The Breckenridge news., 1905-11-15

| measures everything by n money wage
"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 II
they were told that their people could
not have fresh air because they di0
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
| butcher or a 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 30,OOO,OOO are farmers or more
correctly speaking, gardeners. The
japanese farm is a garden, irrigated
and fertiliZed, and scientifically and
intensively titled.
And a recent writer, describing the
! life of the Japanese farmer, says
Measured in money, he is not rich.
But he dwells in a comfortable and in
viting home purged of every faint 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.
lie 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 agr1-
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, fcnnel, and pig weed,
would furnish comfortable living to a
whole family in rural Japan. Some
idea Of the trihng cost Of living in
an American who has spent fifteen
years in the Empire. Frequently he
takes a vacation i'm the farming re-
giOns. He has good food, sleeps on
clean and comfortable quilts in impec-
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 Acrcs-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 eili-
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 a leader. If
every officer i'm the japanese army and
navy above the rank of Captain were
stricken dead tomorrow, their places
would be filed and Japan would con-
tnue 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
10 make up Il 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 i'm her army and
every sailor in her navy back to the
shores of Japan as naked as the day he
were born, ana leave the nation to its
own devices, and in a 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 BattIeships.
True to his warlike impulses and in
stincts, President Roosevelt catches ND
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 a 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
the footsteps of England and degener- a
ating our citizenship by crowding our
working people into cities where
they live in an unhealthful environ
mpnt and are wp1 kpnpd Inv moor food