Arizona republican., 1904-07-30
The Japanese and the Correspondents

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 The Japanese are beginning to reap the fruit of getting the reporters down on them" High priced special cor respondents and artists in the far east who have never been able to get near anything worth writing about or pscturing are being recalled from the srWoe of inaction by their employers.
 These gentlemen are coming home very naturally disappointed, disgusted, nr4thful and with the lowest possible opinion of the Japanese. Now they rau see no good whatever in the peo- ple they so admired when they first arrived in Tokio. The Japanese are liaFs, swindlers, hypocrites, the mos, IgnnloraI people under the sun and so ,zt; even their bravery in action is mere sheep-like stupidity-Once they get started toward the enemy they keep on going until they are killed, merely because they don't know enough to stop. The papers and periodicals aFe full of this sort of thing now. It might produce a marked revulsion ia American admiration for the Japanese, iF due allowance were not made for the writers frame of mind and if their real Dnd only grievance against the abomI- n3ble Japs who caused them to fall down on their assignments were not so perfectly clear.
 Their complaints amount to just ghis: The Japanese didn't want them at the front; the Japanese wouldn't 3es them go to the front, and the Jap anese, instead of telling them these things bluntly and natly, in direct vio- ation of every Japanese idea of ordi- nary courtesy, sought to cover up the unpleasant fact with polite excus as whose real meaning they supposed the correspondents would understand, just as every Japanese certainly would.
 Of course a f1rst-rate reporter ought to loathe hate, despise, detest and Vilify whomsoever stands between him and his story" He wouldn't be a good reporter if he didn't. But it isn't really a crime to stand between a re- porter and his story" and one who does so is not necessarily a liar, a thief and 8 villain. The Japanese were never Dnder any obligation whatever to per unit a single foreign correspondent or artist to accompany their armies If they wish 10 keep their military oper- htions secret their right to do so is unquestionable. They did not go into tAis war to furnish copy to the news papers or films for the biograph ex- hibitors. They were perfectly justified ia refusing to the correspondents and artists who focked to Tokio, uninvited aud without any assurance that they would be welcomed, permission to go Co the front. Consequently these cor respondents and artists cannot make os the refusal good ground of griev- ance. As for the insincerity and hypoc- fisy Of which the correspondents com pioin-all this was obviously a mere matter of phraseology and manner. The Japanese couched their refusal in what they considered to be courteous terms. When they said We are very very sorry. Wait till tomorrow" they were simply employing the Japanese form of saying nothing doing" That the correspondents didn't understand the common Japanese euphemism was the correspondents own fault. A cour- teous American refusing a request he is in no wise bound to grant Is likely to say I'm very sorry but I really must beg you to excuse me-" He isn't at all sorry and he doesn't in the least care whether he is excused or not. But has the man whose request he refused any right to go away and call him a liar and hypocrite because he used the courteous form instead of roaring at him, No, confound you Clear out?"