The La Jara chronicle., 1905-11-24


"a totally false and deceptive stand
ard of measurement of the best thing
that human life affords.
In the United States two hundred
and fifty thousand of our people are
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 If
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 a grocery store, when
every Japanese gardener has the lanG
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 45,OOO,OOO population of
Japan 3O0OO,0O0 are farmers, or more
correctly speaking, gardeners. Inc
Japanese farm is n garden, irrigated
intensively TILED.
And recent writer, describing the
life of the japanese farmer, says
"Measured in money, he is not rich.
But he dwellS in a comfortable ana IN
viting home, purged of every taint OF
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 of
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 trifling cost of living in
agricultural Japan was given by
an American who has spent fifteen
years in the Empire. Frequently he
takes a vacation in the farming re
gions. He has good food, sleeps on
clean and comfortablequilts in impec-
cable houses is carried about i'll 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 boarding house; but the
Japanese have proved that they will
| fight like demons to defend the insu-
tutions of 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 We're 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 eli
ciently to provide it with coal and pro-
visions.
But Oyama and Togo had the men,
| and every Japanese soldier and sailor
is not only a hero but leader. If
every officer in the japanese army and
navy above the rank of Captain We're
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 its
own devices, and in 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 Battleships.
True to his warlike impulses and in
stincts, President Roosevelt catches up
| 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 our
strength as nation is not in an army
or navy, but in our citizenship.
And also wake up to the appalling
fact, powerfully portrayed by Robert
Hunter in Poverty" his recent book
that we are deliberately following in