The Washburn leader. [volume] (Washburn, McLean County, N.D.) 1890-1986, 1905-04-15
RETURNED FROM The WAR.

Readers of The LEADER will be
interested in knowing that Stanley
Washburn, son of General w. D..
Washburn, builder of the Bismarck
Washburn & Great Falls R'y., has
returned from the Far East where
he was press correspondent for sew
eral of the leading newspapers of
the United States during the prog
ress of the Russia-Japanese war.
He has been making entertaining
use of the knowledge he gained in
the East by lecturing in Minneap-
oils. MI. Washburn is remembered
by many persons of this section as
a young man Of unusual activity
and energy, and his travels in the
Orient, where he has braved the
dangers Incidental to the life Of a
war correspondent, is an evidence
Of his energy and courage. The
Minneapolis Tribune of recent date
contained the following regarding
the natter
"While StanleyWa painted
a word picture of the siege and sur
render Of Port Arthur, he held the
eager interest of LOO school chill
dren at Emmanuel Baptist church
at noon today.
The youthful speaker SO wildly
described the awful carnage that
went on in the Japanese trenches
while theysurrendered thousands Of
men to the destructive shells Of the
Russians in order to gain the Rus
sian stronghold, that every boys
eyes sparkled with suppressed ex-
element, and the girls listened fas-
cinated, almost imagining they
heard the bursting Of shells and
cracking of the sharp artillery fire.
Mr. ashburn spoke with almost
boyish enthusiasm of the great
strategiac campaign made by the
Japanese, and after detailed de-
scriptions of the kind of guns en-
ployed and the great havoc created
m Russian or japanese lines, as the
case might be, the speaker would
very drily remark, ''They were very
nice" and his hearers could not
repress a smile.
AS Mr.. Washburn told the story
of the siege, he gave both sides
credit for fighting with grim per-
sistence; the battle to gain a trench
was as persistently and effectively
carried on as though the whole fate
of each army was at stake.
ALL GOOD SOLDIERS.
He said:-"The people who have
the impression that the Russians
are not good soldiers are mistaken.
They fight just as hard as the Jap
anese, but their weakness is that
they have not the organization and
capable officers of the Japanese"
Mr.. Washburn paid tribute to
the utter unselfshness of the JAP
anese soldier, who places no value
whatever upon his life. Frequently
he pictured great hordes Of them
going on to take the first Of the
enemy's fire when they knew it was
certain death, and they we're usu-
ally shot down like flies.
Scarcely less praise did he give
the Russians. He illustrated with
an instance he was aware of where
six Russian detachments caught in
bomb proofs blythe Japanese and
given the choice of being walled in
and left to starve if they would not
surrender, and of the six detatch-
ments but one surrendered.
Mr.. Washburn's account of how
the Japs expected to take Port Ar
thur and found out their mistake
was interesting. He said:-"The
Japs had an idea everything would
be carried by the bayonet. They
thought it would be q straightaway
assault with cold steel. They took
up artillery positions on the outer
row of hills encircling Port Arthur
and as the put their artillery into
place, they were subjected to 9 hot
fire by the Russians and endured
it for two months. On Aug. 18th
they made their a6rst assault With
bayonets. i
ALL WE'RE Killed. Y !
"There was nothing modern about
the attack. They lost 5000 men
and got the nearest to Port Arthur
Of any single attack. A detatch: