New-York tribune., 1905-10-29
A J


u miration of the Japanese seems more than
probable. BY a long course of literary
TRANSPORTATION, Japan has stood in the American
mind as an Oriental Paradise with all the modern
improvements. Esthetic and semi -poetlcal writers
of prose, ignoring defects, have shed moonlight
on garbage-heaps. The victory not of an " Oren-
tai but of pubic-school army and navy close
their base of supplies strictly temperate and cut
off from RIGHTEOUSNESS, against an ignorant horde
at the tail end of attenuated empire, weakened
by alcoholic and sensual indulgences, has tilted the
worlds Judgment. Tourists in the Tok1o-k1oto
strip of land and at the open ports and some most
illogical persons of esthetic susceptibtles who argue
from art to morals have completed the glamour
What we have seen is the victory OF minority
of intelligent men of modern mind after forty years
of preparation and ten of definite resolve, making
full use of the science of the ages gathered from
many civilizations, rather than the normal trut
of fifty millions of islanders, the reality OF whose
condition morally socially and physically, Is yet
to be revealed. The Americans, who only in recent
wears have emerged from their provincial limits nave
not been fooled by the japanese, but have rather
voluntarily fooled themselves; for on the whole
such a process before completion, is great fr11
Then suddenly awake to behold the tull growth
of our long ears, and discover that all along the
Japanese have actually been intellectual equals
Then ali our traditional notions OF lnteror1ty are
upset and we howl
Yet there is now a real danger that the pendulum
will swing too far the other way Indications OF
such view at the nadrs opposite OF those Snn1tteh
with Tapantis,'' are occasionally seen IN articles
written by home-staying Japanophobes, or by
quondam dwelers in Japan, For example II mas
been asserted in this publication that The victory
of Japan over Russia must inevitably cry Hat!
to our progress in Asia" and again, We are beng
made fools of by the widest pohtest, most arrogant
reople of modern times These two texts were set
between pictures of two bronze mOrtuary beacons'
representing the conventonalized five elements
constituent of mans body-earth, water, air, IRE
and ether which flanked the image of Great Buddha
at Kama kura-the fitting symbol OF dead city
and diving faith-set a platform from whicn
New Japan has long ago leaped, throwing her old
and now discarded halo behind her back Some
of the statements IN that article, by my former
neighbor in Toxic and honored PHYSICIAN
| cannot as a historical scholar, subscribe to.
Since the publication of the article, Japan by
the signing of the peace treaty at Portsmouth,
August 90 has achieved her greatest conquest
victory over herself In that fact alone we see new
revelation of the real moral history OF the nation
There have been few events OF greater interest oi
announcement to students OF the progress OF te
race than this demonstration OF the humanity
moderation and self-mastery OF the japanese MOI
has decade of centuries furnished a grander auSuiy
for hun1anity's advance than the M1kado cape-
Gram to Komura ordering him to sign the treaty:
which waived indemnity and yielded molety oi