THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
RIVERSIDE
HAVE WE A FAR EASTERN
POLICY?
OTHER BOOKS BY THE SAME
AUTHOR
MODERNIZING THE MONROE DOCTRINE
FRENCH MEMORIES OF EIGHTEENTH-
CENTURY AMERICA
STAINED GLASS TOURS IN FRANCE
STAINED GLASS TOURS IN ENGLAND
A STAINED GLASS TOUR IN ITALY
Have We a Far Eastern
WMM*
Policy?
BY
CHARLES H. SHERRILL
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
HON. DAVID JAYNE HILL, LL.D
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1920
US 51
5 S'i
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Published April, 1920
TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED PARENTS
CHARLES HITCHCOCK SHERRILL
AND
SARAH WYNKOOP SHERRILL
31 JDtbtcate
THIS BOOK UPON LANDS WHERE VENERATION OF ANCESTORS
IS THE CORNERSTONE OF CIVILIZATION
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. AT THE PACIFIC CROSSROADS .... 1
II. SOME MENTAL, GEOGRAPHY .... 22
III. A BRIDGE OF BOATS 35
IV. LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK .... 60
V. SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS AND THEIR
THOUGHT .... 105
VI. JAPANESE PILGRIMS AND THEIR PIL-
GRIMAGES 141
VII. SHANTUNG AND KOREA VERSUS THE WHITE
PERIL 168
VIII. THE YELLOW PERIL BOGEY . . . .193
IX. A PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC? 214s
X. A JAPANESE POINT OF VIEW .... 244
XI. THE FIVE STRIPES OF CHINA'S FLAG . . 253
XII. AND WHAT OF AUSTRALIA ? 282
XIII. SOME CONCLUSIONS . . 297
INTRODUCTION
As a diplomatist and as an author, General
Sherrill does not require to be introduced to the
American public. His books are well known to
the lovers of a fascinating branch of art and to
those who are interested in international ques-
tions. In the present volume he displays a com-
bination of the qualities which characterize his
earlier writings, a fine sensibility to form and
color, and a grasp of great political issues.
To those readers who have not traversed the
Pacific Ocean and visited its picturesque islands
and Asiatic coastlands, this book will be a de-
lightful voyage of discovery, and even those who
have lingered long in the countries described will
deem it a privilege to see them anew through
the eyes of so keen an observer as General Sher-
rill. But the chief value of this volume does
not consist in the vividness with which Oriental
life and its conditions are depicted, nor in the
narrative of the writer's personal experiences.
It is a distinctively personal book, but in an
altogether different sense.
It is written with knowledge, but it overflows
ix
x INTRODUCTION
with imagination. It is not merely what the
writer sees and causes us to see that most ap-
peals to our interest, it is what he thinks about
what he has seen and the significance of the peo-
ples he describes to themselves, to the future of
America and to the world. He has striven to
understand as well as to observe, and to help
us to realize the problems of the lands of the
Pacific.
As an economist closely conversant with the
commercial life of his own country through long
and extensive contact with its chambers of com-
merce, and especially as a diplomatist habituated
to consider the interests and the opportunities
of American enterprise, General Sherrill has a
claim upon our attention which the ordinary
traveller does not possess. He visualizes the
Pacific as a new and vast field for the develop-
ment of future civilization, in which the East and
the West must of necessity commingle, in some
sense as co-partners, and in some sense as rivals.
He has chosen a great and timely theme and he
has given it an attractive exposition.
In entering into this field General Sherrill has
of necessity raised many questions which are of
a controversial nature. It is in his treatment
of these that he appeals most strongly to the
attention of thoughtful men. Japan, China,
INTRODUCTION xi
the Philippines all furnish opportunity for differ-
ences, and even for conflicts of opinion. He has
to contend with much ignorance, prejudice, and
opposition of interests. In this, I am sure, he
neither needs nor desires a defender. He has
spoken out valiantly for what he believes to be
true, and has not hesitated to support any belief
because it may in certain quarters be unpopular.
It adds to the pleasure of penning these words
of introduction to General Sherrill's book to feel
the assurance that he speaks on every subject
with firm conviction; and it cannot fail to com-
mand the respect of every reader that, while he
perceives and appreciates the dangers latent in
the problems of the Pacific, he counsels caution,
moderation, and fair play on all sides, in spite
of prejudice, as essential to the peace and pros-
perity of the peoples of the Pacific.
DAVID JAYNE HILL.
FOREWORD
CERTAIN great world movements which had
their birth in 1867 have always had especial in-
terest for the writer, for he, too, was born then.
In that year William H. Seward, that farseeing
Secretary of State, purchased Alaska from Rus-
sia "Seward's Folly," they called it, but it made
a Pacific Ocean power of us. Also the four
hundred millions of gold it has since yielded
proves "Seward's Folly" to be the most profit-
able investment we ever made. In 1867 Bis-
marck concluded his arrangements to double
Prussia's striking power by adding to it that of
Austria, reduced to submission by her defeat the
year before. Thus really began the great Ger-
man Empire, for after this 1867 birth, the defeat
of France in 1870 and the crowning of a German
Kaiser were but public confirmation of an estab-
lished fact. 1868 is the birth date of the Do-
minion of Canada, since become a Pacific Ocean
Power, and destined by the similarity of her
Asiatic immigration policy to that of Australia
and our West Coast to demonstrate with us the
xiii
xiv FOREWORD
strength of the Anglo-Saxon racial tie in pre-
serving peace around the great western ocean.
In 1867 Sir Charles Dilke predicted that "the
relations of America and Australia will be the
key to the future of the Pacific." Admiral Jelli-
coe has recently recommended that the principal
naval base of the British Navy be transferred
from the North Sea to Singapore, the western
gateway to the Pacific, and Australia and Can-
ada will probably control the future policy of
that mighty force in those waters. In October,
1867, the last of the long line of Japanese Sho-
guns resigned his power, the Imperial Govern-
ment passed from the hands of Viceroys direct
to the Emperor, and thus was born the new
Japan.
And what has happened since 1867? The
Pacific Ocean has seen come to power two great
autocracies, Germany and Japan, and three
democracies, the United States, Canada and
Australia. One of these autocracies, Germany,
after a vigorous acquisition of Pacific Colonies,
has, because of unwise leadership, disappeared
from that ocean. The other autocracy, Japan,
because of wise leadership, is to-day growing
in power more rapidly than ever before. This
surviving and advancing autocracy shares the
control of those waters with the world's greatest
FOREWORD xv
democracies the United States, and Great
Britain, represented by Australia and Canada,
all speaking the same language and with the
same traditions. It is high time we turned our
gaze westward and gave consideration to the
situation there as readjusted by the great war.
The United States is bounded on the south bv
f
the Monroe Doctrine, on the east by our oppor-
tunity of service to stricken Europe, on the north
by the Anglo-Saxon racial tie, and on the west
by the Japanese problem. Of our western out-
look alone we know but little, and should know
more. Now that the arbitrament of arms has
decided the question against whose decision all
Europe was long arming, the next great question
that confronts the world and especially ourselves
is shall the Pacific Ocean continue pacific?
In the following pages are some suggestions
resulting from nearly a year's travel and observa-
tion around the Pacific's shores and upon its
islands. They are the views of an earnest be-
liever in the Monroe Doctrine, which teaches that
nations, like individuals, should mind their own
business, something which cannot be done unless
we first learn what our business is and needs.
Never so much as to-day have our people evi-
denced so widespread an appreciation of what
the Monroe Doctrine means, has meant, and can
xvi FOREWORD
mean to us. But are we equally enlightened
concerning what our policy should be upon and
across the Pacific?
CHAELES H. SHEREILL.
20, East 65th Street,
New York City.
HAVE WE A FAR EASTERN
POLICY?
HAVE WE A FAR EASTERN
POLICY?
CHAPTER I
AT THE PACIFIC CROSSROADS
DID you ever think of the Hawaiian Islands as
the pitcher's box of the Pacific Ocean, or as the
crossroads refreshment pavilion where products
and sights of all those far-flung lands could be
sampled without bothering to visit them? Per-
haps the first viewpoint will throw light upon the
problem of power in the Pacific, and the second
beckon you thither.
In the first place, let us lay out our diamond.
The home-plate will be California, and from there
we will run our base line out to Japan, which will
be first base. No scoring will be possible unless
you get to and around that point. The first
baseman may sometimes play a little off his base,
so as to cover more territory, as baseball men
say. When he does that he will be standing on
China! Second base will be our Philippine base.
It is essential to have a good player covering this
1
2 AT THE PACIFIC CROSSROADS
bag so as to handle throws from the home-plate
(California) to head off runners coming around
from first base (Japan), for nobody will ever
endanger the home-plate if you can throw him
out at second base. The first man we played in
that important position (May 1, 1898), Admiral
Dewey, was one of the sharpest infielders we ever
had, careful, but quick to act on his own initiative,
and especially good at completing a play. His
first move was to put out a Spaniard, who thought
himself safe, but was not used to quick play,
and immediately thereafter he put out a German
Admiral, who tried to steal the base. Third base
is Australia. This difficult position is being well
covered by a player who, although comparatively
new at that corner of the diamond, learned the
game on other fields where Anglo-Saxon sport
prevails. He is a fine hitter, as appears from
his sending 430,000 men to fight in France from
his population of only five million, and that, too,
without conscription! The pitcher's box (our
Hawaiian Islands) did not favor efficient pitch-
ing until the great naval base at Pearl Harbor
was completed, but now it affords every facility
for speedy delivery of the ball, not only to the
home-plate, but also to any corner of the dia-
mond. The pitcher (the United States Navy)
is growing stronger all the time, has excellent
AT THE PACIFIC CROSSROADS 3
control of the ball and is well trained. He is
especially experienced at strike-outs, is good-
humored, never quarrels with the umpire, and
the longer the game the better he pitches. He
says he feels quite at home in his new pitcher's
box, and is ready for work the moment there is
a batter up. That concludes a baseball view of
international strategy around the Pacific.
A relief map of the island of Oahu reveals at
a glance the natural advantages of Pearl Har-
bor. Imagine three large harbors, side by side,
and opening into each other, lying four miles
inland, reached from the sea by a single deep
channel through the coral reef, sufficiently wind-
ing to be easily defended and yet, thanks to the
steepness of its coral banks, giving deep water
right alongside all the docks. So deep is it that
when the entrance channel was being dredged,
the contractors actually dumped the refuse into
the middle of the harbor, because the water there
was over 200 feet deep. Built into the side of
one of the three harbors is a great drydock, long
enough to receive a thousand-foot ship, if and
when she ever comes along. It took nine years
to build, and it looks it. The wireless plant is
so powerful that it talks with the Eiffel Tower
in Paris! The facilities for coaling and oiling
ships are of the very latest type. Around the
4 AT THE PACIFIC CROSSROADS
outside of the great coal piles runs a high con-
crete wall, reminding one of the exterior of a
huge modern college football stadium. You
imagine that its strength is intended for defense,
but are surprised to learn that you are really
looking at the elevated shores of a dry lake,
built, so that if the coal within gets afire, it can
be flooded and the fire promptly extinguished.
To one motoring back of and above Pearl Har-
bor, through the miles on miles of pale green
sugar cane or the long stretches of greenish silver
pineapples, the great harbor looks like three
peaceful Scottish lakes, with peaked hills thrown
around about them, but nature's "protective
coloring" is but camouflaging one of the world's
great strongholds, not only for defense, but also,
if necessary, for decisive offense. The accom-
panying map, with steaming routes and distances
laid out upon it, show that Pearl Harbor bears
the same relation to the Pacific that Malta does
to the Mediterranean. It is, however, of far
greater strategic significance here than is Malta
in its waters, because the Pacific distances are so
much greater that a naval force intending to
launch an attack against our side of that ocean
dare not leave Hawaii unreduced behind it.
Coaling or oiling for a trip across the Pacific,
and naval operations thereafter, is a problem
AT THE PACIFIC CROSSROADS
6 AT THE PACIFIC CROSSROADS
which lies far beyond those of Mediterranean
dimensions.
So much for the baseball view of the Pacific,
in which we have gazed upon that distant scene
from the bleachers beloved of all American
youth, and have cheerfully contemplated possi-
bilities of a contest, which, in our heart of hearts,
we hope will never come to pass. Now for our
second digression from the beaten path of tourist
description what about the Hawaiian Islands
as a refreshment pavilion, standing at the cross-
roads of the Pacific, where travellers may sample
the viands and life of all its furthermost corners.
I, alas! spent but five weeks in that anchored
Paradise, but it needed only one day to justify
' "refreshment" as an exact description. It is a
great mistake to think of Hawaii as merely a
stop-over point on the way to the Orient, and
not as worth a visit for itself alone. You can
sample the Orient by visiting Hawaii and going
no farther. Its 110,000 Japanese generally wear
their native costume, have their temples, gardens,
etc., and so do the numerous Chinese population,
likewise the Koreans and Filipinos. The Japa-
nese and Chinese shops are fascinating. To
complete the picture, trees, plants and fruits of
the Orient grow about you in profusion, brought
hither to save the lazv traveller from further
AT THE PACIFIC CROSSROADS 7
travel. There are no snakes, and there are a
great variety of automobile drives. The original
missionaries (thanks to whom the islands are now
American) must have had trouble describing to
the natives a heaven more alluring than the land
in which they were living! You have, of course,
heard that the climate is nearly perfect com-
fortably warm, but constantly tempered by a
northerly trade wind is practically the same
in every month of the year, confining its extreme
ranges within 59 and 89 on the thermometer.
A tropical land where Caucasians can work in
the fields, and where no malarial mosquitoes
exist think of it! But have you heard that the
rain, although sufficient to keep vegetation beau-
tifully green and clean, has the pleasing practice
of descending so gently and without sun-obscur-
ing clouds that it is locally known as "liquid
sunshine," and never necessitates an umbrella!
Sunstroke is unheard of, and yet the sea is so
warm (averaging 74) that one stays in the surf
with utter disregard of time limitations usual
at Atlantic beaches. Furthermore, moonlight
swimming parties are comfortable and popular.
The Coney Island joys of "shooting the chutes"
pale before those of riding a surfboard or an
outrigger canoe through the Waikiki waves ; you
might as well compare a wooden hobby-horse
8 AT THE PACIFIC CROSSROADS
with a gallop in the open air! I have been there
in August, in January and September, and there
seemed but little difference in the climate, even
for swimming, for the shallow water inside the
long reef is sun heated to about the same tem-
perature the year round. The daytime warmth
is comfortably offset by the cool nights, which
always necessitate the use of a blanket.
You see we shall have no difficulty in justify-
ing our use of the word "refreshment" in describ-
ing Hawaii, and the accompanying map shows
that "crossroads" is equally well selected. From
us to the Orient, from Australasia to Canada, or
any way that one crosses the Pacific, it is con-
venient, nay, almost necessary, to touch at Hono-
lulu, so they all do it, and you have only to sit
there and watch them arrive ships of all sizes,
from every sort of land, manned by every type of
sailormen. The entire merchant marine of that
great ocean serves as delivery wagons to Hawaii's
front door. If you want anything, they bring it
to you, and frequently they make delectable of-
ferings which you did not know about, and for
that reason alone, did not theretofore want. If
you have Missouri blood in your veins, and desire
to be "shown," here follow sundry specifications.
That delectable pink peptonized melon on your
breakfast table is the papaya, and originally came
AT THE PACIFIC CROSSROADS 9
from Australia, where it is called pawpaw. The
picturesque ricefields with their small squares of
soft greens moved hither overseas from China.
The favorite banana here (they have thirty vari-
eties, and there are fields on fields of them) came,
the shorter ones from China, and the taller,
grown near the houses, from Brazil. The bird
that looks like a mocking-bird wearing yellow
spectacles is the myna of India. The swift-flying
blue-gray dove is Australian. The pointed
nosed, rakish oxen patiently plowing acres of
innumerable small, ankle-deep rectangular ponds
for rice or taro-plants are the caribao of the
Philippines, friendly to brown skins but truculent
toward pale-faces. And so it is with the abun-
dant plants and trees, hundreds and thousands of
varieties, assembled from all over the world, use-
ful or beautiful or quaintly interesting. Here
may be seen the spreading banyan of India, each
tree a grove in itself, sacred to the Brahmins
because it was into a banyan that Brahma was
transformed. On May 15th it is worshipped by
all Brahmin women. With rare catholicity there
also grows alongside of it the peepul tree, under
which India believes that Buddha was incar-
nated, or, if you are a Burmese Buddhist and
believe that this fact, so significant to the Far
East, occurred under an asoka tree, that also
10 AT THE PACIFIC CROSSROADS
grows here. American women know the ylang
ylang perfume ; here they may see that obliging
tree which not only yields them the scent, but
also garlands for their South Sea Island sisters,
while its soft white wood serves for canoes in
Samoa and tom-toms for the Malays. For the
newly arrived tourist the most outstanding color
effect comes from the trees, the masses of yellow-
ish red of the royal poinciana of Madagascar,
or the yellow of the Ceylon poinciana, or the
wistaria-shaped blossoms of three trees meeting
together from distant points, the golden shower
of Ceylon, the pink shower of the Caribbean
Sea, and the pink and white shower of India.
Over eighty species of palm adorn the land-
scape, chief among them being the royal palm
of Cuba, forming stately avenues whose color
and marking suggest columns of poured concrete
topped by green waving capitals; the Chinese
fan palm; the traveller's palm of Madagascar;
that world-citizen, the date palm ; and most grace-
ful of all, indigenous to these islands, and there-
fore welcoming to its shores its foreign cousins,
the gracefully leaning, swaying cocoanut palm.
Other native trees are the koa or Hawaiian
mahogany, used extensively for furniture, its
reddish honey-colored wood taking a high polish ;
the intensely hard ohia, with tough fiber and
AT THE PACIFIC CROSSROADS 11
moisture-proof quality fitting it excellently for
fenceposts, railroad ties and fine flooring; the
hau, whose branch-interlacings make it impene-
trable in the forest, but very useful for arbors
and pergolas when grown "in captivity"; and
lastly the kukui, of both practical and aesthetic
service, for a string of its oily nuts burnt one
after another used to provide lights for the
natives, while its pale, heart-of-lettuce foliage
brightens the hillside gullies in odd fashion,
putting high lights where one expects deep
shadows.
The Australian flame tree vies in its strong
vermilion with the frequent hedges of gayly
striped and mottled croton shrubs from the
Moluccas or Spice Islands. Among the plainer
but more useful immigrants are the West Indian
monkeypod tree, affording a shade as grateful
as it is wide-spreading ; the endurable Kauri pine
of New Zealand ; that other useful shade tree the
Tahiti umbrella tree, its dark green foliage en-
livened by an occasional red leaf; the breadfruit
tree, with its succulent food product and decora-
tive foliage of deeply dentated leaves ; fiber plants
for fishnets, ropes, etc. ; and best of all, the alga-
roba the al-korab of Palestine, whose pods or
husks fed the swine tended by the Prodigal Son,
and which since its arrival in 1828 has spread
12 AT THE PACIFIC CROSSROADS
all over the islands. You see Chinese and Japa-
nese children everywhere filling their little bags
with algaroba pods. And the flowering vines!
their profusion is bewildering a wild orgy of
coloring! I shall never forget the aspect of a
house out beyond Fort Shafter smothered in in-
terlacing bougainvillea and alamander a start-
ling glory of purple and yellow to make even
Bakst jealous.
Now does the reader agree with our use of the
word "refreshment," or has he no eyes to be
refreshed ! Nor need one seek out all this beauty ;
it lies at hand all about you. Take the trolley
from Honolulu out to Waikiki Beach, and for
four miles you ride between gorgeous hedges of
oleander, hybiscus or glowing croton plants,
shadowed by flowering trees or gorgeous vines.
And in such prodigal profusion! Oahu College
is shut in from the street by a mile-long hedge
of night-blooming cereus, whose wealth of great
white blossoms, slowly opening as the dark comes
on, suggest the illumination of many electric
lights !
Man, or rather woman, has had about as much
to do with assembling all this beauty as nature,
and other cities will do well to pattern after the
"Outdoor Circle of Honolulu." The energetic
women who compose it have not only succeeded
AT THE PACIFIC CROSSROADS 13
in improving street cleaning methods, and then
in beautifying those streets by public and private
planting of decorative trees, shrubs and flowers,
but also have reduced to the vanishing point dis-
figuring advertisement signs. This last reform
was effected by applying the economic boycott
system ; and it worked as promptly as efficiently.
This same "Outdoor Circle" also carried on a
successful campaign to abolish tenements, with
the result that they have been replaced by num-
bers of cheap but sightly and comfortable bunga-
lows, adapted to the climate by ample provisions
of verandas, or lanai (as they are called in
Hawaii) , life upon which, in the midst of hanging
baskets of vines and flowers is there so general
and beneficial. Just as the Dutch of old New
York City loved and lived upon their stoop, or
door steps, so the Hawaiian spends all his leisure
time on his lanai.
Not only can all these charming things be seen
from near at hand, but also from a number of
scenic viewpoints, more, in fact, than any other
charming place can boast. Drive or walk up
Pacific Heights, or the higher Tantalus Road, or
that oddly shaped extinct crater hospitably
known as the Punchbowl, and not only will you
look down upon unsurpassed scenes combining
sea, mountain, foliage and color, but also upon
14 AT THE PACIFIC CROSSROADS
frequent developments of those delights while
mounting and descending. If by nature you
enjoy surprises, prefer to take your strong
drink in one startling gulp, ask to be taken to the
Pali. What is the Pali? You will drive for
half an hour, 1200 feet up the Nuuanu Valley,
through a throng of handsome homes set in
handsomer grounds, up past the cosy Oahu
Country Club, all the fairway of whose golf
course has turf like English putting greens
(honest! I am a golfer myself), up through a
rapidly ascending mountain pass growing con-
stantly narrower until it reminds you of Ther-
mopylae. Nothing in the slowly closing moun-
tain walls promises anything of a view, nay,
it forebodes the opposite all is quiet and con-
fined. A sudden turn of the road brings you
into a perfect blast of wind, you look down
impossible! Spread out below you is one of
Nature's most stupendous views bleak moun-
tains 3500 feet high herding between them smil-
ing valleys far beneath, sloping gently out to
the smiling sea, into which are thrust rocky head-
lands. It is told of the conqueror King Kame-
hameha that in his last fight against the Oahuans
he drove their army slowly up this pass and then
over this rocky precipice. A sudden end to a
great struggle, and as you listen to the groaning
AT THE PACIFIC CROSSROADS 15
and moaning of the high wind that always blows
here the story seems very real and present.
Little is definitely known of the early history
of the islands or their folk. Fortunately they are
a musical people, and it is from the words of
their old songs handed down through many gen-
erations, that we learn of their past. In this man-
ner, from history embalmed in song, we gather
enough to permit the conclusion that the islands
were settled about 500 A. D., by Polynesians
from the South Seas, who came across the great
stretches of water in fleets of rude canoes, steer-
ing by the stars ; and that there were two distinct
periods of migration, the first purely legendary,
and later, after a considerable interval, another
one from either Samoa or Tahiti or both, in the
llth or 12th century. Why was this? Were
there shifts in the ocean currents which only at
times favored such voyages in that direction?
And if so, when and why were those favoring
conditions altered? A systematic study of the
subject is now under way and enlightenment
therefrom is confidently expected. It is clear
from the physical characteristics of the Hawaii-
ans, from their customs, and from their language
(which is similar to that of the Maoris of New
Zealand) that they come of that great Poly-
nesian stock whose original home is believed to
16 AT THE PACIFIC CROSSROADS
be the island of Savaii, one of the Samoan group.
Those interested in such ethnological studies will
find a treat in store for them in the Bishop
Museum, where are many examples of the kapa
or tapa clothing, beaten out by women from
soaked bark, and dyed or stamped with patterns
carved on bamboo; kahili, or colored feather
standards carried as emblems of rank; plans of
temple ruins; and best of all, those marvellous
feather capes, all yellow and scarlet, priceless
because two feathers only grew on the breast of
a single bird. These capes took years to make,
and by computing the cost of the labor expended
thereon plus that of the great number of birds
necessary (which were rare), it is calculated that
a large cape, such as a king wore, is worth over
a million dollars. They are kept in a specially
designed safe of large dimensions adapted for
convenient display of its treasures.
A Hawaiian landscape would not be complete
without a sugar cane field or great stretches de-
voted to pineapples. Not only do they delight
the optic nerve but also that other most important
nerve which stretches from the heart to the
pocket, for in 1919 the sugar crop yielded the
Hawaiians the tidy sum of $88,000,000 and the
pineapple one $23,000,000. Both of these ample
money-earners are 18-month crops.
AT THE PACIFIC CROSSROADS 17
Hawaiian statistics tell a long story in brief
compass. They reveal that these two principal
crops demonstrate a continuing development in-
telligently directed, for against the latest figures
just given, pineapples in 1916 brought but
$6,632,914, while in that same year the sugar
crop only fetched fifty-four millions, and in 1910
but forty-two. The Hawaiians have left no scien-
tific stone unturned to improve those products.
The best obtainable chemists are constantly at
work upon problems of soil, drainage, plantings,
etc. One of the results thereof is that their aver-
age sugar cane yield per acre is over four tons
(6 l /2 on irrigated land and 3 a /2 on non-irrigated) ,
while in Cuba it is only a little over two. And in
Cuba land and labor are cheap, while in Hawaii
both are dear. There should be a statue of King
Kalakaua erected on every Hawaiian sugar plan-
tation, for it was he who by his reciprocity treaty
with the United States secured such advantages
for their sugar in our country as put that trade
on a firm basis. Likewise his statue should be
erected by us at Pearl Harbor, for that naval
station was the price he paid for that treaty's
trade advantages. Land unsuited for pineapple
or sugar cane is being wisely developed for sisal,
tobacco, coffee and bananas. The 1919 totals for
the island's exports reduced by the amount they
334-
18 AT THE PACIFIC CROSSROADS
paid for their imports left them the tidy profit
balance of forty-seven million dollars. A com-
parison of their 1919 with the 1910 bank deposits
gives illuminating testimony concerning their ad-
vancing prosperity, for it shows an increase from
thirteen to thirty-five millions, included in which
totals are the savings bank deposits of four and
a quarter millions in 1910 against ten and a half
millions in 1919. Of course, their trade is prin-
cipally with our mainland ports, over four-
fifths of imports and 94 per cent of exports. The
Hawaiian islands have proved a profitable invest-
ment for our Government, which, spending upon
them but five millions since annexation, has re-
ceived in customs and internal revenue four times
as much. They certainly deserve more generous
treatment in the matter of public buildings and
similar improvements.
The Hawaiians themselves, living in the midst
of this luxury of nature, are a people of simple
tastes. They like fish and poi as a diet. Poi is
made of flour from the root of the taro plant.
It resembles a breakfast cereal, and is allowed to
become slightly sour, but its consistency is most
important. If it can be eaten with one finger
it is too thick; if three fingers are needed it is too
thin; "two finger poi" is just right! Nowadays
it is served in a cup, and eaten with a fork. It
AT THE PACIFIC CROSSROADS 19
struck me that the preferences of the Hawaiians
were along the lines of poi, papaya, pineapple
and politics ; I grew to like them all.
Speaking of fish recalls another of the color
treats of these Isles of the Blest. Never, even in
the imagination of the most advanced Futurist,
were fish so gorgeously, so daringly colored and
marked, and they are charmingly shown in the
Waikiki Aquarium. The names of these fish are
as picturesque as their coloring, but some of them
are unwieldy, to say the least. Fancy a fish start-
ing out in life handicapped with the family name
of Humuhumunukunukuapua ! The natives
have a legend that to punish a certain wicked
god he was imprisoned under Diamond Head,
that crouching fortress whose volcanic sides
change hourly in color, and forced to paint the
fish. If that be true he must have kept himself
constantly intoxicated in order to have conceived
the drunken dreams of color he portrays upon his
fishy prey.
Nor are the sunsets like those seen anywhere
else, for here they are generally of a delicious
apricot shade, beautified by trade wind clouds,
which during the day withdraw to the mountain
tops, there to form gracefully rolling tablecloth
effects, or to paint over the hillsides even finer
cloud shadows than those of England.
20 AT THE PACIFIC CROSSROADS
Of course, music flourishes in such surround-
ings. Who has not heard the ukulele, that popu-
lar pygmy of guitars!
The only startlingly beautiful sight on the
island of Oahu, where Honolulu and Pearl Har-
bor are situated, is the sudden view from the
Pali, and it is to other islands of the group
one must go for such sights as the Grand Canyon
on Kauai, the world's greatest active volcano on
Hawaii, its largest extinct volcano and the sur-
prising fern forests on Maui. On the ''Big
Island" (as Hawaii is familiarly called) the
Kona district boasts a private climate all its own,
thanks to which its coffee crop sold in 1919 for
$1,105,910. This district is cut off from the
trade winds by the lofty summits of Mauna
Loa (13,675 feet high), Mauna Kea (13,825)
and Hualalai (8,269). Deprived of that offset
to the natural heat of the tropics, Kona would
seem doomed to discomfort, but not at all ! It is
rescued by one of the many wonders of this won-
derful archipelago. Because the earth in this
district, so exposed to unmitigated tropical heat,
has a higher temperature than the ocean, sea
breezes are caused which sweep across it and up
its sheltering mountain slopes in order to estab-
lish an equilibrium constantly disturbed by the
land's heat. There results an agreeable climate,
AT THE PACIFIC CROSSROADS 21
quite private to Kona, which makes May to
August there the wettest months and December
to February the driest, although for all the neigh-
boring islands December has the most rain and
June the least.
A frequent service of inter-island boats makes
easy a visit to these and many other amazing
sights, but the comforts and luxuries of a long
stay are to be had on Oahu, in or near Honolulu,
the capital, whose population both permanent
and transient is constantly growing.
When one has experienced the welcome that
nestles in the Hawaiian word "Aloha," he falls
a helpless victim to the charm of America's mid-
Pacific paradise. What Hawaii means as the
crossroads of the Pacific is known best to its own
people, and it is now usefully expressing itself
in their Pan-Pacific Union, to which all the other
peoples around that great ocean are adhering.
It promises to do as much for the increase of
mutual understanding among them, with Hawaii
for its "telephone central," as the Pan-American
Union is doing for the republics of the western
hemisphere. Go and sit down for a season at this
crossroads, and you will hang about the walls
of your memory such a series of pictures as will
long after brighten your thought and refresh
your spirit in times of need under less favoring
skies.
CHAPTER II
SOME MENTAL GEOGRAPHY
IN our Foreword we pointed out that the
United States is bounded on the south by the
Monroe Doctrine, on the east by our opportunity
to serve stricken Europe, on the north by the
Anglo-Saxon racial tie, and on the west by the
Japanese problem. You will say that this is men-
tal, not physical geography, well, and why not ?
He who does not realize that the physical is
always under the control of the mental, will never
understand the Far East. If we want to get at
the spirit of the Pacific Ocean problem we must
study its psychological factors. This means that
we must reach beyond physical out into mental
geography.
The most outstanding feature of life around
the Pacific is the natural beauty of the back-
ground, there constantly meeting the eye. It
is most fitting that Captain Cook's errand when
first he explored many of those delightful shores
was primarily to observe a transit of Venus.
Venus, the queen of beauty, she who was fabled
22
SOME MENTAL GEOGRAPHY 23
to nave been born of ocean-spray, never more
aptly justified her goddess traditions than in thus
luring the white man out across those charming
seas to even more charming lands. If we can but
learn the lesson of beauty and harmony which
these lovely lands have ages long mutely striven
to teach, then America's western boundary, the
Future of the Pacific, will never suffer the curse
that the militarism of Prussia brought upon
Europe.
It is the spirit of the Pacific Ocean problem
that we are chiefly seeking to explore, for, once
understood, it will prove the key to open that
long corridor of shut doors between ourselves and
a better understanding of the Orient. But pre-
paratory to that exploration it will be useful to
readjust some common misapprehensions con-
cerning the geography of that vast region be-
cause the geographical environment of a people
gives important indications as to its probable
line of development. A change in a country's
climate will sooner or later change its people. It
does not follow that favorable geographical en-
vironment will promptly change a race intro-
duced therein, but a combination of a fine race
plus a fine place inevitably produces national im-
portance. Of course, we know that even during
the historical era, the climate conditions of certain
24 SOME MENTAL GEOGRAPHY
regions have materially altered. The Egyptians,
the Babylonians and the Ninevites, during the
days of their surpassing greatness, lived in lands
whose climate was far more favorable than it is
to-day. This has been thoroughly studied by
Ellsworth Huntington in his "Civilization and
Climate," which contains interesting conclusions
upon the climate enjoyed by those early world
leaders, deduced from the thickness of the rings
on the huge mariposa tree butts of California,
checked by comparison with the saline deposits
along the banks of the Caspian Sea and certain
lakes. The logical outcome of his novel investi-
gations is that the portions of the globe at present
best suited for racial development are ( 1 ) west-
ern Europe; (2) the northerly portion of eastern
and central United States; (3) a strip along the
California coast beginning north of San Fran-
cisco and running south; (4) Japan; (5) New
Zealand, Tasmania and the southerly seaboard
of Australia.
The Pacific Ocean problem is bound up in a
consideration of numbers 3, 4 and 5, and here
we have the necessary combination of a fine race
plus a favoring place. Of these three the Japa-
nese alone represent long residence, while the
Californians, Australians and New Zealanders
owe their present favoring geographical location
SOME MENTAL GEOGRAPHY 25
to racial enterprise, representing as they do the
pioneering initiative of a progressive, home-leav-
ing portion of an already strongly developed
race. From this it is quite clear that the Pacific's
future is going to be in the hands of no weak-
lings, and that outsiders, from now on, will have
small chance of successful intrusion. Foreigners
may overrun and divide up the mainland of Asia,
but no such fate is in store for the Japanese, the
Anglo-Saxons in Australasia, nor their cousins
across the way along the North American sea-
coast. These strong peoples are sure to dominate
their own ocean, but whichever of them attempts
to follow the world-supremacy delusion of mili-
taristic Germany will run up against the counter-
checks provided by these doughty neighbors.
This fact seems so clear, and so sure of recogni-
tion by the strongly developed common sense of
all those powerful nations as to insure future
peace between them.
Geographical environment undoubtedly influ-
ences peoples for good or ill. Their mental as
well as physical development is affected by their
geography. The history of Great Britain and
Japan shows how useful is the greater freedom
for development enjoyed by an island race over
dwellers on the mainland. The English Channel
has many a time proved how much safer is a
26
water boundary than such a line on the map as
that which separated Belgium and Germany, no
matter how much the latter be buttressed by in-
ternational agreements sometimes styled "scraps
of paper." Although we Americans have spread
across a continent, we have always enjoyed the
same water-defended exclusiveness as islanders,
and have therefore been allowed time to cut our
teeth and go through the national diseases of
childhood before being called upon to take our
part in world politics.
Now this fact of the advantages blessing an
island race looms large in the study of the Pacific
Ocean problem, for in its wealth of islands that
body of water differs markedly from the Atlantic
Ocean. It must also be noticed that the westerly
side of the Pacific shows a totally different geo-
graphical adjustment from its easterly side. No
such difference is seen between the two sides of
the Atlantic. There are practically no islands
at all lying off the Pacific coast of North, Central
or South America, certainly none of any impor-
tance. The Galapagos, off Ecuador, and Juan
Fernandez, off Chile, are mere islets. Cross the
Pacific and you find quite a different state of
affairs, and one which has a highly significant
bearing upon our problem. There, lying well off
from the mainland, runs north and south a long
SOME MENTAL GEOGRAPHY 27
chain of island fortresses. These are either in-
habited or controlled by races distinctly stronger
than those behind them upon the continent of
Asia. Unless we are grievously wrong in our
conclusions those strong islanders on the west
and Anglo-Saxon mainlanders on the east are
going to grow even stronger, and the grip of the
Japanese, the Australians, the Canadians and
ourselves upon the watery highways connecting
us will be tightened and not loosened. Outsiders
will remain outsiders. If only we may be given
the good sense to proceed peaceably, and disre-
gard militaristic jingoes certain to work upon
each of us from within!
Reverting to the seclusive immunity enjoyed
by islanders, some captious critic may contend
that Australia (as large as the United States) is
really a continent and not an island, and that
therefore Australians are not island folk. To
this comes the ready response that those five
million Britishers are as yet living only along
their seacoast, having developed but slightly their
back country, and that this proximity to and
outlook upon the sea keeps them as truly an
island race as are their cousins in the far off
homeland. Clearly they have enjoyed the same
lack of interruption to their national life from
without as the British and ourselves, and dreaded
28 SOME MENTAL GEOGRAPHY
no foreign invasion such as constantly threatens
countries upon the continent of Europe, or
China, India and other Asian lands.
Upon the easterly side of the Pacific, then, our
geographies show mainland races fronting an
ocean undefended by islands. On the other side
of the great expanse of waters, the approaches
to a mainland teeming with Oriental populations
are guarded by a protective chain of islands in-
habited to the north and south by stronger races
than those on the Asian continent, while in the
centre, the originally weaker links of the chain
are dominated by two white races, the Dutch and,
in the Philippines, ourselves. The Japanese run
all the way from the centre of Saghalien, 50
north latitude, down to 22 north, where For-
mosa ends, while the Australasian Anglo-Saxons
run south from the equator, beginning with the
islands lately taken from the Germans. The
more easterly fringe of German islands, as far
down as the equator, seem entrusted to the
Japanese. The ethnological strength of those
controlling all these barrier islands cannot be
disregarded in any sensible consideration of the
Philippines' future.
We may remark in passing that Nature her-
self has accentuated in an interesting manner the
marked differences between the Asian continent
29
and the islands lying off it. She has drawn a line
between those which she would allot to Asia,
and those she considers as beyond. A study of
the flora and fauna of the long chain of islands
stretching out from Java and Sumatra into the
Pacific reveals that this natural division falls be-
tween the islands of Bali and Lombok and runs
east of the Celebes and the Philippines, all to the
east being Australasian and quite as different
from those to the west as are the kangaroos of
Australia from any Asian animal. The Celebes
alone possess flora and fauna of both types.
Availing itself of the geographical exclusive-
ness lent by Nature, the labor party of Australia,
determined to avoid competition with cheaper,
imported labor, have insisted upon a White Aus-
tralia. Their position upon this question has
exactly the same economic basis and reason as
that of their cousins in Canada and friends in our
Pacific Coast states in opposing Hindoo, Chinese
or Japanese immigration, or of the Japanese
themselves who exclude the cheaper-living Chi-
nese and Koreans. The policy of a White Aus-
tralia will retard the exploitation of her natural
wealth, but, not only will it conserve racially un-
diluted Australian manhood, but also, and for
that reason, prove a strong factor in keeping their
great ocean pacific for all mankind.
30 SOME MENTAL GEOGRAPHY
An incursion into mental geography causes us
to notice that there is an interesting similarity
between the Australian and New Zealander
island race of to-day and the equally detached
Americans of a century and a half ago. In so
doing we observe how rapid modern communica-
tions have modified what used to be geographical
remoteness, for Australia is no further from Eng-
land by steam than the American Colonies were
by sail. We have changed, for our own people
are no longer the mariners they were in the days
when the Yankee clipper ships brought fortunes
from the Far East home to the sea-viewing an-
cestors of the present day New Englanders,
whose business risks nowadays lie inland rather
than across the waters. The fact that the bulk
of Australian population is still but a seaboard
fringe makes their present stage of development
similar to the early days of our own country,
when we too were mostly a seaboard people. It
does not seem a risky prediction that before Aus-
tralia settles down to a really serious exploitation
of the interior of her great continent, she will,
in response to the national instinct of a seabor-
dering race, complete her hold upon the island-
sprinkled waters lying in her part of the w r orld.
It will be greatly to the advantage of the other
English-speaking races to have her complete her
SOME MENTAL GEOGRAPHY 31
dominion over the inferior peoples of those parts,
and it will likewise mean fair treatment for all
of them, as witness the consideration to-day shown
the Maoris in New Zealand, to quote but one of
many benefits of Anglo-Saxon colonial tolera-
tion.
Americans must remember that while they are
concerned primarily with matters of a continen-
tal nature, the live questions lying across the
Pacific take on that aspect which island races
always confront. Geography and especially
mental geography looms large in all that half
of the world.
The geographical story of the Pacific must not
be left without pointing out one inconvenience
which it sustains, namely, that it is surrounded by
volcanoes, not quiet, well-behaved volcanoes like
Vesuvius, but obstreperous ones. These petulant
factors, apt to break out at any time without
reasonable notice, and then, more harmful to
others than to themselves, are strangely similar
in their effects upon geography to that of mili-
taristic jingoes upon a nation's policies. Vol-
canoes are really safer because their outbreaks
only produce local effects. It will be well if
Pan-Pacific folk learn to counteract the effect of
militaristic jingo upheavals or outbreaks as care-
32 SOME MENTAL GEOGRAPHY
fully as by their architecture they do that of their
volcanoes !
Let us remind those who allege that the Pacific
Ocean is too vast a tract to stage a world war,
that even the 16-knot ships that now ply there,
when compared with the speed of the Roman,
Greek, Tyrian or Carthaginian galleys, reduce
the size of the Pacific to that of the Mediter-
ranean Sea during those centuries when it was
the cockpit of international strife. Japan is now
putting on large 19-knot steamers, and the Cana-
dian-Pacific line will see that and raise it.
