Durango semi-weekly herald., 1905-09-14

Our military men were loud In their
praises OF the mastery way in which
Kuropatkin played the game of war.
And Rojestvensky must have credit
due him for sailing his fleet four
thousand miles and planning so eff
clently to provide 1t with coal and pro-
visions.
But Oyama and Togo had the men
and every Japanese soldier and sailor
is not only hero bu: 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 continue to prosecute the war
10 final victory. The secret of her
power lies in the fact that In intelli-
gence, in mental and physical
strength, in individual initiative, in pa
triotism. N all that goes TO make up
a fighting unit every Japanese soldier
and sailor is an Oyama or Togo in
embryo.
You might destroy every ship that
Japan possesses, destroy all her arms
and munitions of war. take away even
the clotes on their backs, and trans
port every soldier in her army and
every sailor in her navy back to thu
shores of Japan as naked as the day
they were born, and leave the nation
to its own resources. and in a few
years tney would completely repro
40 mill
and be stronger than ever.
But destroy the men of Japan and
substitute for them the dull-wltted
peasantry of Russia or the anaemic
factory operatives of England and you
have destroyed Japan.
True to his warlike impulses and In
stincts, President Roosevelt catches
mp the echo from the great naval bat
tie which mas Just been fought, and
calls on the country for more battle
ships.
Roiestvenslly had battleships. He
had more of them than Togo. But
he didn't have the men. And he
couldn't get them. Russian institn-
tions 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 n nation Is not in an army
or a navy, but IL our citizenship.
And also wake mp to the appalling
fact, so powerfully portrayed by Rob
book, that we are deliberately follow
ing in the footsteps of England and
degenerating our citizenship by crowd.
ing our working people into cities,
where they live in an unhealthy envir-
onmcnt and are weakened by poor
food and inadequate nourishment
In other words. let MS reproduce in
this country the conditions so well de
scrihed in an article from The Book
lovers Magazine for August 1904
from which we quote the following:
While Japan is cannonadng its
way TO rank with Christian powers as
firstclass fighting nation, 1t is not
neglecting its fields of rice, genge,
millet and null. its groves of null
berry and bamboo, its priceless plots
of tea and mtsumata shrubs. and its
mulh-million gardens of berries, veg
etahles, fruits and flowers The thous-
ands of patriots that have marched tn
the front have not thinnned the ranks
Of the mightier hosts tilling the soil.
Thirty million farmers are gathering
ample harvests in the diminutivo
fields of Japan.
For twenty-five centuries the Sun
rise sovereiens have dignifed hus'
bandry as the most important and
most honorable industrial calling In
the empire. and now more than sixty
Der cent of the mikado's subjects TIL
with incompatible skill the limited
soil of the his islands.
The same diligent genius that en-
nbles n landscape gardener in Japan
TO compass within a few square yards
Of land. forest. bridge-spanned
stream. a waterfall and lake, chain
of terraced hills. gardens of chrysan-
themums. hyacinths, peonies and
ninks, a beetling crag crowned with n
dwarfed confer. and through all the
dainty park meandering paths with
here a shrine and there a dainty sum
mer house. has made 1t. possible fer
the farmers OF the empire TO build up
on less than nieteen thousand square