The Pacific Triangle Part 26

If I am charged with deliberately selecting things derogatory to j.a.pan, I can only say that nothing, in my mind, that j.a.pan may have done for the good of Korea and of the world, none of the virtues which j.a.pan possesses can ever counterbalance these crimes. Yet intelligent j.a.panese write:

Fortunately, a change of heart has come to the Mikado's Government ... there will be established ... a School Council to discuss matters relating to education. [No mention is made of the up-rooting of the native language.] The step may be slow, but the goal is sure. Korea's union with j.a.pan was consummated after the bitter experience of two sanguinary wars and _the mature deliberation of the best minds of the two peoples_.

The italics are mine. Who were these minds? No mention is made of the a.s.sa.s.sination of the Korean Queen by j.a.panese, later "exonerated." In other words, now that the lion has eaten the lamb he is going to tell the lamb the best way in which he can be digested, for they are "discussing matters" to their mutual advantage.

One is inclined to become bitter in the rehearsal of such facts, the feeling being induced by the evasive apologies of rhetoricians. But these outstanding facts must be faced if any true judgment can be formed of j.a.pan's position in the Far East: If it is her aim merely to dominate in Asia, then j.a.pan has set out to do it masterfully. But if the leadership of the yellow race is her aim, if Pan-Asianism means the uplifting of all Oriental races now under the heel of the white race, then j.a.pan has chosen the most unfortunate line of action. She is running an obstacle race in which the silken garments of Bushido are likely to suffer considerable wear and tear. Credit j.a.pan deserves for her administrative ability. Certain it is that no country in the Orient to-day has the same capacity to rule that j.a.pan has. In international affairs, j.a.pan has proved herself a match for the shrewdest diplomats of the Western world. It is not to be marveled at that the yellow races should be willing to yield her her position and her prestige. Thousands of Chinese who could not afford a Western education are now being educated in the universities of j.a.pan; many Indians are doing likewise.

In the simple matter of road-building, j.a.pan has done what few Oriental countries seem to have the capacity to do. It is natural that the Orient should look to j.a.pan for leadership in government and industry, in direction and help. But is j.a.pan giving it?

The experiences of Tagore in j.a.pan are not rea.s.suring. He turned from j.a.pan as from a gross imitator of the West from which he had escaped. He expressed keen disappointment at what he saw in modern j.a.pan. In the "New York Times," recently, there was an article by a Chinese called "The Uncivilized United States," the thesis of the writer being that the Americans lacked the gentlemanliness of the English. The Chinese was obviously a great admirer of the j.a.panese and repeated over and over again that the Tokugawas were great rulers because they advocated the rule by "tenderness of heart"; but he, too, despaired of the modern j.a.pan, of its great industries and little heart.

That, of course, has been the oft-repeated criticism of America from older countries, and need not discourage j.a.pan. But j.a.pan is making that greater error of believing that a world which has won civil liberty and enlightenment after so many centuries of strife, has builded for the ma.s.ses at least a semblance of economic freedom and democracy, is going to yield all this blithely to an antiquated ideal of Oriental imperialism that has not even the virtues of Oriental mysticism to recommend it.

CHAPTER XX

AMERICA

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Johnny Appleseed, whose real name was John Chapman, ended his career at Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1847. Step by step he made his way over the wilderness, winning the good-will of the pioneers and the devotion of the Indians, and planting apple-seeds which time nourished into orchards. Johnnie Appleseed has been glorified by Vachel Lindsay,--and with him, not a little of the richness of life that went into the make-up of America.

Unfortunately, Johnny Appleseed died in Indiana, at the early age of seventy-two. Had he lived twice as long he would most likely have reached the coast. By most he was regarded as rather a queer character, but there were men who felt the current of greatness in his being, and to-day Johnny Appleseed might well be hailed as the symbol of America.

For if the virtue of England lay in that process of selection which was the result of "the roving of a race with piratical and poetic instincts invading old England where few stocks arrived save by stringent selection of the sea," how much more is the hardihood of pioneering the very bone and marrow of America. For the sifting process here did not end merely by the crossing of the Atlantic. To those who broke through the fears of the Atlantic, lanced the gathering ills of Europe, that Eastern ocean was only the symbol of a tradition. The way has been kept open by the pa.s.sage of millions of men and women and children who, year after year, for four centuries, have been invading young America. But what is that coming compared with the arduous reaching out across the wilderness of this vast continent itself, a reaching that left its mile-stones in the form of log cabins, graves, and roaring cities.

