before it, with
reverent eyes.

I said to a high official of the Government, "Does that painting
represent the way you Filipinos feel to-day?"

"Hidalgo has spoken for us. He has voiced our feelings well!" was the
reply.

* * * * *

This friendship for the United States is a thrilling thing found all
over the Far East. One finds it in Korea, as well as in the Philippines,
like a burning light of glory. Korea says, "America is our only hope! We
have always trusted and loved America!"

One finds it like a silver stream running through the life of China. Dr.
Sun Yat Sen said to me in Shanghai: "America has always been China's
staunch friend! America we trust! America we love! America is our hope!
America is our model!"

Mr. Tang Shao-yi said, "America's hands and those of America alone are
clean in her relations with China. This cannot be said of the other
nations."

Then he told me a thrilling story of the Boxer Rebellion. He, with two
thousand Chinese, who were Government officials, were barricaded in a
compound behind the usual Chinese walls. The Boxers were firing on them
every day. They had run out of food. In fact, they were starving.

But one morning a bright-faced American boy appeared at the gates of the
wall. He was admitted because he was an American. He asked to be taken
to Mr. Tang Shao-yi.

"What do you most need?" this young American asked the rich Chinese
merchant.

"We most need food," was the reply.

"All right, I'll get enough for you to-day!" said the young American.

"That night," said Mr. Tang Shao-yi, "that American boy returned with
five hundred hams which the Boxers had thrown away, in addition to a
thousand sacks of flour which he had gotten from the English legation."

"Wonderful!" I exclaimed.

"And that boyish American was----"

"Who?" I asked with tense interest, for the old man was smiling with a
suggestive Oriental smile, as if he had a climax up his commodious
sleeves.

"That man was Herbert Hoover!"

And from that interview henceforth and forever no human being need tell
me that the Chinese have no sense of the dramatic.

"That's why we love and trust America," said this great Chinese
statesman. "It is because America has always been our friend in time of
need!"

I found this friendship for the United States true all over the Oriental
world. It was to me a great miracle of national friendship. The peoples
of the Orient trust us. The