It may be noticed that nothing has been said of
South America's interest in the Pacific, but this
can be answered in two ways. In the first place,
take a map and drop a line due south from
Boston; it will fall clear of most of South Amer-
ica, which will lie east of the line, thrusting itself
out into the Atlantic Ocean, and by so much
evidencing its geographical backing away from
the Pacific. Perhaps this is but a fair expression
of South America's preference for matters Euro-
pean, from which part of the world Argentina,
its most progressive nation, is steadily drawing
an immigration of half a million sturdy indi-
viduals per year, half of them from northern
Spain and half from northern Italy. But this
geographical withdrawal of South America is
SOME MENTAL GEOGRAPHY 33
not the only reason for failure to accentuate her
relations to the Pacific. Her two largest, richest
and most powerful countries, Argentina and
Brazil, face toward the Atlantic mentally as well
as geographically, and not the Pacific. It is true
that Chile is also a strong country, but it has only
a population of three and a quarter millions, re-
ceives practically no immigration, has not in-
creased in population for the last 20 years, and
shows no probability of doing so. The republics
of Colombia, Ecuador and Peru are not of a
type to provide any active or aggressive partici-
pation in international adjustments; neither
their race nor their place is favorable thereto.
The only possibility of South America taking an
active part in matters pan-Pacific would be if
there should come about a union of Argentina
with Chile, to which combination Uruguay,
speaking the same language, might usefully ad-
here. In such a union the Chileans, a vigorous
race of political leaders, would probably play as
prominent a part as Ohio or Virginia, those
birthplaces of Presidents and other lesser office-
holders are alleged to have played in our country.
This would mean that this joint southerly repub-
lic, erected in the temperate zone of South
America, would benefit from Chile's knowledge
of the Pacific to use their united strength in
34 SOME MENTAL GEOGRAPHY
that direction. Strong races located in temperate
and favorable zones may never safely be disre-
garded in considering future international possi-
bilities. If and when this favorable combination
of the best of the south Latin races takes place
in a great grain producing territory, then the
mental geography of the Pacific, now dominated
by the brains of Anglo-Saxons and Japanese,
will be enriched and broadened by the participa-
tion of the Latin mind, so potent in Europe.
CHAPTER III
A BRIDGE OF BOATS
JAPAN is reached by a long journey across a
vast ocean, and that approach allows time for
the consideration of what ocean navigation can
mean to a people intelligently disposed to avail
itself to the utmost of those world highways to
power and prosperity.
Out in the Pacific Ocean, alongside the Asiatic
Coast, lie the British Isles of the East, Japan.
In 1633 and 1635, the Tokugawa Shogun then
ruling the country, fearing the effect of foreign-
ers within, and of Japanese travel outside the
home islands, issued edicts excluding the out-
landers and killing ocean navigation for the Japa-
nese by limiting their vessels to fifty tons, or, in
other words, to fishing boats. It was a drastic
move, but it gained for the country the seclusion
her ruler sought. For 222 years this isolation of
the Japanese continued uninterrupted until 1853.
Then began an amazing fairy story, the tale of
a new-born merchant marine. In that year two
momentous events took place, the invasion of
35
36 A BRIDGE OF BOATS
this long undisturbed seclusion by Commodore
Perry and the American fleet, and another Toku-
gawa Shogun (the last of those usurpers of im-
perial power) rescinded the ancient edicts, not
only reopening the seas to those hardy islanders
after two centuries of banishment therefrom, but
also encouraging purchase of foreign built ships
suited for long voyages.
Japan, no longer compelled to turn her eyes in-
ward, looked abroad, and took thought how best
to reach forth into the great world outside. The
problem was bewildering for a folk who, for
generation after generation, had lived so entirely
apart. Something new was needed to enable
these hermits to reach the mainland, to reach
other and more distant mainlands, to learn once
more the long forgotten waterways of her vast
home ocean. They decided that this something
new must be a Bridge of Boats, and starting
energetically to build it, their modern merchant
marine grew apace. The most fairylike portion
of this amazing fairy tale is the tonnage to-day
reached by a shipping starting only 66 years
ago with no training or traditions absolutely
nothing to build upon. Their consistent policy
of governmental assistance has emulated the sa-
gacity of the Tokuwaga rescinder of the ancient
edicts who, not satisfied with opening the door
A BRIDGE OF BOATS 37
to ocean navigation, at the same time encouraged
shipbuilding at home and shipbuying abroad.
He wanted prompt results, and that desire, ever
since actuating Japanese ship-subsidies, has
gained for her a fleet that is the wonder of the
world. A friendly foreigner can speak more
freely on this subject than can a Japanese, for
the latter would be dismissed for a braggart be-
fore he had half finished his story.
To obtain a realizing sense of its surprising
growth, based as it was upon no traditions or
training whatever, compare it with Japan's suc-
cess in modern warfare. Her defeat of the
Chinese in 1895 and the Russians in 1905 is gen-
erally discounted by Occidental critics as being
but the natural result when a nation long trained
in arms and proud of their fighting men meets
another nation which for centuries despised and
neglected the profession of arms, and still an-
other one which was nationally inefficient and
unprepared. Please notice that even her critics
recognized that Japan had always set such store
by military training that she entered her modern
conflicts equipped with fine traditions and techni-
cal preparation. But her even greater successes
in the peaceful field of ocean navigation, from
what did that start? Her merchant marine had
enjoyed no such training in seamanship as had
38 A BRIDGE OF BOATS
her fighting men for war, but, instead, had suf-
fered banishment from the high seas during gen-
eration after generation until the long interdict
of 222 years was concluded. Can the fiction of
any fairy story rival this fact of only 66 years'
growth?
This Bridge of Boats serves a great national
purpose, one that affords a valuable lesson to
such an ingrowing people as Americans were be-
fore the war forced our attention outward. This
Bridge carries Japan's varied products over to
more and more foreign markets, and brings back
the wherewithal for the betterment of those at
home. Over it pass outward her many products,
travelling upon vessels whose freight payments
(an enormous item) remain in home pockets.
Back over it comes the foreigner's purchase
money for Japanese goods, and his supplies of
raw materials needed in Japan, plus his freight-
money for their transportation. One of her three
greatest shipping companies, the Nippon Yusen
Kaisha, paid in November, 1919, a dividend for
the preceding six months of 100% on its stock.
Not only do the various earnings just described
pay back many times over the tax money needed
for the upbuilding ship-subsidies, but also, and
much more important, they furnish employment
to more workers at home, not only in manuf actur-
39
ing goods for export, but also for those who
"go down to the sea in ships" in constantly in-
creasing numbers.
So intelligently has the Japanese system of
ship-subsidies been worked out, that it, plus the
enterprise and hardy adventuring so characteris-
tic of that island race, have given her a merchant
marine only surpassed by that of England and
the United States. The latest available statistics,
(November, 1919) show that Japan has 2,803
steamers, of which 690 are over a thousand tons
burden, and these latter large ones have a total
gross tonnage of 2,154,483, to which the smaller
ones add over a million tons more. The normal
growth of Japanese shipping, which amounted
to about 60,000 tons annually before 1919, was
given a sudden impetus by the withdrawal from
ocean navigation of most of the merchantmen of
the Allied Powers during the war. The Japa-
nese naturally seized upon this golden opportu-
nity, and the demand for new ships grew so great
that she built over 700,000 tons burden during
the year 1918. Baron Rempei Kondo, the pro-
gressive president of the Nippon Yusen Kaisha,
points out that although hitherto the great arter-
ies of Japanese shipping have been the American,
the European and the Australian runs, now, to
employ the numerous new bottoms as well as to
40 A BRIDGE OF BOATS
meet the reopened competition with foreigners,
new lines must be fostered. That step the gov-
ernment is taking, and, by subsidies, helping
especially to push the South American and South
African lines and generally those trading into
the South Seas. Not only does this greatly ex-
tend their Bridge of Boats, but also it opens new
markets to their factories.
Before the war the "Shagaisen," or vessels
other than those of the three great companies, the
Toyo Kisen Kaisha, the Nippon Yusen Kaisha,
and the Osaka Shosen Kaisha, kept to the home
coasting trade or to nearby China ports, except
in the case of a few more venturesome tramp
steamers. Of late, however, these "Shagaisen"
have launched out and trade to all parts of the
world, operating for this larger purpose a gross
tonnage exceeding a million. Of course, many
of these new lines cannot be expected to pay
when first established, but the Japanese are meet-
ing this difficulty just as they have met previous
ones too large for individual enterprise by fi-
nancial aid from the government. To a student
of mercantile economics it is interesting to note
that they are as successful in their system of gov-
ernmental assistance to privately owned and
operated enterprises, as they are not when they
combine government ownership with government
A BRIDGE OF BOATS 41
operation. The explanation is not far to seek
the former enjoys what the latter lacks, i.e., the
all-important incentive of individual enterprise,
and freedom from political appointees or political
hour-and-rate control.
Perhaps, in passing, it will be permitted to a
friendly foreigner to take up the cudgels on
behalf of Japan in regard to a couple of strictures
upon her methods of business. There are two
comments of a critical character which most
travellers make after investigating Japanese
commercial methods. Both deserve explanation,
and as complementary to that explanation there
should be added another general comment which
ought to be made but never is. The first concerns
the alleged practice of employing Chinese cash-
iers or compradors, and the second, the diverg-
ence from sample of goods delivered on order by
Japanese exporters. The comment which is not
made but should be, concerns their limited equip-
ment of modern machinery and commercial appli-
ances, including motor cars, telephones, etc.,
notwithstanding which, Japan has made her
remarkable industrial advance.
Let us take an honest, open-minded look at
the Chinese comprador custom, so often used
by critics as an admission by the Japanese that
they do not dare trust their own people when
42 A BRIDGE OF BOATS
it comes to handling cash. In the first place,
very few of these Chinese are actually so
employed, and in the second place this inter-
pretation of the practice is unfair and incom-
plete. The fact is that the Japanese are not
good at figures. It takes some time to realize
this, but you come to it at last. They have
excellent brains, but lack precision and con-
centration, so absolutely necessary when dealing
with figures. Among numerous instances of this
which recur to the memory, take the following
as fair examples. The manager of the Tokyo
office of a large steamship company, after stating
that a servant's ticket cost two-thirds of the
regular first-class fare, broke down completely
when he tried to figure out that amount, and
ended by frankly asking "how do you get two-
thirds of a number?" I took this to mean that
he was temporarily embarrassed by the absence of
his abacus or counting board, so universally used
for calculation in the Far East, but later the
ticket-seller at the Miyajima railway station,
even with his abacus, made such a mess of figur-
ing four and a half fares to Shimonoseki that the
hotel porter had to help him out. A shopman in
Nikko named a price on a certain lot of antiqui-
ties after spending some minutes over the prob-
lem with his abacus, only to be corrected in his
A BRIDGE OF BOATS 43
addition later by his employer, who thereby ma-
terially reduced the price. Try to draw money
on a letter of credit at any Japanese bank and
see what happens, and how long it takes you
to get the funds. An American, invited to ac-
cept (which he later did) the presidency of a
fifty million yen ($25,000,000) corporation with
half Japanese and half American capital, told me
in Tokyo that one of his conditions had been that
American bookkeeping methods and bookkeepers
be employed, because the Japanese were so poor
at figures, and not because he doubted their
integrity. An American teacher, after eight
years' experience in teaching Japanese youth,
reports that although they showed a surprising
ability to memorize dates or statistics of any sort,
they were strangely unable to unravel the ordi-
nary mathematical problems easily handled by
the average American of similar age. The mat-
ter of Japanese honesty is in nowise involved in
the Chinese comprador practice, for all who have
travelled in Europe will be agreeably surprised
by the honesty of Japanese servants and hotel
people. After four months there and never once
locking our hotel rooms, we not only lost nothing,
but were twice bothered by having articles not
our own put into our luggage. Indeed, no-
where will the traveller experience such honesty
44 A BRIDGE OF BOATS
and desire to please from all with whom he
comes in contact as in Japan.
The Chinaman, on the other hand, seems to
come naturally by his skill at figures. Some of
them are almost uncanny in the rapidity with
which they will work out the most intricate prob-
lem of accounts. This is particularly noticeable
in those dealing with foreign exchange. The Chi-
nese are as skillful with figures as the Japanese
are slow, and this rather uncomplimentary ex-
planation is all that is needed to dispel the Chi-
nese comprador bogey of the anti-Japanese
critic. Lastly, we refer this same critic to a new
comprador story which he will find in our chapter
on China.
And now for the divergence-from-sample crit-
icism, which is unfortunately a "true bill," and
one freely criticized by the Japanese press and
chambers of commerce. So honest is the average
Japanese that it makes one reluctant to say of
this fact "shortsighted unscrupulousness of cer-
tain exporters," and then change the subject to
one more pleasant. A frank facing of the situa-
tion, followed by an investigation of their manu-
facturing methods, may help to clear up some of
the sources of these regrettable divergencies. Iri
the first place, one notes that Japan, dotted
everywhere with mountains, is a paradise of water
A BRIDGE OF BOATS 45
power, a fact which American capitalists are
beginning to recognize, as is evidenced by the
recent embarkation of $10,000,000 by one Ameri-
can corporation in Japanese water-power plants,
on a fifty-fifty basis with the local people.
The value of this cheap form of power has long
been understood in those islands, where, for gen-
erations before its larger possibilities were
grasped, it had been used in many small ways.
For example, junks with water-wheels attached
are anchored in the streams whose current, oper-
ating the wheels, provides cheap power to grind
rice from the neighboring fields. Even the poor
man's house has electric light, for a ten-candle-
power light costs but four cents per night. In
many villages the people enjoy free electric light-
ing in their houses because the streams that gen-
erate the power are the common property of the
community. Most toyshops sell cheap water-
wheels with pipes and tiny rice-mill complete, so
that children early learn the mechanics of water
power. One sees hillside villages through which
a rivulet, brought in at the top, turns a series of
waterwheels all the way down the village street,
giving power for a dozen or more small indus-
tries conducted by workmen in their own homes.
A natural result of this was the development and
spread of what the English call "cottage indus-
46 A BRIDGE OF BOATS
tries" as contradistinguished from factories, of
which latter, speaking comparatively, there are
but few thus far in Japan. This "cottage indus-
try" system doubtless makes for better living
conditions among those employed therein than is
possible in the average factory community, but
it has its commercial drawbacks. Articles manu-
factured in the workmen's homes, be they pot-
tery, cutlery, toys or what not, can never be so
exactly alike as those turned out from a factory.
To the merchant this means that the goods he
ordered from the manufacturer will not run so
true to sample if from a "cottage industry" source
as from a factory. As a result the merchant be-
comes accustomed to this divergence from sample
and grows careless in the same regard with his
customers. Perhaps we have here at least a
partial explanation for the evil we are investi-
gating. The laxity some Japanese exporters dis-
play in letting their deliveries differ from samples
used by their agents when soliciting orders is
proving so hurtful to their export trade that
certain of their leading chambers of commerce
and newspapers have indulged in plain speech,
demanding reforms. "Get-rich-quick" methods
are proving as fallacious there as in ours, or any
other country, and they themselves have waked
up to it, and are quite frank on the subject.
A BRIDGE OF BOATS 47
There has lately been considerable public dis-
cussion in Tokyo and Yokohama concerning the
falling off which this unfortunate practice has
caused in the large match trade which Japanese
manufacturers captured when German and other
European supplies were cut off by the war.
Speaking of matches, it is both interesting and
significant that the Japanese match men are plan-
ning to combine and then enlist American capital,
thus also securing the latest American improve-
ments in machinery. A similar action is being
taken by some Tokyo toy manufacturers. Does
this not suggest a useful manner of pushing
American trade in the Orient? Buying into a
successful "going concern" with established
markets for its wares, and then cheapening and
bettering the product is surely a shorter and
more certain road to foreign markets than a
haphazard invasion with illy prepared agents,
as some American firms are doing. Japan has
been placed near the Asian markets by the "act
of God," but needs our capital for their large
development just as much as we need her knowl-
edge of those markets and influence therein.
And now for one general observation which
foreign investigators of Japanese commercial
progress ought to make but do not that of how
little their amazing progress has been aided by
48 A BRIDGE OF BOATS
the use of modern mechanical appliances and
machinery. Modern industrial methods are
needed there more than is suspected by the aver-
age foreigner impressed by Japan's success in
warfare and shipbuilding. He will be surprised
to learn that although the use of electric light is
general because abundant water-power makes it
cheap, there are few telephones, and as for motor
cars, so necessary to us that they are no longer
classed as luxuries even by the small farmer,
there are but 3600 in Tokyo to a population of
over two million, but 250 in Kyoto for over four
hundred thousand people, and the same limited
number for the three hundred thousand of such a
cosmopolitan, up-to-date seaport as Yokohama,
the greatest in Japan. The present character
of the rice-fields precludes the employment of
agricultural machinery, used so little there in any
branch of agriculture, although the country is
so peculiarly dependent upon the product of its
soil. These things are coming, but they are do-
ing so but slowly, and they have a long way to
come before reaching the Occidental level. Their
telephones and telegraphs, all owned and oper-
ated by the government, are no more efficient than
this experiment has proved in ours or any other
country. These comments are not made to crit-
icize the Japanese for being backward, but to
A BRIDGE OF BOATS 49
point out that she has thus far made her wonder-
ful industrial advance without the valuable as-
sistance other nations are drawing from motors
plus agricultural and other machinery. When
she equips her hard-working and cheap man-
power with the manifolding arm of sufficient
modern machinery it is difficult to predict the
strides she will make. And she is getting ready
to do this very thing make no mistake about it!
A consideration of the Bridge of Boats con-
structed by the Japanese has particular value for
Americans for two reasons. The first is that it
proves the results thus obtainable for our factory-
invested capital and even more for American
labor, since by increasing the foreign market for
the former's products it thereby broadens the de-
mand for workmen, and a rising demand means
a rising wage. Nothing is more important to
the future of our great republic than continued
and increasing employment for our labor at such
a rate as will gradually elevate their standard of
living. It is a great blessing that we all work in
America, and therefore, how to raise the level
of our workmen both in his work and in his
home is the most vital problem to which our
statesmen can turn their attention. The Japa-
nese realize this, and in their Bridge of Boats
they have worked out a fine all around plan for
50 A BRIDGE OF BOATS
achieving the desired result in a manner benefit-
ing a maximum of their citizenship at home or
afloat, working with hands in the shops or ships,
or with brains in directing them. We cannot do
better than to go and do likewise.
The second reason why it is highly desirable
for us to know of the Bridge of Boats and of the
prosperity it brings to Japan is because this
knowledge will clear up much misunderstanding
by our people of Japan's purposes and what she
is going to do next. Clearly, she is at one of
those great parting of the ways, one of those
Crossroads of Destiny to which all nations come
in the course of their development. Which way
is she heading? To paraphrase a popular song,
"We don't know where she's going, but she's on
her way." She certainly is "on her way," and
that, too, with all sails set. Many Japanese
leaders of political thought, realizing her great
strides as an exporting nation with unlimited
cheap water and man power, frown upon the
military party urging reliance upon the army and
navy alone to advance her prosperity and pres-
tige. The former see the desired goal more
safely reached through increasing the nation's
wealth, thereby bettering living conditions, and
thus making hers a greater people. And their
strongest argument is what her Bridge of Boats
A BRIDGE OF BOATS 61
has done and will do for Japan. Nor do they
wish to risk the destruction of that bridge.
The military folk say "we need more territory
for our overcrowded population increasing at the
rate of 700,000 per year. See what we gained
for you in the Chinese and the Russian wars;
we will do even greater things if a freer hand be
given us." Which leaders will the sagacious
Japanese follow? Let us try to look at the
problem through their eyes, which means that we
must give fair consideration to both the pathways
now open to them.
All Occidentals know of the achievements of
Japanese arms during the last twenty-five years,
and of the territorial gain to their Empire which
resulted therefrom. Korea, the size of the British
Isles, has been definitely incorporated into the
Empire and so has the large island of Formosa
and the southerly half of Sakhalien, while the
leasehold upon Manchuria is an even more im-
portant and valuable prize. Because of this
knowledge it is but natural that foreigners jump
to the conclusion that Japan is not only ready
for war at any moment, but is actually spoiling
for it. But would those Occidentals reach that
conclusion if they knew as much about Japan's
recent victories of peace, and chief among them
her Bridge of Boats ? We venture to think not !
52 A BRIDGE OF BOATS
One cannot intelligently discuss the problem of
the Far East by treating of Japan on land alone,
and without consideration of how her amazing
commercial successes upon and across the high
seas influence her toward peace; her merchant
fleets would disappear as has Germany's should
she fail in war, and her people know it.
On the other hand, it is well to be entirely frank
concerning the strength of her military party,
which opposes acceptance of a peaceful evolution
through increasing commercial relations with the
outside world. It is headed by tirelessly active
leaders as sagacious in peace as they have proved
themselves in war. Through their efforts the
schoolchildren, those masters of to-morrow, are
everywhere given military drill, even girls and
boys in primary schools. Almost every temple
possesses a striking military trophy of cannon
taken from the Russians. Terauchi did this, and
it was generally approved except by a few old-
fashioned folk who grumbled that for centuries
the only warlike trophies permitted in Buddhist
temples had been imitation and not real weapons.
The fighting man has always enjoyed great pres-
tige in Japan, and it is only natural that this fact
should be exploited along political lines by mili-
tary politicians. The acquisition of Formosa,
of Manchuria, of Korea flattered the national
A BRIDGE OF BOATS 53
pride, just as it would have done that of any
other people, and, of course, this strengthened
the prestige of the military party. 'Popularity
of the right to wear uniform has been employed
here just as it was in Germany. Government
employees, and they are legion, wear uniforms.
Primary school boys all wear military caps, while
middle school, high school and university students
have neat dark blue uniforms with metal buttons,
though the university men add an academic touch
by having their military caps slightly squared at
the top a sort of martial cousin to the "mortar
board" headgear of Anglo-Saxon collegians.
Then, too, the military party enjoys the sup-
port of the yellow press (in this regard Japan
is quite up to date!), which is to-day protesting
stoutly against any reduction in the force of
60,000 men which their military authorities sent
into Siberia when the British and ourselves, ad-
hering to the agreement, sent only 7,000 men
apiece. Furthermore, those same papers hint at
a permanence of their forces there, on the ground
of Siberia's adjoining Manchuria. The Tokyo
newspapers announced that on November 26,
1919, the Japanese Diplomatic Advisory Coun-
cil recommended that no additional forces be sent
to Siberia as requested by the War Department.
Two days later the same papers reported that
54. A BRIDGE OF BOATS
General Tanaka, the War Minister, had never-
theless decided it was necessary to send them,
and the evening and night of the following day,
on my way to Shimonoseki from Korea, I wit-
nessed the departure of five transports loaded
with troops. This episode seems to indicate that
the War Department has the final say in such
matters. %
Another light upon the military party's plans
comes from a speech made in October, 1919, by
a leading Australian labor orator. He urged
that Australia do not accept the mandate for the
German islands south of the equator, because
that carried with it an approval of Japan's re-
taining the German Caroline and Marshall
islands north of that line. He argued that they
were shipping to those islands many airplanes
and much concrete, which, he opined, were not
for agricultural purposes! The Japanese mili-
tarists know that those islands lie athwart our
lines of communication from Hawaii to the Phil-
ippines ; they know that at the end of the Spanish
war we offered Spain one million dollars for the
Caroline Islands but she refused it; they know
that in Jaluit, on one of the Marshall Islands,
they have a strong naval base 1400 miles nearer
to Hawaii (and therefore nearer to California)
than their navy formerly enjoyed, and they know
A BRIDGE OF BOATS 55
the effect that these facts must have upon Amer-
ica's opinion of Japan's policy in the Pacific.
They know all this, and they don't care what
we may be thinking on the subject, for our
friendship or commercial cooperation interests
them not at all ! They do not feel, as do outsiders,
that a choice by any nation of the path marked
out by such as they, inevitably leads down
through increasing international distrust to loss
of credit (commercial and otherwise) abroad,
and finally to the end which Prussia reached a
swamp engulfing for more than a generation all
national ambitions, proper and improper alike.
Just here it should be remarked that although we
all recognize what Germany has lost in men, ma-
terial, indemnity requirements, and sapping of
national vitality by death of the physically fittest,
not yet do either we or they realize what her loss
of world credit means and will mean. Six-
sevenths of the world's business is done with
credit, and only one-seventh with cash. Ger-
many is short of cash, but she will find that she
is equally short of credit. Her army's treatment
of Belgium and northern France will prove to
have been bad business, in the strictest sense of
the word. Germany has demonstrated the re-
ductio ad absurdum of militaristic policies, just
as Russia has proved that the world can be made
56 A BRIDGE OF BOATS
too free for democracy. A democracy of the
present Russian type is as dangerous in its
freedom from restraint as was the Prussian
army clique. Bolshevik demagogues and Ger-
man Junkers come to the same in the end.
Japanese advocates of territorial expansion by
force of arms always include in their popular
inducements the bait of an enhanced influence in
and about the Pacific, their home ocean. But
there are many of their fellow-citizens, influential
men, who, having seen Germany lose her Pacific
islands and Alsace-Lorraine, understand that
taking does not always mean keeping. Further-
more, these wise heads realize that it is unwise
to risk losing their carefully built up Bridge of
Boats, which can acquire for them something far
more important to their future than a few islands
or square miles of alien territory, viz., increasing
market outlets so incessantly demanded by the
mounting production of their national industries.
These trained business minds, counselling to-
gether in the powerful Chamber of Commerce
at Tokyo, Yokohama and other centres regret
that, although in 1905 during their Russian war,
American sympathy everywhere favored Japan,
and our pockets were open to her loans, all that
is now changed. Who changed it if not the ad-
vancing policies of their military party ? Perhaps
A BRIDGE OF BOATS 5?
an X-ray instrument put upon the brains (and
fine brains, too!) at the centre of their army and
navy factions might reveal some fuller answer
than outsiders can guess especially if operated
on the head of the overreaching blunderers
who served the outrageous twenty-one demands
(or more properly, five groups of demands) on
China in January, 1915.
Notwithstanding the military party's influence
in the conduct of the Japanese Government I do
not believe they will succeed in leading down the
Prussian pathway a shrewd people imbued with
long traditions of frugality, decency and practi 1
cal thinking, of love for ancestors practised in
loving care of children, of industry and aesthetic
tastes nowhere and never surpassed. And why
do I thus conclude after but four months' study
of conditions in different parts of the Island
Empire? It is because I thus learned at first
hand of the effects at home as well as on the
seas and abroad, of their far-reaching Bridge of
Boats. To risk losing that bridge to national
prosperity and progress would be folly. Over
that structure of peace lies their surest and
quickest path to increasing power among the
nations of the earth, and a growing proportion
of those sturdy islanders know it.
The question, then, which really confronts the
58 A BRIDGE OF BOATS
investigator is, will or will not those among them
who value the friendship of Americans and
what that friendship means of capital and mar-
kets, be able to restrain their military parti-
sans? and, secondly, can they swing their
public opinion and next their leaders to their
new and broader international viewpoint? We
have agreed that they are at the crossroads of
their national destiny will they step out in
the direction of disregarding others' points of
view as in the short-sighted military dispensa-
tion in Korea lately changed, and the clumsy
handling of the Shantung opportunity, for
both of which the military party is to blame,
and, most significant of all, retain the Pacific
islands athwart our line to the Philippines? Or
will they turn to the right, ana by regaining the
public support they enjoyed in 1905 throughout
America, the world's richest nation, win on to
increasing greatness hand in hand with the re-
sources of our great republic instead of in spite
of us ? France had to make this same choice con-
cerning England after her Fashoda incident.
She decided to check her military party's "policy
of pin-pricks" as it was then called, and con-
fine her territorial expansion within reasonable
limits. The result of her choice in that crisis
was then supposed to concern none but herself
A BRIDGE OF BOATS 59
and England. We now know that it made pos-
sible an Anglo-French friendship which under
the skillful diplomacy of that very great English
King, Edward VII, blossomed into the Anglo-
French Entente which in 1914, '15, and '16 saved
European civilization from the Huns.
The question of which pathway to increasing
greatness the Japanese choose is not only of vital
importance to them, but also it deeply concerns
the other great powers, and especially ourselves
and Great Britain, with our important interests
in and about the Pacific Ocean. This choice of
route to a lofty goal is one which must be decided
by the Japanese people themselves. Those of us
foreigners who admire the ancient spirit of that
land can only look on and hope that the choice
of the modern incarnation of that spirit will ac-
cord with what we believe to be the strength of
its roots in the past. Our belief that the military
party will not succeed in leading it down the
Prussian pathway has its strongest support in
the Bridge of Boats.
CHAPTER IV
LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK
HERE we are, steaming up the deep bay on
whose westerly shores Perry landed, and beyond
his landing place on the left rises Yokohama,
and further still, where shallow water protects it,
Tokyo. How shall we see this charming country
together? all its fascinating sights its national
development so distinctive and special in every
detail its people who act and think along Orien-
tal lines, and express their thoughts in a fashion
differing more widely from ours than at first one
realizes. So kaleidoscopic is the impression it all
makes upon the newly arrived Occidental that
any attempt to give a coherently continued de-
scription must prove futile. Perhaps our best
course will be to put into your hands some ran-
dom pencil sketches of what struck us as novel
and interesting, and with them give you the ad-
vice not to spend much time at first in modernized
Yokohama or Tokyo, but to get on without delay
to such places as Kyoto or Nikko or Nara, which
are the Japan you have come so far to see. After
60
LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK 61
that, a little later on, come back to the great
capital and its nearby seaport with mind and eye
enlightened upon things Japanese and therefore
more indulgent to the modern Japan, which,
frankly, is not especially engaging. After you
have glanced through these pencil notes, and
after we have seen certain ancient gardens, and
gone on some pilgrimages together, then we will
venture sundry conclusions concerning the na-
tional expressions or policies of this people into
whose daily life we have been looking.
International policies are but external prod-
ucts of the internal development of a people, and
cannot properly be understood by foreigners un-
willing or unable to learn of that internal devel-
opment which reveals itself in the nation's daily
life. This is particularly a land that one must
see for himself, for there await him surprises
everywhere, and every day, around every cor-
ner; no land contains so many for even the
blase foreign traveller as Japan! Nor does
reading in advance of descriptive travel books
prepare one for them, so varied are they, and
beyond the intake of any one book-writing mind.
Here follow random notes upon a few of the
surprises that struck this particular writer.
Newspaper Reporters. The boasted enter-
prise of New York or Chicago reporters, espe-
62 LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK
cially as exhibited in the interviewing of helpless
foreigners reaching our Land of Freedom, has
nothing which Tokyo or Yokohama cannot equal
for those arriving at the latter. I was honored
by intimate inquisitorial contact with gentlemen
representing no less than seven journals of those
two cities, and their vigorous methods put both
the Holy Inquisition and a stomach-pump equal-
ly to shame. And their photographers! they
practise their art (or assaults, if you prefer it)
in such smilingly ruthless fashion that one really
cannot indulge in the justifiable homicide which
should be their lot. When a friend was welcom-
ing me in the Imperial Hotel at Tokyo, one of
these camera bandits actually rested his weapon
on the shoulder of the said friend, exploded a
flashlight, and then instantly offered his official
card with so guileless and engaging a smile as
completely to disarm the victim. The insistence
of the interviewers, as well as their voluminous
interrogations have, however, compensation in
the fact that they publish what you say, instead
of what you don't, as has been known to happen
upon (shall we say) rare occasions at home!
Bare Heads. Perhaps the skulls of the Japa-
nese are thicker than ours, or else from babyhood
they have been accustomed to having their heads
uncovered, anyhow they seem not to notice the
LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK 63
cold of winter any more than the summer's sun,
for they are naturally a hatless race. The peaked
straw hats of the coolies are not hats at all,
they are little roofs that rest only upon the ex-
treme top of the skull, and require a band under
the chin, or around each ear, to keep them on.
The women never wear any hats, for their coiffure
is too elaborate and too much a source of pride
to undergo even temporary eclipse under any
sort of headgear. You will see coolies with a
strip of white cotton tied about their heads so
that they seem to be wearing low turbans, but
they aren't it is only a bandage around the
brows and back of the head, leaving the top of
it bare. Men and boys wear their hair either
closely cropped or entirely shaved off. Of late
years the soft felt hat of the Occident has come
in with European clothes, but almost never our
hard derby hat. The silk hat accompanies the
frock coat of ceremony, to which garment they
still cling notwithstanding its demise elsewhere.
Schoolboys and university students are allowed
to wear a uniform cap when in public which, of
course, is a proud privilege, but otherwise bare
heads. We arrived in Yokohama a rainy day in
September bare heads everywhere! We sailed
from Yokohama a bleak morning late in Decem-
ber, with a cold wind blowing in from the sea, but
64
of all the Japanese crowding the pier to say
"Sayonara" to their friends, only a very few pos-
sessed hats, so bare heads was our first and last
impression of that sturdy race.
Dress of a Sturdy Race. Nor are bare heads
for young and old the only indications of the
sturdiness that blesses these rugged islanders.
Bare legs and scant clothing, regardless of rain
or cold, are everywhere to be seen. If they are
not born tough, it must toughen them! Japan,
like England, is a rainy country, and especially
so when one gets up into the hills. At Nikko it
rains an unfair proportion of the time, and cold
rain too, but nevertheless the men and boys went
about with bare legs and light cotton garments,
and the women's clothes would have seemed un-
healthily thin were it not for the protection given
by the broad obi tied around the body. So light
and airy seems the national costume that when
you see a Japanese man in European dress he
looks unduly muffled up! Although the men
frequently wear foreign attire, the women never
do, except when it is required, as for court ladies
at official functions. It is more than well that
they thus cling to their national costume, whose
long graceful lines suits their dainty build ad-
mirably, while they always look strange in our
style of dress, which suits them not at all. A
LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK 65
Japanese man of large affairs told me that he
wore western clothes when at work, for they were
more practical and better suited for that purpose
than his native clothing, but that when office
hours were over, he changed back because he was
vastly more comfortable when freed from our
collars and trousers !
Umbrellas. As we have already remarked, it
rains a good deal in Japan during certain seasons
of the year, just as it does in England, but no
one ever accused the English of utilizing their bad
weather to add picturesqueness to their appear-
ance, but the Japanese do! As soon as the rain
comes on, out swarm yellow oiled-paper umbrel-
las, large broad ones, useful to cover the load on a
coolie's back as well as himself, or the baby peep-
ing over its mother's shoulders. And always the
bright color of the umbrella and its translucence
lend a halo to the bearer that distinctly brightens
the scene. Not only are these umbrellas never
so gloomy and dispiriting as are ours, but also
they are never so monotonous in effect, for
painted upon them are effective ideographs giv-
ing the owner's name, or the hotel where he is
stopping, or the business house with which he is
connected. Even the poorest carry them because
they are so cheap, costing only twenty to thirty
cents. They are surprisingly durable and imper-
66 LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK
vious to the rain. Their only inconvenience is
that they must be set out to dry after the rain
is over, but this practice is also picturesque, for
the day after a rain Japan blooms with innumer-
able yellow umbrellas like great blossoms a-dry-
ing in the sun.
Clogs. As practical and effective as their um-
brellas for wet weather are their high wooden
clogs. Japanese like and wear these clogs every-
where outdoors, even in fine weather. When it
is rainy, no other footgear provides so sure a
guarantee of dry feet. Their use makes for a
rather awkward gait but also insures those strong
ankles with which this people are blest. Also,
and furthermore, it puts a certain sound into a
foreigner's head that ever after means for him
"Japan" a musical click as the clog strikes the
ground and then a faint scuff between the clicks.
They call this sound "koron-koron." Generally,
the women strike the ground more sharply with
one clog than the other, so that there is a distinct
difference in the sounds produced the note is
higher for the foot striking the harder. Some
one has said that if you stand above a city its
sound, rising up, reaches you as one musical note
A flat for Naples, for example. In similar
fashion, the musical "click, scuff, click, scuff" of
LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK 67
wooden clogs is a memory one is sure to take home
from Japan.
Congress Gaiters. Japanese lay off their
footgear when they enter a house, and in the old
days, before the invasion of things modern, this
was quite simple, for the sandal or the clog
slipped on or off quite readily. The shoe of
western civilization presented quite a problem to
the Japanese mind, for unbuttoning or unlacing
meant time and trouble to him who had many
times a day to shed these modern conveniences
( ?) . Our old-fashioned "Congress gaiter," with-
out laces or buttons, but with elastic sides making
them equally easy to put on or off, has provided
a solution for this problem, so the now despised
Congress gaiter of the western world, after shak-
ing off the dust of our unappreciative land, has
taken up its residence in Japan, where it would
seem to have filed naturalization papers.
Bundles. In our country bundles are not
only a nuisance, both one's own and other peo-
ple's, but also they are unsightly. Perhaps, if
they were not so unsightly they would not be
considered such nuisances, and yet nobody has
ever undertaken such a needed aesthetic reform.
But in Japan, bundles are actually picturesque!
The more other people carry of them, the more
do they thereby brighten the picture, and even
68 LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK
your own bundles look so attractive as to make
it positively pleasing to carry them about. The
reason is that the Japanese have the custom of
wrapping all bundles in colored pieces of stuff
called "furoshiki," and these pieces might have
been cut from Joseph's coat of many colors, so
gay and variegated are they. The better the
taste of the man or the woman, the better selected
and combined are the hues of his or her handker-
chief-like bundle-cover. Men carry their bundles
just as our men do in whatever happens to be
the easiest way, but girls always carry theirs
upon one of their arms, generally using the other
to steady it. Schoolgirls on their way to or from
school carry their books in this manner, and the
gay little bundles add noticeably to the charming
effect produced by a group of these merry little
damsels, chatting busily together.
Gold Teeth. The gold fish which so abound
in Japan are charming, but gold front teeth, now-
adays equally abundant, are far from attractive.
Of late years there has arisen there a craze for
dentistry, and what is the use of investing money
in modern dentistry unless you have something
to show for it! This is one of the many cases in
which it would be better to be an altruist, and
refrain from seeking such ostentatiously opulent
effects, but alas! the gold front tooth has become
LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK 69
so popular that "what cannot be cured must be
endured."
Railway Travel. Their trains are very com-
fortable, but unfortunately, neat as are the Japa-
nese in their homes, and, indeed, everywhere else,
they are not properly train-broken. They litter
up the floor with orange peel, paper, cigarette
butts, etc., even in the first-class cars of the best
express trains. Every once in a while their own
newspapers indulge in tirades against this pecul-
iarity, but it seems to persist notwithstanding.
These untidy habits are somewhat offset by the
constantly reappearing train-boy, brush in hand,
who cleans up the debris cast down by careless
passengers.
Their railroads are all narrow gauge which, of
course, means narrow cars, but not uncomfort-
ably so, for the seats in the day coaches, and the
berths in the sleeping cars (except in a few com-
partments) run lengthwise the car. The dining
cars are especially good, European food, now be-
coming so popular among the Japanese, being
always served. It is varied, well cooked, and
quite cheap, so the dining cars enjoy a large pat-
ronage and are full a large part of the day. The
berths on the sleeping cars are as comfortable
as ours. Even express trains do not run very
fast in Japan, seldom exceeding an average of
70
twenty-five miles an hour, and the result is that
sleeping cars are used for distances that would
be considered too short for them in America. At
every station there are boys selling "bento" or
lunch boxes, very neat and appetizing in their
make-up, and these boys do a thriving business,
for the Japanese are good trenchermen. Most of
the stations have large open wash-stands with
brass bowls and faucets, and passengers patronize
these conveniences in large numbers. The Japa-
nese not only washes his hands and face but also
his entire head, and like the clean, healthy animal
he is, takes evident pleasure in his ablutions.
Railways as Novelties. Several amusing
stories are told of the bewilderment which the
railways, when first introduced, caused to the
Japanese peasant. He was glad to avail himself
of this novel convenience, but understood it not
at all. He had always been accustomed to leave
his clogs or sandals outside the door before enter-
ing a house. To his unenlightened mind this rail-
way car was a sort of a house, and therefore, be-
fore mounting the car platform, he would slip off
his footgear as usual, and later be much surprised
and annoyed not to find them waiting for him
when the train stopped at his station!
In this land of paper windows, the glass panes
used in the railway cars had at first to be pro-
LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK 71
tected against ignorance byt red lines painted
across them. Otherwise the passengers, especially
those travelling third class, would have bumped
or cut their heads through disregard of the unex-
pected panes.
English Spoken. It is surprising how much
English one hears in Japan. One is constantly
reminded that ours is really a world language,
and is daily becoming more so. Every Japanese
schoolboy is required to study 'English five years,
and although this no more guarantees fluency
than does study of foreign languages among us,
still it shows its effect. The Japanese youth loves
to practise his English, and sometimes it seems to
the traveller that the less he knows, the better he
enj oys the practice. But on the whole, the result
is useful for the Anglo-Saxon, because he can get
about anywhere in Japan with no other language
than his own far more comfortably than in any
other foreign land. Even if he loses his way in a
street or "gets stymied" (as a golfer would say)
in some shop, there always turns up an amiable
Japanese of recent education, very pleased to
help out and at the same time practise his
English.
Sightseeing. There is one purely Japanese
trait that you will hardly notice during your first
few weeks there, but thereafter it will grow
72 LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK
rapidly in wonder their amazing capacity for
sightseeing.
You are travelling for that purpose and there-
fore will no more realize it at first than a man on
a steamer feels the wind if it is blowing in the
same direction he is steaming, but everywhere
you go there will be groups of guide-conducted
tourists large groups and all much interested
in the sights and therefore strikingly different
from the bored squads of Americans or English
one sees being herded about the galleries of
Europe. And even more surprising than the
number, interest and frequency of these Japa-
nese adult tourists are the classes or whole
schools of young people bent on the same inquisi-
tive and educating errand. Nor is it all "cakes
and ale" for these student sightseers, for they
must write down their impressions on the spot.