Following the trade-winds or beating up against the billows of the Northern seas was a joyous pastime compared with the windless waiting and tireless pressing on of the prairie schooner. The conquest of the mountains, of the Mississippi, of the treeless plains, of the desert, and of the rocky barriers in the farthest West is a story replete with tragic episodes, and it is destined to become the dominating tradition of America.

It is a strange story, and because it was essentially so lowly in its early impulse, because it was seemingly a secondary phenomenon, sn.o.bs and cynics dispose of it with indifference. The movement westward was undertaken by men of small means and little culture. Pathetic in its simple requirements, seeking fortunes that always lay on the fringe of fortune, moving on with a restlessness that seemed to despise rest and ease, it still left in its wake sorrows that approached tragedy but never felt it. If "Main Street" is a necessary corrective, "The Son of the Middle Border" is the crystallization of an unconscious ideal. This westward movement is a vivid rehearsal of a belated migration that tells the tale of man's first yielding to the mobile impulse in his nature, an impulse that has made of him the conqueror of the globe. These thousands of Johnny Appleseeds were not utilitarian seekers after wealth alone; in them was the unconscious mother principle yielding to the forces that were fathering a new race.

And that new race has come. Centuries of arduous trial and tribulation have molded it. Go where you will, except for some slight differences in tonal expression, there is one people. Beneath their Americanism are the crude complexes resulting from a war between refinement and the unkind forces of nature. The pioneers had all known what civilization meant, but circ.u.mstances thwarted their inclinations. They brought with them a respect for woman which no other people had known so well. Primitive and Oriental people--and many European races of to-day--do not have the same exalted notion of woman, simply because they have developed along with women whose functions of life were determined by the savage circ.u.mstances. But Americans found themselves in the continent with few women, and those in danger of savage ruthlessness. Hence they became doubly concerned for their welfare, even to the point of sentimentalism.

So, too, with regard to personal liberty. The pioneer knew what his freedom meant to him, and fought for it as a lion or a tiger fights for his. Too frequently his own freedom could be bought only at the expense of others around him. The word itself became a magic with esoteric properties. Hence we find throughout our West a fanatical regard for the term "freedom" that sometimes works itself into a frenzy of intolerance.

So fine are the achievements of our coast states, on so high a level is the standard of life, that men cannot see the exceptions. When such are pointed out to them there arises in their unconscious a fear of those horrible days, a something which terrified their childhood and which must be downed as the ghost of a crime one imagines himself to have committed. Hence, not to be "with" certain people in the West in the shouting adulation of their state or their city or their orchards is a worse sacrilege than counteracting one prayer by another ritual. The winning of the West was the aim of all the pioneers. For years and years they were faced with the most obvious threats to its consummation.

Mountains, climate, savages, European jealousies, lack of population,--everything that spelled despair stood before them. But an uncomprehended pa.s.sion drove them on. Perhaps it was the recrudescence of intolerance which marked the early settlers in the East. Perhaps it was the lack of opportunity resulting from overcrowding after the advertis.e.m.e.nt of the desirability of life in America. It may have been any one of a dozen possibilities that kept men and women moving on and on and on,--nor always, by any means, the yielding to ideals. But on it was and on it continued till the Pacific was reached.

This, superficially, is the accepted story of the development of our West. I have attempted neither criticism nor laudation. It is an unavoidable approach to the discussion of America's place in the Pacific, an approach which even the most Western of our Westerners is not always p.r.o.ne to take cognizance of. But within it lies the kernel of future American life. To some, like the founders of the State of Oregon, it was more defined. Some as early as 1844 realized that to the nation which developed the coast lands belonged the spoils of the Pacific and in its hands would lie the destinies of the largest ocean on the globe.

The opening of the Panama Ca.n.a.l has placed the Pacific at the door-step of New York, and fulfilled the dream.

But to the vast majority of people on the coast to-day, occupation and development of those enormous areas seem to carry with them opportunity, but little responsibility. They have one concern which is akin to fear, and that is of the j.a.panese. They only vaguely grasp the significance of their fate. They do not see that they have hauled in a whale along with their catch and that unless they are skilful they will drag the whole nation into the sea with them.

But if they have forgotten the vision for the appearance of the catch, what about the East? The East is as indifferent to matters pertaining to the Pacific and the West. Its face is turned toward Europe. We think that America is a nation, but the utter ignorance of one section with regard to another, the lounging in local ease, is appalling. Easterners are like the philosopher who when told that his house was on fire, said it was none of his business, for hadn't he a wife to look after such things! These are strange phenomena in a democracy. People think that they discharge their duty by voting, but how many people are in the least concerned with the problems that will some day light up the country like a prairie fire? Westerners are generally much more acquainted with Eastern affairs. As unpleasant as is the promotion publicity of Los Angeles, it is a much more healthful condition than the seeming ignorance of New York in matters pertaining to Los Angeles.

