Music: Save, Save, Save China

For the first time in a thousand years, great masses of people in China are singing together. The lusty, patriotic songs they sing sound much like those of the Western world. Dr. Sun Yatsen, who founded the Chinese Republic in 1912, stirred up many enthusiasms but not mass music. China did not get a national anthem until 1924, and that one never caught on. But the Chinese did pick up a Western round—Frère Jacques—to which they sang such sentiments as Down with the militarists, Down with the war lords, Down with oppression, etc.

The...