The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1904-02-26
YELLOW PERIL OF ORIENT
TO OVERWHElM RUSSIA
Japan Endeavoring to Unite Mon
golian Race in Order to Pre-
serve Asia Intact.
DREAM OF THE MIKADO

pfOietaflat, ana AT present tneFe II OUT one
stronger emotion in the breasts Of the
masses OF Japan-it is war with Russia
Every normal japanese dreams OF telsscop-
ing the Asiatic erection Of Russia into ire
trievable wreck. Even the school children
pray to Shaka for war, and express the
pious wish that Japan may strike Russia
unawares head on and smash her power in
the East.
Therefore, because the people are so con-
WINGED that their worsening condition can
only be ameliorated by a radical change in
the internal policy of the state the elder
statesmen-the good, gray-headed veterans
who stand like an impregnable oulwark
around the Mikado-have considered war
not alone for territorial expansion, but as
a safety valve for popular unrest. which.
unrelieved. may result in a social expio-
sion. But. again, they consider that Japan.
impoverished by a great and protracted
struggle, would emerge from conflict
harder place for the poor than it is to-day
OH cried Prince of the Blood at re-
cent chrysanthemum party 10 an English
officer, IF Russia only had a Paris in the
East How quickly we would seize 1t and
demand the last ounce Of gold as indem-
nifty"
And when the time shall come Japan will
not be found unready.
Despite the lesson Of the Boer war, the
Japanese did very little open order and ex-
tended formation work in their last ma
neuvres. but operated in solid masses as
trim and right-angled as though shaped
with spirit level When Field Marshal
Marquis Yamagata was asked If Japan
would not change her field tactics TO SUIT
the conditions Of modern fighting, he re-
piled:
Japan will reveal her tactics in battle
Be sure that they will be those necessary
to insure victory"
THE SPIRIT OF THE JAP.
This was not the self-confidence OF the
unbeaten warrior. but the expression or the
only spirit Japan knows, for she never con-
siders defeat even as remote possibility.
On the sea officers and men are spelling
for a fight. From the crews OF the huge
niikasa and her sister battleships down 10
the men on such craft as the White-naped
Crane and the Dragons Lamp-torpedo de-
stroyers-they swearing by every an
cestor that, If let loose, they will sink or
capture each consonantly named Russian
warship in the Pacific. And do they not
contemplate a possible defeat? Yes, but
capture-no. Never will a Japanese ship,
high or low, go into port a prize.
When the turrets are damned and the
big guns dumb, when the screws are still
and all defense is dead and done, the men
chosen by lot before the beginning of ac-
ton will from their station in the heart or
the ship perform the last full measure or
devotion in exploding the magazines. and
the sixteen-petalled chrysanthemum on the
imperial standard will go deep down in a
welter of blood and steam and smoke till,
.'streaked with ash and sleeked with oil.
the lukewarm whirlpools close.
THE SWORD IN ASIA.
Russia" I heard a great officer say
the other day, is trying to head of Japan
by intriguing with the Buddhist powers at
Lhasa. She has agents as close TO the sa-
cred city as any foreigner has ever reached,
and the Car has labored for several years
to cunsummate an alliance offensive and de-
fensive with the Grand Lama, who sees
that Tibet cannot remain closed much longer.
But. despite the embassy from the Grand
Lama to Livadia, Japan has had some in
fuence in Lhasa herself. and England Is
going overland to dictate terms with the
sword, and England is our ally. Asian pol
itics are played on a vast board, and there
is a multiplicity OF moves. Personally L
think, however, that the day has gone by
when any religious organization can hg-
ure as a potential factor in world politics,
either in the East or West. The sword will
decide the future Of Asia.
NAPOLEON remarked that God fights on
the side of the heaviest battalions. When
Japan has the 4o0,0O0o 900 OF China making
common cause with her unCer her direction.
the soldiers of the Son OF Heaven will lead
battalions whose number will enlarge all
human conceptions of mankind at war"
TWO MIGHTY CIVILIZATIONS.
Asia for the Asiatics is far from an i'm
possibility. The Kaiser some years ago
uttered a prophetic warning against the
coalition of China and Japan. His ear
caught the sound of the marching mil
lions, and, when they smiled because he
deemed it near" he declared that what
the Monaghan horde had done before it
might well do again. Ghenghis Khan and
Tamerlane were successful through sheer
weight of numbers. and China has moro
men to-day than it had then Kakasu Okla
kura, the william Morris of Japan. declares
that Asia is one. The Himalayas divide.
only TO accentuate, two mighty civiliza-
Confucius and the Indian with its individ-
ualism of the Vedas. But not even the
snowy barriers can interrupt for one mo-
ment that broad expanse Of love for the
ultimate and the universal which is the
common thought inheritance OF every Ash
attic race.
eff Asia be one, it is also true that the
Asiatic races form a single mighty web.
Arab chivalry, Persian poetry, Chinese
ethics ana Indian thought all speak Of a
single ancient Asiatic peace, I'm which there
grew up a common life. bearing in different
regions different characteristic blossoms.
but nowhere capable OF hard and fast d.
viding line Islam itself may be described
as Confucianism on horseback. sword in
hand Or TO turn again 10 eastern Asia
from the west, Buddhism. that great ocean
of idealism in which merge all the river sys-
terms of eastern Asiatic thought. is colored
not only with the pure water Of the Gauges.
for the Tartaric nations that joined IL have
made their genius also tributary, bringing
new symbolism. new organization and new
powers of devotion TO add 10 the treasures
OF the faith.
at has been. however. the great privilege
of Japan TO realize this unity in complexity
with a special clearness The lndO-Tartaric
blood Of the race was in itself heritage
which qualified IL to imbibe from the two
sources and so mirror the whole OF Asiatic
consciousness.
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