Page:Dramatic Moments in American Diplomacy (1918).djvu/188

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168
DRAMATIC MOMENTS

vious national jealousies and heroic figures of a century of diplomacy in the Orient for the cause of this phenomenon, we come upon a strange spectacle; two Americans, one in command of the Chinese Army, and the other, ambassador from China to the entire world. One holding the long-haired rebels at bay in the mysterious recesses of the kingdom; the other keeping the Christian kings from "taking China by the throat." The understanding of the indignation mentioned above involves the record of the second of these old adventurers, the ambassador. But I cannot forbear to give a little contemporaneous picture of his companion piece, the barest recital of the incidents of whose career are sufficient to give him foremost rank among the soldiers of fortune that have heralded the coming of the diplomat in every frontier known to the Anglo-Saxon.

This was General Frederick T. Ward, organizer of the first Chinese troops trained and disciplined under modern methods—known to