The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1905-06-11
TOGO IS TUIET
BUT HAS MANY
FINE QUALITIES
He Shows a Stern Devotion 10
Duty and Tenderness
Of Heart
GOT NAVAL TRAINING ON
SCHOOLSHIP WORCESTER
In Addition TO Being a Fearless Sailor
Vice Admiral Togo Is a Poet and
Skilled Muscian-Hls
Home Life.
From the New York Times.

From the New York Times.
Amid the smoke and flame of the
worlds most awful sea fight Destiny has
carved a new name high up in the Hall
of Fame.
For a week Christendom, astounded,
has been calling him Togo the Terri
ble," while English speaking hero wor-
shippers have glibly dubbed him the
NELSON of the orient" or have striven
to compare him with Farragut, Dewey or
Sampson. Both the personality of the
man and the environment from which
he sprang are apt to render such COM
parsons illusory.
England had glorious naval traditions
years before Nelson fought the victory.
Farragut, Dewey and Sampson were of
the same race as Lawrence, Decatur and
Hull. But this twentieth century Vik-
ing of the east, who has just annihilated
one of the greatest armadas that ever
sailed the sea and has humbled the most
autocratic power of Europe springs
from a race which has essayed and has
mastered the arts of modern warfare
within the memory of living men; race
warlike, but until fifty years ago stepped
ent, until a generation ago alike without
either naval tradition or aspiration.
Barely fifty years have passed since
Commodore Matthew G. Perry of the
United States navy sailed his old flag
ship Mississippi into Japanese ports,
closed until then to western Influences,
and opened the unwilling eyes of the
Samurai to their first glimpse of modern
sea power. That was in 1854. Togo Hell
hachro, the hero of Port Arthur, and
now of the greater victory of Tshushma,
was born three years later. Though not
set fifty years of age, therefore, the life
time of this man has spanned both the
birth and the apotheosis of Japan as a
great naval power.
1t has been the destiny of Togo not to
maintain a galaxy of glorious traditions
in his peoples history. but to create
them.
What manner of man is this yellow
skinned, tacturn admiral who, with
Oyama and others of his race, has been
teaching Christendom that the east may
be the east and yet not be effete; that
the lands of Buddha and Confucus may
yet rear champions who may meet the
occident on its own terms and crush ii
with its own weapons?
Of the New Japan.
In outline at least the admirals career
is fairly well known. Ii was a child OF
the new Japan, though a scion of the old
Samurai stock Endowed at birth with
all the chivalrous traditions of the am
cent Satsuma civilization, there was
grated upon his boyhood the vital sap
of western progressive ideals lie and
Japan have grown to manhood together
Since his name has become one to con-
jure with the newspapers have teemed
with tales of his early training Though
Japan had reluctantly opened her doors
to Perry, her thirst for acquisition soon
became passion and Britain and Amer
lea gladly opened their doors to her eager
young men.
Togo was among the first from japan
to lay the foundation of his nautica
training between decks of the old school
shin Worcester ON the Thames. THAI
was nearly forty years ago. He was
an exemplary lad according to all ac-
counts. If, as Lord Charles Beresford
once said, "a scaawag is the best mate
rial cut OF which to make a great sailor,
Togo must be put down as an exception
to the Beresford rule. His conduct was
exemplary and he impressed his teachers
by his ready obedience and his silent
application to duty. Later 1t was his
privilege to study at the Royal Naval
college at Greenwich. Hobson himself
did not leave a more fiawless record al
Annapolis as a blameless youth, holding
aIoof from all the conventional foibles
of cadet life than did Togo at Green
witch.
The young Japanese impressed his In
structors as almost canny in his self
conferred thirst for knowledge If he
craved any of the diversions or pastmes