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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