The weekly soliphone., 1915-04-30
LAPS GETTING TOO FRISKY.

JAPS GETTlNG VOO EklSk4. American missionaries in China have appealed to President Wilson to curb Japanese activity in the orient. The message to the presi- dent is said to have contained five thousand words and to have been communicated by ocean cable. A message of this length runs into big money when sent that distance by cable route and the exigencies Of the situation are certainly grave, in the estimation of the missionaries, to warrant this means of transmits sion for a communication so ponder ous.
 The information is conveyed that the aggression of Japan in China is threatened menace to American interests, that the Japanese troops now auartered in China double the usual quota and the president is asked to intervene and put a check to Japanese aggression.
 Japan regards China as an infer for nation, in spite of its vastly greater population, and recent activ- ities upon the part of the Mikado's subjects indicate desire to sub1u- ,, gate China, commercially and in- dustrially by superior military force and strategy. AS strategists the Japs are in the front column of nations and being totally interruptions, dis regarding international treaties or anything that stands in the way of their desire for conquest and expan- sion, the Japs are about ready to bundle China up and put her to bed.
 If the United States finds it nec- essary to intercede and make protest to Japanese aggression in the ori- ent it will possibly eventuate in an open rupture between the two countries which has been so long expected by thousands of thinking men who claim to see in the "Yel- low Peril' the worst menace to our future. That Japan rather courts conflict with the United States is believed by many of the ablest statesman in this country. Cali fornia has been intimidated into modifying it's alien land laws to ap- pease Japan and the exclusion of Japs from the free schools of the Pacific slope country is regarded by the Japs as an insult to their na- tionality. No country, in the past decade, has made such progress as Japan. Since her war with Rus sia, in which her superior military prowess asserted itself with surpris- ing skill, Japan has become arro- gant, defiant and aggressive. Those most familiar with her tactics be- lieve that she has been for ten years getting ready to fight the United States and if we find it nec- essary, for thu. protection of Ameri- can interests, to intercede against her aggressions in the orient, the coveted opportunity to strike the United States will have arrived
 But who is more responsible for the preparedness of Japan to become the greatest world power in the orient than the missionaries them selves? Fifty years ago when our missionaries first began to invade Japan the country was semi-bar- barrie. Our missionaries found there ripe field for the harvest. They returned home with thrilling recitals of the great possibilities of this heather land" and how they could bring it to Christ if only men and ciently to accomplish the purpose. Millions of American money went to establish missions in Japan and em- ploy missionaries to save the "heathen." The heather" have been saved CD and the example of the farmer who warmed the frozen rep tile on his hearth is likely to re- suit when this great oriental power, strengthened by the christianizing and civiliZing influence of the Unit ed States turns upon it's benefactor. Perhaps we will then realize, as an economic ruth, that sentimental pleas for missionaries and mission ary money are not always wisely made and that it does not pay to civilize and christianize the heath