I remember seeing several dozen boys about ten
years old stopped by their teacher at the exit of
the Kyoto Zoo because one of them had not
finished writing out his views concerning the ani-
mals! All these sightseers, whether school chil-
dren or their elders, seem always to be having a
beautiful time, a real holiday outing. To see
them trooping into a Japanese hotel late in the
afternoon, all talking and laughing at once, with
none seeming tired or bored, no signs of an irk-
LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK 73
some duty done that our tourists generally dis-
play, gives one quite a side light upon the national
capacity for getting pleasure out of everything,
a trait that the generally happy face of the pass-
erby on a Japanese street indicates. You can
hardly travel anywhere in Japan without seeing
whole trainloads of tourists on their way not only
to accessible points of interest like Xara or Nikko
or Kyoto, but also to more out-of-the-way sights
like Amono-Hashidate or Miyajima. In a later
chapter we will speak of the frequent pilgrimages
(a type of religious sightseeing) which are so
prevalent in Japan as to provide a striking
parallel for the wide popularity similar visits to
holy places enjoyed in Europe during the Middle
Ages. All this means that the average Japanese
will, if questioned, be found to have seen more of
his own country than have any other people.
"See Japan first" is as much his motto as ours
is "travel abroad to complete your education."
Japanese Inns. Japanese hostelries deserve
a better name than that which travellers usually
give them. Just because of certain peculiarities
of Japanese food, such as raw fish, sweet soup,
etc., unpalatable to the Occidental, why should
there be forgotten the exquisite neatness, the at-
tention to your comfort, and the quaint customs
always there found. "But I don't like sleeping
74. LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK
on the floor" you say. How do you know whether
you do or not until you try it in Japanese fashion?
The deft little maids bring in a number of thick
quilts called "futon." These are placed one on
top of the other until the necessary softness and
thickness has been attained. Then one, folded
up, is placed under one end of the topmost futon
to elevate it to the dignity of a pillow. Over the
top of recumbent you is laid a comforter, thick
or light, as the season demands. If you don't
find that a comfortable bed, then you are a diffi-
cult traveller to please !
When the Japanese travel they don't have to
think about the toilet equipment which concerns
you and me about to stop at an American or
European hotel, because the Japanese inns pro-
vide each patron with a fresh kimono to sleep in,
a new tooth brush and, of course, towels and soap.
Also, you will always find ready a hot bath, for
don't forget you are in a land where everybody
takes one daily. It is the strangeness of Japa-
nese food, and the, for us, unpalatableness of
many of its compounds, that clouds the memory
of life at their inns. If you will only have the
wit to learn which Japanese dishes you like and
keep to them, you will soon learn why life in
native inns is so attractive to the Japanese, a
LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK 75
people who travel about in their own country
more than any other nation in the world.
Bridges. Perhaps it is because the Japanese
are such enthusiastic travellers and sightseers that
the bridges of their country are so picturesque
and varied in form. They certainly, for some
reason or other, have been given particular con-
sideration. Just as the Golden Milestone in the
Roman Forum was the starting point from which
road distances all over the Empire were meas-
ured, so it is from a bridge, the Nihon-bashi in
Tokyo, that starts the nation's great travel
artery the Tokaido road, which runs from the
present capital to the ancient one of Kyoto. Col-
lectors or admirers of Japanese color-prints will
remember that many of the most interesting ones
depict bridges on the Tokaido and that no two of
them are alike. Almost always there is a grace-
ful upward curve, for the Japanese does not like
flat bridges. Sometimes he pushes this taste so
far as to make a perfect half -circle of his arch,
but such bridges are set in gardens or elsewhere
to serve ornamental purposes only, for the diffi-
culty of mounting their steep sides would mean
delay to traffic seriously bent on going some-
where. The sacred red bridge at Nikko (Miha-
shi ) , shut to all save royalty, has its graceful lines,
brilliant color and wood and background repeated
76 LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK
in many another spot in the Island Empire, and
so has that other famous red bridge high up on
the mountain slopes of Koya San. Frequent
also is the use of the do-bashi, or bridge covered
with an earthen roadway. This construction
makes easy any repairs to the bridge surface,
and is so attractive withal as to gain it space in
formal gardens, as enhancing a pool's beauty.
The old Chinese were very fond of thus introduc-
ing bridges of some quaint form into their gar-
dens, such as the one of zigzag stones leading to
the Woo-Sing-Ding teahouse in Shanghai, and
this fashion found a hearty welcome in Japan.
Perhaps the most pleasing bridge of that type is
the old one brought from the Bishamon to the
Senten Gosho in Tokyo and described elsewhere.
It is safe to say that no people save the Venetians
have ever rivalled the aesthetic interest in bridges
shown throughout Japan.
Boats. The familiar old Moody and Sankey
hymn of "Pull for the shore, sailor, pull for the
shore," would not suit the Japanese, for with
them a boat is not pulled; it is pushed! There
the boatman stands instead of sitting, and pushes
forward his boat by means of sculling over the
stern with one long oar. Nor does this oar at all
resemble that with which our boats are infre-
quently propelled in similar fashion, for it is es-
LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK 77
pecially made for this purpose, and consists of
two long sections joined together at a slight angle
about half way up. At first sight it seems a
clumsy contrivance intended only to make a long
oar out of two short pieces, but try it, and you
will find that the slight angle at the joint not only
increases your leverage for the short side strokes
required in this sort of sculling, but also it materi-
ally assists the feathering of the blade.
Sometimes two of these oars are used at the
same time, in which case the second sculler is
stationed a little forward of his mate and on the
opposite side of the boat. The oar is not oper-
ated between tholepins, as in England, nor on a
swivel set in the boat's side as in America. It
has a short, small, wooden pin on the under side
two or three inches long, which fits into a round
socket on the gunwale, and it requires no little
dexterity to keep the great oar from riding up
in the air and unsocketing this pin.
This method of boat propulsion has a marked
effect upon the shape of the craft, for it neces-
sitates a sharp, narrow, and long bow. In other
parts of the Far East one sees this same sort of
propulsion from the rear, though generally aided
by oars pulled near the bow, but never in Japan.
Lanterns. After one has visited Japan his
memories thereof will always be brightened by
78 LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK
the mellow light of lanterns, tiny ones on the
jinrikishas, larger lanterns lighting the foot-
steps of beclogged pedestrians, larger still before
shops, and huge lanterns suspended in temples.
Different "cho" (or sections of a city) when hold-
ing religious festivities, hang out in front of each
house large lanterns painted with the cho's ideo-
graphs, and for these a wooden post is provided,
with an umbrella or small roof to keep rain off
the light. Sometimes you pass through a village
thus illuminated for a festival, and its warm
mellow light will not soon be forgotten. These
lanterns are more durable than they look to be,
and, because made of oiled paper, resist the
weather to a surprising extent. Policemen al-
ways carry them when on duty at night, marked
with official ideographs, and the combination of a
paper lantern with the formal western uniform
of its bearer strikes an Occidental as very odd.
Paper Windows. At night Japanese houses
seem to the foreigner rather like large lanterns
because their windows (or rather, the front slid-
ing panels that serve as windows) are but close
trellises of wood over whose small interstices is
pasted oiled paper. Out through these small
panes there gleams the same mellow glow as that
from the lanterns. It is a warm, cosy illumina-
tion, whether given out by a home to the night
LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK 79
without, or carried by the wayfarer. The mem-
ory of it is most persistent, for its light clings
to the thought as does the perfume of roses about
a picture of last year's garden.
Houses of Rich and Poor. In no other
land is there so little seeming disparity between
the house of the rich man and his poor neigh-
bor as in Japan. Perhaps the simplicity taught
by the Shinto religion has much to do with this.
At any rate, it is an obvious and commendable
fact. Of course, the kakemono painting and the
artistic objects displayed in the tokonoma of the
poor man or the materials used for his house can-
not vie in beauty or cost with those of the rich
man similarly displayed, but the simple cleanli-
ness and interior construction of both are the
same and so is the form the same plain walls,
mats, ceiling, and hibashi if it is cold. The nari-
kin (as the nouveau riche the war profiteer
is called) is apt to go in for European houses,
and so are a few of the "quality" in Tokyo, but
the vast majority of those possessing ample
means still affect Japanese dwellings and a
splendid simplicity that is more effective and
surely more admirable than the average house
of the unenlightened wealthy with us.
Smallness of Women. Of course, we all
know that the Japanese are not a tall race, but
80 LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK
the men one sees are strongly built, and though
obviously shorter on the average than Occi-
dentals, and especially than Anglo-Saxons, they
do not seem in any way diminutive. But the
women do, and their tininess will surprise you
more than almost anything else in that land of
surprises. Not only are they slenderly made,
but also so short that not even their large head-
dresses disguise it.
Babies are numerous in Japan, and good-
sized, square-headed, chunky babies, too. They
always go strapped on their mothers' backs, and
their size and wrappings by contrast make their
slightly stooping parent seem even tinier than
she is. Then, too, the national custom of squat-
ting on the haunches make them when in that
posture seem mere busts of women, so compactly
do they fold up everything south of the long
waistline marked by the broad obi, as their ex-
ternal corset-belt is called. Always neat and
spotlessly clean, the general effect is that of
dainty little creatures too dainty for the wear
and tear of everyday life, and yet no land can
show better or tidier housekeepers, or mothers
so patriotic in their frequent child-bearing than
these same diminutive dames of Nippon.
Babies. If babies could guide the storks that
bring them, and knew the facts about Japan,
LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK 81
every child-transporting stork that flew would
surely be turned thither by his small passenger,
for in no other land are they so constantly in the
midst of all that goes on. A baby who travels
about in a baby-carriage has his journeyings lim-
ited by that vehicle's bulk, but the Japanese baby
is constantly strapped on his mother's back ex-
cept when he rides on his sister's. In either case
he is sure of entertainment, for when with mother
he oversees (from above!) all the family house-
keeping, shopping, gossiping, etc., while small
sisters never let baby interfere with their favorite
sport of ball-playing or battledore and shuttle-
cock. Baby is there all the time, with never a
dull moment! Perhaps this is why you never
hear him cry. In fact, not only the babies, but
also all the children, seem merry souls, enjoying
themselves always and everywhere. It is said
that the country's population is increasing at
the rate of 700,000 per year, and you will readily
believe it after you have been there a while and
seen the crowds of children, both in city and
country.
Street Games. In no land do the children
have a better time than in Japan, and sometimes
it seems that they play most of their games in the
streets, so numerously "under foot" are they in
every city or town. Both girls and boys delight
82 LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK
in playing ball, not only with ordinary sized
balls but also with balls extraordinary much
larger than their owners' heads ! The boys most-
ly concern themselves with throwing and catch-
ing as practice for their adored baseball. The
girls, on the other hand, play a game in which
proficiency means ability to bounce the ball a
number of times with the sole of the wooden
clog a difficult performance. While one girl is
bouncing, the others liven the sport by singing
the score, quite like the Basque game of pelota.
The girls are also skillful at playing their be-
loved game of Yarihago, a sort of battledore and
shuttlecock, the battledore being a bat-shaped
piece of wood a foot long, and much decorated on
one side, and the shuttlecock is a black seed gayly
feathered. Singing the score is also a feature of
this game.
Japanese Carp. - - We know the carp as a
sluggish fish, but not so in Japan, where he is
supposed to represent vigor and enterprise, and
as such is a favorite emblem for boys. When the
Boys' Festival is held in May they parade about
carrying large paper carp. How much better
this is than to have meaningless games. For a
Japanese boy, the paper carp of his great holi-
day means something, while the firecracker be-
loved of our youth on the "Glorious Fourth"
LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK 83
stands for mere noise. That great wood carver,
Hidari Jingoro, has left a life-like monument
to the energetic carp, for the right-hand panel of
his charming gateway at the Higashi Otani, in
Kyoto, shows that fish springing straight up a
waterfall, a feat characteristic of the Japanese
species. In this carving the artist rivals the
technique of his English prototype, Grinling
Gibbons, but has the advantage of depicting
arrested motion instead of the still life preferred
by the Westerner.
Baseball. Amid all the strange surround-
ings whose every detail differs so markedly from
things seen at home, the American finds one
home-like sight, for baseball is as omnipresent
in Japan as it is in the United States. Every
small boy there goes about with a ball and catch-
er's glove just as does his ilk with us. They play
good ball, too. There are frequent open spaces
in their cities and towns, and here baseball games
are constantly in progress. Every vacant lot is
similarly occupied with the boys busy with bat
and ball. The fine play of some of their teams,
such as that of Waseda University, is well known
among us, and their general standard of baseball
is distinctly good. The quality of their pitching
does not equal ours, but that does not come in one
generation.
84. LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK
After baseball (their favorite sport) comes
next in order of popularity, tennis. Their tennis
is not so good as their baseball, but a few indi-
viduals like Kumagae (ranked third in the
United States in 1919) play remarkably well.
Track athletics are being introduced in the
schools and universities, but are succeeding only
fairly well. Their sprinters are not yet first class,
nor are their competitors in the field events, nor
even their middle distance men, for 4.35 is con-
sidered a fast mile. On the other hand, it is al-
ways easy to get out a large field of good men
for a long-distance race, which is far from true
in America. Neither the English Rugby game
of football nor our own variety is succeeding in
Japan, but they are fond of the English game
officially called "Association" and popularly
loved as "Soccer," and play it well. Rowing
has not yet taken firm hold out there, except on
the river Sumida, in Tokyo, where university
men compete in wooden racing boats.
The younger generation like Occidental sport,
and as they are receiving hearty support and
encouragement from their elders and from, the
authorities, it will surely continue to keep its
place and do the work it everywhere performs
of strengthening the youth both physically and
mentally.
LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK 85
Dangers From Automobiles. An aged Ky-
oto lady commenting upon the danger to human
life caused by reckless automobile driving, com-
pared it with the custom in feudal days of decapi-
tating folk who got in the way of a daimyo upon
the highway. "At least," said she, "due* notice
was then sent in advance, of when he would travel
and by which road, so that if you came to harm
for interfering with him you had only yourself
to blame. Perhaps it was a rather high-handed
proceeding on the part of the daimyo, but you
certainly had proper notice, and then, too, the
relatives of the deceased had the satisfaction of
knowing it was a daimyo who had put them in
mourning. Nowadays an automobile driven by
a mere nobody thinks nothing of running over
anybody, and with absolutely no notice at all !"
Chrysanthemum Shows. Nowhere out of
Japan is so much heard of their chrysanthemum
shows as in the United States, where that blos-
som is greatly liked, grown and improved. And
yet, because we did not begin by the shows at
Tokyo, we were at first disappointed in what we
saw. There is no denying the charm of the Uji
show, near Kyoto, especially the dozen or more
scenes from ancient history or legends, all of
whose many characters are made up of growing
and blossoming chrysanthemum plants. In-
86 LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK
tensely ingenious is the way in which, after the
framework for one of these figures is fashioned,
the small plants are woven in and out to com-
plete them. Only the faces and hands are of
papier mache or some similar substance all else
is plants or blossoms. Of course, only varieties
with small flowers are selected for this purpose.
Each one of these historical pictures is rendered
doubly effective by the elaborate scenery pro-
vided for it. We found this vastly curious and
surprising, but the blooms, even the larger ones
shown there in competition, fell below our antici-
pations. Equally disappointing were the plants
shown in several shows held in Kyoto temples, as
well as those seen at the nurseries in Kyoto's out-
skirts, near the Myoshin-ji. The best in that city
were some we stumbled upon while attending a
set of school games, and, although the exhibition
was not widely advertised, it was very attractive.
The great show held at Hibiya Park, Tokyo, late
in November, not only lives up to one's highest
expectations in the matter of flowers but also in
the manner of their display. It is not indoors,
as ours generally are, but consists of three wide
avenues made by lines of flower booths, all
alike, but each reserved for a separate exhibitor.
Across the further end of these rows of booths
is thrown a large half circle of others. Whether
LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK 87
visited by day or at night (when the flowers are
excellently illumined from above) the tasteful
display is equally pleasing. In the semi-circle
of booths, the 1919 show had its potted "water-
falls" of chrysanthemums, varieties strange to
foreign eyes, and comparatively new even in
Japan. Nothing could be more graceful than
the way in which these masses of small blooms
overflow from their pots and swing down in great
bunches. Along the straight lines of booths are
the more usual blossoms, but what beauties!
huge, perfect, many of them strange in color or
stranger still in exaggerations of plumpness or
stringiness. Some pots showed a hundred or
more blossoms from one root and, more than
once, upon that sole root were grafted stems
bearing flowers of contrasting colors 1 There
were airplanes made of growing plants, some
from only two roots or at most, three. It was
not until the third or fourth visit that one could
begin to feel that they really knew the show, so
bewildering were the early impressions of color,
shape and grace.
Imperial Garden Party. But even finer than
the blossoms to be seen at Hibiya Park were
those exhibited in the great park of the Akasaka
Palace, in which is held the Imperial Garden
Party. The booths in which they were displayed
88 LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK
were not all assembled together as in Hibiya
Park, but were grouped at different points
among the evergreens or amid brilliant maples
which so strikingly enliven the foliage of this
large enclosure in the autumn. One display of
blooms upon single stems of graded heights, par-
ticularly lingers in the memory. The guests who
wandered from one to another of these nests of
booths were obviously of a higher level of floral
criticism than those comprising the nondescript
citizenry at Hibiya Park. They showed this by
their more intense interest, and their friendly
arguments upon certain blossoms' merits. The
chrysanthemums lent a charmingly interesting
background to that otherwise formal function,
but one could not escape the regret that repeated
visits to study and enjoy them could not here be
vouchsafed as it is at Hibiya Park.
Portable Gardens. An odd title, isn't it !
and yet that is just what they are. The Japanese
call them "hako-niwa," and though their bases
are only a couple of feet long and about a foot in
width, this affords space enough for miniature
scenes complete in every detail. At the Hibiya
Park chrysanthemum show there was space re-
served for a competition of these diminutive
landscapes, and over seventy were entered for
the prizes. Not only were there mountain scenes
LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK 89
with chalets scattered among the rocks, and shore
scenes with junks and fishermen, composed for
every season of the year from spring to snowy
winter, but even more esoteric effects were
attempted, and that, too, with success. There
was a very effective one showing a lone traveller
struggling against a wind that bent low the
bushes through which he was working his way:
the traveller was about an inch high 1 The Japa-
nese particularly admire mountainous scenery
depicted thus in a portable compass, and stones
suited to simulate the small mountains (such as
those from Ishiyama on Lake Biwa) fetch fancy
prices.
Thinning Pine Foliage. No matter how
small the bit of ground intervening between his
house and the street, every Japanese householder
seems to wish a pine tree growing there. They
are never allowed to grow tall, for their branches
are so cut off and trained as to keep their foliage
down near the house's roof. Every autumn these
trees receive a treatment that none receive with
us it has its foliage carefully thinned out
by expert gardeners. Each small tuft of pine
needles is reduced in bulk, and a tree thus treat-
ed looks like a plucked chicken, compared with
its neighbor awaiting treatment. There is no
doubt that this system has much to do with the
90 LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK
healthy foliage of these household pines, for it
prevents their catching too much snow in the
winter and also encourages the new needles which
will come with the spring. It certainly is an
odd spectacle to see one of these gardeners up
amid the branches of a small pine, intently mani-
curing each tuft of needles in turn.
New Year Decorations. One expects to see
Christmas trees in our homes during that festive
season, or holly wreaths in the windows, but our
only outdoor display of such decorations is at
the shops where they are exposed for sale. New
Year is as important a festival to the Japanese
as is Christmas to us, but he believes in decorat-
ing out of doors as well as within, which is very
fortunate for the traveller from abroad. Out-
side of most dwelling houses and many shops
and office buildings as well is a bunched decora-
tion composed of bamboo and pine health and
long life ! Generally this consists of three pieces
of bamboo stalk, cut in different lengths, with
pine branches tied about them. Most of these
shrub-like bunches are not over four feet in
height, and some have a neat border of rice straw
about them at the ground. All along the streets
hang Shinto ropes of clean rice straw, sometimes
with a fringe of the same pendent from them.
These festoons of rope and fringe are called
LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK 91
wakazari, and are believed by the lower classes
to keep away evil spirits.
Seasonable Pictures. Very sensible is the
Japanese custom of displaying in the tokonoma
(or art alcove of their living rooms) pictures or
objects appropriate to the season. Thus he sets
out in the autumn scenes depicting crows on per-
simmon trees, deer under red-leaved maples, or
the "seven flowers of autumn"; in the winter,
pine trees and snow, bamboo and snow, wild
geese and the moon, or the moon viewed through
long dry grass such as grows on the Musashi
plain outside Tokyo; during the shift from win-
ter to spring (there a slow, and not a sudden
process as with us), plum blossoms and snow, or
if the spring be really arrived, nightingales with
the plum blossoms, or cherry trees, etc.
It is interesting to note the difference between
the types of people drawn out to parks or ex-
hibitions to view the different blossoms those
of the plum appeal to the more refined and lit-
erary sort, while the cherry blossoms attract
the proletariat, etc. Chrysanthemum shows are
mostly frequented by painstaking folk who by
their remarks and careful study of the plants
exhibited remind one of the Dutchman enjoying
tulips, upon whose culture he expends so much
care.
92 LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK
Viewing Paintings. In one respect Japanese
painters enjoy an advantage over their Occi-
dental colleagues they know in advance exactly
the level from which their pictures will be seen,
which the Westerner never does. Very few of
the paintings accepted for one of our art exhibi-
tions can be hung "on the line," as it is called,
and of those ranging above these fortunate ones,
some are so hopelessly "skied" as to lose much of
their effect. Then, too, if and when the painter
is so lucky as to sell his work, he has no idea how
high or low it will be hung in the home of its
purchaser. A few days spent in such an art
centre as Kyoto teaches us that most Japanese
paintings are executed either upon fusuma (slid-
ing panels constituting the walls of a room) or
upon screens, and because they will therefore
always be viewed by folk seated upon the floor,
the artist knows exactly how to adjust his com-
position and perspective best to suit the eye.
The only other important type of paintings, those
on scrolls (or kakemono) are generally exhibited
by being hung in the tokonoma or art alcove,
found at the end of every Japanese living room,
which means that here also the artist knows in
advance the approximate level of the observer's
eye.
Sometimes, but infrequently, framed pictures
LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK 93
(such as those of the Thirty-Six Poets, etc.) are
hung up near the ceiling with their lower edge
touching the frieze line, but in that event they are
always leaned far out, which, considering that
Japanese rooms are not lofty, facilitates their
inspection. The Japanese painter, of whatever
century, has never realized how much more for-
tunate he is than his Western brother, so often
distressed by seeing his picture, meant to be sus-
pended at the eye-level of a standing observer,
hung up close to the ceiling or too low down.
Ceremonial Processions. One day we mo-
tored over from Kyoto to visit the town of Otsu
on Lake Biwa, and happened upon an annual
procession which has been taking place there for
more than a hundred years. To an outsider its
purpose seems to be the display of eight or nine
gorgeous structures each built upon a massive
two-wheeled cart dragged by long lines of citi-
zens. The metal mountings of the wheels and
other parts were more ornate. Above each rose
a square edifice, its sides resplendent with ancient
embroideries and tapestries, some of the latter of
16th century Flemish provenance. Under an
ornate roof at the top were youthful musicians,
earnestly occupied in the wholesale dispatch of
sound waves. These dwellers aloft were so far
from the street as to be above the second story
94 LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK
of such houses as possessed one, and access to
the cart-tops was possible only from an upstairs
room. So pleased were we by the color, gayety,
and general allure of this parade that we became
as addicted to "attending" them wherever and
whenever possible as are some American males
to attending fires. Every city has several such
historical processions during the year, some of
such importance as to earn recognition by a
representative from the office of the Imperial
Household in Tokyo. We liked best those we
saw in Kyoto. One famous one, held October
22nd in every year, commemorates the annual
procession of daimyos who, under the Shoguns,
repaired yearly to Kyoto to pay their respects
to the Emperor. For this procession there is
brought out from the storehouses a great wealth
not only of ancient costume, but" also travelling
equipment, such as large lacquer boxes for gar-
ments, for footwear, for food, etc. The display
of colored robes and ancient arms and armor
makes this ceremonial most helpful in picturing
a long dead past.
Many of these processions are religious in
character and in these there generally appear
large shrines so heavily weighted as to necessi-
tate for their carriage the shoulders of sev-
eral score bearers, who enliven their task by
LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK 95
rushing their burden from side to side of the
street or backward and forward. If at night,
this burden may be a great bamboo structure
bearing numerous large lanterns. We saw one
such parade in a small western town on the Japan
Sea, and while the shrine was thus being hurtled
hither and yon in the main street to the vast en-
joyment of the bearers but confusion of the on-
lookers, the head priest in his ancient silken robes
was quietly progressing, seated in state in a soli-
tary jinrikisha. How that vehicle got to that
remote and small village we never knew, but its
importance was evidently receiving due recogni-
tion. Every Japanese city is divided into cho,
or sections corresponding to a big block of houses,
and in some parades a section is allotted to each
cho, so that its residents may seek to outdo the
display of a neighboring cho. In one Kyoto
parade, each cho carried at its head a long pole
surmounted by a pliable metal ornament (a
Fudu sword) adorned with bells which the bear-
ers sounded by a continual agitation of the pole
a feat requiring joint effort plus much strength.
Puppets. Nothing you have ever seen any-
where will in the least prepare you for the Pup-
pet Shows or Marionettes. They are not figures
operated by wires, nor are they run on the Punch
and Judy lines, so familiar to Occidental child-
96 LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK
hood. Not at all! You enter what appears to
be an ordinary Japanese theatre, which is already
surprise enough for the foreigner, for instead of
chairs or benches arranged in rows, he will find
small square spaces partitioned off on the floor
by boards about a foot high, each space accom-
modating four theatre-goers squatted upon cush-
ions. They will be close together with only a
little spare space for the inevitable teapot and
cups, plus sweetmeats brought in by attentive
attendants for a trifling fee. The best of the
puppet shows are at Osaka and Kyoto, but they
travel about and give their performances in other-
cities. Don't miss seeing them if they ever come
your way. When the curtain rises, you will ob-
serve the usual scenery, but it will be on a scale
suited to small personages about three and a half
feet tall the average height of these puppets.
And now they begin to appear, and, to your
amazement, each has its legs, arms, head, etc.,
operated by one or two or sometimes three men
dressed all in black gowns, black hoods with eye-
slits, black gloves, etc. These operators are sup-
posed to be invisible, and, strangely enough, after
a few moments you cease to notice them, so en-
grossed do you become in the life-like activities
of the brightly dressed figures. Their eyes move,
so do their foreheads and mouths they open and
LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK 97
shut fans, and handle all sorts of weapons and
utensils. "Yes, but how do they talk?" say you.
At one side of the stage, upon a sort of pulpit,
squats a man before a reading desk, upon which
lies the book of the play, and by his side a samisen
player. As the reader proceeds with the con-
versation of the play, using different voices for
the different characters, the samisen player's
music represents emotions suiting the words,
just as the motif played by the orchestra at a
Wagner ian opera explains the speech upon the
stage which it accompanies. So realistic do these
two men render the life-like gestures of the
puppets that the audience is moved to tears or
laughter as readily as they would be by living
actors at a regular theatre.
Theatre. Prepare yourself with as high ex-
pectations as possible before you go to a Japa-
nese theatre, and expect the unexpected you
will not be disappointed. We have already, at
the Marionettes or Puppet Show, seen how the
audience squats on cushions in square box-like
enclosures, generally accommodating four. So
it is also at the theatres, but downstairs, in what
we call the orchestra, these enclosures are sunken
below the level of the narrow passageways, upon
which attendants come and go, bringing tea,
fruit, sweetmeats, or boxes to assist smokers in
98 LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK
getting safely rid of their ashes, matches, etc.
One of these passageways right out through the
middle of the audience is sometimes used by the
actors, who will thus rush off to battle, etc., in
most convincing manner. The scenery is excel-
lent, especially that used in the foreground, such
as houses, rocks, trees, bridges, etc. At the Ka-
bukiza Theatre in Tokyo they have a revolving
stage, so that when one scene is completed, the
lights are lowered, the stage is revolved, and the
piece goes forward with no delay for scenery set-
ting, because it has been set while the preceding
scene was being enacted. Women's parts are
almost always taken by men, who, however, simu-
late feminine voices. It is said that the theatre,
geisha dancing, puppet shows, and all kindred
entertainments alike had their beginnings in the
Noh dance, and certainly attendance at one of
those antique survivals adds to one's understand-
ing of the other more modern manifestations.
Noh Dance. These so-called dances are real-
ly long plays telling a story with a moral, and are
therefore rather religious than terpsichorean in
character. They are gradually losing their popu-
larity, so much so that they are now generally
given by subscription. The stage must always
be constructed in a certain manner, square in
shape, with a minor access from one side through
LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK 99
a small door (ordinarily kept shut), but most of
the characters come on and go off by means of
a long open passageway leading to the stage from
the side opposite the little door. There is no at-
tempt at scenery, but always a pine tree painted
on the back wall, and, of course, the purple cloth
of ceremony with its white ideographs draped
above across the entire front. One point of the
construction you must certainly notice, for in
this respect the Noh stage differs sharply from
that of the ordinary theatre it is separated from
the audience by a narrow interval paved with
small stones or pebbles. This interval serves con-
stantly to remind the audience that the actors are
in a world apart, and that they may therefore ex-
pect to witness acts and episodes quite different
from those possible in everyday life. The cos-
tumes are gorgeous, which is to be expected, but
most unexpected are the voices of the actors and
their manner of walking. The voice used is an
entirely unnatural one, with all possible throati-
ness brought out. In a word, that which we dis-
like in the human voice, and wish to suppress, the
Japanese like in their actors, and seek to develop
to its uttermost possibility. The walk they affect
is equally unnatural, but very graceful and pleas-
ing. The placing of each foot is carefully studied
and timed, the toes being thrust forward seem-
100 LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK
ingly to guide the foot to its place on the floor.
This same gait is used in the tea ceremony, and
its successful use is much appreciated and highly
esteemed. In one respect the Noh dance is like
the old Greek plays it has a Chorus which con-
stantly throughout the development of the story
explains it and sometimes predicts the action of
the piece. Unlike the Greek Chorus, these Japa-
nese are seated upon the stage with the actors,
as are also musicians who from time to time are
brought in. Of all the numerous dramatic effects
sought and effectively rendered, the most appre-
ciated is that of suppressed passion by the hero
or the villain, and sometimes it is thrown out into
high relief by the buffoonery of a low comedian
servant or retainer, or else a serious piece is fol-
lowed by a farce or comic dance. Perhaps the
average foreigner will find the action of the Noh
dance too drawn out and retarded. On one occa-
sion in Kyoto the Chorus sat alone upon the stage
and for fifty-five minutes intoned an explanation
of what the principal characters had been doing
and saying! Such periods can, however, be in-
terestingly employed in studying the audience.
It will be found to contain about equal parts of
men and women. Among the men there will be
many of advanced age, always with an open book
with which they carefully follow all that is said
LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK 101
on the stage. Nor is this studious interest con-
fined to the elderly, for it is equally true of the
young men and maidens. Altogether, the im-
pression one takes away from a Noh dance is
similar to that one receives at an opera house
when "Parsifal" is being rendered the same
general study of the text, interest not only in see-
ing and hearing, but also in the development of
the motifs by the orchestra, close attention by
differing ages of both sexes, etc.
A Geisha Party. - - When Oishi Kuranosuke,
the leader of the Forty-Seven Ronins, in order
to conceal his purpose to avenge the death of the
daimyo they had served, feigned a dissolute life,
it was at the Ichi Riki tea-house in Kyoto he
committed his excesses. After the Ronins had
achieved their purpose of slaying their dead
master's enemy, thereby setting a standard of
loyalty so greatly admired by all Japanese, that
tea-house set up and has ever since maintained a
shrine to the Ronin's leader. Mr. Hamaguchi,
the versatile-minded manager of the Miyako
Hotel, arranged for us in this historic tea-house,
a geisha party for which he selected the best that
the famous geisha school of Kyoto produced.
There were four dancing girls, thirteen or four-
teen years old, and also several older girls who
played the samisen for the dancing, or served the
102 LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK
dinner and would have entertained us with their
witty conversation had we known enough Jap-
anese to understand them. We were met at the
door by the manageress, who wore above her obi
an additional cincture of red cloth, indicating that
hers was one of the half dozen first class tea-
houses of the city. Also were there as usual
several servants crouched on the floor, bowing till
their heads touched it. We were led in through
several small intensely neat rooms to see the
shrine of the loyal Ronin, and were finally in-
stalled in one of the two rooms reserved for us.
We sat (more or less comfortably, and less grace-
fully) upon cushions, each with an arm rest,
which was really a life-saver for those unaccus-
tomed to long squatting on the floor. The ad-
joining room served as a sort of stage for the
earlier dances, requiring more perspective than
the later ones. Some of these were really re-
markable for their clear portrayal of the story
which every dance requires as a basis. There
were two or three pas seul, one of them showing
a lion hunting at night. Fancy a brilliantly cos-
tumed girl of thirteen, with no implement but a
fan, imitating a lion! it sounds futile, doesn't
it? and yet, strange to say, she was a lion, a hun-
gry, agile, sleek and ever dangerous lion. Later,
during lulls in the elaborate Japanese dinner,
LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK 103
with its frequently recurring soups and innumer-
able small dishes, we witnessed some of the more
elaborate dances requiring four in their execution.
The swirl of the kimono sleeves, accentuated by
their gay hues and deft use of dainty fans left
such an impression of grace and rhythm swung
in color as readily to explain why the Japanese
never tire of this form of entertainment.
And now there came an interlude distinctly
unusual in such an evening. My small son, aged
eleven, took up a samisen and played a tune. At
once the geisha party became a children's party !
The little dancers crowded around him, and after
applauding his effort, went on to engage him
and his governess in certain games known to all
children, such as those played by throwing out
the hand with some fingers extended, etc. A
strange ending for an evening begun with rever-
ence to an ancient act of vengeful loyalty by; a
fighting man, and developed by a modern and
distinctly adult manifestation of music, dancing
and costume. It started with the aboriginal man
and after passing by the eternal feminine, ended
with the perennial child!
Tokyo Geisha. The Tokyo style of geisha
dancing differs noticeably from that of Kyoto,
and although more up to date and elaborate,
yields first place in public esteem to the older
104 LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK
school of the ancient Imperial capital. At Tokyo
the musicians are generally seated at the back,
behind the dancers. Then, too, the dancers there
sometimes use bits of what our stage men would
call "property" to help in the telling of the
dance's story. For example, two girls dressed as
fishermen of the olden times, executed a charming
representation of life on a fishing boat, but they
were aided by) a bit of board painted to repre-
sent a ship's side, placed between them and their
audience. You would not see this in Kyoto, nor
would the dancers there wear special costumes
for particular dances. The amount of money
spent on these geisha parties is so great as to re-
mind one of private entertainments at home in
which leading singers from the Opera House take
part.
CHAPTER V
SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS AND THEIR THOUGHT
THE chief outstanding difference to the trav-
eller between things Oriental and those to which
he has been accustomed at home is that in the Far
East everything means something thought is
behind every sight or fact, and one is supposed to
realize this and recognize at least part of the
thought. Lovers of Kipling know that he so out-
lines his stories as to leave the reader much to
fill in from one's own imagination or mental ex-
periences. So it is with the Orient. If you are
not prepared and equipped to see behind and
through its sights their underlying thought you
will never understand the beauty of the land, the
mentality of its people, or the international ex-
pression of its purpose as evidenced in its foreign
policies. Nor will you know how our own policies
should be shaped so as to reach Oriental appre-
ciation. To render its point of view more un-
derstandable let us go to the heart of old Japan,
which is Kyoto, and to the heart of its heart, those
ancient gardens which more beautifully than any
105
106 SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS
other of its expressions, explain to the foreign
traveller how the thought-processes of the people
have long been accustomed to externalize them-
selves. This may sound abstruse, but it isn't
it is delightfully and artistically simple. The
testheticism of every nation attracts and enlists
many of its finest minds, and of gardens in Japan
this has long been true. It would be difficult to
imagine a more pleasing environment than they
afford for those seeking to learn how Japanese
think, and how their thinking tends to express
itself materially.
Once upon a time there was a mighty warrior,
Kumagaye Naozane by name, whose prowess in
battle was known throughout all Japan. We can
still see his huge sword, and from its unusual size
realize the physical strength of him who wielded
such a weapon. A tragic episode, the slaying
of a boy disguised as the enemy's champion,
abruptly turned him toward a life of religious
seclusion. He made his way to the Buddhist
temple of Kurodani in Kyoto, and hanging his
armor on a great pine tree in the courtyard,
passed through the sanctuary, and coming out
into the garden beyond, cast into its tranquil pool
his widely feared sword. The thought of the
Kurodani garden reached out and laying hold
upon the war sick veteran drew him into its haven
SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS 107
of mind. Let us, too, turning from our five years'
absorption in war's horrors, yield to this same
lure, and together we shall see whither thought
in and of these old Kyoto gardens will lead us.
Perhaps they will show us how Japanese think.
What this 12th century hero's plunging his trusty
blade into Kurodani's pool acknowledged of a
garden's attraction and deeper meaning has held
true down through all Japan's history. More-
over, in other and differing lands it finds a sym-
pathetic echo, growing stronger as their culture
mounts higher. But the Japanese lead all other
garden-lovers in embodying more thought in
those retreats from worldly turmoil. The more
you put into a thing, the more you get out of it.
Just as they have always put more thought into
their gardens than we have into ours, so do their
gardens superinduce more thinking on the part
of the visitor than do ours. An English rose
garden means sight and smell, but a Japanese
one spells thought expressed in a harmony of
nature, thought that begets thinking, and that,
too, of a formal, definite and practical type. It
is often overlooked that there is a practical side
to the mental fertilization of attractive surround-
ings. We are all agreed that nothing is of
greater consequence to man than thought, and
we shall see that to assist it is the main purpose
108 SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS
of the Japanese garden. It must always have
its legend to tell or historical view to recall. The
Abbot's garden just below the gorgeous lyeyasu
mausolea on the cryptomeria-clad Nikko hill-
side represents the Hak-kei or eight famous views
of faraway Lake Biwa. The Katsura Palace
garden near Kyoto sets out in detail an old Chi-
nese poem known to all Japanese literati. Unless
one is equipped with this mental key to a Jap-
anese garden, his physical entrance therein yields
no translation of its secret charm.
One more introductory thought, you must
dismiss flowers from your expectations during
our rambles among these ancient formal gardens,
composed to be enjoyed during every season of
the year alike. The Japanese works out his love
for colored blooms away from his gardens, out
where he can enjoy color in the mass. He has
both the long spring of England and an even
longer autumn than America (Kyoto maples
are most brilliant in mid-November), while Eng-
land lacks our autumn and we her spring. He
begins with his plum blossoms in February, then
peach, pear and cherry trees in April, followed
by wistaria and azaleas in May, iris in June, and
so on until the lotus in August ends the gorgeous
procession, when, temporarily sated with masses
of color, he awaits November with its soberer
SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS 109
chrysanthemum joys. But back in his formal
gardens you will find only an occasional cherry
tree for its spring value, or sundry maples for
their autumn glory, never in clumps for their
own display, but always to assist the general
picture, and to bring out the other charms with
which they are here associated. Even when thus
used, their color enters but sparingly into the
artist's scheme. It is true that mass effects of
blossoming fruit trees, maples, etc., are frequent
in Japanese scenery, but not in the gentle and
retired art which we are considering. Flower
gardens of the scale and type known and loved
in America, as well as those in the English
manner, are practically unknown in the Orient.
In passing it should be remarked that the Jap-
anese are no more skilful as translators of nature
into formal gardens than in their amazing deft-
ness of flower arrangement. They assemble into
one vase differing types of flowers, the tall and
the short, the stiff and the bending, or the bright
colored with others of duller hue, but so intelli-
gently are they combined that together they are
more effective than when seen separately. Here
lies a pregnant thought for the student of inter-
national relations, seeking a way to better under-
standing between such contrasting peoples as
the Japanese and ourselves. Frankly recognize
110 SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS
the inequalities between our two civilizations, and
then, instead of criticizing, strive to balance those
inequalities.
Almost always the central feature of a Jap-
anese garden is a small pond, just as in England
there is generally a lawn. The centering sig-
nificance of this pond, whose feeding and out-
let streams are the garden's very blood, was
understood by the warrior Kumagaye seeking
asylum for his sword, and we too shall see it with
his eyes before our garden rambles are at an end.
The conventions required that although the com-
plete outline of a pond be not visible from any
one viewpoint, both its source of water supply and
the outlet must be shown or indicated, otherwise
it is "dead water," and anathema! The inflow
should be from the east, the main direction of
the current southerly, and the outlet toward the
west; to run from west to east would be un-
lucky! The many shapes allowed for an elegant
pond have each a name, for example, if the right
portion doubles the other's width and is round,
it is called "heart" shape, because accommodat-
ing the Chinese ideograph thereof. If a similar
bulge is to the left, it is named "water," again
because of a Chinese ideograph's configuration.
There must also always be trees, but thought-
fully chosen and combined with a regard for their
SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS 111
significance; at least four-fifths should be ever-
greens. Sen-no-Rikyu (1521-1591) used large
trees in his foregrounds and lesser ones behind
them, thus inaugurating the "Distance Lower-
ing" style (Saki-sagari) as opposed to the cus-
tomary "Distance Raising" one (Saki-agari). A
favorite trio is the pine, bamboo, and plum tree,
because they represent the three prime virtues
of manhood energy, constancy and uprightness.