Yet while the East is aflame over affairs in Europe--the Irish Republic, for instance--it probably thinks that Korea is the name of a Chinese joss over which no civilized man should bother to yap about. This indifference is not to be found in the man on the street alone. That man is often uninformed simply because the dispensers of information are uninformed. There is much he would want if he knew its value to him. And so while we are becoming embroiled in European affairs another and henceforward more sinister problem is threatening to back-wash over us.

It was while in such an apathetic state that America changed her status from a continental republic to a colonial empire. Few Americans have ever taken any interest in their insular possessions. Hawaii and the rest had fallen to the lot of the Government, and would sooner or later be returned; that was the sum and substance of their outlook on the whole affair. That the Monroe Doctrine ceased to be a real factor with the acquisition of these outlying possessions, that we virtually abrogated it, did not seem to matter much. At large, the notion was that American altruism would never involve the country in any difficulty.

But whatever a man's motives, once he has stuck his tongue against a frozen pipe only a tremendous outpouring of altruism will ever detach it. America began her adventures in the Pacific when she urged young men to go West. Now we have the whole continent, we have Hawaii, the Philippines, Pago Pago, Samoa, and Alaska,--a hefty armful. Are we going to let these things go, or are we simply going to drift to where they drag us into conflict with others who want them and want them badly? We cannot merely blow them full of democracy and then wait for any one who wishes to to p.r.i.c.k the bubbles. For it must be borne in mind that the issues are clear. The Pacific cannot remain half-citizen and half-subject. Every time we stir up within a small island the self-respect of individuals, we destroy the balance of power between an expression of the wills of people and the wills of autocracies. Is America going to set out to make the world safe for democracy in Europe and then withdraw just when Europe needs her help most? Is she going to continue to make treaties with small nations like Korea and then when Korea is devoured body and soul simply overlook the little fellow as though he had never existed.

Let me make the case of Korea clearer by a parallel. We had a treaty with the Kingdom under which we had a.s.sured her that in the event of any other power interfering with her independence we would exert our good offices toward an amicable solution. Then came the Russo-j.a.panese war.

Korea received a pledge from j.a.pan that her sovereignty would be protected if she permitted j.a.panese troops to pa.s.s over her territory.

Korea, at the risk of being devoured by Russia for violating neutrality, acceded to j.a.pan's request. Five years after the Russo-j.a.panese War, Korea was annexed by j.a.pan, and we said never a word in her favor. Nor have we ever denounced our treaty with Korea.

But here is the parallel. Belgium refused to let Germany cross her territory. Because of Germany's invasion of Belgium, Great Britain entered the war. What if Great Britain now decided to annex Belgium?

What if America did so?

Yet Colonel Roosevelt, who was so vociferous in his denouncement of the Wilson Administration for its early neutrality in the face of the rape of Belgium, himself condoned the annexation of Korea by saying that inasmuch as Korea was unable to defend herself it was not up to us to rush to her a.s.sistance. In other words, our treaty was only a sc.r.a.p of paper which was to be in force if the other high contracting party was strong enough to have no need for our aid.

Is America going to drag China into world wars with promises of friendship, and then concede Shantungs whenever diplomatic shrewdness shows her to be beaten? Is she going to promise the Philippines independence, allow her governor-generals to withhold their veto power for years so that the natives may the better handle their own affairs, and then simply let any who will come and undermine or explode the thing entire?

This is not meant to imply by any manner of means that America is to display force and employ it for the sake of democracy. It is not navies nor armies that will count, but principles. It is America's duty as a free country to encourage freedom and discourage autocracy. And in that spirit, and that alone, can she justify her place in the sun. On several occasions she has done so, though only those in which the Pacific are involved need reference here.

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Apropos of the Philippines: Two factors and two alone are involved. It is not a question of whether America shall or shall not hold on to the islands. In that America has given her word. The Philippines will become, must become, free. There, as elsewhere, it is not our concern whether one group or another gains the upper hand. It is not our concern that the Filipinos, being Malay-Orientals, will evolve a democracy that is not compatible with our notions of democracy. Our concern is, and has been repeatedly stated to be, only the welfare and happiness of the Filipinos. McKinley, Taft, Roosevelt, Wilson,--all have considerably discoursed upon Filipino independence and Filipino welfare. We have recently been on the very verge of granting independence, but, unfortunately, oil has been discovered by the Standard Oil Company, and the question will doubtless now depend on the amount of oil there is. If a great deal, then fare thee well Filipino independence! However, the real reason for our being in the islands is neither the altruistic concern for the democratization of the people, nor to protect the immediate interests of sugar, tobacco, or oil-handling capitalists. The one and only basis for our action should be the extent to which Filipino independence or our protectorate ministers to the peace of the Pacific.

