The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1912-08-02
Ex-Attaehe in the New York Tribune.

4
XII o western appreciation can do JUS
IN tice to the great Oriental ruler,
= who. descended in an unbroken
line from Emperor Jimmu, sovereign Of
Japan $500 years ago. has now been gath
cred to his fathers at Toxic. For just In
the same way as the people Of Dai Nip
pom, no matter how great their western
culture, remain an ever unfathomable
mystery to the white races, so was their
monarch beyond our understanding.
tourists and casual visitors may fondly
imagine that they know all about the
Japanese mind and character but those
alone who have lived long in the Land
of the Rising Sun, in close association
with the people, are able to realize that
the more one learns about Them the less
one comprehends them. Add to this that
his late majesty Mmsuhito was a mystery
even to his own subjects, being invested
In their eyes with sort of divinity, and
some idea may be obtained of the diff
Guilty of forming any just estimate of
his personality.
Perhaps the most remarkable feature of
his long reign of nearly half a century
is the fact that while he enabled his sub
jects to assimilate the finest fruits of our
1000 years of progressive civilization, he
found 1t possible so to direct matters
that not even the most advanced teachings
of American and European universities
have succeeded in impairing in the slight
est degree the belief of their Japanese
graduates in his almost supernatural at
tributes. Indeed, men who have achieved
eminence even in western capitals as
princes of the most modern branches of
science. and who decline to accept Chris
tianity on account of it's alleged contra
dictons and absence of reason and logic,
manage to retain their faith in the legends
of the pre-Buddhistic era legends that
claim for the Mikado, or Tenno, descent
from the sun goddess, mother of the
founder of the dynasty, and are officially
promulgated today genuine history.
strange as it may seem to us.
The sentiments of his lieges toward him
have always been those of deeply reverent
men toward being close to deity. rather
than those of the loyalty which the peo-
pie of Europe are content to accord to
even the best loved of their temporal
rulers That, in spite of all the west
ern reforms which he caused Japan to
adopt he should have been able to pre-
serve unweakened this feeling of pro-
found awe for his person and his throne
proves conelusively that he was really an
extraordinary man.
Even the late Prince Ito, the Cynical,
masterful statesman, so often called 1.-The
IL ~. 4
honored and banqueted by nearly. every
crowned head in Europe, from the Gar
to Edward VII, never dared to raise his
eyes from the ground when copsulted by
his own Emperor, while neither Marshal
Yamagata nor any other of the veteran
and victorious commanders of his army
and navy have ever entered his presence
without trepidation.
AS for the ordinary people-those 49,
100000 of aggressive. irrepressible Jap
anese, who are bent on the realization of
their dream of Asia for the Asiatics under
Japanese auspices-of course, they have
never until now presumed to mention his
name. 1t was regarded as far too hal
lowed to be printed or spoken while he
lived, any reference to it being regarded
in the light of rank lese majesty. Owing
to this, vast majority of his subjects
did not even so much as know his name
that name of Mutsuhito under which he
figures in American and European works
of reference. TO them he was not real
man, with human weaknesses, but an
abstract ideal. almost divine.
Mutsuhito, one hundred and twenty first
Emperor of his line, was born on Novem-
Der g. 1852, at Kioto. and was but Is years
of age when the death of his father
brought him to the throne. At his Access
sion his sovereignty over the islands of his
empire was of a purely ecclesiastical and