Even before the winter snows have gone the en-
ergetic plum tree shoots out its compact blossoms,
thus symbolizing pluck in nature. The unchang-
ing foliage of the long-lived pine represents the
second virtue, while the bamboo with its open
heart and stiffly perpendicular growth shows us
the third.
The stones of differing size and shape, so much
used and prized by Japanese garden architects,
each tell part of the picture's story. They are
brought from all parts of the country and com-
mand fancy prices. Indeed, during the Tempo
period (1830-44) , so extravagant grew this craze
that the government had to issue an edict limiting
the price one could pay for one! Each shape has
a name and a meaning of its own, which you
should know fully to comprehend a garden's leg-
end. Even the stepping-stones, so frequent in
the paths, tell something, as does also their plac-
112 SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS
ing. A height of six inches was permissible only
for those in Imperial gardens, four inches being
enough for daimyos, three for samurai, and one
and a half for plainer folk. This interest in
stones reached its limit in the Kare Sansui, or
"dried-up-water-scenery," from which actual
water is excluded, and only indicated by stones
placed in a studied manner. An interesting ex-
ample of this is at the Shinnyo-in, which belongs
to the Honkoku-ji.
What may be meant by the graceful little
bridges which contribute so greatly to the
pleasing harmony of the whole, will be told
later in our story. Most of the old gardens will
be found attached to temples, and this is both
fitting and proper, for here thought is led back to
the great Power House which under varying
names men worship as God. And where has man
constructed a fitter temple for high thought than
a fair garden? Gardens anywhere are but pearls
which, strung on a great golden thread of
thought, lead back to the original Eden, where,
pure as the harmony of nature about them, Adam
and Eve walked in the cool of the evening, un-
afraid, before the Creator.
Near these temple gardens are often sta-
tioned pagodas, those picturesque features of
the Oriental landscapes, and consideration of
SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS 113
their structure will add another thought-
product to our gardens' plentiful yield. Al-
though the frequent earthquakes make Japan
a land of low wooden structures, these lofty
pagodas are never overthrown by even the most
violent and prolonged shocks. Why? the Oc-
cidental architect will give credit to the long beam
which, after protruding high in the air above the
pointed roof, runs down through the building's
centre, and, because it is not fixed to the earth,
serves as a great gyroscope which, swaying in
the earthquake, preserves the pagoda's balance.
But what will the Buddhist priest say? he whose
forerunners long ago brought these airy and
graceful edifices to Japan. He will tell us that
the pole represents Eternal Truth running up
through all creation; that the nine rings encir-
cling it above the roof together symbolize per-
fection, three times the complete number three ;
that the ball with a point at the top and three
ridges of metal flames represents eternity. Es-
pecially will he insist that the long pole is pur-
posely kept from touching the earth because
Eternal Truth is not based on matter, but retains
freedom of adjustment to meet every change in
the material conditions which may surround it.
To the Buddhist, therefore, whose religious be-
liefs gave Japan their pagodas, they are eveiy-
114. SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS
where upstanding lessons mutely teaching the
passerby the preserving and beautifying power
of Eternal Truth.
Kyoto was the Imperial capital from 794 un-
til 1868, when the Mikado transferred his seat of
government to Tokyo, and therefore it is but
natural that Japan's greatest display of all that
royalty could command is assembled in and about
that city. The charm of its situation, nestled
amid a wide-flung circle of protecting hills, es-
pecially lends itself to the fancy and the genius
of the garden maker, so it is not surprising that
a great school of them here arose and developed
under imperial, princely and priestly patronage.
The Kyoto hills afford unsurpassed backgrounds,
and the numerous gardens set against or fitted
into them are in every way worthy of their nature
settings. When necessary to install a garden
within the city proper, hilly backgrounds were
simulated, and these artificial hillocks challenge
detection.
Of late years factories and other unsightly im-
pedimenta of modern commerce have begun to
intrude upon the beauty of some of these old
enclosures. This is particularly noticeable about
that of the Awata Palace, where the two great
masters, Kobori Enshu and Soami, collaborated,
Soami doing the southern half while his rival did
SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS 115
the other, Thsre they contrived a sequestered
nook called the "Sorrow Forgetting Terrace,"
where Oda Nobunaga, that warlike imperialist
might sit unobserved and look out across the pic-
turesque city to the hills beyond. That ancient
aspect has been ruined by the intrusion upon its
foreground of certain factories, but they are
about to yield to another modern product, a
Municipal Art Commission has recently been
established, and will remove unsightly buildings
outside the city, so that once more the view pre-
pared for the long-dead Shogun will be available
for modern eyes. In the meantime the visitor,
gazing inward from the wall, may feast his ap-
preciations upon the graceful stone bridges, tiny
islands and sheltering trees that together enhance
the attractiveness of the oddly shaped "Dragon's
Heart" pool at the centre. At the Joju-in, the
residence of the Abbot of Kyomizu-dera (on the
left as one mounts the steps to the temple) , Soami
and Kabori Enshu again treated the same prob-
lem, but instead of apportioning it between them,
as at the Awata, here Soami designed the whole
garden in the first place, and then, later on, his
rival improved upon it. It was a case of "paint-
ing the lily," but he painted it successfully. A
local guidebook written in quaint English re-
marks that "it is a finest garden," and it truly is.
116 SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS
The rooms at the Awata Palace facing on the
garden are walled with painted fusuma (or slid-
ing screens ) and afford a charming coign of van-
tage from which to view it, especially the one
across whose fusuma is pictured the story of
sundry poets stationed along a watercourse run-
ning through a garden, engaged in a pastime of
Chinese origin, indulged in on the third day of
the third month. Down the stream float wine-
cups borne upon lotus leaves, and each poet in
turn must write a verse whilst a cup is floating
toward him from his next neighbor upstream.
Downstream some mischievous boys are drawing
the cups ashore and draining them. This reminds
us that the more Chinesy an old Japanese paint-
ing (and to resemble the Chinese was one of the
canons of art excellence), the more certainly
must there be children depicted therein. A room
at the Nanzenji temple painted by Kano Eitoku
(one of the finest in all Kyoto) shows upon its
dulled gold backgrounds eighteen children among
its sixty-nine figures. The writer quite sym-
pathizes with the Awata poets' selection of a spot
for literary composition, for this chapter is being
written "lentus in umbra," partly in the lovely
Konchi-in garden arid partly under the giant
cryptomeria trees in the twelve-centuries-old park
SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS 117
at Nara, with herds of tame deer browsing quietly
about.
We have already noticed that at the Kurodani
Temple and the Awata Palace, as in most Jap-
anese gardens, the pond with its rippling rivu-
lets and waterfalls is the dominating feature of
the artificial landscape. There must always be
waterfalls lest we forget the power that sleeps
in water. This is a thought which begets think-
ing upon the Japanese appreciation of that
power. Nowhere throughout those islands is
one ever far from the hills with their frequent
watercourses, which from time immemorial have
done their part in the nation's industry. These
streams mean a wealth of water-power, and of its
significance to Japan we have already spoken.
But let us follow this thought-thread back to
our gardens away from which it led us off into
the heart of the great problem of industrial
power. Let it bring us to the balcony of the Kin-
kaku-ji or Golden Pavilion where, as we toss
bits of bread to a struggling throng of overgrown
gold fish and look out upon a winsome wood-
land picture, melodious waterfalls nearby whisper
"Power, power." This garden was already an
old one when in 1285 Emperor Go-Ude visited
it. It came into its chief glory when given to
Yoshimitsu, the greatest Shogun of the Ashikaga
118 SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS
family, who began to live here in 1395. It was
he who built this graceful three storied wooden
pavilion and gilded it. A match could at any
time destroy the flimsy structure, and yet there
it has stood for centuries, hidden among its shel-
tering trees and musing above its Mirror Pond
(whose three islets represent Japan's three prin-
cipal islands) whilst many a massive edifice of
enduring stone or brick has disappeared or fallen
into unrecognizable ruins. The great Ashikaga
family ruled as Shoguns from 1338 until 1573,
and preceded that even mightier family of Sho-
guns, the Tokugawas, who governed from 1600
until 1867, when occurred the restoration of power
to the Emperor. To these Tokugawas the whole
artistic world is indebted for that amazing glory
of lacquer, color and carvings known as the lye-
yasu and the lyemitsu mausolea, enshrined upon
the Nikko hills amid the giant cryptomeria trees.
The seclusion of these old Shogun potentates'
gardens yields another thought-thread, this time
leading out into the field of governmental ad-
ministration. Students of history sometimes
marvel at the fact that for over six and a half
centuries the Imperial power was usurped by
the Shoguns, who left the Emperors nothing but
the empty shell of court life, adorned and lux-
uriously disguised as its powerlessness might be,
SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS 119
and generally was. But why should we consider
this so-called usurpation as at all strange? How
are England and France governed today? Is
it not the English Prime Minister and not the
King who really rules the land? and was it not
the President of the French Council of Ministers
(the Premier), that splendid veteran statesman
Georges Clemenceau, and not the President, who
really governed France during the recent and
greatest crisis in her history? This invention
of the Shoguns relieved the real adminstrative
head of the Government from much time-exact-
ing routine of state functions, leaving him more
leisure for executive duties than can be secured
by an American President. These old Japanese
Shoguns, after taking from the Emperor all con-
trol of his country, evolved another shrewdly
practical device for simplifying lives of execu-
tives. Yoshimitsu was but one of them to put
the device into practice. He resigned his high
office and took priestly vows, ostensibly retiring
from the world, but in reality continuing to rule
/ O
from within the seclusion of the garden about
the Golden Pavilion as completely as while offi-
cially the Shogun. The only difference was that
he thus escaped innumerable official interviews
and all the time-consuming red tape of bureau-
cracy, and obtained leisure amidst thought-
120 SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS
inspiring surroundings to work out his political
plans and think over methods for their further-
ance. He discarded the glittering husks of power
and, undisturbed, enjoyed its sweet kernel. Ask
any President or Governor or Mayor in the
United States what this would mean for him!
But of course there are two sides to every ques-
tion. In a republic, although we like a boss, we
regard with suspicion any Executive who se-
cludes himself, for we believe it renders him self-
opinionated, and finally autocratic. The rulers
of Japan always have been frankly autocratic,
so that, which with us is disapproved, there bears
the stamp of ages-old public approval.
A little later another great Japanese ruler,
Toyotomi Hideyoshi, in like manner to Yoshi-
mitsu, made the public gesture of retiring from
official life without really relinquishing his power,
and it is significant that he too chose a garden
for that purpose the delicious one of the Kodai-
ji. The artist Kobori so planned it that when
Hideyoshi sat of an evening upon the balcony
of the building ceiled with decks from his war-
junks that conquered Korea, he could indulge in
the elegant pastime of looking out upon the moon
with the Gwaryo-no-ike (or sleeping dragon
pond) just at his left, and the twin Kame-no-ike
and Tsuru-no-ike (turtle and stork ponds) on
SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS 121
his right to aid in reflecting throughout the
foliage the silvery rays of the moon. Just a
little way down the hill is the modest dower house,
Entoku-in, to which Yoshiko, Hideyoshi's widow,
withdrew. It is provided with a small garden
also designed by Kobori Enshu, and brought
hither from Hideyoshi's estate at Momayama,
outside Kyoto to the south. The artist has here
worked out a half moon effect, developing its
graceful curve by three small stone bridges
swung around through the foreground. Another
of Hideyoshi's Momoyama gardens, one of the
rare Sotetsu type, was so highly considered that
long after his death a Tokugawa Shogun had it
brought to Kyoto and presented it to the Nishi
Hongwanji temple, where it is installed in the
southeastern corner of the great enclosure. It
is called Tokusui-in, and contains the "Pavil-
ion of the Floating Clouds;" it is a garden whose
charms do not reveal themselves until he who has
looked out upon it follows the paths and pene-
trates its loveliness. Perhaps it is to the thoughts
born of Hideyoshi's love of gardens that we may
ascribe the transformation that came about in
him, for he who began as a rude warrior left be-
hind him a wealth of art treasures created at his
command that show his taste to have been eclectic.
The world has probably never seen a more ruth-
122 SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS
less art collector, for after his conquest of Korea
he was not content with bringing home all its
art treasures as the spoil of his bow and spear,
but also he carried over to Japan as enforced
colonists whole villages of Korean artists and
artisans, so that the arts and crafts of his home-
land should be enriched by their skill and their
traditions.
The aesthetic enjoyment of moonlight by the
medieval Japanese recalls a memorable evening
spent upon the upper balcony of the Ginkaku-ji
or Silver Pavilion looking down upon its ravish-
ing garden done in 1477 for Yoshimasa, last of
the Ashikaga Shoguns, by Soami, that master
of all the exquisite court refinements of the time.
Take thought here for a moment that it was but
shortly after the creation of this sylvan retreat,
with all it meant of its epoch's highest culture,
that Christopher Columbus was begging the ships
necessary for the voyage to Zipangu (as Japan
was then called). Soami's nature picture at the
Silver Pavilion was so composed that by night,
against the jet black background of the hill, one
has in the right foreground the moon-reflecting
pond, balanced by placing over against it, in the
left upper middle-ground, two objects which by
day seem meaningless two oddly shaped flat-
topped sand platforms, one about three feet high,
123
with a surface as large as four or five billiard
tables, and the other, somewhat higher, a trun-
cated cone, so placed as to fit into a bay in the
side of its larger companion. Upon the surface
of the larger are incised geometric patterns. By
moonlight one grasps at once their purpose and
significance the hard glittering surface of the
white sand serves as an ideal reflector for the
soft moonlight, diffusing from beneath the trees
a weird unearthly light throughout the whole
garden. Through the trees at the back winds a
path whose white sand surface comes out strong-
ly at night, and simulates the meandering river,
such an admired feature in the pictures on the old
fusuma and screens. Before the writer had en-
joyed this entrancing glimpse into medieval
artistic expression he was but an interested tour-
ist in Kyoto, but then and there he fell head over
heels in love with the ages-old tradition of the
city and its lovely district. This transformation
was aided by three temple acolytes serving cups
of ceremonial tea, faintly frothing because
brewed from whipped tea-powder and not leaves.
In such scenes one easily becomes persuaded that
tea has inspired more loveliness than opium-be-
gotten dreams or the mental stimulus of alcohol.
Sometimes tea has even exercised an influence
124 SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS
of international significance, witness the inci-
dent called "the Boston Tea Party!"
In these and similar inspiring garden sur-
roundings there developed a school of dilettanti
devoting their lives to the refining of the already
ultra-refined. They began with the everyday
serving of tea, and from its homely details
developed, step by step, the elaborations of the
cha-no-yu, or tea ceremony, a thorough grasp of
whose studied intricacies was required for the
"compleat gentleman" of those early court
circles. In this same garden stands the dainty
tea-house built by Soami to launch his new idea
of a room of only four and a half mat size
dimensions which those deep-thinking elegants
considered perfection. You must know that al-
ways in Japan a mat has measured six feet long
by three wide, and always floor space has been
described in terms of mats. Soami's four and a
half mat dimensions allowed a half mat space in
the centre for the necessary tea-making utensils,
with the other four mats squared lengthwise about
it for the devotees. Now consider what thoughts
were thus translated into things; a four and a
half mat floor meant a square of nine feet. Three
is the number denoting completeness because it
contains the affirmative, the negative and the posi-
tive, thus leaving nothing outside. Three times
SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS 125
three, or nine, then spells a completed perfection,
and when they gave the tea-house a height of
nine feet, they gained a cubic capacity of nine in
each of the three dimensions a metaphysical
result highly pleasing to their aesthetic appreci-
ations. From this agreeable trifling with tea
etiquette these early precieux passed on to num-
erous other artificialities, such as competitions in
poetizing, in flower arrangement or in classify-
ing grades of incense by inhaling their perfumes,
inventing scores of designs for stone lanterns,
garden fences, etc. In short, exquisites like
Yoshimasa, Soami, Rikyu and their ilk make the
dainty efforts of Marie Antoinette and her circle
at the Petit Trianon seem but boorish horseplay.
It was in such diversions that Yoshimasa's life
was spent, and so one readily understands why
with him the power of the Ashikaga Shoguns
went down in a glowing sunset of refined bril-
liancy.
The use of white sand in platforms or be-
patterned lawn surfaces of modest dimensions
is to be seen in other gardens of the old school,
and we shall soon notice that the darker shadows
that come with the moonlight give greater defi-
niteness and value to the patterns incised upon
the sand surfaces. This will be easily remarked
in the Kobori Enshu gardens at the Konchi-in,
126 SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS
called the Tsuru-Kame-no-Niwa or Crane and
Tortoise garden, designed by order of the Toku-
gawa Shogun lyeyasu, and also at the Tenju-
an, a spot to be visited in the late afternoon when
the westerly light picks out the hillock of stone
lying at the back of the pond, hardly noticeable
in the morning. The white sand parterre at
Konchi-in represents a lake, and the rocks are
arranged to make up the Chinese ideograph for
"heart," a favorite symbol. Kobori Enshu was
also the creator of the eight-windowed ceremonial
tea-house to the right. Both these two delight-
ful retreats lie close to the alluring Nanzenji
demesne.
At the Honen-in, a little further on along the
hillsides toward the Ginkakuji, don't fail to skirt
the buildings to the right, and you will be re-
warded by coming upon the dearest little gar-
den anywhere to be found. Its every detail is
in reduced scale, but there are lacking none of
the traditional features pond, stream, path,
bridges, rocks, trees, lanterns all are here. But
it is into the Nanzenji itself one must pene-
trate for a sight of the furthest development,
along ultra-aesthetic lines, of the sand garden in
Kyoto. Here, seated upon the threshold of Kano
Eitoku's Chinesey chef d'oeuvre of a room (24
mats) we look out upon a small garden ninety
SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS 127
feet broad by forty deep, backed by a wall. All
that the unenlightened foreigner can see is a flat
stretch of sand with no water at all, behind whose
left two-thirds is a slight background of bushes,
one small pine and several large rocks, while
off in the right hand corner stands a clump
of three shrubs. That is all, and yet to the
artistically sensitive Japanese imagination we are
gazing upon a spot where a tigress teaches her
young to cross a stream! Lest some reader
be hereby discouraged from visiting Kyoto
gardens, we hasten to add that this is the only
one which needs explanation to be pleasing. Out-
side Kyoto to the northwest, at the Ryuan-ji
temple there is a garden, called Taranoko Wat-
ashi, even more esoteric. Soami did it, and upon
a flat sanded space seventy by thirty feet with no
water, grass, bushes or trees and no background
but the wall, he has deftly stationed five groups
of two or three stones each, none more than two
feet high. To the cultured Japanese garden
student this has for nearly five centuries satis-
fyingly depicted the glories of the Inland Sea!
Probably from no other garden in the world do
its admirers (and it has many) draw so much
of their satisfaction from mind and so little from
matter.
128 SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS
The Japanese hold that it requires more skill
to conceal the artificiality of a small garden than
of a large one, but notwithstanding its difficulty,
they are happier in the treatment of the former.
A case in point is the large garden, called
"Kikoku-tei" (Arbor of citrus fusca) given by
Shogun lyemitsu in 1631 to the Higashi Hong-
wanji temple. Its pond is so large as to be prac-
ticable for boats, which pass around its gracefully
disposed islands and under the picturesque
bridges connecting them. But the scene, though
undeniably pretty, is not Japanese, it reminds
one, instead, of the Kew Gardens, London. It
is rather like a very pretty girl with nothing to
say!
As a rule, Japanese gardens, though compara-
tively limited in extent, give a surprising illusion
of size, generally produced by a depth dispro-
portionate to the width. That at the Chishaku
temple, across the street from the Imperial
Museum, affords an interesting exception to this
rule. Here Sen-no-Rikyu gets his effect of size
not by depth in the middle, but by bringing in to-
ward you at the centre a steep verdure-clad bank,
and then swinging his right and left portions out
and away. The result is as pleasing as it is effec-
tive. We have here another unusual touch, the
pond gives off a stream from the left foreground
SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS 129
which wanders around behind you between two
temple buildings connected by arched bridges.
It was in the agreeable retirement of the Chishaku
compound that the Japanese, with understanding
courtesy, confined the Russian Admiral taken at
their great naval victory in Tsushima Straits.
Rikyu's modest home still exists in the Kam-
igyo quarter of Kyoto. It is set in so small an
enclosure as would seem to preclude any garden,
and yet within this narrow space, by means of
the esoteric placing of stepping stones, a few
trees, a bamboo gateway and a pair of cha-no-yu
tea-houses, he contrived to portray a complete
poetic pilgrimage. The taste of the time required
a shallow garden to harmonize with the compact
completeness of the house. There it all stands
to-day just as he left it, except that it is now over-
shadowed by a three hundred year old icho tree,
which in his time was still in scale with the other
miniature details. The stepping stones used here
are of the type especially reserved for chaniwa
or tea-house gardens. The larger one, cut like
two steps, from which one mounts the wooden
balcony, is of the form called "sword resting"
because it served to remind the entering daimyo
or samurai that swords were not allowed within
an edifice devoted to the peaceful pastime of cha-
no-yu, but must be left in the rack outside.
130 SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS
Rikyu's house is now a shrine to his memory,
and there students of the tea-ceremony daily burn
incense before a carved wood portrait figure of
him, obviously done with loving care by the great
Hidari Jingoro, that lefthanded wizard of the
chisel. Rikyu's life shows strange contrasts of
fortune. The great Nobunaga gave him the title
of Sosho, or Professor of the Elegant Arts, and
though he also pleased JJideyoshi and became
his teacher, that autocrat, in the end, turned
against him, and ordered him to commit hara-
kiri at the age of seventy-one. In the adjoin-
ing house a lineal descendant of Rikyu's, Mr.
Senke, practises the refined intricacies of the cha-
no-yu. His performance for us of that time-
honored ceremony was a poem of grace, dignity
and tradition. Nothing could be defter than his
every movement, especially the novel one to our
eyes of whipping the tea powder with a fine bam-
boo whisk into a frothy compound a Chinese
poet called it "Froth of the Liquid Jade!" Far
back, in the time of the Tang Dynasty, tea came
in cakes, and was boiled. Later, under the Sung
Emperors, it was made into a powder, and
whipped in hot water. Then the Mongolians in
the thirteenth century overflowed China, sub-
merging the Sungs and all their refinements, in-
cluding tea etiquette. With the Ming Dynasty
SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS 131
In the fifteenth century came in the now famil-
iar method of preparing tea by steeping its leaves
in hot water. The Japanese beat off the Mon-
golian invasion in 1281, and thus in their tea cere-
mony is preserved all the early tea-cult traditions
of the Sung times, lost in China. It is difficult
to imagine a more pleasing combination of
thoughtful precision, deftness and grace, with
never a wasted motion, than the exercise of this
highly prized accomplishment displa} 7 s to our
modern eyes, whether performed by a successor
of an ancient master in the old homestead, or in
the Shinto Abbot's house at Nikko before ad-
mission to the lyeyasu Shrine's Holy of Holies,
or when enjoying the benign hospitality of the
Chief Abbot of the Buddhist monasteries on the
secluded summit of lofty Koya San. Always
it is a harmonious voice out of the distant past,
clear, complete and satisfying.
One of the few really large gardens hereabouts
is that of the Imperial palace of Shugaku-in
which lies just outside the city to the northeast.
Perched on a sloping hillside, its aspect is down-
ward and outward instead of facing toward the
customary background of trees. The pond here,
named from its shape ''The dragon," reaches al-
most the proportions of a small lake, and looking
off across it one sees the fertile plain backed by
132 SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS
hill beyond hill standing like sentinels to guard
the ancient capital. On the left, on the way down
from this upper garden a path leads off to an en-
closure devoted to the Empress. Here two bijou
edifices, one a bit below the other, look out upon
a rambling garden of four or five levels, each
with its own pool, but all connected by the water-
falls of a tiny rivulet.
The highway from Shugaku-in leads on north-
easterly over the narrowing plain to the mouth
of the Ohara valley, up which a branch road
winds between the crowding hills through de-
lightful scenery to two religious establishments
across the valley from each other ,--the San-
zen-in monastery, and the small convent of
Jakko-in. At the monastery we shall find two
gardens, a lower and an upper one, the former of
the usual type but running deeply into the forest
background, and the latter even more ancient
and pleasing. It enjoys a more open treatment
than is generally seen. One can look out some
distance under the trees, and more freedom is
displayed in placing the connected pools about
in the open, without artificial settings around
them. This garden yields the surprising thought
that from the sound of its waterfalls and the wind
through its trees was born a nation's music. Some
one has said that if he might write the songs of
SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS 133
a people he cared not who wrote its laws. What
then shall be said of a garden whose sounds begot
Japan's music! But how? it came about in this
wise. The Japanese sage Dengyo Daishi, while
pursuing his Buddhist studies in China, became
enamored of their theory of music, and decided
to introduce it at home. First he set about to
find an environment similar to that of the Chinese
monastery where he studied. Here he found it,
and here, late in the eighth century, he established
his temple and its garden. Sitting there in medi-
tation during many days, the melody of its water-
falls and the wind overhead through the trees
gradually took shape in his consciousness. Their
harmony became so definite to his meditating
senses that he set it down in musical notation, and
of it formed the basis for Japan's music. Nor
did there come from this garden nothing more
practical than music. Among the store of learn-
ing brought thither from China by this sage was
a thorough knowledge of court etiquette. This
he handed down to his successors here, with the
result that they were long the arbiters of court
ceremonials, the order of official precedence, etc.
This control of social protocol at court meant
political power a surprisingly practical product
for a garden! The Jakko-in convent, snuggled
into a recess in the hillside over against the San-
134. SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS
zen-in, is a pretty combination of many-stepped
approach with a small and natural garden amid
bungalows and shrines.
One of Kyoto's many nature treats is a trip
down the Hozu-gawa rapids which, for an hour
and a half, take us through a winding cleft in
the hills and end in the deservedly popular
Arashiyama woodland park, famous for its
cherry blossoms in early spring and its maple
foliage in late November. If a feeble joke be
permitted, these rapids have been shot so often
that they are now nearly dead, but what one lacks
in excitement is more than made up by hill and
stream scenery, the plentiful bird life, and the
constantly shifting views ahead and astern. The
return to town can be made by train, but if one
has a motor sent out it will be found waiting in
front of the Tenryu-ji temple. Behind its living
apartments, which are to the right, is a broad
garden whose large pond runs well back into and
under the tall trees forming the background. A
small peninsula juts out to the left from the
right foreground a pretty touch. Soseki de-
signed the garden in 1339 by order of Ashikaga
Takau-ji, in memory of Emperor Godaigo.
A few minutes beyond the Tenryu-ji is the
Saga-no- Shaka-do, where during an impressive
service a curtain rolls up back of the main altar
SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS 135
and discloses a figure of Shaka brought here from
China in 987. So lifelike is it that when he in
person visited the temple the figure itself recog-
nized him and walked down the steps to greet
him! At the back of the temple lies an ample
and open garden planned to display to best
advantage the Benten-do, one of the loveliest
creations of the Japanese woodcarver. Its small
exterior of warmly brown wood is smothered with
chiselled detail. About ten minutes further on
nearer town is the Ninna-ji temple lying to the
left just inside the impressive entrance of the
Omurogosho compound, whose wide sweep of
steps are crowned at the top by another temple
and a great pagoda, a landmark for miles around.
The Ninna-ji is rich in the possession of two
large gardens of the usual type, both well worth
seeing, but differing agreeably from each other.
Here also are many storied screens, alluring
for those interested in the country's history or
painting.
Another trip out of town, this time to the
southeast, travels up and through a narrow pass,
at whose further end there bursts upon us a
glorious panorama of valley below and hills be-
yond. We wind down the mountain road, per-
haps stopping at its foot to see the once pretty
but now rather neglected garden of the Konshu-
136 SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS
ji, which has one of the largest ponds in the
district. A little further on comes the really sur-
prising loveliness of the Sanbo-in (or Daigo-ji)
garden. Here again we are indebted to Hide-
yoshi's taste. The artistically stunted pine in
the foreground has its foliage trained and
trimmed into rounded tufts in the much admired
Tamatsuri manner. There are many who credit
this sequestered nook with more charm than any
of its lovely sisters in and about Kyoto. Even
the most meticulous critics can only comment that
two of its turf -covered bridges are similar, thus
contravening the strictest canons. For my part,
he who sees anything but pleasing perfection in
this spot should be classed with the Sybarite so
sensitive that, reclining on a bed of rose-leaves, he
complained that one of them was creased ! These
picturesque earth - topped bridges (called do-
bashi) are not fanciful inventions to please the
eye, but are frequent in Japan, where wooden
viaducts covered with earth sometimes keep the
traveller from noticing that his road has tempo-
rarily left the solid ground.
The most attractive garden bridge in Kyoto
is undoubtedly the ancient stone one fetched
from the old palace of Bishamon (out on the
Lake Biwa road) and installed in the garden of
the Senten Gosho, an Imperial Palace formerly
SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS 137
used by the late Dowager Empress. Here,
beneath a sheltering wistaria trellis, there spans
the pond a quaint conceit in time-beautified stone.
It is as if the verdant banks were connected by
three junks, the bow of the first protruding be-
yond the stern of the second, and it in turn
beyond that of the third, and so on to the shore.
It is as graceful as it is unusual, and quite in
the early Chinese spirit, and therefore pleasing
to the medieval Japanese aesthete. To one think-
ing in this garden, this bridge of boats leads the
mind on and out to the wide subject of ocean
carriage, to a merchant marine carrying across
from home shores to foreign markets the exports
whose expansion means so much to a nation's
life. Japan, by a wise system of subsidies, has
thus thrown bridges of modern ships from her
factories across to distant purchasers, bringing
back to her people in profits many times the
taxes needed for the upbuilding subsidies, and
besides providing well-paid employment for an
increasing number of her workers both on land
and on sea.
In the Katsura summer palace garden, a chef
d'oeuvre of Kobori Enshu, just outside Kyoto to
the west, the artistic value of a junk is again in
evidence. Protruding from the side of the palace
balcony, out over the central pond is a narrow
138 SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS
rectangular bamboo platform, simulating the bow
of an ancient Chinese junk. From this, one may
view the lovely garden picture spread broad and
deep before him, as if, aboard the vessel, he were
slowly forging out over the water. The pond's
stillness seems to rebuke the tinkling waterfalls
of rivulets struggling down to the Nirvana of its
calm repose. At a pleasing angle there runs out
diagonally across the pond a long and graceful
peninsula, reminiscent of the famous one at
Amano-hashidate, one of the three "great sights"
of Japan. Here and there upon rocky hillocks
perch dainty tea-houses, each affording a differ-
ent outlook on this morsel of man-made nature.
The garden's legend is that of an old Chinese
poem, well-known to all literary Orientals.
There are over nine hundred temples in Kyoto
and many of them still possess gardens made for
them in the middle ages. One might continue
his rambles through them indefinitely, spelling
out the thought of each one as he goes, and thus
prolong the joys which a visit to Kyoto always
means. But the two dozen that we have already
visited are enough to reveal how highly the old
Japanese valued thought, and the dignified
nature setting he considered best suited to stimu-
late the thought processes. It was matter ac-
knowledging the supremacy of mind, but at the
SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS 139
same time aiding it to its best. Each of us
possesses a mental picture gallery of his own.
Dame Fortune enables some to enrich theirs with
memories of foreign scenes later to be enjoyed
in leisure hours of tranquil retrospect at home.
None is more fortunate than he who has thus
hung this gallery with memories of certain old
Kyoto gardens, seated before which, with all the
world shut out, he may of an evening muse upon
the beautiful thought there transmuted into
things. Robert Browning re-created in "Love
among the ruins," from a mere heap of stones,
all the great pulsating activities of a long dead
metropolis. These old Kyoto gardens are but
mausolea in which lie enshrined the thought of
the ages-old Japanese* culture and civilization.
From them, if sharing Browning's constructive
spirit, we can draw forth many a picture of the
distant past. Yes, but what of the present and
the future? Are not hints of their possibilities
yielded to such a thinking people by the frequent
garden waterfalls spelling water-power for mod-
ern factories and also from the old stone bridge
under the Senten Gosho's wistaria does it not
suggest the Bridge of Boats to foreign markets
which Japan's ships provide for her factories'
products ? Should they not be a significant warn-
ing to her military party? For she has a strong
140 SOME OLD KYOTO GARDENS
military party, lineal descendants of the doughty
Kumagaye, deeply intrenched in her political
life, strong in brains of the type that rendered
Ulysses as potent in peace as in war ; strong in
the hearts of their countrymen, proud of the ac-
quisition of Formosa, of Manchuria, of Korea ;
strong with the powerful "yellow press." Will
these militaristic politicians, blind to the fate of
Prussia, persist in the Prussian path? or will
they moderate their ambitions, and, like Kuma-
gaye Naozane, cast the sword of martial ag-
gression into the pool at the heart of the garden
enshrining the wise thought of ancient Japan?
CHAPTER VI
JAPANESE PILGRIMS AND THEIR PILGRIMAGES
WRITERS upon the great war frequently al-
leged that one of the chief causes for Germany's
defeat was the inability of her military party to
understand the psychology of other nations. A
striking example of the differences between the
German and the Allies' points of view found ex-
pression in the Kaiser's conception of a Nation-
alistic Gott: upon this we differed from him
widely, and perhaps neither really understood
the other. The religion of a people is so basic a
fact that unless foreigners give it careful con-
sideration they will fail to reach such complete
understanding as alone affords sure foundation
upon which to shape their foreign policy. Upon
nothing are the Japanese and ourselves so far
apart as upon this fundamental, and he who
would seek to readjust our foreign policy in the
Far East so that it shall accord with existing
conditions and therefore lead toward practical
results, will do well to consider tendencies of
141
JAPANESE PILGRIMS
religious thought to-day evidenced in the Island
Kingdom.
Religion is, as one Latin derivation indicates
(religo, I tie back) , an attempt to tie back to the
Great First Cause, an effort which every people
in the world evidences in its forms of worship, for
none is without worship. All races have every-
where and always given this recognition to that
fundamental fact of Creation, the certain ex-
istence of a Creating Force, which they admit
to be greater for good or evil than any other they
know. We are interested in power around the
Pacific Ocean political power, of course, whose
control lies in the hands of the Japanese and the
Anglo-Saxons of the United States, Great Brit-
ain, Australia and Canada. A Divine Power
House is recognized in the religions of all of them,
so we must give consideration to the religion
of the Japanese to some account of how they
are attempting to connect with that Great Power
House, as it is given them to see it. And at the
very beginning of these comments upon their
religious systems, let the writer go on record as
believing that although the Japanese Way is not
so good as that enjoyed by Christian nations of
the Occident, nevertheless Japan of to-day is
trying harder, both by ancestral shrines in every
home, and by frequent attendance at numerous
JAPANESE PILGRIMS 143
temples and outdoor shrines, to better its con-
nection with the Divine Power House, than are
smug Christians in other lands, contented with
an hour's devotion in church upon one day in the
week, if indeed so much time as that be given to
thought of the things spiritual controlling the
material, to which latter our lives are so com-
pletely devoted. Going west across the Pacific,
one drops a day out of his calendar upon reach-
ing the 180th meridian qf longitude. It so
happened that Sunday was the day we lost, and
that started me thinking upon what would be left
of Christian attendance upon divine service if
Sunday were dropped out and only week-day at-
tendance be counted. We have fallen far below
our forefathers in interest in and thought upon
matters divine, but not so Japan, for there the
two great faiths of Shinto and Buddhism are
flourishing as never before, especially the former,
their indigenous faith. Even Buddhism is put-
ting on new attributes by adding belief in an in-
dividual future state to their original teachings
from India via China, and by launching out into
such modern manifestations as Sunday schools,
summer schools, young men's associations, wom-
en's societies, street preaching and deliberate
missionary effort abroad.
The great temple of Higashi Hongwanji in
144- JAPANESE PILGRIMS
Kyoto was built in 1895 at a cost of four million
dollars. To raise its bulky timbers into place
twenty huge hawsers were needed, and to make
those cables, some of them two hundred feet long
and sixteen inches around, thousands of women
cut off their hair and sent it to Kyoto. A great
coil of this cable still remains on view in the
temple, a mute answer to those who allege that
modern Japan is losing interest in religion!
Let us visit some of their holiest places and see
for ourselves how the religious feeling of that re-
markable people is evidencing itself. In the year
804, the then Emperor sent two very wise priests,
Kobo Daishi and Dengyo Daishi, to study
Buddhism in China, so that they might bring
home the best of its teachings. It was then that
the Japanese were thirstily absorbing all the best
that Chinese civilization had to teach, just as
recently, during the last half century, they have
seized upon everything m'odern worth learning
in the Occident. They are great learners, the
Japanese, a most enriching trait for a people
to possess. Dengyo Daishi came home after one
year and founded the Tendai sect of Buddhism
with headquarters on Mount Hiei, close by
Kyoto, the home of the Emperors. But that
ampler student, Kobo Daishi, one of the world's
great men, and founder of the Shingon sect, after
JAPANESE PILGRIMS 145
two years in China, sought and found at home
a retreat far from the seat of political power, a
mountain in the distant province of Kii, Koya
San, upon whose flattened summit, four thousand
feet above the sea, he had remarked eight hillocks,
naturally corresponding to the eight leaves of the
sacred lotus (unfolded to the student, closed to
the unenlightened) and to the eight spokes of the
Buddhist Wheel of the Law, "upon which each
human is bound until he obtains blessed release."
Here, upon this secluded mountain retreat, he
established a monastery, and here after an
abundantly useful life, spent in writing, teaching,
painting, sculpture, road building and spreading
industrial arts in many parts of his beloved
country, he lies buried, so here is the holiest spot
in all Japan for those who believe as he did, and
many another beside. Mount Koya has ever
since his death in 835 A. D. borne his monastery
and others added thereto, and around about his
grave has, during the centuries, grown up a vast
cemetery, the Westminster Abbey of Japan,
where lie buried hundreds of her greatest and
best beneath the shade of huge cryptomeria trees.
To appreciate what burial in this sacred spot
means to a Japanese, one should have prepared
his spirit by toiling up the long eight mile incline
the day before and slept within the solemn
146 JAPANESE PILGRIMS
monastic precincts of the Shoj o Shin-in or Pure-
hearted Temple. Then rising before the sun,
take respectful part in the daybreak service of
the monks, and thereafter go forth in the fresh-
ness of the new day, reverently to walk through
the mile and a half of age-softened monuments
under the shafts of light piercing down through
the cryptomeria foliage as they do through the
windows of an ancient cathedral. Just before
the tomb of the sage Kobo Daishi stands the Hall
of the Ten Thousand Lights. Here burns a
lamp which he lighted and which during all the
eleven centuries since then has never been ex-
tinguished. About it burn hundreds of other
lights in splendid lanterns given by great men
of the past vastly honored by the privilege of
presenting them to so holy a place. When you
have thus reached the tomb of this great and
good man, with spirit prepared by the reveren-
tial manner of your coming, you will understand
why all the long eight miles of the steep tilted
roadway was, and always is, thronged with
pilgrims, and why its woodland banks were
stuck thick with millions of prayers on bits of
white paper. Here you are very close to the heart
of old Japan, which beats as strongly under its
new modernity as ever it did. Upon lofty Koya
San the ancient spirit of Japan is lifted up into
JAPANESE PILGRIMS 147
a high place, and the thinking and observing
foreigner must needs be lifted up along with it,
and join in the elevation of the place.
There are many religious houses here, but no
inns or hostelries for the public, so each pilgrim
must lodge in one of these homes of religious
thought, and therefore partake of the spirit there
abiding. And that spirit cannot but be renewed
and strengthened by this constant flowing back
to the heart of the nation's best blood purified
by the religious purpose actuating each pilgrim's
visit. In sundry of these buildings are preserved
art treasures accumulating ever since the days
when Kobo Daishi, the great founder, brought
thither much of the best obtainable in the then
unrifled China, many of them presents from the
Chinese Emperor of that day. After the privi-
lege of viewing this ancient collection, the writer
was taken to the Buddhist Theological College,
where he faced six hundred earnest young
students devoting their lives to the learning and
the teaching of the Way as Buddha saw it. Here
as elsewhere throughout Japan one notices that
the faces of the priests have none of that cunning
slyness which the word priestcraft has come to
convey to the modern mind. Serious, thought-
ful and frank is the expression one sees upon the
countenance of Japanese priesthood. If anyone
148 JAPANESE PILGRIMS
tells you that Buddhism is not a living active force
in the Japan of to-day, let him; visit Koya San,
and two of the most interesting days of his life
will ever after remind him of the pulsating vigor
of faith he there witnessed.
The traveller will remark that always some-
where about the enclosure of a Japanese Buddhist
temple there will be a Shinto shrine, so blended
have these two faiths become. He will find this
true at that great pilgrimage centre, Nikko,
where stand the two gorgeous groups of mau-
solea entombing the mortal remains and the more
than mortal memories of two great Shoguns of
the Tokugawa family, lyeyasu and lyemitsu.