If an independent Philippines will allay the suspicions of j.a.pan, then they should be independent. But j.a.pan would have to give more than the usual promise of her word that she would keep her hands off the Philippines. The extent to which her word may be relied upon can easily be determined. One need only mention Korea, Shantung, Siberia, the Marshall Islands. We say to j.a.pan: "As soon as you live up to the promises in your treaty and other relations with these Orientals, we shall be able to accept your further promises in regard to the Philippines."

Yet it must not be overlooked that j.a.pan saw our coming to the Philippines with apprehension. j.a.pan is an Oriental nation and cannot understand any one doing anything out of pure goodness of heart. Fact is, neither can we. Let the most honest man in the world offer any other a solid-gold watch and that other would suspect something was wrong. We declared to the world that we had only the best intentions toward the Philippines--to democratize them. To j.a.pan that was like holding up a red flag to a bull. What, you are going to create a democratic sore right in my neighborhood? That will never do. It might be catching. And j.a.pan is not interested in contracting democracy as yet,--that is, official j.a.pan. Even liberal j.a.panese are doubtful. When in j.a.pan, I interviewed the democratic M.P., Yukio Ozaki. He turned, without question from me, to the subject of the fortification of the Philippines. He pleaded that the forts be dismantled. In the event of that plea failing, what could j.a.pan do, he asked, other than proceed to fortify the Marshall Islands? Yet at that time j.a.pan had not even been granted a mandate over these islands. The logic of his appeal is irrefutable. But this is a sort of vicious circle. Who is to begin, and whom shall we trust?

One thing is certain,--that in that whole problem of the control of the islands of the Pacific, whether by annexation, protection, or mandate, lies the seed of the future peace of the Pacific. And unless in each and every case the natives are given the best opportunities of self-development, that nation responsible for their arrested condition is going to be the nation upon whose conscience will rest the sorrows of the world.

In regard to the Philippines, this must be remembered,--that we are dealing with human beings, not problems and principles. The stuff one generally reads about foreign places might be just as descriptive of the inhabitants of Mars. Little wonder that those for or against independence or protection fail to win their case! We must remember that for twenty years we have been building up the hopes of children whom we taught in our schools, with our money and our ideals. They are now, many of them, active men attending to the work of the Filipino world. They are our foster-children and would be fools not to want to live their own lives in their own way. Our policy in regard to them must be a negative one; from now on it cannot be positive. All we can say to them is what we cannot and will not permit them to do; we have no right henceforth to say what they must do. We can say that we will not permit them to invite any other nation whose governmental ideals are likely to threaten ours.

The world must continue on its road toward the greater and greater liberation of peoples, hence we cannot permit them to step back toward any form of imperialism. We cannot permit them to invite unlimited numbers of Orientals who might swamp them. They must maintain the Philippines for the Filipinos, with as much generosity thrown in as will not endanger that. We must remember that our effort in the Philippines is the first in which any government has attempted to treat its subject natives with any degree of equality,--legally, if not socially. If the world is to move on toward greater freedom--which is needed, Heaven knows!--we must not let the Philippines be an example of the failure of democratic management of natives.

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In all this some may discover implications that our hold on the Philippines should be maintained purely for strategic reasons. That may be the purpose of the imperialistically minded. There may be some who will read into this fear of j.a.pan or a bellicose att.i.tude irritable to her. Neither interpretation would be accurate, for behind all this are certain historical factors which prove that whatever use statesmen may make of world situations, evil designs will be frustrated so long as the circ.u.mstances which created the primary conditions were not evil.

Specifically, because the earlier relations between j.a.pan and America were brought about through essentially good motives, these later developments can be kept to a sane path. And severe as may be our present criticisms of j.a.pan, so long as the purposes behind them are good, they can have only a desirable result.

