The Nome daily nugget., 1908-01-18
NOME, ALASKA, JAN. t8, 1908.
DO THE LAPS KNOW?

Probably not one Japanese in a hum dred is sufficiently well acquainted with the intentions of his government 10 know whether war is likely or not. Even Japanese army officer stationed in his native land could not tell the cause of dispute between the two coun- tries, and there is nothing very re- markable in the fact that one first heard of the trouble through the col umns of the Nome Nugget.
 To understand the strange want of interest in public questions on the part of the masses one must live in some continent other than the American. Australasian or the southern part of the African.
 The older the country is the less the people know about the political ma chinery that is moulding their destiny.
 Even in European countries the masses are peculiarly ignorant of cur rent events. The following story is told as an illustration of the strange want of knowledge of their country's poli- ties on the part of SO brilliant a peo- pie as the French: After the resignation of Thiers he went to visit the district where he had been brought up in humble circum- stances. There he met an old man with 1 whom he had gone to school After 1 greeting each other the old provincial said: T have stayed at home and been happy What have you gained hy leav- ing home?" Well" said Thiers, smiling to him. self, T have been a minister"
 "A minister" said the other, why I didn't know you had taken holy or ders" Between the time of leaving school and meeting the old man again Thiers had guided his country through the awful debacle of 1870. Conditions which seem so strange in the eyes of an American are due to th, old conservatism through the shell of which the peoples find it hard to burst They simply do not see or care to see the things which are happening. Just above them others do their thinking and they are quite happy in the fact
 In newspapers will one see most vi- wildly illustrated the difference between the two styles-the old and the new Some of the most famous of the jour nals of Paris are not as large. nor nearly as large, as the Seattle Post Intelligencer, and now and then sin gle edition of an Alaskan paper is as large as the single edition of a paper published in the metropolis of the worlds fashion. In a Paris paper the account of the battle of Manila occu- pied about an inch or two of space, or much less than would be occupied in n New York paper by an account of John D. Rockefeller's toothache.
 And the governments take good care to keep their best-beloved subjects in the shades they have inhabited so long.
 
 the government, which President Roosevelt is now advocating has a little tinge of the European or Asiatic desire to let the head decide the move ments of the body legs and tail.
 The country has or has not been on the verge of war for some time. but the American people cannot tell Yet the slim knowledge which the people of this country have on such matters, when compared to the knowledge of similar matters on the part of Japan csc, is as the sun compared to the lighted top of cigaret.
 Of course, in certain matters. too much knowledge on the part of the people may mean the embarrassment of the government But Americans would be inclined to think that know ledge should come first and let discre- tion take tho place of forced ignorsnoe