If the traveller is minded to indulge himself in
the fullest aesthetic preparation for the treat to
the senses which Nikko affords, then let him
desert that modern convenience, the railway train,
twenty-five miles before reaching the town. Here
begins the splendid avenue of tall cryptomeria
trees, planted over three hundred years ago to
guide the pilgrim to the shrines. Up through
these impressive rows of silent guardians of
memory one proceeds, as- for centuries countless
feet of pilgrims have trod. At last, passing
through the small town you come to the mountain
torrent, lashing its way down from the everlast-
ing hills above, but crossed by the sacred bridge
JAPANESE PILGRIMS 149
of red lacquer, whose origin is lost in ancient
mythology. It and its woodland background
find frequent echo in many a copy throughout
the land. And above, on the slopes of the pine
clad hillside await you two great series of build-
ings, stationed upon terrace above terrace, the
better to display their gorgeous color and detail
of carving that grow ever more bewilderingly
entrancing until each culminates at the top in its
Honden, or Holy of Holies. One is in charge
of a Buddhist Abbot and the other of a Shinto
one, so an even balance between those faiths is
here observed. The mausolea of lyeyasu are
somewhat the finer of the two, and here Shinto
prevails, but those of lyemitsu, with their Bud-
dhist ritual, are almost equally fascinating and
surprising. Here we have flat color in its great-
est glory, enhanced by gilding and carving in
profusion, giving the- sparkling effect one expects
from jewels. It is flat color's nearest approach
anywhere in the world to the brilliance of that
light-pierced glory which stained glass alone
enjoys. Not the sombre glitter of the glass at
Chartres or in the Lower Church at Assisi, nor
yet the quiet glow seen at Gloucester Cathedral or
Fairford Church in 'England, or Conches in Nor-
mandy, or that so frequent in Troyes or Rouen,
but rather the brilliancy of Arezzo or Erfurt.
150 JAPANESE PILGRIMS
We spent two weeks at Nikko, and always, dur-
ing our long visits to the temples at all hours of
the day, there came mounting ever the uninter-
rupted stream of pilgrims in large or small bands
or singly, devout, serious and deeply interested
in their purpose. Service after service was per-
formed for them, with always more waiting to
fill their places at the next one. We were privi-
leged to visit the Holy of Holies of the lyeyasu
shrine and within its gloomi saw hidden away
art treasures of sculpture and painting whose
hues, undimmed through long years, show a
brilliance no where else surpassed.
As at the two mausolea of Nikko, so in Kyoto,
the Rome of Japan, with its more than nine
hundred temples and shrines, Buddhism and
Shinto go hand in hand, both commanding that
same devotion which strikes the traveller inces-
santly throughout the land. So great is the
contrast between the brilliant hues of Nikko and
the quieter beauty of Kyoto with its lower tones
and charm of form rather than of color, that one
should visit the latter first, lest the gorgeousness
of the former jade your palate for the less highly
spiced delights of the latter. The Japanese have
a proverb "Never say 'splendid' until after seeing
Nikko," and they are quite right, so see it last,
unless your Kyoto stay can be long enough to
JAPANESE PILGRIMS 151
acclimatize your aesthetic perceptions to its lower
altitudes. Nikko is a small Venice or Florence,
brilliant, vibrant, entrancing, but Kyoto is a
prototype of great, quietly compelling Rome.
Before leaving Buddhism with its many sects
and turning to Shinto, reference must be made
to the great bronze statue of Buddha, erected at
Kamakura in 1252 and called the Daibutsu.
Although seated, it is over 49 feet tall, which is
exceeded by the still larger Buddha at Nara,
dating from 749, and 53% feet in height. The
Nara Buddha has nothing to commend it but
antiquity and size. How different is the Dai-
butsu at Kamakura! Anyone who has looked
upon that countenance of calm meditation,
accentuated by the thoughtful poise of its head
and shoulders, has received a sensation, a con-
vincing impression, which will stay with him
throughout life. Nowhere has human genius so
successfully depicted thought by matter. As you
look up at the Meditating One, not only do you
actually feel the thought there incarnate, but also
do you realize that it is at the same time a power-
ful and a healing thought thinking for others
by one who, as their holy writings declare, vowed
that "perfect bliss He would not have till He
knew that all who would invoke Him might be
saved." Those who have been privileged to look
152 JAPANESE PILGRIMS
upon this, one of the world's most expressive
monuments, will readily understand the numbers
of the pilgrims that continually throng thither
seeking the inspiration of this great thinking
beneficence.
But the most popular faith of all to the Japa-
nese is the only one which is really indigenous,
Shinto. It has thirteen recognized sects, but its
chief division is into State Shinto under the
Government's Bureau of Shrines, and Popular
Shinto, which, like Buddhism and Christianity
is supervised by the Bureau of Religions. Con-
fucianism, although it has quite a following, is
among the Japanese considered merely an ad-
mirable code of ethics. Shinto was originally a
form of nature worship, to which there was later
added the worship of a long series of deified men.
Unlike Buddhism with its many saints, Pure
Shinto has no images, and within the holiest part
of its shrines one sees nothing but a mirror. This
mirror is not worshipped, but is "typical of the
human heart which in its purity reflects the image
of Deity," so the worshippers bow before it in
self-examination. According to the official rec-
ords this faith has over 200,000 shrines, and yet
it is not really a religion, and is without a creed.
Its main service is to foster patriotism by main-
taining shrines for the worship of the Imperial
JAPANESE PILGRIMS 153
ancestors and of men who have notably served
the nation during their lives. This is the Japa-
nese point of view, but to the foreign observer its
great value seems to be its insistence upon
personal cleanliness and simplicity of life. It is
the cause of the Japanese being the cleanest
people in the world ; think of a land where even
the poorest coolie takes a hot bath every day ! In
these days of extravagance the world over, and
that too in spite of our international enemy,
High Cost of Living, what a national asset is a
faith like Shinto, which commends and requires
simplicity of life!
The greatest of all the Shinto shrines are
those of Ise at Yamada, and yet nothing could
be simpler than the purity of their architectural
lines or the unpainted wood of their construc-
tion. An account of one of the ceremonials
there will give the reader some idea of how
stringent are the Shinto rules regarding clean-
liness. Sea salt is much used for purification at
their shrines, and that needed for those of Ise is
procured in the following manner : Certain fish-
ermen are selected and are made ready for their
sacred task by cleanly living and by bathing.
The last day of the old year they are dressed in
new white cotton garments and are provided with
a clean new boat, all of whose fittings, sails, oars,
JAPANESE PILGRIMS
etc., are equally new, and thus equipped, they
put out to sea after nightfall to await the dawn
of the new year. When the first rays of the sun
appear above the ocean horizon, the fishermen
begin to dip up the salt water with which to fill
the carefully purified tank on their vessel. This
boatload is brought back to the land where, upon
a sandy beach beneath wind swept pine trees, the
water is boiled until nothing remains but its salt.
Fire is purifying, but that used for this ceremony
must be essentially so, so neither coal nor wood
are used, but only new rice hay and clean pine-
needles. Then there is built on the beach beneath
the protecting pines a shelter for this salt, where
under a roof thatched with clean new rice straw,
it is kept pure by the winds of heaven until from
time to time it shall be required in some ceremo-
nial. When it is used the officiating priest must
tie a clean white cloth across his mouth lest the
human breath pollute this super-cleansed salt.
Nor must he in any ceremony blow out any light,
for fire is purity and his breath is not. Every
Shinto temple and shrine must be pulled down
and rebuilt every twenty years, thus ensuring
cleanliness and also removing temptation to
over-expenditure in their construction.
Because Shinto is so greatly concerned with
JAPANESE PILGRIMS 155
reverence for the Imperial ancestors and the
support of a dynasty which has uninterruptedly
occupied the throne for over twenty-five centu-
ries, it seems to me that its essence is best seen
and felt during a visit to the tomb of the late
Mikado, one of the greatest of his line, at
Momoyama, outside Kyoto. That visit was for
me one of the most impressive experiences of my
life. Momoyama symbolizes magnificent sim-
plicity. Permission for the visit was accorded by
the Minister of the Imperial Household. The
grounds are extensive and lie upon the gentle
slope of a hill, and their only decoration is pine
trees among which run heavily gravelled paths.
My wife, little son and I were met by a guardian
who conducted us first to the official register
where each must set down his name, etc. Then,
having been joined by two attendants, he led us
toward the wide enclosure which separates the
tomb from the public who daily throng here to
offer homage. Just outside the enclosure we
were stopped before a large stone basin, where
with a new wooden ladle, water was dipped for
us to wash our hands and mouths, which we dried
on paper napkins, later handed to the attendants
to be destroyed. Then we were taken into and
across the enclosure to a gate on the opposite
side, over which was a Pure Shinto torii, known
156 JAPANESE PILGRIMS
by its horizontal bars, severely straight and not
slightly upturned at the ends as are those of
Mixed Shinto torii. The gate was opened and
disclosed a stone pathway about a hundred yards
long leading up to the tomb. At the pathway's
end, on a small easel of green bamboo rods, stood
the wreath we had brought and which had been
taken from us on our arrival. Between the gate-
way and the tomb, equal distances apart, were
laid upon the pathway straw prayer mats, and
by each a label in Japanese indicating the rank
of those by whom they were to be used. We were
honored by being escorted to the third or furthest
one, reserved for those who are or were of
ambassadorial rank. Then the guardians with-
drew. And the tomb! what does the reader
imagine concerning the magnificence of the final
resting place of one whose people during his long
and beneficent reign emerged from medievalism
and advanced to such grasp of modernity as to
become one of the great powers instead of a her-
mit kingdom. The tomb is but a simple mound
of small round stones; but such a mound and
of such simplicity! three million stones in one
great heap, whose gracefully curved outline is
broken once to avoid monotony of design. These
stones were selected with the greatest care, each
being passed through the same bamboo ring to
JAPANESE PILGRIMS 157
ensure uniform! size. Could anything be more
simple in its taste, and yet where is there a monu-
ment more impressive ? According to custom, we
retired backward, and after leaving the enclosure
were taken a few hundred yards further on to
where the Empress lies buried beneath a similar
but much smaller mound. Lower down the hill
in this same park, there also lies buried that fine
old veteran, General Nogi, the conqueror of Port
Arthur in the Russian War. So grief-stricken
was he by the death of his beloved master, the
Emperor, that the night of the Imperial funeral,
he and his aged wife, after ceremonial prepara-
tion, committed suicide by hara-kiri, so here they
both lie, below the Imperial tombs, guarding as
faithfully after death, as in life the great Gen-
eral had served. This act was an evidence of
wh$,t the Japanese call Chugi or loyalty, and be-
cause this is one of the fundamental tenets of
Shinto, Buddhism and Confucianism alike, it is
taught every Japanese from boyhood, and is the
great outstanding feature of the nation's faith.
The shrine at which more incense is burnt than
any other in the land is that in the outskirts of
Tokyo, dedicated to the Forty-seven Ronins.
The chauffeur of our motor had told me much of
his conversion to Christianity, and of his atten-
dance upon Methodist church, Sunday school and
158 JAPANESE PILGRIMS
night school, but I noticed that when he thought
himself unobserved, he quietly bought a bundle
of joss sticks and set them afire before the tomb
of the Master of the Ronins. The daimyo whom
these brave fellows served had been treacherously
done to death by a rival daimyo, so these loyal
retainers swore to avenge him. This became
known, and as a result, so many precautions
were taken that it long seemed impossible for
them to reach their intended victim. They had
to resort to all sorts of extreme measures to allay
suspicions of their purpose and thus make pos-
sible its achievement. Their leader took to a
dissolute life, put away his wife and seemingly
sunk to the gutter. At last, so unworthy and
negligible had they become that vigilance was
relaxed, and then they struck! They cut off
their victim's head, washed it in a well and of-
fered it at the tomb of the master to whom they
had been so loyal. This done, they gave them-
selves up to the authorities, and all at the same
time committed suicide by hara-kiri to expiate
their criminal act. Their ancient story, ever
new, is early told every Japanese child, and
continues a vigorous inspiration to the national
spirit of loyalty.
It is appropriate that we close these comments
upon Japanese faith by reference to its most
JAPANESE PILGRIMS 159
intimate feature, the ancestral shrines in the
homes. In Buddhist families they are to be found
in the living room of the house, but in the Shinto
ones generally in the kitchen, which should be
the cleanest part of all indoors. Before these
shrines are set flowers or offerings of food, and
here is celebrated respectful adoration of one's
forebears. A Japanese does not know a mono-
theistic God as we do. He worships forces of
nature, or deified human beings, and among
these, of course, his own progenitors. A home
with some kind of daily worship is better than one
without any. There is no denying, even among
its severest critics, that ancestor worship thus
brings into every home a daily reminder of things
spiritual, a constant touch with that beyond the
veil, on the hither side of which are the material
things cognized by the senses. Henry Adams,
in his remarkable autobiography called "The
Education of Henry Adams," devotes a chapter
to proving that the world's history should be
divided into only two epochs, that before and
that after 1893, when the discovery of the X-ray
and of radio-activity revealed the existence of
the Fourth Dimension of things and facts be-
yond the ken of the five senses a supersensual
world. The ancestral shrines in every Japanese
home have long been constant reminders of this
160 JAPANESE PILGRIMS
fact to that medley of spiritual enlightenment
and obtuseness, the Japanese people.
If the ability to move bodies through space is
a satisfying evidence of power, then the pilgrim-
ages of the Japanese show amazing strength in
their religious faiths. Nothing like them has been
seen since the famous pilgrimages of the middle
ages in Europe, when we read of a hundred
thousand pilgrims visiting Canterbury on the
same day, or of overcrowding at other holy places
by men from near and far seeking salvation.
Indeed, the figures of these Japanese pilgrimages
exceed anything which the history of any age
records of such acts of faith. On New Year's
Day, 1920, over 300,000 devotees repaired for
worship to the Kawasaki Daishi shrine just out-
side Tokyo. Nor are these pilgrimages restricted
to any one day in the year. A leading American
missionary who has lived in Japan more than
thirty years told me that so full and constant was
the stream of pilgrims daily visiting the Kompira
shrine at Kotohira on the lovely Inland Sea, that
their annual total exceeded three million. Almost
as great is the attendance at that most ancient
fane of Izumo-no O-yashiro at Kizuki, whose
Chief Priest is said to be the 82nd in his dynasty
of pontiffs. Another American missionary who
had lived two years near the greatly venerated
JAPANESE PILGRIMS 161
Ise shrines at Yamada said that the railway trains
used to bring thither ten thousand worshippers
a day. The steep and long road to the 4000 feet
elevation of Koya San's summit is as crowded as
a city street all day and every day, an ever com-
ing and going throng of devout, earnest faces,
laboriously toiling upward regardless of ad-
vanced age or physical infirmity, or descending
with the contented sense of religious accomplish-
ment. Every mountain has a shrine at its top,
so up every mountain climb devout men, demon-
strating by that effort their acknowledgement of
the ascendency belonging to* the spiritual over the
material. After witnessing such constant and
ample exhibitions of belief in that beyond the ken
of our physical senses, the American traveller
cannot but feel that the Japanese as a nation
show a higher appreciation than do we of the
great fact that this life is but a preparatory
school for another one beyond.
My conclusions are that the Japanese, with
religious faith less helpful than Christianity, are
making better and more constant use of their out-
look upon spirituality than are we of ours. And
meanwhile, what are they thinking of our Chris-
tianity? They are shrewd observers and there-
fore we may learn something useful by consider-
ing their point of view. We went to see Amano-
162 JAPANESE PILGRIMS
Hashidate, that beautiful freak of nature, where
across a lake (really an estuary) surrounded by
hills, runs diagonally a narrow causeway of sand
shaded by pine trees. We were accompanied by
a highly intelligent Japanese gentleman, espe-
cially learned in Buddhist and Shinto lore, and
with him talked for the better part of two days
upon those subjects, and especially of his con-
clusions concerning Christianity. From him and
from other thoughtful Japanese came surprising
comments upon our religions. "You call our
Buddhism idolatrous," say they. "Perhaps it is
among the poorly educated, who cannot grasp
its higher philosophy, but in many of your
churches, especially in Europe, we not only see
as many or more images, but we find that the
people pray to these saints, as you call them, and
not directly to the Great Creator, just as our
people do. We see votive tablets in many Euro-
pean churches thanking certain saints for suc-
cessful passing of school examinations and other
favors, just as among us. Furthermore, partic-
ularly in the Latin countries of Europe, your
saintly images are more frequently borne in out-
door processions through the streets than are ours
in Japan. As for your Protestant Christianity,
strongest in the United States, the slackness of
its worship makes it seem to us to approximate
JAPANESE PILGRIMS 163
our Confucianism, to have degenerated into a
mere code of ethics, nothing but rules for good
behavior."
Many of these Japanese know our Scrip-
tures, and they seem struck with the fact that
while the Gospels record that Christ healed
nearly three times oftener than he preached, and
also taught his disciples spiritually to efface dis-
ease and even death, modern Christianity is so
stripped of spirituality that both in its teachings
and practice it ignores His lessons of healing,
and uses materia medica, which He and His never
did. "Why do you call our religions unspirit-
ual," said these Japanese, "when you have delib-
erately turned your back on the chief spiritual
manifestation of your Master's life? You are
altruistic and charitable, which is mere Confu-
cianism; but spiritual in the sense of the Gos-
pel's and of Paul's teachings and acts of spirit-
ual understanding controlling things material
you certainly are not, and that too of your
own deliberate choosing." Are they right or
are they not? Is or is not our modern Chris-
tianity denatured of its spiritual understanding
of the world as it is instead of as it seems to
be? Are or are we not content to remain in
snug (or smug!) harbor, sheltered behind the
breakwaters of the five senses, reluctant to
164 JAPANESE PILGRIMS
fare forth upon the ocean of the Fourth Dimen-
sion, as becomes those living in what Henry
Adams styled the Supersensual epoch? If he is
right, are we keeping abreast of our own times?
Perhaps a stay of some months in Japan may
arouse thoughts tending to better the Christianity
of a man who goes there as a student, and not as
one boastful of western civilization. Why is not
Christianity succeeding there better than it is?
The Japanese are quick to recognize and acquire
factors of strength in our civilization isn't our
religious faith strong enough to attract them?
is it as powerful as it used to be when it started
in the Orient? Why is it that a religion owing
its origin to a Teacher born amid an Oriental
people has been taken over and organized by
Occidentals who have so remodelled it that it does
not now succeed with the very races among which
it was born? Has it been so over-organized by
the materialistic Occidental that it cannot appeal
to the more spiritual Oriental? The latter's ad-
mission of the superiority of mind over matter
prepares him to accept the teachings of Him who
healed by spirit and not by material means.
What is wrong? Have we removed the very
feature of Christianity that would have recom-
mended it to the Oriental? Have we too closely
followed Constantine and made our church
JAPANESE PILGRIMS 165
material instead of spiritual, just as he did by
stopping its persecutions, and making it the
fashion? He substituted an established Church,
with all that means of material power, for the
spiritual power it owed to the blood of its early
martyrs; are we doing the same?
Occidentals say that the Japanese have too
much conceit, not only about their land, but also
its customs, religions, and government. Don't
we need a little more conceit of the right sort
of that higher type which spells loyalty, so vital
a factor in Japanese life outspoken loyalty to
our real selves, to God as he truly is, to govern-
ment as it should be conducted? And loyalty
must be learned in small things before it can be
practised in the greater ones it should begin at
home, as charity does and as it does in Japan. At
Yale, our best song runs, "For God, For Country
and For Yale," and we learned its meaning by
an intense class loyalty which served as a foun-
dation for loyalty to university, which, in turn,
taught the higher one to country, and the highest
of all, to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe. "A
narrow beginning" you say? and best so. I
know Yale is better than Harvard, but have no
respect for a Harvard man who agrees thereon.
If that is narrow, then long live that sort of honest
narrowness! Let us be frankly partisan in our
166 JAPANESE PILGRIMS
additions, but judicial in our divisions, and
Christian in our subtractions from what those
additions and divisions have gained us. The Jap-
anese is right in his intense loyalty to his land and
its institutions. Let us be equally partisan in our
preparedness, military and otherwise, to resist
aggression from without, because this makes for
national self-respect, without which no people can
endure. Let us be judicial in our application of
that preparedness to external problems, and then,
best of all, be Christian in the day of victory, as
we have recently been.
A Far Eastern policy, carefully thought out
along such lines, will endure and prosper.
Japan is showing wider participation by in-
dividuals in her national faiths than we in ours;
theirs must be yielding them returns or their
participation would not persist and grow. And
yet it lacks altruism as we understand the word.
They are kindly each to the other and also to out-
siders, but their faith is an individualistic seek-
ing for betterment and it demands results. Es-
pecially is this true when that faith expresses
itself nationally. They cannot understand how
the United States, after sustaining over 400,000
casualties (about their own total in the Russian
war) and expending 31 billion dollars, neither
demanded nor received in the day of victory any
JAPANESE PILGRIMS 167
financial or territorial recompense whatever.
And yet, to our way of thinking, educated for
generations in Christianity, this national policy
of ours was but natural. It is from acts charac-
terized by such spirit that a nation gains its great-
est power. A people that spontaneously and
unanimously acts thus in a great national crisis
surely may be said to possess a soul less material
than that of those interested in the spoils of
victory; it can be trusted in the formulation
of its foreign policy. And the less material a
nation's soul the closer is its connection with the
Great Power House, our complete allegiance to
which is acknowledged by our Declaration of
Independence.
CHAPTER VII
SHANTUNG AND KOREA VERSUS THE WHITE PERIL
THAT extraordinary Venetian, Marco Polo,
who returned home from "Far Cathay" in 1292
after a sojourn there of nearly two decades,
amazed Europe for many a long day by his ac-
count of the wonders of the Far East. His
alluring statements concerning Zipangu, later
called Japan, were destined to produce striking
results. Marco Polo died in 1324, and more than
a century and a half afterward, one of his read-
ers, also an Italian, inspired by his narrative and
by other stories to win sight of glorious Zipangu,
resolutely set his face against all accepted geo-
graphical beliefs and sailed for the fabled island
in a westward direction instead of following the
eastward path of the earlier adventurer. This
later Italian (his name was Christopher Colum-
bus) by his epoch-making voyage toward Zi-
pangu transformed the earth from a flat plain
into a globe. He did more his addition of the
two- new continents to the known world led the
way to the white man's overrunning the earth.
168
THE WHITE PERIL 169
Columbus died ignorant that he had discovered
a new hemisphere, but believing he had found
lands near to the Zipangu he so earnestly longed
to see. Never since his successful venture has the
relentless expansion of the white man's dominion
ceased. Nor has he been contented to expand
until his flags covered not only the two American
continents, but also those of Africa and Aus-
tralia, as well as most of the "isles of the seas."
Equally persistent has been his enthusiasm for ac-
quiring Asian territory. Russia pushed steadily
across its northern half until the Pacific Ocean
alone checked her eastward march, and then turn-
ing southeasterly she swung downward through
Manchuria until she reached the Gulf of Chihli
and the Yellow Sea, and was firmly seated at
Port Arthur, which she turned into the Gibraltar
of the East. Meanwhile in southern Asia, Eng-
land had taken all the great territories of India,
and then, for elbow room, had spread west and
east and northeast, reaching out along the Malay
Straits, Singapore way, and over the lofty
Himalayas into Thibet. East of her France
took a huge piece of China, Tonkin, with its
eighty millions of Chinese inhabitants. The
English, by formal notice, warned all other
powers out of that central and best portion of
China loosely called the Yangtse Valley. The
170 THE WHITE PERIL
French issued a similar tabu notice covering all
Chinese territory south of the Yangtse Valley.
The Russians took even stronger steps through-
out Manchuria and Mongolia, so that when the
Germans raised their standard over Shantung,
the white races had omitted little of Asia except
the province of Chihli, around Peking, in which
city their armed Legation guards dominated
that neighborhood.
Now let us suppose the reader to be an inter-
ested Japanese geographer, wonderingly observ-
ing these advancing waves of the White Peril,
ever approaching nearer and nearer to his island
home off the Asian coast. Assume that, being
such an observer, he is as patriotic and intelli-
gent as the average American would be under
similar circumstances. What would he think?
silently at first, until such time as his growing
exasperation made him burst into action at see-
ing these white men from far-off Europe, not
content with annexing all the rest of the world,
finally engaged in absorbing the nearby lands of
his (the Japanese's) neighbor and fellow Ori-
ental, China. Of all these Occidental invaders
of your neighbor (for remember, gentle reader,
you are Japanese for the while) not one has a
crowded homeland like yours, needing more
territory for the annual population increase of
THE WHITE PERIL 171
700,000. Not a single one of them! and yet
they have finally advanced until the White Peril
which has overrun the world has arrived at your
very door. To quote from President Cleveland,
it "is a condition and not a theory that con-
fronts" you, and that condition insistently pre-
sents the question of the famous Tammany chief-
tain, "What are you going to do about it?" Are
you going to leave Russia in Manchuria with her
great stronghold of Port Arthur as convenient
to your coasts as is British Wei-hai-wei across
the gulf, or nearby German Tsingtao? And
while you are turning this condition over in your
Japanese mind, don't forget that Russia re-
placed you in the Liao Tung peninsula after you
had handsomely w r on it in the Chinese War, be-
cause, forsooth! the Russian, French and Ger-
man Governments, by a polite joint note ex-
pressed their fear that its continued occupation
by you would menace international peace ! It was
all right for a white man to hold that strategic
Chinese port any white man ; but not you ! But
let us get back to the Tammany man's practical
inquiry, "What are you going to do about it?"
Why, exactly what you did do about it attack
the Russian, throw him out of Manchuria, take
and hold the menace of Port Arthur, and then
eliminate his influence from Korea, where he
172 THE WHITE PERIL
not only stood for the lowest form of inefficient
and unsanitary burlesque on government, but
actually encouraged the persistence of the igno-
rance and filth that made the Hermit Kingdom
in every sense a stench, a land of but two
classes, the robbers and the robbed. The Ameri-
can people openly sympathized with the Japa-
nese cause in their Russian War, and President
Roosevelt led in approving and formally recog-
nizing the annexation of Korea by Japan.
One of the chief causes of our Spanish War
was our inability longer to tolerate the constant
yellow fever danger from Cuban ports which the
Spaniards neither could nor cared to control.
And yet Cuba in her worst days was as an anti-
septic hospital ward in comparison with what
Korea always meant to Japan just across Tsu-
shima Straits. Now, are you, kind sir or madam,
at last and for the first time, beginning to see
the Far Eastern problem through Japanese
eyes, and therefore in a new light? Shantung
and Korea, the two sore points of Japanese
aggression, as some Occidentals call them; yes,
but how do the Japanese feel about them? That
is something never considered by the "rocking
chair fleet" of internationalists at home who
have never seen the Far East but have talked so
incessantly of the Yellow Peril bogey, that they
THE WHITE PERIL 173
cannot realize the swallowing powers of that
real dragon, the White Peril, and how he is re-
garded by the other fellow.
We have seen that to the Japanese Korea, al-
ways a dangerous pest-breeding neighbor, would,
if left to the Russian, afford a handy spring-
board for a leap upon nearby Japan. The Rus-
sian was defeated, and Korea has been cleaned
up. And what does Shantung mean to the
Japanese? It means an eleventh-hour decision
to prevent the passage into white hands of that
last remnant of Asia which fronted on the Japan
dominated waters, the waters so vital to the
island race living in their midst. The Japanese
cannot, for the life of him, understand America's
excitement over Shantung province when there
was none over Germany's taking it, and when
the French holding of the far greater provinces
in Tonkin, etc., excite Americans no more than
do England's or Russia's takings from China!
If the reader still has on his Japanese spectacles,
can he see why Japan should give up Shantung
while the French, English, or Russians retain
their lots of broken China? If I were Japanese
I would loosen my hold on Shantung at the same
time that the French, English and Russians re-
linquish their acquisitions of Chinese territory,
and not a minute sooner. But I would not
174 THE WHITE PERIL
have agreed to restore Shantung to China as
Japan did in her 1914 ultimatum to Germany,
nor would I have promised to support the sov-
ereignty of the Korean royal house only a few
short years before August 29, 1910, when Korea
was incorporated into the Japanese Empire.
But that remark brings us round a sharp corner
into a subject far wider than the Far East it
brings us face to face with the long established
usages of European diplomacy.
In the Japanese formal assurances just cited,
whereby she seemingly gave definite outlines to
her future policies regarding those two moot
points of Far Eastern discussion Shantung
and Korea, Japan was but following a well un-
derstood and commonly accepted system of
verbiage employed by European diplomacy.
Some ill-judged friends of Japan claim that she
was only giving expression to an Oriental's de-
sire to say something pleasant whilst awaiting
future events to shape themselves conveniently
for the speaker. There is no use, and certainly
no common sense, in advancing that sort of ex-
planation which does not explain. Frankness
is best and therefore wisest, and the frank fact
is that Japan's early statements and later acts
(until she returns Shantung to China) are
nothing more or less than parallels of England's
THE WHITE PERIL 175
concerning Egypt. England went into Egypt
hand in hand with France, and under the sooth-
ing fiction of allegiance and support to the
Khedive representing there the Turkish Sultan.
Presently the French found themselves firmly,
but very, very gently disengaged from the Egyp-
tian situation, and England remaining alone in
the saddle, with of course the allegiance-to-
Khedive fiction still out in the show window.
The English did wonders in Egypt. They
cleaned up an Augean stable, they harnessed the
once dangerous Nile so that its floods became
uninterruptedly profitable, they gave good gov-
ernment to a downtrodden people, indeed, no-
where has the justly praised colonial rule of the
English borne sounder fruit. But and note
this, you critics of Japanese verbiage anent
Shantung and Korea, it was all done under
the diplomatic fiction of promising allegiance to
a ruler not allowed to rule, of seeming subor-
dination of the real and acting power just like
the Japanese phraseology regarding the Korean
royal house. Nobody ever calls England's treat-
ment of Egypt an example of Oriental duplicity
they approvingly style it a splendid undertak-
ing of the White Man's Burden!
If Japan seeks a European model for her dip-
lomatic action she need not go so far back as the
176 THE WHITE PERIL
beginning of English rule in Egypt. She has
only to make use of English phraseology in her
1919 dealings with Persia, Russia went to
pieces, and so did the old understanding dividing
Persia into two spheres of influence, the northern,
Russian, and the southern, English. Did Eng-
land then take over all of Persia outright? Cer-
tainly not! no more (in words) than Japan did
Korea, and no less! All she did was to bind
Persia to purchase all military and other govern-
ment equipment from England, and to take from
her also all "advisers" of any and every depart-
ment, and to borrow from her all moneys needed,
whether for railroads or other improvements ad-
vised by the English "advisers," and also to let
them "advise" in the revision of her tariff. That
is all, and further, the English Government,
with small sense of humor, goes on to agree in
the same documents "to respect absolutely the
independence and integrity of Persia" ! This, of
course, puts Persia to-day under the same sort
of British domination that was exercised over
Egypt until the action of the Sultan in the war
necessitated dropping the outworn fiction of
allegiance to his sovereignty. This is not written
to criticize England, but to readjust the view-
point of those who criticize Japan for using the
same diplomatic formulas and methods before
THE WHITE PERIL 177
taking over Korea as England used in Egypt
and in Persia. The Korean episode was not
"typical of Oriental diplomacy" it was only
European diplomacy applied by Orientals in the
Orient, that is all. ~~r"
As for Shantung, when you view it from the
Japanese point of view, and realize she is not
taking all that her 1917 treaties with England,
France and Italy permitted, you will see that
the Japanese have a right to flatter themselves
that they are showing far more moderation than
has ever been shown in the Far East by her three
European predecessors and instructors in China
partitioning. The very fact of the negotiation
of those treaties indicates that those three Euro-
pean Powers would have made some disposition
among themselves of Germany's loot in Shan-
tung if they had not approved the status quo of
Japanese occupation. And what proof, say you,
is there for such an implication that they would
not have given Shantung back to China? This,
did England fail to grasp Wei-hai-wei when,
in 1895, the European Powers forced Japan to
relinquish her war-won Chinese prizes? cer-
tainly not; when Japan was forced out England
took it herself and holds it to-day. Did China
get back Manchuria that same year when Japan
was forced out? no, Russia moved in. That
178 THE WHITE PERIL
which is all right for a white power is all wrong
for Japan, what unfair bosh! If Japan had
not taken over Germany's rights in Shantung
(against whose taking by Germany there was
no American or other protest), then one of the
usual European annexers would surely have
stepped in, just as England did into Wei-hai-
wei, or Russia into Manchuria after the Japanese
defeat of China, and annexed it. At the date
of this writing I firmly believe that China will
receive back far more of Shantung from the
Japanese than she would have gotten had the
English or French occupied the German hold-
ings there.
All men of common sense, of whatever nation-
ality, regard England's control of Egypt as hav-
ing been a blessing for the land and its people.
England will surety perform for Mesopotamia
and for Persia the same miracle of irrigation
transforming a desert into paradise that Egypt
shows, and we look forward with keen interest
to that certain result. Well and good, but now
Jet us use these same eyes of benevolent approval
for another people blessed and another land im-
proved, but not by directing them upon an
Egypt of to-day or a Mesopotamia or Persia of
to-morrow, but upon Korea. What will the
visitor there see?
THE WHITE PERIL 179
There were in December, 1918, 336,872 Jap-
anese in Korea, of which 66,943 were in Seoul.
What are they doing for the country and its
18,000,000 people? Its range on range of bare
hills remind one travelling from the seaport of
Fusan to inland Seoul of New Mexico and
Arizona, or Spain, or Algeria. This is because
the improvident Koreans denuded the country
of its splendid forests. The Japanese (success-
ful foresters, as their own pine-clad hills show)
have set out no less than 473,195,796 trees in
Korea, and are still pressing on with its reforesta-
tion. They are employing as many Koreans as
possible, over three times as many as were so
employed in 1910. In 1911, April 3 was selected
as Arbor Day and six years later over 750,000
participated in its beneficent exercises. The out-
put of the Korean coal mines has been nearly
trebled since 1910. Her foreign trade went up
from 59 million yen in 1910 to 131 million in 1917.
Her railway mileage has doubled under Japa-
nese control. Savings are being encouraged, as
appears from the last available report (January,
1917) which shows 827,215 Korean depositors,
and an increase of 177,687 individuals during the
preceding year. The telegraph lines have been
doubled in length by the Japanese and the 1910
telephone lines of 302 miles have grown to over
180 THE WHITE PERIL
3,000 miles. Both highways and street exten-
sions show even handsomer increases, and Seoul
with its many broad avenues is, thanks to the
Japanese, one of the best paved cities in the
Orient. Extensive harbor improvements have
transformed the old-fashioned Korean ports into
models of modern embarkation points. Espe-
cially have the Japanese encouraged agriculture
in their new province and thereby secured con-
stantly increasing benefits for the inhabitants,
of whom 80 per cent are normally agriculturists,
producing 70 per cent of their land's exports.
Model farms, experimental stations and train-
ing stations have been set up in many centres,
and over a million yen is thus annually expended
to uplift the Korean farmers. Left to himself
he would cultivate nothing but rice, and when it
was harvested wait until next season for the
same crop, but the Japanese are teaching him
new side lines fruit trees, cotton, sugar beet,
hemp, tobacco, silk worms, sheep breeding, etc.
An increase of several hundred per cent in wheat,
bean and barley acreage has thus been achieved.
The cotton acreage increased from 1,123 cho in
1910 to 48,000 in 1917, and the number of fruit
trees more than trebled. Numerous factories,
something hitherto unknown in the land, have
been introduced, affording occupation for thou-
THE WHITE PERIL 181
sands of Koreans. Startling improvements in
health conditions have been effected by means
of hygienic inspection and government hos-
pitals and by new waterworks everywhere. The
schools, especially industrial schools, are vigor-
ously and successfully combating the old Ko-
rean ignorance and shiftlessness. This hurried
glimpse of Japan's efforts to better Korean con-
ditions doesn't read like the selfish efforts of an
oppressor, does it? The foregoing is a fair pic-
ture of Japanese rule in Korea, and it richly
deserves to be hung alongside of the one depict-
ing England's service to Egypt, nor need it fear
comparison.
As for Japan's governmental administration
in Korea since 1910, the fairest comment is that
the military government there was not success-
ful. Few military chiefs are of the type afford-
ing successful colonial governors, while their
subordinate officers, especially those of the lower
ranks, are almost always tactless. The Japanese
themselves, from their experiences in Formosa
as well as in Korea, found out this fact, and in
the summer of 1919 the mistake was corrected
by Imperial rescript, and civil governors re-
placed the military ones in both those provinces.
No matter which nation undertakes it, military
government for a dependency proves unsatis-
182 THE WHITE PERIL
factory. We found this out in the early days
of our Philippine experiments, where there oc-
curred several unpleasant episodes of drastic
"water cures" and the like tyrannical exercises of
power by under-officers. It would have proved
equally true in Cuba, if in General Wood we
had not happened to have an administrator of
unusual ability and tact. It must not be for-
gotten that even the worst instances of unwis-
dom cited against the Japanese military rule in
Korea were as beneficent blessings in compari-
son with the consistently continuous misrule by
Koreans which it succeeded.
American readers will be interested to learn
that Baron Saito, lately appointed Governor
General of Korea, although now for twenty years
out of the active naval service, was in 1898 the
commander of the Japanese cruiser "Akitsu-
shima" which put in to Manila Harbor just after
Admiral Dewey's great victory. Admiral Voii
Diederich, bent on making trouble for the Ameri-
cans, sent his Flag Lieutenant Von Hintze
(years later Minister for Foreign Affairs) to
persuade Captain Saito to join in resisting
Admiral Dewey's regulation requiring an Amer-
ican officer to visit every incoming vessel even
if a warship, on the ground that it was "visit
and search" and as such illegal and improper.
THE WHITE PERIL 183
Captain Saito's reply was that if he were in Ad-
miral Dewey's place he would act just as he
was acting, and that so far from joining with
Von Diederich he accepted the visit from the
American officer as a welcome act of courtesy!
The selection of such a man by the Mikado in
the summer of 1919 to be his Governor General
superseding the military government, and the
appointment as Consul General by our State
Department of Mr. Ransford Miller, one of our
best equipped men in Far Eastern matters,
augurs well for a better mutual understanding
at that difficult post.
After reading a number of the attacks upon
Japan's behavior in Korea, alleged or actuated
by American missionaries in that field, I hap-
pened upon some incidents and facts which
aroused my suspicions, so I went to Seoul and
investigated upon the ground. One of these in-
cidents was my happening to notice that, in a
photograph sent from Korea and published in
a 'reputable American magazine ( Current Opin-
ion}, the uniforms worn by Japanese soldiers
who were shooting a Korean victim were not the
uniforms of to-day, but those worn in 1895 dur-
ing the Chinese-Russian War. The photograph
proved to be one of an execution in 1895 of a
Chinese spy caught in Korean costume! Those
184 THE WHITE PERIL
who sent this photograph to America for publica-
tion intended to deceive the American publisher
(which they did) and through him his Ameri-
can readers; people who will thus deliberately
deceive once, will not stop at one deception!
The perusal of Dr. Robert Speer's report on the
missionary situation in Korea afforded another
reason for my desire to see for myself that which
was being so severely attacked by the very mis-
sionaries whom the fair-minded Secretary of the
Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions de-
scribed. I have been a member of the Foreign
Missions Committee of a Presbyterian church in
New York City and therefore certainly not
prejudiced against the movement, but on the
other hand, I believe strongly that work in the
foreign field should always be conducted with
proper respect for the government there exist-
ing. A member of an American missionary
family who had lived twenty years in Seoul told
me they there generally believed that the Japa-
nese were trying to drive them out of the coun-
try because American teaching of Christianity
was subversive of the Imperial Government!
Such men and women, earnest hard working
Christians though they be, should remember that
when attempt was made to draw from Our
Saviour a criticism of Roman taxes, the reply
THE WHITE PERIL 185
began, "Render unto Caesar the things that are
Caesar's." Missionary methods that are sub-
versive of foreign governmental systems are
unchristian and need changing and so do the
missionaries !
The Seoul Press of December 12, 1919, de-
votes a leading article to the annual conference
of Methodists in Korea held in Seoul. The
paper states that the foreign missionaries had no
part whatsoever in the recent political disturb-
ances in the peninsula, and weight attaches to
this editorial statement because the Seoul Press
is more or less the mouthpiece both of the Gov-
ernment-General of Korea as well as of the
Police Bureau. The following is an editorial
article of the Seoul Press, published under the
heading of "Missionaries at the Cross Ways":
"We learn with great pleasure that at an
annual conference of Methodists throughout
Chosen recently held in Seoul, Bishop Herbert
Welch gave to Korean pastors and evangelists
present a very timely warning and instruction.
As we have it, the Bishop spoke to the following
effect :
'You are leaders and teachers of Christian
converts, and your whole concern should be
directed to spiritual work. I am confident that
none of you have anything to do with politics
186 THE WHITE PERIL
under the cloak of religion. If, however, any of
you are found to be speaking and acting at vari-
ance with the spirit of Christianity, I shall not
tolerate it. It is really disappointing to find
that since spring last not a few workers in our
church have acted contrary to our expectation.
Religionists have their own sphere of activity, as
politicians have theirs. Since we have devoted
ourselves to religious work, it is only proper that
we should confine our activity to it; in fact, it is
our duty to do so. I am confident that all of
you are working with the spirit of self-sacrifice
and in conformity with the principle of our
faith.' "
"The above quotation is not verbatim, so we
cannot vouchsafe for its accuracy. It is certain,
however, that Bishop Welch emphatically dis-
approved of any Korean Christian workers
taking part in political movements.
"In spite of all things said to the contrary,
we persist in our conviction that no foreign mis-
sionaries have ever abetted or encouraged their
Korean followers to rise against the Govern-
ment. Some of them might have shown passive
sympathy towards Korean agitators in their
aspirations and hopes. It is an undeniable fact
that the Korean agitators include many men
and women prominent in the Presbyterian arid
THE WHITE PERIL 187
Methodist Churches. This fact, however, does
not necessarily establish the erroneous contention
very often put forth by some Japanese jingoists
that foreign missionaries are at their, back. We
continue to believe that those Korean Christians
who have taken part in the agitations have done
so on their own account without either the
knowledge or approval of their foreign teachers
and leaders.