When Commodore Perry went to j.a.pan in 1853, his only desire was to open that country to trade. It may seem now that for the sake of peace in the Pacific it would have been better had he been guided by the spirit of conquest. Had j.a.pan been conquered in the early days, she would never have come to the fore as a possible menace. But she was not. It does not follow, however, that that was unfortunate, for the earliest relations between j.a.pan and America were amicable and basically altruistic. The relations between us have continued to be amicable, but altruism has slowly given way to envy and jealousy. But the point that is missed in all this reference to these cordial relations of the past is that inasmuch as America was a great moral influence upon j.a.pan in the early days, she might continue to be that to-day. c.o.c.k-sure as j.a.panese statesmen have become, and pugnacious as some Americans seem toward j.a.pan, a strong moral att.i.tude will still do more to check hostility than all the shaking of sabers and manoeuvering of dreadnaughts. We need the Philippines more as a base for democratic experiment than as a fortified zone. We need them as one needs a medical laboratory for the manufacture of serums in the time of plague,--for the manufacture of the serum of political freedom, of the rights of people to develop and to learn to be free. And this experimental station should stand right there at the door of j.a.pan--and of British and French concessionists, if you please, in China--and of China itself, for none of them has any faith in this educating of natives and making them your equals. Only down below the line, in New Zealand and Australia, far from where it can really affect j.a.pan, is that experiment being carried on. And more than all else, when j.a.panese imperialism is spreading its wings, when j.a.panese bureaucracy is throwing out its chest in pride and telling its poor, impoverished people, "See what I am doing for YOU," we need that serum station in the Philippines where a solution of democracy and freedom may continue to be made,--be it ever so weak.

And it needs to be injected into j.a.pan. Some of it is already working in that empire. j.a.pan needs more, it needs to be reinforced. Democracy in j.a.pan is struggling for a foothold. Let the germs of democracy persist in the Philippines and be rushed to the island empire. And let America stand as a great moral force, impressing upon j.a.pan that the rights of the people shall not be suppressed. But that will never be unless the people in America who stand for liberalism, for true democracy, for all that America has. .h.i.therto meant wake up to the seriousness of the situation in the Far East and cease to turn from it with sentimental notions about Lafcadio Hearn's j.a.pan. There are two j.a.pans.

Both of these j.a.pans are watching America closely. They are watching the actions of America in the Philippines, they are following in the footsteps of America in China. That need not be taken too literally, for there are two meanings to it. One example points in one direction, another in another. But one or two by way of ill.u.s.tration will do.

When America returned the Boxer Indemnity Funds to China for educational purposes a new precedent was established in international affairs. No other nation had the moral courage to follow suit. But just at the close of the war, j.a.pan, having replenished her exchequer considerably, unloosened her purse-strings and returned the balance of the indemnity funds to China. It was a case of thrifty self-denial, a tardy giving back of gold that none of the powers were really ent.i.tled to. As misguided and foolish as the Boxer Uprising was, still had it been a little better organized, none of the evils from which China is suffering to-day would obtain. China should have been as wise in her method as she was in impulse. However, it is good to see j.a.pan doing so much. She should be encouraged.

Again, seeing that American missionaries--and others--are influencing China in the direction of Occidental culture, j.a.pan is following suit.

Here it is likewise a tardy giving back to China what j.a.pan took from her centuries ago, for j.a.panese Buddhism is only the sifting of the Buddhism that made its way from India by way of China and Korea. Still, it is worth noting that intellectual and moral precedents are often as forceful as more materialistic weapons.

Observing the influence that doctors and hospitals wield in China,--the Rockefeller Foundation, for instance,--the j.a.panese are following suit and establishing hospitals in the interior. Educational and industrial work likewise will lead the way for educational and industrial work by j.a.panese in China. Witnessing the force of friendship in America's relations with China, the public in j.a.pan is protesting against the antagonizing of this gigantic neighbor to whom the j.a.panese bureaucratic wolf has been making such grandmotherly pretentions. And indeed there is much good reason for the protest, for the j.a.panese merchant who expected so much juice in that Chinese plum found that because of antagonism, because of the rape of Shantung, the plum momentarily became a lemon, to use a vulgar expression. j.a.pan, after the "peace" Conference contemptuously handed over what didn't belong to it but a duped a.s.sistant in the prosecution of the war against Germany learned that there are more ways than one of killing a cat. And China proceeded to gnaw at the vitals of the j.a.panese bureaucratic wolf in a most telling fashion. China declared a boycott of j.a.panese goods that was so effective that it brought about a financial slump in j.a.pan from which she is not yet fully recovered. China was of course forced to yield. One cannot live on sentiment, and when j.a.panese goods are the nearest and cheapest at hand, what could China do?

If only j.a.pan could see the real significance of this she would at once withdraw all her nefarious demands on China, proceed sincerely and honestly to win the friendship of China, and then undermine the very ground of every foreign trader because of her propinquity. But bureaucrats are blind. They are moles that move underground. The ground of China is all broken up on that account. One of these days the Chinese giant will clumsily step, not in the wake of the mole, but on the mole itself. Inadvertently, of course; giants are such clumsy things!

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