We shall never forget the days of anxious waiting and
awful suspense when no information was permitted to be sent from Pekin,
and the diplomatic representatives of the nations in China, cut off
from all communication, inside and outside of the walled capital, were
surrounded by an angry and misguided mob that threatened their lives;
nor the joy that filled the world when a single message from the
Government of the United States brought through our minister the first
news of the safety of the besieged diplomats.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century there was not a mile of steam
railroad on the globe. Now there are enough miles to make its circuit
many times. Then there was not a line of electric telegraph; now we have
a vast mileage traversing all lands and seas. God and man have linked
the nations together. No nation can longer be indifferent to any other.
And as we are brought more and more in touch with each other the less
occasion there is for misunderstandings and the stronger the
disposition, when we have differences, to adjust them in the court of
arbitration, which is the noblest forum for the settlement of
international disputes.
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