"Nevertheless, we cannot be blind to the fact
that the passive sympathy shown Korean agita-
tors, in word and writing, by some foreign mis-
sionaries aggravated the situation, the agitators
interpreting this to the credulous masses as a
token of the foreign aid which they said would
be forthcoming. It is a thousand pities that
these missionaries did not take a more manly and
resolute attitude and declare to their Korean
followers their disapproval of any of them tak-
ing part in the useless and harmful agitation.
Had they done so, the trouble would not have
assumed the dimension it did. It is of no "use,
however, to cry over spilt milk. Let the past
bury its past. Now that the Government-Gen-
eral of Chosen has been reorganized under a most
liberal-minded and able statesman and many
good reforms are on the eve of being effected
for the benefit of the Korean people, let us hope
188 THE WHITE PERIL
that such foreign missionaries as we have re-
ferred to will completely change their attitude
and guide their Korean followers in the right
way as Bishop Welch has shown. They now
stand at the cross ways, either to cooperate with
the Government and make it their friend or to
persist in opposing it and make it antagonistic
to themselves as well as to their work. We have
sufficient faith in their wisdom that they will
make no mistake in their choice."
The only comment or suggestion made to me
at any time by the Japanese authorities regard-
ing American missionaries in Korea struck me
as sound common sense they said, "Why don't
you send to Korea (a Japanese province) mis-
sionaries who have worked at least a year in Ja-
pan, say in the language schools, and who thus,
understanding the Japanese, do not begin work
in Korea with the prejudice of ignorance against
everything Japanese." Could anything be fairer
than that? There are too many of our mission-
aries who have lived so long in Korea as to think
they own the country, and they can countenance
no changes therein, even improvements. In that
connection it is discouraging to note that in that
flourishing missionary field, with hundreds of
missionaries and over 300,000 Korean converts,
Christianity seems to have left its converts about
THE WHITE PERIL 189
as ignorant and filthy as before their conversion,
and nothing like so advanced in civilization and
decency of life as the nearby Buddhists and Shin-
toists of Japan. Why? Perhaps some light on
the answer can be gotten from Dr. Speer's offi-
cial report, a perusal of which hardly inclines
one to select as broad-minded guides for shaping
American public opinion toward Japan some of
the men he there describes. They are doing faith-
ful work according to their lights, but they are
hardly qualified for advisers upon international
affairs, in which calm judgment must go hand
in hand with a constant desire for good will
among men.
Reverting to the danger of foreigners un-
thinkingly abusing a nation's hospitality by acts
or teachings subversive of its authority, I must
confess to believing before visiting the Far East
that democracy was the best form of government
for all peoples. A study on the spot of the con-
trast between the excellently functioning Im-
perial Government of Japan on the one hand,
and, on the other, the disheartening venality of
many officials of the Chinese Republic plus the
situation in Siberia made too free for democracy,
has readjusted my point of view. Democracy
for peoples like the Anglo-Saxons decidedly
yes! but for the Far East, no. Kipling re-
190 THE WHITE PERIL
marks that Russia is an eastern and not a western
nation, and of Siberia especially is this true.
Mr. Alfred R. Castle, a distinguished Harvard
graduate, of Honolulu, who served in Siberia
with the American Red Cross, states that of the
380 Bolshevist Commissars constituting their
government in all parts of European Russia and
Siberia, 286 were Russian Jews who had lived
in America, and nearly all in New York City's
lower East Side. With grim humor, thus did
"chickens come home to roost" for the Russian
people at large, and the awful tragedies of their
Jewish pogroms weje amply revenged. Trotzky
was evidently not the only viper we warmed at
our national bosom. During the dark days of
the Jewish pogroms in Russia, American Jews
rightly rallied to their support and brought all
possible influence to bear upon our government
to urge a square deal for their co-religionists in
Russia. But this new situation is a different one,
because many of these so-called Jews now in-
fluential in Russia are apostates. There is a
fine significance in the fact that such sterling
Jewish leaders as Rabbi Silverman are recogniz-
ing that American Jews should not support law-
less anarchists just because they happened to be
born in the Jewish faith. Russia's experiments
in democracy are even less encouraging than
THE WHITE PERIL 191
China's. No, neither missionaries nor American
commercial pioneers, nor any other decent for-
ward-looking men are faced the right way when
they speak or act, even unintentionally, so as to
make trouble for such a preserver of order as
the responsible Japanese governmental system
daily shows itself to be, least of all while living
in lands under the Japanese flag. That system
suits its own people, and if it doesn't suit any
of our people, it would be well if they came home,
for better relations between our country and
Japan are of the first importance.
So much for Shantung and Korea, an elev-
enth-hour stand by one nation alone against
the rapidly advancing world-consuming White
Peril. If a complete readjustment of the Cali-
fornian friction can be effected, and if American
public opinion will consent to enlightenment
upon the Shantung and Korean questions, not
only will a long step be taken toward restoring
ieelings similar to those of 1905 between our two
peoples, but also two objects will be achieved,
important alike to the Japanese and to Ameri-
can labor and American capital. Japan has
been placed alongside Asian markets by the "Act
of God," but she needs American capital to de-
velop them. Our capital seeking outlets to Asian.
markets (sure to give added employment to
192 THE WHITE PERIL
American labor) needs the advantages of that
Oriental cooperation which China's neighbor,
Japan, controls for geographical and racial rea-
sons. The best international "deal" is that which
benefits both parties thereto, and here is such a
combination. Here is a Far Eastern policy that
squares with our history, our needs and our
ideals.
CHAPTER VIII
THE YELLOW PERIL BOGEY
ONE of the most ingenious of Kaiser Wil-
helm's lines of propaganda found expression in
his constantly recurring warnings against the
Yellow Peril, which he painted with artistic skill.
Its purpose was to arouse such suspicions be-
tween Japan and America as would leave him
free uninterruptedly to develop his policy of
island grabbing in the Pacific. Under a smoke
screen of Yellow Peril talk the cruelty of his
soldiers to the Chinese after the relief of Peking
from the Boxers passed almost unnoticed. His
plan succeeded, especially in America, but not so
much along the eastern seaboard as throughout
the rest of our land.
Before the outbreak of the German Peril, our
fellow-citizens living west of the Rockies fre-
quently urged that the rest of us were carelessly
regardless of this .Yellow Peril, that we con-
sidered our Atlantic seaboard as the country's
193
194 THE YELLOW PERIL BOGEY
front door, and cared little for what might be
going on at the back door facing another great
ocean. Perhaps they were right, and that too,
regardless of whether or not there exists a real
Yellow Peril. One of the oldest of London's
famous merchant guilds is that of the Scriven-
ers. At their annual banquet there is handed
around the table, from man to man, a splendid
loving cup, ancient, curiously and richly em-
bossed. As each man rises to drink therefrom,
there stands back to back with him he who last
drank, holding up in an attitude of defense the
massive silver cover of the great tankard. Why
this quaint custom? it dates from the days when
he who so far relaxed his vigilance as to drink
from a cup, even among friends, risked a dag-
ger stab, and therefore needed some one to pro-
tect his back. We must admit that most Ameri-
cans had become accustomed to look out upon
the rest of the world \vith an eastward glance,
directed toward the Atlantic seaboard or the gulf
ports. But what about the Pacific Ocean at their
back? Aren't our California cousins right, and
should we not draw a lesson from the ancient
worthies of the Scriveners' Guild and protect
that important half of our national anatomy as
well as the other? With that determination, let
us turn about and take a serious look at the
THE YELLOW PERIL BOGEY 195
present international situation to the west of us,
if only to see whether or not a Yellow Peril
really threatens us.
Even a careless observer can see that it is
materially altered by the fact that, owing to the
war, the Germans have dropped out and the
Russians have blown up. And those very Ger-
mans and Russians were, in that great neighbor-
hood, serious elements of unrest and aggression.
The insatiable territorial greed of their two
imperial governments knew no rest; both were
willing to go to the limit, and both were approach-
ing it rapidly. The Czar had met a check at the
hands of the Japanese, but the Kaiser was still
uncurbed. On which side those two powers
would have finally taken their stand if a real
Yellow Peril arose, no one could say least of
all any who read what the war disclosed of For-
eign Office documents penned in Berlin or Pet-
rograd. As against those two dangerous factors
now disappeared from the Pacific are there not
other ones arrived or looming up which serve as
antidotes against any Yellow Peril, no matter
how serious? We shall see.
But let us examine for a few minutes this
Yellow Peril of which one has heard so much.
What is the nature of this illusion and what does
it become in the dreams of certain demagogues
196 THE YELLOW PERIL BOGEY
among us? Nothing more or less than that the
entire Japanese nation is training itself (as did
Germany) for military aggression, that it will
be directed against us, either before or after the
said completely Teutonized Japanese nation has
taken over and trained to arms their 400,000,000
Chinese neighbors, an irresistible yellow army,
lusting to fall upon the white Americans. That,
condensed into a few words, is the Yellow Peril
as seen first by many American jingoes, second,
by a large proportion of the citizens of our
Pacific coast states, and last, but not at all least,
by a few militaristic Japanese. Most of these
widely differing folk, wherever they reside, must
be convinced they are in error before the Yellow
Peril bogey is laid. How can such a peace-be-
getting crusade be planned?
Let us first consider the few militaristic Japa-
nese jingoes. The Japanese people are unusually
shrewd, and as a race gifted with a high average
of common sense. It must be admitted that the
present generation has tasted great military
glory, first in their defeat of the Chinese in 1895,
and later, in 1905, in their destruction of the gen-
eral belief in Russian invincibility. This taste of
military glory was exceeding good, and undoubt-
edly strengthened the hand of the military party.
But excellent as was the flavor of those achieve-
THE YELLOW PERIL BOGEY 197
ments, the hard-headed Japanese cannot forget
that they were followed by years of grievous
taxation, from which there was little promise of
relief, until, unexpectedly, huge orders for sup-
plies needed for the European conflict happily
turned the trade balance in favor of Japan.
I have never seen such widely distributed
prosperity as that which Japan is to-day enjoy-
ing, and its innumerable beneficiaries are for
peace, and resolutely set against anything which
may interrupt that prosperity. The urgent de-
mand for labor at mounting wages is emptying
the prisons, and mercantile life has gained so
many new charms that this year, instead of a
waiting list at the military academy, there are
many vacancies in the entering class, numerous
applicants preferring a business to a military
career.
America and Japan lead the world in that de-
velopment of journalism known as the "yellow
press", so we, of all people, should be sympa-
thetic, and not startled, to learn that certain
Japanese yellow journals used to print lurid
articles to the effect that Russia or Germany, or
both, could be relied upon to finance Japanese
aggression against us. Especially were such
articles necessary to military jingoism during the
long period of heavy taxation between the end
198 THE YELLOW PERIL BOGEY
of the Russo-Japanese War and the receipt of
enriching war orders that followed 1914. Any
Japanese would object to a new war at the pres-
ent day cost of war, if it meant heavier internal
taxation. Each modern war costs more per diem
than its predecessor for new destructive appli-
ances, nor can any army lacking them stand
against one equipped therewith. But it was all
so simple, according to these journalistic shadow-
dancers increased taxes would not be necessary
because funds would be provided from the vast
war chest and gold reserve of Germany irked
by the Monroe Doctrine in South America, or
from the even longer purse of Russia, which
Rudyard Kipling reminded the world was the
most westerly of eastern nations, and not the
most easterly of western ones. But the terms
of the Versailles treaty of peace and the ruinous
results of Russian Bolshevism have interrupted
this financial pipedream, and broken the pipe
once and for all. Taxes must go up .to finance
another war there is no other way!
Furthermore, greatly as Japanese military
politicians and their yellow press may, in the
past, have sneered at American unpreparedness,
classing us with the Chinese, even they cannot
to-day mislead the average Japanese upon this
subject, in view of our millions of trained sol-
THE YELLOW PERIL BOGEY 199
diers, and the demonstration of our wholehearted
seriousness in the waging of a war.
In the war-changed Pacific Ocean situation,
of even greater significance than the elimination
of Russia and Germany, is the greatly enhanced
importance of Australia within the British Em-
pire, discussed in a later chapter, and the revo-
lutionized strength of the American fighting
force. Before the war (June 30, 1914), we had
under arms 92,482 soldiers, 55,384 sailors and
10,272 marines. When the armistice was signed
(November 11, 1918), we possessed armed and
equipped 3,670,888 soldiers, 510,691 sailors and
32,385 marines. In addition to this great force
of about four and a quarter million fighting men,
we already had registered and subject to im-
mediate call to the colors, six million more sol-
diers, making an astounding total of over ten
million! It has been computed that New York
State alone provided 370,000 of these fighting
men, and that if the armistice had not stopped
the operation of the draft, that State alone would
have sent by July, 1919, the impressive total of
810,000 to the Federal camps and to France. As
Adjutant General of that State, and therefore
the officer in charge there of the Federal draft,
I cannot bear too earnest tribute to the skill,
energy and tact with which Major General
200 THE YELLOW PERIL BOGEY
Crowder, the Provost Marshal General, one of
the great "finds" of the war, conducted that
amazing business. It was an inspiration as well
as an honor to serve under his orders.
Admiral Mahan points out that a greatly
superior fleet does not need to fight in order to
gain its purpose; it achieves it without fighting.
The surrender without a struggle of the German
fleet proves he was right. For this reason, our
tremendous increase in fighting power, and the
demonstration of how whole-heartedly we apply
our wealth to war purposes, have already won us
a great victory for peace and rendered ridiculous
any Yellow Peril bogey. Foreign jingoes who,
before we awoke in 1917, might have urged
aggression against the United States, will from
now on have difficulty in securing a hearing at
their own Foreign Office. Especially will this
be true if we maintain the efficiency of our Fleet,
and introduce a system of short military training
for our young men along lines similar to that
practised by the peace-loving Swiss.
Of all illusory international prognostications,
the flimsiest is the possibility of Japan's con-
structing a vast yellow army of Chinese to attack
us. The most outstanding reasons for its flimsi-
ness are, first, the really genuine friendship for
us felt by the Chinese (which we have deserved,
THE YELLOW PERIL BOGEY 201
thank God! and may we continue to do so!)
coupled with their constantly growing hatred of
the Japanese, caused by their defeat in 1895, by
the definite loss of Manchuria, by the 21 demands
of 1915 and the method of their presentation, by
the recent Shantung episode, etc., etc. The
second reason is, as we have already seen, that
the Chinese are not a military people, therein
differing widely from the Japanese. To the
latter, centuries of training and the importance
enjoyed all through their history by the Samurai
or fighting man, have put a high premium upon
warlike valor, whilst in China the soldier ranked
lowest in the social scale, at the top of which pub-
lic opinion placed the peaceful student, untrained
in arms and disdainful thereof. Just so surely
as the traditions of old Japan have made her
to-day a soldiery nation, equally certain is it that
no nation, least of all hated Japan, will ever be
able to fashion a great anti-American fighting
force out of the inbred pacifism of the Chinese.
Senator Reed of Missouri stated in the United
States Senate that of the total population of the
countries composing the proposed League of
Nations, 811,425,500 would be yellow, brown,
red and black races, with only 289,488,800 of the
white race. One-half of that preponderating
total of non-white races are the peace-loving
202 THE YELLOW PERIL BOGEY
Chinese, whose numbers are neutralized by the
facts of their centuries-long inbred pacifism,
their traditional friendship for the United States,
and their antipathy toward the Japanese. The
rest of these non-white races, except those of
heterogeneous India, are too widely scattered to
become unitedly effective.
So much for laying the Yellow Peril ghost
among Japanese military extremists, and now
let us have a shot at it among our own people.
During a recent stay of nearly four months in
California, spent at different points throughout
that peculiarly American State, the writer car-
ried on a campaign of inquiry among all sorts of
persons as to how they felt about the Japanese
Peril, or (to combine those islanders with the
Chinese) the Yellow Peril. Easterners and res-
idents of our middle west would be surprised
to find, not only how widely is this feeling spread
out there, but also the intelligence of the people
entertaining it. In Riverside it was vehemently
voiced by a lady superintending a reading room,
by a library assistant, and by the leading auto-
mobile agent ; in Pasadena by a student working
his way through college as a hotel waiter and by
the owner of a large store; by a prominent
clergyman at Berkeley; and by an enterprising
steamship agent in Los Angeles, etc. No one
THE YELLOW PERIL BOGEY 203
seemed to feel it more strongly than a bright
young woman in a Santa Barbara book store, in-
telligently posted upon the improved reading
of that climatic paradise. In San Francisco the
leading banker felt as strongly and talked as
feelingly thereon as a shabby lounger on a park
bench. An old-fashioned boss of that politics-
loving metropolis remarked, "it's easy to be right
in politics here you've only got to be anti-Japa-
nese and pro-Irish." But in every case, when
pressed for the reason at the back of the anti-
Japanese feeling, they all admitted to a dread of
the Yellow Peril. So long as England and Ger-
many were engaged in a struggle for naval su-
premacy, so long as France and Germany were
each seeking an army strength superior to its
rival, just so long was there sure to be a strong,
at times a bitter, feeling between the contesting
nations. It is an unfortunate fact that so long
as there continues a belief among our Western-
ers of a Yellow Peril threatening us, just so long
will there be postponed those cordial relations
between us and Japan so greatly to be desired.
Fortunately these fellow-citizens whose homes
look out upon the Pacific know more than do the
rest of us about the check upon the Yellow Peril
afforded by the new Australia and Canada to
which they are sympathetically allied by a com-
204 THE YELLOW PERIL BOGEY
mon unwillingness to admit Asiatic immigra-
tion. The realization of this fact is slowly but
surely laying the Yellow Peril bogey in the very
part of our land best qualified to consider it and
also the most interested. And the Japanese
Government is doing even more than its share
to eliminate cause for misunderstanding, as we
will presently show.
Those who seek to arouse white audiences by
lurid pictures of the Yellow Peril love especially
to dwell upon two horrid scenes the Japanese
arming and leading 400,000,000 Chinese in a
conquest of the white world, and scene two
such a rapid increase of Japanese in California
as will soon submerge the white population. As
for scene one, it is a joke! Fighting has been
bred out of the Chinese blood during a series of
centuries. Occasional outbreaks of mob violence,
yes but intelligent continuous fighting, no!
The Japanese are a race of fighters, but the
Chinese are not, and never will be. Further-
more, the Chinese distrust and dislike the Japa-
nese even more than they trust and like Ameri-
cans. The idea of a huge army of Chinese is
impossible, except on faked payrolls (long a
profitable and popular method of their military
system) and that such an army, if raised, could
be led by the Japanese against America is a
THE YELLOW PERIL BOGEY 205
wild dream! And now for scene two. Appalling
statistics were being advanced to show that the
few thousand Japanese now in California, plus
the wives that are coming over to them from
home, will increase at such a rate as to Orientalize
in short order the population of our Pacific Coast
States. Upon this subject I spoke as follows
to a large banquet of Japanese in Tokyo, Nov-
ember 19, 1919:
"In 1905 the sympathy of all America was
with Japan, and our pockets were open to your
loans. In this connection may I remark that
ours is the first nation in history to be at the
same time the greatest reservoir both of capital
and of raw materials. It is a great pity that to-
day the American sentiments of 1905 are altered,
but he who pretends otherwise is no true cham-
pion of a better and lasting friendship between
us. I have recently come from a three months'
study of these misunderstandings in California,
and shall venture a suggestion to ameliorate the
situation. The 'Gentlemen's Agreement' was a
wise diplomatic device, which recognized that
Japanese immigration to the United States sets
up a competition between our labor and the
Japanese laborer who accepts less money and
longer hours than our men. It also recognized
that this economic undercutting of the American
206 THE YELLOW PERIL BOGEY
laborer was arousing friction, and you wisely
undertook to check it. In your millions of fru-
gal, industrious laborers lies your greatest power
to conquer the markets of the world. But every
rose has a thorn ! and your ability to live cheaper
and work longer than Occidentals is the thorn
felt by American labor when your rose is trans-
planted to California. Believe me, gentlemen,
the problem surrounding Japanese immigration
into America is an economic and not a racial one.
Here is a proof. When I was in California some
years ago so bitter was the feeling there against
cheaper living Chinese laborers, that it was not
safe for Chinamen to walk alone at night in cer-
tain quarters of San Francisco. They then called
it racial antipathy and not economic friction, but,
since Chinese immigration has been suspended,
and therefore the economic friction removed,
Chinamen have become popular in California.
You meet this Chinese immigration question just
as we did, for you do not allow cheaper living
Chinese or Korean labor to enter Japan to com-
pete with your people. (Note: It is not many
months since a Japanese mine-owner contracted
to bring about 25,000 Chinese coolies to work at
his mines in the Yamaguchi-ken, near Shimono-
seki, in the west of Japan. He actually brought
in 2,000 of these Chinese, but his application for
THE YELLOW PERIL BOGEY 20?
the necessary permission covering the whole
transaction was denied by the local authorities.
He appealed that decision to Tokyo, but it was
upheld, and he had to ship his 2,000 Chinese
back home, and the venture cost him over 65,000
yen. This story was told me by an editor of a
leading Tokyo newspaper). There is no prov-
ince of Japan where there are 110,000 Chinese
or Korean laborers to 25,000 Japanese, as there
are 110,000 Japanese to 25,000 Americans in
Hawaii, and you are quite right thus to protect
your labor from undercutting. There is no
province of Japan where foreign labor is increas-
ing by birth or otherwise in far greater propor-
tion than the Japanese, and yet that is true of
Japanese foreign labor in California. Your
protection of Japanese labor against Chinese or
Korean competition leads me to my promised
suggestion. My investigations convince me that
beyond doubt the Japanese Government has
loyally lived up to both the spirit and the letter
of the 'Gentlemen's Agreement,' but that agree-
men ought to be supplemented by a 'Ladies'
Agreement,' because the loyal adherence of your
Government to the 'Gentlemen's Agreement' is
being offset by the numerous 'picture brides'
going from Japan to Japanese laborers in
America. Their coming imperils our relations
208 THE YELLOW PERIL BOGEY
more than you realize and for reasons difficult
for you to understand.
"All you see in this 'picture bride' system is
a proper desire of your men abroad to get wives
from home. You are accustomed to marriages
being arranged by parents or friends, and there-
fore cannot grasp how the 'picture bride' system
surprises and jars upon our people. It isn't a
question of right or wrong, but an affront to
a long prevailing custom of our country, where
we are as greatly attached to free matrimonial
choice by both contracting parties themselves, as
you are to your reverence for ancestors. Neither
of us really understands how strongly the other
feels in these regards. Furthermore, perhaps
you do not realize that since these 'picture brides'
are imported by Japanese laborers, they assist
their husbands, thus becoming Japanese laborers
themselves, and thus offsetting the loyalty of
your Government to the 'Gentlemen's Agree-
ment.' And besides, they bear many more chil-
dren than do the wives of their American neigh-
bors, thus constantly reminding them of the
increasing proportion of Japanese to Americans
in Hawaii, which brings us right back to the
economic competition again. A 'Ladies' Agree-
ment' limiting the number of laborers' wives
THE YELLOW PERIL BOGEY 209
going to America would restore the situation to
the wise basis reached by the 'Gentlemen's Agree-
ment.' The lack of a 'Ladies' Agreement' per-
mits economic friction to increase, with a certain
result that none of us cares to contemplate."
Although these remarks were freely published
in the Japanese press, no hostile comment ap-
peared. On December 18th, one month later, the
Japanese Ambassador at Washington officially
notified our State Department that the issuance
of passports to "picture brides" would be dis-
continued. Thus the bottom falls out of the chief
Yellow Peril argument in California, for if the
female of the species is thus reduced in number,
the alleged dangerous increase in Japanese birth-
rate loses its danger, and the "Gentlemen's
Agreement" plus its new ally, the "Ladies'
Agreement," together provide all the restraint
upon Japanese immigration that a reasonable
American laborer can ask. The Japanese au-
thorities, by this move, as friendly as it is saga-
cious, have completely readjusted the difficult
situation in California.
So much for California, and now a few words
about the situation in Hawaii, where 110,000
Japanese overbalance the total citizenship of
265,000, of which only 25,000 are white Ameri-
210 THE YELLOW PERIL BOGEY
cans. Unfortunately, the Japanese at home do
not understand how this excessive and increas-
ing foreign element upon a portion of American
territory is misunderstood abroad. A leading
Japanese daily, the Tokyo Yamato,, said not
long ago: "We venture to advise America to
adopt the principle of self-determination in
Hawaii. While addressing this advice to Amer-
ica, we urge that at the first conference of the
League of Nations, Japan should bring forward
a proposal for the execution of the principle of
self-determination in Hawaii. This proposal
would prove the acid test of America's so-called
principle of justice and humanity." The recent
plebiscites in territories claimed by Denmark and
Germany show that such an appeal as the
Yamato is up to date, and that the preponder-
ance of Japanese in Hawaii threatens American
sovereignty there, even though not by warlike
means. I believe that a Japanese Government
so capable of timely and tactful action as the
present one can be counted on to relieve this
situation. However, in view of the Yamato'a
article, it is urgent that it receive early considera-
tion at their hands.
There remains to be considered only the third
class of Yellow Peril enthusiasts, and that but
THE YELLOW PERIL BOGEY 211
a small one certain American demagogues.
Demagogues are opportunists and float with the
political current. So soon as they find that the
average voter sees that the possibility of a dan-
gerous military combination on the Pacific of
the Germans or Russians, or both, with the
Japanese no longer exists, that neither Germany
nor Russia can finance any Japanese aggression,
and that England's completed solidarity with
Australia and Canada has come to exceed Lon-
don's interest in the Anglo-Japanese alliance,
then the demagogue will drop the Yellow Peril
as a means of exciting audiences, and turn to
more timely subjects. You can trust a dema-
gogue, of whatever country, to sense and get on
board of current topics and to desert those of
past interest!
This book has carefully eschewed that form of
pacifist lullaby which certain unwise American
friends of Japan are so fond of singing, and
tries, first by admitting the dread of a Yellow
Peril, and then by showing the existing checks
upon it, to remove any reasonable fear thereof,
and therefore, by logical and not by hysterical
methods, to clear the way for a readjustment of
our national attitude toward Japan. It shows
but poor judgment to deny that there exist many
Japanese military jingoes and a Yellow Press,
212 THE YELLOW PERIL BOGEY
and that military success and territorial expan-
sion are highly popular among those brave
islanders. But they are more than offset by
other elements among their own people, and they
are beginning to realize it.
In the last analysis, if Japanese jingoes,
dwellers in a land which Admiral Mahan said
"comes to its present with the same inheritance
as Germany from its past, of the submergence
of the individual in the mass," should succeed in
stirring up their people against the white dwell-
ers about the Pacific, what chance would they
have against lands where the development of
individual freedom and rights as a basis for
advancing the Commonwealth has yielded such,
practical results as in our land and in the British
Empire as represented by Australia and Canada?
Nor must it be forgotten that while the only pos-
sible source of the Yellow Peril (certain north-
westerly islands of the Pacific) is offset by
Anglo-Saxons down the southern half of the
same side of that ocean and the northern half
of its easterly side, the other or southerly half
of the eastern coastline is peopled by another
white race, which although of Latin, and not
Anglo-Saxon extraction, would lend no aid in a
racial struggle between yellow and white races
to the former. No, the balance against any pos-
THE YELLOW PERIL BOGEY 213
sible Yellow Peril is so great as entirely to re-
move any reasonable dread of it, and therefore
we may safely and promptly proceed to a better
understanding between ourselves and the pro-
gressive Japanese.
CHAPTER IX
A PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC?
THE matter of Philippine independence has
been much complicated of late by the fact that
the Japanese, as a result of secret treaties made
in 1917 with England, France, Italy and Russia,
hold the Marshall and Caroline islands owned by
Germany when the great war broke out. Our
Far Eastern policy must recognize this new fact
and confront it. The location of these islands,
lying as they do across our line of communica-
tion with the Philippines, falls within the spirit
if not the letter of the valuable "Lodge Amend-
ment" to the Monroe Doctrine adopted in July,
1912, by the United States Senate, because in
the language thereof it "might threaten the com-
munications ... of the United States." This
Amendment refers to places in the American
Continents, but it is nevertheless certain that
"the Government of the United States could
not see, without grave concern" anything which
"might threaten the communications of the
United States" in so vital a link as that connect-
214
A PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC? 215
ing Manila with Hawaii. This encircling of the
Philippines by Japan's advance in that quarter
inspire inquiry as to their intentions, and means
that the former's independence is no longer an
isolated question capable of separate considera-
tion and treatment, but that it is now part and
parcel of the Japanese question, which is the next
great international problem demanding adjust-
ment.
Filipinos like to dismiss this danger of theirs
by telling you the Japanese don't want their
lands, and yet, when the protection of those
lands against excessive Japanese purchases by
Philippine legislative acts was being opposed by
our State Department during the winter of 1918-
1919, their leader and Speaker of Assembly, Mr.
Osmeiia, cabled their agent in Washington, Mr.
Quezon, President of their Senate, that it was
"absolutely vital" such legislation be permitted.
"Absolutely vital" means that there was danger
from these purchases by Japanese, and this was
true especially in Mindanao, the great hemp
centre. And yet now these politicians tell you
there is no such danger, since the Japanese do
not want their islands! Why, then, was legisla-
tion to keep them out "vitally necessary," and,
further, why were several important Japanese
newspapers seriously discussing, during the sum-
216 A PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC?
mer of 1919, whether the United States would
sell them the Philippines at a fair price, and
wondering what a fair price for them would be?
Both Mr. Omena and Mr. Quezon publicly ex-
pressed delight when on December 8, 1919, the
cable brought the news to Manila that the
desired legislation had become a law. No, they
were right when they appraised this question as
a vital one for their people. It is, and Philippine
independence has become for America an in-
tegral part of the Japanese question, and can
no longer be considered apart from it.
But in order to get a fair view of the situation
as it stands to-day, let us assume that our
withdrawal from that archipelago is not part of
a larger problem, and consider what sort of a
representative republic would ensue if we left
them without our protection.
The determined, energetic Anglo-Saxon, rep-
resented by the Australians and New Zealand-
ers, controls the barrier chain of islands lying off
Asia from the equator southward, and the virile,
aggressive Japanese hold the northerly part of
that chain down as far south as the Philippines,
which alone are inhabited by a race no stronger
than the original mainlanders of the Asian con-
tinent. This weak link in the island chain has
long been in foreign hands, viz., first the Span-
A PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC? 217
iards and then, more recently, our own. We are
not there as the result of any land-grabbing ex-
pedition, but because Admiral Dewey on May 1,
1898, in response to the famous order to seek out
and destroy the Spanish fleet, thoroughly obeyed
his instructions and put us in such complete
possession that President McKinley, finding no
honorable exit, reluctantly decided the following
year that we must continue in charge of those
distant possessions. Of course, we need suitable
coal and oil stations for our navy at selected
points all around the world, but we must all ad-
mit that the Philippine question as a whole is
for us nothing more or less than a search for an
honorable solution of a serious problem. Dare
we make them independent, and then leave them
to their fate, or what shall we do? None of us,
in the bottom of our hearts, really wants great
territory so far from home. Naval stations, yes ;
trade, yes but not huge colonial possessions,
especially in a climate too tropical for us to col-
onize, and too vast and distant for us to defend.
An honorable exit would suit most of us, but its
quest has certainly been complicated by Japan
receiving the mandate of the Caroline and Mar-
shall Islands, taken over by her from the Ger-
mans during the late war. This looks like a
threat against our continued occupation of the
218 A PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC?
Philippines or their independence if we retire.
Not only do those islands lie athwart our line of
communication between the Philippines and Ha-
waii, but also the Japanese have at Jaluit, in the
Marshalls, a naval station only 2,100 miles from
Pearl Harbor, our great naval base in the Ha-
waiian Islands, and 1,400 miles nearer thereto
(and therefore to California) than the strong
Japanese navy formerly enjoyed. So long as
the Japanese retain these islands they are not
only threatening Hawaii, but are also serving
notice of what may happen to the Philippines
soon after we move out, if we leave nothing
behind us to protect their independence but ten
million natives of scores of races speaking in-
numerable languages, and with only a small per-
centage of their number educated. They will
share the fate of Formosa, Korea, Manchuria,
Shantung, etc. they will become Japanese. It
would probably be better for them than their
independence. But this book is not written for
the purpose of discussing how to benefit the
Filipinos, but seeks, from a pro-Japanese angle,
to improve relations between Japan and the
United States, as a condition precedent to a
sound Far Eastern policy. And what effect
upon those relations would be had by the pub-
lication, some fine day (and that, too, an early
A PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC? 219
one!) after a Utopian policy led us to give the
Filipino his independence, that, one or more
Japanese traders having been murdered on
some island of the Philippine group, the Japa-
nese navy had landed marines to protect her
merchants and to demand reparation? The
Filipinos could not assure protection to any
foreigner anywhere throughout most of the
archipelago, so there the world would be, back
in a somewhat familiar international situation.
The Germans took all of Shantung because two
missionaries were murdered in Kiachao could
one really blame an Oriental nation from follow-
ing the illustrious example of an Occidental one?
And what would our people say to this? Per-
haps the reader may reply, "They would say
nothing, because the Philippine responsibility
would no longer be ours." But is that really
true? It is more than doubtful. The anti- Japa-
nese among us would not fail to seize upon this
as one more weapon in their arsenal of attack
upon the Island Kingdom's alleged aggressive-
ness, etc.
How do the Filipinos feel toward the Japa-
nese, and how is it reciprocated? During my
stay in Japan I was interested to notice from the
daily newspapers how friendly a reception was
being everywhere accorded to a party of Filipino
220 A PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC?
ladies and gentlemen, the Honorable Sergio
Osmena, Speaker of the Philippine Assembly,
Major and Mrs. A. C. Torres, the Honorable
Galicano Apacible, Secretary of Agriculture,
etc. I saw them at several places, and the
Major, a well-built soldierly figure, always wore
his American uniform of the Philippine Na-
tional Guard. Not only were they of course en-
tertained by the Speaker of the Japanese Lower
House, and by many other officials in Tokyo, but
also they were given other and more striking
proofs of friendly esteem, such as being per-
mitted to penetrate the Holy of Holies in the
sanctuary of lyeyasu's gorgeous mausolea on the
pine-clad hills of Nikko, and as being feted by
the Governor General of Korea, where every
facility was given them for seeing the beneficent
results of Japanese rule. A Japanese Baron,
who recently has had cause to dislike America
because of a public slight officially given him,
told me in Tokyo that he had met these distin-
guished Philippine visitors, and that they had
told him they were entirely satisfied with Amer-
ican control of their islands. I could not help
wondering just how it came about that these
Filipino officials happened to discuss American
control with a Japanese, and especially with one
known to have received unpleasant treatment at
A PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC? 221
the hands of the American Government! It is
a grievous fault to be over-curious, but one must
confess to a wish to have heard all of that par-
ticular conversation. This visit of Mr. Osmefia
to Japan has peculiar interest to readers of Ka-
law's quaintly partisan "Self-Government in the
Philippines," a naive argument that all recent
progress and improvement there is due solely to
the Filipino governing class, without admitting
that this politically active group is but a trifling
minority of a heterogeneous population incapa-
ble of national assimilation. He points out that
the Assembly has come to be considered as
peculiarly the political expression of the people's
will, and its Speaker as the real leader of all the
Filipinos. This would give more significance to
the Japanese visit of Mr. Osmena and to his
reception there than would appear to the un-
enlightened onlooker. The Manila Times of
October 10, 1919, speaking editorially of a
letter written home by Mr. Osmefia during his
tour in Japan to Mr. Quezon, President of the
Senate, reporting that he "has been treated with
distinguished courtesy by Japanese officialdom,"
says that "the trend of events in Asia is toward
increasing intimacy between Japan and these
Islands. . . . As the Filipinos expect independ-
ence, and as they are willing, according to the
222 A PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC?
statements of several of their leading statesmen,
to accept it without any previously agreed pro-
tectorate by the United States, it is well for them
to cultivate the most friendly relations with the
Japanese, and to seek in return sincere friend-
ship. . . . While the Filipinos themselves are
notable for their courtesy and hospitality, with-
out design or fear, the horoscope of the race now
cast by the conjunction of political bodies bodes
ominously for any people who have not either the
friendship of the needy strong, or the protection
of a paternal and powerful altruist." This
editorial upon Mr. Osmena's letter home was
approvingly quoted in a Tokyo newspaper of
October 30, 1919, under the heading, "Japanese
may use Philippine lands," and therefore some
people jumped to the hasty conclusion that be-
cause Mr. Osmeiia, the "boss" of the Filipino
political machine, was accompanied on his Japa-
nese tour by the Filipino Secretary of Agricul-
ture, he was preparing to play off an alliance
with the land-hungry Japanese against American
opponents of Philippine independence. But
how could this be true? for Osmena, before
making an agreement with Japan to respect Fili-
pino independence, would doubtless be "given
pause" by the agreements to preserve the integ-
rity of China which Japan made with France
A PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC? 223
June 10, 1907, with Russia July 30, 1907, with
the United States November 30, 1908, and with
Great Britain July 13, 1911.
Besides, although Japanese propaganda pub-
licists love to play up their need for more terri-
tory into which their crowded home population
may expand, in practice they only want to go
where there is a higher standard of living and
wage scale, so that they may profit by the differ-
ence in their favor. One proof of this is that al-
though Korea, the size of the British Isles, has
only 18,000,000 inhabitants as against 47,000,000
in Great Britain, and is distant but eleven hours
from Shimonoseki, only 336,872 Japanese (1918
statistics) have availed themselves of that nearby
opportunity to become less crowded. The Ko-
reans can underlive the Japanese and will accept
less wages, so the latter do not care to compete
with him, and the Filipino has the same advan-
tages. What is true of Korea holds good also
in Manchuria, which, although under Japanese
control and not densely populated, has never-
theless attracted but 310,155 Japanese (1918
statistics ) from their homeland nearby. Crowd-
ing of population does not necessitate emigration,
so long as the homeland is prosperous. Take
for an example Germany, a country whose mili-
tary clique were always reaching out for more
22* A PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC?
colonial territory upon precisely this same plea of
excessive crowding of a rapidly growing popula-
tion at home. What light do cold-blooded sta-
tistics throw upon this claim? In 1880, 200,000
Germans emigrated, but in 1910, although the
home population had increased during those
thirty years by nearly that many millions, only
20,000 Germans left their homes to live abroad,
and more than that number of foreigners came
to live in Germany, thus turning it from an emi-
gration to an immigration country. There was
extensive emigration from Germany when she
had only 40,000,000 people, and none at all when
she had 70,000,000! Why? Because the im-
proved conditions of life, owing to her great
commercial strides during those three decades,
enabled her to support a much greater popula-
tion, and not only kept her own people con-
tented, but attracted others from outside.
Japan is not excessively overpopulated. Parts
of it are sparsely populated, and one-third of
its arable land is not cultivated. In Japan there
are 356 inhabitants per square mile, in Germany
there are 310. It is estimated that Belgium has
a population of 659 per square mile, and raises
food for only one-fifth of them, which is less
than half of the number per square mile for which
Germany raises food, but Japan does even better.
A PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC? 225
No, density of population does not necessarily
call for more territory outside one's borders.
England has 370 per square mile, but her emigra-
tion is less than it was when she had far fewer.
Holland has 474 per square miles (second only
to Belgium among European countries) but
Hollanders almost never emigrate. Perhaps of
even greater significance than all the foregoing
statistics is the seldom noticed fact that the four-
teen million Jews, one of the world's greatest
races, have no separate territory exclusively
their own, nor do most of them seem to want that
sort of "a place in the sun." No, if the wheel of
Fate should ever turn over the Philippine Is-
lands to the Japanese, they will go there as a
governing class, as in Korea and Formosa and
Manchuria, and not as settlers seeking escape
from overcrowding at home.
No such large piece of territory anywhere
around the Pacific has been allowed to remain
in weak hands, and a Philippine Republic would
be the weakest of all governments, nor is this
difficult to prove. We have been learning much
lately of the need for recognition of racial con-
centration, and that peoples of the same race
are entitled to separate nationhood. No more
Austro-Hungarian combinations are desired, cer-
tain in their internal inter-race disputes to breed
226 A PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC?
disorders difficult to confine within their own
borders. And yet the Philippine Republic would
furnish just such an objectionable medley of
many languages, plus the additional unworkable
feature of component races running the entire
gamut from university-bred Spanish-speaking
politicians down through innumerable gradations
to the Igorrote head-hunting savage. A Philip-
pine Republic unprotected by some strong Power
would not last long, and, indeed, might prove
a serious menace to a peaceful Pacific. And
a peaceful Pacific is nothing but an after-dinner
orator's dream unless there be laid for it the
enduring foundation of better Japanese-Ameri-
can feeling, surely impossible of realization if
their military party should engineer the taking
of the Philippine Islands after we got out
of them. Only cowardly dreamers or absent-
minded, distant-bodied idealists think that haul-
ing down the Stars and Stripes at Manila, and
hoisting in its place the flag of a heterogeneous
and undefended Philippine republic would afford
a guarantee that we were finally through with
them. It was necessary to free Cuba not once,
but twice, and we have since then kept out of the
island. It was a splendid thing to do one of
history's great object lessons of national good
faith. But Cuba lies very near us and very far
A PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC?
from so land-hungry a Power as Japan. The
exact opposite is the case of the Philippines
they are far from us, and form nearby links of
the long chain of islands to the north which
Japan already holds. It is only a few hours
steaming from Formosa to Luzon. No, Cuba
cannot fairly be used as argument to encourage
a departure from our present status on that dis-
tant island barrier chain. We ought not to leave
the Filipino to his own defenseless independence
unless and until he is fit for it, and also some
plan is devised to guarantee it to him.
