his rough methods with the Celestial Empire, sometimes
literally act "like a bull in a China shop"? You remember, sir, that
"intelligent contraband" who, when asked his opinion of an offending
white brother, delicately hinted his distrust by replying: "Sar, if I
was a chicken, and that man was about, I should take care to roost
high." Well, all that we can say of China is, that for a long time she
"roosted high"--withdrew suspiciously into her own civilization to
escape the rough contact with the harsher side of ours.
But, by a sudden inspiration of almost miraculous confidence, springing
from a faith in the nobler qualities of our Caucasian civilization, she
has changed her policy. She has learned that in the language, and on the
lips, and in the hearts of most members of the English race, there is
such a word as equity, and at the magic of that word she has nearly
emerged from her isolation. And, sir, what we see here to-day reminds me
that, some thirty years ago, Boston confined one of her citizens in a
lunatic asylum, for the offence of being possessed by a too intensified
Boston "notion." He had discovered a new and expeditious way of getting
to China. "All agree," he said, "that the earth revolves daily on its
own axis. If you desire," he therefore contended, "to go to China, all
you have to do is to go up in a balloon, wait till China comes round,
then let off the gas, and drop softly down." Now I will put it to you,
Mr. Mayor, if you are not bound to release that philosopher from
confinement, for has not his conception been realized?--has not China,
to-day, unmistakably come round to us?
And now, sir, a word as to the distinguished gentleman at the head of
the Embassy--a gentleman specially dear to the Press. Judging from the
eagerness with which the position is sought, I am led to believe that
the loftiest compliment which can be paid to a human being is, that he
has once represented Boston in the National House of Representatives.
After such a distinction as that, all other distinctions, however great,
must still show a sensible decline from political grace. But I trust
that you will all admit, that next to the honor of representing Boston
in the House of Representatives comes the honor of representing the vast
Empire of China in "The Parliament of Man, the Federation of the World."
Having enjoyed both distinctions, Mr. Burlingame may be better qualified
than we are to discriminate between the exultant feelings which each is
calculated to excite in the human breast. But we must remember that the
population, all brought up on a system of universal education, of the
Empire he represents, is greater than the combined population of all the
nations to which he is accredited. Most Bostonians have, or think they
have, a "mission"; but certainly no other Bostonian ever had such a
"mission" as he; for it extends all round the planet, makes him the most
universal Ambassador and Minister Plenipotentiary the world ever saw;
is, in fact, a "mission" from everybody to everybody, and one by which
it is proposed that everybody shall be benefited. To doubt its success
would be to doubt the moral soundness of Christian civilization. It
implies that Christian doctrines will find no opponents provided that
Christian nations set a decent example of Christianity. Its virtues
herald the peaceful triumph of reason over prejudice, of justice over
force, of humanity over the hatreds of class and race, of the good of
all over the selfish blindness of each, of the "fraternity" of the great
Commonwealth of Nations over the insolent "liberty" of any of them to
despise, oppress, and rob the rest.
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