The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-05-04
WHAT IS VALUE OF
JAPS' FRIENDSHIP
TO UNITED STATES?
Prevented Ultimate Dis
menlberment Of China By
Russia-Asiatics May
Oppose America

! From the New York journal of Com
meree and Commercial Bulletin.
The state of California may think itself
able to substitute without detriment the
enmlty for the friendship of Japan, but
the United States, cannot face any such
contingency without weighing the conse-
quences. Were the anti-Japanese move
! ment on the Pacific coast the work of
men honestly convinced that the pres
ence of Japanese among them is a mem
ace to their civilization, instead of being
| the obviously sordid agitation that it is
there would still remain the question:
! What is the value to the country at large
of the friendship of Japan2 Nine years
| ago Japan and Japanese ranked very high
| in our esteem. our people. never greatly
| impressed by the imminence of the vel
low peril" had come to see that the true
peril of Asia, and of the world was the
Muscovite because it sprang from the
| unrestrained power of a handful of un-
| scrupulous men at the top, and the un-
| reasoning obedience of subject millions
| below; because ii conquered merely to en-
slave and, in advancing, tainted with its
own corruption all that it subdued.
Did Service to World
It was early in 1904 that Japan under
| took to deliver the world from this peril
and the fact was nowhere more promptly
and freely recognized than here, that no
| greater service could be performed for
| the cause of human freedom. 1t WAS ad-
mitted to be somewhat of a paradox that
| the battle of mans enfranchisement
which was won against the hosts of Per-
| sia at Marathon and Salands should be
| renewed by a people of unmised Aslatic
blood against an empire calling itself Eu-
ropean and claiming to be the champion
/ of white men against the yellow races.
| But that Japan in fighting for its own ex-
| istence also occupied the van of the
struggle for human liberty was a fact
| that stood out too clearly in the fateful
| spring of 1904 to admit of sophisticaton
or denial. Equally prompt was the per-
| ception among our own people that Japan
was doing them a service which they
could not have performed for themselves.
! That is to say, there could be only one
| issue to the establishment of Russian
| sovereignty in Menehuria, namely, the
! dismemberment of China. But 1t had be-
| come plain even to the least reflective
that the integrity of China was a vital
necessity not only for the full develop
ment the material resources, and the in
dustrial and commercial energy of the
| United States, but for the adequate full
| fiment of its manifest political destiny
This is a point which, familiar as it is
| to our readers has so intimate a relation
TO the present situation as to be worth
| a fuller statement IT was on February
| .. 1904, that the japanese minister in ST.
Petersburg broke off diplomatic relations
with the statement that "the successive
refusals of the imperial Russian govern
ment to enter into engagements to re-
spect Chinas territorial integrity in Man
churia, which is seriously menaced by
their continued occupation of the PROV
ince. Notwithstanding their treaty en-
gagements with China and their repeated
| assurances to other powers possessing in
terests in those regions have made it nee
| essary for the imperial government Sc
riously to consider what measures of, self
defense they are called upon to take
| Fifty years before William Fl. Seward
had foresight and imagination enough