We all know that Dr. Ament did not bring suspected persons into a duly organized court and try them by just and fair Christian and civilized methods, but proclaimed his “conditions,” and collected damages from the innocent and the guilty alike, without any court proceedings at all.[[14]] That he himself, and not the villagers, made the “conditions,” we learn from his letter of November 13th, already quoted from--the one in which he remarked that, upon that occasion he brought no soldiers with him. The italics are mine:
After our conditions were known many villagers came of their own accord and brought their money with them.
Not all, but “many.” The Board really believes that those hunted and harried paupers out there were not only willing to strip themselves to pay Boxer damages, whether they owed them or not, but were sentimentally eager to do it. Mr. Ament says, in his letter: “The villagers were extremely grateful because I brought no foreign soldiers, and were glad to settle on the terms proposed.” Some of those people know more about theology than they do about human nature. I do not remember encountering even a Christian who was “glad” to pay money he did not owe; and as for a Chinaman doing it, why, dear me, the thing is unthinkable. We have all seen Chinamen, many Chinamen, but not that kind. It is a new kind: an invention of the Board--and “soldiers.”
CONCERNING THE COLLECTIONS
What was the “one third extra”? Money due? No. Was it a theft, then? Putting aside the “one third extra,” what was the remainder of the exacted indemnity, if collected from persons not known to owe it, and without Christian and civilized forms of procedure? Was it theft, was it robbery? In America it would be that; in Christian Europe it would be that. I have great confidence in Dr. Smith’s judgment concerning this detail, and he calls it “theft and extortion”--even in China; for he was talking about the “thirteen times” at the time that he gave it that strong name.[[15]] It is his idea that, when you make guilty and innocent villagers pay the appraised damages, and then make them pay thirteen times that, besides, the thirteen stand for “theft and extortion.”
Then what does one third extra stand for? Will he give that one third a name? Is it Modified Theft and Extortion? Is that it? The girl who was rebuked for having borne an illegitimate child excused herself by saying, “But it is such a little one.”
When the “thirteen-times-extra” was alleged, it stood for theft and extortion, in Dr. Smith’s eyes, and he was shocked. But when Dr. Ament showed that he had taken only a third extra, instead of thirteenfold, Dr. Smith was relieved, content, happy. I declare I cannot imagine why. That editor--quoted at the head of this article--was happy about it, too. I cannot think why. He thought I ought to “make for the amen corner and formulate a prompt apology.” To whom, and for what? It is too deep for me.
To Dr. Smith, the “thirteenfold extra” clearly stood for “theft and extortion,” and he was right, distinctly right, indisputably right. He manifestly thinks that when it got scaled away down to a mere “one third,” a little thing like that was something other than “theft and extortion.” Why? Only the Board knows! I will try to explain this difficult problem, so that the Board can get an idea of it. If a pauper owes me a dollar, and I catch him unprotected and make him pay me fourteen dollars, thirteen of it is “theft and extortion”; if I make him pay only a dollar and thirty-three and a third cents the thirty-three and a third cents are “theft and extortion” just the same. I will put it in another way, still simpler. If a man owes me one dog--any kind of a dog, the breed is of no consequence--and I----But let it go; the Board would never understand it. It can’t understand these involved and difficult things.
But if the Board could understand, then I could furnish some more instruction--which is this. The one third, obtained by “theft and extortion,” is tainted money, and cannot be purified even by defraying “church expenses” and “supporting widows and orphans” with it. It has to be restored to the people it was taken from.
Also, there is another view of these things. By our Christian code of morals and law, the whole $1.33 1-3, if taken from a man not formally proven to have committed the damage the dollar represents, is “theft and extortion.” It cannot be honestly used for any purpose at all. It must be handed back to the man it was taken from.