In order to consider the question of when he
will be fit for independence, it is fair to approach
it from the angle of the Chinese Republic. How
is a republic succeeding in that nearby Oriental
land?
The Chinese are a people accustomed to change
their rulers so frequently as to disgust their con-
servative neighbors, the Japanese, whose present
Imperial dynasty has for twenty-five centuries
uninterruptedly ruled Japan. The Chinese have
made 26 changes during the last 4,000 years, not
only substituting one native dynasty for another,
but actually replacing Chinese with foreign
Manchus or Mongolians or Tartars, etc., and
finally, in 1911, ending up with what is called a
republic. This willingness to change govern-
228 A PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC?
mental systems ought to indicate such a flexible
and adjustable state of the national mind as to
make for a successful republic, but what is the
result? What is the Chinese Republic and what
is happening to it? Substitute a practical for
our usual sentimental point of view due to long
continuing cordial relations between it and the
United States, which has tried in vain and alone
to preserve China's territorial integrity. Let us
face the truth. What has happened to China ?
all its territory is already apportioned between
various European Powers, or else they have put
upon it their tabu signs, marking out their
"spheres of influence," and forbidding alienation
thereof to other nations. Last of all is the ap-
pearance of Japan as a substitute in Shantung
for Germany, which she ousted from that prov-
ince. To digress for a moment, how in the
world can you blame Japan? She sees all the
other nations grabbing great pieces of China,
and of course, in self-defense, she also grabs
those pieces near her own territories to prevent
some strong European nation from forestalling
her. To this extent she has every right to set
up a super-Monroe Doctrine of her own. I say
"super-Monroe Doctrine" because, without the
qualification "super," she is improperly using the
term Monroe Doctrine. In no manner to-day do
A PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC? 229
Japan's actions in the Far East resemble ours in
South and Central America. If you doubt this,
read the text of the outrageous 21 demands which
she served upon China January 18, 1915. It is
inconceivable that any American administration
should desire or attempt to treat Argentina or
Brazil as Japan has Manchuria and Shantung.
I strongly believe that Japan has, by reason of
geographical proximity, certain rights to especial
consideration in the Far East that we have not,
but I would be but a poor friend of Japan if I
applauded an attempt on her part to employ
the altruistic Monroe Doctrine as a camouflage
phrase for certain recently exhibited tendencies
of Japanese militaristic development.
Well, a glance at the map reveals what has
happened to a large, fairly homogeneous Chinese
population, seemingly, by a common written lan-
guage, literature, habits, traditions, etc., suited
to form a strong republic. -Why should we
expect anything better to happen to the map of
the Philippine Islands, once our flag is hauled
down and an unprotected Philippine Republic
set up? As contrasted with one uninterrupted
expanse of Chinese territory, with provinces
separated by no impassible natural boundaries,
we have the Philippine archipelago consisting of
3,141 charted islands. Although 90% of its
230 A PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC?
total land area is on the eleven largest islands,
those islands, separated by wide channels, are
themselves subdivided by chains of mountains
and other natural obstacles tending to keep its
many races isolated and apart from each other.
The whole group has a land surface a little larger
than the British Isles, and the chief island, Lu-
zon, is somewhat larger than Pennsylvania. Re-
cent statistics show the following totals for the
principal races: Visayan, 3,200,000; Tagalog,
1,500,000; Ilocano, 803,000; Bicol, 566,000;
Pangasinan, 343,000; Pampangan, 280,000;
Cagayan, 160,000 ; Zambolan, 49,000. There are
numerous subdivisions of the above races, and
scores of languages and religions to help make
"confusion worse confounded." The tribal lan-
guage variations are so numerous and so local
that a day's journey on foot brings one away from
one language and into a strange one. If a truly
representative republic is not succeeding on the
Chinese mainland with everything in its favor,
what chance has it in this tangle of islands where
nature, both on land and by sea, conspires with
a multiplicity of languages, races and religions
to prevent homogeneity or cohesion?
The voting statistics of the Chinese Republic
show less than one per cent of the population as
participating in the elections of what are, with
A PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC? 231
unintentional humor, called their representatives.
How much larger percentage of the Igorrotes,
Moros, Tagalogs, Visayans, Ilocanos, etc., are
able intelligently to exercise the franchise? Both
those alleged republics would have less percent-
age of intelligent votes than Mexico has had dur-
ing the saddest days of a down-trodden peonage.
Anything that any enemy of Mexico's sover-
eignty could ever allege concerning her govern-
ment as being by an oligarchy of a small, educated
class (the so-called cientificos) would be true to-
morrow in Manila if we withdrew. So much for
a Philippine Republic's future as viewed by any-
one conveniently near to a map of China as it is
now painted over with European and Japanese
"spheres of influence" and outright appropria-
tions.
Let us see how the Filipinos are shaping up
their governmental system to meet the difficulty
caused by their multiplicity of languages, races
and religions. Mr. Quezon, President of the
Senate, honored me with a luncheon at the
Xacionalista Club, the headquarters of the party
machine which runs the government and con-
trols all the members of the legislative body ex-
cept four, and of which club Mr. Osmena,
Speaker of the Assembly, is President. These
two gentlemen called my attention to the similar-
232 A PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC?
ity of racial type displayed in the faces of the
Cabinet officers, Judges and numerous Senators
and Assemblymen seated around the tables, all
of whom spoke fluent Spanish, and many of them
fair English. He was quite right, they were re-
markably similar in type, and inquiry revealed
that by compliance with certain residential re-
quirements, easy to meet, there was nothing to
prevent men (selected by the Nacionalista par-
ty!) who spent most of their time in Manila,
representing constituencies located in distant
parts of the archipelago. In other words, the
Nacionalista machine resembles an English party
machine, wjiich decides in London who shall be
selected as its candidates to represent districts
far from that centre of government, with the
result that many of them are really Londoners,
although maintaining political residence in the
constituency they represent in Parliament. As
a result of the operation of the Jones Bill, which
became a law in 1916, about all that is now left
of American government in the Philippines is
the Governor-General, the Vice-Governor-Gen-
eral, the Auditor and the Vice-Auditor, but they
control the Treasury, and the Governor retains
a salutary veto power. Everything else has been
turned over to the Filipinos, which means in
plain political English that the Nacionalista
A PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC? 233
party, from its headquarters at the club of that
name, runs everything as neatly and smoothly
as the Boss of Tammany Hall runs his similarly
close corporation. And Mr. Osmena, or his
successor in the presidency of the Nacionalista
political group of Spanish blood, will continue
to be the boss of the Filipinos.
And what has happened in those islands since
that measure of self-government has been given
to the natives and taken over by the Nacional-
istas? Everything has gradually dropped off in
efficiency. Before we went there it was a land of
no roads and no postoffices. We built fine roads
and installed an excellent postal seryice. Now
the once splendid automobile roads around
Manila have lost their surface and are showing
signs of wear, and the postal service is being
severely criticized. Almost all the American
schoolteachers have been dismissed, so that Eng-
lish is now being taught to the children by Fili-
pinos who speak it imperfectly. The police force
and fire department we created in Manila became
remarkably efficient under their American lead-
ers, but with those leaders gone both forces have
deteriorated, and unpleasant stories of graft are
current. Manila Harbor is an important one,
and is visited by many ships. Under Amer-
ican management the business of this port was
234. A PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC?
promptly handled. We anchored just outside
the breakwater at 7:45 a. m., on a perfect day,
and no other ship was waiting ahead of us to
delay the operations of the Filipino officials, and
yet it was not until two hours and five minutes
later that delays between perfunctory official
visitations permitted us to up-anchor and steam
inside. At no other Pacific port did we en-
counter such dilatory officialism.
Mr. Quezon and Mr. Osmena, at the luncheon
just described, made eloquent speeches in Span-
ish of the type familiar to those who have lived
in Latin- American republics. They agreed that
their party was unequivocally committed to com-
plete independence, that there was no danger of
Japanese interference therewith after our with-
drawal, and that although they would like the
friendly support of America in the future, even
without it they were willing to take their chances.
Mr. Quezon said that all Filipinos believed that
Americans had become so interested in the
Philippines that even after withdrawal their sup-
port could always be counted on if necessary.
In my brief remarks I ventured to reply that
the war just concluded had afforded a striking
demonstration of the superiority of interde-
pendence as illustrated by Australia, Canada,
India and Great Britain, over the independence
PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC? 235
of Belgium and Greece. Also it seemed my
duty to point out that, contrary to the general
belief held by Spanish-speaking peoples, the
Americans are really as proud as any other peo-
ple, and that therefore, if upon the intimation
that our room was better than our company, and,
at the express wish of the Filipinos, we hauled
down the Stars and Stripes in their archipelago,
American pride would prevent its going there
again, even to protect the islands from a control
less agreeable than ours. Strange to say, this
point of view seemed never to have struck them,
for they showed their surprise in no uncertain
manner, and later Mr. Quezon and several others
stated they had never heard it before. Another
American present, and one who is in complete
accord with a policy of American withdrawal,
confirmed my statement, which still further sur-
prised them. As I looked about upon the seri-
ous, intelligent faces of this group that control
their nation's destiny, it was impossible to refrain
from wondering if they would be the men of
whom later generations would say "we enjoyed,
but they discarded, the close friendship of one of
the world's greatest powers! Why didn't they
follow the example of Canada and Australia and
prefer the secure benefits of interdependence
236 A PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC?
with that great power to the dangers of inde-
pendence?"
Well, suppose we are unwilling to turn loose
the Filipino lamb unprotected in the forest, and
further suppose that we, in manly fashion, admit
we would like to retire to our own continent,
what can fairly be suggested by a practical man
living in the twentieth century, who prefers an
honest plan that will work to sentimental make-
shifts that only breed trouble? The Japanese
are now a great factor in this problem, and it
seems to me that they like frankness on the part
of foreigners, especially if first convinced they
speak with friendly intent, and for this reason I
made bold to express the following views at a
luncheon of Japanese given in Tokyo during
Christmas week of 1919:
"The hope of better and lasting relations be-
tween our two countries, so pregnant with valu-
able results for both of us, depends upon some
safe and sure arrangement for the future of the
Philippine Islands, to which, when they are ready
for it, we have promised independence. If and
when we move out, it seems to many of us that
it would not be long before Expansionists among
you would precipitate some move inevitably lead-
ing to your moving in. If that were done, it
would take more than one generation to over-
A PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC? 237
come the increased estrangement that such ac-
tion would create between you and us who have
worked so hard for the Filipinos. Please don't
understand me as one of those international busy-
bodies who oppose territorial expansion by Ja-
pan. I believe that President Roosevelt was
right when he led in recognizing your annexation
of Korea, and, like most Americans, I was glad
you defeated Russia and ousted her from Man-
churia. May I venture to think that the increase
in your Siberian forces points to a possible per-
manence of your power in that chaos of gov-
ernment, that anarchy-distracted region? So
clearly has Russia recently demonstrated for us
all the danger in making the world too free for
democracy, that to-day it is doubtful if your
substituting government for anarchy in Eastern
Siberia next your own possessions would meet
with serious opposition abroad. But why not
seize this opportunity to readjust your relations
with America, whose friendship is, perhaps, of
some value? Expand, if you like, but not in
the direction that arouses suspicion in America,
proud of her 'labor of love' in modernizing the
Philippines. Do you gentlemen realize that in
taking the Caroline and Marshall islands in ac-
cordance with your secret agreements of 1917
with Great Britain, France, Italy and Russia
238 A PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC?
(but not with the United States, more concerned
than any of them), you have cut our line of com-
munications to the Philippines? that this action
is a geographical threat against the future inde-
pendence of the Philippines because obviously
embracing them within your sphere of influence,
and that, therefore, your taking of the Carolines
and the Marshalls arms anti-Japanese critics with
an opportunity to inject their virus into the
Philippine independence question? Are those
German islands worth this to you? Wouldn't
you rathei have Eastern Siberia plus American
friendship, plus the business cooperation of limit-
less American capital? We don't want the Caro-
lines and Marshalls, but if you relinquish them
to international control or to Australia (an
Anglo-Saxon power) it would wipe out at one
stroke a cause of grave disquiet to those who,
like myself, are vastly more interested in Japa-
nese-American friendship than they are in the
Philippine question. After such a forward-
looking move on your part, you, Australia and
ourselves could enter into such a three-cornered
guarantee of Philippine independence as would
more surely safeguard the future peace of the
Pacific than any other one act."
If Japan should decide to relinquish to Aus-
tralia, our Anglo - Saxon cousin, the Caroline
A PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC? 239
and Marshall islands, and thereafter Japan,
Australia and the United States should unite in
jointly guaranteeing Philippine independence,
a safe solution could be found of that difficult
problem, which, if left unsolved (as it would be
if the Filipinos were granted an unprotected
independence), would always endanger Japan-
America friendship. There is no doubt that such
a friendship lies at the very root of peace in the
Pacific.
There is yet another business-like solution of
the Philippine difficulty, which, when launched
by me December 30, 1915, during a speech before
the American Society of International Law and
three affiliated societies, elicited more than one
hundred favorable editorial comments in news-
papers of all shades of political thought. That
plan was for an exchange of those distant islands
by us for the European possessions in and around
the Caribbean Sea. Though the Philippines are
far from us, they are administratively adjacent
to the British in Hong Kong or the French in
Tonkin or the Dutch in Borneo. It is essential
to the security of our future that the waters wash-
ing our southern coastline become a Pan-Amer-
ican lake, entirely freed from European politics,
or the conflicting interests of those peoples living
across the Atlantic. Not necessarily an Amer-
240 A PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC?
lean lake, as some writers now insist, but one
whose interests are entirely controlled by our-
selves and our sister republics to the south of us.
Neither they nor we should risk any future Euro-
pean conflicts being staged so unpleasantly near
our shores as would have been the case if, for
instance, the naval battle of the Falkland Isles
had taken place off British Honduras, so near to
our Panama Canal.
Since my suggestion was made, our Govern-
ment has most wisely purchased the Danish West
Indian Islands, so that the only powers now left
to deal with are England, France and Holland.
England owns most of the islands in those
waters and also British Honduras and British
Guiana. None of those possessions are profit-
able ones, and the results of her colonial policy
in her Guiana and Honduras holdings are in
unpleasant contrast with the uniform successes
of that policy in other parts of the world. In
1895, British Guiana would have precipitated a
rupture of our friendship with Great Britain had
not President Cleveland handled the situation so
admirably. French Guiana is chiefly known for
its penal settlements, in one of which Dreyfus
unjustly languished so long. The French have
brought many Siamese and Chinese coolies into
that colony, just as the Hollanders have intro-
A PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC? 241
duced 15,000 Javanese into her Guiana, both
of them following England's example, for she
transported to British Guiana over 125,000 East
Indian coolies. Does such admixture of tropical
Orientals of the lowest classes improve the man-
hood or civilization of those colonies? or was it
done for any other purpose than to exploit them
for their European owners? Isn't such action an
affront to the fundamentals of Pan- American-
ism? It certainly is in flat contradiction to the
ethnological policy of Argentina and the United
States, and for that matter, of both Canada and
Australia as well. How many miles of railroad
have these European masters built to develop the
Guianas, a combined territory of more than 171,-
000 square miles, or about the size of Alabama,
Georgia and Florida put together? There are
less than 200 miles in all the three colonies (none
at all in French Guiana), which compares un-
favorably with Venezuela's 600 miles or Colom-
bia's 700 miles. British Honduras has less than
one-tenth the railway mileage of her neighbor,
Honduras. The school systems in the three
Guianas are either far below the average of the
neighboring Latin- American republics, or do not
exist at all. Venezuela, next door, has over 1,700
schools, while Colombia, next beyond to the west,
has over 5,000, and both of them possess ancient
242 A PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC?
universities. Neither the Dutch islands of the
Caribbean nor the French ones are proving
profitable colonies, for the home governments are
constantly required to meet large deficits in their
administration. It would be better for the peo-
ples of all those European possessions if they
were released from their present allegiance. It
would free us from any more dangers to our
European friendships, like the British Guiana
incident of 1895, and it would, by our payment
for their release, reduce the staggering war debt
now owed us by England and France, and help
Holland to meet the heavy expense incurred by
the long-continued mobilization of her army from
1914 tiU 1919. It would, therefore, benefit all
concerned in or affected by the transaction, and
now is the psychological moment to arrange it,
when Europe owes us the money, and it would
be merely a matter of book-keeping to adjust it.
Probably the enactment of the Jones Law, with
its recital of a promised independence, has so far
committed our country to that policy as to pre-
clude our trading the Philippine Islands to Hol-
land, France and England for their Caribbean
possessions. But whether or not a trade of the
Philippines be involved, and even if it must be
done by plain outright purchase, the Caribbean
Sea ought now and without delay to be turned
A PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC? 243
into a Pan-American lake, by freeing the Gui-
anas and British Honduras from European dom-
ination, and by hoisting the American flag over
the European-owned islands of that sea.
To ensure peace and progress in the Pacific,
a firm friendship and cooperation should and
must be established between Japan and ourselves,
and to accomplish this end there is necessary the
removal of that stumbling block, the Philippine
problem. For this reason it seems best to take
the more direct of the two business-like routes to
that desirable end by refraining from opposition
to Japan's expansion northwesterly (which, in-
deed, is none of our business!) if she will with-
draw from her southeasterly development by
transferring the Caroline and Marshall islands
to international control or Australia, and then,
with this geographical threat to peace removed,
all three of us, Japan, Australia and the United
States, unite in guaranteeing independence to the
Filipino. That ought to satisfy all four parties
concerned, assure peace in the Pacific, progress
for American trade in cooperation with Japan,
and add another star of altruistic achievement to
the American escutcheon.
CHAPTER X
A JAPANESE POINT OF VIEW
IN the study of every question it is of the
utmost importance to learn the points of view
entertained by all sides, and especially of the
extremists. To this end there was made a col-
lection of clippings from Japanese newspapers
during the last six months of 1919 in order to
learn just what their strongest anti- American
articles were saying. From this collection the
following one has been selected for reproduction,
because it seemed the most fully to present the
anti- American case, and also because of the na-
tion-wide importance of the newspaper in which
it appeared the Osaka Mcdnichi, which printed
it November 12, 1919. Osaka is the centre of
the modern productivity of its country, a bee-
hive of industry. This journal is not only most
influential in that progressive city, but also is
widely read all over Japan, as I was informed
by a Japanese coal-mine owner of Nagasaki
(down on the island of Kyushu, in the southwest
corner of the Empire), a literary man of Tokyo,
244
A JAPANESE POINT OF VIEW 245
a leading ocean navigator, an exporter, etc.
Read this, and learn what is nowadays being said
of us in Japan let us follow Bobbie Burns' ad-
vice and "see oursels as ithers see us."
"While the important and urgent question of
promoting and perpetuating the harmony of hu-
manity and the peace of the world is receiving
careful attention, it is regrettable to note that
Japanese-American relations have been growing
in gravity, especially because the tension is being
intensified by the racial hatred and the anti-
Japanese schemes of the Americans.
"One cannot forget that Japanese-American
relations were once so harmonious that much was
said about it. When we remember those good
days, it is impossible not to feel as if we lost a
precious stone or to have the same feeling as
parents who lost a child of unusual promise. The
present straining of relations between Japan and
America is partly due to the excess of prosperity
in both countries ; it seems as if the prosperity of
one country is too great to be curbed within its
borders, and is going to get into collision with the
prosperity of another country. The situation is
not tempered by fellow-feeling nor by self-con-
trol; on the contrary, hatred and contempt are
predominant. We have always faced America
with friendly moderation and self-control, but
246 A JAPANESE POINT OF VIEW
the Americans have always treated us with arro-
gance, coercion, hatred and contempt. Unless
we agree to sit at their feet, they apparently in-
tend to exclude us entirely, and to reduce us to a
position where we shall no more be able to pro-
test against inhumanity and injustice than beasts
are. In spite of their indignation the Japanese
will patiently protest against the American atti-
tude, and while preserving self-control on their
own part they earnestly hope that the Americans
will reconsider their attitude and return to the
path of reason and equity for the sake of hu-
manity's happiness and the world's peace.
"History shows, however, that America's atti-
tude toward Japan has been aggressive, insulting
and coercive throughout. (1) When Commo-
dore Perry visited Japan, we benevolently inter-
preted his visit as an attempt to open our door
to the world. But the fact that there were no
serious developments between the two countries
was due to a change of administration, the policy
of the new President being different from that of
his predecessor. The total intention of Perry's
fleet was to threaten us and to take the Okinawa
islands by force in order to coerce this country
if we did not obey his orders.
"(2) America assisted the independence plot
in Hawaii, and used it to realize the annexation
A JAPANESE POINT OF VIEW 247
of the islands by America. It may be said that
this action on the part of America embodied the
spirit in which America threatened to take the
Okinawa Islands.
"(3) In obtaining Guam and the Philippines
in the American- Spanish War, America secured
another stepping-stone for development in the
Pacific and also laid the foundation of her activi-
ties in China. On the other hand, this state of
affairs was calculated to obstruct the southern
development of Japan and to impair her rela-
tions with China; in other words, to hinder
Japan's activities on the east, west and south.
At that time Japanese-American relations were
not so strained as yet. Moreover, the Gentle-
man's Agreement and the Pacific Agreement
have served to some extent as palliatives.
"(4) Since the school-children's question arose
in California, however, America has openly pro-
jected various anti- Japanese plans.
" (5) When subsequently the Calif ornian Leg-
islature proposed to undermine the foundations
of Japanese development in California by enact-
ing a new land law, the Japanese could but rise
in indignation, and at that time Japanese-Amer-
ican diplomacy assumed a profound significance.
The spirit of friendship toward America, how-
ever, kept the Japanese from making up their
248 A JAPANESE POINT OF VIEW
minds to take drastic action. While the issue was
left undecided, California actually attained her
object, though the question was nominally left
pending. The Americans are elated, but every
Japanese is indignant at a procedure which ig-
nored the Constitutions of California and of the
United States, set at naught treaty obligations
and trampled under foot the laws of humanity.
"America took further steps to oppress Japan.
America has tried (6) to alienate China from
Japan in connection with the question of China's
participation in the European war; (7) to oust
Japan from investments- in China and to obtain
capitalistic control of China; (8) to harass Ja-
pan at the Peace Conference, to prevent Japan
from possessing the former German islands in
the South Pacific by proposing mandatory rule
and to violate the Sino- Japanese Agreement and
Japan's understanding with Great Britain and
France regarding the disposal of Shantung; (9)
to restrain Japan's movements with regard to the
despatch of troops to Siberia or to estrange
the relations between Japan and Russia; (10)
to threaten Japan by greatly increasing the
strength of the Pacific squadron; and (11) to
assist the independence agitation in Korea, and
(12) the anti-Japanese boycott in China; (13)
America has abused and insulted Japan in the
A JAPANESE POINT OF VIEW 249
course of debate on the Peace Treaty with Ger-
many; (14) with regard to the International
Labor Conference, Mr. Sherman made remarks
exceedingly insulting to Japan: it seems as if
America desires to arouse Japan's indignation
in order to make war; (15) in the meantime a
new immigration bill has often been proposed in
the Federal Legislature for anti-Japanese pur-
poses, while (16) the anti- Japanese Calif ornians
are striving fundamentally to exclude Japanese."
The Osaka Mainichi next describes the re-
cent measures proposed in California, and then
continues :
"The anti-Japanese campaign of America is
not confined to California or to the Repub-
licans and Progressivists alone ; it seems that the
movement is supported throughout the country
and even by the Democrats. It is no wonder
that some Senator who opposed the Shantung
amendment said, in explaining his reason for the
opposition, that Japan's development in Shan-
tung was preferable to that in America.
"We must be indignant at the attitude of the
Americans in antagonizing us and treating us as
barbarians. Their actions are at variance with
the Japanese - American Treaty of Commerce
and Navigation, and contrary to the spirit of the
League of Nations. They apparently intend to
250 A JAPANESE POINT OF VIEW
subject us to discriminative and insulting treat-
ment, placing us below the inferior peoples of
South Europe and the negroes. For this pur-
pose the Americans apparently do not hesitate to
destroy the principle of justice and humanity and
to violate the code of amity and friendship. The
question at stake is not solely the undermining of
the Japanese interests fostered by many years of
labor in America. How are the Japanese in
America going to save the situation? How will
the Japanese Government have America reflect
on her doings and desist from doing injustice?
"The situation is taking a serious turn. If the
limits of the moderation, self-control and patience
of the Japanese are reached, it may lead to ir-
revocable consequences. The Americans do well
to remember the Japanese saying: 'The cornered
mouse bites the cat' ; especially because America
is not to Japan what a cat is to a mouse driven
to a corner from which there is no escape ; rather
the relations of the two countries resemble those
of two tigers face to face with each other. More-
over, the fault is the injustice of America. The
only way to avoid a possible calamity is for
America to reflect on her doings and rectify
her attitude."
This clipping was shown to several Japanese
individuals of different types, and though all
A JAPANESE POINT OF VIEW 251
politely deprecated the publication of such an
article, each agreed with at least one and gener-
ally several of the counts in the sweeping indict-
ment. Every American reader will realize that
not all these counts are true, but the point is that
many or most of them are believed to-day by
Japanese readers, who are encouraged so to think
by many newspapers, not only of the "yellow
press" variety, but also by serious*ones with large
followings, like the Mainichi. Of course, many
of these articles are privately fathered by mili-
tary politicians, seeking to stir up public feeling
so that their Parliament will pass large army and
navy appropriations, just as the Kaiser used to
"rattle the sabre" when desirous of increasing his
army or navy. Furthermore, Japanese milita-
rists must feel that they are beginning to lose
ground with the people, prosperous and generally
desirous that prosperity continue uninterrupted.
As the Irishman remarked of the man in the
treadmill, the militarists are running as fast as
they can to keep from going backward ! By thus
stirring up feeling against foreigners, they hope
to convince readers that increasing the strength
of an army and navy is a necessity and not a
luxury.
But even after taking these facts into con-
sideration and making due allowance therefor.
252 A JAPANESE POINT OF VIEW
there remains one great fact underlying all
the others the widespread irritation in Japan
against our attitude toward them, as they inter-
pret it.
Unfortunately, they are looking at us from a
distance through a telescope whose nearest lens
is obscured by the words "California Legisla-
ture." They live in a closely knit empire where
no local legislatures can embarrass the policies
of the Foreign Office at Tokyo. They cannot
grasp our system of sovereign states, any more
than can certain of our state legislatures, impa-
tient of national moves (or delays) originating
in Washington. Our system suits our people
fairly well or they would change it, and although
it sometimes handicaps our State Department,
handicaps don't necessarily defeat a good runner.
The reading of this Mcumctd article tempts
one to answer it, section by section, and the
reader is advised to yield to this temptation. The
more that thinking Americans consider other
folk's thoughts about our policies, and seek an-
swers to their criticisms of us, the sooner will we
have a large body of citizens qualified to lead
public opinion in demanding sensible foreign
policies.
CHAPTER XI
THE FIVE STRIPES OF CHINA^S FLAG
THE flag of the Chinese Republic consists of
five horizontal stripes, red, yellow, blue, white
and black. Among the Chinese and Japanese
these five hues are considered to comprise all the
colors of the rainbow, for in the one which the
Chinese call "ching" is included blue, green,
purple, and all their shades. The so - called
"five-colored" porcelain of ancient China, thus
interpreted, therefore, means that the artist used
all his palette in its coloring. These five stripes
on the Chinese flag represent its different peo-
ples, the red one standing for those of the origi-
nal eighteen provinces of China, the yellow for
the Manchus, the blue (or, more properly, the
"ching") for the Mongolians, the white for the
Thibetans, and the black for folk of Chinese
Turkestan.
In substituting this new national emblem for
the old flag of the Chinese Empire which dis-
played a great dragon with hungry jaws, the
Chinese Republic seems to an onlooker unwit-
253
254. CHINA'S FLAG
tingly to admit that the days of the swallowing
dragon are over, and have been succeeded by a
division of their land into strips, symbolizing the
swallowing by five foreign powers, England,
France, Russia, Germany and Japan. The new
banner reminds us that the time is past for
academic discussion of the future partitioning
of China it is already broken up either into
"spheres of influence" or else into outright parti-
tions. If anyone questions this, will he kindly
point out any considerable block of Chinese terri-
tory which has not already been seized by out-
siders, or marked out as "a sphere of influence,"
or tabbed by some one Power with its tabu sign
notifying all others to keep their hands off!
Where is there a province of China without a
foreign garrison, or which she could alienate to
any foreign power without promptly eliciting a
protest from one or more of the other interna-
tional bandits? The United States, alone of all
the great Powers, has not taken a hand in
slicing up the Chinese cake. We have grabbed
no piece of broken China. We alone have torn
no strip off the Chinese flag. The real slicing
of the cake began way back in 1842, when, after
winning a comic opera war against China, Eng-
land seized Hongkong (now her great naval
base in the Far East) forced the opening of
CHINA'S FLAG 255
five Chinese ports, obtained the right to trade
generally, and to establish Consulates. Right
here, at the beginning of the game of grab, the
United States Government put itself on record
by officially announcing to the Chinese Govern-
ment through Caleb Gushing that "we do not
desire any portion of the territory of China,
nor any terms or conditions whatever which
shall be otherwise than just and honorable to
China as well as to the United States." And
to this proposition we have consistently and
honestly adhered. And yet how many Ameri-
cans know that all through the war we kept
a whole regiment (the 15th Infantry) at Tien-
tsin, and that it is there to-day? In 1845 the
British took Shanghai and also Kowloon, across
the harbor from Hongkong. In 1858 to 1860
Russia set the fashion for large scale plun-
dering by helping herself to all the land north of
the Amur and east of the Ussuri rivers, a million
square miles with six hundred miles of coast
line. In 1885 and 1886, France, after brief and
inglorious hostilities, took her great Tonkin terri-
tory in the south. The wars by which England
obtained Hongkong and France Tonkin remind
one of the story of the bruised and bleeding
darky who when lifted out of the ambulance
upon arrival at the hospital was asked if he had
256 CHINA'S FLAG
been in a fight. "No, sah," replied he, "I'se been
attending a massacre!" These two wars were
very little ones, with even less glory; the loot,
however, was excellent. In 1890, after General
Graham's army had invaded and subdued Thibet,
that portion of ancient China yielded herself by
treaty to England's advance, which was broad-
ened and confirmed by their trade treaty of
1893.
The really exhilarating scramble for Chinese
territory took place from 1895 to 1898. In
the former year France, by treaties with China
(and Siam in 1883) extended her former hold-
ings in those parts by a territory half again
as large as France herself, with a population of
22,000,000. She now rules a total of 80,000,000
Chinese. In that same year Japan, after a short
war with China, in which her losses were negli-
gible, demanded Formosa, the Pescadores islands
and the great Liao-Tung peninsula of South
Manchuria. It was just at this point that an
element of humor crept into the tragedy of
China's spoliation. Learning of Japan's de-
mands, Russia, Germany and France united in
a joint note to Japan declaring that it would
menace international peace if Japan received her
South Manchurian demands. Of course, Japan
had to submit, only to see Wei-hai-wei taken by
CHINA'S FLAG 257
England, and a little later what she had asked
in South Manchuria (and more too!) by Russia,
but oddly enough, without injury to the same
international peace concerning which the Euro-
pean Powers had been so solicitous. Amusing,
wasn't it! but what about Japan's point of
view? it was not long before Russia was to be
rudely enlightened thereon! But before discuss-
ing Japan's unexpected jolt to Russia let us get
on with the tearing of China into strips. In 1896
France and England made notable advances in
the southern provinces of Yunnan and Szechuen
respectively. 1897 and 1898 were banner years
for European looters, for it was during the
former that England got more land on the north
Burma frontier, France (in March) served her
"non-alienation" or "hands off" notice regarding
the large island province of Hainan, while in
Xovember, thanks to the murder of two German
missionaries in Shantung, Germany obtained her
excuse for seizing Kiaochao Bay together with
much hinterland, since become famous under its
province name of Shantung. (The Japanese
believe that Shantung was Germany's pay for
her part in forcing Japan's retrocession of the
LJao-Tung peninsula!) Whereupon Russia, "in
compensation for" what Germany had just
obtained, demanded Port Arthur! That phrase
258 CHINA'S FLAG
"in compensation for" is really delightfully
comic, if you only stop to think of it. One
thief steals your purse, so another thief clearly
has the right, "in compensation for" what the
other has stolen, to receive your watch ! Really,
there is a great deal of innocent amusement to
be derived from watching the moves in the stran-
gulation of China, assuming, of course, that
the observer be not Chinese! February llth,
1898, England served a "non-alienation to other
powers" notice regarding the entire valley of
the Yangtse Kiang river the heart of China
and commercially its most valuable section. On
April 10, 1898 (the day after Germany seized
Kiaochao), France claimed and took the whole
Bay of Kwang-chow upon the same terms as
Germany got Kiaochao, and furthermore she
followed England's lead by serving one of the
all-too-familiar "non-alienation to other powers"
notices concerning all Chinese territory lying
south of that covered by England's similar notice
of February llth blanketing the Yangtse Val-
ley, and especially protecting the provinces just
north of her Tonkin. April 26th, Japan did the
same regarding the province of Fukien, because,
forsooth ! it was that part of the mainland which
fronted her island of Formosa, 90 miles away
across the sea. Observe, please, that there is
CHINA'S FLAG 259
honor among thieves. Next the "in compensa-
tion for" joke was sprung once more, of course,
with the usual success, when England, "in com-
pensation for" Russia's "lease" (another humor-
ous touch) of Port Arthur insisted upon having
her "lease" of Wei-hei-wai extended so as to be
coterminous with that of the Russians across the
way at Port Arthur. And now for the only
surprise in the whole entertainment, the one and
only grab that did not succeed, Italy demanded
Sanmen Bay on the Chekiang Coast, and was
refused! It seems incredible that Italy should
not be allowed to thrust her hand into the inter-
national grab-bag, but evidently, whilst five
(England, France, Russia, Germany and Ja-
pan) "was company, six was a crowd," to para-
phrase the old saying. The Portuguese colony
of Macao known only for fantan gambling and
opium manufacture is too unimportant for inclu-
sion in this more illustrious syndicate. In pass-
ing, it is interesting to note that all this 1898
grabbing went on while the United States was
occupied with the Spanish war! 1900 will long
be remembered as the year of the Boxer outbreak
in China, the march of the six allied military
commands to the relief of their Legations in
Peking, the three hundred million tael indemnity
demanded by the allied powers, the definite oc-
260 CHINA'S FLAG
cupation of South Manchuria by the Russians,
and the then meaningless punitive devastations
of the German troops under definite orders from
the Kaiser to revive and recall the savagery of
their ancestors the Huns. Little did the world
then understand the true modern meaning of the
word Hun, now deeply graven on the tomb-
stone of Germany's hopes! We Americans may
properly take pride in recalling that we alone
returned to China our share of the indemnity
paid us ($20,000,000). In 1905, as a result of
Japan's notable victory over Russia, she replaced
that power in South Manchuria, and subse-
quently in her claims over Eastern Inner Mon-
golia. The mills of the gods ground slowly, but
thus after ten years' wait Japan had her revenge
for Russia's interference in her spoils of the
1895 victory over China. During all the fifteen
years following 1895 Japan, always competing
with Russia, had been tightening her hold upon
Korea, until at last, August 29, 1910, she cast
off all diplomatic paraphrase and camouflage,
deposed the Korean emperor and formally an-
nexed his country. November 3, 1912, after
Outer Mongolia had revolted from Chinese sov-
ereignty, the revolt was formally approved by
Russia (who doubtless in no wise encouraged or
assisted therein!) but this document was nothing
CHINA'S FLAG 261
more or less than a declaration of that province
passing into a Russian "sphere of influence,"
which China, by her treaty with Russia of No-
vember 5, 1913, duly recognized. August 15th,
1914, Japan delivered her ultimatum to Ger-
many to surrender to her before September 15th,
all her Shantung holdings "with a view to the
eventual restoration of the same to China." The
date of that eventuality has not yet been set.
January 18, 1915, Japan presented her 21 de-
mands upon China, which, after fruitless remon-
strance, were accepted May 8th, but with formal
announcement by China that it was done under
duress. This unwise move of Japan's is now
condemned by many intelligent Japanese, among
others K. K. Kawakami, their able protagonist,
who resides in San Francisco, and publishes his
writings in English.
There are other chapters in this grim despoil-
ing of China, but the foregoing is tragedy
enough for the average fair-minded onlooker.
Taken altogether, it affords a strange picture of
the systematic dismemberment of a great Orien-
tal people as taught by four Christian nations of
Europe, and learned by one Oriental pupil, copy-
ing its Occidental teachers before it be too late
and white races occupy too much nearby terri-
tory, thereby endangering her seclusive safety.
262 CHINA'S FLAG
The last act in the drama was the reduction of
the five spoliators of China to four, by the sub-
stitution of Japan for Germany in Shantung.
What will be the final outcome? Will the
spoliators drop out one by one as Germany did,
leaving in turn their spoliations to the survivors?
This breaking-up of China was materially
aided by the marked differences existing between
the types of Chinese inhabiting the various prov-
inces. Then, too, the lamentable lack of roads
or any other form of intercommunication except
waterways facilitated piecemeal spoliation. Even
close to so great a centre as Canton, the only
roads are footpaths running along the top of
dikes separating the paddy fields. Although in
some other sections rude carts are possible, the
narrowness of the average road has caused large
wheelbarrows (sometimes assisted by a sail) gen-
erally to supersede the cart. Up in the north,
in the loess geological formation (provinces of
Chihli, Shantung, Honan, Shansi and Shensi),
the earth is so friable that the narrow roads are
worn down further and further into the earth.
In Shantung some of them are seventy feet be-
low the surface of the ground; the effect of rain
on such a road can be easily imagined it cer-
tainly does not encourage travel even between
neighboring villages. All this meant the gradual
CHINA'S FLAG 263
development* of widely" differing customs and
habits, as well as contrasting philosophies and
psychologies. Within the confines of greater
China may be found as marked racial and
thought differentiations as those differentiating
,all the European countries from the North Sea
and the Baltic down to the Mediterranean. In
this sense one may consider the Gulf of Chihli
or the ever-shifting Hoang-ho or Yellow River
as China's Baltic, and the Yangtse Valley or the
West River still farther south, as her Mediter-
ranean. Even to-day, when the different sections
of China are being connected by modern im-
provements in communications, South Chinamen
differ from the northerners as greatly as do the
Latin races of South Europe from its Teutonic
peoples. Even far back in history these marked
divergencies existed. Five centuries before the
Christian era the idealism of the great Chinese
sage Laotse differed widely from the prosaic
ethics later known as Confucianism, which came
out of Shantung in the north. The followers of
the great northerner, Confucius, learned from his
writings a benevolent communism, which con-
trasts sharply with the individualism so highly
prized in South China. In art the south shows
marked differences from the north. As early as
the third century, A.D., painting flourished much
264 CHINA'S FLAG
more in the south than in the north, where sculp-
ture and architecture were more highly esteemed
and therefore developed. In view of these and
other dissimilarities, it is remarkable that such
differing peoples as the Chinese of the various
provinces could so long have held together, and
inertia is perhaps the best explanation therefor.
Nevertheless, these differences were all the time
militating against any united resistance to the
gradual breaking-up which land-grabbing by
foreigners was accomplishing.
As aff ofrding a proof of Chinese national spirit,
much has lately been said and written of China's
boycott of Japanese goods, a movement in which
Chinese college and high school students are
especially active. Trade statistics indicate that
it has proved much more effective in South China
than in the central and northern sections. Dur-
ing October, 1919, Japanese exports to South
China fell to 87,000 yen from the 1918 total
(same month) of 611,000 yen. The Chinese
newspapers naturally attempt to show that the
boycott has seriously affected Japanese trade,
but the Osaka Asahi points out that according
to the monthly trade returns of the Finance
Department, Japan's exports to China between
January and August, 1919, increased by 191,-
000,000 yen over the same period of 1918, thus
CHINA'S FLAG 265
averaging an increase of 23,900,000 per month.
Other official statistics, made up in American
money, report that the first ten days of August,
1919, show imports from China to Japan of
$3,886,500 as compared with $2,293,500 for the
same period in 1918, while Japanese exports to
China for those same ten days in 1918 were $3,-
450,500, as against $4,504,500 in 1919, divided
as follows: to Central China, $2,078,500; to
North China, $1,480,500; to Manchuria, $904,500
and to South China only $41,000. This shows
that the boycott works in the south, but in the
north, even though the people are nearer to
distrusted Japan, it seems to have little effect
in restricting Japanese trade expansion. The
traveller in China sees and hears a great deal
about the boycott, for the students are constantly
parading the streets with music and banners,
shouting imprecations against merchants sus-
pected of selling Japanese goods. One large
seven-story department store in Canton was so
effectively boycotted that we saw almost no pur-
chasers in it, and yet unprejudiced Americans
living in the city said the boycott was entirely un-
just, and that it had been "engineered" by rival
merchants. After seeing a number of these
parades, one rather gets the feeling that the whole
movement is but a pettish outburst against a
266 CHINA'S FLAG
stronger race by one whose childish behavior con-
fesses its helplessness to employ more manly
methods of national protest.
Some European writers contend that the
Chinese are not capable of governing them-
selves? Is this true? Are the Chinese them-
selves qualified to develop good government?
What answer to this question does one get from
their history or from a visit to their country?
