h so high and
admirable an aim, it seems a pity that socialism can find no better way
to fulfil itself than by a resort to lawlessness and violence.
Notwithstanding all that has been said, sung, and written in its favor,
especially in the two great English-speaking countries, it may still be
described as "a thing with its head in the clouds and its feet in the
intolerable mud." However, our business with our fellow-beings, as
Spinoza said, is not to censure them, nor to deplore them, but simply to
understand them.

* * * * *

_The Chinese Problem_ is one which is beset with so many
difficulties--moral, social, religious, industrial, economic,
international--that most thoughtful persons, probably, would prefer to
leave it alone if the indulgence of private feeling in the matter could
be made consistent with an adequate sense of public duty. As things have
been, and still continue to be, however, silence is impossible. The
question presses for solution, from many sides, with a painful
persistency, and the further shelving of it would scarcely be good
policy. Here in New England the problem may not confront us in that
sternly practical aspect which it every day wears to the citizens of the
Pacific Coast, and in other parts of the country, where considerable
Chinese populations affect the industrial interests of the local
communities. Nevertheless, its stable and satisfactory settlement is
quite as much our concern as theirs. Indeed, recent incidents in and
near Boston have made this perfectly plain. It is very true that the
perpetration of outrage and violence on harmless and unoffending
foreigners would not be tolerated for a moment by the public sentiment
and lawful authorities of the New England and other Eastern States; but,
in the judgment of other nations, not a section of the American people,
but the whole nation, however unjustly, will be made to bear the
responsibility of such lawless demonstrations of feeling as have
recently taken place in the West, and endure the discredit and reproach
of them.

Aside, therefore, altogether from the purely domestic bearing of this
painful subject, there are strong and sufficient reasons why some
immediate measures should be taken for the mitigation or removal of this
grave national trouble. It is certainly not easy to say what is best to
be done. Pride and prejudice of race is one of the most deep-seated and
ineradicable of human infirmities,