The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1904-03-09
INTERVIEW WITH FIELD
MARSHAL YAMAGATA

TOXIC, Feb. This morning, after To-
kio had slept one night on the fact of actual
war, it was my good fortune to have an
hours talk with Field Marshal Marquis
Yamagata, the man behind the Cabinet,
who, more than any other, is responsible
for the step Japan has taken. The appoint
ment with him had first been made for a
week ago. When the day set arrived the
genro were hastily summoned to one OF
their urgent sittngs, and. in the language
of his secretary, his Excellency very
busy" From the moment when negotiations
were broken off and war preparations were
openly carried on throughout the land the
elder statesmen had a breathing space
Their field work was finished; that of the
army was about to begin. One Of them,
with true samuri courtesy, slgnihed his
leisure by not forgetting the request of a
foreigner.
The drive to the marquiss house took me
to the furtheSt suburbs of the city. We
passed many small, twowheeled army
carts drawn by ponies, and the still smaller
ones drawn by coolies. Splashes of red of
the stripes of infantrymens new caps or
trousers showed through crates that were
piled high in contrast to the compact little
boxes that contained ammunition. The re-
servists from outlying districts were on
their way to town. With each one were
his nearest friends. The road became
procession of groups. If your servant is
absent in Japan the death, the sickness or
. the marriage of friend" calls him. 1t
Is land of groups of friends. All the
cronies of his age see the recruit into the
army, and see the recruit become reservist
back into ii again. The parting with his
wife or his mother his sweetheart is
usually at the doorstep.
If you looked away from the soldiers and
the policemen on the beat, at the shops
with their sliding screens pushed back,
making windows and doors and show win
a -l.D .,.A~ l.
graphic signs and the garb of the daily
workers, either near by or in the fields,
the vista still had everything In common
with the Japan of forty years ago, which
knew no world but her own. 1t was strange
that this morning of all mornings L was
going to see the man l was. He was
grown to manhood under a regime as diff
ferent from ours as that of the Chinese
from the ancient Greeks. AS youth, if
he had cut off his queue, he would have
been hs ba from his ranR as 5 gentle
tive country he would have suffered death,
which the Shotgun thought q fit punish
ment for a crime against the isolation which
was the gospel of the land
His first experience of war a feu-
dial swordsman clad in armour, who fought
according to the japanese counterpart Of
the etiquette of the Knights of the Round
Table. Clan warfare, the only kind known,
was then the privilege of the few, like pri-
vatc yachts. A gentleman born "a samuraD
alone had the right to bear arms, Gotten
in these letters | shall refer to that term
samurai. Until you know it, and the chiv
airy, courage, pride and stoicism that it
stood for, you can in no wise understand
how it is that this suddenly transformed
Oriental people to-day cross the seas to
fight on its own ground the Russian EN-
pire.) A farm laborer in those days was
as far from the right to bear arms as q
longshoreman is from bishopric. Yet this
Yamagata has lived to lead army,
whose soldiers were composed of all classes
and armed with modern rifles, in a victor
SONS ign
field In another and infinitely greater one,
when the forty waiting transports dmpro-
vised from steamers) shall carry an army
of three or four hundred thousand men to
Korea and Manchuria.
If l had gone to see him forty years ago
when 1 could not have gone unless 1
and two swords-we should have sat on
mats with our legs crossed. in houses
without windows. doors or chairs Pro
found would have been our bows, delicately
WOrded our compliments To-day, l drove
into a tree-studded yard that was entirely
Japanese, surrounding stone and stucco
building which was distinctly Occidental.
CThe japanese have found our houses more
comfortable, if less artistic, than their own.
Their sylvan effects they most wisely re-
tain). / was ushered into a reception room
that might be that of a well-to-do person
with distinction of taste at home. Yama-
gaia has in this age the versatility and the
classic simplicity of being soldier soldier and
| another age. A field marshal by right of
his victories in the field; one of the five
| elder statesmen; the Mikado's counselor
! in civil as well as in military affairs, and
| the head of the political coalition respon-
sible for the present Cabinet, he stands
for the policy and the administration that
| brought on the war He ~ not Of the school
of radicalism, but of the old school of
| Japan a Tory rather than a Wing. The
| manners of other days in japan are re-
| fected in him as the manners of other
| days in America are in an old-time South
erner.
| lit was the Yamagata the country gentle
soldier, whom 1 saw; this slight elderly
man in a frock coat. with his bronzed face,
| his high cheekbones. his good-humored
] eyes, and hair turning gray, in his person
| bringing one nearer 10 the old Japan, and
! in his military power TO The modern Japan,
| than any other man. His secretary, Mr..
Nakayama, who interpreted for us, is a
| Harvard graduate. But he Is young and
born to this regime; he has about him the
air of the Occident. The marquis belongs
at once to this regime and TO the one before.
| AS we slipped our ceremonial tea, he talked
| of the war which was only sixteen hours
| old: the war on which he had staked his
| reputation: the which meant to his
| people more than their political future
| their future as individuals. He spoke of II
| everyday affair. Noting in the shrewd
| face showed that he had been under con-
| tinuous strain for weeks.
| / spoke 10 him of the two things which
made me marvel most. The first was the
| organization into united. thoroughly dis
| ciplined army of classes which formerly had
never associated; of clans that had always
been at the swords point; OF the groups"
of friends ever ready TO become factions.
/ One might as we'll have expected TO make
! Scot a good Englishman within forty
| years after the border wars, as to make a
absorbing all clan rights, seems to-day one