The Montgomery advertiser. [volume] (Montgomery, Ala.) 1885-1982, 1905-11-06
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1905.
m is MUDDLED.

The New York Mail Is somewhat
muddled because of the widely diner
emit opinions that have been expressed
regarding Japan and the Japanese by
travellers ana newspaper correspon-
dents. On one side we have the opin-
ions freely and frequently expressed by
intelligent and apparently unbiased
writers that the Japs are wonderful
people. great in their originality as
well as In their adaptability. Brave,
devoted and humane. and altogether q
very remarkable nationality.
Then, as The Mail says. here comes
"a whole string of war correspon-
dents" who "call them liars, cheats,
ana. worse than that. foolish and futile
Orientals trying to pass themselves on
us modern civilized persons, with
real mastery of Western ways" Be-
tween these divergent opinions or de-
scriptiens The Mail thinks the world Is
nonplussed, and we'll II may be. 1t
would seem that there have been ample
opportunities for getting fair and
truthful accounts or the country, the
people and everything connected with
them by this time, and 1t is certainly
singular that there should exist such
wide differences as our contemporary
alIudes to. The Mail reasons it all out
in this way:
The solution of the riddle probably
lies in the fact that some Europeans
and Americans instinctyely like the
Japanese and their country very much
indeed--betteF than they. like any 9TH
er country or people--whiis ether ~.
defest both. In some of us there Is a
nostalgia yearning toward the Oriental,
We want to be shipped somewhere
east Of suez; We are homesick for the ne
our lives we seem only to have been
fncarnated in the Occident as pun
ishment for. sins committed in various
pan delights us as the cleanest, bright
est, sweetest, coolest and most beauti-
full OF Eastern countries, It is the
is back to our old home. If the Japa-
1ese lie, their lies are beautiful works
OF art We would rather be cheated
represents an ancient and lovely civil
ization than dealt honestly with by. a
man whose manly countsnance is the
dieval European barbarian:
For the others, true Oceidentals at
heart the Japanese probably can never
is large class OF banished Western
commercials and their Journalistic
Representatives in Japan who the long
err they live there the more bitterly do
Z they hate all its smiling and gentle mIe
thwarted and hampered war correspon-
dents. impatient because the Japanese
authorities did not Instantly let him
give away all Oyama's military plans
to the rest OF the world, including the
Russians. naturally came into ready
aympafhv with these exiles, and were
.stuffed" with ali sorts of information
and views unfavorable to them. And
being themselves temperamentally hos
tile to the Orient, they come back jap
unese haters. That seems to be the
whole story.
And yet. no matter what great con-
tradictions may be found in the opin-
IONS of those best calculated to judge,
the fact remains that they are really
and truly a wonderful people. They
have shown it IN everything connected
with military and naval life and they
have shown 1t in peace. II some of us
have given them credit for more than
they are fairly entitled to 1t is but nat
ural for the rise and development of
the nation has been so rapid and unex-
pected that exaggerated accounts are
not to be wondered at. If they have
been in any respect overrated we can
only say that there is good excuse for
1t.
what goes with 1t all? We mean