Charlevoix county herald. (East Jordan, Mich.) 189?-1953, 1905-11-18

tnat human life affords
In the United States two hundred
and fifty thousand of our people arc
being annually destroyed by the great
white plague, tuberculosis.
In Japan the disease is practically
unknown.
Why?
Because the japanese breathe fresh
air.
What would the Japanese think II
they were told that their people could
not have fresh air because they did
not have more money?
Or could not have exercise because
they could not afford to belong to
athletic clubs?
Or must go without food because
they lacked money to buy it at a
butcher or grocery store, when
every Japanese gardener has the land
from which he knows how with his
own labor to get all the food he needs
for the abundant nourishment for
himself and family.
The Garden Farm.
OF the 100000 population Of
japan 100000 are farmers, or more
correctly speaking, gardeners. The
Japanese farm is a garden, irrigated
and fertilized, and scientifically and
intensively titled.
And recent writer, describing the
life of the japanese farmer, says
Measured in money, he is not rich.
But he dwells in q comfortable and in
viting home, purged Of every faint or
dirt and dust The transparent paper
walls of his house, made Of bark from
his mitsumata shrubs, flood his dwell
ing with light and keep out the wind.
He enjoys good food served in dainty,
| but inexpensive dishes made of native
woods. Even in the homes of the
poorest, there are no visible signs or
poverty. There is no squalor In agri-
cultural Japan. The humblest peas
ant farmer is clean, Industrious and
comfortable. The area of fence corners
abandoned on many American farms
to wild mustard, fennel, and pig weed,
would furnish comfortable living. to
whole family in rural Japan. Some
idea of the trfing cost Of living In
agricultural Japan was given by
an American who has spent fifteen
years in the Empire. Frequently he
takes vacation in the farming re-
clean and comfortable quilts in impecs
cable houses is carried about in coun-
try CARTS and at the end of two weeks
finds that his total expenses have not
exceeded ten yen, or five dollars"
And from the garden farms-the
Home Acres-of agricultural Japan
have come the soldiers who have faced
| death to drive the Russians from Man.
churia and leaped into eternity In or
der that they might wipe the menace
| Of the Russian Navy from the seas that
wash the shores Of their Home Land.
A Nation of Home Acres.
1t is an old saying that a man will
not fight for a boarding house, but the
Japanese have proved that they will
fight like demons to defend the insti-
tutions Of a nation of Home Acres.
We instinctively think Of the victo-
ries Of Japan as the victories of her
leaders.
We are naturally hero-worshippers.
But there, again, we are superficial.
Our military men were loud in their
praises of the mastery way in which
Kuropatkin played the game of war.
And Rojestvensky must have the
credit due him for sailing his fleet four
thousand miles and planning so effi-
GENTLY to provide it with coal and pro-
visions.
But Oyama and Togo had the men,
and every Japanese soldier and sailor
Is not only hero but leader. II
every officer in the japanese army and
navy above the rank of Captain were
stricken dead tomorrow, their places
would be filed and Japan would con-
tinue to prosecute the war to final vic
tory. The secret Of her power lies in
the fact that in intelligence, in mental
and physical strength, in individual
initiative in patriotism, in all that goes
to make up fighting unit, every
Japanese soldier and sailor is an
Oyma or Togo in embryo.
You might destroy every ship that
Japan possesses, destroy all her arms
and munitions Of war, take away even
the clothes on their backs and trans
port every soldier in her army and
every sailor in her navy back to the
shores of Japan as naked as the day he
were born, and leave the nation to it's
own devices, and in q few years they
would completely reproduce their
naval and military power and be
stronger than ever.
But destroy the men of Japan and
substitute for them the dull-witted
peasantry Of Russia or the enaemic
factory operatives of England, and
you have destroyed Japan.
Men Before BattIeshipsL
True to his warlike impulses and In,
stincts, President Roosevelt catches UT
the echo from the great naval battle
which has just been fought, and calls
on the country for more battle ships
Rojestvensky had battle ships he
had more Of them than Togo. But he
didn't have the men. And he couldn't
get them. Russian institutions could
not produce them.
Now, would it not be wise for the
people Of this country to wake up to
the fact that the foundation Of ouI
strength as q nation is not i'm an army
or a navy, but in our citizenship.
And also wake up to the appalling
fact, powerfully portrayed by Rober
Hunter in Poverty" his recent book
that we are deliberately following II
the footsteps of England and degener
ating our citizenship by crowding ou
working people into cities wher
they live in an unhealthful environ
ment and are weakened by poor foo<
and inadequate nvurishment.
The lesson to be learned by this ma