The Wenatchee daily world. [volume] (Wenatchee, Wash.) 1905-1971, 1905-07-18
The New Power In the Orient.

The New Power In the Orient.
AS might be expected In a Pacific
coast paper, the Argonaut Of San Fran
cisco sees a menace for the civilized
world in the triumph Of Japan over
Russia. In a recent editorial on the
subject the Argonaut says:
The humiliation Of the Russian fleet
may well cause Christendom to pause
Once We might have said "all Europe -
But now the United States is a world
power and must be reckoned with the
world. No graver event has happened
since Charles Martel checked the Saracen
flood at the battle of Tours
This naval battle is more than a blow
| to the prestige of Russia. 1t is a menace
to the entire white race 1t is warning
to all the western world. What is to save
the twentieth century from seeing another
Monaghan war lord. a new Geng his
Khan? CERTAINLY not the prowess of
occidental armies or navies. Would any
| occidental power today enter the field
against Japan single handed without a
qualm? If So what power?
European powers for selfish rea-
sons have been egging on the war, the
Argonaut declares, and betray their
fears over the crushing defeats sus-
tanned by Russia. TO quote further:
And they have reason for their alarm
Americans are brave; Britons are brave;
Germans. French, Spanish. Italians, Aus
trians-ail Of these white soldiers are
brave But so are the Russians brave
No one can deny their courage in the
face of their history. Where was ever
drawer or bloodier fighting done than that
through the Balkan peninsula and in the
Shipka pass? Yet what occidental brav
cry can Withstand the fatalism and fanat-
icism of the Shintoist. of the Buddhist. of
the Mohammedan? Do western soldiers
fight on equal ground with the fatalists
of the east? History does not seem to
say so. There is something in the fatal
istic spirit of the oriental which in battle
is akin to madness.
In the machine gun the white man
believed that he had found an effective
weapon against fanatical valOr of bar
barrie races, but this weapon and
other modern war appliances the Japa-
nese have turned against the invent
ors. Says the Argonaut:
They are meeting the west with western
weapons, and the west must have care.
We have trained them to war. We have
taught them tactics. We have shown
them how to build battleships. They are
docile pupils; they have studied the art
of war; they seem to have acquired it
quite well; they do honor to their in
structors; they build very practical bat
tleshps When they lack the time to
build more, they capture few. We have
sown the wind. Are we to reap the
whirlwind?
From an industrial point of view the
Argonaut thinks that the supremacy
of Japan is a menace to the United
States. 1t says:
The Japanese are distinctly a manufac-
turing people. Already they are selling
limitations of American goods under forg-
ed bl ands in China and Korea. In not
many years they will cease selling the
goods under forged American brands and
will have replaced them with genuine
Japanese brands through all of eastern
Asia, and the United States will lose en-
tirely the "open door" and the open
market
Russia, the editor thinks, could never
become a manufacturing nation. Had
she seized all Korea, as well as Man
churia, she would have made market
instead of a menace for the western
world