The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1904-03-24
WAY OF THE WARRIOR.
Stole Creed O. the Fighting Caste
Of Japan.
SWORD WORSHIP IT'S RELIGION

gfern Principles That Made the sa-
mural Despise Pain ard Death De-
Sc iDed b James CreeIman--ROvv
Il L5oGern General PIucl1ed Out His
E-e TO Prove His Courage and
saycd Canary Birds In the Midst of
Battle.
It is announced that the Russian sol,
aiers moving out to meet the Japanese
forces carry holy icons, or images, and
that General Kuropatkin on leaving
St. Petersburg to take command of the
imperial army in Manchuria carried
with him more than forty icons ana q
ieweled shrine, all gifts from his
friends and admirers, says James
Greelman in the New York World.
One does not hear much of that sort
OF thing from the war correspondents
in Japan. The moral inspiration of the
Japanese soldier, which makes him
unique among the fighting men of the
world, does not derive from Buddhism
nor from Shinto, the state church of
Japan, but from bushido, or the way
Of the warrior, an ethical cult prevail
ing among the samurai, or military
caste AS the mikado is a sort of
warrior demigod and the profession of
arms Outranks every other occupation
In Japan it is natural that the stern
spirit of the way of the warrior should
survive all changes in Japanese civ
uization.
General Yamagi, whose division cap
tured Port Arthur and Talienwan ten
years ago, plucked one of his eyes out
at school as a reply to playmate who
doubted his courage And yet at the
Battle OF Talienwan l was present
when he ordered the canary cages
found in the forts to be opened and the
birds set free, lest they should starve
30 death. That order was given while
the Chinese cannon were still thunder
ing. 1t was he who was mainly re-
sponsible for the great massacre of
unarmed Manchurians at Port Arthur.
In many respects Yamagi is a type of
the samurai spirit fighting in a modern
dress.
It is impossible to understand what
it is that makes the Japanese army so
formidable without taking into ac-
count the traditional heroics of the
way of the warrior. 1t is a stole
rather than fatalistic creed. TO the
soldier it stands in the place Of a re-
EOinY1 or. n moral ic 6aI
on the virilities, on devotion to a
sword bearing caste, whose highest
obligation is to die without question
for the divinely ordained warrior lord
It is true that many of the grewsome
practices of the bushido have fallen
into disuse, but its underlying spirit
animates the japanese army today.
Captain Brinkley, the we'll known
writer on Japan, says in explanation Of
the way of the warrior:
Because breadwinning was originally
the business Of those not physically quail
fed to be soldiers the bushi regarded
money with indifference and even con-
tempt. To be swayed in the smallest de-
gree by mercenary motives was despica-
bic in his eyes.
This tradition largely accounts for
the ordinary aversion of the Japanese
army to the practice Of looting Cap
tain Brinkley, continuing, says:
The bushi was essentially stole He
made self control the ideal of his eX-
istence and practiced the courageous en-
durance of suffering so thoroughly that
he could without hesitation infiict on his
own body pain of the severest description
The power of surrendering life with he
roic calmness has been developed by men
IN all ages and is regarded by philoso-
piers as an elementary form of human
virtue, practiced with most success in an
uncivilized state Of society before the finer
appropriations of the imaginative and in
tellectual faculties have been developed
by education. But the courage of the
bushi cannot justly be ascribed to blunt
ness of moral SenSibility resulting from
semisavage conditions of life. The cur
rent of existence in Japan, from the Nara
epoch onward, set with general steadiness
In the direction Of artistic refinement and
voluptuous luxury, amid which men could
scarcely fail to acquire habits and tastes
inconsistent with acts of high courage or
great endurance. The bushis mood, there
fore, was not a product of semibarbarous
conditions, but rather a protest against
emasculating civilization.
he SCUOOiSQ nlInSelI 10 regard death
inflicted by his own hand as a normal
eVentuality. The story Of other nations
shows epochS when death was welcomed
as relief and deliberately invited as a
refuge from the mere WEAKNESS of liv-
Ing. But wherever there has been liberty
TO choose and leisure to employ painless
mode Of exit from the world men have in
yeriably selected it.
The buShi, however, deliberately adopt
ed mode Of suicide so painful and so
shocking that to school the mind to re-
gard it with Indifference was a feat not
easy to conceive. His method was to
plunge short sword into the left side of
the abdomen, sweep it across to the right
giving it sharp turn upward at the end
OF the cash; then to withdraw it, thrust it
into the back Of the neck and cut tow ard
the throat. Assistance was often rem
dered by friend who sword in hand,
stood ready to decapitate the victim i'm
nediately after the stomach had been
gashed, but there were innumerable ex-
amples Of men who consummated the
tragedy without aid.
The mere contemplation of such aus
bere traditions, with precepts of fru-
gality and unfaltering loyalty, ac-
counts largely for the peculiar spirit
Of the army which is graphing with
Russia today. 1t is not, as in the case
ef Mohammedan, the hope of para
disc as a martyrs reward, but rather
r studied cODtarnDt for c1Jfforipo odd