The student of Chinese self-government finds
unrolled before his eyes one long monotonous
scroll recording misgovernment badly adminis-
tered. Dishonesty at the top and dishonesty all
the way down to the smallest official, plus an
amazing inefficiency. During the days of the
monarchy many foreign friends of China sighed
for a republic, because the imperial officials were
so notoriously inept and crooked. "Squeeze"
prevailed everywhere, and an official position was
valued according to the opportunity it gave for
getting money "on the side." But all this un-
savory state of affairs was going to be changed
if and when a republic was set up. The mon-
archy fell, a republic was proclaimed, and the
new day dawned! And what has the daylight
of that new day revealed? graft everywhere,
just as before, nothing changed but the identity
of the grafters. The split between the north and
CHINA'S FLAG 267
of China exists and continues because of
the ample opportunities it affords for graft.
The matter of soldiers' pay necessitated by the
strained relations between the two sections is
worth considering. There are said to be 87,000
troops quartered in Canton alone. Of course,
they are perfectly useless there, and a four days'
observation of their appearance confirms one's
conclusions in that regard, for in no other land
could one see such an agglomeration of weedy
old men and boys, "all sorts and conditions of
men." But they are soldiers, which means sol-
diers' pay, which in turn means that somebody
is making a nice profit on each and every one of
them, so the more employed the more profit ; it
is a wonder there are not more than 87,000 of
them! One of their Major Generals is a com-
prador in a local bank, and our guide (who, when
not guiding, runs a photograph shop, and is also
manager of a plumbing establishment) employed
his leisure hours as drill master with the rank of
Major!
Times have changed little (and the people
not at all!) since Lord Charles Beresford wrote
in 1899 ("The Break Up of China"): "As
the generals, like all authorities in China, only
have a nominal salary, they make large profits
or squeezes during their commands. In order
268 CHINA'S FLAG
to report an instance, I questioned one of those
in command when in Peking. He informed
me that he commanded 10,000 men. I ascer-
tained that all he actually commanded was 800.
His method is common to China. He receives
the money to pay and feed and clothe 10,000
men. If this army was to be inspected, he hires
coolies at 200 cash (5>^d.) a day to appear on
parade. This is well known to the inspecting
officer, but he receives a douceur to report that
he has inspected the army and has found it in
perfect order." "With the exception of Yuan
Shi Kai's army, all the armies above referred to
(14) have little or no firing practice, and none
of them have any organization whatever for
transport. It seems incredible, but some of the
soldiers are still practised in shooting with bows
and arrows at a target. When at Peking I saw
them practising in an open space near the Ob-
servatory. Hitting the target is a detail of minor
importance; the real merit consists in the posi-
tion or attitude of the bowman when discharging
his shaft." "The Consul at Wuchow told me
that during the late riots soldiers were armed
with every sort of weapon guns, rifles and
blunderbusses. They also carried long brass
horns and gongs and other instruments to make
discordant noises. They patrolled the streets and
CHINA'S FLAG 269
the outside of the town. Many were totally un-
armed, and carried only a bird-cage and a fan,
being known as soldiers by their military badge."
At Canton one gets an insight into the present
status of Chinese naval affairs. The West River,
in its reaches above Canton, is infested with
pirates, and even the boats plying downstream
to Hongkong (a seven hours' trip) have their
decks patrolled by guards carrying rifles. Any
decently efficient or self-respecting naval force
would promptly have wiped out this anach-
ronistic discredit to order and good govern-
ment, but how do the Chinese treat the situation?
Lying in the river, just off the Bund of Canton
and convenient to the long rows of so-called
"Flower Boats" (dives of every sort) are a num-
ber of river gunboats flying the Chinese naval
flag. As a military force they deserve the name
of "junk" even more than any of that craft
floating by them, but even so they could stop
this anachronistic river-piracy if they wished.
Instead, they lie comfortably anchored alongside
Canton. A few miles down the river at Wham-
poa (once a favorite anchorage for the famous
American clipper ships) lie, and for two years
have laid, three fine Chinese battle cruisers, sent
down from the north to overawe this leading city
of the south, the largest in population of any in
270 CHINA'S FLAG
China. Naval pay goes on and the boats fly the
Chinese flag, so that is all that is necessary. Is
it any wonder that the Japanese won their 1895
war against China in jig-time and with small
losses?
So much for China's possibilities in the manly
art of self-defense, and now what about that
fundamental pre-requisite for self-government
decency and honesty of the individual citizen?
Some one has said that a nation gets a govern-
ment it deserves, but no better. The filth of the
average Chinaman is incredible. After one has
walked through several of their villages, where
dirty houses are thronged with unkempt children,
dirty pigs and unwashed adults, or has visited
a couple of those huddled up, never cleansed
rabbit-warrens they call cities, he sighs for the
neat and tidy houses of Japan, the land where
even the poor coolie has his hot bath every day.
How can decency get a fair start in a Chinese
village or overcrowded city? Turning to the
question of individual honesty, a traveller in
China hears more about thieving, and reads more
about it in the papers than anywhere else in the
world. One's effects must always be kept locked
up, in striking contrast to Japan, where hotel
rooms may be safely left unlocked without fear
of loss. Even in Hongkong, admirably gov-
CHINA'S FLAG 271
erned and policed by the British as it is, shops
are constantly being broken into by the Chinese,
hats are snatched from passengers in jinrickshas,
and counterfeit money, so common in China, is
constantly passed on foreigners. I never saw
any counterfeit money in Japan, but was caught
twice within an hour after landing in China, and
frequently thereafter. The Hongkong Post of
December 18, 1919, summed up in a masterly
editorial a general indictment against the Chinese
for robbery, motor-car hold-ups, murder of gaol-
keepers, etc. Villages are compactly built with
no straggling houses, for fear of the numerous
robbers constantly abroad in the land. Nor is
thieving confined to the innumerable and omni-
present poor, for whom necessity might provide
an excuse. The month before we visited Can-
ton, the comprador of a local bank, who draws
a modest salary, entertained at dinner over 4,000
guests! Of course, he didn't steal, he only
"squeezed"! And yet many pro-Chinese Ameri-
can writers continue to say that Japanese banks
employ Chinese compradors because they are so
honest! This brings us to the crux of the busi-
ness and political problem in China, public
opinion expects everybody in power to "squeeze",
and nobody objects to it, for each hopes to be
able later to take a hand in the game, even if not
272 CHINA'S FLAG
already engaged therein. Of course, there are
honest Chinamen, many of them, but public
opinion countenances the "squeeze" system, and
upon such a public opinion good government
cannot be built. Foreign traders in Manchuria
allege that this system of demanding "squeeze"
by the Chinese officials is being employed by
the Japanese to keep shut "the Open Door."
They say that agents of the great Mitsui bank-
ing concern of Tokyo so meet this "squeeze" re-
quirement in self-defense that Japanese business
men, clients of this bank, are not delayed or
mulcted as are foreigners not so equipped.
Perhaps the worst curse of China to-day is its
craze for gambling. Everybody does it, and the
consequence is that many who have means be-
come beggared, and the poor stay poor. Some
of that hard working class, the chair-porters of
Canton and Hongkong, make as high as twenty
dollars per month, which is much for such frugal-
living folk, but it all goes into the gambling
houses. And how is the new republic meeting
this national evil that saps the nation's honesty
even more than its wealth? For a while it was
shut down, but about two years ago the gamblers
were allowed to recommence operations, so that
in cities like Canton gambling is now wide open.
And who controlled the political situation in that
CHINA'S FLAG 273
city when so vicious a revival of gambling was
permitted some survivor of the old imperial
regime? Not at all; no less a progressive re-
former than Dr. Sun Yat Sen, a prominent fac-
tor in establishing the republic.
When the Republic first came in, a determined
stand was taken against the opium traffic, but
laxity and worse by officials of the Republic has
permitted a decided recrudescence in the trade,
especially in the provinces of Shensi, Kiangsu
(whose capital is Nanking) and Kwei-chow. It
was not for nothing that the Chinese have long
had their customs service under the financial
supervision of a Britisher. The fair-minded
traveller, even after a short stay in the Celestial
Republic, can hardly reach any other conclusion
than that government of the Chinese by the
Chinese will always produce the same results it
has produced in the past and is to-day producing,
inefficient government of the squeezed by the
squeezers that the future of China will be what
the future of China always has been only a lit-
tle more of its present !
Lest the shortness of my stay in China made
too hasty my conclusions as to Chinese character
let them be checked up against public statements
by Dr. Charles K. Edmunds, for sixteen years
a teacher in that country, and by Dr. George E.
274 CHINA'S FLAG
Vincent, President of the Rockefeller Founda-
tion, who spent the summer of 1919 travelling
all over the country from Mukden to Canton
and from Shanghai to Changsha on behalf of
the magnificent medical benefactions which Mr.
Rockefeller's millions are there bestowing. Both
Dr. Edmunds and Dr. Vincent are well known
leaders of scientific thought and men of un-
usually clear vision, and both are enthusiastic as
to China's future. But what do they say of its
present? In Dr. Edmunds' "33,000 Miles in
China" we find an amazing series of episodes
showing the knavery and especially the thievery
to which the traveller is exposed in a country of
pre-medieval civilization and lack of communi-
cations. Says Dr. Vincent in a recently pub-
lished article, "Chinese Progress in Medicine,
Schools and Politics": "It must be owned that
there are disconcerting features in present-day
Chinese life. 'The Chinese lavishes so much
loyalty on family, community, and province that
he has none left for the nation', says a clever
returned student at dinner. 'The country is
practically sold out now; no wonder the Peking
politicians are getting what they can,' declares
another. 'Oh, we always absorb any invaders in
the course of two or three centuries' is the
philosophic dictum of a serene spectator of his
CHINA'S FLAG 275
country's danger. In a company of intelligent,
foreign-trained young Chinese, some of them
minor Government officials, questions about the
composition of the present legislative bodies, the
qualifications of the electors, the number partici-
pating in the voting and the like, elicit amused
replies or merely provoke gently ironic laughter.
Certain things in China may well cause appre-
hension: the division between North and South,
which are terms of political faith rather than of
geography; large armies unpaid for months,
living on the countryside and terrorizing towns
and cities; bandits now and then committing
depredations within a few miles of centres like
Peking and Canton; a government vacillating
between the demands of militarists and fear of
popular uprisings; revenues needed for con-
structive national tasks diverted to the uses of
clamorous generals or dissipated in administra-
tion inefficient or worse; the development of
natural resources hindered by the lack of public
order and security; internal discord and weak-
ness inviting aggression from without."
He points out that "there are nearly two hun-
dred and fifty hospitals almost exclusively for
Chinese patients established and maintained by
Protestant missionaries . . . various Catholic
orders offer hospital service, generally in the
276 CHINA'S FLAG
larger centres." Where would hygiene in China
be if these foreign-maintained institutions were
suppressed and only the few Chinese-conducted
ones left? The situation would be even more
appalling than it is now. One of the most im-
portant temples in the largest city in China
(Canton) is devoted to the God of Medicine. It
is thronged by devotees who upon a small pay-
ment are allowed to draw lots and receive the
prescription bearing the number they draw, and
this prescription they have filled and take 1 In a
similar temple in Shanghai they paste a prayer
on the portion of a sacred image which corre-
sponds with the ache in the suppliant's anatomy.
Please notice that these practices obtain in im-
portant and improved centres of Chinese civili-
zation and not merely in some obscure and
untutored mountain village. Dr. Vincent speaks
of young Chinese doctors being "trained in the
United States, Europe and Japan. In the last
named country medical education of an excellent
character is given in the best schools, such as
that of the Imperial University of Tokyo." He
is quite right, and the education of every kind
which China is to-day getting from foreigners
(and without which she would receive almost
none!) is everywhere in Japan provided by the
Japanese themselves, and that too of the most
CHINA'S FLAG 277
modern type. I attended over half a dozen lec-
tures at the University of Kyoto, in Political
Economy, Administrative Law, advanced use of
the X-ray, etc., and was amazed at the high
standard of education there displayed, and the
deep interest and careful attention of the stu-
dents. Never have I heard a more reasoned lec-
ture on English Literature than one there given
by Dr. Kuriagawa on Keats' "Nightingale."
A comparison between the foreign-given educa-
tion of China and the home-made variety in
Japan shows all the difference between national
ineptitude and its extreme reverse.
Why should our country consider itself as
especially called upon to act as protector of
China against foreign aggression any more than
of Egypt or Persia or the Balkans? And yet
some of our statesmen would have us believe that
it is our duty so to do, which means and will
mean incessant friction with one or other of the
five powers already possessing territory origi-
nally Chinese. Ought not our foreign policy in
this regard to be clarified and made to square
with the stay-at-home-and-mind-your-own-busi-
ness dictum of our justly venerated Monroe
Doctrine? Is it logical to support that Doc-
trine on the eastern side of the Pacific and
infringe its principles on the western side? But
278 CHINA'S FLAG
isn't there possible some middle-of-the-road plan
between the discouraging inefficiency and cor-
ruption of a Chinese-run government and for-
eigners' tearing-up of her land into as many
strips as her flag has stripes? The great loans
(Millard says four hundred million dollars)
which Japanese bankers have recently poured
into China with studied carelessness as to their
useful application shows that Chinese corruption
must be headed off at the source of the stream.
Loans to such officials should only be made under
supervision of their expenditure, preferably by
an international control. In this way no one
country or group will be tempted territorially
to foreclose on mortgages obtained for money
wasted or stolen by Chinese officials. How this
can be worked out it is difficult to say, but the
best plan yet advanced is the foreign loan con-
sortium now under negotiation, which essentially
is but the logical outcome of Secretary Knox's
admirable suggestion for the neutralization of
the Manchurian railways, which, if it served no
other purpose, at least proved the non-existence
of the much touted Open Door in China. Inter-
national control of the Chinese customs works
admirably, and there is no reason to fear that
if such a system were extended, the extension
would not function equally well.
CHINA'S FLAG 279
The whole Chinese problem has reached such
an acute stage that it seems necessary either
regretfully to admit that it is too late or imprac-
ticable to save their sovereignty for the Chinese
or else to show our prompt willingness to take a
definite and decided stand in the matter. Amer-
ica must "put up or shut up!" She must "put
up" by contributing her share in money toward
an international consortium which will so control
all China's security for loans as to make impos-
sible the control of any slice of her territorial
sovereignty by an unscrupulous lender, be he an
individual or a nation. Failing this willingness
to "put up," America must "shut up," which is
to say she must cease her "policy of pin-pricks,"
of criticizing what Japan or any other power
is doing to push its commercial or other interests
in China.
But whatever else we do or don't do, there is
need for definite assurance by our government
of backing to such of our business men as un-
dertake proper ventures in China. Not long
ago it was the fashion to abuse fair govern-
ment support of its nationals abroad the critics
called it "dollar diplomacy" but I for one earn-
estly believe that the American business man
deserves support from home when his American
dollar is invested abroad. A while ago this was
280 CHINA'S FLAG
an academic question, but so great has grown our
profit balance that now American capital must
seek outlet abroad, and he who denies it proper
protection is no true American. It was in just
such a manly manner that the British Union
Jack increased its prestige by protecting that of
its commerce in foreign fields. Our progressive
business men deserve as well of us as does the
honest British trader of his own government, and
it is a safe prediction that the American is going
to get it.
As for the famous and frequently discussed
Open Door in China, what of it? It has never
existed, does not to-day exist, and never will ex-
ist except in such parts as are completely under
the control of an international consortium. In-
stead of an Open Door, China possesses a series
of Side Doors, or "Family Entrances," difficult
to enter save by merchants belonging to the com-
mercial family of the foreign power dominating
that district. Japan has such a side door into
Manchuria, and it would be more profitable to
American commerce to enjoy such a 50-50 ad-
mission to that side-door as financial collabora-
tion with Japanese would offer, than a really
Open Door could afford.
It is not too late to keep China's flag intact,
but it can only be done by a definite international
CHINA'S FLAG 281
act, something similar to the foreign loan con-
sortium now under consideration. A sense of
fairness to China demands that something be
done, and done quickly, or it is too late, and
China partitioned beyond remedy!
CHAPTER XII
AND WHAT OF AUSTRALIA?
AFTER some months' study of the international
balance around the Pacific Ocean the conviction
becomes irresistible that the war's readjustments
have been almost as radical there as in Europe.
In no particular has this change of condition been
evidenced more strikingly than by Australia's
new position and influence within the British
Empire, a change that is due chiefly to her splen-
did part in the war, but also in some measure to
the North Sea being cleared of the German
Navy, and therefore no longer necessitating a
protective concentration there of British naval
forces. Australasia, and also Canada, will have
vastly more weight than ever before in British
Imperial Councils, especially in the disposition
of their naval forces in the Pacific, but it will be
Australia that will both lead and have the final
say upon its policy. A study of this new inter-
national "outlook" is most interesting for the
United States, if for no other reason because it
282
AND WHAT OF AUSTRALIA? 283
touches our relations with Japan, and an im-
proved understanding between that Empire and
our Republic is of the first importance not only
for both of us but also for the peace of all the
vast Pacific region. Besides, it is difficult to
avoid the conclusion that the Pacific question is
the next great one to come before the nations.
In 1852 that far-seeing Secretary of State,
William H. Seward, said: "The Pacific Ocean,
its shores, its islands, and the vast regions beyond
will become the chief theatre of events in the
world's great Hereafter." We sometimes forget
that its mighty expanse covers one quarter of the
whole globe, and that it contains one half of the
globe's entire water surface its problems are
certainly no small ones.
A better understanding of the significance of
post-war Australia and New Zealand will help
us to find our way to more comfortable relations
with the Japanese, for it will reveal how materi-
ally the solution of the old Pacific problem has
been advanced by the world war. It would be a
grim revenge upon that arch disturber of inter-
national peace, the Hun, if the hideous world
calamity precipitated by his arrogant ambition
can be shown to have effected an automatic elimi-
nation of war-provoking possibilities around the
Pacific. Fancy the Hun involuntarily assuring
284. AND WHAT OF AUSTRALIA?
peace to the Pacific! a most useful revenge in-
deed for both Americans and Japanese !
One cannot travel extensively in those waters
without becoming impressed by this striking
change from pre-war to present conditions, and
chiefly as exemplified by the new light in which
Australia appears before the whole world, and
especially should to us Americans. The resolute
position maintained at Versailles by her Prime
Minister, Hughes, typified the new Power which
has arisen under the Southern Cross a Power
which, after demonstrating military efficiency to
a surprising degree, knew definitely both what
it needed, and what it must prevent, and set an
example both to us and the Japanese of honest
frankness and sturdy persistence.
For the past five years America's eyes men-
tal as well as physical have been turned east-
ward so steadily as temporarily to lose sight of
Pacific Ocean affairs. Now that the war has
ended, leaving us honorably free again to con-
sider our own interests, we are beginning to
realize how materially the struggle in Europe
has readjusted the international status around
about that vast body of water. But how have
these changes smoothed away certain dangerous
tendencies which were there beginning to menace
that peace for which we long, and for which we
AND WHAT OF AUSTRALIA? 285
willingly fought with all our might? In the first
place, Russia, as an ever-advancing and increas-
ingly dangerous autocracy, has disappeared from
the problem. As for Germany, what a change!
In 1914 the Kaiser, still uncurbed, was absorbing
South Sea Islands and exploiting their copra
possibilities, preliminary to his next great move
of swallowing Holland so as to acquire not only
her North Sea harbors, but also her priceless
East Indian islands with their 50,000,000 inhabi-
tants and natural riches which, even under easy-
going Dutch colonial methods, were yielding
fortune after fortune. So much were the rest of
us engaged in discussing the Alsace-Lorraine
question, the Balkan, and all those other dear
old European problems (without which sundry
magazine writers would have starved, and For-
eign Office clerks of many capitals lost employ-
ment!) that we had forgotten all about that great
world prize, the Dutch islands of Java, Sumatra,
etc., whose seizure Treitschke was openly advo-
cating. But Australia hadn't ! The change from
the Kaiser in 1914 to his standing in 1919
shows a transformation difficult for anyone but
Napoleon Bonaparte to realize!
To grasp how completely the World War
has readjusted the Pacific Ocean problem, let
us finish this review of its pre-war status. The
286 AND WHAT OF AUSTRALIA?
great factors then, were, of course, the imperial
governments of Russia, Germany, Japan and
England, the royal one of Holland, and three
republics, France, China and ourselves. In this
connection, perhaps it is timely to remark that
there are folk who plausibly maintain that Eng-
land is more of a republic than is ours, possess-
ing, as she does, far more checks on executive
personal power, and a more promptly responsive
form of representative government. But the
most important feature to be noticed in this pre-
war picture is that of Australia's standing within
the British Empire, at least as it seemed to
friendly outsiders. Wasn't it fair to assume that
when Australians refused to permit the landing
of Hindoo citizens of British India, she caused
concern in Downing Street, that centre from
which pumps out and to which returns the em-
pire's heart-blood that colors the Union Jack?
Wasn't even more concern superinduced there
by Australia's coolness toward the Anglo-Japa-
nese alliance then so popular in London? Nor
did Canada differ in her embarrassing stand
upon Japanese immigration from the views of
Australia, which, by the way, agreed completely
with those of our westernmost states.
What I am trying to accentuate is that before
the war many friendly outsiders could not help
AND WHAT OF AUSTRALIA? 287
noting that the Japanese immigration policy of
Australia and Canada, so like that of California,
differed materially from the views of English-
men in London dispassionately considering a
distant theory, and not a next-door condition.
What was going to result within the Empire
from that pregnant difference of policy? Aus-
tralia, then the jingo of the British household,
was certainly causing worry to her steadier old
world cousins at home who, honorably following
British traditions of desiring peace throughout
the earth were, therefore, responsible for a
courteous consideration of the Japanese point of
view. Australia, of course, was loyally British
to the core, but upon certain questions of im-
perial foreign policy it was clear that she had
nothing like the complete approval and backing
of the Empire that she commands to-day, thanks
to her magnificent response to the homeland's
need in the war, and also to the readjustment of
matters international in her neighborhood.
So much for Australia and Canada before the
war, and now for one other important detail
to complete our pre-war picture. The United
States then had an efficient navy, but our army
was so small and so lacking in plans for expan-
sion, that other nations disregarded it in their
calculations. Furthermore, most other nations
288 AND WHAT OF AUSTRALIA?
(including the Germans!) credited us with such
lust for commercial gain as completely to write
off our ability, even if urgent need arose, to raise
a modern army, with all that means in numbers,
technical training and equipment. Some even
said we were too money-mad to fight. Thank
God, our America of to-day is once more the
America of our heroic forefathers !
To recapitulate, before the war the Pacific
Ocean was surrounded by four imperial govern-
ments (Russia, Germany, Japan and England),
one royal one (Holland) and three republics.
China and the United States were generally con-
sidered hopelessly and ana?mically pacific, and
Holland equally negligible as an international
power. Australia and Western Canada were
mere colonial outposts of the British Empire,
both sidestepping the Empire's policy toward
Hindoos and Japanese. So much for what
used to be true, only a very few (but hideous!)
years ago. Then came the war, focussing the
brain power of the nations upon the Military
Monster of Central Europe.
But now, turning our eyes away from the
bloody battlefields of Europe, and looking west-
ward again across that vast stretch of water
which, during a ghastly half decade, especially
merited its name of Pacific, what do we see?
AND WHAT OF AUSTRALIA? 289
nothing more striking and significant than the
sturdy Anglo-Saxon island power of the South
Seas, at last come to its own !
Gone from the picture entirely is Germany,
leaving behind her, in many a coral island form-
erly an earthly paradise, the ugly stain of her
brutal exploitation of the tractable aborigines.
Do you know about the copra trade, something
which touches the Australasian islands very
closely? That brilliant writer of honest spirit,
Charles Edward Russell, has recently described
in "After the Whirlwind" how Germany, realiz-
ing the growing world need for vegetable fats,
and also the hitherto undeveloped possibilities of
the South Sea Islands for copra (the oil-produc-
ing rind of the dried cocoanut), deliberately dra-
gooned island labor by commanding her islanders
to long terms at hard labor on trumped-up
charges of infracting unknown German colonial
laws. This colonial application of Deutchland
Ueber Alles was already returning such hand-
some dividends to Berlin as to ensure its rapid
spread wherever the Prussian flag waved over
those distant "places in the sun." Germany has
gone from the Pacific, and many a poor slave of
her colonial system joins in the general inter-
national relief that her "government for the
governors" has disappeared. Poor Russia, the
290 AND WHAT OF AUSTRALIA?
victim of half-baked idealism, that far worse
curse than autocratic militarism, is so engrossed
in national suicide as to be removed for many a
long day from serious international consideration
on the Pacific. Not even the most advanced
Japanese jingo can longer claim it necessary to
increase or maintain naval or military estimates
upon the patriotic ground of defense against a
threatening Russia. No, so far as Japan is con-
cerned, she need no longer anticipate any aggres-
sion from either Russia or Germany, and need
only fear jingoes at home who may urge aggres-
sion on her own part. This is a time for every
nation to put the soft pedal on its jingoes the
times are not opportune. As for China, is her
position any more significant to-day than before
the war? Frankly, the so-called Republic of
China cuts no greater international figure now
than did ever their Imperial Government before
the war.
The position of our sister republic, France, in
the Far East, remains the same to-day that it
was before the Germans broke loose in Europe.
In Pacific matters we come into court with
cleaner hands, because, while France took great
territory from defenseless China, we never did
and never will. We have seen that, as a result of
the war, Japan has gained a number of Pacific
AND WHAT OF AUSTRALIA? 291
islands formerly under the German flag, she
having been made mandatory for all those north
of the Equator. Many American friends of
Japan are hopeful that wiser counsels will later
prevail in Tokyo, and that this long step of 1,400
miles eastward, open to so much evil misunder-
standing, will be avoided by Japan's turning the
current of her expansion northwesterly instead
of southeasterly. Such an alteration would re-
move misunderstanding here, and improve her
relations with Australia.
And what of Australia?
This of her that those who wish intelligently
to know of the probable future of Pacific Ocean
affairs will do well to study her and watch her
development. Thus will they learn to look upon
the Australian Continent and her sister islands,
New Zealand, Tasmania, etc., much as Burke
and other far-sighted Englishmen regarded the
British colonies along the American seaboard
at the time of the Revolution. The parallel
between Australia of to-day and the American
colonies in 1776 is striking. We are apt to think
of her as distant from England and small in
population. She is as near in days' travel to
London as was our eastern seaboard in 1776.
We were then three million people, less homo-
geneous in race than are the five million British-
292 AND WHAT OF AUSTRALIA?
ers that people Australia and her sister islands.
All of those forefathers of ours were peculiarly
men and women of initiative if they had not
been, they would have stayed quietly at home
and not braved the terrors of the long Atlantic
voyage and the invasion of the unknown wilder-
ness. Initiative is to-day the outstanding char-
acteristic of the Australians, and upon it they
are laying the firm foundations of a great people.
Every great nation shows a jealous desire to
keep its blood pure, and this is markedly true of
the British and of the Japanese alike. In no
part of the British Empire is insistence upon
racial purity more pronounced than in Aus-
tralia, whose most popular and successful po-
litical slogan is "White Australia!" Although
this means exclusion of Asiatic immigration,
and is, therefore, criticized by Japanese publi-
cists, they cannot deny that they also exhibit a
similar pride of race. The Chinese intermarry
everywhere with any race, but the Japanese do
so but seldom. This is very noticeable in South
America, for wherever Chinese settle mixture
of race ensues, but not so with the Japanese.
The policy of our Anglo-Saxon cousins in the
South Seas to preserve a "White Australia" af-
fords reassuring proof that their great continent
will remain a white stronghold, with a popula-
AND WHAT OF AUSTRALIA? 293
tion undiluted by Eurasian offspring so common
in other Far Eastern parts.
So earnestly do I believe in the present and
future greatness of Australia as to consider it an
important factor ill eliminating the one great
stumbling-block to cordial friendship between
our people and the Japanese the illusion called
the "Yellow Peril." And as an antidote to this
illusion, what of Australia? Throughout Cali-
fornia, Oregon and Washington, the Chambers
of Commerce, those non-partisan aggregations
of the best business minds of each community,
are peculiarly public-spirited and efficiently ac-
tive, even for American commercial bodies. I
found those of Los Angeles, San Francisco and
Portland particularly interested in building up
direct trade with Australia. This opens the
way to their realization of Australia as a Yel-
low Peril antidote. New ships were being de-
voted to carrying the products of the Pacific
slope direct to Sydney, Melbourne and other
Australasian ports, and the local newspapers
were constantly printing articles and editorials
upon the increasing importance of those dis-
tant markets. The growing interest in this
trade along our western coast will inevitably
produce a widely diffused knowledge there of the
enhanced significance within the British Empire
294 AND WHAT OF AUSTRALIA?
now enjoyed by post-war Australia. The sooner
that knowledge comes to all those wide-awake
western Americans described above, the sooner
will they understand how like their own is the
attitude toward the Asiatic races of our sturdy
Anglo-Saxon friends of Australia, that new
front of the British Empire, and what that
unanimity of policy means for all participants.
This knowledge should as certainly relieve them
from even subconscious dread of a Japanese in-
vasion, as the collapse of Russia surely cancels
the argument of Japanese jingoes for maintain-
ing or increasing their military and naval scale
of preparedness.
The Japanese know well that the attitude of
the great continent to the south of her is the same
as that of our people upon Asiatic immigration.
The shrewd Japanese also know far better than
we that, since the war, the British Empire in all
its vast strength stands solidly with the Aus-
tralians, and that the continent of the Southern
Cross is no longer regarded as merely a colonial
outpost of the great Empire, but has become that
Empire's Pacific front on the east, just as Can-
ada is her front on the west. Japanese news-
papers have rung with comment upon Admiral
Jellicoe's epoch-marking recommendations that
the great base of the British fleet be moved from
AND WHAT OF AUSTRALIA? 295
the North Sea to Singapore, that important
gateway to the Pacific. Much as English and
Americans may criticize each other (for criti-
cism is a favorite Anglo-Saxon family sport),
no Japanese is so silly as to give an instant's
credence to the idea that a Yellow Peril could
be directed at either of the great English-speak-
ing countries without immediately drawing the
other one into its support. The admirable Bal-
four spoke of the "Race Patriotism of the An-
glo-Saxons," and there is no gainsaying it. The
new war-won position of Australia and New
Zealand in the British Empire completes the
answer to the Yellow Peril illusion, and nowhere
is this to-day better understood than in Japan.
And what, in conclusion, of Australia?
In 1867 Charles Wentworth Dilke predicted
that "the relations of America and Australia
will be the key to the future of the Pacific," and
so I believe them to be. Our relations are of the
best, and, thanks to the initiative of our west
coast cities, are sure to grow better and better.
Americans returning from France tell of Aus-
tralian soldiers saluting American officers in
preference to all others, just out of sheer friend-
liness and comprehension of the similarity be-
tween our types of manhood and points of view.
We may confidently look forward to the same
296 AND WHAT OF AUSTRALIA?
comfortable relations with the vigorous young
Australasian people that characterizes our neigh-
borliness with Canada, all of us speaking the
same language and enjoying similar free in-
stitutions.
The more Australians, and also Canadians,
grow and strengthen, the better for peace on the
Pacific. Already, they, plus our new military
preparedness, afford an antidote for Japanese
aggression against us or any other Anglo-Sax-
ons, and that in itself is a complete argument in
favor of cordiality between us and the Land of
the Rising Sun, which will definitely justify the
name so long borne by the vast western ocean.
CHAPTER XIII
SOME CONCLUSIONS
THE most important step toward the formula-
tion of a foreign policy is a due consideration of
the point of view entertained by the people with
whom that policy will have to do. Even sup-
posing that one's intentions are of the best, we
must ascertain what the other fellow is going to
think about them. This means that we should
know him sufficiently well to understand his
manner of thought. To that end we have con-
sidered together in the foregoing pages observa-
tions upon the life and customs of the Japanese
so as to learn something from them of his thought
processes, especially in those two fundamentals
which in any nation command its finest minds
religion and aesthetics. We have also pointed
out the greatly increased importance of Aus-
tralia within the British Empire, and what would
seem to be the consequences, so far as we are
concerned. Perhaps it may seem to the reader
that too much space has been given to showing
how the Japanese mind expresses itself in gar-
297
298 SOME CONCLUSIONS
dens and religious pilgrimages and other ob-
servances, but our excuse must be a desire to let
Americans see how Japanese thought functions
along two such intimate lines. After some com-
prehension of the Japanese point of view upon
those characteristic features of his civilization, it
becomes easier so to adjust our own thought as
to make hopeful an attempt to harmonize our
foreign policies toward the Far East with Ori-
ental views and aspirations. It is idle to pretend
that our points of view are even similar. Our
own civilization, religion and individual training
differ widely from those of Japan, and theirs
has lasted many centuries longer than ours.
Some things of which we strongly disapprove
have been long inculcated in the training of their
youth, and vice versa. If one is not prepared to
investigate the great problems that are arising
and will arise about the Pacific with an open
mind upon matters social as well as national, he
had best give up the study in advance, admit he
is a small man, and remain quietly at home close
to his village pump. Be prepared to balance
national inequalities, or keep away from the
Pacific. And, for veracity's sake! don't start
out with any such exploded theory as that all
men are born equal, for least of anywhere is this
true across the w r estern ocean. Nor does it mat-
SOME CONCLUSIONS 299
ter in the slightest how unequal are individuals
or nations if only the observer is ready to balance
their inequalities with the same whole-souled in-
terest in their satisfactory combination that the
Japanese show in their arrangement of flowers.
An excellent relation existed between our peo-
ple and the Japanese in 1905, one which perhaps
benefited them materially more than it did us,
but unfortunately a marked change has since
then developed which has benefited neither in
any way. Changes should be made in our re-
spective foreign policies which will benefit both.
Why not? When is discord more advantageous
than harmony? It is my belief that the Japanese
are now going more than half way to meet us.
The admirable Gentlemen's Agreement, under-
taken by the Japanese themselves when the in-
comparable Elihu Root was our Secretary of
State, checked an excessive incursion here of
Japanese labor whose lower standard of living
was producing such unfortunate friction with
American labor. Recently, when an increasing
influx of Japanese wives for their laborers
residing here revived the unfortunate friction,
again their Government, on its own initiative,
provided a reasonable check by adding a Ladies'
Agreement to the already existing Gentlemen's
Agreement, and are withholding passports from
300 SOME CONCLUSIONS
these so-called "picture brides," just as they
formerly arranged to do from their laboring
men desirous of entering the higher-paid field of
American labor. Those two acts showed good
faith and good judgment, and we can safely do
business with people possessing those two funda-
mental traits of character. Certain Japanese
newspapers have attacked their government for
this Ladies' Agreement, but then, most unfor-
tunately, newspapers of both our countries are
nowadays constantly attacking the other's peo-
ple and their good faith, and also anyone in their
own country who prefers peace to bitterness.
This hostility of the Yellow Press of both coun-
tries toward any attempt to better our relations
is what golfers would call "a rub of the green"
or a "hazard" in the course which, although it
cannot be ignored, should not be allowed un-
duly to delay our progress.
Our commerce would be greatly benefited by
a better understanding with the Japanese, for it
would thereby be aided to enter and develop
Asian markets by cooperation from such nearby
experts as the intelligent traders of the Island
Kingdom. As fellow Orientals they know those
markets' needs and limitations much better than
distant Occidentals like ourselves. Whether our
statesmen (or even our politicians) are begin-
SOME CONCLUSIONS 301
ning to realize this or not, our business men cer-
tainly are alive to its valuable possibilities, and
unless those who should lead public thought get
into step with this movement already a large
and steadily growing one they risk losing their
position as leaders in that profitable procession.
And these forward-looking exporters of ours will
before long exercise their influence as paying
advertisers upon our newspapers so as to modify
and ultimately to terminate their present un-
profitable attacks upon everything Japanese.
These newspapers are guessing wrong, and
American newspapers know their business too
well to guess wrong for long!
Every business man in our land knows the
menace to honest enterprise which lies in the
Bolshevik movement. He knows that it origi-
nates in Russia, but that it must be combated
here in order to protect the civilization we in-
herited from our fathers. But does every Ameri-
can business man realize that there is an un-
checked outlet of this Bolshevik movement upon
the Pacific Ocean? and that unless Japan checks
it in Eastern Siberia it will fly outward, seeking
its prey, prosperity, wherever it can be found?
A great service can be rendered to civilization
by stopping this Siberian outlet of anarchy, and
because the Japanese are the only ones who can
302 SOME CONCLUSIONS
perform this service, all law-abiding men should
encourage them to do so. I believe it would be
a fine thing for international law and order if
Japan should occupy Eastern Siberia and there
set up such a dam against the outflow of law-
lessness as would be afforded by her excellently
functioning Government which is to-day assur-
ing prosperity, liberty and the right to the pur-
suit of happiness to her millions of industrious
and frugal citizens. To an American peculiarly
interested in America's interests first, such a step
would have especial value if it could be coupled
with the withdrawal of Japan from the Caroline
and Marshall islands, for nothing would be more
effective in bettering our relations than the ter-
mination of that geographical threat to the Phil-
ippines, and the substitution of a northwesterly
Japanese expansion so promising for peace, in
place of a southeasterly one so fruitful of misun-
derstanding both with us and the British Empire
as represented by Australasia. Then, too, the
excessive preponderance of Japanese in Hawaii
is unfortunate, but the solution of this bother-
some problem can safely be left to the sagacious
good taste of such a Government as the one
which has so wisely announced the Ladies'
Agreement. If these changes could be effected,
then Japan would appear revealed to the cap-
SOME CONCLUSIONS 303
italists, the laborers and the business men of
America as the bulwark of decent civilization
against the Bolsheviki in Siberia and as a profit-
able friend and ally in the vast field of Asian
markets which she understands so well.
But there is one error in our Far Eastern
policy that these same serious folk of the United
States should undertake to correct we are not
and never should have been a nursery governess
for China! We are not called upon especially
to protect the integrity of her territory, if indeed
there be any left to protect. We can't warn
the whole world off our hemisphere through the
Monroe Doctrine, and at the same time dictate
to Japan or any other power what they must
not do in China. It is dangerous nonsense, and
it is bad business. If we go into a consortium,
then we should assist to carry out its protective
terms to the uttermost, but unless and until
we do, we ought to mind our own business in
China.
Here is outlined a Far Eastern policy that is
fair to all because it honestly takes into account
the viewpoint of all concerned. It will work,
and it will work for American labor as effective-
ly as for American capital. We don't want any
territory in the Far East, but we do want an
increasing share of her markets, sure to benefit
304* SOME CONCLUSIONS
our labor and capital alike, and better relations
with Japan inevitably lead to so desirable and
profitable a result.
Although we do not desire territory in the
Far East, there is a tract which we should try
to purchase, and, although it lies on our side of
the Pacific, it can properly be discussed along
with a Far Eastern policy. That tract is Lower
California, which we should seek to purchase
from Mexico. It lies well off her coast, but, for
her, possesses little or no value. Geographically
it is already a part of California, and should
become so politically. In colonial times East
Hampton and neighboring towns of eastern
Long Island were part of New Haven colony
across Long Island Sound, because close to it
by sail and far removed from New York City,
distant because of bad or no roads. So Lower
California used to be nearer to the Mexican
mainland than to American territory to the
north, but just as the bettering of inland
communication naturally swung eastern Long
Island into a New York affiliation, so a railroad
down the length of Lower California would
make mainland Mexico seem distant by com-
parison with San Diego and her neighborhood.
This territorial purchase would remove a possi-
SOME CONCLUSIONS 305
ble element of friction in our Far Eastern rela-
tions because it would prevent repetition of an
unfortunate incident which accompanied Japan's
presentation of her twenty-one demands upon
China in 1915. The Japanese Minister to China,
Mr. Hioki, received those demands from his
Government in December, 1914, and it was not
until May 8, 1915, that the Chinese Government
formally accepted them. By an interesting co-
incidence the Japanese cruiser "Asama" ran on
a mudbank in Turtle Bay on the coast of Lower
California in December, 1914, and was not com-
pletely refloated and repaired until June, 1915,
meanwhile being attended by from seven to ten
Japanese warships and sundry auxiliary vessels.
The American fleet was at that time in the
Atlantic. From the time that Minister Hioki
received the twenty-one demands for delivery to
the Chinese Government until after they were
acceded to by it, there was a strong Japanese
fleet near that weak point in our western coast,
the outlet of the Colorado River, which is the
Nile of our far west. This points to the need
for our purchase of Lower California. The
whole transaction of which the twenty-one de-
mands formed part is disapproved by business-
men and by many political leaders in Japan who
blame it to the militarists. It is doubtful if,
306 SOME CONCLUSIONS
after such a bungling misplay, those militarists
will again be in a position to make such an ill-
judged move. But it is just as well to admit
service of their notice by removing the tempta-
tion again to concentrate a strong foreign naval
force in the Gulf of California so near the mouth
of the Colorado River development and trans-
continental railroad lines. The upper end of
that gulf needs protection, and the purchase of
Lower California is essential to that protection.
We should press negotiations for the purchase
of this tract, so useless to Mexico and remote
from her mainland, and yet so close to us and
so strategically important.
The foregoing suggestions outline diplomatic
steps comparatively easy of achievement, and
fruitful of great good not only for our own
people but also for all the Oriental peoples they
affect. No "jug-handled" deals are here pro-
posed, because agreements benefiting only one
side do not last long. The other man's point of
view must be considered in every transaction, as
any successful business man will tell you he
knows it is the only way to build up a substantial
business. It would be better if more statesmen
learned what it means both of integrity and also
SOME CONCLUSIONS 307
of sagacious foresight to build up a substantial
business, for it is along similar broad and
friendly lines that there should be readjusted
and built up our Far Eastern policy.
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